Halfway There

～さようならジャパンツアー～ (Japan Farewell Tour)

2009-07-30T12:04:00.005+09:00

I can hardly believe that I leave Japan in two weeks...and I'm not even going home....

Whose idea was it to go to New York anyway?? My brain can barely keep up.

Anyway, whether I like it or not, my grand farewell tour of Japan begins this Saturday. I'll be going to Takamatsu to sing in a jazz festival, then to Oita to see my Dad's aunt, to Kyoto to see my host family, and finally to Tokyo to see Shisei, Yuriko, and my roommate's family. Then it's three days back in Ehime for some final packing, cleaning, and cavorting with the softball men, and finally, sayonara Japan. (And hello Mom, Dad and everyone in Seattle!)

Here are a couple pictures of my town that I've been meaning to put up. Enjoy!

This is the view from the shack where my jazz band practices. (Yes, it's really a shack. You'll see in the next picture.) The shack is literally in the middle of nowhere -- nothing but rice fields all around.

And yet for some reason, our shack, smack dab in the middle of the Japanese countryside, is covered with graffiti. (>_<);

The inside of the shack...

...and the kerosene stoves that keep my lips from freezing to my trombone in the freezing cold Toon-shi winter.

My friend Michiko and me posing outside of the shack before practice. I don't quite remember what we were doing when this picture was taken...flashing gang signs?? (No, I didn't graffiti the shack. ;)

Here is my softball team in action:

This is the pitcher that I caught for most of the season. You can't really tell in this picture, but his upper arms are almost as big as my thighs. He is very fast, very accurate, and throws crazy breaking pitches, so he was a lot of fun to catch.

Here's me and two of my teammates, Kosaka-san and Shimada-san.

And finally, the happiest picture in the world:

What could be happier than eating ice cream with friends at Tokyo Disneyland??

Oh, one last thing. Originally, at the bottom of this post, I had added a link to a video of the Shinto priest's band on Youtube. But a few days later, the video mysteriously disappeared so I guess I'll take the link down. (Maybe the old man who sneakily videotaped us and posted the videos realized how sketchy that was and took them down?? Alas, there goes my last shot at instant fame and Japanese pop-stardom. I guess I'll just have to try to relaunch my career and get discovered in New York :)

Swine Flu Level 5 Super-Emergency-Everyone-Panic ALERT!!!!

2009-05-26T22:06:00.009+09:00

Every year, the medical school puts on a big spring festival. Students set up tents and make octopus balls, noodles, lizard heads* and other scrumptious morsels to sell, while music groups perform, martial arts clubs put on exhibitions, and people from the community come to eat and watch all of the different events. Last year, I went to the festival for a bit to support my English students, and left thinking that it was a pretty cool community outreach event and a nice way for the med students to showcase the fun things about their school.

Unfortunately, this past weekend, this year's medical festival was suddenly canceled. Why, you may ask? According to the medical school administration, since there's a big swine flu outbreak going on right now, it would be irresponsible of the medical school to sponsor a big public gathering where the infection could potentially spread.

...I sort of understand what they're saying...but I feel like there's one small detail I ought to point out:

Number of cases of swine flu in Ehime as of last weekend: ...um.....that would be....0.

How can the swine flu spread if it's not even here yet??**

Anyway, while some of the medical school students were upset that their big event was canceled, I was surprised to hear almost nobody complaining about how unreasonable the decision was. In fact, a lot of people here have decided that it's one more reason to get worked up about the flu. If you think the news coverage in the US is overblown, you haven't seen anything yet. Since the beginning of this month, the news here has almost literally been a 24-7 Swine Flu Network.*** blech...I can hardly stand to watch it.

Amidst all of this paranoia, I can't help but think that it was a little irresponsible of the medical school to cancel the whole festival and fan the flames. If the medical school's top concern was really public health, wouldn't it have been better to put the festival on as planned and add special lectures to educate the public about the real risks of the flu and proper hand-washing/flu prevention techniques? I dunno...that seems more reasonable to me....

----

Last week, everyone in Japan decided that they should wear surgical masks**** to prevent the spread of infection, so there was a big rush and the medical school completely ran out. I've noticed that my roommate has a box of masks sitting on our kitchen table. I'm kind of tempted to steal it and sell it on the black market. Betcha I could probably get at least a couple thousand bucks for it...

* Just kidding.

** There have been about 345 cases of swine flu in Japan so far, most of them in Osaka, which is an 8 hour ferry ride, 6 hour bus ride, or 1 hour plane ride away from Ehime, depending on how rich you are.

*** I'm live here from Osaka with Ms. Toshiko Suzuki. Ms. Suzuki went on a trip to Mexico three years ago, and now has decided to quarantine herself in an Osaka hotel room to make absolutely sure that she doesn't spread the swine flu to her three grandchildren...

****One of my bosses (who is a great guy, by the way) always wears a surgical mask wherever he goes, even before the swine flu outbreak became big news. He is so religious about his face coverage that I think I've seen his nose and mouth only about twice in the last six months. He actually reminds me a bit of this guy... Anyway, my boss is obviously taking the news about the flu seriously -- since it broke, he's been wearing yet another mask on top of his usual mask. I would think it'd be hard to breathe after awhile, but luckily it doesn't seem to phase him. :)

Hair Cut

2009-05-21T11:01:00.004+09:00

Although I've been in Japan for almost three years now, I've never had the guts to get my hair cut here. Frankly, I find the salons in my neighborhood slightly amusing...and a little frightening (...although I'm assuming that they do hair a little better than they do English. :)

Which one should I choose???

Candidate #1:

And candidate #2:

As Promised...

2009-05-14T11:57:00.005+09:00

...here's photo post その２. (One day late...shame on me...)

Today I'm moving on from gigantic vegetables to enormous pieces of MEAT!! This was from lunch today. The coin on the lower left hand corner of the plate is about the size of a quarter. I think they took a whole pig, rolled the poor critter in bread crumbs, deep fried it, sliced it and put it on a plate.

I ate pasta and half of my friend's gigantic slab of meat and I think I've about doubled my body weight....I'm feeling a little sluggish at the moment, but I'd better go feed my amoeba. Hopefully I can roll my poor bloated body to the lab....:)

A Picture a Day?

2009-05-13T12:18:00.009+09:00

Today's post is brought to you by the fairy sprites of the Enchanted Forest:

a.k.a. Tamura-san, a lady who sings with me in the band, and the Shinto Priest/pianist. We were practicing at Tamura-san's cafe one morning, and one of her customers brought by some vegetables. I forget what this particular one was called, but it looks like the biggest rhubarb I have ever seen, or something out of Honey I Shrunk the Kids...

...er wait...on second thought, I guess I lied. They're not that big...

Anyway, I was looking through old pictures this morning and found some interesting ones, so I'm thinking I'll try to post a new one here each day.

We'll see how long this lasts...I seem to remember promising to post a picture a day sometime last year, and somehow that never happened.... (>_<);;

Free Pass

2009-05-12T09:00:00.003+09:00

I am quickly becoming the Barry Bonds of my Japanese softball league.* This season, I have no batting average and a 1.000 on-base percentage because I've been walked in every at-bat. I must be the most fearsome number 8 hitter in all of Japan.

*...minus the home runs and the steroids.

Skin Grafts and the Next Iron Chef

2009-05-11T15:42:00.010+09:00

Last Saturday morning, I went with the softball team to a field on the side of a mountain to plant rice. The people who used to take care of the field haven't had time to cultivate it recently, so they asked for volunteers from the community to use the land and my softball team signed up.

A few weeks ago, the softball men went up to the mountain to pull out the grass and weeds already growing in the field, and last Wednesday, we went up to the field one more time to make dirt walls around its perimeter so that it could be filled with water.

Then, on Saturday, it was planting day. Most fields are planted by machines now, but I guess the owners of the field thought it would be more traditional and environmentally friendly to plant the rice seedlings by hand. So about ten of us rolled up our sleeves and our pant legs, jumped into the field, and trudged back and forth through the mud, bending over to plant rice seedlings every foot or so.

It has warmed up here recently and there was a nice breeze blowing on Saturday, so it really felt good to be outside in the sun. Unfortunately, I stupidly forgot to apply any sun block whatsoever (I don't usually burn, so I totally didn't think about it at all....how silly of me). Today, my shoulders feel like they are on fire.

Even more impressive are my legs. I've actually started a new form of body art. Behold:

All you have to do is splash a little mud on yourself in the desired pattern and stand outside in six inches of muck for two and a half hours. Then, voila, the mud splatters will remain white, while the rest of your leg will turn a brilliant red. Magnifique, no?

----

Since we were planning to be at the rice field all day, we were supposed to pack lunch to eat at noon. One of the softball men said that he really wanted to try my cooking and asked me to make lunch for him and his son too. (Actually, I think he was just too lazy to make his own lunch, but hey, who knows....)

In Japan, making lunches is really an art form -- you can't just throw a sandwich and a bag of potato chips in a bag. A good Japanese wife will cook several different sides to go with the rice, arrange them in pretty patterns in a pretty box, and carve the fruit into rabbits and swans and things.

With all the works of art I've seen in the last couple of years, I wasn't very confident that I could live up to the softball men's expectations. But fortunately, I received an emergency lunchbox creation lesson from my roommate on Friday night. We slaved away for several hours and the end result was quite respectable if I do say so myself. (....although we didn't attempt any rabbits or swans. I guess I'll have to try my hand at fruit sculpting next time...)

On Saturday, I unveiled my creations at the rice field, and the softball men went absolutely wild. One guy took a rice ball and said that he wanted to put it in the freezer so that he could preserve it and take it out every morning to admire it again and again. Another guy took pictures of the lunch boxes and posted them on his architecture company's website. Click on "COLUMN" in the link bar at the top of the page, and check out the posts from April 29th, May 8th and May 9th if you'd like to see my masterpieces, the softball men, and our rice field. :)

Anybody there?

2009-05-10T15:14:00.019+09:00

ハロ～ I doubt anyone even looks at this page anymore since I haven't updated for almost a year (!!), but just for kicks, I figured I would start writing again. A lot has happened in the last few months -- too much to write in one post -- but here goes.

-- After my English teaching job in Ehime ended last August, I went back to Seattle for three months to do some job shadowing in an assisted living facility and a couple of community clinics.

-- In October, I jetted all over the place doing medical school interviews. For the most part, everything went okay, besides one trip to the east coast where my luggage got lost somewhere in between Seattle and Pennsylvania. That night, I finally got to my hotel around 1 AM, borrowed deodorant and toothpaste from the front desk, brushed my teeth with my index finger, and climbed into bed. I ended up going to my interview the next morning in the same t-shirt and jeans I had worn on the plane because my suit was still MIA. I stuck out just a bit amid the group of other interviewees dressed in freshly pressed black suits, but luckily the interviewers were very nice about it, and plus I was very comfortable. Tennis shoes are a beautiful thing. :D

-- In November, I got back to Japan and have been working in a laboratory growing amoeba in little plastic dishes all day. Here are some of my favorite pets, named after some of my favorite people.

Actually, I spend most of my time soaking these little guys in different contact lens solutions and trying to figure out how to kill them. (They're awfully cute, but if they infect your eye, they eat up your cornea and can even blind you.) Several brands of contact lens solutions have no effect on these guys at all, so my task for the next couple of months is to find out which ingredients in the contact lens solutions are preventing the disinfectant from doing its job. Hopefully I'll have some Nobel Prize worthy results to present at the Japanese contact lens conference I'm supposed to go to in July...

-- According to the existing medical literature on these amoeba, they most often cause eye infections in contact lens wearers. The other at risk population includes people who have "experienced traumatic eye injury involving vegetative matter." ... That'll make you think twice the next time you have a sudden urge to fling a cabbage at your best pal's head, won't it!

-- I'm still playing trombone and singing with a couple bands here. My hope is to become a Japanese gaijin pop star extraordinaire like this guy within the next three months.

-- I've finally been accepted to medical school, so I'm bound for Cornell starting the end of this August! Come to NYC and visit me!

----

With all of the uncertainty about medical school behind me and my year(s) abroad quickly coming to an end, I've been in a weird mushy, philosophical mood lately. I can't quite put my thoughts into coherent English at the moment, but I'm very thankful both for my family and friends in the states, and for all of the people I've met in Japan. I feel like my heart is stretched out across several different continents right now. I wonder what will happen when I go back to the US this fall and start over in yet another new place...

----

On a slightly different note, I really like this quote:

"Nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first understood." ~Leonardo da Vinci.

Like most people, I think that I tend to make quick unconscious judgments about things and people based on first impressions, but recently, I've realized how dangerous and hurtful that can be. Too often I find myself thinking in terms of labels -- "good kid," "bad kid," "smart kid," "drunk," "trouble-maker," "Christian," "Japanese" etc. -- but real people are more complicated than that, and it's a shame to condense them down to something less than they actually are.

...So, my goal over the next few months is to try harder to see things through other people's eyes, rather than just making assumptions. That's the way people deserve to be treated, and the way I think I would want to be treated myself. 頑張ろう！

----

Stay tuned, O faithful reader(s?), for more posts in the near future (hopefully less rambling and vague than this one) as I finish out my last three months in Japan. :D

Watch out, Ellen Degeneres...

2008-07-02T01:45:00.005+09:00

Today, I finally got my hands on a copy of the video from our jazz concert at the shrine, so if you'd like to see it, it's here at the end of this post.

Before the concert, I was super nervous because I knew that I would have to emcee between the songs in Japanese, but luckily, emceeing turned out to be no problem at all.* In fact, the day after the concert, I got a call from one of the softball men. He told me that he was really impressed with my little spiel in between songs and thought I sounded just like the hosts at the Oscars or the Emmys.

heh heh heh :D

*You'll probably notice that the audience laughs hysterically after every single thing I say...even if it wasn't supposed to be funny. I assume that this is a good thing, although maybe there was a bit of broccoli stuck between my teeth or something??

Graffiti

2008-06-21T07:43:00.000+09:00

Happy Saturday morning to you courtesy of my friends at the high school next door!

(Sorry, this video doesn't really capture the view from my apartment balcony very well, but the sound ought to give you a feel for how I wake up on lazy Saturday mornings here in the peaceful bliss of the Japanese countryside. ;)

----

In other news pertaining to peace and bliss, when I got to school yesterday morning, I found that someone had done a little decorating across the main doors of the medical school with a can of red spray paint. As I walked up to the entrance gawking at the new artwork, I nearly stepped in front of a police photographer who was taking pictures of the scene while a bunch of maintenance men waited around to clean up the mess. The huge Japanese characters adorning the main doors read, 三木、出てこい！ (Miki, get out here!) Apparently, a very angry someone had a score to settle with Miki...

At first, I assumed that the graffiti was some kind of stupid prank aimed at some unfortunate medical student named Miki, but after hearing the scuttlebutt around the medical school, I found that Miki is actually a professor here. According to one of my English students, a patient who went to see Dr. Miki felt that he hadn't been treated properly and decided to get even. Last week, the patient posted unflattering fliers about Dr. Miki all over the shopping arcades in Matsuyama, and this week he apparently decided to go about his revenge in a slightly more artistic manner.

I guess this patient wasn't into malpractice suits so much.... Perhaps people like him are the reason that there's barbed wire around the high school...??

かわいそう (;_;)

2008-06-20T23:06:00.004+09:00

Gaahh...something is eating my poor goldfish's dorsal fin. The top of the fin's all ragged and halfway gone. (>_<);; I went to the pet shop in between lessons yesterday and bought some fish medicine (for $10...ouch...) and now he's medicated and isolated in his own little tank. I wonder if his fin will grow back at all once I get rid of the infection...although he seems to be swimming around fine without it. Anyway, I guess I will consider this fish to be my first official patient, and perhaps a groundbreaking case study for Piscean Regenerative Medicine. Do you suppose it would help if I listed this as a clinical experience on my medical school application?

Odds and Ends

2008-06-10T14:52:00.002+09:00

Today, while editing a paper for the ophthalmology department, I discovered my new favorite anatomical term:

Zonule of Zinn

I guess it's the name of the fibers that connect the muscles in your eye to the lens, but doesn't it sound like the name of some sort of space alien commander from a distant planet?? Hello, I am Zonule of Zinn. I come in peace... (-_-)v

Anyway, the term is definitely permanently embedded in my brain now. Who would have thought that I would get this much enjoyment from correcting medical articles?

I am going to be a great doctor.

---

Yesterday, I was sitting in a cafe in Matsuyama correcting papers in between band practices when a lady came up and tapped me on the shoulder.

Lady: Excuse me, do you speak English?

Me: Yes, I do.

Lady: Can I ask you a question? (looks up at the ceiling like she is forgetting something, then suddenly remembers and looks back down at me, pointing her index finger at my chest) ....mosquito!

Me: ....?? Um, sorry?

Lady: How....how do you say....uh....um....a mosquito's baby in English?

Me: Oh, um, I think we call it larva.

Lady: ....?

(I pull out a piece of paper and write down "larva" so she can see.)

Lady: Oh! Larva! Oh, thank you very much!

Me: No problem.

Lady: (pulls out a business card) I work in this bakery. Please come and eat our cookies.

Me: ....thanks!....

Never quite figured out where this conversation was going. Any ideas? A bakery with a pest problem???

Freedom!

2008-06-07T11:08:00.012+09:00

I've slowly come to the conclusion that I'm buried far enough down in the medical school waitlists that I'm not going to make it in this year. Sooo close but so far. These waitlists are an awfully elegant form of torture... But alas, there's nothing to do now but write a melodramatic blog post or two, and then get on the ball for next year.

My first step towards getting this reapplication ball rolling? The MCAT. I had taken the test three years ago during college, but since MCAT scores are usually only valid for three years, I had no choice but to take it all over again.

It's amazing how much you can manage to forget in three years, so I knew I had a lot of chemistry and physics studying to do. For the six weeks before my test day, I literally locked myself in my office every night after work to study, and gradually plowed my way through five big fat test prep books and four practice tests.

On the test day last Tuesday, I arrived at the test center with plenty of time to spare, took the elevator to the seventh floor and was a bit alarmed to find a door that said "This way for the English Proficiency Exam." Aha! Here is a test I can pass! I thought, but have I gone to the wrong building for the MCAT?? I inquired at the front desk with much trepidation and found that I was indeed in the right place. As it turns out, I was the only person taking the MCAT in Osaka that day, so apparently they didn't feel the need to put up a sign for me. :) (On a side note, if any of you ever have to take the MCAT, I highly recommend taking it in Japan. Taking the test by yourself is about a million times better than taking it in a crowded room with hundreds of stressed out pre-meds madly flipping through flash cards and muttering to themselves.)

Even though I was the only person taking the test, the proctors were (of course) still required to go through all of the standard anti-cheating protocol. Before I could enter the test room, I had to take everything out of my pockets, get my fingerprints taken, pose for a picture, and show the proctor my passport. I kind of felt like I was going to jail.

The test itself went ok (I think...), or at least I finished all the questions in the time limit. And after five hours of toe tapping, head scratching and nail chewing, I emerged from the testing room a free woman....again. Hopefully this will be the last time for the MCAT and me. :)

Now that I'm finally done studying, I've been gradually making my way back from the depths of my office to join the rest of humanity. First, this meant catching up on grading papers at work, but I've also played sanshin in a couple concerts and gotten back into softball. I'm also hoping to start jogging every morning and learning how to cook, but so far I'm not having much success on those fronts. Must....get...out...of...bed....in the morning and run.

Oh, one last thing. Last month, one of the jazz groups I'm in played a concert at a shrine in my neighborhood, and a news crew came to film our practice and help us advertise. Here's a clip from the news. I tried to add (rough) English captions this time. Hopefully you can read them....they're not pretty, but at least they're semi-functional....I think... (Does anyone know of a better program for adding captions than Windows Movie Maker? I wish I could format these better so they don't fly across the screen so fast...)

Update: I think I've fixed the problem with the video now....probably...
Although if it still doesn't work, you can also watch it here, the full screen version!

I'm Thinking of Something Yellow...

2008-04-28T17:01:00.005+09:00

Events of note since my last post:

-- Last Sunday, I was invited to make another appearance in my softball team's golf tournament. Unfortunately, since my golf debut last November, I've been a tad busy working, studying for med school interviews, and pretending to be a Japanese pop star,* so I haven't had much of a chance to work on my golf swing. The softball men reassured me that I was still welcome to play, and took me out to the driving range twice in the week before the tournament. However, despite their advice/encouragement/fervent prayers, I couldn't seem to shake my tendency to slice the ball hard to the right about 3 out of every 4 shots.

After finishing up at the driving range, I casually suggested that perhaps I ought to sit this tournament out,** but the softball team wasn't hearing any of that, so I ended up playing after all. The results?

Well, let's just say I showed a lot of grit on Sunday. Got some good exercise too, chasing my ball all over the course and fishing it out of bushes and drainage ditches....I am, however, happy to say that based on a careful analysis of the trend in my golf scores, I have made a bit of an improvement since last November:

Last November: erm...quite a few strokes...lost count after the third hole or so

Last Sunday: 153

Still have a ways to go though...

-- Still no news from any medical schools, but then again, I wasn't really expecting to hear anything new until at least May 15th. I did, however, receive some interesting news involving a certain Japanese medical school.

This morning, I ran into one of the medical English students in the hallway, and she asked me how long I thought I would stay in Ehime. When I told her that I'm tentatively planning to leave in August, she looked very surprised, and then told me that there is a rumor going around that I'm going to enroll at the Ehime University Medical School next year.

Something must have gotten lost in translation somewhere...although it would be pretty sweet if I were to get accepted to Japanese medical school without even submitting a single form... Anyway, it's good to know that someone cares if I'm around. :D

-- The six elementary school girls at my Friday night lesson absolutely crack me up.

Just recently, we've been learning our colors and talking about our likes and dislikes, so last Friday, the textbook suggested that we do an activity like this. Each girl was supposed to draw a color flashcard and take turns making an "I like" or "I don't like" sentence involving that color. When I was planning the lesson, I actually thought that the activity sounded kind of boring and wondered if it would hold the kids' attention, but in actuality, it turned out to be quite entertaining.

S-chan went first, drew a brown card, and proclaimed that she didn't like brown cockroaches. Next was Y-chan, who drew pink and told us that she didn't like pink shrimp. And then came A-chan.

A-chan is a notoriously picky eater and always asks for no fruit in her post-lesson ice cream sundae, so when she drew yellow and exclaimed, "I know what I'll do!" the other kids and I were almost certain she would say that she doesn't like bananas. But then she surprised us all by saying, "I don't know how to say this word in English, though. Can you tell me?" and I leaned over so she could whisper the Japanese word in my ear.

I could tell that she was very pleased with herself for thinking of her word, because she was grinning from ear to ear and trying not to laugh, so I was quite anxious to hear what she had to say, but although she whispered the same thing to me several times, she was giggling so much that I couldn't figure it out. I finally asked her to write down the word on a piece of paper instead, and when she finished, I looked down to see オネショ (onesho = wetting the bed) written in large neat letters.

