brian + japan = ?

Der Kommissar's in Town!

Got back from lovely Austria yesterday. Fat and happy. Being there made me remember how great the German language is. It also made me realize how much easier it is to comprehend than Japanese, especially from a listening perspective. I think my Japanese is better than my German at this point, but it was much easier for me to understand what people were saying in Vienna than in Sapporo. Also, anyone who thinks German is an ugly and spit-intensive language has been listening to too much Hitler. I wish I had a recording of the Vienna Subway system's stop announcements, the guy's voice was awesome: the words "Stubentor, Dr. Karl Lueger Platz" will echo in my memory forever.

Also, how can anyone hate a language with such out-of-control compound words?!?!?!?! (29 letters, for those of you keeping score at home.)

The details of the trip aren't terribly exciting. Saw Salzburg for a few days before the family showed up. Once family arrived, spent lots of quality time together. Mostly eating, drinking, playing pool, and smoking with dad. Having been foiled in a prior attempt to bring foreign-bought Cuban cigars back to America, he decided to smoke one while in Austria. He bought one for a whopping €2.80, a sure sign of a quality cigar (though I'm beginning to believe there's no such thing)! It snapped in half in his pocket, so we each attempted to smoke half. Ugh. Better than Swisher Sweets, but that's sort of like saying liver is better than tripe. We followed that up with one of dad's fantastic unfiltered Pall Malls, a vast improvement.

We also watched a fair amount of TV. The major highlight was the broadcast of a biathlon - holy crap, if I could cross-country ski, I would attempt this sport myself. How does it get any better than skiin' and shootin'? It don't. And it was actually a lot of fun just to watch! Crazy. While we're talking sports television, I'm very curious to see what it's like to watch the Olympics outside of America. I'm hoping it'll mean I get to see the cool/interesting events that fucking NBC chooses to ignore, i.e. everything that is not gymnastics, swimming, and track & field. Anyway - the other show of note was The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Dubbed in German! I certainly wish I'd seen the following sexy news program!

Katie (my sister, for those from whom I have successfully hidden my family) seems interested as well, in spite of the male anchors' more...conservative attire.

Also, I had my first day at an elementary school today! The kids are, even for one who insists he's never going to wittingly make the babies, really cute. And they let me play the kotoand shakuhachi in music class! So cool! Shakuhachi is freaking impossible, though - I could barely produce a sound on the thing.

Now I am going to go attempt to break into my own mailbox (it has a little padlock whose key was lost long before I arrived) with the help of my hundred-yen Family Saw!

病院で死にました！(Byoin de shinimashita!)

This translates roughly as "[someone] died at the hospital!" One of my favorite kids comes to visit me in the staff room several times a day. Like me, he really digs the video games. Lately he's been bringing this lovingly organized guide to Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town to school and reading it during english class - it's so hilarious, I can't bring myself to be upset with him. Anyway, we have some pretty strange "discussions" in the staff room, most of which involve video games or the macabre. Once he drew a guillotine on a sheet of paper and seemed quite pleased with himself. Not really knowing how to respond, I drew a guillotine too. He insisted I make it a "fire guillotine", so I drew some flames on it. Then he suggested a "lightning guillotine" - easy enough. Finally, he requested the "ultimate guillotine". Not knowing what else to do, I drew a guillotine spewing flames, lightning, and ice; he seemed satisfied.

This fixation on a limited set of elements (fire, lightning, ice) and an "ultimate" attack or weapon is a telltale sign of a mind consumed by video games, particularly RPGs. He has discovered that applying "ultimate" to strange things always gets a laugh out of me. Perhaps funniest of all was the time I was showing him the 50-cent coin I brought to school. After pointing out that the president on the coin was JFK, he said "Ultimate Kennedy", which had me in stitches for a full minute at least. If I ever make a game, it will include an "Ultimate Kennedy" attack.

A while ago I learned the verb - 死ぬ - shinu, "to die". I showed it to my young protege and he immediately said "byoin de shinimashita!" with this expression of sheer glee. Again, I was in stitches.

OK. That was supposed to be a smooth segue into the fact that I went to the hospital for this broken wrist nonsense and I wanted to chat about the Japanese hospital experience. Japanese hospitals are typically much smaller than their American counterparts - really, they're more like large clinics. Because of this, each hospital offers limited services. When I was leaving for the hospital, my teachers asked me if I knew which one to go to. Huh? You mean they won't all fix my wrist? They explained that I had to go to a hospital with a 整形外科 - seikeigeka, which translates as everything from "orthopedics" to "plastic surgery" - department. The hospital near my apartment didn't have such a department, but directed me to one nearby that did. I managed to communicate the problem through Japanese and gesture, then they took some x-rays. After some waiting, I had a chat with the doctor (who, thankfully, spoke english pretty well). He showed me my x-rays, pointed out the area of breakage, then, with the help of like five nurses, put a cast on. The sense of semi-privacy one has in an American hospital/doctor's office was definitely lacking. The nurses were hovering in the background while the doctor explained the situation, and staff members were milling about as well. Probably not much fun if you've had a more...embarassing injury, like fracturing your penis, which, yes, one of my friends here did a few months ago. I mean, it's bad enough that such a thing happened and that you have to explain the circumstances under which it took place to a stranger, but to have everyone ogling the horribleness just can't help. Anyway, I got casted, paid my 9300 yen and left. Fun stuff!

Why is it that these entires usually end up having little to do with what I intended them to? Japan is eating my brain.