Friday, October 28, 2005

Only in Japan...


A fellow JET recently explained how she obtained her season pass for a local ski resort last year:






First--She contacted the resort staff and had them set aside a season pass for her.

Second--She went to the post office and explained that she had to pay for her season pass. The clerk behind the counter gladly went to get the necessary paperwork and envelope.

Third--She put about $450 in cash in a special envelope that was labeled "Cash Envelope" (in Japanese of course).

Fourth--Next to "Amount:_______________" on the front of the envelope, she wrote the amount of cash enclosed in the envelope.

Fifth--With fingers crossed, she watched as the postal employee dropped the envelope in the regular mail box for outgoing mail.

Needless to say, in three days the resort received the envelope safe and sound and mailed her her pass.

Only in Japan...

Sunday, October 23, 2005

For Mom

Recent pictures of us for Momma!





Sunday in Ueda

Today I spent the morning planting garlic bulbs. In the afternoon, I went to the park in Ueda and read more of Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas by Tom Robbins. It was sunny and about 65 degrees at midday. Even if I tried, I don't think I could have relaxed any more than I did today.


left: One of the small fields in Ueda Castle Park (the park that surrounds the castle in Ueda)












left: Col in front of the huge doors that lead into the castle complex

















left: One of the castle buildings, looking out over part of Ueda

















left: Me













left: A skatepark with a view, looking up at one of the main buildings of Ueda castle
















left: Looking up at the mountains from our plot
(Picture 1 of 2)













left: The red drum is filled with rain water from the irrigation ditch. The blue shed is filled with tools. To the left of the shed is the picnic bench.
(Picture 2 of 2--directly right of picture 1)










left: They taste as good as they look! But, at $1.50-2.00 each, they'd better!












left: Looking towards the valley from the picnic table












left: Orchards to the right of the picnic area

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Free Land for Foreigners in Japan

When Gregg told me he was turning 50 this year, I was shocked. The tanned, white skin on his face is pulled tight around his cheeks and jaw like it was shrink wrapped onto his head, his hair-carpeted scalp would keep a fox or mink quite warm if it was ever sown into a coat of human pelts, and he carried himself with an air of humility amidst a throng of people in their twenties. Overhearing him talk about snowboarding, I introduced myself and absorbed all of Gregg’s advice on where to ride, where not to ride, and where to hike up into the mountains to ride backcountry-hiking trails in the winter. He explained that he’s been living in Ueda for 10 years off and on (he tries to travel for at least six months out of every year--last year he split his time between Egypt, France, and the Philippines), and he’s currently trying to decide whether or not he should move to the Hakuba area (a region saturated with ski resorts two hours north) to manage a hotel in desperate need of a good manager. He told me stories about snowboarding down the side of Mt. Fuji. He and his friends used to start hiking at 4:00 a.m., stop hiking at noon, and enjoy a two-hour, tourist-less ride down the desolate back slopes of Fuji. He invited me to come this year with them, but he warned me and said that a good friend of his died while trying to play in Fuji’s snow-covered backcountry terrain.

We ended up talking about farming, and Gregg mentioned that he helped Mike (another J.E.T.) get a huge plot of farmland on the outskirts of Ueda. He said that his landlords, the people who met him 10 years ago and, after some tea and conversation, decided to let him live rent free in an empty house they owned in town, knew a man who had so much land he didn’t know what to do with it all. Gregg said the landowner loves trying to practice his English with foreigners and encourages Gregg to give pieces of the land away to foreigners. At first I couldn’t believe what Gregg was describing. With each sentence he rattled off between smiles it seemed like he was talking his way deeper and deeper into a bullshit-filled hole. Why would anyone in his right mind give away fertile land in a valley? Apples sell for $1.50 each in Japan; land is priceless here! I thought. After a few minutes, however, I remembered that we were living in Japan, a country in which people give stuff away on a daily basis, and I got excited thinking about the prospects of growing massive amounts of eggplant, tomatoes, corn, and cucumber to eat and give away to friends and co-workers (one or two English teachers bring in candy, vegetables, or fruit each week for the teachers in the English department to enjoy—if you grow vegetables, you give part of your crop away). I asked Gregg if he could save a small plot for Colleen and I. He agreed and offered to drive us up to see the land the following Saturday.

