The Los Angeles Santa Rampage 2005.
Ho ho ho.
25 December 2005
15 December 2005
Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?
In Japan, it seems to take a lot more cartoon cleavage to sell Dr Pepper...
Whereas last year it was sorta "girl-next-door-cheesecake" stuff...
This year it's futuristic space cleavage.
But apparently that's what it takes to sell a non-Coke product here.
Whereas last year it was sorta "girl-next-door-cheesecake" stuff...
This year it's futuristic space cleavage.
But apparently that's what it takes to sell a non-Coke product here.
05 December 2005
No, not fruitcakes.
One of the, uh, traditional parts of a Japanese Christmas is the "Christmas Cake." Usually about the size of a 45rpm record, and covered with fresh cream or vanilla frosting, strawberries, plastic toys and other Christmassy crap. Now, I have no idea where this tradition got started. But it strikes me as being ridiculously over-serious here.
In all fairness, it's no more ludicrous than hanging a flamable sock over the fireplace, or loading up on egg nog and rum then going en masse to sing door to door, or any of the other foolishness that surrounds the season. But it did give rise to one bit of slang that sheds an unexpected bit of light on some cultural assumptions.
Y'see, baked goods haven't really been a part of the Japanese diet for very long. Most homes don't have anything bigger than a toaster oven for baking. And most combination ovens are only used for broiling or for reheating things like pizzas. So most families just don't make cakes. Which means that most specialty cakes, think birthdays and Christmas here, are store-bought.
In one of those marketing confluences whose history I haven't learned yet, Christmas has been presented in Japan as a holiday for couples. Sort of like Valentines Day, but with cake instead of roses. So there is some pressure to make and sell these cakes for consumption on the big day. And by the 26th, anyone who hasn't make their cake-date is just going to have to wait until next year. Which also means that any cakes left unsold by the 26th are essentially unsellable.
Which brings us to the pejorative "Christmas Cake" used to describe a woman who has reached old spinsterhood. Usually around the ripe old age of 26 or so.
Yeah.
In all fairness, it's no more ludicrous than hanging a flamable sock over the fireplace, or loading up on egg nog and rum then going en masse to sing door to door, or any of the other foolishness that surrounds the season. But it did give rise to one bit of slang that sheds an unexpected bit of light on some cultural assumptions.
Y'see, baked goods haven't really been a part of the Japanese diet for very long. Most homes don't have anything bigger than a toaster oven for baking. And most combination ovens are only used for broiling or for reheating things like pizzas. So most families just don't make cakes. Which means that most specialty cakes, think birthdays and Christmas here, are store-bought.
In one of those marketing confluences whose history I haven't learned yet, Christmas has been presented in Japan as a holiday for couples. Sort of like Valentines Day, but with cake instead of roses. So there is some pressure to make and sell these cakes for consumption on the big day. And by the 26th, anyone who hasn't make their cake-date is just going to have to wait until next year. Which also means that any cakes left unsold by the 26th are essentially unsellable.
Which brings us to the pejorative "Christmas Cake" used to describe a woman who has reached old spinsterhood. Usually around the ripe old age of 26 or so.
Yeah.
22 November 2005
17 November 2005
Kvetching (skip this one if you like...)
I'm not dead or anything. It's just been a bit difficult to find anything I felt like typing up. Perhaps a real teacher has a lot more in the way of emotional drain as well as feedback from the kids. But the nature of my work precludes getting to know many of the students very well. I spend about the same amount of time with all 650 of the junior high schoolers (that is, one visit to a class of 40 per week) and all 1100 of the elementary school kids (one visit per class of 40 about every five or six weeks). All of which is to say that when I hear about the intangible rewards of teaching, I have to assume they more frequently come to the people who don't shuffle from class to class six times a day.
All of which is to say that I'm not really getting so much out of being an assistant language teacher in Japan these days. Sure, hearing the kids crack wise now and again is a hoot. And I do feel a sense of pride when they trust me enough to smart off in front of me. Of course, that may have more to do with the fact that they probably don't see me as any sort of authority figure, but I'm going to continue assuming it's trust and not just a lack of respect/fear. But what I was trying to say is that it's not really enough.
For the first couple of weeks this job was fairly demanding. Not the actual class stuff, but figuring out how to function in a new environment without the recognizable social and language clues. Thanks to the "rote and repeat" learning methods favored by the ministry of education, I really don't have to do much more than demonstrate pronunciation and intonation. A moderately clever person with a script, some sound editing software, and a CD burner could cover about a months worth of my work in a two-hour session. Of course, they might not have access to a mellifluous voice like mine, but that's not really the issue. My job takes a lot of time and a fair amount of energy, but it really isn't much of a challenge anymore.
And honestly, a lot of the time there is a distinct feeling of futility. Think carefully here: how many times in the last year have you had to explain the same thing to the same group of people before you could start a meeting? Even though most people here seem to learn "I'mfainsankyu" as a single word to be used in response to any "how" question, the fact that children in speaking classes are trained to mindlessly repeat everything the teacher says means I have to re-teach the answer to "how are you?" every single time I enter an elementary school class.
How many times have I had to teach the answer to "how are you?" this year? Total count for 2005: 362 times.
Bear in mind, I didn't work in the public schools at all during the month of August, and do not teach children on weekends. And no matter how often I do it, it's not going to stick from my 40 minute sessions once every month or so. There seems to be an idea that if the kids are continually "showered with little drops of English," they will magically, osmotically become fluent speakers. But given the way they have memorize-response commands drubbed into them, I really don't expect them to learn how to apply any of the skills that would actually let them use the language.
All of which is to say that I have to exert a lot of effort to do the same tasks again and again, and I don't really see a lot of progress.
The junior high is a different kettle of fish. Not that I particularly like fish by the kettle-full, but the situation there is appreciably different. There are some chances to interact with the kids, and those moments can be a lot of fun. But the majority of my day is, as has been said two or three times in this post, going from class to class and providing model pronunciation, with occasional cultural explanations.
By way of example, I had to learn when and where trick-or-treating originated, what a Jack O'lantern symbolizes, and why they're made from pumpkins these days (instead of the original turnips) for a class last month.
All told, these aren't the kind of work experiences that really make for an impressive resume, and it's not the kind of job I want to cling to until retirement/death, whichever comes first.
Feh.
All of which is to say that I'm not really getting so much out of being an assistant language teacher in Japan these days. Sure, hearing the kids crack wise now and again is a hoot. And I do feel a sense of pride when they trust me enough to smart off in front of me. Of course, that may have more to do with the fact that they probably don't see me as any sort of authority figure, but I'm going to continue assuming it's trust and not just a lack of respect/fear. But what I was trying to say is that it's not really enough.
For the first couple of weeks this job was fairly demanding. Not the actual class stuff, but figuring out how to function in a new environment without the recognizable social and language clues. Thanks to the "rote and repeat" learning methods favored by the ministry of education, I really don't have to do much more than demonstrate pronunciation and intonation. A moderately clever person with a script, some sound editing software, and a CD burner could cover about a months worth of my work in a two-hour session. Of course, they might not have access to a mellifluous voice like mine, but that's not really the issue. My job takes a lot of time and a fair amount of energy, but it really isn't much of a challenge anymore.
And honestly, a lot of the time there is a distinct feeling of futility. Think carefully here: how many times in the last year have you had to explain the same thing to the same group of people before you could start a meeting? Even though most people here seem to learn "I'mfainsankyu" as a single word to be used in response to any "how" question, the fact that children in speaking classes are trained to mindlessly repeat everything the teacher says means I have to re-teach the answer to "how are you?" every single time I enter an elementary school class.
How many times have I had to teach the answer to "how are you?" this year? Total count for 2005: 362 times.
Bear in mind, I didn't work in the public schools at all during the month of August, and do not teach children on weekends. And no matter how often I do it, it's not going to stick from my 40 minute sessions once every month or so. There seems to be an idea that if the kids are continually "showered with little drops of English," they will magically, osmotically become fluent speakers. But given the way they have memorize-response commands drubbed into them, I really don't expect them to learn how to apply any of the skills that would actually let them use the language.
All of which is to say that I have to exert a lot of effort to do the same tasks again and again, and I don't really see a lot of progress.
The junior high is a different kettle of fish. Not that I particularly like fish by the kettle-full, but the situation there is appreciably different. There are some chances to interact with the kids, and those moments can be a lot of fun. But the majority of my day is, as has been said two or three times in this post, going from class to class and providing model pronunciation, with occasional cultural explanations.
By way of example, I had to learn when and where trick-or-treating originated, what a Jack O'lantern symbolizes, and why they're made from pumpkins these days (instead of the original turnips) for a class last month.
All told, these aren't the kind of work experiences that really make for an impressive resume, and it's not the kind of job I want to cling to until retirement/death, whichever comes first.
Feh.
03 November 2005
Small successes. Very small.
In a Japanese public school, the cleaning of the school is largely handled by the students. Every day a block of time is set aside for all the students to take out the trash, wipe down the desks, sweep the floors and clean the bathrooms. The duties are rotated between groups of students, so no one gets stuck doing only one job all year. And oddly enough, they seem to develop a sense of ownership in the school, and tend to keep the place pretty clean. The teachers are supposed to supervise and assist, so as an assistant teacher, I assist the assisting. Mostly with the stuff that's over five feet up.
But last week, while I was helping out with the science room clean up, I had to tell one of the kids to quit screwing around and get to work. Now, as a former slacker-student, I felt pretty bad about that. And given that this particular kid is one of my favorite wise-asses, well, that made it even tougher. And then, when we both tried to get back to work, he said something that just about made my day. He said, in English, "I hate you as a volunteer."
The second year students on recently learned how to pronounce "volunteer" as an English word, and the "as a" construction is not one that most of them ever master. So in one move he managed to use new grammar, correct pronunciation and he used the language in a pertinent, accurate fashion. And to top it off, he also managed to maintain disrespect for (assistant) authority. I was quite pleased with him, and told him so.
But we still finished cleaning the science room.
But last week, while I was helping out with the science room clean up, I had to tell one of the kids to quit screwing around and get to work. Now, as a former slacker-student, I felt pretty bad about that. And given that this particular kid is one of my favorite wise-asses, well, that made it even tougher. And then, when we both tried to get back to work, he said something that just about made my day. He said, in English, "I hate you as a volunteer."
The second year students on recently learned how to pronounce "volunteer" as an English word, and the "as a" construction is not one that most of them ever master. So in one move he managed to use new grammar, correct pronunciation and he used the language in a pertinent, accurate fashion. And to top it off, he also managed to maintain disrespect for (assistant) authority. I was quite pleased with him, and told him so.
But we still finished cleaning the science room.
They Say Music is Universal...
But I really have to take issue with that. I mean, maybe anyone with functional hearing can recognize that some kinds of sequentially arranged sounds are meant to be music, but what they're going to get out of it is so highly subjective that they may not even be hearing the same things. All of which is to say that most of the English classes taught at public junior high schools in Japan have adopted the practice of using pop music songs in English as a learning tool. Some people claim it's to teach pronunciation, others say it's so that the kids will get a sense of the rythms of English. Others say it's just to try and pique the kids' interest. But one thing is certain: I do not approve of most of what those kids have to listen to.
In theory the songs ought to be chosen to match the speaking and pronunciation levels of the students. It would be quite foolish to try and give beginners a song like "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious","Louie Louie", or anything by the Fu-Schnickens. And it shouldn't be too fast, too slow or much more than 4 minutes long. So what winds up being chosen?
Alas, this is one of the areas in which the ministry of education leaves everything unsaid and up to the individual teacher's discretion. Now, the teacher of the 3rd year kids at my school generally does a pretty decent job of choosing songs. From a learning standpoint, anyway. She generally tries to choose songs that have been used recently in TV programs or commercials so the kids will have heard them before. And then she tries to pick songs in which the grammar is about at a level the kids can understand. So far this group has done songs by Abba, Wham!, Journey and Earth, Wind and Fire.
In contrast, the 2nd years' teacher picks songs that he learned how to play on the bass guitar. So far these kids have had to do two Beatles songs and one Bryan Adams. Now, I understand that almost everyone thinks that the Beatles are the greatest blah blah yakkety schmackety ever. But forcing the kids to sing along to "Summer of '69" strikes me as being kind of sick. I can't recommend listening to Bryan Adams, mainly because I like you guys. But you oughta read the lyrics to this piece of crap. This prick is trying to romanticize, what, his best high school summer ever? What's so great about a garage band that goes nowhere, a job at a drive-in movie theater and a first love that clearly didn't last beyond that summer? And beyond all that, this song was released when he was 25 years old and a rising star in the early days of MTV. At this point in his career he had money, credit, fans, groupies, success and the potential to have even more. But he had the audacity to yowl about how much better things were when he was standing on some girl's porch, trying to work up the courage to kiss her? No. Fuck this song and fuck Bryan Adams.
And seriously, there's something a little careless and more than a little bit off about a middle-aged guy who intentionally chooses a song about how much better life was in high school and forces junior high kids to sing it without ever explaining to them what the words mean.
Fffffhhhhah. Maybe it's time for me to find something else to think about besides things about work that make me angry.
In theory the songs ought to be chosen to match the speaking and pronunciation levels of the students. It would be quite foolish to try and give beginners a song like "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious","Louie Louie", or anything by the Fu-Schnickens. And it shouldn't be too fast, too slow or much more than 4 minutes long. So what winds up being chosen?
