Shopping unpleasant in Japan

On Saturday I was wandering through an underwear shop just having a browse and I noticed that I had a shadow. Everytime I moved the shop assistant behind me would follow. This went on for a few minutes before she finally got up the courage to say, "Feel free to try anything on" and then continued to stand there, literally at my elbow, while I browsed. When I started to look for a size she was all "Do you know what size you are?" and tried to help me look, I just said "Yep." but didn't volunteer my size, just kept looking myself. This kind of thing would usually put off an over-eager shop assistant at home - but not this chick. She continued to follow me as though there was a piece of string connecting us and when I stopped in front of another display she was all "Yeah, there's none of your size in these, sorry." ARGH! Fuck OFF!! I tried to lose her by slipping behind a pillar in the middle of the crowded shop and for a moment it was successful but then she was back again, not saying anything this time - just following me like a bad smell. Eventually I said to her, "Would you mind leaving me alone?" In my most polite Japanese. She still took offence of course, but she did back off and when I did eventually try something on she was heaps quiet about it!

This is a pretty extreme example of what shopping in Japan is like. One of the first things I noticed when I very first came to Japan in high school was how shopkeepers will yell out at you as you pass by irrashaimase!!, a word without a direct English translation, but in this case seems to mean "come in and buy something". And if that was the only time they said it it would be fine, but even once you are safely inside their shop and looking around quite happily they keep saying it! The best example of this is the Daiso (100yen shop) where the shop assistants yell out at regular intervals as though they are on a timer. And if one hears another doing it, they do it too, like an automated response, or a whale searching for its pod or something. I swear, they do it so much they don't even realise they are doing it anymore. As soon as you come anywhere near them you get irrashaimased. It is SO annoying. I am already in the shop, I am already looking at the products, you saying irrashaimase in my ear constantly is not going to make me more inclined to buy something - in fact, probably the opposite is true. And a lot of times when I have gone out shopping I have come home with nothing because their constant yelling makes an already soul draining undertaking just unbearable. Sure, it saves me money, but sometimes I really do need what I set out to buy! As for following me around like a nervous child waiting for any opportunity to "help me" - just bugger off! If I want help, I will ask for it. What happened to that manner of service? That's certainly the rule I worked by in my casual jobs. Most people are quite happy to just browse alone and don't really want to forced into the awkward social situation that is small talk with a shop assistant. It's like they are all on commission or something. Mad.

Friday night happenings!

So yesterday arvo I went over the BOE and helped out by chatting to the middle school kids who are going on the trip to Australia this year. We were just supposed to help them practice their English. Some of them were quite good and others were quite bad, couldn't say anything without reading it off a piece of paper. There was one boy in particular who was quite good and really keen which was good to see. The high school kids can be quite apathetic at times and act completely disinterested in everything. One of the boys said he hates comedy films and doesn't like to laugh. What a ball of fun! True to his word he refused to crack a smile the whole time. He also doesn't eat fish, hard to get away with in Japan, and loves computer games. I predict a lonely future. The girls were all giggly and kept talking amongst themselves in Japanese for ages before coming out with a question in English. They didn't know that I could speak Japanese so I could understand what they were trying to say before they attempted to say anything in English which was quite funny. They were mucking around for ages before one of them finally asked me "Do you have a loverman?" I said I had 3 which made them collapse for a further 5 minutes into giggles and exclamations - all in Jap of course.

Anyway, this all wound up an hour early so I just went home and had a doze before heading back for a speech by a local ALT who is going back to England tomorrow. Afterwards we headed to a Japanese woman's house in Kasaoka and she had a massive spread out for us which was delicious. She was a very funny lady, most un-Japanese. She wrote a book and had it published privately a few years ago and gave us each a copy. I was reading it on the train and it is quite funny so far. About her travel adventures in England when she went over for an ex-student's wedding. I had a few glasses of shochu, a type of Japanese sake, and ended up of course having to take the train home and leave my car in Kasaoka so I had to go back and retrieve it this morning. Slight head pounding. It is hot hot though today so that will soon beat any hangover out of me. Tonight there is some kind of festival happening in Kasaoka, with fireworks, so I may head back there and see what I see.

