That Which Dwells Within Us

The other day I was at my with my Japanese language tutor and we were reading a story about vending machines in Japan. Part of the story focused on the benefits of the vending machines while the other part focused on the detriment. Detriments included things like using electricity, hiring someone to stock the machine, etc, but there was one unusual thing that at first I thought I had misread. It said that vending machines are limiting face to face contact among people. While I thought this was true, I also thought… so what? Is that a problem? Apparently in Japan it is.

After a little inquiry my teacher told me that she had recently had a “student” who had been coming by lately. He was what is called a hikikomori 引き籠もり,. Which translates as someone who pulls away, or a shut in. These people exist in other countries; usually they are people who have some sort of social, physical, or mental disorder or impairment that makes it difficult for them to function outside of a confined or familiar environment that they consider safe. Japan is a leader among the world for this sort of person and China, Taiwan, and South Korea are also seeing rising numbers of hikikomori recently. Some factors that are said to contribute to it is a lack of a right of passage, which would lead to youths becoming adults and also perhaps because of the rigid systems of social ranking in Japan and other countries. Many students in Japan face enormous pressure to test well for universities and highschools and many of those who graduate find slim job prospects, which may also encourage their disallusionment.
My teacher’s student had gone to school as a normal adolescent would, but upon graduating entered his home, rarely to emerge for the past 9 years. As of lately he had expressed a desire to come back into society and so my Japanese teacher, who is also a psychologist, agreed to meet with him to start some rehabilitation.

Apparently in Japan this is very common. I did a little research and asked a few people I know about hikikomori and all of them knew someone at some point in their lives who was or is a hikikomori. By some statistics this involves about 20% of adolescent males (1% of the total population). In fact I know there is at least one at my middle school, and a couple at my elementary schools, although the most serious cases are those that carry on beyond school. At this point you may be thinking, ok, so that is a little strange, but surely its not so bad. At some point these people must emerge from their rooms to go to the bathroom, eat, shop, work, etc. The suprising truth is… not really. Some are known to have stayed in their rooms for periods measuring in years. Many needs such as food and other shopping can be done over the internet or is done by the persons mother, who then brings it to their room. Going to the bathroom may only be done at times the person feels safe, like at night. Which brings me back to the original article I was reading about vending machines.

It seems that a negative side affect of vending machines, which are growing in number in Japan, is that it enables people to remain hikikomori. It also seems that a considerable amount of business occurs at night, which creates a conundrum for owners who don’t want their machines using electricity all night long, but also have a small, but growing costumer base for late night use.

While I recognize that some of these individuals really are disturbed and really do need to be catious about social interactions, the majority are being enabled by their parents and society who has taken a passive role in allowing them to isolate themselves. I can make this argument because when you compare the statistics for urban or middle class families with hikikomori children to those of lower class or rural families the difference is noticeable. People are choosing to become withdrawn from society for petty reasons and their loved ones are allowing them to do it. Despite all that I love about Japan, this is one thing I do not.

Going Grey

Japan has a big population problems. Standing now at 127 million, the Japanese population is expected to be less than 100 million by 2050. There are a number of reasons for this. First and foremost is a negative population growth at -.14 Coupled with a very low rate of immigration that equals decline.
The second is the tendancy for Japanese to marry late, and therefore have children later or not at all.
This however creates big problems as the population becomes the most top heavy in the world. Creating a large base of elderly with a small amount of young. Now it is estimated that every retired person is supported by 7 working people, by 2050 that will be 2. The future for Japan, looks grey.

Ritual

A month ago Aya’s grandfather died, which while a sad event was a cultural treasure trove for me. Now considered a member or the family, I was asked to come to the wake and the funeral. Both events had some similarities with western styles and some new things for me. I would like to share those things that are most interesting, briefly touching on the similarities, while telling a bit more about the differences.

I met Aya’s grandfather one time in the summer or 08’. At that time he didn’t talk and barely stirred, which I was assured was his normal state at that stage of his life, age 90. I didn’t think too much about him even though he lived quite close to me, until this past week when Aya and I went to a movie. It was a Friday and first you have to understand that going to a movie involves an hour drive. So Aya picked me up and as we started out she told me her grandfather had become quite ill and was in the hospital. After chatting a little we decided to keep going, After 1hr he was gone. So upon having reached the movie theater we turned around and drove back. Aya went to spend time with her family while I just went home.
I am not sure what the family did that first night, but probably just consoling each other getting plans ready.



The next day, Saturday, Aya asked me if I would come to the wake, which would be Sunday evening. Of course I said yes, but when I asked her what it would be like she was vague. It must also have been Saturday when the body was prepared encoffinment, which if you have seen the new Japanese movie Departures, you will know what that entails. If you haven’t seen that movie, I recommend you do, its very good and available in most countries since it received an academy award.

On with the story; I missed the encoffinment, because I didn’t know that it was happening, but I made it for the wake Sunday night. I was a bit confused as the word for wake in Japanese is 通夜, which means “through the night” . I was unsure of what to expect. All of the next 24 hours occurs in the same building except for a 2 hour period, so assume all events are in the same place. The building used was 2 stories, and seemed somewhat like a conference hall with dining room, lobby, café’ area, and one room with tatami mats, closets, bathroom, shower and couches. The tatami room was like a Japanese hotel room.

The wake was held in a large conference room, the body at the front in a balsa casket, top open for viewing, and surrounded one all sides by many flower arrangements with small signs indicating who they were from. On one side of the aisle were family, on the other close friends. At an appointed time a Buddhist priest entered, sat, and chanted (when I asked later what he said, no one knew, they said it was very old Japanese and very hard to understand). After about 20 minutes the priest rose and turned to sit facing the crowd. He then made a brief speech about the grandfathe’s life. After his speech attendees approached the casket, burned a small amount of incense, said a prayer and then went back to their seats. As there were about 25 family members and 30 other people, this did not take very long. After which we all went to the room next door which contained a dinner and drinks. We all toasted his life, had dinner and drinks, and the crowd thinned out until just the close family remained. After which time the family, and the casket, where brought downstairs to the tatami room. Here the casket was set on an altar near the couches and candles and incense where lit. The family then prepared more food and drink and talked. The closest family stayed there for the night, sleeping on the tatami near the body, using the bathrooms and showers in the morning to freshen up. Hence, throught the night. I went home, to return the next day.

