So this blog has suffered a bit, partly because I've been knitting last minute Christmas gifts (can't knit while typing) and partly because of a bit of traveling.
Kay was in town (i.e., in Japan) with her family for the New Year's holidays, so we decided to meet in the middle in Kyoto and spend a day together. It was so awesome! Kyoto is about a 7 hr overnight bus ride from Matsuyama, so I arrived a day early and spent some time seeing some sights by myself. Because I'm just contrary, I went to a few places off the beaten track. One was otaginenbutsuji, a temple filled with thousands of statues of rakan, or Buddhist disciples. They are very cute (pictures on facebook). Another was Iwatayama monkey park, where I got to feed some wild macaques (pictures forthcoming on facebook). I was planning to go to Kinkakuji after that (the golden pavilion, actually a very famous tourist spot) but then I got on the bus in the wrong direction and ran out of time! Instead, I went to Nishiki-ichiba, a long food market, sometimes known as the kitchen of Kyoto. Apparently you can get all sorts of food there, anything in Kyoto you can imagine. Well, I suppose it was alright. I wish I had gone with some sort of food expert (maybe like my host dad) who could explain it all to me. Otherwise it was not quite as interesting as I thought. I did stop by a place called Aritsugu, a traditional maker of knives. It was really impressive, seeing all the knives on display. I bought the smallest possible thing from the store, which was a pair of small sewing scissors (you know, the kind that is all one piece, and you squeeze them together to make the blade come together? super sharp tips, to get at threads and pick out stitches). Then I discovered that they engrave your name on the blade for free! It was cool to watch. I went with my Chinese name since my English one wouldn't fit. (It later occurred to me I could have just gone with my initials, oh well.) After that it was an all-out shopping binge, mostly at the Gap (though also at an AMAZING bookstore called Random Walk). I never considered myself a GAP girl...until living in Matsuyama where it is damn near impossible to find clothes that fit me, are affordable, and not made totally of polyester or rayon! there was a big winter sale at GAP. Where else can you find 96% cotton sweaters for 1400 yen in Japan? or 98% wool pants for less than 3000 yen? As for Random Walk--just for this bookstore alone I could be jealous of the fellows placed in Kyoto and Osaka (I hear there's one in Osaka too). It's a gorgeous, gorgeous store, very graphic-artsy focused. They carry almost exclusively foreign books, in English, French, etc. And zillions of foreign magazines and newspapers. Though I think I gravitate towards the art books most of all...
The next day I spent with Kay, and we went to Sanjusangendo and Ginkakuji. Sanjusangendo is Japan's longest wooden building, and it is pretty much entirely filled with gold-leaf covered statues of Kannon Buddha. After seeing 1200 statues of Rakan, seeing 1200 statues of Kannon Buddha was quite a contrast (they all look pretty much the same, and are very serious!). No photos allowed, so I had to buy postcards instead. Ginkakuji (silver pavilion) was totally gorgeous. Or at least, the garden was beautiful. It was one of those Zen-type stone and sand gardens. There was even a conical shaped pile near one end supposed to represent Mt Fuji, and another stripy design supposed to represent waves. And the day was so sunny and gorgeous, it was beautiful.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Sunday, December 23, 2007
christmas
I do miss Christmas. It's Christmas Eve today, which just so happens to be a national holiday here because of the emperor's birthday. There is a big Christmas tree in a shopping mall downtown...but I miss the lights, I guess? I miss Harvard Square looking all festive with the lights. (Of course, I'm glad I'm not actually there due to the huge amounts of snow.) Christmas spirit, perhaps? People here sort of celebrate it, but it's even more stripped of meaning here than it already is in the US. I was asked by a family how I celebrated Christmas. I said--I don't do much, spend time with family, eat a nice meal, etc. This family has a small Christmas tree, christmas placemats, chopsticks holders, cell phone ringtones, napkins, the whole works. When I asked how they celebrate Christmas, they said, not much! The far bigger holiday is New Year's, which I guess is their family time. But looking at a gallery of Christmas trees around the world, I feel a bit sad.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Pop quiz!
Take a look at the following pictures:
So, is the jar:
A) Somebody's science experiment being preserved in paraformaldehyde?
B) Something to get fabulously drunk off of?
Right. When my friend brought it in, I was sure it was something being preserved in paraformaldehyde. And then he said it was a drink. I thought he was maybe kidding and trying to poison me. Then, somebody had a sip, and appeared to be still alive. Aha! Apparently, it is a drink, after all. Apparently, it is a drink from China that a student made himself, about 5 years ago. Apparently the lizard-like thing inside is quite expensive, which I don't doubt...
My host dad filled me in on the rest of the background information. Sometimes it is also made in Japan in the countryside. He has seen and tasted versions where the animal inside is a snake, or giant bees. He says that although the lizard floating in the jar appeared to have been gutted first, in Japan in the countryside they are typically put into a jar of shochu (a very strong clear liquor) while still alive. Then, marinated for a year or so. Gahh! And, it's used to disinfect wounds (!) and to drink when sick. It's about 40% alcohol.
So...did I know all this when I tasted it? No. But I probably would have had some anyways. I had a taste, and true enough it was strong enough to burn and make me quite warm. It also had a pretty strong medicinal taste, like Chinese herbs. And after I had a taste, I had half a glass. It was surprisingly...good? I liked the after warmth. And the medicinal taste made me feel a bit like I was drinking something good for me (which, now knowing how it's made, is probably not true. But hey, who knows?)
So, is the jar:
A) Somebody's science experiment being preserved in paraformaldehyde?
B) Something to get fabulously drunk off of?
Right. When my friend brought it in, I was sure it was something being preserved in paraformaldehyde. And then he said it was a drink. I thought he was maybe kidding and trying to poison me. Then, somebody had a sip, and appeared to be still alive. Aha! Apparently, it is a drink, after all. Apparently, it is a drink from China that a student made himself, about 5 years ago. Apparently the lizard-like thing inside is quite expensive, which I don't doubt...
My host dad filled me in on the rest of the background information. Sometimes it is also made in Japan in the countryside. He has seen and tasted versions where the animal inside is a snake, or giant bees. He says that although the lizard floating in the jar appeared to have been gutted first, in Japan in the countryside they are typically put into a jar of shochu (a very strong clear liquor) while still alive. Then, marinated for a year or so. Gahh! And, it's used to disinfect wounds (!) and to drink when sick. It's about 40% alcohol.
So...did I know all this when I tasted it? No. But I probably would have had some anyways. I had a taste, and true enough it was strong enough to burn and make me quite warm. It also had a pretty strong medicinal taste, like Chinese herbs. And after I had a taste, I had half a glass. It was surprisingly...good? I liked the after warmth. And the medicinal taste made me feel a bit like I was drinking something good for me (which, now knowing how it's made, is probably not true. But hey, who knows?)
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
finally, a bike accident
Finally, after 3 months of near-misses with other bikes and pedestrians, I managed to fall off my bike today. Ironically, I wasn't really close to hitting anybody/thing else at all! I was biking on the side of the road (no sidewalk here) and slowing down for a red light. There were a bunch of cars lined up behind the red light, and I figured to avoid them (and also to get near the crosswalk in order to cross) I'd bike through a small puddle (it had been raining earlier in the day). Lo and behold...the small puddle turned out to be a really deep and steep. As soon as I hit the puddle, I realized my mistake but of course by then I was sailing through the air...and landing belly down on the ground. Next to a bunch of cars. How embarrassing! So of course I jumped right back up like See? it never happened, I'm okay. I righted my bike, pushed it along, parked it to go back and get my hat which was thrown to the ground, and finally made it across the street. I went a few blocks before thinking, Gee! Maybe I ought to check if I'm bleeding anywhere. So at the next stoplight I check and realize that my left knee is indeed bleeding, and so I stuck on one small band-aid I had in my backpack. It looked kind of pitiful.
I was on my way downtown to go shopping, so I figured I'd just park and find a drugstore there. I found a very tiny drugstore with two middle-aged ladies, one of them in a white coat. Not knowing the Japanese word for band-aid, I just lifted up my capris and showed her my clearly inadequate bandage and said, Do you have this? She did, and I asked her if she had medicine (looking for something neosporin-like). And of course she found that too and I made sure by asking her, If I put this on, will it heal faster? Again, not knowing the word for "antibiotic" or "disinfect" was kind of annoying. So I paid for my bandaids and my neosporin, and I was all ready to leave the store to go nurse myself, but the lady in the white coat actually told me to sit down. She then proceeded to use rubbing alcohol to disinfect my skinned knee (I didn't buy the alcohol), put the neosporin on the bandaid and the bandaid on my knee. And then another one, crosswise, for good measure. She told me to be careful, and that I could shower with the bandaid and didn't need to change it for two days. Amazing. This was at a drugstore! I don't think any pharmacist or Walgreens cashier would apply bandaids and neosporin to their customers. I'm just...shocked and amazed and really pleased too. Probably worth the skinned knee, just for the story to tell.
Other things I learned: carry a supply of adequately sized bandaids while biking. And avoid biking through puddles when you can't tell how deep or steep they are.
I was on my way downtown to go shopping, so I figured I'd just park and find a drugstore there. I found a very tiny drugstore with two middle-aged ladies, one of them in a white coat. Not knowing the Japanese word for band-aid, I just lifted up my capris and showed her my clearly inadequate bandage and said, Do you have this? She did, and I asked her if she had medicine (looking for something neosporin-like). And of course she found that too and I made sure by asking her, If I put this on, will it heal faster? Again, not knowing the word for "antibiotic" or "disinfect" was kind of annoying. So I paid for my bandaids and my neosporin, and I was all ready to leave the store to go nurse myself, but the lady in the white coat actually told me to sit down. She then proceeded to use rubbing alcohol to disinfect my skinned knee (I didn't buy the alcohol), put the neosporin on the bandaid and the bandaid on my knee. And then another one, crosswise, for good measure. She told me to be careful, and that I could shower with the bandaid and didn't need to change it for two days. Amazing. This was at a drugstore! I don't think any pharmacist or Walgreens cashier would apply bandaids and neosporin to their customers. I'm just...shocked and amazed and really pleased too. Probably worth the skinned knee, just for the story to tell.
Other things I learned: carry a supply of adequately sized bandaids while biking. And avoid biking through puddles when you can't tell how deep or steep they are.
Monday, December 10, 2007
I hate cornstarch
Seriously. If it weren't so useful I'd swear it off forever. Today I managed to successfully make sweet and sour fish (tang2 cu4 yu2). Last time I tried, I failed abysmally because in substituting tomato puree for ketchup, I ended up with something that was wayy too tomato-ey and not sweet enough. So this time, I wised up and only added a dash of tomato sauce and more dashes of sugar. But the cornstarch! Okay, so this time I didn't screw up the cornstarch as badly as last time, but it was still pretty bad. I've come to the conclusion that there is no good way to handle cornstarch, particularly over here where it universally comes in plastic packs. Whatever happened to those useful cardboard cartons that you can just tip to the side and sprinkle out starch? Aargh. The starch gets EVERYWHERE and sticks to EVERYTHING...except for the stuff I actually WANT it to stick to. Like, the egg-yolk covered fish. I ended up with yolk and starch covered fingers instead, and fluffy white starch all over the kitchen counter and the sink. And...only pathetically starch-covered fish after all that effort. And because I didn't have enough foresight, I had to put the pathetically starch-covered fish down in a tray while I got out a frying pan and heated up some oil. I lift up the fish and what do I see? NO STARCH ON THE UNDERSIDE OF THE FISH!!? Why, might you ask? ...Obviously, the starch is stuck to the tray instead! aallll of it!! Arrghh. I gave up and just fried the fish anyways. It still turned out alright, but I don't think I'll be able to solve the cornstarch problem anytime soon. Unless I'm missing something really obvious about cooking with starch.
On a positive note, the Japanese news informs me that starting today, the sun will set later. Yay! Longer daylight hours! I'm tired of it being dark at 5pm.
On a positive note, the Japanese news informs me that starting today, the sun will set later. Yay! Longer daylight hours! I'm tired of it being dark at 5pm.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
I met Dr. Grip!
No kidding! I really did. Well, his name isn't actually Dr. Grip, though he did invent those amazingly popular pens. He was at the welcome reception for a conference my advisor organized tonight, so I got to meet him. I understand that he is a bit different from the others (in that he has a sense of humor, and wears a leather jacket rather than a suit). I didn't know until afterwards that he invented Dr. Grip pens, and then suddenly the fact that he studies ergonomics made so much more sense. I think I'm going to have to go buy one of those pens now. :-D Although I understand that he is not so rich as one might think. Tomoko tells me that he invested his money in other research or ventures that didn't do quite as well as the Dr. Grip pens.
I also met my advisor's boss, whom I take to be an important person. He's 65, but looks wayy, wayy younger than that. I thought he was not much older than my advisor. The striking event of the evening was that he knocked a glass over onto the floor, spilling red wine everywhere. Immediately, 3 neighboring women rushed to the scene, picking up broken glass and wiping up wine with tissues. And...he just stepped back and observed. Amazing. Didn't lift a finger. Didn't even hear him apologize! One of those cultural things...If Larry Summers (while still president of Harvard) dropped a drink, would 3 female grad students/professors/what have you academics scramble over themselves to clean up after him? It was kind of painful to watch. Hmm, maybe Larry Summers is a bad comparison. If the department chair of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard dropped a drink... Argh.
I also met my advisor's boss, whom I take to be an important person. He's 65, but looks wayy, wayy younger than that. I thought he was not much older than my advisor. The striking event of the evening was that he knocked a glass over onto the floor, spilling red wine everywhere. Immediately, 3 neighboring women rushed to the scene, picking up broken glass and wiping up wine with tissues. And...he just stepped back and observed. Amazing. Didn't lift a finger. Didn't even hear him apologize! One of those cultural things...If Larry Summers (while still president of Harvard) dropped a drink, would 3 female grad students/professors/what have you academics scramble over themselves to clean up after him? It was kind of painful to watch. Hmm, maybe Larry Summers is a bad comparison. If the department chair of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard dropped a drink... Argh.
the story of a spider
So last night I was talking with Tomoko and somehow the topic of cultural images of animals (and insects) came up. And somehow, we ended up talking about spiders, which reminded me of Anansi the spider. I asked her if there were any famous legends about spiders, and she told me this one:
Once upon a time, there was a very evil man. He did lots of horrible and bad things, including theft and murder. There was only one redeeming deed in his whole life, and that was that once he saved the life of a spider. Eventually, he died and he went to hell.
He suffered in hell for awhile...something about a pool of blood. The spider eventually died too, but since the spider was a good spider, it went to heaven. The spider looked down from heaven at hell and saw its once upon a time benefactor. Taking pity on him, the spider asked Buddha to allow him to come to heaven. Based on the spider's strong recommendation, Buddha decided to allow the evil man one last chance. So, the spider began to spin its silk, so much that it fell all the way from heaven down to hell. The evil man found the spider silk and began to climb up the silk to enter heaven. He was almost all the way up when he looked down behind him and realized that many other denizens of hell were also climbing up the spider silk. He was afraid that the silk would break before he reached heaven, so he cut it, letting everybody else tumble back to hell. Alas, Buddha was watching him and seeing him act so selfishly, cut the spider silk above him. He had squandered his last chance, and so he fell back into hell for all of eternity.
Apparently the story may be by Akutagawa Ryunosuke. I will have to look it up...though I am warned that it is difficult. But I love these sorts of fairy tales and parables. Simple and elegant.
On a totally unrelated note, I had another dance lesson today. I finally finished learning all of my dance, Gion kouta (Ballad of Gion, or Little Song of Gion). The last section is really complicated, with me turning this way and that. Hopefully I can remember! Since I finally learned what the name of my dance was, of course the first thing I did was Google it. Unfortunately, I found at least three other versions of the dance, and innumerable midi files of the song. At least now I know the lyrics!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRPRWZLXlI4
Here is a version of the dance for an idea of what it sounds like and what this type of dancing looks like (though mine is faster and the song is not a solo version).
I'm going to perform in February!
Once upon a time, there was a very evil man. He did lots of horrible and bad things, including theft and murder. There was only one redeeming deed in his whole life, and that was that once he saved the life of a spider. Eventually, he died and he went to hell.
He suffered in hell for awhile...something about a pool of blood. The spider eventually died too, but since the spider was a good spider, it went to heaven. The spider looked down from heaven at hell and saw its once upon a time benefactor. Taking pity on him, the spider asked Buddha to allow him to come to heaven. Based on the spider's strong recommendation, Buddha decided to allow the evil man one last chance. So, the spider began to spin its silk, so much that it fell all the way from heaven down to hell. The evil man found the spider silk and began to climb up the silk to enter heaven. He was almost all the way up when he looked down behind him and realized that many other denizens of hell were also climbing up the spider silk. He was afraid that the silk would break before he reached heaven, so he cut it, letting everybody else tumble back to hell. Alas, Buddha was watching him and seeing him act so selfishly, cut the spider silk above him. He had squandered his last chance, and so he fell back into hell for all of eternity.
