Guilty Pleasures....

First of all:  Merry Christmas! 

I started this blog post about ten days ago.  Things got a bit busy and so it goes that I'm finishing typing this up in Canada...after I had started working on this in Japan.

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Sometime during the past year a friend sent out an e-mail to all those he usually spams suggesting people send in the titles of songs which they'd call guilty pleasures.  Now my friend's tastes in music can be summed up along the lines of eclectic and widely varied.  He does have an ear for music and he can play an instrument competently.  So what he listens to has to meet a reasonably high personal standard.  He sent out one e-mail afterwards with a link to his guilty pleasure.  I took one look and, as I smiled to myself, thought "Oh...that was a bit predictable".  In short, it was a piece by a semi-obscure musician who could be summed up in one word: brilliant.  My follow-up thought was "Where's the fun in that?".

The fun in the situation from my friend's perspective probably lay in an expected reaction of "Oh, you still listen to him?".  Over indulging can certainly equate to guilty pleasure.  But my initial reaction had more to do with my personal feeling that a guilty pleasure should also arouse a sense of public embarrassment for the one holding it.  For me, that's the element of fun in having a guilty pleasure.


I was going to ramble on further but I'm going to cut this short by mentioning that my latest (yes, there are plenty of others) musical guilty pleasures come from the field of Kpop girl idol groups.  Not the statuesque and stunningly pretty variety though.  No.  I've gotten hooked on a couple of units (lets face it: no matter what the country, idol pop stars are more product than just talent) who I'd label as "quirky" or "odd".  The "odd" label applies to a quality which I've noticed: they remind me of mid-80s to mid-90s Japanese idols...which of course serves as a signpost in the direction of my past musical guilty pleasures.... 

No.... I Haven't Vanished...

It's been a while....  November seemed like a particularly busy month.  The first 10 days were dominated by work and my preparations to give a speech, in Japanese, on my experiences in Japan regarding the topic of human rights.  The next week after that was spent fighting a cold which I had picked up from a co-worker.  The last part of the month was highlighted by a life event which got me re-acquainted with Japanese emergency wards.  The highlight at the end of the month was a rock concert I attended in Saitama city.  Squeezed in between all that was the excitement of the Montedio Yamagata's push to make it into the J1 promotion playoff (they finished in 6th place and in December they upset the 3rd and 4th place teams in the playoff to win promotion to J1).  "Monte" is an association football, re: soccer, club which more or less is the only professional sports team of note in Yamagata prefecture.  I attended their last home match of the season.  I got to the stadium a little later than intended and in the hurry to get into the stadium after parking my car I forgot to turn off my headlights.  So I had to deal with a dead car battery after the match.  Luckily the nearest gas station/service station wasn't too far away from the parking lot and so I was able to obtain a jump start and make my way home.  Any ways, I'll go into details of the other things later.


Odd thought of the day:  I was looking at a map of south east Asia hanging on a wall in a classroom.  I took a closer look at Indonesia to see if I could spot where Krakatoa's location was.  I had been reading about the eruption of that volcano a few weeks ago.  I sussed out the location and for some odd reason I recalled reading there had been an attempt to get a particular group of people in Indonesia to use Hangul, the Korean alphabet, to write their language.  That attempt failed.  I had read about that because I've recently taken some interest in Korean pop music.  One challenge which quickly arose from that interest was the question of deciphering Hangul.  So I pulled up a web page and read about that alphabet, its history and the attempt to spread its use outside Korea.  Subsequently I printed off a chart meant to help people learn to read Hangul.  Reflecting on the Indonesians and the chart, I thought to myself "Well, if there were Indonesians willing to try using Hangul then what would it be like trying to write Japanese in Hangul?".  I contemplated that for a short moment.  Upon which I thought to myself, "Now there's something that would really annoy a lot of people...".

On the Word "Demolish"

Last Sunday a friend took me up to Akayu to attend a concert given by Futenma Kaori, a singer from Okinawa.  I'm not sure when the connection between my friend and Ms. Futenma originated but it goes back a little while.  The concert was held in the Akayu Civic Hall which is an aging structure which houses an auditorium and probably meeting rooms and a few offices.  I remarked that the building looked like it could use a fresh coat of paint and I was advised that it will soon be torn down.  If I'm not mistaken, it was erected in the 43rd year of the Showa era which was 1968.  I would hazard a guess it's replacement is being erected using government funds earmarked for replacing civic buildings.  The new Yonezawa library is another project funded that way.

During the following week I mentioned in a couple of classes that I had been up to Akayu and visited their civic hall.  My first challenge was trying to get students to understand what I was talking about.  In one class I resorted to finding an image of the building using my iPhone and showing that to the students.

My Friday night beginner's class seemed to grasp the idea of what a civic hall is when I pointed in the direction of the area where the Yonezawa Civic Cultural Centre (re: auditorium) stands.  I mentioned its location next to a former public square and that seemed to do the trick.  Where I lost them was when I said the counterpart in Akayu was being demolished.  I wrote the word "demolish" on the board and made motions with my hands to indicate two walls of a building falling inwards while trying to impress upon them the phrase "tear down a building".  That got me a couple of very puzzled looks.

I didn't want to resort to using Japanese so I tried to think of something the two students could relate to.  One is a young woman who is works in the Kanaike neighbourhood and the other is a junior high school student.  I glanced at the junior high school student and then I hit upon an idea: mention the fate of Yonezawa Fourth Junior High School in Kanaike.  That school's main building and gymnasium were found to be structurally unsound after the March 2011 earthquake.  Both were demolished and right now construction of the main building is nearing completion. 

As soon as I mentioned that school building and its replacement my student's eyes lit up.  Okay.  They got the concept.  Once I clarified that "demolish" was in reference to the old building which is no longer then things were okay.  I don't want to think about what I would've had to resort to if I hadn't thought of that school.


