Ambushed!

Our Saturday evening began innocently enough. We joined in the merriment at Andrew and Kathleen's going away party in Yokohama with some JETs. The champagne flowed, delicious food was consumed and stories were told.

One story centred around a particular neighbour with a penchant for wandering around the streets butt naked or nearly so and creeping out the neighbours. Ha ha, we all laughed. You poor bastards. Glad we don't have anyone like that in our hood.

At around 9pm, we were sitting in the front room, the curtains were drawn and all of a sudden a face appeared in the window. Aforementioned neighbour, dressed in yukata (it could have been worse) was staring in at us from the lawn.

Jen got quite unnerved at this (like you wouldn't be) and even more so when he began banging on the front door about 10 minutes later. Turns out he went home and returned with watermelon for the melee, but there was no way we were letting him in. One of the guests went to the front window and in the politest keigo (the super apologetic form of Japanese) she could muster, apologised to him and shooed him away. He left, but not before having a tantrum and dumping the watermelon on the door-step.

Aside from it creeping the hell out of us, I couldn't help but feel sorry for the man. I'm sure he just got over-excited by seeing so many foreigners in his neighbour's house and wanted some action. The party's spirit was dampened a little after that, so what do you do when you need some cathartic entertainment? Ha! Like you need to ask!

So after terrorising a bus load of Japanese with our ocker ebullience, we arrived in Kamoi and en-route to karaoke, stopped in for some print-club (puri-kra).

The Puri-kra phenomenon is the crux of most girls (and, strangely, teenage boys) friendships. Friends get together in a little booth, choose a funky background, take some cheesy shots, print them out and bobs your uncle - polaroid evidence of school-girl bonds. Many of my students at school have miles of puri-kra covering their school books, and there are even specially-design albums to house puri-kra collections.

As we were leaving, we got ambushed again by three too-cool-for-skewl teenage boys wanting to have some puri-kra with the foreigners (guaranteed, of course, to secure their popularity). We all sank to new lows with our re-enactment of the "Gets" fool (those living in Japan will know who I mean). I still don't believe I was drunk enough to succumb to that...

One of the great conundrums of the first world is why two of Japan's greatest inventions - Karaoke and Puri-kra will never catch on in Australia. It seems that the Japanese, although a reputedly shy lot, are not self-conscious when making asses of themselves in front of their friends. And f**king bless them for that!

The Occidental Tourist

One of my pet hates about living in Japan, is other foreigners.

I don't mean the foreigners that come to Japan for work, study or travel who have a genuine interest in Japan and the culture, but those annoying, brash, arrogant sons of bitches who show up in the country armed with a fistful of money and the attitude that they don't need to respect the language and culture of the country they're in because they are paying customers. The ones that give the rest of the foreigners in Japan a bad. bad. name.

I stood behind a couple of these latter types today in Doutor Coffee (mental note not to frequent coffee shops located in international hotels). They stood at the counter heatedly demanding all kinds of things at the top of their voices in English, in spite of the attendant clearly not being able to understand a word. The couple were beginning to get frustrated with the attendant's lack of English skills before her manager finally worked out what the she-banshee side of the duo wanted. The couple huffed "Thank you!" before taking their coffees to the table.

HOW HARD IS IT TO PULL OUT AN ARIGATOU OR A SUMIMASEN, PEOPLE?

I was close to intervening before bloodshed ensued, but honestly, I was far too embarassed. Now, this is an extreme case, and I don't see displays like this often, but when I do it makes me sympathise with the Japanese who think we're a mob of rude, boorish farmyard animals (now the good ol' Japanese do tend to generalise negatively about foreigners based on some trifling experiences, but that is another story...). What killed me was that the attendant and her manager, stood there bowing humbly and apologising (in Japanese) to these ignorant asses.

When I first arrived in Japan I didn't speak much Japanese, but (and wait for the sun to explode out of my arse) I made an effort and had the good grace to be chagrined if there were communication problems, not the other way around.

After living here for awhile and getting to know the Japanese way of doing things and treating people, it is troubling when you witness this kind of vulgar scene at a cafe or wherever, and the attendants then turn to you and try to communicate in fragmented English, because they assume you are going to be as uncompromising.

Even if you don't have the brainspace to learn a few simple words that will get you through most situations (and we're talking about a handful of simple phrases), at least be humble about your lack of Japanese skills.

A little bit of humility goes a long way in Japan...

Cheap Eats in Tokyo

In spite of some evidence to the contrary, Japan doesn't have to be a prohibitively expensive place to eat.

When we first arrived in Tokyo, we were overwhelmed by the apparent inaccesability of many Japanese eateries. Firstly, a lot of the more traditional places are simply a paper and bamboo screen door with no store sign let alone a picture menu. We weren't very confident with our Japanese at the time and the menus are almost always in kanji, sometimes obscure kanji. And unfortunately, a lot of the more covert restaurants are still not accustomed to having foreigners flounce in, demanding to be fed, and the staff can be a bit prickly.