Alas, this is one of the areas in which the ministry of education leaves everything unsaid and up to the individual teacher's discretion. Now, the teacher of the 3rd year kids at my school generally does a pretty decent job of choosing songs. From a learning standpoint, anyway. She generally tries to choose songs that have been used recently in TV programs or commercials so the kids will have heard them before. And then she tries to pick songs in which the grammar is about at a level the kids can understand. So far this group has done songs by Abba, Wham!, Journey and Earth, Wind and Fire.
In contrast, the 2nd years' teacher picks songs that he learned how to play on the bass guitar. So far these kids have had to do two Beatles songs and one Bryan Adams. Now, I understand that almost everyone thinks that the Beatles are the greatest blah blah yakkety schmackety ever. But forcing the kids to sing along to "Summer of '69" strikes me as being kind of sick. I can't recommend listening to Bryan Adams, mainly because I like you guys. But you oughta read the lyrics to this piece of crap. This prick is trying to romanticize, what, his best high school summer ever? What's so great about a garage band that goes nowhere, a job at a drive-in movie theater and a first love that clearly didn't last beyond that summer? And beyond all that, this song was released when he was 25 years old and a rising star in the early days of MTV. At this point in his career he had money, credit, fans, groupies, success and the potential to have even more. But he had the audacity to yowl about how much better things were when he was standing on some girl's porch, trying to work up the courage to kiss her? No. Fuck this song and fuck Bryan Adams.
And seriously, there's something a little careless and more than a little bit off about a middle-aged guy who intentionally chooses a song about how much better life was in high school and forces junior high kids to sing it without ever explaining to them what the words mean.
Fffffhhhhah. Maybe it's time for me to find something else to think about besides things about work that make me angry.
19 October 2005
And from waaay out of left field...
I dunno if you'll find this interesting or not, but this struck me as a thoughtful response to a singularly puzzling question:
Why is so much of the fan fiction online that's about romantic or sexual entaglements usually about male characters but written by women?
16 October 2005
What exactly are they trying to teach these kids?
Stop me if I'm repeating myself, but I just found this photo again.
Last year there was a highly publicized kidnapping in Japan. Some guy snatched a elementary school girl and sent pictures and ransom demands to the kid's mom using her mobile phone. So naturally, all the elementary schools started putting up PSA posters warning kids to be wary of strangers. Pretty standard stuff. But the poster they put up in all the public schools was this one, which claimed that sometimes bad people will act like nice people to try and trick you. But the bad people in the picture ALL looked like foreigners. Stereotypical, round-eyed, big-nosed foreigners. Even though most Japanese cartoon characters tend to look sort of, well, non-Asian, there are a couple of standard cues used to mark which characters are supposed to be non-Japanese. Big noses or prominent nose bridges being the most obvious.
And for the record, the kid was taken by an ordinary, run-of-the-mill, regular looking Japanese guy. He wasn't half-anything, he wasn't from Okinawa, and he wasn't even that strange-looking.
12 October 2005
Testing the waters...
I'm starting to get a little curious about who's on the other side of this blog. I mean, I know that the Nerd Hater is out there, a former Grade School Role Model, and sometimes even some other people who I've actually met face to face.
But who else is out there? Who am I talking to?
But who else is out there? Who am I talking to?
09 October 2005
Sorry for the inconvenience...
But on the off chance you want to make a comment, I've had to activate a word-verification system because of a sudden torrent of bot-produced spam comments.
The worst part is that none of them were for stuff I'd be interested in buying, looking at or mocking. It was just for boring crap.
Kind of like most advertisements, now that I think about it.
The worst part is that none of them were for stuff I'd be interested in buying, looking at or mocking. It was just for boring crap.
Kind of like most advertisements, now that I think about it.
29 September 2005
Inexplicable
On sunday, Japan celebrated the closing of the World Exposition 2005 in Aichi Japan. In theory, this was supposed to be Japan's chance to showcase itself, its relations with the other nations, and all its great forward thinking policies and scientific advances. Like not allowing people to bring their own food so they have to stop at one of the "gourmet restaurants" to get something to eat. (The policy was dropped after much public outcry.)
But this was in Aichi, a prefecture in the middle of Japan. So why was there a blimp which seems to be meant to encourage foreign tourism in Japan with its "Yookoso Japan/Japan Welcomes You" logo, circling a suburban Saitama area, in the eastern part of Japan? And why has it been doing so on weekends for the last couple of months, hundreds of miles away from the International Exposition?
I'm not one for pointless paranoia, but seriously... what the hell is going on here? Either there's some other security/surveillance reason to have a aerial observation platfom circling a suburban population center, or else there really is someone who thinks that there is a mass of untapped international tourism money hidden in Saitama, just waiting for a blimp-borne message to unleash it.
But this was in Aichi, a prefecture in the middle of Japan. So why was there a blimp which seems to be meant to encourage foreign tourism in Japan with its "Yookoso Japan/Japan Welcomes You" logo, circling a suburban Saitama area, in the eastern part of Japan? And why has it been doing so on weekends for the last couple of months, hundreds of miles away from the International Exposition?
I'm not one for pointless paranoia, but seriously... what the hell is going on here? Either there's some other security/surveillance reason to have a aerial observation platfom circling a suburban population center, or else there really is someone who thinks that there is a mass of untapped international tourism money hidden in Saitama, just waiting for a blimp-borne message to unleash it.
25 September 2005
There are signs everywhere.
1. The slacks from my best black suit, the one I had tailor-made in Hong Kong, began to unravel at the knee. They are now unsuitable for work or any other social event where I don't want to look like a well dressed hobo.
2. My sneakers suffered a massive structural failure. The uppers separated from the soles across over 65% of the instep and split open on the opposite side.
3. After well over 6 hours of trying to endure the Lovecraftian torment of Dell Japan: Customer Service Center, I finally recieved confirmation that not only has my laptop screen completely burned out, croaked, that is, but my repair coverage has also passed its "best-before" date. That is, expired.
4. I, however, seem to have survived another year. Happy Birthday to me.
2. My sneakers suffered a massive structural failure. The uppers separated from the soles across over 65% of the instep and split open on the opposite side.
3. After well over 6 hours of trying to endure the Lovecraftian torment of Dell Japan: Customer Service Center, I finally recieved confirmation that not only has my laptop screen completely burned out, croaked, that is, but my repair coverage has also passed its "best-before" date. That is, expired.
4. I, however, seem to have survived another year. Happy Birthday to me.
13 September 2005
Highlights from France: the Medeival Faire part 2
Hear me now and believe me later: No good can come from hitting on a girl wearing a sword that's bigger than yours. There are waaaaay too many issues to overcome there.
Highlights from France: the Medeival Faire part 1
While rambling around the French countryside, I stumbled into a Medieval Faire. There I learned one thing: dorks are the same the world over. For example, there are five points worth noting on this particularly repellent specimen.
1. The "Shakespeare in Love" facial hair.
2. The bedsheet-cape.
3. The animal horn trumpet with metal mouthpiece bought at a booth at the very same medeival fair.
4. The glossy black leather moccasins.
5. (Not visible) Attempts to pick up on young woman by complimenting her cheese-curdlingly ugly baby.
09 September 2005
What's in a name?
I have to admit, I have always had trouble with titles. I assumed that they were meant to tell you what something was. When I tried to figure out how they functioned, I wound up putting them into three categories. They would either describe the item in an obvious and explicit way, by naming some key character, location, thing or event, or else it would be named for some supposedly meaningful theme or idea in the work.
Which is why I had so much trouble naming this damned blog. I was pretty happy with the first name it had. It had something to do with the theme/location and it suggested a moderately offensive bit of slang to boot. But I've been successively less satisfied with the other names. Especially the last one, which translated as "wickedness, vice, or evil." Sure, I thought it sounded pretty cool, but it really wasn't appropriate.
You see, I chose that name in a moment of anger. I can't really recall if it was anger at myself, some government-authorized shenanigans, the damnable stupidity of the human animal or something else entirely. But I have to admit that I'm not always bashing these entries out in a bile-tinged haze of keyboard damaging vitriol. Honestly, being that angry all the time burns a lot of energy, and I don't have the time to prepare enough food for that kind of caloric demand.
Hmmm. That was a bit of a tangent. Let me get back to the point. Hopefully this will be the last title change for a while. I think this one will fit a bit better, is less pretentious than the foreign stuff, and includes the ever-important crappy pun that I'm just not happy without. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Orbits of an Alien Son. As soon as the co-pilot and I finish with the drink cart, beverage service for the rest of you can begin.
Which is why I had so much trouble naming this damned blog. I was pretty happy with the first name it had. It had something to do with the theme/location and it suggested a moderately offensive bit of slang to boot. But I've been successively less satisfied with the other names. Especially the last one, which translated as "wickedness, vice, or evil." Sure, I thought it sounded pretty cool, but it really wasn't appropriate.
You see, I chose that name in a moment of anger. I can't really recall if it was anger at myself, some government-authorized shenanigans, the damnable stupidity of the human animal or something else entirely. But I have to admit that I'm not always bashing these entries out in a bile-tinged haze of keyboard damaging vitriol. Honestly, being that angry all the time burns a lot of energy, and I don't have the time to prepare enough food for that kind of caloric demand.
Hmmm. That was a bit of a tangent. Let me get back to the point. Hopefully this will be the last title change for a while. I think this one will fit a bit better, is less pretentious than the foreign stuff, and includes the ever-important crappy pun that I'm just not happy without. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Orbits of an Alien Son. As soon as the co-pilot and I finish with the drink cart, beverage service for the rest of you can begin.
31 August 2005
Bonus French fun fact!
Just like in Japan, there's nothing wrong with installing a urinal by a window on the ground floor of a building in France.
11 August 2005
And on a lighter note:
The accepted context for imported ideas and characters isn't even considered before use in Japan; exhibit 77d.
In Japan, the dark lord of the Sith digs jail-bait.
Totally.
Too many ideas, not enough understanding
You know, after re-reading that last bit, something just occurred to me. I can recall the first time I realized that someone like Batman would, by necessity, have to be a criminal. Generally, you can't just beat up other people no matter how much you think they deserve it, without being labeled a vigilante, a hooligan, or a criminal. Excepting, of course, those seemingly apocryphal stories about Judo stars beating up muggers. But by and large, we're not supposed to do anything besides calling the authorities. Which is logical, I guess, if you don't live in the Montana territory in the 1880s.
But for some reason I keep seeing stories about people resorting to extraordinary measures to protect what they think is just. C'mon, Knight Rider, The A-Team, Spenser for Hire, Mannix (no, "Mannix" is not a breakfast cereal...) and on and on and on. Why do we keep asking for someone to break the rules to make things better?
Initially, I was trying to be sarcastic. Just talking about a trend in fiction, y'know. But then it hit me: there are quite a few people who believe that justice is something worth struggling for. But they tend to be described as "radicals," "extremists" and "terrorists." Why else would someone strap a bomb to themselves and walk into a crowd? Why else would you fly your plane into an aircraft carrier? You don't do it for fun, and you probably don't honestly do it for the chicks. If you didn't actually believe that you were acting in the name of justice, that you were serving a higher cause, why else would you do it?
I am certainly oversimplifying an awful lot of things. First off, I don't really know anything about suicide bomber training, kamikaze pilots, CIA sleeper agents or army guys who throw themselves on grenades to save their buddies. Secondly, I don't claim to be able to define "justice" well enough to withstand any sort of honest philosophical inquiry. And I don't mean to imply that wearing spandex while beating up purse-snatchers and machine-gunning a bus load of civilians are even on the same continuum of valid moral choices. But if you use small, unambiguous terms, you can easily describe both motivations with the same sentences.
"Acting outside the law to meet one's idea of justice."
And that is where I start feeling more uneasy. You can usually spot a hypocritical act by the depth of the bullshit it's wrapped in. Anytime what sounds like a good idea comes with a lot of extra syllables, someone is being lined up to for an ass-fucking. Do you really think that
My point is that you can usually understand an essentially moral idea because it can be explained simply. "Don't hit weaker people." "Be kind to people in trouble." "No raping." So why can such seemingly incompatible ideas be explained with the same simple words? Why can someone say "the rules are so wrong, the way society has treated those dear to me is so wrong, that I have to go outside what is accepted and fight for something better" and wind up killing so many people?
And what's wrong with my head that allows Batman and Spider-Man to wind up classified with the same essential reasons for action as a suicide bomber or an IRA assassin?
The thought which might worry me more is the prospect that there something about the "spread of democracy," as it's been practiced in the last 100 years, that winds up becoming a force that people feel a need to fight against? If the problem is in my head, that's just me. But if there's something essentially wrong with the way democratic ideology is practiced, that does and will affect a lot more people.
But for some reason I keep seeing stories about people resorting to extraordinary measures to protect what they think is just. C'mon, Knight Rider, The A-Team, Spenser for Hire, Mannix (no, "Mannix" is not a breakfast cereal...) and on and on and on. Why do we keep asking for someone to break the rules to make things better?
Initially, I was trying to be sarcastic. Just talking about a trend in fiction, y'know. But then it hit me: there are quite a few people who believe that justice is something worth struggling for. But they tend to be described as "radicals," "extremists" and "terrorists." Why else would someone strap a bomb to themselves and walk into a crowd? Why else would you fly your plane into an aircraft carrier? You don't do it for fun, and you probably don't honestly do it for the chicks. If you didn't actually believe that you were acting in the name of justice, that you were serving a higher cause, why else would you do it?
I am certainly oversimplifying an awful lot of things. First off, I don't really know anything about suicide bomber training, kamikaze pilots, CIA sleeper agents or army guys who throw themselves on grenades to save their buddies. Secondly, I don't claim to be able to define "justice" well enough to withstand any sort of honest philosophical inquiry. And I don't mean to imply that wearing spandex while beating up purse-snatchers and machine-gunning a bus load of civilians are even on the same continuum of valid moral choices. But if you use small, unambiguous terms, you can easily describe both motivations with the same sentences.
