Day 1 at Nakayama JHS: an unexpected elegy

My first day of school was full of surprises. Most are pleasant, though one single EXTREMELY upsetting one ruined the day, and perhaps many subsequent weeks as well. My Dell Inspirion 5000, who has been with me since junior year of Stanford, had finally decided that my first official day at work is the perfect time to hang up the banner. It was working fine this morning on my coffee table, where I shut it off and bagged it to school. But it refused to work at my desk in the school staff room. After what seemed like a few hundred reboots(I did nothing except rebooting for at least 1.5 hours, during staff meeting and school cleaning), my computer went from freezing during the Dell logo, to freezing during the XP loading screen, to freezing during the safe mode option screen, to blank screen, to a blank screen without the hard drive noise, and finally to a blank screen, no hard drive noise, and the computer turning on and shutting off in an endless cycle for no apparent reason all by itself.

After I, Nishiyama-sensei, and Ehara-sensei tried all the different computer folk-medicine remedies that we know. Which, besides rebooting in vain, included various banging techniques, from different angles with different levels of force, hoping that some unknown screw would miraculously tighten itself. There was no use. I`m guessing that the BIOS for some reason is completely ignoring the hard drive. Why else would the hard drive even spin during power up? I say this with a certain degree of confidence, because it had happend to me twice before, both in the month of July.

There`s no point kicking a dead horse. Luckily, after I pulled out the hard drive and put into Nishiyama-sensei`s portable HD case, I found that the HD content was undamaged. Which, like the eye of the typhoon that Tottori is literally in at the moment (typhoon no.16), brought me temporary relief from disaster. I can`t even remember the last time I backed up, let alone where those backup discs are at the moment.

Somehow I managed to deliver my speech at the welcome ceremony, which was more or less the same as the one during grass-cutting. Then I gave the self-introductory powerpoint presentation for class 3B, then lunch, then 3rd year elective class during which they introduced themselves to me instead. Then now. Having no more classes in the afternoon(regular schedule is cancelled as the school prepares for sports day), I`m sitting in the staff room with no mind to recall the first day in detail. I just want a working computer dammit.

I don`t know if I should sledgehammer or commemorate the old Dell. Truth be told, I`ve beaten that computer down to its last leg. There are several visible cracks in the casing, as well as what sounds like at least 2 loose screws inside. The battery is already dead, after extended use it can be doubled as a hot plate, and everything just takes forever to load. This piece of junk has been through 3 batteries, 1 battery recall, 2 send-in repair jobs, 4+ mice, 3 cities (SF, LA, DC), and 3 countries (US, Taiwan, Japan). It helped me with multiple resumes, too many coverletters, more papers than I could count, one proud honor`s thesis, every single short story I`ve ever written, as well as the creation of this blog. In its early days, it gave me all-night X-Com, Might`n`Magic, Diablo sessions and more; on its last leg, it gave me all the opportunities in the world to lose money at poker. And all throughout its career (except in DC where I had no broadband), it gave me the greatest gift a computer can give to a man--porn--without judgement or prejudice, even on the really nasty stuff. In some desperately perverse way, it`s like being dumped by your most accomodating booty-call. Of course I must thank the Dell Inspirion 5000 for illegal MP3s, ESPN.com, CNN.com, and other equally stimulating wonders of the net as well. I dare to venture that the bond between my Dell and I was beyond those typically between man and machine. My Dell and I, we were something else.

I think I will sledgehammer it after all. It deserves to leave this world with full respect and highest honor. If it could commit seppuku, it would have wanted me to be the one to cut off its head. But its memory will not be forgotten, unless the DIMMs are too slow or outdated for my next laptop.

Farewell, my dearest heap of silicon and plastic.

Hmm, Grub

Today I tried the famous Tottori 20th century nishi pears. It is round and green and looks nothing like pears back in the states. It tastes sort of like a cross between a pear and an apple: unlike pears, it has a grainy rather than smooth texture; but unlike apples, it is sweet with no hint of citrus sourness and is near-watermelon juicy. It was so damn good I think I should start a campaign to upgrade it to 21st century nishi pears.

(the above comments was from a strictly American perspective; there's a similar breed from Taiwan that looks yellow and tastes just as good; though I have withheld that fact from the Japanese people I've met here--though mostly modest, I find that they are invariably proud to a fault of their local product)

Today I also tried Mizushi, a ramen shop near the Takashi hospital. Ramen is considered Chinese food here, but like every other "ethnic" food in Japan, it is Nipponized beyond recognition (just yesterday I found out that the famous Japanese tempura was actually of Portugese origin). During the car ride yesterday, Nishiyama-sensei and I talked at length about ramen--he is a ramen connoisseur of sorts--and today he took me to Mizushi, which in his trained opinion is the best there is around.

I learned many things about ramen today. I already mentioned that it's considered a Chinese food. I also found out why Japanese slurp ramen. Apparently, as the noodles sit in hot broth, some of the noodle flavors start to deteriorate; to get the full flavor, you must eat the boiling hot noodles as fast as possible, and slurping can effectively cool down noodles by taking in air. I think Nishiyama-sensei ate his bowl at less than 2 minutes, and it took me at least a very sweaty 6 or 7. Also I think that there are 4 basic kinds of ramen: Shouyu(soy sauce, the most basic/common), Tonkotsu(pork bone broth, Kyushu specialty), Miso(Hokkaido), and Shio(salt ramen). I don`t know if there are any Tonkotsu or Miso ramen shops around Yonago, but I`ve found a Shio ramen shop in the bar district. Though I`ve hear that Japanese winters are cold, at least now I`ve found the perfect food for the snowy future.

Hero comments

Jeff wrote me an email claiming that Ninja Scroll was a better movie than Hero. What I thought was a simple, bullet-point rebuttal turned into a novella. I spent so much time dwelling on this, the resulting pages of run-on sentences must be blogged:


From: JRXXXXX@aol.com Add to Address Book
Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 22:46:59 EDT
Subject: Re: when you've got nothing to do at work...
To: thejeffcho@yahoo.com

Hell ya--man that sounds great--it's cool you are doing so many different things--I'm exhausted---I always do too much, go out and party it up.. Today I was a dork and was reading--I was thinking--here's a good philosohpical question--Okay, I saw Hero and it was cool---but---Dude, Anime Ninja Scroll, so much better--don't you think? Because, because it's just so much more inventive and creative--they just take things in so many more different directions. I respect Hero, yeah it had cool parts--but the fighting, I don't know didn't do it for me..

(the rest of the email, which included shamless descriptions of Jeff's soccer prowess, was cut off)

Take it easy,
Jeff

----------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 00:06:26 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Jeff Cho" Add to Address Book
Subject: Re: when you've got nothing to do at work...
To: JRXXXXX@aol.com

About the comparison betw/ Ninja Scroll and Hero:

Well, I think a comparison is hard to make because they
are just two totally different kinds of movie.

I consider Ninja Scroll as one of the coolest action
movies, across both anime and live genres. There's just
something about the timing and setup of the action
sequences that made it super exciting to watch. I
don't know, I think it's somehow comparable to jazz or
blues--how it coils and builds up tension and then "Oh
God I know it's coming it's coming AND HERE IT COMES"
releases it at the end--it's just incredibly
satisfying to watch. Come to think of it, it's almost
blatantly sexual.

On the other hand, I don't consider Hero as an action
flick at all. Yes there are some really creative
action sequences, but if the action in Ninja Scroll
(and those of many other actioin flicks) is like the
electric guitar, Hero's action is more like classical
violin (actually, the Chinese equivalent of classical
violin would be more fitting but I don't know what the
instrument is called in English). Action scenes in
Hero does nothing for my adrenaline levels at all, but
certain scenes left me so breathless I can still
recall them--the fight between raindrops, the fight in
the autumn forest, and the final fight in the
pond--which I could not do for Ninja Scroll. The
reason for this is partly cinematographic, and partly
beause I think Hero captured a lot of the nuances of
classical Kung Fu novels, which I grew up reading.
The closest comparison for Hero would be Crouching
Tiger Hidden Dragon, but I still consider Hero to be
superior for the following reasons:

1) Better cinematography: well, Hero costed a lot
more.

