A Japanese Christmas

Some of you may wonder what I did on Christmas this year. I suppose i shall lift the vail of secrecy and enlighten you all to what a traditional Japanese Christmas looks like.

It all begins at 6am, when the Santa's get-away sleigh can still be seen fish-tailing across the clouds. All through the house, not a creature was stirring, except the young gai-jin attempting to make a good impression on his boss and co-workers. Much like every other Tuesday morning, the day starts with coffee and a freezing cold walk to the Starbucks for more coffee. By the time the hardworking foreigner reaches his work place his caffeine high is already wearing off. As he reaches the office door, his heart beating exponentially faster than humanly necessary -part in anticipation for the possible shower of "merry Christmas"s and cake and also in reaction to the 32 liters of crushed Guatemalan coffee bean liquid surging through his blood- he peaks in to see no creatures stirring. Disappointment and self-doubt flood his mind as he questions whether or not he should have taken the day off. So he turns the lights on and trudges to his desk where his head and eyelids weigh tons. After a short, seated cat nap, the flood of "Good Morning"s began. And thus was Christmas morning. No presents and No joy.

The day got better though. At noon, a teacher, one student and myself set out on the epic 45 minute journey to Osaka for what was supposed to be an English seminar where English teachers, such as myself, would be giving presentations and sharing hints and tips to become better teachers. Being the hardworking foreigner that I am, I agreed to do this seminar because being in Osaka with other people and students is infinitely better than sitting at my desk alone playing sudoku and crossword puzzles.
To my surprise, I find out that this is not, in fact an English seminar, it is actually a sports and international conference for students. All of the seminar events and all of the group work would be held in Japanese. So for the first 5 hours of the seminar i played pool at the community center because I was not expected to sit through lectures in Japanese. I cannot complain too much because the day was more exciting than my day would have been sitting at my desk trying to look busy until 415pm. The night ended around 10:45pm when all of the students were shuffled off to bed. I was made aware of a small shindig for the teachers involving beer and snacks. As it is not my nature to turn down beer from my superiors, or ever, I attended this party which started around 11pm. So once all of the teachers had arrived the meeting began. "WHAT A MEETING!!!!!" I yell in my head. "You tricky bastards, bribe me with beer to come to a business meeting at 11pm will you? Diabolical." We sat around a 30 pack of beer discussing the timetable and the possibilities of shortening the lunch period by 15minutes for the next day. This went on for nearly a half hour. I was about ready to stand up and leave when the beer was finally passed out.

Much like my "Italian Cake" incident in Naples, I was given two beers to begin at the party, I think partly out of pity for having to sit through a full day of being talked at in a foreign language and partly because i was seething at the pure evil which had occurred in this room. But eventually, a second round was passed out and I still had not touched my second beer. Being Japanese as they are, I was given another beer. So now in front of me sit 2 unopened Japanese beers and 1 half full can. (all of you that have been following my stories on this blog should already know my hate for Japanese beer)

Needless-to-say, day 2 of the camp was unremarkable, aside from the fire dill in the middle of our seminar which wasted a good 20 minutes, the same 20 minutes we valiantly attempted to save from the meeting the night before. I left Osaka and came back to work. And so I sit, with 4 other Japanese teachers in a large teacher's office, counting the minutes until i can go get drunk. Japanese office culture is strange indeed. Now i know why people tell me that they drink everyday...they need to in order to stay sane.

Overall, it was a fun couple of days. I opened my presents from my family a couple of days ago and my new ipod came in handy while killing time at the seminar.

mike

The Japanese and their Pickled Fruits

So, in the past 6 or so months there has only been one food that I truely detest. I loath it down to my deepest recesses and I have nothing but vile, over-flowing, indescribable hate for this one pickled fruit, plumb (aka Umeboshi). I dont know what it is about this one particular pickled invention, but the second the sour purple skin touches my tongue, my whole body convulses. Every time this stuff makes its way into my food, which it often does, i feel like turning to the side and emptying my stomache of everything i have ever eaten in my entire meager existance. That is the extent of my hate for this Japanese delectable.

My reason for telling you this today is to bring up one of the odd daily traditions that i established for myself over the past few months. Seeing as I am, by nature, a lazy individual, i very, very, very rarely make lunch for myself in the morning before work. It is just too troublesome and it has become a force of habit or a ritual, if you will, to buy two onigiri (triangular rice ball with some sort of meat or vegetable in the center, all wrapped in dried seaweed) at the local convenient store on my way to work. My reason for this is two-fold; first, I dont trust convenient store sandwiches after my last devistating battle with my bathroom at the hands of an egg salad sandwich; and secondly, onigiri are usually delicious and two of them are just the right size for a light lunch.

Okay, I lied. I seriously doubt that any of you care about what my usual feasting routine has become, but the real reason that i am writing this is to vent. I vent my frustration here because everyone and their mother's mother loves umeboshi except me. I vent because it stops me from renting a flame thrower and torching the onigiri factory and my local convenient store. I am frustrated because for the last several days I have unknowingly purchased onigiri filled to the brim with umeboshi, purple goo oozing out the sides. I dont know what it is about this particular item that everyone goes looney over, but IT DOES NOT NEED TO GO IN EVERY GOD DAMN LUNCH SNACK! No matter how hard i try to avoid this disgusting conglomeration of mushy, mashed purple fruit i cannot escape its hold. It tortures me. It follows me. It rears its ugly head in every flavor of onigiri i eat. It seems like i need to start making my lunch to avoid having to trash my lunch everyday.

