too late

This post is far too little, too late. This blog has been about my time in Japan. That time, this is a little strange for me to say, is over. At the end of July I finished my job, said goodbye to Japan, and rushed onto a plane to New York. The end was indeed a rush; I left Japan the day after my contract finished. I technically should have worked the last 2 days before my departure, but thankfully my school listened to my pleas for time off to get ready, though I had no vacation days left.
It was a strange feeling being at the airport... for the last time? I'm inclined to say no, it won't be my last time, but it certainly was the end of an era for me. I arrived plenty early because I had one last piece of business: to end and finish off my cell phone contract. Unfortunately this business led to my last Japanese language interaction IN Japan (for now at least), which was an argument with the clerks at the company booth in the airport. They explained to me that the disconnection fee was 20 dollars, reasonable, that my plan costs 40, which i know, and that my additional fees come to just under 200 dollars. I have never paid more than 40 dollars over my plan, and usually it's more like 10. I had no idea why my last bill would be for so much, so I told them there must be a mistake or something. Anyway after lots of me complaining and them not giving in I just concluded by saying that I don't have enough money to pay ( not true). So I ended up giving them 100 dollars (about what i expected to pay originally) and the person behind the counter would have to see about the remaining.

This is still the last conversation I had in Japanese. Sigh...

But after this I still had enough time to both be annoyed and think about more substantial matters. Like the last two years of my life, which, oddly enough, I spent living in Japan.

What was I doing there? Teaching English? Well yes, sort of. Really I was more of an English "presence," providing insights on the language not from the perspective of a teacher, but as a normal (though well educated I'd like to say) guy who happens to speak English as a native language. Sometimes I had a lot of responsibility. Sometimes I taught a class completely by myself, which I was legally not allowed to do. But honestly, more often than not, I didn't really have all that much responsibility. There were even weeks when I had absolutely nothing to do.

Is that what I was doing in Japan?

Getting some real experience teaching was one of the factors behind my decision to go all the way to Japan. But I could've pursued teaching at home. I could've even taught English in a number of other countries. But I chose Japan. The reasons aren't so crazy, really. Like a lot of other college bound middle class jewish kids from the burbs, I found other cultures that seem so distant from my own, interesting. Not to mention I grew up in the 80s and 90s. That means Nintendo, that means Mario, that means Vultron. And karate. Not to mention samurai and ninja, which though not specific to my generation, I thought (think) are totally awesome.

As I grew out of mario and vultron (sort of) I found Akira Kurosawa and Hiyaou Miyazaki. And like most people, their movies blew me away. Kurosawa manages to take everything that is cool and mysterious about samurai and put into an incredible movie that, even at 3 hours and without color manages to keep my 19 year old American mind totally focused.

But really I'm probably more of a Miyazaki guy. That would be redundant to say in Japan, since pretty much every movie he's made for the last 10-15 years has ended up being the highest grossing movie in Japan, breaking the record previously held by his last movie. In my opinion, movies don't really get more beautiful that Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, and Spirited Away. The animation in all three is unbelievably good, but that's only part of it. Castle in the Sky has some long shots of the floating castle, once civilized, but now only inhabited by a few giant robots who have been maintaining the flora for countless years. Sure it's got flying robot/airship action scenes like in plenty of other anime movies, but they're not the focus of the movie. At least in my mind, that movie is about people who thought themselves above the world they lived in, and what happened to them.
And can't forget Totoro. Sure he's cute and marketable, but again the backgrounds are astounding. And even though it's clearly a kids movie, Miyazaki wasn't afraid to put long shots of a snail climbing a plant stem, or of the kids eating vegetables in a garden, or other scenes that seem inconsistent with the animation that comes from the same country as pokemon.

So I took some Japanese classes in college, liked it, found out about the JET Program(me), applied, got in, went to Japan. I'm still not exactly sure what I was looking for, but I liked Japanese stuff, wanted to try teaching, and needed a job/money. And 2 years later I have experienced Japanese things, tried teaching, and have some money (though no job!). I was hoping to become better at Japanese than I actually did, but I have only myself to blame. I had no real incentive to become fluent in Japanese other than a romantic idea in my head of me blabbering on in a crazy asian language. I do still regret that I lived in a country for two years and never really learned it's language...

I'm not in Japan anymore, but here's some last crazy images.

Here's a pep rally type event. That's the principal shouting.
Me and the special kids

A few friends at a goodbye dinner.
A last shabu shabu (think japanese fondu) dinner with a bunch of ALTs (and maybe some Japanese people, too)

Here's some adorable kids. Listen closely and you can briefly hear me speak silly japanese.

Here's Amber and I at a beach near Tokyo. Not the best beach I've ever been to, but lots of cute girls in bikinis (especially Amber!)
Me and Amber singing karaoke
Little kids brushing their teeth
Some kids practicing Kendo. I actually went to Kendo practice a few times, thinking it would be cool to whack some kids with a big bamboo stick. But, like a lot of clubs, there was little to no supervision or actual practice. Some of the kids taught me the few strokes they've learned, and then there was just a lot of awkward hanging around. I then decided they didn't really need me to awkwardly hang around.
My triumphant return to PA.
My dressing up for Hume and Ali's weding.
Two good friends from high school... getting married... weird.
The real deal.

I've got plenty more pictures and videos, but this isn't the place to put all of them. If I do put them all on the web, I will post the link on this site. However, this will be my last regular post on this site. My 2006-2008 Japan adventure has ended. I did some teaching. I learned some Japanese. I visited lots of great places in Japan, China, and Thailand. I met lots of cool, interesting people. I made some money. Anything else?

Oh yah.