Blog entry 101

!! I am celebrating blog entry number 101 today. Could have celebrated 100, nice even digit as it is, but I didn't notice it. So YAY for 101. I'd like to celebrate by posting particularly interesting and witty remarks but unfortunately I have no such events that would lend themselves to such an occurance. Other than the fantastic weather over the last few days everything has just been slow and quiet. Yesterday I spent all morning sitting at my desk reading a book about Hitler very poorly written by his secretary who was with him for the last few years of the war. It was a bit of a "grin and bear it" situation really. I could either sit at my desk and do nothing, or read this excrutiating account of life in a bunker. For some reason all I can recall of it was that there was an exceedingly odd amount of discussion on dogs. The thing is about these kind of books, is that unless you are going to reveal some massive secret at the end - like that Hitler didn't in fact die and lived out his years on a Pacific island - you have to really concentrate hard on making the actual story engaging because we all know the end.

After lunch I skipped off to the school I will be working at from Tuesday next week and wasted some time there. At about 3:30 I left and wandered around outside for a while trying to decide how likely it was that I would be caught out if I just went home now instead of going back to Nishi. In the end I decided the risk was negligible and made for home. It was heaps hot inside my house since it is kind of west facing and traps all the heat through the long sliding doors at the end of the kitchen so I had a bit of a nap. Nice. When I woke up Millionaire was on and some woman ended up winning the top prize! Actually she was the 12th person to do it so it isn't all that prestigious a club here. Besides, a million yen isn't that much money really. She was planning to use it to take her family on a holiday to Shanghai.

I ate a bad egg for tea and got a bit sick. Not nice. There is some quote of some decription, by Collette I think, who talks about those who live alone looking after their health better because they know that being ill is the one thing that is guaranteed to make you wish you had a companion. It's heaps funny that we always want someone around us when we are at our worst. Just to witness our suffering I guess. Like showing off scars and bruises. "Look how sick I am!! And I still didn't die! Aren't you proud?"

Anywho, since today is Friday I am off to help out at the Board of Education with the middle school kids who are off to Australia next month. I assume this means we will just sit there until they ask us to say something in English. Human dictionary extraordinaire, that's me!

Well, just as well I didn't put any money on my bet! Hirai rang earlier and asked me to translate some parts of the new Asaguchi City webpage that he is sending over so they can set up an English version. It's like a real job finally! I'm so excited at the prospect of finally using some skills I spent 4 years at uni learning that I don't even care I was wrong. Nice.

I try to use my initiative

I sent my wee proposal off today. See what happens. I bet Nothing. What do you reckon? Let's say I tell you what it was first... Basically the English version of the Kamogata website is shit. There are random words collected together all over the place but they rarely make much sense if you read them in the order they were written with the expectation of receiving a clear narrrative of the current situation. And let's face it, when we look up a town on the web we are rarely looking for some kind of ambiguous poetry, we are looking for facts and clear information. So it is my suggestion that they take advantage of having several native English speakers at residence here in Kamogata and have us fix this piece of Engrish.

They might read my e-mail - they may even talk about it, laugh at the bad grammar and choice of words perhaps, but the chances of them actually thinking I have a point and getting me to fix the website are slim. But at least I tried.

What are you eating?

So here's a question; if you had to choose one picture with which to represent a stereotypical Aussie meal, what would it be? I am facing this issue today. Yes, these are the kind of mind-bending dilemmas encountered by a foreign language teacher. Having spoken to various representatives of my current country of residence it would appear that the Japanese would generally say Aussies eat a lot of bread, meat and, when bread is in short supply, potatoes. That's why we are all so large. And despite my best efforts to change these opinions by pointing out that Australia has quite a large population of people without British ancestory, for whom eating rice-based meals everyday is not completely foreign - they simply refuse to budge from their original impression. I begin to wonder why I even bother trying to explain the apparent intricacies of multiculturalism and just let them keep thinking that Australia is a homogenous society of Brits with funny accents. But for some reason, everytime someone makes some erroneous statement about my country I feel compelled to correct them. But it does annoy me just as much, I should add, when Aussies tell me that the Japanese all live in paper houses and are shorter than your average 10 year old. Let's just clear up now that while the Japanese average height is still a few centimetres shorter than the Western one, the Japs are getting taller! I have seen men taller than me - they are harder to come across than at home, but they do exist, particularly in the younger generation. And I would be considered tall at home too, let's not forget. There are plenty of short men in Australia too, when viewed from my height!

