Soda, revisited

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.

職名改名

今日も子供らから「子供いるの？」とか「結婚してるの？」、「えっ？２２歳？うそ！だって頭はげとるよ」など、そうとう年輩そうに見えるようなことをまたまた言われましたので、本日をもちまして私の職種の正式名称を「国際交流員」から、「若手実力派国際交流師」に改名させていただきます。（課長、許してくれるかな？）

今年僕の大学からたまたま東京の大学に留学している知り合いが意外と多くて、その中の一人がこの間コストコに行ってきた。コストコに行くと知った僕はさっそく物乞いを始めた。たぶんくれないと思いながら「オリーブとピーナツバターをくれ」と頼んだら、月曜日の朝にオフィスに着いたらなんと、変な形にふくらんでいる封筒が机の上に置いてあった。開けてみるとオリーブの缶詰２本に、短歌が添えてあった。しかも枕詞や掛詞などを使った完璧な古文の歌だった。よくやるな、我が後輩が。内容はあとで詳しく書くけど、要約すると「あんた、島流しされて淋しいね」という感じのものだった。

そこで問題です：　返歌はもう詠んだけど、何に書けばいいのか。要は、田舎の良さを主張する歌なんで、田舎を代表する素材が一番いいだろう。でも何も思い浮かばない。助けてください。

Lies, all lies

Bubble Man II: Soda Planet

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:

実らぬ秋みかんの皮にひと雫

Bippity boppity Beppu

Azure Hell

ゐなかなる男、まはりやものなかりけむ、街を思ひて、お湯の熱きところにまいらむとて別府なる国にいたりぬ。砂に埋まるるこそ興あらむと人の言ひけるに、試さずはあらじとて男応ぢぬ。こころよく汗ながせば、急に尻のやけどせむに男かくなむ。

砂湯にしゆかば蒸し焼き外人かな

のち冷ゆる男、山のいただき見むとて綱道のれば、人の絶えずしゃべるを憂しと思ひてかくなむ。

耳ざわル、乗務員娘ノ、語尾つよク

忘れたつもりの人から

ある夜中ふいに過去から長電話

Halloween Party

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.

Matsuri Madness

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.

Wafoo!® JAPAN

最近よくテレビで見るケンタッキーの CM に、草彅剛が着物姿で出て、ケンタッキーの新メニュー「和風なんとかチキン」を正座しながら美味しそうにパリパリかじり、「日本人でよかったぁ〜」という言葉を漏らす。

んんん何だと？ちょっと待った。外資系のファストフード店が（しかも KFC みたいなどアメリカンなやつが）フライドチキンの名に〈和風〉をつけてごまか何かを表面にかけただけで、日本人は一体なにを誇るべきというのかな？　と伺うとまた不可解な日本人論が出てきそうなのでやめよう。

昨日お世話になった先生と一緒に、山に囲まれている農業が盛んな街のとてもお上品な和食のお店で食事をしていたら、感想を聞かれて、なにかひたすら和風な発言を考えないと！と思って言った。「この食事で、山の幸と海の幸の違いがよくわかったような気がします。」みんな激しくうなずきながら「ふうぅ〜ん」と納得したようなため息をついた。　・・・　あれでよかった？合格とみてくれたのかな？

気がつけば、デタラメな発言でわびさびを究めたフリをし大和魂を気取っている僕がいた。

Nomura’s Hidden Castle

Nomura's Hidden Castle

This post is dedicated to K, who may not make it through tomorrow without my help entertaining her.

I’m trying to find pumpkins so my elementary school kids can make jack-o-lanterns for Halloween. Through an acquaintance I managed to get my hands on a few pumpkins from a contest in Nomura, the closest place where they actually grow non-citrus produce. I managed to get out of work to go pick the pumpkins up with some people.

We took a bit of a detour. A long, narrow, winding road led us up a mountain, all the way into the grounds of a castle. This castle isn’t left over from ancient times or anything. It was built by some weirdo with money he skimmed from his own company rather than let it get taken as taxes.

It used to be a hotel and restaurant, and also a retreat for company parties and whatnot. Then the guy got old and donated it to the city, but the city doesn’t take care of it because it’s in the middle of nowhere and never really got any business.

Now it’s just home to the biggest insects I’ve ever seen outside a zoo in my life.

Then I had an amazing dinner, came home, got tired, gave up on the idea of studying, blogged, and now I’m going to rot my brain with TV until I go to bed. Sorry my life isn’t more interesting.

Crunch time

Things got interesting last night. And by interesting, I mean potentially injurious.

I was in the not-so-nearby town of Ōzu visiting a friend. I made a left turn onto a horribly narrow little road, and accidentally scraped my car against an until-then invisible guardrail. The left side of my Daihatsu MOVE is now a bit scratched up and slightly more concave than before. It still drives fine, though.

Visions of multi-hundred dollar repair bills floated before my eyes as I reported the incident to the yakubizzle. They of course wanted to see the car to assess the damage themselves. I brought it in after my elementary school visit.

The section chief took one look at it and said, “It’s an old car, and the damage is pretty light. What do you think?” I told him that if it were my car, I wouldn’t bother fixing it. We then explained the situation to the insurance specialist: “I hit a guardrail.” “Yeah, that’ll happen.”

The conclusion: The car is due for shaken in Feburary; we’ll have it repaired then. In other words, I’m off the hook.

Later I was discussing with a contemporary of mine the fact that Japanese people don’t get wet when it rains.

M

The streets [in Tokyo] are super narrow too. It was raining today and I had to keep raising my umbrella just to let the cars pass.

Me

yeah, rain in tokyo sucks ass. the only way you won’t get wet is if you’re already wet. then you at least can’t get wetter.

M

Seriously!! And the Japanese people didn’t look wet at all. what the heck is up with that?? Are Japanese people naturally scotch guarded or something?

Me

they are somehow impervious to everything about their climate.

M

[A friend] and I were observing what was going on. All the gaijin were DRENCHED and these little urban princesses were walking around in their open-toe 3 inch heels and looking sassy. bitches.

Me

sometimes i think they’re not even corporeal, but are actually lost souls doomed to roam the island for all eternity.

M

Nothing is more fun than dissing the Japanese. I’m sorry, but it’s just hours of fun filled entertainment

Me

they bring it on themselves

M

I think so yes