The King is back in Japan!!

Burger King is back!

That's right, after a 6-year absence you'll be pleased to know that Burger King is in fact back in Japan. They have one shop setup now in Shinjuku and are planning on opening another shortly in Ikebukuro I think... both Tokyo, but that's where everything in Japan starts so no surprise.

Apparently I just missed them last time as price wars with McD's drove BK out of Japan right before I got to Chiba and my study abroad. This time around though I think they'll be staying for a while.

I actually heard the news of Burger King's triumphant return a few months back when they announced that it and also Krispy Kreme Donuts would be making the venture into the Big Mikan. KK Debuted last December, and much to my (and most likely others' as well) surprise, you will still to this day most likely be waiting at least an hour in line just to get into the place to get your donuts. I seriously don't see why people don't just go to Mister Donuts though as those have been around for years and don't have a wait. I guess they like lines, like it makes you feel more accomplished and adds to the taste or something. Whateva.

Anyway, one thing in particular caught my interest in the article that I'd like to point out:

Miami-based Burger King is banking on the recent hunger here for greasy and sweet food, and a move away from the healthy, traditional fish-and-rice centered diet.

I dunno how true that really ever was... at least in recent history. But really, you would not believe how much fried food Japanese people eat. Tempura? Fried. Tonkatsu? Yep, fried. Karaage? Fried-a-roni. Korokke? (basically croquettes) Friddly-fried. They even have fried tofu, (Agedofu anyone?) And I bet that whole fried sushi trend that some Koreans started and has spread to the US would do well out here as well. It's like I'm in the Deep South - you dip it in oil and they'll probably eat it. (yes, KFC has a following, but it tastes like chicken tempura to me) Also ramen, one of the most popular foods out here, is basically a bowl of grease and oil with noodles - a bowl at my favorite place up here will grow a layer of greasy skin if you let it sit too long, which is why I ask them to cut out the grease.

I'm not complaining as it does taste good, but I'm just trying to point out that the whole image of Japanese food being all rice and fish and health food is a misconception. The food is excellent, but it's not all healthy. Oh just as an aside, Japanese people hate raw celery for some reason - haven't found one person that likes it. And there has been a recent trend, like they're saying. McDonald's now has the Mega Mac (do they have these back home too?) with it's 4 patties and daily allowance of calories all in one wollop, or a double teriyaki burger now if you prefer. Japanese are catching on to the whole eating big thing I guess. If it means the days of anorexic looking girls running around skinny enough that I can see their rib cages are over then ok, but I hope they don't start blimping out like back home. Oh, and it's had a noticeable effect on the sizes of boobs nationwide. I think I did actually hear that the UK is fatter than us though, so that's one thing to be... ok no, there's nothing good about that. The world is fat.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, yey BK!! Gimme a Whopper with cheese and some scrumptious fries!

The neurosis of Japanese society

Hey all, been rather busy with the work these last couple weeks, but my prepping for my wine tasting event tomorrow are done and so I have a little room to breathe. By the way, how does this sound? 70-80 people, 40 bottles of wine, a fresh pasta dinner with your choice of sauce and a salad/garlic bread, and one free ride home for about $15!

So anyway, while waiting to receive the final 10 bottles set for delivery, I ran across this link and thought it was hilarious, mainly because it's sooo true. The author is a Japanese guy that spent 11 years in the US, then came back to a wall of bureacracy when he got home. Anyway, a little anecdote from the link:

In the last three years, I have been called a member of the revisionist school. The revisionists are known for stating that the Japanese are different from Westerners, socially, politically and economically. I do not consider myself a revisionist, but I must say that Japan as a system is quite different from the West. How different? Japan is a conformist society.

Let me give you an example. The following incident took place at the Akasaka Prince Hotel. It was around 6 p.m. and I was waiting to meet a friend. He had asked me to wait for him at the bar on the top floor. Since I arrived early I sat at the counter. A waiter came and asked what I would like to drink. I noticed an open bottle of white wine in an ice-bucket behind the counter, and the following was our dialogue:

"I would like to have a glass of white wine."
"I'm sorry but we can't offer you white wine. "
"Why can't I have a glass of white wine?"
"It's not on the drink list."
"But I see an open bottle of white wine right over there."
"I will bring you a wine list and you can choose a bottle from there."
"But I only want a glass of wine."
"I'm afraid you will have to order a bottle."
"But all I want is a glass of wine."
". . ." (Silence)
"Why can't I have a glass from the bottle which is already open?"
"I'm sorry, I will have to talk to my superior."

After waiting for a couple of minutes, the waiter came back with a man in a tuxedo.

"Sir, I'm sorry but we do not offer wine by the glass in this bar."
"If that's the case, why is there an open bottle of white wine over there?"

He goes to the bartender, who whispers into his ear, then returns to me.

"That wine is used to make cocktails."
"What kind of cocktails?"
"The cocktail is called Kir. We mix it with Cassis liqueur, sir."
"I see. Okay, then give me a Kir without the Cassis."

The floor manager thought about it for a second, with a slightly perplexed look on his face.

"I'm sorry but we cannot do that."
"Why not?"

His look of perplexity increased.

"I will have to speak to the assistant manager of the hotel. Please excuse us."

I waited for about five minutes, and a gray-haired man came. His first comment was,

"We are trying to accommodate your request as much as possible, but up until now nobody has made this kind of request."

"Well, you should be happy that I'm setting a precedent for you. Charge me for the price of the cocktail, but just give me a glass of wine."

"You see, we're happy to accommodate you with anything from the drink menu, but I regret to inform you that we don't offer anything not on the menu. It's our policy."

"You just told me that your job is to accommodate guests' requests as much as possible."

"Yes, sir."

"I don't think I'm requesting anything outrageous. All I want is a glass of white wine, and there is an open bottle right in front of us. I don't understand your inflexibility."

". . ." (Silence)

"You run a first-class hotel."

"Thank you sir."

"I believe that the first thing you learn in hotel management course is to try to accommodate guests' needs."

"You're absolutely right sir."

"So don't you think that granting my request would be staying within the principle of good hotel management?"

"That is correct, sir."

"So if I'm correct, why can't you offer me a glass of white wine?"

The assistant manager, with a strained smile on his face, replied,

"Okay, we will offer you a glass of white wine, but please understand that it will be only for today."

I finally got what I wanted, but it took more than 15 minutes. This is just one example, but this kind of rigid behavior is rampant in Japanese society. This rigidity reminds me of patients who exhibit symptoms of frequent hand-washing, which is often diagnosed as obsessive-compulsive disorder. It is difficult to think that so many people in Japan have neurotic symptoms. In fact, most people I meet privately do not exhibit any signs of neurosis; they are normal individuals. The question then is why do these people become rigid in an official setting? My answer to this question is that it is not the people, but the system, that is neurotic.

The problem lies with the bureaucrats, the architects of Japan, Inc., since they are not aware of their illness and they continue to educate, or to be more fashionable, to "mind control" the people. Once people are in a group setting, they become disciples of Japan, Inc. In the case of the incident at the Akasaka Prince Hotel, the assistant manager's job, instead of accommodating customers' needs, is to keep customers within the bounds of the existing rules and regulations.

This may seem ridiculous, but sometimes it really is all too true! One time I asked a girl to give me a Coke with no ice... after giving me a totally blank stare for a bit, she actually goes to the manager to discuss the matter. After consultation, she finds that yes it's ok to not give me ice. Ok. Sooo, I get my Coke and look down and what do I find? A half-filled cup of Coke! I show her this and ask her where the rest is - she said that she was only permitted to give me a set amount of Coke!! After some scowling and pleading to her apparent lack of reason from my view, off to the manager she again goes. They consult. He then comes over and apologizes, saying that he apparently can't spare the fraction of a yen it would cost them to properly fill my cup. The reason? "Because that's the way we do things." Wow.

All I have to say is, this guy has a book (in English evenand man do I want to check it out. And with that, my wine has arrived! Back to "work"...

What I did on my Golden Week vacation...

Work!!! And not just work, overtime! That's right, this Golden Week, the one time of year that most people working full time office jobs take time off of their standard routine of feigning busyness staggered with the occasional interruption of real work, was spent working. (note: Japanese people do work hard most of the time actually, albeit rather inefficiently if you ask me.) Friends are taking trips to Vietnam, or Thailand, or China, or even San Francisco, and I'm at work helping out with the biggest event my office has annually.

