The Kyoto-Takatsuki Shuffle

yet again...

2006-01-08T12:18:00.000+13:00

..I've lost interest in this. I got home and, after a week of getting back on track, another week of seeing friends and family and celebrating, I still don't feel like doing much of anything. Except for catching up on movies, music and art. Maybe do some reading. But not productive reading. Probably play some games, but not Xbox games, because those magically disappeared.

So this blog is done until I find another use for it. I need to focus myself.

Email #8: The End Draws Ever Nearer...

2005-11-09T15:13:00.000+13:00

11/5/05

In a fantastic combination of business and laziness, recent days have flown by without me sitting down to write one of these heart-wrenching emails. I can now count my final days in Kyoto on my fingers and toes, am I so inclined. The days after that will be spent in Toyama-ken, a cold mountain village, and Chichijima, a tropical island in the Ogasawara chain that is a 26-hour boat ride from Tokyo (there is no airport). At this point, I can only use the nothing word "interesting" to describe what the rest of the trip probably holds. The last couple weeks have been jam-packed, so let's see what I can remember of them.

My chronology may be lacking this time, but there is one place that we went a couple weeks that was absolutely mind-blowing - and that was the Miho Museum. I am not sure how many of you may have heard of it. In fact, most Japanese people don't recognize the name either. It's a 15-minute train ride out of Kyoto to Ishiyama, and then a 50-minute bus ride up a narrow, curvy, mountain road to the museum. So what makes it special? Let me beginning by announcing the name of the architect: I. M. Pei. Yep, the same I. M. Pei who designed the controversial glass pyramid in front of the Louvre. Why did Pei design this little museum with a small collection that's practically in the middle of nowhere? That's actually a pretty interesting story.

The mountain that the museum is on has been the property of a family of Japanese nobles for centuries. In recent centuries, the family "went into decline", as seems to be the common phrase among traditional Japanese nobility falling to modernity, and decided to put their massive wealth into collecting art. They collected ancient Egyptian art, Greek art, Buddhist art from China and Japan, and a variety of other types of art. With this collection developed an interesting philosophy - that what separates humans from other living beings is the ability to create art. And also that through art, mortals can achieve immortality. Following this philosophy, a cult came into creation. The word cult generally has a negative connotation, but The Hud (as many of us now call Professor Hudson) and I somewhat seriously considered attempting to join this cult, small and secretive though it is. I have forgotten the name of the cult, but the translation was "Divine Light Organization". A little creepy, yes, but the museum they brought into creation was outstanding.

A few years ago, they asked I. M. Pei to consider building a museum for them, along with a temple for their cult. Pei was reluctant at first, but upon seeing the would-be site, changed his mind. There is a famous Chinese folk tale about a fisherman who lost his way and wound up in a grove of blossoming peach trees in front of a cave in the mountainside. When he went through the cave to the other side, he found himself in a heavenly land akin to Shangri-la. When Pei visited the mountain, the beautiful peach trees blossoming and sprawling natural landscape reminded him of this story, and upon hearing that the name of the place was Peach Valley, just like in the story, he realized that he had no choice but to build the museum and temple.

He built the museum to resemble the story - at the entrance to the grounds is a simple building he designed as a restaurant and souvenir shop, with a path engulfed in peach trees leading to a tunnel in the mountainside. Rather than build on top of the mountain, he excavated and replaced everything in the mountainside so as not to destroy the view of the landscape. The tunnel goes through the middle of the mountain, and in an eerie way makes you think you are inside when you clearly are not. Upon coming through the tunnel, you see a series of metal bars coming down from above which were a really cool architecturally element, but I cannot clearly explain how. Then you see ahead of you, across a small bridge, the main building of the museum, designed in typical Pei style - with lots of glass paneling and black and silver steel. Architecture buffs apparently go to the museum and sit in awe of Pei's work for hours on end. Entering the museum, there is a large glass panel visible facing out the other side of the museum. Looking through this glass, one can see the huge alien-like temple and bell tower that Pei built for the cult in the distance. It's a huge tease - no one outside of the cult is allowed back there, and very little is known about many cult activities, or so I hear. The temple and bell tower seriously looked like something out of an alien world. I felt like a loser for making the comparison, but the tunnel and these two buildings made me feel as though I was on Halo (video game reference). The visual connection was uncanny.

The museum's collection was small, but impeccable (I think I just stole that sentence straight from The Hud). I've never been much of an art history guy, but the Egyptian and Buddhist art were excellent. There was a large Gandhara Buddha that was especially cool. There was a special section on Chinese art when we went, and more art was on display there. The collection and setup of pieces at Miho was head and shoulders above any other museum I've ever been to. I moved through the collection very slowly, and read all of the plentiful explanations of pieces, the English of which was much better than that of other Japanese sightseeing destinations. Lunch at the cafe was the only negative point - tiny dishes that were horribly expensive, though I suppose I should have expected as much, given the architecture. That aside, pretty much everywhere else we've been has been surrounded by some form of modern technology, but this place, aside from the obligatory power lines in the distance (it IS Japan, after all), was very natural. Pei's buildings blended in an odd way with the mountainside. It was somewhat surreal.

A couple members of our group never made it to the meeting point at the end of the day, so they got left at the museum. We laughed about that for a little while and didn't really worry too much, since the bus only went to one place. It turns out that Scott and Max had been sitting in the cafe reflecting on the museum all afternoon and kept getting served free green tea by the employees, so they didn't get up to leave until late in the afternoon.

The next trip Professor Hudson took us on was a short one. We took a 5-minute bus ride from school to Shinnyodo Temple. Shinnyodo is a Zen temple, but more specific than that I actually can't remember. The first building we walked to had a Buddha enshrined in the typical Zen fashion - with brighter colors than other Japanese Buddhist shrines, and also some offerings at the Buddha's foot, I believe. We walked past some stone Jizos and a beautiful graveyard that was hit hard by an earthquake. Gravestones were broken and had fallen over here and there, but they had been left in this way, which I found interesting. At the back of the graveyard was a large pagoda. We passed some Buddhist statues on our way out of the graveyard area, one of which we joked was my friend Dave as a Buddha due to what appeared to be a giant afro. At the end of this nice little walk was another series of buildings, from where you could hear the monks chanting. In one building was an incredible looking Buddha of which I remember very little (other than that it was incredible). In the larger building there was another Buddha enshrined, and people came in to pray. There were also some famous wall scrolls there, including one of the Buddha passing into nirvana and all forms of living beings echoing the event in their own way.

That Friday was the date of our overnight with Ritsumeikan University, where the students had arranged an entirely too organized series of activities for us to join them in. After having dinner at the cafeteria with them, we went to the visitor's hotel, where we sat down for a drinking party with about 50 members of the English Speaking Society. Each of us was given a group of 5 or so Ritsumeikan students to sit with and chat in a combination of English and Japanese. When I envisioned a college drinking party, this was not exactly what I had in mind. There were roughly two cans of drink to a person, most of which were some strange fruit spritzer concoction and the remainder of which were beer. Not only do Japanese people get drunk very quickly, you know it immediately by the shade of bright red that their faces turn. This only happened to a few people at the party, who became hilarious as the night wore on. One activity they had us take part in was a combination of charades and telephone, where people stand in a line and wordlessly relay an action to each other. At one point, an action started out as volleyball and ended as Hadouken (video game reference). It was pretty comical. At the end of the party, a member of my group ran around cleaning up the garbage and drinking any remaining drinks. My friend Max ran around as well, asking for any unopened cans in a last ditch effort to turn a Japanese drinking party into an American one. The sleeping arrangements that night were........interesting. The guys, all 30-something of us, had one tatami room to sleep in. It was a rather large room and we took up the entire space with our futons. It was pretty ridiculous. The girls, all 15 or so that didn't go home rather than sleeping over, had three rooms, I believe. Before getting the futons out, some of the students were having an arm wrestling contest, which made my belligerent friend Max jump with joy. Of course, his arm and chest muscles are too broad for him to actually be effective in arm wrestling, so it eventually turned into an all-out wrestling match. Even big Max was bested in the end by a smaller Japanese guy who had been studying Judo for seven years. His name was Takeshi and he was an excellent grappler. After some more ridiculous escapades, we hit the collective sack.

The next day, we had a a normal schedule, which included kickball, and a rainy day schedule, which included, of course, a cross-dressing competition. A cross-dressing competition?! Yeah, OK. A cross-dressing competition. They're not actually going to go through with that, are they? Oh, you crazy Japanese...

Before this impending destruction of civilized discourse, we were again organized into groups to chat officially about this and that. I actually enjoyed this part a lot, which I attribute to having a cool group. Satoshi "Itosato" Ito, sat to my left. He seemed to be the most average, organized member of the group. To his left was a guy who I knew only as "Chicken" - he was the crazy one. He had cut his hair himself and it all clumped to one side. He also wore emo glasses and liked Green Day and Sum 41 (...). His goals in life were to live in Edo Castle (equivalent of wanting to live in the White House) and find a wife who's views were exactly the same as his: patriotic. He was interesting character. To his left was our group leader, Kazu "Kaz" Yoshida. Kaz was the cool character of the three. He had heard of a bunch of bands that I enjoy and was generally laid back about everything. I think he said he had gone to America at one point - his English was pretty good. To his left were two girls, a Chinese girl named Liu and another who left early whose name I forget. They both seemed to be pretty average, quiet girls. They did bring up one interesting point though. In short, they asked me why American girls are so, for lack of a better word (but many worse ones), "catty". Apparently Japanese girls don't generally get in fights with each other the same way Americans do. Just an interesting little tidbit I found out.

The group's major official topic of conversation was, true to the rest of our stay at Ritsumeikan, "Love and Gender". I can't really explain how, but the Japanese psyche on topics like this is completely different from the American one. They just think differently. The group and I had lunch at a cool little alternative cafeteria where i had the coopa (?), a Korean dish I had never heard of before that was pretty good. The cross-dressing competition turned out to be far too comical for its own good. I won't go into details, other than that Max donned a skirt and made some hilarious gestures that had our hosts on the floor. There were 4 other cross-dressing couples, one of whom was very good, but not as good as Max and his girl-dressed-as-a-man boyfriend. Max was the only person from our Colgate group who took part in the contest, as one couple in every group was voted in. All of the Rits students spoke in English for this portion, while we spoke in Japanese, which made everything even funnier. At the end of our stay, Makoto Mito, whom I had made friends with at our first meeting, and I exchanged emails so he could invite us to another get-together (but not like this one). Mister Mito, as they called him, was among the coolest of the bunch, along with Chicken, Kaz (who is apparently the club president), and Sei-chan (from the first meeting). It was good times.

Last Sunday, The Hud took those willing to Arashiyama ("Stormy Mountain"), a beautiful area in Western Kyoto renowned for its bamboo groves and shops, among other things. I unintentionally got there about an hour and a half early, since I wasn't sure what time we were meeting, and hung out by myself in front of the station. When everyone finally arrived, we walked to the river, where cormorant fishing is popular. I don't remember exactly how it works, but the fisherman capture some cormorants, and have them catch fish for them. They stick a ring of some kind in the bird's beak so it can't swallow the fish and grab it straight from the bird's mouth. Cormorants are apparently excellent at catching fish. First, we went to a Buddhist temple complex where there were tons of tourists. I don't remember its name, but its renowned for its vegetarian cuisine, which is very expensive. Next, we went to a small shrine/graveyard where graves that had been scattered and broken throughout the area had been arranged around a Buddhist sculpture as though they were listening to the Buddha preach. The identities attached to the graves have long been forgotten and any sign of individuality has faded from their designs. An actual stupa was built on one side of the graveyard, which surprised me greatly as I didn't know they existed in Japan. In the back of the area was a small shrine to the Bodhisattva Jizo. This one was specifically meant to protect unborn fetuses in their path to the afterlife. What made it even more depressing was that baby's toys had been put beside Jizo from families who had had miscarriages in order to protect their unborn children on the path to the afterlife. Beyond this sad sight, we moved to see Rakushisha ("house of fallen persimmons"), the old house of Mukai Kyorai, one of the ten disciples of famed haiku poet Matsuo Basho. The Hud is a big time Basho enthusiast, so there was no way we were going to Arashiyama without going there. It is a small house with a straw roof surrounded by persimmon trees. Small, but pretty. There were stones with famous haiku on them in the garden. Next, we wandered through some really beautiful bamboo groves to a small circular shrine with six Buddhist figures. People walked around it pouring water from the shrine on each of the figures in an area on their own body that they wished to have healed. I tried to pour water on my stomach and missed. Figures. Next, we went into some really cool shops, mostly specializing in bamboo, where I decided I would have to come back when I got a more permanent house or apartment. There were tons of cool little things, but they were mostly things that you would get to decorate a house. And they were kinda expensive. We walked beyond the shops and through a tunnel and found ourselves at the same place at which we had ended our hike up Mount Atago, called Kiyotaki. It was a beautiful area and I plan on going back soon when autumn colors are in full effect.

This past week, the art school at which I take Japanese classes had a small festival. They decorated the front of the school in bright colors and streamers. Casual musical acts performed, small food stands were set up, and students had little shops where they sold clothes and small goods they had made outside the lobby. Exhibitions were up throughout the main building, some of which were pretty interesting. Of course, my camera has not been behaving lately so I haven't been able to take any pictures.

This past Thursday we went around Kyoto to see three famous places: Ninna-ji (Temple), Ryoan-ji (Temple), and Nijo-jo (Castle). The first place we went was Ninna-ji, a residence of a former emperor during the Heian period, I think. It was made for the emperor to get him out of the real Imperial Palace so that a younger, more malleable emperor could take his place. This was the way the Fujiwara clan controlled Japan in the Heian Period - by turning emperors into monks before they have the ability to make their own decisions. Thus, there would be 22-year-old retired emperors who lived the rest of their lives as monks. Ninna-ji is a major temple in the Shingon Buddhist sect, and is also the base of a sect of a Flower Arrangement. Tons of buildings and objects from there have been listed as National Treasures.

That last paragraph was me summarizing the pamphlet I took home from Ninna-ji and throwing in a few historical things that may or may not actually be correct. The truth is that I have seen enough temples at this point in a short enough time that they are starting to mix together in my head a little. Ninna-ji had a pretty nice pagoda, I remember, and also some low-branched cherry trees for which it is apparently famous. Another reason I wasn't incredibly impressed by Ninna-ji was because the next two places we went were far more interesting. The first of the two was Ryoan-ji, home of the world-famous, enigmatic Zen garden known by that name, which is composed of 15 rocks and a lot of raked white gravel. Sitting in front of the garden may very well have led to some good meditation, had there not been so many tourists huddled around it. A lot of people think the garden is overrated, seeing as it is really pretty desolate and there isn't much to it, but I had the feeling that under the right conditions, sitting by the garden may have been a very, very Zen experience. Aside from the actual garden, Ryoan-ji had some very cool buildings and a big, beautiful pond with large clumps of lilies and a small island in the middle (it was prettier than the language I'm using right now makes it sound).

The final place we went to that day was Nijo-jo, the castle of the Tokugawas. It was a really cool place. The planks had a mechanism, known as nightingale floor, that made them squeak when someone walked on them, so as to protect the castle from a ninja invasion. The castle's interior was gorgeous. The paintings on the walls everywhere were excellent - many, done in gold, had been left the same as they were when originally painted. On the other hand, a lot of ceiling painting had been redone a few decades ago and is already fading. There were paintings in some chambers of fierce tigers, though there were none in Japan so the artists worked off of domestic cats to make the paintings. There was no furniture anywhere, which was not much different from when it was actually lived in. When people were to sit down, they were brought cushions. Futons were brought out at night to sleep on. Everything was kept in compartments in the wall. One of the rooms had mannequins situated the way the shogun, his page boy and the ministers would have been sitting during a meeting. In the wall next to the emperor was a hidden room from which soldiers would be armed and ready in case the emperor was attacked. In the innermost chamber of the castle were the emperor's private chambers, where only women attendants were allowed. The women brought him food, kept house, and provided other services to the emperor. Outside the castle were really nice gardens with a pond and stones designed by famous artists.

I know this email seems rushed, and that's because it is. Please take it upon your imaginations to throw in segue sentences and other examples of basic writing skills. These last couple weeks are going to be a bit tougher, as I no longer have time to put off the things that I told myself I would do before leaving. There is far too much to see around Kyoto - I still feel as though I have barely seen any of it at all. Some of the other students went mountain climbing on Hira-san, a difficult climb by Lake Biwa, today, and others still went to roam around Osaka. But I needed a day to get my life in order so here I am - in front of the computer, but not connected to the internet. I will probably send one more email before I leave for Toyama-ken, but I leave no promises that it will be any better put-together than this one. Hope all is well with all.

Love and peace,
Jess

Email #6 (out of order): Adventures Over Mid-term Break

2005-11-02T13:17:00.000+13:00

I forgot to post this one, so it's a bit out of order. eh.

10/15/2005

Hi everyone,

Thanks to all who wished me a happy birthday - it made me feel like I was still back home. I'm a week behind on these emails, but right now it can't be helped. This last week back in class was pretty rough on me. So in this email I'll talk about my trip over mid-term break, and in the next one I'll talk about my birthday and this past week. The mid-term trip consisted of one full week traveling to four cities: HIroshima, Nagasaki, Matsuyama and Himeji. Thus, this email is jam-packed with adventure! Yes!

On Saturday morning, I met with Professor Hudson, his son Taro, and the other nine students to depart for Nagasaki. It was a long five-hour train ride, over which I did a good amount of reading (mostly of Japanese comics, of course). We passed some interesting looking places. Crossing over from Honshu, the biggest island of Japan, to Kyushu, the island that Nagasaki is on. One was a stretch of sea that was dry for miles out. There were boats tied to docks that didn't need to be because there was no water. This area of sea also had thousands upon thousands of arrays of tall wooden stakes stuck into the seabed. We had a tough time figuring out what these were - spots to tie boats to? There couldn't possibly be that many boats. Markers for clamming? Possible, though I'm no expert on clamming. Tide markers? A strange-looking method, but also possible. It was quite a sight - there were so, so many stakes. They went on for miles. Around that area, there were a series of tunnels that the train went under, which made our ears pop over and over again to a painful point. We arrived in sunny Nagasaki in the early afternoon.

