Warning

Hey, everybody!

I am planning on rolling out a more detailed entry very soon, as this weekend is probably going to be an interesting one.  In the meantime, I would like to let people know that I have responded to a lot of questions and comments in past entries.  Replies to S, jackmccoyjr, Jonathan, Farmer John, and The have been written in the comments sections.  I look forward to speaking to you all in person soon.

Bye!

About Time

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of news for all of you from the last couple of weeks. It turns out that my employer now requires that I buy a particular type of automobile insurance above and beyond what I currently carry. I must choose, at least, to buy the type that covers medical expenses that might arise from my injuring a person with my vehicle. I could also, for $100 more a year, insure myself against up to $50,000 in damages to their car. If I pay this fee, I am covered in the event that I strike a vehicle, total it, and kill its driver. Were I to do such a thing with my moped, I would utterly annihilate my own body in the process. So Christmas is coming! And I think the Heavens know it, because Jupiter, Venus, and the moon recently provided me with the smiley face seen above. It was quite a rare celestial sight, as the three were the most brightly illuminated objects in the sky, and I was initially convinced that some planes were flying by. A few nights later, the sky was unbelievably clear, and I saw 4 shooting stars in the span of 10 minutes. It was mesmerizing. I will be doing a stand-up for an open mic for JETs tomorrow, a warm-up, hopefully, for some performances during my brief return to America. I haven't gotten any good sightseeing or travel done in the last two weeks. The weather isn't prohibitively cold, but when you ride a moped, the term "prohibitively cold" changes really quickly. The most exciting thing to happen recently was a failed attempt at something fun. On November 29th, it was 11/29, or in Japanese, ichi ichi ni kyuu. Or, in the shorthand of counting, i i ni ku. Ii niku translates to "good meat", and I was going to honor the day by buying some $40 per pound Wagyuu (Japanese beef; Kobe beef is Wagyuu) steak. A 24-hour-flu put an end to those plans. Perhaps I will redeem the rain check I gave myself this weekend. Perhaps I will come across some nice sights or people or stories during my Christmas shopping. Anyway, talk to you soon, America.