I met my Amber. I can't even describe what a big part of my life she's been these past 1-2 years. But maybe this will give you a clue: I just moved to Australia for her. And it's no short move. In fact, it was a 5 and half hour flight to LA, a 13-14 hour flight to New Zealand, and then a 4 hour flight to melbourne. Good thing I've perfected the Benadryl and wine with dinner sleepy diet for these long flights. Having a nintendo DS and book helps too.

So here I am in Australia. I've been debating whether or not to keep a blog for Australia, too. I've decided I will. I'm only now starting to vaguely settle in here, so don't expect much yet, but I will get it going. Any suggestions for a title? Blogspot has treated me fine but I'm thinking there must be a site with easier picture and video posting. I may even use facebook since everyone and their mother is on it now (literally).

I'm not sure who reads this (besides ma and pa, hi ma and pa!) but thank you for taking the time and listening to me talk about my day for pages and pages. Looking back some of the pictures are interesting, but little of the text is. I'll try to keep my monologues shorter and wittier in the future, but no promises I won't occasionally rant on and on.

I left Japan in July. I watched my friend from high school get married in August. Visited lots of friends and family furiously for a month. And then I moved to Australia. 2 weeks later I finished my blog about living in Japan. 遅くなってすみませんでした．

ありがとうございました。

さよなら

Aaron

1 year

My little Aussie girlfriend and I have been living in our little Japanese apartment now for one year, almost to the day. I have to admit, this has been kind of a first time for me. I've never lived with a girl before, except my sister and mother. At least living with my sister prepped me for dealing with the fact that girls can be really messy and gross, too. Good thing Amber is so small though, so she can't make that much of a mess.
I suppose the ideal start to such an arrangement would be to talk things through and make all the proper arrangements. However, we chose a different path. Last year around this time, Amber quit her job with JET, who also provided the apartment (graciously covering none of the expenses). They promptly kicked her out of the apartment, and she just as promptly moved into mine. Compared to mine, her apartment was bigger and somewhat more ideally located. But in this past year we've turned my little dasai (ugly) apartment into a cozy home. At least when it's not too messy. Which is maybe 10% of the time.

So thank you Amber for helping me survive in this funny little place.

Aren't we cute? I shaved my beard into a moustache just for her. Look how much she likes it!

A few weeks ago we had a brief holiday, referred to as "Golden Week" in Japan; it's a series of public holidays at the end of April and beginning of May. In general it's actually a terrible time to travel around Japan. TV stations love reporting on the many many many mile traffic jams going out of the cities and the 100%+ surcharges hotels put on reservations in this time period. But Japanese people pay it, because it's one of the few times of year they can actually get away from work.
Makes me feel a little bit like an old person, but this year Amber and I, with a few friends, signed up with a group based in Tokyo that sponsors outdoorsy trips for foreigners in the area. But long story short, we went camping! We went camping in a small island called "Nijima" (means "new island") for 3 days and 2 nights. I had a lot of fun biking, hiking, and lounging around. The island is famous for surfing, but I didn't get any closer to that then just watching.
In a happy coincidence, during the overnight boat ride to the island, we were seated next to a couple from America, one of whom happened to make a long commute a few times a week to work at Aeon Mall, the giant mall that is about 20 meters away from my apartment. Anyway they also turned out to be really nice and we're still friends now. yay! I think Amber really likes that the girl, who is from Louisiana, says "y'all." I told Amber it's probably not put-on, and that many people legitimately say "y'all." She got a big kick out of that.
Here are some pictures:

This last one I took while I was riding my bike. I took a bunch actually, but most turned out blurry for some reason. I probably shouldn't have done this because just the day before Amber gave her camera to someone to take a picture of us, and the person promptly dropped, and broke, the camera. We just got it fixed (replaced actually), and it cost almost as much as a new camera. Amber took it pretty well though I thought.

Well that's enough fun stuff for now.

The only "interesting" work thing I've done recently is interview students to go on a school trip to Australia this summer. I interviewed 20 kids, 8 of whom will be able to go on the trip. I had to this last year as well, and both times I found it quite difficult. Difficult in the sense that by the time it's pared down to 20 students, they're all good kids and eager students. But I'm supposed to judge them from the interview, not from how much I like them in class (I've been teaching them in class for almost 2 years now).
I went to a small staff meeting afterwards to discuss who they all think should go. They kids also had an interview with the principal, and took a written test. At the meeting they told me they would assign the most weight to the English interview, since speaking one on one with a foreigner most resembles the situation they will face in Australia. That said probably only half the students I really like based on the interview AND my knowledge of them from class (I've been teaching them for longer than some of the teachers making the decisions!). They really wanted to know why I wouldn't recommend this one girl, who scored perfectly on the test and did very well (used the right polite words) with the principal. I said she stared at me in a scary way and though her English was quite good, she sounded like an awkward robot. They told me that's how Japanese people are told to behave in interviews. Sit perfectly still, hands on lap, and never cease eye contact with the interviewer. Well anyway I find it unnerving and I bet a cute little Aussie family would too. But she got a perfect score on the written test... so guess she's going.
And a boy who is really great in class, not a perfect A student, but happy and thoughtful and cheerful and all that, was not chosen. They quickly dismissed my recommendation of him, because he did mediocre on the written test, and "failed" the interview with the principal, because he wasn't wearing a belt. When the teacher announced that he wasn't wearing a belt, everyone else nodded their heads and went "mmm sou desu ne" (ahh i see). So the 14 year old kid forgot to wear a belt. It pained me a bit to hear him so swiftly crossed off the list, since he's maybe my favorite student at the moment. Too bad he forgot his belt...

