19 July 94 I'm such a slacker - I'm so lazy, if I didn't have things I was =supposed= to do I'd just read and sleep and wander around all the time. Anyway I'll get started on the explanations now. 1) Calligraphy class. Whoa, that was a while ago (a week ago exactly). We went to some girls' high school to practice a little calligraphy w/ a well-known Hokkaidoan calligrapher. Before the first class we got to watch a little promotional video about the school - evidently one could "specialize" here in sewing or something or just take regular academic classes. We got to see little bits from a talent show (where most of the girls seemed to be singing really cheesy songs) and from a fashion show of dresses the girls had made themselves - that's a good skill to have I think, being able to make one's own clothes. Around here there are shops that sell nothing but cotton cloth or material for kimonos or the like - so hand-made clothes are still a tradition around here. Well, anyway, the paper we used was so thin I kept picking up 3 sheets at once w/o realizing it. We got to practice doing [kanji for star?] for awhile and the second day we did the symbol for love and the guy said my character (written on formal paper) had good balance. There's not much more to say except that Japanese girls are terribly boy-crazy and are paranoid or crazy about getting boyfriends. I don't remember people seeming that desperate in high school, but perhaps I've just got distanced. [in the margin: It's been =so= long now it's 24 July 94 20 more days to go...] 2) Japanese matsuri are the tradition Shinto festival - a renewal ritual of sorts - it has 3 phases - bringing down the gods, entertaining /appeasing the gods, taking the gods back. Interesting thing - almost all the Shinto deities are people - people who actually existed, though their attributes and identities would get confused over the years. For example, the founder of a village would be one of the village's deities, but if someone else came and conquered the village, after he died, he would be a deity of the village, also -- but the two people would kind of be amalgamated as one god. In Shinto one must worship/honor the dead for they might come back to wreak vengeance if not given the proper respect - especially those who died too soon -- from violent unnatural deaths, etc. Anyway, at the very beginning there has to be some kind of social levelling - erasure of social order, a reenactment of the original chaos. In some places, once (I don't know how recently) people would be able to shout obscenities at each other w/o fear of reprisal, in another, shit would be thrown on everyone -- a true leveller I would think. I think nowadays people usually just drink alot of sake and beer and go running around w/ the big shrines on the platforms - that's where the gods are supposed to be during matsuri. Also, in some places society was both matri- and patri-lineal. Women would own homes, care for the children, etc. and homes are inherited mother to daughter, but political power is handed down through the men. In many places there was no marriage, or only eldest sons could marry since they were the ones w/ the family resources. In the places of no marriage, they'd have a kind of religiously sponsored orgy gathering the young men & women from different villages (bad to hook up w/ someone from your own village...they knew about relatives not mating even then.) [more to the point, they'd know where you live and might bug you later] 3) Well, I've seen alot of shows about faith healers and psychics since I've been here and there are palm readers on the corners near the train station - in front of Boni Moriya - one down in GoRyoKaku near the densya stop. The one I was referring to was a man who I think was getting rid of chronic pain from people. For example, there was a lady w/ an awful joint problem in her hands and feet - it looked like the joints were misplaced and unnaturally large. Anyway, it hurt for her to walk and to do stuff w/ her hands. Probably a doctor could have gotten her joints fixed, but I know it would be terribly expensive. A few others looked like back pain or sore legs from old age. Anyway, his main technique would be to shake his hands in front of the person and the person would act like they were being pushed back and would also claim their limbs were getting warm. usu an accomplice of this man would be standing behind the patient and would seem to be stopping the people from moving back too far. Anyway, also on the show they showed him doing something that looked like Tai Chi and seemed to be repelling people w/o touching them. I've seen performances like this in America too, and I'd really like to be a subject so I can find out what's going on. 4) Well, we had got the newspaper out and it looked like it went over well - I drew two cartoons and made a paint-by-numbers puzzle -- the picture was of a