brian + japan = ?

Shaken, Slightly Stirred

Just survived my first earthquake of note. Apparently it was around 8.0 on the Richter scale, which is pretty serious shit. Fortunately, it was centered out at sea to the east of Hokkaido (Sapporo is in the southwest) and there haven't been any reports of hella bad stuff (e.g. fatalities) yet. It hit around 5AM here. I was half-awake enough to get under a doorway and freak out. I'm not sure what the intensity was in Sapporo, but a few things fell off of my shelves, and the swaying of the danchi on the 9th floor was mildly nauseating.

Given that I have a mysterious allergy to non-fish seafood and a general fear of natural disasters (like lightning, as Josh knows all too well), maybe coming here was unwise? Bah! All is well. Now I must rush off to work to compare notes on the earthquake with natives, who will probably tell me it was nothing and I should stop being a wuss.

Potpourri

Is this anyone else's favorite Jeopardy! category? Sure, Potent Potables is stiff (ha!) competition, and...er, wait, Rhyme Time is my favorite category!

A: An over-eater of sheep-meat.
Q: What is a mutton glutton?

A: He takes minutes at the pow-wow.
Q: What is the tribe scribe?

Yeah, you can't beat that shit. Whatever occult/magick/bloodpact action the writers are using to interface with the spirit of Ogden Nash is working - keep it up, guys! Can't you just see Nash and Ted Geisel in the afterlife, throwing down in freestyle rap battles? Sorry for the lack of updates. Maybe I should choose an arbitrary entry title every day I have nothing else to say and just rap on it for a while. After all, I'm the Nadia Comaneci of rambling.

Anyway, a few things of note:

Thing of Note 1: If you weren't already aware, This American Life is radio at its finest. Only recently did I discover that Dan Savage (of Savage Love fame) did a piece for the show on Republican Conventions in 1996. To hear it, go to the TAL site, choose "All Episodes", scroll down to 1996 and choose "Republican Convention" (8/16), click the RealAudio icon (yes, this is one of the few times when having RealPlayer is worthwhile - choose the "Download the Free RealOne Player" link on the right rather than being fooled into downloading the non-free product!), once the stream is up and running, skip to the 15 minute mark. That's about where the good times start. Simultaneously hilarious and horrifying.

Thing of Note 2: These ads scare the hell of out me.


Would you eat anything that psychotic bear was shilling for? I think he's a distant cousin of Vibli, the Crack Rabbit from Vib Ribbon.

Thing of Note 3: Any time I'm in the vicinity of an arcade in Japan, I stop by to enjoy the insanity. The current craze seems to be card-collecting arcade games. That is, you purchase and trade physical cards, just as in Pokemon and Magic: The Gathering. When you want to play, you head to your local arcade, feed your selected cards to the machine, and whoop it up. Today I saw a huge crowd surrounding the recently-released The Key of Avalon. It looks insane. It's a damn good thing my Japanese still sucks, otherwise I'd spend a fortune on the game. Our local arcade has a soccer-based card-collecting game, and I'm sure there are other flavors as well. Expect a full arcade report at some point.

Thing of Note 4: Last night, I watched my first Australian Football League game with some Aussie pals. It's a fantastic sport. A steady stream of play, simple rules, just the right amount of scoring (no basketball-grade overkill or soccer-style one-goal affairs), and a healthy dose of mayhem as well. Alas, my friends' Sydney Swans were defeated by the vile Brisbane Lions in the semifinal. I'm guessing they won't be able to bear to watch the Swans-free Grand Final next week, so I'll have to wait until next year to see some more games.

Teacher Guy needs sleep! Now!

This Does Not Warrant Its Own Entry, But Here We Are.

Two things.

1) The blog is still pretty ugly. Sorry. Still working on it.
2) If for some zany reason you want a higher-quality version of any of the pictures I've posted, let me know and I'll email it/them to you. The originals are much bigger and much nicer, but if I used them, they'd take forever to load and would cost us a fortune in hosting fees.

