Kermit and Sleeping Beauty on the train...

Looking at rural Japan from a train window yesterday it reminded me of Kermit the Frog, (without the ping pong ball eyes and banjo) . The rice fields were literally bursting with bright green grains that are about to be harvested, looking like a giant green patchwork quilt had been spread over the country side. A Kermit quilt.
As the train clicked on to the next station, and the next and the next, and the next and the next, we cut a path through the quilt on our way back to Kyoto, via Himeji, and smoke plumes from the burn offs rose from Kermit`s hide here and there.

It was a beautiful late summer evening, the train was full of people, and as we were too slow (or was it that we didn`t care as much?) we had to stand - wide legs and bendy knees , while people in seats slept or read or joined the staring out the window at the growing shadows on the mountains. There always seems to be a lot of time to look out of a train window, perhaps because it travels straight for so long, and has that rhythmic 4/4 beat to keep you ensconced. Then, as the beat starts to slow, and the nasally voice informs people of the train`s next station, you snap back into the fact that you`re actually in a tin can with any number of other people, all lost in thought like you, all with a different story.

It was a long trip from Okayama to Himeji on the local train, but we passed the time with word games (can you think of a Simpsons character for every letter of the alphabet?), and by watching various entertaining scenarios unfolding in the seats in front of us, as so often happens in this crazy country.

One example of a common train occurrence is people trying not to fall asleep on strange shoulders, and there was one particular episode of this ongoing drama that kept us amused for a good portion of our journey. A woman with a thousand yard stare had taken a seat next to a young guy with an i-pod and promptly fallen asleep. She then began to slowly but surely drop onto this poor guy`s shoulder, who admirably did his best to avoid her affections by leaning forward in his seat. Bad move. Her sleepy head failed to stop as there was no longer a shoulder for it to land on, and much to i-pod`s controlled disbelief she gradually disappeared behind his back! He then coughed and rustled a plastic bag in an attempt to rouse her, which it did. For approximately 10 seconds, after which she began her decline again, her head again disappearing behind i-pod`s back almost like it was a second hand on a clock counting down from 10 -9-8-7-6... Watching this was at once the most painful and amusing part of our train ride, as this guy was obviously too nice, too polite to do anything about it.

However after about twenty minutes (yes twenty minutes!!) he had finally had enough, and made a move to sit back in his seat, and started to read his book, with his elbows stuck out in a posture that looked like someone had paused him while he was doing the chicken dance. Luckily for i-pod, she seemed to get the message after this, and then lo and behold we`d arrived in Himeji. Funny the things that pass our time.

Old temples and a new tire.

(A temple bell... with car)

I recently had to take to walking to work because the rear tire on my bicycle was worn down to the thread, and I had an attack of the `can`t be bothered`s` when it came to replacing it. Walking was a nice change of pace though, and Kyoto is a city that you really should walk around anyway. I enjoyed zig zagging my way through the gridded narrow streets and noticing for the first time beautiful ornate temples that, tucked away in little pockets, have stood their ground as the surrounding buildings and houses succumb to the need for newer and nicer.

They stand gracefully as reminders of this ancient city`s past, in defiance of modernity and providing a treat for the visitors who wander off the tourist trails and encounter them. That is a great thing about Kyoto, the seemingly endless maze of twists and turns will inevitably lead you to a gem, and give you a nice feeling of discovering a piece of history. Considering that Kyoto has over 1500 temples and shrines to stumble across, people often run the risk of being `all templed out` after a day or two. I would suggest however, that if you replace the Lonely Planet with a street map and a sandwich you`ll be content to wander around the streets for a lot longer, as the surprises await you around every corner, literally.

(Temple. rebuilt in 1512 after being destroyed by fire, now surrounded by apartment blocks.)

I enjoyed walking, for a while at least, but soon began to miss my bike. I`ve always had a bike, and Japan is the land of bicycles, so eventually my `can`t be bothered`s` gave way to `gotta do it`s`, and I hunted down a new tire and set about mounting it. As I was mucking around out the front of my place, a couple of friendly neighbourhood Yakuza wandered over to investigate what the hell I was doing.

