Friday 27 July 2007

Calling Hertford

I telephoned Hertford today, not the town of my birth but near enough. I grew up outside Hertford, but spent far more time in Hertford than is really necessary in any one lifetime. I'm struggling to think of any attractions...I guess you could say my current home, Yamagata, is a step up in the world then.

So I telephoned the society for old boys and girls of my old school, seeking some information, some bits and bobs I might be able to show the kids at school here. This morning a teacher who spent two years in an Uzbekistan school and returned in April gave a talk about it, with videos and photos and everything. What can I say, I was inspired.

'You're calling from Japan now?'

'Yes'

'You're at home?'

'Yes'

You're not in Japan, you're at home, in Hertingfordbury?'

'No, I'm calling from Japan.'

I reached the school holiday staff. I'm a long way from home but I've made my very own home here. So it's kinds like I left home and came full circle, in an odd way.

'Let me see, we have two e-mail addresses here...g-i-t-guy@hotmail.com'

All I could think was, 'Say it, go on say it. You can't bring yourself to say it! Say it!'

I can't say I've missed Hertford, nor Hertfordians.

Thursday 26 July 2007

I -heart- Yamagata

It's nearly a year to the day since I came to Yamagata; therefore, it's time for some reflections. And where better seek a starting point than my own starting point nearly 365 days ago, the four-and-a-half-page long Rough Guide entry? It begins...

'Few tourists make it to Yamagata, a large, workaday city ringed with high mountains, and those that do are usually just passing through...'

And so friends leave and a few strangers somewhere else in the world start packing their bags for Yamagata, Japan.

'...The district's west side is bounded by the train tracks and Kajo koen...on the site of Yamagata castle, where there's a moderately interesting municipal museum...'

The 'site', mind, the site of Yamagata castle. They ran out of money re-building it and now all that, er, remains, is a bridge that leads to nowhere.

'...the interior of this forner Prefectural Office (Tues-Sun 9a.m.-4.30p.m.; free) has been magnificently restored...don't forget to look up at the ceilings' spectacular plasterwork- it was all handcrafted by one man at the rate of 15cm per day...'

One man. 15 cm per day. Things move, here in Yamagata.
Next,

'...the Yamagata Art Museum...boasts a small collection of major European names...but unless there's a special exhibition of interest it's not really worth the entrance fee...'

Well then.

But enough of smarmy interjections, wisecracks and lightning judgements. I'm prying my way further and further into this town. I'm here for another year.

Tuesday 24 July 2007

Another one of those weird nights

Just after having visited Spice Magic, Yamagata's very own (authentic!) Indian curry house for what we thought was Mike's last visit before he jets off back to the U S of A, we got a surprise. The Spice is right on the Nishi Bypass and all the night traffic was zipping past and the owner is awkward enough, without the social pitfalls of inviting us to a lock-in at his restaurant.

A lock-in at an Indian!

'Beer, you like beer, we have beer and whiskey, we eat together, when you come?'. Magnificent.

Next I ended up on the street outside Tully's coffee place with a bunch of skateboarders and a bottle of tequila. In Britan it would have been called 'loitering with intent' or 'disturbing the peace' (Tully's is on the main street after all) but here in Japan, it's just something to do on a Tuesday night.

The Spice is Right, Hanagasa Flower Hat Festival, Kensuke

 
 
 
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Saturday 21 July 2007

I have got so much to learn about digital cameras

....

'Gimmick or not, it has to be said that Fuji’s FD system is very good, as far as such systems go. It will detect any face in the central two-thirds of the frame almost instantly, including faces in photographs or on TV and even my Star Wars action figures. However it only detects faces that are looking directly at the camera, and even a slight angle is enough to confuse it, as is strong side lighting. Also for some reason it will sometimes recognise cats’ faces, but doesn’t seem to like dogs.'

....

Wednesday 18 July 2007

Crafty Buggers

There's one in every year group, the kid who acts like he ate too many fizzy colabottles and stood on his head, the one who clamours for attention and screams out in class at everything and gets away with it (this is Japan, watch, here it goes: win[disci......pline]dow).

In the third grade it's Hiroya, who sat in English the other day rubbing a piece of sandpaper against itself for 20 minutes. He's calmed down a lot though, and so has the second grade's number one cheeky blighter, Shuto. He got gangly and his hero is Henry, so he can't be all bad.

I was talking with Shuto in football practice the other day and he was trying to speak in English, no jokes, no shouting and the crafty bugger didn't even break eye contact to look over my shoulder. He had a bbq or something- that's not the point. Moments later, K-T Komatani Sensei appeared from behind me and said well dones and little by littles to Shuto and I suddenly realised the little fella hadn't been trying to impress me after all. He was hunting bigger game.

