Summer’s here. It doesn’t seem like that long ago that i was commenting (well, complaining) about how long the Japanese winter was lingering around stubbornly refusing to succumb to the spring. So i guess i should be happy that summer is here, the heat has started, the humidity has cranked itself up and all of a sudden everybody is sweating like a penguin in a sauna. Summer in east Asia is a bit like being steamed or slow roasted in a pressure cooker. It doesn’t hit you like a wall of heat but gently bakes you until all of your bodily fluids have vacated their normal positions and instead relocated to your underwear and, for some reason, your lower back.
This is just the beginning. July is the starter. August and early September are worse. The government has launched the wonderfully titled Japan Meteorological Association Extreme High Temperature Forecast. This is very nearly useless. It’s designed to give different regions morning warnings if it's going to be more than 35 degrees. It's almost always going to be more than 35 degrees. It's a bit like having an Oxygen Warning or The Sky Is Blue Update or Rupert Murdoch Owns Some Dodgy Newspapers Forecast. But it's a fantastic name. One of my mates already wants to start a band called The Japan Meteorological Association Extreme High Temperature Forecast.
Unfortunately The Japan Meteorological Association Extreme High Temperature Forecast doesn’t seem to follow any of my simple/useless advice for aggressively humid summers.
1. Go for swim in the morning.
2. Eat ice cream in the afternoon.
3. Drink ice cold beer in the evening.
4. Stop complaining about the heat. It makes it worse. Much worse. Why do we do it? Why do we always tell each other it’s hot? Sometimes people will just say, “Wah, it’s hot today!” as a greeting. Why? We know it’s hot. We’ve got fully functioning nervous systems and smelly feet. We are aware that it’s hot. Stop telling us it’s hot. It’s Ju-fucking-ly. It’s always hot. Everyday. Saying the word “hot” every five minutes makes it hotter. Shut up.
The only rest bite comes when there’s a typhoon which blows the heavy sticky air around for a few days and floods everything but that seems more like a punishment for eating too much ice cream and drinking too much beer.
All of this is making headline news here more than usual due to the fact that the half the nuclear power plants in the country aren’t back online yet, Fukushima nuclear plant is still the same as it was in March and so everybody is saving electric, using less air-con and drinking more cold beer. Hand fans are now a more common accessory than an iphone on the trains and buses. Everybody carries a little handkerchief/sweat blanket thing to wipe the sweat out of the eyes and off their faces. Shops sell “ice scarves” that have some kind of chemical jelly in them and you stick it in the freezer and then wear it on the way to work hoping to keep off the heat. I think i might get one, stick it down my pants and wait for autumn.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Monday, July 4, 2011
Busan and Myoden
I’ve just spent the past week in Korea. I had a week off work and i found a cheap ticket to Busan, Korea’s second city, and thought i’d catch up with some old friends and see a country that used to be home but i hadn’t seen for two years.
I arrived at Busan airport and stood at the bus stop waiting to be taken to the train station. I friendly Korean guy started chatting to me about Busan and travelling and Japan and i thought, “This is a decent welcome. Nice happy, friendly, people striking up conversations at bus stops.” Then he said something about “many problems” in the world and the “meaning of life” and he thrust some leaflets in my face about God and Jesus. It’s interesting to see just how fast you can change your opinion about a complete stranger. Thankfully he didn’t follow me onto the bus that zoomed its way through Busan which resembled a high rise city that recently fell out the sky and landed on the side of a load of misty green mountains next to the beach.
I didn’t stay long. I was aiming to meet up with some old friends in Seoul. It wasn’t until i arrived that i realised that Seoul was a bit of an old friend too, having lived there (on and off) for almost two years, and it dawned on me how much of the place i’d completely forgotten about. There are the middle aged men with bright pink polo shirts tucked into shiny black trousers with shiny black shoes and shiny black hair getting drunk on soju and barking at each other into the night. There are the cackling old perma-permed women laughing and joking wearing their purple floral print shirts selling food from street stalls. There are the nightclub salesmen trying to coerce young women into nightclubs and bars. There are the taxi drivers who honk and grumble if the car ahead isn’t breaking the speed limit or the bumper in front. There are the bus drivers who seem to be heavily involved in their own personal Grand Prix to see who can drive the fastest to the next red light. I’d forgotten about Seoul. It seems to live constantly at maximum revs, full speed, foot to the floor. Eat. Drink. Work. Sleep. Play. Fuck. Shop. Chat. Shout. Sing. It’s ferocious. And Korean people also seem to take the same approach with their emotions as they swing from Maximum Happy to Maximum Angry to Maximum Funny within minutes. Shades of grey don’t exist in Seoul. Just endless neon. But i remembered that that’s what i both like and dislike about it at the same time. People wear their hearts of the sleeves (and, quite often, their pockets, and jeans and shoelaces and anywhere there’s a free space) which is both entertaining and affirming and yet i doubt many people in Seoul ever thought, “Understated is underrated” or “Hmm, maybe that’s a bit loud.”
