Of Interesting Trends

Well, it's another week, and I feel obligated to crank out this blog post before people accuse me of not keeping my promise. So I'm cranking out some club music to get me in the mood. And I'm not gonna' lie, this is one of those weeks where it's actually difficult to think up a topic. I've gone through three or four now, and none of them have seemed to work, so I've decided to go with this.

First, I'd like to wish everyone happy holidays! Merry Christmas, Happy New Year's, and whatever other holiday you may celebrate! Everything is lit up here in Japan; trees and lights are everywhere, and it's beautiful. Christmas is more of a friend or couples holiday here. New Year's is for families though. It's interesting to see it reversed from the States.

Second, I've noticed something really curious about dogs here in Japan. People really like their dogs, and when I say really, I mean obsess over. You know how there's this whole joke about "bag dogs"? Meaning, you don't let your dog walk and instead you carry it in your purse, or other bag. Here, that seems to be pretty common. I've seen more dogs in bags in the past couple days than I've seen in any Legally Blonde movie. They're in purses, briefcases, satchels, gift bags, you name it. There's a dog in it.

Also, while we're on the subject of dogs, there are some serious dogs in sweaters here. Every dog has a sweater. In the States, if you put a sweater on your dog, people laugh at it, and then they laugh at you. Because it's just strange. People don't do it. But here, dogs love sweaters, or rather, they have sweaters. At first, it was the bag dogs, and I thought, "Poor dog. Not only is it in a bag, but now it's forced to wear a sweater too." But then the trend grew. I saw a Golden Retriever the other day with a sweater on. I honestly don't think it did anything. It's a dog with really thick fur, but who knows. Dogs can wear sweaters too.

Finally, the most perplexing of all trends is the current fashion to wear what we'd term in the States as "hooker boots." For those of you who are not familiar with this term, think the boots that are very tall which basically go up to your thighs. These are not in any way acceptable back home, but people wear them everywhere here. I see girls come to school with their short little skirts (yes, in the middle of winter) and hooker boots. I see little girls who are barely old enough to walk wearing hooker boots. I see moms and grandmas wearing hooker boots. Of all trends I've seen so far, this is the one that confuses me the most. How on earth did these things get marketed to the masses?

I welcome any input.

In the meantime, happy holidays to all!

Michelle

Kobe Luminarie

I decided to take a little trip the other day to Kobe for a really interesting experience. Kobe is known for a variety of things: Its beautiful ocean, its beef, and most importantly as the site of the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995. This earthquake occurred on January 17, 1995, and although it hit the entire region, Kobe was hit the hardest. It took thousands of lives and did trillions of dollars in damage. When you visit Kobe today, you would not even think of this tragedy. It's revived into a bustling city, but the memory of it is still fresh in people's minds. So, I took a few trains with some friends for 600 yen, and we were there in and hour and half.

Every year since the Great Hanshin Earthquake, Kobe holds a festival called the 神戸ルミナリエ (Kobe Luminarie). Basically, lights are strung around the city for 2 weeks, and it's free for anyone to enter. Donation boxes throughout the area go toward not only providing the light show, but also go toward helping those in need in case of another earthquake.

You walk in through a line of lit up trees as you approach the picture below. I'll be honest. I've never seen anything like this before, and it's amazing.

Keep walking and you get to go underneath all those arches.

There are entire structures built out of lights.

Even though there were a lot of people, things moved pretty quickly. We were able to move around with no problems whatsoever, and it was amazing. We also had the best からあげ (karage) I've ever had as well as something new called ベービーカステラ (baby kasutera), which was essentially little dough balls. 

Anyway, all in all, it was a great trip, even though we were only there for a few hours. Next time, we'll go see the ocean and visit Chinatown. I already can't wait to go back. For now, here's a picture of Kobe at night.

Later!

Michelle

Of Burakumin

Although I had intended for this to be a happier post infused with some good old-fashioned humor, plans have changed. Instead, I'd like to cover the controversial topic of 被差別部落民, hisabetsu-burakumin. For those of you who have been to Japan, you'll know that this is more than a little difficult to find information on. In fact, the Japanese purposefully will avoid the topic unless you are very close friends. In that case, you will get an honest answer, but the topic will still be somewhat taboo. Luckily, at a university, you are able to learn about such things in class, and then you may talk to your fellow classmates on the subject. Broaching it with someone else though is definitely not recommended.

Burakumin roughly translates to "the sect(ion) of fallen people." These are descendants from Japan's feudal outcast group. Like in many traditional caste societies, the lowest group was compsed of the 穢多 (eta), or those who worked with animal carcasses. These people were therefore tanners, butchers, etc. People with severe diseases such as leprosy could also be put into this group sometimes. They were often segregated from the cities since their work was considered unclean. This therefore led to the stigma that they themselves were unclean.

Interestingly, the Buddhism perpetuated this myth. Although Buddhism normally promotes acceptance of all people, and especially encourages those to feel sympathy toward and help those of lesser status, the case was different for the burakumin. This is because Buddhism, along with Shintoism holds the belief that killing anything will cause a sort of stain. These people therefore were condemned to wander from place to place, separated from the rest of the "clean" society.

The burakumin have been discriminated against in multiple ways. Beside being forced to live in buraku settlements, they were also discriminated against when seeking employment or marriage. When applying for a job, individuals are required to submit their koseki, which in the past was a history of the family lineage, but now just includes the immediate family and the address of the household. Based on the address, employers could check to see if their potential employee was a burakumin or not. If they were, they would immediately be dropped from the prospective employees. The same could be said for marriage investigations. If the individual was found to be a burakumin, the marriage would be cancelled.

In 1871, the burakumin caste system was abolished, and the burakumin were officially freed. Since then, it has been made illegal to discriminate against someone based on whether or not their ancestors were burakumin. Still, even today it was rare for someone to admit to that past. Although things have changed much from their past, that social stigma is hard to forget, so many will keep it a secret.

Although much of the social stigma has faded, it is still an uncomfortable topic for many Japanese. Without a doubt, they have become ashamed of such past treatment. Although some discrimination does still persist among other minority groups, this is mostly hidden from daily view. Unless one is a member of that group and they are in particular parts of the country, the likelihood of encountering discrimination has faded. Of course, it would be wrong of me to say that it has vanished altogether. It is the same with my home country. It is true that things are gradually improving, but there is still a long way to go.

Michelle

Of Job Hunting

Well it's a new week and a new blog post. I apologize for the delay. Things have been a little busy around here. Tests all the time, some nonsense with my home university, and other such things. But this blog is not about that, so onto a little news and then a light-hearted topic (cause it's been way too long since we've had one of those).

News:
1. North Korea is still being crazy. Nothing's solved yet. The US and South Korea are still holding drills. China is still "managing" the situation, and Japan is monitoring it.
2. Tokyo's been having earthquakes, but not Kansai. So it's a little sad. No worries though, seems like everything's fine.

And now for the main topic of this blog: Job Hunting.　I admit, it's still not the most light-hearted topic, but it is interesting, and it is phenomenally important, especially for those of you considering working in Japan.

For those of you familiar with Japanese, the word for job hunting is 就職活動 (shuushoku katsudou), or 就活 (shuukatsu) for short. I've been talking to a lot of the Japanese students here, and this job-hunting process seems to be pretty involved, even when it is compared to other countries. For example, the Japanese job-hunting process begins around November of your junior year. At this time, you gather information and decide on the companies that you are interested in, and then you give your resume to them. Typically, the apply to 50-60 companies. You then attend numerous company presentations and job fairs to show that you are interested. During these times, you must be infinitely punctual and wear nice clothing (suits, ties, etc.) So far, nothing is really different.

But here's where things change. You will be asked by the company to attend a series of interviews. You start out talking to the lowest people in the company and advance your way to the highest tiers of the organization. You will have anywhere from 5-10 interviews per company, which means you can easily attend 100 interviews during your job hunting process. As you advance through the system of interviews, eventually you will attend something called a "pressure interview." Basically, this is you and a selection of the highest individuals in the company; they will question the choices you've made in your life and how you plan to continue. From what I understand, this is the most intense part of the process, since you are essentially being interviewed by the CEO of the company for an hour. If you manage to pass this, congratulations.