2) Better actors: I can't recall the actors' names in
English without some research, but I know for a fact
that between them there were multiple Asian Oscars,
and the older lover of that caligraphy writing guy has
actually been nominated (I'm not sure if she won) for an
Oscar in mid 80s. And Jet Lee is a martial artist first
and an actor second (way second). He studied martial
arts for 20 years, and has won multiple international
competitions. In the eyes of Chinese, and the eyes of
the Chinese government, Jet Lee is the Yao Ming of
martial arts. When Jet Lee does something as simple
as an arrow step (one knee bent one knee extended),
even a layman can tell that it looks better than when
Jackie Chan does it (who's background is, well, the
circus; I will not even discuss Chow-Young-Fat). So,
better dramatic talent, better martial art
talent=better martial art movie.

3) Dialog: non Chinese-speakers will not be able to
appreciate this, but Hero's dialog is spoken in the
Chinese equivalent of Shakespearean/Chaucerean
Middle English. Even I found it hard to understand
the precise meaning at times, but that does not deter
my admiration for Hero's dedication to authentcity.
Also, Hero's lines are delivered in near-perfect
Beijing Mandarin, even by the Hong Kong actors; that
fact alone made it a lot more believable than CTHD.
The lines of CTHD were delivered by a mix of Taiwanese,
Hong Kongnese, and Chinese dialects, which COMPLETELY
destroyed the credibility of the movie being set in
ancient China. Imagine a movie about the American
Civil War in Australian and New Zealand
English--that's what CTHD felt like.

Slight digression: the fact that the hottie in CTHD
fell for that Taiwanese illiterate, whose inability to
e-nun-ci-ate words correctly is as laughable as his
goatee/FuManChu attempt, killed the movie for me.
There's no way that would happen in real life. No
Fucking Way. She was way too hot for this to happen.

4) History: while Qin-Shi-Huang was in fact constantly
under the threat of assasination, I think that the
assasination attempt via "Here's my buddy's head"
actually happened to a different tyrant in a different
era. But still, Hero took a fresh historical
perspective by portraying Qin-Shi-Huang as an
ambitious visionary rather than a tyrant. The name
"China" was derived from the name of his dynasty (Qin
=Chin), the first in Chinese history. He did a ton
of good by uniting China, standardizing currency,
abolishing feudalism and building roads and canals to
facilitate trade. Yes he killed and tortured tons
of people for the Great Wall and his tomb, yes he did
burn books, but personally I really don't think
burying Confucian scholars alive was such a bad thing.
By dwelling on China's past (which was, undisputedly,
GOAT), the movie really stirs up the ethnic pride of
all Chinese. The fact that it was not well received
(i.e. anything short of 23 Oscars) internationally
only proves its worthiness and uniqueness as a Chinese
movie.

I have nothing else to add.

cho



=====
"It's like Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder, they had their handicaps. It didn't stop them from making
their mark."
-- Shyne, discussing how a 10-year jail sentence could affect his career

Reporting from boring weekendland

I don't like report-style blogs, especially since this has been a weekend that I can afford to forget.

Stayed late at school on Friday, trying to get all my pictures scanned. Caught the train back to Yonago with Ogura-sensei and Sakasegawa-sensei--it's enkai time!

Enkai, as far as I could tell, means simply drinking session with co-workers. Along with Ogura and Sakasegawa, Honda-sensei and Kyoto-sensei(v.p.) were there at Doma-Doma as well. Lots of drinks and little morsels of expensive food. 4 hours later, the four of them paid 5000en each--it's my welcome party so I drink/eat free!

I like the Japanese way of drinking. Not once did I have to pour myself a drink. You pour for me, and I pour for you--it's such a simple formula to good times I wonder why no one else had thought of it. Ogura-sensei got really, really drunk, which somehow did not surprise me.

Afterwards we hit the same karaoke bar. Kyoto-sensei and Honda-sensei were around my parents age and listened to the same English oldies, and they were very surprised that I knew and could sing along on just about every song they picked. Good times.

Then the party broke off. I met up with Tyler and the Tottori crew and hit some "sports bar" in Asahi-machi. The "sports" stands for 1) dartboard and 2)TV with sports programs. I had 2 beers there, 1000 yen. The TV was showing Olympic wrestling, and I got excited and wrestled Tyler in the streets. He was out of breath before I even got warmed up.

Then we hit--where else--Pimans. I spent 2000 yen there. There was this guy from somewhere corn-rotten mid-west town who not only talked like he's hard but also tried to start something inside the bar, completely out of tune with the reggae theme. After the party broke, I got separated from everybody else BUT this clown and some non-descript chick. I did not want to spend any second with him so I asked him where everybody else were. He said, "I'll get you there, don't worry about it homeboy." I replied, with subdued wrath "Don't call me a homeboy" in dead-seriousness. Then he said something like "you'll never get around this town without me" or something to that effect, and I just turned around and walked. Maybe I should of just decked him right there, as no one of consequence was there to witness my potential flip-out except for the non-descript chick. I'm still fuming about it.

So fumy that I called Manjinder at 3am just so I can vent. She probably thought it was a booty call.

Woke up the next morning too late for the train to Misasa. There was a town-organized zazen tour at the local temple. I had wanted to go but 1)woke up too late 2)woke up too hungover 3)can only be there for 1/2 of the weekend as I needed to be back at school on Sunday morning 4)there like a combined 3 hour of meditation all weekend and 5)people are BRINGING ALCOHOL FOR SATURDAY NIGHT--WHAT!?--you are bring booze, for a meditation retreat, to a Buddhist temple in the middle of the mountain!? Though I am dissappointed that I missed it, it was most likely a joke anyway.

Woke up Sunday morning at 5:45am, and Nishiyama-sensei picked me up at 6:15 to cut grass and meet the parents at school. Gave my speech, cut the grass, got itchy all over and left around 9am. Nishiyama-sensei visited his brother-in-law and showed me the Suzuki Alto that was available for purchase. It was 200,000yen, 9 years old, white, 2 door, automatic kei-car with shakken until October 2006. Not a bad deal, but I still want to see the other car first: 150,000yen, 9 years old, red, 4 door, shakken until June 2005, kei-car, manual AWD kei car Suzuki WagonR. WagonR looks cooler and I'm excited to drive a manual AWD in the winter, even if it is only a kei-car.

Spent the rest of the day holed up in my apartment doing nothing. TV was fixed and I watched some Olympics. They showed the trash time of the Argentina-Italy game, and showed the women's handball championship between Korea and Denmark. Between the two of them they have won the past 4 Olympic gold medals in handball. It was a super exciting match. Both sides were physical (it seemed like the only defense options in handball are either drawing a charge or shove the shooter on her ass), injuries on both sides, multiple cruchtime big goals and momentum turners, and neither team lead by more than 3 points for the whole game. Denmark had better range on their shots and was more physical then Korea, but somehow Korea kept getting open looks at the goal and kept the game close. The score was tied at a back-and-forth 31-31 after the 2 overtime periods. Then, in typical Japanese Olympic TV fashion, they cut off the game and showed the reply Japanese guy losing the gold-medal match in 66kg wrestling. WTF!?

Name change: Jee'aff

It's official: I am changing my name to Jee'aff, as an homage to "bee'atch."

I will make the announcement at my introduction to the students' parents tomorrow, during which I will give the following speech in Japanese (translated by Honda-sensei):

hajimemashite, jehu choo desu
Nice to meet you(lit. this is the first time), I am Jee'aff Cho.
shusshinwa taiwan desu. demo, carihorunia de kimashita
My hometown is Taiwan. But I came from California.
taipei de umare, juusan-sai no toki ni, carihorunia ni, ijuu shimashita
I was born in Taipei, after thirteen years, I immigrated to California.
eigo o oshieru koto wa, mochiron desu ga;
Naturally, I will be teaching English (here comes the tough part);
bokokugo de nakute mo, eigo wa mastaa dekiru to iu jishin o, seito ni otasetai to, omoimas.
but, to give students the confidence that they are able to speak and master English even as a non-native speaker, this I hope.
ganbarimasu.
I will do my best (lit. I will persist).
doozo yoroshiku, onegaishimasu.
Nice to meet you (lit. please remember me, please).

