Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in japanshin's LiveJournal:

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Monday, November 16th, 2009
8:04 pm	Our eagerness to satisfy the eating pleasure of people. . . . . . will be everlasting! My sister came to Japan! We rocked out for seven days. http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com/art/My-Sister-1-143864553 http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com/art/My-Sister-2-143865063 - Jenshin (Comment on this)
Saturday, November 7th, 2009
11:50 pm	Plants are Smiling When You Gave Hearty Water to Them. I forgot to mention two things in my last letter. First, there were three parts of my Yakushima collages.. here's the third one: http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com/art/Jomon-Path-142789588 And I put up my beach pictures. Somehow I overlooked uploading them earlier. It took Takiko and I a half hour to decide which shots I should post... http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com/gallery Recently I've been going out drinking once a week with two guys I met at a party. One of them is single, handsome, and drop-dead-boring. The other guy is old, taken, and incredibly interesting. He worked as a translater and now works in a trading company. Every question I ask recieves a very deep and introspective answer, and in turn he asks me things I've never thought of before. We also have the same taste in comics so we're arranging for a comic exchange date where I bring some of my American stuff and he'll lend me some of his Japanese books, and he's asked me to bring some of my art to show him. On the other hand, I asked his friend, the boring guy, what his hobbies were and recieved a shrug as an answer..... Kae is my new shopping friend. Because we went to a line of clothes stores together in a quest to find men with pretty hair and ended up buying a calculator and a stuffed animal zombie cat. Anyone who I can go clothes shopping with and get all excited about which calculator is the coolest and not buy any clothes after all is someone fit to be my shopping buddy. Now my sister is coming and I have to pick her up from the airport! - Jenshin (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
5:56 pm	Ai, Haruna won the Miss International Queen contest!!! I went to Yakushima. Picture links at the bottom. At this point, absolutely no one I know can keep track of where I've been, where I'm going, which vacation is which. I had a guy work in my stead for two days and he told the students I was in the frigid landscape of Hokkaido, when I was actually sunning myself on a turtle egg-laying beach.. C'mon, Hokkaido was LAST month! I've been saying to my students that I went to Yakushima, but they don't seem to remember and once in a while ask me where it is again.. somewhere in Tokyo? Noway. It's a southern island off the very tip of Japan. Going there was my first visit to the Kyuushuu area which means I've now been in every major area of Japan except Tohoku. I need more friends in Tohoku now, is anyone gonna get a job there any time soon? (P.S. Nova is hiring!! In Osaka, too!) I heard about Yakushima a long time ago from a TV show where they mentioned that Miyazaki lived there and based Mononoke Hime off of the landscape. Well.. yeah, having been there, I can totally see why. If I lived there for a while, I'd certainly be writing fantastic works about the gods of the forests. Like my Hokkaido email, I feel again that my pictures can speak louder than words. But I do want to mention a list of things that I feel I was rather lucky about. 1. A typhoon came, but did not actually hit the island. All hiking trips were cancelled the day I arrived, so if I'd come a day earlier it would have been an incredibly disappointing trip. 2. I took a ferry to get to the island, going over actual ocean instead of simply crossing a bay or something like I'm used to. Typhoon+Ocean= REALLY HUGE WAVES!! Maybe 5 or 6 times they announced that we might have to turn back if they got any bigger, but it ended up okay. Again - phew! I can't really describe the amazing, exciting, and scary nature of giant waves.. In one sense you look out at the giant hills and think - wow that wall of water could kill me. And in another sense you feel the power of the boat's engines beneath you and think - this boat will see me through anything, we're owning these waves! 3. We had just enough time when we got to the island to see the Senpiro waterfall. 4. As the sun was setting. Possibly one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life. Pictures did it no justice, so I actually took very few of them here. I'll go back some day. 5. The day we hiked up to the Jomon cedar was sunny. Our guide said it was a rather rare event. Usually, as you can see in Mononoke, it randomly gets rainy and sunny foggy whenever it feels like, changing over the course of the day. I really want to go back again when it's raining and foggy, but I'm actually really glad to have seen everything in broad daylight to get my bearings and be able to appreciate the view of the mountains and the sun turning the river brilliant green. 6. Because the sky was clear, we spent the first part of the hike walking in complete darkness underneath a vivid sky of stars. It was breathtaking. I forgot what stars were like. It makes me think about how amazing the human eye must be to be able to view them at all.. 7. Because of all my practicing, I wasn't the slightest bit sore after 12 hours of hiking. I could have gone and done it again the next day. 8. I didn't fall off of any of the scary bridges. Imagine walking over slats of a railroad, over a gorge full of sharp rocks and deadly waterfalls. You have to look down or you'll trip over the railroad slats and die, and in between the cracks in the slats you can see the rocks so far below. And did I mention there's absolutely no railing or anything? The bridge was made for trains, after all. The first time I went over one of them, it was pitch black and I just tried not to think about it and watched only the world inside my bubble of flashlight light. The second few I totally psyched myself on, imagining all the ways I could die. But by the time we were going back over them I was stopping to lean over the edge and take pictures. 9. They just happened to be doing maintainance on the railroad while we were out, so we got to see the train!! 10. The next day we went to the beach. Again, sunny. 11. While jumping on rocks I fell off twice into the ocean, and somehow managed not to damage my camera or art. Woo! Lost a pair of socks and my bag of seashells though. Had to dry my pants on the ferry. Before hiking collage: http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com/art/Yakushima-Part-1-142130911 Beautiful Tree collage: http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com/art/Yakusugi-142152069 Photography: http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com/gallery Click the photos to see the full picture and read the words. - Jenshin (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 18th, 2009
9:44 am	"Do my legs intrude your area?" (Quote from my Roommate.....) If you were interested, I put up some more normal pictures of my Hokkaido trip. http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com/gallery/#_featured Now for some thoughts on being in Japan too long. People keep asking me if I'm forgetting English. Hello? My JOB is speaking English.. And I write enough of these emails, and read enough books, I've never really felt like I was losing any of my English. Sometimes I don't know if new words are English or Japanese. Like "Metabolic Syndrome." I was so sure that was a Japanese way of saying you're fat, but then someone pointed out an English article that mentioned it.. But I'm pretty sure in the U.S. no one says, "She's a metabol!" Things that used to be "weird" for me and other foreigners aren't weird anymore. I don't even know what I could give an example of that might be weird in Japan. So when someone who's new here gets all excited to do something they consider weird, and I don't really give a crap, I feel like I've crashed the party. Like the person who wants to drink Calpis because it's pronounced like "Cow piss." And maybe that day, I don't really feel like drinking Calpis. So I say no thanks, and then they get all "What are you chicken? I thought you were all adventurous and living on the edge!!" at me.. and I'm like - No, I just don't feel like drinking Calpis right now. They probably don't believe me. Some people like to tell me about how rural their area is. THEIR train only comes once every hour, instead of my train which comes three times every 20 minutes. And oh, I am such a city girl living in Kobe, while woe is them living in their tiny nowhere village. And how could I even understand what it's like... These people completely forget the fact that we BOTH used to live in the States. Where if you didn't have a car, you couldn't get anywhere at all. And there were NO trains. And even if there were, there wasn't anywhere to go anyway. My Japanese teacher asked me how I feel when I try to speak Japanese properly, and the person switches the conversation to very rudimentary English. When you try your best in Japanese, and then someone just speaks at you in English, it's kind of a hit to the self esteem. "Is my pronounciation really that terrible? Didn't they see I could speak their own language?" But as a teacher, and as a student, I know that as much as I love speaking Japanese, other people love speaking English. When I first got here, I remember going to the post office and totally glaring down the person who offered to help me in English. But now that my Japanese level is fairly comprehensive, I no longer feel like I have to prove myself to everyone. If someone wants to help me in English, well okay maybe if I pretend that they really helped me out, it will make them happy and they can go home and tell their family that they were able to talk to a foreigner in English that day. Of course, it's annoying when your language ability is much higher than the person trying to talk in your own language, and you're trying to get something important done like filing taxes. And it's also annoying when you try to speak Japanese and they just put up a hand and say, "No speak English." But aside from those situations, I don't mind random people trying to use me to give them an English experience. It's kind of what my job is anyway, so I don't mind extending that to the real world. What really makes me smile, though, is when people ask me if I can speak Japanese first. That just seems like a very natural way to start a conversation, rather than just punting out the broken English. Recently I found out that Japanese weddings are different than western ones. All Japanese people tell me that there are two wedding styles.. traditional, and western. And that the western one is more common. And I think us teachers and students both took for granted that "western style" meant "the same as western people do." But I was wrong... I've never actually been to a wedding that I was old enough to know what was really going on. So if I'm wrong about anything, that's why. Here are some things about Japanese and Western weddings... 