Nomunication

I learned a new word the other day - "Nomunication", the art of communicating while being juiced to the eyeballs.

The word (apparently common in Japan although I'd never heard it before now) is made up of "Nomu", the Japanese verb "to drink" (in this case, the assumption is that it will be a piss-load of alcohol) and "Communication". Let it be said that Japan's adult population consists of a fairly large number of lushes and most of the time, its fuckin' superb. Alcohol and company is, in my opinion, one of the finest recipes for human bondage...erm, bonding.

But there is, of course, a dark side to this pre-occupation with nomunication. A friend of ours, a Manager of a Japanese company, went to a Bonenkai (end of year party) last year with his colleagues. He got rather, ahem, soused, stumbled to the train station, fell over on the platform, and broke his right cheek bone.

For three months he couldn't wink or smile with that side of his face. Unfortunately, when he was recounting his story, some miscommunication occurred with the translation and we thought he'd said that until the accident he couldn't wink or smile and now he could, to which we were on the verge of searching the heavens and proclaiming "It's a miracle!!!" Two weeks after the accident, he had to make a speech to his company to welcome in the New Year and apologised profusely for his licentious behaviour.

In the Japanese business culture, there is a real emphasis on getting drunk with colleagues after work. Interestingly this does not extend to the Friday lunchtime write-off enjoyed by their Australian counterparts. Getting pork-chopped over lunch is frowned upon whereas the post-work izakaya liquor-spree is positively encouraged.

One of my students, a salary man in his early 40's and a Senior Manager of his company, carouses with his colleagues or clients 5 out of 7 nights a week. After teaching him the critical phrase, "I have a hangover", I asked him why he felt compelled to get his liver wet so often. He regarded me with haunted, hungover eyes and replied, "I have to. It is very important." Now when a Japanese person says "It's very important" it usually means "Its reasonably important" but in this case, I didn't doubt him...

For the most part, nomunication has a positive effect on company and personal relations, although I did wonder what my student's wife thought about him being crocked for 60% of his waking life.

While the answer remains a mystery, I, for one, am looking forward to nomunicating with my fellow passengers tomorrow on the train down to Shimoda!!! Long live the liquid eki-ben!

In a Toe-Jam

I have very long toes. And very narrow feet. When I was a kid, I couldn't wear the regulation JC sandals to school because they were too wide. My mother use to (actually, still does) tease me about my lanky toes, saying they were freaky looking and that I should try swinging off trees. As a 10 year old, I thought I was a toe-nail away from being sold to a circus.

My mother, on the other hand, has short and (she calls them "neat", but they're actually...) stubby toes. I am an anomaly in my own family.

I am not an anomaly in the big happy tribe that is Japan, however. Recently I have noticed thousands of similarly freaky finger-like toes popping out of thongs and open-toed sandals in search of the sun. I thought at first I was in a delicious dreamland where everyone could play the piano with their toes, but no, it seems that a disproportianate number of Japanese women really do have gangly toes which are out of proportion to the rest of their feet.

And I thought it was just me...

Bentos on the Beach

There's a lot to be said for both the Aussie and the Japanese beach experiences.

In Australia, you grab your towel, a picnic basket full of goodies, your togs and maybe a beach umbrella, unless you want to brave finding a suitable tree. If you live on the coast, you can also usually find a stretch of beach that is reasonably quiet, if not deserted.

In Japan (well, Tokyo at least), you grab your towel and your togs, head to the nearest beach (which in our case is 90 minutes away) with thousands of others and let the Japanese hospitality-conveyor-belt do the rest.

We (Martine, Al, Matt and I) arrived on Miura-Kaigan beach at the tip of the Miura Peninsula, with swimwear, towels and some snacks. We shouldn't have bothered with the snacks, as there were a slew of bento places and izakayas, providing ramen, curry and, most importantly, beer (there was also a beach-side KFC and McDonalds but we don't talk about that).

We rented a beach umbrella and beach chair, set up camp on the sand and soaked up the sun and atmosphere, for where there are thousands of people, there are thousands of characters. Including thousands of motherf@#$ing little "characters" masquerading as jellyfish. Its been a long time since I've been to a beach in Australia, but I surely do not remember these blobs of gelatinous evil ever stinging me. Yesterday, however, they were out in force. Matt and I compared stings at the end of the day, I won for biggest sting, Matt won for most stings. Little fuckers.

The thing that most struck me was the percentage of people in the 18-35 year old age group with tattoos. I'd be guessing around 5%? And we're talking huge, elaborate designs on both men and women. Its clear that the younger generation is kicking the arse out of the link between tattoos and yakuza. Such a stigma is so passe.