Post script:  The pace of construction over here can sometimes be frustratingly slow.  I used to have a student who attended Yonezawa Fourth Junior High School.  He graduated this past March.  I had asked him last winter "When will they finish building your school?" and he just shrugged his shoulders.  He replied "Yes" to my follow-up question of "...After you graduate?", which turned out to be the case.  So almost all of his time at the school was spent attending classes in two temporary structures.  The structures are three story buildings made of steel girders and corrugated steel walls.  They're probably cold as heck inside in the winter and hot as heck in the summer.  But I suppose they're a better alternative than the modular wooden mobile home-like buildings employed when I was in high school in North Vancouver.

Small Surprises

The past month or so has featured a couple of small surprises.  The first one came from the realization that young children can have crushes on their teachers.  It popped up in front of me when a six year-old girl drew a likeness of me on the board next to a princess (who I presume was supposed to be her).  Add all the little hearts she drew in to fill up the empty space and yes, I got the message.  Luckily her mother was there to keep an eye on her that day so that drawing had a short life.  As things turned out, the mother had already planned on bringing her daughters to our school on a different day so after the switch I no longer have that situation to deal with.

The other one came about last week.  The father of one of my junior high school class students came by one evening to pay his daughter's monthly lesson fees.  I was teaching at the time so I wasn't there to overhear the conversation he had with our office manager.  After I finished teaching our office manager mentioned something from the conversation she had had with him.  She had asked him how his daughter was doing in my class.  His answer was positive but he went on to mention what had happened to her at school.  Apparently her English teacher, who our manager discerned is Japanese, had admonished her by remarking that her English pronunciation was too good in comparison to the rest of the students in that class.  So now the girl has to put in the effort not to sound out of place when using English at school.  My office manager opined that she couldn't believe that such a comment would be uttered in this day and age.  Likewise it caught me off guard too.  I had completely forgotten about the expression "The nail which sticks out gets hammered down".     

A Small Writing Assignment

The company I work for distributes a flyer each month to students which features a written contribution from one of the teachers.  That contribution is entered in the "Global Talk" section.  The articles usually focus on various aspects of life back in each teacher's home country.  The recent exception was an article written by my co-worker James about his experiences when he first came to Japan as a high school exchange student (if I recall correctly, he graduated from a high school in Shiga prefecture following three years of study there).

Two weeks ago I was asked to provide a Global Talk article.  Initially I was stumped as to what to choose as a topic.  The requester suggested that I use one of the articles I have written for a series of lunchtime lessons I teach.  My response to that was a "Well..."said with a tone of voice which didn't hide the fact I thought that was a bit of a cop out.  She kindly responded "You have an interesting one coming up about the Stanley Cup.  How about choosing hockey as a topic.".  Okay.  She had me there.  She asked if I could have the article ready in two weeks and I said I could have it ready the next week.  It wouldn't take me two weeks to write a three hundred and fifty word article.

My first thoughts about the article were focused on how to introduce the topic to my audience.  I thought of my sport spectator experiences in Japan.  On my past trips here I took whatever opportunity which presented itself to go watch sumo, specifically the grand tournaments which are held every two months.  I've yet to watch a baseball game in person in Japan.  The closest professional team is based in Sendai and I'm not one to take that much time and trouble to watch a baseball game.  I will travel to watch soccer matches.  So I'm content to drive up to Tendo and watch the local team, Montedio Yamagata, struggle to gain promotion to the top level J1 League.  After watching Montedio win their latest match I struck upon the idea of drawing a quick analogy between Japan's two national sports, sumo and baseball, with Canada's two national sports, lacrosse and hockey.

So I put that idea to paper...so to speak.  Actually, I typed it up on a computer in a word processing document.  I had gotten started on the second paragraph when I had to set the article aside to teach some classes.  Upon completing those I returned to the article...and didn't like what I saw.  It was a bit convoluted and dry.  Really dry.  The contents amounted to a tenuous comparison between two cultures and their favourite sports plus some historical facts.  It lacked life.

I leaned back and thought for a moment; what makes a game interesting as a spectator?  For some odd reason "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" popped into my head.  The logical connection to that for a hockey fan...of course...!   I quickly typed in the words to the chorus of Stompin' Tom Connor's "Hockey Song" at the head of the article.  Voila!  It was the blast of fresh air the article needed.

The rest of the article was written up quickly.  Out went the history lesson.  The description of the game was boiled down to "people on skates using curved sticks to try to put a round object, it's called a 'puck', into a goal".  Due to space constraints mention of Foster Hewitt had to be dropped but the anecdote about Danny Gallivan, where a university professor complained to him that "cannonading" wasn't a word, stayed.

I closed off the article with the chorus from "Big League", a song recorded by Tom Cochrane and Red Rider.  I had chosen to write about a moment at a hockey game which I thought was special.  I've been to many games over the years so there were plenty to choose from.  I ended up choosing the Vancouver Canuck's 2008-2009 season home opener.  Before that game a memorial tribute ceremony was held to honour Luc Bourdon, a young member of the team who had died in a motorcycle accident in May 2008.  Tom Cochrane and, if I'm not mistaken, Red Rider band mate Ken Greer performed "Big League" as part of the ceremony.  For me, it was a haunting and powerful moment.  I don't suppose my little article did it justice but I hope I managed to convey an iota of its impact to my audience.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that one...

While Listening to "Robots" by Dan Mangan...

I've got the stereo going and as I started writing this blog post the song "Robots" by Dan Mangan was flowing out from the speakers.  I have the volume set at a notch below the middle mark so I can still hear the occasional cry of a cicada from outside.  I think I had commented last year on Plurk in mid-September saying "That must be the last cicada I'll be listening to this year" only to have another fire up and pierce the air with its "Miiinn miiiin" cry the next week.  So I'm not going to go so far to repeat that and say "I can hear the last cicada of the year" here.