Our hotel was across the street from the train station, which was convenient. It lay in "downtown Nagasaki", which didn't seem to be much of a downtown area. Our hotel was nice - and had internet service, so all of us could get our fix. Nagasaki is a small, but interesting city - it was situated on either side of a bay, both side of which are mountainous. A few of us wandered the city a bit, seeing jumping fish, which were apparently different from flying fish, but jumped out of the water just as well. I also chased after some cool looking sea hawks at one point and try to wall run, but failed. Alas. At one point, a large school of tiny fish jumped out of the water all at once right at where we were sitting on the dock. That night, most of the students went together to an izakaya, a loud place that serves a wide variety of food and seats a lot of people. This particular izakaya was not very noisy. They seated the eight of us in a nice, private little side room where we sat Japanese style; no shoes, on small cushions on the floor, around a low table. The room also had a little karaoke area. We had little cubbies outside the room in which we locked our shoes, and some of the others had decided to wear the sandals that were in the shoe change area into the dining room. We later learned that these happened to be bathroom sandals, and were not to be worn into the dining room. What's more, no one else had been able to go to the bathroom because all the sandals were gone. Of course, we didn't learn any of this until our waiter realized what had happened and came in to explain the situation. We had a good laugh over it and ordered our food. I can't remember what I had, but the izakaya had a lot of interesting dishes, some of which would have made for quite an adventurous order. After dinner, we all relaxed in the hotel doing this and that. The hotel supplied an interesting set of pajamas: they came in light purple and "puke green" (a variant of lime green). They had a design on the border and were made in the same style as a martial arts uniform. I had meant to get a picture of us wearing them, but completely forgot.

The next day we set out with Professor Hudson to see the sights. First, we went to the Dejima Museum. Dejima was a small man-made island off the coast of Nagasaki, brought into creation by the shogunate to keep the Portuguese out of Nagasaki, but keep trade with them alive. At the time of the Shimabara Rebellion, which occurred in response to the outlawing of Christianity in Japan in 1637, the Portuguese were kicked out of Dejima. The Dutch were also kicked out of their factory in Hirado, and moved to Dejima, where they stayed for the next two hundred years. So Dejima was Japan's only connection to the West for those two hundred years. The museum consisted of old artifacts from the Dutch and recreations of buildings that used to be on Dejima. It had a cool little garden with a fountain and also a recreation of a ship's mast. I'm generally an honest guy, however, so I'll get straight to the point and say that Dejima was pretty boring. It's not that I don't enjoy learning history, as I have occasionally been known to partake in it, but if I wanted to learn about Europe I wouldn't have come to Japan.

Next, we wandered around Chinatown, a tiny two-street area where there were restaurants and shops. All of the restaurants were the same, however, and the shops came in two or three varieties, among which they too were exactly the same. I opted for a delicious meat bun from a street vendor. From there we tried to take a shortcut through the residential area to our next destination: Glover Garden. However, this shortcut didn't work out so we walked back through the city to get there.

Glover Garden was beautiful. It's situated on the mountainside in a terraced formation. We took funny, little outdoor escalators up to the top of the estate and walked down. There was a great view of the bay, the city and the surrounded area. At the top, there was a goldfish pond. There were so many gold fish, and one giant one - more than twice as big as the others, who I named Fatty. I should have known better than to do something like that, however, as Taro, who I believe is 11, would not shut up about Fatty for the next couple hours. A little further down was Glover's actual house, which was really cool looking from the outside. It's difficult for me to describe, but a simple Google image search of "Glover Garden" should turn up some good pictures. The other option is that you can wait a little while for me to finish uploading my gloriously mediocre photos, which could take between one day and a month, but will probably happen this coming week. The inside of Glover's house had all the old furniture and paintings still left in tact, which was less interesting for me than the architecture. The next building in Glover Garden was the Performing Arts museum, which had displays of the large ships and dragons carried around during the Autumn Festival and the Kunchi Festival dragon dance. You will have to wait for the pictures for adequate descriptions of those, I'm afraid. There were also shops coming down the slope, and my friend Max had a field day in a weapons shop (the guns were actually plastic). I got a couple of gifts there.

Thomas Glover was interesting guy. He was one of the original founders of Kirin Beer and he married a Japanese woman who was said to be the original model for Madame Butterfly. He helped bring modern science and technology into Japan. His son made an atlas of Japanese fish. He also helped the beginnings of Mitsubishi. After wandering his estate and seeing his house, we all generally decided we wouldn't have minded having his life. Professor Hudson and I especially wanted to live in his house.

The next day was to be a time for much more serious sightseeing; that of the atomic bomb variety. First, we headed to the Nagasaki Peace Park, where there is a gigantic statue made in an interesting East-meets-West style. It had a toned Greek-style body, face and hair, but sat in a similar position to the Bodhisattva Maitreya, if I remember correctly, with one leg in lotus pose and the other hanging down. His hand gestures were also Buddha-like, but I don't think they were actual mudras. One hand pointed up to the sky, in regards to the nuclear threat, and the other is held straight out to the side, palm down, in a motion to stop the nuclear arms race, I believe. On either side of this huge statue were hangings of thousands of paper cranes. Some of you may know the story of the girl who was dying (I want to say of leukemia?) and was told that if she made 1000 paper cranes, she would get better. Of course, she didn't get better, but she made 1000s of cranes and her story was heard by many, so today school children still make paper cranes and leave them at the Peace Parks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

After the Peace Park, we made a quick stop at a famous church in Nagasaki. The history of the city is filled with a sense of irony. Think about the decision to drop the bomb on Nagasaki. Did we know that it had the largest Christian population of any city in Japan? Or that Christianity and Japan's connection to Western culture had a long history with the Nagasaki? I'm not sure, but when the atomic bomb hit the old church, I doubt any of the victims had time to consider the irony. Our next stop was ground zero, which was marked by a radial design that, ironically enough to me, looked like the Japanese rising sun design. A few remnants of old buildings are around the hypocenter (the place on the ground under which Fat Man exploded). There was a brick wall from the old church on which parts of the bricks have disintegrated in a strange way; it was really surreal. There was also an interesting statue of a mother, with a design like golden leaves on her dress, holding a child.

The hypocenter is right next to the Peace Memorial Museum, where we headed next. The museum turned out to be fascinating - definitely designed by an excellent artist, or a few. Outside of the ticketed area was an unbelievable piece of art in black, red and white ink, if I remember correctly, done on a three-part Japanese style panel. I tried to snap a picture of it, but it didn't come out. Upon entering the ticketed area, the first thing I noticed was the sound of a clock ticking. This was only the first example of the sense of impending doom that the exhibit brought on. "How long until nuclear weapons are used again and tragedy once again occurs?" - that was the question the sound was supposed to beg. There was a small, dark passage with some artifacts in it, the most prominent of which were broken clocks. The hands of all of the clocks were stuck at 11:04, the time the bomb struck. At the end of the passage was a video of the mushroom cloud on several screens, at the end of which was a large, dark room with the twisted remains of foundations and various wrecked objects. There were large TV screens showing the desecration of the city and descriptions of the general horror and affect on the city's buildings. This room reminded me more of a haunted house than anything; an interesting job they had done on it. The next room was a little lighter, but in actuality the content was much, much darker. In the center was a circular, three-dimensional map of the city that showed the area of effect of the bomb after .1 seconds, 1 second, a few seconds later, and so on, up until the radiation effect days later. This room also contained a lot of artifacts; bottles fused together, old partially burnt kimonos, and other oddities that barely survived the bomb. It was the latter half of this room that was the most depressing part of the museum, and of my entire stay in Japan thus far. There were video accounts of survivors, which I watched, but what most caught my attention were accounts written by children, soon after the bomb hit, describing their experiences. One child's brother was stuck under a building and watched her mother, burning alive, try to lift it off him, but have her skin worn away in the process, and then fall down dead. Stories like this one abounded, and left us all mind-blown, such that the remainder of the museum was a bit of a blur to me. There were accounts of Americans in Southwestern states who had radiation from nuclear testing, but the government refused to recognize them. It was not the kind of thing they make you read in your high school textbook.

That night was spent exploring the wonders of $5 convenience store bought sake in a carton and watching old Simpsons episodes in our crazy pajamas. The next day we headed back up into Honshu to Hiroshima for some more atomic fun. Hiroshima is a much bigger, more business oriented city than Nagasaki, and it is situated in a valley. Like Nagasaki, it has old style street cars for public transportation, which seemed a bit more out of place in such a bustling, business-like city. The hotel also seemed more business-like. In fact, I would say that Hiroshima seemed to be more eighties-style business glam than other parts of Japan to which I've traveled. We could see the a large part of the cityscape from our hotel room, where we once again had working internet. That night I went with my friends Dave and Alex to a kaiten-zushi place around the corner. Kaiten-zushi is a style of sushi restaurant in which small dishes of a couple pieces of sashimi or rolls pass in front of everyone on a conveyor belt and you take whatever you'd like. It was a little expensive, but not quite as much as some American sushi restaurants; and it definitely tasted better. Other than that, much of my meal time in Hiroshima, as well as Nagasaki, was spent conserving funds by buying pre-made meals at convenience stores, which was not great, but much better than the state-side equivalent.

The next day was overcast, and rightfully so as we returned to our tour of the bomb. First, we headed to Little Boy's hypocenter. The building under which the bomb hit is called the Genbaku (Atomic Bomb) Dome. The foundations of the building are miraculously still standing due to an interesting phenomenon. When the bomb hit, it blew out the horizontal floors of the building, but left the vertical walls in tact due to the angle at which it hit. The mere pressure would have made these walls eventually crumble, however, so they were fixed up a bit in order to stand as a memorial to the atomic bomb. Little Boy's accuracy was impressive - it hit only 500 feet from the bridge at which it was aimed. Fat Man, on the other hand, had to be dropped over a secondary target (Nagasaki) due to fog and even then hit much farther up the bay than it was meant to due to low visibility there as well. There was a group of stray cats living inside the Genbaku Dome, but people were not allowed on the premises.

We then wandered across the bridge at which Little Boy was aimed to the Peace Park in front of the Memorial Museum. It was in this area that we passed hundreds of high school students on field trips. The Hiroshima museum is a strangely designed, gray horizontal building that looks like something out of Star Wars. It was less interesting and effective to me than that of Nagasaki. The lay out did not hit me in the same way; it didn't seem as personal. Part of this may have had to do with the fact that it was bigger and there were many more people around, thus making it louder, but the actual museum did not appeal to me much either for some reason. The first room had a smattering of videos, written histories, artifacts and timelines. The next couple areas had more artifacts and histories. The final large area had stone strewn around to make it look as though it were hit by the bomb, but it looked half-assed to me. This area had burnt objects and some more personal histories, but it was not quite the same. The final area had personal video accounts. It may just be due to the fact that I saw the Nagasaki museum first, but I breezed through the Hiroshima museum without being drawn in by much of anything. After the museum, Professor Hudson offered to take us to Miyajima, but I wasn't feeling up to the task. Apparently, however, Miyajima is the name of the giant torii arch in the middle of the sea, one of Japan's three landmarks I have been wanting to see. Of course, I didn't know this at the time, so I missed out. Apparently the deer there were very friendly. For lunch, a bunch of us discovered the glory that is Mos Burger - "fine gourmet Japanese burger and coffee". Sounds laughable, right? Well let me tell you - the teriyaki chicken burger was no joke.

The next day we left for Matsuyama, which lies on the island of Shikoku. Matsuyama is a much more average Japanese city. People were generally surprised to see foreigners, and the city had no real distinguishing characteristics. Matsuyama also had a streetcar system. In fact, the cars were given to the city by Kyoto when it stopped using street cars. Shikoku is directly South of Kyoto, Takatsuki and Osaka, whereas Kyushuu, the island which Nagasaki is on, is at the South-westernmost point of Japan. It was hot there, a bit like Nagasaki, and we had no internet connection.

We arrived early in the day and went out in the afternoon to see Matsuyama castle. It was a pretty interesting place, decked out with a fine example of sixteenth century scaffolding and...construction workers? Yeah, they were doing construction on the castle, which made it less attractive than it would have otherwise been and also blocked the view from the top of the castle (the bit about the scaffolding was a joke, in case I didn't quite get that across). I still enjoyed it, but I'll save my bit on castles for now, as we explored a much more grandiose one later in the trip with much of the same material on the inside. After roaming the castle, we sat down outside and had some green tea ice cream with some kind of bean (red bean?) on the side of the cone, which turned out to be absolutely delicious. I've developed a taste for mochi and certain kinds of beans here. Sitting outside, we listened to a bunch of stories from Professor Hudson's past. The man is a fountain of experience and information, and he could probably tell stories for years on end if you keep asking questions. He told us an interesting story about his friend in Matsuyama who let him fly his plane around Southern Japan, and another about someone who gave him a painting in Matsuyama for identifying its meaning. He told us about Dogo, a hot spring resort in Matsuyama that had been in use for 3000 years! Hearing this, a few of us had to try it out.

We made our way to Dogo via streetcar that evening with our hotel towels over our shoulders. The building was very cool looking; one could almost picture it hundreds of years ago with none of the other city buildings around it. It had the stock black Japanese roof tiles that curve up at the ends and Japanese paneling. It still had a weeping willow next to it from olden times. We went inside, took our shoes off and put them in cubbies. Then we made our way to the men's changing room, where we were welcomed by the cleaning lady and a bunch of naked Japanese men. It was odd to me that a woman could be in the men's changing room, but no one seemed to care so I paid it no mind either. We put our clothes in lockers and headed into the bath. There were two identical indoor men's baths, in which there wasn't much special other than the cool looking lion spout from which the water came. Being stupid Americans, we all forgot to take a bar of soap on the way in. A friendly Japanese man offered us his and we shrugged off any germaphobia and passed it from one to another before washing ourselves off and entering the bath. It was big enough to fit about fifteen people. I was not entirely impressed by that bath, but the water apparently comes from a spring in the nearby mountains. Also, it being 3000 years old, going there is definitely a story to tell. The building was also very cool. We wandered the neighboring area a bit afterwards, and I almost bought a few presents at a 1000 yen (roughly $10) store.

That night, a bunch of us went to an udon (thick, soft white noodle) shop, in the hopes of sampling the local sannuki (Japanese version of al dente) flavor. Kyoto udon is very soft and slimy, so I was looking forward to this. Of course, we happened to choose an udon shop that didn't serve sannuki udon. Nonetheless, the meat udon there was delicious - especially the broth. The udon wasn't too soft either. Later, we roamed the town in search of nightlife, but didn't find much. I think it was a Thursday night, which in Japan means most people are at work or asleep (unlike Colgate). We did happen to be in Matsuyama for a special occasion, however. The end of September (the night is different for different places) is a time when the town's men stay out all night drinking, yelling and carrying a large....well, I don't know how to describe it. I believe it's called a hakobo, but I could be totally off-base. I took pictures of something similar in the Glover Garden Performing Arts Museum. Anyway, they carry it around the city all night in ceremonial outfits.

The next morning, some people decided to hang around the hotel, but I opted to join Professor Hudson and a few others in going to Iyo Kasuri, home of a 200-year old indigo dyeing and weaving factory, which is still in use now, though antiquated, but is more of a museum than anything else. Seeing the place where the dyeing and weaving occurred was interesting, but the best part of Iyo Kasuri was the shop. The materials were very high quality, and the colors were deep and fresh looking. I bought a bunch of presents here. There were a lot of things I wanted to buy, but due to their quality they were pretty expensive. Thus, I took a few pictures of things in the shop I wanted to buy. Taro dyed his own piece of cloth, as they allow you to do for a small fee.

After Iyo Kasuri, we met at the train station early for our ride to our final destination, Himeji. I went to a ramen shop by the station and got some kinoko (mushroom) ramen, which was absolutely delicious, and then boarded the train. Himeji is back on Honshuu, so we were not far from home, though Matsuyama was not far either. Himeji is also a city, though not as big as Nagasaki. I didn't actually see much of the city, however, as the place we stayed at was out in the countryside - roughly a 45-minute bus ride (more?) from the train station. Yumenori (the love of dreams), it was called, and upon arriving there, it was not difficult to see why. Yumenori was a large, expensive onsen (hot spring) resort with lots of beautiful views - in and out of the hotel. In fact, I probably took as many photos inside the actual hotel as I did anywhere else. It was that fancy. Japanese businessmen usually go to resorts like Yumenori for a one night outing, because it's so expensive. We had a beautiful view of the countryside from our hotel room; mountains, fog, small villages and farms - this was much closer to the old Japan than we had previously been. Except for being in an exclusive hotel, of course. Unlike the other hotels, this one was four people to a room (for the guys), with old style futon beds on the floor like in the ryokan back in Tokyo. We didn't mind, however, as the place was incredible. We had our own little patio with a great view, where five of us sipped drinks from the hotel store and discussed cinema that night.

Dinner was quite an experience. Kaiseki, as it is called, is also a very expensive, exclusive affair. We had a small plate of sashimi, some rice, a small pot of sukiyaki, some vegetables, seafood broth with shrimp in a kettle, and a couple other things which I have no doubt forgotten since there were so many facets to the meal. Enjoyable though dinner was, the piece de resistance of the hotel was, of course, the onsen. I had thought there was only one large men's bath, but I made a pleasant discovery: there were two. So, when I went down to meet everyone else, I found an entire spa to myself. It was incredible. The bath that I went to was completely done in black marble. It had a bunch of fancy looking stalls and a large indoor bath. I got in the indoor bath, which was nice, but I was really just biding my time until I couldn't stand it anymore and had to move to another spot my eye had alighted upon: the Goemon onsen. The Goemon onsen, at least I believe that's what it was called, was a one-person, circular outdoor bath. It was entirely made of bamboo, including the spout. Sitting in the Goemon onsen may have been the most wonderful part of the trip. I started smiling after sitting in it for a little while, and eventually broke into spontaneous laughter at the situation. I'm still not entirely sure why, but it felt good. There was also another outdoor bath that was of the rectangular bamboo variety, and may have fit two people. After dinner, I decided to go back with the others to the bath they had gone to. It was also very nice - a larger bath for about 10 people with a rock garden motif and a nice view of the countryside.

Yumenori also provided us with excellent blue-green yukata robes with a red and blue obi (sash) to wear to the bath and a purple overcoat to wear over it to dinner. I really liked the outfit. The next morning, the guys were given the chance to experience yet another spot called the panoramic bath. It was pretty foggy, however, so though the view was still nice it was not entirely panoramic. This bath was bigger than the other and also had a rock garden motif. It also had an outdoor bath next to it which was nice as well. Breakfast was a buffet affair, with tasty little shrimp dumplings. After breakfast we said goodbye to the love of dreams and headed back into the city to see Himeji castle, possibly the most famous of its kind in all of Japan. It was larger and more beautiful, in my opinion, than Matsuyama castle, and also didn't have any scaffolding blocking the view. Japanese castles have a series of terraced roofs that usually arch up at the edges. The castle was white with black roof tiles, and interesting designs on the end tiles, which I believe corresponded to different clans. The bottom of the castle was made out of rock wall. There were several different buildings surrounded the castle, including a basement specifically used for committing seppuku (suicide by stabbing oneself with a sword first in the stomach and then sliding it up into the heart). Inside the castle, we of course took off our shoes. The stairways were very steep and narrow, and a few people hurt themselves on the way down. The castle collection consisted of similar things to that of Matsuyama: samurai armor, swords, spears, scrolls, histories, and other artifacts. Himeji also had a collection of artwork done by its inhabitants that was quite interesting. From the top of the castle, you could see much of the surrounding area, though it was foggy. It was also possible, when looking out from there, to get an idea of how big the castle property used to be, since the former moat was a good ways off.