In keeping with the Japanese commandment of "Thou shalt not have quiet where people doth relax", the beach was a cacophony of sound - ice cream sellers were circling the beach with their little Tibetan cow-bells, music blared over a loud speaker system and three girls sitting behind us, with cigarettes and beers dangling from their mouths, treated us to some karaoke.

But after a fairly miserable and cold Summer, yesterday's 33 degree chill-out on the beach was blissful, almost sickeningly so. Although, when the crowds thinned out around 4.30 and there was time to contemplate the late afternoon sky and semi-peaceful surrounds, a loud announcement pronounced the beach was closing at 5 pm.

Huh? The day is just beginning!

The Bitch and the Beatific

Matt got a little house-call from the Jehovah's Witnesses this morning. He really struggles with saying "No" to things, which is great for me, particularly when I want a back-rub. I have tried to kick his arse and get him to be a bit more selfish with his time and loyalties, but honestly, its like asking little Johnny Howard to take his tongue out of Dubya's arse. Damn Matt, he's just so. bloody. good! I honestly have no idea how two people so different got together or why we work so well as a couple.

I have no problem saying no to Jehovah's Witnesses. If one tries to shove some scripture down my throat on the street, I blow them off. If they conjugate on my door-step, I pretend I'm not home or grunt "Sorry, not interested" before they can open their mouths (the bibles and the sweet nonchalant looking children are usually dead giveaways).

My parents have always done the same, my mother is particularly dismissive (fuck, I love that woman) and my brother has a tendency to debate the New Testament with them, sending them howling back to their caverns in a peevish funk. I have been brought up in a family that refuses to listen to what it doesn't want to hear.

I don't give a shit what religion people follow, as long as they don't try to force feed it into my already delinquent brain. I am past saving. If I needed a new religion I would have already bought it.

Scent and the City

I have always been affected by smells. They are my main memory-activator, which unfortunately means certain fragrances remind me of ex-boyfriends who should have remained curled up and locked in a dumpster. Tokyo is a place where every sense gets a firing on a daily basis, particularly that of smell. Here are some of the scents I will most miss when I leave (and a few I won't);

Olfactory paradise:
1. Incense wafting in from neighbourhood shrines and temples;
2. Fresh, un-steeped Matcha (tea-ceremony tea) in the Seibu Basement;
3. Yakitori grilling from sidewalk restaurants and yatai;
4. The acrid smoke smell of extinguished firecrackers; and
5. Our tatami room. Like fresh bales of hay during a thunderstorm.

Olfactory purgatory:
1. Sewage smell hovering over street grills. I swear to God it's the worse I've smelt, and I've smelt some shit in my time;
2. Human urine in some train stations (somehow "public draining of lizard" got missed in the Japanese list of human transgressions);
3. Fish stalls. Sure, it's fresh fish (most of the time) but in spite of being raised by a fanatical fisherman, I still can't stomach the smell of uncooked fish;
4. Oyaji Rot; and
5. Cigarettes, both "fossilised" (many buildings have that deliciously stale 50-years-of-cigarettes-stubbed-out-in-the-carpet aroma) and "fresh" (particularly bad is the smoking section on Shinjuku's Saikyo line platform. The cigarette smoke there could smother a rodent at 20 feet).

Tattoo You

I know I take the piss out of the dodgy English T-shirts I see on Tokyo's streets. In my opinion, if you're gonna buy a T-shirt/bag to parade around the joint, not knowing know what it says, then you're leaving yourself open to potential ridicule.

Same rules apply for any westerner who gets a tattoo of a kanji character but doesn't know what it means. Personally, I think kanji characters make the perfect tattoos - they are simple, bold and artistic (and damn sexy, but I won't go into that..)

Matt got one in February, the kanji for "Australia", which also means "Strength" and he made damn sure that that was one if its meanings before he permanently scarred his skin. Since he got it, many Japanese friends have seen it and crooned, "ooooh, Australia", like it was cool or something, but there was a general cacaphony of relieved sighs all round, let me tell you.

Echo Magazine did a bit of a study on the rampant mis-use and molestation of these characters by westerners. Ah, I do love some good cross-continental perversion!

The Kimono Philes

As a celebration of all things kimono, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to compile a series of photographs around the theme of Kimono.

I'm inviting everyone out there with a photographic eye to submit photos of kimono/yukata and all the accessories that go with them - zori, geta, handbags, whatever, as long as they keep to the theme...

I ask that photos be kept to 400KB in size and any photos posted on the Kimono Philes page will include a link to your website or online portfolio if you have one.

So get snapping!!!

