http://wade3.blogspot.com

please update your bookmarks! this page is liable to disappear at any time!

UHMAIRIKKKAN STUFF JAPAN SHOULD HAVE:
mexican restaurants/food/people: not an Uhmairikkan thing, but due to obvious proximity, a fixture back home. here, the restaurants, food and people are all hard to come by. surprisingly, especially in my town, a HUGE Brazilian-Japanese community.

cornbread: had no idea how uhmairikkan this was. my british friend only had it once or twice when he was on exchange in Maine. another friend, about 2 minutes into my story about the first brit friend, finally interjected "i'm sorry, what is cornbread?" i grew up on the stuff. dinner for me was salad, main course and cornbread or biscuits (distant relative to the "scone" it seems...). i'm making a coupla pans for the holiday party. internationalization. see, i'm doing my job!

eggnog: find me some nog in Japan and i'll give you a thousand yen! (snicker snicker)

twix: i love twix. but i suppose 2 sticks of chocolate in one package are WAAAY too much for the average J-teen.

good music: not food, and a low blow... but i'm stickin to it...

Koka koraa, Hantaa and Doleetosu: the Coke here is bitter and weird. the Fanta is bitter and tastes amazingly artificial, and the Doritos, well, seeing as 95% of Japan is rice fields, where the hell would they get the corn from? just not right.

KFC: known here as Kentakee, not the same. no mashed potatoes. lots of dark meat. no large size fries. FAILURE!

kit kat: they do have kit-kat here. and not yo mama's kit kat! no, we got kit-kat white (white chocolate), strawberry kit-kat, pineapple kit-kat, musk melon kit-kat and octopus kit-kat. okay, so there is no octopus kit-kat, but you can get dried "octopus jerkey" on the same rack. cool!

keyboards: again, not food, but you'll notice a plethora of typos in my stuff that i don't fix cuz i don't know how. see, the keyboard at my school atleast is japanese, but has most romanized grammatical symbols somewhere on it. the thing is, the computer has a totally different attitude about these things. i go for a parenthese, i get quotation marks; i go for the apostrophe, i get a 7. what's that all about. NIHON!ATARASHI KIIBOODO!ISOGE!

JAPANESE STUFF THAT UHMAIRIKKA SHOULD HAVE:
onigiri: random filling (i.e. fish eggs, fermented beans, tuna and mayonaise, little fish with the heads still attached) in vinegar soaked rice packed into a triangle and wrapped in seaweed. when i arrived, they comprised my entire diet.

conbini: convenience stores, and SOOO much more. you can get an entire meal, pay your bills, get new underwear, buy porn, charge your cell phone and book opera tickets all at the conbini. one night, i was at a job party when i got a call demanding i come to a soccer tournament. with only the clothes on my back and 10 bucks in my pocket. i hitched 8 hours to the tournament. the next morning, hung over, i realized my situation. no worries! i got the hangover remedy, new socks, underwear and shirt all at the conbini. totally lost the tourney. but god bless the conbini. can YOUR 7-11 do that?

inari zush: similar to onigiri, but instead of seawead, fried tofu is used. this was my dessert in those early, onigiri dinner days.

table buttons: you go to the restaurant. you sit down. check the menu. push the button. a waiter appears. not a robot, even. a real person! and anytime you want them to come back, push the button! of course, drunken foreigners who are feeling really obnoxious abuse this right quite often. but a genius idea noless.

melon pan: melon flavored bread. sounds wrong. so right. on that front, you can get bread flavored or filled with anything here. curry, butter, mayonaise, more butter, hot dogs, ketchup, ketchup and chocolate, potato gratin, octopus... i haven't seen the octopus bread but i swear to god its somewhere.

pocari sweat... or any drink with SWEAT in the name: a sports drink, roughly along the lines of GATORADE but milky white and flavor of unknown origin.

i sure will miss this place...

PLAYLIST FOR THIS ENTRY:
PREDICTABLE (Japanese version), Good Charlotte

afternoon delight is great song. never listened to lyrics before. always thought was folk music about pretty birds and whatnot, but the song is all about boning. "rubbing sticks and stones together (make?) the sparks ignite and the thought of loving you is gettin' so excitin'." rubbing sticks and stones together... brilliant, that bit....

PLAYLIST FOR THIS ENTRY:
my sniffles, the huge incinerator that serves as heating in the teacher's office here (spitting out the poisonous byproduct of the kerosene used to fuel it, whatever that is, and blackening the right side of my body while the left side freezes... technology. amazing...) and the click of 7 teacher's mouses as they busily rack up points on solitaire...

