I bring you a cat playing a theremin.

They sold these basic theremins, along with an instruction book, in most of the major bookstores in Japan. My friends and I would see the piles of boxes on display by the door. We called it the “My First Theremin Kit.” One of my friends was pretty tempted to buy one, but we wouldn’t have been able to read the instruction book.

You know when you think you know the lyrics to a song, but they turn out to be something completely different? The Japanese have a word for it, because they’re pros at it.

Soramimi

Be sure to read the examples.

I’m back in the US.  I’ve been here since April 2nd, trying to relax.  My Japan adventures have come to an end but that doesn’t mean that gaijzilla is done with.  I have a lot more pictures to upload and a lot more tales to tell.  Keep checking back and I’ll get them all up here once my life gets a bit more sorted out.

I wish I could give you some simple, brilliant synopsis of my year in Japan, but it’s just not that easy.  My friends and I all stopped and asked each other what we’d learned, but very few of us had answers.  I guess I have a little more self confidence that I can get through difficult situations.  I now know my way around Tokyo better than I know my way around DC.

I went to Tokyo on the day right before I left for Japan.  I wanted to see the cherry blossoms in Ueno park and the thousands of hanami (cherry blossom viewing) revelers, who are a wonder in themselves, drinking themselves into joyful, loud blackouts under the falling petals.  It was a long, tedious train ride into Tokyo.  As we approached the metropolis, I causually looked up from my book and thought, “oh… we’re in Tokyo.”  A little more than I year ago, I would have lept up and shouted “Holy $#$@!$^&#@%$#!!!! I’m in TOKYO!!”  The very idea would have been almost unimaginable.  And now it was no more concern that “oh, we’re there.”

Ueno park looked just like it did when I first came to Japan.  Almost.  This time the cherry blossoms were  a little bit fuller than when I came last year.

I’m left wondering whether I ever should have left Japan.  Now I’m plunged back into a horrible economy with no job prospects and I’m missing the time when I had an actualy marketable skill. (I can speak English good.)

Don’t get mad, get even.

I got screwed over by Softbank and there’s not much I can do except get revenge by warning other people.  Since it’s the end of March new ALTs will be coming into Japan for the new school year.  I want to counsel people not to get drawn into Softbank’s scheme.

I work for Interac and had someone help me set up everything upon my arrival to Maebashi.  Unfortunately, the woman helping me was as clueless about cell phone plans in Japan as I was. The deal was made by mobile phone shop lady explaining the perks of the service to my company helper who in turned tried to explain them to me in struggled English. My friend was on Softbank, so I decided to go with Softbank, too.  I went with the well-advertised Softbank White Plan on a one-year contract with a free phone.

This is the worst phone I have ever had.  It doesn’t really function very well on English.  I can forgive the poor grammar (”An message will be deleted.”) but I can’t message in anything but all-caps unless I specifically change the settings for each individual message.  (YOURE ENJOYING THE FIREWORKS RIGHT? I LOVE FIREWORKS! IM GOING TO BUY A CHOCOBANANA.)  Often when the phone asks if I want to end an action “yes or no” the yes and no options are truly reversed, deleting my long, difficult, all caps text message.  The phone also turned off randomly for a while and I had to get it replaced.  It turns out the awful phone I put up with because it was free is not actually free, despite what I was told.  I have actually been paying equipment fees for the phone all year and still haven’t finished.  Apparently, for Softbank a “one year” plan is actually 15 months, which I also wasn’t told.  If I cancel now, (12 months after the contract began) I still have to pay what I owe for the worst phone I have ever had (about ¥5900 remaining).

I also get around 20 spam messages a day (I just got one right now.), offering me porn, penis enlargement, and Viagra, since I foolishly chose an easy keitai email address and was not offered spam filter options.  For this most excellent phone service, I pay as much as anyone else, about ¥6000/month.  I found all this out today when I went to Softbank with a Japanese friend (another company representative).  When I cancel the phone service, I’m going to go to Tokyo myself so that I can yell in English and someone will actually understand me.

So I encourage you, if you’re headed to Japan to just say no to Softbank.  I don’t care how happy Brad Pitt and Cameron Diaz look, I’m pissed off.

In a sake and sakura fueled euphoria, former ALT, Will Ferguson, swore to his coworkers that he would one day hitchhike the entirety of Japan in pursuit of the cherry blossoms.  Unfortunately, everyone around him remembered this unwise oath and reminded him about it for three years until he finally decided to do it.  He wrote his memoirs of the trip in Hitching Rides With Buddha.

Will Ferguson was determined to hitchhike from Cape Sata, Kyushu, to Cape Soya,, Hokkaido, following the blossom season north. He would be mirroring the path of his hero, the hiker Alan Booth, author of Roads to Sata.  It proved to be a more difficult, lengthy, and expensive journey than he ever imagined.

Some of his travel tales are inherent to traveling anywhere, getting lost, getting arrested, marooned by poor weather, ineffable loneliness, fleeting friends and enemies, an unnatural fears of snakes; but much of it is distinctly Japan.  Where else is the traditional greeting for a Gaijin-san something so nearly as annoying as “Harro! Zis is a ben!”? Ferguson gets sucked into enkais of drunk salary men he had nothing to do with, and cannot escape.  He encounters a ghost with a business card. He tries the Japanese national pastime of reading standing up with a magazine teaching English pornographic phrases of questionable utility.