But when they're older, they can just do what I do. They can find a cute little Aussie, and follow her back to the land of a 1000 suns (or at least the equivalent harmful radiation).

Before that though, I've got some Americaning to do. I'm happy to say I'll be home in just 2 months, and I can impose myself on lots of my friends and family, just like I did last summer. I hope you're as excited as me (but that's not possible)...

See you soon!
Aaron

what's goin' on

The title of this page is dedicated both to Marvin Gaye and to what is, in fact, going on.
My last post was fairly useless in that regards I suppose, eh.
So here goes.
I work at a school in Japan. The Japanese school year ends in the end of March, and begins again in early April. There's about 2 and half weeks of no classes, but because I have no vacation days left, I couldn't really go anywhere or do anything. But I am more or less still required to be at school for at least most of my normal working hours. Last year at this time I went to Thailand for a week and a half. I can now confidently say that a week and a half in Thailand is better than a week and a half sitting through boring meetings that I don't really understand but can still feel the frustration of teachers being assigned annoying tasks.
But the changing of the year is a big deal here, even more so than in America I'd venture. Because every year in Japan, many teachers switch schools. This constant shifting is the Education Ministry's attempt to keep schools with new ideas and new faces and prevent stagnation. Maybe it does do that, but it also forces schools to do things almost the exact same way all across the country (or at least intra-prefecture) and prevent any meaningful form of organization and consistency within a school. I have now been at my school longer than about half of the other teachers, and most of the ones that have been there longer than me only beat me by about half a year. BUT I did go through this last year, and no big deal. Except for two things.
1. No more "International Class," which drove me crazy for a whole year as I was thrusted into a class as a head teacher/organizer for a course with no grades or even plan. If the kids were vaguely interested it would have been ok, but it was mandatory for them, and it turned out that keeping control of groups of 37 14 year olds was not easy.
2. I'd been teaching with a woman named Mika for over a year and a half, and she has turned into my best Japanese friend here. Not to mention by far my best if not only friend at school. She helped me out so much (socially) at work, that I always though, "what would I do without Mika?" Well, I am now living out that very scenario, as she has been transfered to a different school, along with about half the previous staff. I still see her, but like any good Japanese person she's quite busy... I miss her already.

But it's May already (sorry for the slow updates) and things are fine. I now teach an "elective" class, which boils down to the same sort of thing as the previous "international class" (don't be fooled by the term 'elective,' it's mandatory). This time my co-teacher is a happy and active 26 year old who's been teaching a few years now (my last co-teacher had never even had a full-time job before).

I'm sure this is of no interest to anyone, so let's get on to the real meaning of May for my friends and family (in regards to me). I have about 3 months of my contract left, and then will be departing for the golden shores of New York. I will then quickly shuffle around the Northeast to make it time for my high school buddy Hume's wedding in Thousand Islands Park on August 2. I'm going to get a new suit and buy a cool japanesey present for them in preparation. This will be my first non Jewish-gentile wedding, since gentile Hume is marrying gentile Ali. Oh those goy.
I do regret to say that another close friend of mine is getting married but I can not attend the service. Though I wish to see those two gentiles happily wed as well, there's just no way I can fly home a month before my contract finishes. I could just quit, but then I would throw away my free ticket home, and my last 2 precious paychecks. Only my best is with them.

While I'm not getting married just yet, I did take a big step in my life. Credit card? no. House? no. career decision? no. Cook for a group of people? yes!
Passover was about a month ago, and I decided this year I would subject some friends to the delicacy that is Jewish cuisine. Big thanks to my Mom who sent me a small Passover package, making this possible.

Look at the happy family together for a nice seder. I'll admit, it wasn't a very traditional one. I made kosher l'pesach knishes, chicken soup with chicken-matzah dumplings, tzimmes, and charoset, which is more symbolic than an actual dish. There's also a plate of matzah. The less traditional parts are the bowl of bread and the cous-cous, though Sephardic Jews might very well eat that on Passover (I didn't bring the bread or cous-cous). Amazingly, on this table is a bottle of kosher for passover wine. That's right, I found Jewish wine in Japan! And not in Tokyo, but at a big supermarket in the middle of Gunma, an hour further into the country than my place, which is kind of country. Actually my friend Cynthia found it, she's 2 pictures above. The asian-y looking one, not the whitey round eyes. Thank you Cynthia!

The last few pictures are from a next day picnic. Aren't we cool? The answer is yes. Also cool is the "spirit of america" marshmallow snack sent by my man Andy from the good ol US of A. Actually, it was pretty gross and very obvious from a dollar or snack outlet store. By I still could taste the spirit of America. Thank you Andy.

So... anything else to report?

yep!

But I won't bore everyone for too long. But here's a look at the sequel: sending kids to Australia and island camping trip!

Hooray!
I'll finish with some pictures of graduation at my jr high and a video of my elementary.

And I thought Japanese kids were supposed to be short. Dammit.

Elementary School:At least these ones are little!

Japanese kids sing this "sayonara" song at every graduation and farewell type ceremony as far as I can tell. I like this video cuz you get a good view of the special needs students who can't act like robots as well as most Japanese 12 year olds.

old people

You thought I quit, didn’t you! Well, gotcha!

