(Google it if you don't understand.)
I would apologize for not having been around, but I have been around. Just, I've been on youtube. That's right, I have two new videos up! Watch 'em, love 'em, spread 'em around like hot butter on a slab of toast.
You can find them here and here respectively. The intro is new. Is it too long? Not enough sparkly transitions? Need more nearly-naked cat-girls? Let me know what you think.
So, I've covered a lot in the videos, but there's just no way to cover it all. That's what this here blog is for.
As I mentioned in the previous blog post, my days have been so completely filled up that I honestly have no free time. That hasn't changed much. I think it will start to calm down a bit starting tomorrow, but only be for a short while. Once school starts up in September, I'm going to be crazy busy. I have eight different schools to go to, the majority of which require at least a half-hour bike ride...
Anyway, last weekend was yet another festival. It was really quite cool. I did take video of it and will be uploading another youtube jvlog soon, but there are some things that weren't captured on camera.
One of the previous ALTs, a successor of ours, came back to town for the evening. You see, he still had some things left here and needed to pick them up. He also was going to go to the Milky Way festival with us. So as a result, we all got to meet him.
I mention this because it is interesting to me. The majority of foreigners that I have met here in Japan have been people who are themselves new to Japan. We commiserate over our lack of Japanese language ability. We try to muddle through designing our first lesson. We come face-to-face, time and time again, with strange and weird Japanese customs. I won't even go into trying to navigate the train system. Then here comes this guy.
It's hard to explain what it was like to meet him for the first time. His hair, the color of granite, had been buzzed close to his head. Half his fingers were adorned with huge, intricate rings. Each one was different from the next, yet all were the size of small boulders. Around his neck hung a steampunk stopwatch that he said he picked up in Tokyo (or was it Osaka?) for about ￥2500. That it didn't work hardly seemed to matter.
Yet that doesn't really describe him either. He was a bundle of energy, but carried himself as if consciously subduing an inner beast that really, at the end of the day, just wanted to play. The first time I heard him speak, there were three young kids literally hanging off him to try and get the basketball in his hands. Without skipping a beat, he introduced himself to us, dislodged the children, and swished the ball.
As night fell and a dinner of somen noodles and incredible local fruit ended, we arrived at the festival. It was a bit of a drive as it was taking place up in the hills and we all lived in the town, but none of us really minded. It was something different, after all. Who doesn't like a little change of pace?
The minute we stepped onto the festival grounds, the scene transformed from one where we were simply strangers to one where gaggles of school children were swarming on our ring-clad sempai. What did he do? He reveled. Group after group after group came clambering over to him. He, cool as a a breeze on a hot summer day, dealt with them one by one, the smile never leaving his face. He took their energy and threw it right back at them. He challenged them to speak to us and they accepted the challenge, because it was he that posed it to them. They asked for pictures. They talked about their summers. They couldn't get enough.
And then he stepped away and left us. There were photos to take and he had to take them. Alone, we explored the festival grounds.
No one approached us. No one ran at us, shouting our names with glee. I bought some fried pork on a stick and chewed it thoughtfully, getting little more than a curious glance as the seller realized I was a gaijin. This man, our sempai, had only been here a year and had already garnered such a following. I supposed it was only natural. Kids are kids and they love strange things. He certainly was strange. And now he had moved on to bigger and better things. There was some sort of quasi-Christian, Buddhist sect in Kyoto that he said he was staying with. Soon they'd be sending him to Korea to further their mission of world peace. It sounded almost fictional.
Fireworks and a bonfire of paper lanterns plus tree brought the festival to an end. We returned to town. Our sempai took two of us out for drinks where, in spite of running on three hours of sleep, he displayed yet more of his genki self. At one point, he was so caught up in the story he was telling that he found it necessary to stand on his chair while he waved his hands and filled the one-room bar with his voice. No doubt drawn in by his energy, some guys at the bar top treated us to okonomiyaki and some dried squid thing (it was actually quite delicious). Finally, fatigue overtook us and we went our separate ways. He displayed one last act of generosity and paid for the entire night.
As I biked home down my narrow little street, I couldn't help but wonder what kind of man I would become in a year.
~Jeffles
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