Interestingly enough, just for kicks and giggles I've included a stereotypical question. Let's say you have the following situation. You are driving a car when you see your best friend, a beautiful woman, and an elderly person who needs to go the hospital at a bus stop. What do you do? Only 2 people can be in the car at the same time.

Let's think about this for a minute. You could take the elderly person to the hospital yourself and leave the other two at the bus stop. This is a fair answer. However, the answer that companies often look for is the following: You give your car to your best friend. He then takes the person to the hospital for you. You wait at the bus stop with the young woman, and then you get your car back from your friend later. Why? This shows that you are thinking of the group, and that you can cooperate with others. By willing to lend your car to your best friend, it shows that you trust him, and that you can form that kind of relationship, a valuable asset in any company. You also get the person to the hospital in time, definitely a bonus.

So, let's say you've decided on the company, and then for the next several months (particularly January-March) you attend job interviews. Different companies conduct their interviews during different times. For example, large corporations may conduct them earlier, foreign companies conduct a little later, and other small companies may be later than that. It all depends on what field you want to go into. On April 1, or around there, companies release their choices. If you receive offers, you then choose your company. If not, you continue job hunting.

Assuming you were given offers, and after you have made your choice, you will attend numerous company bonding experiences with the intention of making you a loyal company employee. Your boss will take you out drinking for example, he will inquire about your family, and you will grow closer. In exchange, you work hard for the company. Although companies are moving away from this idea, the idea of human relationships within the company is still very strong. By destroying any of those relationships, or by failing to form them at all, you will jeapordize not only your position in the company but also the company's standing in the economy.

When you first join a company, you will often be moved to a distant branch office for a year or two to gain experience. After the company has decided that you are of some use, they will move you back to a more prominent branch.

If you have any other questions or comments, feel free to post below.

Michelle

Of North Korea

Tensions are increasing over in this region due to the recent threats by North Korea. For those of you who may not be updated on the latest news, first refer to my last post, and then I'll summarize everything here.

All good? Alright, let's continue...

So, as you know, North Korea shelled Yeonpyeong Island in South Korea the other day, killing two marines and two civilians. Japan immediately condemned the act, and is trying to find ways to settle the matter. China is also trying to solve the problem, but in some ways, it is making it worse. This is due to the fact that the US and South Korea are planning to hold naval exercises in the area in order to discourage North Korea from any further action. Unfortunately, North Korea has expressly stated that it considers this a threat on its sovereignty and that if it pushed any further by these exercises, it will not hesitate to retaliate. China, although not condoning North Korea's actions, has also stated that "any military act in its exclusive economic zone will not be permitted." By reading between the extremely passive-aggressive lines, one notices that China is also in a way threatening the US and Korea, and possibly will take serious action if it continues to be baited. Although right now no one is sure what that relation would be, one can guess that China would perhaps stop trade with the States as it did with Japan not long ago with regard to the rare earth fiasco. Although China eventually started trading with Japan again, the US cannot afford to lose China as a trading partner.

Apparently, the US and South Korea have started military drills anyway. The commander of South Korea's marines has stated that South Korea will avenge the deaths a "thousandfold." And that, "We will put our feelings of rage and animosity in our bones and take our revenge on North Korea." North Korea, in contrast, has accused the South's marines of using "human shields" while still calling the civilian deaths "very regrettable."

Apparently, six-way talks were to be held by Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea, the US, and Russia. Although the Prime Ministers and other such representatives of the individual countries have met and are trying to solve the problem one-on-one, the talks that were originally planed have been postponed.

I can't truly say what's happening in other countries right now, but I know Japan is on edge. Although it is normal for North and South Korea to be angry at each other, and even to engage in military actions at each other every now and then, this much animosity still is making people uncomfortable. Kan's Cabinet has been put on high alert here, and has been ordered to stay in Tokyo in case the situation gets out of hand. Hopefully this will end like in the past with just the North and South being angry at each other and without a war breaking out. Honestly, I do think it's possible to prevent that, but considering the China-Korea region is becoming extremely unstable, we will see what happens. China is experiencing some infighting in the government, North Korea is currently changing leadership, and South Korea is upset with its Prime Minister for not doing enough to handle the situation.

To those that are worried, don't worry too much. The North and South hate each other by definition. I would worry more about China than anything else.

If you want more information, check out the Japan Times and the New York Times.

Michelle

Of Movie Theaters

So, before we get to the main event of this post, I decided to give you a little news real quick. Actually, I don't have news of China this time. Although there's still tension between Japan and China, there's nothing really new there, so we'll leave that for now. Instead, I'm sure by now that you all have probably heard of the recent attack by North Korea against Korea. When I say Korea by the way, please keep in mind that I mean what is termed South Korea by other nations. So, North Korea seems to have fired about a hundred rounds at Korea, apparently over some border dispute or other such nonsense. No worries though. Right now, the US is sending over troops to do some drills to try to discourage North Korea from doing anything else. According to people here, this isn't that unusual. North Korea tends to attack Korea from time to time, but it's normally solved pretty quickly. Personally, I'm not sure if this is due to the fact that North Korea is changing leadership (and therefore that was mean that this would be validating the new leader's power), or if this is some sort of resource battle or what. We'll see what happens. As long as North Korea is on its own, things should be resolved pretty quickly, since North Korea doesn't really have the money to sustain a long war or anything. If North Korea gets aid though, I'd be more worried. That's just the update for the day. If anything else comes of it, I'll definitely post about it.

Now, onto our main and more light-hearted event - Japanese movie theaters. Kind of a strange post, I admit, but definitely worth it. So here's the thing. You go into the movie theater and you decide to run into the restroom real quick. It's full of those delightful Toto toilets. And since the weather's getting cold, all those seat heaters are on, so now cold seats in that restroom now! Fantastic! You finish your business, head on to your way to go grab yourself a little Yogi-snack. (P.S. You may not believe it, but I wrote that sentence speaking like Yogi Bear to myself. Read it again. In the Yogi voice. It will make you laugh. Sorry, back to the point).

You move on your way to grab some food. They have the normal movie theater food: hot dogs, nachos, that sort of thing. They also have some delicious churros. I know they're delicious because my friend let me try hers, and hers was amazing. After all of this, you go into the movie theater. This is where the real fun begins. They show the previews as normal, and then you know those little "Don't do this in the movie theater" advertisements that they show to make sure that everyone is respectful? Yeah, those are a lot more fun here. "Please make sure your phone is on silent." Ok, no problems there. "Please do not talk in the theater." Yup, no problems there either. "Please do not kick the seat in front of you?" Ok, that's a nice addition. And then, "Please do not film and distribute the movie." Wait...what? I mean, I know people do that, but it's the first time I've seen it. Interesting.

Well, the movie begins. It's Harry Potter: Deathly Hallows: Part I by the way. Tickets here are exceptionally expensive. Around 1500 yen ($15 US) a ticket. On ladies' night, Wednesday night, it's cheaper for women, but it's still expensive for men. Sorry, guys. You don't get a special movie night. Here's the interesting thing about the movie. We went to an English showing with Japanese subtitles. There were Japanese showings too, but since we went to one of the first ones, it was only in English. But when Harry starts speaking the snake language, I think it's called Parseltongue, am I right? Anyway, when he starts speaking that, you have to read those subtitles. Because there are no English subtitles. So you gotta' read the Japanese ones. Do you know how weird that is? To be listening, and not understanding. And then you have to read your foreign language to understand the "foreign" language? Bizarre.

So the movie finally ends. Good movie by the way. I recommend it. The movie finally ends and the credits begin. Well, we had heard rumors that here in Japan the Japanese tend to wait until the end of the credits to leave, but you hear a lot of rumors about Japan that aren't true. So, the movie ends, and we look around, and no ones moving. Not a single person. The credits go on for five minutes; one person leaves. My friend next to me is dying. She really wants to get out of the theater, but no ones moving. Another five minutes. Two more people leave. This goes on for 15 minutes. And during that time, maybe 10 people in the entire 200 person theater or so left. So if you hear that rumor, I'm telling you its true. Until those lights come on, don't even try to leave the theater. Sit quietly and enjoy the credits. It's kind of nice though in a way. You sit there and think about it and you come to appreciate the movie a little bit more. But if you're an impatient person, I don't recommend going to the movies.