For a start I understood only a little of what they were saying so I began (as I often do) to translate their conversation in my head with my own dialogue as I busied myself with the tire...
Fancy not buying a new bike, and just replacing a tire.... damn frugal foreigners.
Yeah tell me about it. You want a new bike? We can get you a new bike. You don`t wanna know what we can get you .
But as I listened I began to hear a few murmurings of surprise and grunts of approval! Hold on, they were genuinely impressed that I was replacing a tire, rather than the whole bike, which is what the senior one of the two proclaimed most Japanese would do. It was definitely complimentary! This was amazing - a compliment from a gangster, what the hell? I thought these guys were meant to be right wing foreigner hating Japanese nationalists who would look upon my bike maintenance as a slight on the Japanese economy. But no! These two were pretty impressed that I would... let alone could do such a thing. I on the other hand was pretty bemused as to why they had nothing better to do than watch me change my tire, but wasn`t about to point that out to them. In any case, I thought, perhaps they are as fascinated by me fixing a tire as I am by what is probably just some generic neighbourhood temple in their eyes. Funny what an insight into a different culture can do, how what can appear mundane and monotonous to some can be so alluring to others.

Apparently though the allure of tire fixing quickly faded, and they`d soon had their fill of amusement from the foreign bike fixer. So, they wandered back to their gangster day, and I pumped up my tire and rolled off into the hot Kyoto sun, a little slower than before though, so as not to miss anything.

Fans of Festivals

The arrival of summer in Japan is heralded by a flurry of fireworks, festivals and fancy dress. The flavour of the festivals depends on where you are, but the fundamentals are always the same.

Summer festivals in Japan involve a lot of people, and it seems the more humid the
weather, the more people there are. Cramming in like salmon in a sushi roll, people jostle for position to get a good view of the passing floats and performers, all the while frantically fanning themselves, with the plastic fans that are dished out by the hundred. These fans (which unashamedly advertise everything from beer to movies) are vital to maintaining a cool body temperature whilst rubbing sweaty shoulders with the locals. They are flapped up and down vigorously, yet with a concerted economy of movement,so as not to whack the person standing alongside. I believe that elbows in and quick wrist snaps is the key, but I`m more prone to whack people than most, and so I tend to try and bludge a breeze from one of the more vigorous fanners; terrible.

Meanwhile,the crowd rolls around , heads bobbing up and down like buoys on a rolling tide, as they try to peer over the inevitably two or three inch taller person in front of them to get a good look at the passing performers. All this, remember while trying not to whack someone with their fan, or be whacked by someone elses fan, or even worse, unintentionally fan some cheeky foreigner who is free loading from your fan. Quite a work out really, especially in stifling humidity, so thank God for the yatai!

Yatai are food and beer stalls, and a staple of any self respecting summer festival. They offer the standard festival fare: Candy floss is a favourite, as are toffee apples and fried chicken. But a festival wouldn`t be a festival without okonomiyaki ( a kind of pork and cabbage pancake) or takoyaki (octopus dumplings) now would it!?


Nothing like cooling off with a beer or three, and maybe some squid on a stick, after scrummaging with sweaty Japanese in their Yukata.

(Yukata is a kind of kimono, worn by men women and children during the summer months. As you`d imagine they`re very cool, although I still haven`t worked out how to sit down in one without clearing the room. Very tricky garments are the yukata, but I can`t help feeling a little like a `bushi` whenever I`m decked out in one).