I’ve entitled this post after the group that I spend quite a bit of time with here in Japan. There are a few possible reasons for this… Japan has one of the oldest populations on Earth for one, though I don’t think that quite explains my case. However, I do live in Gunma prefecture, universally seen by young people as “boring.” The one thing that keeps young people here at all is family obligation, which thankfully in Japan is strong enough to keep a fair number here. I’m fairly certain the real reason is time; old retired people have lots of time, and young working people do not. Also, many old people shed a lot of that Japanese politeness and distance that inhibited them most of their lives, apparently feeling that they did their time and now it’s ok to yell at people, cut in line, and barge in on conversations with personal questions. Younger Japanese people always complain about how annoying “ojiisans” and “obaasans” (old men, old ladies) are, though I find the whole process of learning, being, and then shedding that special kind of Japanese politeness kind of funny.
Two specific sets of old people have been a part of my life here. One group comes from an adult English class Amber and I taught at a community center nearby for about one year. The average age of the students must have been over 60, with a handful of even older, and a couple of younger students. Honestly, we probably taught at a level slightly higher than many of them, though of course it was a no pressure class with no tests or evaluations and I think they paid no more than a few dollars for each class. Some of them were totally hopeless, but came week after week anyway. There was one particular lady who I’m not sure spoke one word of English throughout the year, but maybe just got some sort of pleasure from watching me and Amber speak in our mysterious tongues at the front of class. I was always happy to have her though, since she gave us fresh vegetables from her garden nearly every week! Sometimes I was at a loss for what to do with a large shopping bag full of spinach, but it was always appreciated.

Here's me and Amber with our class at a final goodbye party. We did karaoke afterwards!

The other oldies I met at yet another community center (a pattern mayhaps?) where I went to take free Japanese classes. It turned out not to be a class in the formal sense, just an old couple who sat down and talked with me in Japanese for about 2 hours. Sometimes they would bring me worksheets or grammar patterns or short readings to go over, though mostly it was just talking. There’s always plenty I don’t quite understand from these conversations, and I try to jot down the words that totally stumped me. When I looked them up later at home, at least half of them were plants/trees/flowers/herbs/roots/etc or parks and other place names. Personally, learning vocabulary related to plants and trees isn’t my highest priority, but they of course naturally tend to talk about the subjects they’re most interested in if I don’t have anything specific to ask them. Since retiring they’ve been traveling all over the world, and sometimes we would compare our travel experiences since I’ve made a round or two through Europe myself. But like nearly every other Japanese person that travels abroad, they went in large tour groups that planned everything for them long before they stepped on the plane. I think as a result they in fact didn’t know anything about the places they visited, since they never had to look anything up themselves. This is in contrast to my style of travel, which mostly involves aimless wandering for long stretches of time, and perhaps attempting to look up some of the crazy things I saw later.
My “class” time at the center is just one on one usually (me and the old lady talking about plants or Paris) with a small handful of other students also studying 1 on 1 or 2 on 1 with different old volunteers. Recently I’ve befriended a Vietnamese girl who has a Japanese husband, and came to Japan about a year ago. extremely crappy, which limits our conversations quite a bit. But regardless Amber and I have gone to her apartment for dinner, and went to a park for some bbq just last week. So at least all my old people contact has lead to meeting some young people too.
I’ll make another post to let you know more specifically what’s going on. Not so much because it’s interesting, but because it’s probably best I don’t forget about how weird it is living and working in little Japan. But I will leave with a kind of picture that every person in Japan has been taking these last 2 weeks... cherry blossom. yay!

This is the time of year to watch Japanese people take out their super expensive cameras with tripods ands fancy lenses, and stand around trying to get the perfect flower picture. Although lots of people also just seem happy to use their cellphone camera.

too damn cold

I wonder how many times I've complained about the cold since being in Japan. Not that it's so much colder here, just that none of the damn buildings I'm ever in are really heated. At least not very well. The only one that's comfortable is the staff room at work. It's almost enough to make me want to stay later at work. ... Almost.
Otherwise I've just been keeping myself busy. Sort of. A few weekends ago I went skiing for the first time in perhaps 2 years, or maybe even 3 (don't quite remember). I was never good to start out with, and the long gap certainly didn't help to improve my performance. But I've been doing it intermittently since I was a little kid, so I'm comfortable enough to at least not be embarrassingly ridiculous. I probably wouldn't have gone skiing on my own in Japan, but some teachers offered to take me on their outing, and that it wouldn't cost me a penny. They were going to check a ski slope out and figure out the rules for a ski trip they plan on taking all the kids on next year. And I guess as a gesture of good will the ski slope gave the teachers that came up a free day pass with rentals. And they in turn were kind enough to invite me, though obviously I could be of absolutely no assistance when it came time for the business.
The previous day I actually went ice skating, making for a very winter sportsy weekend. It was almost like being back in Jamestown New York, where the only options for activities in winter were ones that involved ice and snow. I'm afraid that kind of thinking is too much for my Aussie girlfriend though. I may whine about the winter and the annoying lack of insulation, but I think she's suffering even more (though the new york times says that bodies never really acclimate to the cold). I get my own though when summer comes around, and it's about 100 degrees F with 100% humidity. All I can think about in that weather is if I'm going to die or not, while Amber seems only slightly uncomfortable. She says Melbourne isn't that hot, but our friend visited there over the winter holidays and said New Years Day went past 40 degrees Celsius (significantly over 100 degrees F). Ridiculous.
In other whiney news, my car's "shaken" (sort of literally translates as car-test) is past due, and I'm about to dish out a LOT of money to get it done. It generally costs around 1000 dollars and must be done every 2-4 years depending on the car (newer cars can wait longer, older cars can't). The older a car gets the more expensive the "shaken" and the more frequently it must be performed. This is ostensibly to keep cars safe and clean and all that, though I'm sure it's no coincidence that it also fuels the car industry here, as most people find buying new cars (which come with 3-4 years shaken) more desirable than maintaining 5 year old ones. Driving around, I feel that my car is the only one on the road made before the year 2000, and that probably is the case a lot of the time. I don't think in this world any kind of car can be maintained as easily and as affordably as a Japanese one. But the Japanese junk cars after 5-6 years to get a new one. Meanwhile desert militias prop machine guns on the same Toyota pick ups they've been using for 30 years. A funny world, this one.