Take care all! And I'll write again.

Michelle

京都御所 (Kyoto Gosho)

Today, we all decided to head out to catch a look at the 紅葉 (momiji), or the fall colors. Honestly, I was thrilled to get the chance to do this. I always love watching the leaves change, whether its in my home country or here in Japan. So with a few friends, we took off to the mysterious palace of 京都御所 (Kyoto Gosho) - Nothing less than the Kyoto Imperial Palace.

Surrounding the palace is the Kyoto Park Grounds. These are phenomenally beautiful. Open to the public year-ground, people are able to come and enjoy the grounds while having a picnic, playing games with friends, or just enjoying their time outside. The fall colors were in full force when we arrived.

Tomoyo enjoying the leaves

After walking around the grounds, we decided to enter the palace. This palace is only open to the public three days a year, so I'm really lucky to be in Kyoto right now. Although this palace is no longer really in use, it is still maintained as a historical site.

First, we have the 諸大天の間 (Shodaibunoma). This large building is composed of three anterooms, and its purpose was as a waiting room for visiting dignitaries.Depending on the dignitary's rank, he would be placed in the appropriate chamber. These are amazingly beautiful with images of waterfalls, cherry blossoms, and cranes. Honestly, if I could live in this waiting room (and I want you to know, I'll never say that again), I would. It was beautiful. Notice that the floors are also all tatami mats.

Next is the 新御車寄 (Shinmikurumayose). This was built for the Emperor Taisho in 1915 as his carriage entrance. Also very beautiful, the ornamentation on this is extremely intricate. Note the gold leaf.

This is the 日華門 (Nikkamon) gate. It's oddly interesting because it's orange instead of red. Normally, these tend to be more red. Crowded.

This is the 紫宸殿 (Shishinden). It was the main building used for important ceremonies (i.e. coronation of the emperor). The roof is made of cypress bark; there's a garden of white gravel; and a cherry tree to the east and a tachibana mandarin tree to the west. 

This is 御内庭(Gonaitei). It's the Emperor's Private Garden. I want a garden like this. In fact, I'll settle for just a little waterfall. It can be electric. But it would still be cool. 

And there you go. An abbreviated version of the Kyoto Imperial Palace.

Michelle

Ritsumeikan Gakuensai

The 立命館学園祭 (Ritsumeikan Gakuensai) occurred over the weekend. This is a really big school festival, and when I say really big, I mean huge. Basically, every organization sets up a stall and does something for the festival. Here we have the SKP buddies (Study in Kyoto Program) trying to sell their delicious corn soup. Business was a little slow at the time, so we have Juri posing with a Free Hug sign if you buy the soup. Keep in mind it's really cheap, like 150-200 yen. The idea was for all of their foreign friends to hold these signs because "Ooh la la. Free hugs from foreigners." Amazingly, it was a superb market strategy and the soup sold quickly.

Organizations like the wrestling club and the judo club were also present. Remember the previous post? Yeah, they got their rink set up and wrestled for days. The judo club did demos and taught some.

I enjoyed the a capella circle though. They were really good!

And to top it off, we had some serious dancing going on a gigantic stage. I was only here for like 2 minutes though because I was getting hungry.

Here are some pictures of the stands and an advertising duo in Stitch and Tigger costumes.

Other cool things included crafts like making your own pottery, caricatures, and live spray paint art.

In other news, the leaves are beginning to change color. If the weather stays nice, I'll load some pictures of that up soon.

Also, unfortunately, not all news can be good news. Due to the recent attempted terrorist attacks on the US, Japan is having to take some fairly strict measures. Getting in and out of Japan is getting to be a little more difficult. The screening process is taking more time than usual, even for native Japanese and permanent residents. Packages cannot be shipped to the US if they weigh more than 1 pound now as well. This is surely a temporary measure, but no one is sure how long it will last. So I apologize to anyone who wanted something. I currently can't ship anything to anyone in the States.

Michelle

Of Trains and (Un)Manliness

Another post. Who knew? Told you I would make it up to you all. Well, this post will discuss the rush hour trains and (un)manliness.

I got on the train at rush hour the other day, unintentionally hitting the "just-off-work-and-trying-to-get-back-home" crowd. So, I get on the train, and I'm with a friend, and we only have four stops. Four. That's it. First stop, we though, "Wow, it's a little crowded. Luckily, we only have four stops." Second stop came and a mass of people rushed in. The doors barely closed. Third stop came up. More people came in. We were against the doors. There was no way that we could move. Business man behind me is falling asleep standing up. Business man behind my friend is falling asleep too. Girls on the other side of us are pressed against the doors like sardines. Would have loved to see their faces from the outside pressed up against the glass. I'm sure it was comical. It took about 10 minutes for the doors to close. People were in the way, you know. But you can ALWAYS fit another person. We got off at the fourth stop and were like "Wow, we can breathe again." So, lesson learned. Don't ride the train at rush hour. Just wait till later. There will be another train in 10 minutes. You can wait.

And now, onto the main theme of this post. (Un)manliness. Don't get me wrong. Japanese guys are very kind, and they make wonderful friends. No problems there. But sometimes you just have to question the guy's gender sometimes. No joke. I saw a person the other day who had a nice shiny black purse. Man bags are currently in style. So are big purses for girls. Useless. They were wearing small boots. Both girls and guys wear small shiny boots. They're fashionable, and fashion is very very important. They were also dressed fashionably. Definitely not helpful. Everyone must be fashionable, or the world will end. Finally, they had on tight pants. And when I saw tight, I mean tight, my friends. And this is the ultimate bane of my existence. You see, Japanese men don't really care if they reproduce or not. So they wear these ridiculously tight pants, and it's a pain in the butt. Because that's normally your last resort. Ended up it was a girl. But it took 20 minutes to decide. Consider this the norm. And now, onto the main event.

I got an e-mail the other day from the office at Ritsumeikan saying something the lines of, "Honorable person, please understand honorably that the foreigner benches will be moved. We hope this does not inconvenience you." After wondering why on earth they decided I needed that e-mail, and whether I should be offended or not, I decided to move to head over to the foreigner benches to go get a nice show. The wrestling team comes up. No. I'm not joking. The wrestling comes up. All 20 or so of them and 12 of them move to one table. These are picnic tables, guys. They're like maybe 20-30 pounds. Nothing. I can move one. By myself. Without trying. But no, 12 guys for one table. And they heave up the table with a shout of "Let's do it!" and they carry it away, grunting the entire time. Honestly, if they weren't tripping over each other's feet, it probably would have been a bit easier. But really, 12 guys. 12! Why do you need 12 guys to move one stinking table? I decided it was an exceptional amount of teamwork. After moving all three tables around the corner of a building, they decided to start setting up their wrestling rink. A U-Haul drives up. It's full of the most random crap I've ever seen in my life. Random metal pillars, 60 or so planks of wood, and other odds and ends. They carry out all the metal pillars. No problems there. Then, they move to the wood. This is when it gets even more ridiculous. Each plank of wood must be carried separately because we cannot damage it. Best of all. Each gets two guys, one on each end to cradle it carefully. Every now and then, you get up to three pieces, but normally, it's one to two. They actually look like they're having trouble moving these, and they're all dog-tired by the end because they've made about 50 trips to the stinking U-Haul. Now, I try not to make US-Japan comparisons, but I really can't help it here. In America, those 60 planks of wood would have been carried in maybe 10 trips. Maybe. That's the max there. It's likely be more like 5. Because here's the thing, US guys would have been like? "60 planks of wood? What the hell? That's too much!" And then they would have tried to be as lazy as humanly possible by getting it down as quickly as possible. So, they would have taken six or so at a time. Since girls were watching, that means they would have been placing bets, and rooting each other on to take more--all while shirtless. But this is not America. Every piece of wood gets tender loving care.

Ah well, till next time.

Michelle

Kansai-ben

I apologize for the delay. I've been busy with other things, which has kind of prevented me from updating this, but I'll make it up to you. I promise.