So true, A-chan, so true. たしかに、both yellow and unpleasantやね...

*More about the latest developments in my budding pop star career in another post.

**It's not that I mind looking bad in front of the softball men -- I've gotta practice somewhere if I ever plan on getting any better -- I just don't want to make everyone wait on me as I sloooowly make my way toward the green....

Plan B

2008-04-07T18:12:00.019+09:00

Happy April! I hope that you're as happy as I am that spring has come. Here, have some celebratory sushi.

The other day, a few of my students took me to a park for a picnic, and this is what we had for lunch. I'll give a gold star to the lucky reader who can figure out what's odd about this sushi.

---

Since my med school interview at the UW last October, I've been patiently waiting in the dreaded "competitive applicants pool" for a final decision on my application. And man, five months is an awfully long time to wait...

The UW's final admissions committee meeting was two Fridays ago, so I figured it was safe to assume that I would learn my fate early this week.

Unfortunately, I was wrong.

Almost a week after the meeting, despite obsessively checking my e-mail and the UW's rather unhelpful application status web page, I still hadn't heard a thing. No phone calls. No e-mail. No snail mail. I was beginning to wonder if I ought to be watching out for skywriting or a singing telegram when my status on the UW's website finally changed to "A decision has been made on your application." (Now really, isn't it just a bit cruel that the website doesn't tell you anything more detailed than that??) Feeling so nervous that I thought I might vomit, I called the UW admissions office and found....that I have been put on the waitlist.

At least I haven't been rejected (yet), but I don't particularly relish the idea of waiting another three months to find out whether or not I can get in. It makes it awfully hard to know if I should cross my fingers and hope for an acceptance, or give up on this year and start looking for a job.

Anyway, I figure it's always best to have a plan B, so I've started to do a little job-hunting research. My first source? The kids at my Friday night English lesson:

Me: Hey, I think I might have to look for a new job for next year. What kind of job do you think would be good for me?

K-chan: Um...umm......oh! I know! Maybe you could work in a convenience store?!

True. I certainly could. I've bought enough convenience store bento lunches in my day that I know all of the pertinent convenience-store-related Japanese phrases! (あたためますか?) I wonder if convenience stores give out working visas.....

---

This weekend was the spring festival in downtown Matsuyama, so I dropped by the shopping arcades to take a peek at the annual parade. The parade is called daimyo gyoretsu, and apparently it's a re-creation of the processions that daimyo (feudal lords) had to make to Tokyo each year to pay their respects to the shogun. These processions happened around 200 or 300 years ago, so the clothes the people in the parade were wearing were pretty different and cool looking.

Here's the daimyo:

...and the daimyo's samurai bodyguard accompanied by his own personal umbrella holder:

Apparently the archers weren't important enough to merit gigantic umbrellas. :( I dig their outfits though. Just out of curiosity, does anyone know how those bows work? Wouldn't your arms have to be super long to pull that huge bowstring back far enough for the arrow to go anywhere?

Here are the ladies in waiting (I think...??) I would hate to have been a girl back then. My students tell me that it took many months to walk from Ehime to Tokyo, and I think I probably would have gone crazy wearing a kimono and walking in little tiny strides like this for days on end....

Last but not least, here are the guys who clean the chandeliers in the daimyo's house. (This one is for you, Mom. ;)

After the parade passed by, I walked out of the shopping arcades toward Matsuyama Castle and enjoyed a stroll in the beautiful weather.

The cherry blossoms are in full bloom now. They're pretty, huh.

Every day on the news here, there's a whole segment devoted to reporting the places where the cherry blossoms have started to bloom. They even calculate the percentage of buds that have opened on a certain representative tree in each famous cherry blossom viewing spot. It's really a big deal. The people in the picture down below are having ohanami, a sort of cherry blossom appreciation party. People spread blankets under the trees and eat lunch together.

Here's more cherry blossoms near the moat around Matsuyama Castle.

That little boat in the background always sits in the moat, but I've never seen anyone use it before. Quite mysterious. I plan to live inside of it next year while I work at the convenience store and study to retake the MCAT. (笑)

何が言いたかったのでしょう...

2008-03-26T14:51:00.012+09:00

I was editing an paper about coronary artery disease for one of the doctors today, when I found this passage.

"As you know, there are many biomarkers and thus related papers regarding acute coronary syndrome and vulnerable plaque. I am disgusted and confused about that!"

I concur! What could be more disgusting than biomarkers and vulnerable plaque??

...

Reasons I Would Make a Terrible Wife: Vol. III*

2008-03-25T11:51:00.012+09:00

One of the many perks of teaching English in Ehime is that Ehime is famous for mikan, little mandarin oranges, and when mikan are in season, my students give me grocery bags full of them literally every day. Mmmm.... Sometimes I even eat them for dinner if I don't feel like fixing something a little more substantial. Perhaps this is not the most nutritionally sound diet, but I tell myself that at least I don't have to worry about getting scurvy.

Last week was a particularly fruitful one. At one point, I think I had at least two dozen mikan in bags on top of my refrigerator, so before I left last Thursday on a little five-day trip to Kyoto, I went on a mikan eating frenzy -- must have eaten four or five mikan per day -- and finally, on Thursday night, I departed for Kyoto, having successfully depleted my rather large hoard of fruit.

Or so I thought....

When I came back to my apartment this morning, I noticed an odd smell emanating from behind the refrigerator. I wandered around my apartment for a few minutes unpacking and thinking all the while, It smells like oranges in here. Oranges...and....and...easter egg dye?? Impossible, no one dyes easter eggs here...But it definitely smells like oranges. Oranges...and....and dirty socks???

I finally decided that the strange odor required proper investigation, and peered behind the refrigerator to find that a paper sack of oranges had fallen into the crack between the fridge and the wall. I attempted to pull the sack out, but it disintegrated in my hands. The mikan fell to the ground with a nasty squelch, and an enormous cloud of green dusty mold billowed out across my kitchen. When the green dust finally settled, I ran to the bathroom, looked in the mirror and found that I looked like the Wicked Witch of West's slightly paler sister.** I washed off the green ick and then proceeded to de-mold the rest of my kitchen.

By then, the smell was much worse, and I could just imagine all of the mold particles still floating around in the air and turning my lungs green. If the mold could annihilate those mikan in a matter of days, how long would it take for the mold to eat me alive too???

Anyway, my kitchen is much cleaner now and I am still alive, so all appears to be right in the world. I guess I should find a different place to store the mikan from now on, though...

* Vol. I and II can be found in previous posts for your further (懐かしい) reading enjoyment.

**Minus the pointy hat and warts.

Run that by me again?

2008-03-17T14:56:00.003+09:00

Yesterday, the leaders of the big band I'm in posted the set list for our next concert. The second tune on the list?

BRIDE OVER TROUBLED WATERS

I'd really like to hear the lyrics to this version... ;)

Snakes on a Plane

2008-03-16T21:49:00.014+09:00

I was searching the internet to see if I could bring a real python-skin sanshin back to the US* when I came across this article:

"A young woman has been cautioned at Scotland's Glasgow Airport after attempting to smuggle a live snake on a journey from America** to the Netherlands.

Customs officers in Glasgow were carrying out a routine check on the woman when they noticed that her snakeskin belt was in fact a live snake. The harmless reptile had been chilled prior to the flight to keep it in a comatose state but it came to life in the warmth of the airport terminal.

The snake was confiscated and the woman was allowed to catch her flight after being given a warning, according to Scottish newspaper The Herald. "

-- Courtesy of Airline Industry Information, Feb. 18, 2002

Genius.

When I mentioned this story to one of my private lesson students the other day, he came up with a brilliant idea of his own.

Ryu: Hey, didn't you say you're going to have give your goldfish away before you go back to America?

Me: Yeah, the softball team wants to FedEx them back to Seattle for me, but I don't think that'll work so well....

Ryu: You should find a piece of opaque plastic piping, fill it with water, put the goldfish inside, and wear it as a belt on the plane!

It might be worth a try. I'd sure feel bad if my poor goldfish suffocated, though. I suppose every once in a while, I could sneak into the bathroom, take the belt off, and blow bubbles into it....

*Apparently pythons are an endangered species, and it's illegal to bring products made from endangered species into the US, so I settled for a synthetic snakeskin sanshin instead.

** Does this mean that she had already smuggled the snake on a plane once when she flew from the US to Glasgow??? Maybe it wouldn't be so hard to get the sanshin through customs after all....

嬉しいこといっぱい (Too Much of a Good Thing??)

2008-03-03T14:14:00.019+09:00

For the last couple months, business has been booming at the medical school -- I think I've gained four or five private lessons just lately. This makes at least four one-hour lessons everyday, and that's not including the university classes and the free tutoring sessions I do for the medical students. If you add in prep time and the proofreading work I do for doctors at the medical school, I'm basically at school from 9 AM to 9 PM every day.

In a way, this is a good thing. I like my job, and I certainly don't want to be sitting around with nothing to do. As long as I'm living by myself in the middle of the Japanese countryside, it's best to keep busy.

On the other hand, all of these new lessons mean that I literally have no time to eat dinner until at least 9 at night Monday through Saturday....although on the bright side, once I come back to the states, I'll probably be a lot thinner.* Maybe I can become a super model.**

* Or fatter?? Isn't eating right before you go to bed supposed to make you gain weight? Or maybe my occasional late night snacking will be canceled out by the fact that sometimes I fall asleep in the middle of the floor without eating anything at all.

** Shoot..forgot that I'm not over six feet tall...

Anyway, suffice it to say that with the sudden deluge of work since the first of the year, I haven't been able to write too many blog posts lately. :( But as usual, there's been plenty of stuff to write about. Here's a quick rundown of the most exciting non-work related events of the past few weeks:

Since I went to Okinawa last year, I've been a bit obsessed with the sanshin, a three-stringed banjo-ish instrument that people play there. It's a little hard to describe what it sounds like, but people play it at festivals and dance to it, so it's rhythmical and fun...maybe you could call it Okinawan-style hoe-down music??

Anyway, in Okinawa, I bought a really cheap sanshin for practice, and figured that if I ever got good at it, I could switch to a better one. Real sanshin are made from wood and covered with python skin, but my cheap one was made from a tin can. (After the bombing in World War II, Okinawa was completely devastated, and there were no materials to make sanshin, so people made them out of whatever they could find -- mostly scraps of wood and empty cans. Now the cheapest sanshin in souvenir shops are still made that way.)

Unfortunately, my sanshin was a little too cheap (or maybe I am stronger than I thought.) I was tuning it one day, turned one of the wooden tuning pegs a little too hard, and broke the peg in half. I glued the peg back together with wood glue, but it was never quite the same. :( Lamenting the loss of my sanshin, I mentioned to my parents that I wished I had a real one, and they surprised me and ordered me one for Christmas. And two weeks ago, my new sanshin finally came to the medical school. The new one is beautiful, and the sound is sooo much better than the tin can. :D

The day after my sanshin came, I checked the mail again and found a postcard with results from the Japanese proficiency test I had taken last December. (The test is for foreigners who are studying Japanese, and there are four levels depending on how long you've been studying. For my level, I had to know ~2000 Japanese characters and ~10,000 vocabulary words, so all November and December, I was studying characters like a crazy person.) My postcard was kind of small, and since a small envelope usually means bad news, I figured I must have failed the test, but I opened it anyway and found that I had actually passed! I hope no one was watching me because I was so surprised that I kind of did a little jig up the stairs to my apartment.

The following day, the postman brought me yet another surprise -- another postcard from Nodo Jiman (the American Idol-ish TV show) inviting me to audition for the TV show again. The audition was last weekend, and I decided to sing an Okinawan song and play my sanshin.

Unfortunately, this time around, I didn't sing terribly well and didn't make it on TV, so there's no videotape, but here's a still of me and my beautiful sanshin:

Just like last time, the rest of the auditionees (250 people total) were very entertaining, so despite the fact that I wasn't able to make much progress in my quest to become a Japanese pop star, I was glad to have gone to the audition.

My English student's sister came to hear me sing, and after the audition was over, she invited me to spend the night at her apartment instead of taking the hour and a half long bus ride back home.

In case you're wondering how I know my English student's sister, I suppose I'd better catch you up on a little background information. Last fall, my English student, Yumi, took me to see a big festival in her hometown and introduced me to her whole family. Here's me, Yumi, and her sister, Hitomi, next to one of the festival floats:

See that gigantic pole I'm leaning on? At the festival, the men put the poles on their shoulders and carry the float and bounce it up and down. About five minutes after this picture was taken, the manly men from the float next door decided they wanted to have a fight with our float and started charging towards us. Fortunately for me, Yumi and Hitomi realized that we were about to be sandwiched between two enormous pieces of wood and we all ran to safety in the nick of time.

...but I digress....

Here's Yumi, me, and Hitomi's five year old son, Yuuto, at a little safer distance from the action:

Yuuto is absolutely hysterical. When I first met him last fall, he was really scared of me because he had never seen a foreigner before. (For the first hour or so of the festival, he kept saying, "I don't like foreigners. I hate people who speak English!!") But after a bit, his curiosity got the better of him and we became pretty good buddies:

During dinner, he kept running over to sit on my lap and ask me questions like, "What does your grandpa look like?" and "Are there dogs in America?"

Ok, so back to Nodo Jiman day... After my audition, Yuuto was apparently really excited that I was coming to stay at his apartment. When I walked in the door, he pulled me inside and immediately gave me the grand tour, saying, "I've been cleaning house all day to get ready for you. Doesn't it just sparkle??" And then we played and played all night long...with board games and play money and video games and picture books...it was the first time I had played that much in a long time, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. :D

Later that night, we went out to dinner, where Yuuto told me the whole story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and then to the public bath. Yuuto insisted on coming into the women's side to play with me, and then almost dragged me into the men's side too when he decided to look for his dad later on. (笑)

When it was time for me to go home the next afternoon, we did one more jigsaw puzzle and then sadly parted. Yuuto told me to come back next Sunday and he would be sure to clean the house for me. I think I'm in love. <3 <3

Golf

2008-02-29T12:00:00.000+09:00

A few days after the autumn festival, I got another call from the softball guys:

Them: We're having a golf tournament in the three day weekend in November. You're going to play this year, aren't you?

Me: Uh, gee, I'd like to play, but...

Them: Ok! Don't worry about a thing. We'll find clubs for you!!

Me: Wow, thanks...but, uh, just so you know, I've never actually played golf before.

Them: Oh, no problem. If you can play softball, of course you'll be able to play golf....

A week later, Shinohara-san called to say that he was bringing a putter to my apartment and wanted to take me shopping for golf shoes. I thanked him and asked if we also might make a side trip to the driving range, but he didn't appear to think that was necessary.

Another week passed, and my big golf debut was getting dangerously close. Feeling a bit anxious about the fact that I had never actually touched a golf club before, I finally called Shimada-san, another one of the softball guys, and asked if he would give me a golf lesson. Fortunately, he agreed to take me out to the driving range.

When we arrived at our tees, Shimada-san thrust a driver in front of me and asked me to show him my swing. I quickly obliged, and turned back to see Shimada-san scratching his head. "I think we have a little work to do," he said.

I went back to the driving range two more times with Shimada-san and once more with my Japanese teacher. By the day of the tournament, I had progressed to the point where I could make fairly reliable contact with the ball. Unfortunately, once I hit the ball, I had almost no idea where it would go, but that couldn't really be helped.

The golf course was on the side of one of the mountains near my apartment, and the view was really amazing. Looking out from the first tee, it felt like I could have flown off the mountain and soared out over my town....and a few times, my golf balls certainly did. (Or at least, they probably would have if they hadn't gotten stuck in the trees somewhere on the side of the course.)

I was unprepared for how hilly the course was going to be, and the first time I stepped up to hit the ball, I had this nightmarish vision of me hitting the ball, watching it fly halfway up the hill toward the pin, and then roll back down to where I had started. However, I quickly realized how silly I had been to worry about this, when I finally teed off and watched my ball land in the long grass in the rough. (What a marvelous thing friction is!)

The other three guys in my group were all very good golfers, (and very patient! I think I hit the ball approximately five times for every one of their swings.... (>_<);; ) so I was able to benefit from lots of excellent advice and learn plenty of Japanese golf lingo. At the end of the back nine, I heard my first "ナイスオン！" (Nice on!) , which I believe translates to, "Way to go! We can't believe you made it onto the green in less than six shots." Anyway, they were very nice to me, and even insisted that I come back to play with them again in May. 頑張ろう、わたし！

The softball men really are the greatest. In Japan, there are a lot of things that I can't do quite as well as I'd like -- with the language barrier, even little things like talking on the phone are difficult, and sometimes I feel like such an idiot. But it's so much easier to keep trying to do better when I know that I can count on people like the softball men to bear with me. I'm very lucky to have found them. :D

Hibernation

2008-01-21T23:49:00.001+09:00

Greetings from freezing cold Japan! I'm back in Ehime with a bit of spare time on my hands, so I'll try my best to bring this rather heavily slumbering blog out of hibernation. (....although right about now, a few months of hibernation actually doesn't sound like such a bad idea...It's 32 degrees here at the most, with snow, hail, and biting winds that just about rip my face off every time I ride my bicycle home. Also, the heater in my apartment has been making some really strange sounds since yesterday and I'm getting a bit nervous. If it breaks, I will have to resort to...rubbing my poor frostbitten hands together over the warmth of the vents on the sides of my laptop??? ;)

Anyway, for now, I'll take you back to the blissfully warm days of October when the softball team invited Michael and me to this year's autumn festival. You may recall last year's festival from a previous post -- the day-long event where the men carried the huge portable shrine around town to pray for a good harvest. This year's festival was more of the same, only this time I had a digital camera to document the action.

Here's the men of the town dressed in purple happi. Every time they picked up the mikoshi, they lifted it up above their heads and twirled around in circles a few times. Click on the video below and you can see for yourself.

Then they lugged it down the streets....

...past some rice fields...

...and set it down at its next destination. Here's Shinohara-san (the manager of the softball team), me, and our little friend.

Whenever the mikoshi stopped, the shinto priest (a.k.a. jazz pianist) had to sit in front of this little altar and do a ceremony. He was chanting some kind of scripture(??) when I took the video below.

I hope that didn't make you carsick....

This goblin guy was standing around the festival all day waiting to whack people on the head with his bamboo stick. Apparently, if he whacks you, you'll have good health for the next year.

The kids of the town had been practicing traditional dances and drumming for weeks before the festival, and they took turns performing every time the mikoshi stopped. In this dance, an old man and his wife are trying to till their field, but the monkey in the red suit keeps jumping on top of the old man and keeping him from working. Silly monkey.

Here's my student's sister, dancing with a fan, while the shinto priest/jazz pianist drums in the background.

And here are two of my students, Kiko and Hinako, watching the dancing. (On a side note, I had noticed during our English lessons that both of these girls were absolutely mesmerized by my American mechanical pencils, so the last time I went back to the states, I brought back a few pencils for them as a a gift. Last week, I gave them their presents at the lesson, and I have never seen anyone so excited about a pencil before. Kiko, the little girl in the red jacket, told me that her heart was beating so fast that she wasn't sure if she could finish the English lesson. :)

Besides my private students, Michael and I ran into some other kids from town who were really curious about the two of us. They hung around us all day and brought us food and little presents. (The tan blob in Michael's hand is a bit of Silly Putty that they gave us :) We also had some great conversations which were a little reminiscent of last year's festival:

Sayaka: So are you guys boyfriend and girlfriend?

Michael: Nope.

Sayaka: Then, you must be married!

Me: Nope, we're just friends. We work in the same office.

Sayaka: (rummaging through Michael's backpack) Well, when are you getting married, then?

Michael: eh.....we're not getting married.... (moves his backpack away from little prying hands)

Sayaka: Ah....then you must be brother and sister....

This is me and Kosaka-san, another guy from the softball team who helps to organize the festival.

And here are the softball guys again a little later on in the evening. They had been carrying the mikoshi around since 4 AM that morning so I think they were a little tired out by this point. Even so, when the festival ended at 10 PM, they insisted on loading me up with extra bottles of tea and walking me back to my apartment. Aren't they the greatest? More on the softball men the next time I get around to posting...

People in my Neighborhood

2007-09-20T22:11:00.000+09:00

There was a time last year when I was the most fearsome creature in all of Ehime. I would walk down the street in my town and the neighbors (with the exception of the softball team and the Shinto priest) would immediately look straight down at their feet and walk past me as quickly as possible, presumably to avoid any awkward English conversations.

Luckily, due to a combination of factors including my growing pop star fame* and the fact that I speak a little Japanese, I no longer appear to strike fear into the hearts of my neighbors, so we're getting to know each other a little better.

Last week, I was talking to Tyler for a minute outside of our Japanese teacher's house when I noticed this older man staring at us from across the street. I bowed to him and expected him to nod back and keep walking, but a few seconds later, he strode right up to us, whipped out his camera, and ordered us to pose so that he could take pictures of us and finish off his roll of film. After he had finished with his camera, he apparently had a thing or two he wanted to tell us, and proceeded to give a lengthy (~30 minute) lecture on topics including orchids, film cameras, old-school vacuum tube speakers, the war in Iraq, and his personal collection of fake American rifles. I don't think I ever quite understood what the point of all this was, but it was entertaining.

After I extricated myself from the man's lecture and said goodbye to Tyler, I walked back towards my apartment, and two minutes later, found myself being waved towards the cigarette vending machine** on the corner next to my apartment. An elderly lady from down the street was standing there, and she told me that she needed to buy cigarettes for her son but didn't know how to use the vending machine. She thrust a thousand yen bill into my hand and asked me to figure out the machine, so I helped her buy a couple packs. It wasn't until she thanked me and walked off down the street that it hit me -- she had been talking to me in mad Japanese the whole time like she didn't even notice that I was a foreigner. Perhaps I am starting to blend in...or perhaps she was just really frustrated with the vending machine.

* I sang in front of a pretty big crowd at the American Idolish singing contest last month, which was great fun. Unfortunately, I didn't place this time, but I did win an honorable mention coffee gift certificate from the judges. Also, at dinner after the contest, this random lady came up to me in the restaurant, told me she enjoyed my song, and gave me a box of fruit jelly. :D

** Yes, they sell cigarettes in vending machines here. I can't quite figure out why they even bother to make cigarettes illegal until you turn 20...