So some of you may be wondering what I'm actually doing these days. Well I still go to work 5 days a week. Sometimes I go to elementary school (which is adorable, yet tiring). Usually I go to junior high school (on and off stressful/easy/boring though usually somewhere in between). I take a Japanese class once a week from an old retired couple. I take notes during class (well "class" is just me and the old lady usually) and look up the words I didn't get later. They usually are weird Japanese words for parts of seasons or kinds of flowers or ways in which to enjoy trees. Sometimes I wonder if this "class" is the equivalent of a Japanese person trying to learn English by visiting a committee meeting of old women discussing the theme of the next local flower show in forty fort, PA. Except Asians love flowers so much, maybe they wouldn't find it as weird as I do. For instance, just TRY and buy flowers from someone that's not Korean in New York. You'd be putting yourself out. I've also been asked what my favorite flower is a bunch of times, which I can't imagine a typical American or Aussie asking a foreign visitor to their country.
One day a week I teach an adult English class to a small group of pharmaceutical researchers. Their company (Kirin, more famous for their beer than their pharmaceutical division) sends them all over the world, so they force their poor nerdy scientists to study English. I told them once that Japanese people always ask me the same questions, at least upon first talking to me. "Where are you from" (reasonable) "do you like Japanese food" and "can you use chopsticks." If they ask more questions chances are they are about food. Or possibly weather. But almost definitely one of those. The students asked me for the equivalent in foreign countries (they naturally assume that I either represent all of them, or at least that America can't be too different from them). The answer is of course there really isn't one. Places like America or Australia, or even Great Britain, are so full of foreigners that talking to them isn't really an experience. And Americans at least, don't really care. One of my friends in high school was a German exchange student, and she sat at my group of friends lunch table nearly every day for a year. But we basically never asked her about how things were in Germany, or to compare things, or ask her opinion on matters as a "foreigner" or a German. The fact that she was from somewhere else barely came up except when she said "wegetables" instead of "vegetables" and when she said the way we pronounced German car names was stupid ('fulkz fagon' or something...). Of course at 17 we weren't thinking of the rest of the world that much, but I think the same would mostly hold true into adulthood.
Japanese people (many anyway) are really genuinely interested in knowing about what I think about Japanese (_anything_) and how things are in America. In my last trip to elementary schools, a group of kids kept asking me these kinds of questions, though the teacher was probably egging them on. One of them showed me their "kokugo" class book, which is their Japanese language/culture class. It was basically a book telling kids how different Japanese people were to everyone else, and more specifically about Japan vs. the West (and more specifically, America). It seemed to occasionally mention China as well. It was funny to actually see real education materials like this, which helped explain in my mind the type of questions I'm always asked. They're basically taught at school that while all the people of the world are human, Japanese people are as different as can be while still being human. Growing up with this kind of foundation leads to some pretty funny ideas I think. At the same time a lot of people have both a superiority and inferiority complex over foreigners (by foreigner I mean "westerner." the rest of the world is more along the lines of "out of sight, out of mind."). They are almost always seen as cooler, more relaxed, better at languages, better looking, and being freer. But they are also irresponsible, not quite trustworthy, too loud, always late, and way too confrontational. Specific thoughts and ideas vary wildly from person to person, but pretty uniform is the very specific separation of "us" and "them." And it does pain me some to say that a lot of humans don't even fit in the "them" category to a lot of Japanese. They pay me a good salary to do not much at all, but Brazilian and Peruvian immigrants are relegated to shitty towns (like the ones near me) and equally shitty jobs. My school has a small handful of (half?)Brazilian kids, whom all speak perfectly fine Japanese. Most of them I never see being even a little bit social, and the one I do see making real efforts to be friendly is met with mixed responses. There are also 2 Filipino girls, who speak slightly less, but still OK, Japanese. They are further relegated to the "special needs" class, where their only contact is each other and their one autistic classmate. So on top of a stunted social education, they aren't actually taught anything academic at school because of their class placement.
But everyone tells me how cool I am when I get a haircut, wear a new sweater, or how good I am at Japanese when I get a whole sentence out. Still demeaning in its own way sort of, but not such a bad way to be handled if it has to be as an outsider. I doubt any homeroom teachers are praising the Brazilian kids for passing Japanese tests or encouraging discussion about the unique paths of life their families may have taken. Some days I can't imagine being in a harder social position than those kids...

...And moving on... I teach another class once a week with Amber. Mostly old men and women who want to get better at English for their international trips taken during retirement. Most of them are pretty hopeless though, and only go on organized guided tours in Japanese, and probably won't even use the English they learn. They are cute though, and very friendly. And one woman gives me and Amber (actually, just me, hahaha) vegetables that she grows herself. I'm afraid winter has put a hold to that for now though.