Hiroshi is always a quiet guy at school but it was great to see him interact with his family, totally relaxed. i think my awe showed. after all, i hear over and over again how Japanese fathers don't spend time with their families. Hiroshi's wife had a lot of questions on family life in the West. at one point she said (in a broken Japanese-English conversation, of course): "i've heard that families in the west are very friendly to each other and i wanted that for my family too. most japanese fathers aren't part of the family. Japan is 20 years behind, i think." i took the roundabout compliment but reminded her that the West has its share of dysfunctional families as well. but she really was an interesting woman to talk with beyond that.

anyways, just a good day away from the house with good people. plus they ordered this massive sashimi/sushi platter for me, specially prepared without the shellfish i'm violently allergic too. there was SOOO much food. Hiroshi's wife kept apologizing for not cooking. not that i'm one to turn down a home made japanese meal, but the takeout was quality.

a slice of the weekend. cute kids, good conversation, brilliant food... a boy can't complain...

but i don't think i'm wrong.

i'm worried about how far back the US will slide in policy and in popular attitude (whatever "popular attitude" is). Saul Williams (www.saulwilliams.com) has an interesting map comparison on his website: the red/blue state map vs. the pre-Civil War slave/free state map. check it out.

i wonder how people would vote if the issue of interracial relationships were to be put on the ballot. i really wonder if it would be allowed. what about segregation? slavery? there's already a push, supported by the George Bush, for a discriminatory constitutional amendment (in lieu of 11 states passing similar discriminatory policies). banning gay marriage is discrimination. i won't even participate in an argument about it.

according to the reports, Bush won by a clear majority this election. so we should sit back and accept that? because it was "democratic"? the will of the people?

Adolph Hitler rose to power through the political processes in Germany. he had the support of the people. yes he was part of a radical, fundamentalist party, but hey... where do we start drawing those lines? it was a different time, it was a different culture, blah, blah, blah...

i'm not calling George Bush "Hitler" but i think we should keep questioning and scrutinizing our leaders. even if we agree with them we have to perpetually hold them accountable. i cannot put my faith in this pseudo-democratic system, only taking count every 4 years or so.

but maybe i'm wrong. hopefully i'm an idiot and my entire sense of morals and right and wrong are too jaded or too blinding for me to see sense. i hope so, but i don't think so...

PLAYLIST FOR THIS ENTRY:
NPR.org, streaming from the net...

a friend and student of mine, Chikura, also has a website he keeps. what's cool is that the other day he read my blog, translated 2 entries into Japanese, and put it up on his page: http://chikura.fprog.com.

you may have guessed that it is in Japanese so be sure your browser is text encoded to Japanese (Shift JIS). (Edit-->Text Encoding-->Japanese (Shift JIS))
"Turning Japanese I think I'm turning Japanese I really think so..."

PLAYLIST FOR THIS ENTRY:
The Girl Who Fell Through the Ice, AiM
Bong Song, SUBLIME
Cupid, 112
Rakuen Baby (Paradise Baby), RIP SLYME
The Space Between Two Worlds, NUJABES

PLAYLIST FOR THIS ENTRY:
nothing. wasting away at work. wallowing in self-pity.

PLAYLIST I WISH I HAD FOR THIS ENTRY:
Coin-Operated Boy, DRESDEN DOLLS
Sometimes, SWEET HONEY IN THE ROCK
Assessment, BETA BAND
Olsen Olsen, SIGUR ROS
Modern Man's Hustle, ATMOSPHERE
Fool of Me, ME'SHELL N'DEGEOCELLO (spelling...)

sunday, november 21
Wake up. Mess around at Patrick’s til about 1. Me and Yosenex roll up to Ueno. Kat says they’re in Harajuku. I say by to Yo and change trains. Meet crew in Harajuku. Head to Tokyo Big Top to see Cirque Du Soleil. Amazing. Great seats. Better be for the 110 bucks I paid! Far and away favorites were the “Track” Gymnasts on the trampolines. Brent and Tanya say goodbye. Go back to Kiddieland and Takeshita. Everything is closing. Go to Shibuya. Dinner at Christon Café. “The last supper, served nightly.” Apparently all the décor is from real cathedrals. Had lasagna and 2 plates of Turkish rice under 3 virgin Mary--s (how do you pluralize the virgin Mary? Maries?), a gargoyle, and Jesus. Kind of odd that their cocktails are really strong. Say bye to Catherine. Go to Shinjuku to catch overnight bus. Back to Fukui. Good weekend.