"Acting outside the law to meet one's idea of justice."
And that is where I start feeling more uneasy. You can usually spot a hypocritical act by the depth of the bullshit it's wrapped in. Anytime what sounds like a good idea comes with a lot of extra syllables, someone is being lined up to for an ass-fucking. Do you really think that
"...The President's goal to help unleash the productive potential of individuals in all nations..."has anything do with actually helping individuals attain self-sufficiency in terms of food or health-care? Or is it just another effort to exploit a potential source of profit like oil, timber ormigrant labor?
-2004 Republican Part Platform Statement
My point is that you can usually understand an essentially moral idea because it can be explained simply. "Don't hit weaker people." "Be kind to people in trouble." "No raping." So why can such seemingly incompatible ideas be explained with the same simple words? Why can someone say "the rules are so wrong, the way society has treated those dear to me is so wrong, that I have to go outside what is accepted and fight for something better" and wind up killing so many people?
And what's wrong with my head that allows Batman and Spider-Man to wind up classified with the same essential reasons for action as a suicide bomber or an IRA assassin?
The thought which might worry me more is the prospect that there something about the "spread of democracy," as it's been practiced in the last 100 years, that winds up becoming a force that people feel a need to fight against? If the problem is in my head, that's just me. But if there's something essentially wrong with the way democratic ideology is practiced, that does and will affect a lot more people.
Approved by the Comic Dork Authority
I'm sorry if this is something I've said before, but I think it bears repeating. You really shouldn't let your kids spend too much time reading comics. Especially not books by Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis, Kurt Busiek or Frank Miller. Leaving aside the issues of violence, sex, language or questionable taste, letting your kids spend any amount of time reading these books is likely to warp their priorities. In general, these writers' books tend to follow one rather disturbing theme: that in a troubled world, people, struggling very hard to do the right thing, may suffer setbacks and losses, but in the end do manage to act on behalf of what they consider just.
Think about that for a moment. Do you really want your children to grow up with expectations influenced by ideas like that? Do you want to raise kids with the notion that justice is something worth struggling for, worth sacrificing for?
Really, save them and the rest of us a lot of trouble, disappointment and disillusionment by keeping them off of the hero-books. Give them an XBox 360 or something so they can play Tony Hawk 5 or Madden 2008 or whatever else has been carefully co-branded and synthesized for easy, dilemma-free consumption.
Think about that for a moment. Do you really want your children to grow up with expectations influenced by ideas like that? Do you want to raise kids with the notion that justice is something worth struggling for, worth sacrificing for?
Really, save them and the rest of us a lot of trouble, disappointment and disillusionment by keeping them off of the hero-books. Give them an XBox 360 or something so they can play Tony Hawk 5 or Madden 2008 or whatever else has been carefully co-branded and synthesized for easy, dilemma-free consumption.
04 August 2005
I also sort of miss public radio...
In my former, non-Japan existance, I used to really like This American Life. And not just because host Ira Glass is willing to devote whole hour-long shows to easy ideas like pets, but the less easy ones like fiascos, superpowers or what makes a Canadian Canadian.
Each week on TAL, as they refer to it on their own web page, they tackle a different topic in (usually) three acts. And sooner or later, it seems, they hit something that I can relate to, think about or laugh my ass off at.
Each week on TAL, as they refer to it on their own web page, they tackle a different topic in (usually) three acts. And sooner or later, it seems, they hit something that I can relate to, think about or laugh my ass off at.
02 August 2005
What did they say "idle hands" were?
One of the things I most enjoyed about living in Santa Monica was occasionally running into unexpected art. And I don't mean stuff from the kind of people who make easy, boring crap that you could just as easily buy at the state fair. I'm talking about stuff from groups like The Billboard Liberation Front or the California Department of Corrections, or running into something from the Cacophony Society or seeing the Santa Rampage.
I seem to recall that there was something invigorating about seeing normal routines disintegrate for a while. Like meeting, in front of the Blue Man Group, a bunch of orange-suited boozers with trading cards of themselves. There was a sense that life still had surprises in store.
But life in Tokyo does not seem to hold any surprises in its immediate future.
We'll have to see what can be done about that.
I seem to recall that there was something invigorating about seeing normal routines disintegrate for a while. Like meeting, in front of the Blue Man Group, a bunch of orange-suited boozers with trading cards of themselves. There was a sense that life still had surprises in store.
But life in Tokyo does not seem to hold any surprises in its immediate future.
We'll have to see what can be done about that.
28 July 2005
Another cultural difference...
In Japan, no one thinks there's anything wrong with putting a window in front of a urinal on a ground floor bathroom.
19 July 2005
Teach them well and let them lead the way...
When you work as an ESL teacher in Japan, you tend to face a lot of the same questions again and again. Part of it has to do with the level of the language skills you're dealing with. If all you know is the present tense, your questions will naturally be limited to immediate lines of thought.
Lots of yes/no questions. And thanks to a rather puzzling textbook choice, they don't learn all the interrogative words until age 14. So you can finally get gems like:
Of course, thanks to the drill-repeat-drill-repeat and memorize-regurgitate teaching methods favored for language education here, by the time they get to the interrogative words the kids have largely burned do you like into their brains as a single, indivisible unit. Which means you also variations on the following theme.
In general, this has very little to do with what I'm used to as communication. It's not bad for people raised on TV interviews and magazine profiles, and given that it's usually teenagers and pre-teens coming up with these, I might even say they were doing all right. But there really isn almost no emphasis on comprehending the response and using it to continue the conversation. My adult students actually have to be trained how to ask follow-up questions, and textbooks often include formulas that looks something like
But that's really only attempted by the more advanced students. Most people peak out at "I like [blank.] What do you like [blank]?" Which is why what happened last week was such a treat. I had to conduct speaking tests for the 9th graders here. All 211 of them, at around 7 minutes per test. Of itself, that was no treat. And the vast majority of the answers were entirely adequate for people with a minimal command of an illogical lanugage taught with an emphasis on rote memorization in an educational system that discourages abstract thought.
What did happen was that more of the students than I could have hoped for asked questions that indicated they'd been paying attention to earlier replies. I must admit that I was flattered when some students made a point to ask me about eating ramen, reading comic books or playing video games, because they remembered my introduction in class. And when they actually had their own opinions about whether Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior was a better game, why Kamen Rider was a better hero than any of the Power Rangers, or what was most surprising thing they'd ever seen on the TV show Fountain of Trivia, well, I was quite satisfied.
And a few, a rare, precious few, actually gave smart-ass answers. One of the questions they had to answer what "what will you do if [teacher's name] comes to your house?" And while most said they would speak English or study history or something, a very few had the backbone to say things like
and my personal favorite,
Now, that question was actually presented as a sample question on the preparation sheet. So the students had a chance to memorize something like that beforehand. Even beyond those, a few students had the presence of mind and confidence to give answers off the top of their heads, in another language. After three years, I had gotten used to getting blank stares, formulaic answers, and paint-peeling dullness a painful majority of the time. But these kids, well, I'd almost say they gave me hope. There was a girl who said that if the weather was nice that she "will stay home and play Tekken 5" because she "dislike[s] outdoor sport." Or the boy who would spend $1000 on "pachinko-gamble games and Aya Ueto photo magazines." And my personal favorite, when asked what he would do after he finished his studies at university, the boy who made a gesture like pulling a hood over his head while saying "I will join the dark side."
I only hope that these little sparks of anarchy and dissent from what's expected don't flare out in these kids. If only I could find some way to help them stay lit up. Some way to, I dunno, throw alcohol on their fires to keep them burning or something.
Not, you know, literally by pouring booze on them. Besides, I have faith in these kids. They're among the best and the brightest here. I feel they'll be smart enough and strong enough to find ways to get their own drinks while they're underage.
"Do you like Soccer?"
"Do you like strawberry?"
"Are you a college student?
"Do you like Japan?
Lots of yes/no questions. And thanks to a rather puzzling textbook choice, they don't learn all the interrogative words until age 14. So you can finally get gems like:
"How old are you?"
"Where do you live?"
"How tall are you?"
"Why did you come to Japan?"
Of course, thanks to the drill-repeat-drill-repeat and memorize-regurgitate teaching methods favored for language education here, by the time they get to the interrogative words the kids have largely burned do you like into their brains as a single, indivisible unit. Which means you also variations on the following theme.
"What do you like sports?"
"What do you like Japan?"
"Do you like food, what?"
"Who do you like school's cute teacher?"
In general, this has very little to do with what I'm used to as communication. It's not bad for people raised on TV interviews and magazine profiles, and given that it's usually teenagers and pre-teens coming up with these, I might even say they were doing all right. But there really isn almost no emphasis on comprehending the response and using it to continue the conversation. My adult students actually have to be trained how to ask follow-up questions, and textbooks often include formulas that looks something like
"Really? What about [previous answer] did you like best?"
"Oh? What kind of [previous answer] is your favorite?"
and my personal favorite
"I don't know much about [previous answer]. Please tell me more."
But that's really only attempted by the more advanced students. Most people peak out at "I like [blank.] What do you like [blank]?" Which is why what happened last week was such a treat. I had to conduct speaking tests for the 9th graders here. All 211 of them, at around 7 minutes per test. Of itself, that was no treat. And the vast majority of the answers were entirely adequate for people with a minimal command of an illogical lanugage taught with an emphasis on rote memorization in an educational system that discourages abstract thought.
What did happen was that more of the students than I could have hoped for asked questions that indicated they'd been paying attention to earlier replies. I must admit that I was flattered when some students made a point to ask me about eating ramen, reading comic books or playing video games, because they remembered my introduction in class. And when they actually had their own opinions about whether Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior was a better game, why Kamen Rider was a better hero than any of the Power Rangers, or what was most surprising thing they'd ever seen on the TV show Fountain of Trivia, well, I was quite satisfied.
And a few, a rare, precious few, actually gave smart-ass answers. One of the questions they had to answer what "what will you do if [teacher's name] comes to your house?" And while most said they would speak English or study history or something, a very few had the backbone to say things like
- "Lock the door."
- "From the, back door, run fast."
- "Not open front door and windows."
and my personal favorite,
- "Throw many many stones."
Now, that question was actually presented as a sample question on the preparation sheet. So the students had a chance to memorize something like that beforehand. Even beyond those, a few students had the presence of mind and confidence to give answers off the top of their heads, in another language. After three years, I had gotten used to getting blank stares, formulaic answers, and paint-peeling dullness a painful majority of the time. But these kids, well, I'd almost say they gave me hope. There was a girl who said that if the weather was nice that she "will stay home and play Tekken 5" because she "dislike[s] outdoor sport." Or the boy who would spend $1000 on "pachinko-gamble games and Aya Ueto photo magazines." And my personal favorite, when asked what he would do after he finished his studies at university, the boy who made a gesture like pulling a hood over his head while saying "I will join the dark side."
I only hope that these little sparks of anarchy and dissent from what's expected don't flare out in these kids. If only I could find some way to help them stay lit up. Some way to, I dunno, throw alcohol on their fires to keep them burning or something.
Not, you know, literally by pouring booze on them. Besides, I have faith in these kids. They're among the best and the brightest here. I feel they'll be smart enough and strong enough to find ways to get their own drinks while they're underage.
04 July 2005
Let me see if I understand this:
On Independence Day, a day above all others to remember the ideals of freedom and liberty that America is supposed to be a living example of, I have to read that
This isn't even irony.
This is hypocracy.
This is lying.
This is the citizens of the United States getting fucked by their government again.
Happy birthday, America. You think you'll get a holiday reach-around?
- the press is being required to make all aspects of its investigations accountable to the government when reporting on that government or it will face punishment by that same government
- that the Pentagon, under a clause stuffed into an education bill, has been quietly collecting a nationwide database on all high school students to keep track of each student's name age, GPA, SSN, address, phone number and race, to better target their military recruitment, primarily at families too poor to afford college.
- and that once again the nations legislators are finally taking a stand on the inexplicably-timed issue of flag burning, rather than publicizing who they'll support to take O'Connor's place on the supreme court or why they're continuing to give war-profiteers Haliburton and KBR billions of dollars to provide over-priced supplies to troops in a war that their former CEO pushed for while working as Vice-President.
This isn't even irony.
This is hypocracy.
This is lying.
This is the citizens of the United States getting fucked by their government again.
Happy birthday, America. You think you'll get a holiday reach-around?
25 June 2005
What did Roosevelt say about opportunity?
Oh yeah, something about
Which, I guess, could be read as saying that everyone, even the poor, the non-white, the female, the stupid, the crippled, the belivers in different religions, and the members of the political party that is out of fashion all ought to have a fair shot at life.
Of course, money tends to skew things, but it's a nice enough sentiment, and it sounds especially good when you slap it on something like education. Who could be against a fair chance for children? Even for those truly, butt-ugly children. Naturally, there've been causes for improvement in the execution of this fairness idea, but generally, it's a pretty straightforward concept.
I bring this up because the principal of the school where I work has been chatting with me about his school and schools in Japan in general. As a foreigner, I can offer him the perspective of an outsider as well an aspect of the confessional. Since he speaks to me in fairly rapid English the other teachers can't understand what he's saying. And even if I did want to tell someone else what he said, no one would really listen to me or take me seriously. I'm not Japanese, you know.
