Rick In Japan: The Blog

So I’ve been a member of the local Taiko dojo Akafujidaiko (Red Fuji Taiko) for over a year now, Marissa’s been playing with them for almost two, and we’ve just loved it.  In fact, we’ve enjoyed it so much that we ended up convincing almost every foreigner in a 50 mile radius that they should come join us!  Fortunately for our dojo, that only comes to a grand total of 8 people, but our volume was still impressive enough that the dojo’s leaders asked us to form a foreigners-only Taiko team. They even gave us a song and told us that if we got good enough, they would have us play by ourselves at a couple of performances before we left. 

Well, after two months of a doubling up on practices, sore arms, sweaty brows, and bloody blisters, the International Team (you have no idea how long it took us to convince them that, since one of our members is from Canada, they couldn’t just call us ‘Team America’) had our debut performance last Sunday! 

Note: it took them a full two minutes to introduce all of us, so unless you’re a) fluent in Japanese, b) rabidly fascinated by tedious pomp and circumstance, or c) masochistic, you can probably skip ahead a bit. 

And if that weren’t good enough, we even got into the newspaper!  Sure, it required going through a really awkward interview, where the reporter would ask a question, and we foreigners would go into a huddle trying to figure out what the heck he’d just said.  After a few minutes we’d come back with a non-sequitor response in incomprehensibly broken Japanese, which would prompt the reporter to huddle with the other Taiko members to try to figure out what the heck we’d just said, until eventually a dojo elder would just invent a response that made everyone happy.  Rinse and repeat, for twenty uncomfortable minutes.  But darn it, we were in the newspaper, so it was all worth it!  Here’s the article: 

Taiko Article

And here are some picture of us gussied up in all our finery.  We all decided that bracers are freakin’ awesome, because it makes everything you do with your hands all flashy and impressive, so we agreed that we’re going to start a trend once we get back to America.  Look out, high fashion – Japanese bracers are about to become the new French beret! 

Hello all.  My wonderful wife recently helped me kick a slightly obsessive video-game-playing habit, and all of a sudden I have a lot more free time!  So today I wanted to share the fruits of an assignment I gave my kids last Friday.

These kids are in their 3^rd year of learning English, so I thought doing something creative would be a nice break from the normal routine of “repeat after Richard-sensei.”  And after some thought, I decided that what would really challenge their English skills would be to write some poetry.  However, Japanese kids, generally speaking, not so good with spontaneous, free-form creativity, so I gave them some structure:

1^st line: a one-word topic.

2^nd line: two words to add to it.

3^rd line: three descriptive words.

4^th line: four words of feeling.

5^th line: a one-word summary.

In trying to rouse their interest in the assignment, and to show them that poetry could actually be fun, I tried to make the example poems I gave them somewhat humorous:

              Ninja                                                                            Godzilla

                Watch out!                                                                   Eating Japan

                Black, silent, deadly                                                      People, Animals, Buildings

                Where did he go?                                                         He ate too much!

              Dead                                                                            Burp

Most of the poems I got back were pretty banal, but there were a handful that stood out, for different reasons.  First, here’s one that really captured the student’s malaise and utter disdain for being forced to do something creative:

              Dog

                I’m dog

                I am dog

                Oh, I am dog.

              Dog

Another student wanted to express what he thought of school in general:

              Class

                So sleepy

                Boring, tired, sleepy

                Can’t wait for lunch

              Zzzz

Finally, there was one poem that really impressed and moved me.  This one made me do a double-take, it stood out so much from the rest of the pack:

              Hiroshima

                Beautiful city

                But feel sad

                and learn a lot.

  Peace.

And it’s on that note that I’ll leave you.

Just a quicky before I forget it.  Today on my way home from work I was stuck behind a big, slow, industrial-type truck.  We were going maybe 15 km/hr under the speed limit, and there was no way to pass it, so I resigned myself to being stuck there and decided to entertain myself by trying to read and translate what was written on its back.  I generally ignore kanji - the pictorial alphabet - but I've gotten pretty good with the syllabic alphabets hiragana and katakana.  Anyway, here's what I saw:

アスファルト

After a minute of working out what it said, I almost crashed the car, I was laughing so hard!  Why is this funny?  Let's work it out:

アスファルト is katakana, the phonetic alphabet which is mainly used to spell out foreign borrow words.  So, I had a pretty good idea that it was trying to say something in English.  Here's what the symbols would be written like in the roman alphabet:

"Asufaruto"

Good ol' Makudo

Doesn't make a whole lot of sense, does it?  Not to worry - you just have to start using the tricks you pick up over two years in Japan: try dropping the final vowel, switch r's into l's and vice versa, try including and excluding any "u" that comes after a consonant.  Stuff like that.  After mental translating "Makudonarudo Hanbaagaa" into "MacDonald's Hamburger" a million times, you get used to it.  Anyway, here's what I eventually came up with :

"Assfart"

Heh...