Now if I can only memorize this whole thing and not embarass myself tomorrow. ganbare!

dreamt:

walking into the ghetto watching some street ball.
there was an arcade, people were playing games i've never seen before. there was one where you shoot lasers out of your sword, and another where you have to use a tennis racket to hit grenades back.
i wanted to play tekken but a player told me to get out. i did not look like a tekken kind of guy. i did.
the crowd noise exploded outside. everybody ran out of the arcade.
a little guy, maybe 5'7", was dunking on the 11 foot rim.
everyone was like "daaaaaaaamn."
he then gathered his crew around and started dancing. it was boys2men cheesy. but he could dunk so he drew a crowd.
whereas the dancing crew that i belonged to couldn't. one of my boys was complaining.
jack said, "so what, lots of guys can dunk."
i yelled back at him angrily "the rim is 11 foot tall! the freethrow line and the 3 point line is all wacked!" (like nakayama gym)
then i did the hoosiers bit. the rim is 11 foot tall, the freethrow line is 17 feet away, not like home at all.
some guy on bike waving a gun around, telling the spectators to get out, meanwhile biking towards the obviously gang corner.
i didn't know what to do.
the guy biked closer to me, i was frozen.
he pulled off his helmet and threw it on the ground, "get out."
i ran.
he kept going towards the gan corner.
gun shots.
ran some more and dove behind a car face down, preying. i drooled into the sand.
heard footsteps behind me.
my hair was pulled up and he said "where are you from? i mean really from."
"taiwan."
more discussion. mostly by him. asked me about my father and then told me about his father who was missing.
more heart-wrenching disucssions later, he was going to shoot me.
i lied, "please don't shoot, my girlfriend is pregnant just found out last week, do you want my kid to be like you?"
"no" and he shot himself. because of my lie.

Deep thoughts

I don't do standing ovations; and when I do, it's because I feel guilty about being the last person to stand up.

Follow up on yesterday's train delay: apparently there was an "accident" on the tracks yesterday. A 56 year old man was lying face-down across the tracks somewhere between Tottori and Kurayoshi, and all trains were delayed for at least 90 minutes. It was estimated that 550 people were affected. Was he drunk, was he asleep, was he conscious, was he trying to kill himself? No idea, but I do know in fact that he was 56 years old, 550 people were affected, and the newspaper article was being very explicit about the orientation of his body relative to the tracks. Apparently these were the details that made the story. Also, I'm afraid to give any commentary on the fact that he was only lightly injured.

I'm really hatin' the fact that the Japanese coverage of the Olympics is Japan-centric to the extreme. From the coverage here it looks like Japan is DOMINATING the Olympics, winning medal after medal after medal (to be fair, they are 4th or 5th in total medal count so far). I missed everything so far: that white Baylor 400m guy, all of track and field, Patricia's bronze, diving, etc. Instead I saw plenty of judo, Japanese men's gymnastics, baseball, volleyball, 15 year old girl playing ping-pong, and hammer throw(the guy doesn't even look Japanese). If USA loses to Spain in 30 minutes and I don't catch any minute of it, I will promptly renounce my loyalty to Yamamoto.

Bad day

I started my day playing with the soccer club. It was obvious that I've never played soccer before, so I didn't really humiliate myself.

The real humiliation did not happen until volleyball practice, which I joined half-way through (soccer ends at 11.5, volleyball ends at 12.5, because most soccer players had to run in the morning). I was on one side with 2 ex-players (aren't sure if they're ex-players because they're 3rd year students or they've gone to high school) and another current player, basically being rally-dummies by serving, free-balling, or down-balling to the other side with 6 full current-players. On one rotation the coach made me play middle-blocker. Up to this point I've only been passing free-balls and hadn't really swung at all, not to count the fact that I've never played middle-blocker in my life before and can't swing-block or hit 3-step quick sets to save my life. Thought I did get a few blocks, my first few swings were timed poorly and I didn't get good contact with the ball. And then, I got the timing and placement down and WACKED the ball--right into the blocker's hands--I was roofed by a junior-high school girl. Again, I never played middle-blocker before, never hit quick-sets before, and she was only like an inch shorter than me dammit.

That was the end of my humiliation, but my bad day continued right around 15:04, when I missed the train back home so I had to take the 15:45 one. Amy was waiting for the same train back to Yonago, and it never arrived. Neither did the next one at 16:15. The one after that, which was supposed to stop at our station, blew right past us without stopping. Together we waited until...17:45 for the next Yonago train to arrive. By the time we rolled in the train station, the sun had set and it was already dark.

When I got home, there was this lizard that somehow snucked into my apartment. When I tried to catch it, it slipped into my bedroom and disappeared. That fucker. It took me another 30 sweaty minutes to find it, catch it, half-crush it (feeling no remorse), and release it semi-dead on the stairwell. Fuck that fork-tongued color-changing bastard, now I have to disinfect my entire bedroom.

Then dinner. Then some sitting around. Then PartyPoker. I lost twice, both on KK, within 5 hands of each other. The first one to a straight that hit on 4th street, eventhough I flopped a hidden set. It was completely my fault for pushing those kings too far on the river, not suspecting a potential straight. Lost $10 on that hand, along with some snide comments from the lucky bastard. The second time to a set of 3s, with a pair of 3s on the flop. The guy called a $1 re-raise from the big blind with T3o! I pushed the kings thinking that there's no way any one worth his salt would call 2 raises with a 3 in the hole and the only hand that could beat mine was AA (2 pairs was also a very slim possibility consider that the board was all over the place). Overall lost about $30 tonight. Shit.

Then, to top it all off, I realized that I have only 1 beer left in my fridge.

Dreamt:

Found a piece of mail from California in my mailbox. It was a traffic ticket for running a red light back in mid-July, together with a notice informing me that my California driver's license, as a result of the infraction, has been suspended indefinitely, "please report to your local DMV for further action." WTF!? What am I gonna to now with my Japanese car?

More mails: Japanese parking ticket, Japanese speeding ticket, medical claims from people I've injured in accidents, and damages from one night of drunk-driving. Totaling 2 million yen, roughly $20 grand. Jesus. I just received my first paycheck a week ago.

At this point, I thought: "There goes my plan to save some money in Japan."

Fast forwarding to another dream down the REM timeline. I walked out of my apartment with Will Smith, with a ragged goatee. We were discussing about something during which he disagreed almost constantly. We debated about the direction of Yonago train station, I turned out to be right and Will still wouldn't shut up. I hate him.

Today's big question

A sudden attack of shoppingitis developed into lamp-shopping at Saty tonight. There is just no way I can live with the furnished fluorescent lighting. Didn't buy anything and decided to check around for prices at other dept. stores and the second-hand shop first. Got drenched by rain on the way back and hot showered for the first time here.

Hot shower is the topic of today's big question. There is a temperture adjustment for hot water in my apartment, which ranges from 36 to 60 celsius and HI. Curiously, 37, 47, 49-59 are missing. Big question #1: why? And what's the point of having a digital adjustment if I can't set the water to match the average human body temperature at 37 degrees celsius? It's really annoying that I can't do this. Big question #2: should I set the shower temperature using the dial, or should I stick with the good'ol hot water/cold water mix method? For some reason, at certain levels of water flow, the cold water knob vibrates violently, which is not only bothersome but potentially dangerous (if the knob somehow blew off) as the knob is incoveniently located at my crotch level (I am plagued by the fear of genital trauma that is common among all males, but I realize that the violent vibration may be viewed in a different light had my genitalia been different). As a result, some temperatures are unattainable through the mix method. I wonder if I can find the perfect shower temperature using just the digital dial? This would require days of careful and repeated experimental showers, but the end result may take me to the next level of shower bliss.

Got to get my shit together

Woke up at 12:30 with a slight hangover headache and an overwhelming sense of urgency. It's been a month now and school starts in a week, time to get my shit together and into rhythm.

