Day 1
So I’m finally here.
As you may guess by the lack of many travel pictures, the train-hopping
to get to Fuchinobe
took a really long time and was really tiring. Tokyo
rush hour with a 70-pound pack plus a full backpack and pelican case can be, as
my coworker who met me at the airport would say, “tough.” Especially when you’re body is thinking it’s 4AM. Takahiro
did a good job of keeping us on Limited Express trains, though, so we only had
to stand on the very last and rather short leg of the train trip. Three trains,
one taxi, a broken-and-fixed luggage cart and about 7 hours after I landed, I
arrived in Fuchinobe to be shown into my apartment. Side note: I think that American cars really
are getting smaller. Nothing here looks
quite as goofy as it did in 1997, mostly I think because people are actually
buying and driving subcompacts in pretty large numbers, even in LA. Echo’s, Focuses, etc are smaller than about
50% of the cars on the road here. The
one thing they do have, though, is those totally silly-looking squashed
minivans. Picture a minivan the size of
a Mini and you’d be on the right track.
As for the apartment:
I was worried. I was honestly
prepared to live out of a closet for the next six months, but to my delight,
when we opened the door to my place, I was totally surprised by how… big it was. Lovely wood flooring, a big main room
(~8’x18’), a 4.5 tatami mat bedroom (~8’x8’), plus the one thing in home design
that the Japanese totally kick ass in, the awesome shower/bath setup. Electronically controlled
water temperature, good pressure, small but DEEP bath tub, good ventilation,
and a washing machine to boot. No
dryer, but hey, it’ll be 90 degrees most o the time anyway. There’s not much counter space, but it’ll
do. The AC works nicely, and the remote,
as far as I’ve figured out, allows you to set timers and things and have it
turn itself off so that you can go to sleep with it on and not waste much
juice.
Stepping off the plane was just like arriving in Hawaii
– it’s pretty clear which culture REALLY won that island… Totally overcast at about 500 feet, and about
80 degrees. The wall of heat and
humidity, mostly humidity, is impressive, and there’s a certain smell, maybe
it’s all the bamboo or other local flora, that just screams
Asia. Customs was
a non-issue, they pretty much just waved me
through. We had to get my paraglider bag
delivered, it should arrive tonight, since we had enough to carry with just the
other stuff, but all my clothes are in there.
Oh well, it’s only one day of dirty socks. Oh, one more thing about the apartment: Closets, motherfucker! SOOOOO big. The Japanese closet, literal and figurative,
is gi-normous, about 3’ across and 3’ deep with a shelf at waist height for
optimal crap-piling. Plus
a much bigger closet by my bed.
All the pottery survived the trip swimmingly,
the eight or so bowls that I brought for gifts are now safely tucked in my
closet. I do need to get some more
shelving, though, everything is just piled up right
now.
Day 2
SKK, being a Schlumberger research center, is a fully
bilingual workplace. The official
language of Schlumberger worldwide is English, but of course there are no rules
about what language day-to-day interaction must take place in. Official documents, however, must be in
English, or, as the case may be here in Tokyo,
Engrish. My immediate coworkers are
mostly older Japanese men, with the exception of Matsui-san, who picked me up
at the airport (he’s about 21), and David, an Indonesian fellow who plays
badminton and is trying to learn to paraglide.
Small world.
There are a lot of non-Japanese employees at SKK as well, mainly from France
and the US. I’ve also met one Moroccan and one Thai. Gender wise, the facility might actually be
balanced, but only because the HR department is ALL women. There are some girl engineers, though not in
my section, which sort of surprised me, but hey, I guess the Japanese education
system is finally starting to come around to the many notable advantages to be
reaped from women’s lib. Anyhow, I’m
sure I’ll be learning a lot.