The event? A 3-day annual cultural bonanza featuring Argentina. Awesome food, a great tango performance, some friends (new or otherwise), and 6,300 people. First we sold out on all the beer, then the wine, then the cookies and food. It was tiring, but I could deal with that kind of work all the time - outside in perfect weather, talking to people and having a good time. In addition to the performers we had flown/bullet-trained in from Tokyo and Fukuoka, there was a guy that volunteered to help out from Osaka that took a bus (crazy - at least 10 hours over the 2 buses) and a fellow CIR that came up from around Tokyo. She's the only Argentinian JET in the country. Oh, and the Argentinian ambassador was there too, with my job being to shadow him the whole day.

It's sort of a blessing in disguise if you ask me, since with Golden Week being the biggest vacation week for Japanese rivaled only by New Year's, all the big locations are 1) busy as hell, cramped with people and 2) at least twice the normal price. So yeah, I was spared that and given time off to do with what I would. And with that time, I have 2 4-day weekends, one of which will be spent in Tokyo with some friends. I've also gotten some much needed cleaning done around here, and yesterday got to take a nice leisurely jaunt down to Shiroishi to play some soccer on a really nice pitch.

I learned a little something yesterday... or I guess I should say I was reminded of something. It takes forever to get anywhere by car in Japan. No wonder they think 5 hours in a car is far - it's exhausting out here! See, now if I took the highway then I probably would've been down to Shiroishi in about 45mins. to an hour, depending on how saucy I was feeling that day. I also would've been shelling out something like 1500yen each way though, making it a rather expensive endeavor indeed. No, I instead decided that the weather was nice, so I'd take my time and take the regular roads. The problem there? Speed limits of 50km/h the whole way if I'm lucky, and a light on every single block. The. Whole. Way. So what should've been a 1-hr. trip becomes 2, and I barely make it in time for the match.

So yeah, if you're going by yourself and you can take the train or suffer the consequences - the trip would've been about 1:15 or so by train if properly timed. And if going with people, take the highway and split the outrageous fares. Oh, and I hear that June is car tax month too, because the super high fares and amazingly high taxes on gas aren't enough to keep the roads in good shape apparently. And this is why it's expensive to have a car in Japan.

Weird festivals in Japan...

Yeah... so the above is something I just ran across tonight searching around online... a festival with traditions dating back over 100 years in which sumo wrestlers hold babies up in a crying contest... you can't make this stuff up! Link here.

In addition to some of the more conventional festivals like Tanabata, which is huge in Sendai by the way, there are gems out there like the fertility festival held at an actual shrine out near Nagoya (apparently many affectionately refer to it as the "penis shrine", and with good reason), and my favorite, the naked man festival.

See, this last festival, held in the dead of winter, has you dressing up in one of the sumo diaper-looking things you see above - as an aside, if that guy was holding me up I'd cry too, then pee all over his diaper. So yeah, 1,000s of half-naked guys in the freezing cold, and they make you walk through a shallow yet frigid stream, then fight for a small bale of sticks in the maelstrom of nudity coagulating in a massive moshpit/scrum-like gathering at the base of a shrine. Traditionally, the person who brings a stick back to the door of the shrine is supposed to have a fruitful and productive year, but more recently, the one I heard of puts a gold stick in there as well that also comes with a cash prize. For this reason, I hear that some yaks try to enter, and will seriously mess you up if they find you with "their" gold stick. This in turn leads them to disallow anyone trying to enter with visible tattoos, but unless you have one of those full-back murals the old school yaks like then you can patch it up and squeeze through from what I heard.

Man, I gotta check some of these out some time! ;P The best stuff I've been to thus far was the snow festival up in Sapporo and the Streetjazz festival in Sendai, which is like on a totally different scale.

Monkey Majik!

Ok, time to introduce you guys to some "local" talent - Monkey Majik. I say "local" because although the band is based out of Sendai, the lead singer and his brother, comprising half the bands members, are from our good 'ol neighbor to the North, Canuckistan! The lead singer and guitarist is actually a former ALT, which is the English teaching job that most others on the JET program do. Apparently after doing his time, err stint, on the English circuit, he called his bro over to help out with a band he started. Dude's Japanese lingo is probably better than mine and he mixes and matches with the English, making for an interesting mix sometimes. Needless to say they're big news out here, but recently they're starting to gain more recognition nationwide in the 2nd biggest music market in the world. (seriously, Japan's #2!!) The videos are 2 of their more recent releases, the 2nd being with M-flo, another multilingual act.

video 1
video 2


So yeah, the multilingual thing is where it's at in the music industry out here it seems... if you can pull off English and Japanese and mix them seamlessly then it's a winning combination. They've always loved throwing in little English words or phrases in there, but lately I've heard more and more acts that honestly qualify as bona fide bilingual acts. I like these two in particular though because I like the image they project as foreigners to the Japanese public. You may have thought that guy (he's called Verbal) in the 2nd video was Japanese, but he's actually a Korean guy that grew up in Japan going to an international school and graduated from Boston U! Anyway, the more high profile foreign Japanese residents with rockin' Japanese skillz we got out there the better, I say. Rock on.

Oh, and the way I found out about Monkey Majik originally was pretty interesting too. A friend of mine is apparently pretty good friends with the younger brother, BJ - she plays tennis with him all the time and stuff from what I hear. They're supposed to be pretty cool and all... they had a b-day party downtown a few months back that was open to the public, although I found out about it much later. Due to their popularity up here, I've put them in heavy rotation in my recent karaoke sessions.

Ok, check 'em out and enjoy!

Hanamis rule!

Ok, it's official - I'm no longer a hanami virgin. I have popped the proverbial cherry... blossom. (cue slapstick bad pun drum roll ;P) One may wonder how I almost got through 2 full seasons of hanami in Japan and not gone to one, which I think may actually take more effort than just following everyone and going - and I do mean everyone.

See, last time in Chiba I went out to Ueno park in Tokyo and did in fact go to see cherry blossoms (hana=flower, mi=see), but I did not sit on a tarp for hours on end hopping from party to party with friends and random people in an excuse to get as much beer and snacks in my face as is possible for as long as possible, so it didn't count. That time we walked through, drinkless, looked at the flowers, then went to your standard izakaya restaurant/bar and that was that. No real different than any other night out, really.

This time around was sooo different though. These things are going on all day and pretty well into the night, and I'm talking weekends and weekdays, weather allowing of course. I hear stories of many a weekday warrior going straight from work/school to hanami, returning home on the last train, then waking up the next day to do it all again. I wasn't that sprite and nimbly-bimbly, but I did get around to the first part of that equation. I just happened to have today off, that's all, and if it wasn't pouring out here today I'd probably be out there again.

To give you a mental image to accompany the physical specimens that will follow (as in pictures), there are tarps under trees and people sit on them, normally with copious amounts of various alcoholic beverages and snacks. With "Dutch courage" in hand, it also seems a lot more common to see people mixing groups here and flowing over into the next group, which is normally a no-no in Japanese etiquette. Unless you're white, then of course you just do whatever you want as normal. As I mentioned before, it's sort of like a swarm of little outdoor parties/picnics within close proximity of one another and no barriers separating them. An izakaya without the walls if you will. It really doesn't have much to do with the flowers - I mean, you can barely even see them at night. Granted however, this may just be the modern perversion the kids have given to a time honored Japanese tradition that's been going on since the days of Genji and beyond - I've heard as much for the coming of age festival, in which newly legal drinkers don't wait to get home from the ceremony to get belligerently loud and obnoxious. Anyway, in it's current incarnation I'm thinking during the day it's closer to a picnic with a beer or two, but given the fact that the average Japanese person loves to drink despite being extremely weak at it that sort of falls apart as day progresses into night.

So yeah, good times. And with that and no further ado, I present you more pictures. Proceed to flickr and enjoy the rest of your day.

Tokyo - the big Mikan

I shall start off with a little Engrish gem I found that a new acquaintance of mine found in Thailand - it has not only funny Engrish but also funny Japanese!


