Happy Halloween! I’m wearing a mask. No. I’m not going as a sexy nurse. I’m at work. I’m sick.
In Japan, it’s considered polite to wear a protective mask while you’re sick. It’s not so much intended to protect you, the festering germ hotel, but to protect the innocent people around you from your plague infested spittle bits.
Somehow, it’s supposed to be good for me too. Something about keeping out the dry air and the humidity being good for my throat. I can’t at all figure out why recycling my damp, disgustingly hot, sour smelling, virus laden breath, is even a slightly good idea.
In Japan, you’re supposed to go to work even when you’re sick and wearing the mask is a great excuse to do shitty job. However, they won’t let me do anything to make myself feel better. You are not allowed to eat or drink anything in class. They asked me if I would be able to speak loudly when I taught today but they told me I may not bring cough drops to class.
It seems like you’re all getting the news in my life several weeks late. I only get around to writing these letters when I both feel like it and when I have time to goof off at my junior high school.
In the past month, I’ve made a couple new Japanese friends. They’re two ladies about my age (22 and 24) who come to a weekly group in Maebashi called the Global Café to practice their English. It’s a pretty good deal for me. I get paid ¥2,000 ($17) to talk English to people who are almost fluent, pretty interesting, and well traveled, for an hour and a half. Three weeks ago on Friday, I made dinner plans with one of the girls I met. She was going to pick me up at the Denny’s parking lot at 7pm.
Around 7pm I started out from my apartment. A fenced concrete ditch about three feet deep runs by a small road passing next to my apartment. It goes underground through a tube when it crosses the highway to the back of my apartment. As I crossed the ditch I heard a high-pitched meowing. I called my friend on my keitai to tell her I would be about 5 minutes later. I went back to my apartment but couldn’t find my flashlight. I went back to the ditch. “Kitty?,” I called. More meowing. I walked to the Denny’s parking lot to get my friend and tell her what was happening. We went to the neighborhood Sekichu where I bought a new bike light (my last one got stolen). When we got back to the ditch, the cat was no longer meowing. I shined the light down there, but couldn’t see anything. Maybe it had gone through the tube? Maybe it had never been in the ditch to begin with, but on the bank, and was ok. There was nothing I could do. (more…)
Here I am posting an article from the New York Times…
Want to hide in plain view? Disguise yourself as a vending machine. Tokyoites anxious about the declining morals of Japan can solve their safety fears through naive consumerism and questionable fashion.
And here’s the concert info I ganked from Metropolis: Tokyo Jihen Japanese rock band formed by singer/songwriter Ringo Shiina. Nov 10, 20 & 21, 7pm; Nov 11, 6pm, ¥5,500. Zepp Tokyo, Aomi. Tel: Sogo 03-3405-9999.
Today I caught two of the bratty fat 6th graders punching each other in the balls. Well one was punching the other in the balls. The other was just sitting back and taking it, almost like a massage.
A 3rd grade girl was wearing a shirt with Minnie Mouse that said This joy must be preserved in a jewelry casket, so it will never be lost.
And I’ve been telling the kids that my favorite Japanese comedian is Hard Gay.
All the sanensei are required to write very short speeches. This is an excerpt from my favorite.
I’m going to talk about Eminem. He is a great hip-hop musician. When I was watching TV, he sang a song. I think he is very cool. And he has a lot of skill. He sang lose your self, White America, fuck and so on.
I like “lose your self” in these. Because I listened “lose your self” at first. But he use unclean language. But I like this.
Chuck was flipping through archived copies of and underground rock magazine, Rock Is Loft, when he stumbled upon his own picture from back in 1979 when he was the bassist in a band called 8 1/2.
