Where have all the humidities gone?

It's been getting chilly here. Kinda surprising how fast it happened, to be honest. I still remember quite vividly the heat and humidity of the summer. Hell, I wrote about it. You probably remember it. Seems like one week it was summer, then the next week the humidity was gone and the temperature just started rolling downhill from there. Every day is a degree colder. Every day I have to wear just that little bit more to stay at my ideal temperature.

Actually, in order to maintain that aforementioned ideal temperature with those aforementioned clothes that I have to wear, I recently went on a bit of a shopping spree. Uniqlo (a "budget" clothes store spread all throughout Japan that has Western sizes) was having a sale. And I needed new clothes. The loot is as follows

- lightweight, but excellently effective windbreaker/rain coat

- two pairs of black chinos (for work)

- a dark grey sweater (also for work)

- two long sleeve shirts (still for work)

And the total price was... I'm not telling. Even with everything on sale and it being a "budget" place, it was still all expensive enough that I'm almost ashamed to have spent that much. I did actually need that stuff, though. I didn't have enough long-sleeve shirts, I didn't have a single sweater or vest or warm thing I could wear to work, and all the black pants I brought with me are unusable. I did have one pair of pants that could have worked, but as they're half of a rather expensive suit, I wasn't very keen on using them.

Yes, that really is what I tell myself to justify the moneys.

Anyway, afterward I splurged on candy from the Sweet Factory (zomg real candy in Japan! real, squishy candies!). Then I headed downstairs to the new import store (sells foreign goods) and got a few Belgian beers and Californian wines. Expensive, but 100% worth it.

Why worth it? Well, because it's not that easy for me to get stuff that I was used to in North America. Like good wine and good beer, both of which I am absolutely a lover of. I can get the stuff, but it takes a fair amount of time and effort and travel. So when I do get it, I am quite pleased.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of good substitutes. I'm learning to appreciate the different sake available. And I've learned that, for the most part, people don't really say sake. Sake is nihonshu (often translated to me as Japanese wine). It's made from rice and damn it goes down smooth. I prefer it cool or at room temperature rather than warmed up, personally. "Sake" is just a catch-all term for alcohol in general.

But there isn't just nihonshu, there's also shochu, which is a clear distilled beverage kind of like vodka with a lower proof. Well, sometimes it can be 40% like vodka, but it usually comes in at about 25%. Anyway, I mention shochu because it can be really hard to tell the difference between shochu and nihonshu without drinking it. The labels are confusing, because they often display the type of shochu or nihonshu without saying that it's shochu or nihonshu, and I don't already know the different types. So a lot of it ends up just as a guessing game at the supermarket.

Anyway, enough rambling about that. The point is that I have found other alcohols to explore and learn about so as to distract me from the lack of familiar alcohols. And the same goes for the lack of good pizza, good French food, good Chinese, etc. And yes, there really is a lack of good Chinese food. There isn't a single Chinese restaurant in my town and I have found a total of 1 Chinese restaurant in my prefecture. For shame, Japan. For shame.

At any rate, I have now acquired warm clothes and alcohol that I know something about. As far as I'm concerned, I'm all set for whatever Japan has to throw at me now. In fact, one of my fellow teachers mentioned that she knew of a good wine bar in nearby Fukuyama, so we will hopefully check that out soon. Hooray, wine! Hooray!

I am way too excited about this. I swear I'm not an alcoholic. I just appreciate quality drinks.

This weekend I'm headed to Nara. Actually, we couldn't find a place to stay in Nara itself, so we're staying in Osaka and then heading into Nara for day trips, but I'm okay with that. Looking forward to playing with some deer. :D

And that's about all I got. It's Thanksgiving in the US right now. My American friends here in Japan are all lamenting their missed holiday right about now, but I have to say, I've never really felt particularly attached to that holiday. It always felt like such an arbitrary, silly day to me. Why pick one day to be thankful? It's almost like an excuse to not be thankful the other 364 days of the year. And why that day? There were plenty of other thanksgiving feasts that were held at different times.

Re: History.com - "For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn't until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November."

Perhaps I'm just a weird Canadian/Mexican who doesn't believe in the value of nationalism. Or maybe Thanksgiving really is weird. I dunno. Here's my blog, you decide.

