Of TV, internet, and other amusements
9月1日 (火\水) 12:15am JST
Last night and into the morning, a taifû cut across Japan. This caused me restless hours late at night, but I was still relatively alert by the time school rolled around. Which was a shame, because at my desk sat a pile of student essays for the English speech contest, awaiting comment.
Part of my problem here may be that I’m taking these essays too seriously. Perhaps I should just clean up some plurals, add some articles, fix the spelling, and gracefully retreat. Sadly, however, I seem determined to make every sentence into semi-coherent English. Which makes it worse that it’s impossible to see improvement, since every speech has a different author. Eventually, I plowed my way through an ice cap of Improperly capitalized words, misuse by self of reflexives, and proliferating coulds, only to find my mind fogged over entirely. Logically, this kind of crippling fog should be functionally equivalent to the crippling fog of alcohol, but sadly, the attendant euphoria of fermented rot was lacking… Perhaps, as with beer, a taste can be acquired. Or, more likely, a mixture of apathy and depression set in and take control.
Also today, I hung with A.D., watchin’ TV, eatin’ ice cream.
9月2日 (水\木) 1:10am JST
Today was opening ceremony for the school. I ended up sketching a Japanese speech for myself minutes before the event, because I thought T--- would just be ad-libbing it, but learned right before it that she had written out a speech in Japanese and English. It went OK. I threw in a Japanese, “Please enjoy!” for my own amusement.
At school today, I was told some guy would come this afternoon to cart off my predecessor’s cable box today. I supposed this was good, because I was afraid that the service might continue forever and start charging me for it. But I was also heavy of heart, because I had become addicted to CNN, MTV, Animax, and the like. Did you know that Goku has a child-like voice? Yagerobi, too! For once, dubbing was a good idea.
Yesterday, when A.D. was here, we watched a show whose description sounds like a half-remembered dream. It was on the “Family channel,” which generally plays old Japanese shows from the 70′s and 80′s. The film used back then had an incredible tone, with beautiful blues and greens and a huge grain. The sound synchronization on shows like the many Power Rangers is always off, and the violence belies the “Family channel” name. One great show, something like “[Cops] ‘75″ had awesome people in 70′s clothes whose faces were zoomed into or out of rapidly at some point in each scene.
In the show A.D. and I watched, there was a school girl, an evil-looking (and Caucasian-looking) woman in a black dress, and some space captain or something. The name of the show was something like “[Sing! Giant Dragon].” So naturally, after discussing something or another in their lair or whatever, they start to sing. Out of nowhere. All while completely stone faced. Then the show moves on. No explanation that I can tell.
It’s the 80′s and a group of boys in short-shorts are running around the city. They meet an old man, who later fights a chubby guy with glasses. Then the girl from the weird singing thing is there, and they’re in her apartment or something. Then the boys get caught by the owner of an okonomi-yaki restaurant. He ties their hands to the handlebars of stationary bikes and beats them to make them pedal. For some reason.
Meanwhile, the old man put on a goblin mask with a lightning bolt on it and is terrorizing the town by hugging people and grabbing ass. (Also, lightning is coming out of his hand when he does this, but it safe to say the prospect of electrocution may be of only secondary concern to the Japanese mindset.)
Somehow, the girl finds the boys and unties them, and they’re all chased by the restaurant owner. Eventually, he corners them, but then the old man in the goblin mask and electric gloves shows up, too. Because, you know, Japan is pretty small. There’s no way he could have been more than a block away from them, right? One of the boys in short-shorts recognizes him, and he emotionally takes off his mask. For some reason. Though the restaurant guy had plenty of time to run away (or even walk), he just stands through this. Then he and the old man start wrassling. Then, somehow, the girl does this hand motion that causes a flute to appear in her hands. She plays it and a banana appears. The evil guy slips on it. The end? Not quite! In celebration, they sing a song about a jellyfish, semi-monotonically.