Death of a Goldfish

2007-09-19T21:49:00.000+09:00

Hi again! Since my last post, there's been good news and bad news. The good news is that I've finished writing essays for all ten of my medical school applications. Also, I got one invitation for an interview last week, so I'm coming back to Seattle for a week in the end of October. :)

The bad news has to do with the nine goldfish that I got at the festival last month. (I guess I spoke a little too soon in my last post.....) Last weekend, I came back to my apartment from a lesson and was about to feed my goldfish when I noticed that something didn't feel right. On a whim, I counted the fish and found that there were only eight in the tank. At first, I figured number nine must be hiding in a plant, but after a quick inspection, I realized that this couldn't be true. At this point, I happened to look down at the floor and saw number nine lying on the tatami. He was very dry and very dead. :( :( Apparently, he had been feeling a bit too frisky and jumped clear out of the tank. I wish I had been there to rescue him. :(

I think number nine must have had a girlfriend (boyfriend??) in the tank, because the next day, another poor goldfish started swimming in corkscrews on its side and was dead by the next morning. Probably of a broken heart. Poor kid. :(

I didn't really think that I would get so attached to the goldfish, but I must admit that the bottom dropped out of my stomach when I saw number nine on the floor. It really was an awful feeling to see him lying there and realize that he's never going to move again. *shudder* Guess I've never really had a pet die before. :( Wish me luck with the other seven fish!

More Than Halfway There

2007-09-04T16:38:00.000+09:00

After two more weeks of writing essays for medical school applications:

Number of essays finished: roughly 18

Number of essays still to write: roughly 9

Number of goldfish still alive: 9/9 (!) Aren't they beauties??

I think I know why a bunch of the world's greatest authors went crazy at some point in their lives. I'll bet you they all sat alone in their hot, muggy apartments grouchily writing medical school admissions essays and talking to goldfish all day.

On a related note, it's that time of year again when the high school next door starts preparing for its Field Day. This means that the students are at the school at all hours of the day and night running laps around the soccer field, beating drums, and chanting things that sound strangely like, "This is a cat! Foul ball!! This is a cat! Foul ball!!" This may be another sign that I am slowly going crazy, but I've heard them do the same chant every morning, and no matter how many times I hear it, it sounds the same....

Something to Talk About

2007-08-19T23:39:00.000+09:00

In another week or so, I'll be halfway through my stay in Japan. (In case you haven't heard, I extended my contract another year, so I'm going to stay at the medical school until August of 2008.) Over the next couple of days, things are going to change a bit. Tyler is leaving Ehime and the new teacher is coming sometime next week. Of course I'm excited to meet the new teacher, but also a little sad to see Tyler go -- it's been fun working together and nice to hang out with someone who shares my love for karaoke. :D

Let's get one thing straight, though -- although Tyler and I get along well, contrary to popular belief, we're not married, dating or otherwise bound by vows of eternal gaijin love. Despite this, I think we've both become resigned to the fact that everyone in Toon city thinks we're married. The softball men, the shinto priest, and various other people in my neighborhood have asked me how my husband is doing so many times that I've lost count. And yesterday, at dinner with two of our students (both exchange students from China), I realized that the medical students also appear to think that we're a couple.

Student 1: So you want to learn Chinese?

Me: Oh yes, please teach me!

Student 2: Ok. Do you know any words already?

Me: Well....I can say 你好 (hello) and 我愛你 (I love you.)

Student 1: Ooooo, you can say 我愛你??? Good! Now say it to Tyler!! (The two students look at each other and giggle. wink wink. nudge nudge.)

Tyler and Me: ???

Student 1: We've actually been wondering if you two have any good stories to tell us.

Me: Stories?

Student 1: Yeah, like...you know...stories about the two of you...together....

Me: haha. I don't think I could tell you anything very interesting.

Student 1: Oh....so you mean he didn't propose to you???

Tyler and Me: ...

Really, it doesn't bother me that everyone here thinks I'm married to Tyler. I actually find it quite entertaining. But I do wonder what will happen when the new teacher comes, as he just so happens to be male. I can only imagine the scandal. It'll probably make the front page. (TROUBLE IN PARADISE??? GAIJIN LOVE TRIANGLE IN TOON CITY.)

Yikes...who knew I would get married, divorced, and remarried in just one short year.

Festival Day II

2007-08-16T02:07:00.000+09:00

The softball team invited me back yesterday for the second day of the Obon festival. Here's a quick summary of what went down:

Number of boxes of kleenex won: 0 (The two day total stands at 21. Not too shabby.)

Number of goldfish I managed to catch at the goldfish carnival game: 0 (Very poor showing...wish I could have better represented my country....)

Number of goldfish the softball team gave me to take home anyway: 9 :D

Number of days the goldfish lived in a pot in my kitchen because I didn't have a better container to put them in: 0.5 (I bought a small aquarium for them today. Hopefully they're happier now.)

Number of reporters from the Ehime prefectural newspaper who came to interview me for some kind of human interest article: 1 (笑)

Probability that I will become an international celebrity before I leave Japan: 0.5 (and rising rapidly with all this extra publicity I'm getting ;)

Number of public baths visited last night: 1 (That makes a total of two visits in the last two days. The people who work the night shift at the bath recognize my face now. I am thinking of moving out of my apartment and into the bath. I seriously could live there if I wanted to. The bath is open twenty-four hours with a restaurant, a room with comfy looking recliners, air conditioner and of course, a bath. If only it were in biking distance of work...)

Octopus Balls and Tired Feet

2007-08-15T01:50:00.000+09:00

The last week or so, I've been waking up really early, probably because my apartment faces east and gets like an oven as soon as the sun comes up. Yesterday, I woke up at about 5:30....which doesn't fit my theory at all since the sky still looked like this:

Anyway, for whatever reason, I woke up at 5:30 and couldn't go back to sleep. And so began a very long day of randomness.

Monday through Wednesday of this week are a Japanese holiday called Obon. During Obon, people believe that the souls of their ancestors come back to earth for a few days. Many people go back to their parent's house, eat special food, and visit their family's grave to honor their ancestors. (I tried to ask where my grandma's soul would go. Do the souls of non-Japanese people or Japanese-American people come back to earth too? Would my grandma's soul come back to her grave in Seattle? To her house? To her relatives' house in Okinawa? Nobody really seemed to know. Anyway, it was interesting to think about it.)

Many towns also have festivals for Obon with food and traditional dancing, and in my town, the festival's organizational committee happens to be run by.......my softball team! One of the softball men called me yesterday afternoon and asked if I would make food at one of the booths, so I rode my bike over to the festival to help out.

In the middle of this little park, they had set up this tower thing with a drum inside:

and tents with grills and deep-fryers to make soba noodles, fried chicken, french fries, udon, and octopus balls.

I was given my very own apron and towel and recruited to work at the octopus ball grill where I greased grills, poured batter, sprinkled cabbage and bits of octopus, and turned balls for three hours. It was fun to learn something new, but reeeallly hot behind the grill.

Meanwhile, lots of people from town came to the festival dressed in yukatas (a kind of light summer kimono) and danced in a circle around the tower like this:

Sorry, I'll have to work on my taking-pictures-in-the-dark skills, but oh well. The blurriness gives it character. :)

After the festival, there were some raffle prizes leftover so the whole kitchen staff was invited to draw tickets. Curiously, everyone drew prize number 4, which happened to be three boxes of tissues, and on top of that, everyone decided to give their tissues to me. I'm pretty sure that unless I catch pneumonia and am sick in bed every day until I leave Japan, I won't use 21 boxes of kleenex by myself, but they insisted on giving them to me so I graciously accepted them. :D

After the raffle, we grabbed some udon:

(Me and the first baseman, who gave me an apron from his sake factory.)

and then the softball men went off to the community center to have a post-festival party. We were sitting at the table snacking and chatting when the first baseman and the manager decided they wanted to go to a public bath and invited me to come. On one hand, it was already 11 PM and I had been up since 5:30 that morning, but on the other hand, I was pretty sweaty and greasy from grilling octopus balls, so I decided to take them up on it.

By now, I've gotten over the weirdness of bathing naked with a bunch of people I've never seen before, but I still don't quite understand the social side of the public bath thing -- lots of people go to the bath with friends or their family for fun, but of course, men and women have separate baths so they can't really hang out together. It doesn't seem like the best way to have a group outing. At any rate, last night, the two softball men went to their bath, I went to mine, soaked for awhile and met up again an hour later. The water felt really nice after standing in the hot octopus ball booth all day. I guess last night's bath was less about bonding and more about sweaty, tired feet. That was cool with me.

Art

2007-08-09T16:04:00.000+09:00

This is a self portrait of Mai, one of the girls who I teach on Friday. She's 11 and wants to be a comic book artist when she grows up.

Yurie (12 or 13, I think) drew this picture during class a few weeks ago. Apparently this is what I look like during the lesson. :)

Actually, this one isn't from my students. It's from Maiko, my dad's cousin's daughter who lives in Okinawa. She drew a shisa, a traditional Okinawa guard dog-lion thing that is supposed to keep bad luck away from your house. It says, "To Big Sister Lindsay. This is a happy shisa. Don't you think so? From Mai Nakamura." There's kind of a Japanese pun in there that I can't translate, but it's very cute.

デンジャラス・ジャパン

2007-08-08T23:33:00.002+09:00

Summer in Japan is not for the faint of heart -- an assortment of perils lurk right outside my apartment door. Today, I stepped outside my apartment, and after a thirty second walk down the stairs to my bike, I was already dripping with sweat. By the time I arrived at work five minutes later, I had a rather unattractive stain down the front of my shirt. Ugh.

It is really hot here.

Along with the recent heat wave, the two flights of stairs up to my apartment have suddenly become quite perilous. Since the exterior of my apartment building is bright yellow and brightly lit, every night, every single bug in the whole city comes flocking towards my building. When I come back to my apartment at night, I have to duck and dodge various critters, most of which are at least twice as big as any bug I have ever seen in Washington. Sometimes I feel like I'm living inside a video game:

Level One: Duck the spider webs on the first flight of stairs, and be sure to jump over the two gigantic beetles patrolling the second story landing. Don't let them spear you with their fearsome antennae and eat you, or you'll lose one life and be sent back to start.

(This one is actually one of the smaller beetles. I dropped my keys right next to him and dreaded picking them up, but fortunately, he was a rather sluggish type so I was able to retrieve my keys unscathed and pass on to Level 2.)

Level Two: The second set of stairs are relatively easy to negotiate, but beware of the occasional spider webs and purple lizards climbing up the walls. The lizards won't hurt you, but they can sure freak you out if they jump onto your head.

Level Three: On the third floor, keep low and time your dash to your apartment door carefully to avoid being dive-bombed by small birds which fly back and forth across the walkway frantically trying to find a way out of the netting that surrounds the apartment. When you reach your door, open and close it as quickly as possible to avoid letting in any unwanted guests.

***Should an unwanted guest enter your apartment, (e.g. a gigantic green bug with wings) nervously watch it fly circles around your light fixture, try to ignore it for half an hour, and finally trap it in a cup and take it outside in order to avoid accidentally inhaling it in your sleep.

----

Two Sundays ago, I discovered yet another peril of living in an old apartment in the heat of the Japanese summer. I had been working in the next city every night from Thursday to Sunday, so I had been eating out and hadn't used any of my kitchen appliances for almost a week. When I came home on Sunday night, I opened the refrigerator and was greeted by the most disgusting odor I have ever smelled in my life.

My ancient refrigerator had succumbed to the heat and quit working at a very inopportune time. In the sweltering heat, the leftover noodles, frozen hamburger, and the veggies in the crisper did not fare too well, and there was black mold everywhere. Fortunately, I eventually managed to clean out the fridge and freezer without dying from the fumes. The mold was pretty terrifying, though.

After a week with no fridge at all, my office ordered a new fridge and sent it to my apartment on Monday. It is hands down the most beautiful fridge I have ever seen in my life. Big, clean and cold inside. I love it. If it were human, I would marry it.

On a completely unrelated note, I have just noticed that the brand name of the new fridge is "it's," the brand name of my microwave is "Love and Rest," and the brand name of my toilet paper is "Mrs. Wisely."

Career Change

2007-08-06T12:14:00.000+09:00

I think I'm going to give up this medical school business after all. Or maybe become like Patch Adams or something....because I swear that by the time I leave Japan, I will have become some type of celebrity.

I was walking down the street in Matsuyama with a friend the other day, when a man came up to us and asked if he could take a picture for a magazine. A picture? Of me? For a magazine? Surely, I must not understand his Japanese, I thought, but since we had nothing to do that day, we had our picture taken and went off to karaoke.

I forgot all about it until three or four weeks later. This medical student, who I had never met before, came up to me in the hallway at school and said in an excited whisper, "Town Jouhou!! Town Jouhou!!" (Town Information! Town Information!) She was looking me straight in the eye with this huge smile like she expected me to understand exactly what she was talking about, but I had no idea. Finally, I asked her what was up, and she told me that she had seen a picture of me in the Matsuyama Town Information magazine. In the next few days, a whole bunch of random people -- medical students, secretaries, one of my bosses -- showed me the magazine, so I guess it's a pretty widely read publication and my beautiful picture must be all over Matsuyama by now. Perhaps I will become a model.

(Click on it to enlarge it.)

...Or perhaps I will become a pop star after all. One of my students brought me a flier about another American Idolish singing contest the other day. This one is a little bit smaller than the last one and probably won't lead to any big television appearances, but I figure I have to work on my publicity in any way that I can. ;) I sang in the preliminary round of the contest the other day, and found a postcard in my mailbox on Friday saying that I made the first cut, so in two weeks, I'll be singing at the semi-final during a festival in the middle of downtown Matsuyama. Watch out Kelly Clarkson! Watch out Clay!!

Oh, yeah. I was on TV again the other day when our jazz band's concert was locally televised. You can check out video of my guest vocal appearance here if you like. :) I was pretty nervous singing with a big band for the first time but didn't do too bad....except for a little part at the end when I ran out of air and was dying...and the part after I finished singing when I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to leave the stage. I kind of looked at the emcee and bowed a bunch of times because I wasn't sure what to do. It sorta looks like I was doing an impression of the bowing lady from the contest at the end of the Sound of Music (>_<);;

Back

2007-08-03T21:37:00.000+09:00

Hi!!! How have you been? Have you been taking your vitamins? Sleeping 8 hours a night? Eating breakfast?? Doing your homework??? I hope you're all doing well! Don't be fooled by the lack of blog posts -- I'm still alive* and enjoying myself in Japan. :D

For the past month and a half, I've been all over the place. I went to Kyoto, Himeji, Oita, Hiroshima, Ehime, Okinawa, and Nara with my family, and then to South Korea with my friend, Chris. After that came another round of essays for medical school applications, and then the final exam for the medical English class. The time has flown by so fast that sometimes it seems like there's hardly been time to think, let alone write blog entries. Things never get boring, though, and hopefully life will stay that way. :D Anyway, on to my (very disjointed) impressions of the last few weeks...

My family came to Japan in the end of June, and in the middle of their trip, we all went to the Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima. Even though it was my third time at the museum, it was still quite intense. Inside are a variety of exhibits about the atom bomb victims: a lunch box full of charred food that a junior high school girl never got to eat because she was incinerated by the heat from the bomb, a drawing of a husband peering helplessly through the ruins of his burning house at his wife who is stuck inside, a picture of a man so badly burnt that his face, back and legs are completely covered with blisters/charred skin(??). Really awful stuff.

In South Korea a few weeks later, Chris and I went to another museum where I saw more of the same. This museum was about the prisons that the imperialist Japanese army ran while it occupied Korea from the early 1900's until World War II. I had known that the Japanese army committed war crimes in Korea and China, but the museum was still pretty shocking. There were lots of really graphic displays showing how Koreans who protested against the occupation government were thrown into jail and tortured in all sorts of despicable ways. What struck me the most was that the tortured Koreans in the pictures looked just as awful as the a-bomb victims in Hiroshima. There's really not much difference between a back covered with blisters and a back covered with long gashes from a whip. Different means of violence, but the same horrible result, at least on the level of the individual victims.

All of these awful, awful pictures were, of course, depressing and left me thinking some pretty dark thoughts. How can human beings do such horrible things to each other? But throughout the rest of the trip, people did so many kind and good things for my family and me that it was difficult for me to be pessimistic for long. While this blog is not exactly the best place to make any big claims about the goodness of human nature, I have found lots of reasons to be optimistic. Here they are in no particular order:

-- Chris's friend Jin, who let us stay in her apartment even though I had never met her before. She was a fabulous host and showed Chris and me all around Seoul in between studying for her midterms and working at her part-time job.

-- the Korean guy sitting next to me on the plane back to Korea, who realized that I couldn't eat my sandwich because there were nuts inside and kindly offered me his yogurt. :)

-- my friends in Kyoto. My folks came to Kyoto on a Friday night, but my ferry arrived there much earlier that morning. I thought I would call up some of my friends in Kyoto to see if they could meet, but figured that it might not work out since they have classes on Fridays. Surprisingly enough, they all managed to reschedule somehow or other and took me out to lunch, dinner, and fireworks. One of my friends had a test in Osaka in the morning and her part-time job in Kobe in the afternoon, but still took the forty-five minute train ride out to Kyoto to meet up with us for an hour or so before running back to Kobe. Talk about going out of your way!

-- all of the Japanese relatives. In Oita, my dad's aunt Toshiko reserved our hotel for us, took us around in taxis to the best restaurants she could find, and fed us until I thought I was going to burst. :)

Our relatives in Okinawa were equally hospitable. My dad's aunt rented the biggest van I have ever seen, and her son, Dai, chauffeured us all over the island for the whole weekend.

(They also covered us with a tiny umbrella to make sure we didn't get sun burnt.)

-- the people of my town. Four of my lady students invited us over to one of their houses for lunch. They had mentioned that they would prepare some sort of light lunch, but I should have known better. When we got to the house, we found an absolutely gigantic spread of salad, okonomiyaki (a Japanese style pancake kind of thing), sausages, rice balls, cake, Japanese sweets, and several other dishes. It was delicious, but certainly not a light lunch.

That night, the softball men had a welcome party for my family. They started by driving us out to the first baseman's sake factory for a tour, and even enlisted an interpreter to come along and help explain things. After the sake factory, they ushered us over to the local shrine where more softball men and the Shinto priest/piano player were waiting to receive us. At the shrine, they had arranged for a shakuhachi (Japanese flute) and koto (Japanese stringed instrument) concert:

and a performance of shishimai, a traditional dragon dance:

We watched the show from the seats of honor, well-supplied with tea and mosquito repellent.

Then we set off to a restaurant for dinner. At the door of the restaurant, the softball men gave all of us happi (traditional Japanese summer jackets) and had us participate in a traditional welcome party ceremony where you break the top of a sake keg with big wooden hammers.

Dinner was huge and delicious, (in hindsight, I guess I shouldn't have scheduled lunch with my students and the softball team's party on the same day, because we were all quite full) and in the middle, all sorts of little surprises kept popping up. At one point, the shakuhachi player gave Steven his very own shakuhachi to take back to America. A little bit later, several softball men stood up to make speeches about how happy they were to have us in their town, and then requested that each of us get up and make a speech of our own. And in the middle of the speeches, the mayor of my town entered the restaurant and presented all of us with towels as a gift from the City of Toon. I felt like a diplomat or a movie star or something. It was all pretty great.

-- my family, who came all the way to Japan to see me! I had such a good time seeing you again!!

It's hard to recreate the last few weeks in a blog post, but the general feeling of goodwill and hospitality that I encountered everywhere I went was just incredible. Sometimes, back at work, I have these moments where I remember a funny moment with all the great people I hung out with during the trip and find myself smiling. Ikuko thinks I'm crazy, smiling for no particular reason in front of my computer screen, but I think I'm probably just happy. :)

* Still alive, but covered with mosquito bites. I think a small family of mosquitoes has taken up residence in my apartment.... (>_<);;

Nail Biters: Working, Waiting, Expecting (??)

2007-06-22T12:14:00.000+09:00

The last few weeks here have been a little hectic. I've been teaching classes as usual, reserving hotel rooms for my family (coming to Japan today!), and finishing off my medical school application. By the time I turned in the application last week, it was easy to tell that I was a bit stressed out.

Exhibit A: My apartment, which I had cleaned so beautifully two weeks ago, once again became a wasteland of dirty clothes, yogurt containers, and cold medicine wrappers. Fortunately, on Tuesday night, I successfully carried out an emergency cleaning session and order has once again been restored.

Exhibit B: I now have (almost) no fingernails. There is something about the incredibly anal med school application system that makes me doubt every move I make. (Did I send in the right transcript? Did I format that paragraph right? Should I enter this in all caps? Where is my legal residence again??) And as I flipped through the 100+ page AMCAS (American Medical College Application System) Manual the other day trying to decide how to input my transfer credit, I slowly and unconsciously picked every single one of my fingernails off. I definitely need to stop that. On the bright side, my application apparently cleared the preliminary processing step today, so I guess I entered everything right after all. よっしゃ！

----

At the medical school, every where you go, there are guys in suits and ties standing in a line in the hallway with briefcases. They stand there all day doing absolutely nothing (as far as I can tell) besides smoothing their ties and looking at their watches. For the first few weeks I was here, it kind of creeped me out a little bit, because they would stand there and stare at me every time I walked by. I spent a lot of time speculating about the mysterious men (inspectors?....but what are they inspecting besides the gaijin walking down the hall?? yakuza [Japanese mafia]?? naw...no tattoos...hosts??) until I finally asked Ikuko, who told me that they are representatives from pharmaceutical companies waiting to meet with professors in the medical school. I guess if the professor's not in, the men in suits just stand there and stand there and wait for him to come...

By now, the men and I have gotten used to each other. Actually we're pretty good buddies. We nod to each other as I pass them in the hallway. But I still can't help but wonder why they stand outside the professors' doors all day instead of just going in and making an appointment. It seems like the most inefficient and boring job in the world. :(

----

The other day, on the way to the copy machine, I ran into a student of mine in the hall. At the beginning of the year, all of the medical students were terrified of being forced to speak English with me, so most of them would pretend not to see me if we happened to pass each other. But now, I am proud to report that they have gotten used to me, and so we have conversations like this:

Student: Hello. What are you doing?

Me: Oh, hi! I am going to the copy room to prepare for my lesson. Today, I have a lesson with three children.

Student: .... ?

Me: (gesturing and speaking more simply....or at least trying to....) I have three children...my students. I will teach them English today.

Student: (She thinks and then her eyes get absolutely gigantic. Points at me and gestures in the shape of a pregnant belly.)

Me: ... Huh?

Student: You have a baby???!!

Me: Hahaha....no no no no. I have students. I teach them English!

Student: Oh, oh, oh. I see. I see. Sorry, sorry!!

MD In Training

2007-06-11T00:00:00.000+09:00

A few weeks ago, I saw my very first case of debrachiosis. I wasn't quite sure how to handle it, though...

Maybe I should actually go to medical school before I see my next patient...

Toon Town (東温市）

2007-06-10T12:30:00.000+09:00

My town (click on it to make it bigger):

The big white buildings in the center are the medical school and the hospital where I teach. One of my private lessons is at the house just to the right of the blue netting on the left side of the picture.

