To the rice field outside my building, I do not say goodbye. I do not speak to inanimate objects. But I will miss seeing it every day, glowing unusually green lately. Having agriculture in cities is a good idea. It reminds people that we have to grow what we eat.
I won't say farewell to the fire station on the bike ride to Liquor Mountain, because that's a building and it could neither understand nor respond. It was pleasant to see the fireman climbing up the side of the practice building one day, or arrayed in a row practicing the hose drills. They love drills in Japan, and there was a military feel to the closing ceremony today. Stand. Rotate. Bow. Sit. These are the orders. The students all in black skirts or pants and white shirts, their hair all black, so that from the back it looks deliberate, sharp, and clean - black on white. The student captain returned our speeches with one from the students, thanking Nick and I for teaching them. It made me sad to be leaving these students.
onigiri - rice triangles
mochi - sweet pounded rice
tonkatsu - fried pork and egg on rice
natto - stinky fermented beans, full of fibre, iron, protein, and one of the few substances that's directly good for the skin
ocha - green tea that I didn't really drink that often, but when I did I drank it cold from a bottle
I learned to love riding the train in Japan. The scenery is beautiful, old houses with their curve-tiled rooves, tunnels through mountains, the lake, fields. Then arriving at Kyoto station and being amazed by the size and audacity of that building. It has a giant staircase rising seven stories to the open air, and on which entire orchestras play music during holidays. The night I stayed over in Kyoto with Mayur, passing from bar to bar to avoid paying for a hotel room. The last train back to Nagahama leaves at 10:00, far too early for a night out.
I will miss Myles and Nancy, my neighbours from Vancouver whose perverse sense of humour luckily matched my own. Nancy laughing or urging Myles to behave, Myles doing some judo moves on Nancy to her annoyance.
It's getting late, I'm tired and this post is disorganized. I have a kuko to catch tomorrow.
Goodnight.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Electrical Storm
Like the U2 song, the sky tonight flickers in its stochastic non-rhythm of electroluminescence. Muted thunder rolls after a pregnant pause, leaving me still... hanging. Like some annoying 3-year-old playing with the light switch, where you just want to scream "STOP FLICKING THE DAMN SWITCH!!", the night sky offers no solid explanation for its pernicious behaviour. The humid air leaves my skin dripping in my overheated, underfurnished apartment. It's an oven even with the doors open. But just when I'm ready to give up and shut myself in the one room with air conditioning, a soft patter of rain hushes into existence. Now the air is dragged by that rainfall, ever intensifying, pulling a breeze through the apartment. Wow, it's really, REALLY coming down now! Scary hard!
Friday, June 30, 2006
Cell phone obsession
I took this picture way back in the day when I had my own cell phone with it's own camera. We were all new to Japan and just got our phones, so we sat there trying to understand the Japanese interface. People are far too into their phones. Phones aren't people, you know.
L-R: Mayur (now in Kyoto), Nancy & Myles (my next-door neighbours from Victoria, BC)
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Advice for the disconsolate experimenter
"Our thinking must come up against some hard focal point of facts that sobers it and corrects it; in the absence of such a corrective, it easily turns into a projection of private flaws (or virtues, it doesn't matter) -- onto the plane of the thing being studied. "
- Stanislaw Lem, "His Master's Voice", p. 29
- Stanislaw Lem, "His Master's Voice", p. 29
Saki - the previous kanji
The kanji on the left is read as "saki" and I don't understand it. I think studying it reveals something about the way you talk about time in Japanese. It means, and read these carefully, "(1) previous; prior; former; (2) point (e.g., pencil); tip; end; nozzle; head (of a line); (3) destination; (4) the first priority; the future; objective; sequel; remainder; the other party;". What kind of word means both former and the future? Sequel and future? The objective and what already happened? It seems a little odd to me.