Yesterday was a somewhat busy day at work.  I had a mid-afternoon lesson cancellation so I was asked to do a demo lesson for a 3 year old boy and 4 year old girl in the morning.  The manager had written down their names on the memo she gave me advising me of the lesson...she got the girl's name wrong ("Rie" not "Risa").  The kids were a bit perplexed when I had them join me in going through the actions for the song "Ring Around the Rosie".  When I rolled onto my side when the song reached "We all fall down!" the little boy giggled and quipped "What's wrong with this teacher?".  Okay.  I should've worked more on getting the idea behind "fall down" across to them.

I strolled out to a nearby cafe for lunch.  It's located on the main floor of the Kyoritsu Building, an eight or nine story structure with commercial space occupying its lower three floors and a hotel occupying the upper floors.  The cafe is accessible via its rear door that opens into a corridor, a side door or its front door.  I chose the rear door entrance.  To get to it one has to pass through two sets of doors that lead to the shopping area corridor.  The inner doors are automated but the outside ones are hinged and have to be opened manually.  Ahead of me was a middle aged couple.  The man was a couple of steps ahead of the woman.  I hadn't noticed them until the point where I saw the outside door swing somewhat heavily on the woman's right arm and shoulder.  She was a smaller woman so the weight and force of the door pushed her off by half a step.  I glanced at the man and noted his gaze was straight ahead.  He had charged through the door without appearing to have given a single thought to his partner walking behind him on his heels.  That little scene caught me an iota off guard.  It was minor incident but it stirred me.  It reminded me of a remark by a then regional manager at our company who is close to my age but probably a few years my senior.  She once remarked that she felt justified in her choice to not seek marriage when she once heard a man introduce his wife as "the thing" (or something along those lines).  Oh.

In the evening I went out for dinner.  After eating I sat around and chatted with the cafe owner and a couple of customers.  Following that I wandered off in search of a place to get a nightcap drink.  Strolling by the cafe I had had lunch at I spied a couple of friends at a table by the window.  So I made a quick turn and headed in to join them.  Sometime later we were joined by a gentleman who, if I'm not mistaken, is the owner of a pair of local ramen shops which are quite well known.  Apparently his business has a presence in the ramen museum down in Yokohama.

One story the ramen shop owner told was worth noting:  He recounted when he had first started in the restaurant business many long years ago with a place that employed 40 staff members in the kitchen.  He started off as a dish washer and slowly worked his way up the ranks.  As a junior staff member he was subjected to a form of hazing which, if I recall correctly, came in the form of him receiving a blow from a pan or pot directed at his lower leg area and a sharp admonishment that he wasn't doing his job right.

He eventually rose to the upper ranks of this kitchen but then took up a job in another line of work which paid more.  It was a simple case of necessity.  He had gotten married and started a family so his financial responsibilities had grown.  But years later he was approached by a former senior in the restaurant.  His acquaintance had started a ramen shop and he was on the hunt for good people to work in it.  That was the start of a chain of events which saw the story teller end up as the owner/master of the establishment.

The end of the story was the ramen shop owner saying that he did away with hazings in his kitchen once he was the head of the business.  His reason for doing so was a simple "I chose to do so because it (the practice of hazing) had to stop somewhere".  Aye.  In spite of what I witnessed earlier that day, the times they are indeed a changing.

Some More or Less Random Thoughts...

...on tissue paper:

Last week I paid a visit to my local post office to post a card and package addressed to my sister back in Canada (her birthday is coming up soon).  After going through the process of filling out an EMS package form and answering questions about the contents of the package I paid for the postage and was handed my change, a receipt, and two packages of tissues.  Each package of tissues contains 10 sheets of tissue paper and carries the Japan Post Office Bank logo and name in Japanese text on its clear plastic exterior.  They're a very unassuming and simple token of appreciation.

Over the past three years I have mailed a number of packages back to Canada.  I believe each time I've mailed a package I've received at least one package of tissues.  I think I've received packages of tissues when I've purchased commemorative postage stamps too.  If I'm not mistaken, that happens when I purchase two or more sheets of stamps.  So I've managed to accumulate a small stack of Japan Post tissue packages.  Some have plain labeling.  Others have text promoting the sale of year end cards, mid summer cards, or other postal items.

Packages of tissues often serve as the medium to promote businesses here in Japan.  A quick scan of my apartment turns up sources such as Japan Rail, the Yamagata prefecture Orange Ribbon Campaign, NOTTV (I think it's a TV service), Yamagata Bank, and, of course, the Japan Post Office.  I've used up the packages I got from a couple of insurance companies, Docomo (a cellular phone carrier), and a buy and sell store for second hand jewelry.  And...on top of that I have received boxes of tissues from the auto dealership where I purchased my car.  I think they gave me a box of tissues when I took my car there for its annual government mandated vehicle inspection too.

The bottom line is that I've never had to purchase tissue paper for use at home.  I used to purchase boxes of Scottie tissue paper for use in the office at an out of town company where I work offsite.  But I haven't done that recently because I've stocked up there with the boxes I got from the auto dealership.


...on cicadas:

The ubiquitous cicada is an unmistakeable sign that summer has arrived.  Once the weather warms up sufficiently they come out in great numbers to find mates and as part of that process they let out an almost brain numbing torrent of sound.  Well, more or less.  The variety which make that brain numbing sound is colloquially known as "mimmin zemi".  The other varieties, "higurashi", "tsukutsukuboshi" and "kuma zemi" are simply loud without going to that extreme.  But they are distinctly loud.  Two years ago I mistook the sound of a higurashi cicada for a bird.  The mimmin zemi don't have quite that lyrical a quality.  Their cry sounds like an amplified miniature chain saw on a repetitive wind-up and wind-down cycle.  I can only presume it was that variety which the acclaimed haiku poet Basho was referring to when he wrote "The sound of a cicada/ penetrates a rock".

I don't find the cicadas' cries to be annoying...most of the time.  The individual insects which awaken me in the early hours of the morning are the exception.  Usually they're a source of calmness, in spite of the racket they make.  In one instance they were collectively, and unintentionally, funny.