1. Most places that appear to look like churches, at least around where I live, are actually just buildings that people have weddings in. Although hotels are more common. Japanese people think that westerners get married in churches because we're all Christians and acutely religious. I say we do it out of tradition. 2. At a Japanese wedding, especially if the bride, groom, or their family members are part of some company, your boss and senior coworkers are automatically invited and have to give speeches about you. 3. In fact, all people do at weddings is give speeches. You sit around some tables eating food, and the bride and groom sit up in front behind a desk like they're at some kind of political campaign meeting, and people give speeches. 4. If you drink at the wedding, you'll probably end up falling asleep in the middle of the speeches. And then all the people from your company who are there will talk about you behind your back and you won't get that bonus you've been hoping for. 5. If you are invited as a friend or coworker, you have to pay 300 bucks to the couple as a gift. 6. If you are a relative, it's 500 or more. 7. God help you and your wallet if you have to go to more than one wedding around the same time. 8. Although the couple is expected to pay for your transportation fee. 9. There is no dancing. No dancing! I dunno about you, but like why would you bother wearing fancy clothes if you're just going to be sitting down at a table listening to speeches the whole time. Is it worth it? 10. Only the bride is allowed to wear white. So most people end up wearing black to weddings, to be on the safe side. If your outfit is prettier than the bride's.. well shame on you! I sooo don't ever want to go to a wedding in Japan now.. or get married here. But I got invited to one in April. Speaking of weddings I was thinking of my lack-of-boyfriend situation.. I've been on one date in Japan, and the guy was so boring.. He was too shy to joke with me. I figured I could settle for a boring guy. Maybe the boring ones are the only ones left by now.. I met a guy at a party. He was nice, and had a decent face. I figured I could settle for him. We might go on a date later. I figure, so long as I get to practice my Japanese, anyone will do as a boyfriend.. I'm not allowed to be picky when I have bad skin and don't speak fluently in their language. And then I was listening to some music where the singer was wailing something about, "I worship you! You are everything to me!" and stuff like that.. And I thought.. no.. I really can't settle for less. I want someone I respect. If there's no respect, there's no love. It has to be someone smart. It just has to. Maybe I'll never find someone, but I don't want to settle for less. I met a Japanese woman at a party who was married to an American man four times her size, who got really drunk and spilled wine everwhere. He started shouting and broke a glass, and then laughed it all off to the host. He doesn't even try to learn his wife's language. He's like an overgrown child. And she? She's just happy to be married and have a foreign man. Someone she can coddle and knit very large sweaters for. Today I've made a conscious decision not to settle for less. At least not for the next five years. Just hope my skin lasts that long. - Jenshin (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 2nd, 2009
8:56 am	"The Trash Which Burns" I'm trying to think up some excuses on why I'm not writing one of my long-winded posts about my most recent vacation. Reason one - I got sick for the first time in 3 years, and then had a severe allergy attack, and travelling under those conditions sorta blurs the edges of what actually happened. Reason two - I recently reread "Understanding Comics" which made me feel like my words/picture ratio was getting more than a bit unbalanced. Reason three - This image was damn fun to make. Take a look. If you're one of those people who's computers automatically resize thing, please click on the magnifying glass to view the image so you can read the text. http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000Hokkaido.jpg The story is in there, and I'm not going to write any longer. - Jenshin (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, September 12th, 2009
10:18 am	"Terrible of this might not be able to be endured" Small things. I love my students. I have tickets to two museums, cake, and a photo album now. I bought 20 apples for 1000 yen.. Now my fridge has nothing but apples in it. Sweet. My new Japanese teacher is a very sweet man who innocently asks me simple questions and gets horribly long, drawn out responses. Ah life isn't easy... So I asked my students if they've learned anything about Western culture by studying English. They all pretty much had the same answer.. In Western culture, you have to try your best to stand out, where in Japan you're supposed to just fit in and conform. One woman said the thing she learned first in the U.S. is that if you don't make yourself known, then you become invisible. She hated being so invisible, so she learned how to make herself known and her opinions understood. Other students said stuff along the same lines.. How they have to go against their real personalities when they're learning English, in order to be heard by the foreigners. Some people say they have a different personality in English, because the language itself accommodates more direct phrases that would be awkward to say in Japanese. Interesting stuff. And one story... I am totally oblivious! Okay one of my students has short, dyed hair.. It's not common in Japan for a woman to have hair that short, but in the U.S. it would be normal. It's the bright dye that really struck me... It makes her look almost not Japanese.. She's always wearing nice makeup. But I didn't think anything of it. She teaches dance lessons. I didn't think anything of that, either. She didn't come to Nova for a month because she told me she had a dance performance. She's thin and tall and well built, so I'm sure she's a good dancer... Yeah yeah yeah, So finally today I asked her how she got in to dance... She's been doing it since she was 12. Yeah? So she used to be in the Star Troupe. She retired and now goes around teaching dance to other people. Sometimes she still takes on small parts for things. That's so cool.... One more thing... Japanese TV is awesome. Here are some examples: http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com/art/Japanese-TV-136545637 And for those wondering about my Japanese class or random parties I've been at: http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com/art/People-Madness-136545814 - Jenshin P.S. Today's subject was on a pachinko sign.. well that sure wants me to play pachinko! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, August 31st, 2009
10:00 am	"Ever Beauty Paper for Laser" Hello! So last Friday my Japanese class ended. I have survived an entire month of waking up at 7:30 every weekday and 8:00 every weekend. I haven't kept up with anything online, and I've neglected a lot of emails and letters.. but this month I intend on putting all my free time to good use. I hope to stay in touch more. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed every minutes of Japanese class. The teachers were awesome, even the one that turned me off in the beginning ended up being awesome. My classmates are great. I took some pictures... And now on to other things I've been up to. That would be.. going to Kurobe Dam with Elizabeth. Wow. It's a little difficult to explain how we got there, so I've drawn a picture: http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com/art/Alpine-Route-135412370 The Japan Alps, as they call them, are spectacular. I'm used to the sort of dull, blueish color of the Rockies. In Japan, the mountains are a brilliant green.. And to see the green of that tundra in contrast against the deep blue sky was just amazing. You see places like this in movies and it seems so surreal and inaccessable.. But to actually be seeing it live before your eyes is like walking in a dream world. In Kamikouchi, the delicate, clear water was what impressed me the most. Here, the green, rugged mountains overwhelmed me. I took a lot of pictures and when I look back at them, they look unreal, like they've been digitally edited or something. http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com/art/Tateyama-And-Kurobe-Dam-135412584 And then there was the dam. There are quite a few differences between Kurobe Dam and Hoover Dam but I can sum them up in to two categories, Location and Pride. Hoover Dam is in the middle of the desert. Barren, craggy rocks form a huge gorge and the dam itself is gleaming white cement fixed to rocks with the blue water and sky as a sharp contrast. You can easily imagine the people who made it sweating under a blistering sun as they worked. And the work they did has NOT been forgotten. Hoover dam is all about - Hey look what can be done by human hands!! Look upon this great example of hard work and American pride and know what it means to work hard and be American! The gift shop is full of flags and other symbols of the U.S.A. Kurobe Dam, on the other hand, is at a very high altitude in the mountains. The gorge gathers snowmelt all spring and one can easily imagine all the workers freezing to death as they fought nature to erect the dam. Quite the opposite of Hoover! But instead of the focus being on how hard those people worked, the focus is on - Yaaay it's a tourist site so buy stuff! It took me a while to find something in the gift shop that even mentioned how it was built or anything. There's apparently a statue of the people who built it.. but I couldn't find the statue anywhere! I'll have to go back again.. There seems to be no pride in the place.. For most people, the whole thing is just there to be cool and fun, and a place to go to admire the scenery. I didn't feel any Japanese pride there. One more interesting thing is that at Hoover Dam has all these electric poles everywhere and the machinery is very visible.. the power generators and all that.. you can take a tour to see everything, and from the outside you can easily see where everything takes place. But at Kurobe, because of the danger of avalanches, everything is hidden underground or behind cement. I guess the view was a lot better without all the electric poles in the way.. Other than that, I've been going to a lot of parties and such.. And that pretty much sums up my life! - Jenshin (Comment on this)