bonsai tree. One of the cartoons was of a person using the washlet (a western-style toiler w/ a bidet feature and a heated seat feature) as a Waterpik and I drew another of people w/ bear feet (one carrying bear feet, one whose feet were bear feet) because in the Donan-so Inn there was a sign that said "Please do not go outside with bear feet. Please wear shoes" which brings me to #5 & #16 5) I went to the Lotteria to have my first hamburger in Japan (it was just like McDonald's hamburgers) and I noticed 2 Indian guys trying to talk with 3 high school girls in English - the guys did not really know any Japanese at all (I think they were here for business reasons) The girl's English wasn't all that bad and I butted my nose in at the end to translate a few things. The girls looked like they were trying to get away - probably because they had to catch a bus or something to get back to school. Anyway, as I was walking out there was a lady wearing a Tshirt that said "Everybody Loves to Hate" and since I've been here I've seen or some other people have seen Tshirts that say "Americans do it better" and "Let's get it on" and I've even seen some Carolina t-shirts. I can't believe (except for the Carolina shirts) that the people wearing these shirts know what they say - which leads to 16) This is one of the most annoying things here in Japan. Even the English teachers here are pretty bad at English (well, it is a very tough, irregular language, =but=) and most of the English I see around is for the benefit of the occaisional gaijin tourist or for trying to sell you something. And the advertising English can be something quite weird, let me tell you. Example 1: JOG. For the joyful human stage. Example 2: life design shop BLUE HOUSE live together with interior. we have abundant original for your enjoy life coordination. we, life design shop blue house, give aid to your self principle life style. Well, after that last one, you would think I wouldn't need to give any more examples, but I think the weirdest English occurs on stationery. Example: The forest was manfled [sic] in luxuriant seen in Africa. There is still a vail [sic] of mystery covering the Africa. There are =much= much worse examples but I don't have them on hand. I've been wondering why they couldn't have had someone who knew English well enough to correct their mistakes - I've been wondering if they did and the person editing found it so amusing they kept it that way. 6) There's lots of quiz shows here - from ones on current news stories to one about ingredients in Japanese dishes. not much more to say other than the Russian guy in the Hakodate Outdoor Spectacle said he thought Japanese TV was really boring and I must agree - if I understood Japanese well, I'd probably only watch the news. American shows =are= more diverse and I don't think I've seen a sitcom since I've been here. The stuff is really bland. [to the side:] I'm watching one now where people have to figure out what kid's pictures are or their favorite bread, etc. They have really odd game shows here. [] 7) Well this is big and interesting news. Kim Il Sung, leader of North Korea, died and the last 2 weeks have been quite a sob fest for the North Koreans and even some South Koreans. I sometimes wonder if the people feel =obliged= to make that big deal of a show. My host ma is kind of amused/surprised by all the wailing of the North Koreans -- Japanese would never make such a display of losing all composure -- and Americans haven't really either. Usu we just get really quiet. \ Anyway a few interesting things have come of this situation. North Korea is welcoming any Koreans who want to pay their respects, but the South Korea leaders, of course, do not want their people to be lining up w/ North Koreans, so the prime minister criticized Sung for starting the Korean war and breaking up Korea. Of course, this did not go over too well w/ the North Korean powers and one of the official radio stations went so far as to say this speech was a declaration of war. Whoopee. And talks were supposed to begin between the 2 Koreas... 8) This is another anooyance. I'm stared at =all=the=time, mainly by kids because they don't mind staring at people - And mainly it's just my face and hair that differs from everybody else and makes me stick out. Most of the time I really don;t notice the total homogeneity here - but it really =is= total and Japanese really don;t like anyone to stick out. The kids' reactions can be really funny. One day all the bus we stopped at a light in front of an elementary school and one kid caught sight of me and Anne and let out a gasp of "Oh!" and pointed at the gaijin. I usually like making faces at little kids because I think they expect me to do something odd so I oblige them. People expect me to be odd, or rude, or something, so sometimes I get tired of trying to behave Japanese when they're expecting me to do