By hitchhiking he sees strangely intimate snippets of people’s lives.  He rides with a konyaku farmer and a pachinko company man.  Occasionally, families invite him into their homes.  He hears the nightmarish confessions of a Japanese POW and fawns over his little Godzilla loving granddaughter.

I do not known if this book would be so delightful to someone who has not lived in Japan.  Actually, it seems like a bunch of inside jokes for gaijin most of the time.  At the very least, Will Ferguson’s book is just so easy to sympathize with as a resident gaijin.  His introspective interpretations of his experience provide insight into the joys and frustrations of a foreigner.  He is alternately welcomed with smiles and insulted with aggression as he makes his way up the country.  One moment someone compliments his Japanese and tells him how much he understands Japan and the next moment someone is telling him how inferior he is because he is not Japanese.  He knows the outsider is always an outsider and no outsider can ever understand the hypocrisy of Japan.

Will Ferguson set out to follow the cherry blossoms, but they cannot keep up with him.  He is pulled along by the unstoppable momentum of the traveler, to the end of Japan, even past Hokkaido.  He is in a race with his money and his vacation days.  In the end, his journey sees less cherry blossoms and more strange towns and strange people.

Here’s an article about Japanese men trying to say I love you. It’s pretty cute and also heartbreaking in a typically Japanese way.

An interesting note… every Japanese person who I’ve talked to on the subject wants Obama to be chosen as the Democratic presidential candidate (although no one has any vehemence against Hillary).

No one has even brought up the Republican primaries.  No one has even acknowledged the existence of a Republican candidate.

And adorable video of a lovely Japanese lady getting an English lesson Santa style.

This is for all of you losers who missed Santacon. Although, even I missed this part since I had a flight to catch the next day and was dragging around a friend who was already deathly hungover.

School children are always in their uniforms.  Even on weekends.  You see flocks of uniformed adolescents on the trains chattering away with their school gossip.  I always figured they were going to or from some sort of school function, like a club or sporting event.  But they even show up in the mall and at festivals in their school uniforms, especially the high school girls.  I just chalked it up to one of those great Japanese mysteries.

But at the English conversation group I help with I learned a piece of the puzzle.  Apparently it’s also a bit of a conundrum to Japanese adults.  One of the men at my table asked a well-spoken high school girl why they were always in their uniform, even outside of school.  She said it was easier than trying to pick out clothes in the morning.  And besides girls at that age are so critical of each other’s style.  You have to wear the right things.  It’s safe to just wear your school uniform because everyone else wears it too.  Teenage insecurity strikes again, universally, cross-culturally.

But then this makes me wonder.  How many sets of uniforms do they have?  And how often do they wash them?

Then someone at the table mentioned a rumor that he had heard.  That there was a prefectural curfew that said anyone under the age of 18 in Gunma had to be in their homes by 10pm. There were no exceptions.  Not even if the kids were accompanied by their parents.  I couldn’t believe this outrageous law.  But everyone else at the table agreed that it was true.  Why couldn’t children go out with their parents?  Someone suggested that it might have something to do with young parents brining their children to bars with them.  Most of Japan’s problems seem to be blamed on young parents, especially young mothers.

I am reposting an email I received.  I don’t work for the company but I thought I’d put it up for the benefit of anyone who reads this blog who does.  And also to serve as a warning to anyone who is thinking about teaching English with a private company in Japan.  They all care about money first and human interests second.  Some are much better than others.  Do your research and try get opinions from people who have experience with that company before you sign up.  It would suck to drag your ass all the way to Japan just to get screwed.

>   Hello all this is Morgan Jones former general
> manager of borderlink.
> As most of you know I have left borderlink due to
> unexpected circumstances.
> When I took this position I only accepted it because
> I was told that I would run human resources they way
> I see fit. Unfortunately I was forced into lying and
> persuading ALTs.
> I am sending this e-mail to as many staff as I can
> to ensure that the promises I made are fulfilled.
> Please keep in mind these following warnings
>
> 1.    The company rules and regulations that you
> have received are not the same as the rules and
> regulations borderlink has filed with the labor
> bureau.
> 2.    Your pay for March will probably not be paid
> in full do to that fact that the schools will end in
> late March. Please seek confirmation from borderlink
> before March to assure your pay. ( in writing or
> text)
> 3.    If you live in an apartment that borderlink
> has arranged you are paying more rent than the other
> tenants in your facility. Meaning that your has an
> add on which leads to you actually paying for the
> set up fees although the apartment is not in your
> name and if borderlink does not renew your contract
> you will loose the apartment and your deposits will
> be kept by borderlink.
> 4.    Your insurance is not legit and should be
> changed to Shakai hoken.
> 5.    Your paid leave might not be paid if you
> decide to use those days in March. Please use them
> before March so you may confirm that you will get
> paid for them.
>
> I have made arrangements with RCS corporation. Now
> that Morikawa is gone it is a much better company.
> Anyone wishing to work as an ALT in Gunma or
> wherever RCS will give you priority on positions
> they have. If you have any problems or questions
> please contact me, I am more than willing to help. I
> would also like to justify my motivations by saying
> that I do not care about borderlinks future. But I
> do not want to be remembered as the guy that screwed
> you over. So please if there is anything I can help
> you with contact me.  Best of luck
>
>
>
>
>                                Morgan Jones