9.9 school in the news

Things in Japan have lurched suddenly from the awful to the surreal. The BBC is now reporting from Yamagata, with regular updates and interviews with two old friends of mine, from a private English school I used to do some evening work at.



I spent most of today watching it all on TV. The media are running with all kinds of stories. This is all getting of hand.

11th March in Japan

Thursday I get a call. It was the other Japanese TV company I applied to work for last autumn. The big time, central London one.

Things aren't working out with the guy they hired. They're looking for someone, again. They don't want to go through the recruitment process again. Did I want to put myself back in contention for the job? A whole new direction opens up, but I have plans til September, and then I'll be training to be a teacher. It's a done deal. I've handed in my notice at my current, less impressive Japanese TV job, and I'll finally be shaking Japan out of my system- nearly 2 years after I left, and a lot longer after most of my foreign friends in Japan have come back and moved on.

Back in the interview for the big time time job, they caught me out with a yorker in the general knowledge quiz. Who's the Prime Minister of Japan? I didn't know. 'There have been so many changes recently, I've lost track', I answered. 6 months on and I think everyone is aware who Naoto Kan is. Some footage has surfaced very recently of the Japanese Prime Minister in a Parliament session the moment the earthquake hit on Friday:



What's terrifying about this footage is that he does nothing. Of course, there is nothing he could do, except look around and hope it ended soon.

Friday morning I woke up and saw a friend in Yamagata had posted on Facebook, 'Was that one big enough for you'. Minutes later the news starts filtering through and the Today Programme picks it up. The disasters unfold threefold and we have the news streaming on BBC and NHK at work. The British newscasters stumble through unwieldy Miyagi ken and Iwate ken town names. Images of black waves and boats shoring in combeenee parking lots surface. Another friend wearily announces the 200th aftershock in the Kantou area. One lady ambles around a place she once knew and no longer recognises and pronounces blankly, 言葉が出ない- Words fail me. I think of Matsushima's tiny pine islands on the coast near Sendai and wonder if it is still there.




Friends in Tokyo and Yamagata seem fine. Each of them has friends with bad stories though. The more I think about it, the more people I think to contact and check on. People I knew in Sendai, even Ishinomaki. I think of friends to be concerned about, and that prompts more friends to think about and contact. Just when I thought I had shaken Japan from my system and taken a step away, I realised in a pathetically individual way that I am bound to that weird little archipelago in more ways, and through more people, than I knew.

A friend came from Japan. I took Tuesday off and we went around town. It was nice to have someone to show off London to, and do half the things I'd love to do. She'd been to the two best galleries the day she arrived, and I eventually ran out of ideas so I took her to the pub.



Throughout the week we spoke in Japanese, we spoke in English. Since I left Japan, all those words and radicals and kanji I got to know have retreated to higher and higher shelves, out of reach of my mind's grasp. Phrases don't come easily any more. I need to think through grammatical structures before speaking them. Whole tracts of vocabulary are gone, just gone. But hanging out with Ran, bits came back, of course. All the parts of the language are still sitting waiting on shelves, somewhere in my mind, just buried in dust but within fingertip grasp.

The funny thing is, looking back, I can't even remember if we spoke in Japanese or English for most of the conversations we had. It's only been a few days. The message is there, and I know what we talked about, but I just don't remember.

Soba I'll never forget, Frogs by Mamigaseki River, Outside Family Mart on my last night in Yamagata

A post for Shun

I have met Shun once a week since last September. Recently we had our final meeting. He is my only conversation class student and after I moved from Oimachi to Nakameguro we agreed to meet in Shinagawa (where he works) and Meguro (where I work) alternately.

We're nearly the same age so it's interesting to compare my life and his. He has a good job working in patents at Sony. I had to look up 'patents' to understand what kind of job it is. I work with blocks, alphabet cards and sometimes paints. He has a strong old boy network from school and this April, no longer a junior at work, he received a promotion and became a leader for some new graduate recruits. I am in contact with 2 or 3 people from school. I'm returning to England to find my third job in 3 years and one day he will mature into a true Japanese company man.