Unfortunately, I think I’ll be learning it in English, because honestly,
my Japanese isn’t nearly good enough to use reference books/software in
Japanese. SKK is going to provide me
with free Japanese lessons, though, which is a nice bonus, in addition to the
sweet apartment. Oh and a totally
awesome company uniform shirt. Pictures
when I actually get it. My boss was
clear about asking which language I preferred, but I don’t want my poor
Japanese to get in the way of productivity, especially when most people in the
office speak pretty good English. I’m
okay with it, I think. It’s reminding me
that as much as I want to make this trip into a personal linguistic challenge,
language is ultimately a communication tool, and being able to communicate
effectively is way more rewarding and way more productive than struggling with
another language for no reason. That
said, there are plenty of opportunities to work on my Japanese at work, and
everything outside of work is in Japanese, too.
Walking in this country is really pleasant, a very engaging
experience. Sidewalks are very much an
optional thing. They don’t exist on most
streets, so you’re pretty much on your own, but the drivers are courteous and
the bicycles proliferous. The bike with
which I’ve been provided is quite nice, although it’s definitely a
Japanese-style casual-riding bike. I
would very much like to find a serious road/mountain bike so I can really haul
ass around town. Especially since I can
easily hit most of the speed limits in the city…
The walk to work is about half an hour, which can be cut in
half or less by riding a bicycle or catching a bus from the train station. I woke up at 5am
today, so I decided to walk the whole way so as to figure out the area. There are no street names here, and no
addresses in the traditional sense either, so I basically just wandered using a
few major landmarks and a compass bearing to get nearby. Then I asked a woman who was walking her dog
if she knew where SKK was, and she took me there. I was only about 3 blocks away, and heading
towards it. I followed a guy into the
building because it was still very early and the doors weren’t publicly
unlocked yet, and then discovered that the doors weren’t openable from the
inside, either, without a special ID card that I didn’t have. Fortunately, the security guard let me out to
go get some breakfast when I explained what had happened. I walked further north and then along a
commercial street, stopping to grab a tasty pork cutlet sandwich at a
7-11. Still haven’t found an ATM that
will take a MasterCard ATM card, so I’m gonna try the post office
tomorrow. Apparently they have one. That said, living here is gonna be
CHEAP. I ate a full lunch in the company
cafeteria for 367Y, which is about $3.00.
Pretty sweet.
Dinner may be a bit more expensive, but they do serve it
, which will be convenient if I decide I don’t feel like cooking. There’s no supermarket very nearby,
sadly. I have to do some searching or
hop on the train for that, so no cookin’ just yet.. Rice I can get at one of the bajillion or so
convenience stores nearby as soon as I get some more cash out of the bank. My rice cooker, or suihaki in Japanese
(literally “water-boiler”), has a timer and everything, so I could have rice
waiting for me when I arrive home if I were into that sort of thing. Everything in this country has a timer on
it. Washing machine, AC, rice cooker,
TV, you name it, it can be prescheduled.
Modern technology has been adapted to suit the Japanese house and not
the other way around. The finish is very
clean, but very obvious – the hoses for the water and gas lines are all
visible, the washer sits in a tub on the floor with a special drain built in,
and the incredibly bright fluorescent hemispheres on the ceiling have the
aspect of limpets.
I was a bit too late to catch the luggage delivery guy with
my paraglider, so I ran to two payphones and managed to catch the company
before they closed and ask them to deliver it tonight, which they did about an
hour and a half later. Not bad. So now I have my paraglider, and more
importantly, my underwear and socks and computer power cables. The Japanese are not into grounded power
outlets, go figure. Perhaps they have
higher standards for wall current stability or something. The little man in the Japanese Walk/Don’t
Walk sign wears a hat. Very odd. Totally different pictographic paradigm. The ever-present vending machines are still
here. Good thing, too, cuz it’s hot and
sticky all day every day. Fortunately
there’s free tea and coffee at work, too.
Americans don’t know shit about vending machines, that’s all I can say. Pepsi? Coke? Fuck all that. How about “Super Gym Energy Drink”? “Fire!” coffee, too. I’m compiling a list of really good beverage
names – they get much better. Car names,
too. Many of the same
vehicles with different names.
