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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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!

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.