When I returned the next day at 11am the body had been returned the to large room it had been in the previous night. The exception was that this time there where about twice as many guests as the night before, perhaps nearing 100. The arrangement was the same, except that all chairs were filled. The same Buddhist priest came in, gave what I took to be the same chant and things basically proceeded in the same way.


Once it was only family remaining the employees clipped the flowers off of all the arrangements and gave them to the family in baskets. These flowers were then put into the coffin around the body by the family. This was also the last chance for people to touch him or say goodbye to him and was the only time that I saw any weeping during the entire thing. After the flowers had been put in an employee retrieved the lid, driving a nail into each corner and one into the head. The one he drove into the head he did not fully drive in. He drove it in half way, then the family shuffled past, each taking a stone block, and using it to give the nail a couple of final taps, the last person using the hammer to fully drive it in.
After this the men of the family carried the coffin to a waiting hearse outside the building and the body was transported to a cremation center. The family followed in a bus.

Once we reached the cremation center the body was unloaded and put onto a sled which was wheeled to the front of the incinerator. Here we said a final prayer and the body was slid inside and the doors closed. Then we waited for 2 hours as the body was burned. During this time we had drinks and food and just talked a bit. After two hours we all went to a room and here is the most interesting part for me.

When we entered the room the sled was in the middle with small long tables on each side with pairs of chopsticks laid on them. The close family stood on one side while the rest of the family shuffled past on the other side. The sled in the middle was still very hot and contained the ashes and bones. Family on one side passes bones to family on the other to put into trays and then people switched. Here, people were passing from chopsticks to chopsticks which is why, during meals, it is very rude to use pass things chopsticks to chopsticks. After the most of everything had been collected an employee came in and swept up the rest of the remains taking that and the trays and putting them into the urn. It was odd, but as he put in the bones he would say things like, "this is the finger and that is a piece of the skull. etc"

After the urn was packed we returned to the first building where the guests were waiting. we had another dinner and after 2 hours most people cleared out. The the urn and the close family went back to the grandparents house where the urn, gifts and burning incense have been on display for the last month. In about a week there will be an internment ceremony at the family crypt. I will be sure to write about that later.

Hiking

This Golden Week I again did not have a lot of money to spend, so again I took to the roads around Fukushima and looked for places to hike. This year I took my friend Jon with me and Richard joined us for the third day.
We tried for 3 peaks in 3 days, but the third and tallest was too snow covered to reach the top. We did get to the tops of Adatara and Ogunigoya, but failed to summit Azuma. I am now suffering mountain withdrawl and I am going to hike the hills behind my house tomorrow. This was Golden Week.

Over the next few months I am setting my sights on higher yet, Iide and Fuji. Both mountains I have not done yet and both far higher than those that I have. It will be fun.

A Most Important Guest

I have been to many places to visit people that I know and a few times I have been able to return the favor and host someone. This time around I got the honor of having my mother visit me, which of course means very much to me. I was very excited to have her see my world. She has been following my travels through my blog and of course from our own private correspondence for a while and I have wanted her to share with me for some time, so this was really cool. My mother was really resilient too. Despite all the walking everyday and all the weird food I was putting in front of her she never really slowed down or refused to try anything, except for the raw horse meat  I think she was a very good traveler, inquisitive and respectful, open and ambitious.

We went to three places; Tokyo, Kyoto, and Aizu. In Tokyo we saw many things such as Ueno Park, Akihabara, Tokyo Disney, Odaiba, Meiji Shrine, Sousuji, Edo Museum and lots of other things. For all the large and wonderful things we saw, I think my mom was impressed most with the school kids’ uniforms, especially the girls with hats.
In Kyoto we went to Kinkakuji, Toji, and Fushiinimari-taisya Shrine. Again, many great things to see and do, but I think the most impressive thing was the Shinto ceremony going on at Taisya Shrine. Of course we also got to meet up with Brian and Cynthia, which is always fun and Brian can coax a smile out of anybody.

My mother said of the three places she liked Aizu the best. I’m not really sure why, but I think its just because she got to meet Aya’s parents and because she got to see what day to day life is like for me. We went to school, aikido practice, and went to the castle grounds to view some cherry blossoms.
It was sad to see her go in some ways. I think it’s really ok though, because she will be back some day and then I can show her even more.

Japanese; The Language

I have been asked many times, “Is Japanese hard to learn?” I guess that it really depends on what your native language is. If it is Chinese or Turkish then maybe it won’t be so hard. Some of the sentence structure is the same in Turkish and obviously Chinese also uses kanji (however not in the same way). Personally as a native English speaking adult with almost no prior exposure to Japanese or its grammatical structure it is one of the hardest languages in the world for me to learn. Among a ranking of the 63 languages used in diplomacy Japanese was #2, second only to Hungarian. It out ranked Cantonese, Arabic, Persian, Serbian, Hebrew… you get the idea. I was surprised to find this information (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardest_language) but not entirely. Japanese is hard! I have been studying since the moment I hit the ground here some 18 months ago. Currently I have about a C ranking at level 3, which is just conversational level! Its not that I don’t study, I do, I study for about 8hours a week, not to mention being surrounded by the language. To reach level 3, 60% proficiency at the very least, takes 600 hours of study. You do the math. Why is Japanese so difficult? Well, let me tell you! There is some very difficult grammar, but first let’s start from the start.

There are three “alphabets”, the first is very well known, and that is kanji. The second is hiragana. The third is Katakana. Kanji is an alphabet of ideographs while hiragana and Katakana are an alphabet of syllabary much like our own Roman alphabet. This appears like this　ひり仮名. Hiragana is used like our Roman alphabet to represent phonetics. Kanji can be written in hiragana, all kanji have a reading or sound that can be represented by hiragana. Many of the articles of Japanese such as question marks, conjunctions, verb stems, etc. appear in hiragana. Sometimes roman letters and numbers are used, romaji, which makes everything….well, here is an example sentence containing all 4. ラドクリフ、マラソン五輪代表に1万m出場にも含み. The green (first) part is in katakana, the red (second) in kanji, the blue (particles and last) in hiragana and the black (1,m) is romaji.


