Japan

In reference to this CNN article:

A few people have already asked so I'll just answer it here. No I wasn't there, but I heard about it almost instantly since it ticked across the news banner on my phone. On my way home from shopping there were quite a few people on the train talking about it too.

This ought to give me some interesting ammo for the "guns are scary" and "America is scary" conversations though.

In any case I could have been there. Akihabara is a pretty popular place to go on a Sunday afternoon and there are always big crowds. They close the streets and so I assume that is one reason he was able to be so "effective".

I'm curious what the reaction will be to this. I don't think you can make truck rentals illegal. It's also illegal to carry knives in public here, even a small pocket knife. It would be nice if this increases the amount of mental care available in Japan but that's just wishful thinking.

Update (1:43am JST):

The CNN article hasn't been updated yet, but this just came across my phone. There are now 7 dead. Six males: 19, 74, 47, 29, 20 and 33. One female: 21. 10 people are still listed as injured.

As usual I wish I had taken more pictures ...

Last Saturday I went to the Tokyo Racecourse since there was a full day of live races. This is only the second time I've been to a horse track and was the first time I've ever done it in Japan. The weather was perfectly clear and not too hot and it was a lot of fun.

Of course I know almost nothing about horsing racing and trying to get a crash course in horse betting entirely in Japanese was probably not the smartest thing ever, but I did figure out how to place bets and how to cash in the tickets when I won.

I finished the day down about $50, but did manage to win a few bets here and there. Had I not been betting so backwards that number might have been a little lower. I think next time I go I'll just stick to $1 bets.

It's been raining for a few days now. This weather reminds me that I could never live in London or Seattle. Too much overcast weather.

I haven't had much of interest to say recently. I think a lot of the funnier stuff that happens here in Japan is only funny if you've lived here before. Otherwise a quick funny story turns into a four hour cultural lesson so you can understand the story. めんどくさい。

Therein lies the problem. I can't even explain why its hard to tell stories without resorting to some Japanese. However, I can describe a bit about how we think. First I need to define we.

There are three people at my school:

1) Japanese: This describes most of the people at our school. They are native Japanese speakers and, for the purpose of this discussion, can't easily carry on a conversation in English.

2) Americans: Actually this is just my funny joke. I actually mean anyone who can't follow and participate in a conversation in Japanese. It's usually only Americans that come here without having studied Japanese for at least two years plus it's always fair game to pick on your own nationality.

3) Us: There's a huge group culture in Japan and language is the dividing line of this one. It's a pretty extreme form of elitism, but its not really done on purpose. It just comes as a by-product of having two sets of native speakers gaining proficiency in each other's language.

Enter code-switching. Code-switching is a fancy linguistic term for using two languages in the same conversation. So we tend to have conversations that mix English and Japanese to the best of everyone's ability. (Languages are far easier to understand than they are to speak. Especially when you are going between two that are completely different.)

There are also some expressions, phrases, and feelings that don't exist in one language or the other. The most famous of these, in my opinion, is the English: "I miss you". The best Japanese can muster is "I want to see your face." or "I want to meet."

Unfortunately this leads to a big problem of the haves and have nots. People who can speak both languages do and those that can't tend to get left out. This can create some jealously and resentment, but there's not always a lot that can be done about it. As I mentioned before we aren't all natively bilingual. Sometimes our second language fails us and we have to switch to our native language.

I guess that's just life, 仕方がないかなぁ。

I unknowingly wrote a poem in Japanese today. My friends seemed to like it so here it is in all its glory. There was a nice big thunderstorm tonight and I wrote it during that. ザーザー is the sound of heavy rain.

今、大雨が聞こえる。
I can hear the heavy rain now.

ザーザー、ザーザー

聞こえる？
Can you hear it?

ザーザー、ザーザー

雷も聞いて見てる。
I'm listening to the thunder and watching the lightning.

ザーザー、ザーザー

この音はいい音と思った。子供の時によく聞かせた。
That sound, it's a good sound I think. I heard it a lot as a kid.