Apparently the story may be by Akutagawa Ryunosuke. I will have to look it up...though I am warned that it is difficult. But I love these sorts of fairy tales and parables. Simple and elegant.
On a totally unrelated note, I had another dance lesson today. I finally finished learning all of my dance, Gion kouta (Ballad of Gion, or Little Song of Gion). The last section is really complicated, with me turning this way and that. Hopefully I can remember! Since I finally learned what the name of my dance was, of course the first thing I did was Google it. Unfortunately, I found at least three other versions of the dance, and innumerable midi files of the song. At least now I know the lyrics!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRPRWZLXlI4
Here is a version of the dance for an idea of what it sounds like and what this type of dancing looks like (though mine is faster and the song is not a solo version).
I'm going to perform in February!
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
some fall travels and jazziness
I haven't updated in awhile because I've been out and about. Specifically, this past week I've gone to Osaka and Kyoto for a very short whirlwind tour. Well--mainly, Osaka for shopping, and Kyoto for pretty fall foliage and some touristy sightseeing. It was fun and exhausting.
The hugeness of Osaka was staggering. It's more or less like Tokyo, except that this time I was better equipped to deal with it. In the Osaka Station area alone, there were at least 5 huge buildings (I hesitate to call them skyscrapers, but how else would you call a building with 27 floors?) dedicated to shopping and eating. And all the people in the subway stations at 5pm!
Kyoto, in contrast, was less crowded and much cleaner. But it was also less easy to get around, or so it seemed at the time. I took a walking tour around the station area, which lasted 5 hrs and made me very tired. And then I walked some more! Whee!! After a few aggravating detours caused by bad map-reading and bad street signs, I finally made it back to the station to go back to my hotel in Osaka. But it was gorgeous :-) Pictures are on facebook.
Tonight I went and saw some jazz at a bar downtown with my Nepalese friend (the one who is studying American literature). It was fun! It was more or less like an open mic type of deal, where people signed up to play or sing. There were lots of vocalists singing jazz standards ("All of Me" came up twice!). There was one group of 5 women who were very good with the harmony and all that. They started by singing The First Noel/Silent Night a cappella. But, I have to say, the pronunciation was quite distracting. "Za fast Noel..." particularly of note was "Joy tsu za fishes in za deep brue shee, joy tsu you an' me" I had to cringe every time "heaven" came out as "hebun," though after awhile they were jamming so upbeat to Joy to the World that I wanted to sing along and nearly sang it as "hebun" myself! Bad pronunciation is infectious! Then there was also "Fry me tsu za moon..." And a lady sang White Christmas, which simultaneously made me want to cry for reasons unknown, and laugh because she sounded so inescapably Japanese: "wheah za toreetops grissen, and childoren rissen / to heah sreigh bellzu in za snow...." Well, enough of that. I'm sure I butcher Japanese regularly, so--it's forgivable :-D They were generally very good singers :-)
Anyways, most ppl were really great and having a blast. There was one man in particular that I really liked--a middle aged skinny man in a dark grey suit. He sang "goody goody" and "i can't give you anything but love." He was the only male vocalist, which I thought was kind of strange. Of all the vocalists, though, he seemed to be the most relaxed and natural and most genuinely enjoying himself. He smiled through all his songs (as far as you can smile while singing--maybe he only gave the impression of smiling, or maybe you really can smile with your eyes). I thought it was so oddly incongruous, the man in the gabardine or grey flannel suit jamming to the subversive notes of jazz. Cultural transplantation, things become oddly removed from context.
The hugeness of Osaka was staggering. It's more or less like Tokyo, except that this time I was better equipped to deal with it. In the Osaka Station area alone, there were at least 5 huge buildings (I hesitate to call them skyscrapers, but how else would you call a building with 27 floors?) dedicated to shopping and eating. And all the people in the subway stations at 5pm!
Kyoto, in contrast, was less crowded and much cleaner. But it was also less easy to get around, or so it seemed at the time. I took a walking tour around the station area, which lasted 5 hrs and made me very tired. And then I walked some more! Whee!! After a few aggravating detours caused by bad map-reading and bad street signs, I finally made it back to the station to go back to my hotel in Osaka. But it was gorgeous :-) Pictures are on facebook.
Tonight I went and saw some jazz at a bar downtown with my Nepalese friend (the one who is studying American literature). It was fun! It was more or less like an open mic type of deal, where people signed up to play or sing. There were lots of vocalists singing jazz standards ("All of Me" came up twice!). There was one group of 5 women who were very good with the harmony and all that. They started by singing The First Noel/Silent Night a cappella. But, I have to say, the pronunciation was quite distracting. "Za fast Noel..." particularly of note was "Joy tsu za fishes in za deep brue shee, joy tsu you an' me" I had to cringe every time "heaven" came out as "hebun," though after awhile they were jamming so upbeat to Joy to the World that I wanted to sing along and nearly sang it as "hebun" myself! Bad pronunciation is infectious! Then there was also "Fry me tsu za moon..." And a lady sang White Christmas, which simultaneously made me want to cry for reasons unknown, and laugh because she sounded so inescapably Japanese: "wheah za toreetops grissen, and childoren rissen / to heah sreigh bellzu in za snow...." Well, enough of that. I'm sure I butcher Japanese regularly, so--it's forgivable :-D They were generally very good singers :-)
Anyways, most ppl were really great and having a blast. There was one man in particular that I really liked--a middle aged skinny man in a dark grey suit. He sang "goody goody" and "i can't give you anything but love." He was the only male vocalist, which I thought was kind of strange. Of all the vocalists, though, he seemed to be the most relaxed and natural and most genuinely enjoying himself. He smiled through all his songs (as far as you can smile while singing--maybe he only gave the impression of smiling, or maybe you really can smile with your eyes). I thought it was so oddly incongruous, the man in the gabardine or grey flannel suit jamming to the subversive notes of jazz. Cultural transplantation, things become oddly removed from context.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
OMG, AMAAAZING SUSHI!!
For the first time since arriving here, I went to a real sushi place. I.e., not kaiten-zushi, and not convenience store sushi. I went with a friend of my advisor's and his family. We sat at the counter in front of the two sushi chefs and all the raw fish (and a tank). It was...indescribable. We ordered, they made, and then we ate it. Everything was super clean. When they finished making something, they would just put it on the counter in front of us (i.e., straight on the wooden counter, no plates or anything). I was kind of surprised by that. The best things I had tonight were sea urchin (uni) which was sooo good and negitoro temaki (fatty tuna and green onions in a hand roll). Freshly made sushi has nori that is crispy! I can't remember the last time the nori that my sushi was wrapped in was crispy. Usually it's refrigerated and soggy. I also had, for the first time, a variety of shellfish annnd....FUGU! Yes, the poisonous puffer fish. The fish itself tasted fairly normal, but the sauce was really amazing. And no, my lips and tongue did not go numb. I suppose the poison was quite thoroughly removed.
And a funny moment. There was one shellfish--I think abalone--stuck to the side of the tank. We ordered it, and it appeared in front of us, beautifully presented and prepared. No longer in tank. I dunno...it just...makes me feel funny, eating a raw abalone that was alive just a few minutes ago. Can't get fresher than that...
The meal was quite a treat, and not just for me either. Their daughter, ~11 years old, had also never been to such a sushi restaurant in her life. And the mom pondered for several minutes before deciding that maybe she's been to this kind of place once before. Wow. I suppose because Japanese food in the US is synonymous with sushi and sashimi, I naively assumed that Japanese people eat sushi and sashimi when they go out to eat too. Apparently, it's even more rare and special here than it is in the US! Probably it doesn't help that the meal probably cost a fortune...easily could have spent more than $60 per person. Of course, though...their family is super-rich.
It was so amazing that I'm posting pictures on facebook.
And a funny moment. There was one shellfish--I think abalone--stuck to the side of the tank. We ordered it, and it appeared in front of us, beautifully presented and prepared. No longer in tank. I dunno...it just...makes me feel funny, eating a raw abalone that was alive just a few minutes ago. Can't get fresher than that...
The meal was quite a treat, and not just for me either. Their daughter, ~11 years old, had also never been to such a sushi restaurant in her life. And the mom pondered for several minutes before deciding that maybe she's been to this kind of place once before. Wow. I suppose because Japanese food in the US is synonymous with sushi and sashimi, I naively assumed that Japanese people eat sushi and sashimi when they go out to eat too. Apparently, it's even more rare and special here than it is in the US! Probably it doesn't help that the meal probably cost a fortune...easily could have spent more than $60 per person. Of course, though...their family is super-rich.
It was so amazing that I'm posting pictures on facebook.
Monday, November 19, 2007
nevermind about preening...
...because I have 7 mosquito bites on my face. I look like I have chicken pox! But, it's all for a good cause, because I got them on a trip to Ise Shrine. This weekend, I went on a trip planned by the international center of my University to Ise Shrine and some surrounding areas. Ise is a very old very famous shrine, dedicated to Amaterasu the Sun Goddess. It has been around for thousands of years, and Amaterasu is the most important Shinto god (from whom the emperor is said to be descended). Ise is often called "the heart of the Japanese people." It was amazing. Very beautiful, very woodsy. Would have been more spiritual if it weren't so crowded! But I did come away with two Shinto-priest-blessed charms, one for me (academics!) and one for my host mom (for a safe delivery of her baby). It's kind of fun. They are only supposed to last for a year, because you are supposed to visit the shrine yearly. Often, people visit shrines during the New Year's holiday to get their blessings for the new year.
After the morning in Ise, we spent lunch and part of the afternoon on a street next to the shrine (Okageyokocho). It is a street full of little shops, built in the old style, selling traditional and local foods. Very cute place. I was just in time to catch a taiko performance on a small stage in the center of the area. There were three performers: a man in the middle playing three drums, flanked by two women playing one big drum each. They were incredibly good. At the risk of sappiness, I'll admit that I was moved to tears by their taiko performance. Something indescribable about the purity of the rhythm, the way they moved their entire bodies to pound the drums...I don't know. It was moving.
Other highlights of the trip--a huge aquarium, with lots of enormous tanks. It was awesome, though a bit rushed and I didn't have time to see everything. Also, we visited a museum dedicated to ninja. Well, I knew nothing about ninja before and now I know a little bit more :-)
Overall, the trip was great fun. I did enjoy my one night's stay in a Japanese style room, mosquito bites notwithstanding. I just feel very grateful that I have such a supportive international center here at my school, who plans trips like this so I don't have to think about it. There were a total of 20 or so international students going together, and I got to know a few of them much better. We've become quite the community...I feel warm and fuzzy.
Pictures on facebook :-)
After the morning in Ise, we spent lunch and part of the afternoon on a street next to the shrine (Okageyokocho). It is a street full of little shops, built in the old style, selling traditional and local foods. Very cute place. I was just in time to catch a taiko performance on a small stage in the center of the area. There were three performers: a man in the middle playing three drums, flanked by two women playing one big drum each. They were incredibly good. At the risk of sappiness, I'll admit that I was moved to tears by their taiko performance. Something indescribable about the purity of the rhythm, the way they moved their entire bodies to pound the drums...I don't know. It was moving.
Other highlights of the trip--a huge aquarium, with lots of enormous tanks. It was awesome, though a bit rushed and I didn't have time to see everything. Also, we visited a museum dedicated to ninja. Well, I knew nothing about ninja before and now I know a little bit more :-)
Overall, the trip was great fun. I did enjoy my one night's stay in a Japanese style room, mosquito bites notwithstanding. I just feel very grateful that I have such a supportive international center here at my school, who plans trips like this so I don't have to think about it. There were a total of 20 or so international students going together, and I got to know a few of them much better. We've become quite the community...I feel warm and fuzzy.
Pictures on facebook :-)
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
a moment to preen
So...I am second author on a manuscript in preparation. It's on draft 7, and is from my short stint at MGH. !! I think I have seen an earlier draft of this manuscript, but then sort of dismissed it as not going to happen anytime soon. So seeing this draft gives me a nice warm feeling all over again. It's kind of cool to recognize some of the figures in the paper as the same ones I prepared for my Biochem91r report. I sort of can't believe I'm second author? I'm ahead of another post-doc, the technicians, more ppl. I suppose after my own post-doc, who supplied most of the brainpower and did all the writing and all the other figures...my own meager 2 or 3-figure contribution counts as second. But still--it just blows me away. Even though I worked my ass off commuting to MGH and dealing with those mice and labeling their cells and such.
Just skimming the draft makes my head hurt. It's been a long long time since I've had to think about the "story" behind my and my postdoc's research. And boy, it is a complicated story, even more complicated than the usual immunological story. Even while I was actively doing the research, I kept getting confused about my post-docs story (my part of the research was a much smaller bit of the larger story, and at least I could keep my bit straight). Do I have any major comments to give to my post-doc? Oh God, if he and the PI have already hashed through that many drafts, then I doubt I'll be able to give any major constructive comments. Especially since I have to reacquaint myself with the story. I wonder if any remnants of my own text (from the 91r report) remain in the paper. Again, after so many drafts with an incredibly detail-oriented PI, I highly doubt it. It makes me doubt my own abilities to ever write a publishable paper, since I was quite proud of my 91r report! If this is the work that's necessary, the level of ...abstruseness...then I am doomed for sure.
But then, switching to reading papers about BMI and such in my current field gives me hope again. "Look! Their data is shitty too! Mine's only a little bit shittier...and I'm doing a very similar analysis. Maybe I have hope after all".
Just skimming the draft makes my head hurt. It's been a long long time since I've had to think about the "story" behind my and my postdoc's research. And boy, it is a complicated story, even more complicated than the usual immunological story. Even while I was actively doing the research, I kept getting confused about my post-docs story (my part of the research was a much smaller bit of the larger story, and at least I could keep my bit straight). Do I have any major comments to give to my post-doc? Oh God, if he and the PI have already hashed through that many drafts, then I doubt I'll be able to give any major constructive comments. Especially since I have to reacquaint myself with the story. I wonder if any remnants of my own text (from the 91r report) remain in the paper. Again, after so many drafts with an incredibly detail-oriented PI, I highly doubt it. It makes me doubt my own abilities to ever write a publishable paper, since I was quite proud of my 91r report! If this is the work that's necessary, the level of ...abstruseness...then I am doomed for sure.
But then, switching to reading papers about BMI and such in my current field gives me hope again. "Look! Their data is shitty too! Mine's only a little bit shittier...and I'm doing a very similar analysis. Maybe I have hope after all".
Saturday, November 10, 2007
neat lighting trick
I forgot to mention a neat lighting trick from yesterdays Beat Street show. I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, but it sure was cool.
So, Beat Street set up a "stage" in one area of the school cafeteria. By which I mean, they cleared a space and they put up a huge backdrop with the letters "beat street" graffiti'd on it. At first, I thought that in addition to the huge speakers, they actually had lights! I kept looking for the lighting person with the board. Then, I realized that the lights never changed--every piece, all the time, was a dark and moody blue. I got hungry and went to the second floor of the cafeteria to get some food, and AHA! I realized where the cool moody blue lights came from. The cafeteria normally has an atrium-type thing, where there's a hole in the second floor so that the first floor can look through all the way to the ceiling. This large hole is exactly over where Beat Street set up their stage. Of course, this would be a problem for staging because of the light pollution. To solve that, they tied a huge blue painter's tarp (clean of course) over the hole to cover it. Voila! Instant almost professional-looking lights. The tarp ensured that the stage was a moody dark color suitable for dance, and the blueness ensured that any light that leaked through was a nice blue color. Perfect, economical way of getting a show-look. Because we all know that a show put on with fluorescent lights look pathetic.
So, Beat Street set up a "stage" in one area of the school cafeteria. By which I mean, they cleared a space and they put up a huge backdrop with the letters "beat street" graffiti'd on it. At first, I thought that in addition to the huge speakers, they actually had lights! I kept looking for the lighting person with the board. Then, I realized that the lights never changed--every piece, all the time, was a dark and moody blue. I got hungry and went to the second floor of the cafeteria to get some food, and AHA! I realized where the cool moody blue lights came from. The cafeteria normally has an atrium-type thing, where there's a hole in the second floor so that the first floor can look through all the way to the ceiling. This large hole is exactly over where Beat Street set up their stage. Of course, this would be a problem for staging because of the light pollution. To solve that, they tied a huge blue painter's tarp (clean of course) over the hole to cover it. Voila! Instant almost professional-looking lights. The tarp ensured that the stage was a moody dark color suitable for dance, and the blueness ensured that any light that leaked through was a nice blue color. Perfect, economical way of getting a show-look. Because we all know that a show put on with fluorescent lights look pathetic.
student festival!