4Runner = Hilux Surf. Tacoma
= Hilux. Saw one called the “Carisma,”
too. The Echo is the “Platz!” pronounced “plotz.”
Hmmm, bath time.
Day 3
Morning. Woke up at 6 today instead
of 4. Definite
improvement. Gotta go to the post
office to see if I can get some cash money, cuz I’ve got about $15 left, and
that’s not going to last very long once I get to a supermarket. The only flaw in the apartment is that I
don’t have an oven. There’s a
traditional Japanese broiler thing in the stove top, but there’s no way you
could ever cook or bake a meal in it. Sort of annoying.
Hopefully today I will get the email and computer password stuff all
squared away, so that I can actually post this and check
my email. Apparently a DHL plane crashed
into a passenger jet over Germany?! I’ve gotta either get a newspaper or an
internet hookup. Too bad the phone setup
here is kind of ridiculous. Today being
the 4th, I’m just hoping that there isn’t another big terrorist
attack in the states. It’s a little
strange to sit here and think that there’s basically no reason for anyone to
attack Japan
when the US is
such a big, shiny target. At work,
though I was surprised when they told me I had to keep my laptop locked to my
desk while I’m there, not a big problem, but a little surprising in a country
so renowned for safety. Still,
Schlumberger is a pretty huge company, with many thousands of employees
worldwide, so I guess the “Hey I don’t know you!” policing scenario is a bit
inappropriate for them.
Sitting in front of the post office. It’s a little strange working on the street
like this. I’m still not entirely used
to the whole laptop idea, but I’m definitely starting to dig it highly. Avoiding people and bicycles on the sidewalk
here is a bit of a challenge – the wrong side of the road thing only sort of
applies, unlike in the US,
where everyone always avoids to the right.
Still, no collisions so far. And still no ATMs. Tried another one, this
time in a Circle K, but no luck.
Post office opens in 45 minutes.
I’m across the street from the Doremifa Club. Guess what happens there :) Cigarette vending machines are so weird. Suzuki Joypop Every. Viscous LSD. Guess which one of those was a minivan. Nissan March. Nissan Rumba.
Toyota Carina. A flood of
school kids just went past. The loose
socks thing is still happening. Suzuki Mode. Toyota Comfort taxi.
There’s a sign across the street advertising Comic Internet Game! The Toyoace flatbed seems to be the p[primary workhorse of the service industry folks here. Seems that just about the
only car marketed with the same name here is the Accord. Oooh, an S500 V12. Probably can’t park that in 80% of the
country. Toyota Super Extra Town Ace. Think a smaller old school Previa. There are raised bumps down the center of the
side walk. I guess they’re their for the blind? Seems a little strange considering how few sidewalks there are. You’d be able to get only a block or
two… except in the immediate vicinity of
the train station, which is so bustling that someone blind would probably be
unable to navigate it anyways… all the
traffic lights are horizontal, red on the right. All the Acura’s here have Honda badging. The SUVs here are AWESOME. They’re mostly about the size of a mini. Imagine all of the most absurd styling from
current midsize SUVs in the US
packed into a package the size of a small horse. Hood scoops and everything. And the birds! So weird. They have the most human-sounding calls. They’re crows, I guess, but with really tall,
thick black beaks. They sound like kids
imitating crows. Toyota Luxel.
Mistubishi Pajero. I just figured out
what the phrase meshiyorisuki (meh-shee-yo-ree-skii) means this morning. Well, I knew it meant “like a whole helluva a
lot, but the literal translation, it occurred to me, is meshi “rice” yori “more
than” suki “like.” I like it more than
rice. Duh…
At work. Okay, so the Japanese don’t have letters on
the keys of their phones or ATMs. That
PIN number that I only know as letters was pretty hard to figure out. I got it eventually, and now have 20 crispy
new 1000円 bills. Japanese money is a lot
less-folding-friendly, though. Thicker and wider than US cash. Suzuki-san says there’s a small supermarket
about 5 minutes away from SKK, so I’ll swing by there on the way home. The GPS pointer is coming in very handy. I used it to pick the right street to walk up
to work today. Too bad there aren’t maps
of the Tokyo area that I can find
easily. Maybe when I
get plugged in somewhere.