Things that break your heart

Walking to my class in Nishi-Shinjuku this morning, I took a narrow alley I rarely take. It was miserable, a light incessant funk hovering over the damp streets. Up ahead I saw a homeless man leaning over what looked to be a garbage can. As I neared him, I realised he was leaning over a dead ginger and white cat who (judging from the two seconds I could stand to look) had just been recently been hit by a car. The homeless man seemed to be in muted anguish, trying to pick up the dead cat. The sight of him maneuvering his hands under the cat's body was more than I could bear, both because I hate seeing dead animals (particularly cats, because I'm a cat-person) and the gentleness of the man's act. Was there a history here? Was the cat a stray who had befriended the man? I'll never know. Truth be known, I'm relieved I'll never know, 'cos I don't handle other people's grief well, stranger or not.

I had no idea when I woke up this morning I'd be a voyeur to someone's else pain.

Dream Factories and Japanese Cowboys

Headed out to Chiba this weekend to spend the end of O-Bon with Ray and Chie on Friday night, and Tatsumi on Saturday.

Chie has a new job at a placed called the "Dream Factory". Her company employs a slew of operators who take calls from compulsive gamblers who want tips on the upcoming weekend's horse-races. She gets paid per tip (she even out-tips her boss, the so-called Head-Tipper) and the following Monday has to handle calls from all the gamblers whose Chie-tipped-horse didn't win. As the week progresses, the cycle starts again. Man, and I thought recruitment cold-calling was bad.

So why is it called the "Dream Factory"? Her boss asked her when she started, "What is your dream?" Chie said her dream was to own her own apartment, so her boss has taken her under his wing to help her achieve her dream. Which is all very well and good, but at what price society's gambling ills?

On Saturday, after a drunken night/morning of Aussie red wine, karaoke and terrorising locals with our conbini-bought fireworks (Ray and I really shouldn't be left alone with fire) we woke to screaming hangovers. Luckily, an hour away, Tatsumi was recovering from one himself, so I didn't feel so bad about not being quite so chipper.

The idea was to camp out Saturday night on nearby Kujukuri beach and go swimming in the balmily searing temperatures, but alas, it was wet and miserable. This sure aint no f!@#$in' summer I've ever heard of! Instead, we hung out at the West-End Bar in Mobara with 10 of Tatsumi's friends, Matt and I lasting 'til the piss-poor hour of 11pm.

Tatsumi did a home-stay with Matt's parents a few years ago and is a refreshing mix of Aussie ockerness ("Me Holden's fucked mate, it's fucked" - yep, he had his beloved FJ Holden shipped from Australia, but, well... right now it's fucked) and Japanese diplomacy. He's also an annoyingly charismatic dude, has so many buddies it makes your head hurt and proudly confesses; "I am Japanese Cowboy"! He didn't arrive home 'til 9 this morning.

Tatsumi's family is very cool, and at least one of the clan is a little oddball. One of the customs during O-Bon is to leave cucumbers or eggplants at the graves of departed loved ones. Apparently, cucumbers and eggplants are the preferred "vehicle" for returning from the dead to the land of the living. Tatsumi's grandmother, though, likes to chop up the eggplant and cucumber for this tradition, to which she gets the piss taken out of her by her family, "How the hell are our ancestors supposed to get back on diced cucumber???"

Losing my religion

This week is O-Bon, one of the two mega-festivals in Japan (the other is New Year). During O-Bon, ghosties return to their homes and the Japanese traditionally return to their hometowns to suck down a few sakes with them. As Tokyo is a reasonably big home town (only around 10 trillion souls floating around), quite a few people return to Tokyo and a fair chunk flock to their local shrine or temple. I had the day off, so I followed everyone else and ended up at Senso-Ji in Asakusa.

The major religion in Japan is Buddhism, although Christianity is getting more of a look-in these days. Shinto, is more an indigenous ideology than a religion. Buddhists believe in the solemn fat man and enlightenment through meditation, and the Shinto(ists?) adhere to a pantheistic idea that gods (kami) exist in all things in nature - woods, trees, rivers, trains, pachinko parlours - you name it! (OK, I was kidding about the trains).

I'm buggered if I can tell the difference between a temple and a shrine. Senso-Ji, for example, is supposed to be a temple, but there seem to be a hell of a lot of shriney elements mixed up in there - the temizuya, the area where you rinse your hands and mouth and omikuji, the paper fortunes that worshippers tie to a large abacus-like structure are just two. So I just dunno. Both philosophies appeal to me, though, for different reasons...

During our trip to Koya-San, where we stayed in a Buddhist temple and mediated with the monks, it seemed quite idyllic to me, not necessarily as a religion but as a lifestyle. It could have been simply the magic of the night we stayed there, after all, it was better than a ryokan, the food was top shelf, and it snowed all night - quite a sight to see the monks raking patterns in the snow at 5am. And I don't know about belief in the solemn fat man, but he seems just as believable a dude as JC, and there aint no excruciatingly boring sermons about the meek inheriting the earth or cataclysmic warnings against the number 6 in Buddhism. Although the asceticism of Buddhism strikes a chord, I could never spend hours a day lighting incense and humming. I just couldn't. I would sooner take my eye out with a fishfork.