Friday, August 21st, 2009
9:39 am	There are a cookie and tea in the table of a quiet room I thought I'd write a quick post about my recent adventures before I embark on more adventures... This'll be short! Okay short for me.. First I have to say a few things about my language school antics.. The funniest thing ever is teaching two people who can't speak English a bunch of insults, and then having them go at eachother. This resulted in such things as, "You Mother Is Fish, Loser!" And, "You are Fuck!" Oh my god I couldn't stop laughing... Next, there's a woman who's given name is Audrey because her father is from England or something. However Japanese people can't pronounced the letter, "R" so she hates her name, she's so ashamed of it, she gets really nervous whenever someone asks her what her name is. Aw.... And finally, small words like, "Don't worry, I'm sure you can do it," go a long way when you're tackling difficult situations in a foreign language. So last week was Obon, a holiday where the dead come back to the earth and everyone spends time with their family. I spent mine doing the following things: 1. My awesome microbio friend Corina was in Kyoto for a few days. We went to Kyoto and boated down a river. It was absolutely gorgeous. The guy working the front end of the boat was not very good, though, and lost his pole to the rapids twice. http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com/art/Boating-134203766 2. Then we went to some very awesome Shinsengumi related places. I will spare you all the OMGSQueee SHINSENGUMI!! rant because I have no time. Consider yourself spared. http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com/art/Shinsengumi-134204127 3. Then my friend Elizabeth came down from Shiga and we went to Amanohashidate, one of the top three most beautiful places in Japan. http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com/art/Amanohashidate-134203412 4. Next I had a party with a bunch of old students. The woman hosting the party got drunk, called for everyone's attention, and then announced to the whole room that I was single and looking for a man. She then turned to me and said, "I am drunkard!" She also tried to feed me goya-banana juice... And she also slapped someone and told them to shut up in English. Yay party! 5. I went to my friend Mai's grandmother's house in Nara. I got to meet her extended family. Her cousins spent half the time peering at me from around the corner, and then suddenly they were all over me, showing off their toys and pictures and dragging me into games that I didn't know the rules for.. Good fun! I've realized.. I know a lot of people complain about being tired after thinking in another language all day.. But I don't usually feel that way. I think I know why now! Because I'm totally cool one-on-one with people.. It's when I'm in a big group and I not only have to talk, but I have to pay attention to what's going on, and where the conversation's going, and think of something appropriate to say for the situation - THAT's exhausting! But I'm almost never in large groups of people so it's almost never a problem. That's all for now.. The next adventure starts tomorrow.. If everything works out, I'll have a million things to talk about next time! - Jennifer (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009
9:01 am	Too Much Many Versatile Friend Been up to a lot this month. The results are a lot of little stories. First some pictures in case you want to skip the story part: http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com/art/Summertime-132959975 http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com/art/Cooking-School-132960878 Click for a larger size. It's summer, which means there's barbeque after barbeque to go to... And I don't really like eating tons of meat. I think I've been to a barbeque every week in July and the trend is extending in to August. I always thought barbequing was a fully Western thing, but now I feel like maybe Japanese people were doing it first. In Japan you get one bowl and you fill the bottom with sauce. Then you take whatever you want off the grill and stick it in your bowl and eat it at your own leisure, then go back for more. Some barbeque highlights: Kana's bar in her garage.. wow. Komanechi - I'm still not sure what this word means, but it involved a group of us posing with our hands pointed at our crotch. Awkward photos with the company president. Johnny cutting a watermelon.. with a karate chop. Takiko getting hit on by the people I work with. A bunch of old ladies fighting over who's son should marry me. One of the parties I went to was Johnny's farewell party that all the Akashi students went to. Akashi is where I worked for six months last year, if you don't remember. When I showed up, suddenly people from all over the grounds started coming up to me and shaking my hand. Seeing everyone's face light up the second they saw me was so surreal.. like I was some kind of movie star. I couldn't believe it. These people care about me so much... I felt so guilty for leaving them to work at a school more convenient for me. I can't imagine the people where I work now to come up randomly with their faces beaming and shake my hand... That's sort of the responsibility of a teacher, isn't it.. You effect people's lives. There are the teachers from school that you hated and the teachers that you loved. In elementary school, you depend on that teacher to take care of you, like a parent. In college, those teachers give you the tools you need to survive in the world... There's no way, as a teacher, that you won't have an effect on someone. And when it's a good effect, it's like.. so powerful. This huge feeling of joy and responsibility. Another small story, my Japanese lessons! Quick summary of lessons - I am the only girl in a class of young Asian boys!!!!!!!!!! I really don't mind waking up at 7:30 am to get there at ALL. I signed up for the summer course that's every weekday.. which is why I've pretty much dropped off the social face of the earth this month. This school is coming across to me as being really... unprofessional. First, no one made me pay any money! I had to keep reminding them that I hadn't paid and when would be a good time to pay.. Second, there are three main staff members. One avoids me like the plague because I speak English. The other one is sorta a normal, middle-aged woman. And the third one is this girl in her thirties.. And she is so painfully Japanese. Her name is Emi. She's the kind of person who like.. can't interrupt someone's conversation to tell them that they're supposed to get off the train at this station. She thinks that the world is one big happy family and that because I'm American, that means all people from the U.S. or who have been to the U.S. before, should automatically be my friends. Emi took us to Tennoji for a "Japanese Cooking Lesson." It sounded harmlessly fun so I decided to go! It took place at a cooking school. As we were walking to the place, she told me to make sure to sound really interested in their school if they asked. Why? Well it turns out the thing we joined was this demonstration for people who are really intending on going to this cooking college. Being that it costs money and everything, only really serious students are going to be interested in this cooking demonstration.... And Emi signed us up for it, pretending that we are all wanting to become cooks some day, in hope that we'd learn how to make Japanese food. It was really awkward having to fill out paperwork that asked questions like how did we hear about the school and what kind of cook are we planning to be in the future.. Well the first part of the demonstration, we watched a regular class where a guy was teaching how to make some french dish involving lobster. He had a live lobster on the table and eventually stuck it in the pot to boil. It sort of went through my head - wow, something in this room is dying.. and probably no one cares. Just a thought.. I mean lobster is pretty good, and I have no qualms about eating a variety of animals.. It's just something that came to mind. Next we got to make our own food! It was tempura, and they showed us how to to everything ourselves. The first thing they did was set down a bowl of live shrimp in front of us and told us to grab one. I thought I would be okay with that.. I mean maybe we just grab one and stick it in the boiling water, like the guy did in the first lecture. Or maybe we grab one and chop off it's head, that would be okay too. First, no one could hold them! We had shrimp jumping out on to the floor and stuff. I felt so sorry for them! I totally couldn't bring myself to touch them.. they're animals and I don't want to cause them pain! Since no one could get a good grip on one, I thought maybe the staff could help me out and do this part for me. The guy in charge finally took one and demonstrated how to hold it. Then he showed us how to find the place where it's back meets its head, and slowly squeeze that part in half so that the head is dangling off by a thread..... And I realized.. No. I could not kill something with my bare hands like that. I could watch, I could listen and learn how, but there's no way I was gonna do that by myself. So I had one of the assistants do it for me. From that moment on, everyone started treating me like a kid and tried talking to me in English and they didn't trust me doing anything on my own.. even cutting mushrooms and stuff they're like - are you gonna be okay with that?? So after someone came by to take away the shrimp heads to fry separately, I thought I'd be okay. I mean it's just meat now, not an animal anymore. So I told the staff I'd continue. Once you peel off the exoskeleton, you have to cut halfway down each of the segments to get the shrimp to lay flat. Sounds like no big deal. I put my shrimp down on the table, picked up my knife, pressed down into it with the knife, aaaandd........ It tensed up! It curled its tail!! Gaaah! I couldn't do it, I couldn't do it.. I fail at cooking. I wouldn't have anything to do with any meat after that. I made the staff do everything for me until we got to the vegetable and frying part. In the end, we made some really good food. I don't mind eating shrimp, I just don't like killing shrimp. I even ate its head and legs. The assistant who handled my shrimp gave me a leaf as a souvenire.. I guess she'd been using them to decorate icecream. It was kind of a silly gift, but I appreciated it. I felt guilty, though, since I wasn't actually interested in going to the school. Everyone kept asking me when I planned on going. Another day, we went to a shrine near the school. I thought this was an organized field trip, but the guy leading us just sort of walked in, grabbed someone who was working there, and asked them to give us a presentation. At first the guy was really nervous, but the more he spoke, the more he realized he had to say, and it ended up with him taking us into the storehouse to show us all the shrine's valuable things. Again, I appreciated it but felt guilty. As for the actual Japanese class.. There's six people. Two from Taiwan, one from China, one from Singapore, one from Germany, and me. (Okay since I wrote that, it changed.. Now there's One from Thailand, one from Singapore, One from Vietnam, and one from France who's family is Vietnamese.) It's three hours in the morning, and it's pretty fun. The first day was too easy but then the second day was like a review of everything I did in 3rd year with Beeken-sensei. Pretty challenging. If the level keeps increasing like this day by day, I think I'll be fluent by the end of the week. Wheee! - Jenshin (Comment on this)