Unfortunately I can’t plug into the internet at work due to security
concerns – so if I want to get my email on my computer I’ll have to get a connection
at my apartment or use someone else’s. I
did find a brochure outside the post office from a company that does cable
modems, though, so maybe I can hook that up.
Japanese postal ATMs let you specify how many of what bills you
want. What a great idea. And the primary currency is the rough
equivalent of the $10 bill, really more like the $8.50 bill. Very convenient for
restaurants. Also very cool: 500 yen coins. I’m going to get my salary in cash since
Citibank won’t hold yen and the HR department recommends that I do so. I oughta get a money belt. ;P
So at lunch time I tried to explain what a “baby delivery
doctor” is. They don’t seem to exist in Japan
as such. Also,
ultimate Frisbee. That was
easier. We just had a presentation on
the IT help tools here. Schlumberger has a pretty amazing system, with about
200 tech support analysts worldwide, available 24-7, and a slew of online tools
for automatically fixing software and reinstalling things. If support like this ever hit the consumer market
it could be a real hit.
Unfortunately, for all the flashy tech support stuff,
there’s not much to be done when the computer won’t even start the program you
want to run. At present there’s a guy
from ITS trying to get my computer to run Eudora. I couldn’t send an email to ITS
to request help, of course, because the email stuff isn’t working. Oi. Very frustrating. In the meantime I’m reading up on Opamps, yet
another class which I didn’t get to take at Caltech due to fired
professors…
Day 4
6am again
today. I need to actually stay up one of
these nights so I can sleep normally.
Last night I crashed around 9pm,
woke up at two, brushed my teeth and went back to sleep.
Things to acquire:
Guitar
Serious Bicycle
Toaster Oven
Hair clippers
Fabric/Posters for walls
Pushpins
Supermarket:
Salt
Pepper
Sugar
Veggies
Eggs
Fish sauce
Rooster stauce
Hoi sin
The vegetable prices are the most surprising: Broccoli:
1 head, $3. The only thing cheap
is Daikon, which I’m not particularly interested in, but I guess I oughta get
into it, eh?
Whoa. The microwave
seems to have oven-like abilitites. I’m
not sure exactly what they are, but it seems to think it can grill/toast/broil
and bake. Concentrating EM in different
parts of the chamber? Damn fine idea if
it works..We shall see… But
seriously, cookies in a microwave?
Day 5
7:22am got up at 6:20
So yesterday for work I went to city hall to file my Alien
Registration papers. It took all of five
minutes, since there is a special desk just for that purpose and never a
line. I also actually did a little bit
of real work, too, although it was nothing taxing – just checking a whole bunch
of connections on a board that’s about to be printed up. VERY good practice for japanese
numbers, though :) Cooked my first
dinner last night, stir-fryin’ and such, and I now have a semi-stocked kitchen
– salt, pepper, sugar, fish sauce, soy, oil, sake, Calpico, milk, yogurt,
onions, snap peas, bean sprouts, tofu, rice, chili powder, frosted flakes (Corn
Frostiy here) etc. Everything a guy could need for basic kitchen
skullduggery. I also watched my first
Japanese TV in five years – there was a sort of Japanese pop chart show with
all these UNBELIEVABLY bad bands lipsyncing to prerecorded music. Boy.