After the castle, we returned to the train station to get our bags out of lockers we had left them in, and returned home. Seeing as we were now coming from Southeast of Kyoto, Takatsuki would be on the way there. Thus, I was able to get off earlier than everyone else. I enjoyed the trip on the whole - I now have a fuller idea of Japan as a country, having been to several different places. It was nice to travel and then relax, but speaking so much English amongst the group made our Japanese deteriorate a bit. Now we're back in class, taking off where we left off. Hope everyone is well!

Love and peace,
Jess

PS - I apologize to anyone who was confused in another email when I said that Hurricane Katrina hit Japan. That would be quite an astonishment - a hurricane so powerful it plowed right through the Southern states and tore up the entire Pacific Ocean before randomly hitting the South and North tips of Japan. In actuality, it was a typhoon (#14? I don't know, there have been a damn lot) that hit Japan, and it was around the same time as Katrina. Apparently the language I used was a bit unclear originally. That probably happens a lot, but I don't have a proofreader, so I can't tell if some things that make sense to me won't make sense to anyone else...though I should probably assume that in most cases. Anyhow, I'm sure you all caught my meaning / glazed over that part because they didn't think it was important.

Also, I realize that these emails, especially this one, are almost as much a memory exercise for me as they are a reading one for you, so if it bothers anyone that I write in a lot of detail and have a tendency to be a bit long-winded.........then that sucks for you. I'm having a blast.

What? Did you think I was going to apologize again?

The Triumphant Return of Worby Adventure Time in Japan

2005-10-25T16:09:00.000+13:00

...or another really long, poorly written letter from across the world.

10/22/05

It finally seems as though autumn is settling in. The nights are pretty cold, but most of the leaves haven't turned yet. The Japanese love autumn leaves, cherry blossoms in spring, and other natural occurrences that remind us of the transience of life. It has been on the news here that it is "AUTUMN IN HOKKAIDO!!", the northernmost island of Japan. That's how much they enjoy it. But it seems as though actual autumn colors will have to wait until November.

This past couple weeks back in class have been a bit different. Now we only have Japanese three days a week, but also a Japanese culture class with Professor Hudson twice a week. One of the two days is usually spent traveling to nearby temples, shrines and other interesting places. Two weeks ago, we went to Nara. This past week we went to Uji, a small city near Kyoto. I got some great cards in the mail these last couple weeks - thanks, everyone! Also, it was remarked of last week's email that there was a shortage of "adventure time" scenarios, in which I get lost or something ridiculous happens. This week's email will hopefully make up for that.

The other week, I was a bit out of sorts. I was in a daze during class and put myself on cruise control all day. Of course, we all know that cruise control has its drawbacks, and there was no way I was going to steer clear of calamity for an entire week. And what better day for it to strike than my birthday? Master of timing that I am, this was going to be a birthday to remember.

I woke up Thursday morning like I always do, went downstairs and ate breakfast with the host fam. Daitaro flicked on the news, like he always does. I looked up at the screen and upon seeing that the date was "10/13", remembered that it was my birthday. Keiko had suggested kaiten zushi (remember? the rotating sushi place?) for dinner, which was an offer I had trouble turning down. I was definitely looking forward to that. Daitaro drove me to the station, as he usually does, and I did my usual commute thing to school. I wandered over to the library to meet everyone, like I always do, and that's when things went.............awry.

I walked into the computer terminal area where everyone usually hangs out in the morning, and had the feeling that something was kind of off. And by kind of off, I mean really off. Because none of them were there. I'm usually the last person to get to school, but I still thought, "hmm, maybe they're all running late?" I ran the possible scenarios through my head and realized that today was to be class with Professor Hudson. Oh well, I guess I did my Japanese homework a day early (yeah, that's how out of it I was). Did they all go to his apartment already, where we had class on Tuesday? Probably not. Did they go...somewhere...far away? Oh god, they went somewhere. Where did they go? I was drawing a blank.

My cell phone was out of minutes, so I used a public phone card I had bought for emergencies (like this) to call up Greg and find out what was going on. "where...are you?" he asked. "Where are YOU?" I asked in response. He kept asking me, so I finally let him know: "I'M AT THE SCHOOL, DAMN IT. WHERE SHOULD I BE?" I heard him slap himself the way he does when someone does something stupid and mutter something to some other people. The responses all sounded like a variety of "oh god, what an idiot". Then I finally asked the deadly question: "where....SHOULD I be?" And the inevitable response, "...Kyoto Station." "Ok, and where are we going?" "To Nara. To Horyuji. Remember?" I had a faint memory, but my concept of time was way off. More off than usual. I got off the phone and contemplated the best way to accomplish my new mission: get to Nara before next year. And that's how my birthday adventure began.

Around 9 am, when class usually starts, I took the bus back down South to Kyoto Station. By the time I got there, the train everyone else had taken had long since departed. By about an hour. I was not a happy customer, and now I had to figure out how to get Nara. Greg had given me instructions, but given that just about everything was in Japanese, I still had some figuring out to do. I finally confirmed what I thought was the right way with the station attendant, bought a ticket, and boarded the express train for Nara. Greg, being the solid guy that he is, called me again to tell me what to do and where to go. I was to meet them at Horyuji. He would call me again around the time I should be getting in. I felt bad for making him call me over and over, but I had no more minutes, so I had no choice. I looked for a Vodafone store to replenish my minutes on the way, but was out of luck.

I was still feeling a bit out of sorts on the train ride to Nara, and getting off to transfer to Horyuji, took a bit of time to determine which train I should take. I was getting a bit hungry at this point, but figured there was no helping it and hopped on the train for Horyuji. I ran through the morning's events in my head. What is wrong with me? I sighed and looked across the aisle to see a toddler's wide eyes staring me down. Her mother was sitting next to her, and smiled at me. She told the girl to say hello in English, but the little girl was shy. Not too shy to stare though. Being the confident, outgoing guy that I am, I decided to take the initiative and say hi. The mother, utterly surprised that I could speak Japanese, told her daughter to say "Konnichi wa". She still wouldn't budge. I realized then that I was making a stupid, fake smile because I felt like shit from the mistake I had made. I sighed and let the smile give way into the truth. The girl's entirely-too-adult face erupted in laughter. Even when they're babies, they're thoroughly entertained by my mistakes, I thought to myself. Despite my best efforts not to, I had to smile back at her. The little girl reached into her mother's bag and took out a little bag of snacks. Then, in an unprecedented turn of events, she reached across the aisle and offered it to me. I looked at her mother in shock, as if to say, "is this really Ok?" She nodded, so I bowed my head and graciously accepted the snack. The little girl got out another bag and we commenced snacking together. The mother asked her to ask me my name, but words were still too much for her. I told her that my name was Jess. Her mother said that her name was "Kitari", which meant something having to do with sunlight. That was probably the last straw for my sour mood. Here I was, having a snack with a little girl named Sunlight. What's a guy to do but let go? We all got off at Horyuji. Kitari made a big smile and finally opened her mouth for an emphatic "BYE BYE!!!", every Japanese girl's favorite English. I had to smile.

I got some more sustenance at the convenience store there, and followed Greg's instructions to take the bus to Horyuji. Though it's October, it was somehow somewhere around 90 degrees outside. My convenience store bought meat bun would not cool down. Thinking I would be in class, so I was wearing a warm, long-sleeve button-down with a t-shirt and jeans. What's more, I had my entire life in my backpack that day: my computer, textbook, workbook, my own reading, walkman, et cetera. That turned out to be a bit of pain, but I was done complaining at this point so I set off to explore Horyuji.

My plan was simple: look around until I see ten Americans. How hard can it be? It's just a temple, right? Wrong. Horyuji is a temple complex. It's gigantic compared to other places I've been. I wandered all over the complex, but could not enter some areas without a ticket. Huge conglomerate masses of Japanese school children chanted "HA-RO!" (hello) at me as I walked by. Finally, Greg called me to say that I should meet them at a part of the complex called the Yumedono. I found the place quickly, and waited. Greg called me again and asked where I was, to which I uttered the now famous, "I'm at the Yumedono. Where are you?" A couple minutes later, I finally saw them coming and walked out to meet them. By then it was a little after noon. Professor Hudson gave me a ticket to get into the special places and said that if I was quick I could meet them back at the Yumedono. Otherwise, I could meet them back at the MacDonald's by Nara Station. Everyone got there own little joke in about my mistake and they left to see the Yumedono.

So, there I was; on my own again. Horyuji was a very interesting temple complex; a tall pagoda, halls full of old Buddhist statues and artifacts. I took some cool pictures, but cameras were not permitted in some of the more interesting areas. There was a large Buddhist triad in the middle building that I stood in awe of for a bit. Then I got a text message from Greg saying that they had left the complex. After wandering around the rest of Horyuji, I went back to the bus stop to return to the train station. I sat down on the curb and took my bag off to relax for a moment. A funny-looking little old man smiled, nodded at me and sat down on the curb next to me. We had a silent exchange about being tired and wanting to sit down before a cab came and he got in. He nodded to me as he departed. My bus came soon after and I headed back to Nara.

After getting off at Nara, I saw no MacDonald's in sight. So, I did the unthinkable for a man and asked where it was. When I finally found everyone, sitting down in that most American of places, they all got one more joke in and finished their lunches. No rest for the weary; lunch time was over. It was time to see some more temples. We walked a good ways to Todaiji, which was a colossal Japanese-Baroque building with a gigantic Buddha known as the "daibutsu (great Buddha)" inside. It was so big that a string quartet had at one time played on its left hand. There was a hole in a pillar in the back of the building that was supposedly the same size as its nostril. Crawling through the hole was supposed to give one good luck. Lydia, being the skinniest in our group, undertook this task. Professor Hudson told us a story of a festival the Japanese had had at Todaiji some years ago. Aside from the string quartet, the monks apparently had barely dressed female dancers dancing in front of the Buddha. Of course, some people were outraged by this and asked the monks what was going on. The head monk replied that the great Buddha does not distinguish between male and female, clothed or unclothed. I found the mental image to be very Japanese.

From there, we went to Kofukuji, where there was a really cool collection of Buddhist art and artifacts. There were excellent renderings there of the Niou (two kings) or Deva Kings. They had fierce faces and muscular bodies, but with realistic proportions. All agreed that these statues were "bad-ass". From there, we walked to a very colorful shrine building of some sort, which was at the edge of the city. It being on a mountainside, there was a nice view of the city. Of course, my camera ran out of pictures before then. The monks there engage in a ritual where they run around the building holding huge torches aflame. It's unbelievable that they have never burned it down, seeing as it is entirely made out of wood. I rang the prayer bell there and we headed to the train station to head home. On the train ride home, I learned that new phone cards can be purchased at any convenience store, not just Vodafone, so when we got back to Kyoto I did just that. I boarded my train back to Takatsuki and then it hit me; I was supposed to go out for dinner with Keiko and Daitaro! It was getting late, so I gave them a call. I was too tired at that point to explain anything in Japanese, so what came out on the phone can be roughly translated as "Today was rough. I'm gonna be a little late." I finally got back and Keiko had made one of her normal meals of ton katsu (fried pork cutlet), onion tempura, with beef and of course rice. She said that since I had gotten back late, it would be better to eat at home.

So that was that adventure. The next one took place last Monday, I think it was, when our class was supposed to have a meeting with Japanese students from the English Speaking Society (ESS) at Ritsumeikan University. Did I remember there was to be this meeting? Of course not. But that's not as big a matter this time around. Apparently there was a bit of a misunderstanding with our meeting: it was never going to be at our school, it was at theirs. What's more, Professor Hudson got a letter the day of the meeting saying that the time had been changed from 1:30 to 4 PM. After a large amount of bitching and moaning from the group, only five of us wound up going. At 4 PM, we took the bus to Ritsumeikan and met with Makoto, one of the heads of the ESS at the bus stop. He took us to the campus, where there were a ton of Japanese college students. So this is where they've been hiding, I thought. We didn't know what to expect from the meeting, so when they wrote out an organized schedule running until 8 pm on the board I wasn't entirely surprised. We originally planned to leave around 6 in order to get back and do work, but we all decided to skim that night's reading and see what kind of experience this would be. I called Keiko to tell her I would be late again. We and a few other foreign exchange students were to be spread amongst the English Speaking Society, which took up about five classrooms. I and a guy from Toronto named Richard were put in one classroom together, which coincidentally was the same one that Makoto was leading. There were about 10 students in the room at first, each with a name tag that said their name in English. Richard and I also helped ourselves to these, and thus the fun began.

Our first project was to do a three person dialog in English on one of three topics: "cooking", "drinking" and "boring". I chose to chuckle at the last one rather than go to the trouble of correcting it. Explaining an error in parallelism might have been a bit tough in Japanese. My group, which consisted of me, a guy who habitually scratched himself who everyone called Shin-chan, and a very dorky, happy-go-lucky girl named Keiko, were to do a skit about drinking. There were several phrases on the board that we had to incorporate into our dialog. The ones I remember are "...end up doing", "go have a drink", and "waste of time". The skit wound up being my brainchild entirely as the other two spoke even less English than my host parents. It somehow wound up being about me asking Kei to go out for a drink, but then Shin-chan saying that she needs to go do homework with him, and then an argument ensuing, with me eventually saying that I have an abundance of beer and her agreeing that drinking is fun. Typical college dialog. Ok, maybe a little different, but close enough. All of the dialogs were pretty funny, whether or not they intended to be, and it broke the ice a bit.

The next thing we did they called "Fruits Basket", which is something like musical chairs. The person without a chair says, for example "everyone wearing blue stand up" and everyone wearing blue has to find a different chair to sit in. Makoto added a touch to this, making it so that the person without a chair had to talk about one of several topics that he had written on the board (your favorite thing, your hometown, love, etc.). All of them had to speak in English, but I had to do it in Japanese. Richard left at this point, making me the only foreigner in the room. It didn't take long for the game to break the ice even further, however, and everyone became very loose thereafter. Also, Hide (hee-day) and Seichan (say-chahn), two guys from another campus of Ritsumeikan joined us at this point, who turned out to be pretty entertaining. Upon entering the room, Hide exclaimed in English that Seichan was crazy, but Seichan responded that "this guy...he is ichiban (the most) crazy!" which made us all laugh. Turns out Hide actually was ichiban crazy. He spent the entire time making strange faces with his eyes rolled back into his head and trying to make me believe he was gay when he obviously wasn't. The game turned out to be a laugh riot. I could hear the uproarious laughter echoing from the other rooms as well. Talking about yourself, and also speaking to strangers in their native tongue can be pretty humorous. The high point for my room probably came at the beginning when I was left without a chair, and the topic that we were up to was, for the first time, "love". This brought all of them nearly to tears laughing - that this funny foreigner had to tell them something about his love life. In Japanese, no less. Seichan spent the rest of the game chanting "LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! LOVE!" whenever anyone was about to speak. Hide confessed his love to another guy who wore rainbow glasses, whom Hide had apparently attacked at summer camp. They seemed to be just joking around, but I couldn't tell whether Hide actually attacked the guy or just kind of messed with him a little. Either way it was funny. They also made a point of telling me that Makoto's girlfriend, named Yurika, was called Yurika-hime (Princess Yurika) because she was very pretty. At one point, everyone who had ever dyed their hair had to stand up, and Seichan commented to me that guys like us, who never dyed their hair, were "ii otoko (literally, good guys)". I said that I agreed. Ii otoko seems like it has more meaning than just "good guy". Knowing the Japanese love of understatement, saying that you're ii otoko can probably mean something more along the lines of being "awesome". Seichan's crowning moment came when he was asked to say what he doesn't like about himself. He said, "Nothing. Because I am ii otoko!" which was absolutely hilarious at the time.

At the end of the game, some more people came in, one of whom was a short girl with braces who spoke almost perfect English. She was extremely irritating, however. She spoke over everyone and said "yeah! yeah!" every five seconds. After the game, we all went together to the school cafeteria, where Seichan insisted on treating me to dinner (on his meal card). The food there was also better than that of an American cafeteria. At dinner, Makoto explained to me that he wants to learn English because he likes a lot of American music, his favorite band being Nirvana. No one else had heard of Nirvana besides him. He alone had heard of the more popular bands that I like, and when I listed off The Pillows, a Japanese band, once again only Makoto had heard of them. I had a classic English-to-Japanese misunderstanding with Seichan during dinner. I asked him in Japanese where Hide had gone, meaning "I wonder where Hide is", but he took it as meaning, "Go! Run and find Hide!" so he jumped up before I could say anything and ran around looking for him. Turns out he had gone home. After dinner, we thanked them for a great time, and were on our way. We are going back for an "overnight" in a week or two. Everyone involved thought the idea was ridiculous, but we are going through with it all the same. It struck me that Japanese college students may not know what Beirut is (not the city), so that should be a good time.

It was definitely good to finally meet some Japanese people my age - that has definitely been lacking so far this trip. Seeing the sights is great, but as I stated in a previous email, I think that meeting the people is a large part of learning about any country. It's one thing to converse with other generations, but there is something about talking with a contemporary that is much more comfortable. You get to see in closer detail how people are different/similar in a foreign country. I probably sound like an old woman when I speak Japanese right now, due to the fact that the person I talk most with is Keiko. She barely understands some of the language that younger people use. I guess some things are the same wherever you go.

For the latter half of Professor Hudson's Tuesday class, we walked to a nearby temple/shrine which I believe is called Tanuki Danna-ji. It is near the foot of Mt. Hiei, where the famous monk Saichoh founded the Japanese sect of Tendai Buddhism in 788 CE. There was a statue of him on the way up to the main temple. He wore a traditional pilgrim's hat, carried a Buddhist prayer staff, carried a straw mat on his back to sleep on, a cup for begging (I think), chopsticks, and wore a traditional monk's robes and straw sandals. Nothing more. That was his entire life (minus his writing), and even that probably seemed like too much material possession to him. At the very bottom of the slope leading up to the temple was a small Shinto shrine and representations of the seven Shinto gods of fortune. Modern Japanese people do not find it contradictory to put a Shinto shrine on the grounds of a Buddhist temple. What's more, the Hanshin Tigers baseball team had come to pray at that temple in 2003, so when they won the Japan Series they installed a plaque at the foot of the slope. People came there this year, too, to pray for victory, and put little inflatable Hanshin bats around the plaque.