Yesterday, tried to make a long run to Jusco, about 14-15km plus 3-4km for the additional distance getting lost and doubling back. Just a little over 10 miles. Predictably, the run kicked my ass. But it's nice to know where I am at.

Scott, the 14-year Yonago veteran who's leaving Japan for good on 9/10, had a going-away party at Hi High Picadoss last night. A few live bands. One 5-piece band (for which Scott drummed) that jammed excellent blues. Had no more than 6 drinks, spent exactly 2000yen, and went crazy with my cho-steps. Nicole was very impressed with the dancing and my rescuing her from the violently drunk Israeli. Nikki, the raven haired Megan-lookalike whom I've seen but not met until last night, wanted badly to grind me, which I obliged until the erection went out of control. Got home at an earlish 2am, but for some reason I felt guilty about having had a good time.

Maybe that's just it: too much good times. There are lessons to plan, Japanese to study, and grad school apps to work on. Time to start living in an orderly and productive rhythm.

Shanghai sistas

Another thing I did today on my day off: I went to the free Japanese lesson on the 4th floor of Satey from 13:30 to 15:30. Pam and Manjinder were also there.

The class was divided up into 3 groups: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. It was obvious from the self-introductions who belonged to where. I wasn't a complete beginner, and since I spoke Mandarin I joined the intermediate group with the 5 Shanghai women.

I would say that except for 2, the rest were older than me (granted that it's harder to determine the age of Asian women--so those 3 could be of similar age but abhorringly unattractive). Out of the 2 one was fair and the other was actually very cute!

The lesson was given entirely in Japanese by this guy whom I've met from the Yonago history tour. He was trying to differentiate the Ji-in verbs from Mu-in verbs. Although these 5 women spoke communicatable Japanese, they have no grasp of grammer. Though I had little clue what exactly he was talking about, I discerned his attempt at teaching the different conjugation of these verbs into present polite form, something I've learned from IVC. So I went up and did what I thought he was asking and explained it in Mandarin, resulting in his apparent gratitude and, inexplicably, the Shanghai women's collective ire. So they started shouting after one another, explaining to each other what I had already explained, as if my interruption had disrupted their internal hierarchical order. There's nothing I could do but chuckle.

So, after the shouting match subsided, the teacher (think his name was Kodo) asked us to sit in the middle and answer questions in the polite form. I was first and somehow survived the curiosity of 5 women(where did you come from? where were you born? how old are you? what did you do last weekend? who were you with last weekend? do you have a girlfriend? what kind of girl do you like?). And then one of them, the cute one, went up, and everything went to hell. Although she was in the middle, she was shouting questions and challenges at everybody, in obvious power-struggle mode. And another one, a bit older and also spoke passable Japanese, asked "How's your husband?" And then the second level of hell broke loose. The cute one started to get hysterical (that's what I thought, it could be normal for her), and actually started talking about how much she liked Japan and was going to divorce her husband (she couldn't say divorce in Japanese, but wrote it down in Kanji). I'm not making this up. And then Kodo asked her why is she seeking a divorce, she said "Because he is not handsome." What!? Surely she could be joking, but is this something to joke about? This went on for another hour, after all 5 of them had a turn at gunpoint. The smell of gunpowder never quite left our section of the classroom. I could only think of one word to describe the whole experience: bitchfight.

I've seen this passive-aggresive snapping back and forth in period films about China, during communal interrogations in the times of Cultural Revolution, but never thought that this might actually be how Chinese do things. Maybe it's just Shanghai women, whose dominating, willful and individualistic nature are written about in books to warn the Don-Juans of Taiwanese businessman (having a "small-wife" in China and a "big-wife" in Taiwan is a not-so-secret common practice for the travelling Taiwanese businessman). For some reason my mom has a copy...I don't even want to guess why. Shanghai is also the closest metropolitan city to Naxi, a region of matriarchal tradition. My mom did a lot of research on the Naxi people, and even visted there once, for her volunteer job at the Bowers museum.

I suspect that that whole thing could be sort of an communal attempt at either hitting on me, or deciding which one of them should hit on me. They went through a line-up, clarifying who's married and who's not, who has a boyfriend and who hasn't. The cute one whom I sat next to kept leaning over me, insisting on sharing her textbook with me, and of course, claiming that she'll be divorcing soon (what!?). The other fair one was VERY intrigued that I play volleyball and suggested that we should watch China vs. Japan next week. Another one was extremely inquisitive about whether I'm Taiwanese or American and how can I be both (hmm...). These and other things. Of course I could be self-delusional, but this is something that I've noticed with almost every single Asian (Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Malaysian) girl I've come across in Japan, who are invariably interested in everything about me. Maybe I'm fooling myself, maybe they really are interested (and why wouldn't they?), maybe it's just the way girls in Japan operate, or maybe it's the combination of an Asian face and an American passport.

One-upsmanship, Nippon-style

Buying lunch at Satey today:
Me: arigatoo.
cashier: arigatoogozaimashita.

After geting my ass kicked by Shuichi at 9-ball today:
Me: Hey, thanks for the game.
Shuichi: Thank you very much.

Hmm. After grocery shopping at Marugo today:
Me: arigatoogozaimashita.
cashier: arigatoogozaimashita doomo.

I refuse to let these Japanese out-thank me! Buying beer at the Noguchi convenient store:
Me: Doomo arigatoogozaimashita (with a bow).
cashier: (after picking up and accidentally dropping the 6-pack on the counter)
Arigatoogozaimashita, doomo sumimazen onegaishimashita.
(with a deeper, longer-lasting bow).

I suppose it's too much to ask at this point of my learning Japanese to out-thank or out-apologize these Japanese at their own game.

Shan-Shan

Monday after work, I took the wan-wan train (don't know why they call the slow train wan-wan in katakana) from Nakayama to Tottori for the Shan-Shan Matsuri (don't know why the festival is called Shan-Shan either). There in front of the Tottori train station, met Amy and Courtney, who were tired from a long weekend and decided to go back to Yonago. An hour later, met Subo, Rachel, Pam, Simona, Manjinder, Dean (either that or Dee, I couldn't hear correctly; but I think his name is listed as Daniel in the directory, the only 1st year in Aoya), and Chyoko, a friend of Yuko's. Together we checked out the festival. As far as I could tell, the only difference between Shan-Shan and other festivals that I've seen was the parade of coordinated umbrella dancing. Here are the pics, with minimal descriptions:




These guys looked cheereful...

and this is why.










I swore I thought she was Lucy Liu.

Of cars and penises

There is this blue Subaru Impreza in the school parking lot. It's got the sportscar blue, lowered suspension, bronze rims, and air-intake vent protruding from the hood. Definitely got some labor and non-factory parts. Though not a WRX, still a genuine rice-rocket. I've always wondered whose car it is. I first suspected Yoshida-sensei, 27, the loud, confident and good-natured math teacher/soccer coach who just got married in Hawaii. Nope, he drives a van/SUV, which I thought was driven by Morita-sensei, social science/baseball, who looked more like a family man. I knew that Ehara-sensei (music/band) drives a kei-car and that Nishiyama-sensei drives a van. There's no way the Impreza could be driven by a woman teacher could it?

Today at lunch, mystery was revealed: Yasushi-sensei, the timid and soft-spoken science teacher/science club advisor. In that rice rocket, I went with him and Sakesagawa-sensei to some udon shop in Nawa. The engine had that simmering sound that's trademarked by all powerful, well-tuned engines. Yasushi-sensei (his last name is actually Ogura, but since it's shared by another Ogura at our school, we call him by his first-name) let the engine sit and simmer for at least a minute. I almost cracked up inside.

Yasushi-sensei, who is 28-29, single and still plagued by acne around the mouth, is a sharp contrast compared to all other male teachers at the school. Yoshida-sensei is loud but not obnoxiously so, and he exudes an athlete's natural confidence. Morita-sensei always has that relaxed and exhausted look of someone who has just 1)accomplished some very important task (which in his case is probably baseball practice) or 2)had earthquaking, typhooning sex. Segawa-sensei (PE/volleyball, whom I just met yesterday at volleyball practice), has that beta-male characteristic, fiesty and always interrupting in mid-sentence. Nishiyama-sensei (English/kendo), though quiet, soft-spoken, and sometimes looks flustered (strange trait for a practitioner of kendo), nevertheless commanded respect from others due to senority. Ehara-sensei, the only other non-athletic club advisor besides Yasushi-sensei, is also quiet and demure, but is immensely popular with many students in the band, who come and lingers in the staff room almost constantly. In comparison, Yasushi-sensei has no defining characteristic. Soft spoken, demure, and otherwise mixing perfectly well with background noise. He is, in the words of Biggums O'Steen, "there." (DAMN YOU DAVE!)