something rude or wrong, that sometimes I just do something to fulfill expectations. blah. 9) This is a truly painful subject for me - I can't believe how low the dollar has sunk. And in truth, though it makes American products cheaper overseas, it really does hurt America and produce inflation, for there are some things that you =have= to buy from Japan. There are simply no American TV or VCR manufacturers. The best way to close the trade gap, I believe, is to get American companies to manufacture products that right now we have to import. Many of these things were originally made in the U.S. anyway. But in any case, this situation shows how much of economics is not based on reality or a concrete set of rules or dynamics but really on the predictions of investors, esp. short term investors. Currency of a stable nation shouldn't be so variable. 10) Sort of true and sort of untrue - I think I'm eating food I wouldn't even try in the U.S. - but I'm a picky eater in the U.S. also - coming here is not going to change how I eat. I like the big variety of foods one has at every meal. Anyway I have finally figured out how to eat squid sashimi - you're supposed to swallow it only partially chewed and I can do that now. I really think the squid sashimi is yummy - I really don't like it when it's cooked - it tastes nasty, I think. 11) I like the educational kids shows here - all the kids shows are like 10-20 minutes long which I think is a great idea since kids generally have short attention spans. Anyway, there was a show that's a kind of science/exploration show and they explored all sorts of properties of bubbles (kind of like the adult educational show on watermelons - they've got some good educational stuff here.) 12) Teeth here can be =so= =so= bad. The Russian guy said there's a Russian saying that Japanese girls have teeth like checkerboards. It's not always that bad, but many do have a bad overbite and receding/weak chin. And many have metal crowns and caps instead of porcelain ones. The standard of good teeth and orthodontists haven't quite caught on here , but will eventually, probably. Most of the food here is soft anyhow since one has to cut w/ chopsticks. Perhaps if teeth were necessary for eating and speaking (I just figured out all the sounds in Japanese either come from the lips or the roof of the mouth - they don't have anything like "th" or "f" ([kana] hu doesn't cut it - it's only an approximation) or "v") they would care more about keeping them in good condition and intact. 13) I feel so stupid about this. On the first letter I wrote to Brian, I forgot to put his apartment number on it, so the letter got returned to me over a month after I sent it. I sent it once again to Brian (my dreamy poo...) [to the side: densya = street car] 14&15) On the Thursday of my break, I went to all of the major sightseeing places. First off, I bought a one-day densya/bus pass for 1000 yen. At the end of the day we figured that I saved about 2000 yen or so by buying that pass. First we stopped at the main post office so I could buy some nice stamps for Pat. Then we went to Tachi Machi Cape where there was a big graveyard w/ crows sitting on top of alot of the gravestones. There's alot alot of crows in Hakodate - mainly because of the seafood industry I think. The cape is at the tip of Mt. Hakodate and you can see alot the city and Aomori from there. Also, on the densya that took us part of the way there was a group of 4 adults or so w/ some kids who seemed mentally handicapped - I think they were all autistic from their behavior. One kid just kept saying "hai" and one was hyperactive and kept rocking around. One just looked like he had a bad birthmark problem and one was wearing a helmet like wrestlers wear - and his legs were all scratched up and scabby - he must keep recklessly injuring himself. All the kids were boys/ I ran into this group again the next day when I was at Seibu Department store. We took a ride on an old-fashioned densya that was all wood and leather on the inside (that was part of the one-day pass) we visited the statue of the poet on the shore next to which there is a long, low wall that has sea life stencils painted on it for about 1 km. Well, probably not that long. We visited a monkey house, which was small and crappy and in that way reminded me of the petrified "forest" I visited in California last year. We went to the Trappistine convent and I got to see the first signs of Christianity I've seen (well, I =did= go into the Catholic Church and looked around a long time ago) - this would be one of the few places one could buy Christian books and materials - there really are very very few Christians around in Japan. Most people stick to the religion of their parents unless there's some catastrophe in their lives that makes them feel their god isn't real I think. We're going to go back there to buy some cookies later and I think