I Anticipate Your Questions

You may be wondering at this point: Chris, what's the climate there like? You made a silly comment yesterday about the rain that intrigues me ever so much. I've only been here during the height of summer so far, so I just know that it can get quite hot, probably around the high 90s pretty consistently, and the persistent humidity makes it much worse. Bananas, while a personal favorite, do not keep very well. Fortunately, I consume them with vigor. Even more fortunately, I have air conditioning (a wall unit that is sufficient to cool most of the apartment quickly and even get me quite cold on the couch), but it can get expensive to run that consistently. A woman in my office who seems mostly in charge of my expenses and living arrangements approached me yesterday to inquire about anything the apartment may be lacking. In hindsight, this may have been a passive test to which I was supposed to answer, "nothing". But given the laid back nature of Kagoshima denizens and my propensity to second-guess the intentions of others, it was likely just good will. So I said an electric fan would be nice, and we bought it today. It has a remote control. I like it. I do not like that it came in a box, one of the most troublesome items to dispose of. To get an idea of what I mean, take a look at the attached photo. From left to right, front to back, these are the items: bag of trash that I cannot categorize, bag of plastic beverage bottles, rinsed after having the caps and plastic rings removed, another bag of the same, bag of hard plastics and said caps and rings, can with bag of burnable food waste, paper products, etc., large diagram explaining how to separate all trash and recycling into over a dozen categories, two bags of soft plastics, a bag of white styrofoam, and a bag of colored styrofoam. Not pictured are empty milk cartons which I am yet to cut open and flatten before tying them together. Most of these bags must be taken by hand to a collection location on specific days. Burnable trash is collected regularly, and some plastics are collected at home once a month. It's kind of rough, but if the system lives up to what it purports, they are saving a lot of materials here. What they are not saving is wood, as demonstrated by the tens of thousands of pairs of disposable chopsticks that are used every day to be burned later. There seem to be efforts to raise consciousness about this, and one way to do so is to bring your own chopsticks everywhere. It's a passive reminder to others and an active effort on your own part. We can do it, world!
Classes start next Monday, and so I have not been teaching, but I just visited one of my two schools for the first time today and met some teachers and students. It was a positive experience and small test of my conversational Japanese with teachers. It also introduced me to the first impressions that many male JET teachers experience. Male students tried to act very cool around me and busted out some fairly impressive English phrases (which unfortunately don't translate to actual communicative ability), while the girls mostly stared and had no qualms about loudly saying a range of comments about my face or overall appearance that ranged in translation from "cool" to "pretty" to "handsome" to "your face is small" (which I've never heard and is apparently a compliment). So let's deviate from that before it develops into stereotyping. To give the kids some credit, there are very few foreigners that ever get involved in their lives, and when a new one comes around, it's got to be quite a shock to the system. They'll probably be bored with me soon enough, but I am going to do my best to avoid that. So that's what today was, plus some grocery shopping in a massive store larger than Wal-Mart (of which there are 2 in the prefecture and go figure, one is in my little town) that sells everything from cucumbers to cars. I only bought one of the two there. So today sounds eventful, but I just wanted to shed some light on the hip happenings in rural Japan. And perhaps there were some deep cultural insights mixed in there somewhere. I can't find them. Maybe you can!

To everyone, I miss you.
To my family, I love you.
To fellow '08 Yetis, make money money, make money money money.
To those still at Lafayette, how are classes going? This year started pretty early, eh?

Hey, also check out the recently posted video of my stand-up comedy piece from last month at a comedy club in Philadelphia. It was my second time at a club, and while significantly better than the first, was a baby step on the track to earnest development as a comic. Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPnNtsCJf2s

Later, America!

