NOVEMBER II
15th November
Okay, so I’ve reneged on my promise to write only once a week, but I felt a need to take comfort in the English language after making an absolute balls-up of my Japanese homework. And I thought I’d been studying this week; perhaps teaching myself bad habits that I now need to unlearn would be more accurate.
Anyway, I’m feeling good today because Jeff and I played the board of education at their own game. All the kids and teachers had a day off today, but once again, when its suits the B.O.E. they change our job description to government slave. So, sensing our impending doom, Jeff and I eloped to Kita-Yono for important “business” i.e. getting our multiple re-entry pass for getting back into Japan after leaving.
I could complain that this “re-entry Visa” (or should I say, “outside-person sucker tax”) is a ridiculously expensive piece of paper (about £40) to merely provide extra employment for yet more pen-pushers, and bring in some rather unjustified extra-revenue for the government. I’ve also heard that it is a way of deterring South-East Asian sex workers from returning to the country, somehow (?). Fact is, I didn’t care that we had to cough up the dough; it gave us a licence to arse-about and roll into work whenever the hell we felt like it. So I got a day off at the expense of the Japanese tax payer, and I feel great!
Having received our certificate by 9.30am, we planned to tell the Board of Ed that the immigration office had been “chotto isogashikute, osokatta desu” (a little busy and slow), a perfectly reasonable explanation. In the course of the next five hours we had coffee, lunch, I made an electronic transfer at the bank for my Christmas Vac (leaving me flat broke may I add!), returned some videos, went shopping, and did my washing. We thought it only polite to show our faces in the late afternoon...hehehe, suckers! Not bad for a day in the office! I’m just glad that I was carrying my digicam around with me.
16th November – Tales from the Riverbank
It’s official, my bike has a puncture. Today was also a day of unseasonably good weather, so I spent a few hours of indolence walking to the video store, then across to the bridge connecting Shiraoka to the neighbouring enclave of Hasuda. It struck me that I’ve never put in any pictures (bar one or two temples) of my home town, so here’s a few.
The first is an old house in a spooky grove of bamboo on a rickety wee road that winds down to the garish karaoke parlour and adjoining video store. I like it, because there aren’t many houses left like this in Shiraoka (or Japan). The whole country is beginning to look like a duplo set put together by a three year old (e.g. my apartment). Ricky and I were joking, as we prepared for our Eikiwa yesterday, that Japan looks like a 70’s sci-fi vision of the future, with monotonous white/grey boxed houses, where everything is run by computers and robots, but where the people still wear flares/punk gear. Yet it’s no laughing matter! Total disregard for the appearance of the landscape by Japanese architects and town planners create scenes like this. Alex Kerr suggests that this is inextricably linked to the Japanese tendency to concentrate on minute detail, but to ignore the wider picture; “This is what led to the creation of a haiku, in which the poet shuts out the entire universe to concentrate on just one frog jumping into a pond. Unfortunately…the same ability allows the Japanese to concentrate on a pretty green rice paddy without noticing the industrial estate surrounding it”. Dad, I’ve never had more respect for your profession than I do now!
Probably my favourite spot in Shiraoka/Hasuda is the area around the bridge. First you pass by a regionally famous Ramen shop situated under the Shinkansen line. A little further down is the bridge over the river which I take to go to my gym* (* I’ve been once in the last two months, for shame). It’s about the only place around where grass is allowed to grow unfettered! I sat, trying to get a picture of the train, and kept missing because it sneaks up unannounced and goes past at the speed of lightning. Finally I got a few though (1, 2).
A walk a little further along the bank provides some rather uncommon sites in Shiraoka (pic 1, pic 2). So, now I’ve got to figure out how to get to school in the morning! See ya.
21st November
Haha! I’m outta that dreadful school for the next three months! It’s irritating beyond description (well, that’s not literally true ‘cos I’m gonna describe it now). Firstly, it’s illegal to smoke within public buildings in Japan, yet they still do it here and there’s no way I can stop them. Secondly, I had four team teachers to attune to, so I just couldn’t build up a decent relationship with any one of them. Thirdly, the teachers at this school didn’t give me a schedule for the week, but rather took me along to classes as and when they felt like it, confounding any attempt I made to plan my free time. Fourthly, one of the teachers decided that if he had a class then he’d make damn well sure that I had a class too, even if it meant that I vegetated in the corner whilst he explained grammar points in Japanese for 50 minutes. And finally, the most daft of all, when I’ve been sitting around for hours at a time doing nothing, and I’ve packed my things, and I’m about to leave, someone stops me at the door and announces some daft extra-curricular activity that I have to do. Today it was “teach the half-Philippino girl to speak English better because she wants to speak at a competition in Osaka" (she wasn’t allowed in the local competition because, being a “foreigner”, there was a remote chance that she might actually be ABLE to speak English). I told them in no uncertain terms where they could go, because today was my last day and I don’t have to see them again for three months, yay! And I didn’t even start on the Vice Principals eating habits! Shame about the set-up really, because the kids are all great fun to chat with, so much better than the adults! Rant over.