I'll buy stuff for my grandmothers there. Anyway, to get to the convent we had to take another bus - get this, there are =2= bus companies here in Hakodate, which has about the population of Charlotte, I think. The one I use also owns the densya -- it's called Shido bus. The other is Hakodate bus and it's not as spiffy as Shido bus. Finally, at night, we went to see the night view of Hakodate - the road up was very interesting - at each turn there was a wide view mirror so you can see things coming. They also have wideview mirrors at some intersections of alleys w/ streets so one can see cars pulling out that are obscured by the buildings right next to the alleys. Which reminds me of some of the parking lots here. At the entrance of the lot, there's a big turn table and an elevator - the car is driven into the elevator and the car is taken up into the lot, which is narrow but several stories tall. When the car is taken out, it is backed on the turn table and turned around so you don't have to back into traffic - neat, eh? So convenient - like bike lockers at stations. And for all these conveniences - infrared faucets that turn on when hands are underneath (it's in the U.S. too) and all other sorts of things, they =still= have those toilets everywhere (fine for young people, but I think they'd probably be difficult for old people to use) =and= no hand dryers (sometimes no paper towels) =and= no adhesive on many of their envelopes (there went #17). There's many other things like that, I'm sure but I can't remember them right now. I just don't get it when they go out of their way to make something super-convenient but don't do so w/ really simple stuff. Anyway, the night view was cool but terribly crowded up there and too bad there was no fireworks that night. The previous night I had walked around w/ my host ma at night and came across a family playing w/ sparklers and other fireworks - (the word for fireworks here - hanabi - means fire flowers) and heard the songs of a soba truck and an ice cream truck. 19 & 18) This was an odd occurance and I'm still not sure what this guy was taking pictures of. We were on the densya, on the way to goryokaku and this guy gets on w/ a stepladder and a big professional camera and asked the driver if he minded him taking pictures. Then he set his ladder by the entrance door, stood on it, seemingly pointed his camera at the corner right across from me. However, whenever I turned to look at him he would take 3 pictures really quickly. Needless to say, I was the only gaijin on the densya. So some Japanese photographer must have alot of pictures of me sitting on the densya. While we were getting nearer to goryokaku, I saw some high school students dressed weirdly go by - it turned out it was a high school having its matsuri, which always comes at the end of the school year, which is now. Anyway, each class evidently picked a theme, Aladdin seems popular this year, some picked A Chorus Line or Egyptians or Spaniards, etc. it seemed a little dorky. I've seen 2 other high school's matsuri parades - one of kishi [?] high school which is near the HIF building where I have class and the other is of the high school that's really near our home. Often, the guys are dressed up as women. But at the one that passed near our house, being spotted as a gaijin I got a lot of "Hello" (Heroo) and "How are you?" since evidently that's the English easiest to remember. I get high school students saying hello to me on the streets alot. 20) People here live in the back of little shops they own. There's not much else to say about this except alot of the time noone will be in the shop area of the store. We visited the mother of the Terai's son-in-law who had a little convenience shop and stayed in the house part w/ us as noone stopped by. You could go directly from the kitchen to the store. Okay a little up to date... I've got alot more I should talk about. First - Goryokaku Outdoor Spectacle is a history pageant of sorts - any Hakodate citizen can perform in it, mainly because there's scenes w/ lots of people and there's already a soundtrack and narration set so we basically have to walk where they tell us, wear what they tell us, etc. There's a few semi-pros involved and they get some dance classes to do little dances for almost everything, because there's only so much history that goes over well in a pageant. Anyway, I'm a gaijin lady of the late 1800s and my role changes each night I go there, first I'm a Russian lady, then an English lady, then Commodore Perry's date, then last night I had to do a little dance in which I keep turning in circles and get terribly dizzy. I've picked up a couple of events. Evidently, there was once a massacre of Christians and a priest was crucified and stabbed, etc. There was an Ainu massacre. There was a battle w/ Koreans or Chinese. There was a big fire and the Trappistine nuns helped the people