The field is breathtaking. Even on a cloudy day, the scenery and the smell and the sound of the crickets and the breeze could green the thumbs of even the most hardened urban resident. Apple orchards colored with thousands of bright red, grapefruit-sized apples ready for the picking surround the farmland. Towering behind the orchards, adding a jagged heartbeat to the straight horizon that flatlines in the absence of hilly excitement, are furry green mountains, geological blemishes on the skin of the earth that protect the fields from strong winds as typhoons pass and guarantee afternoon rain showers in the summertime, the kinds that are just long enough to inspire plants to sprout a few extra buds and just short enough to go unnoticed when you stop into a store for an ice cream.

There is a shed fashioned out of blue tarps on the property that houses communal tools and a gas powered tilling machine. The landowner built a gazebo from plastic mesh and poles last year so farmers could eat lunch in the shade at a small picnic table. A rain drainage ditch feeds water into two huge tubs, and a pump and generator help push the water out onto the plots. There are about eight or nine plots in the field. When Gregg showed us our plot, it was tilled and waiting to be planted.

A few days ago we went up to the field to plant tulip bulbs and some pepper plants, and we met the landowner and two other farmers. We interrupted their lunch at the picnic table to introduce ourselves, and the landowner, a stout man in his fifties who is all smiles and bows in the presence of foreigners, showed us to our plot, offered to retill the land even though it was clearly just tilled a few weeks ago, filled up the nearest water tub for us, and, later, had his daughter bring us two loaves of melon bread and two juice boxes of milk after we had worked up a sweat from planting.

We’re going to try to keep a winter garden going with garlic, spinach, and broccoli, but I’m most excited about the crops we’ll be able to start with the arrival of spring.

More to come as life unfolds,

Andrew

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

100 Mile Jogs Through the Mountains

Sore feetleft: Ray Greenlaw's feet after running from Mexico to Canada in 83 days

I've been reading a lot about the Pacific Crest Trail recently. The national hiking trail is over 2,600 miles long and runs from Mexico to Canada through the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. In reading about the trail, I came across a man named Ray Greenlaw. He currently holds the world record for the fastest hike of the Pacific Crest Trail (83 days, he ran/speed-walked for most of it, averaging 26-27 miles a day).

I was stunned to learn of his accomplishment so I decided to find out more about who he is and how he was able to pull off such an amazing feat. Reading over his website, it's hard to believe any human could have completed the things he's completed. Among some of the more amazing thing's he's done:

--completed 35 marathons

--completed numerous triathlons (26 mile run, 2 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride all in the same day)

--completed numerous "ultra" marathons: 100 mile runs through mountainous terrain that take upwards of 30 hours to complete

--hiked 5 of the 7 summits (the 7 summits= highest mountain in each continent)

--completed thru-hikes of the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail

--co-authored 15 books

--founded a school of computing at a university (he is currently a dean and a professor)

This post doesn't do the man justice. Check out his website and prepare to be amazed:

http://www.cs.armstrong.edu/greenlaw/index.html

People like this make it impossible for everyone else in the world to complain about having a busy life, never having enough time to achieve big goals, etc.

andrew

Monday, October 17, 2005

12 out of 29 Want to be Teachers?

I asked 29 third year (or senior) students in the International Track (this track is comprised of the students who scored highest on their high school entrance exams—the supposed crème de la crème of Someyaoka High School) the following question:

"Realistically, what job will you most likely have in the future?"