And with that, I shall now talk about Tokyo since I was out there last weekend living it up. I've always sort of thought of Tokyo as like NYC with a whole bunch of Japanese people running around, which basically means it's just a big huge international metropolis and isn't really that representative of Japan as a whole. I never really enjoyed it that much when I lived right next door in Tokyo as a student, spending the vast majority of my time living it up and partying locally.

Now though, I'm starting to warm up to the place. I think there are 2 factors involved here - 1) I now have money. Tokyo is frickin' expensive to go out, so if you're on a tight budget then you may not enjoy yourself. Clubs are usually 2-3000Y at least to get in, and drinks can add up. If you just go for karaoke or some 2hr. all-you-can-drink deal like they have everywhere then it's roughly comparable, but you still have to pay to get around as well. A good night out in Tokyo usually runs you about 10,000Y (~90USD) - I think Saturday was about 15,000Y for me, and keep in mind that's with free accommodations since my friend Matt is such a nice and wonderful guy.

2) I don't live anywhere near Tokyo. The only time I go there now is to visit friends, or for the occasional convention, which is really just something for me to do during the day wasting time between the nights where I visit friends. It's vacation town.

There are some other factors in there as well, but I'd say those are the 2 major ones. Of course there's the fact that Tokyo is a place where you can find absolutely anything, including Mexican and some decent Thai and Indian food. And it's one of the few places with actual clubs. I've been to live houses for bands, but no good clubs in Sendai. That stuff was cool back in school, but because I was there entirely for the sole purpose of learning Japanese I cared more about the Japanese stuff than variety. Now I'd say options are good - have some awesome ramen or curry rice one day and a juicy Hawai'ian burger or good Pad Thai the next. Go to a hanami one day, then dance to some house music at Yellow the next. In the past I thought the international element of Tokyo meant that it was less Japanese, but now I'd say that Tokyo is very much a part of Japan. It's a sign of where Japan is headed, since things start there and trickle down.

I'd also say that the people there usually have a better grasp on the rest of the world than a bunch of people do outside of the big city. Just like anywhere else, if you live in a small town you're more likely to be slightly removed from the rest of the world and more interested in local issues. After all, everyone's really only interested in stuff that relates to themselves, whether directly or through someone else. Go ahead and think about it - it's true. I'm lucky enough to be in cahoots with people that have international ties despite living in the sticks due to their jobs, but some of the people I interact with around town have absolutely no clue about the world outside of Mr. Miyagi-land and what I tell them, which is basically why I'm here.

Tokyo though is where all international businesses in Japan have their headquarters, which means that there are plenty of well-off foreign nationals to interact with as well as plenty of people that go abroad themselves for business and bring back all these crazy ideas from non-Japanland. People there have more world experience on average, which makes it easier for foreigners to get along, especially if you haven't been here long but even if you have. Also, all the best and brightest aspire to move to Tokyo after graduation since that's where pretty much all the big jobs are.

So do I want to go live in Tokyo now? Well I wouldn't go that far yet, but I will say that I am now starting to understand what people see in it. Yes it's expensive and crazy and crowded, which can be bad, but it's also more diverse and crazy and crowded, which can be good. Yes it's a big crazy city, but that's not necessarily bad. I would say that given the right offer I wouldn't be opposed to the idea of a short Tokyo stint, but I could see myself tiring of it after a while. Hey, sorta like Japan! ;P

And with that, I make no guarantees I'll post anything in the next couple weeks as I'll be working pretty much non-stop... or at least be at work non-stop. Big event coming up.

The yaks in full effect!

Hey all - been in Tokyo over the past weekend, and maybe if you ask nicely I'll tell you about it. ;P I'll save that for another time.

So I hear some craziness went down over at Virginia Tech - the media is simply a-flutter over here with everything too. My bosses heard that it was a Korean guy and were asking if he was an exchange student, sort of looking for a connection there somewheres. I see that he's been in the States since he was 8 though, so hopefully that's enough for them to stick with the fact that he's just a psycho that lost it and went postal and race/nationality has nothing to do with it. If you want to know my opinion, yes it's definitely a tragedy and I hope the families and friends of everyone involved are handling things ok. To put things in perspective though, how many people do you think died in Iraq that day? And by people I mean those on both sides, not just the casualty figures of the soldiers, since they're people too.

Moving along, some of the less reasonable people out there are using this to attempt to spark up the feud between Koreans and Japanese online as posted about here. I'd like to think said nuts are in the rare minority, but it's always those loud few that out shout the humble masses, right? If you don't know what I'm talking about with the whole J-K connection, then you must've missed the fact that Korea was colonized from 1910-1945 and all the atrocities that Japan threw Asia's way during that period. In addition to raping, pillaging and killing indiscriminately, I heard this one J-kid stole a K-kid's lunch and then said his mom had fat little stumpy daikon ashi legs. Things have actually been getting a lot better in the last few years, but every now and then people are stupid.

In other news, the yakuza have been rather busy out here lately. In the first yak-attack, the mayor of Nagasaki was shot and killed in broad daylight by a member of the Yamaguchi-gumi, which is one of the top yak families. The originally reported reason? He wasn't happy that the city refused to pay to fix his car, which was damaged by some potholes. Shyeah right, and nihon-zarus might fly out of my butt.

As if that wasn't enough, today I hear some guy goes and shoots another yak then holes up in some apartment just outside of Tokyo. As of now the cops are still in a standoff with said dude. Now this of course means that those same internet nuts on their J-blogs are scrambling to make a connection to something, which in this case means mixing the VA shooting and yak shootings into one big anti-Korean jumble of badness. In case you didn't know, a whole bunch of zainichi Koreans and other people lower down the societal totem pole in Japan are at the head of the yak trees, so of course it all just makes total sense that Kim Jong-Il orchestrated the whole thing from his secret lair, then ordered a pizza topped with corn and mayonnaise because I hear that's how he likes it.

I kid, but seriously this kind of stuff gets a whole bunch of attention out here, basically since the violent stuff is the majority of the news that Japanese people get of the US. If all they hear about is school massacres and us invading Iraq/Afghanistan, of course they're going to think that the majority of the populace is packing heat on the way to the corner store. Boo Japanese media.

yak story 1
yak story 2

This has absolutely nothing to do with anything...

It won't tell you anything related to my daily goings on, and it won't teach you anything about Japan... except maybe what's being passed around youtube on the Japanese side. And yet I simply must share - slug copulation, set to the soundtrack of Japanese pop artist Hirai Ken. It is just... wow. Enjoy.

(brought to you thanks to the fine people over at japanprobe)

Oh, and I got some Engrish for you here somewhere....

This lovely gem was at the top of a ski lift... taking the syntactical error out of the way I guess it gets the job done, but geez.

Ignorance: Freedom of soul. Wow. I have not as of yet graced this fine establishment with my patronage, but it certainly takes "ignorance is bliss" to new unexplored heights. Maybe the underlying message is that you can have more fun with English if you don't know what the hell it says. I guess their ignorance is my bliss sometimes, so in a strange way I concur.

Spring is... well, springing

Ok yes I know, two weeks. Bad, bad Doug. Shame on me. So new pics to see, this time from around Shichigahama. Now that the snowboard is away, I'll probably be going out to shoot pictures around town more often since I haven't as of yet. It's actually a lovely little town with some great scenery, so look forward to that. Also, my neighbor Jo just got back from New Zealand, so if you'd like to see a buttload of pics from the land of Mordor and sheep, click here. The blog's in French, but the pictures are bilingual. ;P

Now we're in the middle of hanami season here in Japan, which means that Spring has officially arrived. What little snow we had this year is slowly receding from it's mountainous perches to reveal... well ok, just a bunch of rocks, but rocks are cool too sometimes. More importantly though as it relates to this post flowers, and by correlation cherry blossoms, are starting to bud and bloom as nature shows signs of life all around.

Cherry blossoms only have a window of a little over a week where they're in full bloom, so everyone out here makes a huge deal out of them. They're treated as a national treasure, and not without reason. On the news, the weather is supplemented with a "sakura watch" telling you when to expect the cherry blossoms to bloom in your area and what stage the flowers are in (not yet, budding, in bloom, full bloom, gone!). The big thing to do this time of year is the hanami, which usually amounts to a picnic with plenty of friends and drinking on a tarp underneath the cherry blossoms.