I had such an amazing time today at the student festival! Apparently, most schools (not just universities) have a yearly student festival. For my university, all the student groups set up booths all over campus and sell mostly food, though some sell other things as well. The performing groups perform around campus on various stages too. I didn't think it would be that exciting, but I went today and actually had a great time!
I got to see my university's "beat street" dance group perform. As you might guess from their name, they are a hip hop / breakdance / street dance group. They were really, really good, and their collaboration routine with the cheerleaders was probably better than any routine I've seen at Harvard, and I've lit/watched a good number of dance shows! Of course, the cheerleaders had their plastic smiles the whole time while doing the hip hop moves, which made them look very cute--but no disputing, they were good. Much cleaner and more together than college groups I've seen in the US. I felt a little bit...hmm...nostalgic? when I heard all the hip hop/rap music. It made mt want to dance! And, a part of me really doubts that the dancers know what "crunk" means, but you never know. At their show, the front row was filled with cute little Japanese kids. Good thing you can't be corrupted by lyrics you don't understand!
There was also tons of great food. Many of the international students set up booths next to each other on the second floor of the dining hall. I got to sample some thai food, vietnamese food (yay pho!), taiwanese food...and I will return tomorrow for Korean and Nepali food. I got too full to eat it today. After asking around, I discovered that there aren't really any Vietnamese restaurants nearby. Bummer. I'll have to go without pho for awhile.
AND, I waited in like for more than half an hour to get in to a haunted house. I was having doubts as many of the people in line were high school students (could tell by their uniforms), and as the wait turned out to be much longer than I thought, I figured it wouldn't be worth it. But it was fun!! They did a great job of jumping out at you at unexpected times. Ahh...I haven't done a haunted house since grade school. A bit late for Halloween, but that's okay. I've made up for missing it.
I think, though, that besides the cool performances and good food, one of the things that really made me happy was seeing everybody and saying hi. As I walked around, I saw many of my host dad's students and said hi to everybody...then at the international food fair I knew a lot of people too, from orientation together. Then I met some new people (through people I knew before). There was one guy who is a linguistics grad student, specializing in generative grammar. He explained to me that he really loved grammar, and especially English grammar, and is always looking for someone to speak English to. I have to say, his English is probably the best I've heard so far. So I hung out with him and his two buddies (whom I knew from before) for quite awhile. Through them, I met a bunch of other linguistics students, as well as a Nepali student studying American literature (!), specifically Theodore Dreiser. Amazing. And then, through my friend the German international student Janina, I met a Japanese-English translator (she's Japanese), and two ALT's at a local high school, who were from London. Annd, on my own, I met some people from Malaysia who sold me amaaaazing crepes with curry. Everybody was so friendly and eager to talk and say hello. I'm ridiculously proud of myself, being social all day loL. Even the guys I was with were surprised, saying "you know a lot of people!" which is so ironic considering my generally introverted and loner nature. But today I really felt...connected. That's saying a lot. Maybe it's because I have low expectations--I've never expected people I know only slightly to say hi to me randomly and start talking and joking. I rarely said hi to people at Harvard, figuring they didn't know or remember who I was, and perhaps as a result of that people rarely stopped on the street to say hi to me. But here, being an international student is sort of an instant bond. And since I know only a few Japanese people here (well, few people in general) whenever I see them I make sure to say hello, even if I don't remember their names, as is often the case since Japanese people have complicated names, and I suck at names in general. (They can't have forgotten meeting the American!)
It occurs to me that I have never had so much fun at a Harvard's Yardfest, and that we didn't have anything similar to this matsuri. Perhaps ARTS FIRST is the closest thing I can think of, since all the performers all over campus are student groups. But the organizers are still "adults," and they run the food and the show and program and stuff. Here, there is a lot of "ownership" I suppose. The students run the festival. Student volunteers clean up after everything. There are student volunteers at every trash station, waiting to help you properly sort and throw away your trash. I find that to be amazing! Who in the US would volunteer for such a job? I don't think I've ever seen a janitor here. Well, they must exist, I just don't know about them. It seems to me that the students do a lot of things. At my office campus the other day, I saw 2nd and 3rd graders weeding the planters on campus! That would never happen in the US.
I forgot to bring my camera today, but tomorrow I'll go back and perhaps take some pictures. I saw a guy dressed as Batman, running around. Well, "dressed" would be an overstatement. Let's say, the only thing he was wearing was underwear (not even shoes!) and he was painted from head to toe! Painted black all over, with the Batman logo on his chest. Oh well, I guess he was also wearing a black garbage bag as a cape. He had some buddies too, one of them painted as Doraemon and the other two I don't know what, probably other characters I don't recognize. Mmmm...yeah. Those painted dudes beat out even the guys dressed in drag, some of whom even made pretty convincing and halfway attractive girls.
I got to see my university's "beat street" dance group perform. As you might guess from their name, they are a hip hop / breakdance / street dance group. They were really, really good, and their collaboration routine with the cheerleaders was probably better than any routine I've seen at Harvard, and I've lit/watched a good number of dance shows! Of course, the cheerleaders had their plastic smiles the whole time while doing the hip hop moves, which made them look very cute--but no disputing, they were good. Much cleaner and more together than college groups I've seen in the US. I felt a little bit...hmm...nostalgic? when I heard all the hip hop/rap music. It made mt want to dance! And, a part of me really doubts that the dancers know what "crunk" means, but you never know. At their show, the front row was filled with cute little Japanese kids. Good thing you can't be corrupted by lyrics you don't understand!
There was also tons of great food. Many of the international students set up booths next to each other on the second floor of the dining hall. I got to sample some thai food, vietnamese food (yay pho!), taiwanese food...and I will return tomorrow for Korean and Nepali food. I got too full to eat it today. After asking around, I discovered that there aren't really any Vietnamese restaurants nearby. Bummer. I'll have to go without pho for awhile.
AND, I waited in like for more than half an hour to get in to a haunted house. I was having doubts as many of the people in line were high school students (could tell by their uniforms), and as the wait turned out to be much longer than I thought, I figured it wouldn't be worth it. But it was fun!! They did a great job of jumping out at you at unexpected times. Ahh...I haven't done a haunted house since grade school. A bit late for Halloween, but that's okay. I've made up for missing it.
I think, though, that besides the cool performances and good food, one of the things that really made me happy was seeing everybody and saying hi. As I walked around, I saw many of my host dad's students and said hi to everybody...then at the international food fair I knew a lot of people too, from orientation together. Then I met some new people (through people I knew before). There was one guy who is a linguistics grad student, specializing in generative grammar. He explained to me that he really loved grammar, and especially English grammar, and is always looking for someone to speak English to. I have to say, his English is probably the best I've heard so far. So I hung out with him and his two buddies (whom I knew from before) for quite awhile. Through them, I met a bunch of other linguistics students, as well as a Nepali student studying American literature (!), specifically Theodore Dreiser. Amazing. And then, through my friend the German international student Janina, I met a Japanese-English translator (she's Japanese), and two ALT's at a local high school, who were from London. Annd, on my own, I met some people from Malaysia who sold me amaaaazing crepes with curry. Everybody was so friendly and eager to talk and say hello. I'm ridiculously proud of myself, being social all day loL. Even the guys I was with were surprised, saying "you know a lot of people!" which is so ironic considering my generally introverted and loner nature. But today I really felt...connected. That's saying a lot. Maybe it's because I have low expectations--I've never expected people I know only slightly to say hi to me randomly and start talking and joking. I rarely said hi to people at Harvard, figuring they didn't know or remember who I was, and perhaps as a result of that people rarely stopped on the street to say hi to me. But here, being an international student is sort of an instant bond. And since I know only a few Japanese people here (well, few people in general) whenever I see them I make sure to say hello, even if I don't remember their names, as is often the case since Japanese people have complicated names, and I suck at names in general. (They can't have forgotten meeting the American!)
It occurs to me that I have never had so much fun at a Harvard's Yardfest, and that we didn't have anything similar to this matsuri. Perhaps ARTS FIRST is the closest thing I can think of, since all the performers all over campus are student groups. But the organizers are still "adults," and they run the food and the show and program and stuff. Here, there is a lot of "ownership" I suppose. The students run the festival. Student volunteers clean up after everything. There are student volunteers at every trash station, waiting to help you properly sort and throw away your trash. I find that to be amazing! Who in the US would volunteer for such a job? I don't think I've ever seen a janitor here. Well, they must exist, I just don't know about them. It seems to me that the students do a lot of things. At my office campus the other day, I saw 2nd and 3rd graders weeding the planters on campus! That would never happen in the US.
I forgot to bring my camera today, but tomorrow I'll go back and perhaps take some pictures. I saw a guy dressed as Batman, running around. Well, "dressed" would be an overstatement. Let's say, the only thing he was wearing was underwear (not even shoes!) and he was painted from head to toe! Painted black all over, with the Batman logo on his chest. Oh well, I guess he was also wearing a black garbage bag as a cape. He had some buddies too, one of them painted as Doraemon and the other two I don't know what, probably other characters I don't recognize. Mmmm...yeah. Those painted dudes beat out even the guys dressed in drag, some of whom even made pretty convincing and halfway attractive girls.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
the yakuza?!? oh wait, no...
So today, I finally had the motivation to workout and I get interrupted twice. The first time, I was surprised by my doorbell ringing. Calling out "chotto matte!" (= "wait a sec!") I grabbed a shirt to pull on and went to the door. I peered through the peephole and saw two young men, dressed in all black suits, carrying black leather briefcases. One of them was even wearing a black trench coat, I think. My first thought was...gee, they look like the yakuza. No kidding. But Japan being safe, I decided to open the door a crack. One of the guys reached into his suitcase and pulled out a little pamphlet. My next thought was oh God! Jehovah's Witnesses!! Which was pretty much what slipped out of my mouth. "Are you religious? Jehovah's Witnesses?" All I got were some blank stares from the young men. It occurred to me that from the way they dressed, they could be Mormons. So then I asked "Are you Mormon? Latter Day Saints?" and I got some more blank stares. I explained that I was American and didn't read Japanese much, so I didn't need their pamphlets. Finally, I asked "Are you Christian?" to which they said "ah! yah! Christian!" and nodded vigorously. "I'm not Christian" was my reply, and finally I ended with "have a nice night!"
I figured I got rid of them forever, since they didn't speak any English. Returning to my workout, I mused that I would never find out whether they were Mormon or Jehovah's Witnesses. But, before my workout was over, another doorbell! Surely, not the same people! But yes. One of the young men had returned with a young woman, who was NOT dressed in intimidating yakuza-like all-black. Although she did look nice. Apparently, this young woman speaks some English and so the original young man brought her back to talk to me! "Do you know, Jehovah's Witnsses?" Aha! My first (second?) thought was right. I explained to them that I have relatives who are Jehovah's Witnesses, and I figured that's what they were from their pamphlets, which looked a lot like the Watchtower. Then followed a short discussion on my religious beliefs, how I wasn't raised in Christianity and so find it hard to believe in God, and how I didn't need their pamphlets because I already know about them through my cousin (the last of which is only a half-lie. But I really, really don't want their pamphlets. More paper to sort and tie up and recycle! And I was afraid that the English speaking lady had come back with English Watchtower's and Awake's too). So again, I ended with a have a nice night. I feel vaguely bad about being somewhat curt, and also about the English speaking lady who came from goodness knows where just to talk to the English-only foreigner on the 4th floor. Man, but these people are persistent. And I had no idea there were active Jehovah's Witnesses in Matsuyama. Amazing.
Actually, quite a few people have come door to door to sell their wares, whether religious or not. I got a guy come by the other day to advertise his fortune-telling studio. He tried to read my palm and tell me that I was an emotional person prone to cry while watching TV. He was exceedingly difficult to get rid of! I wonder what is the polite Japanese way to get rid of these ppl--as I figure the American tactic of slamming the door or just saying NO! would be considered overly rude here. Of course, I could just stop opening the door to strangers, but I'm afraid that I'll miss somebody actually important, like the gas company man (he's come by before) or a package delivery man (although those guys are in uniform, so I just have to learn and spot the uniforms) or maybe somebody else I don't know about but who could potentially be important.
I figured I got rid of them forever, since they didn't speak any English. Returning to my workout, I mused that I would never find out whether they were Mormon or Jehovah's Witnesses. But, before my workout was over, another doorbell! Surely, not the same people! But yes. One of the young men had returned with a young woman, who was NOT dressed in intimidating yakuza-like all-black. Although she did look nice. Apparently, this young woman speaks some English and so the original young man brought her back to talk to me! "Do you know, Jehovah's Witnsses?" Aha! My first (second?) thought was right. I explained to them that I have relatives who are Jehovah's Witnesses, and I figured that's what they were from their pamphlets, which looked a lot like the Watchtower. Then followed a short discussion on my religious beliefs, how I wasn't raised in Christianity and so find it hard to believe in God, and how I didn't need their pamphlets because I already know about them through my cousin (the last of which is only a half-lie. But I really, really don't want their pamphlets. More paper to sort and tie up and recycle! And I was afraid that the English speaking lady had come back with English Watchtower's and Awake's too). So again, I ended with a have a nice night. I feel vaguely bad about being somewhat curt, and also about the English speaking lady who came from goodness knows where just to talk to the English-only foreigner on the 4th floor. Man, but these people are persistent. And I had no idea there were active Jehovah's Witnesses in Matsuyama. Amazing.
Actually, quite a few people have come door to door to sell their wares, whether religious or not. I got a guy come by the other day to advertise his fortune-telling studio. He tried to read my palm and tell me that I was an emotional person prone to cry while watching TV. He was exceedingly difficult to get rid of! I wonder what is the polite Japanese way to get rid of these ppl--as I figure the American tactic of slamming the door or just saying NO! would be considered overly rude here. Of course, I could just stop opening the door to strangers, but I'm afraid that I'll miss somebody actually important, like the gas company man (he's come by before) or a package delivery man (although those guys are in uniform, so I just have to learn and spot the uniforms) or maybe somebody else I don't know about but who could potentially be important.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
image vs content
A tentative judgment about Japanese society: the Japanese value presentation and image much more highly than American counterparts. And the corollary: content or value is downplayed. To minimize the risk of generalizing, of course, by American I mean me and by Japanese I mean my experiences of Japanese!
Over and over again, I'm reminded by how much the Japanese love presentation, display, protocol. One example is the nuclear power plant disaster management training I got to take part in today. My advisor is one of the responsible doctors for the Ikata power plant, which apparently provides power to all of Shikoku. As such, he was able to arrange it so that I could participate in the training, masquerading as a doctor. We had a fake patient who was supposedly injured by something radioactive in level 4 security. (Level 4 security is such that basically you need to get naked before entering! Thankfully, we started the simulation just outside that area, though I did see a lot of old men and occasionally young men going through in their underwear.) There were several public health nurses with all sorts of equipment, including a stretcher (!). The two 'doctors' (i.e., me and my advisor) were wearing white lab coats. Everybody was wearing yellow vests that said "training" in big letters. The fake injury was really just a piece of rubber made out to look like a gash to the bone, with something (actually) radioactive stuck in the wound. I watched as the public nurses taped on the rubber wound to the fake patient's leg, then bandage over the rubber wound, then splint the leg, then put the leg in a plastic bag, then tape the plastic bag shut. All with the utmost care. Then, we sat around and waited. And waited. And waited. Apparently, we were on a time table and so we weren't supposed to leave that area until exactly 9:20. Finally, the patient heaved himself onto the stretcher (so much for realism here). He was wrapped in a towel, and zipped into a body-bag like bag, supposedly to minimize radiation contamination of the surroundings. The nurses took several tries to figure out how to configure the stretcher into its various states of collapsed-ness. We wheeled him downstairs, to right outside a huge door. And then, we waited some more! Still ahead of schedule. Finally, at exactly the specified time, the huge garage door opened and we were greeted by the press and an ambulance. More fiddling with the stretcher. I watched again as the ambulance stretcher was oh-so-carefully and slowly wrapped in plastic. The patient was transferred to the other stretcher, and into the ambulance, and was off to the hospital! We actually did make the drive to the hospital…with the ambulance stopping at each stoplight. I actually rode in a car behind the ambulance. So much for realism, again. In fact, the whole thing was so ridiculous with the timetable and the slowness that rather than reassuring me that "Wow! This power plant is so careful, it trains its personnel about disaster management every year!", I am now absolutely convinced that were an injury actually to happen on the premises, the poor person would no doubt die or suffer massive radiation poisoning as the nurses fiddled with the stretcher and checked things off their clipboards. In fact, the whole thing had the inescapable feeling of being a show, a mockery, a display for the press. See? We're responsible. See? We're prepared. Nevermind that this is nothing like real conditions. Nevermind that this kind of training would be absolutely useless for real conditions. I had the idea that this kind of training would focus on speed, efficiency, etc. That they would time how long it would take to get the poor patient into medical care. But nope. Anyways, so that was a long-winded example from today.