These are the results:

12 students wrote "Teacher" (some wanted to teach English, others Japanese)
3 students wrote "Nurse" or "Medical attendant"
2 students wrote "School Counselor"
2 students wrote "Cab driver"
1 student wrote "Newspaperman"
1 student wrote "Small actor with part time job"
1 student wrote "Designer"
1 student wrote "Wife"
1 student wrote "Illustrator"
1 student wrote "Travel agent"
1 student wrote "Assembly member"
1 student wrote "Nutrition expert"
1 student wrote "Museum attendant"
1 student wrote "Office worker"

I was shocked when I read through their responses. Granted, I only surveyed 29 students so far, but I assumed many students in this group-on-a-pedestal would want to become doctors and business executives. After all, if students from this esteemed group, a batch of kids that have been primed for prestige and prepped for power from a very early age, don't realistically picture themselves filling the most prestigious positions in society, who will? I can't begin to imagine how their parents would react if they knew that their children aspired to be small actors with part time jobs, cab drivers, and museum attendants. I personally don't think these jobs are any less important than any other jobs, but I know that a vast amount of parental energy (you know the "help" I'm referring to: a few essay conclusion paragraphs weighty with Mommy's authorial tone, one or two science project creations with perfectly rounded edges only Daddy could have created with adult tools, and a healthy serving of good ol' encouragement and reinforcement for a decade and a half of schooling) has been invested in each and every one of them, and it is because of this investment that, in a society like Japan, one in which a child is considered an extension of the parent like an oblong growth with a heartbeat dangling off the side of a parent's neck, they are expected to pay out dividends to their investors after college graduation.

If students from a traditional household break the routine, if girls fail to marry or take a tea serving position in a company (girl makes tea, serves to boys, makes more tea, refills cups, repeat until 6:00 p.m., go home) and if the boy conditioned for a corporate leadership position decides instead to make the inside of a cab car his office, the family solution starts to steep in disgrace and shame. Thankfully, for the sake of the future generations of Japanese and their ability to pursue their dreams, this rigid social structure is starting change.

I just taught a class on options for Japanese women in 2005 and we looked at an article from Time magazine that described a new, powerful, growing sect of Japanese women who are single, over 30, and wealthy. These women have worked hard in school, just as their parents trained them to, pursued careers with confidence, and are now buying their own condominiums in posh areas of Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and other big cities (much to their parent's dismay of course, "Yumi, if you buy a condominium, what husband will ever want to take care of you? It will appear as if you don't need a man to take care of you!" "Exactly mother, exactly,"). There is a difference in values between generations that is disturbing the placidity of Japanese life. High-heeled granddaughters are smashing the glass above them with heavy Louis Vuitton pocketbooks (according to a recent survey by the Saison Research Institute, half of all Japanese women in their 20s have one) while their grandparents are trying to pick up the pieces and patch the ceiling back together with sticky rice and kimono fabric.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that teachers are actually respected in Japan. That is also reflected in my tiny survey. Unlike in America, many high school teachers in Japan live for free in government owned apartment buildings, are revered as professionals in their areas of study, and demand the utmost respect from students and their parents and other members of society. High school teachers in Japan are treated just as professors in America are treated. The insulting saying that I've heard used in America, "Those who can't, teach, and those who can, do," does not apply to Japanese teachers because if you teach at any level in Japan, you are "doing."