as for whats on in my life, tonight i'm taking the 8-hour night bus to Tokyo for the weekend. on Sunday i'm seeing the Cirque d'Soleil ALLEGRIA show. Saturday, me and my buds (Kat, Christina and Jose) will be tramping about Tokyo and partying that night. i'm most geeked to see the cosplay kids preening in Yoyogi Park on Sunday. i love Tokyo so much. really, if i was a city, i would be Tokyo. its huge, like me (snicker snicker). i don't always understand whats going on but i manage to enjoy the city anyway (i never know whats going on in my head but i have a ball being me!). and there's lots of lights and hot people... okay, so i don't have lights or hot people but... whatever....
TUNE IN TOKYOOOOO!

but this entry is actually dedicated to my students.

i am a high school ASSISTANT English teacher in suburban Japan (Fukui Prefecture, if you know it). i work at two schools: Takefu Kogyo Koko (Takefu Industrial High School) and Ikeda Koko (Ikeda High School, which doubles as the branch school for the "lower level" students of the neighboring town, Takefu, where I actually live).

Takefu Kogyo Koko
when i was first assigned this school and telling Japanese people where i worked, the common response was "Oh! Many bad boys!". i knew i wouldn't be worrying about metal detectors in the hall or anything but what exactly made a bad Japanese kid, you know what i'm sayin? well, by "bad" they meant these guys aren't "academic" since my school is officially a "non-academic" school. i suppose its best compared to a vocational school in the US.

there are roughly 420 boys and 21 girls in my school (only because, traditionally, girls don't pursue technical/industrial careers, so i've been told). another reason they are labeled as bad is because they either a) score low on the high-school entrance exam, particularly in English or b) have voiced disinterest in learning the English language. a blessing and a curse for this ASSISTANT English sensei.

i had no idea what to expect when i first walked into the shoe-locker room (to change into my indoor shoes, of course). from what i had heard i'd be watching my back for Kenji and his mini-Yakuza buddies with box-cutters hidden in their uniforms.

no. instead it was a bunch of kids fascinated by things like sex, drugs and black people, all things they seemed to have very little experience with.

my first sexual experience at Kogyo (yeah, i wanted that to sound nasty).
the following routine began my first day and continued every other day for a year or so. these 3 seniors would appear in my immediate vicinity and kind of hover nearby, but trying to be inconspicuous. then kid (whose name i NEVER learned) would appear and kind of pace in my more immediate vicinity, "sneaking up" on me. then he'd lean in close and whisper "I love sex." and then he and his friends would burst out laughing and run away. 17 years old, this one. he never stuck around long enough for me to tell him i loved sex as well.

drugs
so apparently, i live in the slums of my town. mainly because other Asian foreigners also live nearby. my teachers tell me that the drugs in Japan all come from foreigners so i must be careful to avoid the Chinese, Indonesians, Philipinos and Thais that live near me (i hadn't yet figured out how to say "You are very racist" in Japanese). my students are determined to do said drugs with me, however. they have a lot to learn, seeing as their invitation to share some "marifana" with me is accompanied by the gesture of shooting up with a syringe. i was so proud of one of my seniors last year who actually went on-line and copied down a diagram of how to roll a perfect joint. the internet, spreading knowledge.

black people
okay, its more my hair. when i first arrived, my students told me i looked like Wil Smith, Shaq, Bob Sapp, Denzel Washington and a camel. not all bad. but this year, i let my hair grow out. EVERY. FRIGGIN. DAY i get the hands in the hair and the tugging and the "UWA!" and "BIKKURI!" about my hair. i actually don't mind but it boggles me that after 2 months of a certified, mini-fro, the kids haven't gotten bored yet. i find it endearing that they really try to use english to explain that my hair is like SUCHIRU URU (steel wool) or a TAWASHI (sponge).

on the flipside, there are the signs of the Western influence on their perception of blacks. i have been asked to explain the meaning of "nigger" more than once and it's hard to explain the connotation (they hear it in movies and in music, of course). they do realize it is in reference to KOKUJIN, or black people. seeing as all taboo English is "cool" here, one student actually used "nigger" ("kill you nigger!" to be exact) in his worksheet. i asked my teacher to explain why that was inappropriate to the student and i spoke with him myself. he was sincerely apologetic but i still don't think he understands the meaning. i hate telling someone not to do something without them understanding why its undesirable. i think knowing it hurt my feelings was enough for him for now.

anyways, bottom line, Takefu Kogyo is not the Japanese version of DANGEROUS MINDS that i was told it was. no, that would be...