Today's topic is the Kansai dialect, 関西弁(Kansai-ben). Kansai is the Western region of Japan. It's composed of places like 大阪 (Osaka) and 京都 (Kyoto). Kansai-ben is thought to sound funny, more open, and perhaps a little rude to non-speakers of the dialect. In contrast, we also have 関東弁 (Kanto-ben). Kanto is the Eastern region of Japan. Mainly, we think of this as standard Japanese. It's spoken in 東京 (Tokyo), on the news stations, and taught around the world. Tokyo-ben (the dialect specific to Tokyo) is thought to sound too polite, monotone, and robotic to non-speakers. These are just two of the main dialects though.  So, now that we've got the history pinned down, we could move on to the fun stuff. I'd promised little language tips every now and then. Please keep in mind that I am not an expert on the Kansai dialect. I am definitely still learning it, but these are just a few observations.

Kansai-ben differs from Tokyo-ben in its choice of words. For example, we have the word アカン (akan) in Kansai-ben. This means approximately "no good" or "hopeless" or just plain "wrong." The Tokyo-ben equivalent is だめ (dame). We also see the word アホ (aho) pretty commonly in Kansai-ben. It's meaning is "idiot" or "fool." In Tokyo-ben, you would say バカ (baka). Some others that are different include ほんま（に） (honma(ni)) in Kansai-ben and ほんとう（に） (hontou(ni)) in standard Japanese for "really." めちゃ (mecha) versus とても／チョウ　(totemo/chou) for "very," and おおきに (ookini) instead of ありがとう (arigatou) for "thank you."

Occasionally, some words are also shortened. For example, 面白い（おもしろい） (interesting) becomes おもろい in Kansai-ben. 違う（ちがう）(chigau) becomes ちゃう (chau) for the word "wrong."

Conjugations are also a little different. 食べない（たべない）, "I did not eat," becomes たべへん (tabehen). だ (da), the shortened form of です (desu) meaning "to be" becomes や (ya).

Kyoto, like all cities, also has its own particular form of the dialect. In Kyoto, people tend to add -haru to their verbs to make them a little more polite. For example, 行きます（いきます) (ikimasu), "I'll go" becomes 行かはる　（いかはる）(ikaharu).

Of course, please keep in mind this is all just an overview of the Kansai dialect. This by no means includes everything. People have written books on the topic, and this is only a measly little post, but hopefully it was of some interest to you. In order to fully learn the Kansai dialect though, you have to just listen to the people around you and repeat what they're saying. After all, since each city is different, if you're not careful, you still won't sound like a local.

Michelle

Of Bank Transfers and Konbini Clerks

So, today I have some wonderful stories for you all. Today, we are not going to talk about tests or homework or any depressing news about tensions between China and Japan. Nope, none of that. Today, we're talking about awesome storytime. It's been a a while since we've had storytime, so now's the time.

One. Bank transfer. That's right. I see your face; you're like, "Oh no, Michelle. Please let's not talk about that. That's horrible and boring." But you're wrong. It's exciting. So I tried to transfer money today, but it ends up you can't do online transfers to other international accounts. International companies don't like that very much. And it's pretty much impossible either way since they don't have ABA numbers. So here's how it went. I called up Bank X today in the States, on my Japanese phone. Which honestly, normally it'd be free since it's a toll-free number, but I called after 9:00 my time, which is when Softbank starts charging me for phone calls, so we'll see how that goes, but that's beside the point. I called up Bank X. Nice support person, Josh, answered the phone.

"Hello, this is Josh. How can I help you?"

"Hey Josh, this is Michelle. I'm wanting to transfer to a foreign account, but they don't seem to have an ABA number. Can you lend me a hand?"

Well, Josh of course wanted my last name, because it's blasphemous for him to call me by my first name, but I'm a funny sort of gal, and I like being on a first-name basis. So, I told him how to pronounce my last name, and then promptly told him that I'm young and prefer him to call me by my given name. Luckily, Josh is a young sort of guy too. So we of course struck up a wonderful conversation.

Josh needed to research a bit to figure out how to solve my problem. While he did that, we made small talk. He apparently had used one of those McDonald's cups and sliced his finger open on the lid. It was unfortunate, and he had to get 9 stitches. So, not only did I get my question eventually answered, but I had a great talk with Josh from Bank X, which I would just like to say is the best bank ever. By the way, for those of you wanting the answer, apparently doing a cash advance from your checking account (NOT credit) is free of charges from Bank X, so I can get funds cheaply. Score.

Two. I went to the konbini the other day, which I'm thinking I might have to start making a label for konbini soon, cause I seem to have written about them a lot. Anyway, I walked into the konbini yesterday and tried to ask about paying my health insurance but I couldn't remember the word for health insurance bill, so instead I made up some nonsense. Of course, the lady I was with had no idea what I was saying, but luckily, there was a guy there who after giving me about 20 example words, finally figured out what I meant. And he was so happy. Today, I went back, and he instantly recognized me. So I bought some dinner and mentioned I wanted to pay my health insurance, using the correct word this time, and he was so excited. So yes, I'm starting to make friends with the konbini people. Friends of course need names though, so I've named him too. His name is Kurosawa 黒澤, written with the kanji for black and swamp. So hereafter, if you hear me refer to Kurosawa, please keep in mind it's the konbini person.

Later!

Michelle

Of Karaoke

So I went karaoking for the first time the other day, and let me just say, it was really exciting. Our trip began with us taking off by train down to Hakubaicho to find ourselves a classic karaoke place. Once we got there, we just wandered the streets until one appeared. In neon lights. You can tell its popular with the youth because there were a good hundred bikes outside.

So we walk inside, step up to the counter, and ask to buy a room. Unlike in the States, you buy individual rooms here for a set period of time. That way the only people you inflict your voice upon is your close friends. (I don't know about the rest of you, but that's a good thing in my opinion.) So, for 980 yen each (approximately $10), we got a room for 3 hours. Awesome.

Surprisingly, we got carded. I can honestly say this is the first time I've been carded my entire time in Japan. You never get carded. It's kind of wonderful. Either people actually believe my age, or no one cares. Either way, I'm happy.

So, after paying our humble fee, we got a box with the controller (which is really a miniature computer with a display of all of the songs) and 2 microphones.  We walked into the room and stopped. This was no normal karaoke place. The room was huge; it easily could have fit 20 people. The seats were really just cushions and pillows, and love seats covered in leopard print. I'm not kidding. You can't make this stuff up. Where were we? Oh yeah, leopard print. So we have this room full of leopard print seats and we're shocked. We walk in, all excited, and start to choose songs. A few are normal, you know, the recent hits on the radio. There are plenty of songs in English and Japanese. And then, then, we find a blast from the past. Spice Girls. And then, Backstreet Boys. And then, Queen. You name it, it was there. the song book was easily as big as a phone book, if not bigger.

And that's how it went, for 3 hours. It was amazing, and we all left happy.

On another note, tensions between China and Japan are increasing again. It seems Chinese ships are near the Senkaku Islands, and so Japan is submitting a formal complaint. Protests seem to be happening in China as well over Japan's continued claims to the island. To be honest, I can't really tell you the Japanese opinion on this. I don't know if there have been any protests here against China or not. I'll continue to keep you updated.

Michelle

Konbini

Hello all,

I'm currently studying for a Japanese exam, but you know what? I promised all of you I'd keep you up with the latest fads in Japan, so here you go. I'm not going to claim it's the best Japanese ever, but it's definitely something to appreciate. As you know, I go to the konbini all the time. And when I say all the time, it's all the time. It's just so convenient!

Well, a group of people decided to make a konbini video, and so without further ado, I present it to you below.

Enjoy!

Michelle

Arashiyama and Nabe

The other day, instead of studying, I decided to go exploring with Jazmin to Arashiyama. Arashiyama is one of the famous parts of Kyoto, which in Kyoto, says something because all of Kyoto of Kyoto is pretty famous. So, Arashiyama is really famous for temples, and the more traditional arts in the city. But we didn't go to temples really because frankly, I'm a little templed-out at the moment. Instead, we went to one of the very famous bamboo forests behind one of the temples.

Beautiful, isn't it? I admit, it's my first time to really see bamboo, so I was super pscyhed. I can't imagine having to chop any of this stuff down, it's ridiculously strong. And this bamboo is easily the size of a small plate.

