Summer 2007

Wow what a crazy couple of weeks it's been! First of all Yuki arrives from Japan, closely followed by our dear friend Karlos from Wellington, and we all move into a flat in Sandringham which we are looking after for some friends of mine, a couple called Mandi and Marcia who are on holiday in Brazil. Within a few days my father is rushed to hospital with a serious case of quickly worsening angina, and scheduled for a triple-bypass operation as soon as possible. I move back home, Mum and I are at the hospital as much as possible and the boys are left to their own devices. Happily they go sightseeing and Yuki discovers he likes hiking. My dad pulls through the operation just fine and is amazingly brave and cheerful every step of the way. Just as he is about to come home, poor old Yuki finds the lovely cat at the flat we are looking after has died in the night. We manage to give Dama (the cat) a proper burial in a lovely spot in my parent's garden, but my friends in Brazil are tormented every time they use a public toilet because on every door there's the sign 'Dama', which means 'lady' in Portugese. Shortly after that all happens things get a lot better cause my dad comes home, and the Aunties arrive, Aunty Margaret from Paihia and Aunty Annette from Oz. Yuki seems to be enjoying Auckland in spite of all the dramas and gets along well with my family, especially Aunty Margaret who tells me that if I don't want him, she'll have him. So anyway Yukes and I are about to head off on a camping trip around the North Island, to get in a bit of Kiwi summer beach action before I start school and he starts looking for work. Can't wait for a swim! It'll be my first one of the year.

Baby boy!

Definitely the New Year to beat all other New Years!! My very dear friend Elinor and her devoted partner Hamish gave birth to a beautiful and healthy baby boy at their flat in Mt Eden last night at 12.16 and I was priviledged enough to be there. It was a perfect birth with Eli doing a brilliant job pushing and only occasionally telling us all off, while the ever-positive Hamish kept close by her side with the odd short break to the kitchen to sip a gin and tonic. There were two midwives who were just wonderful with their constant encouragement and calm directions. I was on hand to boil water (yes, I really did have to) and make cups of tea after. The whole thing felt safe and relaxed, and a little unreal. I could see New Year fireworks bursting red into the black sky outside the window just before he was born.
Being there was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. It wasn't too freaky as I'd been at the birth of my little sister Jenny when I was five years old, so there were a lot of things which seemed quite familiar, like the colour of the newborn baby , or what the placenta looks like.
This has got to be the happiest New Year I've ever had, and I'm sure Eli and Hamish are a million times happier than me. So I feel like I have a lot of love in my heart when I wish you all a very happy new year!!

Myspace..and yourspace

This is an invitation to my new myspace profile! It's at http://www.myspace.com/velvet_chopsticks . If you get the urge please join me there. It only takes a minute to set up a profile...go on, you know you want to.
Let's all enjoy myspacing together.

Art in the wild West

I've been going to art classes out at Corban's in West Auckland, where my dad has a studio. Corban's is an old wine distillery which is now used as a workspace for artists and a venue for art classes. Every Wednesday I make the trip out to Henderson and the traffic is a shocker. A trip that normally takes 20 minutes takes one hour. It blows my mind to think that some people sit through that hell everyday - crawling along the motorway for miles, baking in the late afternoon sunlight and marinating in a cloud of dust and ozone layer-destroying fumes. We are as bad as I imagine Americans to be. Why doesn't the council get the trains up a to a decent standard and charge a tax for cars using the inner city like they do in London?
Anyhow once I get off the motorway (with a huge sigh of relief), I'm in West Auckland which has become very cool lately, possibly due to the exceptionally good weekly drama 'Outrageous Fortune' about a family of Westie crims, which is without a doubt one of the best NZ TV weekly drama series made in my lifetime. Or is it the only NZ TV weekly drama series made in my lifetime? Either way, it's the highlight of my Tuesday evenings.
I'm in West Auckland to learn how to draw. My tutor is a woman called Robin Binsley and she is a saint. Most of the class are women except for one young guy who is there with his mother, whether against his will or not it's hard to figure out because his facial expressions alternate between deep despairing gloom and considerable enjoyment. He does cool pictures too. Taking art classes takes me back to when I was at primary school. I muddle around with pencil and crayons and then trot off home to proudly show my parents what I drew today, revelling in their exclamations of delight. I'm a bit miffed that they haven't stuck any of my work on the fridge, though. Then there's the conversations during the class when we take breathers, or go to look at each other's work, which also remind me of being about eight years old again.
They go something like this:
'Wow, I love your landscape, it's so gentle and rolling...and what you've done there, with the light, it's really fantastic.'
'Nooo...I really can't get it right, I find it so difficult to get the tonal differences. I much prefer yours, with the way you've managed to get that sense of depth right there-'
'No, really, yours is great, you should get it framed.'
Read:
'Your picture's cool.'
'Nah, mine's stink. Yours is good.'
'Nah, yours is better.'
Just like we were at primary school. Funny how ingrained it is in our culture to talk ourselves down, to be modest and self-effacing.
So yeah, my artwork sucks...maybe. But I might get it framed anyway.

Bullfight of Love

This Sunday I'm sitting the level 3 Japanese Proficiency Test, and so in the interests of study, I decided to rent a Japanese film from the local video store. Browsing the foreign film section I came upon 'Ai no Corridor" ('Bullfight of Love' or as it's also known 'In the Realm of the Senses') and was immediately interested when I read Madonna's recommendation on the cover. 'I like it cause it's real' was her take. Well if Madonna likes it...When I saw it was rated R18 (and banned or heavily censored in many countries) I wondered if they would actually be speaking much Japanese. I've noticed that films with this rating are not heavy on dialogue but thought I would check it out anyway in the interest of cultural study. The guy behind the counter looked particularly interested in my choice of movie and told me that he would be finishing work in 3 hours. I said I hoped the weather would hold out.
Well, it was a jaw-dropper. Beautifully shot and lush in erotic detail, it's based on the true and legendary within Japan story of an ex-prostitute and an innkeeper who begin a passionate, obsessive affair and who end up desiring each other so much that they can hardly bear to be apart from each other (quite literally) for a moment. To the point where the couple stay coccooned in their room for days on end, and so incur the wrath of the maids who want to do the cleaning (uncleanliness being a sin in Japan) as well as the disdain of the neighbourhood hordes of gossiping geishas. The ending is pretty wow but I won't tell you what happens as that would be a spoiler. Let's just say that Michael Hutchence had nothing on those two.
The sex scenes are unsimulated and very explicit, and I'm not talking bare bums and nipple-pinching. It's veins and all, baby! This aspect to the film raised a few questions for me, such as why do we have such a strong boundary between 'sensible' films and pornography, and why don't more films portray sex more realistically? If it's OK for actors to really kiss onscreen, why not take it to the next level and have them really having sex? I guess the main problem might be convincing actors to go that far for their art. As well as that, is it really necessary to show all the sticky and messy bits to get the point across? Perhaps a simulation is enough? If we see a heaving mass of off-white cotton sheets we can usually get the picture of what's going on under the bedclothes. But in this movie the explicit nature of the love-making only adds to the story, rather than detracts from it, and the two principal actors are both charming and so convincing in their roles. By the way, the egg-laying scene is just superb.
Did my Japanese improve? Most definitely.

Reverse culture shock!

I went to St Lukes shopping mall on Sunday to get some new shoelaces and the only colours I could get them in were black or white. Culture shokku! Then all the shops started closing at 5.30. Double culture shokku!

Poor lambs

I went driving all the way to Kerikeri last week. Cruising down the highway, the sun shining, Rock'n'roll Jukebox Hits on the stereo (I raided my parents' tape collection), rollling green hills to either side, blue sky on the horizon and hundreds of animal eyes watching me from the side of the road. This country is packed full of animals! Everywhere I went, there were cows with calves, sheep with lambs, pigs, dogs, turkeys, quails, pukekoes, horses and ducks, frolicking merrily in the pastures. So cute, those little lambs, the way their tails wiggle-waggle as they get a feed from mum. The way they skip around with their adorable little woolly legs.
'They'll all end up on someone's dinner table in Europe within a couple of weeks,' remarked a friend with a shrug, when I told them about my trip.'That's the sad thing.'
Poor lambs. If only the carnivores in Europe could see their sweet little faces, they would swear off eating them for life. Wouldn't they? Maybe not. I mean, farmers eat their own animals all the time. That's no big deal to them. I heard New Zealand described as 'Europe's larder' once. At this time of year, the larder is well and truly stocked. Come summer, there will be a lot of lonely sheep mums out there.

Back on the caffeine wagon

I've become addicted to coffee, again. Flat whites are just so yum, how can I resist their creamy, swirly little faces? All my herbal tea-drinking aspirations have gone out the window. At $3 a coffee, there's no reason not to indulge, over and over again. Perhaps the government should start taxing each cup. Maybe that's what they were doing in Japan?

Hanami

The plum tree outside the kitchen window is full of white blossom. When the wind blows, it lifts the blossom off the branches and scatters it on the ground like snow. The tabby cat Sunday chases the falling petals. When it rains, which is often, the petals are wet and sodden and stick to your gumboots.
I've stopped beginning every sentence with 'In Japan (blah blah blah).' Now it's just every second sentence.