蝶々

2007-06-09T02:22:00.000+09:00

I almost stepped on this butterfly on my way to the dining hall today :( but saw it just in time and missed it. It started to fly away just as I took this picture. Hopefully it landed somewhere safer.

Idiot in a Blue Jacket

2007-06-08T22:31:00.000+09:00

This year, during Golden Week^ I went to Kyushu (the island west of my island) with Tyler, Shisei (aka Fake Japanese Girl 2), and Shisei's friend, Nell. We were all so busy with work right before Golden Week that the trip almost didn't happen, but in the last few days, we made a mad scramble to book hotels and everything worked out.*

Shisei and Nell live in Kyoto, which is on an entirely different island, so Tyler and I met them halfway in between in the ferry. Before the trip, I had actually never met Nell before, and Tyler had never met either Nell or Shisei, so we quickly introduced ourselves in the ferry's lounge, and then jumped on a bus to spend the next five days together. Fortunately, all four of us are pretty flexible and laid-back, so we ended up getting along really well and by the end of the trip, it seemed like we had all known each other much longer.

Our first stop was Yufuin, a little town in Oita famous for hot springs and chicken tempura. The hot springs had a really nice view of the mountains and felt quite nice after three or four hours on the ferry and bus. After hitting one of the hot springs, we went to a little restaurant that served famous pudding. The pudding was all right, but a bit disappointing because it was so expensive.

Tyler's holding 500 yen and I'm holding about 720, I think
(120 yen ~ $1):

In the evening, we checked out the shops on the main drag, grabbed dinner, and then tried to walk back to our hotel. The hotel was theoretically only a ten minute walk from the middle of town, but Yufuin is a bit out in the countryside so the roads are very narrow, windy, not particularly well-lit, and not so pedestrian friendly. We ended up trudging up one very dark road in the pouring rain for what must have been half an hour. After twenty minutes or so, it occurred to us that maybe we weren't walking in the right direction, so we brilliantly decided to check a map.

And luckily, it turned out that we had been walking the right direction after all, so we continued down the road and made it back to the hotel without incident.**

The next day, we got on another bus to go to Mt. Aso, a famous volcano in Kumamoto. The bad weather continued all that day, and the top of the mountain was really cold and foggy. Fortunately, it was also super windy too, so sometimes the wind would blow the fog away and you could suddenly see down into this huge, steamy caldera filled with bubbling turquoise water. It was pretty cool looking.

Tyler and I bravely attempting to avoid being blown into the temporarily invisible crater full of boiling water:

At the bottom of the mountain is a huge plain with a small lake in the middle. All of the touristy pamphlets showed people horseback riding around the lake, so we decided to head over and try it out. Unfortunately, by the time we made it to the lake, apparently the horses had gotten wise and gone inside to avoid the wind and cold, so instead of riding horseback, we did the next best thing and took pictures of each other jumping over a ditch...

...and preparing to do back flips (??).

Then we jumped some more...

...and went back to the ditch again.

This time, no one fell in the ditch.***

That night on the way back to the hotel, I had my first idiotic moment of the trip. For some reason which I can't recall at the moment, Nell and I decided to race down the road towards the hotel. I was running down the road when I heard something fall out of my bag and hit the ground. I ran on for several feet before it registered that I had dropped something, and then stopped and checked my bag. Fortunately, my wallet and camera were still there.

Unfortunately, the key to our hotel room was not. I felt like the biggest idiot in Japan.

The road was pretty dark by then so I highly doubted that we had a chance of finding the key again, but miraculously, after five minutes or so, Tyler found it in the grass by the side of the road. I still felt like an idiot.

Idiotic moment number two happened the next day on the train to Fukuoka. We got off the first train to transfer and walked halfway around the station before I realized that something was missing, that "something" being a certain gray duffel bag with all of my clothes and toiletries.

I quickly ran over the station office to ask if they could look for my bag, and the people in the office called and asked someone to search the train, but couldn't find anything. There wasn't really anything I could do so I left my contact information at the station office and got on the next train toward Fukuoka.

On the bright side, there was nothing valuable in the gray bag and losing it meant that I had less baggage to carry around, but even so, it was a bit annoying to have no clothes. For the last three days of the trip, I wore the same t-shirt, jeans and socks, bought a toothbrush at a convenience store, and mooched off of Tyler and Shisei's toothpaste.

However, I couldn't quite deal with the idea of wearing the same underwear for three days straight, so Shisei, Nell and I made a quick side trip to a mall. I don't know why, but the underwear trip was strangely awkward at first. Maybe it was because up until then, I had never shopped for underwear with anyone other than my mother. But thinking back on it now, I realize that it was a little ridiculous of me to be embarrassed, considering the fact that we had all just gone to a public bath together and seen much more than each other's underwear.

Anyway, two days later, I asked about my bag at the station in Fukuoka and the (very grumpy) people at the lost-and-found finally helped track it down and shipped it back to my apartment, so everything ended well. My wardrobe is still intact with a net gain of two pairs of underwear (!).

Fukuoka is famous for ramen, so we stopped at a shop there for lunch. The ramen was good but the most interesting part was the odd, antisocial layout of the shop. The counter was partitioned into little private booths so that you couldn't even see the person sitting right next to you. Also, you couldn't see the staff behind the counter either, because there was a curtain in front of you with a little gap at the bottom where they passed you your ramen. The menu explained that the little booths were designed to give you privacy so that you could properly concentrate on your ramen....I guess they're really serious about their food there. Still, the atmosphere seemed a little weird to me. I felt like a criminal huddled in my little secret booth, and half expected one of the ramen chefs to slip me some kind of contraband through the slit under the curtain.

Here's Tyler caught in the midst of some shady ramen dealings.

I was very tempted to peek over the partition like this at the unsuspecting Japanese person on my left, but finally figured that I had done enough stupid things on this trip and restrained myself. It would have been kind of funny though....

^ Golden Week = a random week around the beginning of May where (almost) everyone in Japan gets time off and goes on vacation

* Well, almost everything...on our last night in Kyushu, there was a big festival in Fukuoka so there was not a single vacant room in the whole city. We ended up going to karaoke from midnight to 6 AM that night and slept for maybe an hour in the karaoke box. It wasn't so bad though, because I slept the next day on the bus and ferry back to Ehime. :)

** Well, almost without incident...all except for the part when the sidewalk dropped off suddenly and Tyler fell in a small ditch.

*** Really. No one fell this time.

Warm and Fuzzy

2007-05-26T01:18:00.000+09:00

A few months ago, I started teaching a new kid lesson on Friday nights, and it is the greatest lesson in the world for at least two reasons:

(1) Every week, the kids' grandma makes me real dinner (and dessert!!) before the lesson. If you recall a certain previous post, you'll probably understand why I'm so excited about dinner. :)

(2) The six little girls at this lesson have got to be some of the cutest kids in the universe.

Today, while I was eating dinner, one of the girls tapped me on the shoulder and showed me her notebook. Scrunched in the corner was a list of her four favorite things. It took me a minute to make out what she had written, but I finally realized that the list went like this: rabbits, octopuses, Lindsay-sensei, and learning English. These kids are the greatest. :D

----

Several weeks ago, at the same lesson:

Me: Would it be okay if we ended the lesson five minutes early today? My friend is in town from America this weekend, and I need to run to the train station to meet him for dinner.

Grandma Hashimoto: Sure, no problem! (to the girls) Ok, everybody, let's start the lesson on time today. Lindsay-sensei has specials plans tonight.

Yurie: Ok! Come on, guys. Sit down! Let's go!

Ayaka: Lindsay-sensei has special plans??? Like what??

Mai: What could they be???

Aiko: Oh, I know!! Lindsay-sensei, are you getting married tonight???

Coming Soon to Your Local Bookstore....

2007-05-25T16:40:00.000+09:00

Being a stingy, penny-pinching miser, I booked the cheapest youth hostel I could find for my Okinawa trip. I figured that all I needed was a place to sleep for a few nights -- nothing fancy -- so I was quite surprised when I found that my bargain five-night stay came packaged with a magic show, an ethnic music workshop, and a philosophy lecture.

On my first night in the hostel, I went downstairs to the common area to check my e-mail and noticed a rather large, middle-aged man napping on the couch with his mouth wide open. Just as I started to wonder why he hadn't passed out in the privacy of his own room, one of the hostel staff members looked over and said, "Oh, you're wondering about Ken-san, huh? He owns this place." So I guess he was in his own room after all. Mystery solved.

I was about to finish e-mailing and go to bed when Ken-san woke up and spied me across the room. Still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he waved me over to the sitting area, and said in English, "Hello! Magician! I am magician!" In a few minutes he was wide awake, apparently beguiled by my gaijin charms. He eagerly whipped out a deck of cards, a rope, and a bouquet of flowers, and proceeded to show me a variety of card tricks, some more successful than others... :)

After an hour or so, I was about to excuse myself and head up to my room when Ken-san decided it was time to bring out his collection of small African hand drums. He talked me into trying one out, and after a mere fifteen minutes, he proclaimed me the best African hand drummer he had ever heard. Sweet. (I'm not sure exactly how Ken-san became an expert on African hand drumming, but hey, I'll take what I can get...)

A few nights later, I ran into Ken-san again in the lobby. This time he insisted that I join in a discussion he was having with another guy on the hostel staff:

Ken-san: Oh hi! Hey, sit down. I've been thinking and there's something important I want to tell you.

Me: Um.....oh? What's that?

Ken-san: Well, you see, it's like this. I realized when I was meditating in India that the world we live in is breaking. (other hostel staff guy takes this opportunity to make his escape from the lobby)

Me: Uh huh.

Ken-san: People are taking too much from nature and not giving enough back.

Me: mmm, I guess a lot of people don't have very sustainable lifestyles.

Ken-san: Yes! Yes! We are destroying the earth so quickly that it is losing its natural ability to heal itself. Actually, it might be too late to save ourselves even now. You see, there's this species of grass in India that has the life force to single-handedly stop global warming....

Me: mmm hmm....

Ken-san: Yes, the gods told me that this grass is the key, but it's slowly going extinct.....

[half an hour later]

Ken-san: ...so I sat under a waterfall in India, and after two or three hours, I finally realized something amazing. You won't believe this.

Me: (nodding and nodding some more)

Ken-san: Few people know this, but there are gods above the regular gods. And once we hear
these higher gods, we can discover the key.

Me: Ooohhh....really? The key, huh??

Ken-san: Yes. Yes! So now that I've finally been able to commune with the higher gods, I've made an important decision. I'm going to write a book! It should be done in three years, I think, and I'm going to call it 自然 25 (Nature 25). Pretty catchy, huh?

Me: Yes. Yes.

Ken-san: This book is going to be ol' Ken-san's way of saving the earth. You see, I must spread the word about the other gods, because if we take action now, we can heal the earth in just 25 years. Thus, 自然 25. Pretty slick, huh?

Me: Er, yeah. Um, wow....so...um how're we supposed to save the world?

Ken-san: Well, I'm going to sell the book all over the world, in America and especially China. And once brilliant young people like you read the book, they'll realize that it is their obligation to take action. The gods are calling you!

Me: (Captain Planet theme flashback) Ah...yes....er, well I'll be sure to keep an eye out for your book.

Ken-san: Yes, yes. Truly brilliant and talented people like you and my daughter need to hear the message. You guys will have to get in position to influence government decisions and make changes.

Me: Right. Right. Well, I'll definitely get a copy.

Ken-san: Good. I'm not worried about you. I am a little anxious about my daughter right now, though. Not really sure if she's hearing the message yet. She's taking her college entrance exams right now, but I can't quite tell if she's on the right track.

Me: Oh really? What is she studying?

Ken-san: Oh, law, I think. But I'm really hoping that she'll change her mind and become a dolphin trainer.

Me: ...

Ojisan, Fake Japanese People, and Sneaky Mutts

2007-05-21T22:06:00.000+09:00

Can you guess which of these people are actually Japanese? I'll give you a hint -- two out of the four possible Japanese people in this picture are real. The other two are imposters! Choose wisely.

Have you figured it out yet?

While you're thinking, I'll go take a shower.

Lalalalala.....

Ok, I'm back.

If you guessed that Japanese Girls 2 and 3 are the fakes, you are exactly right! You deserve a fabulous prize.* For those of you who don't know them, Fake Japanese Girl 3 is my friend Kat from Stanford, and Fake Japanese Girl 2 is Shisei, Kat's cousin from Taiwan who's studying business and commerce in Kyoto.

This spring, Kat and Shisei came to my island to visit for a couple days and one afternoon we all went to Dougo Onsen, the oldest hot spring in Japan and the most famous tourist attraction in my city. Dougo is a three-story wooden building with several different public baths, and a bunch of tatami rooms where patrons can sit and drink tea. If you pay for a private room there, I think you can even have your own personal tea ceremony, which is supposed to be way cool. The only difficult part of the ceremony is sitting seiza (on your knees with your legs tucked under you) for the whole ceremony. My feet fall asleep after about ten minutes, so standing up at the end of the ceremony without looking extremely silly is a little difficult. Anyway, I digress....

Kat, Shisei, and I were sitting and chatting in one of the public tatami rooms in Dougo when a Japanese ojisan (old man) peeked in the door. He turned, frowned at Kat, who happened to be sitting cross-legged, and said in Japanese, "Hey, you. Why are you sitting that way when even that foreigner next to you can sit seiza?"

Unfortunately, Kat doesn't know too much Japanese (she was just visiting Japan), so she had no idea what he was talking about. There was sort of this odd moment where we all just looked at each other, and then finally Shisei said, "Sir, she's a foreigner. She can't understand your Japanese. Although actually, we're all foreigners...." That just about knocked Japanese ojisan's socks off. I think he was a little embarrassed to be fooled by the two fake Japanese people, (if only he knew that the girl he had called a "foreigner" was actually the only semi-Japanese person there....heh heh) but in the end, I think he was more excited to meet such fascinating foreigners, (he kept asking us over and over again which countries we were from :) and so, before we parted, we took a picture with him and his very embarrassed granddaughter(??) to commemorate the occasion.

The End

* Please send a self addressed envelope to me (KSS 302, 1533-2 Minara, Toon-shi Ehime-Ken, JAPAN 791-0211) and I will send you back something amazing...and thin. I'm serious. Send me an envelope! And a letter too if you feel so inclined. I like real mail. :D

Classy

2007-05-15T00:40:00.000+09:00

At dinner tonight after the softball game:

Kosaka: So are you ever lonely living in Japan by yourself?

Me: Oh, sometimes, a little bit. Oh, but my family is coming here to visit me in June!

Everyone: Oh really!! Oh boy!!!

Kosaka: Hmmm....we should throw some kind of welcome party for them!!

Shimada: We could schedule a special softball game so they could watch!

Shinohara: I don't know....that might be kind of embarrassing. I'm not sure if we're up to American standards....

Shimada: Oh, you're right....we should do something high class! Takada-san, you can play your shakuhachi. (shakuhachi = Japanese bamboo flute)

Kosaka: Yeah!!! We can introduce them to Japanese culture.

Shinohara: Right, right. Japanese culture. High class.

Shimada: Yeah, high class.

Kosaka: Oh! Or we could have a barbecue.

Everyone: Ohohoho...a barbecue...yeah, yeah, yeah....

Okinawa: Gaijin in a Blue Jacket II

2007-05-14T14:47:00.000+09:00

It has come to my attention that almost every photo in this blog is a picture of me in the same blue jacket. And unfortunately, dear readers, the Okinawa post will be more of the same. (On my next trip, I'll try my hardest to vary my wardrobe a bit...) I feel a little odd posting all these pictures -- kinda like I'm erecting a shrine to myself/blue jackets or something -- but Mom and Dad, I figure you would rather see a bunch of pictures of me instead of my attempts at taking artistic pictures of stuff, so I'll post them anyway.

＊＊＊

In the beginning of March, I found cheap plane tickets to Okinawa and went off to visit my dad's family there. I had met Ritsuko, one of my dad's Okinawan cousins, once about ten years ago when she flew to Seattle to help take care of my grandma. But that was ten years ago, and at the time, I couldn't speak any Japanese at all, so we didn't exactly talk much. All I have are these hazy memories of folding paper cranes with this silent Japanese lady.

And so armed with only a vague impression of my Japanese relatives, I really had no idea what to expect of the trip, but it ended up being amazing. Over the five days I was in Okinawa, I had dinner with a different "cousin" every night and met probably 15 or 20 different people. They were all very kind to me and took me all over the island. I enjoyed the touristy stuff, but actually I think the most exciting part of the trip was chatting with everyone and finally being able to put faces and personalities to the amorphous group of Japanese relatives I had heard about as a kid.

After arriving at the airport, I went straight to the youth hostel I had booked so that I could drop off my luggage. (By the way, the youth hostel was amazing and deserves its own post, which will be up shortly, I hope.) Anyway, I was walking down the hall of the hostel towards my room when I noticed a lady at the other end of the hall standing completely still and staring at me with her mouth wide open.

Now, people in my little town stare at me all the time, but when they stare, they do it carefully -- if I happen to look back at them, they quickly avert their eyes or pretend to look behind me. This lady, on the other hand, was making no attempt to hide the fact that she was gawking at me, which really weirded me out. After a rather awkward moment (Why are you staring at me?? Do I know you from somewhere? No, of course not....gah, now I'm staring at her. Ok, Linds, try not to look like you're staring....gah, she's still staring...what's going on???), I realized that she must be Ritsuko, the cousin who I had met in Seattle ten years ago. After I finally introduced myself, she explained that she had been really confused because I look nothing like I did when I was thirteen. (She has a point. She showed me a picture that she took on her trip to Seattle, and I was this super skinny kid with hair down to my waist wearing a backwards baseball cap and a Mariners t-shirt. Pretty different....although my fashion sense hasn't changed much. :)

Ritsuko is in her fifties, quite serious, organized, kind and very concerned that I enjoy my trip to Okinawa. Before I came to Okinawa, I had reserved myself a dorm-style room in the hostel, the kind you share with a few other complete strangers. I figured that I might as well get a cheaper shared room since I wasn't planning on spending much time in the hostel anyway, but when Ritsuko heard that, she wasn't too excited about the idea. She insisted that I sit in the lobby while she changed my reservation to a single room and paid for the upgrade herself. I tried to argue that I really didn't need the nicer room, but since it's impossible to argue with a Japanese obasan, I eventually gave up and just said an embarrassed thank you.

The next day was Ritsuko's day off, so she drove me around the main island.

This is the park around the Peace Memorial Museum where the Battle of Okinawa was fought during World War II. I've read stories about Okinawan civilians who jumped off the cliffs behind me to avoid being killed by American and Japanese soldiers. (More civilians were killed in the battle than Japanese soldiers, I think, possibly up to a third of the population of the island.) The park is a very pretty place now, but there are also huge lines of graves. It's pretty somber, but I suppose it ought to be. People should know what happened there, and it's sad that most Americans (and probably most Japanese) don't.

Next, we went to Okinawa World, a park with interesting exhibits on traditional arts and crafts and Okinawan culture. They also had a short show featuring singing, dancing and Eisa, a style of drumming that I had studied a very little bit back at Stanford, so it was cool to see it in person. At the end of the show, the performers invited the audience to come down to the stage and dance. Although I would usually rather die than dance, it actually wasn't so bad this time, probably because it was low key and most of the other Japanese tourists there were just as stiff and awkward looking as I was. :)

Ritsuko and me with the drummers.

Me learning another percussion instrument from one of the other drummer guys. I am a music nerd so I really got a kick out of the show and all of the instruments, but especially the sanshin, a Okinawan style banjo-ish instrument with three strings. By the end of the trip, I ended buying my own very cheap sanshin and now I sit in my apartment and mess around with it all day instead of writing blog posts. Fun for hours. :D

The next day, I met Ritsuko's son, Dai, and his girlfriend, Kiriko. In the morning, we drove around to try to find Dad's old house in Kiyuuna (my dad was born in Okinawa and lived there until junior high), but after driving up and down the same street several times, Ritsuko decided that it had probably been torn down. (The last time she had seen it was about ten years ago when Grandma and Karen came to visit.) We tried to take a picture of the view of the ocean from the spot where Dad's house would have been, but it's sort of at a weird angle so you can't see the ocean too well. :( Anyway, do you recognize the view, Dad?

Ritsuko, me, and Dai at a very cool restaurant near some pineapple fields. They seated us in this balcony outside, so it was very breezy and nice. :D

Ritsuko, me, Dai, and Kiriko outside a big aquarium overlooking the ocean. I should have taken more pictures of the ocean, because it really was amazing and postcardish, but sadly my camera was broken at the time, so I had to bum off of Ritsuko's when I could.

Dai and is a high school teacher and Kiriko works as a representative for some kind of education consulting company, I think. They were very laid back and big brother/sisterish towards me, which was fun. They're in their late twenties/early thirties and have been together for ten years, although Dai still lives with Ritsuko and Masako (his mom and grandma.) (Ritsuko kept saying, "I think they'll probably get married next year....well, I hope they'll get married next year." :)

At night, we had dinner with more relatives, Ritsuko's sister, Hiroko, half-sisters, Kumiko and Ikuko, and their families.

Whereas Ritsuko dressed fairly conservatively in pantsuits even on her days off, Hiroko was completely different. She's late forties/early fifties too, but every time I saw her, she was wearing serious nail polish, very high heels, and clothes that reminded me of a Japanese teenager. She is funny and more on the outgoing side though, so she can pull off the look somehow. I enjoyed her.

Kumiko is the cousin who is closest in age to my dad, and she told me that she still remembers playing with him when they were little. I guess they couldn't talk to each other because of the language barrier, but they ran around, and apparently Dad also threw a ball at her and hit her in the head once. :) (Sorry to digress into these little profiles. These are more for the benefit of my parents, but you can read on if you like as I will try to make it as amusing as possible.)

I also met Hiroko and Kumiko's children, and this is where it got a bit confusing. The three oldest daughters are named Ayano, Sayano, and Asano. Apparently, when they decided on names for their children, they didn't consult with each other much...

Fortunately, by now, I'm pretty sure that I have the three of them straight. Ayano is Kumiko's oldest daughter. She's a couple years older than me and went to college in Tokyo. When I came to Okinawa, she had just come home to look for a job after working in Tokyo for a few years. Since she hadn't been back to Okinawa for seven years, she was just as lost as I was in the city, but she still offered to take me around one day and we had a good time. Pictures of that in a sec.

Sayano and Asano are Hiroko's daughters, and they are absolutely hysterical. Apparently, they had been briefed that their distant quarter-Japanese American relative would be coming to visit, but hadn't actually seen me before. So when I walked into the restaurant to meet them for the first time, Asano turned around to look at me, looked completely baffled, and then finally said, "へ～、本当に外人さんみたい。。。" (Wow, you're really just like a foreigner...) ...And I am indeed a foreigner so she was right, but that's probably the weirdest response I've gotten yet to my gaijin-ness. Made me laugh. I think it is safe to say (in the most affectionate way) that Asano and her sister are a bit on the ditzy side. Sayano was late for dinner because she was doing her nails.