Now the season has already come to close down in Tokyo but just about to spark up here... unfortunate considering I'm going down to Tokyo to visit people this weekend. The idea was to hit up hanamis in both locations, but I sort of missed the boat on that one I guess. I was planning on doing it anyway with whoever was down, but now I hear rain is in the forecast. Oh well. I'm hoping the blossoms will still be around when I get back as it'd be a shame to totally miss out. On the bright side of things, I'll be in Tokyo visiting people I don't get to see all that often, minus Mike, who probably has his nose buried deep in a manga out in Seoul right now because he's a nerd and had to stay and work instead of coming out to play with us. Boo work.

Oh, and apparently it was Easter this past weekend, which I totally forgot about. Happy Easter everyone, and while I'm at it happy belated birthday to both my parents! I'm sure though that you're progressively wishing people would just forget about birthdays now that you've both crossed to that other side of the hill. ;P

Personnel changes, and the bubonic plague

Ok, I'm covering 2 things this time around. First, I'm getting over a case of the plague... I mean, the flu. The way my boss reacted when I told him I had the flu though, you would've thought it was the plague. They didn't want me in the office for a total of 5 days from the day I first started showing symptoms, I was told to stay home and rest with my meds, and if I did go out to wear one of those stupid surgical masks as to not spread germs. Oh, teh hawtness. Ok, I get it - Japanese people are overly concerned with not inconveniencing their neighbors (even at their own expense), and thus I'm expected to be as well. Whatever. That doesn't mean that I have to enjoy those uncomfortable, itchy, and fashion disaster statements known as masks though. Japanese people, on the other hand, don't mind them at all - they'll wear masks if they have a cold, or just because they don't want to get a cold, or because they have allergies, or because hell everyone else is so why not? Or so it seems sometimes. I remember even seeing someone come out a while back with designer masks, which came in different colors and styles in order to not look so white and... sterile. So yeah anyway, I'll take my quarantine and you can keep your little mask. I was actually in bad shape there for a little bit - fever reaching 102F at one point with no appetite, curled up in a ball in bed for the better part of 2 days or so alternating between sleep and movie time. I've actually downloaded and gone through the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy - extended edition no less.

Ok, so now onto the next point of business, which has absolutely no connection whatsoever (sorry to disappoint): the annual changing of the guard. In Japan and probably some other nearby countries, April is when everything starts, including schools and most job contracts. Everyone graduates in March and following a slight period of ritual binging, moves straight to work the following month, where more ritual binging occurs. You rarely get people coming in any other time of year, except in rare cases like mine where the contract is set for a different period.

That's not the strange part - the strange part is that everyone else in the office will switch periodically around this time of year as well, usually once every 3 or 5 years or so. Not only that, but they do so sometimes at the drop of a hat - people in government offices get 1-2 weeks notice to pack up and move to a different office with a new position, sometimes in a new town... in bigger companies this can mean moving to a whole different part of the country. Now you would think these are promotions, and sometimes they are, but oft times it's just a big shift, moving you to a different section with no relation to what you were doing before, meaning you need to learn a whole new set of rules and skills. In most of these cases, especially lower down the chain, it doesn't really seem like they're asked if they want to move, but rather told where they're going to move.

Personally, I'm a bit boggled by what advantage this system can serve at the moment and how that would balance out sending someone who's been doing a job for 5 years to start over in a different section and replace him with some new guy who has to start from scratch himself. Maybe they do it so they can have their going away parties in late March, followed by their welcoming parties in April. If there's one thing I have realized, it's that Japanese love excuses to have a party and celebrating BS holidays like Spring solstice, which I actually got the day off for, and White Day.

I'll tell you, the second you figure out one thing about this place, something else comes right along to make sure there's always at least that slight tinge of confusion flittering in the background.

It was a good run...

Well, I made what I thought to be a rather important discovery this past week - CBS decided it would be a good idea to make all games for March Madness available online, both in live feed and recorded playback. I wholeheartedly concur!

So this means that I have seen MD slide by Davidson in the first round, and also means that I woke up at 4:30 this morning to watch Butler squeak by us in the 2nd round. Although I am disappointed as I believe we could've given Florida a run in the sweet 16, I'm still happy with how they finished the season and think that the way they were playing the best team won.

Equally as exciting is the fact that Duke got knocked out in the 1st round, proving that they were over-seeded and that we totally owned them this year. Any year that we make it into the tourney and do better than Duke is a successful one in my book. I guess from here on I can't cheer for MD or anti-Duke, so I'll be behind the rest of the ACC teams left. Here's looking forward to next year!

Daikon makes the news!

And in further proof as to Japan's obsession with food, a radish was in the news today. These giant radishes are known as daikon in Japanese, and this one looks like a giant foot. I remember hearing a while back about them talking about a daikon that was growing up through a sidewalk somewhere in the south and how it represented the Japanese fighting spirit that never dies, haha. What I thought was funny about this was that the headlines read 大根足("daikon ashi", radish foot/leg), which is also one of the worst insults you can give a Japanese girl.

You see, there is a genetic disposition for Japanese to have short and stumpy legs, which resemble this daikon. They're stout, like a good Guinness beer (without the goodness). For some reason though, they don't like people to point this out. There are also a bunch of girls here that are too thin for their own good though, and have the legs to prove it. On a semi-related note, the term for a flat-chested woman is a manaita, which comes from the word for a washboard. They don't like being called this either.

Oh, and I'm watching a food show right now - they talked about making peking duck stuffed with avocado and shrimp fried rice, and just now were talking about a way to serve maguro (tuna steak basically) with yakiniku (Japanese-style Korean BBQ) sauce and rice. Yum.

Japanese food

At home and sick... might as well make the best of it and post something I guess. The weather around here's been crazy lately, so maybe all the temperature changes are doing me in.

So this time around, I shall talk about Japan and its food. Food seems way more important to people out here than it does in the US - I've heard one person describe it as people in the US eat to live whereas Japanese live to eat. I would say there's definitely no denying that they put a lot of care into the food out here, and for the most part it means much better quality and less emphasis on merely getting the most quantity possible... although they do still have all you can eat places out here.

Some proof of the importance of food to the Japanese public:

• Every 3rd show on tv it seems is either a food show or has a food portion of the show
• Japanese people will take vacations based solely upon food specialties
• People know the local specialties of way too many places
• In Japanese there is a 5th main taste in addition to salty, sour, sweet, and bitter: umami
• I took courses on Japanese food history in Chiba... I doubt that'd be popular back home

People can go on and on about food out here if you let them... they'll talk about texture, ingredients and what would compliment them, alternate presentations, you name it. The ironic thing though is that despite the fact that food plays such a prominent role in tv out here, they almost inevitably use the same set of like five words to describe things on those shows! You'll never hear them call something nasty, it's always delicious (umai, oishii).

Now onto specialties - I once went down to Tokyo for some business mixed with pleasure, and decided it'd be a good idea to bring something back for peeps at the office since that is the standard when you go on a trip. So what did one of my bosses have to say? "Why didn't you bring something banana-flavored?" Apparently, bananas are the specialty of Tokyo, of which I had no clue. I've seen other people go places and bring back souvenirs (always food btw - another clue), and they'll usually have something to say about why it's special. This sometimes sparks discussions which go on and on... they can talk for a good 15-30mins. about it if nothing else is going on.

Also as I mentioned, when people go on vacations, they search out the specialties of the areas they're going to, and will sometimes even go on food vacations, basing their whole vacations on where specializes in the food they want to try out. For example, Kyushu is famous for tonkotsu ramen, and Osaka is known for its okonomiyaki, although Hiroshima has its own flavor of okonomiyaki which some find to be superior. Likewise Sapporo in the north is known for its fresh seafood, and more recently curry soups. Locally, Sendai is known for cow tongue and zunda mochi. I can't think of half as many examples back home... although there are local specialties I don't think many people really think of them. Japanese people will always ask you what the local specialty of your area is though.

Then there's the umami thing, which I just recently discovered - this is one possible explanation for why although MSG doesn't have any flavor it still makes things taste soooo much better. In fact, MSG was developed by a Japanese guy 100 years ago, who is credited with the discovery of umami in the first place! Umami is apparently a term used even in English among specialists to describe something that isn't really highlighted in the west - the closest term in English would be savoriness, as found in meats among other foods.