Farther up the slope was a small building that was a representation of one of the 88 temples on the Shikoku pilgrimage. It was surrounded, I believe, by the 17 or 18 arhats. The 88 temples of Shikoku have been represented around Mt. Hiei for those who don't have the time to go all the way around the island of Shikoku to do the pilgrimage. Several Colgate students have done it in its entirety, and a few members of our group considered doing it instead of the last month of our scheduled program. Most Japanese people do the pilgrimage in segments, or by bus. However, Colgate students have a long history of doing the pilgrimage the old fashioned way: by walking the entire thing in traditional pilgrim's garb (robe, sandals, big straw pilgrim hat) and begging for food as a means of getting by. During our hike up Atago-san, Professor Hudson told us the story about one guy from Colgate who had vanished during the pilgrimage. His family phoned authorities all over the place, and it eventually came out that a foreigner had been holing out in a graveyard in Shikoku for three weeks. This turned out to be the right guy. The blisters on his feet had gotten so bad that he was unable to walk anymore, and so stopped for three weeks until they got better. A kindly old woman from a nearby house made him meals and brought them to him every day. After three weeks, he was asked if he wanted to go home, but he refused, and finished the pilgrimage a couple weeks later. It was this story that made some members of our group want to do the pilgrimage. I and a couple others are still considering doing it at some point in the future.

The temple itself had actually been changed into a practical meeting place. There were lots of tanuki statues outside the temple. Tanuki are interesting - their closest American relative is the badger. Shinto sculptures depict them with huge balls, a sombrero-like straw hat, a big jug of sake, and an enigmatic smile. Don't ask me what it all means. The way to the main building was divided in two: one for women and the other for men. There was a great view of Kyoto from the temple. The path used to extend up past the temple towards Mt. Hiei, but it has since been overgrown. Small temples like this one, which barely anyone knows about, can be a lot nicer than the more famous ones, in some ways. It was very quiet and there were few people around. Overall, a nice little hike.

I had a long conversation with Professor Hudson after class that day about this and that, which began with me asking him to reimburse me for train fare (you wouldn't think that would lead to a discussion, would you?) and ended due to the fact that my stomach was grumbling. The two of us could probably talk for days on end, but I was hungry and a little preoccupied with work and what not. So he recommended I go to a chain ramen shop named Tenka Ippin (The World's One Excellence?), that was right down the street from his apartment and school. It has since become a favorite spot of mine. Ramen broth, I just learned, comes in koteri (thick), and asari (thin), which is the brown broth that is generally the norm. I love koteri, and order my ramen there with that and some ninniku (garlic). It is one tasty dish that I will miss when I come back home.

This Thursday was our second class trip. I was congratulated heartily (and sarcastically) on making it to the meeting point. This time, we went to Uji, a small city right outside of Southeast Kyoto. Uji is famous for its green tea. Legend has it that when Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Nobunaga Oda were riding around the countryside, they checked everywhere they went to see which water was best for making green tea. Hideyoshi purportedly decided that Uji's was the most delicious, so its fame is still known to this day. There are various kinds of green tea: matcha, sencha, the more ordinary bancha and probably several other varieties. Within those categories there are many more categorizations, such as leafy or not leafy. I had a sample of some matcha in a shop, and it was absolutely delicious. They also serve Cha zoba (green-tea soba), the noodles of which are green, and other dishes there which were made with matcha leaves in the mixture. I may soon come up with an excuse to visit my friend Joe in Uji and have some cha zoba, as it looked delicious and we didn't have lunch there.

Munchies aside, our primary reason for going to Uji was to see Byodo-in, a famous Buddhist temple. The main attraction there is a small building that is on the back of the 10 yen coin. It is called the Phoenix Hall in English due to the two birds on the roof. The Phoenix Hall is, I believe, the only building still standing as it originally was from the Heian Period. It is a very cool building. Horyuji and some other temples we have seen have been repainted in recent years, but Byodo-in has not. Thus, it still looks completely natural and has acquired some patina. You can still see the bold colors that were used, but it doesn't look fake. It almost seems as though it was meant to be seen this way. The Phoenix Hall got its name for one other reason: it seems to be shaped like a bird. A large Amida (Amitabha) Buddha statue is housed in the center part of the building, but the two outer segments are actually unusable. You can walk under them to get to the main building, but even a midget would not be able to fit in the crawl space between their upper lower portions. The wings were made for extensively aesthetic reasons, which is very Heian. The Heian Period was the time of The Tale of Genji, that world famous 1000-page (more? was that the abridged version?) novel written by Lady Murasaki about Japanese court life in that time. The novel (more like a tome) is the best history of the period that we currently have as a resource, with Sei Shonagon's The Pillow Book, another novel written by a Heian woman about court life, coming in second. It was a time in which one's status was nearly determined (outside of one's family) by how good a poet one was. The nobles of this time have been called "the cult of beauty", because they didn't seem concerned with much else. Of course, this era eventually gave way to the age of the samurai, in which the pen was definitely not mightier than the sword, "but we digress" (remember that, Bec? Sam?). We were given a long drawn out explanation about the nature of the Amidha Buddha in the Phoenix Hall, which was sculpted by a famous artist in the Heian Period named Jocho. The explanation was in fast, complex Japanese, however, so all I learned about it was "Fujiwara... Jocho... Amida Buddha... arigato gozaimasu." Byodo-in also had a small museum with some interesting Buddhist artifacts. There were a couple of phoenix sculptures, and a lot of sculptures of the Worshipping Bodhisattva on a Cloud, for which Byodo-in is famous. The Amidha Buddha used to be surrounded by many of these small Bodhisattva sculptures. The museum was very modern, which was an interesting contrast to the ancient Phoenix Hall.

After Byodo-in, we went to an Obaku Zen temple. The other two types of Zen, Rinzai and Soto, are more popular, but Obaku has become more popular with Japanese businessmen in recent years since the Obaku Buddha seems to have merged identities in Japan with Hotei, one of the seven Shinto gods of luck. Hotei specifically is the god of monetary fortune. He looks like the fat happy Buddha you often see in Chinese restaurants, though I am not sure if they are the same (no, not all Buddhas look like that). It was an interesting little complex. Very Chinese - symmetrical, for one thing. We saw a lot of monks in more reform outfits, like a normal monk's robe under a sport jacket and some leather shoes. This seems to be typical of Obaku Zen "business monks". I thought it was silly. In the main chamber of the temple grounds was a large shrine to the Buddha, surrounded by 17 or 18 Arhats, other heavenly beings (I forget exactly what they are). The shrine was very interesting looking - bold colors that are generally not used in Japanese Buddhist shrines. Upon leaving, we saw a suzumebachi, a giant, poisonous black and orange bee. I don't know if it is actually a killer bee, but I heard an interesting story about what these things can do. Sometimes one or two suzumebachi will crash a bumble bee nest and absolutely wreak havoc. The bumble bees are so defenseless that their only way to emerge victorious over a suzumebachi is for a lot of them to latch onto one and vibrate so much that they raise the suzumebachi's body temperature until it dies. Extremely insufficient, but pretty hardcore.

My other exploit this week was Jidai Matsuri (Festival of the Ages), that I just went to today. A long line of samurai, geisha, palanquin carriers and everything in between walked down the street from the Imperial Palace to Heian Shrine. It was pretty interesting to see so many people decked out in ancient garb. Occasionally there would be one guy who would look as though he had been born in the wrong era because he made such a believable samurai, but to balance him out there would be some guy wearing Nikes with kimono. There was one funny guy who was chanting something and leading some palanquin carriers. He stopped and made jokes with the crowd whenever the going was slow. It was an interesting parade. So that's the news. Hope life is treating all of you well.

Love and Peace,
Jess

10/23 edit: My host family is renting a small Yahoo! hub so they can use the internet. It gives off a wireless signal that I can pick up in my room, but for some reason it won't let me onto the network (even with their password). So I may have more access to internet in the near future. However, I was unable to figure out how to correctly ask in Japanese whether the internet hub they are renting is pay-as-you-go, or one fee for a month, so I don't know how often I would be able to use it anyway.

anther edit: Keiko and I just tried to figure out how to get me onto their internet provider, but it was fruitless. We called up tech support, but ran into an interesting problem: I knew things about computers, but not in Japanese. Keiko knew the Japanese, but not about computers. It was the blind leading the blind either way we tried to talk to the guy. We just now gave up because it was taking way too much time and effort. She said she would make ramen for lunch, which brought a smile to my face.

#5: Perpetuating the stereotype of the stupid American for future generations...

2005-10-11T15:37:00.000+13:00

9/27/05

Summer is, very gradually, coming to a close. It's still regularly in the 70s and 80s, but the nights are getting colder.

Last week, there were two large flea markets in Kyoto: one at Toji Temple in Southern Kyoto on Wednesday, and the other at Kitano Tenmangu Shrine in Northern Kyoto on Sunday. Being the good listener that I am, I thought that both flea markets were at Toji, so I decided to go to the one on Sunday. My host mother even told me that she thought the one at Sunday was at Tenmangu, but I being stubborn, told her I had heard differently, and that maybe I would check out Tenmangu if I had time, but first I was going to Toji. Oh, stupid, stupid American - little did I know it was adventure time again. I took my usual train into Kyoto but got off early at Omiya since it was closer to where I wanted to go. Then, after a call from my dad and a long time figuring out which bus and direction were correct, I took a bus down to Toji. After wandering around the desolate temple for a few minutes, I called my friend Scott to ask where he and the others were. He said they were in front of the temple, by the steps and went onto to describe what he could see in some detail. I wandered around for several minutes before realizing something was horribly off. I called him again and asked him the name of the place he was at. "I dunno...Ten-something?" I wanted to tackle myself. Luckily, I'm not that flexible (if it's even possible). I should have known Keiko would be right. Anyway, I walked for a while before I got to a bus stop that would take me all the way North to Kitano Tenmangu (Kita means North) and rode it all the way up the West side of Kyoto. So now I've been almost all over the middle section of the city.

I initially intended to be at the flea market at 11:30 am, but didn't get there until 1:30. My friends Scott and Dave, who I had planned to meet there, were getting ready to leave when I ran into them. Greg, Lydia, Joe and Ali were still milling around, however. The first thing I did was get a skewer of chicken yakitori, because by God was I hungry. The second thing I did was get some yaki soba because of course I was still hungry. There were little food stands like this with traditional Japanese specialties all over the flea market. There were several stands of Takoyaki, which are little balls of octopus, vegetables and other stuff. Zach, you would have died if you saw the giant pork buns they were making at this one place. I was already full so I didn't get one, but I know you probably would have anyway. They looked sooo good. Oh my god.

The food was exciting enough for me, but the majority of stands were full of a combination of traditional Japanese goods and random junk like the 1980s E.T. model I bought - full with the red hooded sweatshirt and glowing finger. A couple of my friends got full kimono sets - kimono, sash, undergarments and geta sandals. They were good sets, which they got for cheap - around $100. Quality kimonos can cost thousands and thousands of dollars. One of my friends was looking around for a good katana, but gave up the search when he saw that decent tsuba, sword guards (the circular part that goes above the hilt), were going for hundreds of dollars by themselves. Japanese style umbrellas, old books, clothes...there was a pretty wide variety of stuff there, and I think they have these festivals once a month. Overall, the festival was a good time.

Note (October 10th): At this point in writing the email, I left Kyoto for my mid-term break trip around Japan, so that last part may have seemed like I cut it short. Over break, we went to Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Matsuyama and Himeji. I will talk about the trip in my next email because I had already outlined things I wanted to say in this one. I know this is a little awkward and I apologize for not sending this sooner. The truth is that I probably did have time to do so, but I was a slacker over mid-term break.

Kyoto is a very populated city, but becoming friends with Japanese my age has proven difficult. They seem largely cliche-oriented and nigh unapproachable. Kyotoites have a reputation among Japanese as being stubborn/persistent. The people I have met have, with few exceptions, been in their mid-20s or older. I actually wasn't as surprised by the nature of the youths here as most people probably were, which is due to the fact that I did a research paper on a similar topic last year. One reason is a major generation gap, partly caused by the intensely fast modernization Japan has undergone, and also due to the fact that they have not seen wars the way the older Japanese have. I have never seen rebellious looking youths conversing with people of unlike mind outside of a job setting.

Last night (October 9th), I went to Tokiko's house to have dinner with her and her English students, of which there were three: two middle-aged women and a middle-school boy. Their English turned out to be rather spotty, so we conversed in Japanese, with the exception of when Tokiko made them speak English. We had dinner in the little classroom she has in her house. The boy came in first and introduced himself to me as Suzuki Kazunobu (in Japan, people state their family name first). He had been studying English for three years, but was very apprehensive to speak more than a single word at a time to me. This gave me a laugh, because I identified with the feeling well. I told him that going to an English-speaking country would improve his English vastly. We had some interesting conversations, including one about how only actors say "break a leg". Suzuki-san joked that runners must say "break both legs", but I told him to be careful because telling someone, "I hope you break your legs!" has an entirely different meaning. Suzuki also explained to me that he was being interviewed in English for class, and mistakenly said "I have no future" when he really meant "I have no plans for the future". That was pretty funny, too. Overall, the dinner was a good time, and Tokiko is an excellent cook.

I have had several other chance meetings with friendly Japanese. The first was on the train at the beginning of school. I was trying to memorize a vocabulary list I had made for myself when I looked at the woman next to me and saw that she was peering over my shoulder and chuckling a little to herself. She asked if I thought Japanese was difficult, to which I laughed and replied that it was very different from English. She said her name was Mizuki and that she was 26. I am horrible at telling how old Japanese people are, as most Westerners seem to be. She wrote down a new word on my vocabulary list that I still haven't figured out. Most Japanese are too shy to talk to anyone, let alone a foreigner, on a train. Mizuki, however, had probably been enjoying happy hour before getting on the train. I haven't seen her since, and don't expect to since 1000s of people make the Kyoto-Osaka commute every day.

The next person I met wasn't actually Japanese, but she could have fooled me. I got on the bus one morning and upon sitting down in the back immediately heard, in very easy Japanese, "Ah, same school?" She turned out to be right, but I wouldn't have known it. She was a Korean woman named Miyeong, who had been studying Japanese at our school since spring of last year in order to work for a Japanese company in the future (she already has a job lined up). She said she was 25, which threw me as usual (I was thinking...19?). It was Miyeong who explained to me that most of the other language students are Korean, though a few are Chinese or Taiwanese. I still see Miyeong on the bus to school now and then.

A couple weeks ago, I heard two people in the back of the bus speaking in simple Japanese, and heard one of them mention something about people coming here from American universities, which made me whirl my head around. One of them was a woman I recognized as being one of the other language classes (probably Korean, also). After hearing a bit more of the conversation I decided they had probably been talking about me at one point, so I decided to approach them when we got off the bus and try to make my meager circle of friends grow. The girl I recognized walked off before I approached them, so I wound up talking to the other one. I said "same school?" the way Miyeong did to me, which apparently surprised the woman greatly, as she took a step backwards. "That's great." I thought to myself. I asked if she went to my school, too, to which she said something I took to mean yes. Miyeong got off the bus then and they said hello to each other. I should have taken note of the way Miyeong addressed her. Oh, stupid, stupid A.D.D. American, when will you learn? Next, I made a big mistake. I asked if she, too, was Korean, assuming she was part of Miyeong's class. The woman looked at me a little cock-eyed and said "No, I'm Japanese," and then paused for a moment to let this sink in. She went on, "I'm a teacher here." I probably looked physically bent over as she walked away after saying that. In truth, my attempt was more comedic than anything else, and Miyeong and I had a good laugh about it during one of our class breaks later (she was in the room next to me that day). I haven't talked to the teacher since.

I also had a conversation with a middle-aged Tokyo businessman I met on the train once whose English was very good. He said he was studying Chinese, so we bonded a little on how difficult learning foreign languages was. Another meeting I had was with an English teacher from Kyoto named Aya, who I guessed (in my head) was 20 (I'm getting more conservative with my guessing) and turned out to be 24. The most recent interaction I had wasn't a conversation as much as an understanding. I was sitting in the bus listening to music when I saw a woman in a pin-stripe suit, also listening to music. When she got up to get off the bus, she stopped next to me and gave me her meishi (business card) and walked off. Turns out it wasn't actually her meishi, but rather that of the business she works for - a design company. After looking over what I could understand of the card, I decided I would pay the place a visit eventually. So how did she know that I was interested in art? I still puzzle over this, but it made me feel cool so I don't question it too much.

That's about it for my social interactions with Japanese people outside of being a customer, student, or with my host family. The Japanese are very shy in this way. There is another side to this element of their psyche, however. Professor Hudson gave a lecture to us earlier today and in one of his tangents told the story of when he knew he had crossed over into the Japanese psyche. He said it happened when he was in a museum with some Japanese friends, and he heard an American tour group in the distance. "Oh my god, they're so noisy and disrespectful," he thought. "And they're probably going to want to ask me questions! Oh no, what do I do? I don't want to be associated with these sloppy people...wait - I am one of them." And at that point he went and hid in a corner so they wouldn't approach him. I thought this story was hilarious until I realized how realistic sounding it was. I can completely imagine that kind of change occurring if you stay here long enough. The Japanese are so much more polite and respectful about everything. Professor Hudson said that when he finally went back to the States after a long stint here, it was painful for him to do something simple like go into a supermarket. He told one story about being in a laundromat after returning from Japan. There was a large woman next to him who's son kept climbing on top of the washing machine, and she kept slapping him and throwing him off and yelling "GOD DAMNIT! STAY OFF THAT MACHINE! HOW MANY TIMES 'VE I TOLD YA?" Hudson said his immediate thought was "oh my god...I need to get back to Japan." I'm not sure how understandable this is to someone who does not know much about Japanese culture, but maybe the debate my friends Max and Dave had afterwards will clarify the subject. (I should also add that the Japanese are generally extremely organized and on top of everything)

Over lunch, we talked a bit about the points Professor Hudson had brought up (the lecture had actually been about the beginnings of Shinto and Buddhism in Japan, but we found the other stuff more interesting). Dave argued that he would rather be surrounded by people who are quiet, polite and respectful because...well, frankly, he doesn't like being treated like shit by workers and the like. Max, on the other hand, said that he would rather have people be sincere, even if it meant they would be assholes to him. Both of their points were pretty subjective, but we had an interesting conversation on the subject nonetheless, knowing that neither side would cave on the issue. Dave, who claims to be a pretty cynical guy, said that he preferred not to assume that people were being insincere to him when they were being nice. Max said something along the lines of the fact that since everyone here acts the same outwardly, they can't possibly be being sincere. I added at this point that it's probably the same here as it is anywhere else - if you really want someone to be sincere with you, you have to get to know them. The debate went in circles for a while, but I thought it was an interesting discussion.