Their grandma, (and Ritsuko's mom) Masako, also came to dinner. She is a dear, sweet elderly lady, who unfortunately has some hearing loss, so sometimes she would say cute things out of nowhere that had almost nothing do with the rest of the conversation. Between Masako-Obasan and Asano and Sayano, that night's bizarre dinner conversation was probably the ultimate test of my Japanese listening skills because nothing quite made sense to me..... (Please don't misunderstand -- the following reenactment is not meant to be mean spirited. This is almost exactly how the conversation went and it was so funny.)

Asano: Oh! I should ask you questions about English... All of these foreigners come into my nail salon, and I can never understand what they're saying.

Me: Oh, that's too bad. Maybe I can help.

Asano: Oh good! Thank you!! Sooo...um...oh! I know! What does [unintelligible word] mean?

Me: Um...could you say that again? How were they using the word?

Asano: Um...let's see. It's..uh..well, you know, it's [unintelligible word.]

Me: Uh huh. (nodding gravely) Can you say it in a sentence?

Asano: Hmmm...well it was from some kind of magazine about...um...lions or Africa or something.

Me: Um....ok. It's...uh...the name of an animal??

Masako: Oh, there's no wild animal park in Okinawa, dear. Maybe if you went to Kyushu, though....

Me: Huh? Um, oh...really? ...

Dai: (laughing) Grandma, she's not talking about a wild animal park. She's....

And on it went. I loved it. :D

On Monday, Ritsuko had to work, so Ayano went with me around Naha and Shuri. It was fun to hang out with someone my own age. (Don't get me wrong -- I still love the old men of Ehime too.)

Here's us at Shuri-jo, the castle for the king of the Ryukyus back when Okinawa was its own country.

We also went to a big market in Naha. There were rows and rows of stands with huge mountains of boxes of candy and herbs and things I couldn't read.

The seafood part was also amazing, although I couldn't capture it so well in this photo. But the lobsters and fish were the hugest ones I have ever seen. You can see the lobster antennae poking out of that tank. I was a little afraid that they were going to pull me in with them.

The pork section was by far the most amazing. I guess they have a saying that in Okinawa, you use every part of the pig except for the squeal, and it's so true. Thankfully, I never did try pig face, but I did have sliced up pig ears one day. I guess they're a delicacy in Okinawa, but I wouldn't really recommend them. For me, they were somewhere down there with turtle hand...

After the market, we came across a shop where you could try making your own Okinawan pottery. We made plates with shisa, traditional Okinawan guardian dog-lion things.

On my last night, Ritsuko took me to a restaurant where they had live performances of Okinawan folk songs. At this place, the performers invited audience members onto the stage to sing in the middle of the show.

The guy in the white shirt was from Tokyo and was soooo excited to be on stage. He basically yelled into the microphone while sanshin man on the left looked on in amusement. After white shirt guy was finished, sanshin man asked for a female singer from the audience. At first, he kept looking back at a group of young Japanese tourists in the corner, but they were too embarrassed and wouldn't come up on the stage. Finally, since I knew the words to the song (涙そうそう -- it's really popular here), I ended up raising my hand to sing. Sanshin guy was really surprised and yelled "Stand up!" in English, while the rest of the Japanese tourists ooed and awed and snapped pictures of the gaijin who was going to try to sing in Japanese. I think that makes my fourth or fifth Japanese pop star moment. :)

Here's me, sanshin man, and the lady who played the drums after my Okinawan club debut.

Pretty Ugly II

2007-05-11T12:54:00.000+09:00

The high school next to my apartment back in April when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom.

Jury's still out on whose idea it was to put up the barbed wire. Someone told me that the school wanted to avoid vandalism, but to me the barbed wire is a lot uglier than most graffiti would be...

Frankly Speaking...

2007-05-11T12:15:00.000+09:00

At a lesson yesterday:

Me: Actually, I really don't like to wear dresses...

Student: Really??? (Looks geniunely astounded.) But you are so charming and have so good style....so I think you must look great in dress.

Style, eh? Well, I must say that I have impeccable taste in t-shirts and jeans.

------

Last week at lunch with friends:

Taiwanese friend: When I met you, I really thought that you were such a beautiful girl...

Me: Oh, wow...haha...gee thanks.

Taiwanese friend: ...well...until I heard you talk.

Actually, two other people said this exact same thing to me independently last week. I'll be the first to admit that my mannerisms aren't the most feminine, but man, with all these mixed messages, what's a girl to think?? =p

Changes

2007-05-10T00:20:00.000+09:00

Due to my recent woeful inability to post anything, I have decided to make a little change to the blog. Starting today, I'll try to post a new picture every few days to keep things from getting too stale. (And I'll also keep writing when I can.) Hopefully, this will prevent any more month-long post droughts. これから頑張ります！

Today's pictures are brought to you by the words ugly and pretty.

Ugly:

This was the result of my failed attempt to do a load of laundry, answer the phone, reserve a bus to Fukuoka, find my lost jazz music, and cook dinner at the same time. Dinner was supposed to be okonomiyaki (a sort of Japanese pancake with cabbage, pork, squid etc. inside) but it turned out a little blacker than I had hoped. I tried to eat it but wisely gave up in the middle.

Pretty:
Flowers that the jazz band received at one of our performances. For some reason, the Band Mastaa decided to give them to me. Pretty sweet.

When I Grow Up...

2007-04-18T22:38:00.000+09:00

Last week, the medical school's spring break* ended and I started teaching Medical English classes again. Looking back on last semester, I am pleased to say that it passed by without any major disasters:

# of tacks planted on my chair by naughty students: 0
# of students who offered me nut-flavored lip gloss: 0
# of episodes of paralyzing speech fright in front of giant class of 50+ medical students: 0
# of times all grades for the entire semester were almost lost due to computer crashes: 1
# of backup copies of the grades: 1 (phew!)
# of times I slept through class: 0!**

Besides avoiding complete catastrophe last semester, I am proud to say that I also made a little progress as a teacher in a couple of ways:

1. I know a little more English than I did before.
It's one thing to know that "Is there something right of women doctor?" sounds funny, and quite another thing to know how to help the student fix it. I'm beginning to find that all of that grammar stuff from Mrs. Jacobsen's third grade class might have been useful after all. Here's hoping that this quarter, I can tell my present perfect from my past continuous and all that nonsense.

2. I recently realized that I am a teacher.
This actually took quite a long time -- it's hard to feel like a real teacher when most of your private students are in their forties or fifties, and most of the medical students are about the same age as you are.

I can still picture the moment when it dawned on me that I'm actually supposed to know what I'm doing. At the end of last quarter, one of my students missed the final exam. My big boss called him down to our office to explain himself, and a few minutes later, the two of them came over to my desk to consult with me.

Big Boss: Lindsay, I would like to ask you to allow Mr. Kai to take the final exam. Do you think you can do that?

Me: (a little taken aback: Why is the Big Boss asking me what to do???) Um...er...um...yes, sure. um...ok. yeah, I think that would be okay...but maybe there should be some sort of...er...penalty for missing the original test?

Big Boss: Yes, I think that is appropriate. Mr. Kai, please make arrangements with Lindsay to take the final.

Kai: (looks at his feet like a guy from one of those awkward Southwest Airlines commercials, while bowing to me repeatedly like I'm the university president or the emperor or something) Sensei, thank you. Thank you very much.

As I watched that student practically grovel at my feet, it hit me: geez, he's the student and I'm the teacher. He thinks I'm a grown-up!?!

Okay, so officially, I've been a grown-up for the last five years, but I think there's a little more to growing up than simply turning 18 (or 20 if you happen to live in Japan.) Maybe it's something more like this:

grown-up: a person who 1) has gained knowledge from various life experiences [graduating from school, finding a job, becoming financially independent, moving out, getting married etc.], and 2) uses that knowledge to support him/herself and live independently in society.

That sounds a little better somehow, doesn't it? But it still has issues....

Am I more grown up than Ikuko, the secretary in my office, because I don't live with my parents anymore? Or is she more grown up than me because she's about twenty years older?

Am I more grown up than all the stay-at-home moms I've met here because I have a full-time job? Or are they more grown up than I am because they're married with kids?

At any rate, it's not so black and white. There are a lot of stories about one magical point in time when a child suddenly becomes an adult, but I suppose I shouldn't sit around waiting for that moment to come, because growing up is a little messier than that. More like a maze of passages and staircases than an elevator. Kind of scary if you think about it. I'm a college graduate, but I'm not qualified to do anything. I can do differential calculus, but I can't do my own taxes. I look like a woman, but feel like a kid. Halfway in between.

Fortunately, halfway's not such a bad place to be for now. Take today, for example: I'm just grown-up enough to operate video cameras, copy machines, and CT scanners by myself, and just enough of a kid to make absurd videos like this for the Medical English class. :D

* I haven't exactly been on vacation since I was still teaching all of my private lessons, but I was able to travel a bit in between lessons. More about that in a later post.

** You may not realize it, but this is a huge achievement for me. Only nine months ago, I was the college student who slept through three alarms and ran to Japanese class in her pajamas at least once a week.

Taiwan: Travels of a Girl in a Blue Jacket

2007-03-09T23:16:00.000+09:00

Back in January, I went to Taiwan for a few days to visit Kat, one of my friends from Stanford.
Over the course of the trip, I realized that I am definitely a huge geek. While I enjoyed the food, shopping, and touristy kind of things, I think I got the biggest kick out of staring at Chinese signs and trying to figure out what they meant. (Some of the characters in Japanese and Chinese are similar, so sometimes I could pick out characters I knew and piece their meanings together.) The weird thing was that although I could guess my way through a lot of the signs, I couldn't speak to anyone or understand any of the conversations going on around me. I guess maybe that's what it feels like to be deaf and mute...sort of half isolated from the rest of the world....hmmm.

Ok, now for pictures:

On my first night in Taipei, Kat took me to the night market, streets full of vendors selling cheap VCDs, DVDs, clothes, and food. Mmmm....

After a day and a half in Taipei, the biggest city in Taiwan, we set off for Hualien, a smaller town with very pretty scenery. Here's us at the gate to a national parkish sort of place...

...and inside the gigantic gorge.

I'm not sure if you can tell from these pictures, but the gorge really was gigantic....

with gigantic mountains all around.

This sign wasn't exactly too reassuring...

And so being properly forewarned of the falling rocks, I proceeded to pose for a picture right next to a gigantic pile of fallen rubble. Genius.

Me lingering inside a shrine in the mountain.

After the gorge, the tour guide took us to the beach. It was still too cold to swim, but the water was very pretty.

Later that night, we took a train back to Taipei where we found an excellent English sign,

the longest department store I have ever seen,

and more excellent food.

Oh yes, I also got to see Kat's dad's condo, which has a swimming pool, karaoke rooms, and this play area. I looove these plastic balls. Maybe I'll move to Taiwan :D

Clone?

2007-02-28T23:45:00.000+09:00

At jazz practice the other day:

Bandmate: Hey, did you go to the Fuji shopping mall in Matsuyama on Saturday?

Me: No, I was in my apartment all day. Why?

Bandmate: You really weren't there?? That's really strange....I swear I saw someone there who looked just like you.

Looking back, I believe that this conversation proves one of two things:

either (1) I have a clone, or (2) Miyazato Ai, Olivia Hussey, or Keira Knightley was in Matsuyama on Saturday.

Nightcrub Singer

2007-02-27T02:08:00.000+09:00

I can't quite put my finger on it, but something has been keeping me from posting lately. It's not that I'm overwhelmed at work -- maybe I just spend way too much energy deciphering my student's Engrish and the rest of the world's Japanese. It sounds silly, but by the time I get home, I'm so tired from all this frantic listening that I just fall asleep instead of doing anything useful. Bah. Anyway, I am entering the month of March with renewed vim and vigor, and vow to post entries a little more often.

Since I haven't posted in like a month, let's go back in time a bit. In December, I made my first appearance with the Shinto priest's* jazz combo, the Cool Cats (クールキャッツ.)

Now, usually when I hear the name Cool Cats, I think of slick-looking men in zoot suits and sunglasses strolling down moonlit alleys. Or maybe those dudes in dark, smoky bars who recite poetry that doesn't rhyme. You know, finger snapping and bongos and stuff.

The Shinto priest's Cool Cats, on the other hand, are a tad bit different -- they're a group of old Japanese men. (Ok, so I'm not saying that old Japanese men can't be cool. I'm sure that there are scads of cool old Japanese men out there somewhere. It's just that you're never going to see any of these particular Cool Cats wearing zoot suits or playing bongos. They are very cute, though.)

Anyway, thanks to the Cool Cats and the Band Mastaa of the Crash Jazz Orchestra (the amateur big band from a previous post,) I've been exposed to quite a bit of Matsuyama's jazz scene. Naturally, I've noticed a few strange and wonderful things which I shall recount here.

----

In Japan, people who speak English are thought to be quite cool. Since most of the famous jazz standards have English lyrics, all of the jazz vocalists here sing in English, and hence the singers are the height of coolness.

One of the singers who performed with Crash for our Christmas concert is known around Matsuyama by his first name all in caps: YAMATO. I suppose that puts him up there somewhere in between Ichiro, Pele and Madonna. He really has a nice voice, kind of Frank Sinatra-ish, but there's one small problem -- he has a bit of an accent.

Actually, out of all the Japanese accents I've heard while I've been here, Japanese-Frank-Sinatra's is not so bad, but unfortunately for him, just one little slip up and he ends up singing things like Fry me to the Moon and Someday my Price Will Come. On the bright side, there are probably only about thirty people in the whole city who would actually be able to pick out his pronunciation issues, so I guess he's pretty safe.** But still, it seems such a shame to me that his musical talents have to be overshadowed by all those awkward r's and l's. (By the way, does anyone have any theories about why Italian and French accents are considered cool and exotic but Asian accents just aren't?)

Anyway, since my debut in December, my singing career has truly been blossoming. I've already sung at two more clubs and even received dinner invitations from adoring fans. :) Only one thing stands in the way of my quest to achieve the same one-name status as YAMATO, Ichiro, Pele and Madonna -- my first name is impossible to spell. I've been listed as Linzie, Miss Rinji, LINJI...just about anything you can think of. I guess it's sort of impossible for people with L-names to reach idol status in Japan. :)

* You'll recall from a previous post that I met my neighborhood shrine's Shinto priest at a festival in October. He plays the piano.

** Man, it's a strange feeling to sit in a room full of people knowing that you're the only one who can hear the weird accent. It's like going crazy and hearing voices or something -- even if you tried to tell someone what you heard, they would never understand. So I chill in a corner feeling strangely alone while everyone else in the club sits in bilssful ignorance. And Japanese-Frank-Sinatra steps into the spotlight looking quite debonair and starts crooning, "Start spleading za news, I'm reaving todaaay...."

Video!

2007-01-29T18:56:00.001+09:00

Thanks to my brother, Nodo Jiman is now posted on the internet for your watching and listening enjoyment! You can watch the whole show here, or if you'd prefer to skip straight to my segment, check out this link.

Nodo Jiman

2007-01-27T23:15:00.000+09:00

The following is the story of December 14^th, 2006, the day that Rinji Gibon* became a Japanese pop star. Mark your calendars, because it'll probably become a national holiday in Japan someday. They don't have 外人の日 yet, do they?

The Japanese Idol taping was scheduled for 7:30 PM, but my day started much earlier. On orders from the secretaries in the Anesthesiology Department, I reported to the medical school that morning at 8:45 to get my hair and make-up done. (A few days before, the secretaries had looked aghast when I mentioned that I planned to appear on the show without even bothering with lipstick. “I prefer to rely on my natural beauty,” I told them, but judging from their looks of shock, that line of thought apparently doesn't fly in this country.) After twenty minutes of curling, spraying, powdering and marveling at my pointy nose and beautiful eyes, they proclaimed their work finished and sent me off to the train station.

Every time I ride the train to Matsuyama, people stare at me, but clad in a dress and heels, I instantly became an Old-Man-Magnet. Literally. This one guy actually walked halfway across the train car just so that he could lean over me and ask me why I was going to Matsuyama. After a few minutes of politely chatting with him and wondering how to say "personal space bubble" in Japanese, the train ride ended and I was able to make a graceful escape.

A little before 11:00, I arrived at the hall where the filming was to take place. I walked into the front lobby, past a gigantic line of people waiting to get tickets to the show, up the stairs, and into the green room where many of my fellow contestants were already waiting. The Nodo Jiman directors had us all introduce ourselves and then sit down in the order we were singing. As luck would have it, once again, I was dead last out of the twenty-four acts. Sitting next to me was Number 22, a former Nodo Jiman champion, and Number 23, a very nice motherly sort of lady whom I enjoyed chatting with throughout the day.

There were lots of interesting characters among the other contestants. I could probably write a whole separate post about them, but for now I'll stick to a quick rundown of my favorites.

Number 10: a very cute, elderly gentleman who really got into his song, jerking the microphone up and down like an out-of-control marionette. Although the directors had us practice reciting our numbers and song titles a zillion times throughout the day, this poor guy never could remember his, and during the show the announcer had to come over and whisper the words in his ear. He was terribly, terribly cute.

I'm trying to figure out how to rip video from a DVD (does anyone know how?) but for now, you'll have to settle for this rather horrible picture taken from my laptop screen.

Red Sweater Man: This guy is absolutely in love with Nodo Jiman -- he had auditioned for the show unsuccessfully forty different times before finally making it on this episode. And boy did he make the most of his chance. In his minute of fame, he ran back and forth across the stage about a dozen times, pumping his fist and wailing about how he'd sell his soul to the devil for the girl he loves. Red Sweater Man, you rock my world.

The Cheerleaders: Yes, the ultra-peppy Hey Mickey cheerleaders from my audition group also made it on the show. After they introduced themselves in the green room, I realized that they actually aren’t high school students at all. In fact, I'm pretty sure that they’re quite a bit older than me. I probably should have guessed this, since all Japanese people look about ten years younger than they actually are. Once again, their performance was quite awe inspiring, and I hope to be able to show it to you on video someday.

The Samurai Motorcyclists: Their picture speaks for itself, I think.

We did walk-throughs and camera rehearsals from noon to about 6 PM, and all the while, the directors reminded us to smile. I had no idea how exhausting it is to smile for six hours straight, but no kidding, by six o’clock I felt like my face was stuck in this weird expression halfway between a smile and a grimace. Being a celebrity is pretty rough.

At 7:30, the taping officially began. The hall was absolutely immense. Standing on the stage and looking up at the five balconies, I felt like I was standing in the middle of that gigantic galactic senate chamber in the new Star Wars movies. It was pretty overwhelming. While each contestant sang, the rest of us sat on benches in the back of the stage and clapped and swayed and cheered. The unison swaying was a bit hokey, but if you got past the cheesiness of it all, it was good fun.

Although I had been really relaxed at my audition, during the actual show I think I let my nerves get the better of me. I really wasn’t all that worried about singing my song -- I had sung it a million times at karaoke, in my kitchen, and in the shower, so I knew that I could pull it off. No, the part that terrified me was the interview after the song. I knew that I would have to speak to the announcer in Japanese in front of all of those people, and I dreaded it. By the time I got up to sing, I was so nervous that my hands were shaking. After blurting out my number and the name of my song, I took a little breath and started the first verse.

In retrospect, I should have thought more about that first breath, because throughout the first few lines, I sounded like a scared sheep and felt like I was gasping for air. Fortunately, by the chorus, I settled down a bit and started to have fun. And then, right before the second verse, my turn was up and my glorious minute and a half of fame ended.

At that point, the announcer sauntered over and began to interview me. Unexpectedly, I managed to avoid sounding like a complete idiot for at least the first three seconds of the interview:

Announcer: So you teach Medical English to medical students at Ehime University, right?

Me: Yes, that’s right.

Announcer: Where did you study Japanese?

Me: I studied for four years in America.

Announcer: And I hear that your grandmother is…?

Me: My grandma is Okinawan.

Announcer. Oh, really?? So now it has been three months since you came to Matsuyama.

Me: … huh? (deer-in-headlights look)

Announcer: It has been only three months since you came to Matsuyama, correct?

Me: Oh, haha yes. *nervous chuckle*

Announcer: Can you tell us which word in the local dialect here has made the biggest impression on you?

Me: Dialect is difficult. *chuckle chuckle*

Announcer: Um, yes. What exactly is difficult?

Me: Oh, haha. The word ken.

Announcer: (Japanese thing that I can’t really translate) Well, you’ve done well for yourself here. Thank you!

Me: m(>_<)m

After a couple songs by two of the special guest stars (a very graceful lady in a kimono and a man with the most expressive eyebrows I have ever seen), the show wrapped up at about 9 PM. I didn’t become the champion, but I did come away with two fabulous prizes: a pretty sweet trophy and the autographs of all five of the guest stars. Also, I exchanged e-mails with some of the other contestants and increased my pool of karaoke buddies. So despite my attack of nerves, I really had a marvelous day.

---

I missed the actual TV broadcast because I was back in the U.S. when the show was on, but from what I gather, most of my students definitely watched it. Since I have returned to Japan, they've given me five DVDs and two videotapes of the show. :D

As of yet, I haven’t received any phone calls from any record labels (which was to be expected after my somewhat less than brilliant performance), but I have become sort of a celebrity in my town. One day, when Tyler and I walked into a restaurant behind the medical school, the owner looked up and immediately cried, “I saw you in Nodo Jiman!! You were so cute!” Hearing this, everyone else in the whole restaurant turned around and pandemonium broke out. A little girl in the corner even started jumping up and down and yelling すごい!! (Fantastic!!) It was surreal. For the rest of the night, we could hear people whispering about us, and the little girl kept running over to peek at the gaijin celebrity at the next table.

Besides the folks in the restaurant behind the medical school, I also appear to have a following in several local convenience stores, an udon shop over in the next prefecture, and someone's mother's town in Kyoto. These people are all so cute. :)

Interestingly, all of my adoring fans seem to be most impressed with how pretty I looked onstage. The funny thing, though, is that when I finally watched the show on DVD, my first thought was, Wow, I look like…well…I look like someone who doesn’t know how to walk in a dress. It was seriously like watching Big Bird tottering across the stage in heels. But hey, if that's what Japanese people think is beautiful, I won't complain. I suppose I should take advantage of this situation. There must be dozens of modeling jobs in Japan for awkward-looking white people.

* There's something about my Japanese-ified name that just doesn't feel right. Maybe it's that Rinji sounds like a combination of "dingy" and "raunchy."

Perhaps it would be wise to come up with a stage name. Suggestions welcome!

