Lost in Japan – Durkin’s Year Abroad

Some say that Kadoma is a city of crime. (If you didn’t click on that link, please do so immediately. Please watch the wonderful dancing sequence). Anyway, it’s actually Hirakata (the city that my school is located in) not Kadoma (the city that I live in) that is the city of crime. There is a ton of bicycle theft and blah blah blah. All of that pales in comparison to the problem that I found myself in this evening on my commute home…

As I exited the train station and made my way toward the bike garage located across the river I noticed that the cops from the nearby station were positioned in strategic locations on both sides of the bridge telling people to turn their bike lights on (it’s illegal to ride without a light on). As I reached into my pocket to retreive my bicycle key, I noticed that I had forgotten my bicycle light. I stopped to consider my options for a moment: I could either leave my bicycle in the garage for the evening and walk home (not an option) or walk the bike past the police and please foreigner-ness, hoping that I wouldn’t receive too stern a talkin’ too about my disobediance. I quickly settled on the latter of these options and began to make my way past the police.

As I began to read the corner I heard the police office call out to me (it was in Japanese, of course, but I’ll translate it for you as follows):

Policeman: Please turn on your bicycle-light (he pointed to the attached light on the front of my bicycle which is broken)

Me: Ah, excuse me but it’s broken.

Policeman: Bo-ro-ken? (in Japanese-style pronunciation of English)

Me: Yes, broken. I usually attach a light here (I pointed to the handelbars) and use it, but I regretfully forgot it today…

Policeman: Ah, your Japanese is very good!

Me: Oh, no no, not really. 

Policeman: Well, just be careful, ok? What’s ‘be careful’ in English again? 

Me: Be careful. 

Policeman: Hmm? Sorry? I didn’t understand. One more time please?

Me: Be careful.

Policeman: Ah, I see! “Be careful!”

And then I left him on the street corner and walked away with the bicycle. Coincidentally, I hopped on my bike one street over and rode it home. I guess my point is, if this happened in America I might be beaten, bloodied, and in prison right now because I think I reached into my pocket at least once during the conversation. But who’s comparing, anyway?

Happy April 1st.

‘Chomp’

I cringe as I feel myself bite down on the bone of a fish. It’s not that it tastes particularly bad– in fact, it has little taste at all and if it weren’t for the strange, tacky feel of it between ones teeth I might not mind it so much. Raising my hand to my mouth I pull the long strand of bone out and put it into the dish sitting in front of me. It’s filled with bones, large and small, from the pot of nabe I’ve been eating.

It’s been one of the biggest culture shocks to me since my arrival. Eating every part of the fish, regardless of how good it tastes, how many bones it has, or what fears one might possess about eating fish eyes, fish tails, or fish gallbladder. When one eats tiny fish as we often do it is impossible to de-bone them. Such fish must be eating in three or four bites, taking care to chew completely.

My host mother, sitting beside me, says gleefully: “It’s hard to eat because of the bones, isn’t it!”. I cringe a little bit, knowing full well that that is not why it is hard to eat. Rather, it is hard to eat because these bones have been splintered. Because, even after eating fish everyday of your life for 75 years, you still have no idea how to cut a fish in such a manner as to remove the majority of the bones. Rather, you suffice to take a delicious pot of nabe, with delectable onion, konyaku and other assorted substances, and insert into it the most hellish mix of sharp, protruding components I have yet to find during my time here…

Ah, yes, indeed… the way of eating that nabe was difficult. And it was so difficult that any sense of joy or taste was lost in the hour of trifling with the bones that it required.

Tomorrow is, apparently, the most important day of my life in Japan. Or so my hostmother would consider it. Since September I’ve been practicing the lovely art of 茶道 (sado) or tea ceremony. Every monday from 7 – 9 we practice and, for the past month, usually 3 – 4 additional times per week. One might be able to accrue from my tone that I am at once both pleased to have the opportunity to study such a cultural art and simultaneously very tired of the consistency with which I practice.