Japanese is the wrong language for power ballads, Itellyouwhat. Big advantage for european
languages – one syllable words can be sung expressively without sounding
forced. You just can’t sound hip belting
out “anata o konomu.” I REALLY need to
get a god damn phone. I’m very
frustrated about that, and it looks like I’ll have to wait until Tuesday at
least to even talk to the ITS people about using dialup from home. Very very annoying. I have no way to contact anyone except an
archaic rotary payphone 3 blocks away.
Sooooo, today I’m going to go to Machida,
and possibly Shinjuku, to try and buy a cellphone, as well as a power strip or
two and some speakers. I also need to
track down a guitar shop somehwere. And
get a decent bicycle, I won’t be able to deal with
this one for very long… Unfortunately, Japan
appears to suffer from Overpriced-Mediocre-Bicycle Syndrome, so I think I’m
gonna have my beloved orange monster shipped from the US. Probably cheaper, too!! I saw a bunch of bikes about the equivalent
of my old crappy miyata for around $450.
Totally insane.
I could also build a bike via online orders here, I suppose, but I’d
have to buy a bunch of tools, too, probably.
Maybe I could borrow them from someone…
You should see what goes for a grand around here. Most other things, though, aren’t all that
pricey, surprise surprise. Convenience
stores have food for about the same as in the US,
and cloth goods aren’t so ridiculous either, from what I’ve seen *so far*. Machida
and Shinjuku may change that. The other
goal is to find a 100-yen store, the japanese 99 cent
store equivalent, and see what I can dig up there. I want to move my TV so I can watch from my
bed, but there is an antenna plug for it on the other side of the apartment, so
that’s a no-go. What I’d really like to
find is a small couch or other soft thing to sit on. Okay, time to get ready for my first solo
train trip, all of two stops down the Odakyu line (I think) to Machida. Fortunately there’s only one line that comes
through Fuchinobe, so my choice will be easy.
Okay, I’m back from the shopping exploration trip, so here’s the damages:
1 oven mitt
1 kitchen scale
2 sealable containers for sugar/flour/etc
1 poster of Seurat’s “Boys swimming”
1 nice nonstick 8” square baking pan
2 power strips, one large, one
small
assorted flyers, tissues
1 can Café Au Lait “quality coffee beans extraction”
1 can pineapple slices
1 box flan mix
1 box Melon Jelly (jello) mix
2 small metal mixing bowls
2 packages hanging hooks
2 small packages thumbtacks
5 handkerchiefs of various patterns (it’s freakin’ HUMID here)
1 sunglasses case
2 GPS waypoints recorded – Machida
station, Machida Post Office ATM
1 set measuring cups
1 set measuring spoons
3 compasses (to give to people when I have to give them
compass-bearing directions)
1 2 ½ cup liquid measure,
imperial/metric
1 pepper grinder
1 package dry soba
1 package dry udon
Grand total, about $100
Fortunately, anything else I need can most likely be found
at the 100 yen store, which was a-fucking-mazing. 5 floors of 100 yen items, from dinnerware to
potted plants to stationary to toys and costumes. The 99 cent store can’t even begin to step to
this place. I met a girl named Jennifer
at an English conversation school that I wandered through in Machida,
and she’s coming for dinner tonight. Her
dad worked at Schlumberger in Houston
for 30 years. Far out. She just arrived on the 27th, and had her
first day of work today. It’s good to
have found at least one other non-work-related english-speaker. Actually, just across from that Nova school
is the “Liberty Hip Hop Shop,” a little hiphop fashion boutique run by a group
of Nigerians, Joe, Zion, Kennedy,
and Dennis. It’s hard to understand how
one can just be walking through all sorts of buildings without seeing the way
this place is set up – it’s a serious asian market district, with pachinko
parlors and restaurants all around and four-to-eight stories high for a couple
of square kilometers, with no recognizable street markings or pattern. Jennifer is definitely some sort of punkrock
kid. Do I EVER
meet any other kind of people?
Conversation:
Confused-looking american walks by
“Hey man, you looking for something?”
“Yeah, this place (points to map)”
“Oh I think that might be up here, let me show you”
“Okay…”
“Where’re you from?”