Yeah, that kept me entertained for almost half of my commute.  Sadly, my over-analytic brain refused to believe that's actually what it was going for, and eventually worked out that what it was really trying to say was "Asphalt".  Not nearly as entertaining, but I still managed to get a good chuckle out of it for a while, and I hope you did too.  :-)

While writing an email to my sister this afternoon, a link on the top of my gmail page caught my eye: Learn to Be Nice to Your Wife, or Pay the Price.  Like a good ADD sufferer, I immediately forgot what I was doing and clicked on the link.  The story is about a new Japanese law that grants divorced women as much as half of their husbands' pensions.  According to the story, when the law went into effect last April, "Hundreds of thousands of women were waiting" to apply for divorce.

And the sad thing is, I felt no surprise in the slightest.  I recommend reading the article, but it's not my intention to summarize it.  What I want to do is mention some of the stories I've heard from people over the past two years about marriage in Japan.

Annexation

One of my teacher I work with is friends with a lady who runs a private school.  There are two buildings on her property: the family lives in the main one, and the smaller one she uses to hold her classes.  A few months ago, her husband came home from work and announced that he was moving out of the main house and into the smaller building.  The lady had to move everything - teaching supplies, desks, chairs, etc. - out of the building by herself so her husband could claim it as his own.  I heard this story in the company of a group of Japanese women: their response was to nod knowingly and say things like "poor thing - well, that happens."

Trepidation

I run the E.S.S. (English Speaking Society) club at the local University, which means that once I week I get together with a small group of students and just basically shoot the breeze with them for a couple hours.  At one point marriage came up, and I asked the class to talk about what they think is a good age to get married.  No one wanted to talk - everyone just sat in that awkward, looking anywhere but your face silence that is meant to imply "how interesting - I'm  thinking very seriously about what you just said", but that I've learned actually means "what you said just now made me really uncomfortable, and if I stall long enough then maybe you'll get the hint and say something else."  Finally I coaxed one of my more vocal students to answer, and this was her response: "I don't think I will get married - I like my life too much."  Confused, I asked her to elaborate.  "It depends on what job I get.  If I get a bad, boring job, then I will probably get married.  But if I get an interesting job that I like, then I won't.  I would need to find someone who I would  be willing to quit my job for and stay at home for the rest of my life, and I don't think I will meet anyone good enough."

Confusion

For Marissa's birthday a few weeks ago, I bought a bouquet of roses and brought them to her school so I could give them to her just as she got off work.  While waiting in front, one of the English teachers came out and gave me a quizzical look.  "It's Marissa's birthday," I told him.  Still looking puzzled, he gave me a little nod.  "Oh - very romantic," he finally managed.  Then, after a long pause, he shook his head slightly, said "Japanese men would not do this," turned on his heel, and walked back into the building. 

It's been over a month since I posted anything, which means that for all this time "Fired" has been the first thing you see when you look at my blog.  What a downer!  Not at all the vicarious, carefree romp through Japan that I envision this blog to be to its many (6? 7?) readers.

So to get this emotional eye-soar further down the page, I'm posting pictures of my recent foray into Japanese agriculture.  Behold: Rick the persimmon-picker!

I'm gonna get it!

Almost...

I went over one afternoon to help her with her English, and she handed me a hat and a bamboo pole and told me to go persimmon-fishing!  The tool is basically a pole with a slit cut in the very end; you work the slit around a bit of stem just above a persimmon, and then twist it around until it the stem breaks and the fruit falls to the ground.  It can't be great for the tree, but it works wonders for getting those hard-to-reach fruit!

Yuriko Sato - who apparently didn't require a hat.

I managed to pick maybe one or two persimmons, but somehow was sent home with a bag of close to a dozen fruits.  And although I'm not sure if Yuriko was being generous or if she was just trying to get rid of several trees' worth of persimmons, it didn't diminish at all the enjoyment I got over the next week of eating free, farm-fresh fruit.


And this was by no means the first time I've received edible gifts from Yuriko.  Previous trips to her house have ended up with me carrying home bags of potatoes, apples, kiwis, and at one point a bag full of home-made miso paste.






On a totally different subject, the A-cappella group I sang with in San Francisco, the Richter Scales, put a video on You-Tube last week.  Through the viral power of the internet, within 5 days it had gotten over a million views. Not bad for a bunch of amateurs!  Anyway, I wanted to garner some pride from my old group's achievements, even though I had absolutely nothing to do with this song.  Enjoy!