One of the things that got me thinking about this topic came up in Japanese class. One of our exercises had to do with analyzing different types of apologies. In Japan, whenever some scandal hits a company, it isn't unusual to see the whole board bow deeply to the press, and the CEO crying in remorse, apologizing over and over again. In our exercise, we had a cartoon of two different CEO's apologies. In one, the CEO was crying, bowing profusely, and saying "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! There's no excuse! It's all my fault! I'm sorry!" etc. over and over again, in the humblest of language. The other CEO was sweating, saying something along the lines of "It was reported to me during construction of this building, there was something amiss with the numbers. I will prevent this from happening in the future" or something like that, focused on investigation, reasoning, and prevention in the future. Of course, neither apology is perfect, but we were discussing how the Japanese would overwhelmingly prefer the first apology, while the second apology would be considered grossly unsatisfying. During the discussion, the teacher explained to us that in Japan, when one apologizes, the remorseful expressions come first. I'm sorry! No excuse! I'm sorry! Etc. You have to look like you feel bad, and be polite. It helps to cry--drums up sympathy. But the reason for the mistake is merely secondary. She pointed out that in Western cultures, when one is late, one typically emphasizes the reason like "AHH! The traffic was so bad today. There was an accident on the road." The listener then has some sympathy for you--it was out of your control, not your fault, It's okay, you don't need to apologize. Whereas, Japanese people don't want to hear the reason until you've already apologized sufficiently remorsefully. Who cares why you're late? You're fucking late. So in the case of the construction company screwup, I was totally amazed that the Japanese would prefer the remorseful display to the reason. (Of course the second CEO probably should have apologized in his statement somewhere). I feel like for Americans, saying "I'm sorry" is an empty expression unless one can back it up with action. Americans want to know why. Americans want a full-scale investigation, with criminal accountability. Americans want compensation. Americans want guarantees that this shit will never happen again. Saying I'm sorry is basically useless, though sometimes helpful for PR. Again, Americans seem to prefer action and content over displays of remorse.
Finally, she showed us a small TV clip from some sort of variety show contrasting Japanese and American CEO apologies. It was made out to be quite absurd, such that even I laughed at the funny American CEO. But one of the hilarious-at-the-time explanations for why Americans are not so quick to apologize was Christianity. A screen flashed up with a cartoon of Jesus kneeling and praying while looking upwards. The narrator then said "God will forgive me!" The whole class burst out into laughter at that point because it was just so ridiculous. However, it really reminded me of Zielenziger's arguments about the lack of Christian influence in Japan (see earlier post about that). According to him, a lot of Japanese culture can be explained by the lack of Christianity. Without Christianity, he argues, there is no inner sense of right or wrong, no inner moral compass. "Right" is determined by society or social consensus. So, to apply it to this situation, the Japanese value apologetic displays so much because they are designed to elicit sympathy from society and from the wronged. The Japanese want more than anything else forgiveness, which can then pave the way to social harmony and peace again. Whereas in Western culture, such extreme social harmony is not as important as inner harmony and peace. If all is right with God, then all is right in my soul. It doesn't matter how the external masses judge one. I think the explanation has a point.
And finally, something lighthearted and amazing. My teacher exhorted us to write our assignments neatly. Mind you, these are short in-class assignments, done on the fly in a few minutes. She said, if you are using a ballpoint pen, please use white out and don't scratch out your mistakes. That way, your writing will look better, you'll make a better impression on the teacher, and I won't be ashamed to show your work to other teachers. My jaw nearly dropped. Neat handwriting, sure. But white-out? Obviously, it's all about presentation and impression on the teacher. I'm used to thinking that the content of my writing is of paramount importance to the impression I would make on the teacher. On an in class essay exam, nobody is keeping track of whether you start a word, scratch it out, and restart. So long as its legible and not totally inane, it's okay. Apparently, I should start using white-out. Or a pencil.
Over and over again, I'm reminded by how much the Japanese love presentation, display, protocol. One example is the nuclear power plant disaster management training I got to take part in today. My advisor is one of the responsible doctors for the Ikata power plant, which apparently provides power to all of Shikoku. As such, he was able to arrange it so that I could participate in the training, masquerading as a doctor. We had a fake patient who was supposedly injured by something radioactive in level 4 security. (Level 4 security is such that basically you need to get naked before entering! Thankfully, we started the simulation just outside that area, though I did see a lot of old men and occasionally young men going through in their underwear.) There were several public health nurses with all sorts of equipment, including a stretcher (!). The two 'doctors' (i.e., me and my advisor) were wearing white lab coats. Everybody was wearing yellow vests that said "training" in big letters. The fake injury was really just a piece of rubber made out to look like a gash to the bone, with something (actually) radioactive stuck in the wound. I watched as the public nurses taped on the rubber wound to the fake patient's leg, then bandage over the rubber wound, then splint the leg, then put the leg in a plastic bag, then tape the plastic bag shut. All with the utmost care. Then, we sat around and waited. And waited. And waited. Apparently, we were on a time table and so we weren't supposed to leave that area until exactly 9:20. Finally, the patient heaved himself onto the stretcher (so much for realism here). He was wrapped in a towel, and zipped into a body-bag like bag, supposedly to minimize radiation contamination of the surroundings. The nurses took several tries to figure out how to configure the stretcher into its various states of collapsed-ness. We wheeled him downstairs, to right outside a huge door. And then, we waited some more! Still ahead of schedule. Finally, at exactly the specified time, the huge garage door opened and we were greeted by the press and an ambulance. More fiddling with the stretcher. I watched again as the ambulance stretcher was oh-so-carefully and slowly wrapped in plastic. The patient was transferred to the other stretcher, and into the ambulance, and was off to the hospital! We actually did make the drive to the hospital…with the ambulance stopping at each stoplight. I actually rode in a car behind the ambulance. So much for realism, again. In fact, the whole thing was so ridiculous with the timetable and the slowness that rather than reassuring me that "Wow! This power plant is so careful, it trains its personnel about disaster management every year!", I am now absolutely convinced that were an injury actually to happen on the premises, the poor person would no doubt die or suffer massive radiation poisoning as the nurses fiddled with the stretcher and checked things off their clipboards. In fact, the whole thing had the inescapable feeling of being a show, a mockery, a display for the press. See? We're responsible. See? We're prepared. Nevermind that this is nothing like real conditions. Nevermind that this kind of training would be absolutely useless for real conditions. I had the idea that this kind of training would focus on speed, efficiency, etc. That they would time how long it would take to get the poor patient into medical care. But nope. Anyways, so that was a long-winded example from today.
One of the things that got me thinking about this topic came up in Japanese class. One of our exercises had to do with analyzing different types of apologies. In Japan, whenever some scandal hits a company, it isn't unusual to see the whole board bow deeply to the press, and the CEO crying in remorse, apologizing over and over again. In our exercise, we had a cartoon of two different CEO's apologies. In one, the CEO was crying, bowing profusely, and saying "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! There's no excuse! It's all my fault! I'm sorry!" etc. over and over again, in the humblest of language. The other CEO was sweating, saying something along the lines of "It was reported to me during construction of this building, there was something amiss with the numbers. I will prevent this from happening in the future" or something like that, focused on investigation, reasoning, and prevention in the future. Of course, neither apology is perfect, but we were discussing how the Japanese would overwhelmingly prefer the first apology, while the second apology would be considered grossly unsatisfying. During the discussion, the teacher explained to us that in Japan, when one apologizes, the remorseful expressions come first. I'm sorry! No excuse! I'm sorry! Etc. You have to look like you feel bad, and be polite. It helps to cry--drums up sympathy. But the reason for the mistake is merely secondary. She pointed out that in Western cultures, when one is late, one typically emphasizes the reason like "AHH! The traffic was so bad today. There was an accident on the road." The listener then has some sympathy for you--it was out of your control, not your fault, It's okay, you don't need to apologize. Whereas, Japanese people don't want to hear the reason until you've already apologized sufficiently remorsefully. Who cares why you're late? You're fucking late. So in the case of the construction company screwup, I was totally amazed that the Japanese would prefer the remorseful display to the reason. (Of course the second CEO probably should have apologized in his statement somewhere). I feel like for Americans, saying "I'm sorry" is an empty expression unless one can back it up with action. Americans want to know why. Americans want a full-scale investigation, with criminal accountability. Americans want compensation. Americans want guarantees that this shit will never happen again. Saying I'm sorry is basically useless, though sometimes helpful for PR. Again, Americans seem to prefer action and content over displays of remorse.
Finally, she showed us a small TV clip from some sort of variety show contrasting Japanese and American CEO apologies. It was made out to be quite absurd, such that even I laughed at the funny American CEO. But one of the hilarious-at-the-time explanations for why Americans are not so quick to apologize was Christianity. A screen flashed up with a cartoon of Jesus kneeling and praying while looking upwards. The narrator then said "God will forgive me!" The whole class burst out into laughter at that point because it was just so ridiculous. However, it really reminded me of Zielenziger's arguments about the lack of Christian influence in Japan (see earlier post about that). According to him, a lot of Japanese culture can be explained by the lack of Christianity. Without Christianity, he argues, there is no inner sense of right or wrong, no inner moral compass. "Right" is determined by society or social consensus. So, to apply it to this situation, the Japanese value apologetic displays so much because they are designed to elicit sympathy from society and from the wronged. The Japanese want more than anything else forgiveness, which can then pave the way to social harmony and peace again. Whereas in Western culture, such extreme social harmony is not as important as inner harmony and peace. If all is right with God, then all is right in my soul. It doesn't matter how the external masses judge one. I think the explanation has a point.
And finally, something lighthearted and amazing. My teacher exhorted us to write our assignments neatly. Mind you, these are short in-class assignments, done on the fly in a few minutes. She said, if you are using a ballpoint pen, please use white out and don't scratch out your mistakes. That way, your writing will look better, you'll make a better impression on the teacher, and I won't be ashamed to show your work to other teachers. My jaw nearly dropped. Neat handwriting, sure. But white-out? Obviously, it's all about presentation and impression on the teacher. I'm used to thinking that the content of my writing is of paramount importance to the impression I would make on the teacher. On an in class essay exam, nobody is keeping track of whether you start a word, scratch it out, and restart. So long as its legible and not totally inane, it's okay. Apparently, I should start using white-out. Or a pencil.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
good beef don
The past couple of days, I've been struck several times with inexplicable happiness. I was walking up a road to a bakery, listening to music as usual and singing along and just feeling...happy! I still can't believe I'm here. That was a rainy day. The day before it was sunny and gorgeous and very California-like and it struck me that I already love this place more than I ever loved Harvard. For no especial reason. It's not particularly pretty; God knows the campus is in ruins right now due to construction, and even if it weren't under construction it would be a dismal concrete mass. My apartment is a dismal concrete mass. The city is criss-crossed with power lines, half the streets don't have sidewalks, and...well...it's generally ugly. It's nowhere near as cute as Cambridge. Of course, the castle is gorgeous, and there are various traditional-style houses and buildings that lend character to the city. But still! I've rarely (if ever? can't remember) felt just happy to be at Harvard, walking down the street, singing along to music, going somewhere nice by myself. I don't know if it was the workload, the people, or the atmosphere. But here, everybody is extraordinarily nice and I'm generally relaxed.
Along those lines of being happy, I had really great fastfood gyuu-don (beef donburi, or beef over rice) today for lunch. Mmm! A bowl of beef don and a mini bowl of udon cost me only 640 yen. Beats American fast food any day. Ahhh....
Part of the reason I had to eat out for lunch anyways was because I spent all morning in the hospital. My host mom, who is heavily pregnant, was scheduled to go to the hospital across from the university for a checkup. She invited me to go with her to get a look at how the Japanese hospital system works. I suppose it's about the same? Some differences included that for all the basic pre-seeing-doctor checkup stuff, like getting a blood test, blood pressure checked, urine sample, etc...had my poor host mom running all over the hospital, visiting this and that nurses' station. Well, in the US one hardly ever sees a doctor in the hospital unless one is actually admitted to the hospital. Most of the time, patient visits are in outpatient clinics, and in those places a nurse or technician does all the pre-seeing-doctor exams in one place, the exam room! Saves time and trouble that way. I spent all the waiting knitting a hat for the baby (gave her the matching booties that morning). I cast on after I got to the hospital, and was nearly done by the time the morning was over! In fact, I finished the hat just now. It's in gorgeous Noro Transitions color 19, beige-ish naturalish, with beautiful gradations in color, and soft and fuzzy and lovely. It's so nice I want to knit myself a hat in it too--still have two big skeins left.
But anyways, I got to see my host mom get an ultrasound (very fun). Cute baby? Well, it's hard to say that anything on an ultrasound image is cute. But I see the potential for cuteness. Unfortunately, she looks like she could might be delivering prematurely. She's not due until the end of December, but something about the baby suggests that she might deliver any moment! So she's been prescribed bed rest, which must suck royally. And on top of that, her husband (my host dad) has already scheduled two trips out of town next week for work, and so he can't stay with her. As a result of all that, they decided to admit her to the hospital right then and there! She's going to stay for at least 3 days, and then be re-evaluated. That's definitely something different from the US. I imagine that somebody prescribed bed rest in the US wouldn't be admitted to the hospital to stay indefinitely. Nobody to take care of you at home? Tough luck! Deal with it. From what I know, nights at a hospital are kept to an absolute minimum, reserved for those who are critically ill or dying. New mothers go home right away!
Along those lines of being happy, I had really great fastfood gyuu-don (beef donburi, or beef over rice) today for lunch. Mmm! A bowl of beef don and a mini bowl of udon cost me only 640 yen. Beats American fast food any day. Ahhh....
Part of the reason I had to eat out for lunch anyways was because I spent all morning in the hospital. My host mom, who is heavily pregnant, was scheduled to go to the hospital across from the university for a checkup. She invited me to go with her to get a look at how the Japanese hospital system works. I suppose it's about the same? Some differences included that for all the basic pre-seeing-doctor checkup stuff, like getting a blood test, blood pressure checked, urine sample, etc...had my poor host mom running all over the hospital, visiting this and that nurses' station. Well, in the US one hardly ever sees a doctor in the hospital unless one is actually admitted to the hospital. Most of the time, patient visits are in outpatient clinics, and in those places a nurse or technician does all the pre-seeing-doctor exams in one place, the exam room! Saves time and trouble that way. I spent all the waiting knitting a hat for the baby (gave her the matching booties that morning). I cast on after I got to the hospital, and was nearly done by the time the morning was over! In fact, I finished the hat just now. It's in gorgeous Noro Transitions color 19, beige-ish naturalish, with beautiful gradations in color, and soft and fuzzy and lovely. It's so nice I want to knit myself a hat in it too--still have two big skeins left.
But anyways, I got to see my host mom get an ultrasound (very fun). Cute baby? Well, it's hard to say that anything on an ultrasound image is cute. But I see the potential for cuteness. Unfortunately, she looks like she could might be delivering prematurely. She's not due until the end of December, but something about the baby suggests that she might deliver any moment! So she's been prescribed bed rest, which must suck royally. And on top of that, her husband (my host dad) has already scheduled two trips out of town next week for work, and so he can't stay with her. As a result of all that, they decided to admit her to the hospital right then and there! She's going to stay for at least 3 days, and then be re-evaluated. That's definitely something different from the US. I imagine that somebody prescribed bed rest in the US wouldn't be admitted to the hospital to stay indefinitely. Nobody to take care of you at home? Tough luck! Deal with it. From what I know, nights at a hospital are kept to an absolute minimum, reserved for those who are critically ill or dying. New mothers go home right away!
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
bad sushi
So, I had my first restaurant sushi experience in Japan last night. Up until then, the only sushi I've had has been supermarket or conbini bento-box sushi. Last night, my advisor took me to a kaiten-zushi place, which sort of means rotary sushi. Think Sushi Boat! The sushi comes around on little plates, rotating around as customers sit at the bar. Well, in Japan, kaitenzushi is very cheap, and the quality of the sushi definitely shows! I'm not sure that it was an improvement over conbini/supermarket sushi. Even the hamachi was kind of tough, and the maguro was only so-so. Disappointed...
I've discovered that the Japanese value maguro (tuna) much more than salmon, I think. Whereas most Americans I know would go for salmon, it's tougher to find salmon sashimi here. And the maguro is generally very tasty here, tastier than I've had in the US.
Today was gorgeous weather. Not a cloud in sight. Some of the internationals were surprised that despite it imminently about to become November, we could still wear t-shirts. It reminds me of home...in fact, Matsuyama is approximately the same latitude as Los Angeles. Amazing! I love this place.
I've discovered that the Japanese value maguro (tuna) much more than salmon, I think. Whereas most Americans I know would go for salmon, it's tougher to find salmon sashimi here. And the maguro is generally very tasty here, tastier than I've had in the US.