Upside Down and Backwards

2007-01-13T15:34:00.000+09:00

Hi all, I'm back in Japan again after a very nice two-week trip back to Seattle. I ate entirely too much good food and visited lots of family and friends, so it was quite a fun vacation.

Between the 11 hour flight to Japan and the 12 hour bus ride to my island, I've had lots of time to reflect on my career plans and the decisions I've made in my life lately, and friends, I would like you to know that I have made quite an important discovery about myself. I know that you will find this hard to believe, but please bear with me and read on: I have mystical powers which allow me to control the weather. Behold the indisputable evidence:

# of large windstorms and resulting power outages while I was in Seattle: 0

# of large windstorms and resulting power outages while I was not in Seattle: 1

# of snowstorms while I was in Seattle: 0

# of snowstorms while I was not in Seattle: 2

There you have it. The weather in Seattle was clearly better while I was there. I bet you're even sorrier that I'm gone now, huh.

Thusfar, I have not discovered exactly where the source of my powers lies, although sometimes the big toe on my right foot starts to tingle right before it's going to rain. Rest assured that I will spend the next eight months learning how to harness my powers so that I can better serve you all once I return to Seattle in August.

----

I'm surprised at how sluggish my brain feels after just two short weeks of not speaking Japanese. While I can still understand most of the things that people say to me, when I try to answer, I have to think much too hard to fish even the easiest words out of the back of my brain. Everything seems hazy, upside down and backwards. It's a pretty weird feeling to be plunged into and out of English-mode so quickly.

Other weirdness since I've been back:

- On Tuesday afternoon, I ordered a green salad at a restaurant and was served a bowl full of cabbage, more cabbage, egg salad, onions, some sort of sprouts, and french fries.

- On Tuesday night, while waiting for a light to change at an intersection behind the medical school, I had a delightful conversation with a random man on the street corner. This particular man appeared to be going through some sort of midlife crisis (??). He looked about 40, but had long, Japanese pop-starrish hair and was wearing sunglasses at 9 o'clock at night.

Random Man: [pointing behind us at the medical school, and attempting to speak English] sukuuru. sukuuru. (School. School.)

Me: hai? etto, hai, igakubu desu. (Huh? Uh...yep...that's the medical school, all right.)

Random Man: kaeri? (Are you on your way home?)

Me: anou.... (Um...)

[Random Man concludes that I'm hesitating because I don't understand him, and valiantly attempts to switch back to English.]

Random Man: uiru yuu go tsu mai hoomu? (Will you go to my home?)

Me: huh? what? uh... no.

Mercifully, at this point, the light changed and I biked away and left him on the street corner. For those of you who don't know Japanese, the rest of the story will require a little extra explanation so I'm afraid it just won't be funny anymore, but here goes.

It wasn't until I was a couple blocks away from Random Man that I realized I had misunderstood his "English." In Japanese, mai hoomu doesn't actually mean "my home" -- it means "a person's personal home" -- so as it turns out, Random Man wasn't asking me to come home with him after all. He was just asking me if I was on my way home...which is a little less weird, I guess. Yes, I am definitely back in Japan.

- On Wednesday night, I edited another English journal article for one of the internal medicine doctors. As I read the first paragraph, something just didn't feel right to me, so I did a bit of research online. Sure enough, the first two sentences from the Japanese doctor's article were exactly identical to those in an abstract published by a doctor in Ireland. I asked Ikuko what I should do, and she said I should probably mention the sentences to the doctor when I handed back the article.

But when I showed the doctor what I had found, he kind of laughed and said, "Wow, you're good. You found those sentences, huh? Don't worry about it. Everyone copies stuff."

This can't really be the case, can it?

Fortunately for the dirty plagiarist, the Irish doctor apparently wasn't such a good speller -- there were two spelling errors in the first sentence of the original abstract. Since I corrected the spelling errors in the Japanese doctor's version, it will probably be a little harder for the journal editors to do a simple web search and find out that it's plagiarized. Ugh. I have this bad feeling that I unwittingly helped him get away with it.

I just got a phone call from the band mastaa and have to leave for jazz band rehearsal, so I'll have cut this entry short, but stay tuned for two upcoming back issues in which I detail my Japanese Idol appearance and my budding career as a nightclub singer. Bye!

Emanon

2006-12-09T00:08:00.000+09:00

Yesterday, I had a teeny tiny hamburger for dinner. On Thursday, I had chicken. Wednesday night was ramen and Tuesday was tempura. And on Monday, I ate a turtle.

In continuation of their noble quest to introduce their favorite gaijin to all manner of exotic Japanese cuisine, the softball men took me out to eat snapping turtle on Monday night. I generally enjoy meat, probably because in most American dishes the meat is prepared so that it no longer looks anything like the animal it came from. But the turtle was a little bit different.

Cooking a turtle Japanese style seems quite simple, actually. Feel free to take a moment to add this to your own repertoire of 30 minute meals if you like. It looks to me like you catch the turtle (20 min.), stick it in a pot (30 sec.), throw in some vegetables and seasoning (30 sec.), boil (9 min.) and serve. You don't have to clean the turtle or anything, and every single bit of it is edible. Pretty cool, eh?

Our shortstop wasted no time in fishing the turtle's head out of the pot and putting it on my plate. I wasn't too excited about eating the head, but fortunately I was able to trade with the girl sitting next to me for a hand instead. In case you're wondering, the meat tasted like a combination of fish and chicken. It wasn't bad, but I'm not sure that I would go out of my way to eat it again.

While I was congratulating myself on successfully downing the hand, the chef brought out glasses filled with some sort of red liquid. The softball men eagerly informed me that the red stuff was a mixture of turtle blood and sake. If sticking the turtle's hand in my mouth was a bit unsettling, drinking its blood seemed almost barbaric, but the old men insisted that I give it a try, so I took a sip. Of course, it really didn't taste like blood at all -- just alcohol. I asked the softball men why they didn't drink straight sake instead, and they told me that turtle blood is supposed to be very good for your health. I certainly hope so.

Medical Engrish (Part II)

2006-12-04T23:51:00.000+09:00

Oh yes, I almost forgot. When I am not galavanting around pretending to be a Japanese pop star, I still teach English at the medical school. In the last few weeks, I've received some truly brilliant responses on homework assignments which I will now post here for your reading pleasure.

1) Please express the following symptoms in complete sentences.

足が痺れている(leg/numbness): My leg is numbnessing.

背中の痛み (back pain): My bag is painful. / My back is bounding.

便秘 (constipation) I am constipation.

胸がぎゅっと痛む (tightness in chest) My heart is attached hardly.

2) Please ask the patient how long he has been experiencing the symptoms below.

背中の痛み (back pain): How long have you been a backache?

3) Please create a short conversation between a doctor and a patient.

Doctor: What seems to be the trouble today?

Patient: Well, I have giddiness.

Doctor: Does the giddiness come at a certain time or while you are doing a certain activity?

-----

Doctor: Perhaps, I am afraid you must take. [surgery]

Patient: Oh No! I dislike operations and I do not want to shave my hair...

Doctor: I can understand your mind. But it affects your life.

Doctor and Patient: ...

~Suddenly the patient smiled~

Patient: Let it be! Whatever will be, will be!

アイドル-ized

2006-12-04T18:32:00.000+09:00

For the last few weeks, I have used the Nodo Jiman ("Japanese Idol") audition as the perfect excuse to waltz around my apartment singing at the top of my lungs. It really has been beautiful. (Actually, come to think of it, before this whole audition business came up, I sang all the time anyway, but that's beside the point.) Anyway, on November 19th, Tyler and I finally went to the NHK television studio for the audition, and it was every bit as entertaining as I had expected.

Our audition group consisted of contestants number 71 through 100, and since Tyler and I were numbers 99 and 100, we had to wait until the very end to sing. Fortunately, I had no time to get nervous, because I had to figure out how to fill out a rather exhaustive questionnaire about myself in Japanese. (Perhaps the hardest question was: Tell us about something exciting that has happened in your household lately. As a single gaijin living alone in an apartment in the middle of nowhere, I had a bit of trouble figuring out what to write for this one. Then again, I suppose the question probably was not aimed at my demographic. :)

After most people had finished the questionnaire (I was still working on translating Tyler's by then...hurt my brain a little bit...), we were all ushered into a big room and told to sit in a couple rows of chairs in the back. The director explained how the audition would work, and then one by one, each of us walked up to the front of the room and sang about a minute or so of our songs to a karaoke accompaniment.

Nodo Jiman actually seems to be quite a bit different from American Idol. For one thing, each contestant only appears on the show for one episode, not the whole season. Also, if you win your particular episode, you don't get a recording deal -- you just get a little trophy and the satisfaction of having done well. This means that the people who audition for the show are a bit different from the average American Idol contestant. Sure, I saw quite a few aspiring pop-divas at the studio, but there were also at least ten 70 or 80 year olds at the audition. They were all very cute and earnest, especially one poor man who forgot the words to his song in the middle and apologized profusely to the judges. Poor guy. Fortunately, they were very nice to him. "Japanese Idol" does not appear to have a Simon Cowell.

On the other end of the spectrum was a group of high school girls who dressed up in bright yellow cheerleader uniforms and did the peppiest dance I have ever seen to the Japanese version of Mickey. (Yes, the one that goes, "Hey Mickey, you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind. Hey Mickey!") And then there was the group of three housewives who sang a song called UFO. They had attached pipe-cleaner antennae to their heads, presumably to look like space aliens (???), and had choreographed a rather elaborate dance just about as jaw-droppingly cutsy as the cheerleaders'...except that they were middle aged ladies. Truly amazing. I really can't do their dance justice here, so here's hoping that they make it to the TV show so that I can show you a recording.

By the time Tyler and I finally sang, almost all of the other contestants had already left, so it was just us, a few stragglers, two cameramen, and a few important looking NHK people wearing suits. Tyler sang a nice rendition of Let it Be by the Beatles. (He was disappointed afterwards because he got a little tongue-tied in the middle, but since the song was in English, I highly doubt that anyone noticed besides me.) I thought he was quite good.

For my song, I chose Warabigami, a lullaby by an Okinawan artist called Rimi Natsukawa. I had debated whether to sing in English or Japanese, but finally decided that I would gamble and go for the Holy-cow-it's-a-gaijin-singing-in-Japanese Surprise Factor. On the day of the audition, I had been coughing all morning, so I was kind of worried that I would start hacking in the middle and make a fool of myself, but fortunately, by the time it was my turn to sing, the tickle in my throat was pretty much gone and I was able to relax. It really was one of those days where the notes popped right out and singing felt effortless and fun. I felt really lucky. Standing in the lights at the front of the room, I couldn't really see the judges' faces, but Tyler said that they seemed really surprised to hear me singing in Japanese. Mission accomplished. After a short interview with the judges, I left the TV studio feeling pretty nice. I love to sing.

The director of Nodo Jiman told us that the NHK would call us with the results of the audition sometime after November 28th. In the meantime, Tyler and I set off to Osaka and Kyoto for the long weekend to meet friends and see the pretty autumn leaves. The leaves really were gorgeous -- unfortunately, my camera is broken so I wasn't able to take any pictures, but Tyler took lots so maybe I can post his sometime. My host family was doing well (my host mom had new front teeth!) and they fed us lots and lots of beautiful food. The professor who I worked with last summer also took us out for Korean style barbecue beef. mmmm...I could talk about the beautiful food forever, but I'll spare you the food stories for now and move on with this entry.

One night while we were at Kiyomizudera, a famous temple in Kyoto, I got a phone call on my cell. The man on the other end said, "Hi, my name is Watanabe. I met you at the Autumn Festival in Shigenobu. Do you remember me?" I do in fact remember meeting about fifteen people named Watanabe at the Autumn Festival, but unfortunately, I had no idea which one this mystery caller was. (Watanabe is about as common as Smith is in America, I think.) Anyway, I said that I remembered him since it was sort of half true, and he said, "There's this guy named Takeshi who wants to meet you. He's heard so much about you. Are you free next week?"

Hmmm, I thought, Takeshi?? Takeshi??...Who is Takeshi?...Is Mystery-Watanabe-san trying to set me up on a blind date with a random Japanese guy? What?! How interesting... I was super confused, but finally just told Mystery-Watanabe-san that I was out of town at the moment and would check my schedule later and get back to him.

The next Monday, I found two messages on my phone from Mystery-Watanabe-san and Takeshi. As soon as I heard the beginning of Takeshi's message, I realized that he was the hip 60-something Shinto Priest/Jazz Pianist from the festival. He actually wanted to see me because he had heard (from who??) that I am a singer and wanted me to come perform with his combo at a concert in December. The other day, I went over to his house to practice, and he was very impressed with my good English pronunciation. (heh. Yes, as long as you can speak English and carry a tune, you too can become a pop star in Japan.) Anyway, I'm apparently going to be singing at a club in Matsuyama on Friday night with the Shinto priest's combo. Step two of my journey to Japanese Pop-Stardom completed.

November 28th came and went with no phone call from the NHK, so I figured that I must not have passed the audition. Since the NHK had said that they would only take six out of the one hundred auditionees, I wasn't too down, although it would have been fun to be on TV in a foreign country. But two days later, I checked my cell phone messages on the way to a lesson and found one from the NHK. At first I thought they were calling just to thank me for auditioning, but halfway through the message, I realized that I had been picked for the TV show.

At this point, I was by myself, walking through the shopping arcades in Matsuyama. You wanna know what happens to a gaijin when she receives ridiculously funny news in the middle of the city and has no one to tell? Well, let me tell you. For about half an hour, the whole world became a musical. If I had been wearing a hat, I probably would have thrown it into the air and spun around in a circle like Mary Tyler Moore. If I had been able to dance, I probably would have tap-danced down the shopping arcade. But unfortunately, neither of these applied to me, and so I sort of smiled and hummed to myself while walking briskly...Not quite as fun as one of those big dance numbers, but oh well. (Oh, if only the world was a musical...have I mentioned that I love to sing?)

Funny stories really are not very exciting when you have no one to tell them to. So the next morning, when I ran into a friend of mine on the way to work, I mentioned the Nodo Jiman story to her. She must have thought that this was fabulous news, because seriously within thirty minutes, three other people called me to ask about the show. Everyone really does know everyone here, I think. My town is hysterical.

Incidentally, I will probably only sing on TV for about one minute. Sadly, I doubt that this will be enough to boost me to true Japanese pop-stardom, but that's ok. I'm really just excited to have the chance to sing. :D

お久しぶり

2006-11-09T21:25:00.001+09:00

Hello again, how have you all been? So much has happened in the last couple of weeks that I've had a ton to write about, but no time to post. :( Anyway, at long last, here's a little update, starting with the most exciting development of all:

-- My pink toilet paper ran out last week, so I was finally able to replace it with white. As pink is against my principles, you can imagine that this was quite a relief for me.

-- Tyler and I finally convinced Ikuko (our boss) to allow us to use Office of Medical English funds to fix up our old old apartments. Two weeks ago, we ordered new washing machines, which are probably the most beautiful things I have ever seen. (The old washing machine was beginning to try my patience a bit, since my clothes actually came out dirtier after I washed them.)

Yesterday, I also installed some weatherstripping in the inch-wide crack between my sliding glass doors. (Apparently, one of the previous English teachers installed the apartment's air conditioning unit himself. This would have been a delightfully wonderful idea except for the fact that he fed the air conditioner's hose out through the door leaving a gigantic crack. I guess that since a tenant installed the air conditioner, the landlord was not responsible for the gaping hole in the door, so I have taken it upon myself to ensure that I do not freeze to death from the draft.) Now that the hole is plugged up and I've dragged a couple space heaters out of the closet, it's reasonably comfortable in my apartment at night, but I still definitely prefer central heating. :(

-- I've recently decided that I will abandon my plans to become a doctor in favor of becoming a Japanese pop star. Now, don't laugh -- it's actually not quite as impossible as you think. You see, in just two short months in Japan, I have already managed to make an appearance on Japanese TV.

My journey towards stardom began several weeks ago when one of the professors at the medical school mentioned me to the director of a local amateur jazz orchestra. The director (or as they call him in Japanese, the band mastaa) was apparently really excited to meet me, and wrote me a letter in super polite Japanese, which went something like this: If you would do our humble band the great honor of playing the third trombone part at our upcoming concert, we would be eternally grateful. The letter was actually so polite that I could barely understand it, but at any rate, I went to meet the band and ended up playing in the concert after just one rehearsal with the group.

It just so happened that during my one and only rehearsal with the band, a camera crew from the prefectural television station came by. I think they wanted to film the band and interview the band mastaa to advertise for some kind of local jazz festival. But naturally, the camera man found the lone foreign band member much more fascinating than the band mastaa, and spent a considerable amount of time filming me. I didn't end up seeing the TV spot, but some of my private lessons students told me this week that they saw me on the Friday evening news playing my trombone.

Now, you may be thinking, er...that's really fabulous, but a fifteen second spot on the news isn't exactly going to lead to instant stardom... but actually, dear readers, there is more. A few weeks ago, one of my private students suggested that Tyler and I send in entry forms to Nodo Jiman (のど自慢), the Japanese equivalent of American Idol. Since zillions of people attempt to appear on this show, I really didn't think that I had much of a shot, but I sent in the form anyway just for the heck of it.

This Monday, Tyler and I both got postcards back from Nodo Jiman asking us to sing at an audition a week from Sunday. Supposedly, the 100 auditionees were selected at random, but I find this a bit hard to believe, since Tyler is number 99 and I am number 100. I take this as a sign that we are destined to become wildly popular gaijin superstars.

Actually, only six people out of 100 will pass on to the next round and appear on TV, so I'm not exactly counting on making it to the show. But I imagine that the audition itself will be hilarious, and I will most definitely write another entry about it in a couple weeks, so stick around. :)

-- My private lesson with the dreaded Health Center class was rather interesting last night. I started off the lesson by asking the students what they had done last week, and here's what transpired:

Sweet Japanese lady who almost never speaks during class: ...I gotto....married.

Me: Oh, really?! You got married?! That's wonderful. Congratulations!!

Sweet: (smiles broadly and switches to Japanese) Actually, we're going to have the ceremony in January, but we went to City Hall to sign the papers last week. And uh, we're going to have a baby.

Everyone else: Oh, wow. Congratulations! That's so great! (Long conversation in mad Japanese about baby boys and girls, wedding dresses, kimonos, hotels, Sweet's husband, her career plans, etc.)

Me: (switching back to English) Wow, that's really great. I'm so happy for you. I'll bet no one else has a better story than that. (everyone laughs and Dr. O raises his hand)

Dr. O: My wife ando I aaa gettingu a divorce.

Everyone: ...

Me: Er, uh....oh. Really? Well, gee, um....I hope that you guys can talk...and um...

Sweet: (looks at me) What izu dibosu?

Me: Er, divorce? It's 離婚.

Sweet: (looks down at the table away from Dr. O, who happens to be sitting right next to her)

Dr. O: Yes, um, my wife went back to her parents' house in Ouzu yesterday.

Me: Oh...uh..hmm....

Ms. H: (hastily jumps in in mad Japanese) Ouzu? Oh really? Well, how about that. I'm from Ouzu and I went to Ouzu High School, and uh...would you believe this? The guy who invented the blue ray diode went to my high school.

Everyone: (looking back up from the table) Oh, is that so? The blue ray diode? How impressive. (A crazy Japanese conversation about diodes and things ensues as everyone tries to avoid looking at Dr. O)

Awkward.

Name Change

2006-10-14T10:29:00.000+09:00

Dear readers, please note that very shortly, I shall be changing my name. Henceforth, please address all correspondences to 鈴木花子　(Hanako Suzuki).

You may be wondering how this change has come about. Let me fill you in. You see, every day I eat lunch in the medical school cafeteria, and I've had my eye on Suzuki-san, one of the guys who dishes out the rice. Suzuki-san is quite cute and scoops the rice into the bowl with such grace that I couldn't help but fall for him.

For the longest time, I'd been hoping that he would notice me, so I had been trying to look as tall and white as possible. But sadly, no matter how much I batted my eyes at him and tittered merrily with my hand over my mouth, he never seemed to notice. That is, until last week.

Last Monday, I accidentally dropped my handkerchief in front of him on my way to the tea machine. Gentleman that he is, he picked up my handkerchief and as he handed it to me, we looked into each other's eyes for the first time. Suzuki-san has gorgeous eyes, and let me tell you -- the thirty seconds I spent gazing into his eyes were like heaven. Unfortunately, just at that moment, one of the ladies behind the counter called him back to help a customer, so we had to part. But ever since that day, I've been able to tell that Suzuki-san likes me because he always puts an extra scoop of rice in my bowl.

During the past week, our relationship has really blossomed and yesterday, Suzuki-san asked me to marry him. We wanted to wait a few months to have the wedding, but in the end, I decided that I just couldn't wait a second longer to become Mrs. Suzuki. So, we giddily ran off to the nearest Shinto shrine and were married by the Shinto priest/jazz pianist, who also does a pretty impressive Elvis impersonation, I must say.

Ok, ok, just kidding. (Did I fool you?) Actually, the real reason I'll be changing my name is that it is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to fill out forms here if your name is not Japanese. In order to get a bank account, pay my phone bill, and register for health insurance and stuff, I've had to fill out quite a few forms over the past two months. And each of these forms has been returned to me at least once with a request to write my name in roman letters/katakana/capital letters/lower-case letters/full-size characters/half-size characters/with my middle name/without my middle name... Their data entry systems must be ridiculously anal. I've never been so afraid to write my name on a form before. Anyway, to make it easier on myself, I've decided that I'm going to change my name to something more straightforward.

I wonder how many times I'll have to fill out the name change form before I find a format that they can input into their system....

Old Men (Part II)

2006-10-13T12:49:00.000+09:00

Last Friday, I played in my second softball game with the old men. (And by old men, I really mean middle-aged/elderly men, but for the sake of brevity, I'll refer to them as old men here.) This time around, my teammates were apparently very curious to see me catch, so they put me behind the plate right away.

Unfortunately, they forgot to teach me any of the signs, and also neglected to tell me that one of their pitchers has some crazy breaking pitches. As a result, I spent the first three innings sticking my glove out and guessing when the pitcher would throw his rise ball. Sadly, a couple times I was just as fooled as the batter and had some pretty lame passed balls. It was a bit embarrassing.

Finally, after the third inning, I got smart and asked the pitcher about the signs, and from then on, I was able to redeem myself a bit -- blocked a couple balls in the dirt and even managed to pick a guy off of third base. I also went 1 for 2 with an RBI on a long sacrifice fly. Sorry to bore you with my stats, dear readers, but they will become important later on in this post, so please do read on.

Incidentally, last Friday was the first time I've caught a whole game in about four years, and apparently I was a bit out of shape, because I spent the next three days after the game hobbling down the steps of my apartment like an old woman. I suppose that's what I get for making fun of my teammates and calling them old men.