Here comes another bubble

I was fired from one of my jobs tonight.  Well, actually, I was fired a week ago, when they told me that tonight would be my last lesson, but regardless, as of now I am no longer teaching the Kindergarden kids.

The parents were pretty nice about it, considering; they approached me after class, and told me that they weren't able to keep using the Karaoke room we've always had the lessons in.  It's total BS - the room belongs to one of the girl's grandfather, and no one is ever there - but it was nice that they tried to spare my feelings.

Because the real reason I'm not teaching their kids English anymore is because I never actually taught their kids any English to begin with.  Oh sure, I tried to teach them English - I brought in brightly colored flashcards with pictures of animals, taught them to play Simon-says, gave them English BINGO cards and English word-searches. But for more than a year now they have been extremely successful in refusing to do anything I plan for them.  I'd start the game / pass out the worksheet / show them the cards, and they'd cooperate... for about 30 seconds.  At which point they'd lose interest and begin insisting that I spin them around and throw them in the air, or pretend to be a dinosaur and chase them around the room, or close my eyes so they can hide my glasses, books, cell-phone, and/or wallet, and make me hunt for them afterwards.  And I'd think, "Well, best to give the audience what they want" and try teach them English words and phrases involved with such activities.  Apparently, though, the parents were not impressed that their children could say "Dinosaur", "Up, please", and "Very, very, very, very, very big jump!" like a native speaker, and so they very gently unemployed me.

Which, in all honesty, is mostly fine by me.  Because teaching that class was the single thing I most disliked about being in Japan.  In at least 80% of the classes, one kid or another would end up crying.  Also, I lacked the essential Japanese skills for keeping control of a bunch of 5 to 8 year-old kids, like "Get down off of the table", or "Don't draw on my shirt with permanent marker to get my attention," or "Please, just show me where you hid the other girl's shoe so she'll stop crying and we can continue with class."

But on the other hand, it's a big hit to the old Ego, because it's the first time I've been fired from anything!  I've become accustomed to the John Wayne style of leaving a job - riding off to bigger and better things, with everyone telling me what a good job I did, how much they'll miss me, and how they wish that I could stay.  This is much more Richard Nixon style - leaving in disgrace because I've been deemed totally incompetent - and is a totally new experience for me. 

So it's a bitter-sweet ending to this particular chapter of my life.  I'll miss the little buggers - for all the trouble they could cause, they're still super cute - but I'm sure not going to miss stressing out for three days every week preparing myself for battle... er, teaching.  Sayonara, kiddos!

There's a big fire raging through Southern California right now.  As of 4:30 Monday morning (Pacific time), my parents were evacuated from their home.  As of 6:00 Monday afternoon, here's where it had spread:

Fire 6 PM Monday

The black "x" is my parents' house, and the house I grew up in.  It's right on the edge, so it might squeak by, but they're saying it's going to be several more days before they can even start to contain this thing, so it's not looking too good.

But, my parents and all of the animals are out, and that's the really important thing.  I'll post more as I know more.

Also, here's a satellite picture of the California coast:

Fire Satellite

***UPDATE - Tuesday, October 23rd, 9:30pm***

It looks like, at least for my neighborhood, the worst is over.  The fires have died down, and it's a matter of time until police let people back into the burn-zone.  Here's the latest map I found, which includes an incomplete list of the buildings which are confirmed to be destroyed:

Burned Buildings

Again, the list isn't complete, so we're not out of the woods yet.  But it's bringing back hope that our house might have been spared.

***UPDATE - Wednesday, October 24th, 3:00pm***

It's official - our house survived!  Here's the email I got from my mom about an hour ago:

Got home about an hour ago.  All well around here.  A few loose tiles on the roof and a few loose boards on the back fence, so poor Bear is still needing to be tied up, but other than that and some soot that came in around the closed windows and doors all is well.

Will write more when things calm down a bit.

It all started at the beginning of September.  After a pretty long dry spell (we hadn't gotten any since Axel, and that was early February), we finally got some visitors again!  The entire Flournoy clan came to Japan to see us!

Well, technically they didn't come just to see us - the Flournoy patriarch (codename: Pete) had legitimate business to conduct in Tokyo.  Something to do with Tuna, international fishing regulations, and the fact that Pete actually has "Fish Lawyer" printed on his business cards (whatever pays the bills...).  Flournoy female-child (codename: Michele) was already planning a trip to Southeast Asia about the same time as Pete's business trip, so she decided to meet up with him in Japan.  This prompted Flournoy matriarch and male-spawn (codnames: Sally and John, respectively) to decide that they too wanted to go to Japan.

And I was here too.  That was a bonus.