So i met up with old friends and joined in. I ate too much and drank too much and slept too much and watched baseball too much and tried to do everything in excess. The weather joined in and it rained too much (then again, it is the rainy season) so the Han River was bursting its banks as the roads were bursting with cars and the shops and streets bursting with people. I didn’t really see anything that i hadn’t seen before apart from a few new buildings and i didn’t really eat or drink anything i hadn’t had before as Korean bbq is still damn tasty and Korean beer is still the worst in the entire world (seriously, they should be indicted on some kind of Health and Safety or criminal charges, it’s that bad) and that was Seoul. A nice few days doing too much of not much.
I ended where i started back in Busan on a Saturday night ready for my cheap flight back to Japan on the Sunday morning. Busan was covered in an eerie sunset mist that rolled off the sea and clung to the high rise next to the most famous strip of sand in Korea - Haeundae beach. The neon signs blinked in the shrouded darkening distance unsure of what they were advertising and which buildings they were attached to. Beneath them thousands of people went about their Saturday nights eating, drinking, laughing, crying, driving. Whatever it was they were doing, there was probably a surplus of it.
I arrived at Busan airport and stood at the bus stop waiting to be taken to the train station. I friendly Korean guy started chatting to me about Busan and travelling and Japan and i thought, “This is a decent welcome. Nice happy, friendly, people striking up conversations at bus stops.” Then he said something about “many problems” in the world and the “meaning of life” and he thrust some leaflets in my face about God and Jesus. It’s interesting to see just how fast you can change your opinion about a complete stranger. Thankfully he didn’t follow me onto the bus that zoomed its way through Busan which resembled a high rise city that recently fell out the sky and landed on the side of a load of misty green mountains next to the beach.
I didn’t stay long. I was aiming to meet up with some old friends in Seoul. It wasn’t until i arrived that i realised that Seoul was a bit of an old friend too, having lived there (on and off) for almost two years, and it dawned on me how much of the place i’d completely forgotten about. There are the middle aged men with bright pink polo shirts tucked into shiny black trousers with shiny black shoes and shiny black hair getting drunk on soju and barking at each other into the night. There are the cackling old perma-permed women laughing and joking wearing their purple floral print shirts selling food from street stalls. There are the nightclub salesmen trying to coerce young women into nightclubs and bars. There are the taxi drivers who honk and grumble if the car ahead isn’t breaking the speed limit or the bumper in front. There are the bus drivers who seem to be heavily involved in their own personal Grand Prix to see who can drive the fastest to the next red light. I’d forgotten about Seoul. It seems to live constantly at maximum revs, full speed, foot to the floor. Eat. Drink. Work. Sleep. Play. Fuck. Shop. Chat. Shout. Sing. It’s ferocious. And Korean people also seem to take the same approach with their emotions as they swing from Maximum Happy to Maximum Angry to Maximum Funny within minutes. Shades of grey don’t exist in Seoul. Just endless neon. But i remembered that that’s what i both like and dislike about it at the same time. People wear their hearts of the sleeves (and, quite often, their pockets, and jeans and shoelaces and anywhere there’s a free space) which is both entertaining and affirming and yet i doubt many people in Seoul ever thought, “Understated is underrated” or “Hmm, maybe that’s a bit loud.”
So i met up with old friends and joined in. I ate too much and drank too much and slept too much and watched baseball too much and tried to do everything in excess. The weather joined in and it rained too much (then again, it is the rainy season) so the Han River was bursting its banks as the roads were bursting with cars and the shops and streets bursting with people. I didn’t really see anything that i hadn’t seen before apart from a few new buildings and i didn’t really eat or drink anything i hadn’t had before as Korean bbq is still damn tasty and Korean beer is still the worst in the entire world (seriously, they should be indicted on some kind of Health and Safety or criminal charges, it’s that bad) and that was Seoul. A nice few days doing too much of not much.
I ended where i started back in Busan on a Saturday night ready for my cheap flight back to Japan on the Sunday morning. Busan was covered in an eerie sunset mist that rolled off the sea and clung to the high rise next to the most famous strip of sand in Korea - Haeundae beach. The neon signs blinked in the shrouded darkening distance unsure of what they were advertising and which buildings they were attached to. Beneath them thousands of people went about their Saturday nights eating, drinking, laughing, crying, driving. Whatever it was they were doing, there was probably a surplus of it.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Myoden and Bicycles
As Japan is often viewed, rightly or wrongly, as the most tech savvy country on Earth, it’s great to see the low tech stuff keeping the whole place ticking over. There’s one piece of technology among all the neon, phones, cameras, bullet trains and other mindless gadgets that Japan could not live without. The bicycle.
I’ve never been to a country that embraces the bicycle quite like this one. Even the bike friendly flat-as-a-fart Holland and Denmark could take lessons in bicycles from the Japanese. And the Chinese may have more of the two-wheeled clangers in sheer numbers but you’ll never see a rich housewife or a businessman popping down to the shops on one in Beijing - too much image to keep up and face to save. Everybody in Japan has a bicycle. The prime minister’s probably got one (and not just to try and pass himself off as some kind of eco-friendly tree warrior). The Crown Prince probably passes the occasional morning tootling around the palace on one. I bet the CEO of Honda’s got several. Armies of kids peddle home on them. Old people dither around on them. Drunk men fall off them. Homeless people scavenge for them. The police fight crime on them. The postman delivers the mail on one. Shit, i’ve got two of the things and i’m a foreigner. Maybe it’s contagious.