There's also how they put just as much care into how the food looks as how it tastes, and how they can take stuff from us and make it taste better like Pizza Hut or McD's... although they do like lots of weird stuff on pizza sometimes. (corn and mayo???) And with McD's, although they do take more care in preparations and actually make things fresh when you order them instead of letting it sit around, in the end it's still the same old McD's we've all come to accept only when it's the last available option. Maybe they spike the cheese on the pizza with MSG or something, but either way it rocks. Food is definitely one of the better points about being in Japan!

maikeru-jakuson, uii rabu yuu!!!

the king of pop returns from exile

Ok, so first off if you can read the title then you have a chance of understanding what some people's English sounds like out here, and second this one's for George. I heard that this was coming up, but now there's video evidence that a rackload of people did indeed drop 400,000yen (3,500USD) each on a chance to speak with Michael Jackson for literally a few seconds. What do you get for your money? No song and dance, but 2 photos together, a handshake, and about a minute or so talk to Michael Jackson personally. At the end of the video the announcer asks the woman if it was worth it, and she says it's a bargain! I even saw quite a few foreign faces in the crowd, which leads me to believe that people not only paid 400,000 to get in but probably also however much international airfare cost them to get over here in the first place as well.

And from the sounds of it, you might want to get used to Michael coming out of his little hole in the sand next to Bin Laden as I hear he's trying to get the Jackson 5 back together to do some shows in Vegas. If he was smart he'd stay out here in Japan though... it's normal to be attracted to kids out here and I'm sure they'd pay more. That, and he seems to be received much better just about anywhere outside the US, but I guess in the end there's no replacement for home.

Oh and btw, this post brought to you by my new favorite source of news from Japan (bizarre or otherwise), Japan Probe.

Go Terps!!!

So just now, as we enter March and its impending madness, am I getting around to seeing a Maryland basketball game, and I am pleased as punch with what I saw. Actually, from what I've seen online maybe it's a good idea that I missed out on the first part of conference play. So I got to see us win in what I would consider rather comfortable fashion for the second time this season over the pathetically slumping Dook Blue Devils. They seem to be rather mediocre this year, but Maryland triumphing over Duke is something that'll never get old to me. Sort of like pizza, or some good Thai curry, or cheese. Ok so I guess if you leave them out too long those things get old, but I still don't tire of them. Anyway, from what I hear I really wish that I got to see the NC game, but I was happy with the play of the team, especially the new kid Greivis (not to be confused with Grievous, although he may inspire more fear in the hearts of his opponents since he probably doesn't do that weird breathing thing) and that (c)Osby kid, which I shall dub "fro guy" for obvious reasons. That'd be cool if he started doing Jell-o pudding pop commercials like 'ol Bill used to do. Or he could be really cool and shave the sides for a Mr. T mohawk! Either way, they're going back to the NCAA's where they belong after 2 long years of a certain crazy runaway point guard and the aftermath he left in his wake. Stupid Gilcrist.

Yeah, and so of course looking around I heard the other disturbing news around the conference - Duke's Gerald Henderson dishing out a brutal elbow to the face of UNC's Tyler Hansbrough, whose nose expelled, gushed and oozed an astronomic proportion of blood and general unpleasantness all over the court and himself. See the video on Youtube. There was a bunch of bru-ha-ha to follow, and the evil Dookie was sent home early to sulk and contemplate what he did. I hear that he then kidnapped a baby from the crowd and bit its head off Ozzy style and spit it in the face of one of the cheerleaders, then kicked a baby seal on his way to the locker room where he met up with a harem of hookers and partook of several illicit controlled substances. Ok, well maybe not.

I also heard several references to an interview with Duke head coach Mike K...shasldfksafsky or however you spell it (heretofore referred to as merely "the devil"), who insists not only that his boy didn't do it intentionally, but that his guys always play nice. P-shaw I say - he is a dirty, dirty man who curses like a sailor on the sidelines, and whose players have been documented for going for blood on several occasions, especially with the likes of a despised cross town rival like UNC. Check out the links above for references to a certain Christian Laettner incident in 1992. He's also been quoted as asking why Hansbrough was still on the floor seeing as there were only 15 or so ticks left on the clock, making it seem like it was UNC's fault that his player, who can do no wrong and reportedly poops cupcakes and gingerbread cakes in his spare time, laid the smackdown on unsuspecting young Tyler's candy ass.

This is cool because:

1. "The devil" and his team are not happy about it, which makes me happy
2. Duke also lost again, which is always reason to celebrate
3. It gives me a new reason to dislike Duke, and "the devil", and sullies their reputation
   
4. It means that UNC's big man will have to wear a goofy-looking mask, which will be both funny and possibly make him play tentatively this weekend in the ACC tournament so we can stomp them a new one just like we did before
5. It was bloodier than a good number of boxing matches I've seen, which is brutal and cool

So yeah, all in all I would say it was a pretty good weekend in the world of college hoops. Please feel free to keep my abreast of any news or developments in the Terp world that I may not be privy to out here in Puroland.

"Thank you for safety driving"

The title is borrowed from a girl that went with me and some others on a trip this weekend. Her English is pretty good actually, but stuff like that just makes me wonder if they get as much of a kick out of my Japanese as I do of their English. Yeah, probably. ;P

So if driving is necessary I'm usually more than happy to oblige, and this past Sunday was one such occasion. We took a day trip down to the next prefecture and took in some sights in scenic Fukushima. All toll I drove us a total of 500km for the day, and it was my first chance thus far to actually drive on the highway and exorcise my speed demon. Cops are a pretty rare sight out here and there's very little enforcement of traffic laws - although I hear they're trying to really crack down on drunk driving lately (zero tolerance policy in Japan btw) - with the rare cop car on the roads and apparently the occasional speed camera on the highway. The only real big pain is that the highways here are pretty expensive. For example, we spent basically 50USD today on tolls. Bleh. Along the way and after going down a nice little windy road that wrapped around a beautiful lake, we stopped by an old Japanese village, a rock formation, a castle, and a lake. For pictorial evidence and further explanations, proceed to flickr.


Oh, and I know how people love drama, so along the way I heard a rather messed up tale of misguided love that I figured I'd share with you guys - don't tell anyone! (like you know who I'm talking about anyway) So this girl was telling us how the night before she slept over at this guy's place that she's seeing, but was rather upset about things so of course we asked for a story. Apparently she gets to his place only to find some feminine undergarments that were not hers. Of course she asks for his story, and here's what she got: "Oh well those are a friend's that slept over, but we didn't do anything." Yeah, because I have girls over and we sleep together in the buff (in the winter, mind you), but it's purely platonic. She proceeds to tell us how there are 3 other girls, that she knows of at least, that are basically in the same boat as her, but it's ok because he says that she's special. Her response? "Well I like him, so I want to believe him."

There's no real point to that story, I just thought I'd relate it to give you an idea what goes through the head of some Japanese girls... or maybe I should say girls in general? I dunno, I could never figure out what they're thinking either way. Oh yeah, and the guy is American, so it shows you the respect some guys that come over here have for the women too... or again, maybe just guys in general. I hear a bunch of people that say they're not really that crazy about dating Japanese guys. I don't have any personal experience on that one, so I can't really say why.

Japanese cell phones are the devil

March on, oh mighty "thumb tribe"!!

Ok, I'll be the first to say that Japanese cell phones rock - although their American counterparts are catching up, they are still hands down better with their many features and niceties. You've been able to watch tv/videos and take pictures/videos (mine's 3 megapixels) on cell phones in Japan for years now, and I've seen other features on phones such as IR ports, debit card capability, dictionaries, and on in addition to the standard texting/internet/phone functions we've all grown to learn and love. They use them to check everything from train schedules to email to movie and restaurant reviews in daily life. Also, a very high percentage of the population carries them everywhere, including grade schoolers and geriatrics, so people are even more dependent on them than in the US as well.

And you see, this is apparently where the problem lies - they're too damn good. Now what you may think is that Japan has all these great toys and gadgets, which means that the average Japanese person should be fairly technically versed and computer savvy, but that couldn't be further from the truth! This study shows proof that high cell phone usage by 20-somethings in Japan is actually keeping them from using computers for internet access - they only use PCs about as much as those in their 50's! And going around, you'd be surprised at how many Japanese have utterly no clue about how many a technological wonder that gets pumped out of their factories every day really functions. It really is true that while Japan itself is rather technologically advanced, Japanese are not necessarily so.