K-T stopped and started talking to me in English about a funeral he had to go to and I thought it a little strange for him to stop there, on the way to his car, to tell me that. A little late, again, I clocked his plot. Shuto, fairly bowled over by this demonstration of how it's done, himself impressed, started to tell K-T as much, asking him how he spoke English so fluently. 'Little by little' he said over his shoulder, walking to his car and a funeral.

Friday 13 July 2007

Kensuke

has been sitting behind the goal on the step between the sports gravel ground and the road that curls around it and out of the school grounds. He plods along and dumps himself down and while I run about collecting stray and mis-hit footballs during practice, he is slouched amongst his bags. He's got the same bags, the same number of bags as everyone else but some how he manages to make it look like he's been weighed down like a Nepalese pack mule.

His hair doesn't reach all the way down to his ears so he's got these bald patches and he wears a pair of electric blue-framed glasses. Goofy teeth too and that's our Kensuke.

His cousin Maika was at Nanachu last year, now having graduated to High School, and she was as friendly and lucky-go as li'l Kensuke. He is one funny little man.

In a week of turbulence and euphoric moments, those spent sat beside Kensuke behind the goal, in the quiet moments when footballs have stopped flying, speaking bad Englsih and worse Jpanese, those have been my favourite.

Wednesday 11 July 2007

`So still to stars I bludgeon on, `Til suns have spark`d and on me shone!`

...so runs my favourite couplet in an unfinished epic poem about Pixies. It`s written in calligraphy pen across squares of paper blue, red, yellow, beige, green, whose intended use is really for origami. These are sellotaped to a large cardboard box I cut down from 3-d to 2-d. The entire structure is suspended by thin plastic strips, pinned to the wall above my bed.

The Tanabata Festival runs a little similar. It`s my kind of festival. It all fits in with my preferred `tramp chique`.

You`ve got a hole in your trousers? Hey. You`ve got a HOLE in your trousers. Don`t knock it.

In celebration of Tanabata, people write wishes on coloured paper and tie them to bamboo, in turn lashed to upright, immobile structures: lamp-posts, flag poles, policemen etc... And that`s the festival.

Funnily enough, Tanabata celebrates the stars too- Orihime and Hikoboshi, to be exact. On the 7th of the 7th, apart from remembering one day sparks flew down in the London underground, way way way way up there the lovers Orihime and Akiboshi meet, their only chance all year, as the Milky Way thins and parts just for that day. I`ll bet sparks fly up there too.

Sunday 8 July 2007

How it went down

at Meiji Shogakko, 5 nen Sei, 3rd Period:
Reading and repeating 'Sing' (The Carpenters) lyrics- bag of hammers.
Singing it through (quiet as mice)- baby elephant.
Play-ing soccer, Read-ing a book, Watch-ing tv- a sack of spuds.
Total Physical Response and making groups- a storm.

Tuesday 3 July 2007

Cross-Bred

Maybe two or three years back, I marvelled at the 'LIGER': half lion, half tiger, all muscle and looking docile as a sofa. The thing was about as big as a sofa too. A big bloody sofa.

Now there's a new mammal mash-up, born in Germany: 'Eclyss, the HEBRA'. Half horse and half zebra, with a hide to prove it. Coming forth from the loins of mother Eclipse the zebra and father Ulysees the horse, Eclyss (see what they did there...??) is something of an anomaly, our trusty BBC reporter reports. Usually, it's the other way around and a male zebra and female horse copulate to create a 'ZORSE'. They're worried Eclyss will be shunned by the pack and won't find a friend.

Monday 2 July 2007

Dai Shichi Chugakko, Yamagata 2007 Chuutairen Yakyubu Champions

 
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Air-conditiioning

An executive decision was taken and the air-conditioners in the teacher's room were turned on.

The air conditioners somehow emit a faint, but distinctive smell. It's difficult to pinpoint. Not bad, not good, but one that snags your nose. In the bookshop, too, mingling amongst the smell of paper and glossy magazine. The smell washes over you with the cool air on entry.

You grow accustomed to it, of course, like all smells good or bad, sooner or later. Then it becomes unremarkable, it slips right out of the air and seeps straight through you.

The muggyness picks up a smell too, but again, you'll only notice it at the threshold of muggyness and air-conditioned. A tight little border, ring-fenced with smells, and with them memories.

Air-conditioning and soggy heat brings back last August, when I first arrived here in Yamagata and when all sorts and sods were flying through my head and over my shoulder. I bedded myself in and earthed the worst of the exotic shocks and everything became a little less remarkable.

But lately, it's all been coming back, just as I pass through doorways, to the teacher's room, to the bookshop and soon enough to my own room. And out again, into the soggy heat...

...well. I say lately. That was actually last week. Lately, it's been pissing down cats and dogs.