Weather woes

Current weather situation; it never stops raining. Come ON, some of us have washing to do. And it would be nice to get out for some exercise at least once this week. Although actually, I have lost weight since I stopped walking to school. Which I guess means that I have lost muscle since losing fat by doing nothing is impossible surely?? But the most dire consequence of all this rain is that it comes from a whole bunch of clouds that are blocking the suns rays from reaching my skin. I do need regular vitamin D.

Sleep in

This morning, after enjoying a few quiet bevvies last night, I woke up at 8:03, 12 minutes before I was due at work. And, in what may possibly be a Japanese, if not World record, I was at work by 8:16. I was even dressed! And thankfully there were several other late teachers so the meeting hadn't started yet. It is not a nice feeling though, to wake up in front of your co-workers. I still had morning face on and morning voice happening which kind of gave away my situation. But I think my face has gone back to normal now so it is all good. Just feeling quite hungry really...

Chit chat

Went and got my hairs cut today. That's how it happened. One hair at a time. It took 80 minutes. The whole hairdresser experience is bad enough as it is. You have to sit in front of the mirror the whole time so there is really nowhere to look but at your own stupid face which always looks awful under whatever the hell special Ugly Lighting they use in hairdressers all around the world. Then you have to try and explain to the hairdresser how you want your hair to look after they have finished with it, which is pretty bloody hard without a photo. They always seem to say, "Oh, like my hair?".

And finally you have the banal hairdresser chatter to contend with. Unlike boring people at parties, you cannot simply drain your drink and slink off with the excuse of needing another one and leave them standing alone with their dull thoughts, you have to answer their questions and sit through the pregnant pauses while they wait for you to continue with some thoughts of your own. At some point - usually after about 2 minutes I would guess - they realise that you are not going to be helpful in perpetuating this meaningless chatter and start thinking about something else they can ask you. I would have thought that in Japan you wouldn't encounter that kind of annoyance because in general the Japanese are quite happy to sit in silence rather than make small talk. But I guess my being a foreginer was just too much of an intrigue for my hairdresser to go by and she was asking me stuff left and right. But at least now there is one less person in Japan who thinks that the entire of Australia is a tropcial wonderland. Thanks to all the advertising for the Gold Coast and QLD that goes on over here, the Japs all think that Australia is one big beach. So when I tell them that over half of Oz is actaully desert they get a bit weirded out, like they have been duped or something. Which I guess they have, but only through their own laziness in building their image of Australia off of tourist brochures.

Anyway, the result of the day is that I have shorter hair and have been subjected to enough small talk to fill my quota for a good 6 months.

Death stuff

The vice-principal's mother-in-law died yesterday so he is off today. When I came in this morning all the teachers were putting money in black and white envelopes and giving them to the secretary. I asked if I should also give some money and it took about half an hour for them to decide. Eventually someone said that because it was only his mother-in-law who didn't live with him and not his own mother who lives in his house it wouldn't matter if I didn't give any money. But if his mum dies I am broke. It's heaps hard trying to keep up with what to give who and when. Last week the principal's daughter got married so she got some money too - but I wasn't approached about it. If someone has a kid, gets married or their parent or partner dies they get serious cash. But you are apparently supposed to buy a thank you-for-the-money gift that is about half the value of the cash you received. Which makes me think - let's cut all the fucking around out and just give them half the amount of cash we would normally give them rather than wait a few weeks to get a refund in the form of a ridiculously overpriced fruit basket.