Saturday, August 1st, 2009
9:37 am	Just something quick.. Just two quick things! First, please, please tell the people you love that you love them... If you don't, they'll never know. Seriously. How many months or years has it been since you told your favorite people that you love them? I went to a goodbye party for one of the teachers today. As he was leaving for good, he grabbed a big group of the womens in his arms and said, "I love you guys!!" really offhandedly. Two of them started crying unexpectedly. We asked them why... They said they've been married for decades and their husbands have not once bothered to tell them they love them since the day they were married. And yet this teacher can just say those words so lightly, so many times. They cried because they were happy to have finally recieved the words they had wanted so much for so long, and they cried because those words were coming from the wrong mouth, and they cried because they wished he could stay in Japan and say it more to them. Second, you guys really helped me out last time with Girl's Talk! It's been sprung up on me again, and I only have one night to prepare for it! I thought we could talk about hairstyles, and how they've changed over time, and what else has changed over time. That might take 40 minutes, but I need to fill 80 minutes.. Does anyone have any more topic ideas or interesting questions I could ask? Also, is there any moderately well-known song with good lyrics that incorporate love or friendship or something? Or some personality test I could give my students? Something where they can see this kind of language and these kinds of adjectives used in a real situation.. Maybe in the future I could have one of you send me some girly magazine or something from the U.S. for when I have to do this again.. Thank you. And I love you guys! -Jenshin (Comment on this)
Saturday, July 25th, 2009
5:34 pm	Sorry, I meant to post this at least a week ago... Unfortunantly, I really hated the art teacher in Elementary school. Whenever I talked to her, I could feel this wall there.. I was the kid, and she was the adult in the situation. She wasn't talking to me, she was talking down to me. I pretty much hated art class, except all my friends liked it so I pretended to too. In the class there was a box of cut up magazines that we could draw from. One day I stole a torn up issue of National Geographic because there was a whole section in it about Africa. It was so gorgeous, I couldn't stand it. Just the expanses of wilderness, the amazingness of the animals, all the natural shapes that were too perfect to be real. I think I still have that issue in a box in my parents' garage. I had a lot of nature magazines when I was a kid. I never read any of the articles, I just wanted them for the beautiful photography. I think back then, being young and all and living in a relatively arid suburban area, the idea of being somewhere beautiful was beyond me. It only happened in magazines or video games. So I held on to those pictures for years, making up stories to go along with them and such. Now I live in Japan, and some of those places are HERE. And I've BEEN to them. And I'm the one TAKING those pictures. Takiko and I were grabbing pamphlets at the local tourist agency and I was thinking out the younger version of me would have picked up everything and taken it home and cut out all the good pictures and filed them away. But now, I look at the pamphlets and think - Yeah, I think I'll go there, I bet I could get a better photo. I look over pictures of dense forest and shimmering blue seas with a jaded eye - I've been there, the experience was way better than a simple photograph in a tourist pamphlet. It doesn't do anything for me anymore to look at these things in magazines, it's way better to actually BE there. And I don't feel jealous when I read some article about someone else going somewhere amazing, because I've been to amazing places too. Maybe not the same ones, but good enough. And one of those amazing places was Kamikouchi. I owe the experience to three people. 1. Yuya. He's the one who knew where it was, and managed to somehow navigate us to the right place. If he hadn't known about it or told Alison about it or decided it was good for us, then we would never have gone. 2. Alison. She's the one who made friends with Yuya, and drove us all the way there. If Alison hadn't had a car and the sense to organize it, this might never have happened. 3. Tessia. Tessia provided a place to sleep two nights in a row in her awesome house. If we hadn't been able to stay there and get me to the train in the morning, it wouldn't have been such a good trip. And Tessia made it possible to have someone to talk to when Alison and Yuya were involved in their own conversations. Tessia also took over some of the driving, and helped navigate, and was just generally really helpful. http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com/art/Kamikouchi-130878830 Basically we went on a road trip to Nagano Prefecture. Nagano is in the middle of Japan, is one of the few prefectures that doesn't touch the ocean, and is pretty much composed of mountains. Going on a road trip there was so nostalgic. First of all, living in Kobe, I never ride in a car. It just isn't necessary. I can walk to four train stations from my house. Cars are for America, in my world. The U.S. has cars, Japan has trains. So being in a car immediately put me in America-mode. This was accented by the fact that I was sitting by two other Americans. Old concepts, like running low on gas or missing a turn, brought back so many memories of driving. Finding the best song to listen to, holding your breath in tunnels, and going through the mountains... I couldn't convince myself I was still in Japan. Mountains... In some parts of Japan, not the parts where I live, there are real live mountains. And they're beautiful.. Erroded by the wet climate, they're very steep and bushy with all sorts of species of trees. Sitting in the back of a car, watching the mountains out the window, was like being in a foreign country, way far away from everything, and yet somehow naggingly familiar. I love road trips! I love sitting, driving, or looking out the window.. thinking of things to draw to pass the time, singing to music... I forgot to mention.. I had arrived the night before at around 10:30 at Tessia's house and had to wake up at 4 in the morning. 4 in the morning is not a very nice time to get up, but I was excited so it didn't really matter so much. So we arrived in Kamikouchi at around maybe 8.. It's so weird when four hours after you wake up is still earlier than you would usually get up. We parked and took a taxi to the actually start of the trail.. And from that point on I was in wonderland. I think I'll spare you the rant about trees and rivers and how much I love nature this time... But I'll highlight a few points about why it was so amazing. First, the water. The river comes from the snowmelt on the mountains, making it frigid and 100% clean. Clear as crystal. Clearer than the Okinawan sea. I could see the fish at the bottom of the lake like it glass. Even though I stared at that water all day in that place, I could not get over how amazingly clear it was. Second, the wetlands. If you combine cold, clear water with Japan's lush forests, what do you get? There are some places in the FFXII world that I loved going to because of how amazing the terrain was, and now I know what that's inspired from. Words do none of this any justice, I'll just show you pictures. The path was mostly raised on wood so that all the wetness could do its own business underneath us, which gave a really nice feeling of floating through the beautiful landscape on this wooden path without bothering any of the amazing plant life. Third, the forest was amazing. Like take a rainforest, wash out all the dampness, anything creepy-crawly, clean up all the slime and decay, and you have this pristine, thick, luscious, beautiful forest. Here and there it took on a new personality, clumps of new species of trees, or a rocky ledge jutting out, or a place where the land had slid leaving swathes of white, sparkling sand under giant, leafy trees. And finally, the mountains. I had the book Heidi when I was a kid, and being that it was over 50 pages, and I was only 9 or so, I didn't bother reading it. But I always kept it around for a picture on the cover af a mountain that started green at the base and moved up to blue and then finally white at the top. It was a painting, and I never thought mountains like that existed in such perfect colors in real life. Now I have seen one. Oku Hotaka, the third tallest mountain in Japan, is gorgeous. Here are my pictures: http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com/gallery One more mentionable part of Kamikouchi is Kappabashi, The Kappa bridge. If you don't know, Kappa are these creatures that live near rivers. They have a turtle shell on their back and a beak mouth. The top of their head is concave and holds some water. If the water falls out, they will die. They love cucumbers and, like brownies, do good things for people unless offended, and will then do really terrible things to you. Yuya said that only Japanese people could see Kappa, which is why Alison, Tessia, and I had never seen any. But luckily for us, the gift store was filled with Kappa merchandise and I bought some kappa cookies for all my coworkers. Delicious! At the end of a long day, I had my first hot springs experience! I am not so squeamish about being naked in front of people so long as it's a designated place to do that in. Unfortunantly I'm pretty warm blooded, especially after walking all day, and would have welcomed a cold springs more. But it was nice. After the long drive back to the city, we went to a Tonga restaurant and ate a lot of great food and pumpkin/coconut icecream. I slept over at Tessia's house again and then went home in the morning. I keep thinking how if this or that or the other hadn't happened, then I would never have been able to have this great experience. So I'm really glad that circumstances ended up this way and I was able to go to Kamikouchi. - Jenshin (Comment on this)