The moment of cicada humour came up when I was riding a bus back to Yonezawa from Sendai.  The bus route goes from Sendai down southward to Fukushima city by express highway and then swings back north to Yonezawa by a local highway.  On that journey I chose a seat on the left side of the bus as that side would be opposite from the sun on the longer southbound leg of the journey.  At one point in southern Miyagi prefecture the bus went speeding by a long grove of trees which were populated by large numbers of crying mimmin zemi.  As the bus passed them, their crying could be heard in perfect unison.  Perhaps it's just me but I found it funny that I could be listening to cicadas crying in unison over a stretch of 50m while passing them on a speeding bus traveling at about 80kmh.  The improbability of it all tickled my funny bone.


...on dairy products:

A few weeks ago I was working my way through a module titled "Broccoli is Good for You!" with one of my beginner classes.  The grammatical points for that module are the use of "any" and "some" plus a drill on count and non-count nouns.  Those are introduced by an illustration of a food pyramid with the "Not good for you" foods at the top and "Good for you" foods at the bottom.  The aforementioned broccoli is in the second tier from the bottom.  Above it is a tier that has dairy products in it.

I don't know how I got there but I found myself telling my students about the importance of eating dairy products and vegetables.  Especially in regards to calcium.  I pointed out a link between calcium intake and osteoporosis.  Of course the word "osteoporosis" was way beyond the comprehension level of my beginner students.  So I used my hand to represent a person's back and curled it slightly to demonstrate the effect of the disease.  My students weren't quite sure what to make of that.  Then I curved my back to represent the stooped posture of a person with the disease.  That must of worked because one female student let out a loud exclamatory "Oh no!".  Ah...that did the trick in that case.  Not sure about to what effect though....

Not Quite Fire and Brimstone

A few months ago I received a postcard in the mail which advised me that it was time for me to renew my driver's licence.  I don't recall how long my licence was valid for in Canada but over here in Japan it's three years.  The renewal period was of two months length and it bracketed my birthday in July.  Of interest was the section which mentioned where I could go to get the deed done: the choices being the Yamagata Traffic Safety Bureau up in Takadama (which is on the southern outskirts of Tendo city) or a local police station.  Needless to say I chose the latter option.  Takadama is about an hour and half drive north of Yonezawa and I wasn't quite keen on retracing my treks there, which were quite long when I went by train and bus, when I went through the procedure of exchanging my B.C. driver's licence for a Japanese one.

So I dutifully cycled to the local police station.  The counter for processing driver's licence renewals was full front and centre upon entering the building.  That was certainly convenient.  Filling out the form wasn't as simple.  A complication arose from the fact that my licence is not only registered in my full name in English, with a transcription in katakana, but I also have a Japanese version of my name (minus my English first name) inscribed on the reverse with the notation that it's my registered nickname/alias.  So I was advised to write my name in both English and Japanese on the form.  There obviously were some subtle nuances in the verbal instructions I was given because I didn't get it right until the third time. 

Having overcome that obstacle, I paid the renewal fee and was then told that I had to attend some sort of session.  I wasn't quite sure what as I didn't understand the term for it.  But the gist of the next part was quite clear to me: the sessions are held monthly in Yonezawa due to the relatively smaller numbers of first time renewals.  My options were mid-week days in mid-August or mid-September.  I made a quick phone call to the office and found I could attend the August session on account of our Obon break.  What followed was a routine eye examination and photo shoot.  (Japanese eye exams are interesting: instead of having to read letters of various sizes, one has to look at circles of various sizes and announce which direction there is a break in the circle.  A co-worker had no idea what it was he was looking at and started telling his examiner the names of fruit...yes, he thought he was looking at drawings of fruit!)

The session I attended is what I would describe as a traffic law and safety awareness lecture.  One can't fail the session as there is no examination included in it.  As one friend said "You just look at some books, watch a video and then you're done".  Simple.  In my case the presenter was a gentleman who introduced himself as Harada.  He was an older fellow of not anywhere close to imposing size or height.  Just a man whose demeanor was calm, deliberate and firm.  His delivery wasn't quite fire and brimstone level but he certainly wasn't one whose authority was to be questioned.  Early in the session he advised attendees that in the past they've had people come in who obviously were lacking sleep.  Graciously he stated these individuals had worked graveyard shifts.  The point being that if anyone was caught sleeping during this session they would be required to return at a later date to do it all over again.

What I was exposed to next was a myriad of recent updates to Japanese traffic laws.  There was plenty of mention given to increased fines, increases in penalty points and...the only one change to interpretation of traffic signals (that being where one can make a U-turn in an intersection on a priority right hand turn signal).  I found one of the statistics a touch unsettling: Yamagata isn't an excessively densely populated prefecture (it's a shade below the national average) yet on average there are about 90 traffic accidents a day(ibid).  I certainly wondered where all the accidents were happening given that I've seen only one accident during the time I've spent so far in Yonezawa

Another portion of the presentation which had me puzzled afterwards was when Mr. Harada spoke about accidents at night.  I don't remember all of the preamble but what stuck in my mind was his admonition that "Though shalt drive with high beams on at night".  This pertained to accidents which happened because the drivers didn't have enough braking distance to avoid a collision when driving at night with low beams on.  That makes sense when one remembers that it is possible to overrun the area illuminated by ones low beams even at moderate speeds.  What popped into my mind later was the question "If their statistics show a higher frequency of accidents at night on poorly lit roads then shouldn't someone think about putting up more street lights?". 

So after all that I am now in possession of blue coded Japanese driver's licence.  That's not a cause for major celebration but it's nice to have it over and done with.  Though it is amusing to pull out in response to the question "Can I see some ID?" when I'm back in Vancouver.  Last winter was I asked to do so at a TD Canada Trust branch.  The bank teller who asked was a bit stumped at first when faced with my Japanese driver's licence.  "At least I can read your name on it" was her first response....