It's natural disaster time in Japan

The rain just doesn't stop. There are floods all over the place here and people are all dying and stuff, very untidy indeed. This morning they had a reporter at the scene of some flooding and for some reason she seemed to think it was a secret of some description that the water was accumulating, rather than just running off like it usually does and was kind of bent forward towards the camera from under her umbrella all stage whispering and stuff and conspiratorially gesturing towards a woman attempting to ride her bike through the water that was up to her mid-thigh (so, my knee). The camera all sneakily zooms in and she says with great drama, "the floodying is so bad that people are having trouble riding their bikes..." poignant pause while we all reflect upon the absolute lunacy of attempting to ride a bike through flood waters. The Japanese are great like that, whenever there is some kind of natural diaster going on they just keep trying to go about life like normal - that's why you always see pictures of women struggling in vain to keep their umbrellas above their heads even though a typhoon is buffeting them with 100kmph winds. Just give it UP!! Let the umbrella go, you are already wet anyway, just concentrate on getting inside where the chances of you being sliced in half by a flying piece of crap picked up by the wind are somewhat slimmer. Seriously, even a Japanese bloke would much rather have you alive than with perfect hair.

She's thinking again...

Bad thing about public holidays is that it gives you a taste for a real holiday. Just when you are starting to forget about work you are back at your desk wondering what happened to yesterday. Today I really have done nothing at all. No classes or anything. I tried to work on my CIR Times rag but couldn't concentrate. Too much time to think leads to too much thinking and too much thinking leads to too many thoughts. That's the sum of it today.

Still, let's try and talk about Tokyo. It is clearly a big place. It is kind of overwhelming when you think about. I should say try and think about it because the more you attmept to contemplate how 10 million people can live in such close proximity to each other without all hell breaking loose, the more understanding eludes you. There are just buildings everywhere and under the buildings, subway lines, train lines, roads, electric lines, gas lines, water pipes... what a mess. I wonder why the whole city doesn't just cave in since there seems to be nothing below ground but a rabbit warren of tunnels for the train system. And then there are actually people in all these buildings and trains and what not who are all playing some small part in keeping this chaos running. The more I think about it, the more it seems that the people are there for the city and not the other way around.

Despite being usually quite uncomfortable in such large cities, I felt quite OK in Tokyo this time. I think that all the time I spend in my little town has made me crave some kind of action. There were so many people around! It was great. AND they were all young! Imagine being able to go out and run into people of your own age. Wow.

Okaeri!

For the first time I actually really enjoyed the time I spent in Tokyo. For 2 days I hung out with my friends and saw some stuff, but mostly it was the company that made it worth while. I saw Ueno garden, the imperial palace (from a distance), Tokyo Tower, Roppongi Hills, Ginza, Yasukuni shrine, Shibuya and a whole bunch of Tokyo fashion. Yesterday lunch we had all you can eat Indian and boy was it yummy! I ate so much that I was seriously still full at 9pm last night before I got on my bus home! On Saturdaywhen we walke dthrough the Ginza, which is an area where you can spend $10,000 without too much effort (or so I imagine), the streets were all blocked off for some kind of festival which hadn't started yet so we wandered along in the middle of the street. There were ladies walking up and down there who were wearing dresses worth more than my life.

Saturday the weather was hot, clear blue skies (cept for the fog over the skyline that I imagine is a permanent fixture). That kept the streets fairly empty so we had a good walk around. Saturday night we went down to Shibuya for dinner and karaoke and I was quite surprised to discover that the last train is at about 12! A city of 10 million and they can't see fit to leave the trains running all night? It was good to be out with so many young people left and right though. A welcome change from the weekends in Kamogata!

Tokyo is just so massive though, I really cannot comprehend how it even functions. There are just massive buildings everywhere and each one of the is full of people. There are roads and train lines and stuff all over the place, then think about the sewerage and electrical lines, gas lines. It must be a bloody mess underground. How it keeps in order I have no idea.

Anyway, pictures will be forthcoming when I can get a connection happening. Despite the expense of living there, I thought for a few minutes I might not mind it if it meant I could have a social life! I have more to say I am sure, just quite tired and can't think of it now! Just as well today is a public holiday, plenty of catch up sleep i think!