A strange thing that i noticed as well is that you never see a kid learning to ride a bike. They just can. I’ve never seen a children’s bike with stabilisers strapped to the sides and dumb kid plonked on it trying not to fall off, which is how i spent a surprisingly large amount of my childhood. No, it just seems accepted here that there are certain stages to growing up. Crawl, walk, ride. It’s seen as some kind of natural progression, as if all Japanese have an inbuilt balance gene that allows them to get on a bicycle at the age of three and be on one the things everyday for the rest of their lives.
The geography of the country lends itself this huge bicycle ownership quite well. The landscape has, to my simple foreign eyes, three states – mountain, farm and city. If it’s not a wild natural mountain it’ll be manufactured flat green or flat grey. The commute to work or the station isn’t ever interrupted by a hill. Japanese towns and cities don’t do hills. They barely even do inclines. Steep road is an oxymoron. So, everybody’s got two wheels beneath them.
Well, almost everybody. You haven’t got your bicycle beneath you if it’s been nicked. There’s a surprisingly large amount of bicycle theft here and almost everybody i’ve asked has had a bicycle stolen at some point but i’m pretty sure it isn’t out of spite or for any economic gain. Almost all the bicycles are single gear old knackered lady style bikes anyway. Most bike theft is probably just because the thief is late for work or is a bit pissed and has missed the last train home.
The other side effect of the millions of bikes is trying to find somewhere park them. Basically there are too many bicycles and not enough space. The city authorities collect up illegally parked ones from time to time and force people to pay thousand of yen to get it back. Also, there’re always two old men in uniform (the Bicycle Police, The Bike Fuzz, The Peddling Rozzers) outside a station or a supermarket marshalling the pavement as if an inappropriately parked bicycle will lead to the end of law and order, social welfare and civilisation itself. The poor bastards stand around in all weather watching people with proper jobs go places and do stuff and have fun whilst making sure the two wheeled vehicles of the country are not improperly parked. A thankless job, really.
So, there you go. In a country where the train is king and the cars are sold all over the world, where the seas provide the sushi and the gadgets the entertainment, it’s the humble old bicycle that is the glue that keeps the place together. Until it gets nicked. Or it rains. Or you’ve got lots of shopping. Or you’ve got two kids. Or it snows. Or you live next to a train station. Or you’ve just bought an ironing board. Or, yeah, whatever. Japan. Bicycles. Popular. Thanks.
I’ve never been to a country that embraces the bicycle quite like this one. Even the bike friendly flat-as-a-fart Holland and Denmark could take lessons in bicycles from the Japanese. And the Chinese may have more of the two-wheeled clangers in sheer numbers but you’ll never see a rich housewife or a businessman popping down to the shops on one in Beijing - too much image to keep up and face to save. Everybody in Japan has a bicycle. The prime minister’s probably got one (and not just to try and pass himself off as some kind of eco-friendly tree warrior). The Crown Prince probably passes the occasional morning tootling around the palace on one. I bet the CEO of Honda’s got several. Armies of kids peddle home on them. Old people dither around on them. Drunk men fall off them. Homeless people scavenge for them. The police fight crime on them. The postman delivers the mail on one. Shit, i’ve got two of the things and i’m a foreigner. Maybe it’s contagious.
A strange thing that i noticed as well is that you never see a kid learning to ride a bike. They just can. I’ve never seen a children’s bike with stabilisers strapped to the sides and dumb kid plonked on it trying not to fall off, which is how i spent a surprisingly large amount of my childhood. No, it just seems accepted here that there are certain stages to growing up. Crawl, walk, ride. It’s seen as some kind of natural progression, as if all Japanese have an inbuilt balance gene that allows them to get on a bicycle at the age of three and be on one the things everyday for the rest of their lives.
The geography of the country lends itself this huge bicycle ownership quite well. The landscape has, to my simple foreign eyes, three states – mountain, farm and city. If it’s not a wild natural mountain it’ll be manufactured flat green or flat grey. The commute to work or the station isn’t ever interrupted by a hill. Japanese towns and cities don’t do hills. They barely even do inclines. Steep road is an oxymoron. So, everybody’s got two wheels beneath them.
Well, almost everybody. You haven’t got your bicycle beneath you if it’s been nicked. There’s a surprisingly large amount of bicycle theft here and almost everybody i’ve asked has had a bicycle stolen at some point but i’m pretty sure it isn’t out of spite or for any economic gain. Almost all the bicycles are single gear old knackered lady style bikes anyway. Most bike theft is probably just because the thief is late for work or is a bit pissed and has missed the last train home.
The other side effect of the millions of bikes is trying to find somewhere park them. Basically there are too many bicycles and not enough space. The city authorities collect up illegally parked ones from time to time and force people to pay thousand of yen to get it back. Also, there’re always two old men in uniform (the Bicycle Police, The Bike Fuzz, The Peddling Rozzers) outside a station or a supermarket marshalling the pavement as if an inappropriately parked bicycle will lead to the end of law and order, social welfare and civilisation itself. The poor bastards stand around in all weather watching people with proper jobs go places and do stuff and have fun whilst making sure the two wheeled vehicles of the country are not improperly parked. A thankless job, really.