I assume this reverence for teachers is rooted in the Japanese fascination with intangible things like pride, honor, knowledge, and family bonds. When a society is more concerned with the honor a job provides rather than the salary, an artist does not need to earn the title of artist by creating a certain amount of art, a writer does not need to write three, four, eight, or twenty novels before he/she is considered a good author, because there is not as much emphasis placed on the end product, the final thing, as there is in America. In the states, you're not rich unless you have a certain amount of money sitting in the bank (and even then, 'new' or 'old' money will further define your level of 'richness'), you're not a historian unless you've done you're research and lured something fresh out of the depths of the past or written a book or created a theory, you're not a scientist unless you're in the lab past your bedtime with a growling stomach and heavy eyelids. In Japan, if you know about science, you can teach it, and teaching it makes you a scientist because that is your specialty, that knowledge helps define your position in the pack. If you can teach a subject, you adopt it as your own and invite it to Sunday dinner; you let it add words to your vocabulary and help decide what makes you excited about life. In America, teachers also experience this process of adoption, of turning over one's life to a certain governing passion (sometimes the passion changes from a robust, plump grape to a tiny, wrinkled, misshapen brown raisin over the years, but when it first buds its fresh fruit), but teachers are not respected for their devotion. This lack of respect in America is reinforced by the government's shit pay for teachers (can you imagine the government ever providing free, quality housing for teacher's in America or anything of similar value?) and helps push brilliance into more lucrative and respect-full careers.

I think any society worth its salt with sights set on the future, near or distant, must create an environment in which people aspire to teach. If teaching is held in high regard, the most intelligent individuals in society will be slam-dunked into teaching positions by peer-versus-peer competition and will raise the level of education beyond that which is possible with the leadership of less knowledgeable, less passionate teachers. If a society has an incredibly strong teaching base, a foundation cemented with hard questioning and lessons that culminate in serious life application of information, the civilian knowledge and the structures of ideas and solutions that will grow from it will stand up to the howling winds of doubt and convenience-and-power fueled corruption. Imagine if every kid with a high school diploma in hand walked out into the dawn of the 'real' world with the ability to critically examine life's difficulties, big and small, a true understanding of the obligations and responsibilities we as humans have as self-appointed controllers of the Earth's environment, and a belief in the inherent integrity and value of other people and living things. I don't give a shit if it sounds idealistic because I know how sponge-like students are and I know this type of shift in America's public education system is possible. It all hinges on respect. Education gains its allure from the way teaching is viewed by citizens and the government that leads them.

more to come as life unfolds,

Andrew

The Joys of Engrish: WAR IS HOMO!

left: As long as it's in English, grammar doesn't count!

NEWSFLASH: WAR IS HOMO! (printed on the shirt of some unsuspecting Japanese person)

This along with other brilliant insights can be found at Engrish.com, a very funny website devoted to showing the world the ridiculous nature of Japanese Engrish ("L" sounds and catchy English phrases are difficult for the Japanese to master). The sillyness extends from shirts to labels, buildings to candy, signs to TV shows.

www.Engrish.com


It makes you wonder, "Why don't some of these manufacturers hire one native English speaker to write their signs, shirt slogans, etc.?" It's hard to believe that in Japan, a country obsessed with English, so many hilarious and inaccurate phrases make their way onto shirts, buildings and signs.

Saturday, October 08, 2005

Brain Candy

Following the advice of two J.E.T. veterans, Col and I paid 200 yen (about $2) each and bought train tickets for the next stop away from Ueda, rode the train seven or eight stops past where we should've gotten off, switched trains, and rode about an hour down to Tazawa, a station that never has a regular night attendent to collect passenger tickets. Feeling elated from pulling one over on the ever-expensive Japanese transit system, we walked for a hour past dozens of chain soba and ramen shops, yaki restaurants, and other Sizzler-type restaurants that frighteningly reminded me of American establishments to reach our friend Brandon's house. Later that night, we went to a bar that specializes in importing foreign bottles of beer from all over the world. A few drops of drool dripped from my gaping mouth onto the menu and landed on the pictures of bottles of dark, German beers, some of which cost upwards of 5,000 yen (about $45). We each had two beers from places very far away, savoring every last drip of the rare, dark liquid that filled our glasses, and meandered back to Brandon's house through the tiny, winding alleyways of Toyoshina, a town that sits just on the outskirts of Matsumoto, the second largest city in Nagano-ken with a population of about 300,000 people.