~Jeffles

On Writing and Speeches

I don't have a lot of time to write this blog post, so I'll keep it short. I only really have two things to talk about this time anyway. Though given my track record of waxing on and on about just one topic for an entire blog post, perhaps I'm actually being too ambitious. Who knows.

Point one: I am faltering in my commitment to NaNoWriMo. Well, perhaps I could phrase that better. My attempt at NaNoWriMo is faltering. I still really, really want to do it and desperately wish I could pound out the 50k by the end of the month. But unfortunately, I'm about 10k behind where I should be right now. And that's just following the 1666 words a day that they recommend, not the 2000 words a day I was aiming at.

Why has this happened? Well, to be frank, I got a little slammed by life. Spent multiple long nights preparing stuff for classes, then played host over a weekend to some visitors. Then there was the daimyo parade that I'd committed to go to a long time before. And then there was the speech that I had to give. All of this sort of took away any free time I had to do writing. Because, as it stands, I still have my normal work hours, during which I can't really write for the most part, and I have to go to Judo twice a week.

I did get a little writing done at work between classes on Friday, but Friday is the only day I can do that. Tuesday to Thursday, I don't have a computer at work and Monday I have classes back to back all day.

Okay, so I do have some time on Thursday (today) that I could be writing. My excuse for not writing is as follows: in spite of my long sleep last night, I'm still mentally exhausted and could not muster the effort to write prose. As well, my momentum has been completely shot. Which means that getting myself going on this writing thing every day is an uphill battle that I pretty much consistently lose. And today, all that effort has gone into this blog post.

On a happier note, though, this blog is writing. That means that I may be developing a little momentum that I can carry into the weekend. I have no big plans this weekend (except a short trip to the nearby mall that shouldn't interfere with writing), so I have the time. It's just a matter of getting the motivation and energy together to get it done.

Which brings me to Point Two: I mentioned it earlier, but I had to give a speech recently. It was... an interesting affair. Let me describe what happened.

About a week ago, a rather influential townsperson came into the office (my desk is in city hall) and asked the board of education to set aside some time for me to give a speech to the local rotary club. After they had agreed that I had the time to do it, they called me over and asked me to do it. Which meant, of course, that I had no choice in the matter as they had decided without me.

No matter, I would have agreed to do it anyway. But then it was strongly suggested that I do the speech in Japanese. Now, my Japanese is definitely not strong enough to give a decent speech. And on top of that, they said I could talk about anything I wanted. Yay lack of direction.

I ended up talking to another ALT in my town who had given such a speech already and she suggested I basically translate the statement of purpose I had written to get into the JET programme in the first place. So I looked at my statement of purpose, then promptly realized it would make a terrible speech and that I had no idea how to translate half the stuff in it anyway. So instead I stayed up writing something else until the wee hours of the morning, just a few hours before actually giving the speech. Basically, I wrote about internationalization and how I thought it was important. Whatever.

After my last class ended at my morning school, the aforementioned influential townsperson picked me up in her car and drove me to the rotary club. Now, I've never been to a rotary club before, so I didn't really know what to expect. I knew there would be lots of rich people. As far as I knew, the Rotary Club is just a club for rich people to gather and pretend they have a social life. Or something. I really don't know.

Turned out to be pretty much exactly that. It was 95% male and over 60. They all wore blazers and sat in their chair with an air of comfortable indifference. The meeting started with a chorus of voices singing the Rotary Club Anthem (or, what I'm guessing was the Rotary Club Anthem - it was in Japanese). That was kind of surprising. I tried (and largely failed) to follow along. Then we sat down, had an excellent and very typically Japanese bento lunch.

Then there was this other thing that I thought was kinda weird. Anyone who wanted to stand up and say what they were thankful for could do so, provided they pay 1000 yen (about $13). Pretty much everyone went for it. Totally don't understand what that was about, but whatever. Maybe it was just an excuse to donate money to the club? I don't know.