However, once we were in the car, his demeaner changed noticeably. He started speaking louder, using more forceful hand gestures, and even cutting off Sakesegawa-sensei a couple of times in mid-conversation (it ocurred to me yesterday that this is something I've being doing with alarming frequency). Driving a cool car truly metamorphisized his personality! I wish I could make this up.

During that car ride, I realized just how powerful a car is as a metaphor for male sexuality. I guess it kind of makes sense: the drag and g-force a car puts on the passenger is SORT OF suggestive of sex. And to think that I've been driving a beat up, 4 cylinder, filthy Tercel all these years... Damn.

Musing and simultaneously doing nothing at my desk

The Japanese address system is, in a word, impossible. The typical address follows this hierarchical order: prefecture, city/town/village, cho (I can't find an English equivalent for this, just a smaller unit within city/town/village consisting of several blocks), and block number. Most streets do not have names, and unless you've been living in that place for a while, it's impossible to find a place given just the address. Most directions given are relative to landmarks, as in "take a left at the bookstore," or "keep going until you see the udon shop."

This phenomenon may be linked to the fact that Japanese people rarely leave the area in which they were born. Many teachers at my school were at one point high school or junior high school classmates. Yuko and Masa were elementary school classmates from Yonago. When Kaneda-san took me along on her errand trip yesterday, she knew everybody she met by name, and knew where everybody lived (she was delivering thank-you notes to families who helped the Nakayama-Temecula cultural exchange)--it turned out that she was born in Nakayama and has never left in her ~40 years. Besides the immediate cultural/traditional causes, the high housing cost may be a factor: I heard that in Tokyo it's not uncommon to find 100-year mortgages being taken out and passed down to your children, and their children's children.

Of course, these conjectures apply only to semi-rural areas that I've seen. But most of Japan, in terms of area and not population, is semi-rural, which explains the self-sufficiency of town/village units.

One evidence of self-sufficiency: meat and produce in supermarkets are mostly produced locally within an hour by car (you can almost always find the place of origin listed on the label). They gotta be supplied daily. Supermarkets routinely put leftover produce and meat and bento boxes on severe discounts (over 50%) daily after 8pm. I've tried to take advantage of this but the pickings are slim and the shelves are usually empty by then. It's amazing how perfectly these markets are tuned to the supply/demand curve.

One side-effect: the groceries here are outrageously expensive (side note: apparently Brits don't know the word "grocery," they also use "half ten" to denote "half past ten," and they are ignorant and indignant of the fact that British food is bad--thanks to Pam and Adam for their contribution to this insight). The only thing that I've found cheaper than the States prices is fresh seafood and that's only because Sakaiminato, a seafood town with a smelly reputation, is only 30 minutes away. I think everything else is more expensive, even in the backcountry. I can't give an exact comparison because the portions are generally smaller and the units are in metric, but it FEELS more expensive. At least I can console in the fact that they are always fresh.

Considering that you are only in danger of ingesting salmonella bacteria if the eggs aren't fresh, I have no problem eating the daily-fresh raw eggs here. In fact, raw eggs are almost unavoidable in Japanese restaurants. Raw eggs in ramen broth, raw eggs in gyu-don (that yoshinoya beef bowl thing), runny eggs in egg and ham sandwiches. I love this raw egg thing, makes me feel all Rocky-like.

Random pics

Amy being fishy at the fish market at Sakaiminato.


I'm having a HARD OFF! Hard Off is sort of a Goodwill for used electronics. Once I get my first paycheck I shall return and splooge my hard off on a PS2.


There's a Knott's Berry Farm in Tottori Ekimae. Except here it is a clothing store.


You can have your Pocky, I'll have my Men Pocky.


Difference between Cali and Jap: in California they have Mexican families fleeing across 4-lane freeways, in Japan they have old couples sauntering across quiet 3/4 lane streets.


This snake was seen a block from my apartment. Matt has now put a price on its head.

Among other notable things, I've finally got internet at Nakayama JHS. So now I can blog all day and play poker when no one is looking. Also, I'll be catching the 14:20 train to Tottori for the Shan-Shan Matsuri. Yes, summertime in Japan is mostly a neverending chain of festivals.

Ketai

I just got my Japanese cell phone last Friday, or ketai (which translates to carry-on or carry-able). This thing makes the American cellular system look like oblong stone wheels.

It has a 2MPix camera, with basic video/pic editing (I still haven't figured out how to do this). You can store pictures and any other data format on a 16mb memory SD memory chip. My phone doesn't come with MP3 capability, but it has a Japanese-English dictionary, which I thought was less cool but more useful. Obviously, the whole thing is not just in color, but is in fact a fully functional SVGA equivalent quality viewer--the quality is good enough to watch and record live TV (which you can do for $.30 a minute). Naturally it has internet access. I can download games, new ring-tones, news, and even porn and adult dating service. Imagine the possibilities! There's also a to-do list, memo, schedule, and address book with pictures of the people. Although the calling service is pretty expensive, about $40 a month for only 66 anytime minutes (minutes over the limit cost an astounding $.30 per minute!), it only costs about $.03 to send and receive email from and to other cell phones or regular computer email addresses. It's more expensive to send and receive emails longer than 128 characters or pictures (about $.50 I think). There is a discount to call/email other users of the Vodafone plan, which I haven't fully taken advantage of. So far, JETs in Tottori who have gone cellular are split between Vodafone an DoCoMo (which has 5 times more free minutes but cost 10 times more for emails). We'll see how this cellular battle pans out in the near future.

This weekend

Took Thursday and Friday off. I had to take 4 vacation days during the summer holidays or they're gone. Went out Wednesday night. First to Piemons with Tyler, Manjinder and Katherine (Masa was there, but Nana who took the day off) then to some sort of karaoke bar with Tyler. Was absolutely shitfaced, and probably puked at the karaoke bar. Woke up next morning on Tyler's couch, with the first thing that crossed my mind being "Where the fuck am I?" Had 300yen ramen, left Tyler's, ran into Pam and ended up spending the entire day with her, which was a really pleasant way to cure hangover. We went to the post office, the art museum, the artist co-op, Justco (a relatively cheaper and larger department store 30 minute away), the fish market near Justco, and Kaike beach. I think we really connected.

Tyler had a party at his apartment Friday night which drew at least 30 people. People came from Tottori-shi (1 hour by train) to drink so I obliged. Yohe, Tyler's boss at BOE, was there also and brought two girls. One of whom was Yuko, who was super cute and liked me enough to talk with me at length, give me her phone number and both emails, and emailed me the first thing next morning for future plans. She studied English lit at Osaka university, worked at some company for a year before quitting and going back to grad school in Kurayoshi for certificate to teach kindergarten. Born in December of Showa 53, 8 months older than me. Went to the same elementary school with Masa, who was at the party also. Another Amy, a second year at Nawa, was there too. She reminded me of a tanner version of that frisbee hippy girl from Hopkins (Kate?). Played kings with Courtney, Yohe, Nawa Amy, Pam, and Rachel (a Brit with an attitude, from Tottori). Corinne allegedly smoked up several people on the balcony. Around 11pm we all vacated the house and went to that all-you-can-drink pool/karaoke place in front of the station.