Well, I guess that's about it for this segment. I'll get to work tomorrow on the recapping of my adventures over mid-term break, so as to write it out while it's still fresh in my mind. I have begun to put up the photos I have taken online. The site is www.snapfish.com - you have to log in with my email address, turinargh@hotmail.com and password - "photos", in order to see the pictures, but the uploading system is still much more practical then that of Webshots.com. As you'll see, I'm not much of a photographer, and since it's been such a long time since I was in Tokyo, a lot of the captions are not the most detailed or interesting pieces I've ever written (a rather large understatement). I will soon put up the rest of the photos that I have taken, and also attempt to steal some better pictures from my more photo-savvy friends here (Joe is quite the photographer). In the meantime, I hope everyone is well, and that those of you in the Northeast are enjoying the coming autumn, because the leaves here are still green as ever. It seems I'll have to wait another couple weeks for my favorite season to set in.

Love and peace,
Jess

#4: The Good, The Bad and The Japanese

2005-10-10T12:47:00.000+13:00

9/24/05

Yep, I'm still here - the place where even the hobos make themselves little houses out of paper and take off their shoes when they enter them. It's finally starting to cool down here. Kyoto is around the same latitude as North Carolina, which makes Takatsuki around...South Carolina. Palm trees can grow here, but the few I see probably didn't naturally sprout up there. I still come home from school sweating and overheated, but no longer drenched and delirious (a slight dramatization for example's sake). There's been a bit of a breeze sometimes as well, which is a welcome addition to the usual heat.

This week there were two Japanese holidays - one for grandparents, I believe, on Monday, and another on Friday, which I believe had something to do with the beginning of fall. Everyone had off from school on those days...except for foreigners like me who don't celebrate the holidays. When I asked Keiko and Daitaro what they did to celebrate, they laughed and said that every day was a holiday for them. They are retired, but my friends and I have been noticing that a lot of people in this country seem to be generally happy with their lives and motivated to do what they do, even if they have a run-of-the-mill office job. Previously I didn't think this was the case, but more and more I've been noticing that laziness is a genuinely American epidemic. A walk through Ankoji-cho will show teenagers walking a group of dogs, an older couple keeping their garden, men working on rooftops, people tinkering with their cars and bikes, kids in the playground, etc. Keiko and Daitaro generally only watch TV during dinner, when they are not running around taking care of business.

There is, of course an ugly side to the Japanese psyche - a very, very ugly side. Recent years have brought a new element to the suicide epidemic here: group suicide websites. People - usually teenagers and 20-somethings - talk to each other about how much they hate living, and plan in advance to commit suicide together. For a lot of them, it seems that they are so extraordinarily lonely, that dying together with someone they have never met before is the only thing that will make them happy. A lot of these people just access the sites through their cell phones, which is pretty scary, because a walk through downtown Kyoto will show huge masses of people messaging each other and going online on their phones. Thinking about the possibility that they could be planning to kill themselves can turn a mood sour. Being here for three months, the chance is still pretty low, but I hope I don't witness any train jumping.

Youth culture here isn't all death and doom, however - people here dress more colorfully on the whole than in the states. It's probably because students are forced to wear uniforms in most schools. Young Japanese love shirts with English phrases on them - think of it as their reverse version of the Chinese/Japanese tattoo fad in the States. I'd need to be constantly alert to take pictures of all of the funny sounding English (or Engrish, as it has been dubbed). Shirts I've seen people wearing a lot include "I LOVE HAPPY" and "EGOTIST". Pop songs here typically include English choruses, or at least the occasional English nonsensibility. A song I've had stuck in my head lately has a chorus of "Crash- into the rolling (or is it roaring?) morning, Flash- I'm in the coolest driver's high..." Smarter business here have their store signs and advertisements with at least some English - with as few words as possible. This is not just for foreigners looking for an accessible bar, it also shows local youths that the business is hip to the modern.

Last Saturday (the 17th, was it?) I went with the study group to Fushimi-Inari Taisha, the shrine to Inari, the fox god of agriculture. It's located in an area of Southern Kyoto that I'd never before wandered - the houses were bigger, with nice gates, garages with BMWs inside and the rest. One house even had it's own personal temple/dojo separate from the main house. Despite all of this, the houses were still close together, as is the Japanese way of conserving space in a small, densely populated country. On an interesting side note, Tokyo was built on some very soft ground, and an earthquake may come through there in the near future that would absolutely devastate the area. It may be to the same catastrophic degree as the Tokyo earthquake early in the 20th century. The shops and restaurants in the area specialize in inari zushi (rice in a bean curd pocket, named after the fox god) and kitsune udon (inari zushi in an udon soup - kitsune is Japanese for fox). At the bottom of the mountain was a beautiful temple where some tourists student field trips had gathered. It wasn't a mob scene, but apparently that spot entertains more people on New Year's Eve than any other spot in all of Japan. As with other temples, this one had a small sink area nearby where you ladle yourself out water to clean your hands and mouths (but not drink) before you pray. Professor Hudson made his son Taro (who's mother is Japanese) do so and we proceeded on our walk.

The entrance to the main trail is marked by two stone foxes, in homage to Inari. All of the poles and Shinto torii (arches) in Fushimi-Inari Taisha, of which there must have been more than a thousand, were orange. I forgot to ask why this was. At one point we walked for a while under a tunnel of orange torii, consecutive arch after arch, for several minutes. I believe that the arches were put up for people who had dedicated money to the shrine, as they all had names on them. There were all sizes of torii on sale in the trail-side shops. I almost bought a pint size one, but didn't remember to do so on my way down. Near the top of the trail were a series of shrines with foxes and stone markers of some sort. I'm having trouble describing these in my head, so I guess the mental image will have to wait until I steal the digital photos from my friend Joe (my camera's battery ran out again midway through).

Sitting at one of the small shrines, I saw a bug on the wall that looked remarkably like a stick. This may not sound interesting, but this bug looked so much like a twig that I did a double take. It was way longer than most stick bugs I imagine, so it must have had incredible camouflage. Unfortunately for the bug, he was doing something that twigs don't do, so I noticed him. My friend Max picked him up and carried him, kicking and screaming, for the next leg of the walk. As was the tradition the two of us had begun at Mount Atago, we decided to name the bug, and due to his looks, I thought he looked like a Twiggy. Twiggy was quite a kicker, however, and after a while Max had to let him go. I thought I'd never see another Twiggy again, but then I was wrong. We came upon Twiggy II some time later, and Max picked him up again. Max and Professor Hudson's son Taro were walking some twenty feet behind me at one point when I heard them giggling like schoolgirls. "There's no way..." I remember thinking, but then I turned my head and saw that my instinct was right. Max had launched Twiggy II twenty feet, sky high with good aim, and the poor bug had ended his frightening flight by firmly clamping himself to my behind. I let Twiggy stay for a little while, but eventually decided that no one rides for free, and set him back in the woods. And by set, I mean, tossed, because for some reason it was hilarious to watch the poor guy fly through the air looking for something to clamp onto. Oh, simple pleasures - it doesn't matter what part of the world you're in, you can still have fun by being immature.

I know I said I would have an easier time sending mail last time, but apparently I was wrong because the library has been closed for renovation for the past two weeks. I can pick up a very weak wireless signal outside the library, but it's pretty unreliable. So for the time being, sending email for me is still a matter to grumble over.

Ai to heiwa,
Jess

#3: Extracurricular Activities -- Japan Style

2005-10-05T16:16:00.000+13:00

Hey all,

Greetings again from the other side of the world - I hope summer's end is treating everyone well. The weather here has been alternating between hot (today was 90-something) and rainy, and sometimes a strange combination of the two. My host mother, Keiko, says that June is usually the rainy season here, so I assume that all the rain is the result of Hurricane Katrina. She also says that it's been hotter this year than in the past. Apparently a lot of Japanese are now fairly convinced that global warming is something to be taken seriously. Back to Katrina though - the morning news I watch has recently been divided into three sections: Hurricane Katrina, the Japanese election, and some other odd story, usually fluff reporting. I can't believe how devastating the hurricane was (and how poorly it was handled back home). It even reached Japan that, to quote one politician, "There were two disasters - the hurricane and the response to it." Katrina hit Japan as well, damaging the Southern mainland and islands quite a bit, missing the middle of Japan, where I am, entirely, and hitting the Northern island of Hokkaido at the end. The Japanese seem to have handled it quite well.

Every day here is a huge energy drain. You'd think that only having one class would leave ample free time and energy to do whatever I'd like, but then you'd be wrong. I have Japanese class every morning from 9 until 12:30, Monday through Friday, with 10 minute breaks every 45 minutes. It's really not that "intensive", but the teachers rarely speak English -- so zoning out for a second can cost you a lot. Some of the other students have been complaining that it's a catch-22 that they don't know enough Japanese to ask a question about something they're learning, but I think it's better that the teachers don't speak much (or try not to speak much) English. In fact, I'm impressed that they've been able to conduct a class entirely in Japanese to students who have such an elementary knowledge of the language.

After class, I usually have an inexpensive lunch at the cafeteria ($3-5), Sukiya ($4-7) or various other places that I am beginning to explore. The cafeteria here is not what you might think of when you conjure up an image of a school cafeteria. Sure, it looks pretty similar, but the food is a lot better than what they serve at school (I'm not even going to mention high school cafeteria food). I usually get either a meat-vegetable combo dish of some kind, Japanese curry with rice (very tasty), or beef soba/udon/ramen - all of which are under $5. The rice there is also very fresh. The down side is that ordering fried chicken or something similar will result in a dish slathered mayonnaise, which the Japanese absolutely love and use as we do ketchup - maybe more. Sukiya is a chain fast-food restaurant that is not at all what you think of when you think of fast food (seeing the trend here?). It's across the street from the school and serves up curry rice, ginger beef (or something similar) with rice, and a couple other dishes in all sorts of combinations and sets. If I'm really hungry, I get a large set for around 600 yen (a little less than $6). It's delicious, though there's not a lot of variety. Today I went with some friends to a Chinese diner (not American Chinese, mind you) type restaurant, where I got a gigantic bowl of ramen, a little bit of katsu don (or something similar...ok, I admit it - sometimes I don't know what I'm eating. but there is something about this country that makes me trust people more. one example of the difference in trust here is that it is considered bad manners to count your change that you get back from a cashier), and a large bowl of fried rice. I've never been so full on a $8.50 of food in my life.

Keiko has been keeping up with the interesting cuisine as well. Last night we had flat fish and some delicious sashimi (squid and something else of which they forgot the name). The flat fish was a little intimidating at first because they put the whole fish on the plate, head and all. It was easy to eat though, once I got the hang of picking through the bones, and pretty tasty. When I woke up Saturday afternoon, she made me the best bowl of ramen I've had in my life, after which I had the freshest orange I've ever had in my life, followed by the tastiest grapefruit. I'm having trouble remember all the different food she's made because I've eaten here almost every night and morning for the last two and half weeks. She made delicious katsu don (fried pork ) a few nights ago. Oh, that's right -- I had an incredible meal the other night. She made both unagi and tako in one dinner! The unagi was served don style (over rice), which is one of my favorite Japanese dishes back home, and the tako with a hint of lime and some cabbage. It was oh so delicious. I sense some of you may be a little bit apprehensive about these dishes, so let me reassure you- eel and octopus are two of my favorite marine cuisine!

Commuting and running around dehydrates me a bit every day (not to mention the higher sodium concentration in pretty much everything - I don't know how they handle it), so I carry a couple bottles of water that I freeze over night all the time. The Japanese, as I am learning, prefer tea (usually green tea) to water. It was kind of funny reaching the top of Mount Atago and seeing all the people downing their big bottles of iced green tea (no sugar). I half expected the runners in the Hokkaido Marathon, which I watched a while back, to douse themselves in tea from time to time instead of water.

After I eat lunch, I occasionally head over to the gigantic arcade across from school. It has a batting cage, and old style arcade with crane games, and every other kind of game you can imagine, not to mention a whole eerie corner of hentai ones. (if you don't what that means, don't worry about it. just know that it's not suitable for children. or most normal people). I usually play Pop'n'Music, a music game where you press buttons to the melody of a song, or some kind of fighting game. If I am feeling energetic, and feel like making myself sweat out of every pore in my body, I play a round of Dance Dance Revolution (DDR to those in the know). DDR is probably more popular in the States now than in Japan, where the fad has died out a good amount. Games here are generally 100 yen (about $1), so I don't go too often - as it is very easy to spend absurd amounts of money, especially if you have never played a game before and lose in 10 seconds.

A few days ago, the sun decided to come out (for a change), so I resolved to go running. I asked my host mother where to go and she said the road to their greenhouse (where they tend to the chrysanthemums) would probably be best. I assured her that, having walked there once, I knew the way. But, being incredibly kind-hearted, and Japanese, she refused and led the way on her bike. I had a tough time keeping up with her, especially since I was constantly being distracted by the sunset or something of equal beauty, to which I would try to breathe out a "kirei desu ne! (it's beautiful!)" in between panting. I have to be honest with myself - I'm a wee bit out of shape compared to my...more athletic days. This being the case, a 5k (a little more, maybe?) run was a little tiring. When we reached the greenhouse, Keiko left her bike and showed me the way down the river nearby. It was beautiful - Takatsuki is situated in a valley, so you can see the entire town from the non-populated spaces, as well as all the surrounding mountains. I forgot my camera, but Keiko brought hers and made me pose several times. The riverside is a nice spot where people have barbecues on weekends, she explained to me. We saw some fish and a turtle in the river, which brought forth a conversation about snapping turtles and I had a good time explaining to her in Japanese how dangerous they are. They are actually a very expensive delicacy in Japan. She put her bike in the back of Daitaro's truck for the way home (its mostly uphill going back), but I told her I wanted to run more (silly me). Once again, I assured her that I knew the way, and this time she let me go and went home with Daitaro (oh, silly me). The going was fine until I realized I had zoned out and run past the rice fields (a beautiful spot) that I should have cut through. Yeah, it's true - I can't backtrack. I just can't stand it. So, being my stubborn self, I pushed onwards and made the next turn instead. This probably wasn't a big deal, as I came out in a place that looked vaguely familiar, and kept running. When I got back to Ankoji-cho (my town), I figured it would be easy to find my house. Oh, how wrong I was. My host family lives in Ankoji san(3)-chome (cho-meh). I wandered through i(1)chome to ni(2)chome and thought "now it should be coming up!", but then I passed under some unfamiliar power lines and was suddenly in yon(4)chome, dangerously close to the surrounding mountains. I scratched my head, shrugged and turned the way I thought was right. This is where things get a little...murky (I'm not good at finding the right word sometimes, but I think murky does the trick here). I wandered past the same groups of kids playing hide and seek about three times. Somewhere in this interim, it got dark. When I finally decided it would be best to attempt to find the road and find my way from there, I was no longer able to keep up my marathon pace. I'm not completely sure how, but I eventually found my way back home - a little late for dinner. It should have taken 30 minutes, tops. I was probably gone for an hour and a half though. All in good fun. Except for when I passed out before finishing my work.

Last Friday night, I went with a bunch of the guys in our study group to check out the nightlife (we had tried unsuccessfully before, but this time we knew what we were doing). Since the bars and clubs here don't really get going until around 1am, we started sipping some drinks down by the Kamo River at 10pm (note: the drinking age here is 20, and very loose. also, you can drink outside), which was good fun. The Japanese loooove happy hour. They're big on drinking a little bit every day to keep themselves from going insane. The riverside became pretty populated around 11 or 12, as the party people began to stretch their legs. At one point, about 40 Japanese were standing arm in arm in a large circle with a few people at the center taking pictures. I think they were singing something, but I couldn't quite catch it. I tried to ask someone what was going on, but it was to no avail. I met a few other non-Japanese there as well. There were a couple British guys whose names I don't remember, and a Pakistani guy who worked for an oil company. The Brits joined us later at Bar, Isn't It?, where admission was 1000 yen with one free drink. The bar mostly played American pop music there, which Japanese girls love. I guess it's probably better when you don't understand how bad the lyrics are.

Other than the usual wandering around downtown and elsewhere, that's what I have been up to lately. Tomorrow (it's Friday, the 16th, now that I'm finishing this) I'm going with the group for a walk by Fushimi-Inari Taisha, a Shinto shrine to the fox demon, Inari. It's supposed to be a really interesting place - I'll include it in my next email. I hope everyone is doing well. I'll be back soon enough.

Love and peace,
Jess

P.S. - I finally got my computer registered on the school network, so now I will have an easier time sending mail, though the Colgate website will still not allow me to send anything from that address.
P.P.S. - I apologize for all the long parenthetical statements. (old habits die hard).

Email #2

2005-10-01T23:04:00.000+13:00

I'm now in Nagasaki, Southern city of extremely kind people. Or at least compared to Kyoto, where people, especially the women (not to be sexist) are known for being stubborn and a little bit tired of catering to tourists. I don't blame them. I'm just sitting around, drinking some vending machine beer and being a general loser on the internet in the hotel room...with friends. Here's the second email I sent out...

9/6/05

The Kyoto-Takatsuki Shuffle

Hey everyone -

This is digest #2 of my adventures in Japan. If you know someone else who wants to read these, or if you don't actually want to yourself, send me an email telling me and i'll do something about within the next year (the next time I get on the internet). It seems as though Colgate is not going to let us send anything from Japan using school email. I can still read mail from that address, but I will probably be using my hotmail address to send things, which is a pain since I have all of you in a nice, tidy mailing list in my address book.......but I digress.

JA-PAN. The land of neon signs and raw fish. Things are still going well; I start to nod off in the early evening, but stay up until 10 pm to do my work. I wake up at 6:30 am to have breakfast and get to the station in time for class at 9 am. I know, it doesn't sound like me. Jet lag has me up that early most of the time anyway, seeing as I fall asleep before 11 pm. My host father, Daitaro, gives me a ride to the train station most mornings. Public transportation here is much more business-oriented than in New York, especially during peak hours. Part of this attitude is probably due to the fact that I live on the way between the Kyoto-Osaka commute, and Osaka is a city in which instead of saying hello a lot of people just ask "how's your business going?" I haven't been to Osaka yet, save for the one time when I spaced out and missed my stop on the way home and wound up going all the way to Juso station in Osaka due to the fact that I was on a super express train. It was only an extra half hour each way. The buses and trains can be pretty crowded, and I sometimes wind up standing for the entire trip. Good for the ankles. I really don't mind the commute - it's time for me to space out before class, which I most definitely need.