So, there you go. In a country where the train is king and the cars are sold all over the world, where the seas provide the sushi and the gadgets the entertainment, it’s the humble old bicycle that is the glue that keeps the place together. Until it gets nicked. Or it rains. Or you’ve got lots of shopping. Or you’ve got two kids. Or it snows. Or you live next to a train station. Or you’ve just bought an ironing board. Or, yeah, whatever. Japan. Bicycles. Popular. Thanks.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Myoden and Pachinko
Before i came to Japan i knew it was famous for a few things (Samurais, bullet trains, kimonos, sake, you can probably make your own little list) but there’s one other thing that seems to be more ubiquitous than all of the above and only becomes obvious after you’ve been here a while. It’s a game that is present near every train station and along almost every road. They’re a visual and audio abscess on the urban landscape of the county. The buildings that house them are almost always gaudy, sometimes angular, boxes that shout out colours, lights and a waterfall of sound to anybody within listening distance all day, every day. It is a game that i’ve only ever seen in Japan. It’s a slot machine arcade game that divides the country and causes the end of relationships, jobs and even lives. It is, of course, Pachinko.
Pachinko is an arcade game that, to my foreign eyes, looks utterly unfathomable. It appears to be some kind of pin ball slot machine hybrid created by somebody who was both hard of hearing and colour blind. The basic premise of the game might be, i think, to fire some pinballs around a circle and see how many fall through some pins and make it to the bottom. It constantly makes lots of noises and lights flash and you win some money and suffer from sensory overload. Perhaps. It wouldn’t be so bad if there was only one of these weird machines sat in the corner of a shit pub but Pachinko has become so popular that they have Pachinko parlours custom built to house row after row of the blinking, flicking, singing, pinball shitting idiot machines. The Pachinko parlours are always painted orange or green or sky blue or a combination of all of them and they have slogans in English such as Entertainment Heaven or Pleasure Land or Enjoy Kingdom. So, a nice, modest, welcoming, understated business then.
I normally treat Pachinko parlours like a disease but i went in one for the first time the other day to see if it was as bad as it seemed. It was worse. There were hundreds of the slot machines in rows with zombie looking people sat in front of them watching pinballs flick around, oblivious to the volume level and cigarette fumes. It was difficult to hear, hard to concentrate through the colours and not that nice to breathe. Still, the zombies seemed to enjoy themselves as the machines vomited sounds, colours and, occasionally, money at them so who am i to judge? One of the Pachinko attendants (who, i assume looks after all the balls) asked me a question that i could only guess was, “Can i help you?” I thought for a second, shrugged and said, “Hmm, sorry, no” and left.
Apparently Pachinko started as a children’s game at fun fairs before World War II and after the war became a game where you could win prizes such as food or gifts and has since morphed into a slot machine that couldn’t be more uniquely Japanese if it was made out of raw fish and was the shape of Mount Fuji. It has spawned professional Pachinko players who know how to spot a machine that has better placed pins and therefore more chance of paying out money and can earn themselves 10,000 yen a day. Or bankruptcy. People queue outside waiting for the doors to open at 10 o’clock to rush in and sit at the best machine that has the biggest chance of a payout. There’s a whole slot machine gambling subculture here that seems to live for Pachinko and nothing else. I’ve been told by more than one person of a story where a woman left her kids in the car and went to play Pachinko. It was a hot summer day and the car windows were shut. She sat playing for hours and when she came back outside the kids had suffocated and died (i think it’s an urban legend or a crazy one off story but i’m told this happens every year).
It seems to divide opinion among Japanese themselves. It’s either a fat waste of time and money or you’re addicted to it. Nobody ever says, “What? Pachinko? Yeah, s’alright i guess. I’ve played it a few times.” It’s abhorrence or addiction. But, then again, why wouldn’t it be popular? Japan loves games. This is the home of Mario and Nintendo. There are arcade centres filled with racing games, shoot ‘em ups, grab-a-cuddly-toy-you-don’t-even-want games and those things where you bet on small plastic horses running a computerised race that appear massively out of place in a Japanese city, as if they’ve been nicked from an English seaside town and dumped here by mistake. If a sizable minority of the population weren’t addicted to Pachinko it would be Tetris or PacMan or Virtua Cop 3. And then it wouldn’t be unique and famous, would it?
Pachinko is an arcade game that, to my foreign eyes, looks utterly unfathomable. It appears to be some kind of pin ball slot machine hybrid created by somebody who was both hard of hearing and colour blind. The basic premise of the game might be, i think, to fire some pinballs around a circle and see how many fall through some pins and make it to the bottom. It constantly makes lots of noises and lights flash and you win some money and suffer from sensory overload. Perhaps. It wouldn’t be so bad if there was only one of these weird machines sat in the corner of a shit pub but Pachinko has become so popular that they have Pachinko parlours custom built to house row after row of the blinking, flicking, singing, pinball shitting idiot machines. The Pachinko parlours are always painted orange or green or sky blue or a combination of all of them and they have slogans in English such as Entertainment Heaven or Pleasure Land or Enjoy Kingdom. So, a nice, modest, welcoming, understated business then.