On the weekends... often I just hang out with Amber. My best non-amber friends are two Americans: Shane from Oklahoma, Erin from upstate new york, and a Quebecoise named Cynthia. With some regularity I also meet up with other friends, Ross from London, Matty from Scotland, Poni from New Zealand, and a few others. I may see them a few weekends in a row, or maybe not for a month. Just depends.
Amber I live with and see everyday. In the morning I get up 20-30 minutes before she does, and I even reset the alarm for her so she can those few extra minutes of sleep. One day I will mess up though, and she'll blame me.
She gets home 1-2 hours later than me usually, and is very tired from working with little monkey-children. She's currently reading a book about hikikomori, the Japanese syndrome for men who shut themselves away for months to years at a time. She finds the book, by some white guy, to be really interesting and full of lots of interesting explanations for a unique and disturbing problem. But in the end I guess we both think it a perhaps impossible concept for non-Japanese people to fully comprehend.
She's much better at Japanese than I am, and also gets much less frustrated with Japan than I do. Those two probably are connected, but I think the longer she stays with me the worse she gets at this silly language. On the plus side, I'm learning lots of lots of funny Aussie words.
I have almost no vacation days left until the end of my contract in July. I'm probably going to finish that contract out in order to hoard enough money for my next step in life. Then I'm going back home (wherever that is). While home I'll be spending much needed time with friends and family, while still thinking about what I want in my future. In the meantime, I'll be preparing for my next journey, which you can probably guess.
Amber came with me to America last year, and it's time for me to hold up my end. I'll probably enter Australia on what’s called a "working holiday" visa, which is a fairly open-ended visa good for between 6mos and a year. I'm itching to go back to school, and my time in Australia may actually provide a good opportunity to start that. But first I have to figure out WHAT I WANT TO DO, huh. If I can figure that out a little bit more in Australia, I'll try to get started. If I don't, then it’s back to America, and back to the drawing board.

I realize this is a rambling post, but it's good to just let my fingers fly a little. I'd like to give my thanks to the parental units for sending a much-needed package of marshmallows and hot chocolate, and to Andy for consistently sending the weirdest boxes of stuff.

Until next time,

Aaron

how many weeks does it take to post pictures aaron?

Too many, I know. But sometimes I try and pretend I have a life, ya know? Anyway, let me continue. I left off in Xi'an right? After 3 nights there we took a morning train to Lanzhou, a city out West that ended up being about a 6 hour train ride away. It was somehow surreal, comfortable, and annoying all at once. surreal because the landscape was made up of almost completely arid mountains dotted with little caves, some of which were obviously inhabited. I guess this was the central/western Chinese version of crappy train track towns. Comfortable because I splashed out on the 1st class sleeper train, for the 1st class price of about 30 dollars. the cattle car class is only a few dollars, but it really did look like a cattle car. But the ride was annoying because our train car was filled with old Japanese tourists who were with a fairly large group. Generally Japanese people are too polite and quiet to be that annoying, but something about being out of Japan must have made these people feel like no manners at all were necessary; they were loud and pushy and unwilling to stop taking pictures for 2 seconds to let us through with our big bags or when we had to go to the bathroom. A bit mind-blowing as surely these people would have spent most of their lives trying as hard as possible NOT to be in peoples way.
After hours going through fierce looking desert landscapes, we heard over the loudspeaker that we were approaching Lanzhou, a city of about 3 million people. But out the window was still nothing but desert mountains. Then we went through a mountain, and came out into some factories, and then a minute later into a bustling city center with a fairly modern looking train station. It was pretty unbelievable how sudden the transformation took place. Unfortunately Sigma missed her flight to Lanzhou, so we had a bit of the day to kill before she would arrive on the next flight, so we went to find our hotel. Even though it was twice the price as the backpackers' we stayed at before, it was about half as good. So note to china travelers on a budget: all the private rooms at the youth hostels I stayed at were quite nice, and the one "nice" hotel I booked a room in was smelly and moldy.
Anyway, we were in Lanzhou to celebrate New Years, and celebrate we did! After eating dinner with some of Sigma's peace-corp volunteer friends (whom we didn't know, but were ridiculously friendly) we went to a club that looked like it was in the middle of Times Square. It was still doing my head in that 5 minutes outside the city was nothing but desert and mountain huts, but here I was surrounded by cars, neon, lights, fashion, and all those other city things. Weird.
Below is stuff from Amber's camera, which I just stole off of her:

Here's us with some clappers at a Tibetan Bar.

Amber took this vid from the train between Xi'an and Lanzhou. It was like this pretty much the whole 6 hours.
This is Amber asleep on Sigma's couch (way back in Taiyuan.) I couldn't resist though, because Amber hates cats so much but there we are sleeping like a happy family. Sigma obviously enjoyed it too and happily took our photo.Here's an example of some Chinese Muslim food vendors that gave me so many yummy things. I rarely had any idea what I was eating, and I was constantly anticipating terrible gastrointestinal problems, but I was and still am fine. Incredible.

The last two photos are me showing off a fake Vivienne Westwood Jacket I bought. Real Vivienne Westwood Jackets apparently go for well over a thousand dollars, but I fetched this baby for about 13 bucks. Amber thought it was just the right amount of gay, though sometimes I look at these photos and think maybe it is a bit much. But I really liked it after a food vendor we were buying from pointed at my jacket and starting singing "Beat It" by Michael Jackson. I now refer to it as my Michael Jackson jacket.
This is me and Sigma and a big ant! This is at a bird "sanctuary" in Taiyuan. I think I talked earlier about how gross it was though... But Sigma looks so happy on the ant, and that's all that matters.
Here's a picture of a dead weasel or some such animal from that sanctuary that Amber took. Must've been there a while.

Amber has more pictures on Facebook if you're so inclined and happen to use that website too.