As I said before, my host family is really, really nice. I try to help out around the house as much as I can, but Keiko usually beats me to the punch or waves me off. She and Daitaro are both retired school teachers - she taught elementary school and he taught gym and science in middle school. Retired though they may say they are, they're very busy people. Daitaro is an avid kiku (kee-ku) enthusiast. Kiku is a kind of flower arranging art that deals with growing and arranging chrysanthemums. He and Keiko go to their greenhouse down the street every day to tend their plants. Apparently, they are very good - the trophies take up nearly an entire room downstairs. I know he placed at least within the top 20 in all of Japan at one time. So he is busy doing things regarding that all day. Keiko helps out with the plants, and also keeps house. There is no washing machine in the house, so she hand-washes everything. She washes my clothes every day or two, though I tell her she doesn't have to. She's a great cook - I've had a lot of interesting cuisine. Today for dinner we had chicken and chicken liver yakitori (skewers) with onion and something, pumpkin, tempura pumpkin flowers, and rice with seaweed. She always gives me too much food and I feel horrible leaving any left over. The Japanese don't generally have snacks, so even these two small, older people have pretty good-sized meals. Other interesting things I've eaten include yaki-soba, pears, daikon (Japanese white radish), mame (mashed bean type thing), kampyo sushi, okra and okra flowers, and a bunch of other things I either can't remember or forgot to ask what it was. The vast majority of the food she makes is very healthy, and the vast majority of that is delicious. The produce is really fresh, and the sushi - god. I didn't know fish could be that fresh or taste that good. The two of them, with their daughter, Tokiko, and her daughters Chiho, 19, and Kana, 17, set up sushi party Saturday night which greeted me in their special occasion tatami room when I returned from my journey (I'll get to that in a bit). Tokiko is also a teacher - she teaches English to elementary school students. The other night she came over so I could edit something she wrote for class. In return, she helped me with a speech I had to give. I don't know her daughters too well, but Chiho, who is just starting at some kind of special occupation college, comes over occasionally to practice piano (she seems to be just starting...or so I assume). Kana is a gymnast. They both constantly type away on their cell phones at an exhausting pace, as most teenage girls here tend to do. I met Chiho in a hilarious manner. I came home on an incredibly hot day, drenched in sweat, and took off my shirt and splashed my face with water. Upon realizing I still had Keiko's umbrella, I went back to the front door to put it back when in came Chiho with Keiko. I can't tell if she was frightened or holding in uproarious laughter, but there was this silly, awkward foreigner, looking totally wiped and sweating like a pig. We exchanged greetings and I speed-walked to take a shower. She doesn't talk to me much. Heh.

This Saturday was by far one of the most rewarding days on the trip so far. Professor Hudson, the Colgate teacher leading our study group, took a bunch of us to Mount Atago, a mountain outside of Northwest Kyoto with a Shinto shrine at its peak. We met at Kyoto station at 8 pm and took a train to the mountain. Our jaws began dropping immediately as we exited the train - it was beautiful. We were on a bridge overlooking some rapids and miles and miles of tree-covered mountains and hills. Despite the occasional power line, which are always, always in sight in Japan, the scenery was stunning. My friend Max and I set off to find a sturday bamboo walking staff. He wound up carrying an entire dead bamboo tree for part of the way before realizing how ridiculous he looked. Plus, how could he defend against the onslaught of ninjas we would obviously encounter with such a cumbersome object? From the station, we walked to a mountain village (I forgot the name), which was 3.5 kilometers away. The village had a few houses and mile after mile of rice fields - beautiful. We were a little tired at this point and a few people got our their lunches to start eating. I can't remember who it was who said "So this is the mountain?" but the response was not what we had expected. Professor Hudson laughed and said that we had just reached our starting point. We were at the foot of Mount Atago, looking up at it. "From here, it gets a little steep," said Professor Hudson. If I remember correctly, the walk up the mountain from here was about 4 kilometers, which doesn't take into account the incline.

My friends Max, Alex, Chris and I decided to get a work out and set off up the mountain at a rather hefty pace. The first part of the hike was through a clearing, but after that we were mostly in the shade. A first open space let us overlook the town from which we had just walked. Later, another one let us overlook all of Kyoto. Another still let us see even beyond that, a little foggy though it may have been. We saw a bunch of interesting insects along the way, including some of metallic beatles, which Max and I named an assortment of American and Japanese names. This hike was some of the best exercise I've gotten in a long time - I was sweating profusely and sore all over by the time we reached the Shinto shrine, but my god did it feel good. It wasn't over yet though. I ate my tiny Japanese sandwich in a few bites, and drank five bottles of water over the course of the hike. Japanese people, however, drink green tea (cold) instead of water, even when hydrating themselves while exercising. The shrine was interesting - the ritual is to bow twice, ring the bell there twice, clap twice and bow twice more. Of course, I didn't know this at the time, so I just kind of rang the bell, clapped a couple times, bowed and left. I've probably got some mountain demons following me around now.

After waiting 30 minutes or so for the rest of the group (we walked up in less than an hour, which impressed Professor Hudson), we headed down the Kiyotaki waterfall trail down another part of the mountain. We stopped at a small shrine with lots of tanuki (fox-raccoon animals) sculptures. We then headed down towards the waterfall. After a little while, the same four of us decided it would be more fun to run down the mountain like little kids and use shortcuts and side trails. This was kind of bad for my knees, but I got another workout. The bottom of this route led us to a small stream and a tiny waterfall, where we again awaited the rest of the group. Professor Hudson said that the tiny waterfall we just saw was not Kiyotaki, and we headed off to see it. This path was absolutely gorgeous. It was now early afternoon and thick beams of light shot through the thick foliage. We followed the water upstream over a rock path through a tiny village, where we realized it was near impossible to bring anything you might want to add to your house. Just past this village was one of the most spectacular sights I've ever seen. The Kiyotaki waterfall was through a Shinto arch, and had several small shrines (like one in a house): one to an ancient shaman and his demon assistants, one to Jizo, a bodhisattva who takes care of children, and another to someone else equipped with Chinese style lions. There were candles and devices for offerings everywhere. The sun was at just the right angle above the waterfall and we all took a number of pictures. I washed my face in the waterfall - and it felt great. Getting to the waterfall reminded me of the part in Rocky where he reaches the top of the steps, only unbelievably beautiful and more spiritual. We came back from the waterfall and walked through a planted cedar forest past a river and caught a bus back to Kyoto. It was a truly fulfilling trip. I definitely want to do it again.

Well, it's about my bed time now (9:45), so I'm going to leave this email here for now and leave the rest for next time.

Love and peace,

Jess

PS - I apologize for the weird paragraph separations, but it's late and I'm tired.

Japanese life: Volume 1

2005-09-29T10:41:00.000+13:00

I've been reluctant to post things here from Japan, for which there are several reasons. The first is that I have no internet access at home, which was to be expected, and thus only use the internet when I'm at school. However, I have only been able to go online comfortably on my own computer since recently, so I've only used the internet when it's been very necessary. Also, I've been sending long emails to some friends and family talking about my experience here, which have decreased my desire to write anything here. The things I've wanted to put here are just odd thoughts and random facts that come about spontaneously, but 9 times out of 10 I'm not in a position to spontaneously go online, let alone access my computer. So I've decided to copy the emails I've sent here. My goal in the emails is to use descriptive language to help people visualize my experience. I'm also trying to use a tone of voice appropriate for both speaking to my friends and family, but I think I may come off too mechanical sounding at times. I don't know who reads this past a few people at this point, but any feedback on my writing is appreciated.

Email #1: (I forgot the title, but I'm sure it was whitty - or a retarded pun)

9/1/05

Hi all,

I wrote this email the first Wednesday of the trip when I first found out that there was a light wireless signal in the inn, but with the Colgate email system being what it is, it deleted my hour of work and I haven't gotten a chance to try again until now. I also wrote this email again the other day in a separate text program, but my computer ran out of batteries and it didn't save my file. So this is the third time I'm writing this email and it may be a bit briefer than I originally intended it to be. If there is anyone not on this mailing list that you think you should be added, tell them to email me.

My flight here was near 14 hours long. I had trouble sleeping, so I wound up watching Madagascar a number of times. We arrived in Narita Airport around 3:30 pm Tokyo time, which is about 2:30 am in New York and 5:30 am in London. After a long wait through customs, the baggage claim, baggage shipping and money exchange, we hopped on a private train called the Sky Liner to take us into the heart of Tokyo. From there we transfered to a subway line that took us to Hongo Ni-Chome, where our ryokan (Japanese style inn) was.

One of the most commonly known Japanese customs is to take off one's shoes upon entering a house, which is what we did upon arrival. However, this was only the tip of the iceberg as far as culture shock is concerned. I shared a small tatami room with my friend Alex. I believe it was a 6-mat room, which makes it slightly smaller than my dorm room last year, and significantly smaller than my dad's bathroom. Many Japanese are all about bare bones living in some senses.

Some real culture shock hit our little group when we were shown the ofuro (hot tub/bath) room. A Japanese bath is somewhat different process from a Western one. First, you strip down (out of your complimentary Japanese robe and slippers) before entering the bath room. Then, you proceed to pour a bucket of water over your head (at least that's what I did - and it feels good after a long day). Next, you scrub yourself down and wash your hair and whatever else - all before entering the bath. When you are done with all this, you hop into the hot tub to rinse off. This last step was incredibly refreshing - possibly better than a shower and a sauna combined, if slightly daunting. Especially when you are joined in the bath by five Japanese businessmen.

On the first night, I passed out as quickly and early as I probably ever have, as would become a trend on this trip. The next morning we awoke at 7 to have Japanese style breakfasts in our robes. These breakfasts consisted generally of an egg, cooked any which way, some kind of meat (i.e. ginger beef), miso soup, sometimes some fish, vegetables or salad, a bowl of rice, and sometimes a couple other side dishes. All of these dishes were in very small helpings, and all were infinitely more healthy than most American food - plus just as tasty, if not more.

That day, we went to Asakusa, an area with a Buddhist Temple surrounded by shops in an axial manner. It's an interesting setup. Very touristy. Next, we headed to the Tokyo National Museum, a modern museum with some interesting artifacts and models based on historical figures, cities and the like. Very interesting place - crazy contemporary building done by a French architect. Next to this building was the Sumo Museum, where we learned a bit of sumo history. Sumo tournaments are held there. After this trip, we were on our own to do as we pleased, so I went with a few friends to Akihabara, the electronic nexus of Tokyo, and probably Japan. I saw more neon signs there than I ever have before. The area is inhabited by the nerdy, but humble Akiba kids. I returned to the inn that evening exhausted and in dire need of an ofuro.

The next day we went to the Tokyo Edo Museum, an older style museum with lots more historical artifacts. They had some really interesting Buddhist items and really cool samurai equipment from centuries ago. They also had an exhibit on haniwa, figures which are some of the oldest examples of ceramics (or anything manmade) in Japan. On the way to the temple, we walked through Oedo park, where the cicadas are unbelievably loud. Everywhere in Tokyo, there were loud cicadas, but not like this place. It was almost otherworldly.

The rest of the trip to Tokyo is getting a little foggy now, as it's been a week, but I'll say what I can remember. We were there for three days and four nights. On the final day, we walked through Harajuku, a French-influenced, affluent part of town. We walked down a forest path to an interesting Buddhist temple here, at which point it started to rain heavily, thus making us abandon our plans to visit more sacred spots in the are. We also stopped to see the 20 Famous Bridges and the Imperial Palace, as well as Ginza, where the Sony building and some expensive shopping spots are located. I did not wind up exploring Shibuya, Shinjuku or Roppongi due to being thoroughly drenched that day, though I wanted to.

After a couple days in Tokyo, my digital camera's battery died and I realized that I had left a cord needed to charge it at home. I wasn't able to find this cord anywhere until this Wednesday in Kyoto, when I found a tiny electronics shop in a shopping alley run by a little old man that had all sorts of random cords and cheap electronic devices. Thus, I don't have many pictures, but I am hoping to steal some from other people on the trip who took more.

On Friday, we hopped on the Shinkansen (bullet train) to go to Kyoto, where I am now and will be spending the majority of the trip. The Shinkansen is amazingly fast - it got us from Tokyo to Kyoto in a little over two hours. That day, we got a tour of the University at which we will be studying, and had a meeting with our homestay families. I met Keiko Yasui, a funny, energetic 69-year-old Japanese woman with whom I would be staying. She and I took the trip back to her home in Takatsuki, a city between Kyoto and Osaka in Northern Osaka prefecture. The trip takes somewhere between 60 and 90 minutes, all depending upon whether my host father (Keiko's husband, Daitaro) gives me a ride to the train or whether I take the bus, and also which train I catch (super express, rapid express, limited express or local), what time bus I catch in Kyoto, and how much traffic there is there. Today, September 1st, school starts for Japanese kids, so traffic has increased and public transportation has gotten siginificantly more crowded (it was pretty crowded before, too). To recap, I take a bus from Ankoji-cho, the part of Takatsuki in which my homestay family lives to Takatsuki JR Station, from which point it's a five or ten minute walk to the Hankyu Station, where I board the train to Kyoto. It's a short walk from the train to the no. 5 bus, which I take to the steps of the university. It's taken me a couple days, but I think I've got the trip down now.

We started class on Monday and reviewed last year's material then and Tuesday. Today we started new stuff, but to be honest I'm learning a lot more from talking to my host parents. Mrs. Yasui and I have been chatting about this and that from 1 to 3 hours a night before I pass out around 9 or 10 (and sometimes forget to do a few things). She and Daitaro are incredibly nice - and she's a great cook. I'll save the gist of my Kyoto spiel for my next email, however, as I need to be getting back for dinner now.

As of right now, I have this email saved as a document in a separate text program due to the fact that I am having trouble registering my computer with the university (Macs in Japan are scarce). There is also wireless network running through my host family's neighborhood, but it seems to be WEP password protected. Unless I find a way to send this to another computer, which I can use to send this email, I won't be sending this until one of the above problems is solved. I may use a disk or USB cord to send the file to another computer and send the email using either my AOL or Hotmail accounts, and if I do so I will have to begrudgingly manually input my mailing list I so conveniently set up to send these emails. But, if that's what must be done, than I suppose I have no choice. Sorry to bore all of you with this explanation, but it's been pretty aggravating so I thought I'd vent a little.

That aside, I'm having a great time here. I can't believe how much Japanese I'm picking up and how quickly I'm doing it. My body and mind are still in shock a bit, but that seems to be subsiding. It's interesting to look different from everyone around you. Even if it's not by much. Hope everyone's doing well.

Yours truly,
Jess

...Departure

2005-08-20T10:35:00.000+13:00

In two days I leave home for Tokyo, and won't return until mid-December. I will be spending the first few days in Tokyo before taking the Bullet Train to Kyoto, where I will study for the majority of the semester. I am staying with a Japanese family in Takatsuki, a city between Kyoto and Osaka. I may be taking a mid-semester break in a mountain village. I am spending the last three weeks on the tropical Bonin Islands, where I will be doing some kind of cultural study dealing with the people of the village there. In Kyoto, I will be studying the Japanese language intensely and taking a culture course at some point as well.

From now until I return, this blog will serve as a spot for me to put my thoughts on Japan. I don't know what more to say on the matter, other than... this should be interesting.

...Flying

2005-08-11T11:06:00.000+13:00

Last night, for the first time in a while, I had a flying dream. I was in some kind of marathon going through a city not unlike Montreal. It was not a normal marathon though - all manner of people were in it, and not wearing running outfits, but whatever they wanted to wear. At the beginning of the race, I think I was somewhat in the lead, but I stopped at one point to carry a small boy who was taking part in the race, 'cause apparently I'm a nice guy like that. After a while, I put the boy down and was no longer near the lead. Moreover, the roads the race took were not set - people were going a bunch of different ways... but I had a general sense of direction as to where the end lay. At one point, I decided that it would be easier to take long strides instead of running - super unrealistic strides, of course, that would never work in real life. As I went on, the strides became crazy-long jumps. Sometimes I would jump really high and be afraid of losing control and falling down hard. Eventually I learned that the trick to controlling these jumps was to NOT BE AFRAID OF HEIGHTS. After that, jumping without coming back down for a while, also known as flying, came naturally. I found that it was easiest to fly while in a superman pose - with my arms out in front of me and my hands in fists. Flying wasn't easy, though. I would have to land occasionally - and to take off I sometimes had to take a number of leaping steps first, like in a triple jump. At one point I stopped by a building where a girl was eating lunch on a balcony high up. I had a conversation with her while hovering in the air. Then I decided to try my hand at telekinesis, since, in this vein of dreams, I had done that before*. So I levitated her Snapple bottle toward me, but was having trouble keeping it up, and had to catch before it fell down to the ground. I don't remember most of the rest of the dream... but I woke up without completing the race, or knowing what happened to the little boy or the girl. Any dream analysts out there?

*I have a theory that there are certain worlds that each of my dreams fall into. Each world contains it's own dream memory - maybe it's a certain part of the brain that's active. In any case, this world contains the knowledge of how to fly and use telekinesis.

2005-08-04T13:47:00.000+13:00

batty's back!! oh man my dad wants to kill the bat. i hope i can get the stubborn bastard out of the house before he gets hurt. the bat, that is.

edit: batty is now back in the habitat he's accustomed to. my dad cornered him in sam's room and forcefully led him outside in a bath towel. bye bye batty. ooh but what if he left guano?!

2005-08-04T13:20:00.000+13:00

1
oh, the cicadas are back.

2
there was a bat flying around my room last night around 4 am last night. i didn't realize that's what it was until i was mostly awake due to its constant banging into the wall. the bat was stupid, stubborn, afraid and confused. i think it came in through the chimney. it may still be somewhere in my house because i couldn't get it to leave.

3
18 days until Japan. maybe then i won't feel like a useless fool anymore.

...Creating a Routine

2005-08-03T05:42:00.000+13:00

I just read an interesting article from Yoga Journal about an ancient health science and its take on modern life. I've never been into labeling or categorizing people, but I found this article interesting. According to ancient Ayurvedic teachings, there are three metabolic types, or doshas, among which people's health and certain parts of their personality are divided. The first type is vata, which is associated with the air/wind element. The others are fire-ruled pitta and earthy kapha. Vata deals with movement, pitta mostly with ambition, and kapha with being stable. Everyone is a unique combination of these three and, as with everything dealing with energy (which is, really, everything), a balance must be struck. Imbalances among the three doshas lead to problems.

