I was in a panic to come up with something interesting for a high school English class, so I decided to try to replicate the classic Penny Arcade Remix. It didn’t go that well in class, with all the kids just kind of scratching their heads trying to think of something funny to write. But I did come up with some examples in Japanese that everyone seemed to enjoy. Click the thumbnails for the full images.
Tycho discovers that the principal of the high school also loves DJ OZMA, the musical artist now infamous in Japan for performing in the Kōhaku Music Contest on New Year's Eve with dancers in naked-looking bodysuits.
Tycho grates on Gabe's nerves when he tries to reenact manzai comic flavor-of-the-month Taka And Toshi's famous "ōbeika" routine.
If I was a less cynical man, I might say that this picture symbolizes a new beginning, a fresh start for 2007. In actuality, it doesn’t symbolize anything but my harrowing journey to the edge of the known universe, where this god-forsaken lighthouse stands. M came down from Tokyo to enjoy a little country living; little did she know she’d nearly disappear from the face of the earth into the choppy ocean waves.
I broke down and finally picked up a Nintendo DS Lite along with two games: Tokoton Kanjinō (とことん漢字脳, a Kanji practice game) and Animal Crossing. I’m enjoying it, but the hunger for even newer, more exciting games is already ripping through my insides.
I spent New Year’s Eve at a coworker’s house. He and his family treated me to dinner, and I joined them in the ritual first-temple-visit-of-the-new-year (初詣 hatsumōde). Then I taught his kids the card game Shitboot, which they now know and love by the literal Japanese translation, クソ長靴 (kuso nagagutsu).
While watching episode after downloaded episode of Law & Order: SVU, I’ve been pondering whether 2007 will be a good year, or merely the same as every other year—namely, not horrible but nothing to write home about. Can a jaded man become un-jaded? Do they have that yet? If we can put a man on the moon…
I’m not sure what the proper notation is for that neck-swaying, finger-snappin’, attitudinous phrasing of “Oh no you didn’t” that’s so popular these days. Just try to imagine it. Here’s a Christmas Anecdote™ that has nothing to do with Christmas:
I was at one of my elementary schools eating lunch. School lunch here is interesting. It’s either got a big bowl of rice, or about half a baguette as the main calorie source. (Note: The ridiculously oversized bread in school lunch is intimately related to the Japanese myth that all foreigners eat almost nothing but bread.) Beyond that, there’s usually a soup of some sort, maybe a meager salad, maybe some sort of fried, dead animal. And sometimes a dessert item. Oh, and always, always a box of whole milk, which I can’t stand.
This particular day, there was the loaf of bread, some other stuff, and an apple-flavored dessert gelatin. I had trudged halfway through my mile-long tube of bread when I decided I’d like to try a bite of my apple-flavored dessert gelatin. No sooner had I put the spoon in my mouth than the kids around me gasp and start yelling, “OOOOOOHHH! Teacher, he didn’t finish his bread! He has to finish his bread before he eats his apple-flavored dessert gelatin!”
“Little fuckers,” I thought, “I’ll show them.” So I took a big spoonful of apple-flavored dessert gelatin and slurped it loudly and exaggeratedly, moaning in pleasure at the delicious apple flavor. This drew more laughter than shocked gasps.
Then the coup de grâce: I spread some of the apple-flavored dessert gelatin on my unfinished industrial pylon of bread and ate it, again making a big show of how delicious it was. The kids nearly shit themselves. The teacher looked like she was going to explode with laughter. I honestly think I snapped some neurons in their heads.
The point of this story is that elementary school in Japan is less a school and more a programming factory designed to format the brains of little Japanese kids into believing that A) there is one correct way to do everything, B) all alternate methods are evil, and C) anyone not following the correct method must be forced to comply with said method.
Examples I have noticed so far:
Battling with breadsticks
You must finish your American Gladiators’ battle lance of bread before moving on to dessert.
You must eat your bread by ripping off one bite’s worth at a time, never dipping it in any soup or foreign flavor substance.
You must not leave as much as one single grain of rice in your bowl.
You must not mix any foreign flavor substance, such as leftover curry sauce, into your rice, because doing so is, and I quote, “dirty”.
You must chew every mouthful of food exactly 30 times. There are posters detailing the numerous (and in my opinion, dubious) benefits of this in every school’s lunchroom.