I Didn't Find That In My Dictionary....

One of the trusty tools I used when studying Japanese on my own back home in Canada was a copy of "The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary".  I had come across it by chance at the Indigo book store on Marine Drive in North Vancouver.  After giving it a quick perusal I promptly purchased it.  I hadn't set out to find such a book but once I had it my hands I just had to have it.

When I came to Japan I left that volume in storage back home.  I don't specifically recall why I put it in storage but that's what happened.  Upon my arrival in Yonezawa I didn't go out of my way to find another copy.  It was probably a more than a month before I made my way to the local Book-Off store and checked out their selection of foreign language books.  As luck would have it, a copy of "The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary - Asian Edition" was available for purchase.  Once again, I hadn't gone out of my way to find it but I certainly didn't let the opportunity to obtain the book (again) slip through my fingers.

The dictionary names Jack Halpern as its editor in chief.  I presume he is a naturalized Japanese citizen as his name is printed in kanji (with furigana) and with the English alphabet on the book's publication information page.  In the foreword a brief biography of Mr. Halpern can be found along with mention of his SKIP system.  SKIP stands for "System of Kanji Indexing by Patterns".  The main feature of the system is that it allows one to look up kanji relatively quickly based on their assignment to one of four geometric patterns (left-right, top-bottom, enclosure and solid).  When I first started using the dictionary, I learned to look up kanji using that system.  It was slow going but I could find what I needed.

Today when using the dictionary I go straight to the back of it and open up the section which has lists of kanji organized by their primary kanji radical.  I won't go into an in-depth explanation of what a kanji radical is simply because I can't think of one!  Nonetheless, I've slowly gotten the hang of identifying radicals so using the radical lists has become an easier chore.

Recently though I've had a few instances where I've been stumped when trying to look up a kanji character.  I find that a touch amusing as there are 2230 kanji listed in the dictionary and yet somehow I seem to have come across characters which don't seem to be in that large set.  Perhaps I was looking in the wrong places but that's a different matter.

The first culprit is this character:

蛾

I encountered this on a notice slipped into the letter slot of my apartment door.  I could pick out bits and pieces of the text that talked about windows, passageways and...something.  My search of the kanji dictionary failed to come up with a match.  Either I had the stroke count wrong or the print was too small for me to recognize and locate the elusive character.  So I fell back on the old method of trying to figure out how to read something based on context and the circumstances of the time.  

One thing we've had plenty of this year are moths.  More than I can recall seeing in previous years.  Supposedly the exterior walls of Yonezawa station were coated with masses of them, though I didn't see them on account of my exiting the station from the opposite side of where the moths were amassing.  But there were plenty of them fluttering about in the corridors of my apartment building.  So I grabbed my iPhone, switched to Japanese text entry and entered "ga", the Japanese word for "moth".  Sure enough the mystery kanji character appeared.  So now I know to read "moth" in kanji.

The next culprit is the first character of this pair:

蒲鉾

These were brought to my attention by a friend who works in the food floor department of an Isetan department store in Tokyo last week.  The last time we met, one of the topics of our conversation was about translating the names of Japanese food items into English and the supposed failings of a food consultant the company had employed.  I don't remember the details of which food item we were talking about but the person in question had claimed there was no equivalent English name for it (details of conversation have been lost as we were drinking in an Irish pub in Ueno at the time).  I just blinked and spouted off its English name not even a second after she had let it slip off her tongue.  Her immediate response was along the lines of "See!  I told you this person wasn't very good".

Any ways, she had fired a message to me on my phone asking "Quick...what is 蒲鉾 in English?".  Luckily I had my kanji dictionary right next to me so I said "Hold on, I'll check for you"...followed by "How do you read 蒲鉾?".  I hadn't found the first kanji character within a minute and I didn't want to keep her waiting.  The reply was "kamaboko".  Ah...one of those "'I see', said the blind man when he bumped into the wall" moments.  The answer, "boiled fish paste cake", was dutifully and quickly sent in a reply.  (Oh yes, the food doesn't look as bad as it sounds.  Here's a link to a photo of some: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kamaboko.jpg.)

A few days later I told a couple of friends about this discovery and one person pointed out that the character read as "kama" can also be found in the name "Kamata".  Kamata is a district I've walked through once and whose train station I've been in a number of times.  It's been about five years since I last visited the place so the kanji obviously was lost from my memory.  In short hindsight, I do find it odd that one of three people having a conversation in Yamagata prefecture would come up with the name of a relatively obscure place in southern Tokyo. 

Thus ends today's kanji lesson...

Almost...

For better or worse I've gone ahead and signed a letter of agreement to work another year in Japan.  I hadn't given any serious thought to returning to Canada so signing the dotted line was pretty well a foregone conclusion.  I won't say that the sentiment that it feels like I just got here is what led me to that result.  It's more a case of feeling that I'm settled in and I'm not in a hurry to move again.
This year's act of signing another contract has been accompanied by other "housecleaning" activities; getting a new passport and applying for a work visa extension.  The former was a bit of a SNAFU situation thanks to me being caught off guard by Easter Monday.  The latter has gone a bit more smoothly.  I say "a bit more" because of a snag I hit when I submitted my application and documents. 

After I had signed my letter of intent to remain with the company I had reminded them that I would have to get my work visa extended.  So our office manager was tasked with assisting me gather the required documentation.  She was able to obtain a number of them without my assistance.  In one case she found out that I would have to visit city hall in person to get the pertinent document.  On Sunday night I did a final check and everything seemed to be in order.  Then I noticed one item at the bottom of the checklist (incidentally it was all in Japanese) which had been handed to me; a revenue stamp.  After a quick check on the Internet I was relieved to find out I could purchase one at a post office.  So I was able to let out a sigh of relief and get some rest.