But that’s all another matter. The simple truth is that tomorrow is the most important day of my life in terms of the tea ceremony. Tomorrow at the KKR Hotel in Osaka we will hold our お茶会 (ochakai) tea gathering from the hours of 10 AM to 3 PM. The ceremonies last for roughly 30 minutes and consist of viewing a haiku written by my host mother, eating delicious tea ceremony sweets, and then being served tea by the hosts. In our family there are three tea-servers– a delightful middle-aged woman, Nakahashi (sensei), a younger woman, Chikai (san), and myself. If you do the math there are ten one-half hour blocks in the aforementioned period, and as Nakahashi-sensei has been here the longest it falls on Chikai-san and I to do the bulk of the ceremonies… Probably 4 times each, or possible 3 for her and 5 for me since, accordingly, my white skin is a rare scarcity.

I didn’t mention that I get to wear traditional Japanese hakama, did I. Well, I do. Today is meant for the preparation of tomorrow and we are going to and fro the hotel in all manner of crazyness, with my host mother in her typical ‘forgetful’ mode. Pleasure of pleasures.

As a funny anecdote, I was conversing with my host mother the other day about tooth-care and why she doesn’t use toothpaste (this was the day after she had a gigantic piece of nori (seaweed) plastered across the entirety of her upper teeth from dinner until, presumably, she swallowed it while she slept (gross)). I was able to gain the valuable ‘rule of three’ that has been taught to her by her dentist which, if she follows, will allow her to neglect the use of toothpaste. The rule speaks such: “If thoust doth brushith thine teeth 3th times for 3th minutes every day, then thine teeth shall be katai (hard) and strong.” Ok, ok, I made up the phrasing on that, but you get the picture. I didn’t take the time to point out that in a similar manner, your teeth would be increasingly yellow from the tea you drink, chip from a lack of the fluoride strengthening measures found in modern dental care, and likely smell rather horrendous (all of these have occurred frequently).

As I wish to close this cultural lesson now I should note that 1) not all Japanese people are like this and that 2) I am not simply trying to be mean to my host mother, rather I find it to be incredibly funny. I am sure, in fact, that many of my customs and traditions are incredibly strange to her and she does, at length, laugh at me frequently for being so damn strange. This is my recompense, and if you didn’t enjoy the story then that’s just too damn bad. Let’s go do that tea ceremony, cause it is, in spite of my tone, quick enjoyable and relaxing.

皆さん、頑張ろう! (let’s do our best)

Lately I’ve been listening to Angela Aki. I picked her up somewhere over the winter break due to her rather horrendously popular song ‘Tegami,’ or ‘Letter’ in English.  Her new album was released in Japan on the 25th of February and her song ‘Black Glasses’ is just one of those songs that sticks in my head (like a lot of popular Japanese music, actually).

Here’s the youtube video of the song. Give it a listen.

In other news I have decided to take the Japanese language proficiency test this December at the level two standard. For those of you have aren’t familiar with the JLPT there are four levels that rank somewhere like this:

Level 4 (Lowest)   necessary vocabulary: 800 words         necessary kanji: 100

Level 3                      necessary vocabulary: 1500 words       necessary kanji: 300

Level 2                      necessary vocabulary: 6000 words      necessary kanji: 1000

Level 1 (highest)   necessary vocabulary: 10000 words   necessary kanji: 2000

See that gap between level 2 and 3? I am somewhere in between, more oriented toward 3 right now. Basically if I want to take level two I need to study insane amounts between now and then. It seems I need the goal to achieve this. 

Enjoy the video and look forward to more small updates.

Hey faithful readers. The site gets a bit of a makeover and redesign. If you hadn’t noticed recently it hasn’t worked and it’s for a good reason. The computer that was hosting my  blog sort of died and, at the moment, is unfixable as I am still in Japan.

It took me a bit to figure out just what I could do to remedy the problem, and as of now it seems impossible to get the content from the old blog. It’s still out there though, so when I get a chance to go home I will pick through the remains and get the experience back. For now, I will be blogging here! 

I’ll start updating again from tomorrow and this time keep a regular schedule of one entry per week posted on Sunday night!

JMD in Japan is actually located here!

http://www.jonmichaeldurkin.com

WordPress is just silly, and won’t let me forward you directly.