Kanji appears like this 今日 or this 京　or this 興. Those kanji in order mean today, capitol, and interest. I chose them because they also all have the same phonetic sound, kyou. This is very common, that many words have the exact same sound. Yes, we have it in English too, but it occurs much more in Japanese. You just have to know context to understand when speaking. Each has its own stroke order, meaning that you start with one mark and follow a path to the last mark to make the kanji. The second example has 8 strokes; one small mark on the top, then the horizontal line, then the left side of the box, then the top and right side in one stroke, then the bottom(left to right), then the stem going down in the middle, then the right under dash and finally the left under dash. This in itself is hard enough to learn. Stroke order sucks! These days with the use of personal computers Japanese themselves are starting to forget how to write the kanji because software is built to recognize what they want, eliminating the need to write kanji by hand. There are also multiply readings for the same kanji. For instance,欠. This kanji is pronounced ketsu…or..ka…or keru…or ke ….or ku. It depends on where it is with other kanji. If it is like this, 欠陥, it is pronounced as ke, if it is like this, 欠ける, it is pronounced ka, etc. I think you are starting to get the point if you are beginning to think to yourself, this makes no sense. You are right, there are no real rules for kanji, and you just have to know. There is however one thing that you can latch on to that will keep you sane as you learn these kanji. Symbols within a kanji DO mean something, they are ideograms after all. Take for instance 松 matsu　板 ita　, and根 ne. These three kanji all have one thing in common, can you see it? It’s the radical to the left that somewhat looks like a tree. In Japanese tree is 木 and you know what; those three kanji, with the tree radical in it mean pine tree, board, and root, all things that relate to a tree.

Now, on to hiragana. Let’s take a kanji I have already used, 京. This kanji, if you remember, is pronounced kyou. It is the symbol for capitol. You can easily see that in place names like Kyoto　京都　and Tokyo 東京. Kyoto is the former capitol of Japan while Tokyo is the current. Kanji all can be written in hiragana, however, not all hiragana can be written in kanji. There are even a few words that exist only in hiragana, but not in Kanji, like こけしwhich is the word for a wooden doll.
Usually hiragana is used to group nouns and verbs, giving direction to objects and movements. For example, 飲む, is the verb for drink, however if you want to give it context you have to use hiragana with the kanji. 飲みます、　飲んだ、飲んでいる、 which mean I will drink, I have drunk, and I am drinking. The kanji remains the same, but the hiragana changes. It can also be used to mark a question, with か. For example, 飲みますか, means “will (implied person/s) drink”? And of course there are particles like と、に、で、etc. that work as and, in/to/for, and by.

Next up, Katakana. Katakana is used to spell out foreign words. Why the language needs an entirely new alphabet, which matches the sounds of hiragana letter by letter is beyond me. That’s right; every letter in katakana has a counterpart in hiragana. かヵ　きキ　くク　けヶ　こコ, those are all hiragana (left side) by katakana (right side) and they all have the same sounds, ka, ki, ku, ke, ko. I absolutely hate Katakana because I see no point in it. Some people have told me it is used for words that never existed before, but that is BS. The Japanese have a kanji for baseball and often will use a katakana word rather than a hiragana one. The only upside is that I am supposed to be able to easily identify Katakana words, since they are foreign. However this is not true, first of all because the sound comes out all chopped up, like パソコン、this is supposed to be personal computer, but it comes out like pasocon. There are also lots of katakana words that aren’t English, but are in other languages like アルバイト, arbaito, which comes from the German word to work. In Japanese it means part time job. There are words that aren’t in any language at all, but are made up, like クーラー/kura which means air conditioner. They just made it up! Then assigned it to their foreign words alphabet, which matches their alphabet exactly! Why?! Why Japan!? WHY!!??

Kanji, Katakana, Hiragana, and Romaji might be enough to make your head spin, but then there is keigo. Keigo is the honorific system of addressing people. There are three levels to this, two of which are used to address someone who is not present and one to address someone who is. For example: 知る(しる) to know comes out as　知っています・しっています（teenier-go) and thenご存知になる・ごぞんじになる、ご存知でいらっしゃる・ごぞんじでいらっしゃる(sonkei-go)、 and then存知あげる・ぞんじあげる（kenjo-go). Yes, that’s right, four levels of addressing people.

When I think about all of this I want to give up, yell at someone, and go home. I don’t though, I just take it one day at a time and plod ahead with my blinders on. Paying no attention to the madness that surrounds me.

Gasoline

My car gets a little over 40 miles per gallon. Yes, that’s right, eat that America! A big reason for this is that my car is what is called a Kei Car, or Yellow Plate. If you don’t know what that is, here is a useful link
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Keicar
But they can basically be described with this, “Kei-Cars, or keijidōsha, are small passenger cars as well as trucks. They are mainly sold in Japan, because there are some tax and insurance relaxations and an exemption from the usual requirement of certification of park space that one has adequate parking space at his or her home or has contract with a parking spot.”
Now that is all fine and good, but there is also a thing in Japan called Shaken, it’s a bi-annual check up to ensure the road worthiness and environmental standard of your auto. Shaken is really expensive! I paid 750 dollars in shaken on a car that might be worth 2000 dollars and that was getting away reasonably. They replaced a 15 dollar belt and assured me everything else was in order. Thanks a heap.
Everybody hates shaken time. This does two things; First it encourages the cars on Japanese roads to be more environmentally friendly and generally newer, Second it encourages Japan to sell cars to other nations before they are past their usable point or to drive them into a remote place and leave them there. To me this is the twisting of the knife. The point of shaken is to keep environmentally friendly cars on the road and heavy polluters off. The point, however, is totally benign if the car is just driven somewhere else in the world or left to rot its fluids into nature. But I digress.
While mileage on Japanese cars is great gas here in Japan is not exactly cheap. I can cheer about miles per gallon, but weep about gas prices. Currently prices near me are at about 112 yen per liter for regular. If you take the conversion rates of yen to dollars and the conversions of liters to gallons you get about 4.75 dollars per gallon of regular gasoline here at the local station. For entertainment sake lets say my car gets 43 miles to a gallon, which may actually be correct. That means that I get 8.42 miles per dollar of gasoline. How does your car stack up?

