robotics, a Mongol, sweet jellies

Yesterday was a splendid day indeed, the kind of day that reminds me why the omnipresent Buddha did a cosmic somersault and clapped thrice, thus instilling my body with the correct dosage of soul that was destined to begin its karmic journey on the green earth.
In short, i had a most terrible day at work, for i began the day with a dreadful lesson in which, for the first five minutes, i gave the students my all, trying jokes and humorous faces, yet all they gave in return were stares akin to concrete walls. So i told them then and there that the rest of the lesson would be entirely and only from the book, and that i would not laugh or smile throughout, and that i would be a robot. I had to clarify for the name the meaning of this by carefully pronouncing "roboto". They all nodded their heads in understanding without showing any dissatisfaction. The entire day of work went this way, with me acting the robot and doing lessons directly from the book without improvisation or lively gesturing or ridiculous gesticulation. And to my unhappy surprise, all the lessons went very smoothly. No one asked any questions about my sudden change in behavior from human to machine, and i believe that some were even satisfied. This is the sign of signs that this job is not for me.
Afterwards i went to play badminton, only to find that my club was not meeting again, the second time in two weeks, and that the meaner and more crowded club was meeting. They, unlike the rest, denied me my gaijin celebrity status and maintained a cold stance towards me, despite my constant gaijin hijinks. They remained unamused and cold as ever. There was one lad who was quite friendly to me and even chatted with me briefly a number of times, tolerating my horrendous Japanese and even waiting for me to sputter out anything pathetic i tried in vain to articulate.
The day was not great yet, no friends, for the best is yet to come. For after i left the gym (i had retired to the work-out room for some weight-lifting after realizing that the promise of playing in that crowded room was quite out of sight), i managed to find the free conversation class in which my friend yuuki "taught" in, or rather, simply spoke freely in his native language without pay. An English girl from Zambia, Danni, was there as well, and we began to chat mindlessly and i made myself an instant coffee, whereupon i sat myself down and was introduced to a good-natured and quite mannerly Mongul of the name Battur. He was a tall and straight-shouldered gent, perhaps of the same blood as the great Chingis Khan, who never did manage to avoid the fatal "kamikaze" waves to penetrate the island of the rising sun. Battur, on the other hand, being much more clever, hopped on an airplane. His Japanese was nearly nonexistent, as he had just arrived two weeks prior, being a university student studying autoimmunology. After the conversation session ended, and after i had spoke with a Japanese man about the difference between how Japanese and American athletes cry after winning sporting events, Danni invited us for a tea party at her apartment. I gladly accepted the invitation, and we rode through the night to Sako station, three stops from my Nikenya station, on our bicycles, lights a-flash and voices trailing off into the quiet air of night-time Tokushima. We all enjoyed various sweet jellies and sipped our green tea as we relished each other's company with our feet tucked under the heated table in Danni's bedroom. After the night had run its course, we began to make our way back outside into the cold for the ride home, the singing voices of Danni and Wisconsin girl Chris pronouncing the lyrics of some religious song as we put on our shoes. The night had heard many different languages--English, Japanese, Mongol. Well, only three, but it seemed like many, especially after hearing the gutteral and nearly unpronounceable Mongolian tongue.
So that ended my day of joy. Goes to show you folks that one can be a lifeless robot for half the day, be hopelessly disappointed for another quarter, and still have that last quarter left that makes everything all worthwhile and makes one feel thankful that the omniscient Buddha did that cosmic somersault and pressed his fingers to his broad forehead to produce all this absurdity.

photo

Here i am in my bearded glory. It shall only grow longer, and the more worthily i shall be able to achieve beard-stroking contemplation. The face sprouts forth a message, and most of us refuse to listen, we brashly attack it with our razors and lathery cream. Letting our bodies engage in natural cycles and processes can teach one much about oneself, and even, if i am not thinking too loftily, about life at large. This beard is a messenger, a messiah of sorts, who has come to sing of the glorious miracle of face-hair to all the poor Japanese men who viciously assault whatever hair they can grow. My friends, do you cover the hibernating mouse's burrow with stones on the first day of spring? Let us live as the humans we are, and let us celebrate the wonders that spring forth from our skin!