Ikeda High School
Ikeda is a tiny mountain town (South Park-like) about an hour from my house. there are only about 80 students and THESE are the kids the teachers are scared of. i understand why but i've never had a problem myself but this year alone, we've lost 3 students. one was expelled for fighting with a teacher (is now becoming a police officer, the irony), another stole a motorcycle, crashed it, made a couple of subsequent visits on his new cycle, then disappeared (though i saw him with HIS BABY at a shopping center a few weeks ago), and the other, who exhibited more than a mild case of ADD, quit a few weeks back. i still see him around town in his school uniform...

nonetheless, i'm convinced these guys come to school to party. ironically, their English is really good. not because the schooling is any better, but when they should be doing their work, they're listening to American music, watching American movies, or talking to me. in class, rather than work, they like to call each other on their cellphones (yes, just across the room), download porn onto their cellphones, then show me (what do you say to that?) and jump out the 2nd floor windows.

i was shocked when in my first day, in the middle of the teacher's dictation, 3 students announced "SMOKING TIME!" and walked out of class, apparently to go smoke. (they would later take to inviting me to have a smoke as well. i usually declined...)

there was the Dangerous Minds day, when, as the teacher and I were approaching the classroom, i hear really loud, really BAD J-punk music blaring down the hall. we get to the classroom and the doors are locked. taking a peek in the window, there are airplanes flying, cell phones ringing, one of the twins that never wears his shirt in class, a wrestling match in one corner, and just inside the door, the other twin, sitting on the floor eating his lunch, 3 hours early. naturally, my teacher knocks politely. the eating twin (with his shirt on) looks up, gives us the finger and shouts in perfect English "I am very hungry!" then continues eating.

i really do love the kids at Ikeda. for all their wildness, they have a sense of family among them that i rarely see in any facet of Japanese society. kids that might get bullied at other Japanese schools are welcome and looked after by the other students (we have one kid who doesn't speak at all, but all the "popular" kids make sure he is included in all the activities. so cool to see that). Ikeda, though i visit once a week, totally sets the tone for said week. and the staff there of about 10 teachers are sooo cool. the vice principal, with minimal English, makes sure that my apartment is warm enough, that i have safe rides home, that i know the weather, that i have a healthy lunch. and she also makes me study Japanese and quizzes me on it. a woman after my own heart, that one!

when i have to leave this place, i WILL cry. call me what you will but with my blood family half a world away, i suddenly have these kids and people, who can barely speak my language, filling a huge human void in my life. sigh...

PLAYLIST FOR THIS ENTRY:
the sounds of 442 Japanese teenagers shouting, playing and a couple of them singing "HEY NEIL" to the tune of the Beatles' "HEY JUDE"

please read this article. if you can't be asked, here's my favorite quote:

"It's like experimenting with drugs," Davies said. "You just keep playing with it and it becomes customary. ... If it's OK to dress like a girl today, then why is it not OK in the future?"

this quote is made by someone's mother, by the way. i REALLY hope neither of her children are non-heterosexuals or they are gonna have it tough.

so there's this tradition in this small town in Texas (USA) for homecoming where, in short, gender roles are switched. boys can dress like girls and vice versa, girls are chivalrous, etc. apparently this tradition has been going on for years at the school and there has been nary a problem until this year when a mother complained because it alludes to homosexuality.

some of you may agree with the mother. that's fine. here's why i am FIERCELY opposed.

1) The mother is upset that this tradition has homosexual overtones. SO. WHAT? without opening the usual can of worms, i will simply say, what's so wrong with homosexuality? i know, morals and all that but people seem to forget that morality is an extremely personal thing and varies from person to person, culture to culture (of which there are many in the US alone), etc. trying to apply a blanket morality to a group of people, much less, a nation (i'll stop before i get to where you probably think i'm going. no worries!) is pretty bold and more than a little presumptuous. back to this mother, i disagree. homosexuality is not a bad thing.

2) "[Cross-dressing's] like experimenting with drugs..."
.... First of alll, she's using the "scary drugs" ideology which is another issue altogether. We all know the best drugs come from Texas anyway. What's she complaining about? Just kidding. Texas has horrible drugs. Go north.
Onwards, assuming all drugs are bad, which is her premise, how can you compare crossdressing to drug use? I'll try. Let's try a random drug, like crack. I have precious little experience with crack but I will use what i know to compare it to cross-dressing as i know it.

Crack literally, physically destroys your body. The effects of this withering away are often visible and can leave said user unattractive. If I jump into some Victoria Secret Panties and a Hanes-Her-Way bra, at worst I'd get some chaffing. And I'd probably still be cute! So right there, cross-dressing and crack are different.