TOKYO!!

Yar! Tonight I board a bus at 20:40 and in approxiamtely 10 hours time I shall be in Tokyo. How excitement is that! I am going to visit a friend who is studying there for a month. I haven't seen him in a long time so I am heaps looking forward to catching up. NOT looking forward to the massive bus ride though. I have exhausted myself today though by jumping around more than usual in classes so hopefully I can just sleep without too much issue. Last time I took a bus here it was quite a disaster involving trying to get on the wrong bus and waiting around for several hours in the dead of night in freezing temperatures for the right bus. When we did eventually get on a bus it kept stopping every few hours to let people off to mill around and left the door open the whole time so cold air could get in and wake us all up. I saw snow falling for the first time from that stupid bus.

Here's a picture of what the rice fields around my house are now looking like. Lovely and green. Full of mosquitoes and frogs.

Hanakin - the wonderous phenomenon that is Friday

Friday Friday. Ah, they just seem to come around so fast these days... Yesterday was crazy town at school. I was asked to hep out with the special needs class as they were putting on a Tanabata party for their parents and teachers to come and watch. There are only 3 kids in the class, 2 boys and a girl. I had to help them make hotcakes in 3rd period which was highly interesting. The 2 boys tend to gang up on the girl and not let her get involved in anything. In the English class on Wednesday we studies colours and when Masaki picked out green as her favourite colour Hiroki went mental because that's HIS favourite colour. They told her she had to have yellow. Anyway, yesterday it was a stool. They all wanted to sit on the same stool so they had a bit of a tug-a-war over it next to the frypan. It was great. Yamamuro was nowhere to be seen, he'd left them with me while he did god knows what elsewhere. When they are all excited and the boys are doing their stupid voices I can't understand what the hell they are saying so I ended up just yelling at them and distracting them while they were still surprised at being yelled at by saying "Oh, look whose hotcake needs turning over!" with about as much enthusiasm as I usually would say "Oh, look they are giving away beer!" That seemed to work.

The actual party was after lunch and even though the kids had obviously been practicing they were so nervous and when they read out the opening remarks from their books you couldn't hear a word of it. They sang a few songs and handed out the hotcakes and played some games. It was fun in the end but oh so very frustrating to watch sometimes. Afterwards there were heaps of hotcakes left and Yamamuro said they could eat some and while our backs were momentarily turned they wolfed the whole lot down! It was hilarious, they just had syrup all over their faces.

So today I have my last E-time classes and I am kind of relieved even though I know I will be bored next week without classes to teach. I never really got along with the grade 6 class very well so I am glad to see the back of them. I am supposed to be swimming with them currently, but I am "busy doing prep".

What world?

Hmm, too bad that I am teaching clases today because otherwise I could have gone out in the searing heat and picked peaches with the year 2s! What a shame.

Last night some bloke came to my door and said that he works in a futon business near my house and just wanted to say hello. I was like, "Ok." and stood there looking at him and he thought I didn't understand what he was saying and got all embarrassed and tried to say it again but slower. It was one of those weird situations where I thought I knew what he was saying, but I didn't understand what he meant by it. What was I supposed to say after he said that? "Hello to you to!" and then what? Invite him in for a cuppa? In the end he just went away and I went back to eating my dinner.

On Monday at our meeting one of the CIRs told me that a girl from New Zealand who lives in this area teaching at a middle school was once asked if there were clouds in her country. She was looking upat the sky at the train station and some woman sidled up and said, "Do you have those where you come from?" with a smug Japan-has-special-stuff face no doubt, "What, clouds?"

I reckon clouds are pretty much a world-wide phenomenon and if you get to the age where strangers look at you and judge you to be a grandma without knowing this fact then shame on you. Perhaps if she was a grandma from some isolated desert tribe I might make an exception, but a woman who is living in one of the richest developed countries in the world has no excuses, she probably has 5 wide-screen televisions in her house. I was thinking of this because just about every second day a kid will ask me if we have TV in Australia. I must give the Japanese this, they are extremely persistant in their ignorance of the outside world!