After our random explorations outside of the normal touristy zone, we ended up going to a friend's house to make nabe. Nabe is extremely delicious. Basically, you put a bunch of stuff in a pot and then let it cook for a little while and then serve directly from that pot into people's bowls. Ours was full of deliciousness. It went something like this:

1. Start with a soybean milk base for the broth
2. Add pork
3. Add yam noodles
4. Add mushrooms
5. Add carrots
6. Add cabbage
7. Add fried tofu

And let me just say to you that it really doesn't look as delicious translated. There are so many bad connotations with those words that I just put up there, but you know what? Try to ignore them. And think of the feeling you get when you walk into the house and you've had that bowl of spaghetti sauce or something boiling on the stove all day, and you think, "Wow, I'm home, and this smells so delicious." That's the feeling you get with nabe.

And now just because I'm thinking about it, and I really think I owe all of you a picture, here you go. This is my bowl, perfectly arranged by Tomoyo.

Japanese Cell Phones

So we already covered that I got a cell phone a while ago. I think you all should remember this. Anyway, the reason for this post is because somehow we've gone this long without me giving you a description of the cell phones here. Japanese cell phones are pretty interesting actually. The smartphone is just starting to catch on in the market here, but it isn't huge yet. This is mostly due to the price of data here. Anyway, this post will contain some useful tips for those of you looking to get a phone over here and some normal shenanigans.

So, let's get some of the basics covered. You're coming to Japan, you want a phone. Good for you. You go into Softbank, au, or Docomo and buy your phone. If you're doing prepaid, it doesn't really matter where you go. If you're doing contract though, the prices do vary by company. If you want that sort of info, feel free to leave me a message or such and I'll do my best to answer those questions. For the sake of time, we'll continue. Before you choose any plan or anything else, you should understand one thing. In order to get a phone in Japan, you need your alien registration card. Without it, you can't get a phone. Promise. Secondly, you don't pay for the phone in Japan. You pay for the charger and you pay your plan. There is no paying for the phone. That means that you just choose one you like off the wall.

Also, texting is not like texting in the US or some other countries. You "text" to e-mails here. Each phone has an e-mail. You text to that. So, that means that you can e-mail without having internet on your plan. Confusing, but it's important to understand.

Now, you've gotten your phone. Cool. If you were lucky and went with a bunch of friends, or people you just claim as friends, you get some cool coupons sometimes. In my case, I got possibly the best coupon ever. My coupon offers me a choice. It states, "Please call this number and choose either 5 months free or a stuffed animal." Yes, I'm not joking. 5 months free on your contract OR a stuffed animal. Personally, I want to know who chooses that stuffed animal. What stuffed animal is equivalent to 5 months free?

Japanese phones are equipped with all sorts of cool gadgets. Read books on your phone, surf the web, etc. Put your info in your phone: e-mail (texting), address, birthday, name, and so on. All phones have a cool little infrared sensor. Turn that on and have your friend turn theirs on too, and you can exchange all of that information in seconds instead of having to type it again. How efficient!

Personally though, my favorite addition is the wealth of emoticons available. These are hysterical. There's everything from your standard happy and sad face to pictures of penguins, whales, hamburgers, sake, and octopus. My phone (a basic phone) has 15 pages of them. And I know what you're thinking, "When is someone possibly going to use all these? A penguin?!" But you know what? I use them all the time. It's really funny actually. I send my friends a text like, "Hey. Let's meet up for lunch. How about by the benches?" And I get a text back with something like "Sure *picture of scarf*." And I think to myself, "What on earth is that scarf for? I mean really. Is that scarf a sign that they think it's cold? It's like 40 degrees Celsius out here. Maybe it means that they really want to eat lunch? Maybe it means it's a bad time for them?" Honestly, I'm not sure, but after asking myself about a dozen questions, I've just given up trying to understand it. I've even adopted the practice as some sort of strange conformity thing. I'm sending pictures of octopuses (octopii?) like there's no tomorrow.

Well, it's late! Take care all! *scarf*

Michelle

Of Rice Buying

I walked into the rice aisle again today. For anyone that's been keeping in touch with me, you know that's something of an achievement. The rice aisle is intimidating. In fact, it's the most intimidating aisle for me. I can go in the other aisles and be perfectly comfortable with the fact that I can't read anything, but the rice aisle, oh no. Here comes trouble. Last time I walked into the rice aisle, I stopped, physically stopped, caught my breath, the whole shi-bang. There were bags and bags and bags of rice. And I can't read any of them. Awesome. So I took my little 外国人(gaikokujin, foreigner) self through the aisle, grabbed one at random and fled from the aisle like a gazelle fleeing from a pack of lions. When I got home, I learned I'd bought the wrong kind. How embarrassing!

But this time, this time I steeled myself and walked into the aisle for the second time. My thoughts went something like this:

"Alright Michelle, you can do it. Just walk up, read the kanji and grab one....Crap, I can't read the kanji. What on earth is this? It's rice. Well, how about that one. Nope, can't read that one either. Well, that's rice too. What about this one? No, wrong kind. I can read that one. That one's for mochi. And the fourth one says Hokkaido, but that's just a brand....Shit."

To me walking into the rice aisle is kind of like when you send a guy into the women's sanitary supplies aisle. He's like, "No talking! No talking! I don't belong in this aisle! Where are they? Where are the things she told me to buy? Are those tampons? Pads? Elderly incontinence diapers?! God! My eyes! My eyes!" And then, scarred for life and eyes bleeding, he grabs the first thing he sees and runs out of the aisle, mistakenly buying "supers" or some other such nonsense.

That, my friends, is the fear that the rice aisle evokes in every foreigner. You have all these kinds of rice in front of you, and they look exactly the same. Luckily, it seems though that this time I picked the right kind.

And now, with regard to rice and an embarrassing sort of translation. While in said rice aisle, I saw a package labeled 無洗米 (musenmai). The last two characters I definitely knew. They mean "wash" and "rice" respectively. The first one I technically know but I forgot it's meaning. I only recognized it from the word 無理 (muri), meaning "impossible." So here I am in front of this bag of rice and I've just translated it as "Impossible to Wash Rice." And I'm thinking "What the heck? Who would put that on a package? That's horrible marketing!" I can see it now, "Come one, come all, come buy the rice that you'll never be able to get clean!" Yeah...fail. For the record, that kanji alone has the meaning of "not," so the meaning is actually "Not necessary to wash rice" or "Rice that's already been washed." So yeah, cool beans. At least I remember the kanji now.

And now it's already hit midnight and I promised myself I'd be in bed by 12:30, so I've gotta' run! Night all!

Michelle

Of Japanese "Convenience"

Here in the magical world of Japan, there's a couple words that are often thrown around to describe everything from the convenience store to transportation. These words are "convenient" and "efficient." For example, "It is convenient for me to only have to walk 1 minute to a convenience store in order to buy anything that currently strikes my fancy. Because I am not wasting time driving somewhere, I can use that time to do more productive things, such as studying or working or possibly going out to the bar with my peers (or in the case of business people - coworkers). This therefore is very efficient." Yes, my readers, that is exactly how it works.

Here in Japan, there are stores called コンビニ(konbini) everywhere. Konbini is short for convenience store, and because it is convenient for me and efficient for me to not have to type all of those other letters, we will call them konbini for the rest of this post. Think of it as your little Japanese word for the day. I'll call it convenience.

Konbini have everything: toothbrushes, magazines, bento (pre-made meals), snacks, alcohol, winter clothing, you name it. Your local 7/11 (called Seven & Holdings here) will be your new best friend. Let's look at a typical konbini here. You walk in. "Oh, look! They have that new magazine I wanted! I'll get that. Oh, and there's some melon pan, yum, I think I'll get that too. It will be a good snack. But you know, sometimes I like something else too around midnight. Oh, they have my favorite onigiri today. That'll be good. And look at that! That bento looks delicious. Great!" You walk up to the counter and place your items down with a friendly "Here you go." The cashier rings them up, tells you the price, and then looks at your bento. "Would you like me to heat this up for you, honorable customer?" "Yes, please," you reply. So they heat it up for you right there, just to the perfect temperature, and you're on your way. See that? That's convenience. You didn't even have to heat up your own meal.