Sunday, July 5th, 2009
11:55 pm	This order is the important secret which must never be emitted to the outside. Okay this should be the final post I wanted to make from last month that I didn't have time to do. Then I can catch up with new stuff like pictures and mountains. So next on the list was work! First I'd like to say.. I'm a leader at heart. I never really thought of myself that way before I started working for Nova because I don't really care about power or control over other people. So when someone else wants to dominate an event or situation or conversation, I hand over the reigns freely. I'm very content to sit back and let everyone else worry about everything that needs to be done. I'm very good at letting things go and doing only the bare minimum of what's required of me. However, if I enter a room with a bunch of unorganized slackers, I'll start ordering everyone around and getting things done. If I feel like the people in my boat are missing an advisor I'll take on that role. If something needs to get done and no one's doing that, I'll do it. That's how I felt about Itayado when I was transferred in February. Like there was no one around to make sure everyone was doing their job right, so I became that person. I make sure everything's getting done the way it should be. I make sure I know where everything is, so if someone needs something they can ask me. If something's amiss, I write a note about it and make sure something gets done about it. I try to keep the staff and teachers informed of what's going on on both sides of the door, so that we can limit miscommunication and mistranslation. When someone's having a bad day, I feel like it's my responsibility to make them feel better. Coupled with that, I've now been trained to teach every kind of lesson that Nova offers. The only thing I'm not allowed to do is teach other people how to do stuff. That kind of bothered me, so I brought it up with the staff.. which led to a very depressing conversation. "Kae, I don't want to teach kids every day. I have to teach all the normal kids classes and all the special kids classes. It's not fair!" "Well you're the best kids teacher, everyone wants your lessons!" "There's a new guy coming, why can't he teach kids?" "He hasn't been trained to teach kids." "Can I train him to teach kids?" "No, you have to be in upper management to do that." "But Chris F. taught people how to teach kids and he's not in upper management." "But he's a very good kids teacher." "So what you're saying is that I'm a bad kids teacher?" She got confused about that and dropped the conversation. Anyway, although I'm not allowed to teach other people to do things, I am allowed to write my own lesson plans! They've been giving me some time off to write, and then they send my lessons to all the schools so that every teacher in Nova can use them to teach with! It's a lot of fun. I really like making plans and sharing my techniques and stuff like that. I want to say that working as a teacher comes in many stages. First, there's the freaking-out-stage where you don't really know how to do anything and you hope to god nothing goes wrong and it's hard enough just to remember all the things you're supposed to do and get everything done in time. Then there's the stage when you figure out the system, you know what works and what doesn't, and it becomes just another job. Then after a year or two, it all comes naturally and you start finding YOUR way to do things. You feel like you know the best way to do some things and you want to share that with everyone else. My "Girl's Talk" lesson went really well. First, there were only two people who were in the right age group, but it was fun anyway. We went over some slang and tried using it to talk about boys, clothes, and bedrooms. They liked it so much they want more, so I'm having Part II in a couple weeks. We'll see how that goes.. I really like teaching slang because when people talk the way I'm used to hearing people talk, I feel a lot more comfortable opening up to them. Like if someone's speaking in Shakespear, even if it's done flawlessly and beautifully, I'm not really going to feel comfortable expressing my opinions to them. But if someone's using my own slang, I begin to feel more comfortable. That's something about language that I've learned since coming here. My friends feel the same way, too. If I can throw in a little kansai ben, they feel like I'm really speaking on their terms in Japanese, and they more easily open up to me. Speaking of language... I signed up for Japanese lessons! It all started when all my plans one day got incredibly cancelled. I found myself for the first time with nowhere to go and nothing to do. I was looking in one of Takiko's magazines and I found an add for an English school. I called them up curiously and they told me to come in. The next thing I knew, I was having a free trial lesson and forking over a bunch of money for some private lessons. Next month I'll start taking an actual class. I'm halfway excited about it, and halfway sorta dreading my lack of free time. We'll see how it all goes! It feels funny that a year ago at this time, I was in Finland kicking it with Sonya, Terhi, Paivi, Maija, Elina, and their families. Those were good times. Last year, summer was a lot hotter! This year the rainy season has lasted quite a long time. It's cloudy every day and I feel comfortable going outside without a hat or a parasol. It's still raining every other day and I have yet to use any air conditioning. Too bad Elina didn't come this year instead of last year! Finally, I want to say that I've fallen in love with Kanon Wakeshima. I feel a little awkward about this, being that she's a girl, and I've never met her, and I didn't go to her concerts, and I still don't really like Japanese pop music... But she plays the cello, she's an artist, she's Japanese, she's kankei with Mana, she's totally hot, she's everything I wish I could be, and translating all her songs is helping me with my kanji. Goals in life at the moment: Go to Yakushima. Go to Gunkanjima. Go to the Shutokengaikakuhosuiro. Meet Kanon Wakeshima. Meet C.S. Friedman Meet Tsutomu Nihei again. Publish a book someday. Publish a comic someday. Read Japanese magazines without a dictionary. Get married. How many of those do you think I can pull off before I die? - Jenshin P.S. For homework I have to think of customs that we have in the U.S. that we don't have in Japan. Honestly, the only one I can think of is saying hi to people when you're walking down the street.. is there anything else? I think my opinion has been jaded from living here for too long. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
9:48 am	"Loveliness of the ribbon of the dot" I have a friend named Elizabeth. I have a mortal enemy named elizabeth. There's a town in Colorado called Elizabeth. One of the Japanese exchange students that my family took care of went to school in Elizabeth. My awesome friend Alison is from Elizabeth. My friend from Elizabeth is the same friend I went to see the musical Elisabeth with. The musical Elisabeth that I saw was done by Takarazuka. But the original one is German. When my friend who's from Elizabeth talks to me about Elisabeth, I have to make sure about which one she's referring to. It doesn't help that Elizabeth and Alison know of eachother. Or that I saw them both in the same week. Or that I saw Elisabeth in the same week that I saw Elizabeth. Or that when I mentioned this to another friend, she asked why my mortal enemy was in Japan. Anyway. The Elisabeth I'm going to talk about now is this one: http://kageki.hankyu.co.jp/elisabeth/img/blog/21024768.jpg Takarazuka puts out this musical every two years. I know some of you on this list are lucky enough to have seen Mizu's extravagant performance. I saw it on DVD at my old friend Sarah's house, late one night. I had been slightly interested in Takarazuka back then. But I wasn't the fan I am now. I actually remember very little from the DVD, except that Der Todd was pretty hot. When Sarah bestowed her poster of it to me, I felt a little unworthy as I hadn't seen the real show. Now that I've seen it, I feel a lot more comfortable about owning the poster. Elisabeth is one of the biggest performances by Takarazuka. The first day the tickets were on sale, every seat on the weekends had been sold out before noon. Takiko and I tried calling the ticket counter every five minutes for an hour, to no avail, and I eventually I ran down to JR and got fairly good tickets for a weekday. The show was nothing short of amazing. I am saying this as someone who has seen it for the first time. I hadn't seen the German one, I didn't remember the Yukigumi one. So when I'm talking about this, it's all a new thing to me. I'm not comparing it to the other versions. The story is about the life of Elisabeth, strewn with her obsession with Death, and Death's love for her. It reminded me a bit of the Phantom of the Opera, where you have this tragic, dark character. Only in Phantom, the character was kind of just a stalker. Where as Death just waits for her.. He doesn't come looking for her, he just waits for those moments where she thinks of him. Alison pointed out that Death may not actually even be a character, but just a figment of her imagination. As a figment, he is steaming hot. Long fingers, icy hair, ebony clothes.. A tall figure in layers of velvet, commanding the darkest realms. He is the embodiment of someone to long for, as Elisabeth longs for death. And so he is beautiful by nature. I just can't get enough of that idea. When I go to see a musical, the most important thing for me is the music. The second most important thing is the costume design. The third is the dancing. The fourth is the story. If I want a good story, I can always go read a book. If I want sexy bodies and amazing costumes, I can look on the internet. Or in a fashion magazine. And so music is my main priority