To get back to the point, he explained that there is nothing like gifted and talented or AP classes available in Japanese public schools. During the post-war reconstruction of Japan, the education system was totally re-organized with 1940's America as a rough model. While this did mean giving up the Imperial German style of education adopted during the Meiji restoration, complete with unthinking monarch-obediance and a military-preperatory emphasis, it did allow for a greater sense of opportunity. Under the new system, education was supposed to be available to all children, regardless of ability or gender.
But as the revolutions of the 40's ossified into the policies of today, there has been a similar hardening of ideas. According to my principal, most parents today insist on an equal treatment for all students. Even in cases of wildly different ability. A dyslexic child will be kept in the same class as his peers, just as a math prodigy will be kept in the same class, regardless of ability. There is no variation in curriculum within an age level. There are no advanced placement classes, no accelerated courses, no college level courses for those nerdy kids in the high school who were always wrecking the curve. Nothing. Most school districts do have one or two schools per age range that offer a class for developmentally disabled children, and occasionally an entire school for a specific disability, like blindness or deafness. But in general, the kids are kept together by age. Period.
It seems puzzling to me that a child with extraordinary talents would not be allowed to move as quickly as their mind would allow, but the idea of wasted potential never even enters the debate. Maybe it's just an expression of the "sticking out nail gets hammered down" idea, but that really strikes me as wrong. Especially given the tendency to spoil children in Japan. As long as a person is considered a child, they tend to be indulged far more that seems usual from an American point of view. And it strikes me as sort of, well, callous to keep a kid in a class that's below what they're capable of. Having been stuck in manditory lessons myself, I can tell you it's no picnic.
But maybe I'm just viewing this as a synecdoche of one of my biggest problems with both Japanese and American society. People are expected to applaud and appreciate and even worship people who are set up as special for some reason or another. But if a person should actually demonstrate some measure of superiority it's considered in poor taste. Why else would so many people in Japan, more than are statistically possible to fit into a "median group," claim that they were middle class? Why else would people in the US who make several hundred thousand dollars a year say they were "just, y'know, kind of upper-middle class?" Why would it be considered offensive to act superior if you are, in fact, better than someone at something?
Of course, I'm trying to cover a bit too much here. The point is: kids here have to stick together, whether the class is too easy or too hard. And the educators don't like it, but there's not much anyone thinks can be done about it...
"We know that equality of individual ability has never existed and never will, but we do insist that equality of opportunity still must be sought."
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt
Which, I guess, could be read as saying that everyone, even the poor, the non-white, the female, the stupid, the crippled, the belivers in different religions, and the members of the political party that is out of fashion all ought to have a fair shot at life.
Of course, money tends to skew things, but it's a nice enough sentiment, and it sounds especially good when you slap it on something like education. Who could be against a fair chance for children? Even for those truly, butt-ugly children. Naturally, there've been causes for improvement in the execution of this fairness idea, but generally, it's a pretty straightforward concept.
I bring this up because the principal of the school where I work has been chatting with me about his school and schools in Japan in general. As a foreigner, I can offer him the perspective of an outsider as well an aspect of the confessional. Since he speaks to me in fairly rapid English the other teachers can't understand what he's saying. And even if I did want to tell someone else what he said, no one would really listen to me or take me seriously. I'm not Japanese, you know.
To get back to the point, he explained that there is nothing like gifted and talented or AP classes available in Japanese public schools. During the post-war reconstruction of Japan, the education system was totally re-organized with 1940's America as a rough model. While this did mean giving up the Imperial German style of education adopted during the Meiji restoration, complete with unthinking monarch-obediance and a military-preperatory emphasis, it did allow for a greater sense of opportunity. Under the new system, education was supposed to be available to all children, regardless of ability or gender.
But as the revolutions of the 40's ossified into the policies of today, there has been a similar hardening of ideas. According to my principal, most parents today insist on an equal treatment for all students. Even in cases of wildly different ability. A dyslexic child will be kept in the same class as his peers, just as a math prodigy will be kept in the same class, regardless of ability. There is no variation in curriculum within an age level. There are no advanced placement classes, no accelerated courses, no college level courses for those nerdy kids in the high school who were always wrecking the curve. Nothing. Most school districts do have one or two schools per age range that offer a class for developmentally disabled children, and occasionally an entire school for a specific disability, like blindness or deafness. But in general, the kids are kept together by age. Period.
It seems puzzling to me that a child with extraordinary talents would not be allowed to move as quickly as their mind would allow, but the idea of wasted potential never even enters the debate. Maybe it's just an expression of the "sticking out nail gets hammered down" idea, but that really strikes me as wrong. Especially given the tendency to spoil children in Japan. As long as a person is considered a child, they tend to be indulged far more that seems usual from an American point of view. And it strikes me as sort of, well, callous to keep a kid in a class that's below what they're capable of. Having been stuck in manditory lessons myself, I can tell you it's no picnic.
But maybe I'm just viewing this as a synecdoche of one of my biggest problems with both Japanese and American society. People are expected to applaud and appreciate and even worship people who are set up as special for some reason or another. But if a person should actually demonstrate some measure of superiority it's considered in poor taste. Why else would so many people in Japan, more than are statistically possible to fit into a "median group," claim that they were middle class? Why else would people in the US who make several hundred thousand dollars a year say they were "just, y'know, kind of upper-middle class?" Why would it be considered offensive to act superior if you are, in fact, better than someone at something?
Of course, I'm trying to cover a bit too much here. The point is: kids here have to stick together, whether the class is too easy or too hard. And the educators don't like it, but there's not much anyone thinks can be done about it...
21 June 2005
I thought this was going to be a different topic...
...but sometimes you have to take what the world gives you. In this case, a minor story about the re-issue in Japan of a book that was banned mainly due to US pressure: "Little Black Sambo," a story that is presumably about a boy in India outwitting a pair of tigers. But it's most famous for it's presumably racist illustrations of a golliwog negro, complete with large red lips and bulging white eyes. In the US the book hadn't been domestically published for quite some time, but new editions are easily available from online distributors.
But the point I'm curious about is the question of intent. Most of the defenders of the book seem to fall into two categories. The first group says that it's not really racist because the original author and illustrator had no racist intent. The second is that it's a beloved piece of nostalgia, and Sambo outwits all his opponents and wins in the end, and anyway the story's setting in India makes Sambo Asian and not Black to boot.
But trying to decide if racism can be eliminated from a situation by deciding on intent is tricky. Kazuo Mori, an educational psychologist at Shinshu University in Nagano, re-illustrated the story, but
It's worth noting that the name, Chibikuro, literally translates as "Little Black," but with a ring of affection. Not unlike "L'il Abner" or "Little Lulu." And "Sampo", which can also be transliterated as "sanpo," means walk or stroll. Thus, the new name comes to mean something like "Walking the Black Lab Puppy" in Japanese. And even this wound up being argued over.
I guess the only thing i can add is that most of these disputes seem to boil down to perception, both of things and of the intent of others. I'd like to sum this up, but it's too broad and too sprawling. Should the history of America and Europe have anything to do with the book sales in Japan? Can the anyone take something that's so loaded with meaning for one group and use it somewhere else with no problems at all? Is it even fair to expect understanding of why something might be inflamatory from a group that has no real history with any of the root issues? And is it possible that all this thinking and guessing and examination is just making things worse?
Fuck, I'm starting to understand Rodney's feeling when he uttered those famous words, But I keep wanting to change it a bit.
"Why can't we get along here?"
Why?
But the point I'm curious about is the question of intent. Most of the defenders of the book seem to fall into two categories. The first group says that it's not really racist because the original author and illustrator had no racist intent. The second is that it's a beloved piece of nostalgia, and Sambo outwits all his opponents and wins in the end, and anyway the story's setting in India makes Sambo Asian and not Black to boot.
But trying to decide if racism can be eliminated from a situation by deciding on intent is tricky. Kazuo Mori, an educational psychologist at Shinshu University in Nagano, re-illustrated the story, but
with the central character drawn as a black Labrador puppy. The test groups [in Japan] found both illustrated versions equally amusing.
Ergo, no racism, Mori concluded.
He then fine-tuned the drawings of the puppy, found himself a publisher, and in 1997 released a "nonracist" version of the tale, titled "Chikiburo Sampo."
It's worth noting that the name, Chibikuro, literally translates as "Little Black," but with a ring of affection. Not unlike "L'il Abner" or "Little Lulu." And "Sampo", which can also be transliterated as "sanpo," means walk or stroll. Thus, the new name comes to mean something like "Walking the Black Lab Puppy" in Japanese. And even this wound up being argued over.
I guess the only thing i can add is that most of these disputes seem to boil down to perception, both of things and of the intent of others. I'd like to sum this up, but it's too broad and too sprawling. Should the history of America and Europe have anything to do with the book sales in Japan? Can the anyone take something that's so loaded with meaning for one group and use it somewhere else with no problems at all? Is it even fair to expect understanding of why something might be inflamatory from a group that has no real history with any of the root issues? And is it possible that all this thinking and guessing and examination is just making things worse?
Fuck, I'm starting to understand Rodney's feeling when he uttered those famous words, But I keep wanting to change it a bit.
"Why can't we get along here?"
Why?
15 June 2005
Racism. Mine, that is... (continued)
I suppose that some clarification is in order. It wasn't my intent to cast doubt on the sincerity or depth of my friendships. But the problem with race is that, as an issue, it is so loaded, almost any sentence is likely to raise all sorts of unintended and unforeseen reactions in the people who read it.
For the record: I don't actually have mental categories of "bad whites" and "good whites" to file people in, and I don't generally have a compulsion to start with race as a classification when I'm trying to describe someone. The people I grew up with, I'm talking about those unfortunate few who knew me way back when, they exist on their own, beyond the traps of race that we all had to learn together.
But you have to understand that in America, the sociological default image of a person is someone white with a Christian-background. That's what is assumed about the characters in any screenplay, unless specifically mentioned otherwise. That's who the target consumer is, unless specifically mentioned otherwise. That's who the laws are intended to protect, unless specifically mentioned otherwise.
Oh, sure, other groups can fit into those categories. There was no reason that the lead in 'I, Robot' couldn't have been a Portuguese guy, with the possible exception of Will Smith's marketability. There's no reason that Hispanic women or Laotian men can't shop at J. Crew, with the possible exception of not wanting to look like dorks. And there's nothing to stop anyone, regardless of race, from seeking redress in a court of law, with the possible exception of not having enough money for a court battle. But if you look at the laws, the people who write them, and the people who most often receive unequal treatment under those laws, some things start to seem, well, most easily described?and explained in terms of race.
My goal, however, isn't get into the finer distinctions within the law. My point is that history, culture, religion and habit still affect, tinge and distort the way people get treated. Being out of a predominately white social setting has made me realize a lot of things about my own preconceptions. And saying them out loud sounds as ludicrous to me as hearing these things in reverse from other people sounded. But it's the clearest way I can think of to articulate what it's like to be reminded every single day that you're not really who was meant in the official idea of society.
After I really got to know some people, after we really got to be friends, I found I honestly was able to forget that they were white. I could think of them as just Stephanie, Justin and Mark, and not "Stephanie the white girl," "Justin the white guy" and "that white Mark."
Oddly enough, when I really try to think about my attitudes concerning white people, I find they're mostly directed at Americans. I'm sure there are plenty of stereotypically white people in Europe and Canada, to say nothing of New Zealand, Australia and that island populated by descendants of the mutineers from The Bounty, any of whom may behave just like Americans in terms of race. But I don?t find myself prejudging them in the same ways that I do Americans.
Maybe it has to do with the relatively small amount of time I've spent in the company of people from different places. The few folks I've met have, by and large, been open-minded, fair, and rather intelligent. I don't have enough experience with racist Swedes, for example, to have formed a predisposition concerning Sweden. And you could probably say that, in general, people who choose to live abroad tend to be more open-minded. Or at least, more open to new experiences.
Maybe it's because I expect more of my countrymen. I don't feel the same sense of offence from a Korean person asking me why there are dark brown people in my country, or from an Iranian person asking me where in the world my family comes from. Maybe it's because I don't feel there's any reason to expect them to understand the separation between race, nationality and identity that pervades American life.
I do expect some degree of that sort of understanding from white people from the Commonwealth Nations, though. One of the legacies of the British Empire, apart from the sacrament of Gin and Tonic and the communion of football, was a lot of forced interaction between Anglo-Saxons and damn near everyone else from outside of Europe. Exploitative or not, as those people had to live around each other, some sort of mutual awareness should have arisen.
In Japan, well, there are a couple of different flavors of racism, sexism, and nationalist discrimination that show up in different levels, concentrations and expressions just about everywhere. But I can sort of understand why it still exists here. Some days it�s easier to deal with than others, but in general, it seems to be ignorance instead of maliciousness. That said, however, I have a hell of a lot of trouble tolerating ignorance in people who ought to know better or who have had opportunities to learn better. Willful ignorance is just about the only thing I find unforgivable.
Of course, some people, regardless of race, creed or gender, are just assholes.
Maybe that�s enough of that for now, huh? Next time: more senseless griping about something trivial. Or an observation about pop culture that I can�t adequately explain.
For the record: I don't actually have mental categories of "bad whites" and "good whites" to file people in, and I don't generally have a compulsion to start with race as a classification when I'm trying to describe someone. The people I grew up with, I'm talking about those unfortunate few who knew me way back when, they exist on their own, beyond the traps of race that we all had to learn together.
But you have to understand that in America, the sociological default image of a person is someone white with a Christian-background. That's what is assumed about the characters in any screenplay, unless specifically mentioned otherwise. That's who the target consumer is, unless specifically mentioned otherwise. That's who the laws are intended to protect, unless specifically mentioned otherwise.