Culture Clash: Social Security

I have gotten my first Culture Clash request from my uncle Hans. He proposed a number of questions and I hope to answer all of them in what I write below, but as always if you are still wondering about something then let me know and I will do my best to answer!

Because of recent failures in the American economy questions have sprung up all over the world as to how it is affecting other countries. Here in Japan the economy has been affected, “The government has noted a jump in layoffs in many industries, especially heavily export-dependent sectors including the automobile and electronics industries, while voluntary retirement among regular workers also is rising.” (Daily Yomiuri)
However in relation to the US dollar and other currencies the Yen has remained strong. The reason for this is that Japan has been averting risk. Instead of taking bold moves that might dramatically strengthen or weaken the Yen it has taken very small steps in a negative or weakening direction. Japan’s economy has gotten weaker, but compared to the US the progression hasn’t been nearly as fast. However the outlook is bearish and no one expects quick recovery on either side of the ocean.
On a side note I wanted to say something else. The Federal Reserve in America, that institution that prints our money and raises and lowers interest rates, they are not government owned. It is quasi public, meaning that while it is a government institution it is not government owned. Personally I see this as creating a conflict of interest between the public and private investors.

Now on to public healthcare and welfare in Japan. Japan does have social welfare. Japan also has public assistance programs benefiting about 1% of the population. About 33% of recipients are elderly people, 45% were households with sick or disabled members, and 14% are fatherless families, and 8% are in other categories.
For instance, fatherless mothers get about 40,000 yen a month per child and depending on where they live might receive other assistance like housing. From what I have seen there aren’t too many people who abuse this, like in other countries, and end up with many children and no job. Japan’s population is actually on a sharp decline, which brings up a whole host of other social security problems.
An elderly person’s pension is dependable one where or how long they or their relative/spouse worked. A retired person’s main pension usually comes from the company they worked for. The Japanese government pension system provides benefits to insured persons or their survivors, when they retire from their working-lives, become handicapped, or die. A character of Japanese public pension system is the universal coverage of Japanese population by social insurance pay-as-you-go scheme. The pension from the government is about 50,000 yen per month. Which is not a lot, my rent is about 55,000 yen a month. I have seen some TV programs about this, but couldn’t get anymore than that some people were upset that the payment was so low.
As for people who “just don’t want to work” there are a few categories that they may fit into. In Japan there are people called NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training). As far as I can gather there is no government support for these people in the form of payment, but the government does provide counseling and training to them if requested.

As I see it the system here works pretty well. Like everywhere else there are people who abuse it, but it seems to me that in Japan that happens less. Japanese society has giri, a sense of social obligations and amae, the concept of dependance. Both of these largely influence how people view themselves and the society they live in, but to explain these concepts further I will write another blog later.

Fragile

We are so small. There is something that I thought about as I crossed the Sea of Japan to Korea. In recent years there has been much talk of global warming. While global warming is a real threat I want people to think of this too. We are fragile. We ride around in our planes trains and automobiles. We make our own little bubbles in which we exist and matter. Often we believe that we are strong, but we are not. Our planet is strong. It will kill us. Our planet is so much larger than us. If we continues to abuse it as we have been, continue to grow and consume, our world will destroy us as only nature can.

DMZ

There were two things on my agenda for South Korea. First, see the liger at Everland Amusement park. Second, go to the DMZ. The DMZ is quite an interesting place. Its one of the most heavily fortified places on earth. Not to mention that North Korea has the 5th largest standing army on earth at over one million soldiers. This line, or area rather, was created in 1953 after what is known in America as the Korean War. This line runs approximately 155 miles and 2.5 miles wide, across the Korean Peninsula at roughly the 38th parallel, which was the boundary between North and South Korea before the war. This split the country, and many families, in two.
Numerous incursions have occurred over the years as North Korean soldiers have infiltrated the southern side. In fact since the boundary was made in 1953 about 500 soldiers have been killed at this line, including 50 Americans.
Another very interesting thing was four tunnels that the north had built going under the DMZ. These were first discovered in the early seventies and one by one more were found. There are now 4 known tunnels. I visited tunnel number three and got to walk through a part of it. It’s small. I had to wear a helmet and walk in a crouch the whole time. Of course Aya and our guide had no trouble. As our guide explained, most North Korean men would be 150cm tall or less and there was no need to make the tunnel bigger.
Although the line itself isn’t funny, the bravado shown here is. The North Koreans set up fake towns to make the north look populated. In one place, when the south put up a flag pole they put up a bigger one directly across the line. I’m not sure about the South Korean side, but I am sure there have been some taunts.

Although relations between the two has seemed to get better in recent years. The North has even opened up for some trade with the south and allowed tours to be conducted in the North.

Liger

One of the most exciting things in going to South Korea was getting to see a real Liger. I was unaware that this animal existed until the movie Napoleon Dynamite came out a few years ago. When reading up on South Korea I found a small note that there was a liger at the Everland amusement park. So of course Aya and I went.
Ligers have been around since the 19th century. The breed between a male lion and a female tiger produces this beautiful creature. There is also a tigon, which is the breed between a male tiger and a female lion. Both of these unions have occurred in the wild, but they are extremely rare in that setting. Although fertility goes down, but ligers are fertile and can produce offspring. There are cubs at Noah’s Ark Zoo in Germany.
But the coolest fact about Ligers is that they are some of the biggest cats on earth. In fact the largest cat in the world is a liger named Hercules who lives at a zoo in Miami. He is 10 feet long and over 1100 pounds. There is another Liger called Sinbad that is reported to now be the same size and weight, although Hercules is the official record holder. Here is a video from National Geographic on Sinbad and Ligers. Please note that in this video Sinbad is only 900 pounds and is now larger. http://www.doobybrain.com/2007/12/15/sinbad-the-900-pound-liger/

Fun Fact

Japan’s fish consumption per capita per year is 152lbs; which means a little less than a half pound of fish per day per person. To put that in perspective, the US consumes about 46lbs per person a year!