What goes around, comes around

Crikey. The newspapers and TV have been full of Steve 'I jump on animals' Irwin. All of us Down Under are apparently in shock about his death, but really, it comes as very little surprise. It was only a matter of time. How many dangerous animals could you piss off before one of them finally retaliated? Irwin always claimed to have a deep love for animals, but his bullying actions showed otherwise. Germaine Greer wrote a very good article about his death, no doubt for which she will be labelled as an unpatriotic harridan. 'Every creature he brandished at the camera was in distress,' she writes. 'The animal world has finally taken its revenge.'
Rest in peace, wildlife of the world.

Home

The ceilings are so high here! I feel like I could grow wings and fly around the room.
I arrived in Auckland early yesterday morning. The first three people I saw as I came through the arrival gates were my mother and father and my Aunty Naomi. It wasn't hard to spot them as they were the only non-Asian people there. The flight was great. Thanks Air New Zealand! I got the usual cheery greeting as I stepped onto the plane: "Gidday!! Ready to go home?" and was looked after every step of the way by the strapping blokes they seem to like to employ as cabin attendants. Very reassuring in the case of an emergency, and handy with the overhead lockers too. Air NZ has the TVs where you can choose the movies yourself so I watched In My Father's Den (brilliant), Sione's Wedding (brilliant) and about 6 episodes of Brotown (brilliant). Watching NZ-made goodies the whole way home gave me a decent reprogramming and I stepped off the plane feeling sweet as, bro.
It's nice to be home. After my parents had taken me for a long-anticipated flat white coffee in Onehunga they left me at home while they went off to work. I lay in the bath for several hours reading Women's Weekly magazines. Luxury! Bliss!
There are a few things that have changed around the house since I was here on holiday a year and a half ago. The garden is filling up with my dad's brick sculptures, and there are some new paintings up. The Computer Room (it's called this because there is a computer in it) has some new shelving. Also, there is a new addition to the family! There is a lovely, naughty young cat called Sunday tearing around the house, who has already tried to eat my scarf. You know how cats like to come and lie on the newspaper while you are reading it? Well, Sunday likes to eat the newspaper too.

Bye-yonara

Last blog entry from Japan. Paid all my bills, cancelled my keitai, ordered vegetarian meals for the plane and almost finished my packing. Nearly gone mad trying to keep my baggage under the 20 kg weight limit (what do they expect me to wear when I get home, my suitcase?). There's about 10 kg in my hand luggage. To my parents: if you are worried you won't recognise me after 3 years when I get off the plane, I'll be the lopsided woman, but I'll have a big smile on my face. It's sayonara Japan, kia ora New Zealand!

More funny names

My latest hobby is collecting silly names of the apartment buildings around Nakajima Park. I've discovered that this is a neighbourhood packed full of buildings called ' ------- Heights'. Such as:
Sunny Heights
Tall Heights
Grande Heights
City Heights
Crab Heights
These buildings are all 2 to 3 storeys high. Although Tall Heights is in deep denial.

Other interesting names I've found:
Bliss Court
Settle
Eternity.7
Creation Central
Excellent 86
Chopin Chateau - Koinu (Small Doggy)
Tiger Mansion

I like Tiger Mansion for a name. It sounds like the name of one of the glam rock bands I used to listen to when I was 15 years old. I also like Chopin Chateau - Small Doggy. It's classy, yet cute, if a little odd. My favourite, though, might be Excellent 86. That's where I wanna live, dudes and dudesses!

I'm an alien visitor

Last week I changed my visa status. I'm now a Temporary Visitor. Getting the visa was not too confusing as I'd gone through the same process in my first year here getting a re-entry permit which allowed me to come in and out of the country. First you go to the 7th floor of some official building where you find the Department of Immigration. This is possibly the only place in Sapporo where nobody speaks any English. You fill out the form and provide all the required evidence including your Alien Registration Card (yes, I'm a registered alien -nanu nanu), evidence of funds (did I mention that my bankbook has pictures of Felix the Cat on it? All the banks put some kind of cute cartoon character on their bankbooks), and a detailed schedule of your intended activities while in Japan. I put camping, although the only camping I've actually done was at the Rising Sun Rock Festival last weekend. Then you get sent down to the basement of the building, where strangely enough there is a convenience store, full of people buying rice balls and chocolate bars. You have to buy a stamp which looks exactly like a postage stamp but costs about 100 times as much. "I'll have a Snickers bar and a visa extension, thanks" kind of thing. Once you've got your really expensive stamp you go back upstairs, they do some more stuff to your passport, and you are allowed to still be in Japan. Yippee! A friend of mine forgot to get his visa changed before his 3 year work visa had finished, so just one day after his visa had expired he got a phone call crisply telling him to leave the country immediately. Superb efficiency!

Walking Sapporo

I'm living in a new city! Actually that's not true, it just feels like that. Simply by moving from north to south, I'm literally coming at the city from another angle, and it feels completely different. Having the time to wander, and people-watch, and duck down interesting side-streets, is letting me be a tourist in the city I've lived in for 3 years. Yesterday I found all these cool shops I had never seen before, where I could leaf through old 1950s Japanese housewife filmstar mags, or buy bunches of old testtubes and beakers to do my own home science experiments. Afterwards, I wandered through the nightlife district of Susukino, our very own gaudy, glitzy fairground-for-adults. On the street corners are stalls selling candyfloss and baked squid on sticks, and all around you are the signs for the hostess clubs, with shiny signs showing the women who work inside, just their heads floating in cherry blossom-pink clouds, topped with bleached orange bouffy hairstyles and with pearls of mascara dripping from their eyelashes. Some of these places are called 'soaplands' although they have very little to do with getting clean and much more to do with getting dirty. There are signs for the host clubs, too, with photos of young lads with violet-lensed eyes and baby-soft skin. In among all these brightly lit and decidedly un-seedy feeling places, are sushi bars, noodle bars, drinking spots and fancy restaurants. Everything is all mixed in together. There's no particular red-light district, or restaurant district. It's all one and the same. Last night I saw three middle-aged women in kimonos standing outside the door of their very expensive restaurant waving goodbye to a cute little girl who was leaving with her family, in amongst the strip clubs. How does this work? I think it's because there is never any evidence of violence, drugs or crime, on the streets, anyway. It always feels incredibly safe. Japanese people are just so freaking well-behaved - when they're in public, that is. When it comes to sharing the soap, it might be a different story.
Which brings me to the last part of my walk home. I was walking through Nakajima Park, as I do every night, and it suddenly occurred to me how weird that was - here I was, walking through a park in the middle of a city, at about midnight, and almost everyone I passed was a woman by herself. I've been taking it for granted here in Japan, but it makes me angry that it is only here that I can do that. Why can't women walk through a city at night and feel safe, anywhere in the world?

Height(s) of luxury

I'm staying in a mansion. That's right, a mansion. But before you get all excited, no, I haven't been adopted by Daddy Warbucks. 'Mansion' is the word for a regular old apartment in Japan. It sounds a lot swankier than it really is. They are given super posh names too. The block of flats I'm staying is is called 'Royal Heights'. In Japanese script, 'ロイヤルハイツ' (Roi-ya-ru Hai-tsu). The nearby apartment building is called 'Calm Heights' and just down the road is my personal fave, 'Jaunty Heights'. How could a name like that fail to put a spring in your step as you left for work in the mornings?

It's a .... ?

Princess Kiko goes into hospital today to get ready for the delivery of her baby by Caesarean section in September. She's got a long wait in hospital, poor woman. All the dinosaurs in the Diet are praying the baby is a boy so they don't have to change their precious tradition of only letting males ascend the throne. I really hope it is a girl. This could be the perfect time to put a woman on the throne - Japan could do with a bit of an image makeover. Although Koizumi sucks the big fat kumara, he did do one thing right - not his dandyish Oscar Wilde haircut (although I like that too) - but his plan to change the law to allow women to become monarchs too, just before Princess Kiko announced she was pregnant. If the baby turns out to be a girl, they'll still have to go ahead with the plan. Fingers crossed...