Anyway, after that, I gave me speech, answered a few questions, got paid, and left. Oh yeah, I got paid. That was cool. Kinda makes me wish I gave a better speech. Actually, makes me wish I wrote the speech in English because, guess what? There was a TRANSLATOR! Yay for telling me to speak Japanese when I could have done a better job in English! -_-

No, I'm not bitter. Not at all.

Haha, I kid. At the end of the day, I don't really care that much. But given that they paid to see me speak, I wish I could have done a better job. Oh well.

Time's up. I was going to post a translation of my speech, but I gotta go to my evening classes. Ciao!

~Jeffles

Epiphanizing

Howdy there. What's up? How's it going? Done anything cool since last we spoke? Yeaaah, I am pretty much amazing at icebreakers. I practice them every day in the mirror. Step out of the shower and BAM ICEBREAKER TIME. Can you tell?

So last week, I mentioned that I had come to some epiphanies. Really, there's one important one which has suddenly explained a lot of Japan to me. But a few weeks ago I had another epiphany which, on further reflection, turned out to be only a small epiphany that tied into a previously held belief. It did, however, reveal something else. So...

Epiphany #1: Japanese people out here in this part of the country are essentially just like small town, suburban people back home.

I came to this epiphany at the mall in Kurashiki. I'd gone down for the day to pick up a few important items for my home and life in general. An electric kettle, for instance, so that I didn't have to boil water in a pot on my stove every morning, which for some reason I find hugely unappealing. I also needed a light for my bike, because my previous light (a motion-sensor thingie that I don't pretend to understand) mysteriously stopped working

Anyway, I was walking around and I realized that it was a scene I had seen before. Though I didn't understand most of the words that people were saying around me, I did recognize the social dynamics, the tones of voice, even the underlying feeling in the way everyone was dressing. Parents were just like suburban moms and dads back in Canada/America and the kids were exactly like the kids I had known in high school. (Side note: my high school was in a small town that was sort of like the central hub for all the surrounding towns which were even smaller.)

This lead to the further understanding that I had been thinking of Japanese people first as Japanese and second as people. That might be understandable. The first thing you say to yourself when you get off a plane in Japan is "Sweet, I'm in Japan." The second thing you say is "Hey look, everything's in Japanese." And finally, you say to yourself, "Check it out, everyone's Japanese."

So when you are in this foreign country, you automatically distance yourself from it. You become an observer and everything around you becomes something like a reality TV show. This is fine, but when you distance yourself from the people around you, you create an Us And Them scenario that tends to dehumanize the Them. No longer are the people around you people, they're Them, the Japanese People.

This was something I had already known might happen, so I wasn't too surprised to notice it. Thus why Epiphany #1 is really only a small epiphany that builds on what I already know; people around the world are ultimately the same - they're just people.

I remember being about sixteen and speaking to an older friend of mine who was in the military, serving in Afghanistan at the time. He told me something that I've never forgotten, mostly because it is simply so true. "People in countries other than America aren't any less stupid than Americans, they just speak a different language."

Epiphany #2: The uniqueness of Japanese culture is derived from an obsession with details.

I came to this realization not too long ago and it explains so much about things that are considered to be traditionally Japanese. Kimonos, ikebana, calligraphy, karate, everything. It also extends to things like their reputation for being amazing at math, for producing consistently high quality electronic goods and cars, etc.

Now, before I'm accused of making a sweeping claim of an entire people, let me forestall you: I'm only talking about a cultural point of emphasis. I'm not saying that every Japanese person is detail-obsessed. I'm saying that most of the things that make Japanese things seem Japanese are all about being detail-oriented.

I don't know how to explain the logic behind this one other than making an a priori argument: it is simply what I see every day.

The other day, for example, I was inside a house that I regularly go to. This house is a marvelous work of traditional Japanese culture. The construction, the grounds, the garden, the decorations, everything about it is Japanese. In the genkan (entrance where you take off your shoes), there is a flower vase. It is quite well arranged and placed in a pot that is itself rather nice. So I asked the lady of the house if it was ikebana.

Her reply, which I admit I only partially understood, was that it was not ikebana. But the reason it wasn't ikebana was that the details were slightly off. The angle at which this stem sat, the number of flowers in it, the fact that there were plants instead of flowers, etc. She listed several reasons, all of which seemed to be saying "This is not ikebana because the details are wrong. Ikebana is not just the arrangement of flowers in whatever pretty formation, you ignorant lout."