I normally treat Pachinko parlours like a disease but i went in one for the first time the other day to see if it was as bad as it seemed. It was worse. There were hundreds of the slot machines in rows with zombie looking people sat in front of them watching pinballs flick around, oblivious to the volume level and cigarette fumes. It was difficult to hear, hard to concentrate through the colours and not that nice to breathe. Still, the zombies seemed to enjoy themselves as the machines vomited sounds, colours and, occasionally, money at them so who am i to judge? One of the Pachinko attendants (who, i assume looks after all the balls) asked me a question that i could only guess was, “Can i help you?” I thought for a second, shrugged and said, “Hmm, sorry, no” and left.
Apparently Pachinko started as a children’s game at fun fairs before World War II and after the war became a game where you could win prizes such as food or gifts and has since morphed into a slot machine that couldn’t be more uniquely Japanese if it was made out of raw fish and was the shape of Mount Fuji. It has spawned professional Pachinko players who know how to spot a machine that has better placed pins and therefore more chance of paying out money and can earn themselves 10,000 yen a day. Or bankruptcy. People queue outside waiting for the doors to open at 10 o’clock to rush in and sit at the best machine that has the biggest chance of a payout. There’s a whole slot machine gambling subculture here that seems to live for Pachinko and nothing else. I’ve been told by more than one person of a story where a woman left her kids in the car and went to play Pachinko. It was a hot summer day and the car windows were shut. She sat playing for hours and when she came back outside the kids had suffocated and died (i think it’s an urban legend or a crazy one off story but i’m told this happens every year).
It seems to divide opinion among Japanese themselves. It’s either a fat waste of time and money or you’re addicted to it. Nobody ever says, “What? Pachinko? Yeah, s’alright i guess. I’ve played it a few times.” It’s abhorrence or addiction. But, then again, why wouldn’t it be popular? Japan loves games. This is the home of Mario and Nintendo. There are arcade centres filled with racing games, shoot ‘em ups, grab-a-cuddly-toy-you-don’t-even-want games and those things where you bet on small plastic horses running a computerised race that appear massively out of place in a Japanese city, as if they’ve been nicked from an English seaside town and dumped here by mistake. If a sizable minority of the population weren’t addicted to Pachinko it would be Tetris or PacMan or Virtua Cop 3. And then it wouldn’t be unique and famous, would it?
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Myoden and Yakult
I’ve just had a holiday as the past week has been Golden Week in Japan. I’m not sure why it’s called Golden Week (i haven’t seen any gold in the past seven days) but everybody gets a three day national holiday and if you’re lucky, like me, you can join up the dots, connect the weekends and get nine days off work.
Golden Week is, apparently, pretty mental in a normal year with people travelling here there and everywhere in search of fun, friends and family. This year is a little different though as a lot of people didn’t want to have too much of a good time after March and April and so Japan, at times, is a bit sombre at the moment. I think it may take a while to fully get its mojo back.
I did some hiking for the first time here at a place called Tsukuba and climbed the cute little mountain of the same name on a hazy Monday which was all a train ride and small bus journey north east of Tokyo. It was a nice hike, the mountain peppered with trees, rocks and old people as well as a cable car that slugged the sluggish to the summit. I’ve been hiking a bunch of times in different countries but realised something for the first time on this one. People always say hello to each other and smile and seem friendly when they’re on the mountain but then when everybody gets back to the bus stop and the train station people don’t even make eye contact with the same hikers that they smiled at amongst the trees and the sweat. We all just sit in silence, plug the headphones in, push buttons, re-read text messages and generally avoid everybody as soon as we get back to busy streets, buildings and transport.
I went to Doki Doki Flea Market the next day which was definitely not the kind of place where you can say hello to complete strangers. There were too many of them. Thousands. It was the biggest car boot sale second hand flea market thing i’ve ever seen. I saw more random crap being hawked than ever before. It's only held once a year during Golden Week and it seems some of the traders selling stuff had spent the previous twelve months not throwing anything away but saving it for the first week in May. One man was selling, amongst other things, an inflatable sofa, a surfboard, a sword, some roller skates and a Mickey Mouse alarm clock. I always feel the same at these kinds of places. I never want to buy anything. I just want to stop and ask the owner of the car boot or stall to tell me the back story of how they came to own such a random collection of objects.
I also went with a few mates to my first game of baseball in Japan which quickly made me realise that there’s one thing that Japanese baseball is very good at. Names. No other sport i know of has such amazing names. Take, for example, Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, Fukuoka Softbank Hawks, Hiroshima Toyo Carp or, the team we went to see, Tokyo Yakult Swallows. I like the way they’ve done these names with a quick Place Name-Sponsor Name-Random Animal or Noun combination. You can make your own. It’s easy. Edinburgh Tesco Elephants. Moscow Shell Oil Pirates. Islamabad Del Monte Pineapple Tornadoes. See? Thankfully, i quite like Tokyo, Yakult and Swallows and i also like what the Tokyo Yakult Swallows fans do when their team scores. From nowhere and without any kind of warning thousands of people all open small pink or green umbrellas and dance with them and start singing. I would love to know the back story to that as well but as we were surrounded by people and not trees we didn’t really strike up a conversation and ask anybody. The Swallows lost by the way, heavily beaten by the Dragons from Nagoya sponsored by Chunichi.