Secondly, I am a stubborn fusspot when it comes to food and was unaccustomed to the Japanese "palate" (not much has changed). I found myself in the early days eating what appeared to be white flubbery stuff suspended in a fishy slop. Turns out it was miso soup, that the entire Japanese eating experience hinged on it and I had better get a taste for it or be damned.

Thirdly, we were broke. Japan is an expensive place to set up and the Aussie dollar was crucifying us at the time (not so much the case now we want to send money home... bastards) so we couldn't chance the anonymous eateries should we be lumped with a 10,000 yen bill at the end. These days 10,000 yen is a mere piss in the ocean, but when you're starting out it can mean the difference between eating and not eating for a week.

Of course, if you just want to fill-up on western-style burgers, there are plenty of Makudonarudo, Wendys and KFCs around, but if you are starting out in Tokyo, and like us, don't want to resort to mass-produced crap you could eat anywhere, here are some of your "cheaper" options;

* Cocos Ichibanya - Curry House. Japanese curry has a taste quite unlike say, Indian or Malaysian curries and a big plate of Spinach Pork Curry and rice, will set you back a paltry 650 yen.

* Matsuya - fave with a wide demographic. Pork and beef stir fried stews, chicken curries, mabo (eggplant and pork stew). Few things on the menu are more than 500 yen, the chicken curry is 390 yen. The lovely thing about Matsuya is the ticketing system - you put your money into a vending machine, press a button for what meal you want, get your ticket and give your ticket to the waitress. Perfect for those bashful foreigners who aren't quite ready to unleash their Japanese on the world.

* Yoshinoya - beef, beef, beef. If you like beef, cheap beef, check out Yoshinoya.

* Tenya - Tempura. A lot of tempura restaurants are expensive with all the trimmings. At Tenya you get your tendon bowl of tempura shrimp, veges and rice for next to nix.

* Mos Burger. Fast food. Yes, its a burger chain but there's enough about Mos Burger to make it quite Japanese, including Rice burgers and Nori (seaweed) burgers. Cheap too - a burger's about 400 yen.

* Fukushin (only Ikebukuro and surrounds). Gyoza and Ramen. We love eating at these places - large circular bars with stools around the rim, facing in towards the waitress and the chefs. Even though Fukushin is only in the Ikebukuro area, you can't go wrong eating at one of the ma and pa ramen and gyoza places. Just look for the katakana "ramen" sign on nearly every corner. A big bowl of soup will set you back 800 yen tops.

* Gyukaku. The Japanese, in spite of constant battles with their northern neighbours, go not-so-secretly nuts over the Korean BBQ. And rightly so, too. Tasty morsels of meat, meat, meat, with the occasional spud thrown into the mix, and then cooked over hot coals at your table, is a winning recipe in Tokyo. And it won't break the bank, even with a slew of Sapporo drafts on the tab.

* For a cheap night out, you can't go past the izakaya chains, Wara Wara (our fave), Watami and Shirokiya. They are everywhere, have picture menus of both western and Japanese style foods with prices and enough beer on tap to sink the Titanic. We like the Wara Wara in Kabukicho the best, but most of the izakaya chains have ambiently lit atmospheres with both private western style booths and traditional sunken seat pits. No Japanese required, although if you do speak it, there will be resounding cries of "oooh, your Japanese is sooooooooo good!"

The Japanese have made an art out of flattery and if you fling out a few "Biiru mo hitotsu onegaishimasu" (one more beer please) by the end of the evening you will be made to feel like the master of the Japanese speaking kingdom...

The Sports Day Wrap-up

I made it along to my school's sports day last weekend. Despite the forecast all week that it would be a miserable day of non-stop pouring rain (well it is the rainy season after all), not a single drop fell and the whole school was able to celebrate one of the biggest events of the year in an overcast 35 degrees* scorcher instead.

* Well, it actually only reached 30 degrees, but you know how the adage goes...

Last year I was ordered to work the scoreboard, but I can't have done a very good job of it because this year I was demoted to equipment duty - along with the part-time maths teacher and a handful of reticent students. No-one actually told me in advance which witch's hats were supposed to go where for which event and when, and so in fact I ended up not doing very much at all and spent the day taking pictures and video footage instead (hey, the kids had it under control alright!)

Sports Day at junior high schools in Japan is a phenomenon. While there is some overlap -the running races, baton relays, and fierce cheering from the sidelines -there is a whole series of events that the students compete in that more closely resemble the antics that first year university students get up to on orientation camps back home.