my nice little niche

Well, it seems i have carved out quite a nice little niche for myself in this land of the rising sun. There are no longer any surprises, and i do not have immense trouble living day to day. Things seem to be pretty stagnant, that is, until my inevitable adventure to Tokyo and Hiroshima in March. I receive my 10 day vacation in late February, and i plan to use the days wisely, and i have also decided firmly not to leave Japan in my wanderings, mostly because it is frightening, and secondly because a returning-to-country permit is 3000 yen (30 dollars). That is 3000 of my hard-earned yen the fatcats in the Diet in Tokyo won't be laying their miso-covered paws on. So Japan it is, and will only be. Comforting in a way, less stressful to plan, and i have no patience for worrying nowadays. My job is so easy sometimes it makes me want to shed more than a few tears, and my salary is more than providing for my exuberant life of reading books and cooking vegetable and rice dinners. Day in and day out things are pretty much the same. The same 15 minute bike ride to the same Sogo department store. The same textbooks with the same lesson plans and the same students, usually. The same coworkers, except this new Australian guy who just moved in today and i haven't met yet, and the week-long helpers from other branches we've been receiving to cover for an Englishman who just left us. His name is Ashley. Can you say Ash Ketchum of Pokemon fame??? I can. Let's just hope he can catch 'em all.
Yes, first a Matt Rainbow and now an Ashley. The bizarrely named Aussies never stop a-coming. For some reason i have not figured out, nova loves ozzies. I don't like their accents--they have this blatant disregard for the way words are pronounced--par example, they pronounce the word "no" as "no-oiiieee!" Why overcomplicate things? They probably need to compensate for their sullied image as nothing more than English criminals who managed to steal something beyond their wildest dreams: the lovely continent of Australia. And the poor "Abbos", as they call them, are left to chuck their boomerangs at freight trucks and play their noble didgeradoos into the lonely smog-filled night.
Nope, nothing much strange or crazy anymore. Nothing extremely funny anymore. It's just another country, like any other. Except with sumo and cartoon perversion and fried octopus balls and rampant unexplainable antisocial behavior.
Two and a half months and change to go.

slowly becoming something

But i don't know what it is. Whatever it happens to be, it won't last much longer, because i'm leaving the land of the rising sun to return to my home, the land of filth and noise. But this land also has those things, and so on. I think every industrialized country is exactly the same except for the people and the last remaining vestiges of culture not blared on some screen. Sorry all you hopeful kids being shipped off to Japan, in hopes that you'll be greeted by Sailor Moon and giant robots when you get off the plane, and that a samurai will chop your sushi in the air with his katana, and that everyone will love and worship you because you are American. Not to be entirely pessimistic, mainly because i did not expect nor want these things when i planned on coming. But perhaps it's just a matter of differences of mental workings. Some kids live in fantasy worlds with walls so thick not even a real katana could penetrate them. And some people here simply wanted to escape their lives at home and start fresh, and they live a sort of fantasy life here, pretending they are their new selves, and pretending that having a good time abroad is the only important thing in life. There just seems to be no air of progress or a will to succeed here in nova. Everyone is stuck in this machine that churns us all around and squeezes us, whereupon we utter some English words and money comes rushing out. I just resent being this tool for profit, and using some innate skill that requires no effort on my part, that of language, to make more money than the hard-working Japanese staff at my branch. Okay, getting too negative, i'll take the pills and come back later with some happier thoughts.

progression

I met today with my friend Yuki, who is one of my conversation teachers on Monday mornings, and ironically the one i disliked most because he spoke too fast for me. We met after i got out of work and went to a cheap udon place. A small sidenote--Japan is packed with cheap udon and soba places. Udon is a thick white noodle and soba is a thinner noodle made of buckwheat. A bowl of noodles can run anywhere from 100 yen to 300 yen, which is expensive. One hundred yen is about a dollar. I know, it's cheap. And you can get tempura and wakame seaweed and an egg and onigiri (rice balls) and various sushi for cheap too. Japanese people usually put their tempura in the soup with the noodles, which is sickening because it turns all soft. The soup usually contains a fish base, and i always order my noodles without broth. These places are great for vegetarians, as long as you know to avoid the soup. And everyone slurps their soup when they eat their noodles as well--it's not rude here. Sidenote ended. So almost the entire time we spoke in Japanese, so i was happy with that, but i still sounded dumb and i basically used up all of my vocabulary, which is insufficient for an intelligent conversation. I also am not yet comfortable with semi-complex grammatical structures. Oh well, if this is progress, then i should be content. In essence, i need to learn more words!

