JANUARY II 2004
19th January. How much fun can one man have on a tropical island?
There’s this great institution in Japan, to allow anyone to fly anywhere within Japan on their birthday for £50 each way, so I thought I’d be a fool to miss it. I only wish I’d started planning it a bit sooner. In a bit of a rush job, I booked a holiday to Okinawa, the tropical island at the southern tip of Japan where Karate Kid 2 was set (filmed on Hawaii though, probably because of telephone wires). The other great part of the deal is that you can bring 4 other people for the same price. Josh expressed a firm interest (though how much this was to escape from the smoky school is a matter of debate). The problem is, the flight was full, so rather than a lads getaway for a few days, I’ll be on my own with only myself to rely on when it comes to communicating.
I’m partly worried that it might be a very lonely and confusing experience – but part of me sees it as a real challenge to see just how far I can get on the Japanese I’ve learned so far. I won’t be able to rely on anyone else, and though my Japanese is terrible, through a mixture of gestures and vague threats I can usually get what I want. Plus, if I can figure it out, I might be able to do a bit of scuba diving (or at least snorkelling if the latter requires training). Okinawa is in the mid-20s at the mo, while Shiraoka is in the low single figures. Stay tuned, hopefully I’ll be able to make you feel jealous with a few digital pics of sun kissed beaches and aquamarine shores!
Pic
21st January - striking a blow for the little man.
Ahh, sweet smell of success. My local coffee joint, the wonderfully entitled "Mr Donuts" now has three designated non-smoking tables, which means not only can I continue to postpone my boycott of the franchise, but that I'm always guaranteed a seat because everyone else in this country smokes. Let's overlook the fact that there's no ventilation system and that I'm still getting slowly murdered by a plethora of little cancer sticks! It means that I can, within my rights, turn to the person lighting up next to me and declare "kinen da! Suwanai de kudasai!" and they can't argue! Indeed, just such a confrontation was brewing last night when the waitress got in before me and removed the gent sitting next to me. Tears of gratitude welled up in my eyes. Either that or a reaction to the tobacco fumes.
Let me put this into perspective. This is a country which has recently started a campaign of "are you a good smoker?" posters with pictures of people sitting on park benches mirthfully committing suicide. If I can echo the opinions of another disgruntled foreigner from the opinion sections of the English newspaper; why is it tolerated, and why is smoking a cigarette under a tree better than walking with it in your hand? What next, the social etiquette of picking your nose in public? Quite frankly, I don't understand why smoking is tolerated any more than picking your nose; at least the latter doesn't kill harmless bystanders. Japan Tobacco, the murderer that cares!
24th January
I've been spending like an absolute lunatic recently. First there was the tropical holiday, then the Laptop speakers. I resisted getting a Playstation once I realised that my TV won't read a British DVD signal. Nevertheless, it didn't stop me buying a sofa and sofa cover; soon to come a floor lamp to reduce the hideous neon-ness of my ceiling lights and some cushions for other people to sit on when they visit. Oh yeah, and I think I've spent abut £60 on Amazon for DVDs, the nature of which further confirm the psychopath lurking in my soul. I think that, barring refusal by the BOE, I will be recontracting. I've shifted from the spartan "I might be going home so there's no point in buying stuff I can't take back" to an ostentatious "I'll be here for another year and a half, I might as well be comfortable".
Speaking of comfortable, I need to get a pair of better fitting runners for the gym. I had a bit of a shock when I finally got round to going on Friday. 72kg. 72kg!! I don't know if anyone else has ever PUT ON weight when living in Japan. I also think I've never been this heavy. Certainly at the height of my fitness a little over a year ago, I was a mere 64kg. Even before I went home for Christmas I was only 69kg. Continuing this theme of comfort, there's just too much comfort eating going on in this bedsit at the mo. There's no pub in the town, there are no forms of distraction like say a pool table, or even English speaking TV (obviously). With the gym a 20 minute cycle from here, its too tempting to rent a video (less then £1 here), and make it a night after stopping off at the convenience store in the way back. Premature middle-aged spread is bringing me ever closer to sumodom.
28th January
Sometimes I despair entirely of the children in third year here. They may have had a bad teacher in their first and second years, but its no excuse for the apathy and lethargy they exhibit. Though Japanese pupils are on the whole better behaved than British ones, there is no system of discipline when they do get out of hand. Things like sleeping in class go completely unpunished, and for that matter, brazenly talking over the teacher in charge.
Nevertheless, I can hack pupils who don’t want to learn English. I don’t particularly care if, in the future, when they try to travel abroad, they don’t have the tools to ask for food or board. Serves them right. It’s their total and utter lack of general knowledge about anything that hasn’t happened in Japan in the last year that is the most shocking of all. For example, when trying to teach the grammar point “Do you know..” we stupidly assumed they might have an inkling as to when WWII ended. Given that they were the last country to surrender and had two stinking great Nuclear bombs dropped on them, you’d think it might be ingrained on the national psyche, but no. Ricky tells me that a high school textbook begins with the sentence “One day a bomb was dropped on Hiroshima…” and that there is a kind of collective decision to forget that they were the baddies, or even did any wrong to anyone. Ever.
Having said that, my 2nd years (who are light-years ahead) were little stars today, and saved me during my first real test – a demonstration class for the bigwigs. They may’ve had a load of adults taking notes on their every move, but didn’t once step out of line and remained energetic and perky enough to answer all the questions we asked. They were even so good as to appear like they were enjoying themselves! I’m so proud.
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