There's another kanji which is pronounced "mae". It means both "physically in front of" as well as "previous". I guess that's like the English word "before". But it also seems strange, because we think of something that's in front of us as something that is about to happen, and things behind us as the past. But what is "before us" can mean both "that which came before us" and "that which is about to come".So this idea in both Japanese and English of words of position and time, it's ambiguous.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
The Roped Chair
Calhoun - not this post - the previous one.
I am writing this message from the computer desk in the teacher's office. Someone, I suspect the janitor but frankly it could be anyone, has tied the chair to the desk. Several of the chairs have been tied to their desks. It means every time this poor lady Mrs. Mori (or whatever her name is) uses the computer, she gets up and trips over the rope. It means when I use it I feel like the desk is suffocating me and I have to slide back, pulling the desk with me and almost dropping the printer on the floor. This roped chair is an illustration of how they do things in Japan. Why did they rope the chair? I don't know - they don't tell me shit. I just came in and it was roped. I guess it's because people slide all the way back and block traffic in the narrow aisle behind the chair. It's really too narrow. So instead of asking someone to move or asking people to not block the aisle they rope the chair. That way they can solve the problem without direct contact with someone that might turn into a discussion - even a disagreement. Wow, great solution guys!
I am writing this message from the computer desk in the teacher's office. Someone, I suspect the janitor but frankly it could be anyone, has tied the chair to the desk. Several of the chairs have been tied to their desks. It means every time this poor lady Mrs. Mori (or whatever her name is) uses the computer, she gets up and trips over the rope. It means when I use it I feel like the desk is suffocating me and I have to slide back, pulling the desk with me and almost dropping the printer on the floor. This roped chair is an illustration of how they do things in Japan. Why did they rope the chair? I don't know - they don't tell me shit. I just came in and it was roped. I guess it's because people slide all the way back and block traffic in the narrow aisle behind the chair. It's really too narrow. So instead of asking someone to move or asking people to not block the aisle they rope the chair. That way they can solve the problem without direct contact with someone that might turn into a discussion - even a disagreement. Wow, great solution guys!
Monday, June 26, 2006
Principles: Take 'em or leave 'em
Why should I be principled? Firstly, it's good to act properly in a society so that we all get along. But that still leaves a lot of room for bad behaviour that society can tolerate. Such as, I could decide to sleep around as much as possible, and that wouldn't really negatively affect other people. But there are these things called principles. They sound so restrained and uncool, but that's only because they are restrained and sometimes, possibly, uncool. The good thing about not sleeping around is that I'm not being reductionist. I'm not reducing sex to the act itself and therefore avoiding the meaning that comes with it. Reductionist behaviour is everywhere in modernity because we know that it is a faster route to the answer, money, satisfaction. But is it the best satisfaction? Is it the right answer? Whether it's cutting corners on a project or having a conversation, there are many ways I can go about it. I could design the building to leave out the tolerances for an earthquake - if I were a structural engineer. Or I could bullshit my way through the conversation instead of being truthful. Admittedly that's useful and necessary sometimes, but it's not something I like to do. And the consequences of the building design could be much more dire than the consequences of the conversation, most likely. But the thing that both building and conversation have in common is that they are based in reality. In fact, they are both constructed reality. We think of conversation as something far less "real" than a physical building - after all, we can talk about things that couldn't exist but we can't build something that doesn't follow physical laws. But we are building something in both cases, and we can be proud of our creation if we do it in a principled way. I can be proud of my creation if I do it in a principled way.
Friday, May 12, 2006
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Cafes treat geeks like lords
Okay so I read this article in Reuters the other day about these cafes they have in Tokyo. They're in a district called Akihabara, which I've heard about from Miyuki. Apparently it's a nerd paradise, filled with shops where you can buy life-sized plastic cartoon models. Often "anatomically correct" models. Gross.
But these cafes are freakish in their own special way. Some are cafes, many are hair salons. The clientele, mostly men, walk in and are greeted by "Welcome home, Master". These women who work there are hired for their cute looks, and they must dress in French maid uniforms or middle school girl uniforms. Services offered include haircuts, massage, and stirring sugar into your coffee while kneeling next to your table.