“America”
“More specifically?”
“California”
“Oh, whereabouts?”
“Oh, you probably wouldn’t know, this town called Fresno”
Bah-dum-bum-ching!
On the bicycle tip:
I found a more serious bike shop in Machida,
where they were selling real downhilling and racing machines, and the prices
looked a lot better. Still a bit more
than I particularly want to spend, since I really want to custom-build my next
one anyways, but we shall see. A
Specialized ProHR with a Judy TT front fork and “Deore” Shimano shifters was
around $600. A lovely bicycle, although
I’m not sure where Deore falls in the Shimano quality hierarchy. One thing, though – the largest size I’ve
seen was a 19”, which is the size of my current mountain bike, which is just a
tad too small. I’m not sure the japanese market can really support the production of frames
20” and up… The other question: Race or Dirt?
I’ve found that riding on the skinny tires around a marginally paved
community requires concentration if you want to stay upright, but also affords
great speed, even on a one-gear pedal-pusher.
Everything here is F-L-A-T flat.
The only hills are bridges/tunnels over/under the train tracks. Still, the race tires over the little
inch-high curbs are pretty unpleasant. Grrrr. If they’d just pave a little better…
Dinner was tasty.
After Jennifer left, I started on a poundcake, which is now
cooling.
Tomorrow we’re gonna go to a party at the abode of some Australians she met on
the train yesterday. Promises
to be interesting. Australians. Hmm. Social planning
is so easy when you have no phone and only one contact – it’s pretty much “make
plans now for tomorrow or forget about it for a week until you get your phones
sorted out. Tomorrow during the day I’m
going to go to Shinjuku to look for some speakers for the apartment. I’ve resorted to using my laptop’s builtins,
which is pretty bad. I went to a big
department store to look at guitars today, too.
Not thrilling, but not awful either.
They actually had a decent number of used models, and prices were about
what you’d find at Guitar Center. I played a few Ovations, a takamine or two,
but it wasn’t a good environment to buy an instrument in. Lots of noise, drum
machines and people scratching, not to mention all the general hubub of a
department store. Maybe shipping the
Seagull isn’t such a bad idea… I’d like
to find a guitar-only shop somewhere, but I’m not really sure how to go about
it. Probably looking online at work is the best. They had what I think is the most impressive
CD turntable I’ve ever seen, though.
It’s made by Panasonic, I think, and can be used to scratch with the
same touch/pressure sensitivity as vinyl.
A very impressive feat of engineering.
Well, I tried the pound cake with the archaic 1:1:1
butter/flour/sugar proportions that gave it its name,
and it was a definite failure. More
flour, less butter, or just much much finer flour. Cake flour might be able to take it all
up. Still, probably something along the
lines of ½ butter: 1 flour : 1 sugar would produce
something a little less terrifying. The
“microwave” oven leaves a bit to be desired, also, as far as heat distribution
goes. Rather uneven front-to-back. I guess that’s what I get for using a pan
that fills the entire (admittedly rather small) oven and can’t rotate.
Day 6
The Shinjuku trip was productive. I went to a few massive camera/electronic
stores and checked out a lot of small speaker sets for my laptop as well as the
prices on digital cameras etc.
Everything costs about the same here.
Certainly way too much to make me want to replace my
camera. I found a nice set of
speakers for about $40, which was a little surprising because they were the
best sounding out of a group with prices ranging up to $200. Just goes to show how little price means when
it comes to audio equipment. Of course,
nice in this context just means good enough that they sound better than the
MP3s I’m playing through them… In that
same store there were 8 floors of assorted household electronic items. Pretty neat, but I’ve got no use for a
family-sized hotplate grill. I stopped
in Machida on the way back and went
to the hundred yen store again to pick up the remaining kitchen items and
clotheshangers that I need. Oh, and I
got some hair clippers. I now have
everything I need short of a KitchenAid mixer and a food processor. ;P My feet hurt a LOT. So much walking, carrying the speakers in a
box in one hand, two bags of assorted other stuff in the other, and my little
backpack with more stuff, for at least a few miles. It was sunny today for the first time, but
it’s clouded over again. The colors are
pretty spectacular.