The Mountains that Surround Me

The snows in the mountains started about a month ago now and it is a reminder to me of how beautiful they can be. The picture with the apples trees in the foreground is three steps out my front door. Where I live is in a basin surrounded on all sides by mountains. In the southern end of the basin, where I am located, the mountains are high, but the northern end has the highest mountains of the area as you can see from the pictures above of snow capped mountains. Green rolling “hills” surround where I live while Mt. Iide and Mt Bandai punctuate the northern boundary of the Aizu Basin.
Japan has a very extensive range of mountains as it should being the work of millions of years of volcanic activity and plate shifting. Almost everywhere in Japan is mountainous and Japan’s most famous Mountain, Fuji, is in fact a volcano. It is also the highest peak in Japan at 3776m. While the mountains near me are lower, Iide at 2105m and Bandai at 1819m, most of the mountains in the Japanese Alps are near the 3000m mark. To give some perspective to this lets look at some of the other more famous mountains in the United States. The highest mountain in the Appalachians is Mount Mitchell at 2037m. On the west coast the tallest is Mt. Hood standing at 3429m. Timms Hill, 595m is the highest point in Wisconsin.
I love these mountains because it made Aizu a special place by cutting it off from the rest of japan so thoroughly and it has developed a lot of its own culture because of that.

Hiroshima

As a teacher of United States history I have taught about this event a few times and have read literature on the subject. Hiroshima is seared into the memory of the world for the terrible event that occurred there at 8:15 on August 6th, 1945. On that day the single largest instantaneous loss of human life occurred killing over 100,000 people in the blink of an eye. Undiscriminating instant death, not to mention the tens of thousands who died in the 24hrs after the blast along with those who suffer latent death and deformity, even today.

There are some very interesting things that occurred because of the bomb, namely human shadows being burned into stone, glass imbedded in rock from the force of the blast, concrete pillars hammer full length into the ground. What followed was unprecedented medical conditions and deaths; hair loss, bleeding of gums, bleeding from all orifices, and numerous arrays of cancer are just a start to the awful power of man. Terrible power demonstrated in an entire city razed.

The Peace Memorial Park, along with the museum that is one the grounds, demonstrates in great detail the power of the bomb and the moral need not to use it. Pictures of victims, burns, flesh hanging, limbs missing, all of this is on full display. Stories of children who suffered latent affects. Normal everyday people who had very little to do with the war that destroyed them. Living here in Japan I have gotten very close to some of the Japanese people around me and like most people I can no longer fathom the enemy that was now that I am in close proximity. Japanese people, then and now, are just like everyone else. They have hopes and dreams, they love their children; they live happy quiet lives. Like most wars those who suffered were those who were ordinary citizens with little reason to fight and die except for the honor or their country.

The point of all this? Well, the bomb was incredibly destructive and has gotten ever more destructive to the point where now nuclear warheads are many times the power of that dropped on Hiroshima. The United States alone has thousands of these warheads. Along with many other countries who have acquired nuclear capabilities. Death waits at any moment for every person within the greater radius of a city (over 75% of the world).
I can’t help but to feel cynical. While a nuclear war has so far been averted, war itself continues. We still kill each other, we still kill innocents, and we still inflict terrible suffering. One has to ask themselves, upon entering Hiroshima, if we have learned a lesson or not. In my mind the answer is no, we have not.

Sendai Jazz Festival

The Sendai Jazz festival is a great place for people to come and feel the life of a city. This is my second year going and it was just as good as the first. I went with Aya, her parents, and two of my friends. Sendai is a pretty nice city as it is, but when 714 bands converge on the city performing on 96 stages it gets pretty lively. There are many small stages set through a roughly ten block radius of the city. However, there are three “main spots” at the grounds. The biggest one, located in Enkei and Koutoudai Park, is where the main action is. There are 3 large stages, three small stages, and about20 various food booths at this location. There are also two smaller locations. One about a 5 minute walk to the East of Koutoudai Park, in Nishikicho Park, which has a couple of small stages and a handful of food and beverage tents. The other one is to the west and slightly south of Enkei Park. This place has a few stages, The World Food Market, and a flea market. It’s about a ten minute walk west of Enkei Park. I recommend taking Johzenji Dori as it has a wide boulevard with a center walk that is covered by large leafy trees and on the way is the Sendai Mediatheque, which is a great stopping point for art, food, and beer. For complete information visit this site, http://www.j-streetjazz.com

Nishi Park was my favorite. The World Food Market had German meats, Mexican, Indian, and others. It was nice to have a little bit of multi-cultural flavor being as where I live there is little of it. I was also surprised by the flea market. I love flea markets. I love other peoples old junk. It was really surprising to me, in the land of everything new/nothing used, to find a flea market.

It was a really great way to spend the weekend and a good reminder that there really is a lot of expressive culture in Japan. Japan is not all temples and kimonos. It’s not just technology and sumo. It’s a lot of young (and not so young) people wanting to express themselves through music, art, and fashion. Much of the time Japanese society is very stifling when it comes to individuality. People are pressured to conform to group ideas and group image in order to ensure harmony. Many times this is a good thing as the wheels get more grease, but in some ways this is can be very depressing, especially for the young and artistic. Sendai Jazz Festival is a great outlet for everyone to let loose with sound and color. To kind of let it all out and paint, dance, sing, and be different!. I highly recommend going if you are in a 4 hour radius of Sendai! Let your freak flag fly!

Gundam

If you are not familiar with it, Gundam is about giant mechanical humanoid robot like things. Think transformers that don’t transform, have human pilots inside of them, and carry guns, swords, and grenades. The idea of Gundams themselves is not new, there have been a number of comics, toys, movies, etc. made about Gundams. They’re these vehicles that you climb inside of and battle with against other people who have climbed inside of their giant robots. In a way it is very reflective of Japanese society. Climb into something you are not to take on the hard tasks.
Fairly recently a Gundam arcade game involving pods has emerged. These pods seem like they'd do a great job of simulating sitting in a giant robot. They have headphones with microphone for voice chat with players on your team as well as being able to play on teams with people in other arcades. The pods are networked not only at the local arcade but across the net to other arcades all throughout Japan.

