APRIL
April 2nd
A few more pics of sakura from around Shiraoka. The huge concrete behemoth that is the Board of Ed can even look moderately respectable for a 10-day window when the cherry trees bloom, and notice how I skilfully block out both this and my local gym, a similar concrete monolith dropped inexplicably in the middle of the countryside! When will the architects here learn to fit things to their surroundings?
I finally discovered what the tiny, sparse and empty looking parks in the towns are for. Whilst virtually deserted for much of the year, they suddenly spring into life for about a week. Escaping the office yesterday I peddled up past the temple to a little park (Hachiman Koen) where the blossoms have reached their zenith. The wind turned the air into a blizzard of pink blossoms, called "hanafubuki". It's all very civilized and convivial, but one thing was nagging at the back of my mind. Where is the grass? This is something that gets me every time. You find a beautiful little park, but you can't sit down in it because it's all mucky and dirty underfoot. Ok, it's a western construct to think that an open space should have grass, but I truly believe that some cultures just do some things better than others, and in this case I believe the Europe does parks better than Japan.
Today I decided to take a few snaps from Hisaizu Temple, the other area of outstanding cherry blossom in the town (that I've noticed so far). The trees are much more graceful (and probably older) here. Sorry for inundating you with pink, and for the lack of people in the snaps, but try to remember these pictures are not for you, they're for mememe!
I just wanted to add a little qualifier. As Ricky noted, taking photos like these tends to make Japan look like a really swell and beautiful place, somewhere you might want to visit. An art has developed in Japan of taking close-up photos of things because the landscape has been destroyed by man's industry. It's a "visual Haiku" i.e. focusing in on the miniature beauty, whilst ignoring a more widespread ugliness. The Japanese have become, I'm informed, quite adept at the latter. So, I thought I'd include a humorous little snap that Josh took from inside the office.
April 4th
Wow, got jolted awake this morning by an earthquake. Forgive me for being so irreverent, but I actually quite enjoy them when they don't cause massive damage and kill people! It's like a portal back to some infantile memory of being rocked to sleep. Anyway, the weather is miserable today, so another short update to pass the time.
I'm posting up another gallery, the last gallery of cherry blossom this year. It's beyond my control, they've already begun throwing themselves willingly from the trees in their droves, and a few days of bad weather will put paid to them completely.
I went to Shinjuku Gyoen (like koen, meaning park), which is quite simply the most beautiful place I've been to in Tokyo. Tokyo is renowned for having the lowest percentage of land dedicated to open green space than any other major capital in the world, but what it does have is very nice indeed. It's the only park in Tokyo laid out to a European Style (well, certainly the English and French sections anyway), and it has grass and lawns galore! What a difference, even from Ueno; it puts Ueno to shame. Whilst Ueno is great when you want to see a museum or a zoo, Shinkuku trumps it for views. I simply couldn't take pictures of everything, but here is a small selection of some of the better ones; judge for yourself.
No update would be complete without a short exposition of my Love:Hate relationship with these islands, so brace yourself. The park was lovely, the day almost perfect, but if you'll permit my rant:
1.) Brutal Hack Jobs - Why do they trim/prune their trees like this? They've killed the French section.
2.) Sad Geeks - A curtailed burst of anger on lonely fat men in Japan (This time I'm not referring to myself!)
3.) Japanese Photography - To help illustrate the point in my last update about close-up photos.
Ok good. So only 3 more office days to go before I start back at school again. I've behaved myself as best as I could: all right, I've taken extended 2 hour lunch breaks, and sat outside most of the time, but I call that good behaviour. I've almost controlled my temper, except when I think about the AETs who get 2 weeks holiday this time of year, and then the unfairness and illogicity of it all creates a swelling of rage so strong that I sense my eyeballs will pop. Best not to think about it really. Unfortunately the other AETs (with the exception of Jeff who is on holiday in Malaysia) have been thoroughly defeated by the system. I mean, they don't necessarlily even leave the office at lunchbreak!! I however will continue to exploit loopholes in the BoEs cunning imprisonment policy, so until next time, see you.
April 6th
Sushi on naked women causes uproar in Chinese city
Tuesday, April 6, 2004 at 08:00 JST
BEIJING: A Japanese restaurant which served sushi on the body of nearly naked women has caused a storm of controversy in the conservative southwest Chinese city of Kunming.
The Hefengcun Huaishi restaurant launched a promotional "feast on a beauty's body," for local journalists last Friday, hiring two attractive fair-skinned college girls to lie on tables, with sushi and other food and flowers placed on their bare bodies covered with thin gauze.
Must've looked a little something like this then!
12th April
That was a pretty scary farce that just went on in Iraq. Japan is such a silly little country, and should never have tried to get involved in something as dangerous as Iraq. Koizumi is, to put it in Ulster vernacular, a "wee lick", sucking up to George Bush in the hope of a few extra dollars, at the expense of national security (no, I didn't horribly simplify that). I'm scared to go into Tokyo, and declare with all sincerity, that it's 100 times more dangerous than Belfast right now. My father is coming to visit at the end of the month, and it's looking more and more likely that we're going to get creamed by a turncoat kamikaze or a subway blast!!
The weather continues to improve and I've never felt better. It was the hottest day of the year on Friday (25C), and the reassuringly nostalgic scent of Factor 25 makes it really seem like I'm on some sort of wonderful endless holiday (without the sea or topless sunbathing bints). I've even got a veranda to lean out on, with my beach towels billowing in the wind, reminiscent of holidays in Majorca and Ibiza. Ominously the sakura are now dead in the water, and the first insects of the year are becoming vocal. The summer in Saitama is a humid hell, and once the temperature rises much above 30, I'll embark upon my more familiar grumbling.