These include:
The stone-stepping race, where the smallest student has to walk along the backs of the other students lined up (would never be allowed in Australia due to potential spinal injuries)

The balloon-stomping challenge, where each student has two balloons tied to their ankles and the team with the most balloons in tact at the end of five minutes wins. I am sure I played this when I was four, not fourteen.

And my favourite, 'the skin of the snake'. This involves a team of ten students running along in a line, grabbing onto the back of each other's belts. When the front student reaches a checkpoint then the back student has to lie down on the ground, still holding the student in front's belt. The next student walks back over the student behind him, legs either side, and lies down with his crotch straddling the head of the student behind him (only possible in Japan), and so on until the front student has lay down. And then the process is reversed: the last student gets back up again, runs forward over the mass of bodies, and pulls all of the students behind him up off the ground in a manoeuvre that vaguely resembles a snake shedding its skin. It is quite a sight to behold.

Some of my students were taken aback by the fact that Kim had come along to watch. Crowds of giggly third year girls were whispering to each other about who this gaijin was and whether they should approach her to practice their English. Eventually one of them plucked up the courage to say hello, and then raced off again to gossip about the interaction and break it down with her friends.

The most unique aspect of Japanese sports days is watching the group exercise set to music. In what closely resembles an army boot camp, all students line up on the gravel and perform the standard exercise that apparently all junior high school students have been doing since the fifties - star jumps and ballet-esque stretches all in time to a tinny piano. Why? Because they've always done it. Teachers and parents alike also get involved because it takes them back to their junior high school days...

However, the highlight of the day was definitely the relay race - teachers vs. the students. And with the start we got off to I thought we had it in the bag - the vice principal showed that his days as a PE teacher were not behind him yet as he sprinted to an astonishing lead. Unfortunately a few of the members of staff weren't quite as fit (hey, I haven't played any sport for a while, ok?) and the kids with their boundless energy ended up thrashing the pants off us.

Still, the sight of the school principal, a constantly-smiling suit-wearing fellow, running a lap in tight shorts and a singlet was truly a golden moment...

Take my breath away

It is very possible that Japanese salary men and obachans (old women) have the foulest breath on the planet. Never be caught on a packed train with one of these malodorous offenders, because their breath will slam you against the walls of Hell quicker than you can say "Damn, what's that sm....".

I discovered that this phenomena has a popular name - "Oyaji-Rot" (Father Rot). More than anything I was relieved that I was not the only one to have experienced it and that it really is as hideous as I imagined.

"Oyaji Rot" is apparently caused by poor diet (basically meat, fish and rice), a daily overload of alcohol and cigarettes and a derelict approach to dental hygiene (consisting of toothpicks rather than floss). Brew this with stress and the extreme humidity at the moment, and you got yourself a fetid cocktail that could liquidate a small nation.

Yesterday morning on the train, a particularly rank human being pressed himself up against me (oh! the bliss of the early morning sardine tin!) and he was certainly not shy about sharing his asthmatic funk with his fellow commuters. It is my firm belief that packed trains bring out the worst in people (such sins as pushing, shoving, grabbing vacated seats while old or pregnant folk are standing and gawking at foreigners among them) but this has to be up there among the worst.

The thing that kills me is a comment made to me by my (very odd Japanese) dentist a few months ago;

"Why don't foreigners ever floss?"

..."summer days drifting away, but ah, those summer nights

Not that one ever needs an excuse for a karaoke party (yes, another one) but as one of our much beloved schedulers at work was leaving, it seemed the perfect occasion.

Twenty of us squeezed into a room at Utahirobar in Kabuki-cho last night, a particularly hot and rainy evening. It was standard karaoke fare (i.e. semi-drunken off key moments, tempered byd the occasional flash of brilliance) until one of the revellers, Setoguchi-san, stepped up to the plate.

She knocked us out with a sublime voice that could flatten Mariah Carey and kick her while she was down. The party stopped dead in its tracks, awe-struck, and someone (it may have been me) was heard to grumble, "Who the Hell invited her anyway?".

Uta-Hiroba (Shinjuku - 03-3371-0346) (Ikebukuro - 03-3980-0458)

T-shirts seen around Tokyo this week

1. The snow goose need not bathe.
2. We are the brain police. Nobody know.
3. Recently I am Particularly Anxious About It.
4. I want wings. I want to visit up the sky and I want to fly it. (should be the catch-cry for my ANA girls...)
5. THE SUN ISGONE, BAT I HAVE A LEET.

Bike? What bike?

Since re-arranging our apartment on Saturday, my whole life has gone to hell.

There is only so much rearranging one can do in a
2DK (swinging a cat, for example, is a pipe dream) so when I whacked the crap out of my small toe and broke it on our strategically placed bookshelf (after spewing forth a steady stream of loud, profane invectives then whacking it again on the same bookshelf not two hours later) I found it was difficult to get around without my beloved "mama-chari", the Japanese cousin of the Aussie Malvern star, with almost as much street-cred.