You must not talk or sing during cleaning time, regardless of how mindless the task may be.
You must not walk with your hands in your pockets, no matter how cold it is, because, and I quote, “you might fall and hurt yourself”.
You must brush your teeth after every meal, even at school, though you need not use toothpaste or floss.
I’m sure I’ll remember some more later. For now, this is FOREIGN HUMANOID UNIT ID #45AX WISHING ALL OTHER HUMANOID UNITS AN ACCEPTABLE WINTER-SYSTEM-SHUTDOWN-AND-CALENDAR-INCREMENT PERIOD.
The town of Nomura (actually now part of the city of Seiyo) loves sumo. They love it so much that the annual tournament is pretty much the biggest event of the year. Some friends and I took the day off, got up early as hell, splurged on floor seats, and took in more sumo in one day than most doctors would recommend in a year.
They had everyone from elementary school kids to high schoolers, college students, and even some amateur sumo enthusiasts from around the country. The local schools all had the day off, and every single kid was there to cheer on their school’s players.
The little kids were fun to watch. Some of them were just really cute. Some of them were comically mismatched, with a tiny little runt paired up with the class butterball or some kid who obviously got his growth spurt a little early. When you get to the high school students it’s just scary, though, as they each looked like they could take down an elephant with nothing but their hands and their sumo thongs.
The best part was when one of the visiting pros, Tamakasuga, went up against some of the little kids in a series of cute exhibition matches. I shot this on my cell phone, so make sure to squint and press your face into your monitor as hard as you can.
I just saw an awful anime movie called “The Laws of Eternity” (永遠の法Eien no hō). It was basically a propaganda machine meant to indoctrinate Japanese children to believe the following:
Atheists are agents of evil trying to spread human misery
Science isn’t about the systematic analysis of the physical world, but is a political tool to be used to further culture and civilization (according to a specific agenda)
All of the world religions are really just various manifestations of Buddhism
People aren’t to be judged just by their actions, but by their thoughts as well (beware the thought police)
Women are meant to give themselves selflessly to the service of others
Men are meant to work hard and become captains of industry
Though all people should be judged by their actions and thoughts, men alone can ultimately be evaluated solely by the outcomes of their careers (specifically, Thomas Edison was depicted as a high-ranking angel despite having in real life tortured animals as part of a feud with Nikolai Tesla, among other misdeeds)
Nietzsche is in league with Hitler in the deepest depths of hell
Hitler, in the deepest depths of hell, leads an army of undead soldiers and one gigantic evil elephant
Foreigners are impure of thought, and therefore unsuited to enter the highest levels of heaven
Black people are bumbling goofballs
White people are cold-hearted, cynical bastards
Japanese people are pure of heart and mind, and can therefore be admitted to the highest levels of heaven
Japanese men are strong, stoic, hard-working, and righteous
Japanese women are pretty, frail, loving, and always stand by their men
I’m sure I’ll remember some more, but suffice it to say that this movie was 100% preachy tripe. I definitely wouldn’t want my kids watching this until they’re old enough to appreciate the politics being pushed here.
Sorry to post so rapid-fire about nonsense, but I think we need to revisit BUBBLEMAN II: SODA PLANET.
One of the things that tickles me so much about it is the fact that it’s the second of its kind, apparently. It’s not just BUBBLEMAN. It’s BUBBLEMAN II. I know there was Coke and then the New Coke, but this has got to be the first time that a beverage has gotten a sequel.
Has the carbonated beverage become the new vehicle for artistic expression in the 21st century? (Or is BUBBLEMAN from the future, meaning it’s a harbinger of things to come?) Will we one day drink a soda instead of read a book or watch a movie or contemplate a painting? In my expert opinion, the answer is yes.
I had one of those days. One of those days where there’s a swirling pit of black, burning ooze at the bottom of your stomach and you can’t tell if it’s there because there’s something horribly, horribly wrong with your life and everything in it, or simply because you ate too many peanuts.
I was going to write the above paragraph yesterday, I think, but then I lost the will to blog.
Today I realized that my job has degenerated into lying to children. “My name is Noguchi Saburō.” “I don’t speak English.” “I’m 72 years old.” “I’m a robot from the planet Beebledybop.” My excuse is that they seem to enjoy it almost as much as I do.