Today was gorgeous weather. Not a cloud in sight. Some of the internationals were surprised that despite it imminently about to become November, we could still wear t-shirts. It reminds me of home...in fact, Matsuyama is approximately the same latitude as Los Angeles. Amazing! I love this place.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Japanese dance!
Today was an awesome day :-) I found a Japanese dance teacher/studio! I found her on the web through the yahoo Japan yellow pages actually almost two weeks ago. I went to visit her studio one weekday afternoon, hoping to meet somebody, but nobody was there. I called the studio on the phone once, but got scared when nobody picked up and the answering machine went on, so I hung up before leaving a message. This morning, I finally had the guts to call again and have an actual conversation with the teacher (Hanayagi-sensei). She was surprisingly friendly and said that since class was happening that afternoon, I was welcome to go and visit. So I showed up on time at 1:30pm (actually, that was a half an hour early), chatted with the teacher as much as I could, and watched as some of the other students came in. The first student was a 6th grade girl who didn't say a word throughout the whole lesson! It was a little bit odd to me. The next was a very nice lady who is a Japanese teacher at a different university in Matsuyama. Though she didn't speak any language other than Japanese, because of being a language teacher, she was very good at interpreting and anticipating my broken Japanese. I was going to stay just for her lesson and then go, but then the teacher lent me a kimono, obi (sash), and all the undergarments. By then two or three more students, both middle-aged oldish ladies had arrived and dressed, and they all urged me to give it a go! So, one of the other ladies took me to the dressing area and helped me put on my undergarments and kimono, and two of them tied my obi for me! One of them even lent me an extra set of her tabi (those Japanese toe socks) and silk ties.
By now, somewhat past 3pm, I started having my own mini-lesson. The teacher picked a maiko-dance for me, asking me "how would you like to be a maiko?" After ascertaining that I actually knew what that was (maiko are basically cute little geisha-in-training), we started the lesson. It was so much fun! Certain movements were familiar in an a-ha! sort of way. It's amazing what an influence your childhood has on you. I'm remembering certain body positions, ways of holding the fan, opening the fan, etc. It was exhilarating. I think in December I will pay the fees and become a regular student, two weekends a month. For November, I think I will go be a student with a bunch of tiny little kids, partly because I don't have so many free weekends in November, and partly because the lessons for the tiny kids are free, and I'll have a bit more time to decide. But basically, since Hanayagi-sensei is lending me all the dance accessories, I won't have a huge outlay like I expected. Her lessons aren't terribly expensive--10,000 yen a month, which roughly comes out to less than $25 per lesson. Considering that the adult lessons are one-on-one, it's not a bad deal. The lessons are rather variable in length, however--mostly less than an hour. The students just show up whenever they want during the designated afternoons and wait their turn. It's an odd, time consuming system, but I suppose it facilitates socializing among the students.
Oh, and another random thing: my teacher way back when in the US was also Hanayagi-sensei. Apparently Hanayagi is the largest school of traditional Japanese dance in Japan, specializing in Kabuki-style dance.
Again, I am amazing by the warm welcoming attitude from everybody, even complete strangers with no vested interest in me, such as Hanayagi-sensei's other students. I can't get over the random gift of the tabi.
By now, somewhat past 3pm, I started having my own mini-lesson. The teacher picked a maiko-dance for me, asking me "how would you like to be a maiko?" After ascertaining that I actually knew what that was (maiko are basically cute little geisha-in-training), we started the lesson. It was so much fun! Certain movements were familiar in an a-ha! sort of way. It's amazing what an influence your childhood has on you. I'm remembering certain body positions, ways of holding the fan, opening the fan, etc. It was exhilarating. I think in December I will pay the fees and become a regular student, two weekends a month. For November, I think I will go be a student with a bunch of tiny little kids, partly because I don't have so many free weekends in November, and partly because the lessons for the tiny kids are free, and I'll have a bit more time to decide. But basically, since Hanayagi-sensei is lending me all the dance accessories, I won't have a huge outlay like I expected. Her lessons aren't terribly expensive--10,000 yen a month, which roughly comes out to less than $25 per lesson. Considering that the adult lessons are one-on-one, it's not a bad deal. The lessons are rather variable in length, however--mostly less than an hour. The students just show up whenever they want during the designated afternoons and wait their turn. It's an odd, time consuming system, but I suppose it facilitates socializing among the students.
Oh, and another random thing: my teacher way back when in the US was also Hanayagi-sensei. Apparently Hanayagi is the largest school of traditional Japanese dance in Japan, specializing in Kabuki-style dance.
Again, I am amazing by the warm welcoming attitude from everybody, even complete strangers with no vested interest in me, such as Hanayagi-sensei's other students. I can't get over the random gift of the tabi.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
international student orientation
Finally! I think my university must be one of the last ones to hold its orientation. It was mandatory for all international students new this semester. We spent one night at a nearby town (?) called Ozu, in the Ozu National Youth Center. I don't think it qualifies as a town, since the National Youth Center is one gigantic structure nestled in the mountains and by a river. Anyways, I'm getting ahead of myself.
Quite a lot of it was lecture, and because it is so late and so many of us have been here a month or so, we already had figured out most of the information, such as how to sort garbage (although some more helpful tips did come up) and bicycle rules. Hours and hours of orientation. Even the new stuff (like how to use the university health center) took forever and was boring. But, on the upside, we did get to spend the night away. Dinner = party. Then shower/bath, then after dinner = more party and some drinking. I did get to meet a couple of nice people, and I am relieved to realize that my aversion for Chinese students/people appears to be limited to a specific set of Chinese international students, because I met some other ones who were nice. We made plans to go to the hot springs together next Friday. I alsomet a few very nice Nepalese students, who were all in the engineering school and studying disaster prevention (architecture and such). The school of engineering apparently has a lot of connections and sister schools in Nepal. It was fairly irritating how country-clique-ish the group was--we were about 35ish people in all. Splitting up at dinner tables, rooming, on the bus, was mostly very country based. All the Chinese students stuck together, all the Nepalese students stuck together, all the Korean students stuck together. I suppose it's natural for people to want to stick to the language they are comfortable with, and I especially don't blame those people who are absolute beginners in Japanese, of whom there were a few. But some of the cliquey-est people were those who had very superior Japanese! And some of the most affable and friendly were those who were absolute beginners. And the Nepalese group was the friendliest of all, with random people coming up to talk to me several times. Go figure. So anyways, us orphans, the ones with no automatic language clique sort of ended up together a lot by default. Or maybe we count as the English speakers from assorted countries and of varying abilities. I ended up sitting next to and rooming with a girl from Vietnam. I am so impressed by the many students here who have to cope in entirely foreign languages. For example, all of our orientation is done in Japanese and English, so people like Ling, my roommate and bus companion, have to get by mostly with their squeaky English since their Japanese is still at the "Intensive Beginning Course" level. I mean, forget any comfort of hearing their native language! Ditto with the students from Laos, Thailand, and I suppose even China and Korea.
I sat at the dinner table with some Chinese students that I decided were either very annoying or very boring. I discovered that my brain does not work simultaneously in Chinese and Japanese--so I'm blown away by those who can force their brains to work simultaneously in Japanese and English (and while thinking in some other native language like Vietnamese or Thai). While I could laugh at the Chinese students' jokes, I could not for the life of me speak more than a few words of Chinese at a time, even though my Chinese is a lot better than my Japanese. When I talked to them, Japanese came out first, and when that failed, English, and finally the Chinese occurred to me. The brain is a mysterious organ...
So the final part of our orientation was a small kayaking excursion on the river near Ozu. But in Japan, a kayak is called a canoe, so I was sort of confused at first. The teachers made it out to be kind of scary, telling us that in the past multiple people have fallen into the river and gotten soaking wet, etc. etc. etc. but it wasn't that bad at all. The river was very calm and not very deep, and we just paddled up and down a stretch of it. It was fun! Very peaceful and beautiful. I feel so lucky to be doing all of these things that I would probably never do in the US.
Something I've discovered about Japanese food: the temperature of food is not a high priority for Japanese people. Having been served food that was quite cold several times over the past few weeks, at dining halls and restaurants even, I've gotten used to cold fried chicken and cold fried fish and cold pasta...well. Let's not say "gotten used to", but rather "am no longer surprised by." Eh. Makes sense, considering that a large part of traditional Japanese food is served at room temperature, such as sushi and sashimi.
Quite a lot of it was lecture, and because it is so late and so many of us have been here a month or so, we already had figured out most of the information, such as how to sort garbage (although some more helpful tips did come up) and bicycle rules. Hours and hours of orientation. Even the new stuff (like how to use the university health center) took forever and was boring. But, on the upside, we did get to spend the night away. Dinner = party. Then shower/bath, then after dinner = more party and some drinking. I did get to meet a couple of nice people, and I am relieved to realize that my aversion for Chinese students/people appears to be limited to a specific set of Chinese international students, because I met some other ones who were nice. We made plans to go to the hot springs together next Friday. I alsomet a few very nice Nepalese students, who were all in the engineering school and studying disaster prevention (architecture and such). The school of engineering apparently has a lot of connections and sister schools in Nepal. It was fairly irritating how country-clique-ish the group was--we were about 35ish people in all. Splitting up at dinner tables, rooming, on the bus, was mostly very country based. All the Chinese students stuck together, all the Nepalese students stuck together, all the Korean students stuck together. I suppose it's natural for people to want to stick to the language they are comfortable with, and I especially don't blame those people who are absolute beginners in Japanese, of whom there were a few. But some of the cliquey-est people were those who had very superior Japanese! And some of the most affable and friendly were those who were absolute beginners. And the Nepalese group was the friendliest of all, with random people coming up to talk to me several times. Go figure. So anyways, us orphans, the ones with no automatic language clique sort of ended up together a lot by default. Or maybe we count as the English speakers from assorted countries and of varying abilities. I ended up sitting next to and rooming with a girl from Vietnam. I am so impressed by the many students here who have to cope in entirely foreign languages. For example, all of our orientation is done in Japanese and English, so people like Ling, my roommate and bus companion, have to get by mostly with their squeaky English since their Japanese is still at the "Intensive Beginning Course" level. I mean, forget any comfort of hearing their native language! Ditto with the students from Laos, Thailand, and I suppose even China and Korea.
I sat at the dinner table with some Chinese students that I decided were either very annoying or very boring. I discovered that my brain does not work simultaneously in Chinese and Japanese--so I'm blown away by those who can force their brains to work simultaneously in Japanese and English (and while thinking in some other native language like Vietnamese or Thai). While I could laugh at the Chinese students' jokes, I could not for the life of me speak more than a few words of Chinese at a time, even though my Chinese is a lot better than my Japanese. When I talked to them, Japanese came out first, and when that failed, English, and finally the Chinese occurred to me. The brain is a mysterious organ...
So the final part of our orientation was a small kayaking excursion on the river near Ozu. But in Japan, a kayak is called a canoe, so I was sort of confused at first. The teachers made it out to be kind of scary, telling us that in the past multiple people have fallen into the river and gotten soaking wet, etc. etc. etc. but it wasn't that bad at all. The river was very calm and not very deep, and we just paddled up and down a stretch of it. It was fun! Very peaceful and beautiful. I feel so lucky to be doing all of these things that I would probably never do in the US.
Something I've discovered about Japanese food: the temperature of food is not a high priority for Japanese people. Having been served food that was quite cold several times over the past few weeks, at dining halls and restaurants even, I've gotten used to cold fried chicken and cold fried fish and cold pasta...well. Let's not say "gotten used to", but rather "am no longer surprised by." Eh. Makes sense, considering that a large part of traditional Japanese food is served at room temperature, such as sushi and sashimi.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Matsuyama coolness
For the past couple of days, a fellow Fulbrighter from Osaka has been in town. The Japan Association of Public Health has been holding their conference in Matsuyama, which is why he has been here, crashing at my place for a couple of days. Not being terribly interested, I haven't been going, but that's alright. But, we have been somewhat exploring the city together. On Tuesday night, we decided to have dinner downtown and so we wandered around trying to find a restaurant. We saw a "Gaucho Grill" that looked really cute so we couldn't resist. It turned out to be an Argentinian restaurant!! They even had Argentinian wine, which I bet isn't easy to find in Japan. Nobody was there when we went in, so we sat at the counter and chatted with the cooks and with the owner/manager. Apparently, she was born in Argentina and lived there for 17 years. Now, of course, she looks like any Japanese lady. My dinner companion then spent some time chatting with her in Spanish, which impressed everybody immensely. Everybody was lovely and friendly, and it was quite a find. In the end, we even got a bit of a discount.
Afterwards, I went gave in to the temptation and went to the Haagen Daz ice cream place and discovered--hazelnut ice cream! My favorite flavor of all time. So now, I'm glad I can get my fix of hazelnut anytime by going downtown. It will make passing by Haagen Daz without going in that much more difficult. :-(
Yesterday, we also went to Matsuyama Castle. It was effectively the first time for me, since the last time I went was for the Noh performance at night. This time I got to go inside, and it was actually pretty cool. At the top of the hill and on the top floor of the castle, the views of Matsuyama city are quite spectacular. It's an extremely well preserved castle, despite having been hit by lightning or struck by arson in its past. It's also the last castle to have been "built" in Japan--which is to say, a great deal of it was restored in the 1960s using traditional castle-building techniques. The video they had of the workers laying the roof tiles was very illuminating.
All in all, he was pretty impressed by my city, which oddly inflames and nurtures the possessive and proud bit of me. I suppose Matsuyama has grown on me enough to make me proud that it impresses an Osaka person! But truly, it is a very livable city and he was impressed by my proximity to everything and how we could pretty much walk anywhere important.
I discovered that the ferry to Hiroshima only takes a 2 hours or so and is pretty cheap. I don't think there are any Fulbrighters in Hiroshima, but I think as soon as I can, I should take a day-trip out there as I hear that it's a beautiful city :-)
On a completely unrelated note, I've managed to get very little done today. I've slept all afternoon (Oops!!). And I'm being too lazy to cook, but also feel a bit like I shouldn't really eat since I've done nothing but sleep since my last meal! Hmph. I also haven't made it into work at all this week, mostly because I've finally started my Japanese classes. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays I have ~1.5 hr Japanese classes. They are at such an awkward time! Mostly right in the middle of the day. It makes going anywhere before or afterwards kind of a pain, especially anywhere kind of far, like my research office. And then, there is the lunch problem. Not just the bringing and packing of lunch, but also eating it. Two of my classes start at 12:50pm. I'd like to eat lunch with the people at the research office, but they eat at 12pm-ish or later. Considering that I need to get to class on time, this sort of poses the problem of commute time. The easiest thing to do is just to stay home in the morning and eat lunch at home, so I can eat at 12ish and it doesn't take me that long to go to class. But then, I should go to the office after class, at 2:20ish? It doesn't give me a whole lot of hours before sunset to work, and I'm not sure I can handle riding my bike after sunset just yet. Maybe that's the thing I'll have to get comfortable with next...
Afterwards, I went gave in to the temptation and went to the Haagen Daz ice cream place and discovered--hazelnut ice cream! My favorite flavor of all time. So now, I'm glad I can get my fix of hazelnut anytime by going downtown. It will make passing by Haagen Daz without going in that much more difficult. :-(
Yesterday, we also went to Matsuyama Castle. It was effectively the first time for me, since the last time I went was for the Noh performance at night. This time I got to go inside, and it was actually pretty cool. At the top of the hill and on the top floor of the castle, the views of Matsuyama city are quite spectacular. It's an extremely well preserved castle, despite having been hit by lightning or struck by arson in its past. It's also the last castle to have been "built" in Japan--which is to say, a great deal of it was restored in the 1960s using traditional castle-building techniques. The video they had of the workers laying the roof tiles was very illuminating.
All in all, he was pretty impressed by my city, which oddly inflames and nurtures the possessive and proud bit of me. I suppose Matsuyama has grown on me enough to make me proud that it impresses an Osaka person! But truly, it is a very livable city and he was impressed by my proximity to everything and how we could pretty much walk anywhere important.
I discovered that the ferry to Hiroshima only takes a 2 hours or so and is pretty cheap. I don't think there are any Fulbrighters in Hiroshima, but I think as soon as I can, I should take a day-trip out there as I hear that it's a beautiful city :-)
On a completely unrelated note, I've managed to get very little done today. I've slept all afternoon (Oops!!). And I'm being too lazy to cook, but also feel a bit like I shouldn't really eat since I've done nothing but sleep since my last meal! Hmph. I also haven't made it into work at all this week, mostly because I've finally started my Japanese classes. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays I have ~1.5 hr Japanese classes. They are at such an awkward time! Mostly right in the middle of the day. It makes going anywhere before or afterwards kind of a pain, especially anywhere kind of far, like my research office. And then, there is the lunch problem. Not just the bringing and packing of lunch, but also eating it. Two of my classes start at 12:50pm. I'd like to eat lunch with the people at the research office, but they eat at 12pm-ish or later. Considering that I need to get to class on time, this sort of poses the problem of commute time. The easiest thing to do is just to stay home in the morning and eat lunch at home, so I can eat at 12ish and it doesn't take me that long to go to class. But then, I should go to the office after class, at 2:20ish? It doesn't give me a whole lot of hours before sunset to work, and I'm not sure I can handle riding my bike after sunset just yet. Maybe that's the thing I'll have to get comfortable with next...