The most common imbalance in modern society, and my main one, is a problem with vata. Today's omnipresent movement of information, ease of travel and overall excess of stimuli make this dosha difficult to balance. The typical "vata dominant" person is a tall, skinny, fast-talking person with lots of pent-up nervous energy, because that's what a vata imbalance creates - that inner tension. An imbalance of the pitta, in my mind, results in an excess of ambition and a reckless need to achieve, excell, succeed - or even divide and conquer. A balanced pitta is a very motivated person, probably a born leader, but an imbalance can tip the scale. Kapha-dominant people may have issues with getting stuck in one place. When balanced they are solid and have a firm foundation in life (unlike imbalanced vatas), but with an imbalance, they become so rooted that they have trouble making any kind of change to their life.

For me, being "vata-deranged" means having issues developing a routine and getting bored. I could never work an office job to save my life. I have trouble paying attention in class after a while once I become used to the environment. A kapha would have no problems developing a routine - but a troubled kapha would have issues breaking it. Part of my problems come from the rootless nature of my summer. I move back and forth from house to house, sometimes staying in the city, sometimes going away, and every day is different. Which is great, but it would have been nice to keep the job I had early this summer. I have come to hate predictability - but everyone needs a little bit of stability in their lives, or else they will experience physical and emotional instability. That much is known to Everyman. I think this hatred sprouted from my disenchantment with my social life a little while back. It seemed like we always did the same things; it was always the same people acting the same way; and the same predictable problems kept coming up. And no one seemed to have that bit of leadership that was needed to push a plan into action. This summer I have gladly not encountered any problem of that kind. So that part is good. However, going to bed and waking up at odd times, eating at random, and having a mess of random things to do at all times has turned out not to be too healthy.

So I guess this is a call to all you other vatas out there - if you want to get rid of all that nervous energy by yourself, exercise, eat and sleep regularly. The routine won't kill you, as I am just starting to find out. Though this is just the beginning so we'll see how long it will be before I get bored...

more on this here: An Ancient Cure for Modern Life

2005-07-29T09:05:00.000+13:00

To continue the depressing turn of events in the robin's nest, there are now no robins in the nest that I can see. There was a big storm yesterday - it knocked out our power and took down trees all over the place. There are now only flies and what may have been one of the chicks left in the nest.

In other depressing news, I had a dream about my Grandma Sue last night. I was out to dinner with my extended family at some kind of award ceremony. Grandma Sue was talking and laughing, and generally being very sharp but also really nice. It made me smile, thinking that she had somehow magically gotten better and that Alzheimer's wasn't affecting her anymore. Then I woke up and realized she had died last summer.

My next blog won't be as sad - I promise.

2005-07-28T10:06:00.000+13:00

Now there's only one robin in the nest.

2005-07-28T07:43:00.000+13:00

I've been watching a robin's nest up in some rhododendrons outside my bathroom window for the past few weeks. The eggs were bright, bright blue. I know - that's where they get 'robin's egg blue' from, but it's different seeing something first hand. What a color. The mother robin would sit on the eggs for a good time, flying away from time to time to find food or do whatever robins do. A few days ago - or maybe a week ago, the chicks hatched. I haven't seen the mother robin since. The chicks squawk and flap their undeveloped wings with their big beaks wide open and pointing up, always waiting for food. But the mother hasn't been around. Instead, a pair of cardinals have been at the nest more often than not. One is bright red, and the other is a dull gray with patches of bright red. I'm not sure which one is the male and the female. One or the other is by the robin's nest more often than not. I don't know why.

...?

2005-07-10T07:24:00.000+13:00

For those who didn't know, I was joking when I called myself an ultra-conservative.

I recently learned that my girlfriend's parents Googled me and probably came up with my old blog. I was just looking through it...ah, what a different time. There are some links to my old Deviantart stuff if you look hard enough, too. I was thinking about what I said about having dreams of the ocean, because lately I feel like that's been turned around. I haven't been having serene dreams about the ocean - I think that the water in my dreams lately has had to do with fear, mostly of not being able to breathe, which has always been an issue for me. Dreams about drowning are no fun. There generally aren't monsters in the water or anything. Just not being able to swim is the problem.

I wanna do a series of painting of cartoon style monsters. It's not altogether clearly how this will turn out, but it may be my next project. Silly-looking bullshit doodles in oil paint. Yeah.

Listen...
nothing new, really

Watched...
War of the Worlds - This movie sucked. I'm sorry, I don't really care if it was Spielberg and Cruise or Michael Bay and Carrot Top - it just sucked. Sure, the cinematography and the special effects were good, but that means jack shit. Welcome to the year 2005. There was no real plot, minimal character development, an annoying yelling little girl, and a deus ex machina ending. Now I remember why I disliked the book. It was just boring.

Batman Begins (again, but on Imax) - Contrary to its more recent pedecessors, this Batman didn't rely CGI and ridiculously unrealistic action to draw people in. Instead, we learned about how Bruce Wayne became Batman, and how he was by no means supernatural - just super-slick. This film rocked.

Just one of those days / Human inventions I hate

2005-07-02T11:24:00.000+13:00

"Woke up, got up, near eleven o'clock
butt naked except I was wearing my socks
and that's cool, 'cause most the time this floor is cold
stand up and stretch look around for my soul..."

Yeah, you know you love Atmosphere.

But seriously - I wake up this morning around eleven o'clock. And maybe i don't have any socks on, but you get the point.
I take a shower, eat me a sandwich and then suddenly stop to think for a second. I cock my head to the side - I'm odd like that. "Wasn't the train I wanted to catch...a 10:30?" I shrug and keep eating. So I'll be a half hour earlier instead of a half hour late.
I start thinking about plans I've made and plans I need to make. Things I need to do. How much I hate the shitty little things in life - they just poke me in the side a little, but they all do it at the same time, so I fall off my chair. I lose track of time.
11:15 - time to drive to the train - it's only five, ten minutes away. Right? Right. Hit a couple red lights, cruising through Bedford Hills..."What the...it's 11:30? Uh alright. Well the train probably isn't here yet." I look over at the tracks. "Whuh-oh. Looks like it just got here aaaaaand there it goes. Buh-bye." I shrug again. And then Hit my Head on the Steering Wheel. Whoops, gotta keep driving. That's what ya do on the road, y'know.
Drive down Railroad Avenue...may as well go home. Maybe I'll come in later....................or not at all. Yeah, that sounds much better. It's not like I'm getting paid or anything anyway. There. I just saved money I'd be spending on train fare and lunch. Sweeeeet. I'm just like any other guy - I love to make up justifiable reasons for doing things ex post facto. "What? We killed the entire tribe? Uh...what? Well uh....we're the chosen people...and stuff. God wanted us to do it. Damn straight it was our destiny." It's tons of fun.
I'm stuck behind an eighteen-wheeler doing its best to block the entire road as it backs into some garbage-filled parking lot. Oh yeah...that's why I never drive down this road.

Eventually I get back home and stare off into space for a while before realizing I've got travel plans to make for the next day and a shitload of other stuff to take care of. I get my *BRAND SPANKIN' NEW* speeding ticket out of the car finally and see that I had a court date yesterday. Huh? Already? Wait - since when do they put court dates on the actual tickets? Don't you send them in to get the court dates? I'm confused. Well, shit. Did I tell the story of how I got the ticket? Oh, it's a doozy. I'll save it, I guess. Oh and one of my older tickets seems to have resurfaced in the form of a court date that happens to be while I'm in Japan. Whoops. Oh where'd the number of that GASTROINTEROLOGIST go? Lost it? Eh...guess I'll have to give Doc What'shisface a call. Oh great - a computer answering machine. I leave a message. "Doc, my stomach is kicking the shit out of my intestines again. Yeah...uh...I think my gall bladder got caught in the crossfire. Whatever the hell that thing does. Oh. And that upper abdominal pain you told me to look out for? Well, about that..." I might add that my cell phone had no service throughout the whole day, so I spent most of the time wandering around my house and holding it up in random spots like an ass.

The most progress I made during this time was to make a list of things I really, really hate. And whattayaknow, they're all manmade inventions - all of which were made to make my life more convenient. WE WERE FINE BEFORE THIS SHIT, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES. No. I don't want a cookie. Go away. So here's the list:

-money in all its varying guises. especially credit cards. i have two.
-cars and all things associated with them. #1 in this category is the Jersey Turnpike. yep...it comes before the time I got a flat tire AND the time I almost died. though that did kinda suck.
-phones. i like to look at people when i'm talking to them. i also do this sometimes when i've never talked to people before, which creeps them the fuck out because apparently i make some weird faces.
-computer/tv/whatever screens. yeah...so i use these...i dunno...upwards of three hours a day at least. probably a lot more, some days.

So there's my list of things I hate / "need to survive in the modern world". In short, I am ultra-conservative: I don't just think we shouldn't be progressive - I think we need to move BACKWARDS. Yeah. Mesolithic man never had any problems. He went out and got himself some food and it didn't cost him a dime. He didn't give a shit about too much else. He probably slept a lot. Daily life was a workout, so he didn't need to go to the gym or anything. Getting laid every once in a while was a plus. And he didn't get any fucking speeding tickets.

...De-stressing and internalizing

2005-06-24T16:18:00.000+13:00

It's kind of tough to roll with the punches when you keep punching yourself in the face.

In other words, there is no way to go with the flow when your wounds are self-inflicted; because you'll just keep getting your ass kicked. By yourself. When other people have problems that you can't do anything about, it's usually better to go with the flow, but that's another blog, another time.

I just got word that I almost definitely have one of the most embarrassing diseases known to man, and that it's probably stress-related. Stress in the summer? I really am one backwards fuck. Even more so because I am barely working right now. Two days a week at Coney Island and looking for part-time work. Resume sent to the Katonah Arts Center and contemplating seeking work at the new Japanese restaurant in Bedford Hills 'cause I look Asian (hardy har har).

The past few days have been all about reading and failed motivation (I know I need to concentrate on effort more when I get too lazy to take a shower [don't worry it was only for a couple days]). I read Battle Royale and the epic comic epic, Bone. I kinda slid down in my seat as I finished the latter, thinking about how having no more to read would mean it was time for me to face my motivation problem again for the umpteenth time. So here I am - procrastinating, but facing it, in a way.

Back to my "disorder" - the doctor said there was no quick cure, but that exercising and eating right and all that crap that I know I should do but usually don't, might help.

Now, physical exercise and I have a long, conflict-filled history. I played soccer for like 8 years, gave it up, and then tried to pick it up again in high school, but failed. I played baseball for about 6 years, basketball for 4 and football for one intense year. I've played tennis on and off since I was about 8, playing on the high school team for 5 years (I was captain blahblahblah). I even played golf for a while. My tennis game is not what it once was but I'm trying to pick it back up again. So I was a total jock for most of my childhood.

At some point, though, I had a kind of epiphany - I think it came while I was at a competive sports camp for boys in Maine and realized that I probably wouldn't be able to go pro in basketball, soccer and baseball - ALL AT ONCE. And then I gradually realized that I didn't stand a chance going pro in any sport, even though I was pretty good at a few. Soon after this epiphany came the realization that I didn't really liked the stupid arguments and conflicts that arose from competitive sports (granted, I was like 12, so these things were obviously going to happen). Neither did I like being told what to do by a coach, or by anyone for that matter (and still don't). So I didn't go back to that camp the next year, and sports and I had a bit of a falling out.

At this point in my life (late middle school - high school), I was pretty anti-social as I had decided I would be able to steer clear of every pitfall known to man if I could only sever from every instance of human contact. Other than the internet, that is. You can see where this path leads - my physique, which I had taken for granted my entire life, went into a bit of a decline (not as much visually as aerobically) and I became a bit bitter and often depressed (mostly about little things). So that was a weird time for me.

Here I am today, a few years later: I have a somewhat functional social life, with a girlfriend from college and a close group of friends back home, but I can't run around like I used to. I've never been able to gain one thing without losing the other - and my mom seems to think that that's what is going on inside me - I fixed up my lungs and now my stomach and intestines have decided to attack each other. If it's not one thing...oh yeah, that's what I was talking about. So my mom and I were also talking about how I internalize things a lot, and I almost disagreed, but then had to laugh, knowing I just fell into a trap. I am more upfront with my girlfriend then I have been with anyone else in my entire life, other than my mom, at times. I think that maybe now that we don't see each other much, I've been subconsciously internalizing things I would usually be telling her. Of course, I usually have no idea what those things are since it's so subconscious, so dealing with them is pretty tough. Now I have a reason to take care of my health issues though, which is a start - the doctor told me to, and in this instance I am grateful someone has told me what to do.

Read...
Battle Royale, by Koushun Takami
Bone, by Jeff Smith
Blade of the Immortal
The Inevitable Japanese Experience
Nobody Knows: Yoshitomo Nara Drawings

Listen to...
The Cinematic Orchestra
Yann Tiersen
Jon Brion
The Bad Plus (!!)
*the alphabet - from Captain Beefheart to The Constantines

Watch...
Batman Begins
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
Yojimbo
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
I Heart Huckabees (again)

...Motivation and inspiration

2005-06-14T18:52:00.000+13:00

I have this problem.
I can't make things I want to make. Well, that's a lie - I can, but only in certain situations and it's generally not completely what i originally wanted it to be. See, it's not an issue of creativity - it's a problem of a) making physical products out of ideas i have and b) working up the motivation and inspiration to do it with the right energy. I have soooo many ideas in my head at any given time that sketching and fleshing them out is a really daunting task. granted, most of the ideas suck, but there are still a lot of them. it's for this reason that i sometimes get more done when i'm a little tired - I turn off my brain a bit. so that helps me get started, but making a work into something i like is a bit more difficult. i'm pretty tired now, so i'm not really thinking as i type, but i could not do something right now that i'd really appreciate tomorrow. but here i am rationalizing my own sloth - i haven't started a painting yet this summer and i keep saying i will. i helped Damian paint some things but I don't much count that as something I myself have done.

While I'm rationalizing, I may as well throw out the other thought about producing works - and that's what I've started to think of as something of a dreamer complex. When I visualize an idea in my head, it's clear in concept, but physically foggy. I'm sure a lot of people have this problem, and some probably just deem it normal, but it bothers me. I have this idea that seems crystal clear, but when i put it on paper i'm not sure where to begin; how it will look. It's the same as when I try to draw something I saw in a dream - it's always too foggy to come out correctly. Maybe i should just be doing all my work in photoshop and blurring it all. Now there's an idea.

In the end, if none of this stops me, I still have to have the inspiration to make the most out of my idea and the motivation to come through, which is possibly the hardest part, hearkening back all the way to elementary school. The irritating part is that when I'm busy and working on something I don't want to be doing, I feel as though I could rip out a million things I would like and still have energy left over. But when I'm just being lazy and not doing anything, starting, not to mention finishing something is near impossible for me. It's completely ridiculous. This is possibly the biggest problem I have right now, and it's tied into my inability to concentrate most of the time. In short, I'm just like everyone else from my generation. And yes, it bothers me.

watched...
Jumanji
Mighty Ducks
Grosse Pointe Blank
Can't Hardly Wait
(yes, it's been one of those days. and no, i don't feel like watching anything critically acclaimed again just yet.)
((and also yes, i realize that grosse pointe blank doesn't fit the profile here so well))

reading...
are you fuckin kidding me? but i'm gonna start Battle Royale the novel soon.
Also I've been reading Blade of the Immortal...which is pretty stock action, but has great artwork.

listening to...
everything ever alphabetically between Bright Eyes and Camper Von Beethoven.

...Concert-going

2005-06-08T10:04:00.000+13:00

Concerts I've gone to so far this summer:

Spoon - 6/4 @ some place on south St in Philly
Mando Diao, The Sights - a little while ago @ The Bowery Ballroom

Future Possibilities:

The Coral - 6/9 @ The Bowery
Architecture in Helsinki - 6/13 @ Northsix / 6/12 @ The Knitting Factory
Richard Cheese - 6/15 @ The Bowery
The Bad Plus - 6/16 @ The Knitting Factory
Rogue Wave - 6/17 @ The Bowery
Iron & Wine - 6/16, 6/17 @ Webster Hall
Rhapsody - 6/19 @ BB King's
Eels - 6/30 @ Town Hall
The Aquabats - 7/1 @ BB King's
Bonobo - 7/6 @ Rothko
Do Make Say Think - 7/9 @ The Bowery
Rosykopp - 7/13 @ Irving Plaza
Calexico - 7/14 @ Castle Clinton National Monument
Sufjan Stevens - 8/19, 8/20 @ The Bowery

Realistically, I won't be going to most of these. Also, some are more because I have friends who are big fans of the band. Maybe Blogspot isnt the best place for a list like this...we'll see.

One cool city

2005-06-07T07:10:00.000+13:00

I love Philadelphia. It's smaller and less pretentious than New York. It's got all the good parts of the city, without most of the shitty qualities. Parking is still a pain, but there's lots of cool stuff. I was only there for a little while so I only got to check out the South Street area, Chinatown, and the art museum (for a little while before it closed). But I can't wait to go back - it seems like a lot of fun.

Saturday night I saw Spoon with The Clientele and some other band I can't remember. The first band was no good and the Clientele were yawnworthy at best, but Spoon was amazing. They've got so many great songs and the vibe was pretty cool. The venue was a little rundown, but it got the job done. I really need to listen to Gimme Fiction some more. I don't really know what specifically to say about the show...they did a cool rendition of Paper Tiger and everyone sang along to The Way We Get By. I decided that the lead singer looks like a mousy version of Gary Busey.

...Robots and Rickenbackers

2005-06-07T06:40:00.000+13:00

That's right - I'm talkin about that crazy nonsense anime/manga, FLCL ("Fooly Cooly" / "Furi Kuri"). I watched all six episodes of the anime not too long ago and just recently bought the first two volumes of the manga. I didn't think it was possible - but they are even more nonsensical than the TV version. FLCL makes all rational thought implode on itself, and then makes it dinner only to smash it in the head with a bass guitar midway through.

Here's a brief summary of the goings-on in Mabase, the crazy fucking town in which FLCL is set:
A boy named Naota has a dad and a grandpa who act like kids and an older brother who he looked up to, but moved to the US to be a star baseball player. His brother's old girlfriend, Mamimi, hangs around Naota all the time and clings to him. She also sets fire to everything in sight. Then there's Haruko - the pink-haired alien chick who runs over Naota with her Vespa, revives him by making out with him, and then bashes him in the head with her Rickenbacker. This Rickenbacker, which has a motor in it that Haruko has to rev before using it, has a special alien power - it creates a transdimensional portal in the person's head where it hits it, allowing things like huge robots to come through it, and oh do they ever! The first to come through is a big TV-headed robot who Haruko hits in the head like everyone else and makes an ally of, who they call Terebi-kun, or "TV Boy". Also, Naota's brain disappears and he possibly kills his father with a baseball bat.