In fact, there is a refreshing lack of religion-imposed sexual-funk in Japan (no, nothing to do with fishforks). Of course, this lack of sexual shame is open to corruption - don't even start me on the enjo kosai thing - high-school-girls-selling-themselves-to-skanky-old-salary-men-so-they-can-buy-designer-products, which is still rife in Japan, and scarily, a lot of people don't see that there is anything wrong with it. There's certainly no shame on the part of the school-girls as long as they can show off their Louis Vuitton handbags.. . Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, religion.

Shinto, on the other hand, seems to me to be like an oriental, state-sanctioned version of Wicca. Without the spells or funky potions (damn!). The essence of the two though, that being the worship of nature's deities is pretty much the same.

At Senso-Ji, the so-called "working-(wo)man's temple", there is no peaceful meditation in the main hall or solitary monks enjoying a rake and a hum. Thousands of people are pinning their paper fortunes onto the abacus, worshippers are throwing their five yen coins into a big wooden chest with a grill on the top (the 5 yen is meant to be lucky because "go" (five) means something special in Japanese, can't recall what). There is cleansing of mouths and hands at the temizuya and people are wafting incense smoke into their heads (supposedly to wish for intelligence) or into their pockets (wish for money) or as one very dodgy guest of ours once tried to do, waft it into his groin area (apparently he was wishing for something he was lacking).

It was a screamingly hot day, and as I went to cool off at the temizuya, a pigeon head-butted me out of the way to get to the water. The salary-man next to me, in the usual contrived, over-exaggerated salary-man fashion, was huffing and puffing about the poor bird who was obviously thirsty. I started to think "Bloody salary-m..." when I thought, "Shit, he's right. Just think of all those diseases that birds carry and deposit in a pool that thousands of people drink out of every day." Then I started to think about all the people that must drink the water straight from the ladles, and promptly put down my own. A toddler next to me had the same idea. His mum kept forcing him to drink out of the ladle (she tried 3 times), but he kept tipping out the water and handing his mum the empty ladle. He wasn't having any of it, smart fella.

And wherever there are thousands of worshippers wafting and abluting and wishing, there is food. You could never accuse the Japanese of missing an opportunity to cash-in on religious-festival fever. Mind you, most of the yatai at festival-ground-zero are run by Yakuza, so the working-class can't cash-in on the yatai gold-mine.

I guess that's what the paper fortunes, big box and a 5 yen coin is for.

Life Imitates Art Imitates Life

Wow.

I've always found kanji fascinating. Often they are pictographs that resemble the concept they represent, and usually they can be combined together logically to form other words (eg. the kanji characters for suck, blood and evil-spirit combine together to form the word for vampire.

Cool huh?

Well, yesterday, the same day that we received our rent renewal notice, I stumbled upon another insight into how the Japanese culture and language are intertwined. I discovered that the kanji for bribery (wai), is also the kanji for boarding (makanau) as in to pay rent.

Should I be surprised, really?

Renewal

Received some great news in our mail today! Our rental renewal letter from our landlady. She says she's not going to increase the rent come October, and to celebrate living in her apartment for 2 years, we get to pay her a gift! Another one month's key money (reikin) - only 85,000 yen ($A1000)! "Reikin" loosely translates as "thank you" money. Yes! Thank you! Thank you for charging us more money for being good tenants!

We shouldn't complain (said between gritted teeth), I mean, we're lucky we live in a decent (if small) place, in a convenient area and our landlady is a lovely old duck (and rich! wonder why...) but we coughed up 5 months rent at the start dammit! Enough already!

Guest Book

Sorry to everybody who's posted on my Guest Book in the last week or two (particularly to Kinki Fan and Meg who stuck up for my little pool in the ocean of blogs). They should charge per hour for their services) - GuestGear has gone and deleted my recent entries and refuses to publish any more. Bollocks, I say, sheer bollocks.

If you have a comment you'd like to make, would you be so kind as to use the GuestMap? If for some reason, you can't post on it, let me know and I'll pop your moniker up for you.

The pattern-eyed monster

(and very bad poetry)

In the winter it was Kimono,
The spring brought thoughts of Hanami,
As the seasons heated up,
I turned my sights to Hanabi.
Will the obsessions ever stop?
I sure as hell hope not!

Last night was the Kawagoe Hanabi Festival in Saitama (postponed from Saturday night because of the typhoon). I went yukata-less, not out of choice, mind you. It was a beautiful evening, but a 35 degree scorcher and I can be a real bitch when I'm dripping with sweat. I may be a yukata-maniac, but an idiot, I am not.