Friday, October 19, 2007
breakfast!
I have got to do something to solve the breakfast problem. Today I had to throw out a whole loaf of bread because it had green spots on it, as well as a cottony fuzz around the outsides. I didn't even get to eat it! So I went hungry. Breakfast food has been something of a problem. I need something that will fit all these criteria:
1) Minimum of prep time in the morning
2) Filling
3) Longer shelf life than bread--so I don't have to buy more every 3 days!
4) Not freakishly expensive, like fruit is
5) Won't significantly raise the risk of me getting cancer
So generally speaking, I'd go for a bowl of instant ramen. But they appear to be much more expensive here than in the US, and anyways they don't come in big boxes of 24 here either. And more importantly, I can't eat it every day or else criteria number 5 won't work. Bread is out, because good bread is expensive and spoils too quickly. I've been drinking juice, but that's hardly filling. If there were cereal, that would satisfy most of the requirements, but I haven't seen a box of cereal yet! Or oatmeal, either, and I don't eat oatmeal. I'm out of ideas for breakfast. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
1) Minimum of prep time in the morning
2) Filling
3) Longer shelf life than bread--so I don't have to buy more every 3 days!
4) Not freakishly expensive, like fruit is
5) Won't significantly raise the risk of me getting cancer
So generally speaking, I'd go for a bowl of instant ramen. But they appear to be much more expensive here than in the US, and anyways they don't come in big boxes of 24 here either. And more importantly, I can't eat it every day or else criteria number 5 won't work. Bread is out, because good bread is expensive and spoils too quickly. I've been drinking juice, but that's hardly filling. If there were cereal, that would satisfy most of the requirements, but I haven't seen a box of cereal yet! Or oatmeal, either, and I don't eat oatmeal. I'm out of ideas for breakfast. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Lady Drugstore
I decided to familiarize with my local drugstore, called Re-De-I (Lady). Seriously. As if men didn't need drugstores too. I've been dreading this moment. Precisely so I wouldn't have to wander down aisles of mysterious Japanese stuff, I brought with me a full bottle of shampoo and contact lens solution. I haven't yet run out of either. But, I forgot to bring soap/body wash, and the stuff I've been using here just sucks. So I gave in and went to Lady.
The moment I stepped through the doors, my eyes hurt. It seems that every package has to be in bright neon colors of pink, green, orange, and yellow. The whole jumbled effect is quite nauseating. But luckily, I found what I needed quite easily, since there were more than a few American brands. I found Dove products of all sorts, which I expected since I've been seeing the commercials. I also found Pantene hair products, but they were packaged completely differently than in the United States. I guess their Japan headquarters is independent or something. There was also tons of Nivea--they do a much better job of advertising in Japan than in the US. Here there is lots of "skin milk" and skin-whitening treatments under the Nivea brand, all advertised by a woman with gorgeous pale white skin. (I know "gorgeous" and "pale" don't often go together in Western vocabulary and image, but her skin really is gorgeous. Or else the advertisement wouldn't work.)
I was surprised to find that Shiseido is a drugstore cosmetic brand! Well, I didn't look closely so it may have been priced higher than the others--but it didn't look like it. Considering that Shiseido is an expensive department store brand in the US, I was surprised to see it ranking with the Japanese equivalents of Revlon and Maybelline.
I did not see Neutrogena. Too bad! What with their emphasis on health and science, I think they could do very well here.
Also, I picked up a bag of potato chips--first junk food since arriving, more or less. It was labeled as nori (seaweed) and salt, and in the packaging the chips looked like sour cream and onion with the little flecks of nori all over it. So I was half expected sour cream and onion, but the first bite was completely different! It was kind of disconcerting. But, I'm hooked. Nori-salt potato chips are amazing. And...different. And...just plain good.
The moment I stepped through the doors, my eyes hurt. It seems that every package has to be in bright neon colors of pink, green, orange, and yellow. The whole jumbled effect is quite nauseating. But luckily, I found what I needed quite easily, since there were more than a few American brands. I found Dove products of all sorts, which I expected since I've been seeing the commercials. I also found Pantene hair products, but they were packaged completely differently than in the United States. I guess their Japan headquarters is independent or something. There was also tons of Nivea--they do a much better job of advertising in Japan than in the US. Here there is lots of "skin milk" and skin-whitening treatments under the Nivea brand, all advertised by a woman with gorgeous pale white skin. (I know "gorgeous" and "pale" don't often go together in Western vocabulary and image, but her skin really is gorgeous. Or else the advertisement wouldn't work.)
I was surprised to find that Shiseido is a drugstore cosmetic brand! Well, I didn't look closely so it may have been priced higher than the others--but it didn't look like it. Considering that Shiseido is an expensive department store brand in the US, I was surprised to see it ranking with the Japanese equivalents of Revlon and Maybelline.
I did not see Neutrogena. Too bad! What with their emphasis on health and science, I think they could do very well here.
Also, I picked up a bag of potato chips--first junk food since arriving, more or less. It was labeled as nori (seaweed) and salt, and in the packaging the chips looked like sour cream and onion with the little flecks of nori all over it. So I was half expected sour cream and onion, but the first bite was completely different! It was kind of disconcerting. But, I'm hooked. Nori-salt potato chips are amazing. And...different. And...just plain good.
what do you mean you don't use PubMed!!!??!?!?!?!
My advisor never uses PubMed. He was utterly confused when I asked about how I could get the University's subscription/fulltext access. *sigh*
Part of what I view as a University's job is supporting academic research. And a huge part of that is subscribing to lots and lots of online resources such as Ovid, JSTOR, and especially PubMed so that researchers, professors, students,etc. can use them. Or at least, having easily accessible paper versions of some journals! Apparently, that is not the case here or anywhere else in Japan that people here have been. Individual professors subscribe to journals of interest, off of their grant money, entirely for themselves. My professor subscribes, most notable, to NEJM and to various Japanese public health journals. He reads papers relevant to his field, and if there are papers in the references that he wants, but which are in journals he does not subscribe to, he asks his friend at a pharmaceutical company to get them for him! Apparently, his friend is pretty high up in a major pharma company, and ironically, THEY have access to all kinds of information--but the university doesn't. Go figure. It's just completely amazing to me, considering that PubMed is the beginning and ending of every research project for practically anybody in the health sciences in the United States. Apparently, not so here. And, it's not as though language is the only barrier. If there were some Japanese version of PubMed with Japanese journals that everybody subscribed to, then fine. But no, despite all the environmental awareness, people here still kill trees by subscribing to paper journals--and only a limited number at that. If I browse PubMed and see something I want that wasn't published in NEJM, I'm up a creek. I suppose I can ask my professor to fwd it to his friend...but seriously, I'm used to downloading anything and everything remotely of interest to look at. I'm going to have to be more selective now.
Times like these, I start to miss Harvard. Do I sound like a spoiled brat or what? I just take all of those academic privileges for granted, and now I feel seriously handicapped without them! Some other people I've talked to miss the social life, the people--I miss the infrastructure. I had a pretty horrific meal at the University dining hall today that really made me miss Harvard. All in all, even though we joke about Mather House being ugly, I'd take the Mather dining hall any day over the Ehime University one, which compares unfavorably even with hospital cafeterias.
In other news, I just reformatted my computer last night. I ended up with some vicious malware that I couldn't get rid of. It replaced my desktop with a horrible image which was a link to download more spyware. It popped up every 2 seconds prompting me to run some cleaner and download more spyware to supposedly "clean" my computer. It was sooo annoying and pretty scary, actually. Tech forums gave no answer besides reformat, so thanks to the Thinkvantage blue recovery button, I completely restored to factory settings. But since then I've been reinstalling software, and actually uninstalling software too. Unfortunately, laptops come with tons of crap pre-installed on them and about 10 million things set to startup with Windows, so I had to go through all of that and delete it, one by one. Not to mention locate anti-virus software and immediately scan! Between last night and today, I've already gotten several viruses. Man, the internet is a dangerous place.
So the only redeeming factor yesterday was my cooking success. I've decided that I don't need a Chinese cookbook after all--almost everything I need can be found online, often times in multiple versions so I can pick and choose. So last night I sallied forth into the world of "hong shao" cooking, or red-braised cooking. Before getting to hong shao yu (red braised fish) which is one of my favorite foods of all time, I decided to start with pork instead. Ahhhh!!! so good!! I had no idea before looking up recipes that hong shao basically means braised in soy sauce. Hong shao rou (red braised pork) is basically little cubes of that really fatty pork (you know, the kind that has layers of fat/skin sandwiched between the layers of meat) simmered for an hour or more with ginger and garlic and any optional vegetables (often carrots or potatoes). The simmering sauce is just rice wine, soy sauce, water, and sugar. The only mistake I made was that I forgot to make the beginning sauce more dilute than I wanted the final product to be. I forgot that in the process of simmering for an hour, you lose tons of water and concentrate the sauce. So I had to dilute with water a couple times in the middle, and I still ended up with pork that was slightly saltier than desirable. But it was sooo delicious and soft and yummy and...real! Just like made at home, minus the vegetables I don't eat anyways. *sigh* oh...comfort food...
Part of what I view as a University's job is supporting academic research. And a huge part of that is subscribing to lots and lots of online resources such as Ovid, JSTOR, and especially PubMed so that researchers, professors, students,etc. can use them. Or at least, having easily accessible paper versions of some journals! Apparently, that is not the case here or anywhere else in Japan that people here have been. Individual professors subscribe to journals of interest, off of their grant money, entirely for themselves. My professor subscribes, most notable, to NEJM and to various Japanese public health journals. He reads papers relevant to his field, and if there are papers in the references that he wants, but which are in journals he does not subscribe to, he asks his friend at a pharmaceutical company to get them for him! Apparently, his friend is pretty high up in a major pharma company, and ironically, THEY have access to all kinds of information--but the university doesn't. Go figure. It's just completely amazing to me, considering that PubMed is the beginning and ending of every research project for practically anybody in the health sciences in the United States. Apparently, not so here. And, it's not as though language is the only barrier. If there were some Japanese version of PubMed with Japanese journals that everybody subscribed to, then fine. But no, despite all the environmental awareness, people here still kill trees by subscribing to paper journals--and only a limited number at that. If I browse PubMed and see something I want that wasn't published in NEJM, I'm up a creek. I suppose I can ask my professor to fwd it to his friend...but seriously, I'm used to downloading anything and everything remotely of interest to look at. I'm going to have to be more selective now.
Times like these, I start to miss Harvard. Do I sound like a spoiled brat or what? I just take all of those academic privileges for granted, and now I feel seriously handicapped without them! Some other people I've talked to miss the social life, the people--I miss the infrastructure. I had a pretty horrific meal at the University dining hall today that really made me miss Harvard. All in all, even though we joke about Mather House being ugly, I'd take the Mather dining hall any day over the Ehime University one, which compares unfavorably even with hospital cafeterias.
In other news, I just reformatted my computer last night. I ended up with some vicious malware that I couldn't get rid of. It replaced my desktop with a horrible image which was a link to download more spyware. It popped up every 2 seconds prompting me to run some cleaner and download more spyware to supposedly "clean" my computer. It was sooo annoying and pretty scary, actually. Tech forums gave no answer besides reformat, so thanks to the Thinkvantage blue recovery button, I completely restored to factory settings. But since then I've been reinstalling software, and actually uninstalling software too. Unfortunately, laptops come with tons of crap pre-installed on them and about 10 million things set to startup with Windows, so I had to go through all of that and delete it, one by one. Not to mention locate anti-virus software and immediately scan! Between last night and today, I've already gotten several viruses. Man, the internet is a dangerous place.
So the only redeeming factor yesterday was my cooking success. I've decided that I don't need a Chinese cookbook after all--almost everything I need can be found online, often times in multiple versions so I can pick and choose. So last night I sallied forth into the world of "hong shao" cooking, or red-braised cooking. Before getting to hong shao yu (red braised fish) which is one of my favorite foods of all time, I decided to start with pork instead. Ahhhh!!! so good!! I had no idea before looking up recipes that hong shao basically means braised in soy sauce. Hong shao rou (red braised pork) is basically little cubes of that really fatty pork (you know, the kind that has layers of fat/skin sandwiched between the layers of meat) simmered for an hour or more with ginger and garlic and any optional vegetables (often carrots or potatoes). The simmering sauce is just rice wine, soy sauce, water, and sugar. The only mistake I made was that I forgot to make the beginning sauce more dilute than I wanted the final product to be. I forgot that in the process of simmering for an hour, you lose tons of water and concentrate the sauce. So I had to dilute with water a couple times in the middle, and I still ended up with pork that was slightly saltier than desirable. But it was sooo delicious and soft and yummy and...real! Just like made at home, minus the vegetables I don't eat anyways. *sigh* oh...comfort food...
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Noh, random thoughts, and party
This has been a fairly eventful week. I will try to recap :-)
1) Noh theater.
I've posted some pictures on Facebook from my night of Noh theater in the Matsuyama castle courtyard. It was totally fun! Even though I couldn't follow. For awhile there was some uncertainty where it was going to be held--either indoors if it rained, or in the castle courtyard as planned if it didn't rain. Luckily, it was clear the whole day and it didn't start to rain until the very end of the performance, so I got the full effect.
Matsuyama castle is on top of a hill, so to get there in time we took the ropeway up. It was way cool! Gorgeous view over the city as we were going up. Several women in the audience came in kimonos--not just kimonos, but the full deal. Kimonos, tabi and geta (traditional socks and fotwear), done-up hair, the works. They were quite lovely.
On the program were three short shows. The first and last were Japanese in origin, one from the Tale of Genji (the part where Lady Rokujo possesses Lady Aoi) and the other from the Tail of the Heike (samurai ghost reenacts his death). There was no way I could follow either of them, and I think it was tough for Japanese people too. It was very slow, dramatic, and...drawn out. I went with a friend who explained to me a bit of what was going on, but honestly, not much was going on. Most of both plays consisted mainly of one soloist.
The middle play was Chinese in origin, and it was a comedy. It was also performed in a more spoken, colloquial Japanese style, so I could actually follow a fair bit of what was going on. It was a hilarious story about a drunken tea maker? I think? He's very drunk on his way home, and he has a huge barrel of tea on his back. He collapses in the street, and another guy comes by and wants the barrel of tea. He can't pry it from the drunken person, so he shakes the drunken person violently awake, then pretends to be passed out drunk as well. The bad guy in turn gets "shaken awake" by the tea guy, and when they both come to, they start fighting over the tea barrel. The bad guy insists that it belongs to him! A judge comes along and the rest of the play is about trying to prove who really owns the barrel of tea. The bad guy simply imitates everything the tea guy says about the tea in order to try to prove it belongs to him. Okay, it doesn't sound that hilarious, but really, a lot of it was in the body language and the imitation. I can't tell an anecdote worth shit. Enough of plot summary.
2) Random thoughts
a) Eating alone. It strikes me that eating out alone here is very common, which then strikes me that it is very uncommon in the US. Even at fast food joints, it's mostly families, or couples, or whatnot. Very few people are eating out alone. I wonder why? I sort of feel like many people would rather skip meals than eat alone. I saw this in the Harvard dining halls too. Aside from breakfast, which is eaten alone with a newspaper because nearly nobody eats breakfast regularly, most people wait to find a lunch or dinner partner before eating, unless they are trying to write a paper at the same time or something. But whenever I've eaten out at fast food udon or donburi places, I've always been alone as have most people. On my way home from downtown, I passed by a pretty large donburi place and every single person inside was male, and eating alone. It was...strange! Again, perhaps it points to the odd work hours, social isolation, etc. etc. My advisor doesn't appear to spend much time with his family, either, despite having two kids. He basically took me out to dinner after the Noh theater (on a Wednesday night!) on a moment's notice. I sort of jokingly said--"But shouldn't you have to go home and eat with your family and spend time with them?" His answer was in Japanese and I couldn't understand all of it, but it was something to the effect of "give up." Who's given up on who, I'm not sure, but it's still somewhat disturbing.
b) Types of girls. Stereotypes of girls--many of whom I observed at the matsuri. They are pretty much the same as the stereotypes here. There are the ditzy popular blonds. Even in Japan, they are blond! They have super long blond curly hair, or its extremely "done." That is, it's teased up into artificial looking hairdos, and looks completely fried, even at 5:30am. They also wear short skirs, stilettos, and large shiny accessories. They travel in groups and twitter, and wear wayy too much makeup. There are also the "ugly athletic girls." Short, stocky, never wearing makeup, and with undyed short black hair. They are perpetually in sporty wear, like matching adidas tracksuits, tennis shoes, and carrying a duffel bag. That's all that really stands out to me right now in terms of extremes....I'll add to this list if I spot more later.