The "fun" started after I got into the immigration bureau office in Sendai.  When I submitted my documents for screening I was told that the application form I had been provided was out of date.  Okay.  The clerk made a quick inquiry and then found a form which I could fill out in lieu of redoing my application form.  So that wasn't a big deal.  I was given a number, asked to take a seat and wait to be called.  It didn't take an inordinate amount of time for me to be called up to submit my application and its attendant documentation.  After doing that I returned to my seat to wait until I was called again.

When called back to the counter I was advised that I needed another document.  Great.  I wasn't angry.  Just a bit confused and surprised.  I was given a letter of explanation (all in Japanese of course) and a self-addressed envelope to use for sending in the required document.  After giving my head a few incredulous shakes I trotted off toward downtown Sendai to get a bite to eat and do some shopping.  That exercise was relatively successful.  My mini katsudon and soba set was quite good and I was able to purchase a loaf of freshly baked German style sourdough rye bread.  The cashier chuckled when I asked him to cut me a slice off the loaf before he packaged it up for me.  I, for one, was not going to miss out on a chance to nibble on some fresh baked rye bread.  Especially in Japan. 

The gist of the documentation omission boils down to some peculiarity of taxation in Japan which I haven't completely figured out.  On their website the Japanese Department of Immigration mentions that one has to submit documents pertaining to income and payment of taxes.  But they don't say which or what documents.  Along with the salary schedule document from my employer I submitted a document from city hall that stated I had paid income tax.  But I believe I was also required to submit a document which amounts to being proof of being assessed income tax.  Of course my poor little Canadian brain wonders why one document can't serve both those functions.  My initial search of the city hall website didn't turn up any mention of such a document.  So it looks like I'm going to be having another lesson in the joys of dealing with bureaucracy, Japanese style. 

Going Back to My Previous Post...

...The image is of a creation which I came up with by chance when plugging away in Simcity 4 (which I had talked about at length in another previous post).  The little mountain I created reminded me of the Totoro creatures in the old movie "My Neighbour Totoro".  So naturally, I named the little town I created at its feet, "Totoro-mori".

A slightly less comfortable movie reference came up this past winter.  I don't remember exactly when but there was some snow on the ground so I suspect it was late February.  The situation was one where I was heading out to get dinner at a nearby restaurant.  As I left the school where I work I noticed a significant amount of bird droppings on the ground.  I didn't bother looking up.  I just looked down and made sure I didn't step on any droppings.  After I crossed the street I saw more bird droppings.  As I stepped around them I heard crows cawing overhead.  That's when I looked up and saw them...crows.  A large black mob of them.  There were literally hundreds of crows gathered on the telephone and power lines overhead.  For about three blocks every inch of wire was occupied by crows.  "Whoa", I said to myself, "This is like a scene out of 'The Birds'".  There was genuine sense of fear in me as I worked my way down the street trying to avoid being shat upon by some black, feathered bomber.  Thinking back I can surmise that such a scene must of been the origin of the term "a murder of crows". 

Just a Quick Test

I will write about this screen shot in my next blog post...

First...A Word About...

...Flickr.  The word I have reserved for that right now is "Annoyed".  Not terribly annoyed but annoyed nonetheless.  The reason being that the little app which allowed me to compose and post a blog entry from within Flickr is no more.  This feeling of annoyance isn't about blaming someone for the removal of that app.  It's about not having that option to share what I had been intending to share.  Any ways, enough of that.

The original title of this post was to be "(Yet Another) Game Which Ate My Brain".  The guilty game in this case being a veteran called "Simcity 4".  It's been ages since I've played any of the "Sim" titles.  I believe the last one I touched was "Simcity 2000".  I did a quick check and discovered it was released back in 1994.  What got me hooked this time was an e-mail from a game site I've been a customer of.  It heralded the arrival of a new Macintosh platform version of the game.  That within itself didn't catch my addition.  The $20 price tag did.  So I fired up the App Store on my Mac, purchased Simcity 4, downloaded it, started playing and upon realizing I had been playing it for a while found myself going to bed at 3 am.

What followed was a gaming project of sorts: I created a region in Simcity 4 and slowly went about building a series of interconnected cities.  At that time I was just happy enough playing the game in its original "off the shelf" form.  And then something happened...what it was I don't have any recollection of.

The gist of the past month or so I've spent on the game is not about playing it but about making it do strange and wonderful things.  Somehow I stumbled upon a modification to the game which I downloaded, installed and found to be quite neat.  Before long I found a few more and duly gave them a try.  What drove me onto the path of something less than sanity was a game modification featuring a train station...based on a train station in Japan.  The fact that the platform was elevated drove me to find out how to make it work in the game.  And that search opened a whole new can of worms.

It didn't take me long to find out what the missing piece was.  Figuring out how to get it working was a touch tricky but fortunately I found answers to my questions with little effort.  Simultaneously I started collecting game modifications created by Japanese players of the game.  The net result is that I have the game running in left hand and right hand driving mode on my machine.  That was accomplished by changing the region of an account I have on my Mac to Japan and its primary language to Japanese.  So now when I log onto my secondary account on my Mac, all the menus and system dialogues are in Japanese.  Some of it I can read, some of it I can guess at based on an understanding of kanji radicals and the rest is by association with English language counterparts.  The experience hasn't substantially increased my knowledge of Japanese but I do have a version of Simcity 4 loaded with Japanese buildings, vehicles and other flotsam.  Now I can play the game and watch cars drive on the left hand side of the road and trains run on the right hand side tracks.  Back in my coding days we would call that kind of bug, a "feature".

Cafeteria Food Is Good For You!