Outside the pods there is a battle status display so people outside can see how the battle is going. There are two sides each consisting of anywhere from 4 to 8 people playing against each other each game. The inside of the pod move like a tank with pedals and opposing hand operated joysticks equipped with a series of buttons.
Apparently the game is designed so it's important to co-operate with your teammates in order to do well. My friend Richard and I often go together and stick together on the battle field so we can help each other out, which is usually affective and a lot more fun. We have also played with his teacher and some other friends. Most people love the game, but are turned off by the price, which may be smart as the game becomes addictive. Like most games it has upgrades and things to unlock as you go along. Therefore to get that next stage Gundam or weapon, well you have plunk another 2000 yen down and play some more games. I have certainly become addicted and added this to my list of things I should do less of. I would guess that in the past 6 months or so of playing I have spent about 3 man, or the equivilant of 250 dollars. It has also led to me being in class A, which is the highest bracket. I hope that when I do finally stop playing that I can sell my player card and recoup some of the cost.

The game is expensive, it costs 300 yen for a initial pilot card (2.25 US) which is like a credit card that stores all your information and 500 yen (about 4.25) every game you play. The games consist of two battle phases that last for 250 seconds a piece. Meaning you pay one yen per second. Time entering the pod, battling and receiving information is usually about 15 minutes.
I found a bunch of videos on YouTube, but none of them really do it justice because of the way the screen looks. It’s hard to capture that 180 degree field with a camera the same way the human eye does. This guy’s video was pretty good because he explained things as he went. You can check it out here http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=VNSodeMJ2u0

I Would Like to Buy a Life Please

Cars here in Japan have some very interesting names. My own has a pretty meager and descriptive name; Wagon (suzuki), but there are some out there with more interesting names such as the Life (Honda), Wish (Toyota?), AZWagon (Suzuki), Saloon (Toyota?), March (Nissan), Joy (Nissan?), and Fit(Honda?). All of these are fun names and when a foreigner sees these they might snicker a little bit, but when you think about it they aren't all that bad. Some of them are even very descriptive of the car and its function like the Cube(Honda) and the Move(Toyota?) Just another interesting thing about Japan.

Whats With The What?

It’s been almost one year on exactly. Here I am, still in Japan. In the same apartment, in the same town, at the same school, but this year it’s different. I feel like I have just gotten to adjust to this country, not like I will ever completely, but at least to the point where I am not always surprised or confused. It’s awfully hard to tell how much I have changed since being here, but I got a good idea when I went back to the U.S. for two weeks.

A few of the expatriates that I have talked to in the past have told me that there isn’t reverse culture shock, it doesn’t exist. They are wrong. There is reverse culture shock, it does exist, but its only allowed to exist if you have changed in the other culture. If you haven’t allowed yourself to change, of course, returning home will bring no stress. If you have, however, the old world will not be the same.

Coming home was truly a measure for me of how things had changed, how I had changed, and of course a testament of how life moves on while I am absent from my former role. My nephews have grown older and started talking to some degree and of course my grandfather has grown a little older and my grandmother is gone. Those people are clear indicators of the passage of time, but only because they are on the periphery of age, hence showing the most change. My friends and family had grown as well but in different ways. Ways that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Maybe because it wasn’t them so much as my perception of them and the world in which their lives existed that had changed.

One of my friends and I had a very genuine talk in which they really questioned the core of their life and whether or not they had made the right choices. They said that they were envious that I had not chosen a normal path, that I set out over that far hill to see what was out there and got what I wanted. I have heard this before and in a corner of my heart I know it to be true and something that I take pleasure from. I chose a different path and from that I have gained a vast amount of wisdom. However living abroad has not brought about fields of daisy and days of leisure. Traveling has been hard work. Learning new customs and a new language is stressful and often lonely. It’s beset with frustrations and defeats day after day in what can appear to be a never improving situation. You are awash in another culture, so it’s up to you to find ways to adjust.

I got a big dose of this by bringing Aya home with me to America. It was hard for her. Her English is good, not perfect, but good enough to communicate more than wants and needs. She has also spent some time around the foreigners here in Japan and in other countries. Yet, being in the U.S. was very stressful for her. She often made that known to me by complaining that I hadn’t brought her to the right store because they didn’t have the right peaches (true story) to telling me that I wasn’t helping her integrate into coversations (also true story, unfortunately).

Many people think that living in a foreign country is an adventure, which it is. Although they forget that it’s not an adventure you return home from in a week or two. You don’t get to sit on a beach, made for you, and learn just a few words to get by. It’s your life, not a break from it. It is the rare person that does it and that is mainly because of fear of the unknown, uncontrollable, or uncomfortable. Everyday presents some struggle whether its as simple as reading a label in the grocery store and guessing as to the contents or as difficult as explaining your cultural perspective in a tongue that is not your own to people who find your physical appearance enough reason to treat you differently, whether that be nicely or not.

I didn’t get here by backing away from what I was afraid of or what was difficult and I didn’t get here by one flawless victory over another. I’ve taken some big defeats getting where I am, Egypt being the most notable. Everyday there is a new struggle and everyday brings defeat in some way. You just have to take those in stride and focus on what you are accomplishing. One defeat or one victory doesn’t mean the struggle is over. One can’t expect to find much of anything in one moment. Anything worth doing takes persistence. So I persist here in Japan. Here as a senpai (elder person) to the new ALTs. Here as a teacher to my kids for a second year. Here as a foreigner. Here as myself.

Japanese drivers license, Fukushima

For those of you who have found this site in a preliminary search for Japanese drivers license information you have come to a good place. The site icanusechopsticks is a good one for information about the Fukushima drivers test, which is where I took my test, however I would like to add a few things to that. After the blog portion I will add a few numbered tips.
Getting a drivers license in Japan, for an American, is not an easy thing. There are a few reasons for this; namely that the US does not accept the licenses of other countries as transferable. Meaning, if you have a license in your home country, it probably won’t matter, you must take the driving test in America to get an American license. In some ways it’s understandable that Japan has merely reciprocated Americans treatment of its citizens, but in many ways this is just a silly game.
I have held a US drivers license for a decade, that’s 10 years if you don’t know. I feel like this is a good amount of time to learn how to drive. I have also had an international license in Japan for a year, which I used to drive my car on almost daily basis having incurred no traffic tickets and having no accidents. For me, these two things would be enough to prove my worthiness, but it was not so.