'The customer is a god'

I expect you've all heard the stories about good Japanese service is? The stories are all true - I'll prove it to you. Last weekend, after we had paid our bill at an Italian restaurant, we took the elevator down from the third floor, where the restaurant was, to the first floor (ground floor in EnZed-speak). The maitre d' took our money and gave us our change, bowed and smiled us into the elevator, then as soon as the doors had closed on us, quickly ran down the 2 flights of stairs so he was there at the bottom when the elevator doors opened and we stepped out, breathing a little faster but still smiling serenely and bidding us a safe journey home and to please come again!
The service here is truly amazing. You might not believe this, but bus drivers give you a running commentary on their driving:
'Now I am stopping the bus...now I am going forward again...now I am turning left...we will stop at the next stop..now I am stopping the bus...sorry for the wait...now here we go again...' That kind of thing. They wear white gloves and have a headset with a microphone. They always say thank-you to you when you get off. Are the passengers as polite? Well, the schoolkids all chirp brightly, 'Thank-you very much!' as they get off, but no-one else much does.
People serving you are so very polite here, to the point of obsequious at times. 'The customer is a god' is the general rule. Shop assistants literally RUN to the back of the store to see if they have something in your size. After you make a purchase, they often not only escort you out of the store, but carry your package for you too, and bow as they hand it to you at the door. At petrol stations, you don't have to lift a finger. You sit on your arse in the car while the attendants see to all your requirements, as well as a complimentary windscreen wash, and then they run ahead of your car out onto the road, halt all the oncoming traffic so you can pull out, and bow deeply after you as you drive away, all the time shouting how much they appreciate your service. If you are in one of the department stores when it closes, you'll find that as you come down the escalators, the staff on each floor wait for you at the foot of the escalator. There's something a little bit eerie about it, descending the escalator ever so slowly, in the deserted store, with the muzak version of Auld Lang Syne playing (they always play that at closing time in shops, and at high-school graduation ceremonies - again, most people think it was originally composed by a Japanese) towards a row of women with expressionless faces and smooth, sculpted hair, all chiming in unison 'Thank-you for coming!' and bowing at perfect 45 degree angles.
Just like on the bus, customers don't usually say much back. It's not their role to do that. As with most aspects of Japanese society, there are clearly defined rules of behaviour within the roles people play. The shop assistant prostrates themself before the customer, who responds by acting like a god. It was only up until the end of the Second World War that the emperor and god were synonymous in the minds of the Japanese. Now it's only the customer who is allowed to act like a god. It's really handy if you don't feel like chatting.
It's going to be a shock going back to New Zealand. I will have to carry my own shopping, and fill up my own petrol tank! Waiters will treat me as if they are the gods and I should be prostrating myself before them for being allowed to dine in their restaurant...and how will I know when to get off the bus?

It's hot

It was 35 degrees today in Sapporo. I went out to the supermarket in the middle of the day and almost melted. The air was as thick and hot as miso soup. There was a family across the road who had created a little garden of brightly coloured plastic inflatable things on the concrete outside the apartment and were splashing water about. The kids and the dad were all in their togs in the paddling pool. People everywhere are eating ice-blocks. Red bean frozen ice. Green tea ice-cream. My ice-block of choice is pink grapefruit ice. I took the tram to Odori Park in the late afternoon and watched a man lying back on the grass playing a ukelele to himself. It was weird thinking that this park is where they have the huge snow festival every year. Right where that man was playing his ukelele might have been a Japanese castle made out of ice a few months ago.

Lady of leisure

I am now a lady of leisure! Meaning officially unemployed. I have 3 glorious weeks of idleness before I go home. Well actually I still have to finish the drawings I'm doing for the Canadian professor, but I don't have to leave home to do them, so it doesn't feel like work. Anyway, drawing pictures doesn't exactly feel like work...unless you've got 100 of them to do...but I only have 40 left - 頑張ります (I will fight on!)。
Yesterday I closed the door for one last time on my dear apartment with its straw matting floors and mouldy shower and poky kitchen. I loved living in that apartment. Opening the windows and lying in the sun on my futon on lazy Sundays, or cranking the kerosene heater in the middle of winter. I've sat at my table and watched the snow pile up so far it's covering my balcony, for three winters, and seen the cherry tree outside my window blossom white for three springs. Three years is the longest I've lived in any one place since I left home after high school.
Saying goodbye was kind of sad, but after I took the train to the part of town where I'm staying with Yuki for the next few weeks, I started to feel good again. Just walking around a new neighbourhood, I was looking at everything with fresh eyes - I felt like I was travelling again. New sights, new smells. I walked past a shop with huge hairy crabs in tanks, and through the thick fishy air coming onto the street. I used to hate that smell, now I quite like it. I met an old woman in the local grocery store who couldn't stop smiling at me, and patted my hand very worriedly when she gave me her change because there were some small cuts on it (from scrubbing the cooker and its cursed baked-on grease).
Also, after having three rooms plus a living room to spread out in, I'm now living in a tiny room, so I've spent the day arranging my stuff, making little piles aginst walls and slotting things into empty spaces. It's fun. I think I'm finally living the Japanese lifestyle!

Good Moaning

I've realised how easy it is to make mistakes with vowel sounds, or even whole words, when speaking another language. Remember 'Allo Allo'? Here's a conversation I had yesterday about insects with a Japanese teacher of English. I weel say zees only vunce:
M-sensei: 'I used to live in teacher housing in the countryside and it was awful. Insects everywhere! I once ran a bath, threw off all my clothes, and was about to jump in, when I looked down and screamed! There were all these little black bugs swimming in my bath! It looked like the whole surface was covered with watermelon pips...and then sometimes I have seen small brown bugs, which look like zori, the Japanese sandal, walking around on my tatami near my bed..what do you call them?'
Me: 'They're usually called woodlice but in New Zealand we call them slaters.'
M-sensei: 'Yes, them. So one day, I got home from work, was about to jump into bed, when I turned on the light and saw my mattress covered with sluts.'
Me: 'Slaters.'
M-sensei: 'Oh yes, machigatta. And then when I was walking through my house in the night, I stepped on a...snail without a shell.'
me: 'A slug.'
M-sensei: 'Yes. I have heard that you should drop a slug into soiled water to check if it is a slug or not.'
Me: ?
M-sensei: 'Ah no, no. salted water. Machigatta.'
I hate it when there are sluts all over your mattress.
Another friend of mine had an interesting exchange with his mechanic. The words for 'sound' and 'woman' are quite similar,so:
Mechanic: 'What seems to be the problem?'
K: 'There's a strange woman in my car.'
M: 'A what?'
K: 'A strange woman in my car.'
M: 'What do you mean?'
K: 'Like this.' (Does squeaking sound while bouncing up and down).
It's so easy to do. I always used to confuse the words for parents and mushrooms ('My mushrooms live in New Zealand') and for pimple and nipple ('I have nipples all over my face') and soy milk and kerosene ('One short latte with kerosene, thanks.') Thank goodness for understanding waitresses.

Kanpai!

Have you ever tried dancing to ‘YMCA’ in a kimono? Neither had I until last night. It’s pretty fun, you feel like you are doing semaphore. During the summer they set up beer gardens in the park in the middle of town, where people drink copious amounts of lager dispensed from tall plastic towers which attach to your table, and do silly dancing. The Japanese version of ‘YMCA’ is really popular, because Japanese people like to do synchronized actions (hence the popularity of synchronized swimming and cheerleaders).
‘This song is so natsukashii (nostalgic),’ I told my Japanese teacher last week when they played it at the beer gardens.
‘Really?? You know this song??’
‘Sure.’
‘I didn’t know it was famous outside Japan.’
‘Well, I mean the original.’
‘There’s another version of it?’ She was shocked.
‘Yes…by a group called the Village People, in the 70s. They were, ah, gay icons.’
‘Gay icons.’ She looked a little lost.
‘Yes, they used to wear costumes, like one wore a police uniform, or another one wore a biker outfit with a lot of leather bits.’
At this point her eyes glazed over and she changed the subject. ‘Do you like drinking beer?’ She asked.
Speaking of all things gay, I watched a good movie a couple of nights ago, called ‘Maison de Himoko’. It’s about a Japanese okama (a bit like a drag queen but not) who sets up an old people’s home for old or very ill okamas. It’s a recent movie and pretty mainstream, and deals with family relationships, and prejudice, and pain, and also it’s quite funny - maybe a little like Japan’s ‘Priscilla’.
Last night I was back at the beer gardens to say goodbye to a good friend who is leaving Hokkaido (everyday goodbyes at the moment) and some other friends, including a Japanese guy who had recently returned from working as a stuntman in ‘Pirates of the Carribbean 3’. He seemed to like drinking a lot and told us enthusiastically that he was known as a ‘pervert’, ‘stupid’ and that everybody called him ‘a cockroach’. He reminded me of my ex-boyfriend.
By the way, the image of a beer-drinker is quite different in Japan. There is no macho image associated with drinking beer at all, in fact, it’s more the opposite. Women would tend to  drink beer, whereas a more manly drink would be the harder stuff: sake or shochu ( a kind of white spirit). A lot of very ladylike older women drink beer, and my yoga teachers, who are all women, love it. Which makes sense, because beer probably suits women's bodies better. It's lighter, and not as easy to get drunk so quickly. So, I say ‘Kanpai!’ (Cheers!) to that.

TFI Japanese

一期一会　(ichi-go ichi-e)
Literally 'one time, one meeting'.
Last week in Sapporo train station I bumped into a friend of mine who has also been in Japan for 3 years and is leaving soon. He had recently had it tattooed on his arm, and explained its meaning and that it originally comes from the tea ceremony. It's also used in martial arts too, meaning, rather than stopping and starting again when you make a mistake, you should keep running with the mistake, because in a real situation, you wouldn't have the chance to stop and start again.
Then, this week a teacher from school wrote this on my leaving card. His English translation was 'Treasure every moment, for it never will recur.'
I love it.