Oh, sure, other groups can fit into those categories. There was no reason that the lead in 'I, Robot' couldn't have been a Portuguese guy, with the possible exception of Will Smith's marketability. There's no reason that Hispanic women or Laotian men can't shop at J. Crew, with the possible exception of not wanting to look like dorks. And there's nothing to stop anyone, regardless of race, from seeking redress in a court of law, with the possible exception of not having enough money for a court battle. But if you look at the laws, the people who write them, and the people who most often receive unequal treatment under those laws, some things start to seem, well, most easily described?and explained in terms of race.
My goal, however, isn't get into the finer distinctions within the law. My point is that history, culture, religion and habit still affect, tinge and distort the way people get treated. Being out of a predominately white social setting has made me realize a lot of things about my own preconceptions. And saying them out loud sounds as ludicrous to me as hearing these things in reverse from other people sounded. But it's the clearest way I can think of to articulate what it's like to be reminded every single day that you're not really who was meant in the official idea of society.
After I really got to know some people, after we really got to be friends, I found I honestly was able to forget that they were white. I could think of them as just Stephanie, Justin and Mark, and not "Stephanie the white girl," "Justin the white guy" and "that white Mark."
Oddly enough, when I really try to think about my attitudes concerning white people, I find they're mostly directed at Americans. I'm sure there are plenty of stereotypically white people in Europe and Canada, to say nothing of New Zealand, Australia and that island populated by descendants of the mutineers from The Bounty, any of whom may behave just like Americans in terms of race. But I don?t find myself prejudging them in the same ways that I do Americans.
Maybe it has to do with the relatively small amount of time I've spent in the company of people from different places. The few folks I've met have, by and large, been open-minded, fair, and rather intelligent. I don't have enough experience with racist Swedes, for example, to have formed a predisposition concerning Sweden. And you could probably say that, in general, people who choose to live abroad tend to be more open-minded. Or at least, more open to new experiences.
Maybe it's because I expect more of my countrymen. I don't feel the same sense of offence from a Korean person asking me why there are dark brown people in my country, or from an Iranian person asking me where in the world my family comes from. Maybe it's because I don't feel there's any reason to expect them to understand the separation between race, nationality and identity that pervades American life.
I do expect some degree of that sort of understanding from white people from the Commonwealth Nations, though. One of the legacies of the British Empire, apart from the sacrament of Gin and Tonic and the communion of football, was a lot of forced interaction between Anglo-Saxons and damn near everyone else from outside of Europe. Exploitative or not, as those people had to live around each other, some sort of mutual awareness should have arisen.
In Japan, well, there are a couple of different flavors of racism, sexism, and nationalist discrimination that show up in different levels, concentrations and expressions just about everywhere. But I can sort of understand why it still exists here. Some days it�s easier to deal with than others, but in general, it seems to be ignorance instead of maliciousness. That said, however, I have a hell of a lot of trouble tolerating ignorance in people who ought to know better or who have had opportunities to learn better. Willful ignorance is just about the only thing I find unforgivable.
Of course, some people, regardless of race, creed or gender, are just assholes.
Maybe that�s enough of that for now, huh? Next time: more senseless griping about something trivial. Or an observation about pop culture that I can�t adequately explain.
07 June 2005
Paranoia and racism.
On Sunday my girlfriend and I went to see a play put on at the Canadian Embassy in central Tokyo. It was a very clever one-act about a self-centered ass of a nephew who has come to visit his aunt in her final days and wait for her to die. It'd been a while since I'd seen a play, and it was a pretty good one. Even if I didn't like the music they chose for the scene transitions.
But since it was an English play that was staged in the Canadian embassy, the audience, which wasn't that big, only around 40 or 50 people, was overwhelmingly non-Japanese. And with the exceptions of a neatly-groomed middle-aged Japanese guy, a Bohemian-stylish Japanese woman and me, they were all white.
It took a few minutes to work out what was so unsettling about the audience. It was like stepping into one of those trick rooms where all the furniture is painted with a pattern that makes it look too large and the wallpaper lines make the room look like it shrinks towards one end. My mind wasn't processing some bit of input data properly and it was skewing all the results. Then it hit me. All those round, watery, blue eyes. That weird, irregularly pigmented pinkish skin. The noses: ships prows and cathedral arches and great cavernous icebergs, paused in the act of calving off of glacial faces. There was so much meaty, pale bulk in that room. The heavy set people seemed saggy and soft. Living versions of those craft-store dolls made of cleverly stitched pantyhose stuffed with cotton. But even the few slim people seemed somehow unnatural-looking and out of proportion.
Have you read the original Planet of the Apes? I recently finished a good translation of it, and the protagonist suffered a similar predicament after living in ape society. His former surroundings, his former peers no longer seem normal to him. He becomes acclimatized to the apes, and is unable to relax in human company.
But I can't say I ever felt like a human among apes here. Then again, there were precious few times I felt like a human among humans in America. Race always threw an irregularity into things. And there in that theater, where I should have been able to suspend disbelief and feel like I was actually observing a man hoping his elderly aunt would kick off, I kept flashing back to the fact that I was surrounded and outnumbered by white people. Homogeneous, fleshy, white people with Midwestern American and Canadian accents.
White western-hemisphere people, you don't all look alike to me. But in groups, you make it nearly impossible to relax in your presence. The vast majority of you, by default and without realizing why, treat me differently than you treat each other from the moment you lay eyes on me. It's not that different from Japan, but they've got centuries of isolation and a limited level of interaction with other races outside of the context of war.
But growing up in America, where we were supposed to be rubbing shoulders with everyone regardless of race, creed or color, has left me with this kink in my vision that I can't turn off. Some, hell, most of my best friends are white Americans. But I can't get past this issue yet, and it was surprising to have it pulled up here in Japan.
But since it was an English play that was staged in the Canadian embassy, the audience, which wasn't that big, only around 40 or 50 people, was overwhelmingly non-Japanese. And with the exceptions of a neatly-groomed middle-aged Japanese guy, a Bohemian-stylish Japanese woman and me, they were all white.
It took a few minutes to work out what was so unsettling about the audience. It was like stepping into one of those trick rooms where all the furniture is painted with a pattern that makes it look too large and the wallpaper lines make the room look like it shrinks towards one end. My mind wasn't processing some bit of input data properly and it was skewing all the results. Then it hit me. All those round, watery, blue eyes. That weird, irregularly pigmented pinkish skin. The noses: ships prows and cathedral arches and great cavernous icebergs, paused in the act of calving off of glacial faces. There was so much meaty, pale bulk in that room. The heavy set people seemed saggy and soft. Living versions of those craft-store dolls made of cleverly stitched pantyhose stuffed with cotton. But even the few slim people seemed somehow unnatural-looking and out of proportion.
Have you read the original Planet of the Apes? I recently finished a good translation of it, and the protagonist suffered a similar predicament after living in ape society. His former surroundings, his former peers no longer seem normal to him. He becomes acclimatized to the apes, and is unable to relax in human company.
But I can't say I ever felt like a human among apes here. Then again, there were precious few times I felt like a human among humans in America. Race always threw an irregularity into things. And there in that theater, where I should have been able to suspend disbelief and feel like I was actually observing a man hoping his elderly aunt would kick off, I kept flashing back to the fact that I was surrounded and outnumbered by white people. Homogeneous, fleshy, white people with Midwestern American and Canadian accents.
White western-hemisphere people, you don't all look alike to me. But in groups, you make it nearly impossible to relax in your presence. The vast majority of you, by default and without realizing why, treat me differently than you treat each other from the moment you lay eyes on me. It's not that different from Japan, but they've got centuries of isolation and a limited level of interaction with other races outside of the context of war.
But growing up in America, where we were supposed to be rubbing shoulders with everyone regardless of race, creed or color, has left me with this kink in my vision that I can't turn off. Some, hell, most of my best friends are white Americans. But I can't get past this issue yet, and it was surprising to have it pulled up here in Japan.
24 May 2005
Just for the record...
On Friday night last week I was able to go to a teeny-weeny club on the second floor of a mixed use building in Ogikubo, a part of Tokyo that feels like the good parts of the Nob Hill/university area in Albuquerque. For a one-drink minimum I got to hear five hours of good music in a comfortable, clean, smoke-free room. All the guests were well-behaved and generally decent dancers. And after it was all over, it was quick work to catch a clean, fairly priced cab for a ride back home.
There are, in fact, many good things about living in Japan. I just find it easier to channel rage and bile into the will to write than I do contentment and satisfaction.
There are, in fact, many good things about living in Japan. I just find it easier to channel rage and bile into the will to write than I do contentment and satisfaction.
In summary: Elementary school lessons are bad for me
I have recently had to go through the process of introducing myself to elementary schools again. This time there was enough about it I recognized so that I could not focus on the procedure so much, but on what surrounds that procedure. Will you excuse my going into some detail here? Thank you.
The two schools in question are fairly large; each has approximately four classes of 35 students for each grade, grades one through six. One homeroom teacher per class, a head teacher, principal and vice-principal, a school secretary, 3 or 4 maintenance staff, and a few specialized teacher/counsellors. And me, who will be coming to the school every other wednesday for the next 10 1/2 months.
Last year there was a different foreigner doing the job I have now. "Skip-sensei" was much liked and quite well known in this town. And all the students, with the exception of the youngest classes, are aware of there being a change, because the first phrase most of them had to say was something like "the foreign teacher is here, but it's not Skip."
Please don't think I begrudge Skip his lasting popularity. It sounds like he worked hard and was a decent person. But it would seem that, even among the older students, there is still something lacking in their familiarity with foreign people. For one thing, there were an awful lot of students who wanted to touch my hands and arms, sometimes for a handshake, sometimes to compare relative hand sizes, and sometimes with the same tentative pressure you might give an avocado to check its ripeness. A touch meant to find information about the composition of a thing. And their cry afterwards was often something like "I did it! I recieved a handshake from the new foreigner!" or "Whoa! His arms feel like my uncle's..."
The whole thing reminded me of the guy who brought his lizards to my elementary school for an assembly, years and years ago. After grabbing our attention with his bug-eating iguana, he brought out a python which we were encouraged to touch, if we felt brave enough. The buzz around the kids who did go up felt about the same as here. Except I was on the other side this time, with the turtle and the iguana, basking in the 100 watt glare of children's curiousity and the reverberating echoes of "cool" and "whoa" and "wow" elicited by every action.
I am convinced I am not a celebrity, and I am well aware of the fickle way in which kids are motivated by novelty. That said, this whole process could easily mess with your head. Teachers who think you're some kind of entertainer may encourage the class to applaud you for merely showing up to do your job. You may be asked, with rapt attention, if you can eat rice or bread, what your favorite color is, and how many people are in your family. You might be paraded in front of the entire school, faculty, staff, parents organizations and local government, like a visiting dignitary (I've seen them do it to Chinese diplomats) or a school pet (I've seen them do it to rabbits and turtles). They may serve you separate meals in a room all by yourself, or they may hustle you from class to class with the express purpose of letting the chidren watch you and ask you questions while you try to eat.
Is this what feminist writers talk about when they use the word "objectified?" Because there is very little introduction of my self in situtations like that, and a lot more comments about the physical dimensions I occupy and whether or not I would be able to use a bed, bath, clothing store, escalator, chopsticks or doorway. The whole process must look good once the itinerary had been written up and filed away (generally under "experiental education" or "pending investication"), but it ain't so good for a person's spirit.
The two schools in question are fairly large; each has approximately four classes of 35 students for each grade, grades one through six. One homeroom teacher per class, a head teacher, principal and vice-principal, a school secretary, 3 or 4 maintenance staff, and a few specialized teacher/counsellors. And me, who will be coming to the school every other wednesday for the next 10 1/2 months.
Last year there was a different foreigner doing the job I have now. "Skip-sensei" was much liked and quite well known in this town. And all the students, with the exception of the youngest classes, are aware of there being a change, because the first phrase most of them had to say was something like "the foreign teacher is here, but it's not Skip."
Please don't think I begrudge Skip his lasting popularity. It sounds like he worked hard and was a decent person. But it would seem that, even among the older students, there is still something lacking in their familiarity with foreign people. For one thing, there were an awful lot of students who wanted to touch my hands and arms, sometimes for a handshake, sometimes to compare relative hand sizes, and sometimes with the same tentative pressure you might give an avocado to check its ripeness. A touch meant to find information about the composition of a thing. And their cry afterwards was often something like "I did it! I recieved a handshake from the new foreigner!" or "Whoa! His arms feel like my uncle's..."
The whole thing reminded me of the guy who brought his lizards to my elementary school for an assembly, years and years ago. After grabbing our attention with his bug-eating iguana, he brought out a python which we were encouraged to touch, if we felt brave enough. The buzz around the kids who did go up felt about the same as here. Except I was on the other side this time, with the turtle and the iguana, basking in the 100 watt glare of children's curiousity and the reverberating echoes of "cool" and "whoa" and "wow" elicited by every action.
I am convinced I am not a celebrity, and I am well aware of the fickle way in which kids are motivated by novelty. That said, this whole process could easily mess with your head. Teachers who think you're some kind of entertainer may encourage the class to applaud you for merely showing up to do your job. You may be asked, with rapt attention, if you can eat rice or bread, what your favorite color is, and how many people are in your family. You might be paraded in front of the entire school, faculty, staff, parents organizations and local government, like a visiting dignitary (I've seen them do it to Chinese diplomats) or a school pet (I've seen them do it to rabbits and turtles). They may serve you separate meals in a room all by yourself, or they may hustle you from class to class with the express purpose of letting the chidren watch you and ask you questions while you try to eat.