Even school has become tolerable. Now that the old year is finished, the teachers aren¡¦t stressed out about exams, and seem a lot more cheerful and accommodating. The new first years arrived, and I got a shock when a blonde 12 year old of mixed parentage rose to the call of "Andrew", ahhhh!!!!! The staff were saying "onaji namae, onaji kao" (same name, same face), though to be fair his eyes are much more slitty than mine! I've discovered that a much less risky and almost guilt free way of breaking up a day with no classes is to ask to go to the Board of Ed, and go home instead. As long as they don't check, which I think they're unlikely to do. I had two half days this week under this guise, and feel it is but small recompense for my recent imprisonment!
To round off, a few snaps passed down through the JET online grapevine
15th April
Another Board of Ed enkai. The only time the staff ever communicate with the AETs is when they drink. A miraculous conversion occurs, as the magic substance transforms dour-faced, grey-haired, quiet salarymen, into dour-faced, grey-haired, talkative salarymen, who get progressively more annoying as the evening wears on. Strangely, the foreigners were probably the most reserved and cautious in the room.
We were treated to a “feast” of raw fish, fried fish, and eel, as well as what appeared to be eel organ soup. Sound appetising? Jeff tucked in with relish; Ricky, who has an aversion to vegetables, also revealed an aversion to seafood; Taoe, a vegetarian, discovered cheese and salami in her salad, and decided not to eat anything as “the vegetables were probably cooked in meat juice”. The Japanese don’t really do vegetarianism! I reverted to my philosophy of “I paid for it, so I’m definitely going to eat it, even if it makes me sick”, and spent an uncomfortable, sleepless night with noxious gas emitting from both ends of my body. All in all very reminiscent of the Indian banquet scene from “Temple of Doom” – monkey brain soup and snake surprise at least offer more variety of taste I would imagine!
And for the piece de resistance, fish alcohol! I mean seriously, why would anyone do this? Once again, Jeff was the only one to try it out. I’m sticking to the “I’ve tried sake twice and been sick twice” school of thought. Second in bizarreness only to the snake sake I encountered in Okinawa!
20th April - “I like Disney, but I don’t like spider”
School really hasn’t been so bad lately, and I’ve actually enjoyed teaching the first years. I think it’s because they’ve still not come to realise that Junior High is so horribly different from Elementary School. At Elementary they can wear what they want, they probably get to play in sandpits with their toys for most of the time (as I imagine it), their English teacher only shows up once a month (Ricky has a lot of schools to go through), and then he plays hilarious games with them like “Practice counting by killing off the chalk drawn zombie giraffes in ever more ridiculous ways”, or the as yet untried showpiece “Dinosaurs versus Robots: the eternal battle”.
Then they come to Junior High, and suddenly the system comes down on them like a tonne of bricks. Their individualism is demolished, their curiosity leeched, their life essence in a sense stolen and poured down a drain somewhere. It becomes one huge big tedium of “aisatsu” (formalised greetings and sayings); cleaning time; serving our own lunch-time (cleaning ladies and dinner ladies do not exist in Japanese schools); compulsory after-school activity time; and juku (or after school cram-school) time. It’s a living nightmare, and somewhere along the line, the human is broken down to its constituent parts, fashioned anew, and remoulded into a robot being which thinks and acts like all the other robot beings that just came off the assembly line. And there you have it, a neat summary of the aims of the Japanese education system…creating “groupism” as the sociologists would probably put it.
However, as I say, the first years haven’t noticed all this yet, their imagination is still running riot. There’s also a sinister looking Russian kid who can’t speak English or Japanese, so I can see Junior High is gonna be a barrel o’ laughs for him. Don’t forget “Andrew”, my Japanese alter-ego; and a girl who is Taiwanese I believe. I’m just hoping that I can get in there quick and convince them that English isn’t too bad before they become spoiled like all the other students.
A few pictures from around Tokyo at the weekend, including the famous rightwing Black vans that drive around intimidating foreigners – I’ve never seen them before! The homepage photo is from a shrine in Shinjuku; I’m sure you’ll agree, a sterling job in translation. English education scales new heights. Just keep reaching for that rainbow!!
21st
Well, I wasn't expecting to be updating so soon, as well, I'm supposed to be in class, but my teacher Mr Kameyama (or to use his translated name - Mr Turtlemountain) has temporarily disappeared. For once I'd just like to be treated with the respect shown other Japanese teachers. What will probably happen, he'll crawl up like a sneak thief when my back is turned, and steal an hour from my life later in the week. Anyway...
I just checked out Josh's page, and praise be to god, he's updated it with the most genius entry in a long time...a visit to his Japanese friends wedding held in, wait for it...Tokyo Disneyland!!! Woohoo! Go Japan!! Classy or what? You'll love when the bride and groom come out through a veil of dry ice dressed as Beauty and the Beast! Here's the link. I'm not sure quite how to react to this. I mean on one hand, how sweet and innocent for a bunch of grown-ups to frolick around Disneyland. On the other hand, WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING! "I know, let's turn the most important day of our lives into the kitch event of the new millenium". Okay, back to work before I say something I regret.
25th April – Heart of Darkness
Got my Golden Week Sightseeing off to an early start with a hastily planned trip to Disneyland with Kyoko on Saturday. After Josh’s wedding photos, I thought it only fair to give Disney a second chance, but remained sceptical as this is after all, the Mount Doom of Japan’s fascination with “cute”. It didn’t disappoint in this respect, though I don’t have quite the stamina or willpower to begin documenting the fashion sense of some of the more dedicated Disney fanatics. I’ve now also achieved a dubious double, having visited Tokyo DisneySea in 2002.
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