I'm back.
It's weird.
It feels like autumn, not summer.
I keep flicking the wrong light switches in my Dad's house.
I rooted round through all my old stuff, found some photos and unlocked a lot of memories.
Wednesday 8 August 2007
Friday 3 August 2007
My favourite memory of Sean who has now left
Recently we went to a high school festival day. All sorts going on- grotesque collages with teachers faces strung up, yaki-soba stalls, corridors packed, everyone turned out their best for the big day. Sean quickly found some old junior high school students of his in the Gym and started chatting (with a sprinkling of English) while I stood beside, doing my best to look Older. Some students were trying to get rid of the last of the food- bowls of udon, rice balls, boxes of unused eggs and all around the take-down was slowly progressing. We'd come late, at the end in fact, after all.
We made our way back to our bikes. There was a farewell barbeque to get to, that we'd spend under the bridge beside the river since the rainy season was still living up to it's name. Along the corridors, Sean bumped into more students who clearly idolised him, or looked up to him, or just fancied him. And then someone popped up with a bag full of bouncy balls the size of maltesers. Sean was given or bought the bag and then I told him to throw it on the floor and see if it bounced. Turns out, a bag of bouncy balls isn't as bouncy as one on it's own. Sean threw it straight down, hard. The bag landed with a plastic splat and the balls all went bobbling all over the place. And that's my favourite memory of Sean, who left this week.
We made our way back to our bikes. There was a farewell barbeque to get to, that we'd spend under the bridge beside the river since the rainy season was still living up to it's name. Along the corridors, Sean bumped into more students who clearly idolised him, or looked up to him, or just fancied him. And then someone popped up with a bag full of bouncy balls the size of maltesers. Sean was given or bought the bag and then I told him to throw it on the floor and see if it bounced. Turns out, a bag of bouncy balls isn't as bouncy as one on it's own. Sean threw it straight down, hard. The bag landed with a plastic splat and the balls all went bobbling all over the place. And that's my favourite memory of Sean, who left this week.
Nice Guy!
It's written in my name.
Guy is
Gai- is
Gai-jin is 'Alien Person', to move from English, twice through Japanese roman phonetics ('romaji') and back to English again. I don't belong here and sometimes when I start mulling over it all, it feels like I don't even belong in my name.
Then there are all the little lies you tell. Could they be called 'white lies'? They are calculated and abundant. I've told them to a lot of Japanese people I've met. It's practically a verbal handshake, except, I suppose, they're not lying back. Or they're really good at it.
It's just easier. It's easier in the classroom, if you lie a little and package yourself a little tighter and more manageably. I like football and I support Arsenal. I follow their progress quite closely, but I've only ever been to one game and just recently got an Arsenal shirt. If I ever told the first XI football team guys from my school days of my allegiance, they'd probably tell me where to get off the bandwagon I leapt on.
But to the kids here, football is my thing. I live it breathe it.
So I'm constantly living this fraudulent-me, whether it's a dressing up or down of anything to do with me. It's like working undercover in yourself. It gets a bit tangled when you start living by the fraudulent you. You're held accountable to that fraudulent-you, and you can't always live a little lie with conviction.
Unless, of course, the fraudulent-you grows and grows in you and on you, and you start to become a little less like you were originally. You buy a football shirt. You play football more. Or is that just part of, you know, natural, personal maturing?
You get me?
Guy is
Gai- is
Gai-jin is 'Alien Person', to move from English, twice through Japanese roman phonetics ('romaji') and back to English again. I don't belong here and sometimes when I start mulling over it all, it feels like I don't even belong in my name.
Then there are all the little lies you tell. Could they be called 'white lies'? They are calculated and abundant. I've told them to a lot of Japanese people I've met. It's practically a verbal handshake, except, I suppose, they're not lying back. Or they're really good at it.
It's just easier. It's easier in the classroom, if you lie a little and package yourself a little tighter and more manageably. I like football and I support Arsenal. I follow their progress quite closely, but I've only ever been to one game and just recently got an Arsenal shirt. If I ever told the first XI football team guys from my school days of my allegiance, they'd probably tell me where to get off the bandwagon I leapt on.