in utter isolation

If it weren't for my indie rock, my literary books, and my pretentious writing, i would have nothing to remind me of my unrecognized genius. This bothers me. Back in New York I would have many chances for arrogant remarks and clever quips, but here, in my utter isolation, i do not have as many opportunities. Yes, you argue, i may have a few acquaintances that i correspond with on occasion, but they are all unresponsive to my arsenal of euphuism. (i must admit i used the dictionary.com thesaurus for that one, but it seemed too perfect.) In Tokushima, i am merely a plebian, an oddball with eccentricities at best. Simply disappointing. No one acknowledges my sagacity (dictionary.com).
I hiked up Bizan, the local large hill/small mountain for the second time today, and walked down along the road. It was quite nice, especially because the weather was dank and a chilly, and the sun was setting as i began my trek downward. No, i'm not being sarcastic for once, i actually enjoyed the chilly weather. I ate an apple at the top, but threw away the fungus-filled core. I bought these four apples at the supermarket next door and found most of them to be infested with grey-blue puffy fungus in their centers. The rest of the apple is good, but the inside is not. Well, i wouldn't really know because i didn't lick the fungus. And similarly, i did not participate in the local fungus-licking ceremony held three days after New Year's Day in Tokushima.
Since things are especially uneventful, and i don't feel like inventing some crap that i did to entertain you, the entry shall end here. In other words, you should be entertained just fine from the preceding.

rice vinegar is delicious

It really is. It has spiced up my cooking the past few days. And i have just started to experiment with daikon, and by golly, it sure is something.
The days have been boring, but mostly fulfilling. I've been reading a lot, mostly Rabbit Redux, and the saucy subplots keep my blood flowing. If not for Updike, i may have died from asphyxiation already, caused by the oppressive winter air and the lack of anything to do here besides drink expensive coffee and catch a cold outside. My heater keeps chugging away, i wonder how long it'll last. Japan does not condone central heating, at least in residences, so i have my own personal heater that i've come to befriend, as it keeps me alive during these short but merciless winter days. Nope, it don't need to snow for the weather to be cold.
Well, ain't nothing more to blabber on about. Things're the same as they were before, and i don't 'spect 'em to change anytime soon. Down here in Tokushima, things're mighty slow compared to the big city, but us country boys don't mind much, we just whittle away at our woodblocks, pay respect to our ancestors at the shrine, and cook our rice like the rest. We don't need no big city hodgepodgery, no fancy shenanigans.
over and out.

you jarred me from my zen meditation!

God, this green tea is strong.
Oh, my apologies. I hadn't realized you were still here. Well then, i suppose i should relate some exciting tale of wanderlust in the land of the rising sun. I journeyed into the rocky depths of Tsurugi-san and made my way up the winding and precarious mountain pass, clutching the katana that hung on my belt by my side. Seemingly out of nowhere, three well-trained black-masked ninjas leapt from the trees and landed in front of me, blocking my path to the fabled Otsurugi-jinja. Deeply insulted, i gathered up my energy and unsheathed my gleaming katana, which as i raised skywards, caught and propelled the yellow rays of the morning sun. The ninjas were unfazed: one of them lunged at me, bearing twin daggers, but i cut him down like a block of soft lumber after a heavy typhoon. I then shouted my war-cry and summoned my body into the air, deftly separating the ninja's heads from their bodies, and as i landed with a powerful quake on the dusty trail, i heard a sound not unlike two heavy coconuts dropping to the floor from a shaken palm. After sheathing my katana, i calmly proceeded to the shrine, the crunch of twigs underneath my wooden zouri, the morning sun blessing my face with the promise of a worthy day of prayer and meditation.
That was yesterday, but today I'm only sitting at the computer drinking this godforsaken "green" tea. Whoever invented this stuff should be celebrated. Maybe he is. Despite my weak insults, the stuff really is quite good, and the bitter taste only reminds you of its revitalizing aspects, because all bitter things are usually healthy. Let's not forget the antioxidants or what have you. It certainly does prompt the production of liquid waste. The recycling of water is a fascinating process.
Happy Birthday Scott (in Japanese time)!