The main event at most summer festivals though is the fireworks. Literally millions of yen worth of fireworks are sent fizzing into the night sky, with stunning results that last for up to an hour. I visited the Toyama festival last week, and ended up standing basically underneath these massive pyrotechnic showers. No matter how many fireworks I see, they still keep me entranced, and I`m unable to turn away as one after another spray spectacularly into the night sky. The noise is enough to be heard from kilometers away, and the darkness is again and again ripped apart by huge flashes of green and yellow.
I don`t know if the irony of commerating the day that Toyama was destroyed by bombs during the Second World War (August 1st) with a huge fireworks display every year is lost on the residents or not. I think it might be their way of confronting the horrors of the past by replacing such a horrible image with one of celebration and enjoyment. I watched an elderly grandfather, who was easily old enough to have seen those horrible times first hand clutch his granddaughter`s shoulders as they both watched the sky transfixed; the young girl blissfully unaware of the significance of the day in the city`s past.

The fireworks will continue whistling and fizzing throughout the summer, and the humidity won`t relent for a while yet. But at least we`ll have the beers stalls and plastic fans to see us through, and what would summer in Japan be without those!?

A grey matter of honesty.

I teach ESL in Japan. It`s something that I started as a means to support my O.E, but have grown to really enjoy, and after three years of teaching may even consider it as a viable (gulp) career option. I teach English to everyone from 6 year old kids to unemployed folk taking a course through the employment agency. `Sreepy` teens and college students are also in the mix, as well as adult students who study English to prepare for overseas travel, or for a hobby or, as one of my more elderly students put it: "I study English to stop my mind from going to senile". Whatever the reason, and they`re varied, some classes are good, some bad.

Some of the adult classes involve stimulating and thoroughly interesting discussions on a variety of topics, and others are simply glorified teeth pulling sessions. A typical transcript from the latter might run as follows:

ME: "Hi J. How are you?"
STUDENT: "Mmm. Yes. How are you."
ME: "No, How ARE you??"
STUDENT: " Mmmmm. Yes. How ARE you??"
ME: "Well, I`m pretty good thanks J, thanks for asking. But how are YOU?"
STUDENT: "Oh, oh. Ahhh... Ahhhh.. I`m fine thank you. And you?"



This is kind of like verbal table tennis played with a beach ball, and there are some students who will never graduate to a ping pong ball. But that`s OK too. They are there for social reasons, maybe they have a friend who studies with them, or maybe there wife just kicks them out of the house for a couple of hours a week. (Japan has the highest divorce rate of over 60 year olds in the world - think about it and you can probably work out why). In any case, I find that the level of English of these students doesn`t necessarily reflect their ability to have a conversation. Plenty of my students don`t have perfect English but can still get their point across, but there are others who get completely stuck on the whole "How are you?" problem, or simply don`t want to speak freely for fear of making a mistake with their grammar. I have come to think that actually speaking freely, albeit clumsily, is just as important, if not more important than, speaking with perfect grammar. ( I would be interested in what any other ESL teachers, or any of you for that matter, think about this).

I had a class today that was one of the better ones, in the sense that the students ( whose level of English is really high) both learned something new and useful and so did I. (Although what I learned was more sociological than linguistic!) The topic was honesty, and whether or not there is a `scale of dishonesty` as the text book put it. They had a list of examples that included:
Cheating on your tax return, shoplifting, travelling on the train without a ticket, taking stationery from the office, cheating at cards, and reading other people`s letters.
Do these acts all have the same level of dishonesty? Obviously not, but the grey area was definitely broader or narrower depending on the student.

One of the interesting responses was from one student who said they were surprised to find their child has been writing a blog about their life in another city. The student somehow had come across this without being told by their child, and had secretly been reading it without telling them. My student was shocked because the kid had been `embelleshing` on a few stories. However, they weren`t going to let on that they were even reading the blog. Is this dishonest? The class was divided. Everyone agreed that reading someone`s diary without their knowledge is undeniably and completely dishonest.　But as for a blog, some thought it was fair game, and others failed to see the difference between it and a diary. A blog is in a public domain and so any real attempt at keeping it private is obviously frought with difficulty, but one thing we can`t do is know everyone who reads it. Would you want to?