Crack is a highly addictive chemical dependency. It tends to cloud one's perception and take over their life, inhibiting daily functionality. A friend of mine in high school used to wear dresses to school. He was sent home a couple of times, but generally, he got his school work done, he could drive, he was reliable and showed up to community service projects on time. Anyone from my uni will remember that the infamous Robe-boy wore the same dress-like robe for 2 years. He was fine. A laid back, reliable functional guy. (And Mother Davies above would be hapy to know that neither of my cross-dressing friends are homosexuals.) Cross dressing and crack are different.

There is a certain, undeniable criminal element within the crackhead culture, so I've seen and heard (one of my professors was attacked by a crackhead once... So weird to have this guy telling me about his fight with a crackhead). Admittedly, I've met some drag queens who are damn-serious about their wardrobe. If some upstart queen shows up in another queen's dress there will be violence. But by and large the rules of the game are well understood in drag-queendom and generally drag nights are all smiles and kisses. Furthermore, my aforementioned cross-dressing buddies have always been upstanding, productive citizens. I have a longer record than the both of them put together and that's just in traffic violations. Cross-dressing and crack are different.

I disagree with the mother here. I don't see a problem with homosexuality, its overtones or cross-dressing. She, along with her other friends in THAT HALF of the US, are fighting a battle out of spite and selfishness. I mean, this homecoming event sounds like a nice way for the students to let loose and, heaven forbid, perhaps reconsider gender roles and conformity. But then they might start doing drugs.... I mean cross-dressing.

Ironically, it was replaced with "Camo Day" as in 'camouflage,' as in the Army, as in the military, as in the military forces the US government has placed around the world in places such as Iraq... hmm... Let's NOT play this game today... But really, "No to homos! Yes to war paraphernalia!"

This was way too long and I'm still mad. "Writing is therapeutic..." Whoever said that must have been on drugs... or a cross dresser....

PLAYLIST FOR THIS ENTRY:
Complexity, THE ROOTS
Act Too... The Love of My Life, THE ROOTS
Grey Gardens, RUFUS WAINRIGHT
Instant Pleasure, RUFUS WAINRIGHT
World on Fire, SARAH MACLACHLAN
Closing Time, SEMISONIC
Svefn-g-englar, SIGUR ROS

i was tryna think of something all deep and profound for my first entry but i just wanna talk about my absolute favorite thing in Japan.

what i will most miss about Japan is the 100 yen (HYAKUEN; hi-ya-koo-en) shop. 100 yen is slightly less than a US dollar. but don't be fooled. the HYAKUEN shop is no EVERYTHING'S A DOLLAR from the US. you can literally furnish your entire kitchen at the 100 yen shop. pots, pans, plates, utensils, towels, glasses cups... all for 100 yen a piece. yeah, and if you think its crap, how wrong you are. i've had my 100 yen kitchenware for over 2 years now and it has never failed me. what's great, if you break, destroy, ignite or chemically alter any of these things by accident, a 20 minute bike ride and a few bucks later, you got an entire new kitchen set.

do realize, the HYAKUEN is a trap. its miracles/curses do not stop at the kitchen. you walk up in there planning to buy, maybe, a CD-R or an emergency gift for a birthday party... but suddenly, you need that toothbrush case (happily informing you "Daily happy teeth are sunshine. Do you know many flower?"), or that orange juicer (for all the oranges i juice) and a new egg beater, and that novelty sexual position dinner set (beginner, novice, professional)... and suddenly, you've spent 2000 yen...

back to the good points, you're probably thinking all the HYAKUEN stuff is tacky, huh? wrong again, fuzzball. allow me to spin a small tale of wonder: there is this store in Japan called MUJI, which is somewhere between OLD NAVY and PIER ONE. MUJI literally means no label, and is minimalist everything from furniture, to bikes, to clothes, to snacks and stationery. basically, beautiful, classy stuff you might have seen on the set of Carrie's flat in SEX AND THE CITY, or in a QUEER EYE episode. what's the HYAKUEN connection?

the HYAKUEN shop has en entire, full-on fake MUJI knockoff section. and no one ever knows any better seeing as the 'no label' policy is MUJI's trademark.

yeah, so it will suck returning to America and paying more than a dollar for a new trash can, kitchen timer, batteries, cell phone car charger, random all-purpose small things container...

the tears are welling... only 8.5 more months for me and my 100 yen love...

PLAYLIST FOR THIS ENTRY:
Afternoon Delight, STARLAND VOCAL BAND
Good Day, DRESDEN DOLLS
Dooh Dooh, ROYKSOPP
Drop It Like Its Hot, SNOOP DOGG

n, one