But to the kids here, football is my thing. I live it breathe it.
So I'm constantly living this fraudulent-me, whether it's a dressing up or down of anything to do with me. It's like working undercover in yourself. It gets a bit tangled when you start living by the fraudulent you. You're held accountable to that fraudulent-you, and you can't always live a little lie with conviction.
Unless, of course, the fraudulent-you grows and grows in you and on you, and you start to become a little less like you were originally. You buy a football shirt. You play football more. Or is that just part of, you know, natural, personal maturing?
You get me?
A funny old week
This week marked exactly a year to the day I've been in Japan (Tuesday). My friend Mike left on that anniversary, a year after he also arrived. Sean left the same day, but he's been here donkeys, and he'll be back, if only briefly, following travels in Asia.
Since they went, I've been living part of Sean's life- riding his bike (mine is fucked after a car hit me, Wednesday, bitch) up Mt. Zao (Wednesday, see picture down below), moving into his room for a view of the mountains and mailing his friends Sachi and Tomo. Them I met
at the lock-in at the Sagae branch of the Spice Magic Indian on Sunday night, a lock-in in every sense with no-one else but us, cheap prices, a sneak look backstage and even drunken hugs and arms wrapped round the owners' shoulders come the end of it all.
There was the beach and a barbeque with Chippie, Sean, Mike in Atsumi before that (Sunday morning and Saturday evening respectively)
and shodo (calligraphy) and another barbeque with a teachers family Sunday afternoon.
Monday and Tuesday I skipped off midday to pin up posters for the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival. Apparently it's world famous. I'm dubious. Anyhow, they asked me,' Fnoo fnah fleee flum TV fllo oll flii flu' and I said yes, of course and before I knew it I was in front of a camera, well three actually, reciting lines (in Japanese) I'd learnt ten minutes before, along with two others from the YIDFF. That'll be aired tonight, (Friday), YTS, 6.45-55. Catch it if you can.
My legs kind of hurt a bit from climbing up Zao (on Wednesday, remember?), but also from playing frisbee with a bunch of Uni students on Wednesday late afternoon. They didn't believe I'd been up Zao by bike. Who would?
If you're finding it hard to make snese of this, so am I. But I thought it only fitting for such a landmark entry. Half a year writing this. Just over. A year in Japan. All change ahead and some more of the same.
Since they went, I've been living part of Sean's life- riding his bike (mine is fucked after a car hit me, Wednesday, bitch) up Mt. Zao (Wednesday, see picture down below), moving into his room for a view of the mountains and mailing his friends Sachi and Tomo. Them I met
at the lock-in at the Sagae branch of the Spice Magic Indian on Sunday night, a lock-in in every sense with no-one else but us, cheap prices, a sneak look backstage and even drunken hugs and arms wrapped round the owners' shoulders come the end of it all.
There was the beach and a barbeque with Chippie, Sean, Mike in Atsumi before that (Sunday morning and Saturday evening respectively)
and shodo (calligraphy) and another barbeque with a teachers family Sunday afternoon.
Monday and Tuesday I skipped off midday to pin up posters for the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival. Apparently it's world famous. I'm dubious. Anyhow, they asked me,' Fnoo fnah fleee flum TV fllo oll flii flu' and I said yes, of course and before I knew it I was in front of a camera, well three actually, reciting lines (in Japanese) I'd learnt ten minutes before, along with two others from the YIDFF. That'll be aired tonight, (Friday), YTS, 6.45-55. Catch it if you can.
My legs kind of hurt a bit from climbing up Zao (on Wednesday, remember?), but also from playing frisbee with a bunch of Uni students on Wednesday late afternoon. They didn't believe I'd been up Zao by bike. Who would?
If you're finding it hard to make snese of this, so am I. But I thought it only fitting for such a landmark entry. Half a year writing this. Just over. A year in Japan. All change ahead and some more of the same.
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