Conversation with an old Japanese man

This weekend, I went away on a snowboarding trip with a couple of friends. They are a couple and both of them are about one year older than I am. We're all in our mid-twenties. They wanted to hang out in the lounge of our hotel, I guess to mix with the locals. Usually, I'm not into that kind of thing because of the akward conversations that almost always ensue, but I could either go along with them or be anti-social in the room, so I decided to join them.

As we sat, waiting for dinner time to arrive, an old man came over to talk to us. Apparently he had already introduced himself to my friends before I arrived.

"Oh, is this your daughter?" the old man inquired. (For some reason, Japanese people have a really hard time telling my age. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I was once asked if I was my boyfriend's mother when I took him to the hospital.)

"Um, no," I replied. "I'm their friend."

"Ah, naruhodo." Indeed. "Are you engaged?" he asked me.

"Um, no."

"How would you like a Japanese husband?" Wink. Wink.

I'm all set, thanks. "Um, no, I'm not quite ready to get married yet." I'm pretty sure a 60 year-old shouldn't be interested in someone he thought was the daughter of a 26 year-old.

At this point, the conversation abruptly changes topics, thankfully.

"So you guys are from Australia? Australia's a rich country, isn't it?" he asked my Australian friends.

"Sure, but not as rich as Japan," Peter replied.

"Japan isn't a rich country," he said. We all tried to put together sentences in Japanese to disagree with him, but he continued before we could form any coherent thoughts (it takes us a while). "Japan has a lot of money, but it's not rich. There isn't any heart or soul. Everything's about money these days. Money doesn't make a country rich; heart does."

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Though somewhat trite, what the man had to say is true, and it's a sentiment rarely expressed by Japanese people. I've often heard Japanese people complain about how poor Japan is, but they're not talking about heart and culture; they're talking about money. They lament the state of the Japanese economy and talk about how we must conserve because Japan is poor. I'm all for conservation, but if they think Japan is poor, they clearly haven't seen how other people live. On the other hand, I think a lot of foreigners come to Japan because they think it is a country rich in heart and culture, where the ancient and the modern live side by side, where Geisha furtively hobble past temples, where the Japanese people are deep and hard to decipher and instead they get a concrete waste land where the internet goes down when it's windy, "culture" is as foreign to the Japanese as it is to us, and Japanese people are more or less like everyone else...but perhaps a little more fascinated by blue eyes than most.

Emergency Preparedness

The other day, we had a fire drill at my school. During the morning meeting, I thought I heard some mention of it, but I wasn't too sure. I figured if it was something important, my supervisor would explain it to me in English. She didn't say anything to me, so I went about my day as usual (drink coffee, stare at the wall, look at the internet, repeat). Then around fourth period, a piercing alarm went off. An announcement was made in Japanese, but all I could catch of it was something either about leaving the windows open or leaving them shut, which didn't really help me much. None of the other teachers in the room said anything to me. They slowly left the room to take care of their classes.

I debated what to do. At this point, it appeared as though everyone else had left the building. I could either sit there or try to evacuate as well. I decided that since I did need to know what to do in the event of an actual emergency it would be best for me to leave the building. Remembering fire drills from my own high school days, I looked out the window to try to find where everyone had collected. I didn't see anyone, but decided I might find them if I went outside and wandered around.

On my way out, while still in the building, I ran into one of the administrators for the school. I stopped him and said "Umm excuse me. I was just sitting in my office and I heard the alarm so I wondered what I should do...?" He looked perplexed and then replied "Oh don't worry about it. You can just remain at your desk."

So apparently, in the even of an actual fire, I am to remain at my desk and burn with the building. It's really comforting to know that they care enough to tell me what to do in the event of an emergency.

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This event reminded me of the one time there actually was a fire when I was a high school student. As required by law, we had fire drills once a month. We knew exactly what to do and where to go if the fire alarm ever went off for real.

One afternoon I was sitting science class. A man knocked on the door, then opened it. "Um, there's a fire in this building so um please leave," he announced to the class. We calmly filed out and joined the other classes from that building on the lawn. With all the alarms and censors installed at the school, when there was an actual fire, our alarm was a teacher walking from classroom to classroom, telling us to leave. No alarm ever went off.

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I guess I have two points that I'm trying to make here. The first is, I am the least important person at my school. I knew this already, but I didn't realize that it was to the extent that they didn't care if I lived or died. The second is, we spend a lot of time and money on emergency preparedness, but in the end it doesn't seem to matter. You had just better hope that if there is a fire, someone knows what's going on and that you're not unlucky enough to find yourslef in Japan at that time.

Tojinbo

I've been needing a change of air recently (too much kerosene inhalation), so on Saturday I decided to take a drive. I had been wanting to go to a place in a neighboring ken famous for its cliffs, but the timing never worked out. So I decided to take a little drive on my own.