3) A party! I threw a small housewarming party on Friday night. I made it a potluck so I wouldn't have to work so hard. I invited my host family's students, the same girls that I traveled to Kochi with. My host family came for the first half hour or so, to toast and try some of the food and show the first batch of students where I lived. They left early to "leave us young people to ourselves." Even though I was comfortable with them, the students breathed a huge sigh of relief when they left! They were all quite nervous about my host dad tasting their food, since he is such the foodie. About 6 or 7 students came eventually, each bringing something with them. They are so incredibly nice! And they really thought of everything. There was some amazing homecooked food, some people brought dessert, fruits, bread, and of course, drinks. They even brought a bag of ice with them! I totally forgot about ice. They peeled and sliced fruit, fried fish to heat it up again, and even did some of my dishes afterwards.
I made an enormous plate of Chinese-ish stir fried rice noodles, with broccoli, chicken, onions, and egg. Only, my host dad immediately pointed out that it was Japanese style, which was true since as seasoning sauce and marinade I used the same sauce as for making oyako-don: mirin, soy sauce, water, and sugar. But, it turned out very yummy, and it was completely finished down to the last bite, even before the last person came. Heehee! I feel like a successful hostess. Surprisingly, it took 1.5 hrs to cook from beginning to end. (Very slow) slicing, then cooking the meat, eggs, veggies, and noodles all separately, then putting it together at the end.
I think my guests had some fun, and I could follow a lot of their conversation. I could even contribute sometimes. I think my Japanese is sort of improving. And we all ate and drank for like 5 hours straight, from 6-11pm. When all the food and drink is just sitting in front of you, its hard to restrain yourself. Hehehe. I was soo uncomfortably full afterwards, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one! It was fun, and even more fun than I expected. Again, it's nice socializing in Japanese, since I'm not expected to contribute a whole lot, or even to be understanding and paying attention all the time. I can tune out when I feel tired and chalk it down to bad Japanese rather than rudeness. And at the same time, it's still fun, and chill, with Madeleine Peyroux, Sophie Milman, and Vienna Teng as background music.
1) Noh theater.
I've posted some pictures on Facebook from my night of Noh theater in the Matsuyama castle courtyard. It was totally fun! Even though I couldn't follow. For awhile there was some uncertainty where it was going to be held--either indoors if it rained, or in the castle courtyard as planned if it didn't rain. Luckily, it was clear the whole day and it didn't start to rain until the very end of the performance, so I got the full effect.
Matsuyama castle is on top of a hill, so to get there in time we took the ropeway up. It was way cool! Gorgeous view over the city as we were going up. Several women in the audience came in kimonos--not just kimonos, but the full deal. Kimonos, tabi and geta (traditional socks and fotwear), done-up hair, the works. They were quite lovely.
On the program were three short shows. The first and last were Japanese in origin, one from the Tale of Genji (the part where Lady Rokujo possesses Lady Aoi) and the other from the Tail of the Heike (samurai ghost reenacts his death). There was no way I could follow either of them, and I think it was tough for Japanese people too. It was very slow, dramatic, and...drawn out. I went with a friend who explained to me a bit of what was going on, but honestly, not much was going on. Most of both plays consisted mainly of one soloist.
The middle play was Chinese in origin, and it was a comedy. It was also performed in a more spoken, colloquial Japanese style, so I could actually follow a fair bit of what was going on. It was a hilarious story about a drunken tea maker? I think? He's very drunk on his way home, and he has a huge barrel of tea on his back. He collapses in the street, and another guy comes by and wants the barrel of tea. He can't pry it from the drunken person, so he shakes the drunken person violently awake, then pretends to be passed out drunk as well. The bad guy in turn gets "shaken awake" by the tea guy, and when they both come to, they start fighting over the tea barrel. The bad guy insists that it belongs to him! A judge comes along and the rest of the play is about trying to prove who really owns the barrel of tea. The bad guy simply imitates everything the tea guy says about the tea in order to try to prove it belongs to him. Okay, it doesn't sound that hilarious, but really, a lot of it was in the body language and the imitation. I can't tell an anecdote worth shit. Enough of plot summary.
2) Random thoughts
a) Eating alone. It strikes me that eating out alone here is very common, which then strikes me that it is very uncommon in the US. Even at fast food joints, it's mostly families, or couples, or whatnot. Very few people are eating out alone. I wonder why? I sort of feel like many people would rather skip meals than eat alone. I saw this in the Harvard dining halls too. Aside from breakfast, which is eaten alone with a newspaper because nearly nobody eats breakfast regularly, most people wait to find a lunch or dinner partner before eating, unless they are trying to write a paper at the same time or something. But whenever I've eaten out at fast food udon or donburi places, I've always been alone as have most people. On my way home from downtown, I passed by a pretty large donburi place and every single person inside was male, and eating alone. It was...strange! Again, perhaps it points to the odd work hours, social isolation, etc. etc. My advisor doesn't appear to spend much time with his family, either, despite having two kids. He basically took me out to dinner after the Noh theater (on a Wednesday night!) on a moment's notice. I sort of jokingly said--"But shouldn't you have to go home and eat with your family and spend time with them?" His answer was in Japanese and I couldn't understand all of it, but it was something to the effect of "give up." Who's given up on who, I'm not sure, but it's still somewhat disturbing.
b) Types of girls. Stereotypes of girls--many of whom I observed at the matsuri. They are pretty much the same as the stereotypes here. There are the ditzy popular blonds. Even in Japan, they are blond! They have super long blond curly hair, or its extremely "done." That is, it's teased up into artificial looking hairdos, and looks completely fried, even at 5:30am. They also wear short skirs, stilettos, and large shiny accessories. They travel in groups and twitter, and wear wayy too much makeup. There are also the "ugly athletic girls." Short, stocky, never wearing makeup, and with undyed short black hair. They are perpetually in sporty wear, like matching adidas tracksuits, tennis shoes, and carrying a duffel bag. That's all that really stands out to me right now in terms of extremes....I'll add to this list if I spot more later.
3) A party! I threw a small housewarming party on Friday night. I made it a potluck so I wouldn't have to work so hard. I invited my host family's students, the same girls that I traveled to Kochi with. My host family came for the first half hour or so, to toast and try some of the food and show the first batch of students where I lived. They left early to "leave us young people to ourselves." Even though I was comfortable with them, the students breathed a huge sigh of relief when they left! They were all quite nervous about my host dad tasting their food, since he is such the foodie. About 6 or 7 students came eventually, each bringing something with them. They are so incredibly nice! And they really thought of everything. There was some amazing homecooked food, some people brought dessert, fruits, bread, and of course, drinks. They even brought a bag of ice with them! I totally forgot about ice. They peeled and sliced fruit, fried fish to heat it up again, and even did some of my dishes afterwards.
I made an enormous plate of Chinese-ish stir fried rice noodles, with broccoli, chicken, onions, and egg. Only, my host dad immediately pointed out that it was Japanese style, which was true since as seasoning sauce and marinade I used the same sauce as for making oyako-don: mirin, soy sauce, water, and sugar. But, it turned out very yummy, and it was completely finished down to the last bite, even before the last person came. Heehee! I feel like a successful hostess. Surprisingly, it took 1.5 hrs to cook from beginning to end. (Very slow) slicing, then cooking the meat, eggs, veggies, and noodles all separately, then putting it together at the end.
I think my guests had some fun, and I could follow a lot of their conversation. I could even contribute sometimes. I think my Japanese is sort of improving. And we all ate and drank for like 5 hours straight, from 6-11pm. When all the food and drink is just sitting in front of you, its hard to restrain yourself. Hehehe. I was soo uncomfortably full afterwards, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one! It was fun, and even more fun than I expected. Again, it's nice socializing in Japanese, since I'm not expected to contribute a whole lot, or even to be understanding and paying attention all the time. I can tune out when I feel tired and chalk it down to bad Japanese rather than rudeness. And at the same time, it's still fun, and chill, with Madeleine Peyroux, Sophie Milman, and Vienna Teng as background music.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Indian food
Oh, and I forgot to mention, I found a decent Indian food place today! I'm ridiculously excited. There won't be any deprivation on that front, at least. On my way walking downtown, I passed by the place. It was advertised as "Indian food that an actual Indian person cooks!" or something to that effect. And it looked true--I saw aforementioned Indian person through the window. I figured I'd eat there on my way back. So I did. For 680yen, I got a lunch set with my choice of curry (chicken masala), and naan, rice, small salad, and chicken wing. Pretty good! Definitely affordable, and definitely stuffed me more than the local donburi fast food chain would have. It was even good, by which I mean it resembles what I would eat at an American place. The last time I had Indian food, you might recall, the chef used Japanese curry. Well, not this time. Unfortunately, the rice was still Japanese sticky rice--you can't have everything. I'll just avoid the rice in the future. But anyways--I'm happy :-) Maybe I'll become a regular. Now, if only I could find an affordable Mexican place....I was joking with another Fulbrighter about the possibility of making our own burritos for Thanksgiving. Japanese sticky rice, adzuki beans instead of pinto beans, spring roll wraps instead of tortillas, homemade salsa, cheese from Hokkaido, mmmmm. Well, at least meat is meat everywhere.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
national holiday
I love national holidays. There have been three Mondays off since I've arrived in Japan. It's ridiculous! I've heard it's a way that the government ensures that people take time off. But from shopping today, it's only time off for students and perhaps corporate types. Most of the shops were open. I also hear that there are more national holidays in the fall, because it's good weather and a good time for tourism.
Went downtown and got a new phone today. Its functional highlight? It has a built-in dictionary. And, its camera can read and translate English and Japanese. Woohoo!
Also, I was walking down the street when an old man (seriously, grandpa-aged) zoomed by me on a bicycle and called me pretty. More specifically, he called me a 美人、which translates to "beautiful person." Hah! I can't decide whether to be flattered by the niceness of ojisans, or whether to be slightly weirded out.
Went downtown and got a new phone today. Its functional highlight? It has a built-in dictionary. And, its camera can read and translate English and Japanese. Woohoo!
Also, I was walking down the street when an old man (seriously, grandpa-aged) zoomed by me on a bicycle and called me pretty. More specifically, he called me a 美人、which translates to "beautiful person." Hah! I can't decide whether to be flattered by the niceness of ojisans, or whether to be slightly weirded out.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Aki Matsuri!
In other words, fall festival.
I'm too tired to say very much right now. I got up at 4:30am in order to get ready and walk over to where the matsuri was happening at 6am. You'd think that 6 was too early for some people...suffice it to say, if I didn't have my 7x zoom camera held over my head, I wouldn't have been able to see a thing.
I would post video, but after arduously uploading...I get an error at the end :-(
Instead, here are some pictures, mostly shot from the main shopping arcade. The mikoshi you see in the first picture is on its way out (opening ceremonies over).
Also seen are: the flags for each mikoshi, another picture of people carrying mikoshi in procession, an open container of sake for everyone to enjoy, a cute mini mikoshi for kids to enjoy, and dressed up audience members climbing over each other to get a better view of the mikoshi-fighting.
I'm too tired to say very much right now. I got up at 4:30am in order to get ready and walk over to where the matsuri was happening at 6am. You'd think that 6 was too early for some people...suffice it to say, if I didn't have my 7x zoom camera held over my head, I wouldn't have been able to see a thing.
I would post video, but after arduously uploading...I get an error at the end :-(
Instead, here are some pictures, mostly shot from the main shopping arcade. The mikoshi you see in the first picture is on its way out (opening ceremonies over).
Also seen are: the flags for each mikoshi, another picture of people carrying mikoshi in procession, an open container of sake for everyone to enjoy, a cute mini mikoshi for kids to enjoy, and dressed up audience members climbing over each other to get a better view of the mikoshi-fighting.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
research
So out of boredom and a sense that I need to restrain myself from spending money, I asked my advisor to show me his database last Monday. Then, I reasoned, I would have something exciting and new to play with and occupy me. It definitely worked. So my advisor has access to a database of 15 years of health checkup records for the people in this area. It has all sorts of info about them, though he and I are mainly interested in things pertaining to eating, metabolism, etc. So...it's a wealth of data. The kind that the Japanese government collects, just for fun, and lets the researchers loose on. So now I'm playing with a gigantic Microsoft Access database with millions of people in it. It's interesting. This whole week has basically been dedicated to overcoming the research language barrier. I've been trying to understand and translate for myself every field name in the database. I've also miraculously made it possible to switch the user interface for Office programs from Japanese to English on my lab computer. I have no idea how that happened, but it took a morning of fiddling and I officially love Office now. Meanwhile, I've downloaded a very helpful ebook on data analysis in Access 2007, and I've been learning the program by reconstructing and Englishifying the database. That has been my week in a boring nutshell.
I've come to the conclusion that the research put out by this group is unfortunately not very good. Perhaps I've been around Harvard for so long that I've gotten used to a certain standard? Maybe I'm being snobby, and maybe I'm only flattering myself in thinking that I can be a judge of good and bad research--supposedly the whole point of my science education. But I like to think that while maybe I can't produce stellar research (yet! I can still hold out hope), I can at least recognize its presence or absence.
I was helping my advisor do an English proofread for a manuscript he is helping a student put out. My God, it was horrible. Well, the English was good, but I was really surprised the study was being published! It was a case report on delayed language skills or something like that. I guess the main problem was that it really tried to generalize too much based on one isolated case, and it couldn't even persuasively suggest cause and effect in that one isolated case! Let alone trying to generalize to the population. It was horrific.
Then, on Monday as my advisor showed me the database, he gave me two files. One was a Methods type of file, outlining where the data came from and how metabolic syndrome criteria were calculated. That was extremely helpful. The other file was labeled Discussion part 1 !! How, pray tell, does one discuss data that has not yet been analyzed? He told me he just predicted the outcome and wrote a discussion. Hmm...right...that so sounds suspect. He told me he does things backwards--start with some discussion, do some results, write the rest of the discussion, and then come up with the objectives of the study. Shouldn't some sense of what one is analyzing for guide the analysis? Gee...now I'm confused.
Random tidbit for the day: The cute little kids in the school are now singing the Beatles' "Hey Jude" in Japanese. I have no idea what they are saying, but they are so convincing that "Hey Jude" sounds like a traditional Japanese song.
I've come to the conclusion that the research put out by this group is unfortunately not very good. Perhaps I've been around Harvard for so long that I've gotten used to a certain standard? Maybe I'm being snobby, and maybe I'm only flattering myself in thinking that I can be a judge of good and bad research--supposedly the whole point of my science education. But I like to think that while maybe I can't produce stellar research (yet! I can still hold out hope), I can at least recognize its presence or absence.
I was helping my advisor do an English proofread for a manuscript he is helping a student put out. My God, it was horrible. Well, the English was good, but I was really surprised the study was being published! It was a case report on delayed language skills or something like that. I guess the main problem was that it really tried to generalize too much based on one isolated case, and it couldn't even persuasively suggest cause and effect in that one isolated case! Let alone trying to generalize to the population. It was horrific.
Then, on Monday as my advisor showed me the database, he gave me two files. One was a Methods type of file, outlining where the data came from and how metabolic syndrome criteria were calculated. That was extremely helpful. The other file was labeled Discussion part 1 !! How, pray tell, does one discuss data that has not yet been analyzed? He told me he just predicted the outcome and wrote a discussion. Hmm...right...that so sounds suspect. He told me he does things backwards--start with some discussion, do some results, write the rest of the discussion, and then come up with the objectives of the study. Shouldn't some sense of what one is analyzing for guide the analysis? Gee...now I'm confused.
Random tidbit for the day: The cute little kids in the school are now singing the Beatles' "Hey Jude" in Japanese. I have no idea what they are saying, but they are so convincing that "Hey Jude" sounds like a traditional Japanese song.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
celebration!
Two things to celebrate:
1) I now have internet at home. Woohoo! Gone will be my nights of boredom, as they will be replaced by nights attached to my computer, surfing the web. This means, for those you on the West coast, if you ever wake up in the middle of the night and have an urge to call somebody, I will probably be signed on. Just call my Skype number. And the East coast is only 3 hours off from that, so it probably is the same.