As the night wore on, I became pressingly aware of a deep psychological issue I may have to deal with in the near future - Yukata-Envy. Every time a lovely filly in her yukata brushed past (maybe every 3 seconds), I'd sigh and whine, "I wish I wore my yukataaaaaaa". Close to giving me a well-deserved slapdown, Matt re-assured me, "Just think how hot they are right now, Sweetie." I consoled myself by noticing all the badly-tied home-job obi (not that I can talk, cheater!) and the blisters popping up on geta-ed feet. Must. Get. Help.

On the subject of craziness, the Japanese love their Hanabi so much, I think the collective consciousness needs a bit of counselling, too. There were literally hundreds of yatai (food stalls) and thousands of people packed into the park. We made camp in a rice field a hundred metres from the action with beer (critical component of any festival), yakisoba and yaki-butta (grilled pork on skewers - f!@#in' A!).

And while it took us 45 minutes to get to Saitama, it took 3 hours to get home. Now I know why they finish the fireworks so damn early.

It started with a gift...

One (more) barrier to foreigners forming close relationships with Japanese is the stubborn Gift-Giving Cycle...

When we first arrived in Japan, we went out to dinner with a group of people Matt knew from a Tampa Training Course. We went to a lovely little izakaya in Nishi-Shinjuku, drank lots of sake, ate loads of sushi (yes, I only ate the egg ones) and at the end of the meal, one of the guys refused to let us pay a yen, in spite of our insistence. Yes, we were poor (not that poor) but these people were potential buddies and it made me feel quite uncomfortable. The next time we went out with that crowd (but fewer of them), the whole group split the bill and everyone paid for themselves. I was elated. I felt like I was being treated as one of the group, rather than a guest.

I have always been Little Miss Independent, particularly when it comes to money, and Japan has loosened my attitudes (kicking and screaming mind you) toward being paid for. It can be frustrating if you try to pay for someone else and you are shouted down in protest. There is something about not being able to reciprocate a gesture that leaves me feeling defenceless.

I accept there are times when Japanese people just pay for you or give your gifts and there is nothing you can do about it on the spot. For example, when we went out to Chiba and stayed at Tatsumi's place, his mother gave me a purse made of kimono material. I accepted it graciously, but was confused - why was she giving me this gift? We were staying in her home, so it didn't make sense. The Cycle was thrown into disarray!

Other times, we have been taken out to dinner and paid for, but by work-related acquaintances. Although it doesn't sit that well with me (there is no real chance to return the favour) when it comes to friendships, the obligation really bugs me.

I've heard of foreigners having out and out wars with Japanese people - it all starts with a tiny gift, the gifts escalating in cost as one person tries to outdo the other. This happened to one of our friends who frequently visited a shop in the town where she lived. She struck up a friendly banter with the shop-owner and one day, he gave her a gift of fruit. The next time she saw him, she gave him a Canadian souvenir. No doubt surprised, the shop-keeper out-matched her gift with a larger, more expensive one. This went on for weeks, the gifts just getting progressively more extravagant, until she couldn't take the awkwardness (and cost) anymore. She stopped going to the shop. The banter that she had so enjoyed was killed in a gift-giving shoot-out.

I like the aspect of gift-giving if its a token of appreciation. We always bring cakes or wine to people's houses if we have been invited to dinner. We have succumbed to the "omiyage" tradition - bringing back souvenirs when you go away on holiday as a way of "apologizing" for taking a few measly days off work and possibly throwing the entire company into chaos by your absence.

But if a person I consider a potential friend insists on paying for me all the time, just because they can, or giving me inappropriate gifts, then I have to wonder if I'm still being considered a guest, rather than a friend. It's a nice gesture and all, and like it or not, instilled into the nation's cultural psyche, but I refuse to engage in the Gift-Giving War.

Thankfully, most of our Japanese buddies are like us - appropriately generous at times when it is appropriate. As a foreigner wanting to make friends with the locals, equality is important, and all this goddamn cultural generosity can make a girl feel powerless...

Arse Jet!

Look, we are reasonably tidy people, ok?

Really. I mean, the lounge room (who am I kidding? It's our only room) does get a bit out of hand sometimes when neither of us can be bothered tidying up. And there are occasions when the dishes get left in the sink or some food on the shelf maybe goes a little off. But basically we're not slobs.

It is this last situation which lead to our apartment's infestation of fruit flies. We gradually noticed that there were more and more of the little buggers hanging around, and even after we located the root of the problem (a mouldy, mushy banana in the fruit bowl) and removed it, they still seemed to be hanging around. Still, nothing a bit of insect spray from the local pharmacy can't fix, right?

The name of this insect spray is Aasu Jetto. I'm guessing this is a katakanification of the phrase "Earth Jet", but unfortunately it comes out like Arse Jet. There are a stack of badly-katakanified words in Japan, but I think this is my favourite - is it insecticide or fart gas?