Our last two nights were in Beijing, but were mostly unremarkable. Amber succumbed to some horrible but brief feverish haze the day before we left unfortunately. I took care of her for a bit, but while she was sleeping I snuck off to go stand in line to see Mao's corpse in the middle of Tienanmen Square. It took quite a while, but eventually I got to shuffle pass the enormously (in)famous man, who didn't look particularly real. Though I guess who could after being dead for about 30 years? I was gipped of my chance to see Lenin when I was in Moscow because of body renovation, but at least I got Mao in. Next is to Vietnam to gander at Ho Chi Minh! I wonder why Communists like preserving their dead heroes. Has anyone else in recent history kept preserved dead people out for extended periods of time in order to be honored?
After Amber recovered from her disease, we did what all Westerners must do in China; shop. We both planned on picking up a bunch of stuff before heading back to expensive Japan, but in the end only Amber ended up with stuff. I certainly had plenty of opportunities, but I just wasn't interested in the kind of fashion stuff they had for guys. Similar to Japan, the guys tend to pick either a more gangsterish bent, or a very metrosexual bent. While China isn't nearly as all-out as Japan, it had the same basic feeling. And besides my hot new Michael Jackson jacket, it's not quite my thing. But for girls, also similar to the Japanese, Chinese girls want to look super cute. Thankfully Amber also wants to look super cute, and does so in cute asian clothes. Lucky Aussie!

Of course nearly a month has gone by since my return, and I've been up to a few things. I'll write about those shortly, and this time I mean it. Just putting up pictures takes time, so I get lazy. I don't mind writing at all!

Take care everyone and sorry again for taking so long...
Aaron

Oim back!

My friends Ben and Alex are pretty good spitters. They are phlegmy people and aren't afraid to let people know. But they have nothing on the Chinese. On one of our first days me and Amber were standing behind a twenty-something year old fashionable Chinese woman on an escalator, and watched as she leaned a little to the side, covered one nostril, and blasted snot out the other one right onto the escalator. This was merely the first of many many "snot rockets" (American English; "bushman blow" in aussie English) we witnessed in our 2 weeks in China. Even more common was the spitting. These weren't just little "ptoos" but real mucus digging loogie hockers, complete with sounds like a cat throwing up a hairball.
According to my guidebook it used to be even worse. Apparently China's gradual opening to the West has prompted some "civilizing" campaigns from the government in order to stop grossing out polite little Westerners. This took some adjusting coming from just nearby Japan, where even blowing one's nose into a tissue is considered a bit of a no-no (I've definitely done it more times in my year and half at school than all my other 36 coworkers combined).
By the end though, I was starting to understand the phlegm launching. Chinese cities are pretty gross in a lot of ways, and the air is particularly bad in some places. Some expats in Lanzhou (a city to the West) told us that they check the pollution count from some weather service website, which counts the amount of carcinogens floating around in the air. 100 is the maximum for decent living according to the World Health Organization, and the count goes up to 500. The expats in Lanzhou said that often the count in Lanzhou was listed as "500," which in fact means off the charts. Crazy.
Me and Amber went to so some pretty bad cities pollution wise, but were spared the worst I think. Beijing was definitely smoggy and gray, but except the first night (the air was thick) the days probably weren't too much worse than say a bad day in New York. Taiyuan, are next stop, was a bit worse when we got there. But on our second day there, a strong and bitterly freezing wind pushed the pollution away and left mostly blue skies. Our third stop was Xi'an, where I didn't notice any particularly bad smog, though I wouldn't call it fresh air either. Lanzhou, our last stop, has a reputation for being one of the most, if not the most, polluted cities in the world. The days me and Amber stayed were actually quite nice though. The people we met there described that as a bit of an anomaly, and said we were lucky we weren't there during the days when you can barely see 100 feet away. Gross.
My dad says that somewhere there are pictures his father took of China in the 1940s. The whole world is of course a very different place since then, but I think China in particular has turned into an entirely different animal. Probably almost nothing I took a picture of existed back then, or at least not in the way it does now...

Here's 4 shots of Beijing from our first full day. It was actually a fairly stressful one, though really it was our fault. When I went to Thailand last year I knew I had to keep an eye out for charmers and scammers, and for the most part I successfully avoided problems. But for some reason I wasn't in the same mindset for this trip. Maybe I thought Chinese people were working too hard to scam tourists? That's probably true for most people but of course there are plenty of others working hard TO scam tourists. Anyway me and Amber figured that out the hard way when some Chinese "students" recommended a tea-house/restaurant after we chatted and walked around with them for about an hour. After a nice meal in a small private room we were given a totally insane bill. We paid about 1/5 of it in the end, but it was still totally ridiculous the money we dished out. I still look back and get really angry at myself for not just giving them what I think the meal was worth and walking/running away. But I guess I've been in Japan too long and these sort of defensive measures in my head have been totally turned off. But I guess a lot worse things could have happened, and it was the only real snag of trouble me and Amber encountered.
In the first picture you can see Mao's beautiful famous picture just north of Tienanmen Square. I believe it's been replaced more than once due to (organized) vandalism, and I'm sure the government has more copies waiting to go up when someone else throws something at his now very symbolic head. The second picture is one of many sino-communist themed statues throughout the country. I do think that Russia had more of these types of art works around than China though, even though it's not even Communist anymore. I wonder why? Communist or not, I guess it still boils down to money...
The third picture is of a "hutong," a popular word to use when talking about Beijing these days. A hutong is a small alleyway that used to define life in Chinese cities, but are slowly being demolished to make way for housing developments and various other construction projects. I've read very little about the matter and spent only a few days in Beijing, but the only pleasant hutongs that I saw were preserved because of their proximity to cultural relics or to look pretty for rich Chinese people/foreign tourists. The "real" hutongs that I saw were hidden behind walls and would be refered to in the West as "ghettos." I wonder if the hutongs people nostalgically recall exist anymore? Not that concrete high-rises are so nice either. Most American cities could warn China that putting large numbers of poor people from patchwork alley-ways into low budget high rises doesn't really solve a lot of problems. Maybe China is getting around that problem by not "putting" those people anywhere, except away from the construction site. I don't think they care who moves into these high-rises, as long as they pay the rent. But I guess we'll see if China makes the same mistake American cities did in the 60s and 70s. Maybe they'll make an entirely different set of mistakes. Or maybe they'll create paradise. Though Beijing didn't exude the atmosphere of the latter option...