Boxes

It is pretty weird putting your whole life into boxes and entrusting it to the Post Office. I have the utmost faith in Japan Post, but I felt a little nervous remembering how two years ago, when I was the PO sending off a package, one postal employee smiled brightly and told me that I really shouldn't use surface mail as Russian sailors were likely to rip open my package and steal everything inside. Well, if the Russian sailors do get their theiving hands on my boxes they are likely to be disappointed. Or maybe not. I can just see them now, wearing my pink wool scarf or lava lava, reading a Scottish cookbook and nodding their heads along to experimental Japanese electronica.
Putting all your stuff in boxes makes you evaluate what is important to you to keep and what you don't mind throwing away. I was feeling anxious about how many boxes I had, until Y pointed out that it was a good thing I had so many.
'You have so many good memories in those boxes. You should be proud of them,' he told me.
I remember going through the same experience when I moved away from London. Then a little while after I had arrived bakc in Auckland, my boxes turned up. I couldn't for the life of me remember what was inside them. It's only stuff, in the end.

Park golf & North Korea

I recently discovered my new favourite sport! Being pretty crap at anything involving a ball and co-ordination, I was a bit skeptical when my friends told me after a very nice lunch at an organic-food restaurant in the middle of the forest that we were going to go for a game of park golf. Why do we have to spoil a perfectly nice park by playing golf in it? I thought. And what the hell is park golf anyway? It doesn't sound Japanese, but it was apparently invented in Japan. Reassured that it was more like mini-golf or croquet than real golf, I found myself with a huge mallet in my hands and a small fluorescent blue ball at my feet, staring at a white flag in the distance marking the hole to aim for.
'Your aim is to get in in under 4 shots.' instructed my friend.
'Is there a limit?' I asked.
'Well, after 10 we stop counting.'
I steeled myself and swung the club, but the ball just trembled in its tee as my club whizzed through the air without actually hitting it. I laughed uncomfortably and aimed again. This time, although I thought I had swung the club a bit like an angry chimpanzee I somehow managed to hit the ball very gently and it fell off the tee, rolled slowly across the platform, sideways, plopped off onto the grass and went under the base of the sign marking the first hole. Everyone except me thought that was very funny. I muttered curses to myself as I scrambled around red-faced trying to retrieve the ball.
Third time lucky. This time I hit the ball, in the right direction, with enough force, and managed to get it in the hole in three shots (NOT including the first two swings, they don't count).
'You got a birdie!' My friend told me. It was so exciting even though I didn't know what a birdie was. I cheered up immensely, and decided I liked this game. It just seemed to be my day. Monstrously huge mosquito-bug things bit almost everyone else except me. I only lost two more balls into the bushes. I didn't even have to take off my new summer hat, and I didn't get dirty. From now on, park golf is my new favourite sport. My family will not be surprised that my chosen sport is one that is normally played by senior citizens.
Incidentally, when we were at the sports centre hiring the mallets, I noticed a strange poster. It was a picture of a deserted beach and one lost shoe, lying forlornly in the foreground.
'That's creepy,' said Yuki.
'What does it mean?'
'It's about the North Korean abductees.'
There's a very strong resentment in Japan about the North Korean abductees. Even in this tiny town in the middle of nowhere, there was this poster. Many Japanese wanted to impose sanctions on North Korea even before the recent NK missile tests. It's kind of extreme to risk starving thousands of people to death in payback for less than twenty abductees. But now, with the missile tests, Japan has a stronger reason to begin sanctions. Which weapon, the missiles or the sanctions, has the potential to be more destructive? I'd go with sanctions. Any ideas on that?
I'm thinking about taking up croquet when I get back to New Zealand.

Last day of term

6 am: Woke up, ate breakfast, boxed fudge (which I made at nidnight the night before) and showered within record time
7.15: Said goodbye to Katy who was staying and went to school
8.00: Arrived at school, thought up speech
8.15: Gave speech to entire staff to thank them for the last 3 years
8.30: Prepared for classes
8,55: Took tough class for English, had a lot of fun.
9.55: Gave present of homemade chocolate-walnut fudge (heart-warming? Or heart-attack warning? forgot how super-sweet NZ lollies are. Yummy though) to office staff, prepared for next class, organised details flight home
10.50 Had ceremonial ending of contract, Vice-Principals in attendance, with the Principal awarding us certificates bigger and more spectacular-looking than my university degree.
10.55: Took my last ever English class at SIT. Did f**k all. Got marriage proposal from students.
11.55 Gobbled lunch, talked to lots of students, gave out email address galore. Wondered if i should change my email address.
12.30 Supervised a group of 8 students in the Wa-Puro (Word Processor) classroom for the end-of-term Big Clean. Made 3 cheeky boys scrub the floor, They enjoyed it and so did I.
1.30: Gave speech in front of 1000 students and staff in Japanese, along with 2 other teachers. We all got huge beautiful bouquets of flowers. Didn't cry, just felt relieved to get through the speech.
2.30: Gave out presents of NZ manuka honey shortbread which I found being sold in Sapporo Eki last weekend. Gave the same presents to the caretakers as I did to the principal, not very Japanese, but blame my Socialist upbringing.
3.30 Posed for photos with students, talked to student who is back from Canada.
4.30 Bussed home, talked to Ma & Pa on the phone & caught up on the family gossip, changed into yukata (summer kimono), ate dinner of toast.
6.30 Went into town in yukata and geta (like wooden jandals) to the beer gardens to meet my old Japanese senseis and classmates. Drank 3 pints of Sapporo beer. Shouted conversations over noise of Japanese 'YMCA' and beer-chugging lambada-dancing Japanese party-people.
9.30 Teetered home on geta by subway. Wondered if I should clean the house when I got home.
Funny how the busier we are, the more we can get done. But if we have nothing to do, sometimes we can't even be bothered getting out of bed. I wonder if that's how Japanese students operate. They have so many things to do, they can keep up the momentum.

Strange things I have eaten in Japan

Digging into my savoury egg custard studded with boiled soy beans, I was surprised to find a grey wobbly lumpy mass at the bottom of my cup. Brains? I thought. It was just like a page out of the 1950s Edmonds Cookbook's 'Section for Invalids' : egg custard with brains, right next to the recipes for lamb's tongue broth and jellied kidneys. I'd always thought those recipes were designed to scare people into getting better. It would've worked on me. I turned to the woman on my left and asked, 'Would you mind telling me what this is? I don't seem to recognise it.'
At which she smiled serenely and replied, 'That is a Japanese delicacy. In English, boiled fish sperm.'
Ah-hah. Not brains. Phew.
'Fish sperm?!'
'Yes. It's very good for your skin.'
The man across the table from me had just made the same discovery with his spoon. She leaned across the table and told him, 'It's very good for men to eat this dish. It increases male virility.'
N thought he would give it a go then. After slurping the grey morsel back he raised one eyebrow and said it was so good he might be questioning his sexuality, which had all the women at the table tittering into their hands.
The Japanese name for it is 'shirako', the kanji characters of which mean 'white children'. I agree, it actually isn't bad at all. The second time I had it it was even better. This time it was brought out, after a course of raw oysters (this time I was tittering into my hand), deep-fried in tempura batter. The crispiness of the batter really enhances the creaminess of the fish semen. It's true! Believe me. Fish sperm is the new sushi.

End of an era

Saying goodbye is hard. REALLY hard. I feel like I'm doing it all the time these days. I've had to make several goodbye speeches, sometimes in Japanese, sometimes in English. But I've discovered that I quite like making speeches. That's something about myself I never knew until I came to Japan. There are a lot of things I've discovered about myself since I came here 3 years ago.
One of the Japanese teachers, Mr T, made a speech at the PTA afternoon tea last week in which he talked about picking me up at the airport when I first arrived in Sapporo. Among other things he mentioned taking me futon shopping. Funnily enough it's one of the strongest memories I have from that time. I had got off the plane, and met the principal of the school, and been taken for lunch, and then I had to buy some necessities for my quite large but extremely bare apartment. I had 3 rooms with tatami matting but no bed - so I needed a futon. I was taken by two Japanese male teachers and one of the women from the school office to a local home furnishings store. They lead me over to the single futon section, but I had my eye on a double.
'What about this one?' I suggested.
Mr T blushed and shook his head, smiling. No, was the message, a single is better.
If I had decided on the double, it would have been fine, after all I was paying. But I was anxious on making a good impression, and I did not them to see me as a wanton, luxury double-futon-using type of woman, but as a nunnish, dutiful woman who would sleep on a thin sliver of a mattress and a pillow full of gravel (which they are by the way, Japanese pillows - full of gravel). So I opted for a single futon, thinking I'd get a double later on. I was going to need extra futons anyway, for friends who came to stay. Which design to choose? They all looked so - cute. I asked Mr T which design he liked the best ( I had been reading up on Japanese psychology and apparently it is seen as a strength to show dependency on your elders, even if you are not) and he smiled shyly and pointed at a blue one, which was decorated with strange dancing animals which looked like the result of a wild night of passion between a rabbit and a teddy bear. I agreed it was a good choice, and also, it came as a set, complete with a matching pillow full of gravel.
When Mr T was giving his speech I thought back to that time and it amazed me to think how much has happened since then. These last 3 years have been maybe the most intense 3 years of my life, and yet, when I go back, I know I will have almost nothing to show for it, on the outside. It will all be inside me. Most of my friends back in NZ have homes, and cars, and dishwashers, and pushchairs, with little people inside the pushchairs, and stable jobs, and, and... I'm going back with almost as much as I came with. On the outside I mean. That's what it means to travel. It's a wonderful experience, but it's not about matching dinnersets. In many ways I very much envy my friends' comfortable lives, and what they have achieved. But if I had the choice to do it again, would I change anything? No way. This experience has enriched my life in ways I never could have imagined.
But I think it's time to go home. Apart from the fact that Immigration agree with me on this point, it's also that I want to remember what it's like to live in New Zealand.
I feel like the end of an era is coming. One of the hardest things about travelling is packing up and leaving again. It's so hard to say goodbye to people not knowing when you will see them again, but I'm really, really hoping they are going to come and visit me in NZ, and I know I'll always have places to stay, if I go to Canada, Australia, France, the UK, Hawaii, the States, or back to Japan again. Once a traveller, they say, always a traveller...