Take my office for instance - all the people in my office have laptops, but I'd estimate that they're all about 5 or so years old, and mine is the only in the office hooked up to the internet besides the one system in the back that everyone uses collectively. My closest friend out here, who's the same age as me, just now bought a computer at 27 - up until now, just the cell phone for him. So what about email, blogs, ebay, google, youtube, wiki, flickr, bittorrent, etc that we've all come to know and love - don't they exist in Japan? Well yeah, they do. Everything's out there, it's just that most people don't really make use of it for the most part. And the ones that do get used get a lot more hits from teens than 20-somethings apparently, which to me is weird.

Oh, and if you're thinking "that's good - less internet time means they're out being productive!!" think again as they just have even more of a passive tv culture than the US does - the randomness of Japanese tv is just about constantly on in the background if they're home. So yeah, Japanese cells are the devil - they make the internet suck.

Whaling in Japan

Whales ho!

So one of the bigger stories going on in Japan right now is about a whaling "research" vessel that met some hard times down around Antarctica this past week - a fire broke out, leaving it drifting there next to its friends for something like 9 days or so. I hear that once word got out about the fire, Greenpeace had the closest ship to them and offered to help, but they refused. The funny thing is, because of the whole whaling thing a lot of Japanese people see Greenpeace as basically a terrorist organization - I find that hilarious! So of course there's no way that they'd let their #1 enemy lend a helping hand... in fact, a bunch of people think that they just wanted to sabotage the ship more or something from what I've heard.

In case you don't know, whale meat is pretty big in Japan - I actually had some for the first time last night, and personally I don't see anything really that special about it though. I figured I should at least try it once, and I did... just like the horse meat I had a few weeks back (which was actually not half bad). So since commercial whaling has been banned for the past 20 years or so I think, they do all this "research" on whales and then sell the meat on the domestic market since just throwing it away after they kill them would just be wasteful. Other than that, if you ask most Japanese people why they like whale meat, the only real answer you'll get is basically because it's "tradition". They've been eating whale forever, so they want to keep eating whale.

It makes you think though... or at least it makes me think. If they're not endangered, is whaling wrong? Is killing a whale for food different than killing a cow, or a dog? Why stop there - why not go for dolphins and monkeys? Now you may think I'm a horrible person for saying that, but try and take a step out of your own cultural background for a second and think about it. How do you decide what animals are edible and which ones aren't? Is it intelligence? I hear pigs are smarter than dogs, but I'd rather make bacon out of Porky than take a bite out of Lassie personally. I've also heard that pigs make decent pets, so the pet factor isn't really there either. Oh, and in China, where they eat dogs, they still have dogs as pets as well. Most all the pets are pure breeds, and the mutts wind up on plates. Also, I'm sure that Indians aren't wild about the rest of the world eating their holy cows, just like plenty of people aren't happy about Japanese whale eating.

One argument I have heard that makes sense though is that with whales it's an international issue, not merely a domestic one for Japan (and Iceland, and Norway I think). If you want to go after whales, you have to leave your waters to get them, meaning you shouldn't step on anyone's toes to do so. Japan does follow the international rules on things though, and they aren't endangering any species. I actually hear the number of whales is increasing, which is good.

So all in all, although I draw the line with what I consider domestic animals like cats and dogs, I will try eating weird things, if only once. I have tried shirako once, which is basically the equivalent of a fish's scrotum. I would recommend you cross that one off your list of things to try right now as they taste and feel just like they look - slimy and nasty. I don't think I'd like to try monkey or dolphin meat either, but if I was stranded on a deserted island with only monkeys and dolphins 'o-plenty, pass me some Flipper with a side of Bubbles - it can't be worse than eating a fish's scrotum. Other than that though, I think being adventurous is good, but then again this is coming from a guy that moved halfway across the world. Oh, and sometimes it's better not to ask what it is that you're about to eat in strange lands - you may not want to know. Oh, and just because twice may not have been enough to gross you out, I ATE FISH SCROTUM AND IT WAS DISGUSTING!!!!

History according to Japan

Long time no post... what can I say, I've had stuff going on. I have posted some new pictures though, and last night I saw a Delorean for only the 3rd time in my life! It was shiny and steely, and according to the owner not that expensive - I did however squander a perfect opportunity to make a Back to the Future reference... oh well, hindsight 20/20 and all that.

So I figured I should write something, so here's my thought of the day - Nanjing. Now normally they say that history is told by the winner, but in this case they're taking a new approach. Just to give you some background on the matter first, I'm talking about what's known in Japan as the Nanjing "Incident", although the rest of the world knows it as a massacre. Both sides involved like to argue about details - that wiki provided above is a war zone of edits. China likes to argue about Japanese textbooks that downplay the whole thing (and are used in only 18 out of 11,000 schools as a result) and former PM Koizumi's visits to the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo which honors those who died in battle - including at least 12 convicted Class A war criminals from WWII. The Japanese on the other hand like to argue that Chinese are blowing things out of proportion with their casualty figures in the 100,000s, and that the CCP's propoganda machine doctored a bunch of photos and stuff.

The truth of the matter is that both of them are approaching certain points wrong, and the whole thing was never even really disputed until the 90's when the Chinese finally brought it up. Up until that point they were focused more on the Communist resistance to the Japanese, but for some reason (most likely to strike up nationalism) they decided to change their focus from pro-Communist to anti-Japan. The way I see it, they are probably bolstering the figures, but they do have a right to be upset about the whole thing since Japan did wreck most of Asia and beyond. The Japanese approach on the other hand, is that they like to focus on the facts leading up to the war and how they were originally reacting to increasing pressures from the west and fighting western imperialism, which was overrunning the rest of Asia since the mid-19th century (except for Thailand!!).

Anyway, this isn't meant to be a history lesson - if you're interested look into it. This is about a possible solution to the disputes that I think is great and really hope works out. As opposed to the former PM stirring things up with his war criminal visits, the current PM Abe is trying to rekindle the friendly relations between the two nations. China was one of the first places he visited after being elected, and now they're forming a joint Sino-Japanese research project in order to attempt to reach an agreement on historical details between the two countries. Now what they want to resolve is different for both sides, but the bigger news is that 2 countries with such complexly intertwined histories are trying to get together and come up with an objective view of past events that everyone can agree on. That's not to say that I think it should be a point of compromise, but if they reach conclusions mutually then no one on either side should have any reason to dispute it.

China and Japan - new history, old wounds

The other interesting thing to me is the difference in how Japan and Germany deal with WWII when the subject comes up. If you start talking WWII to Japanese people, they get defensive and go into a shell. It's like just bringing the topic up even is too aggressive for them and they feel like you're attacking them. The Japanese way to deal with things like that is to forget it and move on acting like nothing ever happened. Avoid confrontation if at all possible... which ironically, if they followed originally would've solved the whole thing. Then on the flip side of the coin we find the Germans. Bring up the war or the holocaust to Germans and they will most likely be sincerely apologetic for a moment, and then move on with the conversation as anyone else would. From what I've seen they're fine with talking about it, and are just as critical of their past as you would expect anyone to be of such a situation. They're even comfortable enough to joke about the situation if you are.

So lastly, one thing I've learned is not to take one view of history at face value - everyone has their own take on things and their own points of interest. The facts may not change, but anything you hear is through the filter of a source, and every source has a bias. For example, if you just look at things from only the US perspective you may not know about FDR basically forcing the Japanese to attack us by cutting them off from supplies, and the possibility that Japan attempted to surrender before the 2nd bomb dropped but the US proceeded to drop the 2nd to flex its power in front of the Russians, which is all entirely plausible. In the US this kind of information is available but isn't really discussed in history class... outside the US though people are more likely to bring it up. But then don't believe me - look it up and decide for yourself. Don't just take the winner's word on what happened either.

F***ing Posh like Dave Beckham

Beckham to play for LA Galaxy - 5yr./250 mil USD
Beckham vs. Pele

First off, to those of you that don't care about football (as I will refer to it throughout this post) or prefer that American sport where you throw an oblong brown object and rest after every play to catch your breath, feel free to skip out on this one.