Sometimes we talked about work. Sometimes we talked about friends. A lot of the time we talked about girls- Shun goes to 'gokon' match-making parties all the time since he and his girlfriend in his home-town Osaka split up. Slowly I discovered Shun has a very busy social life. Every weekend he goes somewhere or does something: ice-fishing in winter, motor-bike tours to Chiba, crab-fishing or firefly watching in summer.

I enjoyed talking with Shun a lot. Giving my thoughts voice, carefully considering what I wanted to say, ordering things in my mind before I uttered them, delving back into all the parts of language that fascinate me- the mutability and multiplicity of English, the range of expression and idiom- and purely keeping a conversation going for an hour with someone over a coffee really gave me a kick.

Fat men training

Six weeks down and 4 to go and I ticked off one of the last 10 things I want to do in Japan at a stroke.

One wet and anonymous morning last week before work I bustled over to the other side of Tokyo to the shitamachi neighbourhoods of Uguisudani, near Nippori and Ueno. I hadn't ever heard of Uguisudani before I went and had to double check it was on the circular Yamanote line.

The beya was buried in this neighbourhood and looked innocuous enough. I think I actually walked past it, stopped, checked the map and walked back and then noticed the large, dark wooden sliding doors and the name of the place, Musashigawa, in elaborate kanji on a sign beside the door.

Inside there was no mistake. I could hear slaps against thighs and as I crept along the corridor and peeked around a corner, a man mountain greeted me and gestured which way to go. I was the only visitor. Six junior sumo wrestlers were counting off and slapping their thighs, sucking and blowing, raising their legs and dropping them in unison, calling out, 'Ichhh...niiii...san..' One giant's brow was sunk so low his eyebrows had pinched up into twin arches. I realised this was the closest I would ever be to a wrestler in action, beating any tournament I had been to.

They did squats and push-ups and power exercises, shuffled around the ring together like a meat train and criss-crossed the ring swinging imaginary hands and twisting and yanking at thin air with their hands. After that, the bouts began and again and again three junior wrestlers went at each other. You never do hear them call out and grunt on tv, above the roar a full crowd, but here I missed nothing.

The trainers watched on and heckled any mistakes. A man with a thick cauliflower ear arrived to much ceremony and pious greetings from everyone, and sat on 2 zabuton ahead of me.

I had to leave for work at 8.30, just as 6 or 7 Japanese tourists arrived to watch.

Vincent

Tonight I met a man who works for Bic from Normandy and when I asked him what he did he pulled out a classic orange Bic biro and handed it to me! I told him the Bic 4 was my all time favourite pen but he look mystified and asked if it retails in Japan. I guess not.

More visitors

Eli came on a cheap flight for a week during the rainy season. Rain and recession-beating, Tokyo seemed like a whole new city to me as well as her as we got out and explored.

I took her to all the places I want to spend more time. We stared at rainwater gushing down sheer slopes of the Mori Building and ten spinning disco balls at eye level in a dark room in a room of an exhibition.

We found a place by the river I'd previously heard of but not found with a concrete bar and bare pipes wriggling across the ceiling above a wall floor-to-ceiling of eight shelves of books.

Whilst watching the dog pen in Yoyogi park, we talked about the occult and how an ex-boyfriend/magick practitioner adjusted her anahata (heart chakra) to align itself with her vishuddha (throat chakra) somewhere in California. Eli told me all about Amma, who I'd love to hug one day.

There was a night on top of the Tobu department store in a beer garden demolishing the 'moo' course (pictured) and help-yourself-beer and a night when Eli ate a whole, semi-defrosted sashimi tuna steak to herself.

Also, it was refreshing to hear her perspective on Japan and watch her rend apart a piece of sushi with chopstick chopstick like knife and fork and make a meal out of a mouthful.

A weekend in the country

The Run-in

With about 10 weeks left in Japan after nearly 3 years, I've decided to pick 10 things I'd like to do before I go. Here's the run-down, in no particular order:

-Get back into studying Japanese. It's been 4 or 5 months and I hate the feeling of losing something I worked so hard to gain.