This morning I rode my bike to the station and parked in the very clearly marked "No Bicycles" area. Everyone parks there - it is a goddamn national institution to stick it to the Parking Nazis. The local pachinko parlour even places plastic bags over the seats of these illegally parked cycles when it rains.

I got onto the (very crowded train) where someone stepped on my destroyed toe, made it to my class and then returned home only to find my life-saving transportation impounded! Impounded!

I have no idea where my bike is. The Parking Nazis don't even put a little slip in your letterbox to the tune of "Nya nya nya nyaaaa nyaaaaaaaaaaaa, cough up 3,000 big ones or your bikes going to mama-chari heaven". Nothing. They just assume I know where I need to go to get it back. Is it like the pound where thousands of discarded cycles peer forlornly from between the bars begging to be taken home? Where do these bikes go? Does anyone know?

I am but saddened at the loss of my faithful companion... say, is that a brand new mama-chari I see in that shop window? Matt???

The Kitchen Absinthe Party

Two of our friends Nick and Nick (one affectionately known as "Nikyu", meaning Level Two Japanese Proficiency, and the other "Niku", meaning meat) threw a housewarming party on Saturday night. It was a sultry, early summer evening, and the party was going swimmingly until someone (you know who you are) brought out a bottle of absinthe. This heady brew which gained particular infamy during the Victorian ages, brought further infamy upon this unassuming apartment in 21st century Ebisu.

The key (apparently) to a "heady" experience is to dip a spoon laced with sugar into the alcohol, light the spoon, dip it, stir it around, then shoot it like tequila. The absinthe had absolutely no effect on me (apart from tasting vile and producing a violent stabbing in my brain the next morning), and as I was lighting my spoon in the kitchen, I couldn't help but feel like I was about to ingest something quite, quite different...

In spite of Niku and Nikyu throwing on some Abba (which Nikyu insisted he didn't have, liar) and encouraging a half-arsed living-room groove, around midnight a good percentage of the party squeezed onto the balcony (a rare luxury in this country) and chilled. I know this to be a fact, as the Moby MD came out...

In Japan, the house party scene is a bit of a peculiarity. Quite a few of the Japanese contingent commented that it was unusual to have a big party with a lot of people who don't know each other (which is the total point of a house party where I'm from). The Japanese love their groups, but tend not to mix them. Thankfully, their love of alcohol will always supercede their bashfulness about mixing with a bunch of strangers, and the conversations and flirtations carried on til around 5am.

Unlike most normal parties, where guests get the "hint" by the music stopping, Niku starts the washing up. Who said Englishmen weren't domesticated?

Crazy Japanese Television

Random Saturday Morning Cartoon Plot

A young girl and her two friends attend a surfing competition in which her brother is competing. Her primary cause for concern is not whether he will win the competition, but whether, after the competition, he will eat the bento lunch box that she made for him. Half way through his run, the lady of the ocean (Mother Nature?) gets pissed off that humans are surfing in her ocean and begins sending bright yellow lasers up from the ocean floor to try and distract him.

Our heroine and her friends decide to do something about it and don their sexy mermaid outfits and dive down to challenge Mother Nature. Instead of combatting her in the usual karate way, they pull out a magical microphone each and begin singing karaoke at her (under the water!) This forms a protective shield around them that deflects the lasers and allows the brother to win the surfing competition. Mother Nature seems to find their singing as painful as me as she stops sending the laser balls up to the surface and just grimaces in pain instead.

Later on the beach, our heroine tentatively walks up to her brother and asks whether he has eaten yet, only to be disappointed to see him surrounded by all manner of delicious food that he has already bought to satisfy his hunger after a hard day's surfing. But thankfully he turns and asks her what happened to the bento-box that she made, and when she pulls it out he can't believe how good it looks.

The sun sets as they sit on a picnic blanket enjoying the bento and remarking on how delicious it tastes...

5 Reasons why it's Good to be a Gaijin

1. You can have light brown hair and no-one will wonder what shade of blond you've tried to dye it;

2. Petition collectors and porn advertisers on the street don't bother you;

3. You can open your door to the NHK man (the capitalist nazi who comes to pilfer your hard-earned 3,000 yen every few months for a supposedly "free-to-air" television channel - outrageous!) and pretend you can't understand what he is saying (we got out of paying for about 6 months using this technique, until one day Matt forgot that he "couldn't speak Japanese");

4. You can get a gig drooling on Katori Shingo's shoes during his late night "Bera Bera" program and get paid for it; and

5. You can spend 20 hours a week teaching English and get paid more than some Japanese who work 60 hours a week...