---

Last Sunday was my town's fall festival, a special event where all of the neighbors get together and pray* for a good harvest. In this particular festival, the kami, the god of a nearby Shinto shrine, is supposed to leave the shrine and enter a mikoshi, a portable shrine which looks something like this:

Then the men carry the mikoshi around the town all day, stopping at various places so that the kami can bless the rice fields and new houses and community centers and things.

Anyway, one of my private lesson students was supposed to play taiko during the festivities on Sunday, so I thought that I would drop by for a few hours or so to watch her. As it turns out, Tyler and I went together and ended up staying from 1 - 10 PM.

The minute we arrived at the festival, we instantly became the main attraction. Everyone was staring at us, all the while trying their best to be subtle. It was hilarious. As I walked through the crowd to find my private lesson student, I heard someone behind me call my name, and turned around to find half of my softball team standing there. Apparently, I have chosen to hang out with the right group of old men. They were very excited that we had come to their festival, and proceeded to shower us with food and drink and to introduce us to everyone in the town. Among the people I met were:

-- the priest at the local Shinto shrine. He was wearing his formal robes and hat, and every time the mikoshi would stop, it was his job to perform some kind of ceremony in front of it involving a pile of rice, a bottle of sake, and a stick with a holy piece of paper attached to it. He was very nice and tried to explain various parts of the festival to me. Also, apparently when he is not carrying out his priestly duties, he plays jazz piano at a club in Matsuyama. I think that I have probably met the hippest Shinto priest in all of Japan.

-- the wife of our second baseman, who very kindly invited us into her house and fed us $100+ bowls of mushroom soup. It was good soup, but I am not sure that I would pay $100 for it...

-- about fifteen different people who are all named Watanabe. Ridiculously confusing.

-- the dirty old men of the town. Actually, no one introduced me to these guys -- they just randomly sat down on either side of me at one point and started to make some sort of lewd comments in Japanese. Gross. Luckily, a couple of my teammates came to rescue me, and after that, the dirty men left me alone.

-- groups of elementary school girls who would come timidly towards us and stare at us (in admiration??). I tried speaking to them in both Japanese and English, but apparently they were so enamored with my gaijin charms that they were unable to reply.

My softball pals were particularly interested in Tyler, since they had never met him before, and immediately recruited him to carry the mikoshi around the town with them. Now, for the most part I found the festival quite charming, but I must say that this mikoshi carrying business is probably among the stupidest things I have seen in Japan.

In Shinto, sake is sacred, so at festivals it is customary for the men to drink a glass or two each time they put the mikoshi down. Since most people drink a few glasses every hour, just about everyone is as least sort of drunk, and therefore the process of carrying the mikoshi boils down to something like this: a huge mass of drunken men hoist the ~1,500 lb. mikoshi above their heads, turn around in circles three times, and then stagger down the very narrow streets, on either side of which are deep irrigation ditches. As I was watching the mikoshi, I couldn't help but wonder who thought that this would be a good idea??? I'll admit that it was entertaining, but I was also half waiting for someone to be crushed to death. :(

Besides my softball teammates, many other people from our town were very eager to talk to the two foreigners, and since Tyler doesn't know too much Japanese, I became his translator for the day. Most of our conversations went something like this:

Japanese guy: (in Japanese to Tyler) What is your name?

Tyler: ...??

Me: He wants to know your name.

Tyler: Oh, I'm Tyler.

Japanese guy: huh?

Tyler: Tyler desu. Ty-ler.

Japanese guy: Aaa, Tairaa. Naisu tsu meeto you. (to me in Japanese) Does your husband like to drink sake?

Me: Uh, er, what?? My husband? Ooohhh, haha. Tyler is not my husband. We just work together at the medical school.

Japanese guy: (chuckling) Oh, sure. Well, by the end of the year, he'll be your husband... unless I fight him for your hand. (makes punching motions at Tyler)

Tyler: ...?? (chuckles and makes punching motions back)

Me: Er, maybe, yes.

It has now been almost a week since the festival, and it has become clear to me that gossip moves at an alarming rate in my little town. I have already seen several random people from the festival in the past few days, and at least three people have pointed at me and called me "パワーヒッター" (power hitter) or "大リーグ" (major leaguer). At first I was quite confused by this and wondered if I was hearing them right, but after talking to these people, apparently my sacrifice fly last Friday has since become a myth of epic proportions around town. (I've also become famous around here for my arm, I guess. Several people have told me that I throw like an American. When I press them to elaborate, they say that they are impressed with my speed. I'm still not quite sure what to think about this. Does this mean that all Japanese people throw like pansies?)

Anyway, I am sure that by now, everyone in my town also knows about me and my gaijin "husband." I am quite frustrated about this, since it will surely ruin my plans to become a trophy wife for a kind, young, wealthy, attractive Japanese man.**

*Religion in Japan is really complicated, but basically, people here are not super attached to any one doctrine -- most people seem to adhere to both Shinto and Buddhist customs whenever it suits them. So keep in mind that the people in my town think about gods and praying and things differently than many Americans do.

**Actually, I have already given up on this plan since all men in Japan are chain smokers. And that's just gross.

Cups of Sugar, Kids, and the First Day of School

2006-10-04T22:59:00.000+09:00

Two mornings ago, a random woman came to my door. As she introduced herself to me, I naively assumed that she was one of my neighbors dropping by to borrow a cup of sugar or something. However, now that I think about it, I should have realized that this could not possibly be the case, since a) packages of sugar here are so small and expensive that I could not possibly afford to give anyone a whole cup of sugar, and b) my neighbors are obviously scared to death of running into a foreigner on the stairs and being forced to speak English.

Anyway, thinking that this woman was my neighbor, I chatted with her in Japanese for a couple minutes. Then, after a bit, she asked me, "Do you read the Bible?" and I realized that I had made a dreadful mistake -- I had revealed to a Jehovah's Witness missionary* that I can speak Japanese.

I tried to tell the missionary that I already have a Bible, most of my family is Christian, and all that jazz, but she wouldn't take the hint. Unfortunately, I couldn't bring myself to shut the door in her face, so I endured several more minutes of her spiel, and finally, just when I was beginning to lose all hope of ever getting rid of her, she left.

I assumed that I had convinced her that I'm not a heathen, but unfortunately, she still seems to have her doubts. According to the note that I found in my mailbox tonight, it appears that she came by to visit me again this morning, but sadly, I was at work. She did, however, leave me with a bible verse written in English:

"For the living are conscious that they will die, but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all, neither do they anymore have wages, because the remembrance of them has been forgotten." Ecclesiastes 9:5

Quite an uplifting little passage. Perhaps I'm missing something, but if I were going to convert someone to Christianity, this is not the bible verse I would pick....

---

At my private lesson with the W kids tonight, the oldest girl wanted to show me her impression of some actress in a Japanese TV commercial. After she finished, she asked me what I thought, and I told her that I thought she was very funny. Then, she smiled back at me innocently and said, "You b*tch!"

I'm pretty sure that she had no idea what she was saying, but it was still a bit shocking. I wonder what the previous teachers were saying in front of these kids....

---

Since today was the first day of the semester at my college, I am now officially a Lecturer of Medical English at Ehime University. I can tell that it is going to be an interesting semester. I am in charge of two classes: the mandatory beginners' class, and the optional advanced class. The students in the advanced class are all very gung ho about learning English, so that class should be fun, but the beginning class looks to be a bit more challenging. Since all second year students have to take the beginners' class, some of them are much more enthusiastic than others. As you might expect, the students who sit in the front row are super motivated. They look up at me with bright eager eyes in a way that makes me feel glad to have chosen this noble profession. The only problem is that even though they look as if they are hanging on my every word, they never speak. Ever. Then there's the students in the middle rows, who seem a bit less enthused, but still seem to be paying attention. And finally, there's the back row kids, who look completely uninterested and sleepy, or perhaps too cool for English class.

After I was introduced to the class by the head of our department, I was on my own, speaking to this huge lecture hall full of people. Now, normally I'm fairly comfortable doing public speaking, especially in my native language, but this was a bit different. With the exception of a few people in the front row, no one moved a muscle the entire time I was speaking. I am sure that I could have told them they will be expected to read 500 pages of Dostoevsky every night and they wouldn't have flinched. Every thirty seconds, I would stop and ask, "Do you understand? Any questions??" and no one would say anything, so for awhile, I wondered if they were still alive. It was excellent. Fortunately, I did manage to make them laugh a couple times, so I think there is hope. And we played bingo. They really liked that. I think we shall play bingo every day from now on, because they will speak someday, I swear.

*Don't get me wrong -- I am sure that Jehovah's Witnesses are perfectly wonderful people. I just find the whole door-to-door thing to be a little creepy. The next time I need someone to save my soul, I'll ask, ok?

Party Animal

2006-10-01T12:27:00.000+09:00

After my triumphant victory over the Health Center Class on Thursday, I went straight to a local middle school to meet up with my softball team for my first game. By the time I made it to the field, it was already the fourth inning so I had missed out on most of the game, but fortunately, the team seemed very happy to see me and made sure to put me in at third base during the very next inning. Nobody hit anything to me, so I never got to show off my mad defensive skills, but apparently the team was very impressed with my arm and quick feet. (Actually, I think their agility was much more impressive than mine -- the second baseman and shortstop were quite nimble for being in their sixties!) Also, it seems that the opposing team was very impressed with my whiteness, since I could hear people yelling very loudly, "You have a foreigner on your team??" as I stepped up to bat.

After the game, the team always goes to a nearby restaurant to hang out, so they took me along for my first welcome party in Japan. Fortunately, there are two other women on this team, so in addition to my 5+ new Japanese grandfathers, I made a couple of new girlfriends too.

Everyone was very curious about me so they asked me all sorts of questions about my family, how old I am, my job, if I have a boyfriend in Japan, if I have a boyfriend in America etc. (Oddly enough, people are very surprised when I tell them that I don't have (2) boyfriends. I have yet to figure out why. Do I look like the type of person who would have multiple boyfriends?)

They also appeared to delight in watching me try every single type of food and drink served at the restaurant. When I first sat down, someone ordered me a beer, which I politely sipped. By the time I had finished about half of my glass, everyone around me was on their third or fourth glass. They thought this was quite odd, so they proceeded to order five other different drinks and had me drink all of them at the same time so I could pick my favorite.

In the meantime, they piled my plate with noodles, chicken, clams, and some kind of squishy gelatinous thing and watched me eat. I felt a bit like I was the subject of some kind of nature show on the Discovery channel. You know, the kind where some guy with a British accent says, "Foreigners, feared predators of the African savannah, often lurk near the waterhole waiting for a stray wildebeest to approach. If we wait here now, we may just catch one feeding on her hapless prey."

Anyway, I guess I found the team just as amusing as they found me, so it was an entertaining evening. Next week, there are two games, which means that we may have the pleasure of watching each other eat on two consecutive nights.

---

On Friday night, the anesthesiology department had a party for a doctor who is leaving to start his own practice, and for some reason, Tyler and I were invited to attend. The party was in a Korean barbecue restaurant and the food was excellent, but the atmosphere was a little odd. All of the doctors sat at one table, while we were relegated to the foreigner/secretary/gossipers' table. Unfortunately, I could only understand about half of the gossip because the secretaries were speaking in a pretty strong version of their local dialect, so I don't have anything too interesting to report here. Meanwhile, the doctors at the other table were making speeches, presumably about how much they will miss each other now that Dr. What's-his-face is leaving. I was sitting so far away that I couldn't really hear them either so I just sat and smiled and ate more beef.

After dinner, we persuaded our boss and the other secretaries to go to karaoke, and I must say that Friday night was probably the weirdest karaoke box trip that I have ever experienced, mostly because our boss and the other secretaries were a bit tipsy. I could tell this for two reasons:

1. One of the other secretaries heard me sing and then begged me to do Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On." Anyone who requests that I sing the Titanic theme must not be thinking clearly, as I'm sure it would only end badly. Very badly. Like cracked-and-bleeding-vocal-chords badly.

2. Our boss started to tell Tyler and I about how she loves construction workers with big muscles so much that she can barely speak when she sees one. This was a bit shocking, since our boss is always the model of professionalism and feminine modesty at work. Anyway, since the medical school is being renovated now, there are lots of construction workers around, so Tyler and I are planning to bring some of them into the office and help her profess her undying love to them. I wonder if she will remember that she told us this next Monday...

Pretty Bugs and Bank Robberies

2006-10-01T10:06:00.000+09:00

Thursday was my fourth private lesson with Mrs. M and the Health Center group. You may recall that during the first lesson, Mrs. M frowned at me evily and refused to speak English. Well, since her act of defiance, the class has been absolute chaos. There are six people in the class, two of whom speak almost no English, so once Mrs. M gets them started, they chatter on in Japanese forever and go off on some pretty weird tangents. I try to get them back on track, but unfortunately they don't seem too interested in listening to me. The kids I teach are better behaved, I think. :(

Anyway, last week, the Health Center class wanted to know the difference between a pedicure and a manicure, so I explained that ped(i)- is a prefix which means foot. I then proceeded to give fascinating examples of this phenomenon, including the words pedestrian, biped, millipede, and centipede. At this point, Dr. S started talking about centipedes and the group broke out into a huge discussion which went something like this (except in Japanese.)

Dr. S: So centipedes are the poisonous ones, right?

Ryu: No, no, no. Millipedes are definitely poisonous.

Dr. S: But wait, centipedes are the ones with a thousand legs, right?

Mrs. M: Yes, yes, of course. Centipedes have a thousand legs.

Ryu: Wait, are you sure abou---

Dr. S: Hey, guess what? My dictionary says that mukade are a type of centipede.

Dr. O: Mukade?! How fascinating!!

Dr. S: Yes, you know, when I was in the mountains last weekend, I saw a bunch of them. And they can be red and yellow and green and....

Dr. O: Ah, mukade...I used to catch those when I was a boy and....

Ryu: Hey guys, I think that centipedes have a hundre --

Dr. S: ...beautiful creatures, mukade. Did I tell you that they can be red and yellow and....

Me: Ahem, uh, guys?? Guys? (waving my hands weakly as they ignore me) So as I was saying, ped- means foot and....

At the end of this particular lesson, I was beginning to wonder why they even pay me, since I spent the majority of the lesson listening to them speak Japanese. So this week, I decided to make some changes.

I figured that to keep all six of them on the same page, I would need a lesson plan with a more rigid structure -- something where they would be forced to zip it and listen to each other. So I made a little game for them. I told them that there had been a bank robbery and that they were suspects. Then I gave each of them a script and interrogated them about their whereabouts on the night of the crime. Although I wrote their scripts in very simple English, I wasn't sure if they would understand well enough to actually solve the mystery, so I was a little nervous that I would get a bunch of blank stares and end up having to explain the whole thing in Japanese.

Fortunately, they all seemed to get a big kick of the whole mystery scenario, and actually sat quietly and listened to each other. Then after the interrogations, I asked them questions in English about each person's alibi. I had intended the criminal to be pretty obvious, but they talked about the suspects for quite a long time and even came up with a bunch of crazy conspiracy theories. (Of course Dr. S and Dr. O were both seen in the Denny's at 7 PM, but what if the waiters at Denny's were in on the crime too??)

All in all, they appeared to enjoy themselves and actually spoke English for the most of the lesson, so I guess my little experiment worked. Sweet. :D

The score after four lessons: Health Center Class 3, Me 1, with 48 lessons remaining. Geez, if I can think up enough scenarios to last until the end of the year, I can make my own Hardy Boys series or something.

Look-Alikes

2006-09-30T08:37:00.000+09:00

You've probably heard this story before, but humor me for a second - it's vital background information for the rest of this post.

Last year when I was in Kyoto, my parents came to visit me at the university where I was doing my internship. My professor was determined to be a good host, so he took my parents all around the school and introduced us to all of the staff. When we met the secretaries on the first floor, they took one look at my mom and said in Japanese, "Wow, she looks just like Princess Diana."

For those of you who have never seen my mom (and/or Princess Diana), behold:

I'll send a fabulous prize to anyone who can identify these pictures correctly. (Personally, I often have difficulty telling these two apart.)

The secretaries on the first floor went on to say that I look like Princess Diana too, but since the similarities between Di and me are so striking, I won't even bother to post pictures here.

Anyway, in the last few days, it has come to my attention that I am the spitting image of two other rather famous celebrities. The first is Olivia Hussey, the actress who played Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet:

Uncanny, eh?

The other celebrity is a phenom golfer from Okinawa, Miyazato Ai (宮里藍) :

I must admit that the resemblance is rather striking. It must be my Okinawan blood.

Medical Engrish All-Stars

2006-09-27T08:11:00.000+09:00

Although Tyler and I have been here for almost a month now, we still find little Engrish treasures in our office every now and then. Yesterday, while digging through a file folder, Tyler found a bunch of profiles of last year's students written in English.

Some of their entries definitely deserve a prize, so it is with great pleasure that I present to you the Top Three in the Medical English Class of 2004-2005.

#3: Most Wholesome Profile

What are your hobbies?

1. Smoking
2. Drinking
3. Driving

---

#2: Most Earnest Profile

Please indicate any other information about yourself that you think is important. If you have any requests for this class, please let us know here.

I think I study hard maybe.

---

#1: Most Philosophical/Apathetic/(??) Profile

Please indicate any other information about yourself that you think is important. If you have any requests for this class, please let us know here.

especially nothing

Boots and Wild Turkeys

2006-09-26T00:20:00.000+09:00

During a lesson last Wednesday:

Me: Ok, let's look at this picture in the textbook. Can you describe the clothes that this man is wearing? What color are his boots?

Mrs. K: etto....

Me: (very slowly) Can you tell me what color the man's boots are?

Mrs. K: etto....a, sou da! (haltingly) Can you teru me what calaa za man's boots are?

Me: Uh, right... Can you tell me?

Mrs. K: ...

Me: I'm sorry. I must have confused you. (veerry slowly) Do you see this man in the picture? What color are his boots?

Mrs. K: Boots! Yes. He izu wearingu boots...and T-shirt and hat and - -

Me: Um, yes, that's true...but what color are his boots?

Mrs. K: Boots! Yes, boots. He have boots.

Me: ...

----

A conversation with my boss a few days ago:

Boss: Are you still cooking for yourself every night?

Me: Yes...well, I'm trying to.

Boss: Oh, good for you. So do you go to the supermarket to buy food?

Me: Um...yes...except for the days when I hike up into the mountains to hunt wild turkeys.

Boss: What?

Me: except for the days when I go hunting for wild turkeys.

Boss: Oh. (looks puzzled) Oh!!....You do?!!?

Odds and Ends

2006-09-18T20:34:00.000+09:00

-- Typhoon number 13 hit Japan this weekend, so unfortunately I had to cancel my plans to see my dad's aunt in Kyushu. It sounds like they had some pretty heavy rain in her town, but she's okay. (In other places, trains flipped over and roofs caved in, I guess.) The typhoon was also supposed to hit Ehime this morning, but it must have missed because the weather today was probably as beautiful as I've seen it while I've been here.

-- My 100 Yen shop (the equivalent of a dollar store) is named Silk. I guess I must live in a pretty swanky part of town.

-- I had mochi (rice ball) pizza for the first time last week. It was quite sticky, but the mix of rice, crust, cheese and bacon was strangely satisfying. They also put corn on their pizza here, and everyone is shocked when I tell them that Americans don't.

-- According to a TV show last night, humans are instinctively programmed to like shiny things. Therefore, to make a good first impression on someone, you should try to accentuate the shiniest parts of your face: your eyes and teeth. To me, the most logical way to accomplish this would be to smile as you introduce yourself. But according to the experts on the show, people actually need to do facial exercises in order to improve their facial expressions and range of motion.

I doubt this show was broadcast in the US, so I figured perhaps I should pass along the facial exercises to you so that you too can make friends and influence people. Here they are:

1) To improve the flexibility your mouth area, hold a pair of chopsticks between your teeth and alternate between saying "oo" and "ee." If you're confused, see the model below. (And yes, the people on the TV show were sitting in the studio doing this. It was quite entertaining.)

2) To improve your eye area, close your eyes as tightly as possible for three seconds, then open them as quickly as you can and hold them open for three seconds. Repeat.

Apparently, if you do these simple exercises for just a few minutes every day, it will make all the difference in the world in your social life. Actually, I think it's already working for me. I tried the exercises last night, and this morning when I went to grocery store, all sorts of people were staring at me. I can only assume it was because of my beautiful eyes. *

-- The cookies here must be the smallest ones in the world. At first I was fooled by the large, luscious looking cookies in the pictures on the side of the packages in the grocery store, but now I've realized that there must be some kind of federal law against selling cookies more than an inch or two in diameter. (Perhaps if the cookies were any bigger, they would be so large after they were individually wrapped that the package wouldn't fit in a shopping cart???) Anyway, yesterday I searched high and low across Matsuyama for oatmeal and unsweetened cocoa, and today I succeeded in making the most expensive batch of no-bake cookies in the history of the world. The jury is still out on whether they actually taste good since they are still cooling in the fridge, but at least they're big. :)

-- I've now met all of my private lesson students. Since I'll be spending a lot of time with them and they're sure to come up in future posts, here's a quick run-down of some of my more interesting pupils.

Mrs. N: A really nice middle-aged lady who told me she was very nervous about working with a new teacher. However, according to my boss, Mrs. N liked me so much that she left our first lesson in a state of euphoria and forgot to pay me. Sweet. :)

Dr. M: This is the guy from a previous post who wanted to practice listening to men with southern accents. I had him listen to a singer with a southern accent and he seemed fascinated, so next week, he's asked that we focus on Boston accents. Hopefully I can figure out what a Boston accent is by then...

Mrs. K: Last year's teachers wrote profiles about each of the students, and Mrs. K's profile wasn't too flattering, so I was kind of dreading her lesson. (Apparently, she's rich, manipulative and therefore a pain in the neck to deal with. Also, she does freaky things like memorizing the birthdays of everyone in your family and reciting them back to you...) Once I got to the lesson, she sat me down and started asking me a very long list of questions. It felt sort of like an interrogation, but since she was asking me the questions in English I let her keep going. By the time she got around to asking me about my birthday, I was feeling quite nervous, but luckily she stopped there and I was able to actually start the lesson. Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that she's not so bad - maybe just a bit lonely - so hopefully I'll have more luck with her than the teachers before me.

Mrs. M and the Health Support Center Group: Mrs. M's profile is also pretty scary, and this time I would have to agree. There are six people in the class and Mrs. M has much better English than anyone else. She knows this and likes to explain things to the rest of the class very loudly in Japanese. The only problem is that I can understand her and half the time, she's explaining things wrong, but when I try to correct her or ask her to do something, she's really rude. At our first lesson, she started talking in Japanese about a movie she'd seen recently, so I asked her very nicely if she could explain the movie in English instead. She gave me a seething glare and then continued to talk about the movie in Japanese. I think I ended up interrupting her (very politely) three times and she finally switched to English. ewww...I don't think I like her very much.