I work offsite two days a week at a client's factory with some exceptions every now and then.  My station there is a simple and utilitarian office equipped with a desk, computer, printer, bookcase and amenities such as a water boiler (that's what one company calls the product - it's one of those gadgets you put water in, the machine boils it and keeps it at a set temperature for later use), an air conditioner (alas, there isn't one in the adjoining classroom) and an electric fan.  I get my lunch and dinner in the company cafeteria.  Getting there involves navigating a few turns, stairs, a walkway and a T-junction with emergency exit arrows on the floor pointing out in all three directions (in other words, in an emergency, if you're hurrying towards that T-junction you are going the wrong way no matter what your direction of approach is).   The cafeteria is plain and minimalist.  I don't believe the design has been changed since the building was erected in the late 1960s.  There is no decor to speak of aside from a few posters (one has Pikachu of Pokemon fame promoting healthy food choices).  The food they serve falls into the classification of good grub for the (subsidized) price you're paying.

Generally I can identify what it is I'm buying.  The usual menu choices are noodles and a meal set with rice, miso soup and a side dish.  Some of the side dishes fall outside my scope of Japanese food knowledge.  None of them are too exotic.  The situation isn't like what I've experienced in some onsen (Japanese hot spring/spa) hotels where they'll serve a side dish which looks really attractive but I'm unable to describe or identify it.  There is a table which you encounter upon entering the cafeteria where photographs of each menu item are shown along the item's name and the number of calories per serving.  So I feel some assurance that there is some degree of health consciousnesses going into their menu planning.  The weekly healthy eating quiz cards that get put on each table reinforce that feeling.  All in all, I've never walked into the cafeteria and upon seeing the menu choices, said to myself, "I'm NOT going to have that dish" (though I do avoid the wonton ramen because their wonton dumplings are not particularly exciting).

On a bit of a tangent, last month one of my junior high school students asked me about a certain dish which I later found out is served in a couple of school cafeterias in Yonezawa: cheese natto.  When she first directed the question "Do you like cheese natto?" at me, I didn't quite catch what the name of the dish was.  Once I got clarification, my expression turned to one that was a mixture of horror and distaste.  Don't get me wrong, I like natto enough to eat it semi-regularly.  I've even come up with a quick recipe that utilizes natto, chopped onions, ground pork and a dash of soy sauce.  But cheese and natto...that combination is one which never had crossed my mind.  Any ways, since I had never eaten the dish I quickly asked my student if she liked it.  Her answer was a blunt "No".  The two students who go to another junior high school said they had never heard of it.  I canvassed my other junior high school level class and two of the students said it was served at their school but they didn't like it either.  Interesting.

The subsequent information I got out of my student was that the dish does indeed mix natto and cheese.  It's a main dish and if I recall correctly, it's served with rice and, I presume, miso soup.  I was informed that the cheese is some kind of generic white cheese that has been rendered into a sauce-like form.  Upon hearing that, my mind quickly skipped over to a scene from the movie "Das Boot" where two sailors are verbally sparing over bad food references.  I don't know why.  I suppose the German equivalent of "baby barf" (or something similar) was the first reference I could dig up for a dish that sounded so distinctly unappetizing and unappealing.  When I described the dish to the mother of one of my students, she said it sounded kind of good.  My student and I both gave her bewildered looks.  We probably both shared the thought, "If you think it's good then you're welcome to it because we're not touching it".....

While Driving Back Home Today...

I had set my mind on going to the gym today by bicycle.  But I managed to leave myself too little time to go there by that means and give myself sufficient time to complete my workout.  So I ended up driving.  Unlike yesterday, I didn't treat myself to a creme brule McFlurry.  Instead I dropped in at the Gyosu Super and picked up some nuts, sauerkraut and made in India peanut butter.  In my opinion the latter is comparable to Skippy or Kraft peanut butter.
While I was stopped at a light on the way home I glanced in my rear view mirror and took notice of the occupants of a mini-van behind my car.  It wasn't the child bouncing around in the rear seat or the child seated in a child booster seat, which was mounted on the front passenger seat (I wonder if that is illegal back in B.C.?), which caught my attention.  It was the height of the driver.  It was a young woman and I could barely see her face over her dashboard.  The top of her steering wheel was level with the middle of her nose.  I thought to myself, "Well, she certainly has to be quite short".

A couple of blocks later I found myself waiting for a light in the right hand turn lane.  The mini-van was to my left.  I glanced over and saw why the woman looked so short...she was slouched down.   Her seat was reclined back to the point that her headrest was behind the door pillar.  I averted my eyes once the child in the booster seat caught sight of me.   As luck would have it, the police weren't stopped at that corner holding their "Traffic Safety" banner.  Though I doubt they would've batted an eyelash at the woman driving her mini-van in the same fashion as someone driving a high end sports car.  I suppose they would've had their eyes out for worse offenders...of what sort I'm not sure though.

On Leaving Fukushima in March 2011

In the parking lot of my apartment building one can find a number of vehicles with Fukushima licence plates.  The owners of those vehicles are all likely evacuees.  One in particular is my neighbour.  Up until recently both he and his wife were living in the apartment next to me but the wife succeeded in getting a job in Tokyo and she departed in early April.  The husband has remained behind whilst trying to make arrangements to relocate his business to Tokyo.

I sensed he was going to be departing soon when I saw that he had taken down his daughter's plastic sled which had been hanging outside his apartment on the grid that guards his kitchen window.  So when I heard a dolly in the hallway yesterday evening I stuck my head out my door to call on him and ask if he'd like to head out for a drink or two.

We ended up at a local bar/cafe and chatted for a few hours over a number of beers.  One short story which stuck in my mind was his retelling of how he and his family ended up in Yonezawa.

The essence of the story was that immediately after the March 11th earthquake, he had seen circulated images of what had happened to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant.  Needless to say he and his wife were skeptical of the reports from the news channels and authorities that there was no immediate danger.  When word started spreading that there had been a meltdown there was no hesitation on his part to pack up and quite literally, get out of Dodge.

