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.