While people waited in the streets for the karaoke room I played pool with some Japanese guy in shirt and tie, who offered not a great game but a good opportunity for me to show off. Free drinks didn't come fast enough for me to get wasted, but enough to bump n' grind with Courtney, who was a great dancer (who IS a dancer) and moved with me in synchronicity and always keeping contact. Snuggled in the open with her, had her in my shoulder/neck nook, and together we crashed another room with Japanese guys and banged heads to Jap. metal. Despite all that flirting and teasing she turned away when I tried to kiss her in the hallway. She could not leave the place fast enough after that. I went after her into the streets, but she didn't think we needed to talk and waved me off. The party just wasn't quite the same after that. I left and rang Courtney's apartment without answer, returned to the place and stayed until 5am, then went home with Jason from Tottori who crashed at my place. Needless to say I wished he were someone else.

Last weekend

After coming back from Tottori last weekend, I spent Saturday on the historic tour of Yonago. The tour was given by volunteers at the city history museum in Japanese, and translated by Steve's (the self-proclaimed queen of J-pop) adult students. Although their efforts were commendable, the quality of their translation rather reminded me of the scene in "Lost in Translation" between Murray and the Jap. director. Example: the tour guide will make a speech for minutes with wild hand gestures about "You can see the castle on the mountain 200 years ago, which is over there." Still, I saw some pretty cool shit which I otherwise wouldn't even have known was right here in the city.


Shrines of Pu-Sa. I know what they are in Chinese, but I don't exactly know how this Buddhist/Daoist/Shintoist diety-type translates into English. Anyway, there are 23 of these guys in Yonago, all of which are cleaned and flowered regularly by whomever felt like it, which, judging by the freshness of the flowers, was probably often. The red and white papers were prayers of mourning offered by monks. White ones were pasted during the 49 days of mourning(7x7), and red ones were pasted at the conclusion of the mourning period. I asked about the meanings of the different colors, an observation that impressed the tourguide enough to give me a thumbs up.



This is Shachi, a legendary half-fish half-dragon placed on top of castles to show a daimyo's dignity, also a traditional symbol guarding against fire. This one came from Yonago castle, which was given to repay debt incurred during castle repair. This thing was in a courtyard between the houses of several Japanese families, and we had to walk through the house, interrupting the lunches of several Jap. families to see this. The houses in which these Japanese families lived left a more lasting impression than the dragon/fish thing. It looked like a giant single house shared by 3-4 families. We walked through a corridor, and could see into several tatamy living rooms. Maybe they were just one huge family? That would explain the shockingly lack of privacy and the communalism but not the number of apparent family groupings having lunches on separate dining tables.



The house of the Goto family, a family of wealthy merchants. In an earlier part of the tour, it was mentioned that only samurais lived within the moat/canal, while ordinary people lived outside (which was counterintuitive: aren't the samurais supposed to protect the people? why do they need the protection of the moat?). This house was within the canal, an area supposedly restricted to commoners. I pointed this out, and the tour guide was ostensively impressed with my observation and rounds of "sugoi" (great/awesome) were offered to me by everybody. He then proceeded to make a ten-part speech, apparently about "The Goto family were special merchants."



Kids flocking around a drinking fountain right outside of the Goto house.



A picture of our group at the Teramachi, the temple district, a row of 9 temples on the same street.


One of them. When people moved to Yonago from different parts of the country, they brought the different local temples and sects with them. This fact took about 5 minutes and 3-4 different people to explain. These temples also house cemeteries of previous Yonago shoguns. Another interesting fact: Japanese monks can take wives. Apparently abstinence was not a prerequisite to spiritual purity.

That was about it. The tour overall was not very satisfying. It felt like going to a restaurant to eat the salad and skip the steak.

The next day, almost all of the new Yonago JETs (I think Adam was the only one missing) met up and trained to Matsue, a city in Shimane-ken for the matsuri there. Apparently the fireworks were supposed to me amazing. Before dusk, we checked out the still standing Matsue castle.


Outside of the castle.


Amy. I thought this was the perfect picture for Amy.


Courtney, Manjinder, and Simona.


A cute Japanese girl in traditional yucata, sitting underneath a statue of a Japanese modernizing tycoon, and talking into a cell phone. I wish you can spell irony with pictures.


All these pictures of cute girls had me poking about.


Steps leading up to the castle.


Steps leading to nowhere in particular. Just one of my attempts at cheesy photographic poetry.


A temple inside castle walls. The characters said "sacrifice."


Inside the castle walls.


The Matsue castle


and Jeff the Sackster. It was a museum of sorts inside the castle. Lots of cool samurai armors and weapons and old castle parts.

After the castle, we walked around Matsue. Ian sort of took off by himself. People who were in Matsue the previous night went back to Yonago, leaving me, Pam, and Simona to watch the fireworks. Which was AMAZING. Absolutely one of the best I've seen and remembered in my life.


Felt like postcarding this.



There was quite a crowd for the fireworks. Needlessly to say it was a pain in the ass getting out of Matsue. We took the 10:15pm train out of there and met a Shimane JET on the train, whose number I got but will probably never use. He asked for mine so what was I supposed to do?

It will have to wait

The events of this past weekend, the Yonago history tour and the Matsue festival, will have to wait for another posting.

Tonight there was a party for all the past Temecula visitors from Nakayama, at the Yo-Kyu-Kan.

Yukio Hayashibara-he first came to Nakayama Juugakoo to meet me in the morning, then picked me up in the afternoon for the party. Hung out with all the ex-junior high kids all night, who mercilessly referred him as the beast to

Yoshiko`s beauty-met her at the supermarket, where we shopped for all the snacks and drinks for the party. She`s hot, for someone who`s probably older than me(she`s 28, I think). Wore hip-hugging jean skirt and black sleeveless tee with black bra-strap showing, very risque for this part of Japan, from what I`ve seen. She`s past the typical marriage age for Japanese woman, though I doubt it`s from a lack of opportunities. She`s tanned, as opposed to most Japanese woman who hold paleness as the height of beauty. She also spoke loudly and assertively, and didn`t try to act shy and reserved at all. Very un-Japanese, which makes her even hotter.

Sachiko and Megumi-sisters. Megumi is married, as Fukunaga-san gladly pointed out, so she ceased to be interesting. Sachiko, who studied in Canada (Megumi-English Lit., Sachiko-American History/Culture), is single. Her English was the best at the party, and we had very little problem communicating. Very important, even for a cutie like her (she is 23?). Had HUGE eyes unobstructed by eyelashes, so huge they seemed to stare at me with passive-aggressiveness. I didn`t feel

Chiaki Tanaka-who works at the city hall with Yukio and Yoshiko. She`s definitely 23. I thought she was the cutest girl at the party by far. Wore heavy eye makeup, but was extremely quiet and reserved and sat in the corner, always cleaning up the table every few minutes. She is the reporter/photographer for city records, and that was the most I could get out of her. I had this mental picture of her being the quiet girl sitting at a party and filling everyone`s drinks (there were junior high/high school kids present so no drinks were present). I dont think she`s the type of person to speak unless spoken to, which is too bad.

The ex-junior high kids-there were three of them. None of their names I could remember. There was the one with gapped front teeth, who actively shoved me everytime I cracked a joke. I swore she was trying to flirt. There was the one who was loud and laughs loudly, and sat on a stool with hitched-up miniskirt. I wonder if it was intentional. There was one who has a ichinensei brother in my school. And there was one who the hitched-up miniskirt always cracked jokes to.

Julie-the only girl who introduced me with English name. Buckteeth, but otherwise not unattractive. Did not get a chance to talk all night.

The 19 year old metal rocker-who professed that his English is mostly dirty. Which was cool. Likes Battery, a metal band whom I pretended to know. Plays guitar in Scott`s band.

That guy with the towel-his towel has the name of a metal-works shop embroidered on it. Sported a full fu-man-chu, a little bit shorter than me but almost twice as stocky. Played soccer in high school, seemed to be interested in ultimate frisbee. Was also an exchange student in Temecula for a year.

Yamauchi-san-made layered cheesecake which was, excuse the homo adj, divine. It was really good. Passed the recipe to the hitched-up miniskirt. Oh by the way, the hitched-up miniskirt also had freckles, which aren`t as uncommon in Japanese women as I previously thought.