That is all.

The Inner Game of Beer

I finally found a game of Ultimate this weekend. The game isn't terribly well-known in Japan, particularly in Hokkaido, so I was beginning to despair at the thought of not playing the only sport I'm remotely competent at for at least a year. Through the Internet and some luck, I managed to hook up with some Hokkaido University students who play pickup every Saturday. We played a few hours of three-on-three, and now I'm hella sore. Good times.

Saturday night featured Cosmic Bowling (yes, it's just as lame in Japan) with a rag-tag international crew: Mark (England), Kana (Japan), Brendan (Ireland), Ben (Scotland), Sebastian (Germany), and me (Military Industrial Complex).

In spite of his highly unorthodox (read: fruity, further accentuated by the pink ball he was using) style, Brendan won the first game. After nearly dropping an 11-pound ball on my foot a few times, I elected to embrace my inner sissy and go with the 9-pounder, which had fantastic results. I won the remaining two games to keep the Bowling Crown where it belongs - in fat, sweaty American hands.

On Sunday, Scottish Ben and I went to a driving range. Being the adaptable folk they are, the Japanese have managed to satisfy both their insatiable lust for golf and their notable lack of land area through the twin wonders of tall freaking poles and some netting. It was far nicer than any range I've been to in the States. A soothing aural IV of muzak-ed 70's tunes. Vending machines only steps away. A comfy chair in which to contemplate the futility of golf. And, best of all, the Magic Tee.

Apparently 90% of all Scots are actually birthed on a golf course. Ben is Scottish. Thus he's damn good at golf. His goal is to hit a ball over the netting and into the apartment complex roughly 180 yards away.

Apparently I was born with a defect in gene CM-3722, the "Hit the Ball Straight" gene. This ball was actually slicing well before I made contact. Note that I'm wearing my Robert "I used to be a Viking" Griffith jersey in honor of the first season of football I'll ever miss. So sad.

Some guys! And they're golfing! I added this mostly to give a slightly different view of the range, and to eat more bandwidth.

And finally...at the range we found the single greatest bit of Engrish ever. I wanna be a Champion someday!

Junior High - The Reunion Tour

Junior High fucking sucked. I hardly knew anyone, I was intensely uncool, girls didn't like me, at lunch I sat across from a guy who licked all of his french fries to deter would-be swindlers, and I got my worst grade ever - a D+ in 9th grade physics. I also distinctly recall the less-than-attentive behavior of students (myself included) during class. So the prospect of willingly returning to a Junior High School to try to teach said students didn't exactly make me jump for joy. But I'd already signed a contract in wasabi-addled blood, so what choice did I have?

Nakajima Junior High School. My new school. Several weeks prior to my first day, I met some Japanese teachers of English at a Sapporo Board of Education party. None were from Nakajima, but they all knew about it. The most memorable remark: "Have you ever watched Boston Public on FOX? Nakajima is kind of like that." I was borderline-schlitzed at the time, which was probably the only reason I didn't flee Japan on the spot. After mulling over that remark for a week or so, I wasn't so worried. This is Japan. I'm not going to get shot. At worst I'll have an innapropriate relationship with a female student, and that has a major upside.

August 27 was my first day. I managed to drag myself out of bed at 6:30 - yes, I know, that's not terribly early, but this is coming from The Guy Who Was Almost Entirely Noctural For a Year, so bear with me - without making my mom fly over to pour a glass of water on my head (yes, this actually happened, and she was well within her rights in doing so). I Arrived at school around 8:00, met the staff, gave a very lame self-introduction in Japanese, and chatted with Nakajima's lone English teacher, Mr. Toshiyuki Abe. He kicks ass.