Went to a sushi bar with Jennifer and had a great time, a
tiny little place near her house run by an elderly couple, had a bunch of sushi
for not a bunch of money, and then went to the Australian’s party. Actually, in between, we had to ask
directions a few times, and eventually a guy and his girlfriend gave us a ride
the last block or two in their suzuki 4x4. Very nice of them. The australians were
actually more like 4 australians 3 americans and 1 newfoundlander. I had to leave after only an hour or two
because the last train is around 12:45,
and I had two trains to catch to get home.
But, when I got to the station, I met a Dutch-Japanese (ethnic japanese born and raised in the netherlands)
skater guy who works for a skateboard distribution company. He was very cool. Also, of course, he spoke more or less perfect
english.
Tomorrow I go to Sumitomo Chemical with the Caltech folks. Must.. get… sleep.
Day 7
Okay, so I was unable to find Prof. Hirata at the bus
station, I think I must have missed them by about 15 minutes, but then I
somehow managed to lose my bus ticket, and had no more cash, so I had to find a
post office ot get more cash, and by the time I had that all figured out I had
decided that I had way too little information to be able to catch them in
Tsukuba. Probably they had assumed that
I wasn’t coming since we haven’t been in contact for a few weeks. Pretty frustrating. I now know how long it takes to get to Tokyo
station – about 2 hours from my house at rush hour. With better planning it could be more like 1:10 – that’s using only express trains. Anyhow, I found refuge from the heat in the
antechamber of some big bank or travel agency with a group of three young
20-something Japanese girls who were waiting for a friend to arrive so that
they could hop the Shinkansen (New Main Line, bullet train) to Oosaka for a
vacation. I talked with them a bit, and
mostly just listened in on their conversation, which reminded me yet again of
how much I have to learn here. Jeeeezus. On the plus
side, I can definitely make out the word boundaries in women’s speech pretty
consistently. Men I have more trouble
with – they talk really fast. I’ve been
looking at this “Essential Kanji” book by PG Oneill, and I think that if I were
to spend a year here doing nothing but learning Japanese I could probably get
through all of the 2000 common use kanji.
It turns out that it is also a REALLY convenient kanji dictionary. It doesn’t have any meanings of compounds
(multi-kanji words), but for looking up individual characters it is much much
much much faster than my big complete reference. And it’s a mini-book, about 4x6 inches, so
it’s easily carriable. Sort of odd, I
pretty much have to have a backpack with me at all times now to hold my passport/copy,
GPS, dictionary, etc.
Oh, all that stuff about tokyo rush hour being complete
madness on trains is a bit over blown – yes, the crowds in the stations are
pretty much full-occupancy, but they flock in rather graceful ways. On the train was crowded, sure, and there was
a bit of stuffing from the outside, but I’ve been in more uncomfortable
situations in San Francisco. Something about the American dislike of
touching anyone else. It’s actually a
lot easier to be on a train where you’re supported by all theother people
around you. Kind of like the
drifting-knees problem sitting in coach on an airplane. Y’know, how it would be much more comfortable
if you and the person next to you just leaned your knees against each other,
but for some reason don’t do it.