Chris

Last Weekend: An Entry I Titled

Hey everyone. Before I begin this post, I have a quick request. If you choose to leave a comment, which I highly encourage and appreciate, please leave your real name at the bottom if your username is somewhat nebulous. For example, jackmccoysr is not entirely obvious. Thanks. So there's some pictures. Take a look. Click. See better resolution. I plan to purchase a high-definition camcorder in the near future, so I may set up an auxiliary account on a site like Vimeo to upload such content. There, ideally, you can witness nature and people in stunning detail, along with clips of the critically acclaimed but not-yet-released-or-even-begun comedy show that Brian, my college friend, and I have conceived. So the last weekend was a fairly exciting one. One of the other JETs in the area, Pierre, was kind enough to allow to hop on the back of his motorcycle and go for a trip. Pierre is in his fifth and final year as a JET and exemplifies the Japanese "senpai" role. Typically, students or colleagues who are your senior (senpai) in Japan adopt a role of responsibility for the well-being and development of their juniors (kouhai). This system assumes that the junior will eventually grow older and carry out the same tasks. The responsibility bestowed on a senior usually involves some kind of mentoring, but it does extend into financial matters from time to time. Repayment and appreciation by juniors is, I believe, shown merely by later filling the senior role. Similar to the relationship between a child and his/er parents, the junior acquires a debt that can never be tangibly repaid. Pierre mentors me in various aspects of Japanese life, but neither of us is Japanese. So instead of carrying on in the traditional way, I think it's best that I buy him a nice meal every now and then. The weekend began by driving through a fairly vicious rainstorm and arriving at the home of Pierre's Japanese family; it's questionable whether I should place that in quotes. They are not related by blood, but the group is quite close and the parents used Pierre's name for their son's middle name. The family was very kind, and in retrospect, I should have gotten a picture with them. They all have varying degrees of English command, that is, various levels of superb English. I played with their son and daughter, spoke with the parents, slept over, and woke up for the next day's events. These were comprised of a trip to a local shrine, a short drive out into nature, and a visit with Pierre's nearby host parents from years ago. The shrine was home to a boar god, and in keeping with that, there are two boars kept there. Picture 4 is the elder boar and picture 8 is the infant; I believe they are not related. Boars, I should note, have cute, elongated, snuffly snouts. The rest of the pictures are of nature, some of locations that need to be captured by video. Picture 1 is a huge waterfall; see the people in the wooden structure at the top for scale. Picture 2 is a wide view from above the city we went to where the valley yawns before you, accompanied by a strange mountainous formation on the left. Picture 3 is a kind of secret waterfall, more narrow, more furious, and harder to locate than the first. Pictures 4 and 5 are from a high point on the shrine grounds. The valley below is home to a river and a small village, it seems. Just look; it's a nice view. Picture 7 is a horned grasshopper from the same area. Thanks, Pierre, for the weekend; it's great to get out and see nature, something I've failed to do on my own (partly due to not knowing where to go, partly due to distance, and partly due to using weekends to relax / be lazy). I will be doing this more on my own in the future, but being introduced to great people is truly appreciated. So enjoy the pictures, readers, and be sure to ask questions you may have about culture here. Everyday life does not grow mundane, but I grow accustomed to it. So things that seem normal here may surprise you a great deal. How about this example? I ordered something last week, and it came in the mail on Sunday, when I was not home. First, I didn't know they attempted delivery on Sunday. After the first attempt, they leave a note, and you use it to arrange via phone or internet another delivery. If you fail to respond, they usually try again every day for a week or so before, presumably, returning the item to its sender. It's nothing monumental, but it's slightly different than the way mail is handled at home. Or how about the school schedule? Students typically arrive at school at 7:30, I believe. I get here at 8:30, so I'm not 100% sure. But considering some travel as much as 40 minutes or more each way via bus or moped, both slow modes of transportation, they have to wake up pretty early. Why would they travel so far? High school is competitive in Japan. Depending on your strengths, you apply to high schools and either end up going to an academic school or one of a variety of vocational schools (agriculture, fishery, technical, etc.). Classes then end around 4:30, and many students go to their respective clubs, after school classes, or sports teams. It's not uncommon to see a number of students still around at 7, when they are asked to finally go home. So as far as the stereotype of Asian work ethic goes, yes, there's some truth to students over-working themselves, but keep in mind that plenty of students are lazy and there's a certain amount of forced over-work intrinsic to the system. Hey! That's all for now. Take care, everyone.