who survived. Tanabata, the star festival is a recurring theme in the pageant. And there seems to be a strange abundance of Christians in the history. There;s also a little bit about the building of the Goryokaku fort. At the end, there's a little bit about WWII and an interpretive dance which I think has to do w/ the A-bomb, mainly because it involves glow in the dark things. We get to go out at the end and hold up lights and wave them and there's fireworks. I know it sounds really boring described from the back, but I know the effect must be really cool -- a whole bunch of people doing something in unison or just doing something. And the music is really good. The Russian guy I mentioned a couple times before plays Commodore Perry - kind of funny - a Russian portraying an American - if it happened 10 years ago it would be terribly ironic. Just a few other people from HIF signed up for it - mainly because the rehearsal was during our break and they were in Sapporo. In any case, because of this I was in a picture on the front of the paper. But it was taken from the stands so one can tell it's me only because my hair is a little lighter than everyone else's. Every night we get a free beer or juice. Another thing this week was symposium on Japanese women. It was interesting - we got to listen to a lady, 78 yrs old, owner of all the Mister Donuts here and a restaurant. She talked about her life and conducting business over the years and gave us rice candy which was the first thing she ever made and sold. But then we got to the meat about the women. The main opinion spread by the Japanese women on the panel and Dr. Plutchow was that in public men are ascendant but women have control over the home and are much stronger at home - many times they control the money and give their husbands allowances out of the men's salaries. And from what I've seen that is certainly true -- it's kind of like the way Grandma Cook is and the way Ma was when she stayed at home and raised us. The students on the panel, April and Patrick, mainly said they didn't understand why women would submit to subservient positions in public, whose only goal is to get married and raise children. The one things that kind of got us was the Japanese women's insistence that their husbands let them do what they want (play koto, etc.) =after= ther had got dinner made, wash done etc. Evidently they saw this as freedom, but everyone there (all non-Japanese there) caught that the women were being =allowed= to do something, like the way a child has to seek permission from a parent. Most likely there's a language difficulty around this, but it is =true= that wives have a certain set duty here and Patrick commented that perhaps they were happier that way, for things are much simpler if one knows exactly what one must do. But it might lead to alot of stress if there's a great contrast bet. what one wants to do and what one is expected to do. An interesting viewpoint was offered by one of us HIF students who has been working at a Japanese firm in New York - she's in charge of hiring personnel, and to begin w/ the Japanese men would ask her to do secretary-like things for them, but she eventually got them to treat her according to her position. She had considered to try practicing her Japanese at work, but she realized if she spoke in Japanese, she would have to conform to the behavior of normal Japanese women and would never be given her proper respect. On Thursday we had a little haiku class of sorts - two main rules to haiku 1) 5-7-5 syllables (it's easier to count this in Japanese for each syllable , written in romaji is usu 2 letters long, though it could be 1 letter long) 2) there must be some seasonal reference somewhere in the poem. One can have the season outright, or use a word that is associated w/ the season (there is a certain set of these words that people use over and over again - like sakura for spring, hanabi for summer for every summer festival =has= to have fireworks - they love fireworks here. Last week there was a display at the train station (eki) that went on for about an hour and I watched it from a little balcony I didn't know the Terai's had. We couldn't see any of the low ones and there were long, long pauses bet. what we could see: there were some neat ones, but I just can't get overly excited about fireworks) Anyway the seasonal reference thing =is= something that underlies almost all Japanese art -- It's been said that this is because all the seasons are equally spaced here, none more important than others, Dr. Plutschow said that, like everything else, the Japanese picked it up from the Chinese and the Taoists who liked to put everything in categories of five and link up all the categories - 5 senses to 5 tastes to 5 seasons (the 5th is the days of transition between seasons) I think it's partly because the change in seasons is well defined - there's no mush-up