Which memory?

If you had to choose just one memory to live with for the rest of eternity, which memory would you choose? Tonight I watched the movie Afterlife which is based on this idea. 難しいねー。

Tax the trash

The third year students are debating whether or not the Japanese government should impose a tax on household rubbish. For example, by introducing a system where households putting out their rubbish for collection must use a certain type of bag which they pay extra charges for. Apparently, this system has already been brought in in more rural areas of Hokkaido, and Sapporo is considering following suit. Apart from the obvious problems, such as people dumping their rubbish illegally, I think this is an excellent idea for changing the way people think about the waste they produce.
The hardest thing for me about living in Japan has not been the language, or feeling homesick, or trying to find clothes that fit me. It has been witnessing the waste. Everyday, I watch the rubbish bins in the staffroom pile up and overflow with plastic bento boxes and disposable chopsticks. Everyday, I see people accepting plastic bags and utensils for everything they buy, no matter how small, at convenience stores and supermarkets. I use teabags which come in individual wrappers. I hear women flushing the toilet twice, because they are ashamed of the sound they make. I buy tampons with plastic applicators, because there are none without. I say no to people standing outside my subway station everyday pressing flyers onto me. I see people in cafes using plastic or paper cups and plates when they are eating IN. I’ve given up on going to the café I wrote about before, Morimoto, because last time I went, I was hit by the realization about what a disgusting amount of disposables they use. There was an article last week in the online Japan Times saying that Japan is probably uses the most plastic of any country in the world. They are well-known for being the country to import the largest amount of hardwood timber, much of which goes into seemingly unnecessary public works projects, such as the wooden moulds for the ubiquitous concrete girders and tetrapods which litter so many of Japan’s beautiful rivers and shoreline.
There’s an older guy I work with. He brings his own homemade lunch to school, and uses his own chopsticks to eat it with. After that he washes his chopsticks and returns them to their case. He reuses envelopes. OK, whole rainforests have died to make his class handouts for the term, but this man seems to me part of an older generation who know how to take care of their resources. Who are used to having less. He reminds me of my Great Aunt, who was so thrifty that she wouldn’t even write in my birthday cards, so I could use them again! That was a bit over-the-top (it's pretty depressing to get a blank birthday card), but you get the picture. According to Japan’s oldest religion, Shinto religion, waste is a sin. Before industrialization and the bubble economy, it was a moral virtue to live in harmony with nature. Japan’s traditions are in accordance with that. Take for example, furoshiki, a kind of beautifully dyed cloth which is used to wrap things and can be used again and again. In the past, everyone used furoshiki for wrapping things to carry, or gifts. Now, it’s all about plastic and paper, and huge ribbons and bows. Japan’s traditional culture has been disappearing under a new culture of capitalism and convenience. I’m sure I will notice the same problems when I go back to New Zealand. I don’t think it’s a cultural problem. I think it’s an economic problem. Us developed countries haven’t developed a way of dealing with our wealth and waste. We’re rolling in our own rubbish.
Taxing the trash seems to me to be a step in the direction of forcing people to become personally responsible for their waste. How about this for a great system? Japanese students clean their school themselves, everyday, after school. It’s awesome! New Zealand schools should bring it in too, I think. The students get put in groups and assigned a different room every week. It takes ten minutes tops because they keep the school so clean. They are aware that if they make a mess, they will have to clean it up. Isn’t that the way it should be?

T.F.I. Japanese #4

'Tora ni naru.' = To become a tiger. Used by older Japanese people, to describe what happens when you drink a lot of sake.

Wedding!

I went to a very lovely wedding at the weekend. It was at a restaurant in the countryside surrounded by rice paddies. We sat outside at tables with the late afternoon sunshine filtering through the birch trees, drinking wine and feasting on scallops the size of the bride's cheek. The groom's family had come all the way from Canada. The bride, who is Japanese, made a great speech to her mum. 'I want to be a funky mum like you were to me - the kind of mum who buys her kid the latest Eminem CDs!' She said.
As for the bouquet, it isn't thrown in Japan. The bride holds a handful of long white ribbons - only one is actually tied to the bouquet - and all the single women at the party take a ribbon each. When the bride lets go of the ribbons, they all fall to the ground except for the one tied to the bouquet. To my great surprise, I found myself vaguely hoping mine would be the winning ribbon. Weddings do that to you. But it wan't to be - instead the bride's sister got it, which was very moving, but I have a suspicion it was rigged all along. I soon cheered up when they cracked open a bottle of Dom Perignon for the losing ladies as consolation. Bugger the bouquet, I thought, as the silvery bubbles danced merrily in my glass. Later, the sun went down and coloured the sky a deep orange, the frogs in the paddies began their chorus of croaking, a mirror ball was hoisted, and the dancing began...
Another difference about Japanese weddings is that the guests pay money on arrival, rather than give presents. This is actually quite a clever idea, to my mind. The guests don’t have to stress about what present to buy, and instead can concentrate on the very important matter of what to wear. It also, thankfully, eliminates the possibility of the couple-to-be handing out a ‘gift registry’, a fairly recent custom, which. whatever way I look at it, seems presumptuous and in poor taste, although the department store who coined that ingenious marketing scheme probably has a different take on it. Most importantly, the newly married couple won’t be left out of pocket.
I love weddings. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the kind of girl who dreamed of a white wedding. I remember last year, driving through Aomori with the bride and groom (at that time just sweet lovers), and talking about marriage.
‘I’ve never thought that I would get married, it just hasn’t been something I particularly wanted to do,’ I said.
The groom-to-be frowned. ‘But don’t you want to find one person to spend the rest of your life with?’ He asked. At these words a cold feeling of terror crept over me.
‘Well, ah, when you put it like that…’ I faltered.
Maybe I’m getting older, but I think I can now understand a little better why people get married. The colleague of mine who got married recently said what surprised him was how happy his engagement announcement made his family and friends. Marriage is perhaps not so much for the couple themselves, but for the community. We need weddings, as a time to come together, and celebrate love and family. Of all our festivals and rituals, they are maybe the most joyful. On top of that, they’re a great excuse to buy a new pair of shoes. You never know, I might be the next. Yuki did propose to me last Spring, under the cherry blossom trees, although to be quite honest, he was surrounded and practically forced to propose by a large group of drunken Japanese gangsters. But that's another story.
'Those guys just seem so right for each other,' I commented to my friend at the wedding. 'Those kind of couples are so rare.'
'Yeah, maybe,' replied my friend. 'Or maybe it's not so rare - but other couples who are right for each other sometimes let other stuff get in the way. Those two are just very, very clear about it.'
Dave and Yumiko, I wish you the very, very best for your married life. You are so good and kind to each other, it was a real pleasure to be at your wedding.

Interesting Japanese #3

'Betsu bara' = Literally 'A separate stomach.' This expression is used when dessert comes out. You might be completely full from the main course, but somehow it's always possible to squeeze in that scoop of creamy green tea ice-cream. This is thanks to your 'betsu bara'.

Raw fish

My friend is pregnant and she told me that she can't eat sashimi - now that is tough! Coffee, alcohol, and other interesting but baby-unfriendly substances, I can pretty much take or leave these days. But sushi? I have managed to give up eating most other forms of flesh since coming to Japan, including horse, whale and sheep, but I love the weekly trip to the rolling sushi. It's so cheap and delicious here. Don't blame the Indonesian fishing industry, the real fault for the Pacific oceans being depeted of tuna lies with my Sunday dinners. I try not to think about that as I hunch over the counter salivating all over my made-from-Chinese-forest-wood-in-spite-of-hideous-
pollution-disposable-chopsticks. Overfishing? Yeah...but it's so buttery...so melt-in-your-mouth...and at 190 yen a plate, it would be rude not to.
My hat goes off to my pregnant friend. Still, that will be all of us in a few decades. In the future, sushi will be a thing of the past for us regular folk. Seafood will only be eaten by a few extremely rich people, once we deplete the oceans to the point where there is no return. We are doing a pretty good job of that right now, and the people living in Japan are doing more than their fair share to help out, being the world’s largest market of raw tuna for sashimi. It's a worrying thought. I think I had better get down to the local and get my fill before it's too late.