So the three of them, husband, wife and daughter, undertook a passage through the snow covered Kuriko Pass Highway to arrive in Yonezawa, a city which they knew nothing of and where they had no contacts, friends or relatives.  They had no information on where to go so they stopped off at a police station to ask for assistance.  The gist of their query being "We're from Fukushima.  Can you tell us where to go?".  The police were at least minimally prepared to handle an influx of evacuees and advised them to head to the municipal gymnasium.  I can imagine that the place wasn't exactly the warmest place to be as Yonezawa is typically snowbound in March.

And so began three years of life in Yamagata.  After hearing that story I can fully appreciate his wife's exclamation of "Goodbye to our evacuee lifestyle!" in my classroom back in March after she got news that she had landed a job in Tokyo.  After all, she had been commuting to Fukushima from Yonezawa all that time.  While I'll miss their company, I'm glad that at least one family has been able to find a new home and a more stable lifestyle.  

Didn't I Just See....

I went down to Tokyo a short while ago to take care of some business at the Canadian embassy.  I could have done it via mail but I needed an excuse to go down there.  I suppose I didn't want to face the (minor) challenge of sending something by registered mail (I have no clue as to what the service is called in Japanese).  But the trip is worth it for a chance to touch base with friends and do a little shopping.
As it turned out I managed to squeeze in visits to a fair number of places: Akasaka, Shibuya, Kajigaya in northern Kawasaki city, Ginza and Ueno.  Once again I managed to get lost in Shibuya though by a much smaller degree than usual.  I suppose I'm slowly figuring out the place.  I took the Ginza subway line to Ginza so I could buy some "anpan", sweet red bean paste filled pastries, at the Kimuraya shop there.  On the subway train I noticed an ad featuring a photo of Kitano Takeshi (aka: Beat Takeshi).  I quickly scanned the other ads and read what I could read on the ones I found interesting.  After all, there's not much else one can do when riding a crowded Tokyo subway train alone.

After purchasing my ¥2500 worth of confections, I continued on the Ginza line towards Ueno.  Upon taking my seat I looked up and once again there was Takeshi looking out from the same ad I had spotted on the incoming subway train.  Then I scanned the other ads and realized they were the exact same ones as those on the train I had been on.  Not only that, they were in the exact same locations!  For me, that was a little perplexing.  After all, up in Yamagata, there hardly are any ads on the trains.  I've been on trains where there are virtually none. 

The following morning, after grabbing a morning coffee, I passed the entrance of Ueno Park.  There were a number of people gathered there who were taking photographs of the cherry trees which had begun to bloom.  I, of course, snapped some photos too using my iPhone.  There still was snow on the ground back home when I left the day before and I just had to take back some evidence that spring was on its way.

Emptiness and a Train

I don't go up to Yamagata city all that often.  Every now and then I might go up there to fill in for a teacher.  Aside from that, I've been up there a few times to catch a bus to go to the Yamagata Prefecture Traffic Safety Office (back home we'd call it the Motor Vehicle Branch) and to attend a couple of concerts.  Oh yeah, I did drop in one time after visiting Mt. Zao too.

Yesterday was a sunny day and I wasn't in the mood to stay home all day.  So I decided to head up to Yamagata to check out a store I've been thinking of going to.  I did briefly consider driving but decided to take the train instead.  It was simply a case of saving gas.  As I made my way up there on the train I realized that I also had the liberty of taking my time without having to worry about finding or paying for parking.

Once there I did a quick tour of the department store at the station and then grabbed a bite to eat at a local Mos Burger restaurant.  After that I dropped in on the shop I had my eye one, made a mental shopping list and then wandered over to the Yamagata City Art Museum.  The museum is located quite close the inner moat of the Yamagata castle.  There's no much left of the castle other that its walls and moat.  The grounds of the castle are now home to a park and some athletic facilities.  The eastern entrance, close to the museum, is dominated by a reconstruction of its gate and guard house.  I indulged myself by taking a few photos of the structure and some passing trains (the Ou line tracks are laid outside the castle walls and moat).

The museum is a modern looking structure which functions as both an exhibit and meeting facility.  Not all of the galleries are in use.  The permanent collection seems to consist of French paintings (Impressionist, landscape and modern), bronze sculptures and some Japanese screens and scrolls.  The French paintings were an interesting bunch with representative works by Monet, Manet, Picasso, Renoir and their contemporaries.  As for the sculptures, I noticed that about half of them were made prior to World War II.  Which of course had me thinking about how the larger pieces managed to escape being melted down for the war effort.  I suppose they weren't large enough or of a usable metal composition.  Or perhaps just lucky.

The trip home was uneventful but not without a touch of the peculiar.  I had taken my iPod with me to help me pass the time.  I had picked The Tragically Hip's "Yer Favourites" to listen to.  It's a two CD set so there would be enough tunes to listen to for the duration of the trip back to Yonezawa.  At first the setting wasn't so odd.  It was dusk and I wasn't paying too much attention to what was passing outside.  But once it was dark then I noticed something different.  I was listening to songs which made me cast my mind to the vast emptiness of Canada.  Once we were passing through the mountain valleys and fields then the setting was complete.  One couldn't see much other than the banks of snow lining the side of the tracks.  I looked out and felt like I was on a train traversing a snow covered empty expanse of the Canadian prairies.  That was not withstanding the conductor's announcements in Japanese and decidedly Japanese looking stations.  The effect gave out once the train got past Nanyo.  There were more visible signs of civilization and human habitation then.  And so, alas, that little bit of magic evaporated...

Happy New Year!

年越しそば, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

The photograph I've picked is one of a dish called 年越しそば (Toshikoshi soba). There are no hard rules on what ought to be in or not be in this dish. It's pretty well anything goes. Some people have it hot, some have it cold. Some don't even use soba to make it (though that is more likely to happen outside of Japan). Nonetheless, this dish is traditionally what one eats to mark the passing of the old year and the arrival of the new year. It ought to be consumed prior to midnight on New Year's Eve but this year there was a bit of a delay in its preparation so it was consumed a few minutes late.

Anyways, all the best in 2014!