Whatever the can contains, it doesn't seem to do much. It seems to have approximately the same effect as spraying water on them. There are less of the bugs but three weeks later there are still some hanging around.

Perhaps I need to look for a spray at the pharmacy that's stronger than Arse Jet - maybe it's called something like "Butt Cannon"?

Close to you...

Starting from scratch in this country was f@#%ing hard. When we arrived in Japan, almost 2 years ago, we knew nobody, save for the family Matt did a homestay with 10 years ago. We were also poor, sinking our meagre funds into an apartment (we paid 5 months rent up front). Luckily, we didn't fall prey to the much-maligned "culture shock", but after a few months of being overwhelmed by the novelty of Tokyo, we did miss our friends back home a great deal.

It took us a long time to build up a new friendship network. Now its probably 50% Japanese, 50% foreign. At first, the most obvious source of friends was the ex-pat (ugh, hate that term, but I'm too hot to come up with anything witty) community, but its a fairly small pool and I'll be honest with you - I have found that I relate to relatively few of them. They're mostly decent people, but I'm talking about clicking with someone, having an affinity blah blah blah and just because someone's an "outsider" in a particular country, doesn't make them your kind of person (or vice versa). The ones we are close to however, rock my world (you know who you are).

Sometimes I wander what I'm doing, moving to different cities, countries, in search of new experiences like a dog sniffs another dog's butt. By nature, Matt and I are wanderers which is great for us as a couple, but not so great for maintaining our other relationships. We both get bored easily (but we're loyal! very loyal!), and the fact that Japan has held our interest for so long has been a big thing (read, surprise) for us.

Tokyo is a fantastic city to be anonymous in - you can observe human nature at work without becoming particularly involved. For the introvert in me, this is liberating. The extrovert in me continually cries out to get to know the locals better, which can be a cultural mine-field.

First, the personal space thing here is fraught with ambiguities. People squish onto trains and breathe each other's air, girls hold hands with each other, even the girls at my work like to hold my hand when they talk to me. In other situations, they bow to each other rather than shake hands. Public kissing (not talking about tonsil mauling, just a simple smooch) is still frowned upon.

And many Japanese are impenetrably difficult to read. The traditional "stomach-talk" - talking around the subject rather than about it (very popular in Japanese companies which is probably why nothing ever gets done and the economy is so shithouse) sometimes transfers itself to the dinner-party table. No-one in this city seems to want to cage an opinion, should it offend someone else. For me, coming from a country where opinions are encouraged, asking me to "stomach-talk" (and trust me, I can do it, I just hate it), is like asking me to stand naked in Shibuya Crossing with an American flag draped around my wares. I could do it, but it wouldn't make me feel so chipper. A few times I've gotten into scalding water with my company because of my "directness" and when it comes to friendships, I've had to compromise on this desire should I alienate someone I care about (alienating my company on the other hand, appears to be OK? Yes! Definitely OK!).

By default, other foreigners are "easier" to get to know, simply because they (generally) speak English and have a westernised mindset (though this is not always a good thing). As we got to know Japan and our friendship circle grew, more Japanese came on-board, mainly students of ours, or JTEs we taught with. But invariably these friends had pretty good English, had lived overseas or had a burning desire to. Now we're entering the third phase - befriending Japanese who love being Japanese whose English is dodgy at best.

Before the inevitable cries of "Well, what do you expect? They're Japanese", let me say one thing - to become close friends with someone you need communication and usually that means verbal communication. Even Matt, whose Japanese is damn good, struggles with the finer nuances of feeling and intention. So making the effort to get past the problems of language and culture has been both intimidating and rewarding. One of our gorgeous Japanese friends loves being Japanese. This may sound like stating the bleeding obvious, but I mean she f#$%^ing loves it - I swear to God she was a Geisha in a previous life. And I f@#%ing love getting to know her, in spite of the difficulties, because she has opened up a whole new world to me.

If only she'd been around when I was attempting to tie my yukata (no offence, Matt) and if only all of our new friends could come home with us when we leave...

i'm not a sushi fan.

i don't like nori. i gag at the mere presence of sloppy raw fish with bits hanging over the top of a nori parcel. Some may call me a culinary neanderthal but trust me. you don't want to get near me if i'm forced at gunpoint to suck down fish offal or raw squid tentacles.

but kaiten-sushi (revolving sushi) is cool. if I don't have to eat it's offerings (except the egg ones). the sushi chefs are artisans and I could watch them roll their rice balls for days. they love their job. i love beer and egg sushi. everyone is happy...

Web search

I've pretty much gotten over the novelty of seeing the different searches that people put in and get my website, but these ones killed me:

* addicted to smelly feet in nylons
* butt floss pictures at party
* screaming and showing her fillings photos
* fried titties

I wonder if they found what they were looking for?