I sat on my rabbit

Here's a picture of me being a little crazy on Friday night in Hiroshima. I am not a fan except of the part where my arm looks nice and brown. The bit from the neck up is border-line mental. Even so, I will share it with you because if you know me, you have surely seen me make a similar face. Although now that I have seen myself making this face I doubt I will be in a hurry to reproduce it ever again.

Yesterday was the last day at the kindy for me. The kids drew pictures for me and put them in a book. We ate cherry tomatoes together and talked about how many rabbits we each have, or have died under our care. I am 0-0 on that account, some kids had an incredibly high tally which made me feel slightly concerned for the welfare of rabbits owned by small children everywhere. Forget lab animals, it's childrens' pets that are at most risk of dying in cruel and unusual ways.

Drunken antics (and sleepy ones too)

The weekend in Hiroshima was a bit of a mixed bag in the end. Friday night was hella fun. Went out to an all-you-can eat n drink do for my friend who has recently returned to Japan. It was yakiniku, which means you sit in front of a grill with plates of raw meat. It is fun, but the trouble is that it generally takes longer for the food to cook than for you to drink anything that is placed in front of you. As a result of this imbalance I ended up having what could be described without too much exaggeration as a liquid dinner. For 2 hours we drank beer and burnt meat, after we left the restaurant I didn't have another drink all night but still managed to feel quite tipsy at 10:45AM the next morning as I was leaving my internet cafe accommodation. There was a fair amount of karaoke singing at Gs bar, and from what I recall - none of it was too tuneful. Actually after 6 hours worth of snooze in the internet cafe I was feeling quite a lot perkier than I rightfully should have. My friend and I met up for lunch and went round to where he was crashing and watched some TV. Nice.

Seriously, watching TV in English is like a treat equivalent to going to the drive-in at home. And we were sitting on a lounge!! Such luxury. Saturday night off to a mate's place for dinner and movie watching. Saw V for Vendetta, a top film. I really enjoyed it, made me think about a few things, although I don't think it was the things I was supposed to be thinking about. How is it that Natalie Portman can be so gorgeous even with a bald head? Not fair. And also this; no one should worry about who left the fridge door open, who didn't change the toilet roll, whose turn it is to clean the bathroom, just be nice to each other because before you know it you could be sitting in a cell, bald, starving, freezing and awaiting your next torture session (and you won't look as lovely as Natalie while you're doing it either, trust me). So just be nice to each other. That's all.

Sunday I did some excitement shopping for a backpack for my wee holiday. Wandered around with my Japanese friend for a while. Had lot of trouble speaking in Japanese becauseI was so sleepy and I imagine she was quite annoyed with me. Got on the train home at about 3 and when I got home there were 2 undelievered parcel notice waiting for me! Yay!! One will be my visa I reckon and the other could be chocolate! Oh yeah. Oh yeah. What a tops way to end the weekend. Now I just need sleep...

I ate Bert's leg

You know you have a big piece of chocolate when you have to cut it up with a knife because it's too hard for your teeth to get through. This was my main preoccupation last night. I put the big choccie frog that a friend sent me in the fridge and when I tried to eat him (just a little bit), it was too hard to get my teeth through, they just left little knawing marks on the edge, like the mice had been at it. So I had to get the big kitchen knife out and cut his leg off. Even that took a while. I really felt like I earned that chocolate.

KFC takes a religious turn

Last night the "Hee!" show was on and there were a couple of interesting things on there. The first hilarious one was the revelation that KFC in Japan holds a memorial service at a temple once a year to pay tribute to the millions of chickens that it kills and serves up secret recipe style! They even showed the ceremony, all these grey hairs in black suits rocked up and were greeted at the entrance by a life-size plastic Colonel with that benign grin on his face. They placed a big KFC bucket on the shrine altar and prayed and stuff!! It was hilarious. And afterwards there was a group photo, of course, and the Colonel was in it too!!