Chris

Let me begin this blog by noting that I was going to embed a video of myself and my humble yet adequate apartment, but I noticed first that I needed some pants and then later that I needed a microphone. So maybe next time. It's coming up on the one month mark since my last post, and I am horribly tardy on an update. Now that I actually have internet, however, these can be as frequent as possible. For anyone who actually visits here, thank you. Now, onto the update. It's difficult to catalog all of the important events in the last month. It's honestly been a strange balance between minor culture shocks and a little too much English. There's a significant amount of hand-holding that all of us in the program receive at the outset, and rightfully so. Many of us are beginning with little to no knowledge of Japan or its language. And when you have to live here and pay bills that come in the mail with your name as the only English on it, some help is appreciated. Still, I have yet to settle in entirely, and each step gets me a bit further. I have to already take a vacation day soon so that I can go into the city and take a test for a moped license (do you need a license for these in the US?). All around, they are the best cost-efficient option, given the license fees, insurance, gas efficiency, and so on. And I have a short distance to travel to get anywhere I want to be. After that day, actually, my life might settle down. I can be a bit more independent and go to the gym or beach or karaoke or anywhere here without a hassle, unless it rains...which it does. And I don't think I've ever seen it "sprinkle" here as much as I've seen torrents of rain somewhat reminiscent of the worst rain I've ever seen in my life, which was coincidentally two days before I came here in Philly. So enough of the future; what have I done? I rode my bicycle for a few hours last weekend to find a beach. I stopped in a fishing port city on the way and played baseball in a park with a couple of little kids. I later exchanged phone numbers with their mother (not what it sounds like), and I got a pleasant call the next morning from all three saying thank you for playing and let's maybe do it again sometime. Oh, to trust people. Then I went to the beach and hung out with some incredible bugs. They came en masse out of the ocean and onto the rocks around me. They were little segmented creatures not unlike giant pill bugs that skittered away at the tiniest commotion near them. It was an exodus. I was scared. So I then rode / walked my bike back through the mountains for another few hours and caught some unwanted rays. I visited another beach the weekend before that, and have done some sightseeing around various mountaintops in the region. I am cooking a lot for myself, but I can't acheive a genuine Japanese flavor on my own. Nonetheless, sometimes I need to eat several hundred grams of chicken and yes, the metric system is starting to grow on me. Also, I only have a few TV channels here as of now unless I want to pay more, but it's still enough to watch the Olympics (with interesting Japanese narration), coverage of Obama's running mate, and an interview with a boy who has a nearly sexual fondness for cold water all in one evening. Ain't Japan great? I don't know, but I intend to find out. Leave me some questions, and for now I'll leave you with some pictures. 1 and 2: some views of the landscape in Nagoya, where last week's orientation was held as my modem waited for me at home. It was pretty desolate, in a good way. 3 and 4: views from a mountaintop. 5: I try to find my keys in Daniel's kimono during a workshop. 6: "Oh sunset, now you're making me feel romantic", a quote similar to the one half an hour before, which was, "Oh jellyfish, now you're making me feel significant pain in my leg". 7: The very same beach with the sunset, viewed on a different day from a mountaintop. 8: Is it racist if it was my first one ever? 9: Fukiage Beach, the same one as the other pictures. I never bothered to snap photos of my bicycle adventure. Also of note, a couple weeks ago witnessed the 30th anniversary of a Japanese man's disappearance via Korean abduction at no location other than Fukiage Beach. And finally, 10: As far as volcanoes go, this one is active. Hey! Leave comments. Let's talk.

I Have Arrived

Hello everyone,

I should note that all of my time referents from here on will be in Japan time. Right now it's 6:30am, and I arrived yesterday around 1:30pm. The jet lag didn't hit that hard; I was extremely tired by 10pm, but isn't that somewhat normal? Anyway, I haven't done much except go for a walk through Shinjuku and Shibuya to dinner and squeeze in some practice with Japanese. It was still surprisingly sufficient for everyday life. I have been to these areas of Tokyo before, but I don't recall seeing so many sex shops, and I'm not sure who their targets are, because they had advertisements entirely in English outside. Attached are some pictures which show the view from our hotel for orientation. The first picture shows a relatively famous government building with interesting architecture. The others are just for show. Drop a comment just to say hi if you please. I'll update again soon. In the meantime, enjoy what's left of Sunday, America!