TV Stars again

(oh yeah, and some band called Radiohead)

Yesterday was hot. very. very. hot. We sweltered in 35 degree (honestly, it was!) heat in the pit at Summer Sonic from midday to 9:30pm. OK, we watched Blondie from the relative cool of the top stands (with a smashing view of the ocean may I say) but the other 8 hours were spent patiently waiting for the Gods of Modern Music to arrive.

Although there were 3 stages, we stayed at the Chiba Marine Stadium (where all the major acts were) as it was a 10 minute hike between venues. Shame really, 'cos by the looks of things, over at the Factory Stage, Sons of All Pussys went down a treat....

Early in the day, we saw The Living End, a Brissie Melbourne band that is evidently very popular in Japan. The crowd was going off and bugger me if they didn't know all the words!

Blondie played all the old favourites, but it was a bit surreal watching this 58 year old ex-icon, rocking out like an 18 year old. That alone was worth the entry price.

After Blondie, and a queue of about 20,000 fans, we secured ourselves a nice little possie at the front of the second section of the pit, watched Good Charlotte (not my cup of tea) Stereophonics (didn't really know about them before, but they were fantastic) and The Strokes (again, didn't know their music but hell, their lead singer was a charismatic little f!@#ker! He tried to crowd dive at the end of their set, but somehow disappeared into the fans. They wouldn't let the poor bugger go! Kawaiiiiii!).

It's been a long time since I went to a Rock Festival - the last was probably Lilith Fair back in ('nam) 1996, so I wasn't convinced of my endurance over 10 searing, impossibly energetic hours. Even Matt, my younger cohort, was feeling the strain around sunset.

What we hadn't realised was that the corridor between the two pits was MTV Japan central, and after the Strokes had finished we were approached and interviewed by MTV. They asked us how the Strokes were and, being a Strokes virgin I didn't have much to say. However, the fact that Matt yelled "Go Strokes!" and I did the Japanese peace sign at the camera was a fair indication of how long, hot, and dehydrating a day we'd had. I hope to god no-one sees it air. Hail to the Foreign Bimbos!

When Radiohead came on, the Stadium just exploded. Thom "Energizer Bunny" Yorke and Co. put on a frikkin' good show which far exceeded my expectations. I'm glad "Hail to the Thief" finally clicked with me, cos they played a lot from that album as well as stacks of my favourites; "Idioteque" (I would have gone away disappointed if they didn't bring that one out of the fridge), "Karma Police" and the highlight of the evening for me; "Paranoid Android" which was seamless. No "High and Dry" unfortunately, but you get that.

Jeez, Yorkey's a bossy boots though. At one stage, during one of the newer songs, he stopped playing, turned to his guitarist and said; "You are so out of tune, its not funny". Like the true professionals they are though, the guy dingled a few of his bits and they carried on like nothing had happened.

Their encore was "Creep" - a fitting end to the cycle I'd say. The whole set was so varied, new; old; electronica; acoustic; rock; ballads; Thom curled up on the stage singing like a wired foetus; Thom jumping around twisting himself into impossible positions; it was a real roller-coaster ride. To top it off, they were deferential to the Japanese crowd, Thom bowing repeatedly saying "thank you thank you thank you thank you", completely overdoing it, just as the Japanese do. He flung out a few well-pronounced Japanese expressions, except he kept saying "douzo" ("please, go ahead") when he was about to play a new song, which was, well, not quite on the mark. But the crowd appreciated every single bit of it.

When they finished around 9pm and everyone was set to leave, a sudden rocket of fireworks appeared overhead. Every exhausted, sunburnt, sweat-drenched festival-goer watched in awe. We shouldn't have been surprised. It is hanabi season in Japan after all.

Summer Sonic's capacity was 37,000 people and yesterday was sold out (desperate fans had been close to begging at the exit of Makuhari station when we arrived). That meant 37,000 people to be ferried home in 2 hours with no extra trains. We finally slumped home around midnight. I hope everyone else got home safely.

Yukata Magic

When we left our apartment yesterday to make the journey to Chigasaki for a fireworks festival (called "Hanabi" and don't the Japanese love them!), everyone we passed smiled and greeted us with a hearty "Konnichiwa!". Little kids stared; old men bowed to us with a twinkle in their eyes. It may have been our collective imaginations, but the sight of a foreigner in yukata caused a bit of a stir in the 'hood. Matt even refused to hold my hand because it may have sullied my image of the demure yukata-clad woman.

The magic came undone, literally, about halfway to the station.

It became apparent that, in our rush to make the train, the inner flap of my yukata had not been folded quite tightly enough. The first time Matt tied my yukata, a few weeks ago, he did a bang-up job of it. This time, it just banged (must send him back to kimono skewl).