Bodily functions

I bet Madonna farts when she does yoga. Someone lets one rip about once a week in my yoga class, although apart from the occasional hearty cough (which instantly follows in an attempt to pretend it wasn't actually a fart and just part of a cough, and which instantly lets everyone know who the perpetrator is), they are generally dealt and received in a mature silence. No giggles. Japanese people tend to be very sensible and mature about bodily functions. Bodily functions are not naughty, gross or amusing like they are for us. A friend from the UK remarked that the whole comedy industry in Britain would go bankrupt if British people had the Japanese attitude. People here, especially the women, talk about digestion, openly and often, partly because constipation is such a common problem. I've seen countless advertisement for laxative medicine posted up and around the place, and one of my yoga teachers starts each session with this question: 'So, who here today is constipated?' At the end of class, the willing yoginis (women who do yoga) line up and she performs a kind of 'magic' on their stomachs to help get the digestive juices flowing again. My friend Tomomi volunteered me once and I found myself lying on my back while the sensei rubbed my stomach in a complicated pattern and muttered something. Did it work? Well, it half worked, I won't go into detail because I'm not Japanese, see, it's a little embarrassing. I did find a much more effective cure at the local chemist's. During the winter, I went in after about 5 days of, ahem, blocked pipes, hoping for a little relief from my agony. Feeling a bit shy, and practising my Japanese phrase over and over again in my head, I sidled up to one ancient old crone who was busy stacking some shelves in a corner of the shop, miles away from the other customers, and whispered to her, 'I was wondering if you have any medicine for constipation?'. She nodded understandingly, and whispered back, discreetly, 'Please wait a minute.' Then she turned, cupped her hands to her mouth, and roared out to the shop assistants on the other side of the vast store, with a surprisingly loud holler for someone so slight and wizened, 'SUMIMASEN! BENPI NO KYAKU SAMA GA IRRASSHAIMSU!' (EXCUSE ME! THERE'S AN HONOURABLE CONSTIPATED CUSTOMER HERE!'). She might as well have been holding a megaphone, and shining a spotlight on me. Every customer in the shop looked over my way, with interest, but no-one giggled. I grabbed the senna tea and ran, blushing. I'm not sure why we are so uptight, or immature, about that kind of thing. It's a natural thing. We fart. We poo. We get angry when we can't poo. Doing the crab pose can make us fart. Why is this so funny?
Just down the road from me is a huge 3-metre-high neon sign, 3 storeys up in the air, proudly proclaiming: 'ジ'. In English: 'HAEMMERHOIDS.' I asked a Japanese friend to explain it and he just shrugged his shoulders and said 'It's an advertisement for haemmerhoid cream.' Wasn't it kind of funny that the sign only says 'Haemmerhoids'? 'I suppose it is,' he said, 'I've never thought about it like that.' Well, it actually isn't that funny. Maybe I'm just a little childish. By the way, if you are constipated, I highly recommend the senna tea. But don't drink it before you go to karaoke with your friends, or you'll find you keep missing your turn to sing.

Dictators and yearbooks

At their high school graduation ceremony, the students receive yearbooks made of thick, glossy card, full of colour photographs of themselves and the staff. They’re as heavy as a giant world atlas and cost about the same amount. Inside, on the first page, is a humungous photographic portrait of the school Principal. Then, two slightly less humungous photos of the Vice Principals. Next, rather smaller photos of the teachers. Next, the smallest photos in the book - the students. I expressed my surprise over the rather large size of the Principal’s photo to one of the Japanese English teachers, and asked if it was because Japanese society was hierarchical in structure. He said, ‘Yes, the students’ photos are very, very small, because they are not important!’ Smiling, he continued, ‘This is Japanese society. Japanese society is like the societies of mediaeval Europe. It is a very bad country! We are not a democracy at all.’ He gave a big, booming laugh. Suddenly all these images of Chairman Mao plastering his face all over everything came to mind. Then Kim Jong II. I tried to imagine getting the urge to put portraits of myself all over people’s stuff and found that the idea just didn’t appeal. I wonder if the Queen minds having her face all over our spare change. I don’t suppose anybody has ever asked her. Don't get me wrong, I'm not putting the Principal of my school on a par with Kim Jong II - I expect he just puts up with the oversized photo because that's his responsibility as the figurehead of the school, because that is just the way it is done here.
These gorgeous yearbooks cost around $150-200 each. Japanese parents are always forking out cash for these kinds of souvenirs, as well as the expensive school trips. The second year students go to Korea every year and stay in hotels, which makes my forth form school camp to Motatapu Island seem kind of lame in comparison. At the same time, Japanese people constantly cite the costs involved as a major deterrent to having children. No wonder the declining birthrate is such a serious problem in Japan. People can’t afford the yearbooks.

Interesting Japanese #2

'Baa-ko-do' = 'Comb-over'
This is a transliteration of the word 'barcode.' This describes a hairstyle popular among some aging Japanese gentlemen. Long, black strands of hair are combed over from one side of the head to the other in an attempt to disguise the pale, shining bald pate - looking just like a barcode. One TV show even tried scanning peoples' heads to see what prices would come up.

Sunday afternoon

It's a warm, peaceful Sunday in my neighbourhood. I've been sitting on my verandah in the sunshine and eating leftover rice wrapped in seaweed and drinking miso soup, watching the white butterflies darting in and out of my neighbour's large crop of red opium poppies. I don't think it would be possible to grow such a large crop of poppies in your garden in New Zealand without someone ripping them off to convert into something illegal. A shame, because they are so pretty against the blue sky. In Eurasia there is a legend that the Buddha cut off his eyelids to stop himself from nodding off, and where they fell to the ground a plant grew which would bring sleep and terrible dreams to those who used it. Perhaps my neighbours suffer from insomnia. The drug laws in Japan are very strict, for example possession of marujuana is pretty much on a par with possession of cocaine, but deep in the countryside there are plenty of farmers who harvest wild cannabis for medical or personal use. This is an old practice which goes back to their ancestors, who used the plant as a natural and handy painkiller, for example for toothache. Also, while the drug laws are very strict for certain substances, other addictive substances ie. alcohol, caffeine, and tobacco. are widely used. Still, the strict drug laws do seem to work - in the whole three years I've been here I have never heard of any of the students at my school using illegal drugs. I know the older ones drink, sometimes, and maybe some of them smoke, but that seems to be as far as it goes. Last year the vice-principal informed me and Mum (who was visiting) in very serious tones, that some students were in trouble because they had left a school baseball game to buy ice-creams. Upon which Mum whispered to me, 'If it had been the kids at my high-school, it'd have been much worse than ice-cream!'

On the Nanboku line

A recorded voice reminds everyone again and again to switch their cellphones off and give up their seats for elderly people, and a poster on the wall shows a female hand seizing a man's arm and thrusting it into the air: the message is 'Groping is a Crime!' Under the poster a woman sits and clutches a shiny white paper bag that says 'SOFULOL: Sophisticated Full Length Office Lady', like she's a coat to be draped over a salaryman's arm. Three schoolgirls get in and plonk themselves down on the seats. Simultaneously, as if controlled by the same joystick, they each take out a pink plastic-backed mirror the size of an A4 exercise book and begin to preen themselves, suddenly frozen by their own reflections, fingertips patting and stroking strands of fringe which already sit stiffly unmoving. A middle-aged man with white hair and a towel around his neck huffs and puffs, then pulls out a pretty paper fan and vigorously fans himself for three stops. Further down the carriage two 'Go-su-lo-li's (Gothic Lolitas) sit side-by-side with legs spread like rag dolls, heels out and toes turned in, one plump, one skinny, black hair dyed blacker, platform boots and white makeup, clutching designer handbags, adorned all over with the Vivienne Westwood motif. Goths gone posh. A salaryman sweats over his briefcase next to an old lady who gives everyone grumpy looks. Next to me is a young mother and on the other side of her is her little boy who is leaning on her lap and chatting away to her. When he sees me, he says 'Look mum, it's a foreigner!' I give him a sideways smile and he gives me a big grin back. I wonder what it will be like to be home again and have no-one staring at me anymore. I wonder if I will stop staring at everyone else.

Interesting Japanese #1

‘Kare ga kingyo no fun mitai da ne.’ = ‘That guy is so clingy.’
This literally means, ‘That guy is like goldfish poo.’ If you’ve ever owned goldfish, you’ll know what they are talking about. I remember my first experience of goldfish poo quite well. I ran screaming to my mother, convinced that my favourite goldfish’s stomach had exploded and it was trailing its guts behind it like a string of sausages. Mum reassured me that it was not its guts, but rather the result of a heavy lunch and we wouldn’t be rushing the fish to surgery anytime soon.
This expression is apparently so common that it was in my textbook.

Schoolboy fashion

Japanese schoolboy fashion is way cool. Imagine Robert Smith-style haircuts - big black mops with asymmetrical cuts and lots of gel. Top that off with an oversized pink plastic hairclip in the fringe. The eyebrows are shaved or plucked. The glasses in fashion right now are the ones with rectangular raspberry-red frames. The uniform white shirt is oversized and baggy, the hem hints at being tucked into the belt, just enough so you can see the non-regulation belt - this is where individuals can make their statement. White leather with silver studs is in, so is anything with metal or tassles all over it. The trousers hang as low as possible from the belt, and multi-toned fluoro trainers are in. The bag comes with various soft toys hanging off it.
The teachers constantly despair that the boys spend too much time in the bathroom looking at themselves in the mirror. What they don't realise is that looking that good takes time.