Is this what feminist writers talk about when they use the word "objectified?" Because there is very little introduction of my self in situtations like that, and a lot more comments about the physical dimensions I occupy and whether or not I would be able to use a bed, bath, clothing store, escalator, chopsticks or doorway. The whole process must look good once the itinerary had been written up and filed away (generally under "experiental education" or "pending investication"), but it ain't so good for a person's spirit.
12 May 2005
They go together like, well, like something, I'm sure.
Okay. On a completely different note, when I lived in LA, I had enough free time to waste it on some profoundly stupid things. For example, there was an episode of the Simpsons where Homer asked Apu if he had "any of that beer with candy floating in it, y'know, Skittlebrau?"
Well, one of my then-roommates and I decided to test the Skittlebrau idea one night. As it turns out, Skittles are too dense. They sink right to the bottom of whatever kind of beer you put them in, and stick together like a fructose coral reef. And their delightful candy colors are highly water and alcohol soluble. We certainly could "taste the rainbow," as it was leached right off the candies and formed a brownish-gray cloud at the top of the beer.
And the Root-Beer-Floats-with-real-beer didn't work any better. The bitter of the beer clashed with the creamy of the ice cream to make a curdled flavor fandango. It was like a party in my mouth where everyone was pouring wallpaper paste and vinegar on the floor.
As culinary booze-hound experiements go, it was strictly 5th grade science fair stuff.
But this guy has set a shockingly high standard with the "pork martini" tests. Well done, Mr. Karpf. Well done.
Well, one of my then-roommates and I decided to test the Skittlebrau idea one night. As it turns out, Skittles are too dense. They sink right to the bottom of whatever kind of beer you put them in, and stick together like a fructose coral reef. And their delightful candy colors are highly water and alcohol soluble. We certainly could "taste the rainbow," as it was leached right off the candies and formed a brownish-gray cloud at the top of the beer.
And the Root-Beer-Floats-with-real-beer didn't work any better. The bitter of the beer clashed with the creamy of the ice cream to make a curdled flavor fandango. It was like a party in my mouth where everyone was pouring wallpaper paste and vinegar on the floor.
As culinary booze-hound experiements go, it was strictly 5th grade science fair stuff.
But this guy has set a shockingly high standard with the "pork martini" tests. Well done, Mr. Karpf. Well done.
Catch 21? Catch 23? C'mon, work with me here...
I'm going to a Japanese class tonight for the first time in almost two years. There were a number of reasons I hadn't been studying much lately, but in trying to get into this class I was reminded of one of the most frustrating ones. Japan is a monolingual nation. Regardless of efforts to nurture foreign language skills, there's really just one acceptable way to communicate here, regardless of how satisfying the obscenities in sign language may be.
"Duh," you might say, "they only speak French in France, German in Germany, uh, , Hollandaise in the Netherlands and Australian in Australia." Well, sure. But in almost all of those countries there is a relatively large concern about immigrants. Japan, on the other hand, has no such issues.
Business is done here in Japanese. Laws are written and (occasionally) made available for public examination primarily in Japanese. Emergency instructions in case of disaster are broadcast in Japanese. Police instructions in case of crisis, civil emergency, or situations of martial law are only made in Japanese. Instructions for preparing prepackaged food are only in Japanese. And most frustrating of all, the procedures to be followed to undertake the study of the Japanese language are in Japanese.
Seriously. I called the city department of foreign affairs, which handles stuff to do with foreigners, to ask about classes in Japanese. They gave out a flier announcing Japanese language classes with a headline in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic, Korean and Russian with phone numbers, class times and locations. But no one answering the phones could speak English or Spanish.
To give them the benefit of the doubt, it is probable that they have someone there competent in Chinese or Korean. And I didn't even try to speak Russian, Arabic or Portuguese.
Before I could try and get into a class to learn Japanese, I had to try and speak Japanese. Frustrating. And not just because my vocabulary is mostly limited to words concerning food, insults, alcohol and robots. Also because most phone conversations are conducted in the extra-polite Japanese that most textbooks don't cover until right towards the end. Would you ask somone with the language skills of a 7 year old if they "would kindly forgive the imposition of relating their complete apellation in addition to the location of their domicile?" Yeah, well, that's what they asked me.
And at no point did they try to transfer me to someone who could speak English. Or Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic, Korean or Russian. There was never even a question of it. Which reminds me of the textbook I bought to prepare for the Japanese Language test I took. For the lowest level you supposed to have mastered the syllabaries, around 150 words, the present and past tenses, and basic sentences of location; about the equivalent of one semester's worth of study at college level. Why do you suppose the book for the lowest level test-takers had it's explanations all in Japanese?
As if that wasn't enough, NHK's educational line-up for Japanese study has gotten rid of the old program with the bilingually fluent and easily understandable Katsuya Kobayashi and introduced a new show with a Q&A format to explain Japanese grammar and usage in (wait for it...) Japanese. After an hour's searching on the web, this was about the best I could do to find information about the show in English: an electronic translation of the NHK educational program schedule. You'll notice that the program for learning Japanese is at the bottom of the page, and airs at the delightful times of 11:10 PM on Friday nights with a repeat at 12:10 AM on the following Thursday.
I'm aware of the arguments in favor of immersion for language learning. I'm aware of the value of practice in improving skills. And I understand what a teeny-tiny minority of the population here needs language instruction. But all this reminds me why it's so easy to fall back on the image of Japanese culture as being closed to outsiders. Maybe there is a genuine interest in sharing Japan with the rest of the world, but there's precious few avenues available to learn how to understand the culture on your own.
"Duh," you might say, "they only speak French in France, German in Germany, uh, , Hollandaise in the Netherlands and Australian in Australia." Well, sure. But in almost all of those countries there is a relatively large concern about immigrants. Japan, on the other hand, has no such issues.
Business is done here in Japanese. Laws are written and (occasionally) made available for public examination primarily in Japanese. Emergency instructions in case of disaster are broadcast in Japanese. Police instructions in case of crisis, civil emergency, or situations of martial law are only made in Japanese. Instructions for preparing prepackaged food are only in Japanese. And most frustrating of all, the procedures to be followed to undertake the study of the Japanese language are in Japanese.
Seriously. I called the city department of foreign affairs, which handles stuff to do with foreigners, to ask about classes in Japanese. They gave out a flier announcing Japanese language classes with a headline in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic, Korean and Russian with phone numbers, class times and locations. But no one answering the phones could speak English or Spanish.
To give them the benefit of the doubt, it is probable that they have someone there competent in Chinese or Korean. And I didn't even try to speak Russian, Arabic or Portuguese.
Before I could try and get into a class to learn Japanese, I had to try and speak Japanese. Frustrating. And not just because my vocabulary is mostly limited to words concerning food, insults, alcohol and robots. Also because most phone conversations are conducted in the extra-polite Japanese that most textbooks don't cover until right towards the end. Would you ask somone with the language skills of a 7 year old if they "would kindly forgive the imposition of relating their complete apellation in addition to the location of their domicile?" Yeah, well, that's what they asked me.
And at no point did they try to transfer me to someone who could speak English. Or Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic, Korean or Russian. There was never even a question of it. Which reminds me of the textbook I bought to prepare for the Japanese Language test I took. For the lowest level you supposed to have mastered the syllabaries, around 150 words, the present and past tenses, and basic sentences of location; about the equivalent of one semester's worth of study at college level. Why do you suppose the book for the lowest level test-takers had it's explanations all in Japanese?
As if that wasn't enough, NHK's educational line-up for Japanese study has gotten rid of the old program with the bilingually fluent and easily understandable Katsuya Kobayashi and introduced a new show with a Q&A format to explain Japanese grammar and usage in (wait for it...) Japanese. After an hour's searching on the web, this was about the best I could do to find information about the show in English: an electronic translation of the NHK educational program schedule. You'll notice that the program for learning Japanese is at the bottom of the page, and airs at the delightful times of 11:10 PM on Friday nights with a repeat at 12:10 AM on the following Thursday.
I'm aware of the arguments in favor of immersion for language learning. I'm aware of the value of practice in improving skills. And I understand what a teeny-tiny minority of the population here needs language instruction. But all this reminds me why it's so easy to fall back on the image of Japanese culture as being closed to outsiders. Maybe there is a genuine interest in sharing Japan with the rest of the world, but there's precious few avenues available to learn how to understand the culture on your own.
10 May 2005
The Quick Update. In a word: "Odd."
Man, updating this thing regularly is a pain in the keester. Let's see here. After I finished my last contract teaching elementary school in Chiyoda, it would have been around the end of March. I was expecting to have all of April off and to start a part-time gig three or four days a week around the beginning of May. As it turned out, my improvident lackwit manager elected to sign me up for a full time position that started April 8th instead.
So rather than shuffling between a half-dozen different schools, I'm based in a single Jr. High school and teach elementary lessons one day a week. It's odd. I mean, having a single workplace again. I actually have a reason to try and learn my coworkers' names. I actually have coworkers again, which is also odd. The last year has largely been an exercise in enforced social solitude. Which is the only way I can think of to describe being in a room for nine hours a day with other people but being prevented from interacting with anyone. Now I'm having to dust off some social skills which were never that sharp to begin with.
So it goes, so it goes.
Anyway, I'm working again, in Junior High again. But I've taken a leave of absence from my night job, so I'm no longer working 60 hours a week. I can actually get home before sunset, if I rush. Things like grocery shopping and laundry and sleeping more than 5 hours a night are suddenly possible any day of the week. Again, the feeling is odd.
Will this mark the beginning of a shift towards normalcy, healthy behavior and fewer sociopathic tendencies1?
1 "No. It's a nice sentiment, though."
So rather than shuffling between a half-dozen different schools, I'm based in a single Jr. High school and teach elementary lessons one day a week. It's odd. I mean, having a single workplace again. I actually have a reason to try and learn my coworkers' names. I actually have coworkers again, which is also odd. The last year has largely been an exercise in enforced social solitude. Which is the only way I can think of to describe being in a room for nine hours a day with other people but being prevented from interacting with anyone. Now I'm having to dust off some social skills which were never that sharp to begin with.
So it goes, so it goes.
Anyway, I'm working again, in Junior High again. But I've taken a leave of absence from my night job, so I'm no longer working 60 hours a week. I can actually get home before sunset, if I rush. Things like grocery shopping and laundry and sleeping more than 5 hours a night are suddenly possible any day of the week. Again, the feeling is odd.
Will this mark the beginning of a shift towards normalcy, healthy behavior and fewer sociopathic tendencies1?
1 "No. It's a nice sentiment, though."
03 April 2005
Bang for your Buck/Yech for your Yen
Let's say, for argument's sake, that you had around �5000 to spend. You've been a hard-working little squirrel, and now you have some spare acorns to fritter away. Well, what might you do?
You could spend it on some personal grooming. You know, try and keep the ladies looking and whatnot. And what better way to start than with updating that stodgy old haircut. And the hip look in Tokyo these days is a sort of 60s-Shag revival:
Of course, not all styles are suited to all faces. Maybe something with a little less...wig is in order. How about the chappatsu look that's swept the nation.
And finally, like most hard-working acorn gatherers, you could spend that money on booze for a quick fix of fun!
Just don't get so drunk you forget whether or not skin outranks steel wire on the Mohs Hardness Scale.
Whoo-Hah!
You could spend it on some personal grooming. You know, try and keep the ladies looking and whatnot. And what better way to start than with updating that stodgy old haircut. And the hip look in Tokyo these days is a sort of 60s-Shag revival:
Of course, not all styles are suited to all faces. Maybe something with a little less...wig is in order. How about the chappatsu look that's swept the nation.
And finally, like most hard-working acorn gatherers, you could spend that money on booze for a quick fix of fun!
Just don't get so drunk you forget whether or not skin outranks steel wire on the Mohs Hardness Scale.
Whoo-Hah!
22 March 2005
Futility
Tonight I'm going to work a half shift at the conversation school. Of the four students on my schedule, at least two of them have pretty much given up on studying grammar, vocabulary or idiom, and have opted instead to "enjoy conversation and have fun speaking freely."
I wouldn't mind that so much if I wasn't suffering from hay fever. Thanks to reconstruction-era construction plans, there were enourmous numbers of Japanese Cedar trees planted that were meant to be harvested for building and construction. Of course, about four years after WWII, most construction shifted to reinforced concrete and steel framing, which meant most of those trees were never harvested. So now Japan is enjoying the earliest, strongest, most widely spread pollenation season ever. And I was feeling it hard. Which was why I took a non-drowsy allergy medicine.
Please bear in mind, "non-drowsy" only means it won't make you sleepy. There's nothing in there about not feeling fuzzy, out-of-focus, or mildly stoned. Not exactly the best frame of mind from which to feign interest in someone.
Tonight ought to be interesting. To impartial observers, anyway.
I wouldn't mind that so much if I wasn't suffering from hay fever. Thanks to reconstruction-era construction plans, there were enourmous numbers of Japanese Cedar trees planted that were meant to be harvested for building and construction. Of course, about four years after WWII, most construction shifted to reinforced concrete and steel framing, which meant most of those trees were never harvested. So now Japan is enjoying the earliest, strongest, most widely spread pollenation season ever. And I was feeling it hard. Which was why I took a non-drowsy allergy medicine.
Please bear in mind, "non-drowsy" only means it won't make you sleepy. There's nothing in there about not feeling fuzzy, out-of-focus, or mildly stoned. Not exactly the best frame of mind from which to feign interest in someone.