ザーザー、ザーザー

雨の音から、幸せになった。
The sound of the rain makes me happy.

ザーザー、ザーザー

本当に春らしいだろう。新たな始まることになるかな。
It really feels like spring. New beginnings are coming it seems.

ザーザー、ザーザー

みんなも聞こえる？
Can you hear it too?

One year ago I was sitting on a plane flying over the Pacific Ocean on my way to move to Japan.

A lot has changed since then.

When I first came here I wasn't really sure how long I would stay. I was spending a lot of money on a dream and taking one of the biggest risks of my life. As the saying goes the bigger the risk the bigger the reward.

It's been completely worth it. There have been plenty of bad days, after all no day is perfect. There haven't been many good days either. Most of them have simply been amazing. There's just something about being a foreigner in a ethnically homogeneous country that makes interesting and crazy stuff happen all of the time.

Plus I get excited over the little things. Two of my friends were visiting this week and we stopped by a smoking area so one of them could smoke. We are three Americans just standing in the middle of Shibuya speaking English. Yet for some reason, despite plenty of other Japanese guys standing around smoking, this guy comes up to me and asks for a lighter in perfect natural fluid Japanese. That made my day. As a foreigner I rarely get asked for mundane things and usually when I am asked its obviously simplified. Hopefully karma repays him for his openess.

That's just one of 365 stories I could tell you. Here's hope for 730 more! (Yay two year visa!)

There hasn't been any snow in Tokyo this year and I'm very thankful for that. It has been a very mild winter.

However, it is snowboarding season and with the help of a few friends I've found some awesome places to go. The mountains aren't quite as big as the Rockies, but the snow is every bit as good as Colorado. Both places I went to were really great.

This weekend's trip was especially interesting. We got up early on Sunday morning and took the Shinkansen from Tokyo all the way out to a ski area called Kagura. The shuttle from the station only took about 15 minutes so our trip was something like:

6:00am Wake up, get dressed, head to Tokyo Station.
7:48am Get on Shinkansen, eat, sleep, relax, talk.
9:05am Arrive at Echigo-kasawa, stretch, wait for the shuttle.
9:30am Buy lift tickets and enjoy the day.

Actually it was closer to 10:30am because me and another guy had to rent some equipment, but its just so close and so fast and there's zero driving involved. You don't even have to be fully awake until you strap in for your first run down the mountain.

It has made me want a bunch of new equipment though. I'm taking donations.

Here's a rough summary of the month of January.

School starts up with two weeks until finals. I'm busy keeping up and studying for my finals. At the same time work gets really busy as well. Then right around the peak of all that Neteller decides that they are pulling out of the US market.

Had I blogged about any of that it would not have been pretty.

However, good news came this week. I am officially transfered into the degree program and am once again a freshmen. Now I just have to get all of my transfer credits sorted out. Looks like they still require me to stay at least four years into order to get a degree. It's always about the money eh?

So I'll be here for another four years. I guess it's about time to settle in!

So we're just about out of the holiday season. The best thing about the holidays in Japan? The stores weren't crowded at all until today.

In Japan Christmas is kind of a throw away holiday. A lot of stores decorate and try to have holiday sales, but there is no real practice of gift giving, so it doesn't really have the same impact. Christmas Eve is spent with your boyfriend or girlfriend and you might trade one gift a piece and that's about it. However, there's two really nice things about this. First, of all you don't have to shop for anyone. Second, neither does anyone else and so the stores aren't crowded. So you're free to buy yourself all of the presents you desire with absolutely no crowds. Awesome.

On the other hand New Years is the most important holiday all year. On the 1st almost everything is dead. Most big stores are closed and only a few smaller shops and restaurants are open. This day is reserved for family dinners and shrine visits. Everyone goes and prays for good luck for the coming year.