Now, I'm all for convenience, don't get me wrong. But today, I saw one of the craziest things: pancakes. Don't give me that look. You read that right. Miniature pancakes. In a package. In the konbini. They're really cheap too. Like 200 yen. Yum. They're even flavored with maple syrup so you don't have to deal with any of that mess. You can just grab a package and go to class or something. Here's a picture just to prove it: Konbini Pancakes. Now, my friends, I think we've reached a whole new level of convenience here. This is what we call laziness. But the Japanese will never call it that. It is convenience and efficiency. Those are the words they will always use.

So, why are there konbini on every corner? Why are there more vending machines in this country than I've ever seen in my life? Why are the trains so fast and on time? Convenience. Efficiency. Awesomeness. Personally, I admit it's kind of growing on me. I love my neighborhood konbini. I love the people that work in my neighborhood konbini. And maybe one day, I'll buy those pancakes for breakfast just out of sheer "convenience." Thank you, Japan. I admit, a girl could get used to this.

Michelle

Biking: The Ultimate Challenge

So, I decided to start off this post with a quick correction of a commonly held belief. "X is like biking, once you learn, you never forgot." Yeah, we've all heard that, right? It's completely and utterly untrue. I come from a place where you either walk, or you take a car. Biking is rare, Things are just too far. Here in Japan, everyone owns a bike: You, your best friend, your best friend's grandma, the three-year old kid down the street who just learned to walk. Everyone, and I mean everyone, bikes here. That means that people like me who haven't biked in a good 5 years are at a disadvantage. And if you believed that nonsense about never forgetting how to bike you're at more of a disadvantage.

Here you will navigate small streets, keep in mind the age of some of these cities and the population living within them. You will also navigate around cars, motorcycles, pedestrians, and fellow bikers. Bikes are treated as vehicles here. That means also if you've hit someone, you get charged as a vehicle. It's bad, very bad.

So, why am I bringing this up? Because

1. I suck at biking. And I'm not being modest here. I honestly and truly am terrible at this. Those three year old kids who just learned to bike? Yeah, they're better than me.

2. I already wiped out once while trying to get onto a curb. It hurt like crap, and I was a little beaten up for a while. I managed to avoid the cars going past me though, and I only damaged myself.

3. Unfortunately, I got in another bike accident today. I was avoiding some other obstacle, and was checking to the side, and then noticed there was a person in front of me. I wasn't even going that fast, and I tried to purposefully roll my bike in order to not hit them, but I clipped them anyway. Unfortunately, they fell despite my best intentions. Luckily, it was another student and they only escape with a minor scrape on their arm, but it could have been much worse. Some bystanders decided to take us both to the student health center since my nose was kind of gushing blood (somehow I'd managed to hit it), and we wanted to check on the girl I hit. It seems we're both ok, and I hope nothing else comes of it, but this biking thing just might kill me.

Michelle

Rare Occurrences

Well, because I've been getting questions about it, I just wanted to say that before I begin this post that nothing else has really happened between China and Japan. Three Fujita employees were released the other day. China had supposedly been detaining them due to them entering a restricted military zone. This was considered a positive step toward resuming relations between the two countries (Source: China Frees Three Fujita Employees). However, to be honest, nothing really has changed. Things are still tense, and we haven't been given anything else on the matter.

In other news, I experienced a couple really rare things recently. First, I found a water fountain. I know, what an odd thing about post about right? But I'm not even kidding you when I say these things are hard to find. In a month, this is the first one that I've seen so far. I was even like, "Woah! A water fountain!" And all of the Japanese students around me looked at me like I had three heads, but hey, sometimes you just can't contain your excitement.

The other unusual thing happened the other day when I decided to ride a bus with a friend to a temple in downtown Kyoto. We went a few stops down on the line and then an "argument" began to break out behind us. And by argument, I mean, people trying politely to convince a person to get off the bus when he really didn't want to. It was an elderly man, I suppose his wife, and a friend or something. They were telling him, "Let's get off now. This is our stop. The family is waiting," etc., but he refused to get off stating that it wasn't his stop. I'm assuming that he had some sort of mental disability, but it was very strange. The bus waited nearly 20 minutes for this individual to get off the bus. The bus driver then came and also tried to convince the man. The reasons why this is so unusual are listed below:

1. The elderly man created a scene. This is absolutely unacceptable in I believe a fair number of countries, but it is especially frowned upon here. By making a scene, you inconvenience the people around you. You are causing the public to become unsettled. Therefore, your goal is to make sure that society runs smoothly. You live your life, but you do not inconvenience other people.

2. The fact that this man caused a scene means that the individuals with him, especially his supposed wife will be embarrassed for an astronomically long time.

3. The bus waited 20 minutes for one individual. The busses, trains, etc. never wait for a group of people, let alone one person. Things run on time, getting off the schedule inconveniences the populace which is never done if it can be avoided. The only reason I think this was excused was because the individual was elderly.

Needless to say, the man decided he was not getting off the bus, so the bus continued on its way.

And that's it for this post. I need to get back to studying.

Michelle

The Senkaku Islands

I know I just updated yesterday, but something has been in the news for a few days now, and I haven't reported on it, so I felt I should acknowledge it here. Some of you may have heard of the recent problems with China and Japan. If you haven't, I'll try to enlighten you here. There are a group of islands called the Senkaku Islands by Japan and the Diaoyu Islands by China. They're south of the Ryukyu Islands in Japan and located in the East China Sea. For people a little lacking in their geography, no worries, here's a map: Senkaku Islands Location.

These islands were never really a problem in the past. Japan acquired them through the treaty at the end of the First Sino-Japanese War from China. During that treaty, China handed over Taiwan and the surrounding islands to Japan. At the end of World War II though, Japan was forced to give Taiwan and other territories it had acquired from China back to China. Therefore, China claims that the islands are actually part of China.

Japan claims that they have been controlling the islands since 1895 though, and since the islands were uninhabited up until 1895, they are therefore under Japan's control. Since Japan had already made the islands into Japanese territory prior to the return of Taiwan to China, Japan argues that they were not included in the prior treaty and that they are part of China.

Taiwan also makes a claim on the islands, but for simplicity's sake, let's just stick with Japan and China for now.

So, we have China and Japan both claiming the islands. Before the 70's, there was no conflict over the Senkaku Islands. In 1969 though, it was announced that there was possibly oil on the islands, and suddenly the dispute broke out. This is also history though. The recent reason for the problem has arisen due to a recent Chinese fisherman who decided to go to the islands. Since he was in what Japan considered its waters, Japan arrested him. Before managing to arrest the fisherman though, he had run into two Japanese Coast Guard boats. The fisherman and his crew were arrested on September 7. Japan released the crew and the boat on September 13. However, Japan refused to release the fisherman.

China of course became angry and demanded the fisherman's release. Japan refused, stating that it was a domestic incident. China then took a dramatic move that no one here expected them to take. They suspended all rare earth exports to Japan indefinitely. By rare earth, we're talking precious metals here. Japan, kind of needing those, was still trying to contain the fisherman, but decided to finally release him. China resumed the exports within two days. However, relations are continuing to sour. The fisherman is being heralded as a hero in his country, and both China and Japan are standing strong.

China is demanding an apology from Japan and stating that if they receive their apology, they will ignore the entire incident. They are also asking for Japan to help pay for the damages to the fisherman's boat. Japan, on the other hand, is asking for an apology and requesting that damages be paid to the Coast Guard's boats. Japan, really wanting to expand trade in China is definitely feeling pressure, but I don't think it's likely that they will give in easily. China is trying to exert its power, so they also will not give in easily. It's really like two little kids arguing over something trivial, but at this point, nothing can be done.

I bring all of this up though because 1. This is going to mark how foreign relations proceed from this point between China and Japan. And 2. It has started to affect the student population. 1,000 Japanese students were supposed to go to China for some sort of world summit. Everything was set, and they were ready to go. This summit is in 2 weeks. About 2 days ago though, China decided to revoke all of their visas. At this point, it is not known if the students will be able to attend the summit or not.

We'll see what happens from here, but at the moment, things aren't looking good.