Every step I took, the inner flap kept kicking forward and was hanging askew at the bottom. To make things worse, it was 31 degrees in the shade, and these little buggers are not the coolest to wear, particularly with that huge chunk of chintz secured tightly around the waist. I had to shuffle to stop my left thigh making a surprise appearance.

I kept repeating, "...you are a dainty little Japanese woman, you are a dainty little Japanese woman..." It didn't work. So what do dainty little Japanese women do when they are in danger of committing a grave festival faux pas? They cry. Matt assured me I looked fine, but never having worn a yukata in public before, I had no idea whether it was actually possible for the whole shebang just to come asunder and expose my wares.

Luckily, after a tense train ride 90 minutes south, we met Chiaki, our gorgeous dainty Japanese friend, and some of her friends, one of whom goes to kimono skewl to learn how to tie their own kimono (v. difficult, it requires tools!). We headed to the nearest ladies room to adjust, but short of re-doing the whole thing from scratch, it was a hopeless task.

It was quite funny though, looking in the mirror watching Shiho hitching up my bits, sticking her hand up my obi to make the front panel sit flat, with a crowd of women looking on. Maybe not a sight you see every day. A pressing conundrum then struck me. How does one actually pee in these things?

Chiaki enlightened us that you pull one flap to the side, then the other, then hitch up and squat. OK, that seems pretty simple, I thought. Until she said "That is if its tied correctly." Great. I guess that means no peeing for me.

The fireworks were spectacular. They were launched off a boat in the ocean, and looked beautiful reflected off the waves. It was a balmy, breezy evening, and the locals came out in their thousands. For maybe 3 kms there was an endless sea of people lounging on the beach - about 50% of them with mobile phones poised to capture the magic. It amazes me what they can do with pyrotechnics - there were smiley faces, love hearts, Saturn, rings and cowboy hats (!@#$) as well as the usual stars and bursts.

As we hiked the 20 minutes back to the station, and said our goodbyes, my yukata was still in place (miracle! Although downing a couple of beers probably helped my paranoia). It actually wasn't so bad - when I stood still. I then thought screw it, I'm gonna give that peeing caper a try. In fact, it was simple, even with an out-of-whack yukata.

Some days its not so bad having squat toilets.

Blogshares

Just scored a Top 10 "Best Players" ranking in Blogshares for July. Huzzah!

Blogshares is a cool website, where the stocks are blogs and you trade internet money. I've never owned even one share (except for the shares my parents took out for me when I was a kid, but this wasn't to my advantage, if you catch my drift) so its all new and pretty.

Matt wants me to start trading on the real stock market now - and with a total growth of 6717295.65% for July, who could blame him? Sigh. If only it were real money, I could buy that posh condo in Omotesando.

Separation Anxiety

Last year I taught the first group of male Cabin Attendants for a certain Japanese airline - the first in 50 years of history (the cultural "logic" behind this refusal to hire men is another story). They were a great group, but when the second injection of new male blood were due to come through, I tried to get out of teaching them.

My company pleaded with me, but, much as it is nice to be wanted, I had actually tried to cut down my hours with this particular client. Not because I didn't like them, as they've been incredibly good to me, but because after 2 years of teaching the same "Do you want fries with that?" service material, every day there felt like GroundHog Day.

Also, its a really short course, only 7 lessons, so its never enough time to build up a relationship with my classes like a lot of the other Language Consultants do. And there was no room for creativity or challenge - the Flight Academy is run much like an army regiment. Only with better looking students.

However, in spite of my efforts to sidestep teaching this class, I had my arm twisted and was thus banished to the outpost of Haneda Airport. This in itself, is testament to the doggedness of the scheduling girls at my company, as I can be as stubborn as a mule in heat when I have decided to dig my heels in about something.

Now, I don't know what I'll do when the course is over (this afternoon)! The current bunch of 4 guys is probably the best class I've ever taught. They crack me up every lesson merely by being buffoons and it's one of the only classes I've had where I really look forward to seeing what special brand of tomfoolery they have in store for me. In turn, my routines (made up of a lot of very bad jokes) have had them in stitches, too. Unlike many other classes, I actually felt like I was being myself with them.

Being an instructor is a sweet job - good pay, pretty good conditions, and for the most part, excellent students. But they didn't tell me about the acute separation anxiety suffered when one has to say goodbye to a class whose comedic banter (all of their English is excellent, thankfully) closes the gap between two different cultures.

It has been so strange but so uplifting to discover that my brand of humour (Matt would argue that this, in itself is a bit "special") is on a similar wavelength to 4 Japanese men who have been brought up in a different country to me by a different set of rules.

Japan is different to Australia but then again, not so much...