Needless to say, I am a bit pissed today about this most recent example of ume infiltration.

gio

Chillaxing

So I went to a Christmas party this afternoon at a friends house in the city. It was a fun day. There was an endless flow of candy, chocolate, whiskey and umeshu(plumb liqueur). My friend and his wife just had a baby last year so we got to enjoy the plentiful cute things that a 13 month old half japanese/half american girl does.

The event started off pretty sketchy when my buddy scared the little girl just by looking at her. Granted, he was wearing yakuza gear and giant earings, but the kid just broke down crying. It was the funniest thing i had seen all day. It was the peak of Japanese xenophobia epitomized in a 13 month old reality. Sometimes i feel that adult japanese people around town just want to burst into tears and scream when i walk by, but that for another discussion.

The day got more lively as the host's friend showed up with a 3 year old half japanese/half american boy. This kid was hilarious. When we finally changed the music from christmas carols to Dr. Dre, the young man started break-dancing like a professional. He had mad skills. The kid danced for about an hour, almost through the whole rap album.

I will tell you this, my japanese skills has been improving a lot lately, but in the room with 5 gai-jin, 2 japanese, and 2 infants I was only better than one of the infants at Japanese. I felt like a bit of a failure.

Soon after the infant dance party, Total Recall, the classic Arnold holiday movie, was put on the high definition blu-ray TV. I think im going to make watching Arnold movies a Christmas tradition.

My thoughts are a bit loose this evening seeing as I have been drinking all day and im now bored to tears in my room. I suppose i should go to bed.

On Apathy and Japanese Parties

"the world is your oyster, and you're allergic to shellfish." - Paul Neilan, Apathy and Other Small Victories

I have to say, I have never read a book that I have immediately connected to and felt as if this book was written about my life... until today. As I was frantically reading this satirical novel all day, I felt as though I was a serial killer reading A Catcher in the Rye for the first time and realizing that I would forever be remembered for my actions and all three of my names. But of course, I am not a serial killer, and never will be. Yet, this book reached out to me. I feel as if this book was meant as a complete farcical judgement of the world around this main character, Shane; whose drifting and apathetic nature gets him into trouble.

I know that this is not a character with whom most people would not want to associate. I am not really sure how this George Castanza-esque character appeals to me, but I feel as though he was based off of the thoughts that constantly swarm my brain. My actions are not in line with this character's but I find myself wanting to say the things he says and do the things he does, or does not do--to be more accurate. I can only really articulate that this book was clearly written for insane people, by an insane person. Never once before have I felt the desire to reread an entire book the moment I finished it. I sat at my desk all day today and read this whole masterpiece.

For any of my friends who have ever asked me, "what are you thinking?" ...this book can sum it all up. It is funny, dark, sadistic, and brilliant. I have only praise for this book.

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As for more recent events in my life, I had the closing/end of the year party for the teachers at my visit school. I felt like being one of the team and I forked over 70 dollars to eat and drink as much as humanly possible with people I did not know. Nearly all of the teachers from the school were there and I was seated at a table with a bunch of drunks who did not speak English. This was okay with me. I tend to associate well with people show up to all you can drink drinking events already blitzed.

The night began as any other drinking party. Food and Japanese swill-water, being passed off as real beer, was circulating around the room. After about an hour of food and drink, the party games began. So, in this medium size banquet hall at the New Shim Miyako hotel in Kyoto Station, there were trivia games being played about certain facts about school life. All very uninteresting, from what I could understand. Every once and a while english teachers and teachers drunk enough to attempt english would wander by my table and pour me a thimble full of swill and tell me they want to teach me Japanese bamboo painting. I nod and smile, thinking to myself, "why the hell are the glasses so small?? It is going to be a long night if this is all I am going to get."

After the trivia there as a stop watch game where people had to stop the stopwatch closest to 20 seconds without going over. Also very uninteresting, but at least they let me participate this time. I failed. Miserably.

After that, bingo. Yes, grown-up Japanese people love bingo, especially when they are so drunk that standing up is one step from falling down, grabbing the cheesy shag carpet to keep from falling off the face of the earth. But there were prizes. Lots of prizes. I won a very masculine bento/lunch box and a handy carrying case. And as a going away present i received an emotially fickle plastic Santa Claus filled with extra large imitation M&Ms. They were quite disgusting.

Overall, it was fun watching my other teachers get so drunk they could not stand up. It was not so fun being the mascot for my table, but such is life. I got to make fun of my principal a little bit and practice my Japanese. What else could i ask for on a Friday night?

Gio

new pictures

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29109046@N03/

Here is an update on my flickr site for some more pictures. there are some really good pictures on there of me and my students at a local temple.

tomorrow i will update the blog with some stories from the last week or so.