Tonight ought to be interesting. To impartial observers, anyway.
09 March 2005
Fuck you. Fuck you all very much.
My contract to teach English at (and engage in international exchange events with) the elementary schools of Chiyoda ward, Tokyo is almost over. Two more weeks and I'll be done. And now, after what seemed to be an endless supply of futile repetition, frustrating setbacks, injuries and insults, I'm finding out what the response has been. It looks as though I was appreciated by the teachers, who rarely could be bothered to raise their heads when they were in the class with me, and the parents, whose snot-nosed children apparently managed to retain a line or two of English after spending the class screaming like sugar-addled Tourrette's sufferers or staring sullenly into the blank expanse of obedience and consumerism that would make up the rest of their lives.
What kind of bullshit is this? If you really think that what I was doing was worthwhile, then get off your flat, lazy ass and shut your students up when they spend the class teasing anyone who can muster the confidence to try and speak. And when your children come home and want to continue playing games where they slap anyone and anything in their field of vision to see what will pay them any attention, correct those mucus-smeared little apes. After a year of putting up with all kinds of crap, hearing "we really appreciate what you've been doing" seems like the most obnoxious, bald-faced insult I could imagine. If they really appreciated it, why didn't they make any effort to help me?
One thing I've learned fairly thoroughly about Japan is that the more polite, respectful and honorific the language gets, the less it has to do with the actual feelings of the speaker. "We're most ashamed for being unable to explain this undesired situation" is most often used by your supervisor who isn't even going to explain why you're about to be screwed, refused or abused in the name of the company. "It is truly awful that your situation has become so difficult" means "since no easy solution is at hand, I'm going to assume you'll be too polite to ask me to do more than say how bad your situation is." "You must have become exhausted after completing such a working day" is another way to say "Oh, you're leaving before me."
This year I've had up it to my neck. And now the good people of Chiyoda ward along with my dipshit managers are just all a-gush with compliments and gratitude and "hail-fellow-well-met" bonhomie. They can jam it all right up their collective ass.
What kind of bullshit is this? If you really think that what I was doing was worthwhile, then get off your flat, lazy ass and shut your students up when they spend the class teasing anyone who can muster the confidence to try and speak. And when your children come home and want to continue playing games where they slap anyone and anything in their field of vision to see what will pay them any attention, correct those mucus-smeared little apes. After a year of putting up with all kinds of crap, hearing "we really appreciate what you've been doing" seems like the most obnoxious, bald-faced insult I could imagine. If they really appreciated it, why didn't they make any effort to help me?
One thing I've learned fairly thoroughly about Japan is that the more polite, respectful and honorific the language gets, the less it has to do with the actual feelings of the speaker. "We're most ashamed for being unable to explain this undesired situation" is most often used by your supervisor who isn't even going to explain why you're about to be screwed, refused or abused in the name of the company. "It is truly awful that your situation has become so difficult" means "since no easy solution is at hand, I'm going to assume you'll be too polite to ask me to do more than say how bad your situation is." "You must have become exhausted after completing such a working day" is another way to say "Oh, you're leaving before me."
This year I've had up it to my neck. And now the good people of Chiyoda ward along with my dipshit managers are just all a-gush with compliments and gratitude and "hail-fellow-well-met" bonhomie. They can jam it all right up their collective ass.
04 March 2005
Yawning chasm
So, tell me, how often do you get sick of doing the same things over and over?
No, that's not quite right. What determines how quickly you get sick of some things? For example, last month I went to Hokkaido and I ate ramen from the original outpost of my favorite ramen shop three times in two days. I can play Tekken 5 until my eyes dry out and lose the ability to focus, and I have re-read Wind-Up Bird Chronicle until the spine broke. But I became bored with the recommended, tested and proven profitable (for the owners, anyway) teaching method at this one crappy eikaiwa within six weeks. Living on the outskirts of Tokyo lost its luster in less than a month. Within five minutes it became obvious that my supervisor was a dolt of limited perception, unshakable ignorance and possessed of breath that could knock a buzzard off a shit-wagon. Knowing he would soon become tiresome took no great amount of thought.
But what worries me most is the prospect of a lifetime of employment that will leave me bored for the vast majority of it. I don't imagine you want to hear more about it than you already have, but it's all gotten old very quickly. With the exception of that one week I was paid to look after my neighbors pets in 7th grade. 'Cause, y'know, they gave me a key to the house and I'd never really seen a pet rabbit before, and it was the first time I'd had access to someone else's home in their absence. Which is a rush almost as valuable as the goods you take while you're there.*
*Actual value of rush is not likely to exceed a positive value of $10, or a negative value of 18 months per count of breaking and entering.
No, that's not quite right. What determines how quickly you get sick of some things? For example, last month I went to Hokkaido and I ate ramen from the original outpost of my favorite ramen shop three times in two days. I can play Tekken 5 until my eyes dry out and lose the ability to focus, and I have re-read Wind-Up Bird Chronicle until the spine broke. But I became bored with the recommended, tested and proven profitable (for the owners, anyway) teaching method at this one crappy eikaiwa within six weeks. Living on the outskirts of Tokyo lost its luster in less than a month. Within five minutes it became obvious that my supervisor was a dolt of limited perception, unshakable ignorance and possessed of breath that could knock a buzzard off a shit-wagon. Knowing he would soon become tiresome took no great amount of thought.
But what worries me most is the prospect of a lifetime of employment that will leave me bored for the vast majority of it. I don't imagine you want to hear more about it than you already have, but it's all gotten old very quickly. With the exception of that one week I was paid to look after my neighbors pets in 7th grade. 'Cause, y'know, they gave me a key to the house and I'd never really seen a pet rabbit before, and it was the first time I'd had access to someone else's home in their absence. Which is a rush almost as valuable as the goods you take while you're there.*
*Actual value of rush is not likely to exceed a positive value of $10, or a negative value of 18 months per count of breaking and entering.
24 February 2005
Feedback
You know, like that screechy sound you hear when that jackass guitarist on open-mic night thinks he knows better than the sound guy and turns his output up too high? Yeah, feedback. And I finally worked out how to turn on the comments functions here. So you too can produce your own high-frequency response to my inchoate gibbering. And I solemnly swear* to read them all. Really.
Just click that bit at the bottom marked "comments" to get started.
*By "solemnly swear" I mean "intend to, until boredom overtakes me..."
Just click that bit at the bottom marked "comments" to get started.
*By "solemnly swear" I mean "intend to, until boredom overtakes me..."
Local Foreigner
The school year in Japan runs from April to March of the following year. Which means that most schools in Tokyo are now preparing for the end of the current school year. And my first year at elementary school is almost over too. And I have got to say that I am quite ready to be done with it. Just in case you've forgotten, or never read my complaints before, or didn't care enough to remember it the last time I started bitching about it, I am contracted to teach "International English/Culture Exchanging for Introduce of Lesson" at six elementary schools in the Tokyo area. I go to each school once a week and teach one lesson to each class in each grade from Kindergarden to 6th grade, with a poorly thought-out goals of:
So imagine the feelings of success when, after an entire year, in almost every class in every grade, the children , as well as a few of the more courageous parents, are still asking me how tall I am, where I live, what my real job is, how tall I am, why I can (sort of) speak Japanese, how tall I am, when I will go back to my country and how tall I am.
Yes, I am a big person. In case you missed it, about 194 cm and 95 kg. But I also stopped growing several years ago. I did not suddenly shoot up over the summer. I have been this height for the entire year. And the kids have made it a point to ask me how tall I am at least once every day.
But that's not entirely fair. Yes, I get asked that everyday, but not by the same kids since I'm never at one school for more than five consecutive days. In fact, I only see each group of kids for about 40 minutes, once every six weeks. Which is why I don't know any of their names. Or 98% of the teachers' names. I was never in any place long enough to become a part of that school. Which is why my classes were viewed as break periods from "real school," both by students who wanted an excuse to act up for 40 minutes and for teachers who wanted a 40 minute break to grade papers, sleep in the corner, or sneak out for a smoke.
The point of all this is to say that for almost a year I have had a steady job as a regularly scheduled, irregularly appearing guest host with a mission to teach these kids English without using phonics, spelling or grammar and to help them get used to meeting foreigners by spending time with them for an average of 8 minutes per kid per year. Not surprisingly, I feel a very low sense of accomplishment in my work. Fortunately, I have so much else going on in my life that I still feel like a well-rounded, successful human being.
And I know where to find a tree big enough to suspend a 100kg weight over 2 meters off the ground for at least, oh, 10 to 15 minutes.
1. Introducing the children to the existance of foreign people in a safe, non-threatening way to improve percieved feelings of fear of meeting/interacting with/existance of foreign people, especially as compared with other East Asian nations (not officially named but in particular, South Korea),
2. Beginning introduction to and practice in English speaking and understanding with the long-term goals of
2a. improving average performance of Japanese students in English speaking, especially as compared with other students in East Asian nations (not officially named but in particular, South Korea),2b. reducing students' fear of and/or embarassment at using English, especially with foreign people,
2c. imparting to the students a feeling that English can be a fun and useful subject, to prevent declining interest in the required English studies in later grades (particularly as emphasis shifts from spoken English in grade 7 to English used on multiple-choice examinations in grades 8 through 12),
2. (cont'd) but with the short term suggestions that the classes avoid writing, spelling or phonics topics, as studies of high school and college students have shown that those topics are very difficult for them, and they feel uncomfortable using those skills, particularly with foreign people,
3. and having fun while getting to know the children and experience life in a Japanese school while engaging in exchange of international culture.
So imagine the feelings of success when, after an entire year, in almost every class in every grade, the children , as well as a few of the more courageous parents, are still asking me how tall I am, where I live, what my real job is, how tall I am, why I can (sort of) speak Japanese, how tall I am, when I will go back to my country and how tall I am.
Yes, I am a big person. In case you missed it, about 194 cm and 95 kg. But I also stopped growing several years ago. I did not suddenly shoot up over the summer. I have been this height for the entire year. And the kids have made it a point to ask me how tall I am at least once every day.
But that's not entirely fair. Yes, I get asked that everyday, but not by the same kids since I'm never at one school for more than five consecutive days. In fact, I only see each group of kids for about 40 minutes, once every six weeks. Which is why I don't know any of their names. Or 98% of the teachers' names. I was never in any place long enough to become a part of that school. Which is why my classes were viewed as break periods from "real school," both by students who wanted an excuse to act up for 40 minutes and for teachers who wanted a 40 minute break to grade papers, sleep in the corner, or sneak out for a smoke.
The point of all this is to say that for almost a year I have had a steady job as a regularly scheduled, irregularly appearing guest host with a mission to teach these kids English without using phonics, spelling or grammar and to help them get used to meeting foreigners by spending time with them for an average of 8 minutes per kid per year. Not surprisingly, I feel a very low sense of accomplishment in my work. Fortunately, I have so much else going on in my life that I still feel like a well-rounded, successful human being.
And I know where to find a tree big enough to suspend a 100kg weight over 2 meters off the ground for at least, oh, 10 to 15 minutes.
23 February 2005
Hunter S. Thompson 1937-2005
Hunter S. Thompson is dead, and the net is already oozing tributes, op-eds and "what Hunter meant to me" stories. Unfortunately, this is going to have to fall into the latter category. Because I think something is being missed in this outpouring of fan-lamentation, paeans and "why I have LONO vanity plates" stories.
Yes, he glorified drug use, firearms, sex, violence, gambling, drunkenness, debauchery and general high-risk behavior. He inspired legions of hacks, wannabes and groupies. He created one of the most clearly understandable, and therefore easily misused phrases in modern American writing with "Fear and Loathing." His persona has inspired two films, neither of which has inspired many kind reviews. By all accounts he was a singularly difficult person to be around for any length of time, and few would say he was pleasant. Kind, loyal and honest, yes, but not pleasant at all.
But that's not why we needed him. There are too many pleasant, boring, useless people already. As long as we had Hunter Thompson, we knew there was one person who couldn't breathe without challenging the rule that says "obey." From the most important defenses of constitutional rights all the way down to blaring obnoxious music across the hills around his home, he would not stop disobeying. And his reasoning was simple: "I am a free human being, and no one has the right to tell me what to do."
Without him, there's one fewer standard bearer for that cause. There's one fewer voice screaming at the top of his lungs for individuality. There's one fewer person who will fight, tooth and claw, for his own personal autonomy, and by extension for all of us, too.
Underneath what passes for grief in the strange world of gonzo fandom is another, heavier feeling. It's the knowledge that Hunter S. Thompson is no longer out there, howling in the mountains, trying to hold on to the frontiers of our autonomy. It's the knowledge that if we want to keep our own freedoms, we'll each have to carry a little bit more of the weight he held every day.
Yes, he glorified drug use, firearms, sex, violence, gambling, drunkenness, debauchery and general high-risk behavior. He inspired legions of hacks, wannabes and groupies. He created one of the most clearly understandable, and therefore easily misused phrases in modern American writing with "Fear and Loathing." His persona has inspired two films, neither of which has inspired many kind reviews. By all accounts he was a singularly difficult person to be around for any length of time, and few would say he was pleasant. Kind, loyal and honest, yes, but not pleasant at all.
But that's not why we needed him. There are too many pleasant, boring, useless people already. As long as we had Hunter Thompson, we knew there was one person who couldn't breathe without challenging the rule that says "obey." From the most important defenses of constitutional rights all the way down to blaring obnoxious music across the hills around his home, he would not stop disobeying. And his reasoning was simple: "I am a free human being, and no one has the right to tell me what to do."