These pictures are from a park near the center of Beijing. Pretty nice! Too bad it's the dead of winter and everything is gray and cold...






These pictures are from the "Forbidden City" just north of Tienanmen Square. It was really really impressive. It's a square kilometer or two of preserved Qin dynasty courtyards and palace grounds. It's Chinese-style preserved though, which means chipped paint, uneven bricks and hilarious English. But somehow it actually adds to the atmosphere of walking around real old Imperial grounds. Definitely the most worthwhile tourist attraction in Beijing. If you can spend one day in Beijing, see the Forbidden City, not get ripped off, then that's a good day.

The next day was to the Great Wall!




I don't think I really need to introduce the Great Wall... It's incredibly impressive, though the many vendors at the bottom are pretty irritating. It was not a very clear day, which was unfortunate, but it definitely could've been worse. Making this day more impressive, we met a Russian couple on the way, who really showed us how to bargain. After the public bus trip, we needed to hire a private van to take us the couple dozen kilometers. The original offer they gave us was 100 yuan (15 dollars) or so per person (there were 4 of us). The Russian guy demanded 70 total for all of us. After a few minutes of somewhat harsh bargaining, we settled on 100 for all of us. I was ready to agree when they seemed stuck on 105, but the Russian guy wouldn't cave. He refused to go above 100, and he won. And after the price-fight, the guy said ok ok get in the car, but the Russian guy said NO, first I smoke, then we go. And we waited for him to leisurely smoke a cigarette. Pretty classic. Even though he was an engineer in Korea, and so probably had a good salary, he was ready to bargain to death for the equivalent of about 80 cents (between 4 people). I swear it must be something in their blood.

That night we took an overnight train to Taiyuan, a city a few hours southwest of Beijing. My good buddy Sigma lives there, and we aimed to be there a day earlier than we actually arrived, but trains leave infrequently in China and sell out quickly. The train ride was actually pretty fun though. Me and Amber shared a sleeper compartment with a really cute old Chinese couple that were even shorter than us. The woman took her husband's clothes and carefully folded and hung them, and they had their little thermos' of tea. Amber used a dictionary to write our names and where we're from, but besides that we were totally unable to communicate. We arrived about 7am and met with Sigma and promptly enjoyed an early morning breakfast at McDonalds.

Here's Sigma and Amber on the streets of Taiyuan. Amber sure is enjoying the candy coated fruit sticks that are all over Chinese streets. They are pretty yummy. We did some shopping and eating, and more eating that day we came with Sigma, and made plans for the next day. But the next day was so cold it was basically impossible to do anything. On the plus side the freezing wind blew the pollution away! We went to a nice park in the morning and to a bird "sanctuary" within the park. It was probably the most disgusting treatment of animals I'd seen in an official place before, but I'm told that is the standard for Chinese zoos and similar establishments. The most disgusting part was a bird cage filled with maybe 10 dead, and one live and going crazy sparrow. Sigma felt sorry for the bird and wanted to free it, so started untying the wires keeping the cage closed. I noticed the cage was made out of thin wood, so I just snapped some of the bars off, and the birdie flew away. I then doused my hands in antibacterial alcohol gel. Definitely a necessity in China.
We wanted to play bumper cars and see a few other things, but it was one of the coldest days I'd felt in a long time, so instead we just hung around watching movies and playing with Sigma's cat, which I like to call "bitey."
Here's the litttttle tiny plan me and Amber flew from Taiyuan to Xi'an. At least the company was a name we all trust: Grand China Express. At first I regretted buying these tickets instead of the (14 hour) train ride, but in the end the flight, service, and punctuality were all perfectly fine.
For most foreigners, this is what Xi'an is really famous for: the Terracota warriors. It's about an hour bus ride outside of town, though the large majority of people (chinese and foreigner) seem to come in tour groups. Round trip tour groups with a guide and lunch are quite cheap (30 dollars maybe?) but me and amber elected to take the public bus there, which is about 1 dollar each way. I feel frustrated thinking about how that hour plus bus ride was ONE dollar, and I have to pay about 5 dollars in Japan to take a bus to Takasaki train station, 8-9 kilometers away. A normal city bus is about 1 yuan, or 18 cents per trip. A taxi across a city is between 1-5 dollars, and even to a far off airport is usually less than 15. In contrast, taxis in Japan are ludicrously expensive. It costs over 30 dollars to go those 8-9km to Takasaki station from my house, and in Tokyo thats about how much a relativly short trip can cost as well. Actually even New York taxis are a bargain by Tokyo standards... Sigh...
Anyway, the Terracota warriors are beauitful. The emperor really felt he needed thousands of bronze statue warriors to protect him in the afterlife, and dozens of bronze horse drawn carriages , each equipped with hundreds of bronze arrows and weapons.




More pictures of the warriors and of a crazy painting I liked. My favorite is the one of Amber behind the headless warrior. Cutest warrior ever. Supposedly the warriors are actual sized, so I guess Amber is about the size of a Chinese warrior from 2000 years ago. Aw, 5 foot tall soldiers...

At this point I started taking less pictures, because Amber was going crazy with the photos, so I felt she had it covered. So I'll update the last part of our trip when I steal pictures from Amber. I've already spent too much of a day doing this. So you'll have to wait until the riveting conclusion!


Until next time...