I think i’ll go back to watch the Swallows play again. It’s on a list called Stuff To See And Do In Japan that gets ever longer and will probably never be conquered. The more you see, the more you want to see more. When’s the next holiday?
Golden Week is, apparently, pretty mental in a normal year with people travelling here there and everywhere in search of fun, friends and family. This year is a little different though as a lot of people didn’t want to have too much of a good time after March and April and so Japan, at times, is a bit sombre at the moment. I think it may take a while to fully get its mojo back.
I did some hiking for the first time here at a place called Tsukuba and climbed the cute little mountain of the same name on a hazy Monday which was all a train ride and small bus journey north east of Tokyo. It was a nice hike, the mountain peppered with trees, rocks and old people as well as a cable car that slugged the sluggish to the summit. I’ve been hiking a bunch of times in different countries but realised something for the first time on this one. People always say hello to each other and smile and seem friendly when they’re on the mountain but then when everybody gets back to the bus stop and the train station people don’t even make eye contact with the same hikers that they smiled at amongst the trees and the sweat. We all just sit in silence, plug the headphones in, push buttons, re-read text messages and generally avoid everybody as soon as we get back to busy streets, buildings and transport.
I went to Doki Doki Flea Market the next day which was definitely not the kind of place where you can say hello to complete strangers. There were too many of them. Thousands. It was the biggest car boot sale second hand flea market thing i’ve ever seen. I saw more random crap being hawked than ever before. It's only held once a year during Golden Week and it seems some of the traders selling stuff had spent the previous twelve months not throwing anything away but saving it for the first week in May. One man was selling, amongst other things, an inflatable sofa, a surfboard, a sword, some roller skates and a Mickey Mouse alarm clock. I always feel the same at these kinds of places. I never want to buy anything. I just want to stop and ask the owner of the car boot or stall to tell me the back story of how they came to own such a random collection of objects.
I also went with a few mates to my first game of baseball in Japan which quickly made me realise that there’s one thing that Japanese baseball is very good at. Names. No other sport i know of has such amazing names. Take, for example, Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, Fukuoka Softbank Hawks, Hiroshima Toyo Carp or, the team we went to see, Tokyo Yakult Swallows. I like the way they’ve done these names with a quick Place Name-Sponsor Name-Random Animal or Noun combination. You can make your own. It’s easy. Edinburgh Tesco Elephants. Moscow Shell Oil Pirates. Islamabad Del Monte Pineapple Tornadoes. See? Thankfully, i quite like Tokyo, Yakult and Swallows and i also like what the Tokyo Yakult Swallows fans do when their team scores. From nowhere and without any kind of warning thousands of people all open small pink or green umbrellas and dance with them and start singing. I would love to know the back story to that as well but as we were surrounded by people and not trees we didn’t really strike up a conversation and ask anybody. The Swallows lost by the way, heavily beaten by the Dragons from Nagoya sponsored by Chunichi.
I think i’ll go back to watch the Swallows play again. It’s on a list called Stuff To See And Do In Japan that gets ever longer and will probably never be conquered. The more you see, the more you want to see more. When’s the next holiday?
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Myoden and Pasta
Hello again. Life goes on.
The local little bar round the corner from my flat is always good value. A couple of weeks ago i got talking to a middle aged man who was in the bar for the first time. He was divorced with two kids and worked a few metro stations away. He asked me if i was single and i confirmed that i was. He nodded, smiled and said, “What kind of girls do you like? Fat, chubby, normal or thin?” Not a question you expect from someone you've just met. And it’s a bit difficult to reply without saying, “Erm, well, er, i guess, not fat?” And then shrug.
A more normal and slightly understandable question that people have asked is if England has earthquakes. I tell them that we don’t and that we are also free of tsunamis, volcanoes and typhoons to which the reply is something like, “Ah, England is very safe.” The thing is people in England would probably disagree. The ground might be safe but for some reason i can’t really imagine a single Japanese immigrant sitting in small bar in suburban England and not only be warmly welcomed and plied with alcohol and food at every available opportunity but also be forgiven for his inability to speak the local language and asked of his preference in female waistlines.
My Japanese is very slowly getting the point where i know when students are insulting me. There was also one three year old kid i had for one lesson who refused to say anything other than the word “pasta”. What’s your name? “Pasta!” What's this colour? “Pasta!” At least he was enthusiastic. I had another student who called the Statue of Liberty “Freedom Girl” which is just a much better way of describing it. Makes it sound like a superhero, doesn’t it?