I shit you not.
If it were a dream, I would fault it for having too little structure, even for a dream. Today’s cable fare before the hand off was more mild. There was the usual mix of music videos and Terror news. Being reduced to just non-cable was good, because tonight I was forced to watch Japanese language programming. Among other things, I learned that in surveys Japanese dominatrixes most consider themselves to be like ladybugs out of all insects, while Japanese key makers consider Koizumi to be the “key man” in Japanese politics. Meanwhile, “Matthew” the bizarre host from Lost in Translation put on a summer rock festival, a poorly shaved transvestite recommended we wear the underpants in some kit of his, a Japanese wore black face on a puppet show, and a black man with excellent Japanese was put on a date with one of those over tanned “black” Japanese girls.
A lot of strange for one day of TV!
9月3日 (木\金) 12:35am JST
Today was my first whole day of teaching. Not bad. Enjoyable, almost. My main problem is that it intrudes on internet time. In an Oral Communication class, I was partnered with a Japanese kid during a simultaneous translation activity, since he was the odd numbered kid of the class. That was funnish— proving that I can’t learn new Japanese vocabulary, and I mangle sentences.
Of course, all that practice came in handy later. My host mother called tonight, and before that I was talking to the Yahoo BroadBand girl about getting service. The long and short of it is another 1 to 3 weeks. Grr. In my frustration, I almost bought an expensive and impractical sound system. At the last moment though, I noticed some Sony speakers on sale for cheap.
T--- remarked today that I was being fairly patient about this whole internet thing, given that it’s the one thing I want. But, as I told her, it also represents the thing standing between me and the change from moving to Japan and living in Japan. After this, the static.
In other, more anti-climatic news, my rice cooker seems to be almost ready to work again. The passage of time caused its LCD to unfog. I even got it to cook. But then, since little bits of rice are still stuck inside of the guts of the thing, started stinking and smoking and whatnot. So, I gave up on it for now. Shaking the machine, little black carbonized rice kernels came out. But probably, once all of those are finally shaken free, it can be made to work again.
Cool.
9月4日 (土) 4:15pm JST
Last night was pretty fun. First, I went to a festival in Yatsuo. They wore bent Japanese sombreros and made hand motions like someone reading a book. There were a lot of shops around for tourists. At one of them, the guy was selling calligraphy. I thought that was pretty cool. Then, I was that he was set up to make new stuff then and there. So, I had him fulfill my dream of owning a professionally done ドキドキパニック夢工場 doki doki panic: yume kôjô. It came out very well. Now, I just need to buy a wall scroll sized one.
After the festival, I went over to a dance party in Takaoka. From what I could tell, the organizers were disappointed with the turn out. Still, I had some fun cutting up rugs. Got back after two.
9月6日 (日\月) 1:03am JST
I finally found and used my neighborhood public bath this weekend. There’s nothing like the sight of wrinkly old Japanese men to enliven one’s bathing experience. The place itself is OK. It doesn’t have a sauna or electric tub, but it does have a funny colored pool in addition to the usual jacuzzi tub. Not sure what’s in that water. Something good, I guess.
Finding a nearby public bath was one of my goals as part of the moving in process. (Though not quite as high a priority as getting the internet.) I’m not entirely sure why I like the whole public bathing scene. When I first got roped into it by my host family, I was overcome by a barely concealed sense of shame and embarrassment. Now, I actively seek public bathing. It could just be a sort of Stockholm-syndrome. But also, one other JET told me that he had heard about an onsen that’s basically a hole in a mountain to which you’re given a key. After that, it’s your own private bath until you return the key. As I told him at the time, where’s the veiled homoeroticism in that? I think that part of the fun is the way that being naked in front of other people breaks Western taboos while being a normal part of Japanese life— like drinking in the street! I’m sure that Japanese exchange students get a similar thrill when wearing shoes on the carpeted floors of their home stays.
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