When we awoke the next morning, we drove to Matsumoto and walked to the Yayoi Kusama exhibit. The artist was born in Matsumoto and is a bit of a town hero, with her pieces included in the permanent collection of the Matsumoto City Museum of Art (the location of her current show). From a young age, she has suffered from visual and aural hallucinations, and as a result, her art is dominated by spots and circles of all sizes. As we approached the museum, we were greeted by her massive, spotted, fluorescent flowers that watch over the museum's entrance. Little did we know that these flowers were merely the tips of many multi-colored, flashing icebergs that awaited us inside the museum, which at the moment, is solely filled with Kusama's work. Her art is playful, bright, and intricate and often seems as if its painstaking repetition and large scale could have only been achieved by someone who uses marathon art sessions as a way to cling to tiny, fleeting shreds of sanity. Kusama created most of her art while living in a mental hospital and has described her creative process as one that is rooted in survival instinct; she makes art to prevent her from completely losing her mind. Knowing this, upon seeing her flowers overflowing with pubic hair pollen, her delicate mirror rooms that distort reality using flashing lights, her massive vagina wall hanging with a strobe light for a clitoris, and her rowboat covered in phallic, silver growths, one cannot help but wonder about the thoughts that swim freestyle, full speed, through the bubbling waters of Kusama's mind.

left: Over-sized kids demand the attention of a regular-sized kid.

This exhibition was easily one of the coolest I've ever seen. I highly recommend checking it out. It's a fireworks show without fireworks and all of the loud noises and pieces of ash in your hair. It's a Merry Pranksters playground, complete with oversized Day-Glo children and awe inspiring optical illusions. It's an orgy of paint and color, the kind armies of colors would surely engage in the day before the world officially turned to dreary shades of black and gray. Needless to say, after leaving the Kusama show and going to an Ikebana flower show that was filled with bespectacled Japanese women in those drab smock/jacket pant suits that you see on sale everywhere, our afternoon proved to be a bit more mellow than our morning.

Ikebana is a beautiful, soothing art form that attempts to bring the natural world inside through the arrangement of flowers, fruits, branches, and any other plants found in a natural setting. Some of the arrangements were so fragile, so precariously balanced and perched atop ornate vase towers, that I feared the baby breezes swirling from the tips of the old ladies' fans would surely topple them to the ground, splintering and squashing masterpieces that take hours upon hours and thousands of yen to create. Two Ikebana artists saw us looking lost in the middle of the showroom after we first arrived and invited us into the Ikebana VIP lounge for tea, cakes, crackers, and dried fruits. Sitting there with a belly full of tasty green tea and three too many butter cookies and five too many slices of raisin-nut bread, surrounded by VIP-worthy Ikebana masters dressed in their finest kimonos, watching gleefully as old women got their jollies off practicing their accommodating "Please, please take" and "You like?" lines on Col and I, I felt content knowing I had made the best of yet another day in the life of an overpaid J.E.T. Thank you Japanese people of the world! Your obsession with mastering English made this day possible for me!

left: The woman on the left created the Ikebana display over her right shoulder. She said the main branch was picked out of her backyard and the other flowers were purchased for $2oo.













left: Click on this one to get a better glimpse of one of Kusama's amazing light creations. This was a room surrounded by mirrors with water on the floor (except for a narrow walking path). Col and Brandon like being in electric outer space.

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

When we travel to developing countries, are we imperialists?


Hello everyone,

I hope this email finds you mentally and physically healthy.