in a musical. I love live music, in all forms. And music that tells a story, music sung by beautiful women, that's just extra dressing. If the music isn't so good, well at least I can rely on the costumes and set design to impress me, the story to grab my attention, and perhaps some dancing here and there that's worth the watch. So going to Takarazuka will probably be somewhat worth the money no matter what show I see. Elisabeth, being an actual musical, that's been slaved over and perfected, that's been made not just to make Japanese housewives happy, but to appeal to people all over the world, had good music. And not only that, but Sena Jun is an amazing singer. I swear she never missed a note. Her voice is so clear, so powerful. Everytime she sang, she spoke, she whispered, I felt it. I left the theater with her voice still reverberating through my head: Eliiiisabeeeeth! Eliiiiisabeth! Pretty much everyone was really good at singing. Well of course, they have to be, it's their job. But there was something about it that really got to me.. I really noticed it. When I went to work the next day, I was still carrying their voices inside of me.. I couldn't stand it. It's like being in love, you have this huge powerful feeling inside of you, but no one around you seems to notice at all. At every blank moment, a few words from the musical would pop into my head and my heart would ache. It was too much to bear. I had to do something to fix it. So I went back. Not to see the musical, just back to the theater. I thought.. maybe buying tickets to the next show would satisfy me. Maybe being around people who I knew had seen Elizabeth recently would satisfy me. Maybe buying something at QR would satisfy me. But deep down I was dreading that nothing would.. that I would have to live with this longing until the CD or DVD came out. I went with my friend Caroline. We wandered around, ate lunch, did a bit of shopping, chatted.. And then at one point she had to go to the bathroom. We went to the theater and while she was doing her thing, I found a TV screen advertising the musical with clips from all the past productions.... And the music.. I could fill the words in to the songs in my head, I could add missing notes to the fragments of melodies I had remembered... And then suddenly I was satisfied. It was enough. I bought a huge poster at the gift shop. There was no place in my room to hang it, so it's in my closet now. Every time I put away my laundry, Death stares at me between her slender, pale fingers. I also bought a sumire keychain. It's a very subtle symbol of my obsession. If you don't know about Takarazuka, you aren't going to recognize that that's what it's from. Like my Final Fantasy meishi case, or my Shinra necklace, or my Advent Children ribbon... Subtly being a fan.. the people who don't know don't notice. After I bought these things, a terribly embarrassing thing happened. My poster was in a giant bag. I did a lot of looking around in the store before we finally left. Then we walked around some more, did a little more shopping, were pretty idle. There were people around, it definitely wasn't a quiet time of day. Finally, we were leaving one store and about to head back to the station when suddenly I noticed that a cell phone strap in a plastic bag had somehow gotten stuck onto my poster bag. The strap's bag had a little sticky seal and god knows how it managed to get stuck to my bag... I don't know how I didn't notice it before, it was just stuck right there! Hanging off of my bag! I was so embarrassed, I was a theif without even realizing it! We went alll the way back to the theater and I returned it as stealthily as I could. I'm so glad the store was still open and no one saw me return it because I honestly have no idea what I would have said in Japanese to try to explain myself. Eep! Well that's all about Elisabeth.. I still can't wait for the CD and DVD to come out, but I'm okay with waiting now. More stories to tell for next time: I went to two parties, saw Beeken-sensei, went up in the mountains, completed the Akashi Stamp Rally, and signed up for Japanese Classes. Some day I'll catch up with myself on all of these posts! See ya guys! - Jenshin (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, June 26th, 2009
8:29 am	Hina makes you Sweet. You can't help putting! Still trying to catch up with myself in terms of telling everyone stories! By the way, I think I've caught up with all my emails and stuff since last time.. if there's anyone who I didn't get back to, please poke me!! So here is part two of my tale... My parents came from June 1st through 12th. We did so many things.. It's all sort of a blur in my mind. I had pretty much every other day off of work, and was able to go sightseeing on all of them.. Just a long 12 day string of sightseeing, walking around, enjoying Japan. It was really wonderful. I learned a few things about myself.. First, I love making plans. Second, if my plans go wrong, I get incredibly moody. My coworker told me this is why I'm a leader.. lots of people can't be bothered to make plans, so they're the followers. But I sit there making up plans and making sure everyone follows them exactly.. Not just with sightseeing, but with other things to.. like lesson plans, or how I go about cooking something.. It's funny, time doesn't really mean much to me. I never use my alarm clock, I just go to bed way early so I know I'll be able to wake up naturally. I don't wear a watch, even to work. I don't care if I end up eating dinner at 5 pm or 10 pm, I don't have any strict schedule.. But damn, if I decide I'm gonna get 10 things done in one day, then those 10 things are gonna happen. And I've already prioritized them in case we have to skip one of them, and I've made up some alternatives if something goes wrong, and I've thought the entire thing out in less than 2 minutes. So I probably totally tired my parents out.. But I think I offered them a really excellent perspective of what Japan is about, and where Kobe fits into that sphere, and how my life fits into that. And I'm satisfied in that, and I think they feel pretty fullfilled on that level. And that's what I wanted. If anyone else ever comes to Kobe, I'll probably do all these things with you too. Here a giant picture of most of the stuff we did. I'll explain the pictures.. then you'll never have to come to Japan! http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000Parents.jpg From left to right on the top row.... First, the forest on Arashiyama. I love the wide variety of trees there... When you get deeper into the mountains, it's all cedar, but here on the outskirts we've got so many kinds of trees.. Second, the monkeys on the mountain! They're part of a research facility, but they're actually native to Japan and have been seen in all of the mountains on the island. Japanese people are shocked to hear that in other parts of the world there are no monkeys in the mountains. Third, some kind of bird at Himeji castle. Just thought it made a good picture. Fourth, Himeji castle itself, with some lovely flowers in the forground. Japanese castles are fun! Fifth, my parents on a boat in Kobe Harbor. You can see Kobe Port Tower in the background, as well as some of the mountains we went up. Sixth, a bonsai tree on display in Himeji. I love these trees.. it's like nature plus art equals totally awesome! Back to the left on the bottom row... First, my parents standing in front of the Sagano Bamboo Forest. It's a really peaceful, beautiful place. Second, mattcha and sweets. I love all the subtle flavors of Japanese tea time! Under that, my parents standing on Venus bridge. The bridge loops around twice, so my parents are on top of eachother, on the same bridge. Next to that, a lizard at the Osaka Aquarium. Kick ass!! Above that, a Bunraku doll. They're very expressive... You wouldn't think something as stiff as a doll would be able to express such an array of emotions. Next, the famous Kobe Night View. I'm pleased to finally have a camera that can handle night shots!!! Then, some hydrangea, or ajisai, which is the seasonal flower here. Fairly famous, but not as much as sakura, of course. Then, my mom's old classmate's wife giving a Koto performance for us in her home.. More on that next! Finally, we had dinner the last night with my friend Mai in a fancy Izakaya. I want to point out that my crab's shell came with my crab flavored spaghetti, and I'm holding it up because I'm really excited about it. However I accidently left it at the restaurant, which really bums me out.. We were just starting to get to be friends. Also, my shirt says, "Bitch Rabbit." Only in Japan do they 1. Make shirts that say Bitch Rabbit and 2. You can wear them around without offending anyone. Well I couldn't take my spaghetti crab shell home, but I did find a full crab body on the beach to make up for it.. He's about as big as my thumb nail and he's sitting peacefully next to my cactus collection now. The cactus count is now up to 6 and they have names now. All right, I said I'd mention my mom's classmate's friend.. This is a strange story of coincidences.. My mother didn't go to any of her JHS reunions, but she recieved all the emails about them and noticed that one of her classmates lived in Japan. She contacted him and he was willing to go out to dinner with us. I was a little nervous because I felt like I was responsible for setting up my own blind date with people even my parents didn't really know.. but it ended up being awesome! First, the couple was SO nice and accommodating. Just by looking at their outfits you could tell that they both had passion for traditional arts and that put me at ease.. this isn't the typical Gaijin and Japanese Girl couple. They really have things deeply in common. First, we went to their lovely home in downtown Osaka. Not only is it downtown, it's also huge.. It must cost them a fortune! They have two tatami rooms, one for the Koto, and one for Kimono. They also have a study, an expansive living room, an alcove in front of the genkan, and wonderful taste in interior decoration, incorporating modern and traditional elements. Phew! When I first laid eyes on the Koto, I was completely won over by them.. Koto is my second favorite instrument ever! (Do you guys know what the first is?? Heehee.) I love it because it's a stringed instrument that you can play multiple harmonies on.. Not like a violin where it's just one voice, but like a piano where you're doing more than one thing at once. I love it, it's just so beautiful to listen to! The woman even let me try it out! Then she showed me some of the dolls she makes.. Paivi should have been there!! It was great.. She doesn't take any shortcuts, she makes the