This is what I`m putting to you. Do you have the right to know if someone is reading your blog, or is it not up to you? I`m kinda new to this blog thing, and not even sure if it`s for me, but that story kind of got me thinking. On the one hand anyone who blurts out to all and sundry their personal and private matters can`t complain too much if somebody comes across them on the www. But, is secretly reading a close family members memoirs kosher? Hmmm. Also, I have taken pains to make this as anonymous as possible, but as I write it I`m getting a feeling that I am myself going behind my student`s back, (whom I like very much). I think I`ll post this anyway, but whaddya reckon? I guess I`m just opening up the same discussion we had in class to you - and hell no one reads this anyway right?!

( I should add that I have no qualms about people reading my blog. I`m happy for anyone to read, comment or ignore as per their preference. I`m aware that I`m in the `blogsphere`, I just wonder if every blogger does?? Like I said this is new to me.)

It`s all fun and games until...

Some people are scared of spiders and snakes. Others have an aversion to heights or small spaces. Phobias can be a result of a bad experience or because of some unexplainable, obscure reason. I`m not scared of much really, I can handle creepy crawlies, and I actually love the exhilaration of being in high places, knowing that you`re one step from oblivion. But I do have a phobia.



I have an irrational fear of umbrellas. Actually the tips of umbrellas to be precise. What are they called? Is there a technical term for them, like aglets on shoelaces, or are they just called the tips of umbrellas? I tend to think of them as serving the same purpose as an aglet on a shoelace, so, thats what I`ll call them. So, once again, for the sake of this entry anyway, I have an irrational fear of `umbrella aglets` and the effect it would have on my retina if my eye came into contact with one of them at a brisk pace.

I have plumbed the depths of my subconcious to find out if I maybe I`d had a scrape with an angry aglet at some stage during my childhood. Perhaps a painful jab to my eyeball was traumatic enough for me to have supressed the experience and this in turn may`ve explained why I cringe every time an umbrella passes by me at eye level. But, short of hypnosis I`m satisfied that I`ve done enough mental plumbing, and I don`t seem to have ever had such an encounter. It appears, then, that I`m just paranoid of the little buggers.

Back home in NZ I was unaware of even having this fear, as I, nor any other Kiwi come to think of it, really used umbrellas. We just don`t seem to be umbrella people in NZ, preffering to scamper for shelter, use the eaves of shops to wait out a deluge, or simply accept the rain in all its wetness and, get wet. Umbrellas don`t fit the image of your every day Kiwi. We`re hardy people, we don`t need umbrellas.

Japanese people however, are very much umbrella people. They seem to produce them from thin air at the first sign of rain, like a magician might produce a dozen roses from up his sleeve. Umbrellas are everywhere in this country, and very much part of the Japanese person`s daily effects. When I arrived in Japan I was suddenly surrounded by umbrellas of all varieties, colours and flavours. Everyone from kindergarten kids to street vendors would be carrying an umbrella in the rain. I think it was this sudden transition from a culture with no umbrellas to an umbrella filled society that brought my phobia to fruition. The fear of getting my cornea peeled off by an errant aglet - as irrational as it is - began to give me a shiver down my spine, as my imagination took hold. Umbrellas began to look like big cats paws, with claws out ready to pluck out my eyeball and wield it, spiked on the end like an olive on a toothpick. I attempted to give each passing potential threat a wide berth by swerving my upper body this way and that as I walked down the street. It must`ve looked like I was attempting a really bad disco move each time I rolled my way past someone with an umbrella. This was never going to do, as I mentioned, everyone has an umbrella over here, and the streets - at least in the city - are far too packed with people to be attempting drunken master style moves to try and avoid umbrellas.