Michelle

Classes Have Begun and Comments on Japanese Punctuality

Classes have officially begun as of Monday. So everything is going well now. The first day was rather eventful. I was skyping mother dearest, since that's what good daughters do you know. And since I didn't want to be really rude, I decided I would skip breakfast. No big deal there. I never eat breakfast in the US. Let me just tell you that in Japan, you can't skip breakfast. Ever. After my 25 or so minute bike ride to school, I was feeling more than a little woozy. "I'm not feeling well," I told my friends. "Let me sit down for a minute." So I sat down, gave myself just a few minutes, took a sip of water, and felt fine. We went on our way again to the line. That lasted about oh 10 seconds before I felt worse than before. I made it to the wall, sat down, and promptly passed out. Yes, you read that right. Passed out. In the middle of the cafeteria. In front of the line. With every single person there going "What the heck just happened?!" So while my friends were trying to figure out if I was diabetic or not, luckily a nice Japanese student talked with them, and went to buy me a Coke. Coming to, I found not only the three friends I had started out with but also some of the Japanese buddies, who were more than a little flustered. They're checking on me, talking with my friends, and trying to translate to the cafeteria staff what happened. I'm here drinking my Coke, trying to be good when the health center comes in rolling a green chair. I'm not even kidding. You can't make this up. Realizing what's about to happen, I think now is a good time to throw in a couple Japanese words and say, "I'm fine. Really." Somehow I think I'm speaking Japanglish though because the Japanese buddies are still translating. While convincing the health center that I'm fine for me, the buddy is commenting about how terrible I look and that maybe I should go with them. Finally, we get the health center sent away, and since I've had that Coke, I'm feeling a lot better, so we get some food and continue. I then go to my next class where I promptly fail an exam, and finally to my listening & speaking class where I'm just tired and not paying attention. So yes, first day was overall a fail. But talk about a story!

Second day however was a phenomenal success. I ate breakfast! That was already a better start than the previous day. My classes were wonderful as were the teachers. I made a lot of new friends, and overall everything was great. Since that day, classes have been wonderful. So far, I've taken classes in Comprehensive Japanese, Japanese Listening and Speaking, Japanese Studies, Japanese Society, Japanese Economy, and Comparative Historiography (which is comparing Japan, Germany, and the USA and how our history depends on how we've been shaped by governmental and media propaganda). All of them have been phenomenally interesting.

Now, all of this is all well and good, but although it's relevant, it's probably not extremely interesting, so the rest of this post will be devoted to some good old-fashioned Japanese-ness. First, let's cover the concept of time here. Japanese are punctual, exceptionally so. If you're not punctual, you get yelled at by your friends, coworkers, boss, etc. It's just not acceptable to be late. And by late, we're meaning 1 minute late here. We're not on American time anymore, Toto. For example, in orientation, we were supposed to start something at 9:35. Our Japanese orientation leader, realizing that we were about to be late, instantly asked us all to get out our schedules. He then explained that we would regrettably be late, and asked that instead we would be beginning the next task at 9:36. If we would all mark that in our schedules, it would be appreciated. Meanwhile, it was 9:34. Oh Japan, how I love you.

Let's look at another fine example. In the US, we consider our trains, busses, planes, etc. to be on time if they are within a 10 minute window. That means 10 minutes early, on time. 10 minutes late, on time. In Japan, that's blasphemy. Here, things are considered late if they are delayed by 8 seconds. Yes, you read that right. 8 seconds. You can tell too. Those Japanese businessmen, they get out their watches when the train is about to arrive, and they frown. "Will I make it to work on time?" they wonder. "It's almost 9:30, and the train hasn't arrived yet." Meanwhile, the American is absolutely fascinated across the car. 8 seconds! It takes longer to breathe than that! If you don't believe me (and that's understandable. I know this is a radical notion), please refer to this link courtesy of the Wall Street Journal regarding Japanese punctuality: Lessons From Japan for U.S. Train Operator.

Finally, it is getting late, so I'll have to leave soon, but before I go, let me just let you in on a little bit of humor. So, women here end all of their sentences with ね(ne). Ne is sort of the Japanese equivalent of "don't you think?" or "right?" "It's a good day, ne?;" "It's hot out, ne?;" and so on and so on. The other day I actually ranted about this to someone. "It's driving me nuts! Ne ne ne ne ne! Everyone says ne!" And then I noticed that I started doing it. I'm not sure how long I've been doing it, but I've definitely picked up on the habit. It's almost bad in a way. I'm causing myself pain with all of my "ne"-ing. Worst part is, once you put one "ne" in, more are bound to come. Good news is, I'm starting to sound female in Japanese. Bad news is, I'm driving myself nuts. Ah well, to each their own I guess.

Last thing, and then I'm off. I keep talking about how awesome all of the vending machines and such are here. I have a video to share with all of you if you're still interested.

Enjoy!

Michelle

Of Friends and School

Before we begin this post, I wanted to bring up a few things from a previous post real quick. You may remember my brief little blurb about メロンパン (Melon Pan, aka Melon Bread). It really is exceptionally delicious due to the fact that the inside is light and fluffy and the outside is a sweet crispy crust. Well, thanks to a friend of mine here, I now have the recipe to share with you. I haven't tried it myself, but it looks pretty good. You can find it here: Melon Pan Recipe. If you need anything else, or if you have comments on it, please contact me. I hope all of you can enjoy it as much as I have!

Secondly, you all may remember my comments about the shower mirror and the suicide doors the other day. I finally figured out how to use them. Japanese typically look at the mirror instead of looking down when soaping up and such. Men shave their faces in the shower, and women take off their makeup in the shower.

The suicide doors are for the firemen. They mark the easiest place to enter the building in case of an emergency. They can then evacuate individuals and put out the fire faster through the doors. Unfortunately, not as exciting as a glitter firemen's pole, but there's the answer.

And now onto the new information.

So I've been placed into Intermediate level Japanese here. Considering that's where I should be, I'm pretty content. There are two intermediates: lower and upper. I'm in lower. Hopefully I should be there, but we'll see. I'm excited to begin class though. All classes meet for 1.5 hours here. My Comprehensive Japanese class meets 5 times per week, Japanese Listening and Speaking meets twice in a week, and Japanese Studies meets once a week. I'm also looking at taking three cultural classes to have a total of 15 credit hours this semester. We'll see if that's too much or not. I'm interested in taking Japanese Society, Japanese Culture, and either Japanese Economy or Foreign Relations of Japan. Japanese Economy and Foreign Relations look really similar. They both meet really late though 4:10-5:50. Japanese Economy meets on Tuesday though and Foreign Relations meets on Friday. If I take Foreign Relations, I'll be in class from 10:40-5:50 on Friday. That's rough, so I'm going to try for Japanese Economy. Hopefully I'll do ok. Most classes in Japan meet once a week by the way, so it's a little different than the US.

The other day, I had the best night with people. We got all of the Japanese buddies with us to all go to okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki is a type of food that's a little hard to describe. It looks somewhat like a Japanese style pancake. It's egg, cabbage, and whatever else you put in it. In our case, we had squid, pork, and a mixed one. They you put on Kewpie mayonnaise (a sweet mayonnaise) and oyster sauce. Finally, you sprinkle on some dried bonito flakes and some nori (dried seaweed). It's all made on a huge sort of grill, and it's really good. Now, our Japanese buddies kind of forgot that we ate about 4 hours earlier, so they decided that foreigners eat a lot and that we needed three large okonomiyaki and an order of soba (a type of noodle).

We were so full about half way through, but we couldn't let all of the food go to waste, so we had to keep eating. Now keep in mind all of that food and the fact that the six of us had just eaten lunch a four hours earlier. And now, I think you'll be able to appreciate this next picture a little bit more.