Well, she didn't call me an ignorant lout. She was actually quite nice about the whole thing. But I started to look around realize that everything the Japanese do seems to emphasize getting the details right.

If you wear a kimono, you better damn well make sure that every fold is perfect. Make sure the left side crosses over the right side, or damn you to hell and back. Make sure the collar at the back of your neck exposes just the right amount of skin, or your life ain't worth one yen. And if you get the bow wrong in any way, God help us all.

Judo is seemingly slightly more lenient, but the emphasis is on slightly. (Oh My God, you mean there's more than one way to tie a Judo belt?) In practice, the main point is to use what you like, when you like. But, of course, whatever you choose to do must be done perfectly. Feet placed at the perfect angle, head turned just the right amount, torso twisting exactly to 15 degrees - any more and you'll fly off your feet, as I've embarrassingly done several times before. There are so many little details that have to be perfect, and I haven't even mentioned the greetings, the seat assignments, and even the way you're supposed to move between drills.

I could go through probably every Japanese cultural activity I mentioned and point out how detail obsessed it is. But I won't bore you with that. Look for yourself. It's more amusing that way.

Anyway, I can totally understand now why Japanese people are also so obsessed with the enkai (after work party). Every day, all day, they put their all into making sure every little detail is perfect. That has got to be exhausting. Never thought I'd say this, but thank God I'm not Japanese.

~Jeffles

Forming Habits

Forgive me if this blog post is a bit shorter than normal, I just squeezed out two thousand words of novel. If it sounds painful, that's probably because it was.

The last couple of days were actually quite good. I seemed to know what to write and where to go. Today I knew where I wanted to go, but had no idea what to write. I think there's just days like that. You just gotta push yourself and do it. Like any other habit you're trying to form. Speaking of which, I had a funny moment yesterday. It requires a little back story, though.

After the Halloween party on Friday, I found that I had become sick. What I have decided is that my body had actually been fighting something off for a while, then my deluge of fun times ruined all those efforts. Thus the disease won, my body lost, and the rest of my weekend can be described accurately as: snot, sleep, and holy crap gross.

Saturday and Sunday were definitely the worst days with Monday being pretty bad, but slightly better. Tuesday was pretty much the same as Monday. Luckily, I didn't have to go to any classes on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. (My schools were having culture festival things.) And then Thursday is a national holiday, so hooray. My sickness did not, in any meaningful way, affect my job. However, Tuesday is Judo day.

Yeah, that wasn't going to happen. As I missed the previous practice on Friday due to the Halloween Party, I had fully intended to go on Tuesday. But alas, my body cried "no!" and I listened. So I tried to call my sensei, but for whatever reason he wasn't there. Well, I tried.

Or so I thought. Yesterday, my sensei actually called the office and told me to come to Judo. Oops! Anyway, I explained to my boss that I was sick and that was why I hadn't gone on Tuesday. Given that my voice sounds like something out of a horror movie, he had no doubt I was telling the truth. Even jokingly told me that my voice sounded sexy. Hah! Whoever said the Japanese don't know how to be sarcastic obviously never met my coworkers. :D

Anyway, he said he'd let my sensei know and I was able to relax, greatly relieved. Yet I also know that, should I slack off any more, I'm probably in for a world of hurt. Tomorrow is Friday, another Judo day. And my voice may have been replaced with that of some hellish demon's, but you can bet your butt that I'm going. No matter how I'm feeling. Which brings me back to my earlier point.

Feeling like crap? Who cares! Your habits are your responsibility. Take it seriously, yo.

At least, that seems to be the opinion here. I've seen it lots of other places, too. I can't talk about them, though, as they deal with stuff at the workplace and, as I said a while ago, I intend not to talk about that kinda stuff on the blog. Anyway, we foreigners get cut a little slack, but just a little. (Obviously.)

And that's all I've got for today. I've made a few observations, actually. Come to some epiphanies. That kinda thing. No drugs required, just Japan. But I don't feel like typing anymore today. So... have a good one.

~Jeffles