Another interesting thing was someone has discovered that if you speed up the tape of a certain sumo wrestler of foreign origin talking by 1.3 times, it is easier to understand. Personally I didn't see the difference, but all the Japs were saying it was heaps easier to hear him when they sped him up, like a chipmunk. They had the explanation from the "expert" at the end, usually some weedy looking man in a white lab coat from Kyoto or Tokyo University who said that the average Japanese voice is 115htz, while this mans normal speaking voice was about 80htz. So when they sped him up and his voice went up a few octaves, it reached the level that Japs are used to listening to, which is why they found it easier to understand.

I think the KFC trivia won with about 75 Heee!s. This show is about the only one on all week that I actually do find interesting. There is one guy called Minomonta, who hosts about 6 different shows, all on different networks and also appears on others. All up he does about 35 hours a week on air! That has to be worse than our Eddie Maguire, although, he does host Who Wants to be a Millionaire like Ed! I have no idea why he is so popular, he looks like he hasn't slept for about 5 years, which wouldn't surprise me if it were true considering he is on when I wake up and when I go to bed.

Tyhoon day!

Outani sensei just told me that if there is a typhoon here the kids get the day off of school but the teachers don't!! What the hell? So it's too dangerous for the kids to come to school, but the teachers? Oh, they'll be fine, besides, who is going to guard the school against destruction if they aren't there?? Besides the obvious question; what is the point in our being at school if the kids aren't? Apparently there will be a typhoon next Monday or Tuesday. Personally I am taking it all with a pinch of salt. It doesn't usually get very typhoony in this area. We had a few when I was living in Hiroshima, but not very bad, just blew a few umbrellas around and cancelled uni for a few days. She did say that if my house gets blown over, or a tree is blocking all of the roads to school then I don't have to come in... I wonder if they find many trees have "fallen over" after a very straight crack has appeared near a scattering of sawdust... But that wouldn't happen because now that I think about it, there actually aren't that many tall trees around the roads, you would have to line up a few small ones. Better option is to flood my house...

Flat tyres and stuff constitute excitement

What a bit of excitement today! Last night I went to the servo wanting to put some air in my tyres, I noticed that one of the rear ones was looking a little deflated recently. Most servos here will do everything for you and you just sit in your car and wait. But since I didn't need any petrol it was a little bit dodgy because they had to run around my car filling it with air, a service for which I wasn't going to pay. Lucky for them they discovered that the valve on the flat tyre in question was dodgy and they couldn't pump it up. So I had them fix it for me. While I was waiting the the older guy who was in charge was making coversation with me, all quite pleasant and when I left he said, "come back and play sometime." It was heaps cute, like I had stopped there just to have a chat rather than to fix my car. But this morning I WAS back! My neighbour's car had a flat this morning! He asked me to drive him to the servo to organise them to fix it and then I drove him to school.

I rang the school from my car and told the vice principal I would likely be a few minutes late and he said no worries. But obviously he didn't tell my immediate superior because she said good morning and then made a point of looking at her watch, as though I was terribly late. I was 3 minutes late. And considering that I usually come to work before 8 when I don't even have to be here until 8:15 I think she was over reacting a bit. This is how I know that she isn't really as friendly as she makes out, because as soon as there is any tiny opportunity for her to tell me off, she will. It was tough, but I didn't say anything. What is the point anyway, I know there was a legitimate reason for my tardiness, and so does the big boss.

Engrish engrish

2 of my classes have been cancelled today so I am doing nothing all morning! It's great. I wish there was some way I could sneak into town and post off my passport to get my visa fixed up for my holiday. Maybe I could build a scarecrow likeness of myself and sit it at the desk in the English room... the chances of someone actually wanting to talk to me in person are slim to none. I really think I spend more time doing nothing than something at work here. I have drawn up a list of things I could do during the summer holidays while the kids are all away. I am going to send it to Hirai at the Board of Education and hopefully something will come of it, although I doubt it. They don't take kindly to suggestions because it hints that perhaps you know better than they do - and that's never a thing you should bring to the attention of your employer. These things include making a correct English translation of the curriculum here and fixing the many spelling and grammatical errors on the English version of the town website. They have 7 native English speakers (well, 5 technicallly since Mario and Phillipe are native Spanish speakers) here and yet they still manage to publish a website advertising their town with text that seems to have been translated by Yahoo.com

They keep talking about how they want the new Asaguchi City to be ahead of its neighbours in English teaching and international relations but don't seem to think that idea is negated at all by advertising themselves in broken English. You'd think for the amount of money they pay us they'd be working us to the bone over issues like this, but they seem to have this attitude that they know best, even in matters of English grammar.