I heard about this plan of Beckham's to finish out his career in the States a while back, but I didn't expect it to be coming this soon... and yes I know this is soooo last week, but gimme a break as I wasn't around. So the headline says it - Beckham has signed a contract meaning he's no longer playing for Real Madrid and will be coming Stateside to play for the LA Galaxy starting in June.

So what does all this mean? Anything really? Some people are trying to liken this to Pele's attempt to make REAL football as popular in the US as the other major sports and take the position it has elsewhere in the world, and others equate it to little more then a publicity stunt with a price tag as inflated as the clothes and cologne and stuff that he sells. And I mean, who can blame the detractors? This is the guy that married a Spice Girl named "Posh" and throws away his cleats for a new pair after every match. He's not in his prime, so how much of an impact he'll make on the level of play has yet to be seen. To me he's really more of a face and a name than a player - he's the world's posterboy for football. A famous player from England who recently passed away, George Best had this to say about Beckham's ability:

"He cannot kick with his left foot, he cannot head a ball, he cannot tackle and he doesn't score many goals. Apart from that he's all right."

So all that being said, I think he can and most likely will have an impact. He's not the best in the world, but he does play internationally and is better than a good majority of the league in the US. Moreso than that though, the hope is that he's setting a precedent for other international players to follow. But the much more famous Pele tried the same thing back in the 70's in the NASL (North American Soccer League), which eventually failed in the early 80's. Really, Pele back then paved the way for Beckham today, so maybe (hopefully) this is all it'll take to take football to the next level in the US. At this point, I'm sceptical but hopeful, as I know that most people in the US still really don't care.

There are just so many sports going on in the US right now that it's hard to say which ones are prevalent - I mean, despite the flagrant lack of right turns NASCAR is actually one of the most popular sports, especially depending on where you go. It's hard to compare football across the world, which is arguably the biggest sport worldwide, to soccer in the US as there's just so much competition: NFL, MLB, NBA, NCAA, NASCAR, and now MLS. Personally if given the choice, I would choose to watch British Premier League or Italy Serie over MLS, but I'll still watch a match if it's on and hopefully things will start to get more exciting now and encourage more people will come out to our side of the world to play... or not go to Europe/Brazil.

All in all I see it as a good thing, although it would be nice if we got some better talent as opposed to simply a well-known face. If football gained more popularity in the US, it'd be good for the game worldwide. The more big names, the higher the level of the game becomes on the global scale.

1 in 60

Yeah, so the other day over the course of promoting a certain event aimed at the local foreign population I usually don't get to talk to I found out an interesting tidbit of information that I've actually been wondering about for a while now: the foreign population of my town. So here it is: 60 people. That's right, out of 21,299 registered residents 60 of those are non-Japanese nationals, comprizing roughly 0.3% of the overall population. That also means that I personally make up 1.6% of the overall foreign population of my town!

Going around, we talked to one woman from Hong Kong who is raising her family here, found that some Peruvians are working at a local factory, and stopped by the residence of another Chinese person, a guy whose wife is Thai, and a Brazilian's place. Oh, and as an aside I believe I've already met all the western population of Shichigahama - all 4 of us. That makes 2 JETs with Joe and I, then 2 missionaries that live up on the hill. Maybe that number's off if they have other family with them, but I know they're the only others here.

So that just goes to show you exactly how much I stand out here, and serves to show how my every move is known by most everyone around that matters as well as a bunch of people that don't. The question that remains is how exactly I can and should interact with said foreign population, and if there's anything personally that I can do that would make their time here easier or more enjoyable. I'll have to look into that... it's on the "to do" list.

Oh, and those numbers are well below the national average of 1.6% foreign population if you were keeping score, but then that's not really too surprising for a little beach town off the beaten track that's tucked just far enough out of the way to avoid getting too much attention. The only reason people would have to notice this place is if we make enough noise to garner being looked upon.

I love the world we live in sometimes

...because of anomalies such as these:

weird Japanese tv
Whenever the people are running they're yelling "It's a tsunami!!!"

the best music video of all time
and if you click you'll know why.

A tragic wee-Wii tale

Woman holds wee for Wii

Sometimes it's amazing what people think is a good idea. I just watched Jackass 2 the other night, and Steve-O took a beer bong up the butt. Brilliant. Not that this rivals the stupidity of Steve-O, but it's tragically bizarre. Speaking of which, I gotta pee so I better go!!

Thailand - welcome to the jungle!!!

Ok, so I said I'd be gone for about 10 days and now I'm back - Thailand is absolutely amazing! There's no way that you could be satisfied with going to a place like that with so much to see and only spend 10 days there. It's the kind of place where it's way too easy to just lose all track of time and get lost in the moment. Most of the time I had no idea what day it was because it simply doesn't make a difference - the only time I needed to know was when I had to make sure I made it back in time for the plane at the end of it all. I really only had time to check out 2 areas - Krungthep Mahanakhon Amonrattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilokphop Noppharatratchathani Burirom-udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amonphiman Awatansathit Sakkathattiya Witsanu Kamprasit (you probably know it as Bangkok) and Ko Phi Phi - and even there I could've used a few more days in each location as I didn't get to see and do everything I wanted to. Ok, well if you're bored with words now then feel free to proceed onto the pictures anytime you please - otherwise, go ahead and read on for my take on what I saw.

So impressions? Well the first thing you think when you drive into Bangkok is that it looks like a dirty place. There are stray dogs all over the place and the streets are teeming with seedy looking people walking around looking at street vendors and soliciting prostitutes-a-plenty, keeping an eye out to make sure that the "girl" they're talking to isn't really one of the infamous "ladyboys". There are also plenty of beggars and vagrants. And driving - well the taxi driver that gave us a ride from the airport was weaving through traffic at 14okph like it was Fast and the Furious or something, and he refused to stay in one lane the whole time. Bangkok is a pretty crazy place to be and there is plenty going on at all times, just like any other big international city. One thing that stood out were the number of foreigners walking around, which is in stark contrast to my existance in Japan.

There are definitely some beautiful things about the place though, along with some great people and great sites. It's known as one of the best places to shop in all of Asia because you can find quality stuff there and all the prices are really just guidelines as it's only worth as much as you can talk the seller down to. Things are often only really worth about a 3rd of whatever price they tell you in the beginning, and this is doubly true for any taxi/tuk-tuk rides as well as tickets to attractions such as a Muay Thai boxing match. Much to my dismay, there were not guys running around like Tony Jaa in Ong-bak: Muay Thai Warrior. That would've been cool.

As for the people, well I didn't get to talk to them nearly as much as I would've liked, but most all the ones I did talk to were really friendly. Most everyone knows at least some basic English and can answer basic questions if you stick to the major areas, so I'd say it's easier to get around than in Japan in that respect. It was my first real foray into the world of broken English, as in how you have to talk to get through to locals without making their heads explode. The Thai hookers had especially good English and made for some interesting conversation when they weren't trying to get you in bed with them. If you're sitting at a table outside in some of the busier sections they'd just come right over and sit down next to you without asking unless you push them away. If you buy them a drink then you get the pleasure of their company. Talking around, being a prostitute seems like just another job out there, and a decent paying one from the looks of it as well. One person I ran into said that a friend was married to a Thai woman, and one of the woman's sisters was a prostitute and they would openly talk about business was going and how many guys she had gotten over the past week and the like over dinner with the family.

All the fellow travelers were great as well and it was easy to meet plenty of new people from all over... except for the fact that there were so very few Americans out there for whatever reason. The vast majority of the people I met and hung out with were European (hi Maria and Richard!). Right off the plane I started talking to a guy who was in the same boat as me with no set plans on what to see and do, and I offered to split a cab with him. Shortly afterwards before we got through customs another guy joined us, and we all set out to find somewhere to crash for the night. Amazingly and totally randomly, I ran into a fellow JET from Miyagi that lives less than an hour's drive from me once we found a place and hung out for the whole night! It was the same deal on the way down to the islands - I met a guy on the bus going to the same place as me and we shared a room and stuck together pretty much for the duration of my time in Ko Phi Phi. From there we'd go out with some girls that he met up north and some people that I met during the days I went diving to get my open sea license.