I toyed with the idea of trying to start a trend by putting a cork on the end of each aglet on my umbrella. Kind of like those stupid Aussie cork hats, but with corks that stayed put and weren`t dangling all over the show. This idea would have been perfect, as I remembered that scene from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels where Steve Martin jabs himself in the eye with a cork modified fork. No real danger of losing my eyesight to a altercation with a cork, at least not a flying one. However, it was that idea itself that didn`t fly, in the end it was a pipe dream. It did however lead me to a solution, which is: as long as I carry an umbrella, I should be out of the reach of anyone elses evil aglets. The theory works perfectly; as long as everyone carries an umbrella, no one loses an eye. But I did say it was a solution, and not the solution. You see, I actually really like walking in the rain, and (as you may`ve pieced together), don`t particularly like umbrellas. I`m still a Kiwi at heart. Umbrellas aren`t for me. I`ll humour them, and use one if absolutely necessary, but I still think of umbrellas as the preserve of the posh. Nothing against umbrella users out there, that`s just my own mental occlusion.



So you see, it`s a bit of a conundrum really, either I walk with an umbrella and cocoon myself in a zone, safe from those `other pluckers`, but feel like I`m conformimg to a social norm for the sake of security (which to be honest makes me cringe nore than any angling aglet). Or, walk, as I would prefer, sans-umbrella and take my chances.

Up until now I`ve been taking my chances with those perilous barbs. Everyone needs a phobia right?


What`s your phobia? Do you avoid it, or face it? Any explicable reasons for having it in the first place?

a big wet elephant in the room

It`s rainy season at the moment in Japan. Perhaps you were unaware that Japan has a rainy season. Well it does, it`s the fifth season that you`ll never see on any of the tourist posters or in any of the package tours. Rainy season is never talked about in a good way. It`s pushed to the fringes of society and it`s arrival is like the feeling you get when you receive the little card telling you it`s time for your annual check up at the dentist.

But I feel sorry for rainy season a bit, I mean, it`s not rainy season`s fault that its rainy, that`s the way it goes. Ce`st la vie! Sho ga nai! The point is conceded; it rains in rainy season, whaddayagonnado?

The anomaly is that rainy season seems to be held in a different regard than the main 4 seasons here in Japan. People seem to love mentioning the fact that it`s cold in winter, or hot in summer, in fact it becomes almost a subconcious act, like breathing. Let me give you two examples of what i mean:

The first is the expression:`SaMUUUi` (the emphasis on the `MU` sound is very important here as if one is doing an impression of a cold cow). This will often be heard while standing at traffic signals in the middle of winter. It simply translates as `Damn it`s cold!`
Similarly `Atsui`, (meaning `It`s hotter than a glasshouse in the Sahara today`), is exasperated time and time again by everyone during the sweltering summer heat in Japan. It starts off as if one is about to sneeze (as in Ah-Choo), but the `tsui` part of the word is more of an exhalation through ones teeth, which gives it a very onomatopaeic quality. Usage is most common when one is about to collapse on the footpath in a sweaty heap at any moment.

These two expressions are never over used here, they`re often said in passing or when there is nothing else to say. It`s common place to comment on the heat in summer, or the coldness of winter, but to comment on the rain during rainy season is a kind of taboo.

Someone may come into work with a furrowed look on their wet face, carrying a dripping umbrella and make a noise that`s somewhere between a sigh and a moan, like they`re about to give birth to something as they stand by the other wet coats and rain suits and shudder. Exuding their grievance with the weather, but never saying it. If someone comments on how rainy it is during rainy season, it`s met with glances and maybe a concurring yet condescending nod.

What is with that? I mean, like I said, I don`t mind rainy season actually. The rain is good for the rivers , which have transformed from glum looking and glorified smelly puddles to rich veins of fresh, clean water that show their appreciation with rapid applause. The trees smell greener than before, and the streets are lined with colourful umbrellas and rain coats. Accepting rainy season might just be the biggest river to cross, so to speak, maybe once people do that we can start commenting on the rainy season as much the other 4 seasons in Japan.



Do you like rain? Do you carry an umbrella? Do you prefer to walk in puddles or around them?

My neighbourhood in Kyoto

The neighbourhood I live in is named Gojo Rakuen, which means Fifth Street Paradise. It is an oasis in the middle of Kyoto. The river that ambles through the neighbourhood is shrouded with lush trees that bear oranges, figs and loquats. The oranges are great for breakfast on the run and the loquats are good too if you get them at the right time. Unfortunately, the figs are popular with the crows, and they have until now beaten me to them every time. I'm contemplating staging a sit in under the fig trees because I love figs too, but perhaps not that much.