Abe-sensei and I taught four classes that day. Each began with my very lame self-introduction, of which the highlight was the discussion of the different driving (16, 18), smoking (16, 20), and drinking (21, 20) ages in America and Japan. (I didn't think age of consent would be appropriate - not that talking about smoking and drinking was exactly appropriate, either.) I concluded the self-intro with a Q&A. The first two classes had exactly zero questions. However, by the third and fourth classes, word of the nutty gaijin (foreigner) had apparently spread like wildfire. I'm sure there was a dossier on me floating around somewhere. The kids all knew my name, where I was from, my hobbies, and so on.

They were also far more enthusiastic in the Q&A session. Particularly the four girls sitting in the back of one of my san-nensei (third-year, equivalent to 9th grade) classes. They played junken (rock paper scissors) and the loser had to ask me a question. Their line of questioning:

"Are you married?"
"Do you have a girlfriend?"
"Do you like Japanese girls?"
"Do you like me?"

Whoa. Not wanting to hurt feelings (or burn bridges - hee hee), I waffled heavily on the last two questions. Weirder still, today one of those girls gave me this sandwich-thing at lunch and said "I made this for you." It had what looked like whipped cream in it. Yeah. Needless to say, I absconded as soon as possible. Without trying the sandwich.

In spite of a wicked hangover, today I played the zany role of Brian-sensei (before you ask, the kids just call me Brian) for the 8th time. Class is pretty fun. As a native speaker of English, my primary role is to - that's right - speak English! Abe-sensei and I do lots of corny-ass dialogs to illustrate the use of the day's new expression(s). For instance...

[Demonstrating the use of "Would you like...?"]
Act I, Scene I - Brian Eats Dinner at Mr. Abe's House
[Brian is currently eating a piece of chicken.]
Abe: Would you like some more chicken, Brian?
Brian: Yes, please! It's delicious!
Abe: Would you like something to drink?
Brian: May I have some milk?
Abe: Of course! Would you like some more cake?
Brian: No thanks, I've had plenty!

In addition to my hokey theater roles, I read the textbook aloud, I read things on the board aloud, I read any English I see aloud; at this point it's compulsive. I also ask the students questions and attempt to get an English response out of them. At the beginning of classes I ask the entire class "How are you?" Hearing 40 students simultaneously reply "I'm fine thanks, and you?" was a bit disturbing at first. ONE OF US. ONE OF US. (Many thanks to Amy for reminding me of this phrase today.)

Class has also had its awkward moments. My san-nensei kids are currently reading a story about the bombing of Hiroshima. I'm not Harry Truman, but it still makes me feel like a crappy person.

Stereotypes usually seem to have some basis in fact. The stereotype of Japanese schoolchildren as perfect little obedient disciplined respectful quiet angels with infinitely expandable sponge-brains is an exception to this rule. At any given time, I'd say 1/5 of the kids in my classes are talking or sleeping. On top of that, a few of my ni-nensei (second-year = 8th grade) are positively nuts. Last Monday, one got up in the middle of class, walked to the broom closet, grabbed a broom, left the room and proceeded to walk up and down the hallway, periodically whacking the wall. On Wednesday the same kid was halfway out the window of the third-floor classroom before Abe-sensei said anything. In almost any American school, I think said kid would be promptly sent to the principal. Not so in Japan. I'm not entirely sure why, but one friend said it's because that would be denying the kid access to education. That is, the kid apparently has a divine right to be in the classroom, even if education is the farthest thing from his mind. As with any culture, some things just don't make much sense to an outsider.

On the upside, most of the kids are great. They say hello and/or giggle and yell my name when I walk by. They want me to eat lunch with them. They ask me questions about things I like. They try to speak to me in Japanese and I feel like a dumbass when I don't understand. They ask me to play ping-pong with them, then kick my ass. One even taught me how to make these sweetass origami shuriken (throwing stars, you know, ninja shit):

This inspired me to buy some origami paper and make the crane on the right, who I affectionately refer to as "Sucky". It took me at least an hour to make it. My craft skills are lacking, but I lay some of the blame on these instructions and their constant references to arbitrary "flaps".

So yeah. School is mostly good. Hardly Sapporo Public. And I can always find an underage girl somewhere else.