-Cook more Japanese food, drink more sake.

-Learn how to make an oshibori cock. Oshibori are the wet towels you get before a meal in a restaurant. Someone I know made a penis out of his once. They even stand up!

-Go on a gokon- a kind of arranged, group date. Never been on one. Who knows, if it goes well it might be easy to...

-Go to a Love Hotel. Never been.

-Get back to Yamagata one more time to say goodbyes.

-Sort out my tax and pension stuff. Kind of dull that one, but there's about a grand a half of pension moneys from the JET programme just waiting for me beyond forms to be filled out hoops to be jumped through.

-Visit a sumo stable. Got a mate who writes about sumo for The Japan Times. Should be a shoe-in.

-Get a notebook and start using it again.

The shrewd amongst you will notice this list of 10 so far numbers 9. That's because I haven't thought of a tenth yet. Suggestions?

China in pictures

A few months back, I found a girl

I wanted to wine and dine and sleep with. I didn't know her surname but that didn't seem to matter. I still don't know it and it definitely doesn't matter now.

The sakura front swept through Japan, all the hats and scarves got put away, I went to Shanghai and came back and those few months passed. Finally I met this girl again last night, in a club in Shibuya I hadn't been to before, nor noticed.

She was with lots of friends and told me immediately she is to leave Japan this summer. Me too I replied. Next she pimped me off on her friend Ai. I think Ai was offended when I couldn't tell her she was pretty.

Earlier, my housemates had said over a can of beer that I am a shokubutsu danshi- that's 'vegetarian boy'. Don't go for the kill. Shy away. Miss the girl you like.

So I found myself asking myself, 'What would a carnivore do?' in that club last night when the girl I liked turned and melted into the crowd after I asked her if she wanted a drink.

A little later, I decided to get out of the club. When will I see you again? she asked and then answered herself, Let's do lunch sometime and patted my head three times, which I hated the more I thought about it. I cycled home in light rain and it felt good.

Dad came

Dad went, this time without a collection of serious facial injuries and punctured lung cartilage (last year there was a fall down a mountain in the dark).

The highlight was a weekend away, driving around the Izu peninsula as our fancy took us. The hills were spotted with orange groves and sakura spread in hybrid, pink and white blushes while the coastline bristled with matsu pine trees. Everyone was friendly, we ate piles and piles of ise ebi (crayfish) and sashimi for breakfast and dinner and we even found a cafe near a famous waterfall run by an avid golf-fan, to Dad's delight.

Izu orange grove, Megurogawa sakura, Room with a view (Shimoda)

Feed the cold and starve the fever

But I've got both!

Moving on from the Meguro Tavern

I've met many foreigners in Japan who insert Japanese articles of speech into their fluent, everyday English. 'Ne' is probably the most common, an emphasizer. Then there's 'yo', another emphasizer, 'hai', yes that too and 'ja', a precursor to some kind of decisive statement. I'm guilty of it myself, finding no suitable alternative to a quick 'otsukare' at the end of a day's work or a tedious job performed with someone else you went through it all with together.

Garth, the proud landlord of the Meguro Tavern London Pub for may years, is the first and only person I've met to reverse the process and insert English into fluent Japanese.

Sure, enough people try to pass off English words as Japanese, a bit like the average Englishman in France, who, having come unstuck will persist with English words pronounced in a French accent and a loud voice when all else fails. Thank the Japanese penchant of borrowing words and adopting them wholeheartedly, if differently from their original meaning in their original tongue, for this. A little cross-pollination for you.

Garth will be recounting a story (he has lots) to one or other of the Japanese regulars and just to make sure they're still with him, he'll say a quick, 'right?'. It's really quite strange to hear a stream of Japanese followed by an earnest, English 'right?', usually just before the punchline or the climax.

One Monday night recently, soon after I'd told Garth I'm going to quit my little Monday night arbeito job with him, a customer handed me a bottle of Corona with a lime wedge wedged in the bottle neck asking for it to be poked down. I duly did so, with a straw, upon which Garth turned to me and said, 'There you go, that's what you studied and went to University for!' and I heard a loud sharp bang of a nail being struck firmly on the head.