It’s been a long winter here. A few weeks ago it felt like spring was in the post and would be here any moment. I think the postman got lost. It’s still Janurayish some mornings. Weird. The onset of spring in Japan is defined by cherry blossom. The traditional way of celebrating spring is to get drunk in the park on an evening after work surrounded by pink leaves and this is such a popular thing that it becomes quite competitive to get a decent spot amongst the trees. April is also the hiring season for recent university graduates and the combination of a new face in the office and the pretty leaves in the park means that a graduates first task in their new career is to get down to the park at around lunch time, find a decent spot and then sit there until five o’clock when everybody from the office joins the poor bastard, eats and gets drunk.
But right now i think everybody in Japan could do with sitting in the sunshine in the park and getting a bit tipsy in the late afternoon. It’s been a mad month. Roll on spring.
The local little bar round the corner from my flat is always good value. A couple of weeks ago i got talking to a middle aged man who was in the bar for the first time. He was divorced with two kids and worked a few metro stations away. He asked me if i was single and i confirmed that i was. He nodded, smiled and said, “What kind of girls do you like? Fat, chubby, normal or thin?” Not a question you expect from someone you've just met. And it’s a bit difficult to reply without saying, “Erm, well, er, i guess, not fat?” And then shrug.
A more normal and slightly understandable question that people have asked is if England has earthquakes. I tell them that we don’t and that we are also free of tsunamis, volcanoes and typhoons to which the reply is something like, “Ah, England is very safe.” The thing is people in England would probably disagree. The ground might be safe but for some reason i can’t really imagine a single Japanese immigrant sitting in small bar in suburban England and not only be warmly welcomed and plied with alcohol and food at every available opportunity but also be forgiven for his inability to speak the local language and asked of his preference in female waistlines.
My Japanese is very slowly getting the point where i know when students are insulting me. There was also one three year old kid i had for one lesson who refused to say anything other than the word “pasta”. What’s your name? “Pasta!” What's this colour? “Pasta!” At least he was enthusiastic. I had another student who called the Statue of Liberty “Freedom Girl” which is just a much better way of describing it. Makes it sound like a superhero, doesn’t it?
It’s been a long winter here. A few weeks ago it felt like spring was in the post and would be here any moment. I think the postman got lost. It’s still Janurayish some mornings. Weird. The onset of spring in Japan is defined by cherry blossom. The traditional way of celebrating spring is to get drunk in the park on an evening after work surrounded by pink leaves and this is such a popular thing that it becomes quite competitive to get a decent spot amongst the trees. April is also the hiring season for recent university graduates and the combination of a new face in the office and the pretty leaves in the park means that a graduates first task in their new career is to get down to the park at around lunch time, find a decent spot and then sit there until five o’clock when everybody from the office joins the poor bastard, eats and gets drunk.
But right now i think everybody in Japan could do with sitting in the sunshine in the park and getting a bit tipsy in the late afternoon. It’s been a mad month. Roll on spring.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Kyoto and Powercuts
Last week all my classes were canceled as a result of the earthquake, tsunami and fears about people being irradiated. I thought about what i could do to help and realised that i could do nothing apart from use less electric at home. So i went to Kyoto instead.
As Kyoto was the capital of Japan before Tokyo it’s a pretty historical place, half-filled with buildings and temples built and used hundreds of years ago and still standing proudly around the city. Kyoto is a bit of a battle ground. Old and new buildings compete with the skyline and tourist attention. Traditional kimonos trade blows with modern fashion and occasionally win. Old cosy bars and restaurants gently invite you down small alleys while neon blares out of shopping centres. When i was there, even winter and spring were locked in combat with the winter showers easily beating the occasional March sunshine. It was freezing.
I saw the understated Imperial Palace and the opulent Nijo-jo complex that was once home to Shoguns and the ruling elite. There was a breathtaking temple called Sanjusangen-jo which contained 1001 near life-sized Buddhist statues. There was the wonderful Kiyomizu Temple that sits on an impossibly massive wooden veranda overlooking the city with a thatched roof. It was busy when i was there so i imagine it’s a bit mental when spring finally wins the fight against winter and tourists invade the place.
I spent most of the time in Kyoto walking around trying to keep warm and was randomly stopped on the street buy a small camera crew who asked if i could speak Japanese. I lied and said “Yes, a little.” OK, can you be on a cable TV show? Two men, who i’m assuming were comedians but only because of the clothes they were wearing, started to ask me lots of questions and i stood there shivering looking like an utter idiot trying to respond to them. I can only hope i’ve been edited out unless the title of the show is Look, Foreigners Are Stupid in which case i might be top billing.
I stayed just one night and slept in a capsule hotel that was so minimalist and stylish it would make Steve Jobs blush. It was an advert in brushed steal, white plastic and being overpriced. Still, it was a place to crash after getting drunk in a little counter bar where i seemed to make instant friends for being able to use chopsticks and drink hot sake. The middle aged woman sat next to me seemed to want to always try and show me her cleavage, the barman giggled every time i said anything, a business man chatted to me about work and a nice woman with an medical eye patch kept winking at me (although, come to think of it, she could have been blinking but it’s nice to be optimistic).