I finally gave in to deliciousness and tried Suntory’s BUBBLEMAN II: SODA PLANET beverage of carbonated bliss. It tastes like liquid candy. On the side of the can, BUBBLEMAN himself informs you that the can contains “Even more advanced BUBBLE TECHNOLOGY.” He then urges the customer to “Experience ORIGINAL BUBBLES.”
K and I decided to rename Japan “Wacky Land.” Just throwing that out there.
I finally got my new computer at work. It’s quite nice. Except that it’s completely useless, as they have yet to connect it to the LAN. How long does it take to get the IT guy to grab a CAT5, climb one flight of stairs, and connect the goddamn computer? These people make glaciers seem like F1 racing cars.
So clearly the honeymoon period is well over by this point. It was fun while it lasted.
Edit: After facetiously claiming over IM to be weeping gently into a mikan peel, I was challenged by M to write a poem about my love life using that imagery:
My first big event as a CIR in Ikata was a Halloween party at the biggest local elementary school.
I managed to get my hands on big, mostly-orange, proper Halloween pumpkins, thanks to the Superwoman of Misaki, Mrs. K. The 5th and 6th graders carved the pumpkins, and grades 1–4 made trick-or-treat bags. The 5th and 6th graders then set up in several different rooms, which they decorated like houses. Then the 1–4th graders assembled in the gym and watched Simpsons Halloween episodes as they were dispatched in groups to go trick-or-treating through the school, with candy handed out by the 5th and 6th graders. When they all got back we had a pumpkin contest where the best-carved ones got prizes.
All in all I think the kids enjoyed it. The teachers were typically Japanese and were loath to say anything approaching their real feelings about it. I’m sure the damage will only become apparent as we enter the long aftermath of whispered, fifth-hand criticisms and rumors.
Personally, it was beyond exhausting for me, and I was practically sleepwalking by dinnertime. I managed to get some rest over the weekend though, between working on translations for various contests and making a fool of myself at karaoke, particularly in front of someone I was anxious to impress. M is quick to point out that I have plenty of time—if I play my cards right I could be rejected by every single woman in Ikata by the time I leave. It looks like I could have one down already.
My neighborhood held its Autumn Festival this Sunday, ending a whole week of backbreaking and liver-crizzling preparation on the part of me and the Dudes’ Club of Minatoura.
The Dudes’ Club isn’t really a club. It’s just the collection of random guys from the area who happened to wander into the Community Center last week when we were “practicing” for the festival. What did we practice? Beer, then shōchū, and also some sake. Oh and we were supposed to sing a song, but the lyrics sheet they gave me only had half of the song on it. Plus it was one of those atonal, beatless traditional Japanese songs that sound like gibberish to anyone who didn’t grow up listening to it.
I was told to show up at 6am on Saturday morning to prepare for the pre-festival. Luckily I had a rockin’ hangover from the JET party the night before (thanks to Angie for throwing the best party I’ve been to since I got here), so I slept right through it. To apologize I offered as a sacrifice one of the female JETs from Ōzu; the men became so engrossed in being pervs that they forgot all about my little faux pas. A couple games of strip rock-paper-scissors later, we called it a night.
The day of the main event, I actually managed to drag my ass out of bed by 9 and grudgingly start drinking with the blokes at 9:30. They dressed me up in a yukata, tabi, and sandals made of straw. They then handed me an empty metal can and a bamboo stick, and made me run around with a bunch of guys from house to house, banging on our cans and singing our incomprehensible song (which is actually quite pervy if you read the lyrics). After an hour or two of this, as well as dragging by rope a giant ceremonial wagon down the roads, I got sick of it all and hid out at a friend’s house for a while.
Needless to say, this weekend was anything but restful, but it was, all told, a lot of fun. The Japanese set the bar for public drunkenness very high; I will strive to better meet their strict standards in the future.
Edit: A choice line from the song:
姉ちゃんちょと待て 良い物くわす 息子の皮むいて 実をくわす
English:
Wait a second baby, I’ll give you something good to eat. I’ll peel the skin of my wang and let you taste the fruit.
I emphasized “wang” because it’s almost exactly that blatant in the original Japanese. There are lots of even worse lines in this thing, involving vaginas among other things, but they all have puns that just don’t work in English, or I just don’t understand the dialect well enough to translate it right.
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