So moving along, Bangkok is known for its nightlife and craziness, but there are also some pleasant sites such as river markets and temples, and also some great food. They also have a lovely, almost resort-like hospital with a Starbuck's and a Sizzler steak house on the first floor if the food doesn't happen to like you too much - I found that out due to something I must've eaten before arrival given the timing as the mud butt arose deep inside my bowels on the plane ride over before I even had a chance to eat anything. I was keeled over in bed for a day listening to the crazy guy in the bed across the way from me, but at least the view from the room was spectacular from my 8th floor vantage point. Oh, and given that it's a tropical country (especially as you move south) the weather was great pretty much the whole time with temperatures in the mid-30's (80-90's F). It rained for 2 hours one day and everyone was complaining how horrible it was even when the weather was just a little cloudy - it didn't really bother me much though coming from my freezing cold apartment.

As you move south, the temperatures don't really change too much, but the scenery does. We drove through Krabi before taking the hour and a half ferry ride to the islands known as Phi Phi (pronounced "pee pee" - Ko or Koh just means 'island'), which is a great place for rock climbing and is right on the shore. Ko Phi Phi has the whitest sands and clearest waters I've seen with some rather well-maintained beaches. You can hardly even tell that a tsunami came through 2 years ago and totally ravaged the entire area killing thousands, other than the few remaining places still being rebuilt and the extreme hike in the prices. People don't really mention things about that since it affected a lot of people, but there are some subtle reminders scattered about.

So I didn't get to go cliffdiving or parasailing, but in Ko Phi Phi I did get to go diving and see... are you ready for it? Monkeys!!! In addition to being famous for having some great coral at relatively shallow depths (you only had to go down about 6-10 meters) and plenty of sharks, sea turtles, manta rays and other aquatic life in spades, they are also known for having the beach from "The Beach" and even have a place on the other side of the island known as Monkey Beach! "The Beach" beach does have a name - Maya Bay. I couldn't remember that for a while though, so me and my Hollander roommate buddy guy came up with a great way to remember it. Maya makes you think of the Mayans, which were an ancient civilization in Mexico. All Mexicans are gay (for the purposes of this story at least), so they love Lenny DiCaprio, which starred in a lovely little film known as... The Beach! See, easy right? I guess all those little mind and memory tricks I picked up in my Japanese studies and working at warping, um I mean molding, the minds of little children for a while pay off in the end!

Ok, so let's finish off with some fun facts and tidbits I picked up along the way. First, Ko Phi Phi is owned and run by 2 families which comprise the Phi Phi mafia! For this reason, anywhere you go on the island there's little price variation and vendors aren't permitted to sell things below a certain price. This goes against things in the rest of the country where prices are wide open and totally dependant or your ability to negotiate and not get ripped off... which is relative of course since you can buy a pair of Pumas or nice jeans for $10USD and beer at bars for $1USD. I hear that they also enforce martial law in the area if anyone gets too stupid and starts trouble with the local businesses. I heard word of a Brit that was dabbling with the drug market that got knocked off last year. There was also a bar on the island that had a ring for Thai boxing which advertized having ladyboy boxing (never saw it) and would give you a "bucket" if you would get in the ring with a friend and pummel each other in your drunken stupor... plenty of people took them up on that, including one guy we saw get a bloody nose before his friend beat him down to the canvas.

Elsewhere, I heard some interesting things about the seedier sides of Bangkok. In addition to the standard massage parlors with benefits (the real massages are great and cheap btw... although they can be painful) and Turkish bath houses (the girls bathe you - think that scene in Coming to America), I also caught wind of strip shows where girls would do all kinds of crazy stuff with their hoo-hahs like shoot out ping-pong balls or darts, smoke cigarettes, or serve bananas to the patrons. The place is also known for ladyboy cabaret bars, which are supposed to be quite interesting from what I hear if you can get past the fact that some of the guys are more beautiful than most of the women you see on the streets... scary. One guy even told me that there's a place you can go and pay the girls to lick you. Seriously!! It's a full body tongue massage, and they lick you from head to toe! Knowing Bangkok I'm sure they make some stops along the way, but they have hourly rates and you can double up on girls and stuff... with all this it's no wonder that the majority of the foreigners you run into in Bangkok are guys. Some of the worst are supposed to actually be Japanese salarymen who come over to indulge in some of their more... uncouth fetishes. Some of it really is just dirty businessmen catering to a sick and demented audience sometimes, but not all of it is. There is a fair bit of exploitation going on, but in general I would say that they definitely don't hold the same taboos as western society does on such things, which I don't necessarily see as bad.

So that's my take on Thailand, as incomplete as it is. I would say that you'd really need to take about a month or so to really get a feel for things, but knowing the way that place is a month would just make you want to stay even longer. There are just too many entrancing places in the world and only a lifetime to see them all. So the real question is: what are you guys doing staying in the same place for so long?!? Get out and see the world around you!

Back in the office... for now

So today's the first day back at work for the new year... I guess. We're in the office, but the place is still closed to the public until tomorrow I think. Everyone showed up in suits today, but apparently that memo didn't get around to me. A bunch of the important people around town have come by today to say happy new year, which means lots of bowing.

From here out though, I'm actually taking the next 10 days off to visit Thailand: the land of spicy salads, muay thai, painfully good massages, and clear blue waters. Yesterday I was on a ski slope with -10C(15F) weather, and the day after tomorrow I'll be on a beach with 30C(mid-80's F) weather. I've never been in a country where I couldn't speak the local language before, so this should be a nice little adventure. And with that said, enjoy your frosted lawns and windshields, and I shall see you on the flip side!

I shall leave you with the pride of my weekly picture collection - allow me to present: Monkey Crossing!!! It looks a bit more like a gorilla to me, but whatever it's still cool.

Japanese tv is totally bizarre

DJ Ozma and dancers bare it all (NSFW)
ETA: New link since the other was erased

So over New Year's, it's a big thing to watch this music show called kohaku, which I did with this one family. Eventually we were flipping between 3 shows - kohaku, a K1 kickboxing match, and this comedy show called basically "You're not allowed to laugh." The whole thing reminded me of the hilarity that is Japanese tv.

First, kohaku. Leave alone the whole premise of the show basically being a 3 hour long karaoke contest with pop singers, but this one guy took the cake - he pulled a Janet Jackson!! Watch the video and you'll see, but he had 20 female dancers looking rather (pleasingly) unpresentable
on publicly funded tv while he flew around wearing a blonde afro wig and some shorts with little else.

Then there was the comedy show with an absolutely brilliant premise: they do crazy stuff in an attempt to make the 4 or so hosts (they're on rotation) laugh, but if the hosts laugh then they get beat with a stick or shot in the ass with darts or something. The whole time they're sitting there stifling laughter and biting their lips, and then screaming in writhing agony as they bend over and take their beatings like the 100-lb. featherweight girly men that they are. Brilliant!

So tonight I turn on the tv to kill some time, and there's this show on with Takeshi Beat, of Takeshi's castle/MXC Challenge (on Spike TV) fame. So they had this section that was the standard true or false quiz with a twist. You had to either go to the big circle (maru) or the big x (batsu), at which point they shot fake missles at the loser group and set off some explosions to send them all flying. They even had a whole backstory accompanied by a video where there was a US satellite hovering above Japan they had on rent from the US government with full Bush approval to shoot strategical missles directly at the targets. There was a CG satellite animation for the shooting, and they had this fake Bush they talked to with simultaneous translation that talked about how he loved Japanese tv and used to watch it back in Texas as governor. There was another section where they had them hooked up to reverse bungie cords and shot people into the air, which of course knocked all their clothes off as they screamed in terror. After that, I watched them strap people to the front of giant trucks and drive them around through explosions and stuff, then douse them in paint so they could run them into a soft wall and make imprints.

So yeah, Japanese tv is totally random... there's a whole system of what they call "talent", which is rather ironic considering most of them are quite untalented. They're very, very good at acting like total buffoons and making total asses of themselves though, and it's often totally hilarious. Like, totally and stuff. Anyway, you basically watch different shows with the same "tarento" on rotation just in different situations. This explains why they have to come up with such random scenarios to keep everyone entertained!

And with that, I shall leave you with some good clips of Japanese tv. Enjoy!

Waratte ha ikenai!
Waratte ha ikenai! - gym class