Shopping is my hobby

Common conversation:
Me: 'What's your hobby?'
Student: 'Shopping...and sleeping.'
Japan must be the only country where shopping and sleeping are considered hobbies. In a country when people hardly have any free time, due to the crazily long work hours, sleeping and shopping are not necessary activities, but have been reconstructed as fun things to do on your time off. They've got to make it fun, because for some people, these are the only activities besides work they will have any time to do. Besides that, the shops are great. It's a consumer paradise. There's even a shop called 'Three-Minute Happiness' which pretty much sums it up.
Luckily for my bank account, clothes shopping is not as easy for us non-Asians. I was reminded of this when I went looking for summer clothes last weekend. I was Gulliver going shopping in the land of Lilliput. Trying on jackets and shirts with their narrow backs and tight sleeves had me grimacing in discomfort while the saleswomen looked on with no change in expression, exclaiming brightly, 'Oh! Just right!' But it was only just right if I never wanted to cross my arms again or touch my face, which would rule out eating. Maybe that would help me fit the trousers, though, which I had difficulties getting past my knees. When I did get them all the way up, they would reach halfway down my calves. Nothing fit. I started getting grumpy. I was no longer Gulliver, but a 5-year-old in a lolly shop who couldn't get any of the wrappers off the sweets. I was getting so desperate that I nearly bought something just because I could get it on. Until I realised I really didn't want that beaded multi-coloured kaftan-style dress. You have to be careful of shopping in foreign countries. I remember going shopping in Sapporo with a friend who was about to fly home to New Zealand. He was on the brink of buying a baby pink satin bomber jacket with a snarling tiger and 'JAPAN!' in huge letters across the back, before he thought better of it. He later told me that as he soon as he stepped off the plane in Christchurch he knew he'd made the right decision. You can be too careful, though. I'm still kicking myself for not buying that 'Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go to Amsterdam' T-shirt when I was in Holland with my sister last Spring.
In the end my shopping day ended well, by the way. I did find a couple of great pieces of clothing, and here's nothing better after a long day trawling the shops than a feed at the kaiten sushi and a mug of steaming green tea.

Japan v Croatia

‘DAIJOUBU! DAIJOUBU!!’ A man wearing a black fedora hat, a bright blue T-shirt with the Superman logo emblazoned across his chest, and a flowing cape made out of a huge Japanese flag, led the chanting in my local bar last night, standing beneath the giant screen especially brought in to watch the World Cup soccer matches. Now this guy has an interesting job. He’s a spy, working to track down and follow the activities of gangs of Russian car thieves (I was reassured that he doesn’t wear this kind of outfit on the job). The chant ‘Daijoubu! Daijoubu!’ means something like, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK! Everything’s gonna be alright!’ I kind of liked it as a cheer – much gentler and more philosophical than ‘We’re number one! We’re gonna kick some arse!’ or something. The game was pretty tense, with neither side managing to get ahead, and at every save by the Japanese goalkeeper, and at every missed shot at the goal, the chanting would begin again: ‘DAIJOUBU! DAIJOUBU!’
In the end, it was a draw 0-0. As the bell rang for full time there was a communal sigh and bowing of heads in disappointment at Japan’s lost chance to get through to the next round, but soon the music was back on, more beer was poured and everything was ‘daijoubu, daijoubu,’ once again. Japan hadn’t played so badly as last time, after all. What’s more, they hadn’t been wearing shirts that looked like someone had cut up a tablecloth from a 1970’s Italian restaurant. I kept expecting someone to come out and place a bottle of cheap Chianti on one of the Croatian players’ chests. In fact, I think I saw someone in the stands balancing one on his gut, in one of the many lingering shots of Croatian supporters’ bare, sunburned chests by the Japanese cameras.

Musings on Maids

 
I've been thinking about the Maid cafe (see my last entry), as a few people asked me if there was anything, well, pervy about it. As we waited outside the café before we went inside, one of my colleagues, a Japanese man in his forties, confessed to me quite earnestly that his dream was for a Maid to write his name in tomato sauce on his om-rice (not some kind of spiritually pure rice but a favourite Japanese dish of an omelette filled with rice). Hearing this kind of dreamy teenage fantasy from a fully grown man wearing a suit was something between rather sweet, plain pathetic and slightly disturbing. The Maid phenomenon has been criticized for its treatment of women as fetish objects, and before my visit, I had an image of the Maids being like the common fantasy figure of the 'French maid', but inside the café the atmosphere struck me as remarkably sexless. For a start, the customers were not all male, as I'd heard - only half were - and everything, the Maids, the customers' behaviour, the ornaments, the music, the decor, was childish. Extremely childish. It was adults playing at being children. It was regression in a big way, but there was nothing pervy about it. What is more worrying, perhaps, is that our urban societies are creating adults who need to regress to such an extent - emotionally immature and undeveloped adults. Adults who spend their lives working behind a computer screen, or a desk, and who are regimented into being a voiceless, insignificant cog in an overwhelmingly large society, unable to express their opinions and feelings, and unable to develop meaningful adult relationships with the people around them. Who feel more comfortable being children, a state of being which they already know, which is safe, and unthreatening, and undemanding.
Or is it just good fun being a kid again? Is the comfort of regression harmless and even necessary? Japan’s custom of bathing has been compared to the ultimate regression - to the womb. The Japanese bath comforts, rejuvenates and refreshes you. It brings you back to life again. In a society like Japan's, where one has to bear the pressures of work most of the waking hours, and must be 'majime' (serious/earnest) in their work at all times, no wonder people want to wear animal ears and play tea parties in their free time.

Maid in Japan

Last night I was served pancakes by Little Bo Peep. Then as she poured my tea from a white china teapot she called me 'O-Himesama' (Princess), her large, limpid eyes shining above impossibly cute dimples. I was sitting next to Alexander the Great and to his right, three Japanese men from the Board of Education, who all had ears like cats.
This is only partly true. She wasn't actually Little Bo Peep, but my waitress was dressed very much like her. She did pour me tea, though, and she was very cute, in the Japanese sense of cute. This was my first visit to a Maid Cafe, which is all the rage with Japanese computer geeks and manga addicts. The girls who serve you are dressed as 'Meidos', which are based on female characters from manga comics. They look a bit like lifesize dolls. Everything in the cafe is very doll-like. It's like being at a tea-party inside a doll-house. When you eat at a Maid Cafe, the Maid will call you 'Master' or 'Mistress' or another name of your choice (hence 'Alexander the Great', his real name is Alex), and treat you as such. They don't stop at pouring your tea, some will even spoonfeed you. 'Cute' is a big theme. There were cute soft toys sitting on shelves behind the counter and cute music playing (the songs have names like 'Candy Candy' and 'Cutie Honey'). You can borrow the cafe's cute cat ears or oversize bows and ribbons to wear in your hair as my colleagues were.
So are the Maids cute, or not? I asked some students and friends. My students (female) were unanimous. "Very cute!" they cooed. One foreigner friend said 'They're scary' and another said 'Too artificial. It's too posed.' This might be a big difference between our sense and Japanese sense of what is 'cute'. At the Maid Cafe, we looked through books of photos of the Maids, posing with soft focus, pretending to bake cookies and pouting, gazing up at the camera with wide eyes and lips glazed in strawberry lip-gloss. According to the Japanese guys we were with, this was very cute. Although the Maids are very pretty young women, and their outfits are fantastic, I wouldn't call them cute. For me, cute is something which is unintentional. For example, my students' English is often very cute - like today in class, a boy writing about child labour in 'Bang Radish' (Bangladesh). Cute is when we are vulnerable. Not just looking vulnerable, but when we really are.
Maid cafes have been criticized for showing women as subservient. So how, as a feminist, would I feel about this aspect of it? Well, when I was there, I could see nothing subservient about those women at all. They might act 'cute' but they are completely in control. Quite a few single geeky guys came in when we were there and they were all mushy and adoring of the Maids, bringing them soft toys as presents, and doing whatever the Maids told them to do. The girls might be their Maids, but those lonely manga geeks are the girls' slaves.

Soccer shock

The whole country was in a state of shock after Japan got beaten so badly by Australia. At school, nobody was talking about it. I mentioned it in class to illustrate the word 'terrible', and was met by a wall of silence. One of the teachers whispered to me that everyone was too upset by the result to speak about it. The reason is that Japan have to win against Croatia and Brazil to make it through to the next round, and their chances of doing that are fairly slim. The other reason is that Japan didn't play very well in the Australia game - even I could see that and I don't know much about soccer. I thought one of the All Blacks had wandered out onto the pitch until I had it explained to me that he was the referee. To be honest, I spend most of the game comparing the players' haircuts and deciding which one is the best-looking.