That's right. We ate all of it. We were so full; we were almost sick in fact. We were supposed to head to a nomihodai with our group of about 150 people, but we didn't have bikes, and the bike ride was about 45 minutes. If we went by foot, it'd take us an hour and a half. Considering how much we just ate, we thought we'd be sick if we even thought about a nomihodai. Nomihodai are an interesting idea actually. You pay a set amount, let's say 1100-2000 yen (11-20 US dollars). For the next 90 minutes, it's all you can drink. If they did this in the States, they'd go out of business, but somehow it manages to work in Japan. Now, keep in mind "all you can drink" in Japan is a little different than back home. I can honestly say that it would mean serious binge drinking and getting sick in the US. But the Japanese normally bike everywhere, or take trains and busses. They have to get home somehow, and the idea of being drunk in public is completely unacceptable here. So "all you can drink" is normally done within reason. Still though, we thought we'd be sick, so we skipped on the nomihodai idea and instead went to something called an izakaya (a standard bar) to just go talk and have a drink before splitting up. It was really nice. I enjoy the drinking scene here more actually. The emphasis is always on the group here, rather than on the individual. So people go to a bar more to see other people than to honestly drink.

The next day we went exploring to a huge shopping area along with a famous market. The market is called Nishiki. It's known for having some crazy food like cow's tongue and octopus on a stick and such. Honestly, we went there because one of our buddies had mentioned that cow's tongue was delicious and that we needed to give it a try, but we couldn't find it unfortunately. Instead here's just a couple pictures of a dried bonito flakes machine and some sweets.

Michelle

Of Things That are Confusing and Yet Wonderful

So things here in Japan are going splendidly. The people are wonderful. They are very kind and understanding of difficulties with their language. Every day, I have to ask for help on kanji, but I am improving. Understanding people is getting easier. When I first came I could completely miss everything that was said in a conversation, but now that happens rarely. I may not always understand the subject, but I can understand what people are saying about it, and that's a vast improvement. Unfortunately, I still have so much farther to go, but if I keep talking with people constantly and working on my kanji, then I should improve over the next few months. Right now, I find the hardest thing to be speaking. It's frustrating in a way because people will think you don't understand, so they'll try to switch to English, but it just takes a moment to reply. But as I said before, most people are very understanding, and if you put in enough "Ah, I understand's!" and "Is that so?'s" then you normally can get enough time to reply. This will come with time though.

Anyway, onto the point of this post. I actually intended for it to be a little more on the lighter side. Sorry, I haven't been anywhere cool lately, so you don't really get any fun pictures, but hopefully words themselves will suffice.

Before we begin though, let's get a few things cleared up.

1. Is Japan different than the US?
Yes, people act differently here. In some ways, it's a positive thing. Less talking on phones all the time, more noticing people around them. It's quieter here despite the fact that there are more people in this city than in some states in the US. People are very understanding of language barriers, and definitely will try to work with you. In other ways, it is a negative thing though as well. Foreigners are well, always seen as foreign, even if they've lived here for a long time. They're treated a little differently. At the same time though, let's not say anything rash. Japan is different from the US, but so are a lot of other places. And different doesn't mean anything bad here. Different is just different. In some ways though, Japan is also very similar. There's a bunch of techies here. People love their phones. The Japanese love their clothing, and name brand items. There are good people and bad people just like anywhere else.
2. Is Japan really weird like all those things we see on tv?
No, and let me make this a strong no. There are some things that are exceptionally strange here, like cat cafes or dog cafes, where you pay to sit in a room and have little kittens and puppies run around your feet. People do dress in some crazy clothing, and there are foods and such here which you just go, "What on earth is that?" But, let me be honest and tell you that in Japan those things are seen as strange as well. For some reason, Japan gets this rap as this crazy country when anything leaves its borders, but it's really not like that. In fact, it's very conservative.
3. If you have any other questions, I'll be glad to answer them as best as I am able.

And with that in mind, let's continue.

Japan has some of the coolest baths I've ever seen. I know, you're thinking, "Michelle, be realistic, a bath is a bath." But it's not. Not at all. These baths are like little versions of paradise just plucked up and put in homes. When you get in them, you can possibly here the angels singing, and see the sun coming out, and maybe a small baby forest animal or two. For reasons of "It would be ridiculous to take a picture of a bath," I don't have any. And unfortunately, I can't find any either. If you search "Japanese Bath" on google, you get all these hot spring pictures. Useless. These baths though are definitely the coolest thing since sliced bread. You press a little button on the outside, and the machine says something like. "Please wait. Your bath will be ready soon!" in some cute little voice. While you're taking your shower outside, you then hear a little *ding* "Your bath is ready now." And no joke, you pull back the cover and it's full of hot, steaming water. Best of all, it's set to a permanent 42 degrees Celsius or so (about 105 F). Whenever I have my own place, I'm getting one of these. I don't care how much it costs to ship it. They're amazing, and I love them.

On the subject of bathing, but on a more confused note is the concept of mirrors in showers. So you have your little shower hose, right? And you rinse, and soap up, and rinse, and repeat and all that jazz. You normally sit yourself on a little stool to do all this. It's all very pleasant. But for some reason I still haven't deciphered yet, the Japanese have decided to put a mirror next to every little shower hose, so that you can watch yourself showering. I mean, I'm not going to say that I'm not vain once in a while, but honestly? What purpose does it serve. If you stand up, you only see your chest down. If you sit down, you see yourself sitting down and you just look plain ridiculous. For the time being, I've decided I'm not facing the mirror, or I'll just take out my contacts or off my glasses or something. I can't figure it out. The only reason I can find is that you never have that "Oh, I didn't wash out all the soap from my hair" problem. You can see that you washed everything and that you're squeaky clean. Sweetness.

Let's walk a little down the hall now to the toilet. Yes, it's down the hall. Toilets are dirty and should be in another room from where you get squeaky clean. Personally, I like this practice. Now, keep in mind this is not all toilets, but there are a fair number of them here. You may have heard of the Toto toilet before, and if you have, kudos to you. If not, let me enlighten you. Toto toilets are like toilets as much as the bath is like a bath to us in the US. Therefore, let's take a look, shall we? The Toto toilet is outfitted with all kinds of cool gadgets. Heated seat, change in water pressure, bidet, something like a bidet but not a bidet, automatic raise and lowering seat, music for those long times in the bathroom, and for some reason a flushing sound button. The flushing sound button really confuses me to be honest. It just plays the sound of flushing over and over and over again. Apparently, it's supposed to relax the person and not let them be embarrassed if they have to flush the toilet over and over again, but personally, I find it more unsettling to hear the flushing sound from the stall next to me. Then you *know* something bad is going on. People don't just press it for fun. Unless you're foreign and can't read the kanji. Then you press it because you think it's the actual button to flush the toilet, but no, alas, it's not. I spent 10 minutes trying to shut one off the other day. I'm sure the other people in the bathroom were thinking, "Wow, what is she doing?" And then when this tiny little 100 pound soaking wet foreigner came out of the stall they were like "What *was* she doing?" Yeah. It's me. The foreigner. I can't read all of your stinking kanji. Deal with it. If you're uncomfortable, I'll press the button again. What? You're good. Good. Glad we got that sorted out.

If you head outside and you see some tall buildings, there's another thing that kind of confuses me here. There are some of these which have big red arrows on their windows, and they open up like a door does. No kidding. They have handles and are door sized. So far, I haven't gotten a satisfactory answer to these things yet. Any Japanese I ask I get the response, "They're for emergencies."
"How?" I ask. "The doors open in the middle of the building. If you walk out of them, you'll fall to your death. Look, the little red arrows even point where you'll go. Down. To the ground. To your death."
"They're for emergencies. For fires and such."
"Do you know how they work?"
"No, I've never used one."
So we now have emergency doors that open in the middle of buildings and although they're for emergencies, no one knows how to use them. Maybe this is a little counter-productive? I might have covered that in a weekly employee meeting or two.
My current theory is that

1. They're to let the smoke out or something.
2. Some magical firemen's pole of glitter and sunshine and/or a rope ladder is thrown out of them to let people climb to the ground.

It's a work in progress.

Finally, before I go, let me leave you with one thing that is both oddly different and yet strangely wonderful. And that's melon bread (メロンパン). It doesn't really taste like melon, but it's not normal bread either. It's sweet in a way, and very delicious. I had it for the first time tonight, and I think I could eat it again right now, even though I just ate it like a couple hours ago. I think I'll be developing a fund called the Melon Pan and Bathtub Fund. If you want to donate, I'll gladly accept anything you have to offer. One penny toward my fund is more than I have now, and it will make me very happy.

Later!

Michelle