As is the way with Kyoto, our neighbourhood is rich with tradition. The streets are lined with tea houses, which used to offer a lot more than just tea if you know what I mean! Anyone familiar with Arthur Golden`s book `Memoirs of a Geisha` will I`m sure. Today the seedier side of business may have ceased, but beautiful women still scuttle from tea house to tea house, immaculately dressed in kimono. Watching them silently float down the street immediately transports you back to another era. They personify the neighbourhood`s enigma.

There`s a building on the corner, across from the old man who sells fruit and vegetables from the front of his house, which attracts a lot of attention from passers by. It seems to be unoccupied but in really good shape. It`s very old, and looks like it used to be some sort of factory. On closer inspection, I discovered a bronze plaque, which reads `NINTENDO PLAYING CARD Co.` A bit of asking around and a quick internet search revealed that this was indeed the original home of Nintendo when it started over 100 years ago as a producer of playing cards in Kyoto. Now it`s a museum that is never open. It stands as a silent, almost invisible reminder of a multi million dollar company's origins, for anyone who would care to know.

I live in a two storeyed `Machiya` or Japanese style house with three other people, a cat and a ferret. The ferret we named Walter, and he spends the winter in our ceiling. He doesn`t pay any rent, but he helps keep the mice at bay - so we let him stay. I say that like we have a choice, but in actual fact I think he has the run of the place. He`s often heard but rarely seen and on the rare occasion that he is spotted, it`s usually as he is on his way down to the river. I don`t know if ferrets strut, but I`m pretty sure that`s what Walter does. He struts down the road with a ferrety look on his face like he`s in on a secret, or maybe he`s just happy as us to be living in our neighbourhood.

It`s no secret though who the neighbourhood belongs to. It doesn`t belong to the tea houses, the crows or the ferret. It doesn`t belong to us, or the Mario Brothers or any of the other residents really. It is a Yakuza neighbourhood. We live next door to a six storey building that is as conspicuous as a sumo wrestler at a golf tournament. The rest of the street is little old men in funny pants, or foreign residents like us - tourists really. This hulking great building intimidates by its sheer presence alone. There are video cameras posted outside that survey the street 24 hours a day, and a 20 car garage occupied by black or white cars straight out of the gangster car catalogue. `How would you like your windows sir? Tinted? Certainly. Good choice sir.` You can often hear them grunting "Osss" to a car as it arrives, and there will usually be one or two suits yapping away on the cell phones or smoking cigarettes dong their best to look like gangsters, and funnily enough, succeeding. It sounds funny, but I feel perfectly safe living next to the friendly neighbourhood Yakuza. They make sure the streets are clean, safe and quiet. Theres never any annoying vendors that pester other parts of the city, nor do we get any door to door evangelical types like I did at my last two places in Japan. It`s a bit like living next to a caged bear though, it`s exciting and definitely unusual, but I`m not going to stick my hand in the cage. No thanks. I get the feeling that the landlord prefers to have foreigners living our house as opposed to Japanese tenants. Maybe he feels we have no association with that side of Japanese society, or hang ups about it. (We don't, however most of my Japanese friends think we're crackers for living there). The way I look at it though, if we weren't welcome, we wouldn't be there. Simple as that. Like I said, it's their neighbourhood. Their "Kinjo".
They treat us as most other Japanese people do. That is with respect and a sense of inquisitiveness, an attitude which is wholeheartedly reciprocated, particularly in this case.

Last night we were sitting on a railway sleeper that thinks it's a foot bridge watching the fireflies. They come out at this time of year to briefly illuminate the riverside. As we were wandering home, we saw a woman standing on the bridge, gazing off into a tunnel of trees, obviously firefly spotting herself. We shared a smile, and an obligatory bow amongst the three of us. No words were necessary, the look said it all. Welcome to the neighbourhood.