There were a few more people. Two older men, one of which is the boss of the Nakayama international exchange, the other one unknown. There was the girl who came with the ironworks towel. That`s about it. Back at Fukunaga`s house (who is giving me homestay for the night and whose computer I`m now typing from), she showed me lots of pictures involving some of the above-mentioned people, reemphasized Sachiko`s single status and offered to give me her number. I refused, but I got the picture. It looks like these people were all involved in the Thursday night adult English class Melissa (the JET whose job I`m replacing) was talking about. So I guess in order for me to hit on any of these girls I would have to teach the class.

Sand, Sea, Sun, and Rain

The eastern part of Tottori prefecture is known for mainly two things: the Uradome coastline, 1.5 km of rugged precipitous cliffs, caves, and former pirate hideouts, and the Tottori Sakyu, the sand dunes.

We were tour-bussed to the dock and got on a tour boat. Many JETs were visibly hung-over, this might turn out to be more ride than some could handle.


The girl in red hair in the right foreground was Kate, the guy with shaved head in the left foreground was Matt. Between them, the ponytailed girl in red top is Tottori Kate. To her left in brown and headband is Amy. The orange tanktop is Simona. The girl in blue-sleeved white tee is Yuca. These names will be repeated in the following narrative.

The coastline can be seen from the boat:





Pretty chill ride, barely any waves on the water. The hung-over victims finally released their collective breath and held on to their nausea. I was by myself mostly, poeticizing in the drama of the landscape and lamenting my yellow Irvine Chinese School t-shirt being stained by the squid icecream I got before boarding:



It tasted suspiciously similar to vanilla. Probably just a gimmick for tourists. Mayumi, our prefectural advisor, was so curious about it she chipped in for me to buy one. Soon we got off and were again bussed, this time to the Tottori sand dunes:


Kerry and Rachel(?) to the right. It looked like they were taking off their sandals, but they probably put it back on soon after. The sand was very hot. I didn't want to walk in my sneakers and got a big toe blister.

This picture of elementary kids competing in a shoe-tossing contest was taken with the vivid setting in the manual mode. Once we got over this hill, we could see, to the side of where we came from, the huge writings in the sand, weakly reminiscent of those Peruvian alien stone paintings.


Once we got over this hill, it was such an awesome time that I didn't even bother with the pictures. There was this HUGE precipice of sand, between 40 and 60 degree steep, that fell down all the way into the beach. The sand was soft and thick, plowed and loosened by climbing tourists. Jumping off the precipice, you can literally get a 2 second hangtime before landing softly and harmlessly 10-15 feet below! And you can get in a good 5-6 jumpes before the slope tapered and flattened. I did that a couple of times, as much as my stamina can allow the multiple climbs (I'd estimate that the precipice was at least 100 feet in height), before and after I jumped into the ocean below. Matt launched off the cliffs long-jump style, I opted for a hybrid of Jordan and split-leg SCUBA entrance, and Pam topped everybody with her self-styled summersaults. We were the only three energized enough to do it multiple times. I tried the side roll once, and tested out the summersault/front roll once as well. Naturally, all these acts of childish nonesense was witnessed by many Japanese toursits, whose reactions were unknown, and un-cared-about, by us. It was hard sweaty work jumping/rolling down and then climbing back up, so it was a good thing that the ocean was so close.

The water was cool, with a slightly cooler undercurrent. The beach floor was flat and shallow, no deeper than 5 feet deep as far as 30-40 feet out, so the waves were barely noticeable. You can lean back and float in the calm water without even worrying salt water getting into your nostrils. Jason (Tottori-shi JET, potential organizer of Tottori ultimate) jumped in first, followed by me, followed by Tyler, then a couple of girls, then another couple of girls, then, predicably, a bunch of guys. I don't think I've had so much fun wading in the waters. Simona started it all by taking off her orange tank-top and waving it at the people standing/sitting on the beach, then the act was followed by Yuca and Kurayoshi Kate. Of course Tyler and I couldn't let the guys be one-upped and did the same with our shorts. Tyler was bolder than me and even swam around a little. Jason thought he was stung by jellies (though I seriously doubt it). Tyler went up and hauled Amy into the water. Then the whole thing got too crowded and awkwardly sexually charged so I got out and jumped around the sand dunes some more before jumping back into the water for a rinse. Tyler got out and found that his boxer ripped near his right ass cheek. Someone, Manjinder I think, took a picture of it. After posing a Superman for the picture, Tyler turned-around and mooned (he didn't take it off so it was more of a three quarters moon) a nearby Japanese family, father mother plus two school-age kids, while proclaiming proudly "Eigo no sensee desu!" (I am an English teacher)

This happend for about 1.5 to 2 hours, then we gathered and rinsed off. It rained a little as we walked back, completing a day of double cycles: sand/sea and sun/rain.
We lunched at the Tottori sakyu visitor's center. The food was called mushi(steam)-something style of Japanese cooking, with a stack of wooden boxes being steamed over a personal mini-stove on your table. The food was, like the rest of the day, just awesome. Shrimp sashimi, raw with purple eggs; flavored steamed rice; little clams served on a big clam shell; udon noodles; steamed salmon and bigger shrimp. Slurped it all up like a true Nihonjin.

The bus ride to and from were good as well. I talked, or rather listened, to this Jewish princess type named Kate from Chicago throughout the bus ride. She had complaints about almost everything she could think of, and seemed to genuinely believe that I was listening everytime I say "Yeah that sucks," or "Wow that sucks." She complainted about crashing her brother's junker car in June, about crashing it and having to go to work, about how pissed her brother was, about how not pissed her Dad was, about this and that and more I could not recall. And after the sand dunes, about how wet and sandy she was, about how she had to go to work all wet and sandy, and pointed it out to everybody by asking Mayumi (our prefectural advisor) how to say wet and sandy in Japanese. Jesus. I joked about something in the line of being wet and sandy is like every guy's fantasy, thinking that maybe my blunt and unsmooth attempt at flirting would shock her into shutting up. Obviously it didn't work. I probably went a little bit too far with it the rest of the bus ride and ended up slapping the sand off her ass before we got off. Now that I think about it, that was entirely inappropriate, and she was probably more offended than amused. Mission accomplished.

Decided not to tag along with the hardcores and party at Subo's place. Sign of growth at 25? Trained back to Yonago with Pam, with whom I had a good talk with, despite generic topics. Got home round 5pm, ate instant ramen and fell asleep while watching Sex in the City season 4 tape 1.

Tottori-shi

Today we had orientation at Tottori-shi, the capital of Tottori prefecture.

Took the 10:30 train from Yonago station with most of the Yonago JETS. Tried reading Jared Diamond`s Guns Germs and Steel but couldn't resist small talk. For some reason I sneezed and sniffled throughout the whole thing. An hour later we were there.

Some of us went to an Italian restaurant, three of us, Matt, myself, and Jen from Sakaiminato went to a Korean restaurant. The bi-bi-ban there was not the cold dish as I thought it was, but turned out to be rather hot, both in spiciness and temperature (it was served in a burning hot stone bowl). Matt called it a workout eathing that thing in the heat of the Nippon day without AC.

Orientation turned out to be the usual bore as everything else. Some rather uninformative information sessions later we were served a buffet Italian dinner with all you can drink Asahi beer, which was nice. During which I found out that not-Sakaiminato Jen was a pretty avid poker fan and plays PTY, which was a good thing to know down the road.

Later we went to a bar, and then karaoke. Nothing especially notable, just drinks and ethanolized cordiality. Then I went back to the hotel which was supposed paid for by the Nakayama BOE. And I typed this in the hotel lobby with music box background music. It`s playing The Circle Of Life right now. Good cheesy tune to get some cheesy sleep before tomorrow`s adventure.

Spy Games

There was Spy Games the movie, and there was spy games the games played concurrently during the movie.

I believe that I may have inadvertently put a subtle move on Courtney tonight while watching Spy Games, a move so subtle that I didn't really even notice it, so subtle that it's possible that it might never happend at all.

While watching the movie, Courtney's foot touched mine a couple of times, inadvertently by both of us. She was for somereason extremely uneasy and impatient and kept shifting around and playing with her bottle and hankerchief. Then we touched very so slightly, the tip of her pinky toe and the side of my calf. I didn't move away at first because I hadn't even noticed it, then I noticed it, but didn't move away. So that was it. This went on for maybe 20 seconds before she withdrew, and a car loaded with explosives ran into a building and blew up the whole thing. Now keep in mind, the movie was very confusing.