clothes separately and puts them on the doll, and the clothes are all hemmed appropriately, minutures of the real thing. This includes traditional styled dolls with layers and layers of kimono. So impressive! Next, they drove us to a restaurant.. the drive included a detour into the Red Light District of Osaka. This was so interesting!! I guess because it's traditional in its own way. Prostitution isn't illegal in Japan the way it is in the U.S. There's a long history of it.. the way I see it, because of its tradition and everything, it's not this weird gross thing.. it's just something that is. If you want some, you can go buy it in a place where it's considered appropriate to do so. Nowadays, you can get a prostitute just about anywhere, but in the old days you'd come to the Soaplands or something specifically. That's why places like that are going out of business.. but it was neat to see what was left. Like most Japanese shops, these places are like normal houses with the living part upstairs and the shop part downstairs. Only instead of a door to the shop, there isn't even a wall there.. it's wide open so anyone can see the goods inside. So basically you're driving down the street, you see some light coming out of a normal looking building, and then as you pass by you realize that the whole thing is inside is colorful and well-lit, filled with soft curtains and things that are appealing to the eye. Behind some kind of counter is a young woman, looking like a model from a magazine, with her hair done up in the latest style. She looks completely out of place in the traditional-styled house, and therefore even more stunning. Sometimes there are mirros and things so she can be seen from all angles, and she waves and smiles at you as you go by. In front of the counter is her seller, usually an old, wrinkled woman running the business. I assume you'd do the business and bargaining with the older woman, and then take the young girl upstairs. Very interesting! My father was in the front seat of the car, so when we passed by they'd all wave and call to him, but then when they saw me and my mother in the back seat they stopped. It happened again and again.. Finally we went to an Okinawan restaurant.. did I ever tell you I CAN'T EVER HAVE ENOUGH CHAMPLOO!!! Well it's true.. And I'm so glad we went there. My parents learned a lot of Japanese while they were here, accented from some tapes they'd listened to at home. I guess it's really fun to use the language in a foreign country! I encourage everyone to do that! My dad got really good at differentiating kanji, and deciphering the meaning based on context - that's awesome! See, kanji isn't so bad, we should have it in English too! Haha! The day before my parents left, I went to Takarazuka. That deserves its own email. I'll get back to you guys later.. I gotta get ready to go to Ishikawa tomorrow. Apparently I'm going hiking in Nagano the next day. - Jenshin (Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
8:55 pm	He pictured to herself the happy days of the past Once again, it's been a while. If you've written me an email in the last month, I've read it and am just now starting to reply to some of them. If you've sent me a book in the mail, I got it and loved it. If you've tried to have a conversation with me via Gmail, it probably got sent to my parent's computer on accident and I never got a chance to see it. From now on, that won't be happening. If you want to tell me anything important, try sending an email instead. I also had a chance to get to the post office finally last Monday. I had such a backlog of things to mail, it took all day to get everything organized.. And finally THANK YOU SO MUCH for all your suggestions for my Girl Talk Lesson. It went really well with your help!!! So basically four things happened. First, I went to Shiga again, and it was amazing. Second, my parents came to visit, and it was tons of fun. Third, I took on a whole ton of new responsibilities at work. Fourth, I saw Elisabeth done by Takarazuka. Let's take these one at a time.. One post at a time... Tonight I'm in a very reflective mood. Now that summer's rolling along, I'm turning nostalgic. I looked up randomly from some writing for work to ask Takiko for a generic male name and she told me she definitely wasn't the right person to ask. I realized then that I'm so used to living here, it's gone past that strong barrier between house and home. Takiko isn't Japanese anymore, she's just my friend. Takiko and I are very similar in that we're always doing something. We never sit still. She took up making her own bracelets last week and this week she's going to Okinawa. And I, for example, went to Shiga the weekend before my parents came to visit, came home for a nap, and then left for the airport. That's pretty much how life always is for Takiko and I. We rarely see eachother. And we enjoy life. My friend Elizabeth lives in Kimoto, which is on the northern edge of Lake Biwa. If you like lakes, definitely look up Lake Biwa. It's a huge landmark, like Lake Michigan or something. Standing on the shore, you can't see the other end of it. If you ask anyone about Lake Biwa, they'll tell you it's one big cess pool, completely polluted and disgusting. That's true, I guess, if you live at the south end. The big cities pollute it and also try using it for water. If you're into water purification methods, that's the place to get a job. Holy god the biggest rolly poly I've ever seen just walked across my art notebook! Outside, you! Anyway, Elizabeth lives near the north end of the lake, which is as pretty "away-from-it-all" as you can get. First we rented bikes. I got to practice riding for maybe 30 minutes or so last year when I was in Finland. That was enough that when I went riding with Elizabeth I wasn't like - Oh god it's a bike!! And was more like - Whee let's try this! I'm still quite wobbly, but I'm getting the hang of it. We biked to the base of a mountain where there was a lift so you could go up and see the view. The lift was pretty much enough bench space for your butt and almost no back, held to a wire by a thin pole. The insecurity of it all was countered by the fact that the ground was maybe one foot down below, less if you have longer legs. And the grass down there was nicely trimmed. Over some various loudspeakers they were playing tinny traditional Japanese songs. It was all very ridiculous and fun at the same time. At the top was an astounding view... But it also started to rain. I'll have to go back another time. http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000Kimoto.jpg After that, the wind picked up terribly and we went back down the mountain. After stopping to take pictures of an abandoned house, we took our bikes to the other side of the mountain where the lake was. The clouds parted, the wind died down, and maybe you can imagine how amazing it felt, riding my bike along the edge of a giant lake with beautiful greenery everywhere and patchy clouds overhead. We biked around a bend and back, then ate watermelon and whipped peanut butter cream sandwiches for lunch. It was just so beautiful... http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000Biwako.jpg After that we went to Nagahama, which is a little ways down the edge of the lake. We passed by the castle there, which is nothing to be proud of, but I can check it off of the castles I've seen now. Then we went through some gardens and to the lake again, where the sun was getting ready to set. I thought my sunset behind Akashi bridge was probably the most beautiful of the sunsets I've seen and taken pictures of, and my sunset through the Fuji Televi building was the coolest sunset I'd seen and photographed, but the pictures I took at Lake Biwa totally blow those away. http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000BiwaSunset.jpg It was just sorta one of those days where everything was perfect. And it ended with Curry and Karaoke and Shinkenger Roll Cake. That's all for now. Next, my parents, and Next, work and Elisabeth. - Jenshin (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 8th, 2009
7:41 am	"Breaking down the pins and get hot communication!" Hey I haven't said much in a while. My parents are visiting and I don't have much time for anything else right now. For all the people I owe an email to, be patient, all right? I'll get back to the internet next week... Next week I have a special lesson called, "Girl Talk." Basically they want me to do a lesson geared for teenagers and young women and teach them some slang and casual phrases, and also how to talk about love. Does anyone have any good ideas for new phrases they could learn, or any games we could play? Some things I should maybe teach them: I have a crush on _ _ is so hot. Wow that list is really lacking... Does anyone know any silly pick-up lines or are there any fun song lyrics about this kind of thing? This is totally not my area of expertise.... That's why I'm asking for some help!! - Jenshin (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009
10:35 am	Fall Out You! (Written on my pants) So the weekend I should have gone to Shiga I spent taking long walks by myself at home and generally bumming around and being a little lonely. The weekend I did go to Shiga, it rained for two days straight. I was gonna go to Shiga again next next week, to make up for it, but I also wanted to go to Ishikawa that week too, to make up for the last time I went when it was also rainy. I may just end up inviting my Ishikawa friends to Shiga, if Elizabeth doesn't mind, and then getting to see all of them all at once. Anyway, if ever anyone made good use of a rainy weekend, we certainly did! The first night we spent far, far too long figuring out how to play an old Japanese game called Hanafuda which uses cards. By the time we'd found out the rules and how it worked, it was about time for bed. The next day I was crossing my fingers that the rain would let up. Of course, it had no such intention. We got up early and went for a little local sightseeing.. Elizabeth's small town of Kinomoto has lots of really ancient-looking buildings and abandoned places. Up the hill is a fairly large temple with a pretty huge statue of Jizo. We didn't do much aside from look around, as the rain sorta made everything seem wet, cold, and miserable. On the way home, we stopped in every single souvenir shop and bought lots of cake and cookies, then we went back to her house to eat everything. Then we had to think up better plans, something fun that we could do that didn't involve having to see from long distances, putting away umbrellas, or trudging through mud. We ended up going to see Hikone Castle, which is one of the more famous ones in Japan. I'd