Toothfairy

I told the year 1s about the toothfairy today. They flipped out. I guess it does sound kind of strange when you explain it to someone who has never heard about it before. You take your tooth, put it in a glass of water and in the morning it has turned into a $1 coin! Magic! Of course I left out the important bit about mum or dad sneaking in and doing the swap, which possibly made the story sound quite a lot more interesting than it would be otherwise. Even though they were saying "I can't believe it.", they did believe it. They think we have a God of Teeth in Australia and are wondering why they don't have one here. Clearly they are missing out. Apparently in Japan you just throw your tooth away. If it came out of the top jaw you throw it down, if it came out of the bottom jaw you throw it up (whereupon it goes down eventually anyway so it seems like a waste of time to me), but it doesn't magically turn into anything else, you just get a hole in your mouth!

When I said "Oh, so you just throw it away!" They were all very quick to correct me and say, "Not throw away, just throw." Semantics.

country life

Last night for the first time I slept in the second room of my house. It is the room where until now I have been keeping my clothes and I guess would be the actual bedroom. And now IS the bedroom! It's destiny has been fulfilled. It was a bit like going on holiday, to sleep in a different room. There were no mosquitoes in there though so it was a better option than the loungeroom where I have been unrolling my futon every night until now. I left the window open because it is quite humid nowadays and during the night it started bucketing down. Japanese houses don't really do the eaves thing, so the rain just came straight through the flyscreen and I woke up with a moist doona. The rain is so noisy, even though I have a floor above me so I don't get the rain on the roof noises, there were all kinds of loud dripping and drumming noises going on. It rained like this from 6am when I woke up initally until 9am when I left for the station. When I reached the station it stopped of course. I guess because of the rain, this country is so green. Everything is green green green, even the rice paddys have been planted now so they are sprouting green fuzz. And there are frogs everywhere, big ones, little ones and they are so noisy. At night unless I am really buggered it is hard to get to sleep because they are all out there creaking and croaking away in all their different languages. When I go for a walk they jump onto my legs and scare the hell out of me, or jump under my foot and make a murderer out of me. (Do we call that amphibicide?) There are some really big ugly ones too that remind me of cane toads, I saw a flat one on the road yesterday and smirked at it, even if they aren't pests here I still feel disgust towards them. The air always smells like rain, even when it isn't raining. Except of course when one of my pyromaniac neighbours is burning their rubbish under my window.

I don't know anything about rice growing. Over the last month people have slowing been filling thier small fields with what looks like long grass in painstakingly straight rows which they acheive with a funny little ride on sewing machine. The fields aren't that big so I wonder how they justify the cost of purchasing such a machine. Most people have a field probably the size of 2 cricket pitches. Althogh perhaps they have more than one field in differnet areas. It's not like the country in Australia where one persons's property stretches over 100s of kilometres, here the land is all divided up, and dotted in between houses of families who have no interest in farming there will be a paddy field which is tended by someone who lives in the next suburb. I only ever see old people working in the fields. So I cannot tell if the fields are a hobby to keep grandma and grandpa busy, or if they are actual income for the family and when the older people die the family will keep it going. It seems a big stretch for salaryman Bob to quit his highly paid suit job and go trudge around in a rice paddy all day. And I also don't know where the rice goes. Is this the rice that ends up on the supermarket shelf or is this just for their own personal consumption? I don't know how much rice one tiny little paddy like that can yield, it doesn't seem like it would be very profitable. Perhaps all these issues are the reason why the rice farmers are so well subsidised and protected by the government. There is no imported rice in Japan and there is not likely to be any. Without the guaranteed market and heavy subsidies, how could such small farmers turn a profit? So good luck Little Johnny trying to get Koizumi to let you export Aussie rice here.