Without him, there's one fewer standard bearer for that cause. There's one fewer voice screaming at the top of his lungs for individuality. There's one fewer person who will fight, tooth and claw, for his own personal autonomy, and by extension for all of us, too.
Underneath what passes for grief in the strange world of gonzo fandom is another, heavier feeling. It's the knowledge that Hunter S. Thompson is no longer out there, howling in the mountains, trying to hold on to the frontiers of our autonomy. It's the knowledge that if we want to keep our own freedoms, we'll each have to carry a little bit more of the weight he held every day.
21 February 2005
15 February 2005
Howling
Last month the US Army completed the court-martial and sentencing of Army Reserve Spc. Charles Graner Jr. For his role in the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal he'll face 10 years in the stockade, at the rank of private, with no pay, and a dishonorable discharge when he gets out.
I didn't know what a "Reserve Spc." was, so I looked it up. They used to call it "Technician" back in WWII. And assuming it's in something like electronics, it seems to be roughly equivalent to an associates degree from ITT Tech. Now, as I understand it, the army has to invest a fair amount of time and money in it's "human assets." Even if they're in the reserves, these people don't get trained, outfitted and shipped all over creation for free. Since the military has to make do on a measly $420.7 billion in 2005, one would be curious about how its property, even damaged property is dispensed with.
The point I'm trying to reach is what level of investment the military has in its soldiers and how it can so easily write off one or two or ten of them. Of all the military mottoes I could find on-line, none of them said anything about "leaving the laggards," "ready to downsize our own," or "tribuo in turbatus vicis." And for all the claims about esprit de corps or unit loyalty, there wasn't much about scapegoats, abandoning the losers or leaving that one guy hanging.
This is not to say that I think that Army Reserve Spc. Charles Graner Jr. should not be punished. If you abuse someone who has been remanded to your care, you will earn very little respect or consideration from me. But that's not my point here. I'm curious why problems with groups are resolved with the excision of individuals. If there was so much wrong with what happened there, why is cutting out two or five or twenty bad apples enough? Why isn't the entire system for military imprisonment dragged out into the daylight and examined? If a few dozen priests were molesting children, why isn't the church vivisecting all of the procedures that surround the problem? If there is a problem within a system, why are only a few individuals separated from that system and strung up as if that would be the end of it?
Again, I don't think that systemic problems are excuses for individuals to act like animals. But it doesn't make any sense to me to take a person acclimated to a system, punish him for something he did within that system, then not look any closer at why and how he did what he did. The military has problems. Big, deep, metastasized problems. So does the Los Angeles police department, the Catholic Church, the UN peacekeeping organization and almost every government on earth.
All these monstrous aggregates of policies, red tape and devoted company men get to keep on ensuring their own continued existence. And I want to know why it's okay to value these rancid, tumor-riddled dinosaurs that keep enabling abuse, crime, cruelty and the on-going degradation of the individual.
I didn't know what a "Reserve Spc." was, so I looked it up. They used to call it "Technician" back in WWII. And assuming it's in something like electronics, it seems to be roughly equivalent to an associates degree from ITT Tech. Now, as I understand it, the army has to invest a fair amount of time and money in it's "human assets." Even if they're in the reserves, these people don't get trained, outfitted and shipped all over creation for free. Since the military has to make do on a measly $420.7 billion in 2005, one would be curious about how its property, even damaged property is dispensed with.
The point I'm trying to reach is what level of investment the military has in its soldiers and how it can so easily write off one or two or ten of them. Of all the military mottoes I could find on-line, none of them said anything about "leaving the laggards," "ready to downsize our own," or "tribuo in turbatus vicis." And for all the claims about esprit de corps or unit loyalty, there wasn't much about scapegoats, abandoning the losers or leaving that one guy hanging.
This is not to say that I think that Army Reserve Spc. Charles Graner Jr. should not be punished. If you abuse someone who has been remanded to your care, you will earn very little respect or consideration from me. But that's not my point here. I'm curious why problems with groups are resolved with the excision of individuals. If there was so much wrong with what happened there, why is cutting out two or five or twenty bad apples enough? Why isn't the entire system for military imprisonment dragged out into the daylight and examined? If a few dozen priests were molesting children, why isn't the church vivisecting all of the procedures that surround the problem? If there is a problem within a system, why are only a few individuals separated from that system and strung up as if that would be the end of it?
Again, I don't think that systemic problems are excuses for individuals to act like animals. But it doesn't make any sense to me to take a person acclimated to a system, punish him for something he did within that system, then not look any closer at why and how he did what he did. The military has problems. Big, deep, metastasized problems. So does the Los Angeles police department, the Catholic Church, the UN peacekeeping organization and almost every government on earth.
All these monstrous aggregates of policies, red tape and devoted company men get to keep on ensuring their own continued existence. And I want to know why it's okay to value these rancid, tumor-riddled dinosaurs that keep enabling abuse, crime, cruelty and the on-going degradation of the individual.
04 February 2005
All right, let�s get this over with.
I'm not trying to sound as though the second leg of the US trip was a chore. On the contrary, it was more fun than I've had in quite some time. But typing it up is a bit of work. Especially with all the other things that seem to take up far too much attention and energy. But I promised to put it here, and promises oughta be kept, even if it was only made to myself.
Especially if it was only made to myself.
Anyhow, Albuquerque is a good place to be, especially after a place like Tokyo. Most big cities can be criticized for ignoring human scale. Which is a reasonable complaint in a place where a million people have been crammed, usually vertically, into a space that would comfortably hold maybe a fourth of that number. If you want to keep Wall Street, Victoria Road or Ginza humming at full capacity, you have to load a maximum number of people into a building footprint. That means either going up or down, and not too many people can justify paying Wall Street, Victoria Road or Ginza rents for an office sunk down in the bowels of the earth. So people have to work in buildings that dwarf any sense of human interaction.
Take Roppongi Hills, for example. This stunning bit of futuristic architecture looks like Delta City from Robocop. But as cool as it must have looked on the architects' plans or as one of those foam-core models that usually winds up in a plastic box in the back corner of some office lobby, it completely exceeds any human sense of scale once you're within a half mile of it. It fills your field of vision vertically and spreads across four city blocks. And once you're actually in front of it, the place is surrounded by escalators, elevated walkways, parking access ramps and monolithic slabs of concrete stamped with the development's name. There are few obvious entrances, and the people surrounding the buildings seem to be move as if they were almost unaware of them. As if the disparities in size made the people unable to interact with the structures. They are out of human scale. And if you step back a bit, most of Tokyo is similarly out of scale. And spending too much time in places like that makes me feel not like a cosmopolitan city-dweller, but like I've been caught in a very large Habitrail� set.
But that's not the point I was originally intending to make. Tokyo is big, and the buildings are big, and I can't see enough of the horizon to feel comfortable. Albuquerque is nothing like that. Placed near the southern end of the Rocky Mountain Range, Albuquerque sits across a section of the Rio Grande valley, and has a central elevation of around 5,000 feet above sea level. But that doesn't mention that the town occupies two sides of a valley, and that the city limits on the west side of that valley are around 5,800 feet and in the Northeast fall at around 6,500 feet. That's a fairly steep slope, and it makes for some expansive views. You can see for miles. Literally from within the city you can look north, west or south and see peaks over 35 miles away. Your field of vision can cover 900 square miles. The land feels wide, spread out beneath an enormous dome of sky. And that's why I'm usually happy to go back there.
The previous paragraph was paid for in part by the Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce and the Albuquerque Tourist Board. �Albuquerque: we're more than just a wrong turn!"
So I was happy to spend the post-Xmas-to-New-Year's-Hangover-day period there. My friends were fine, my family was feisty and, in general, aspects of all acquaintances could be alliterated alluringly.
Not really, but we had a very good time before preparing for our journey west.
January 2-3: Been through the desert on a horse with no name.
But we couldn't get out of the rain. The worst winter storms in a couple of years drenched the southwest the entire time we were there. Otherwise arid areas were covered by thunderstorms in the south and blankets of snow in the north. The otherwise beautiful drive from New Mexico to LA was continually cloudy and interrupted with frequent, lashing rainstorms. Dramatic, but they did limit the view a bit.
Wait, I thought Detroit was the motor city...
There are a ton of things that suck about Tokyo's mass transit system. Riding it at certain times sucks in profoundly life-altering ways. But it is a mass transit system that moves huge masses of people quickly, cheaply and fairly. LA just can't compare. So you have to drive everywhere all the time. Which meant I did a lot less drinking than I otherwise might have.
But it was strange having to actively raise my language filters again. In Japan I really can't just read things; it takes an active effort to decode what the (few) symbols (that I can understand) mean. So I have to leave my input filters open more, if that makes any sense. I understand far less of my surrounding information field, so I need to take in more data. But for me, in the US there's no effort required to understand the meaning of stuff I could see. That shit just leaked all over the place. So I found myself having to actively ignore signs, advertisements, radio DJs and television promos. That was a little tiresome.
But otherwise, it was good to be back. I needed to see some familiar and deeply missed places. The food restored my faith in good. and the people were, well, the same jackasses that I remembered so fondly.
Then it was back to Japan.
There. Will that cover it?
Feh. Next time: more pissing, moaning and run-on sentences that go all around a topic, using all sorts of unusual, or generally unnecessary, clauses deemed appropriate at the time to explain a point which most people probably would have understood if given half a chance to just get to the point of the original idea that was supposed to have been ever-so-apro
Especially if it was only made to myself.
Anyhow, Albuquerque is a good place to be, especially after a place like Tokyo. Most big cities can be criticized for ignoring human scale. Which is a reasonable complaint in a place where a million people have been crammed, usually vertically, into a space that would comfortably hold maybe a fourth of that number. If you want to keep Wall Street, Victoria Road or Ginza humming at full capacity, you have to load a maximum number of people into a building footprint. That means either going up or down, and not too many people can justify paying Wall Street, Victoria Road or Ginza rents for an office sunk down in the bowels of the earth. So people have to work in buildings that dwarf any sense of human interaction.
Take Roppongi Hills, for example. This stunning bit of futuristic architecture looks like Delta City from Robocop. But as cool as it must have looked on the architects' plans or as one of those foam-core models that usually winds up in a plastic box in the back corner of some office lobby, it completely exceeds any human sense of scale once you're within a half mile of it. It fills your field of vision vertically and spreads across four city blocks. And once you're actually in front of it, the place is surrounded by escalators, elevated walkways, parking access ramps and monolithic slabs of concrete stamped with the development's name. There are few obvious entrances, and the people surrounding the buildings seem to be move as if they were almost unaware of them. As if the disparities in size made the people unable to interact with the structures. They are out of human scale. And if you step back a bit, most of Tokyo is similarly out of scale. And spending too much time in places like that makes me feel not like a cosmopolitan city-dweller, but like I've been caught in a very large Habitrail� set.
But that's not the point I was originally intending to make. Tokyo is big, and the buildings are big, and I can't see enough of the horizon to feel comfortable. Albuquerque is nothing like that. Placed near the southern end of the Rocky Mountain Range, Albuquerque sits across a section of the Rio Grande valley, and has a central elevation of around 5,000 feet above sea level. But that doesn't mention that the town occupies two sides of a valley, and that the city limits on the west side of that valley are around 5,800 feet and in the Northeast fall at around 6,500 feet. That's a fairly steep slope, and it makes for some expansive views. You can see for miles. Literally from within the city you can look north, west or south and see peaks over 35 miles away. Your field of vision can cover 900 square miles. The land feels wide, spread out beneath an enormous dome of sky. And that's why I'm usually happy to go back there.
The previous paragraph was paid for in part by the Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce and the Albuquerque Tourist Board. �Albuquerque: we're more than just a wrong turn!"
So I was happy to spend the post-Xmas-to-New-Year's-Hangover-day period there. My friends were fine, my family was feisty and, in general, aspects of all acquaintances could be alliterated alluringly.
Not really, but we had a very good time before preparing for our journey west.
January 2-3: Been through the desert on a horse with no name.
But we couldn't get out of the rain. The worst winter storms in a couple of years drenched the southwest the entire time we were there. Otherwise arid areas were covered by thunderstorms in the south and blankets of snow in the north. The otherwise beautiful drive from New Mexico to LA was continually cloudy and interrupted with frequent, lashing rainstorms. Dramatic, but they did limit the view a bit.
Wait, I thought Detroit was the motor city...
There are a ton of things that suck about Tokyo's mass transit system. Riding it at certain times sucks in profoundly life-altering ways. But it is a mass transit system that moves huge masses of people quickly, cheaply and fairly. LA just can't compare. So you have to drive everywhere all the time. Which meant I did a lot less drinking than I otherwise might have.
But it was strange having to actively raise my language filters again. In Japan I really can't just read things; it takes an active effort to decode what the (few) symbols (that I can understand) mean. So I have to leave my input filters open more, if that makes any sense. I understand far less of my surrounding information field, so I need to take in more data. But for me, in the US there's no effort required to understand the meaning of stuff I could see. That shit just leaked all over the place. So I found myself having to actively ignore signs, advertisements, radio DJs and television promos. That was a little tiresome.
But otherwise, it was good to be back. I needed to see some familiar and deeply missed places. The food restored my faith in good. and the people were, well, the same jackasses that I remembered so fondly.
Then it was back to Japan.
There. Will that cover it?
Feh. Next time: more pissing, moaning and run-on sentences that go all around a topic, using all sorts of unusual, or generally unnecessary, clauses deemed appropriate at the time to explain a point which most people probably would have understood if given half a chance to just get to the point of the original idea that was supposed to have been ever-so-apro
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