To even be considered I had to produce my US license, my passport, a letter from my town stating that I worked for them, a translation of my US license, a letter from my DMV stating when I first got my license, a 2.4x5 cm picture (not smiling), and my international drivers license. There was another foreigner there that day, a man from Taiwan who had an American license. Unfortunately he forgot the letter from his employer and could not proceed to the paper and driving test.
Along with all the paper work I also read icanusechopsticks a couple time, then went to driving school for an hour (5000 yen) then read icanusechopsticks another couple of times and studied the diagrams.
After that I had to get myself to the Fukushima Driving Center to take the test, which takes all day and thereby required me to take a day off and stay in a hotel the night before as the process starts early and Fukushima is over 2 hours away from me. Upon arriving I immediately had to buy a stamp for about 3000 yen. After which I had to wait, then fill out some forms, then wait, fill out forms, etc. After about 2 hours came a challenge. The tester wanted me to prove, by citing dates in my passport, that I had been in the US for at least three months since the issuance of my license in 1998. Well, the first 5 years or so I was in the US, and so had no proof that I was in the US since there was no stamp saying so. After that I had to piece together bits of half inked arrival and departure stamps, some in Arabic, to prove that I had indeed been in the US for at least 3 months.
After everything was fairly well in place I was given a paper test, consisting of 10 questions that you are given 5 minutes to complete. The questions were not hard. These questions were in English and had pictures to accompany them. However, the English was slightly confusing. I scored a 10/10 although to pass you only need 7/10.
Next was lunch time, one hour during which you can safely leave the premises and/or walk the course. I walked the course once, with my diagram, pretending to be driving. The man from Taiwan thought I was crazy for being so fixated on detail.

At one o’clock I reconvened with the instructor and two older women. My girlfriend tells me that they were both foreigners although they didn’t look like it and I didn’t pick up any accents in the rapid Japanese they were speaking. The three of us got into the car and the instructor drove the entire course beginning to end explaining along the way what he was doing (Yes! In rapid Japanese, of course). When we returned to the beginning he instructed me to get out and stand over on the curb. An additional instructor then got into the car with the two women and the first woman’s test began. I was pretty sure that she failed right off as the car lurched forward then back again. She had forgotten to release the parking break before starting. The woman did the course, got a good talking to by the instructors after and then went back into the building not knowing if she passed or not (it was her third try, she didn’t pass). The whole time the other woman had been in the back seat, observing the first. Now it was my turn to get into the back and for her to drive.
As I got into the back I said, “Konichiwa” to one of the instructors and gave him a smile. The woman I observed did pretty well, but I knew she had failed. At two separate points her right side crossed the center line thereby being in oncoming traffic. At the end of the course I was asked to stand outside the car and the two instructors then began to tell her what she did wrong. I was trying to listen for pointers when the woman burst into tears and raised her voice. This continued for a minute or two and then she exited the car and entered the building (it was her second try, she did not pass). Then it was my turn.

With just myself and the instructors in the car I proceeded to become a driving robot. Before I started the car I even threw in a “Yoroshiku oneigaishimasu” which is like saying, “please care for me” I proceeded through the test, which is pretty much like icanusechopsticks describes it. The instructor only made one red slash on his scoring sheet, but I was pretty sure that was enough to fail me; here is what happened. At one point I stopped at a flashing red light, about 50cm behind the white line, which is perfect. As I began to proceed, after my full, stop a woman taking her motorcycles test appeared on the left and I promptly hit the brake. Bugger. The instructor told me to wait a moment, then got out of the car to see how far I had gone over the line if at all. It was at this point that the infamous red mark appeared and he told me to proceed. The rest of the course was fine. I did everything perfectly. When I parked and he began to tell me what I did wrong I had to ask him to speak slowly as I only understood a little Japanese. As is the case with most people, this did not slow him down. I got the run down on the red slash, I had not crossed the white line, but come up to it and that was close enough for the possibility of a bicycle to hit me or me to hit them, even though the crosswalk is another 150cm in front of the white line. He then asked me how long I had held a license in the US to which I responded, “ju nen kan”, for ten years. He nodded, then told me to go to the third floor where my girlfriend was waiting. I told her I failed, because no one ever passes on the first try, and we waited. In the next ten minutes both of the ladies before me were called to the counter and told they did not pass and would have to come back. When my name was called we slowly got up and came to the window. The attendant held up and ok sign and said, “Ok des, Kebin san, ok” Wahoo! I passed, first time!
Fortunately the instructor’s whim did not sink me. A drivers starts with 100 points and you must get 70 to pass. There is a laundry list of things that you lose points for, but in reality the instructor can fail you for not turning your head far enough when making checks, or for turning it too far. It’s really up to them. I studied, I knew the course, I drove like a robot, I only made one mistake, I aced the paper test, but in the end it was just good luck that passed me.

Here are a couple things I want to add to the information on the chopsticks site.

1. If you call ahead and make an appointment you don’t have to show up between 830 and 9am, you can come in later, like 930 or 10
2. Release the parking break! My car did not have a lever in the center console, but a pull latch under the steering wheel, that is probably why the first woman forgot it.
3. Be overly polite and responsive to your instructors. (Hai, wakarimashita, arigato gozaimashita, yoroshiku oneigaishimasu)
4. Go to driving school before hand, it helped me on a couple little things.
5. Don’t sweat the paper test, its not hard.
6. Don’t worry about the crank and S turns, they are not hard, just go slow if you need to.
7. Walk the course, walk the course, walk the course.
8. If you can, bring a Japanese friend to help you, it was strides better because I had my girlfriend there.
9. Make sure you have all the proper documents before going, you don’t want to waste a vacation day getting rejected before you get on the course.
10. Cross your fingers, a lot of it is just luck.

Tokyo; Sumo and Kabuki

Last weekend a group of friends and I went to Tokyo to experience some things very unique to Japanese culture. We went to see sumo and kabuki! If you don’t know what Kabuki is, well neither did I when I got here. If you don’t know what sumo is,… where did you grow up? Everybody knows what it is right? However, even after going and watching it for myself, in Japan, in Tokyo, I am still not understanding everything that is involved. Two men enter a ring; usually they are very fat and also quite strong. These men rely not only on physical strength, but physics as well. Often a man is beaten because he will throw himself at his opponent attempting to knock them out of the ring and the opponent will dodge the blow and let moment carry his opponent to defeat. Being out of the ring, or putting a knee or hand down signals the end. The ring is actually a raised square of compacted sand with a circle on top of it. The wrestlers will mount the square and then they will proceed to go through a ritual of expelling evil spirits and purifying the ring. Apparently this involves slapping their chest, throwing salt into the ring, and stomping on the ground. The crowd cheers their favorites. Then the two men engage in combat for a few brief moments and the whole thing is over. I saw the number one wrestler in the world, needless to say, it was quite special and I can’t wait to go again. In fact, my school has a small team that I may try a practice with. I'm really pumped about sumo.