Coffeeかな？

Brilliant! A new cafe, Morimoto, has opened up near my yoga school which has decentish coffee and good food, including sandwiches on BROWN bread! I'm a leetle ashamed to say that since coming to Japan, I've been forced against my better judgement to frequent the cafes of a well-known big bucks mega-company whose name rhymes with 'blah, sucks' (if you can think of a better rhyme let me know). I wouldn't have bothered with such dull cafes as these in New Zealand, unless I happened to be in St Lukes shopping mall, where somehow it feels normal. I remembered feeling quite offended when the U.S. giant dared to open one of its bland cafes on our precious K Rd, elbowing its way into the middle of such coffee greats as Brazil and Allelujah.
Here, however, good coffee has been harder to come by. Although Japan drinks a lot of coffee, they drink it as though it were tea. Meaning weak. Over-extracted. You go into a cafe, order a coffee, the barista sweats and fusses over a complicated-looking aparatus for what seems like an eternity, then produces a cup of something which vaguely resembles coffee, but isn't quite. It tastes as if someone made a plunger of coffee, drank the coffee, poured more boiling water into the plunger, plunged it straightaway, and then poured you a cup. It's like drinking the ghost of coffee. Which wouldn't be so bad, except that they then charge you $8 for it. That's how I became a regular at the S----ucks coffeeshop closest to my yoga school. A junkie will do anything for a fix, even when it comes in a cup with some crappy logo of a two-tailed mermaid on it and doused in 'cafe jazz'. Now, I can go to Morimoto instead, which is also a chainstore, but at least it's local and the food is so much better. I say, "Banzai!"
The one downside about lunch at Morimoto is that so far, you can only get your coffee in a paper cup. I'm planning to write to them and suggest they get in some muggu cuppus (mug cups)...I'll let you know how it goes. I recently wrote to my favourite bar and suggested they stock locally bottled, fresh Hokkaido mineral water as well as fusty old Evian. I didn't get a reply, maybe they think I'm a pain in the arse. I also mailed Amazon and asked if it was completely necessary to get a humungous cardboard box as packaging every time I ordered a teeny-tiny book or magazine. They told me that they had noted my request, but that was the last I heard. Well, anyway, writing bothering letters to companies is a great way to improve your Japanese!
Another interesting feature of the new Morimoto cafe is that the two people making the sandwiches do so behind a large, shining glass window right next to where you sit to eat. They might feel a little like animals in a zoo, but it's a good way of checking that no-one's spitting into your salmon bagel.

World cup mania

Japan is gearing up for the big game against Australia on Monday. It's all over the TV news. A man down south has filled his fish tank full of blue fish in support of the Japanese team. A primary school served frankfurters and rye bread for school lunch so the kids could experience some German culture. They showed all the kids shouting in unison 'Oishii! Ganbarre!' (Delicious! Fight on!) This morning there was a panel of experts on NHK assessing Japan's chance of winning. In true Japanese style they have researched the finer points meticulously. Apparently the average height of the Japanese team is 178 cm, whereas the average height of the Australians is 184 cm. I'm not sure if that's good or bad for Japan. One TV presenter stood next to a lifesize cardboard cut-out of one the strongest Aussie players (sorry, don't know his name), shown grimacing fiercely in mid-run. The consensus by the panel of experts was that because this player had a wife and very cute three-year old child, he would be very homesick, so his spirits would be down and he wouldn't play well, so Japan has a better chance of beating the Aussies.
I was asked at school which team I would be supporting, so I said, 'Anyone who's playing against Australia.' I'm sure there are people at my school who still think I am Australian, so if Japan lose I might be in trouble on Tuesday.

Welcome new teachers party!

Last night was the English department welcome party for the new principal and new English teacher. Ms Tsuchi wore a kimono with an obi (belt) decorated with traditional Japanese instruments. She looked hot. I wore my new necklace of beads (a present from Lucy and Niall) and was asked by one teacher if it had been made by Aborigines. The dinner began with the usual speeches: the speech to welcome the new teachers, and the speeches given by the new teachers. These tend to follow a formula. The new teacher says something like ‘There are many things I don’t know about this job, and many times when I am stuck or in trouble, so please help me out. I need your assistance.’ It struck me how the Japanese are very good at admitting weakness. So many times I’ve heard a speech begin with, ‘I am very nervous, so please bear with me.’ It’s such a relief to be able to say that. I don’t know why we always have to show ourselves as super confident and strong to other people, when we really don’t feel like that on the inside. To be humble is a great virtue here, which means that you can show your weaknesses more easily. You should also be humble about those people close to you. For example, a conversation I had last week:
Me: ‘Your daughter is so pretty.’
Mr S: (with a pleased smile) ‘She is very fat.’
Me: ‘And your wife is so nice.’
Mr S: (with a loving chuckle) ‘She is also very fat.’
From this conversation, his expression, i could easily tell he adores his family.
It’s funny how it has taken me three years to work something out which seems so glaringly obvious. Maybe it’s to do with finally understanding what people are saying. Language is such a big part of culture, or rather, language is culture.
Dinner was the usual sashimi, tempura, tofu and gallons of beer. My neighbour recently got married so we had a long discussion about marriage at our end of the table. I mentioned I’d heard a Japanese celebrity compare marriage to bungee-jumping – if you think about it too long, you won’t do it. Mr S, who has been married for 21 years, said that he didn’t agree. He said, ‘If you get married, you will regret it. But if you don’t get married, you will regret it. In my case, I hate being lonely. So I wanted to get married. Any woman was okay.’ I think that’s one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever had concerning marriage.
Dinner was followed by a ride on the Ferris wheel on the roof of the building with great views of the neon-soaked Susukino. Our carriage came complete with musak and heated seats. We took lots of photos of ourselves high above the city, and whooped excitedly as the teenage couple in the carriage ahead of us started to pash at the highest point of the wheel. I don’t know if this was intentional but as we came down, nearing the end, the muzak suddenly got really sad. I felt suddenly a bit teary-eyed and nostalgic, thinking that I am nearing the end of my time in Japan. Funny how it always takes leaving somewhere to make you want to stay.
We went back down to the fourth floor to the karaoke place and had a raucous karaoke session involving a lot of loud singing/shouting and even a broken glass. I got emotional again when the Vice Principal sang ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ (really well!), and luckily our booth came equipped with a box of tissues put there especially for those moments. They really do think of everything. I sang a couple of Japanese songs (pretty badly) and ‘On Top of the World’. Three years ago I never would have believed I would have been singing the Carpenters so enthusiastically, with no hint of irony, in front of a large group of people. One teacher sang ‘Candle in the Wind’ with a lot of gestures towards me, which had people yelling out ‘Oi! Shinde inai yo!’ (Hey! She’s not dead, okay!).
I’m reallly going to miss a country where you can eat dinner, go on a Ferris wheel, and sing karaoke - all without leaving the building.

Black or gold, need or want

I must go shoe shopping this weekend. I need some plain black shoes. But I want some gold high heels. Need, want, there's a fine line sometimes.
Perhaps what I really need in my life is a pair of gold high heels.

Rantings about sponge cake

I had an early birthday cake - which I shared with Kaori and Karl who are both having birthdays around now. That cakeshop (The Fruitcake Factory, which I was first taken to by the elegant, shopaholic Naho and informed that the man should always pay for dinner - an opinion shared by most Japanese women) makes yummmmmm cakes covered with fresh fruit - blackberries cherries grapes redcurrants - so much fruity goodness!! Yuki has good taste and didn't get me sponge cake - one thing I don't quite get is the popularity of sponge cake in Japan. It's all over the cafes, the department stores, and it has taken over Christmas. Why? It's like eating sweet mattress stuffing (hence the name). And much less satisfying. According to Yuki, it's seen as the quintessential ordinary, standard cake, and that's why it's so common. Thankfully, it always comes stuffed with sliced strawberries and cream. This reminds me that there is indeed salvation for the sponge in the form of - the trifle. Trifle is a whole nother story. Trifle is to sponge cake what __________ is to ____________ . Please fill in the blanks (can you tell I've just been making the mid-term tests for the students?)

Fantastic Plastic Machine & the Supportive Parents

Beautiful sounds from Our Favourite DJ, the one and only Fantastic Plastic Machine, last night at a new club called Freud in the heart of Susukino. He opened with a remix house track of 'Sunshine of Your Love' by Cream, and ended with his usual crowd pleaser of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', we love it!! I left at the end of his set, at the very reasonable hour of 3.45, needing fresh air and some food...so lucky to be able to get onigiri and miso soup almost anywhere in Japan even in the middle of the night. I can't wait until they ban smoking in bars/clubs here though, all the smoke wears you out, I think it's because you can't get enough oxygen to keep the energy up for dancing. Or maybe they need to work on their ventilation system at Freud.
It was already light when we got back because there is no daylight savings in Japan. When we got out of the taxi outside my apartment building, we found the same line of tired-looking parents camped out against the fence of the primary school across the road, that had been there when we had left to go into town. They had been sitting there all night, because today was the school sports day. I guess they were camping out to show that they were supporting their kid, or to bag the best spots to sit. When we got up again this morning it was pouring down with rain, the sports day had been cancelled, and the parents had disappeared. It was pretty amazing. When I was at school, we were lucky if our parents showed up at all!