Sick, right? Welcome to Japan and the special needs of many Japanese men. Of course many of the women who work there are into it too. I mean, they live the lives of anime characters (and are very well rewarded for it).
Just thought I'd share this tidbit and give you a little peek into what things are like, if not in Nagahama, then at least in Tokes.
But these cafes are freakish in their own special way. Some are cafes, many are hair salons. The clientele, mostly men, walk in and are greeted by "Welcome home, Master". These women who work there are hired for their cute looks, and they must dress in French maid uniforms or middle school girl uniforms. Services offered include haircuts, massage, and stirring sugar into your coffee while kneeling next to your table.
Sick, right? Welcome to Japan and the special needs of many Japanese men. Of course many of the women who work there are into it too. I mean, they live the lives of anime characters (and are very well rewarded for it).
Just thought I'd share this tidbit and give you a little peek into what things are like, if not in Nagahama, then at least in Tokes.
Monday, February 06, 2006
Superbowl Encrypted Footballs
Yes, hello, hello folks. All one of you. Hi sis. Possibly Claire.
Apparently during the latest Super Bowl, they went all crazy and high tech on every aspect of the event, including the footballs. What did they do to the footballs you ask? Well they inserted unique DNA sequences into each football that could be identified by laser. Each sequence glows only with a very narrow frequency of light, and the chance of duplicating this sequence by accident is 1-in-33 trillion. Why, oh why do they encrypt their footballs you ask? So that people who work at the super bowl don't take them and sell them after the game for $1000, which is what they go for. The whole engadget article covers oodles of other tech stuff as well.
Apparently during the latest Super Bowl, they went all crazy and high tech on every aspect of the event, including the footballs. What did they do to the footballs you ask? Well they inserted unique DNA sequences into each football that could be identified by laser. Each sequence glows only with a very narrow frequency of light, and the chance of duplicating this sequence by accident is 1-in-33 trillion. Why, oh why do they encrypt their footballs you ask? So that people who work at the super bowl don't take them and sell them after the game for $1000, which is what they go for. The whole engadget article covers oodles of other tech stuff as well.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Organ Donations
An Ontario member of parliament recently introduced a bill to allow presumed consent of organ donations, but it was voted down. Our premier, Dalton McGuinty, said that Ontarians are not ready for that now. However, presumed consent is the law in many European countries and the stigma associated with organ donation no longer exists there. This law means that you don't have to opt-in to give your consent for your organs to be used if there is a medical need, and that leads to much shorter waiting lists for organ transplants and many lives saved. If people don't want to have their organs used, they can opt-out of the law.
I think the idea that we are not ready for presumed consent comes from really superstitious notions about the body after death. This kind of thinking says that you should keep your body whole because your soul or consciousness is still associated with it. Well I say it's going to decay anyway, so you might as well help someone else out. Any thoughts?
I think the idea that we are not ready for presumed consent comes from really superstitious notions about the body after death. This kind of thinking says that you should keep your body whole because your soul or consciousness is still associated with it. Well I say it's going to decay anyway, so you might as well help someone else out. Any thoughts?
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Wallowing
Recently I had a surprising conversation with my good friend Dan. He is working on his Masters in bio-engineering or some such difficult area. He deals with cells a lot. Anyway, I know that he's been dragging his feet a bit with his thesis, and in this conversation he told me that he was given a one month deadline to finish his big essay.
If it's not done, then *poof* no more funding. So he was staying up late on his last night of not working on his project so that he could extend his last day of procrastination. This was kind of surprising to me because I know that Dan is a hard worker in addition to being a procrastinater. And because he really is considering just giving up on his masters. I think that we have to figure out what's right for us, not just do what we think seems right because it pays more or it's more academic, and I hope Dan can find the right path, whether it's finishing his masters (frankly, advisable after all the work he's put in) or doing something completely different such as becoming a scuba instructer (that would be cool).