Chris

It's about time I update. This stay in Japan is proving to be very different from study abroad a year ago, mainly in that I am actually bored sometimes now. I actually do have a job and responsibilities, and I get tired. Sometimes I pass out at 10, but I do spend time out and about as well. For anyone who ventures out into Japan, you will find that people are impressed (how genuinely is unsure) by even a basic understanding of the language. My everyday Japanese is constantly improving and hits little plateaus and peaks, but it's hard to know when to feel satisfied. My impression is that I will never know enough; I know enough now to make friends but still struggle with the ability to forge very meaningful bonds. There are moments when it is very desirable to sit at home all the time, and it's a frighteningly available option. So then what are all these pictures? Every weekend is a new opportunity to involve myself in some way with local happenings. Each weekday sees me leaving the office between 6-7, and I usually hit the gym and cook for myself, and the night is pretty much concluded by 10 without much else to do. I joined a Taiko crew (more accurately, Wadaiko, Japanese drumming) that meets on Mondays and Thursdays and have the blisters to prove it. If you are a drummer, notably a left-handed drummer, try Wadaiko and experience the difference. First, I feel like the son of an old Orthodox Jew, as my left-handedness is unacceptable for the hobby. Wadaiko, if you've ever seen it, consists of some small snare-like drums with high-tension, high-pitched hollow notes and a range of larger drums that produce deep notes and resonating bass. Almost everyone uses massive sticks that fill your fist, you strike the drums with incredible force, and most strikes are preceded by raising the stick to the sky emphatically. This means that the sound produced is important, but so is the presentation and the coordination of the group. You can see the accuracy of a group by watching their raised sticks, and if one person is raising his left stick while everyone else raises the right, it's no good. So I essentially must re-learn how to drum. Right, so on the weekends, I've been hitting a number of local festivals. More recently is the local festival. The local area, famous for its wonderful household Buddhist shrines, holds this festival and has a small Buddhist service that runs midday. The morning is kicked off by three runs: a 1km family course, a 3km course, and a 10km course. Given my regular runs of 4 miles or so, the 6.5ish mile course was bearable but not fun. What was fun was seeing my students and all the local people cheering all the runners on, handing us water, and also being incredibly shocked that a foreigner was participating. Later in the day, I ate festival food; the representatives of this are typically yakisoba (fried soba noodles with sauce and veggies, good), udon (soft, thick noodles in broth, good), yakitori (seasoned grilled chicken, good), and takoyaki (fried balls of batter and octopus meat, surprisingly awesome). I should note that the prior sentence made me realize something. Being an English major, it is always my intent to use the most appropriate words to express a given idea. I knew what I wanted to say about typical festival food, but I could only express it on command and in the way I wanted to in Japanese. So I translated it to "representatives", which is not ideal, but it is the translation of what I wanted to say. That's the first time I can definitively point to knowing what I want to say in Japanese but not in English. What does it mean? Probably nothing. So, this festival: the "marathon" ended, I hobbled around with a couple blisters and watched an adult Wadaiko performance, a children's Wadaiko performance, and some children's sumo (kind of bizarre). Pictures for those are above. The week before this, I went to a festival held every year in Kagoshima City, about an hour's moped drive away. It consists of contingents of people from various companies or clubs congregating on the closed streets of the city and performing a few traditional dances. I had a lot of people taking pictures of me, apparently for newspapers, but I am yet to get any info on whether or not the pictures were ever printed. The rest of the five pictures are from that festival and show the group I participated with, some effeminately dressed men, a Doraemon, and me in make-up acting coy. So life here is full of stories if you know how to find them. Luckily, many foreigners living here are approached with curiosity and don't always have to make the first steps for communication. But a constant effort to learn will not only make these experiences more rewarding, it will also allow us to find these opportunities and pursue them. I would have never run in the festival if I did not know how to talk to people, fill out an application, and read directions. I'm living here, and as it turns out, living and existing are two very different things. Enjoy the pictures, I'll try to live more and exist less to bring you more pictures and stories. Bring me some questions and prepare for Hurricane Chris, coming your way December 2008.

Satire? No, It's Just Funny

While perusing through some news stories, I stumbled upon the first picture, and immediately recognized that the facial expression Marc Morial is making likens him in creepy ways to the faun from Pan's Labyrinth. It of course also helps that in the edited photo, McCain is making a now well-known "somebody tell me what's going on, I need my reading glasses to see the guy next to me" face. Enjoy.

"She has a lot of conservative values. She hunts. She fishes. She does it all."

The title is from a Virginia-Pilot news story that quotes Phil Wignall of the (presumably local) Newport News saying just that of Alaska governor Sarah Palin. I cite his affiliation because, ideally, those working in news should be held to a higher standard of analysis than a random rally supporter. Before I delve into radical left-wing partisan politics, I am glad to discover that Palin has values. Moreover, she has conservative values. I typically imagine conservative values to be overwhelmed by heedless patriotism and wherever that may lead. It reminds me of the police officers in a New York Yankees baseball game who kicked a fan out for wanting to pee during "God Bless America", noting on his way out that if he hates the country, he should just leave. I embrace my American citizenship and enjoy the life I have in the country, and this is partly because I am afforded the opportunity for dissent where I see fit. I have many Constitutional rights, but I don't believe I have a Constitutional obligation to vocally love and blindly support all sectors of the nation.

That said, I have long believed that a major issue growing in America was our economic momentum. Everything and everyone seem endlessly driven to the ultimate (albeit deceptively unreachable) goal of desired wealth. Many of us work hard in high school so that we can get into a good college, then we select a major, perhaps one we don't even enjoy or have interest in, and follow it through four years in the hopes that all the money we are paying in the meantime will eventually work itself out in the unspoken promise that the sheet of paper we receive upon graduation is a guarantee of an adequate salary for our well-being in the future that likely consists of working tirelessly toward an ever-higher position and ever-higher salary that can never truly slake our thirst for the wealth and comfort that we believe, we have to believe, is within our reach. Was that a run-on? I'm sorry, I got carried away and just couldn't stop. Kind of like our lives.