The Ws and the Ks: I teach two lessons with kids, and both groups are very cute and well-behaved. Also, their parents are incredibly generous. Even though they're paying me to teach the lessons, they also give me presents everytime I come over. So far, I've received a box of figs, five Japanese pears, a really good piece of chocolate cake, and a cream puff. I don't know why they give all this stuff to me, but I love them.

* I would like to think that it was not due to the fact that I'm reasonably tall and white. Just humor me on this one. And try the exercises. All the cool people are doing them.

Lindsay the Human Washing Machine and Other Fantastic Tales from Old Japan

2006-09-16T12:15:00.000+09:00

Hi again, thank you all for your very kind responses to my poll. I am still in the process of tabulating the results and conducting a statistical analysis. In the meantime, the medicine wrappers will remain in a pile on my kitchen table.

Since it has been a while since my last post, I will take this opportunity to provide you with updates on several ongoing situations:

-- Population of Toon-shi (my town): 34,643.
Gaijin (foreigner) population of Toon-shi: 3 (Yes, Tyler, the other English teacher, and I have sighted one other foreigner living in our city. Based on this sudden 50% increase in the gaijin population, we are beginning to worry that foreigners will soon over-run the town. More on this critical situation later.)

-- My Japanese softball debut was cancelled this Tuesday due to rain. I'm projected to get my first start in the beginning of October, so stay tuned.

-- Despite my best efforts to become a Real Woman over the past three weeks, my Marriageability Rating has steadily declined this week to an embarrassing 7.2%. (See Fig 1)

Fig 1.

At the beginning of the week, an encouraging streak of cooking success caused my rating to plateau at around 40%. However, Thursday's omelette incident (in which I completely decimated my omelette and settled for scrambled eggs instead) and an unfortunate episode of washing machine incompetence* this weekend eventually caused the rating to plunge to a record low.

-- It appears that the submission deadlines for several English medical journals are coming up, because Tyler (the other English teacher) and I have been swamped with papers to edit. Doctors from all over the hospital apparently rely on us to make sure that their English makes sense. The only problem with this is that since I'm not a doctor, I have not the foggiest idea whether "spondylosis" is spelled correctly or what in the world "LVH is cause the in hypertrophic myopathy condition, however, result condition was unfavorable" is supposed to mean. Soooo I've had to do quite a bit of research to make sure that my corrections are actually...well...correct. Happily, I am now quite the expert on spinal cord compression injuries, glycogen storage disease type IIIa, and Alzheimer's disease. Also, this whole paper editing process has been quite entertaining because of sentences like these.

The title of an article about new criteria to determine whether a patient with dementia is still capable of driving safely:

Brief criteria for the revocation of demented driver’s licenses

An explanation of a scale used to evaluate motor function in rats and mice:

The BBB scale is one of the most famous hind-limbs motor function evaluating methods for rats and mousse.

mmm....rats and mousse.

And finally, my favorite sentence. One group of doctors wanted to resubmit their article to a journal after making corrections, so they asked me to edit their letter to the editor. After explaining the corrections they had made, they wrote:

We hope new version is better for understand.

Fortunately, I fixed this sentence for them. :)

* In an attempt to wash my whites this morning, I threw them in my washing machine, turned it on and went off to make breakfast. Twenty minutes later, I heard the washing machine stop and started to take my laundry out. As I hung the clothes out to dry, I noticed that they were a bit wetter than usual. To be more precise, they were dripping. Finally realizing that my rather old and finicky washing machine must have turned off before the spin cycle, I proceeded to ring out about fifty-seven pairs of underwear and one very absorbent (and very aggravating) bath towel. This whole process took me about one hour. Only after I was finished did I realize that it is possible to manually set the washing machine to skip the wash and rinse cycles and simply spin the clothes.

I Love Trash / A Readership Poll

2006-09-07T16:02:00.000+09:00

Last year when I lived in an apartment in Kyoto, I put all of my trash into one bag and threw the bag into the apartment building's dumpster. There was only one dumpster and the only sign on the dumpster simply said:

In case you're confused by the English translation, I think it should be changed to something more like "Please close the lid of the dumpster after you throw away your garbage." But questionable English aside, I loved this dumpster. It was simple and beautiful. Read on, and I think you'll understand why.

This week, I have been introduced to the harsh realities of the Japanese waste disposal system. Gone are the old days when I was allowed to put all of my garbage into one bag and simply toss it in a dumpster. Instead, I must sort my garbage into about seventeen different bags and dispose of each of them at separate pick-up sites in various parts of my town. (Off the top of my head, the categories are burnable garbage*, plastic bottles with the #1 recycling sign, all other plastic products, metal cans, glass bottles, milk cartons, corrugated cardboard, newspapers and magazines, styrofoam trays, batteries, mirrors and fluorescent light bulbs, oversized items, and other.)

Ok, so by seventeen categories I meant thirteen...but you get the general idea.

You may be thinking, Sure, they have all these categories, but no one actually sorts their trash that diligently, right? Wrong. Everyone in the neighborhood is required to sort their garbage into clear trash bags. Thus, if you have a stray fluorescent lightbulb in your "other plastic products" bag, the sanitation workers will be able to see it and will leave the offending bag at the pick-up site. On top of that, everyone is required to label their trash bags with their name. This means that when the rest of your neighbors go to the pick-up site to drop off their neatly-sorted trash, your poorly-sorted bag will still be sitting there, a mark of shame upon your household.

For the most part, dear readers, I think that I have succeeded in keeping all of my trash straight, but I would like to request your advice about one very important matter, and therefore, I am conducting a brief readership poll:

Question 1)

Every day, I take medication that comes individually wrapped in one of those childproof packages. Each pill is encased in a wrapper that looks like this:

Since the the packaging contains plastic, paper, and the foil stuff, I currently face a terrible dilemma, so please help me out and answer my poll.

Should I:
A) peel off the paper, painstakingly scrape the metallic stuff off the plastic, and throw away all three parts separately?
B) peel off the paper but leave the metallic stuff on the plastic and risk dishonoring my good name?
C) place the whole wrapper deep inside the "other plastic products" bag and hope that the trash man doesn't notice?
D) bury the wrappers in a hole outside my apartment until I decide what to do with them?
E) Other_____________

If you could send your response to me as soon as possible, I would be ever so grateful. You can leave your answer as a comment on this blog or just e-mail it to me. Thank you! I value your opinion.**

* This burnable garbage category completely baffles me. After all, you can burn milk cartons, cardboard, newspapers, magazines, and even plastic (although it would smell bad), but they are not considered burnable garbage.

** No really, I do value your opinion. But I am also curious to know who actually reads this blog. :)

Middle Fingers, Backhoes, and Old Men

2006-09-04T20:40:00.001+09:00

Last week, after five consecutive successful attempts at cooking dinner, I was about to officially proclaim myself a woman of the world. However, I have since been forced to seriously reconsider whether I am yet worthy of such a title, because two days ago I had my first major mishap in the kitchen.

I was well on my way to making a respectable bowl of udon when I read on the back of the udon package that I should pour my successfully-boiled noodles into a strainer before transferring them to the pre-prepared bowl of broth. Consequently, I retrieved a strainer from under the sink, and holding the strainer in my left hand, I proceeded to pour out my noodles. Now, since strainers by their very nature have holes, I, in my infinite wisdom, should probably have realized that it would not be a good idea to grasp the bottom of the strainer while pouring boiling water through, but alas, this thought did not occur to me. However, as the water hit my hand, I quickly realized my mistake, and dropped the pot, the strainer, and the noodles into the sink.

My next thought was to run water on my hand, but I was reluctant to run cold water on the freshly-boiled udon noodles lying forlornly in the sink. What was I to do? I finally grabbed a bag of corn from the freezer and wrapped it around my poor burnt fingers. Unfortunately, after checking WebMD, I realized that you're actually not supposed to ice burns, so I swiftly returned the corn to the freezer and filled a bowl full of cold water to soak my hand, which by now was quite painful. Back at my computer, I scanned several web pages about burn care and read various things about how burns should be taken seriously, no matter how minor; burns with a diameter of more than two inches should be treated by a healthcare professional etc. And sitting alone in my little apartment with my tired, paranoid brain I thought, wait a second, this burn is definitely more than two inches in diameter. Geez, what if it's serious? Maybe I should run to the hospital...I think I'm feeling a little faint...What if my finger falls off ?...nah, that could never happen, you idiot....oh my god, I am going to perish in this apartment in the middle of Japan, the victim of a tragic udon-scalding-accident!!! At this point, I proceeded to send text messages to a couple friends, who assured me that I was not in mortal danger, and I realized that I was being a tad bit silly. Having regained my sanity, I managed to salvage the udon from the sink and eat with my right hand, while soaking my stinging left hand in the bowl of water.

Two days after the udon accident, the middle finger on my left hand is one big blister, but I am happy to report that it is signifcantly smaller than it was yesterday and I have high hopes for a full recovery.

----

Since this spring, I had known that my apartment in Japan would be next to a train station and a high school campus, but I had thought nothing of it. After all, I told myself, I can sleep through anything. However, this weekend, I've realized that even I have my limits.

Actually, the sound of the train coming by isn't too bad, especially since the train stops running at 10:30 PM. But the high school is ridiculous. There are kids there all the time. I can't quite figure out when they eat and sleep, because they are always at school, even on weekends.* And boy are they ever loud. I'm not talking about normal playground chatter - I'm talking about the sound of hundreds of voices shouting, "Ichi, ni, san, shi" in unison at the top of their lungs at 7 AM on a Sunday morning. Absolutely ridiculous. Oh yes, the high school has a marching band and a drum group too. Apparently these groups find that Saturday mornings are the most opportune time to practice.

In addition to the noise from the high school events, this weekend I was treated to the sound of a particularly squeaky backhoe, which was clearing out a small forest on the other side of the apartment complex. I am quite certain that this backhoe had not been oiled for a long time, perhaps since the Meiji Restoration, and it was so loud that the train and shouting high school students paled in comparison.

Anyway, suffice it to say that I received a rather rude awakening on Saturday morning. I hope that the backhoe is nearly finished with its digging and flattening and whatnot. If not, I am thinking about going out to the construction site tomorrow with a shovel to help it along.

----

While checking out my town's website one day, I read that there was supposed to be a softball tournament on Sunday morning, and I decided to go down to the field to check it out. The tournament turned out to be for a co-ed recreational softball league, so I stopped by the information tent to ask how I might go about joining a team. The guy at the tent was very impressed that I could actually speak Japanese, and told me, "I'll bet that your neighborhood's team will definitely let you join. They'll be very happy to have a pretty, young girl on the team."

"Oh, um, that's...good," I said, and the man at the tent brought me over to meet the team. Every single person on the team was male, and most of them were at least fifty. They were all very nice and invited me to play with them during a night game this week. So it appears that I am now the newest member of a softball team full of middle-aged/elderly men. I don't know if I will actually be able to make the game this week because I have to teach a private lesson, but I have no doubt that once I do make it to a game, it will interesting to get to know my new pals.

* On a side note, I've noticed that the high school is completely surrounded by barbed wire, and for the last week, I've been wondering why. After much thought, I've come up with two possible conclusions:

1) The barbed wire keeps the poor high school students from ever leaving the grounds of the school. EVER. And thus they must remain at school 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with only one outlet for their frustrations: chanting "Ichi, ni, san, shi" as loudly as possible at all hours of the day and night.

or

2) The barbed wire is designed to keep people like me from entering the school grounds and binding and gagging all of those wretched high school students. (only kidding, don't worry...)

I will be sure to update you as I gather further information about this matter.

掃除好き

2006-08-30T19:48:00.000+09:00

I've been told that the English teachers at my university have lived in this same apartment for the last fifteen years. And upon closer inspection of the apartment, I have come to the conclusion that it has probably been about fifteen years since it was last cleaned. Of course, I admit that I have abnormally high standards for cleanliness, since I am apparently genetically predisposed to be a bit of a clean freak. But my standards aside, it was definitely a bit icky in here before I got around to cleaning it yesterday morning.

I am proud to say that I have conquered the substantial dust bunny collection under the bed, as well as the odd odor emanating from the ~15 year-old package of taco seasoning in the cupboard above the sink. However, I have yet to figure out the slightly barfy smell coming from the toilet, so if anyone has any tips on that sort of thing, I would be ever so grateful if you could let me know.

----

Since it has been about a hundred million degrees out for the past couple days, I set off to work today with a wet head and figured that it would dry during my bike ride. Unfortunately, it was actually quite a bit cooler today and sprinkling a little bit, so that by the time I got to our office, I still looked like I had just gotten out of the shower. I wasn't sure whether it would be acceptable to show up for work in such a disheveled state, but after a bit, I decided to just go inside since no one in the medical school building really knows who I am anyway.

But when I got to my office, my boss, Ikuko, told me that today was the day that she wanted to introduce me to various people around the school. Great, thought I, this will make a fabulous first impression, but since Ikuko was pretty set on making the rounds, I had no choice but to go. Strangely enough, when I was introduced to the secretaries on the sixth floor, the first thing they said was "kawaii!!" which means something to the effect of, "You're so cute!" At first I thought maybe they were being sarcastic, but I abandoned that thought after they repeated themselves several times and kept asking me to come hang out with them. Maybe they were blinded by my beautiful eyes or pointy nose? Anyway, I haven't decided whether my new popularity has arisen as a result of my hair style or in spite of it, but for now I guess I'll think twice before I blow dry.

----

My only private student today was still away on vacation so I spent the day at the office going through my desk drawers scavenging for useful information from my predecessors. After looking through all of the files, I've come to realize that Toby and Nathan, last year's teachers, are gods. I had already known that they had reorganized the classes and put together completely new study materials. But I had no idea how uh...questionable the previous teachers' materials were. Here's a sampling of old test questions I found. (And keep in mind that these questions were supposed to be on the final for a medical English language class.)

12. Which statement is not an example of an effective way to present evidence?

a. President Bush announced that he plans to withdraw American soldiers from Iraq as soon as possible.
b. George Thompson, a soldier stationed Iraq, lost his legs in a recent bombing attack. For the rest of his life, he will need help for the most basic activities.
c. As of January 31, 2005, more than 2,000 American soldiers have died in Iraq.
d. Since the war in Iraq started, almost 20,000 Iraqi civilians have died.
e. Americans were told that Iraq was building weapons of mass destruction when the war in Iraq began, but it is now clear that Iraq was doing no such thing.

I can't put my finger on it, but apparently this teacher was a bit preoccupied with something when she wrote this question. Whatever she was thinking about, I doubt it had much to do with medicine or English...

Here's another:

23. Your patient says, " I've been having headaches," during an exam. You should reply:

a. What have you been eating?
b. When do they happen?
c. You know, you have beautiful eyes. (Yes, this option really appeared in the test.)
d. Are you under a lot of stress?
e. Does your stomach ever hurt?

And finally my favorite "medical English" test question:

5. Taboo! Describe the word "chicken" in English without using "chicken," "bird," "egg," "farm," or "fried."

I have no idea how this teacher got away with giving her students such a weird test, but needless to say, after reading these imaginitive questions, I was quite glad to see Toby and Nathan's packets, which seem to be much more relevant to what we're actually supposed to be teaching.

----

TV show of the day:

Contestants sit at a rotating sushi counter, dressed in costumes from various countries, and prepare for some sort of game. The "American" and the "Russian" wear fake, white pointy noses, presumably to make themselves look caucasian...(?) The game begins as the contestants sing a song about themselves and the sushi to the tune of the Mickey Mouse Club Theme Song. Then, several slippery looking pieces of food come around the conveyor belt, and to avoid losing the game, each contestant must pick one up with chopsticks and eat it before it passes a certain point on the belt. The first two contestants are out of the running after they drop a purple fish and a gigantic shu mai, respectively. Finally, the last contestant loses when he fails to pick up a $100 2-inch cube of Okinawan pineapple. As punishment, he is mercilessly spun around in his chair by two heavily-muscled, shirtless men.

With my mad chopstick skills, I would most definitely lose at this game.

Ferry Tale

2006-08-29T09:51:00.000+09:00

As advertised, the overnight ferry I rode to get to my island did have a karaoke room, but by the time I got on board, I was so tired that I just went straight to my room. I suppose I'll have to try out the more exciting amenities the next time I take a trip. Each of the cheap-ticket rooms on the ferry had just enough room for 26 people to spread 26 very skinny futons on the floor. (And by just enough room, I mean just enough room...if you're terribly particular about your personal space, sleeping in one of the cheap ferry rooms is definitely not for you. Also, it is a good idea to make any bathroom trips before you lay down for the night, because especially if your futon happens to be in the far corner of the room, you'll have to navigate a minefield of sleeping people in semi-darkness in order to get to the door. ) At any rate, as far as I know, I made it through the night without rolling over on top of the nice ladies on either side of me, so I think the ferry ride was a success.

I made it to my apartment by 8 o'clock this morning. The apartment is pretty roomy compared to the one I had in Kyoto, but it has a couple features that are slightly disconcerting. First, the toilet paper in the bathroom here is pink. I find this quite disgusting, but since it would be a waste to throw it out, I guess I'll live with it until the end of the roll. Second, the water in the toilet is black. I find this even more disgusting than the pink toilet paper, and tomorrow morning when I can see better, it looks like I'll have to go at the toilet bowl with some heavy duty cleaner.

My first lesson was today at 4:30 PM in the hospital which is about five minutes away from my apartment by bike. My student was an obstetrics doctor who had lived in Wisconsin for a year a while ago. He speaks English quite well already (although sometimes he has a few problems with plurals, a, the etc.) but all in all, he is quite good and I'm not sure why he would want to pay $40 an hour for private lessons. Oh yes, he says that he would most like to practice listening to men with deep voices and southern accents... I guess that's two strikes against me right there, but I'll try my best to oblige.

Beautiful People, Beautiful Food

2006-08-29T09:50:00.000+09:00

Well, loyal readers, I’m sure that all three of you have been waiting at your computer screens in breathless anticipation of my next post, so I sincerely apologize for the delay. I’ve finally made it to my apartment in Ehime-ken after traveling across Japan for the last six days. It has been an interesting trip so this post may get a little long, but first, the short version for those of you who are in a hurry:

- # of hours I’ve spent on planes, trains or boats in the last six days: ~ 31.57

- # of people I’ve accidentally clobbered while lugging my backpack and suitcase around Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto, and Ehime: 0!

- # of small children caught staring at the gigantic foreigner with the suitcase: 7+

- # of times I’ve almost forgotten half my luggage at a cell phone store in Nagoya: 1

- # of earthquakes: 1 small one

- # of earthquake tremors Chris mistook for me shaking the couch: 1

- # of paper shredder accidents in Japan over the last year: exact figure unknown, but according to the news today, they’ve been increasing…

- # of times I’ve been awake at 4 AM in the last six days: 6

- # of times in the last three hours I’ve felt an uncontrollable urge to dust my apartment: 13 (Mom, you would be so proud. :)

And now for the long version:

On Tuesday, I left Seattle at midnight to fly to Chicago, and after spending a delightful six hour layover at the O’Hare Airport, I jumped on a plane to Tokyo and arrived on Thursday afternoon. I spent my first two days with two friends from Stanford, Ben and Chris, who are both beautiful people and excellent hosts. :) Ben’s Tokyo apartment is about the size of a small jail cell, but quite cozy. I stayed there for a night, and then took the bullet train to Nagoya, where I spent the day eating chocolate, watching Chris pretend to be Japanese, and sorting trash into 14 different bags in order to follow the strict Japanese trash code. The next morning, I sorted my trash again and then took the train to Kyoto to visit my host family.

My host family seems to be doing quite well, besides the fact that my poor host mom is without her four front teeth. :( Apparently, three weeks ago, she started to feel sick while working on the computer, got up to run to the bathroom, and passed out face first on a strip of wood floor. She was rushed to the hospital and examined, and fortunately the doctors found nothing abnormal in the MRIs, etc. Unfortunately, after her collision with the floor, the floor fared much better than her teeth did, so her teeth had to be removed and can’t be replaced for a month or so.

My youngest host brother’s voice changed during the past year, but his manners haven’t so much. He still says things to his mother and grandmother that roughly translate to, “Woman, tea, in my cup. Now.” I don’t know if all Japanese boys turn out like that, but I hope not…

Despite the fact that it was pushing 100 degrees in Kyoto the last two days, my host sister/mother spent a bunch of time in the hot, hot kitchen cooking all sorts of tempura and Korean style barbecued beef for me. It was beautiful. Oh, also, while I’m on the subject of beautiful people and food, Tomiyama Sensei, one of my Japanese teachers, treated me to a quite delicious lunch, dessert, and lively conversation yesterday afternoon. :) Oh yes, and right before I left for Japan, my mom cooked steak and corn for my going away party. I’m a pretty lucky kid.

My host mom/sister told me that I should be sure to come back to Kyoto whenever I start feeling hungry. Doubtless that will happen next weekend after I’ve endured a week of my own poor cooking. Hopefully she’ll be ready for me again by then. :)

After Kyoto, I took a train to Osaka to catch the ferry to Ehime, and now I am finally in my apartment. (More about the ferry ride and my new digs in a later post.) Now that I’ve had a little time to sit down and think, I’ve finally realized how far away I am from all of the people who are important to me. I’ll admit I’m a tad bit freaked out, but I think these are probably just the thoughts of a sweaty, jet-lagged ex-college student. Time to take a shower and get rid of this nasty sticky feeling.

唄

2006-08-04T04:36:00.002+09:00

In a burst of creativity at the end of last quarter, I decided to record a couple of songs that I've been playing around with lately. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not exactly a virtuoso on the guitar, but the recordings did actually come out kind of cool. If you're curious to hear, check out the links below.

This is Minikui, a song I wrote as a joke for a Japanese skit. Ev put together the music video for me with English captions. :)

http://www.stanford.edu/~echin/minikui/minikui.mov
or
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2543679307627546021

And here's a recording of a really pretty lullaby, Warabi gami. My good friend Alicia plays in this one on the sanshin, a kind of Okinawan stringed instrument:

http://www.stanford.edu/~lgibbon/uta/warabigami1.mp3

Out of the Bubble

2006-07-28T03:04:00.000+09:00

Hi there, welcome to my first attempt at writing a blog entry. In case you haven't heard, I'm going to spend the next year in Japan teaching English at a medical school. That's right, I have somehow managed to procure a (semi) real job, and have decided to document my experiences as a contributing member of society right here.

I leave for Japan on August 22nd, so stay tuned until then. For now, I'll leave you with the sentiment printed on the front of my favorite graduation card:

"For the college graduate. The dreams of generations of African Americans lie behind you on a foundation of courage, love, tears, and joy..."

Perhaps I should enclose a picture of myself the next time I send graduation announcements out to distant relatives....