of seasons here (like a springlike day in winter - like we might get in NC). When we arrived, it was chilly and always raining then one day it became hot and dry - but perhaps that's just Hokkaido. In any case we got to write a few haiku and here are mine: [in kanji/kana] (mizu no ski, hanabi o matsu ya seishu suru) moon of water, waiting for the fireworks. standing still (peeza o tabe, yama no hanabi ya nemuku naru) Eating pizza, w/ fireworks on the mountain, I'm getting sleepy. It sounds kind of silly in English since I'm doing a direct translation (translating poems is one of the hardest things to do, I think, for so much depends on =how= something is said, and not just what is said. Because each language's words carry certain kinds of connotations due to cultural differences one has to only be content w/ getting obvious meaning across from direct translation or one has to change the words to get similar undertones Example: (from Douglas Hofstadter) All the President's Men -- just the title. You could do a direct translation, but no other languages have Humpty Dumpty and the connotation that someone in a high position had a fall from that position and a great effort is made to fix it but is not successful -- alot comes along w/ those 4 words -- to do a good translation one would have to find a child's well-known poem of a similar subject.) The haiku teacher is a retired biology teacher and haiku poet (some of the current well-known poets are nuclear engineers and high sdministrators or universities here) and he only lectures on haiku now. He said, in the first one, I captured the essence of the situation - a still, silent moon awaiting the bluster of the fireworks to come. The second he said was very non-Japanese (mainly because they associate fireworks w/ disturbance and brilliancy - not falling asleep - though Americans understand that it's a lazy summer day and I'm falling asleep from eating too much). An interesting thing: since the haiku is kind of really easy, and really difficult, for it's short so there isn't =too= much to work on however one must try to squeeze one's meaning into so short a space, the Japanese start learning and writing haiku from elementary school. Since they read and study alot of haiku, when they write one it's usually similar to one they've read before. It's just like there are fads in poetry and amateur poets usually try to emulae the works of the poets they like - in theme and/or form. For example, if asked to write a poem, most Americans would feel obliged to make it rhyme or at least have some sort of rhythm. Actually the more limitations one has, the easier it is to write for one has less choices - it's hard to figure out what's best if there's alot of things to compare and pick. A guy from NHK news came and taped us and so we had a little 1-minute slot (if that much) and you get to see a glance of me for a tenth of a second. I videotaped the program, but as I've probably mentioned before, their VCR doesn't tape quite right. I hope we can watch some of these when I get back - if not, well then that's too bad. I like haiku writing - I want to do it more. There's 20 more days to do and I hope I've got enough paper here for it. More and more I see class as a nuisance - my main purpose is to learn about culture here and observe Japan - but it's getting to be hard to remember to write things or notice things because I'm getting used to the way Japanese do things - that's the main danger of getting people who live in a place to observe it - there's stuff they just don't notice because they're used to it. But a person who visits for just a couple of weeks might have a better perspective because they don't have time to adjust themselves or don't adjust because they know they'll be leaving soon. We do have fun in class and sometimes it seems Suzuki sensei does some pretty random stuff. One day she got out a tape and made us do exercises w/ her (someone conjectured that it was because we kept falling asleep) and we've been watching tapes of Tokyo Love Story, a soap opera in which all the people are irritating me because of their actions. Also, I can't stand to watch people kiss when I can't be w/ Brian. blah/ 20 more days. Did I mention that a Hawaiian guy won the sumo tournament (interesting because sumo is considered so essentially Japanese they don't like non-Japanese participating.) Also I didn't go out w/ that one Japanese guy because I called twice and noone answered. I was going to take Cathy Chang w/ me, but I like having confirmed before going. Also, I actually won a Shogi game. Yeah! Yeah! I impress myself. I've gotten letters from Brad and Anne and Pat Murphy - it's nice to get letters. Also, Brian sent me a package of books (including _Catcher_in_the_Rye_ which is a very odd book.) and some sweettarts and spree (it cost about $26 just to send it.) Brian's a great guy. How I love him. Mwa, baby.