But given the recent market plunges (dare I call it a crash?) and year-old warnings from a man just crazy enough that I kind of trust him, mogul Jim Cramer, drinker of Red Bull: Market Edition, I am beginning to speculate that a stop to this momentum may be exactly what we need. We need regulation, and I'm not talking about the kind of regulation that gets mired in politics; I mean that we need to find our course and get back on it, slowly. We are a young country, but we have been proven a strong country. Stocks made an upward swing today, and even if this doesn't signal an immediate end to our troubles, which it doesn't, it should at least inspire some faith. Instead of submitting to the apocalypse theory that the "era" of American power is coming to an end, let's invest not our dollars but our faith in the country and a government that can gradually guide us where we need to be.

And if my instincts serve me correctly, I can find my answer by looking to the core values of our two political parties. My gut tells me that I should turn to the Republicans, because they historically show faith in America despite the looming harbingers of disaster in current events. I believe that it is a conservative value, and even though it is frequently misinterpreted or even abused by its own proponents, it is a value nonetheless. Ah, yet I stand corrected. This is indeed not a conservative value. If we look at Mrs. Palin, a beacon of hope that "has it all", we will discover that values actually have nothing to do with the essential traits we must muster up to effect change in America. When it comes down to it, it's about the stuff of legend, keeping the simulacrum of America alive by killing animals. Gee golly.



I live in Japan. But I only have one citizenship, and living abroad can't make me ignore the fact that our country is, in numerable respects, at a crossroads. I have to keep an eye on what's going on, and every so often, I may weigh in. If you tire of this or simply want to hear about current Japan happenings, I'd be more than happy to share. Just let me know. Take care America.

Chris

Update on Thursday morning: I will make no attempt to be eloquent about this, but I stumbled upon another Palin gem. She said of McCain's current campaign status, "He knows something about being the underdog also, and still being victorious at the end of the day. So there's something to that." In her veiled attempt at a Vietnam POW allusion, she chooses her diction fairly poorly. I don't know many who consider our stint in the country "victorious". Maybe she meant to say, "He knows something about being in a situation that looks absolutely dire and hopeless and still going home at the end of it all. So there's something to that."

Not a Massive Update

We all know there's some financial news stirring stateside, but there are plenty of other countries keeping a watchful eye on what we do. We may make some pretty large errs in both domestic and foreign affairs sometimes, but many countries still recognize that we have a fairly impressive track record in matters of wealth. Japan, for example, frequently follows our lead to a certain extent and, consequently, they have run into the same issues we have in the past. Coverage in national news on the whole kit 'n caboodle in America lets people know what is happening, a fairly objective view. But it also serves to remind people that America is not infallible. Back in March, due to the rising yen and falling dollar, the exchange rate briefly hit 96 yen to the dollar, bad news for travelers. Last July, when I withdrew funds from my American account, I was getting 117 yen per dollar. It has been declining gradually ever since, but in the last week, it plummeted. The first picture shows the first time I have ever witnessed a single yen valued higher than a penny. Although if you pick up a yen, it's amazingly light weight and weakness make it feel all but worthless. In the midst of all this, I've read that confidence in the American economy is fairly strong, at least abroad. Foreign investors are not likely to get too timid; in fact, their confidence may show a surge in the dollar's value after the Fed starts hacking away at interest rates. Today's slash apparently didn't do the trick, but I guess we'll see. Personally, it's hard for me to know how to feel. Monitoring the news from abroad gives me, despite being an American, a typically foreign view. I'm not out and about in the society daily, so I just can't understand how people are feeling about it. I hope that people are optimistic but not blind. Awareness is possibly the most important thing to have, because we can't act without it. And surely we can't individually fix these issues, but we can certainly work to protect ourselves. How do we do that? Wow. I'd ask someone who knows. I read, but I don't claim to know much about money. Anyway, take it easy America, I'm trying to come home in December and I'd be glad if I saw everyone smiling.

Bye!

As an addendum to matters of exchange rate, I just logged in to my American bank account. I recently was charged for an order from an Amazon Japan site, but the product was unavailable. Three days later, I received a refund for this charge, but since the charge and refund are both conducted with yen as the base currency and my bank uses dollars, I profited 38 cents on the affair due to rate changes in the last three days.