2) Cooking! From scratch!! Today, I tried out cookbook cooking for the first time (ever). My host mom was kind enough to send me off with "Recipes of Japanese Cooking," a bilingual book with lovely color photos not only of the end product, but of all the major cooking steps. Today, having finally rounded out my pantry, I tried out my first recipe: oyako-don. Oyako-don is a type of rice-bowl dish (donburi). Donburi are usually various ingredients like beef, tempura, tonkatsu, etc. cooked and poured over rice. Oyako-don translates as "parent-child donburi" because its main ingredients are chicken and egg. It was actually ridiculously easy, taking at most half an hour (because I'm slow...cookbook estimated time is 12 minutes). I made two modifications: I skipped the sake because I didn't have any, and I skipped the stock because what kind of lazy, time-pressed student makes her own stock!? This being Japan, I can't find any ready-made stock in the supermarket either. But a bit of water worked fine.
Annnd....it was good! Very good! Actually filling, appetizing, tasty! I have been cooking some before today, mostly stir-fry, mostly cabbage and egg. I even made some yaki-soba (aka chow mein) the other day. But, the yaki-soba came with its own seasoning pack, kind of like instant ramen, so it wasn't hard. And, the veggie stir-fry was mediocre at best. All homemade meat has been limited to the meat in the packages of frozen gyoza that I've bought--and those are so easy they don't even require oil for the frying pan. So, I feel like a relative success with my oyako-don. Heehee!
Japanese cooking also seems relatively simple compared to some other kinds of cooking. There are so few ingredients involved, and most of them overlap. For example, nearly every recipe calls for soy sauce, sake, mirin (a sweet kind of cooking sake), and perhaps some other regular sort of condiments. No large and mysterious stock of herbs that I can't tell apart. (Of course, my herb ignorance may simply be attributed to growing up in a household without them.) But anyways, the point remains--nearly everything in this book has an estimated time of less than 30 minutes, and a majority even less than 15 minutes. And the list of ingredients is very small.
I miss Chinese food, though. The stir fry is supposed to be my attempt at Chinese food, but it's not measuring up to home-style comfort food. Also, it's more difficult than I thought it would be to find certain Chinese foods here. For example, sausages of any sort are really gross and overpriced here, let alone Chinese-style sausages. It's also difficult to find certain kinds of vegetables and frozen 生煎饱. Hmm, I wonder if I got the Chinese right. I think I need to get a Chinese cookbook so I can start being successful at Chinese cooking.
1) I now have internet at home. Woohoo! Gone will be my nights of boredom, as they will be replaced by nights attached to my computer, surfing the web. This means, for those you on the West coast, if you ever wake up in the middle of the night and have an urge to call somebody, I will probably be signed on. Just call my Skype number. And the East coast is only 3 hours off from that, so it probably is the same.
2) Cooking! From scratch!! Today, I tried out cookbook cooking for the first time (ever). My host mom was kind enough to send me off with "Recipes of Japanese Cooking," a bilingual book with lovely color photos not only of the end product, but of all the major cooking steps. Today, having finally rounded out my pantry, I tried out my first recipe: oyako-don. Oyako-don is a type of rice-bowl dish (donburi). Donburi are usually various ingredients like beef, tempura, tonkatsu, etc. cooked and poured over rice. Oyako-don translates as "parent-child donburi" because its main ingredients are chicken and egg. It was actually ridiculously easy, taking at most half an hour (because I'm slow...cookbook estimated time is 12 minutes). I made two modifications: I skipped the sake because I didn't have any, and I skipped the stock because what kind of lazy, time-pressed student makes her own stock!? This being Japan, I can't find any ready-made stock in the supermarket either. But a bit of water worked fine.
Annnd....it was good! Very good! Actually filling, appetizing, tasty! I have been cooking some before today, mostly stir-fry, mostly cabbage and egg. I even made some yaki-soba (aka chow mein) the other day. But, the yaki-soba came with its own seasoning pack, kind of like instant ramen, so it wasn't hard. And, the veggie stir-fry was mediocre at best. All homemade meat has been limited to the meat in the packages of frozen gyoza that I've bought--and those are so easy they don't even require oil for the frying pan. So, I feel like a relative success with my oyako-don. Heehee!
Japanese cooking also seems relatively simple compared to some other kinds of cooking. There are so few ingredients involved, and most of them overlap. For example, nearly every recipe calls for soy sauce, sake, mirin (a sweet kind of cooking sake), and perhaps some other regular sort of condiments. No large and mysterious stock of herbs that I can't tell apart. (Of course, my herb ignorance may simply be attributed to growing up in a household without them.) But anyways, the point remains--nearly everything in this book has an estimated time of less than 30 minutes, and a majority even less than 15 minutes. And the list of ingredients is very small.
I miss Chinese food, though. The stir fry is supposed to be my attempt at Chinese food, but it's not measuring up to home-style comfort food. Also, it's more difficult than I thought it would be to find certain Chinese foods here. For example, sausages of any sort are really gross and overpriced here, let alone Chinese-style sausages. It's also difficult to find certain kinds of vegetables and frozen 生煎饱. Hmm, I wonder if I got the Chinese right. I think I need to get a Chinese cookbook so I can start being successful at Chinese cooking.
Monday, October 1, 2007
vienna teng in the most unlikely place
I was shopping the other day, and I stopped by a fast-food udon place called Hanamaru for some dinner. Basically, you walk in, go down the self-serve line, order the udon at the counter, pay, and then go sit down with your udon. All very efficient. Pretty good udon. I was relaxing and then Vienna Teng starts playing as the background music! (She's one of my favorite artists ever.) Up until then, they were playing Japanese pop music I didn't recognize. It was really, really weird. The song was even from her newest cd. It was a nice bit of serendipity :)
Friday, September 28, 2007
helmets and schoolchildren
Did I mention that my advisor's "lab" or "research office" is on the grounds of an elementary/middle school? When I come here around noon, I can see them running around the grounds, playing and making noise. Sometimes I see them in the classroom eating and serving lunch. They are so cute! The students serving lunch for the day are standing at the front of the room, in front of the chalkboard and behind a long podium thingie. They are wearing disposable masks and haircaps, and ladling food from large pots. That doesn't sound that cute, but keep in mind that these are first graders. First graders, serving lunch to their fellow students! That's just amazing to me. I've always been warned that the school system here is so incredibly harsh, and it overworks kids, drives them to suicide, etc. etc. Well, but these first graders look pretty happy, running around. Outside the classrooms there's even evidence of fun: planters that look like a vegetable garden, and those nets on top of poles--you know, like firefly or butterfly nets, lined up outside the classroom doors.
Oh, yes, and it is sort of weird that my office is on the schoolgrounds. But the school is actually run by Ehime University, and counts as a separate campus. It's a sort of training or testing ground for the school of education. Since my advisor technically belongs to the faculty of education, his research facility is here. It's a bit inconvenient as it is further from my apartment, but oh well. I'm learning to manage on the bike.
Speaking of which, helmets. As Cat has pointed out numerous times, I should really get a helmet to protect my precious brains. Only, I can't figure out where! I went to some fitness-type places yesterday (including the one official Nike store here!) but all I ended up getting was a yoga mat. It is a very pretty yoga mat, btw, being pepto-bismol pink on one side and grey on the other. It matches my futon blanket (okay, the original pink was not my choice. But the matchiness is attractive.) But, some of the bikes lined up in the bike parking structure have helmets in the basket! Where oh where can they have gotten them!? Particularly since they are butt ugly.
Then, coming into the office today, I discover my answer. The only people who wear helmets around here are elementary school children. Moreover, they all wear the same helmet, so I can only assume it's school issue. No wonder it's so ugly, and no wonder nobody else wears them.
Oh, yes, and it is sort of weird that my office is on the schoolgrounds. But the school is actually run by Ehime University, and counts as a separate campus. It's a sort of training or testing ground for the school of education. Since my advisor technically belongs to the faculty of education, his research facility is here. It's a bit inconvenient as it is further from my apartment, but oh well. I'm learning to manage on the bike.
Speaking of which, helmets. As Cat has pointed out numerous times, I should really get a helmet to protect my precious brains. Only, I can't figure out where! I went to some fitness-type places yesterday (including the one official Nike store here!) but all I ended up getting was a yoga mat. It is a very pretty yoga mat, btw, being pepto-bismol pink on one side and grey on the other. It matches my futon blanket (okay, the original pink was not my choice. But the matchiness is attractive.) But, some of the bikes lined up in the bike parking structure have helmets in the basket! Where oh where can they have gotten them!? Particularly since they are butt ugly.
Then, coming into the office today, I discover my answer. The only people who wear helmets around here are elementary school children. Moreover, they all wear the same helmet, so I can only assume it's school issue. No wonder it's so ugly, and no wonder nobody else wears them.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
shopping downtown, and more feeling like an idiot
So yesterday, my goal was to figure out public transportation. This basically stemmed from my fear of riding bicycles and desire to avoid it as much as possible. So, with various bus maps and time tables in hand, I set off downtown. The bus I'm interested runs in a big figure 8 loop aruond the city (in both directions), but it only does so once an hour. So, I have to be sure to catch the bus going in the right direction and towards the correct half of the loop. I got downtown with no incident. Clutching my "Welcome to Matsuyama" bus map in hand, I got on. I was hoping to follow the lady in front of me, but she simply swiped a card which I did not posess. So I just sat down, looked wildly around me, and waited. The bus was filled with old obachans--which makes some sense, as most people who are young and hardy choose to ride bicycles instead. The nice obachan sitting next to me then leaned over and told me the fare was a flat 150yen, and to pay at the front before leaving. Having done my research, I knew all this, but still it was reassuring to be told in person. I smiled at the obachan and thanked her, and got off at my stop.
Most of the shopping downtown is along two perpendicular streets, Ookaido and Gintengai. Basically, they are covered streets lined with shops. Mostly pedestrians, but apparently you can ride your bike or even drive your car down this mall-like street. There were random bikes parked all along the sides, in front of stores. I found one that I really, really liked. It's short name is "Muji". I wish there were some in the US! They sell all sorts of things, from clothing to furniture to snack food and stationery. Everything is clean and minimalist in neutral and natural shades. Here is it's English website: http://www.muji.net/eng/ The store is just so...natural and appealing. I really, really, really want this bed/recliner/couch. http://www.muji.net/store/pc/user/campaign/campaign070803_03.jsp It's just so damn cool!!
I also found a nice yarn store, which even stocks non-Japanese yarns like Anny Blatt and Filatura di Crosa. It was kind of a surprise. They also have nice books of patterns in Japanese, though I have to figure out how to read the diagrams. I also have a big stash of yarn that I brought with me, that I really should finish before I buy more yarn!
So, on the return trip, I was loaded up with things, mostly from Muji. These things included a huge, multifunctional, boyfriend/stuffed animal replacement pillow that allows me to lie on it and hug it at the same time: http://www.muji.net/store/cmdty/detail/4945247326734 scroll down to the bottom to check out the usage diagram. I couldn't resist.
Two big bags in tow, I set off for the bus stop well before the time the bus was supposed to get there. I figured, logically, that since I was catching the reverse direction, the stop would be on the opposite side of the street from where I got off. Not so!! I could not for the life of me find the stop for the east-direction loop bus. I even asked two strangers. So after awhile, I figured I would walk to the next bus stop. I figured I was still early, so I could beat the bus there and wait for it there. Lo and behold, the next bus stop didn't have the appropriate east-direction stop as well!! There was a west-direction stop on the other side of the street, but on my side I couldn't find one. I was starting to think that maybe Japanese people only put bus stops on one side of the street, in order to save on materials or something. Still early, I decide to go to the next bus stop. Thankfully, that one had stops on both sides of the street, so I decided I wasn't crazy. It was scheduled to arrive at 3:09, and I arrived literally at 3:10. But the whole way I was walking, I didn't see the bus pass me, so I decide to wait. Maybe it was late. After all, the bus that originally picked me up was 10 minutes late. So I wait until 3:25, and give up. I was already halfway home. Only three stops to go. So, I walk the rest of the way home, pillow and all.
Next time, I'm riding the stupid bike. At least, by walking, I discovered that the way to get downtown is actually quite safe and lined with sidewalks nearly all the way, so my bike never has to share the road with cars. Good going. I should buy some securing elastic too, so next time I decide to buy something like a huge pillow or blanket, I can lash it to the back of my bike.
Still riding this wave of "yes, I can ride bikes dammit" I try to ride my bike to the office today. This time, it's a different bike, provided kindly by my advisor. However, I spend about 15 minutes trying to pry the bike stand out from under the bike. You know, it's that bit that allows you to stand the bike up by itself? Without moving it out of the way of the tire, one is unable to go. So I kick the thing, pry it, basically work up a nice fine sweat trying to move it. Unbelievable. It doesn't budge. I just tested it last night! I must be missing something. Meanwhile, people are coming and going and no doubt wondering why I'm trying to steal someone else's bike, as I clearly can't figure it out. Finally, some old man comes up to me and asks me what the problem is. I make a helpless gesture and say something like, "how do you move this part back? I'm a foreign student, you see..." in an attempt to explain my stupidity. He makes an exclaiming noise, "Ah, you're not Japanese!" and promptly kicks a different part of the stand and moves it back. AHHHHHH!!! I knew I was missing something.
But after that, I got to the research office without incident. No cars, no scary moments, no falling off the bike. Ahh, sweet internet. Although, I will be connected at home by next Wednesday, so I wonder if my motivation to come to work will be drastically reduced. :)
Most of the shopping downtown is along two perpendicular streets, Ookaido and Gintengai. Basically, they are covered streets lined with shops. Mostly pedestrians, but apparently you can ride your bike or even drive your car down this mall-like street. There were random bikes parked all along the sides, in front of stores. I found one that I really, really liked. It's short name is "Muji". I wish there were some in the US! They sell all sorts of things, from clothing to furniture to snack food and stationery. Everything is clean and minimalist in neutral and natural shades. Here is it's English website: http://www.muji.net/eng/ The store is just so...natural and appealing. I really, really, really want this bed/recliner/couch. http://www.muji.net/store/pc/user/campaign/campaign070803_03.jsp It's just so damn cool!!
I also found a nice yarn store, which even stocks non-Japanese yarns like Anny Blatt and Filatura di Crosa. It was kind of a surprise. They also have nice books of patterns in Japanese, though I have to figure out how to read the diagrams. I also have a big stash of yarn that I brought with me, that I really should finish before I buy more yarn!
So, on the return trip, I was loaded up with things, mostly from Muji. These things included a huge, multifunctional, boyfriend/stuffed animal replacement pillow that allows me to lie on it and hug it at the same time: http://www.muji.net/store/cmdty/detail/4945247326734 scroll down to the bottom to check out the usage diagram. I couldn't resist.
Two big bags in tow, I set off for the bus stop well before the time the bus was supposed to get there. I figured, logically, that since I was catching the reverse direction, the stop would be on the opposite side of the street from where I got off. Not so!! I could not for the life of me find the stop for the east-direction loop bus. I even asked two strangers. So after awhile, I figured I would walk to the next bus stop. I figured I was still early, so I could beat the bus there and wait for it there. Lo and behold, the next bus stop didn't have the appropriate east-direction stop as well!! There was a west-direction stop on the other side of the street, but on my side I couldn't find one. I was starting to think that maybe Japanese people only put bus stops on one side of the street, in order to save on materials or something. Still early, I decide to go to the next bus stop. Thankfully, that one had stops on both sides of the street, so I decided I wasn't crazy. It was scheduled to arrive at 3:09, and I arrived literally at 3:10. But the whole way I was walking, I didn't see the bus pass me, so I decide to wait. Maybe it was late. After all, the bus that originally picked me up was 10 minutes late. So I wait until 3:25, and give up. I was already halfway home. Only three stops to go. So, I walk the rest of the way home, pillow and all.
Next time, I'm riding the stupid bike. At least, by walking, I discovered that the way to get downtown is actually quite safe and lined with sidewalks nearly all the way, so my bike never has to share the road with cars. Good going. I should buy some securing elastic too, so next time I decide to buy something like a huge pillow or blanket, I can lash it to the back of my bike.
Still riding this wave of "yes, I can ride bikes dammit" I try to ride my bike to the office today. This time, it's a different bike, provided kindly by my advisor. However, I spend about 15 minutes trying to pry the bike stand out from under the bike. You know, it's that bit that allows you to stand the bike up by itself? Without moving it out of the way of the tire, one is unable to go. So I kick the thing, pry it, basically work up a nice fine sweat trying to move it. Unbelievable. It doesn't budge. I just tested it last night! I must be missing something. Meanwhile, people are coming and going and no doubt wondering why I'm trying to steal someone else's bike, as I clearly can't figure it out. Finally, some old man comes up to me and asks me what the problem is. I make a helpless gesture and say something like, "how do you move this part back? I'm a foreign student, you see..." in an attempt to explain my stupidity. He makes an exclaiming noise, "Ah, you're not Japanese!" and promptly kicks a different part of the stand and moves it back. AHHHHHH!!! I knew I was missing something.
But after that, I got to the research office without incident. No cars, no scary moments, no falling off the bike. Ahh, sweet internet. Although, I will be connected at home by next Wednesday, so I wonder if my motivation to come to work will be drastically reduced. :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