Tojinbo is famous for its unique, geometrically-shaped rock formations. It is also famous as a place people go to commit suicide, so when I mentioned to my Japanese teacher on Friday that I might be going there on the weekend, she told me to be careful and not to kill myself. Of course, I was only going to experience some nature. Tojinbo is, after all, labeled a "Quasi-national park." I don't know what it takes to become a full-fledged national park, but apparently Tojinbo isn't cutting it somehow.

As I neared the end of my solitary 2-hour car journey, I noticed a strange warmth on my face. Then I realized it was the sun. Although it had been raining when I left Kanazawa, the further away I got, the more the skies cleared up. After winding through some provincial coastal towns, I reached my destination. With Monkah secure in my purse, I walked to the cliffs. Rocks jutted out of the water like the ends of a bunch of pencils. There was absolutely nothing to keep people from walking as far out on the rocks as they wanted to. I'm sure that in the States there would have been some sort of fence and/or guard to keep accidents and the ensuing law-suits from happening, but there was a refreshing lack of any safety constraints. I sat near the edge of the rocks and let the salt air refresh me. I tried to take Monkah out for some pictures, but it was quite windy so had to put him back quickly to keep him from committing accidental "jisatsu."

After staring off into the sea for a while, I went for a walk on one of the trails. Again, there were no guard rails, but there were signs which appeared to be intended to keep people from killing themselves. My Japanese is far from perfect, but I think the signs I came across said things like "Remember the faces of your friends and family," and "If you're unhappy, wait." I hiked around some more. There was even a small island you could hike around, which was completely void of any concrete or power lines. On the side of the island facing away from the land,I forgot for a moment that I was in Japan. There were wild grasses growing there and some small cliffs. It was more like the Aran Isles than the concrete wasteland I'm used to. It only took 20 minutes for me to complete a circuit of the island.

After that, I returned to my car and headed home. As I pulled away, it began to rain. At least I got a few hours of sun and nature.

The worst thing I've ever eaten

Yesterday, I had the privilege of consuming what is without a doubt the most disgusting thing I have ever eaten. I knew it would be trouble when the foods preceeding it included goya and natto...

I was participating in a seminar for students as a group leader. Over the weekend, the students participated in many different activities. One of the last activities was the innocently entitled "quiz." As part of the quiz, the group leaders had to eat a variety of foods, some good and some not so good, and the students had to guess whether the teacher thought it was "Yummy" or "Blagh." We were supposed to keep a straight face when we ate, so as not to give any hints. It started off ok, with the Japanese version of cotton candy. I had never seen this before, and I was surprised by just how must it resembled actual cotton. While American cotton candy more invokes the idea of cotton, Japanese cotton candy looks like it could be used to stuff and pillow or wipe make-up off one's face. It was borderline "Yummy." Next came umeboshi, a sour Japanese plum. While this is one of many things that foreigners are not supposed to be able to stomach, again, it was borderline "Yummy." Things deteriorated from there. Next there were goya chips. I hadn't tried goya before coming to Japan, and I definitely don't recommend it. It looks innocuous enough; it's a green vegetable that resembles zucchini. At first, it tastes fine, but once it's been in your mouth for about 20 seconds, a timer goes off and your entire mouth is filled with a bitter taste that can't be rinsed out. This was how it was when eating the goya chips. At first I thought, "This isn't so bad. I don't see what the big deal is." Then the bitter bomb went off, and I could barely hide the look of displeasure on my face.

In Japan, there are certain foods that foreigners are not supposed to be able to handle. They include umeboshi, sushi, and the infamous natto. Originally, it was my goal to spend an entire 3 years in Japan without consuming natto. I didn't need to eat it to know it was bad. Knowing that it was made of fermented soy beans was good enough for me. Some people will, for example, watch a movie they know is going to be bad based on reviews and plot summary, still hoping it will actually be good. Not only do these people usually end up agreeing that the movie sucks, they are usually disappointed that that movie about the zombies taking on the flying monks didn't live up to its potential. I am not one of those people. If I can tell a movie is going to be bad, I won't watch it. Likewise, if I can infer that a food is going to be disgusting based on its ingredients, I don't need to eat it to prove the point.

Unfortunately, yesterday I didn't have a choice. I had to eat natto. I knew that it was supposed to look bad a smell even worse, but what I didn't expect was that I would actually be able to see the green and blue mold growing on it. I ate one bean. My face immediately screwed up in disgust. The kids had no problem guessing that I thought it was "Blagh."

Last came the vegemite. I had never thought that this food would actually be incredibly bad. I always thought that if a continent of people thought it was good enough to slather on their toast, it would be ok. Then again, there are also entire countries that think rotten soy beans are an acceptable dish, so I should have known better. I took a pea-sized amount on my chopstick. It was brown and had the consistency of caramel. I put it in my mouth. It was very acidic. I don't remember much else about the taste, because almost immediately I could taste bile in the back of my throat. If I had to describe the taste of vegemite, I would say it tasted like what I imagine syrup of epikak would taste like. It also has a very similar effect. I turned my back to the students to hide the tears welling up in my eyes. I took a few deep breaths and concentrated on keeping my breakfast down. This lasted for a couple of minutes. How you could ever consume a large amount of that substance, I don't know.