I came across an interesting article entitled ``Third World Tourism has a Harsh Political and Economic Undercurrent`` (check it out at http://www.guardian.co.uk) on the Guardian UK`s website. The author of the article claims that many people in the ``global south`` compare taking holiday in developing countries to acts of ``colonialism and cultural imperialism.`` I understand how the author can make a comparison like this as tourists often flaunt money on pricey food, accommodation, and silly, purely-picture-opportunity activities (15 minute elephant ride anyone?) when they visit ``exotic`` places, but I think it`s unfair to paint this type of international travel with such a grimy brush. Yes, I agree that when we pour money into tourist hot spots we also create tourism-based economies that run the risk of being affected by sudden changes in tourist behavior. When we visit Bali by the hundreds of thousands every year and then suddenly stop visiting with such frequency because of suicide bombings, we leave thousands of Balinese without sources of income. I wonder, however, if blaming tourism for this financial shortcoming is the right action to take after a turn in tourist trends. Why isn`t our knee-jerk response to changes in tourist behavior as a result of suicide bombings in tourist destinations like Bali and Egypt, ``What is going on in local political and/or religious climates that is forcing people to kill?`` I think pointing a finger at the tourism industry when the tourism cash flow slows to a trickle distracts us from the underlying message that is invariably attached to a suicide bomb blast: Dear world, certain stresses are affecting people in this area. Please take notice and help. I don`t condone this sort of violence but I do realize that every suicide bombing is an indicator, a needle past the red line on the gauges of our global Politics-and-Religion-O-Meters and ignoring such indicators or behaving in ways that inflame these indicators will only speed up the overheating of the engine set on ``Full Speed Ahead`` that is our world in 2005.

Regardless of where you chose to spend your money (whether it be in Cambodia or America) paying someone to do something that is embarrassingly degrading is still unethical. There is no difference between paying a poor person in Cambodia or America to fan me, feed me grapes, and bite the callouses off of my toes, because either way my demands are degrading. Obviously, when people visit developing countries they should refrain from obscenely exploiting the weight of their native currency and should avoid flaunting their wealth by staying in palatial rooms and feasting on meals comprised solely of local delicacies. I agree with the author of this article in regards to her point about people traveling while blinded by their own ignorance. To go to a developing country and assume a Western standard of living, one chock full of ``staff``waiting on you hand and foot like indentured servants, is just plain obnoxious and disrespectful. To say that one`s extravagant behavior advantageously lines the pockets of the local people is an attempt to justify tourist behavior without taking the humanity and pride of local peoples into account.
If people from developed countries travel extravagantly and, in doing so, negatively affect the impressions impoverished local people have of the developed world, what is the alternative for travelers from the developed world? I don`t think people from developed countries should only travel to other developed areas because that would create a dangerously narrow world view for citizens of developed countries, citizens who, whether it is fair or not, often make decisions that affect the economies and futures of developing countries. Is it safe to have an American population who has never been to any impoverished country make decisions about trade agreements and AIDS epidemics? International travel is vital to the struggling emergence of international tolerance among peoples. I think a solution to this problem lies in changing the way people travel, not the destinations to which they travel. Imagine how drastically the perception of Western ideals would change if all Westerners traveling abroad avoided massive, all-inclusive sprawling palatial resorts (resorts that often restrict beach access to paying resort customers, effectively cutting off the beach to all local inhabitants) and instead stayed in locally owned and operated hotels/hostels, ate at reasonably priced restaurants, and showed a genuine interest in learning a thing or two about the local culture of a people. If people tried to blend in rather than stand out on their vacations, I have a feeling tourists would experience more genuine hospitality, would be shown parts of the world they never would have seen had they secluded themselves from local people, and would leave a country with a deeper respect for its people then if they had resorted to a vacation saturated with Western relaxation.

What do you think? Am I off on this? Should we, as people from a ``developed`` country (we are developed only in an economic sense of course, and even that could be seriously argued by a few displaced hurricane survivors, but I think we are in no way more morally developed than any other country--we Americans are just as fucked-up and just as ``civilized`` and just as value-bloated as every other group of people on the planet) avoid traveling to places like India and Nicaragua and Indonesia and Iran and Mongolia and Columbia and Panama and Thailand and Sierra Leone and Kenya and Romania and any other place that could be deemed less developed than the U.S.?

more to come as life unfolds,


andrew

To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/