A Note on My Feline Profile Picture

While I'm on the kick of study abroad nostalgia, here's a little sharing on the stray cats of Japan. If you are my friend on Facebook, I have an entire photo album dedicated to them called 日本の野良猫. Anyway, stray cats were one of my best friends in Japan. They spoke the same language as the ones at home, and they were always very friendly, usually surprisingly clean, and never gave me rabies. If I am not mistaken, rabies is incredibly rare in Japan. So I was coming home to my host family's house at around 7 one morning after an all-night karaoke outing, an awesome activity to try out. The cat in my picture was there at the bus stop and approached me as if it had been waiting. We became friends and I began to take some pictures even though I really just wanted to sleep. The final picture was taken as the cat looked up at me through some flowers, and I was convinced that the photo was so nice that if you Googled "cat flowers", you could not find a prettier one. So yes, I took that picture, and I like cats.
Another story? Why yes, I have one. My friend, Betsy, and I took a weekend trip to Kyoto while the rest of our study abroad peers went to Hakone. It was expensive, rainy, and completely worth it. One highlight (for me, not sure about Betsy's view) was a cat we found out in the streets of Ginza. After looking for a nice dinner for our final night there and almost failing due to it being around 8 or 9PM, a man from a restaurant approached us and we went in to a bizarre, mirror-lined hallway leading to a small, quiet eating area. It had a very modern feel to it and the food and XYZs (a cocktail) were pretty good. Walking around afterwards led us to a kitten digging through some trash. (S)he got frightened and ran underneath a vending machine, of which there are probably 50,000,000 in Japan. We could not coax it out and settled on going to a convenience store, which are also plentiful, to find food. I explained to the clerk that I wanted food for a stray cat, and I did this with great excitement because I only recently learned the vocabulary for such a situation. He began to suggest food as Betsy triumphantly held up a can of tuna. It was settled. We brought the tuna back, set it in front of the vending machine, and waited. The cat meowed for a bit, clearly annoyed that (s)he could smell food but was afraid to get it. Finally (s)he ate with voracity, clearing most of the can in a few minutes while we just sat and watched. If people pity helpless animals and babies, helpless baby animals are probably the most pitiful sight imaginable. At least this one got some food that day, and maybe now the stray cats of Japan tell tales of the generosity of Americans to each other.

These are some pictures from my previous stay in Japan for study abroad. Expect these kinds of posts in the future. Top: basically a graveyard for destroyed vehicles. Underneath a bridge, people trashed their bikes and motorbikes because they are difficult to get rid of. Middle: I am about to consume a Pepsi Ice Cucumber, a soda laughed at in the U.S. though nobody knew what it was actually like. I thought it was pretty good and tasted more like melon than cucumber (and nothing like Pepsi). Bottom: possibly the best aquarium in the world and that's not a lie. It's in Okinawa, and for scale, those are people and the large beast in the bottom center of the tank is a manta ray. The huge ones are whale sharks. Click pictures to see 9 megapixels of glory.

Inaugural Post

To Whomever It May Concern,

You have either stumbled upon this blog by wondering what someone named Chris is doing, or I contacted you and let you know that I now have a site set up for updates on my soon-to-be life in Japan. I graduated from Lafayette College in 2008 with a double major in English and Asian Studies. I was accepted for the position of an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) for the JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) Program. I will be leaving on July 26th and will move into an apartment in Kawanabe, a small rural town in Kagoshima Prefecture, an area at the southern end of Japan's southernmost main island, Kyushu. That said, I would like to lay out a rubric of what I intend this blog to be. If you have ever read a blog before, you are likely aware that they often end up to be outlets for pent up emotion and venting. Instead, I intend this blog to be entirely for you.
I will be living in Japan. Each day is likely to provide me with interesting anecdotes that I can share with you. Even more interesting, however, are the little things that I won't even think about that you may wonder about (e.g. "Is this true or a stereotype?" or "Are heated toilet seats creepy?"). So I will post text, pictures, and videos as I see fit to give little glimpses into what Chris is doing. Moreover, I want to hear from you. If you've lived in Japan and want to know what I'm doing for Golden Week or if you met me once because I wrote an impromptu poem about you at a W.O.R.D.S. performance and want to know what raw horse tastes like, go. Ask. I will be busy with a full-time job and who knows how many other activities, but I will try to be vigilant in providing everyone with any information they'd like. I will be living without a number of the everyday distractions that made my college life so memorable but also, in all honesty, less productive than it could have been. Though I try to have no expectations of my life there until it begins, I feel that starting almost completely anew (with hardly any familiar belongings and not one familiar face) will allow me to build a new schedule. And part of that belongs here. It sounds ambitious and maybe a little unrealistically so, but I will do my best. In the end, I want to keep communicating. So let's do that.