Dainoji

Saturday night I met up with a friend and some friends for a night in a place called Club Que in Shimokitazawa. We thought we knew what we were in for (UK ROCK) but we didn't really know the truth of it.

The first thing that seemed a bit amiss...was that the club was filled with women. Sudden excitement followed by creeping suspicions. Wait a second... Had we chanced upon some kind of lesbian bar? ..Would they get hostile to us? ..Would they all turn into vampires past midnight?

Sure enough, the DJ soon quits the decks and the stage and shortly after we'd paid a hefty 2,800 yen entrance fee and stowed our jackets bags things in a big bag, Dainoji appeared.

I didn't know who he was, but surely he was the reason for the lesbian vampires. The crowd went apoplectic. If we were going to get eaten, it was now.

Wearing what I'd later discover is a trademark, tiger-print sweatshirt he strutted onto the stage with an awkward swagger that didn't fit him as well as the sweatshirt. He wandered from side to side of the narrow stage with little hip bobs, head nods and apparently exaggerated, mimed acknowledgement of calls from the audience (who were to busy hopping and throwing themselves around for much else). The dancers appeared, they all made some tight little formation as a unit and the music started.

It soon transpired that Dainoji is no ordinary performer. Rather than performer maybe pretend performer is a better description. For I later found out that he is a household name in Japan as the ex-double world Air Guitar champion. He showed us his moves on Saturday night, alongside the carefully coordinated troupe of dancers. Once, he scissor-kicked his way off the two and a half foot stage and dashed towards us. For 30 seconds or so, we were given the privelege of watching Dainoji in action, miming guitar frets and neck rattles, up close between the bar and the exit.

The end for us came soon after my friend Ian's failed attempt at escape. Staggering with disbelief and tripping over vampire lesbian feet in his eagerness, desperation to get out he came to the same position Dainoji had recently occupied, between the bar and the exit. From there you could not see the stage but from my position, I had a view of the stage and Ian. With a wonderful synchrony, just as Ian was shouting over the din 'I cannot believe this', unbeknownst to him his friend Sam was being dragged onto the stage to attempt a succession of coordinated dance moves (for public ridicule). Ian heard a whole load of Japanese and the word gaikokujin! (foreigner!) and guessed it with a dumbfounded look to his face.

Shortly after this, we left and laughed about it and drank til the first trains were running out of Shimokitazawa.

Niseko 2008, 2009

Last year I went to Hokkaido, to Sapporo and had one of the best weekends of my year gazing at giant snow sculptures and rows of snow candles lining a pretty canal lined the other side with a row of warehouses-come-restaurants, bars, microbrewery and shivering a little with the frigid air that cut right through the bone much more than the Yamagata wind to which I had grown accustomed.

We shot off to Niseko for a day of skiing too and I plodded up to the peak and rocketed down in knee-deep powder snow that glistened and threw through the air with a fua-fua sound, an onomatopoeic word Japanese reserve for the finest, lightest, the best snow for skiing.

This year I went again and it was a different story.

I seemed to have picked the one bum weekend all season, although it hasn't been great this year. Rain on Friday and rivers running down the road at the base of the mountain. High winds on Saturday and Sunday so no trip to the peak. Most of the lifts were closed. Not a great ski trip. But a great trip nonetheless.

I was amazed to see carpets, central heating and bedrooms bigger than our classroom at school in my mate Alastair's place in Niseko. Leaving Kutchan station to catch the bus in, I left Japan too. A waitress in an izakaye looked at me with a frown when I ordered something in Japanese, even though she was, er, Japanese. Niseko is a mini-Australia. There's a popular bus service running directly from the airport to the resort so there need be no cross-pollination of skiiers and boarders with Japan.

All got me thinking about possibly putting in a season this winter.

Can i get a whoop whoop

Found out yesterday I passed the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, Level 2. Back of the net.

Panorama Steel Drum Orchestra, Makizushi at Juri and Andy's, A trip to the Science Museum