I think I would’ve woken up around 7 today if I hadn’t
gotten up earlier for the train, so I’m going to be okay, I think ;). Jennifer’s roommate is cooking dinner
tonight, so I’m gonna go over there. Her
roommate is apparently a black girl from Kansas
who was in the military and is now teaching english. Apparently a little rough around the edges
and unclear on the concept, (she embarassed jennifer
by yelling in louder and louder english in a convenience store when the clerk
didn’t speak any), but we shall see. At
any rate, some southern home cooking is always welcome :)
I’ve been throwing around the idea of staying here longer
than six months, mostly to try and figure out my chronic inability to choose a
new home outside of the bay area, and I think it could work if I ever figure
out serious speech. But sitting here
listening to Ani Difranco, I’m reminded of the stupendous badass-ness that
exists in the states, and I wonder if maybe for me this could never be more
than a sort of escape from the rich drama of American life and art. It’s so easy to live here. You go to work, you come home, your kids go
to school, and pretty much everyone has the same general life experience. I think this is what Saijo is talking about –
“civilization, this massive hedge against the Tao of the universe.” Trouble is, I can’t
decide which culture is doing more hedging.
The style here is more naturalistic, more communally responsible –
people drive slow, stop for pedestrians, watch for motorcycles, breathe and
meditate, recycle, keep the train stations and streets impeccably clean, but I
can’t help feeling like it’s copping out of the real problems in the
world. There’s a track on a record by Ja Rule (marginal pop-hip-hop) with a sample that goes
something along the lines of “As long as you black yo’ life goin’ be a
hustle… I wouldn’t even wanna be white,
nigga I’m glad I’m black I like it
hard, y’know what I’m sayin’?” That’s
kind of where I am with being an American at the moment, cheesy as it sounds… Still, I think most of that stems from the
linguistic problems.
So dinner at Jennifer and Cameron’s place was great – she’s
actually pretty cool, and definitely knows her way around the kitchen. Broccoli, potatos,
hamburger-onion meatballs and gravy sort of southern home cookin’. There was also another Australian there,
Stewart, who’s been here for two months, also as a NOVA teacher. Seems to be quite the thing to do for the aussie folks… Back to
work tomorrow morning.
Day 8
Work was really tiring today. I ran around all morning and some of the
afternoon trying to set up the whole phone thing, which the company will
actually help pay for (a line to the apartment, that is), as well as trying to
get a bank account set up (didn’t have the necessary papers on hand so it has
to wait until next week) and meeting the rest of the interns, who are all
French. Well, the one who lives upstairs
from me is Chinese, but she studies in France. I think it was mostly dehydration, but around
3 o’clock I felt like my head was
going to explode from switching languages so much and spending so much time on
my feet. Went shopping, came home,
cooked enough food to last a few days, read a chapter in the new japanese textbook I have, and went to sleep. I left my laundry hanging out cuz it wasn’t
quite dry. Then I woke up at about 1am to the loudest rain I have heard in
years. Oh well. I had a tuna steak as part of dinner, just
soaked in soy and wasabi and broiled.
Cost about $2.50. Not bad for a
good-sized hunk of fresh fish. People
have lost touch with the tuna. It has a
lot of potential.
Day 9
So I have a Japanese lesson at 9:00. I’m wondering if it’s going to rain on me
when I walk to the train station for the bus to the office. I haven’t heard any for a while, but it’s
still VERY wet outside and completely overcast.
Should probably take the waterproof bag…
Yep, it rained alright.
12:40 am, I just got home and jumped in the shower. Went to see Men In
Black II with Jen and Cameron. Did some
no-purchase department-store wandering beforehand cuz we had some time to
kill. My feet are at the very top end of
the japanese shoe size range, believe it or not. I am SO glad I have my Timbuk2 bag. Especially since I don’t
have an umbrella. I have never
been so soaked in my life. I had to walk
all the way to work this morning. I was
almost completely dry, save for my socks, when I left in the afternoon, but
after a 200-yard walk to Jen and Cameron’s place I was utterly soaked
again. Plus walking
around near the movie theater.
It’s REALLY strange to see Bugs Bunny introducing films in japanese. They didn’t
get the voice quite right, big surprise.
Japanese lesson was great, lots of fun, I just talked with
the teacher about politics and cultural differences between the US
and Japan. She was very surprised and happy that I
actually wanted to talk about real things rather than the textbook
material.