"So, was that good or bad?" I asked, and Tyler explained the drama behind the exploding car. Then Courtney put in her 2yens.

"You see, Brad Pitt was late, in bringing the doctor, so Redford decided to go ahead and use the Lebenanese terrorists to kill the Sikh. They had bad communication and the whole mission went to shit." Was she saying something else? I was so turned on by the prospect of having this kind of double talk with Courtney. Was she daring me or something?

"But the Sikh is dead, right?"

"Yeah, but the doctor was dead." At this point, I started to think that either a) the whole thing never happend at all or b)the whole thing happened, Courtney was aware, and shot it down. Either way I scored nothing, although I would've preferred b) so that I can at least get some brownie points for subtlety.

Then the movie went on, and on a couple of instances she turned and looked at me. I didn't return the look, but from my peripheral vision those looks seemed loaded with meaning and inquiry. One such instance she turned and looked at me during this line: "Maybe you (Redford) didn't anticipate his (Pitt) feelings for her." Jesus. I just played dumb because it's probably what she expected out of a guy and because at this point it's probably better to play it safe and not acknowledge the moment.

Atsui Matsuri (con't)

After the parade was over, we (Amy, Courtney, Tyler) walked around town checking out the rest of the festivities. There were some Okinawan traditional matial art/dance,



and taiko.



I had a squid on a stick for dinner. It was covered in soysauce, much like alot of different BBQed foods in all the booths. At 500yen, it was ridiculously expensive for such a small portion. We met up with some other people at this restaurant, but I was so tired I just left around 8:30pm.

The streets were packed! And people were screaming over each other in loudspeakers. The road in front of the station were lined with these 20 foot tall wooden antennaes drapped lanterns, about two per block. This is the best way I could describe it, but see for yourself.



This one is apparently sponsored by the Tottori Bank. Over the past week I have seen these guys practicing with these lantern antennaes in front of the train station, taking turns balancing them on hand, elbow, shoulder, chin, etc. Considering the wind this was an impossibly difficult feat, and these candle-lit lanterns fall down into the spectators constantly,



Here are more underexposed shots with faux action photo flavor.




I remember thinking the whole thing ridiculous at the time. The only motivation, as far as I can discern, for this whole balancing activity seemed to be the difficulty and the danger of it. But now that I think about it, this whole tradition of getting wooden antennaes up and balancing them against the wind has a strangely sexual undertone. I guess it's not much stranger than the ESPN Outdoor games.

Anyway, I stuck around for a few photos and that was it. Went back home and passed out.

The next day was pretty much all rained out until late afternoon. Met up with Courtney and Tyler and climbed up to the castle ruins to watch the firework (hanabi, flower fire) in Yonago pier. For the entire duration of the firework Courtney and Tyler were obsessed with taking pictures of the explosives. I didn't want to get all pedagogical and tell them what was really on my mind. Turning precious metals and explosives into oohs and aahs is meant to be a celebration of fleeting moments, and taking pictures of it just seemed contrary to the spirit of the whole thing. Plus, our digital cameras aren't really up to the task anyway. Bam, boom, blah, and that was it. Went home and slept because I had an early day tomorrow at Sakaiminato.

Atsui Matsuri!

Atsui=hot. Matsuri=festival. You can complete the connection.

There was a festival in Yonago this past weekend. It’s actually called Gaina Matsuri, which translates into Big Festival.

Woke up at 10am, shit-shave-showered and then called Amy: we’re meeting at the usual spot near the barbershop at Ekimae (area in front of the station) around 1:15. Decided to do a little bit exploring myself so I left early for a little bit biking. Ran into another JET group--Adam, Pam, and Manjinder--near the city hall. Mori(sp)-san, the supervisor to these three, was an employee of the city government and knew about this pre-festival kick-off for the city hall employees.



When we got there, the pre-party was already under way. People took turn shouting into the loud speaker, to the people waiting their turn (at the loud speaker) and anyone who cared to listen (which was everybody), who Hai's and Yoshi's at the top of their Lung's. It was just an awesome atmosphere of people getting wasted, in public, and in front of their co-workers and supervisors. You can tell the hierarchy of the city hall just by standing there: the lower ranking workers (mostly younger-looking) were standing around and cheering and shouting without abandon, while the supervisors were sitting down and laying back in the lawn chairs, knocking back sake and spitting watermelon seeds. And of course, the women were standing behind all of this, looking pretty and grinning in their yukata (summer version of kimono, traditional Japanese dress that makes women look like candy-wrapped presents). And just as any top-down hierarchical despotic political systems in human history, revolution is inevitable...



Water from a sake keg (I'm guessing that not even the Japanese are crazy enough to splash sake so liberally) were dispensed with impunity on victims who were literally dragged out of the crowd. Some were dismissed with just a few splashes, some were grabbed by the collar and dunked into the keg (a big, ~20L bucket would be a better description), and some were forced to their knees and choked on pouring beer/sake. Pandemonium! Unfortunately, with the shutter delay that plagues most digital cameras on the market, I was unable to capture these Kodak moments. I did get a under-exposed picture of myself dueling with whom I thought to be the MC of the event:


(I'm so proud of this picture, under-exposed or not)

After this, we headed towards the Yonago City Cultural Exchange Center, 2 blocks away. At this point, with the compounded effect of <5 hrs sleep and 1/2 a can of beer, I was unable to even figure out which 2 blocks I was supposed to cover, and ended up lost with Jen (not Jen from Sakaiminato) and Simona (in a tank-top and soccer shorts that revealed surprisingly little). Eventually we stumbled on our destination.



This "cultural exchange" event turned out to be just another typical sip-and-meet. I was unable to get into the flow, having made up my mind about drinking a minimal amount of alcohol. Talked, correction:listened, a good deal with Kathrine, who had many helpful advices on how to choose and participate in Japanese junior high school clubs. Talked briefly with Ted, who sympathized with my late night. Courtney repeatedly commented on my lethargic status and tried to chipper me up. Talked with Shinji Matsubara, head of the insurance division of city hall (whose name I only remembered because I ran into him at city hall today), who spoke excellent English, good enough to offer me genuine insights on how the TC movie Last Samurai was received and perceived by the Japanese public. Apparently, they really appreciated Hollywood for making an effort to demonstrate the aspects of Japanese culture and philosophy that are superior to their Western counterparts, even though the said demonstration had to be carried out by Tom Cruise, an idealized version of your common-variety whitey, in the movie. Also spoke with a group of Chinese co-workers from Da-Shi (I'm guessing that it is written big-creek, somewhere near Beijing) that came to Japan to learn something about hard drive motors, and another Malaysian guy who came to Japan for the similar reason of learning CD-ROM motors. Spoke Mandarin the whole time, which surely impressed the hell out of anyone who paid attention (only Ted commented on it though) to my 2.05-lingualism (.95 short of tri-lingualism).



Blah blah blah blah and we learned our dance moves for the parade--yes, we had a spot in the parade for Yonaga Gaina Festival down main street!

Rounds of rock paper scissors determined that I was one of the two carrying the banner, an atrocity of an idea in the typhoon wind.



The wind was so strong, my pole broke in half, twice. After that I didn't even make an effort to stretch out the banner so much and just slacked it using my collarbone as the, uh, uh, middle point (can't remember the term)--even then my collarbone still ended up bruised the next day. It was hard work, much harder than anyone behind me was doing banging away on their hacked-up Japanese dance steps. I was so pissed about the whole thing, and only Corinne and Tyler offered any semblance of sympathy. But these guys showed up:



Who basically drove in front of us to block the wind. These guys rock! Considering that the DUI percent in Japan is 0%, just imagine the sacrifices the driver made! The tension started to build, and I started to forget about the pain against my neck and collarbone, we're next in line!



And then we danced and banged drums and carried the banner against the wind for 9 blocks



with audiences!



As in the norm, hard work in groups somehow always end up being rewarded by nothing more than a group photo.



More to come for that night's activities. Must go now.