However, on the 2nd its a shoppers paradise. I actually saw young girls camping out, complete with tents, starting at 6pm in Shibuya. The stores open early and close just as early. Everything is on sale and its a total mad house. I actually went to a bunch of stores just to see the mayhem, but even as a bystander it was a bit too much.

Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures because I forgot to charge my camera after the crazy New Year's Eve party my friend threw. Don't bother checking back though because there won't be any blog post on that. One performance only!

There is one interesting thing that they do here. They have these good luck bags at all the store. Basically you pay a particular price and get a bag full of stuff, but you don't get to find out what is in the bag until after you buy it. I think the basic idea is that it always has stuff that is worth roughly what you paid, but occasionally some of the bags have really valuable stuff. Prices were as low as 1,000yen ($8.50US) and went all the way to 25,000yen ($212US). I couldn't really find one I wanted to risk money on, but I saw a few the clothes stores I like had some so maybe I'll go ahead and take the risk.

I did make one New Years purchase though. Sony apparently sent retailers a bunch of PS3 stock and so I grabbed one. It's actually really fun so far and for some reason three out of the four games I bought are completely in English. That's a huge surprise. I also have some Blu-ray discs on the way so I'll brag more about that once I've had a chance to see the HD movies.

Somehow I actually spent more money on myself than normal and fit it all in my tiny apartment. Yay for small expensive toys!

With my camera broken I haven't been able to take any pictures in a while. I am getting a new one this week. However, a friend of mine took a great shot me in Kamakura.

Since I recently got down to my final target weight this is probably a good "now" picture.

Me in Kamakura.

The speech contest is next week. I'll certainly have something to write about after that is all over!

The fall semester has started. My brain is constantly on the verge of exploading.

I only have one class this semester. That's the only good news. Let's take a closer look at this class of mine.

It's Intensive Japanese 270. It's roughly the entire third year of college level Japanese stuffed into a single semester course. I've only been studying for sixth months and this is the right class for me. Crazy does not express the direction I am going ...

We have class for three hours a day. It's basically an entire part-time job of Japanese. The classes are conducted entirely in Japanese and the only English words I here are interjected as single word explanations of complex topics that we aren't expected to know the Japanese for. As an aside, we have to know the word for intransitive verb in Japanese. How many of you even remember what that is in English.

As a part of this fun I get to learn 40 new kanji per week with a grammar test every week. We also get graded on speaking and writing short essays. It's all of the fun of elementary school only as an adult! Oh, and packed in at ten times the place.

Let me give you a brief idea of how fun these kanji tests are. We are given a blank sheet of paper. Our teacher reads ten sentences in Japanese two times each. We then write those sentences down using the proper kanji. Then for even more fun we have to write the reading of the kanji as a sort of bonus "spelling" test! Don't forget I pay for this and it isn't cheap.

Luckly I have really awesome teachers. My grammar teacher is especially awesome. She tells all of these awesome and funny stories during class in the process of teaching them grammar. I promise that you will never hear or see anything more strange than 25 foriegners laughing at a funny story told entirely in Japanese. I did mention my classes are taught entirely in Japanese right?

What I forgot to mention is that all of my textbooks are entirely in Japanese. Check out this gem from the vocabulary section of grammar book:

防ぐ： わるいものが来ないようにする; prevent; keep away

Don't worry if you don't have the Japanese fonts installed. Seeing it as jibberish is the same thing for my purposes. That line explains the fact that fusegu is "to keep bad things from coming". It then expands on that by offering three English words. In case this isn't sinking in that means the best explanation is entirely in Japanese. See I bolded it that time.

It's worth noting that there are only a few more English words on that page. They are: "(be well-known) as ~". An entire page of text and a whole six English words to help me out.

The amusing thing about all of this? My class is fun. I'm learning a lot. I actually understand everything I'm supposed to and even though it's only been three days my Japanese has already measurably improved.

That reminds me of an amusing story from over the summer. Maybe next time!

Edit: I originally said I was learning 40 kanji per day instead of per week. Oops!