Japanastan8

March 2007

Good day all

I hope this email finds you well. It's been an interesting couple of weeks since my last little update. I have been accepted to a CELTA certification program. Basically, it will allow me to teach English in other countries. GEOS is paying for half of it, but that means that i'll be here until at least November of 2008. I'll be past thirty, so my only hope is that i'm still coherent enough to use what i've learned in Auckland.

Sooooo let's see here. I worked two Sundays at a new school in Honjo. It's about an hour and half away from Chichibu and apparently i can't pronounce it properly. Everytime i say 'Honjo' to a Japanesey they always correct me. 'HonjO!'...I guess i'm not as excited about "o's" as everyone else. C'est le Japanese. It was actually pretty boring, not much to do but make posters and chat with the two managers; Kyoko and Kame. Kame does't exactly have a command of English nor pronunciation. Which made some fun times. I.E.

K: 'When Rita observed your class, were you lovers?'
M: 'Wha-what?!'
K: 'Lovers? Were you lovers?'
M: 'Not that i was aware of...'
K: 'When I was observed, I was lovers."
M: (Banging head on the table) 'Neeeervous?"

AND

K: 'I think Ishiro looks like black people.'
M: 'Ummm...'
K: 'Black people and Ichiro look the same."
M: (Thinking) Black...brack...Brad. People...peepoo...pitto...Pitt. I get BRAD PITT!!!

'No, but Ichiro does look more like Brad Pitt than an African American."

I also discovered that my 'smart assed-ness' is even less productive in Japan. The managers were talking about boyfriends, so I was asking questions to keep the conversation. Again with Kame.

M; So, do you have a boyfriend? What's he like?
K: No boyfriend? How about you?
M: No boyfriend.
K&K: OOOOOOOOOOOOoooh! AAAAAaaahh! Who do you like? Tom-mu Cru-usu? Brad-doh Pit-to?
M: What? No! Claire Forlani.
K: But she's a girl?

No need to fear about any 'tendencies' however as i soon found when i visited the hospital recently. I caught a nasty flu and actually missed a couple of days of work. Thursday of last week, my manager finally forced me to get checked out. The doctor (female) spoke passable English and asked about symptoms. I told her i'd had a fever and was coughing a bit. So she whips out the stethoscope and tells me to take off my shirt.

This wasn't the first time i've had a doctor listen to my chest. However, they generally lift the disk and place it in the next spot. This doctor felt compelled to slide it across with her left hand and smooth out my disheveled chest hair with her right. Not only that, but i have the feeling she failed her anatomy class. The lungs were where the trouble lie; apparently my lungs are huge! She listened to my chest, and then worked her way over my kidneys, appendix and navel; all over my bulging belly. I had to explain to her that in the U.S., when a woman does that to a man, she generally places dollar bills in his belt.


Other than that, everything's going well. The too-touchy doctor was nice enough to give me some pills and they seem to have done the trick. Any recent damage done has been small and replaceable. I hope you're all doing well.

Godspeed

Occidental accidents in the Orient

February, 2007

I hope this email finds you all well. It's been a couple of months since my last little update. Everything is going pretty smooth. Provided my computer doesn't crap out, i'll be watching a choppy feed of the Super Bowl with friends on Monday morning around 8A. Huzzah! Or in the words of the immortal John Madden 'FOOTBALL!' My Scottish buddy Scot will joining us; fortunately i won't have to have the whole 'Football vs. football' conversation, as his dad is a huge Bears fan.

It's been an interesting week; the gods of Japan seem to be trying to foil my enjoyment of karaoke. Basic Plaza (one of the sing-sing joints i go to) has had two, count 'em, two fires nearby in the last five days. My manager had to move her car today because the blaze was adjacent to her parking lot...only 50 yards or so from GEOS.

Meanwhile, at GEOS it was 'Gaijin Gut' day. Two of the lower level students (in their twenties) inexplicably became fascinated with my diminishing (or so i hope) pouch. They started chatting in Japanese, stared, pointed then prodded my doughy center. Sharks, when turned on their backs become completely immobile, in the much the same way, i was frozen to the wall while they padded and poked and giggled. Girls! Touching! Human contact! It wasn't until the manager made a joke about sexual harassment that i was able to catch my breath and run to the office where they found me crying tears of confusion huddled in the corner. GIRLS!!!

Prior to this i had displayed my Humpback-Whale-on-a beach-in-Oregon-like reflexes. As i joined the conversation i sat, or rather, attempted to sit on the chair next to one of the girls, Ryoko. I'm no physicist, but i soon learned an important lesson about leverage, wheels, centrifugal force and bodies in motion. As 200+ pounds of Norseman settled onto the edge of the seat, the chair shot backwards whilst the Norseman barreled forward towards the widening eyes of a horrified, frail Japanese woman. Fortunately, i was able to punch a nearby desk, change directions and smash into the half-wall. You can take the Viking out of the fjords, but you can't take the compulsion to destroy wantonly from the Viking.

Half an hour after the belly incident, as we were chatting in the lobby my complete lack of grace again showed through. The two girls were off to do whatever and we were saying our gradual good-byes. Being the smooth operator that i am, i folded my arms and leaned up against the front wall, and by wall i mean window and by window i mean glass door which i promptly opened with my potent backside and fell into the street. It's times like these that i wish GEOS would allow drinking on the job, you know, just so i had some sort of excuse...