Ah - a brief history on my connection to the Flournoys is probably in order.  John Flournoy and I have been friends since elementary school - either the 3rd grade or the 4th grade (I was pretty oblivious back then, so the years all kind of blend together).  Also, the Flournoys only lived a few blocks from my house, so we were both back and forth between each others' houses until the end of high school, and got to know each others' families pretty well.  And we went to the same college together.  And we lived in the same place in college.  You can get all the gory details at my Facebook site.

The young shall lead the way

The two Flournoy children got to Japan first, on August 30th.  They spent the night in Tokyo, and then came to our neck of the woods on September 1st.  It was super-lucky timing, as the town next to ours were having their annual matsuri (festival) that day.  It was pretty standard, as matsuri go: we got to see people in traditional outfits and traditional dances.  Like these folk:

Japanese Royalty Costume

(I has a friend translate what they're chanting. It's something like: "These mustaches, these mustaches, these mustaches are ridiculous.")

Burger-zilla!

I also found the biggest, worst-for-you hamburger I've ever seen in my life.  It went something like: huge bun, fatty beef patty, lettuce, American cheese (it's so sad - even in Japan, they can find American cheese to put on burgers...), tomato, a nice, thick layer of mayonnaise, ketchup, bacon, and - to top it all off - a fried egg.  I nicknamed it "The Cardiac-arrest Express", and shared it with all my ex-pat friends.  It was heavenly.

And after the festival, in order to properly welcome John and Michele to Japan, we headed to Marissa's and my local Karaoke bar with a bunch of friends, and proceeded to absolutely ransack our vocal chords!  There are a bunch of pictures of the event up on our Picassa site, but here's a short video to give you an idea of the evening:

I have no memory of anything that happened the day after Karaoke.  Nor can find any pictures or emails referring to said day, so apparently September 2nd never happened.  That's what I get for waiting so long to blog about things.  All I really remember is that we drove John and Michele to the train station, and they went off to do their own thing.

There they are!

The Parents join the Party


The next time I saw the Flournoys was Thursday, September 13th. I had Friday off, so right after work I headed off to Tokyo to meet up with them.  After a little miscommunication regarding which exit of which station we were supposed to meet at, I spotted them from across the street - the whole Flournoy clan!

6 or 7 sakes into the evening

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We hello'd, we chatted, we swapped stories.  Then we went to a sake-restaurant that one of Pete's business associates had not only recommended, but had made reservations for us and pre-ordered us a taster of his personal favorite sake.  I wish I could remember the guy's name... or the name of the restaurant... or the names of the sake we had that night.  All I remember is that we had an excellent time... I think.

My deluxe two-chair throne.

Goodmorning, sunshines.

The problem has always been that uploading them so that everyone can see them has been a royal pain in the... well, in the pain place.  But no more!  Thanks to our friend Picasa (created by our other friend Google), uploading pictures to the web is an absolute breeze!

So, henceforth, please tune your browsers, bookmarks, and Blackberries to http://picasaweb.google.com/MaRickssa (Get it? MaRickssa? Hayuck, hayuck) for all your "pictures-of-Rick-and-Marissa-and-their-friends-doing-things-in-Japan-and-elsewhere" needs.  The pictures that get uploaded to this Vox site will be a small sampling of the vast, cornucopia of pictures available at the Picasa site.

Well, not yet; we just made it. But soon... soon.

Love, kisses, and cheers,
-Rick "The lesser half of MaRickssa" Wood

It's all anyone around here is talking about - there's a Typhoon heading our way, and it looks like it's going to pass directly over us!  I've had a few typhoon brushes before, but this will be my first direct hit, so I'm super excited about it (I figure every building I enter on a daily basis has weathered 20-30 years of Typhoons without any problems, so I'm not too worried).  Here's a satellite picture I found on this website of the oncoming vortex of doom:

Typhoon

I mean, look at this baby - it's practically as big as Japan!  And it gets even better - I found another website which shows the Typhoon's estimated path:

Typhoon Path

I added the pink 'x' to show approximately where I live.  Yeeeee-haw!

They might be canceling school tomorrow, and if they do, I'll totally be home taking pictures and videos and uploading them so you can all get your vicarious-typhoon-experiences in real-freakin'-time.  God bless technology!

***Update***

Well, it's 10:00pm, and apparently the vortex is going to pass over us at about 3 in the morning.  We lost power for a little bit about an hour ago, but other than that nothing too exciting has happened.  Unfortunately, since the sun went down, it's been really difficult to get any good photos or videos of the event, so you'll just have to take my word for it that it's really, really windy right now.  Tomorrow morning I'll try to upload pictures of the aftermath... unless it's still going strong at that point.  Here's an updated trajectory:

Typhoon path at ten