I also managed to find another random museum - the International Manga Museum. Manga is massive in Japan. The cartoon book magazines are serialised with new editions and volumes being released at regular intervals. It’s a printed version of a soap opera with different manga written for and consumed by every inch of Japanese society. There’s sci-fi manga, comedy manga, political manga, school girl manga, crime manga, housewife manga, businessman manga. If you’re a person, then there’s probably a manga for you and as a result there’s manga everywhere in Japan. It doesn’t seem to matter where you go you always see somebody reading manga. The museum itself was an old school that had been converted into a manga library with walls filled with the magazines and displays in English and Japanese telling you about the history of genre and plenty of seats occupied by people with their heads buried in another edition. As it was international they also had manga that had been translated into different languages and so i sat and read the first three instalments of Ikigami which is a kind of dystopian story about people who know that they only have 24 hours to live. Unfortunately i only had a few hours before the train to Tokyo left and so i had to put down the little book magazine and promise myself that i’d return to Kyoto when the weather was warmer to sample more of its temples and nightlife.
I’m back at work now in Chiba and Tokyo which means that half my lessons begin by wasting at least fifteen minutes swapping earthquake stories and being politely asked why i haven’t left Japan. Greater Tokyo and the north east of the country is still being wobbled by occasional aftershocks and everybody is wondering when the power stations will be back online (Fukushima wasn’t the only plant to get knocked out by the tsunami, just the only one to leak tiny amounts of radioactive material) which means that the power saving and rolling powercuts could continue for a few more months and spring and summer could be a bit smelly and sweaty without air-con. Air-freshener, deodorant and icy ice-cold beer at the ready.
As Kyoto was the capital of Japan before Tokyo it’s a pretty historical place, half-filled with buildings and temples built and used hundreds of years ago and still standing proudly around the city. Kyoto is a bit of a battle ground. Old and new buildings compete with the skyline and tourist attention. Traditional kimonos trade blows with modern fashion and occasionally win. Old cosy bars and restaurants gently invite you down small alleys while neon blares out of shopping centres. When i was there, even winter and spring were locked in combat with the winter showers easily beating the occasional March sunshine. It was freezing.
I saw the understated Imperial Palace and the opulent Nijo-jo complex that was once home to Shoguns and the ruling elite. There was a breathtaking temple called Sanjusangen-jo which contained 1001 near life-sized Buddhist statues. There was the wonderful Kiyomizu Temple that sits on an impossibly massive wooden veranda overlooking the city with a thatched roof. It was busy when i was there so i imagine it’s a bit mental when spring finally wins the fight against winter and tourists invade the place.
I spent most of the time in Kyoto walking around trying to keep warm and was randomly stopped on the street buy a small camera crew who asked if i could speak Japanese. I lied and said “Yes, a little.” OK, can you be on a cable TV show? Two men, who i’m assuming were comedians but only because of the clothes they were wearing, started to ask me lots of questions and i stood there shivering looking like an utter idiot trying to respond to them. I can only hope i’ve been edited out unless the title of the show is Look, Foreigners Are Stupid in which case i might be top billing.
I stayed just one night and slept in a capsule hotel that was so minimalist and stylish it would make Steve Jobs blush. It was an advert in brushed steal, white plastic and being overpriced. Still, it was a place to crash after getting drunk in a little counter bar where i seemed to make instant friends for being able to use chopsticks and drink hot sake. The middle aged woman sat next to me seemed to want to always try and show me her cleavage, the barman giggled every time i said anything, a business man chatted to me about work and a nice woman with an medical eye patch kept winking at me (although, come to think of it, she could have been blinking but it’s nice to be optimistic).
I also managed to find another random museum - the International Manga Museum. Manga is massive in Japan. The cartoon book magazines are serialised with new editions and volumes being released at regular intervals. It’s a printed version of a soap opera with different manga written for and consumed by every inch of Japanese society. There’s sci-fi manga, comedy manga, political manga, school girl manga, crime manga, housewife manga, businessman manga. If you’re a person, then there’s probably a manga for you and as a result there’s manga everywhere in Japan. It doesn’t seem to matter where you go you always see somebody reading manga. The museum itself was an old school that had been converted into a manga library with walls filled with the magazines and displays in English and Japanese telling you about the history of genre and plenty of seats occupied by people with their heads buried in another edition. As it was international they also had manga that had been translated into different languages and so i sat and read the first three instalments of Ikigami which is a kind of dystopian story about people who know that they only have 24 hours to live. Unfortunately i only had a few hours before the train to Tokyo left and so i had to put down the little book magazine and promise myself that i’d return to Kyoto when the weather was warmer to sample more of its temples and nightlife.
I’m back at work now in Chiba and Tokyo which means that half my lessons begin by wasting at least fifteen minutes swapping earthquake stories and being politely asked why i haven’t left Japan. Greater Tokyo and the north east of the country is still being wobbled by occasional aftershocks and everybody is wondering when the power stations will be back online (Fukushima wasn’t the only plant to get knocked out by the tsunami, just the only one to leak tiny amounts of radioactive material) which means that the power saving and rolling powercuts could continue for a few more months and spring and summer could be a bit smelly and sweaty without air-con. Air-freshener, deodorant and icy ice-cold beer at the ready.
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