Speaking of girls, we have a new JET (Japanese English Teacher). Her name is Namea and she is very helpful (though not always in a very helpful way). The other day, i stopped by the 7-11 to get gel after i had ran out. When i arrived at work with chips, kara-age and a drink, i realized i had forgotten to pick up the aforementioned gel. Misa, the manager only had hairspray; i'm not a big 'hairspray guy' especially when it leaves one's hair smelling of fresh strawberries, call me 'straight' but that's just the way i roll. So i asked Namea. She promptly produced a small bottle of that instant hand sanitizer.

M: "Uh, it's for my hair."
N: "Yes, I know."
M: "Not my hands."
N: "But it's gel."
M: "My hair was sanitized this morning in the shower."
N: "Just try it."

M: “Uh, thanks.”
And so i walked back to 7-11.

I was going to write this the other night and as i walking home from work i was composing in my head. 'What to write?" As i neared the entrance to my apartment building, deep in thought, i felt myself slowing. Then i realized it wasn't just mentally. I had hooked a parked bike with my pocket and had dragged it three feet before it fell over. Classic.

I hope that all-y'all are having a great day. Godspeed and God bless what ever adventures you may find yourselves on.

Korea: The Low Down

December 2006

If ever you need a taste of America whilst in Asia, Seoul's the place to go. There are tons of Americans, Armed Forces TV. (with all the best cartoons) and all kinds of restaurants: Bennigan's, TGI Friday's, Appleby's. If ever you get lost, the Starbuck's can be used as way points. True blue, um black, coffee everywhere. Huzzah!

It has a touch of Tijuana as well. The night street markets are everywhere if you can't find what you need at 'Skin Food' or 'Tommy Whitacker' (the inspiration of T. Hilfiger). If money is needed, just stop by Wooribank (pronounced 'Worry Bank'). Additionally, you can keep up on what Communist China is doing to make the world a better place.

As we walked the streets, we came across a cartoon of man being disemboweled! Apparently the Chinese aren't entirely capitalist yet. They track down Korean gangsters and make them 'share' organs with the peasants in China who are more deserving. And people say Communism doesn't work...

Everyone i was with went drinking, so i headed back to the hotel. A nice man outside asked if i wanted a 'Korean lady'. "Why?”, i thought to myself’ “Room service would clean the room and there were plenty of nice places for breakfast, never mind that there wasn't a kitchen in the room and...Wait a second!'

Soon after, we had an earthquake (though i never felt it). It must have been a dousy though, because this other guy on the sidewalk was thrown all over the street! He could barely stay upright! He was just about thrown into traffic when his wife grabbed him by the coat. I don't think i've EVER seen someone so drunk.Huzzah for alcohol!

Perhaps the strangest thing was 'breakfast' on Monday. We carted out of by six and bused to a little job on the way to the airport. The Koreans and Japanese herded us to little table. She must have been a Japanese auctioneer, cause she didn't stop talking like a machine gun for 15 minutes as the staff started feeding us kim-chee. I stared bleary eyed at the 'fermented' cabbage sitting in front of me at 7AM while listened to a barrage of Japanese. I deduced that this was some sort cult that was trying to break our wills by pungent food, audio pollution and sleep deprivation. Eventually, I agreed to join, if only to take a nap.

Here's the other strange bit; (though i love kim-chee) it's not exactly smooth on the stomach. I speak with some certainty that once you've had some your back side can be classified as a biological weapon. Why did they hate everyone on the plane so much? Roses, it not smell like when we finally got off to Narita.

However, i did find some cool kids there. Besides walking the streets of Seoul, we did karaoke at a little club. There's nothing like a bunch of drunk Brits singing 'Eye of Tiger' and 'Bohemian Rhapsody' like The Backstreet Boys to make me thank God once again that i was born in the U.S. The singing didn't stop there, my friend Jill and i did 'Baby it's Cold Outside' on the bus ride home amongst other Christmas favorites. We were the belles of ball with all, save the wee Britons who were already get hangovers.

It's a little weird, ironic even, that Seoul put me in the holiday spirit. The buildings were decked out in proper Christmas fashion, it was really cool. There was even a 'European Christmas Town' with beautiful lights, trees and reindeers even. I really did enjoy my stay there, but i was really glad to get back to the relative normalcy of Chichibu.


PS: We found a 'pay toilet'. The curious thing was, it had a 10 minute limit then the door swings open. Which leads to the question, what happens if you've loaded up on kim-chee and can't make it back to the hotel? A scatological quandary i hope i never have to face.

Initial Thewing

Nov 16 2006 8:51 AM


So i decided tonight was a good night for pizzas. But alas, i can only fit one 8" pizza in my toaster oven...wait, maybe the smaller oven in my stove might be able to hold a second pie! Lo and behold, the next thing i know, i've got TWO (count 'em 2) pizzas cooking at the same time. Welp, time to enjoy some comedy on the ol' computer box whilst i wait.

(Tra-la-la-la)

But what's this? I don't remember my apartment being so cloudy when i moved in...what could possibly being causing this proliferation of smoke?

Matthew had turned the right side burner on, NOT the 'oven'. Now, the right side burner kinda had a dirty pan on it. And it's smoking like a real smokey thing that's been left on an unattended burner too long.

So, it's friz-AH-eezing out, but i have open all my windows to air out my lil cave. No harm, no foul. As far as the pan goes, um, now it's, uh, been rather sterilized, though i don' think that it will be cool until December is here.

But i got me some pizza pie and i didn't die in a fire of stultification.

Cheers.

PS: If you're my mom...this is totally a joke. I have never, and would never be so irresponsible with gas ovens.

PPS: If you're NOT my mom, i totally did this...