As for me, I'm definitely wallowing around in some kind of misery here, lately. I'm not doing much of anything and I'm not motivated to start much of anything, either. I just want to get back to Toronto and start my life there, hopefully with a minimum of financial pain. I want to be active, physically, but it's like I'm waiting for my return to Canada before that can start. I know that I should start working out here, but I just wish there were some people I could do it with. Well, there is one other ALT at my gym who I know. This big black man named Jerrold. He's friendly, and maybe I can get him to work out with me sometime. Hm. Okay I'll give it a try.
Signing off,
Captain Rhubarb
If it's not done, then *poof* no more funding. So he was staying up late on his last night of not working on his project so that he could extend his last day of procrastination. This was kind of surprising to me because I know that Dan is a hard worker in addition to being a procrastinater. And because he really is considering just giving up on his masters. I think that we have to figure out what's right for us, not just do what we think seems right because it pays more or it's more academic, and I hope Dan can find the right path, whether it's finishing his masters (frankly, advisable after all the work he's put in) or doing something completely different such as becoming a scuba instructer (that would be cool).
As for me, I'm definitely wallowing around in some kind of misery here, lately. I'm not doing much of anything and I'm not motivated to start much of anything, either. I just want to get back to Toronto and start my life there, hopefully with a minimum of financial pain. I want to be active, physically, but it's like I'm waiting for my return to Canada before that can start. I know that I should start working out here, but I just wish there were some people I could do it with. Well, there is one other ALT at my gym who I know. This big black man named Jerrold. He's friendly, and maybe I can get him to work out with me sometime. Hm. Okay I'll give it a try.
Signing off,
Captain Rhubarb
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Back at last
At long last another post... This one was inspired by msn chats with Michele in Scotland. I told her I wanted to go to Kyoto but didn't know what to do there. She said take pictures. I said you're a genius. And thus, this post was born.
Today Matt Feitelberg and I went to Kyoto. It hailed a little and he didn't buy his bike parts because the banks were closed, but we had fun.
In Japan they call him Matt-to!
Where should we go next? The monk pointed towards our destination - the orange gate.
We left the temple and chose a direction. En route we saw two Tanuki. Note the ball sacs.
A wooden bicycle. Fully rideable. Matt informs me he was going to make his own wooden bike too. But then he didn't.
The orange Tori. It's the temple's gate. Note Matt in the foreground with his courier bag. He likes bikes.
A horse. He eats the paper.
Temple was busy today because of holidays. Lining the streets are overpriced food vendors. We got okonomiyaki. The woman in the foreground is licking her lips.
The women are tying their wish-papers on the line with everyone else's. Then the monks burn them.
If my face looks fat that's because it is. To the gym I go!!
The people were shaking these copper containers. I thought they had money in them. Then I tried it and there was a horoscope written on this copper stick that came out. This one isn't my horoscope though.
This is a cool car we saw. I forget the name of the character painted on it.
Today Matt Feitelberg and I went to Kyoto. It hailed a little and he didn't buy his bike parts because the banks were closed, but we had fun.
Our first stop in Kyoto was a temple we came upon while walking into the city. This is the walk up to the temple complex. Which temple it is, I don't know.
A monk sits by his bonfire. I liked the light and shadows in the smoke.
In Japan they call him Matt-to!
Where should we go next? The monk pointed towards our destination - the orange gate.
We left the temple and chose a direction. En route we saw two Tanuki. Note the ball sacs.
A wooden bicycle. Fully rideable. Matt informs me he was going to make his own wooden bike too. But then he didn't.
The orange Tori. It's the temple's gate. Note Matt in the foreground with his courier bag. He likes bikes.
A horse. He eats the paper.
Temple was busy today because of holidays. Lining the streets are overpriced food vendors. We got okonomiyaki. The woman in the foreground is licking her lips.
The women are tying their wish-papers on the line with everyone else's. Then the monks burn them.
If my face looks fat that's because it is. To the gym I go!!
The people were shaking these copper containers. I thought they had money in them. Then I tried it and there was a horoscope written on this copper stick that came out. This one isn't my horoscope though.
This is a cool car we saw. I forget the name of the character painted on it.
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