Lots of crazy shit happens - the main themes being fucked up symbols for growing up and sexual maturity and things like that. Part of the most irking part of the anime and manga are that important plot points and explanations of things that are otherwise completely illogical are only mentioned in passing or in the background - or in little side panels in the manga. Also, insane pop culture references are made - like the opening of the first episode, which is a misquote of a 60s boxing manga. I didn't get to watch all of the commentary, but there seems to be a lot of stuff like that that I doubt even a knowledgeable Japanese would recognize.

That said, I fucking love it. The art in both versions is amazing, and stuff like Rickenbackers and Vespas are just so cool...most manga doesn't have anything anywhere near this cool in it. It's so unbelievably creative and unhinged, yet the art is still defined and controlled...this is the essence of what I am trying to achieve - controlled insanity: the great challenge.

...controlled insanity

2005-06-07T06:26:00.000+13:00

I've recently realized (for the umpteenth time) that what I lack most in life is focus and therefore, control. Artwise, I can do uncontrolled insanity; crazy-looking abstractions that I don't really pay attention to while I do them. Control is where the challenge lies. In fact, it's ridiculously hard for me. I can do coloring books and the like - that's kinda what I was doing for Damian (who realized that he didn't really have shit for me to do as of right now, rendering me 89% unemployed. but it's cool.). I'd look at a photo and paint solid blocks of color as they looked in it. Not hard - didn't even take that much concentration. It was good observational practice for me, but it wasn't the kind of focus that's really difficult for me. I need to be able think crazy or outside the box or whatever you wanna call it, and be able to control that energy and put onto a canvas in a controlled manner. Easier said than done.

Additionally, I just remembered that part of my reason for creating this blog was to become a better and more interesting writer. Then I realized that I could really be blogging all the things I put as my away messages. To save for posterity. Or something. Eh, who knows. Anyway, I'm gonna blog again now. It could possibly be slightly more interesting.

...projects

2005-06-01T09:07:00.000+13:00

I have yet to really get myself started on my own projects this summer. I work 3-5 days a week for around 5 hours a day for an artist in residence in Katonah named Damian Wagner and sporadically for an artist agency slash miscellaneous public art funding organization called Creative Time. Having the two jobs has kept me pretty busy some weeks and not at all for others. This week Damian was busy mixing his album and got sick, so I didn't end up working today. I haven't done anything with Creative Time since the Trip the Light Fantastic benefit. I may be working sometime soon on Coney Island again, helping set up the Dreamland Artists' Clubhouse with Steve Powers. I bought some painting supplies and should start work on some canvases soon. Or kill myself for being so god damn unmotivated.

projects:
-various paintings
-scrounge for wood panels for painting and graffiti
-begin graffiti
-various sketches and drawings
-get better with photoshop and/or other digital things and my tablet
-possibly play some music (unlikely)
-work on music library, look up bands on list
-watch movies on list
-look up artists on list
-continue to make list longer and therefore totally impossible to complete
-organize various files
-READ BOOKS (my attention span has been nonexistant as of late)
-learn more about Kyoto
-learn more about Japan's art scene
-blog periodically

I figure these goals aren't exactly a stretch, so doing it all before leaving for Tokyo should be no big deal.

In other news, I am highly aggravated by the fact that chapters from 142 up to 200-something of the Shaman King manga have not been translated into English. If I get even more desperate, I may try reading the French translations (I know, it's like Babelfish).

...a busy summer

2005-05-24T19:18:00.000+13:00

I've got a bunch of places I'd like to go and things I'd like to do this summer before I leave for Japan in August, and after a conversation I just had I decided to put them here. That is all.

NYC:
-Basquiat exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum
-Fredericks Freiser Gallery
-various Chelsea galleries
-MOMA, MoNH, and the Met
-Japan Society
-go back to Coney Island to see more murals

Other:
-Dia
-Storm King
-Cirque du Soleil in Hartford?

Trips:
-Montreal
-Santa Fe?
-Costa Rica? (improbable?)

That's all I can currently conjure up. Also I've already done some of the things on my list so I didn't bother listing them. I should put up a list of concerts and shows to go to. The Coral and Spoon are both in the near future.

On a side note, I just watched Adaptation, and it so perfectly captures what I experience (even at the time I was watching it) when trying to change an idea into a product. Of course, I barely ever finish anything to the extent that I would call it a product of any kind...but the idea is there.

listening to...
Of Montreal - The Sunlandic Twins
Beck - Guero (again and again)
Boards of Canada
Bob Dylan
Bob Marley (yeah, that's right - I'm back to the alphabetical scheme)

...looking after yourself

2005-05-17T19:09:00.000+13:00

warning to whomever might be reading this: this is pre-sleep rambling that probably doesn't make any sense and probably isn't interesting to any sane person.

I'm not sure just how much I agree with the model of mind, body and soul/spirit but I've been thinking in that mode for a long time, so most opinions I have on the subject are within that mindset right now. It's interesting to me that society has a come to a point where cultivating the mind is put above the other two. Western civilization is all about individualism, right? So why not value the body more? We use our minds to help others as well as ourselves....wait - scratch that train of thought.

the switch - We do value the body a good amount; we exercise, have diets and all that good stuff to keep ourselves healthy. Likewise, in less individual-based culture you have the rise of martial arts to protect the self, but also to protect others, unlike in our culture. In my head that somehow connects to the association of sex with romance in the West but not in the East, but this point is not too foggy for me to put into words.

back to main argument - Why do we value the mind so much? Even religion, which used to be a kind of exercise for the soul is now led more by the mind than it once was in some sects. We all go to school in order to get a job in order to make a living in order to.....be happy? Is that what it is? Is knowledge the key to happiness? I doubt we've de-evolved so much intellectually that our foremost "philosophers" (who don't exist) believe the answer to this question is yes. This begs the argument that humanity is mindlessly (and ironically, of course) turning the gears of some giant machine of what purpose we do not know, but which in the end we learn (too late), it is to destroy us. There. Are we self-destructive by nature? There's another question that just popped into my head. Sometimes this just happens to me - i never answer a question completely because I find myself asking another one. Is that my problem?

On another note, the voice in my head while I was writing this was British for some reason. I still need to work on speaking how I write and not vice-versa. Professor Peter would not currently approve. I don't know how I started thinking about this subject a minute ago...I remember thinking about people and their reluctancy to change, but then other people's embrace of constant change and how that isn't really change at all, is it? Guess those people don't hate routine as much as they thought. Maybe I should just go to sleep. Painting again tomorrow.

Listening to -
don't remember. a bunch of stuff.

Reading -
Nothing. but i read some short stories about Ryunosuke Akutagawa on the subway the other day.

Watched-
Rashomon
The Motorcycle Diaries
The Triplets of Belleville
Goodbye Lenin
Star Wars: A New Hope

...The non-routine

2005-05-12T08:40:00.000+13:00

So I realized that I a) won't be posting here at regular intervals because it's not the way I am and b) don't feel typing much anymore after all I had to do the last few weeks of school. In short, I will post things here sporadically this summer. for instance, I may post again tomorrow and then eight times the next day, but then not again for a few weeks.

It's summer and today is beautiful, so I'm leaving my computer. I'm meeting with Damian, an artist in residence in Katonah, now to see what my work schedule will be this summer. I've been in Coney Island two of the last three days helping Os Gemeos with their mural. Well, I didn't really do much. I just looked after their stuff. I was supposed to put up a protective barrier, but they weren't ready for it yet so I didn't get around to it in the time I was there. And now I have to run to meet Damian.

...The All-Nighter

2005-04-23T00:11:00.000+13:00

As my first all-nighter in a long time, I feel that tonight is something special. This is the night I spend 12 hours writing a research paper on something I care very little about. I regurgitate information from a multitude of sources at an exhausting rate, citing craziness left and right. I organize and re-organize and throw in some opinions and a bullshit argument for good measure. I rework my thesis statement over and over again because I have no idea what I'm talking about. I space out and stare at the wall for long periods of time now and then, only to look at the clock and see that 30 minutes have passed. I step back from my paper for a second and realize I'm sore all over. This is the stuff dreams are made of. 15-20 pager due tomorrow, and then a 5-6k word one due wednesday. throw in my final painting and you have what i'll be doing up until finals week! stay tuned for a rant on rituals and ceremonies!

watched...
Twelve Monkeys

listening to...
Band of Bees
The Books - Lost and Safe
The One AM Radio
Add N to X
The Octopus Project

reading...
one god damn shitty paper
Heart of Creation
The Art of Mesoamerica
The Sculptures of El Tajin
Ceremonial Sculpture of Ancient Veracruz
More Human than Divine
...and your mind.

...Money money makin'

2005-04-08T03:50:00.000+13:00

I loathe what I know of the business world, which is very little. I am still waiting to hear back from the Chelsea gallery to which I initially applied for summer work. If I get the position, I probably won't actually be making any money - it's an internship position, which means one more summer of relying on good ol' pops to provide the money (mostly for food). While this option makes me feel like shit, I don't really have the right to complain. I've been contemplating applying for other positions. One in particular looks really interesting, but I'm totally clueless as to the likelihood of my being accepted. Both of these companies were referred to me by "connections". Connections...probably the biggest word in trying to start out in any career. You can't get anywhere if you don't know anyone, which is despiccable in any career; just because you don't know someone doesn't mean you're not a talented individual. Luckily, I know a guy who knows a guy, and all that. Whether or not that gets me a job is another story.

That anxiety aside, I have more short-term things to moan and groan about. I already handed in the outline for my research essay on Battle Royale, but this Friday I have to hand in my outline on the shamanism of Veracruz. On Monday, I have to have read Dance Dance Dance and finished my abstract painting (which I think I have), not to mention the presentation on Marusa no Onna (A Taxing Woman) I have to complete for Wednesday. After that my grumbling will stop for a bit before I have to swing into action on both of the aforementioned 20-page research papers. My next painting is supposed to be entirely text-based. That means there can't be any semblance of an image in the piece that isn't text. None of those poems that formed shapes that we did in middle school, amazing though I'm sure they were. And by the time I'm done with all that it will be finals week. Fun fun fun.

In other non-whiny news, I had a dream that the lead singer of the Decemberists was sick so I had to fill in for him. I got all nervous when we had to play at South by Southwest. I guess it was an anxiety dream, just a really weird one.

READING:
Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami
The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami
Intense Years by Rebecca Fukuzawa
Understanding Japanese Society by Joy Hendry
Contemporary Japanese Film by Mark Schilling

WATCHED:
Battle Royale
The Village
One Hour Photo
Weekend
Cannibal the Musical
Proof (special showing)
Akira

listening to..
The Coral
Clinic
Cornelius
Blonde Redhead
The Books
The American Analog Set
Bedroom Walls
Beck - Guero
Aphex Twin
Belle and Sebastian
Funki Porcini

...War

2005-03-26T08:59:00.000+13:00

"In the Art of Peace we never attack. An attack is proof that one is out of control. Never run away from any challenge, but do not try to suppress or control an opponent unnaturally. Let attackers come any way they like and then blend with them. Never chase after opponents. Redirect each attack an get firmly behind it." - Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido

In complete contrast to this quote is Sun Tzu's The Art of War, the book title I have chosen to connect to and use as a title for my painting. It would be easy to turn such a painting into a political one, but I'm not really in the mood. Politics (on a college campus) are ultimately a function of anger and a total waste of energy. I am going to approach the painting from a more philosophical stance. It would be difficult to ignore the modern (corporate) significance of the book, however, so I will let it seep in a bit.

My current sketch for the painting is of a cell tower and a tree. The cell tower is very geometrically drawn, whereas the tree is by nature more chaotic looking. I think you can see where this is going... However, I may change my subject slightly. The obvious thing to do with "The Art of War" would be to present two objects in conflict - so what if my piece was of one object? Such a painting could easily become cliched; a painting of a cell tower is too simple. In any case, puzzling over the intellectual aspect is not all that important to me. I want this painting to be about the act of painting itself. Those kinds of paintings tend to be the most interesting to me currently...and I don't know how well I would be able to connect a complex intellectual idea with an image yet. It's not something I am quite ready to tackle...nor is it all that interesting to me. I start the painting this weekend.

listening to...
The Arcade Fire
The Avalanches
Atmosphere
The Bad Plus
Badly Drawn Boy
Basement Jaxx

watched...
The Karate Kid 2
Trainspotting

reading...
The Art of Peace
The Art of Mesoamerica
Shaman King

...Abstraction?

2005-03-23T04:38:00.000+13:00

The newest painting project is a landscape, sorta - I have to do 10 drawings of the landscape from different perspectives, then choose one to paint, and abstract it "completely". I may draw from Abstract Expressionists such as Anselm Kiefer if I'd like, but I don't have to. Also, the title of the painting has to be the title of a book from a list Lynnette gave us. The painting does not have to be about the content of the book; it only has to have a connection to the titel. I chose the simple yet irresistible The Art of War by Sun Tzu.

This assignment is the first of its kind - it's very open ended. It's also the first non-observation based painting. So the decisions I make will come from my head. It will be a real test of creativity and decision making - and even harder, reconciling the two. At times I have a tendency to let my creativity get out of control when I actually have it in me, which makes my problem solving skills go bye-bye. It will be interesting to see what materializes.

I would like to take an approach similar to Ralph Steadman, a hero of mine. Bailey just got me an awesome book with a ton of his stuff in it. It really is much better to see an artist's work in a book than on a screen - but then it's also much better to see the works in person than in a book. In any case, I love the fact his style consists of very controlled parts as well as utterly chaotic ones. The muted shades and dark ink outlines he uses to color in his figures would be an interesting way to deal with my assignment, or so I think now. Only when I start painting will I be able to tell which direction it will take.

In other news, I have become increasingly clumsy as of late. I woke up this morning and immediately smashed my face on the wall for the first time ever. An all-time low.

Watched...
Visitor Q
Rocky I
Rocky II

listened to...
Animal Collective - Sung Tongs
Air (all)
Apollo Sunshine - Katonah

...___________

2005-03-19T12:11:00.000+13:00

So I figure now is as good a time as any to explain the title of my blog. I only chose "rocktheart" because "theartof" was taken. The Art Of... - that's it's real title. I want to write about the art of things...in an effort to get at the heart of things. Ok, so I just made that last part up, but it sounded good at the time so I'ma leave it. The truth is that I don't want this to be an overly philosophical blog, because those tend to be pointless. I'm sure I'll get into that stuff again in one way or another, but I want this blog to be about the art of things more than the meaning. However, I don't know what exactly I want to focus on (as usual). I do not know what I am interested in the art of (awk), and thus the title of this blog. God this post sucked. Oh well.

watched...
Shaun of the Dead
Point Break (unintentionally hilarious - and $6 at the new Target!)

listening to...
A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory
Add N to X - Loud Like Nature
The Decemberists - Picaresque
The Decemberists - The Tain

playing...
Turtles in Time (SNES)

done...
Resume
Cover Letter

...Thought Projection

2005-03-15T20:42:00.000+13:00

It's an extraordinary feeling; to have your brain feel so brimming with ideas that any moment it will burst and the ideas will shoot forth from your eyes like a projector. I'm not a great speaker, so they cannot come out my mouth. But I'd like to be considered an artist at some point in my life, so a huge life goal for me is to be able to convey what goes on in my head artistically.

I always have a lot on my mind, but not all of it is always so interesting and relevant as it is right now. This state of mind is difficult to keep up. Trying to take mental notes of all my ideas while operating on even the most basic functional level can leave me ridden of any energy whatsoever in a matter of hours. This amount of time is generally not enough for me to realize the conversion of thought to product. And since I like to work when my idea is clear, coming back to something at a later time generally proves disastrous.

Dumplings are ready. Sweet.

...the Mentality

2005-03-15T19:52:00.000+13:00

note to self: attempt to get back to the artistic mentality of a child. 1 of ___ mission statements.

watching...
How to Draw a Bunny
El Mariachi
Samurai Champloo

"Well, I put things in a mailbox, and they get spread all over - maybe it's an extension of cubism." - Ray Johnson

...Procrastination (#1)

2005-03-15T06:41:00.000+13:00

So this is my first official procrastination on my new blog. I'm excited. Right now I'm actually on spring break (at home), which makes this procrastination seem a little strange. But I should probably be working on my resume, since the gallery and auction house that I just recently became in contact with want it and a cover letter by early next week. There's also the book I have to read at some point for Japan through Literature and Film: Kobo Abe's The Woman in the Dunes. Other than that, I have to do a bunch of preliminary drawings for my painting of an abstracted landscape, keep my Japanese fresh, possibly work on my speech for the Japanese Speech Contest, and do my reading on the Late Formative Period for Pre-Columbian Art. This break is too short. Not to mention that I am in the midst of a very daunting task regarding my iTunes library: I am going to try to listen to all of it in alphabetical order (deleting the bad stuff), a task that will take me 26 days, 12 hours, 54 minutes and 12 seconds.

Listening to...
9 Lazy 9
A Silver Mount Zion - Born into Trouble as the Sparks Fly Upwards

...the Return

2005-03-14T17:33:00.000+13:00

It's been a couple years since I had a blog. I remember enjoying being able to just sort of throw my thoughts out there and occasionally get a response to it. However, it's difficult for a person who is constantly questioning himself to write something down and come back to it later without wanting to completely erase it. That's been a problem I've had in the past with my art as well, among other things. But I digress, I'll make a bunch of other posts soon explaining myself in full - but for now I just want to explain why I decided to start a new blog.

I used to hate how when blogging got more popular, I would run across posts about the "oh my god AMAZING shopping spree" someone went on, or other completely noninteresting things. I'm not saying that a blog should be deep, just that there should be a good, solid reason for you to write, and I really can't grasp whatever those kinds of people might be getting at, beyond following the fad. Personally, I think having a blog keeps my shitty ass writing skills from going too far to shit, and it's entertaining way to pass the time / procrastinate. Also, I need to be able to write out some of my thoughts - I want to be able to look back on them, dumb as they may later seem.

I don't feel much like describing myself right now...next time.

listening to...
One Speed Bike - El Gallito
The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike
The 6ths - Wasps' Nests
Latino Crush - Slashin' Up Rotten Sounds

watched...
I HEART Huckabees
Citizen Kane
Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Minority Report

"Architecture is frozen music." - Goethe