Kabuki was a different story. Kabuki is a traditional Japanese theater. When I told my Japanese teachers there response was something like, "oh, ... uh, no, havent seen it, uh... you might be bored?" When I heard this I thought to myself, it can’t be that bad, it’s an experience of culture, I can bear it. I fell asleep during the first act and at that point remembered that I do not really like theater. I also recounted how I fell asleep in Beijing while watching traditional theater there. However, my friends liked it and so my feelings were not shared by all. I have also since heard of a different troupe of Kabuki actors whose plays involve modern Japanese language, without drawn out dialogue, and more fight scenes. Perhaps I will give Kabuki one more try.

Check this link for my friend Brian’s video which of course has me in it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcZ6eOc5_Qc or just check Youtube and search for brianadler. This video is done by National Geographic and is of much better quality. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxhKb-zZoWE&feature=related
Or follow this link to footage of the champ in action http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEe-UIvftUg&NR=1

Fun Facts (OOOOOO Hashi)

The Japanese use chopsticks for most meals, in Japanese the name is o hashi, or hashi, depending on the context. The thing about Japan is that you will quickly find yourself using a disposable pair of chopsticks, then another, then another, then another, and so forth until you ask your self where they are coming from and where they are going.
The truth is that they are probably coming from China (97%) and they end up in the trash, to be burned. This may not seem so bad, BUT Japan uses an estimated 25 BILLION disposable chopsticks each year. Thats about 200 pairs per person, in Japan, every year.
I'm certainly not the first person to harp on this, its been a long concern. I'm just another now aware person. How to combat this? Deny chopsticks that you will not use and better yet, carry your own. I bought a plastic pair with a travel case from the 100 Yen store (dollar store) and often take them to dinner with me. Its not hard and I estimate that my average yearly use goes down from 75 or so a year to less than 30. Now that is something to chew on.

Golden Week

Golden week has come and gone, but my memory remains. Here in Japan there is a 7 day period during which three public holidays fall. This is called Golden Week because of the mass amounts of time off in such a short period, its “Golden”! Most people go to Korea or China or somewhere far. I was broke, almost, so I didn’t travel very far. However, I did “get away”.
I decided that I would pack up the hiking pack, throw a futon in the back of my car, spend what money I had on gas, and hit the road. My aim was Mt. Iide. Unfortunately it took me about 5 minutes on the road to realize I would never make it, even though Iide is about 3 hours away by car. As you can see in the picture, it is covered in snow and currently not climbable and barely approachable.
Plans changed to B and I decided to aim for Oguni, which is near Iide and has a 5 story wooden pagoda in the middle of a big park with lots of hiking trails. Two hours later I was in Yamagata prefecture and knew I had been thwarted. I calculated that I did not have enough gas to make it to Oguni and back and I did not have anymore money. Therefore I went to plan C.
Plan C was to just hike around my area, Aizu. I did this taking care to visit places that I had never been to before and purposely get lost. I was on roads that I never had been on before. I often had to check the map and when I was hiking during the day I was on trails I had never been on before.
I spent just a few days hiking around and a couple of nights sleeping in the back of the car, but it really put my mind at ease. It was the perfect vacation. I was alone, trekking around, sleeping in my car, eating off a camp fire, reading a lot, and meeting the occasional interesting Japanese person.
I had a few conversations with Japanese hikers who also appeared to be on their own, but the kicker was on the second day when I saw hang-gliders at the top of “Flower Mountain” I couldn’t fathom why they were circling the mountain so I hiked up to find them. I saw the last two hang-gliders take off for the day and then talked to the instructor who had the job of packing up. He told me its quite fun, and not really scary at all. I only believe him a little.

Kyoto

There isn’t too much for me to say about Kyoto. Yes, I know, I know, it has a long and rich history, but that is not my story. Kyoto is the “old” capitol of Japan. Location was switched in around 1865 after to Boshin War to the present location of Tokyo, leaving much of the old life intact in Kyoto. If you go today you will find a beautiful city, full of temples and tradition. I saw geisha, sakura (cherry blossoms), and many, many temples and shrines.
I went with my friend and his friend from Puerto Rico. It was really nice to have their companionship. My friend and I took an overnight bus from Fukushima City, it took about 8 hours to get there, but the drive was fairly comfortable and I got some sleep during the night. Upon arriving there we walked around a bit and eventually got a bento lunch, a beer, and a comfortable spot in the park where we ate and then napped. It was really rather lovely with the newly bloomed cherry trees around us. Later we met up with his friend who had been touring other parts of Japan. Over the next few days we bumped around the city, exploring and doing fun things like renting bikes, going to a jazz club (where Richard played with the band!), and of course going to many historical spots. My main impression of Kyoto was temple/shrine – temple/shrine. I plan to revisit some day as I had only about 48 hours and I am sure it will be much more temple/shrine, but I hope to find something else, something deeper. Perhaps the next time around will be more meaningful.

The Price We Pay

There are many drink vending machines in Japan. At first I thought, I don’t care, I rarely used these in America so I won’t use them here. Over time I have come to use these, they are everywhere! For instance, about a block and a half from my apartment complex there are three such vending machines. In America we put our vending machines in social areas such as offices, ballparks, or road side stops. In Japan they put them just about anywhere. This particular grouping of vending machine is in the middle of a neighborhood, about 7 blocks from the nearest thing that Americans might consider a social gathering point. Strange, but even more strange are the prices!

As an American who tends to think in terms of monetary value when I first saw this machine I was a little confused and amused. If you look closely at the small can of CC Lemon you will see that it is 120 Yen, if you look at the large can of CC Lemon you will see that it is 120 Yen. The same price! The Mountain Dew and Pepsi follow the same fashion. I pondered why this was and got a simple explanation in a story from one of the books I have. Japanese tend to think in terms of efficiency, so, even if the colas are priced the same they will purchase the drink that they are able to consume, not the one that is a better monetary value. That is the price we pay.