I’ve had my first few successes in speaking Japanese recently. Now you must realise that my level is probably that of a mentally impaired (no offence intended) kindergarten child, but I have begun to make meaningful sentences, and have started chatting with the kids very, very slowly and with mountains of hideous grammatical errors. Nevertheless, it begins! Once in a while, you meet an incredibly “genki” (lively, others might say annoying) child, and at this school my favourite was a girl who’s name I didn’t learn but who I called “URUSAI!” (noisy). I turned her cheek to my advantage, and she declared herself my Japanese teacher, thereafter trying to make me badmouth her 2nd grade comrades in a foreign tongue.
So, my winter clothes finally arrived after 12 weeks at sea, yet irony of ironies, it was an amazing 24 degrees in beautiful sunshine today. I’ve got a three day weekend now which I intend to utilise in the most sloth-like manner. I love Japan!
November 24th
Saturday I spent an aimless day traipsing around Ueno Koen, which is rapidly becoming my favourite place in Tokyo. Partly it’s because it’s got a big park (most open spaces comprise a tree, a bench, and a patch of dirt) with loads of excellent museums, which naturally attract me anyway. It’s also got a very colourful area south of the train station (Ameyoko) with thousands of little shops and cheap eateries which resemble downtown Jakarta more than Tokyo! They harken back to an earlier era, out of place in modern Japan with its designer shops and sterile department stores.
I spent a few hours at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art. Among other things it has a gallery devoted to the history of Japanese art. Unfortunately I know nothing about which period follows which in Japanese history, so I picked up a cute little bilingual history book, which it’s my task to finish over the next few weeks. There were also several cool sections displaying Samurai swords and armour, as well as an abundance of bronze Buddhas here there and everywhere. At the back of the museum was a great little Japanese garden – one thing they can do really well over here is set out a pretty garden, everything is always in wonderful proportion, and the trees at this time of year are an array of luscious colours.
There’s a homeless persons village next to the grand fountain. I actually feel genuine pity for the homeless in Japan. They’re not the same bunch of drug-addicted miscreants who wander the streets of Oxford, getting physically violent when you don’t give them money. The Japanese version are genuine economic victims; they don’t speak out or bother passers by, but quietly shuffle around and try to stay out of one’s way.
Travelled to Shinjuku (Tokyo’s hub) on Sunday for a spot of sightseeing and shopping. I discovered the foreign book section at Kinokunia, which sells just about every magazine sold at home, and has loads of books to help the uninitiated try to understand Japan a bit better. Its situated beside a massive department store (Takashimaya Times Square), itself dwarfed by a towering building that looks very familiar and I’m sure must be a copy of something in New York. Anyway, I get tired of Tokyo very quickly – I don’t know if there’s a lack of oxygen in the city or something, but I’m more than happy to be spending Monday in my apartment watching, erm, Disney Videos. This is perhaps one of those things that I should never admit, but I’ve simply run out of any other foreign videos (bar Poirot and The Thin Blue Line) with which to keep myself occupied!
25th November 2003
The weather today was no joke. It’s been blowing a gale, and the rain hit me relentlessly from all sides as I struggled to work and back on my bicycle again. It irks me that my filthy rich town office couldn’t provide a lift on mornings like these, cos’ its bloody dangerous cycling with an umbrella in 60mph winds with xenophobic truck drivers in transit bearing down on you on the motorway; “Gaijin da! Lets shower him with puddle water! Hehehehe, I’m so funny!”.
This said, I started at a new school today (Minami, lit. South), and so far nothing has annoyed me about it. One of the English teachers is incredibly friendly and lively (though the less said about the ability of the other one’s English the better). I had a more or less free day to peruse my latest acquisition “Hokkaido Highway Blues”, which promises to be the best read in a long time. I felt genuinely refreshed today, and I wonder how much my bitter attitude towards Japan lately was directly influenced by the working atmosphere at Shira-chu. The Kerr book combined with absolutely inept teachers, and individuals who actively promote the spread of cancer began to crystallise in a number of wrathful attacks on the country I live in. Most of which I stand by. Yet Mrs Orihara’s attitude reminded me of the importance not to generalise.
Long may this new found perspective last!
28th November
Just a short note to say all’s going reasonably well here at the mo’. The new school, though not rip-roaringly exciting (it’s been test week, so very few classes) is friendly and relaxed. The third in command is a very cosmopolitan man who lived in the U.A.E. and speaks excellent English. He is also fascinated by history and has announced that he will drive me to a Kofun mound (archaeological site) next Sunday. I can barely contain my excitement (only the most avid readers will realise that this is not, in fact, irony).
The other reason I’m writing is to announce my extreme pleasure in the acquisition of these exquisite elmo slippers which I collected from Mr Donuts FREE for being such a nice customer. They’re toasty warm, and amazingly, they fit my feet!
Finally, in the vain hope that any Americans are reading, could you please quit whining about not being home for Thankgiving! What kind of disgusting, bloated, gout ridden gits are you, when you think you deserve not one, but two Turkey feasts within a four week period? Shame on you my friends, SHAME on you!
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