have to say, this is probably my best time I ever had at a Japanese castle. Usually castles are either A. No longer there, B. rebuilt with some kind of hideous museum inside, C. just a castle, with very little information whatsoever, the point being that you go up the stairs to the top and back down again. At Hikone, the original castle is still standing, the museum is away from the castle, elsewhere grounds, and is pretty damn awesome.. Well worth the 400 yen. The hill that the castle is on is beautiful and there are some great gardens on the grounds. The castle itself is one of the go up and come back down types, without even a view at the top, but it's somewhat interesting and has a nifty bridge at the entrance to the inner gate. It also has a mascot, which is a cat called Hikonyan. It was cute enough that I bought a stuffed animal. Usually I don't like mascots.. The Hanshin Tigers mascot is hideous, in my opinion. And Itayado's mascot is a hermit crab with big lips and eyelashes.. whoever thought that was a good idea? But Hikonyan is really, really cute! And he has a girlfriend and a nemesis.. I also bought MAGNETS of some famous Japanese people.. that was fun, too. Can you tell who they are? http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000Magnets.jpg After that, it wasn't late enough to have dinner yet, so we Karaoke'd it out for a while until we were hungry. I'm getting better at this whole Karaoke thing.. the only problem is most of the music I know in Japanese I found while I was in high school. And most of it had infiltrated the internet after having already been popular in Japanese years ago.. therefore it's damn OLD music. I was wondering if anyone could reccommend some new songs to me! What's your favorite Japanese song made in the last five years? I prefer stuff that sounds a bit 80s. I was really excited because the place we went to happened to have Koori no Emperor, which I totally did not think I'd ever find at a Karaoke place. They also had Zettai Unmei Mokushiroku, with the really long ending, which I also thought would never appear in Karaoke. Who in their right mind would sing either of those songs!! For dinner, we had really, really, really good katsu, then went back home and watched 20 episodes of the abridged version of Yu-Gi-Oh, which is probably one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen. I wish all anime was like this, so I didn't have to actually watch full lengths of things, and could just laugh at all the stupid antics instead. Then we ended the night with a few rounds of Hanafuda. By pure luck, I ended up winning every time. Poor Elizabeth, it's her game and she never won once. In the morning, the rain had stopped and the weather was beyond beautiful. I enjoyed it by riding in a train home for three hours and then falling asleep for three hours.. Man, why must the weather taunt me like this... At least I got to enjoy the sun sparkling off the rice fields at the base of the poufy mountains under the clear blue sky.. while being pressed to the window by 100 highschoolers crammed into the same train car. Yay. http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000Shiga.jpg - Jenshin P.S. Because of this Swine Flu scare, no one is allowed in public places without a face mask. Most stores were out of masks, so my company ordered special masks to be worn during lessons. I wonder what people visiting Japan will think when they look around at everyone with masks over their face. (Keikei it's impossible for me to type a lower-case M when talking about masks now.. I have to do find/replace on all my emails.) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009
7:04 pm	Golden Week I just realized I wrote this a week ago but never posted it. I haven't felt like writing recently about anything truly adventuresome, but I feel the need to add a few tidbits.. I suppose this is a more personal update than usual. My awesome-friend Alison came over for a while. Alison understands me. I was going to go back with her to her house afterward, but I wore myself out being inspired. Some things we did... Food: Katsu, squishy pan, goma dango, cake, CAKE! Turkish food. Karaoke: I will never forget, or forgive, Takiko for thinking I was asking such a personal question when I just wanted to know if she wanted to do the male voice or the female voice.. and I will never, never forget her answer. And I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. When in doubt, Two-Mix is always the answer. Takarazuka: My favorite place in the world. Just being there gets me on a high. The show wasn't the best, but I still love singing and dancing and all that. I really don't mind so long as it inspires me. Somehow, I have procured a ticket to Elizabeth next month. It is on a Thursday, which is not a day I have off, but I have managed to make it work out. I can't wait. I wore myself out being excited for four days straight, and ended up spending a rainy wednesday sitting at home and redecorating my room. A small trip to Ikea and the hundred yen store ended with me sewing my own curtains and putting together the best window corner ever. In some previous entry I was talking about how my sense of aesthetics don't go with my sense of cool, but I tried to make them fit here, and I think it sorta worked out. http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000Jellyfish.jpg The curtains literally cost 400 yen to make.. I can't get over that! To think that people buy their own curtains... I now know when the Hosts come out, and where they hang. And oh god do I love me some mullet-y goodness. Some day I should try dressing up in uber-fancy clothes just to see if they'll ask me to join them... oh but then what would I do! I wouldn't be able to pay to actually go, I'd have to decline... Kae is my destiny. She's the new staff at my branch. She was born 2 days after my sister was born. Her mom was born 2 days and 8 years after my mom was born. She studied abroad at CSU the same semester I studied at KG. She hates every single food that I like. Every single one. She can sing in Russian, and she thinks cacti are beyond cute. Her favorite color is purple. She lives near Takarazuka. It's destiny. Random thoughts. Little things I hate: People who complain about not getting enough sex. People who complain about not having enough money (with the exception of college students!!). People who complain about how much they hate the system but won't lift a finger to change it. Little things I love: When someone has the same music tastes as me. When someone stays over at my house. Jellyfish. When a student laughs. Tell me a story, okay? - Jenshin (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, May 1st, 2009
9:05 am	"Travel bear going with friends" A slack in emails usually means I've been doing way too much. Let me sum up... I haven't been to an amusement park since before I can really remember clearly. Going to Universal Studios Japan was fun, but I have nothing to really compare it to, so I can't make any educated opinions on Japanese amusement parks or anything. All I can do is share some pictures. I am a little embarrassed, eating at the Pink Cafe was seriously the most girliest thing I've ever done in my life. http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000USJ.jpg I totally thought I'd be the kind of person to hate roller coasters.. or that they'd make me sick or something. But actually, I love it.. It's like flying. Or like piloting some kind of futuristic fast airship-car! In other news, my friend Kaj sent me a box of win and science: http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/2079KajPresents.jpg And finally, I went to an abandoned railroad track!! Words do this little justice... http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000VersionScenery.jpg - The green mountains and gorgeous riverbed http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000VersionTunnels.jpg - Train tunnels and flashlights http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000VersionRailway.jpg - Abandoned things Some highlights of interest... First, this is one of the first natural riverbeds I've seen in Japan. Most other rivers are cemented in. Seeing rocks bared by water and natural rapids was a big relief. Until we spotted a kyaker among them... I can't imagine how he got through it all until the end, it was a pretty rough river at parts. I don't think my photos really catch the magnitude of some of these rocks. Second, train tunnels!! If you turn off your flashlight, it's pitch black. You litterally cannot see anything at all in there. It was totally awesome. There were creepy things like hooks and wires and weird writing on the walls Third, train tracks! Because it was made for trains, it was pretty easy-going the whole way. The path was wide and any dangerous edges or falling-rock areas had walls of cement to keep the train safe. Sometimes these walls had iron handles for you to climb up or down them and we did a little exploring of these.. getting down into the river bed, or going up over some wall or something.. The worst was that I found this giant, sheer wall with the iron rungs and I felt really compelled to climb it.. And it ended up absolutely terrifying. Like I kept thinking about how old the wall was and how unstable it could be and how I was way over the tops of the trees.. And moths kept landing on my face and it was hard not to let go of the rungs to brush them off. I got some fun pictures, though.. Oh, and there was nothing interesting on the other side of the wall. Fourth, there was a big sign that said THIS IS NOT A HIKING TRAIL! We are not responsible for anything that happens to you here. If you get hurt, that's your own problem. And yet everyone was there with their kids. Fifth, I love Maki for her sense of adventure. Normally when I go out with people they're like - ooohh god don't step over the line, that part's not on the map. Maki's like - Ooh let's go over there! Oh it's too dangerous for me, how about you go over there Jen, and I'll just stand here and take pictures of you. Maki is my new favorite! One more thing, I got myself a new camera. I now know how to say things like "dpi" and such in Japanese. I am massively in love with my new camera, and have taken over 200 pictures in the last two days. I also got myself more cactus plants.. I need to stop this addiction. Well that's all for now. Going to Takarazuka on Sunday and possibly Shiga or Ishikawa next week. See you guys. - Jenshin (Comment on this)
Friday, April 24th, 2009
10:39 am	National DNA Day Happy National DNA Day 2009! I have worked very hard to put this together for you all. http://www.randomisgod.com/TwoMoons/Present/DNADay/DNA2009.html (Comment on this)