session

I just got to jam for an hour at the bar with Kumamoto's hottest bassist (according to Spooky) and a rasta-looking guy on didgeridoo. Sweet.

India Journal

Last night I finally found the tiny moleskine journal I kept in Mumbai, Chennai, and Andhra Pradesh last spring. Here it is, unadulterated, unedited.

Day 1
Taylor and I sit on the balcony of our hostel, the honking of cars on the street sounding much the same now at 11am as it did when we arrived around 5. So far little to relate other than a pleasant air-conditioned sleep, being hustled out of a lean 40 rupees by an unaffiliated taxi middle-man at the airport, and various preliminary observations on India and the stark contrast it provides from Japan. Exchanges almost never involve Thank yous or your welcomes even between perfect strangers. Things run a little faster as a result. Men and dogs sleep on cars, platforms, anything available. Cows roam the streets. A diamond jewelry billboard advertising above a rotting lean-to. Plans for today include finding the Gateway of India and catching a boat to Elephant Island.

Day 4
We're in Chennai now. A lot different than Mumbai, most obviously (from my perspective) in that it doesn't cater to tourists in any way. Mumbai was an incredibly vibrant city, with one of the strongest heartbeats I've ever felt. Everywhere there was activity, laughing, arguing, horn honking, bargaining- 17 million people, 8.5 million of whom live in slums, who seem to be living a life relatively unhampered by the unending rules and codes of conduct that filter Japanese and American interactions. The “Reality Tour” we took of Mumbai's largest slum was probably the experience that will stick with me the most. I'm still processing everything I saw. Images of aluminum foundries bordering two-story sheet metal houses filled with children, all of the thousands of micro-businesses operating in remarkable efficiency and resourcefulness. One of the primary industries of Mumbai slums is processing recycled goods and selling materials to manufacturers. There were schools operating under the auspices of NGOs and volunteer teachers. Crime was virtually non-existent. Everyone knows each other, everyone shares the same overarching situation, everyone has molded their existence to mutual dependency and common goals. And they seemed happy. We've been trained to look at such things with pity, with the implied duty to donate a dollar to the Red Cross to help improve things. But these people are self-sufficient and seem to have struck a balance between what they can have and the many things they can't.

Crazy Chowphatti beach rides (man-powered ferris wheel and swinging ship) and amazing 480 rupee group dinner. Calaba market, growing love of bargaining. Woman feeding us in cave. Gandhi museum, bought hand-made paper book, very inspiring.

Day 5
Sweating. Diarrhea. Long train, bus, and boat rides. So Thursday the 30th has been.
Indian people- no bullshit.
More freedom. More happiness?
Sense of respect for overpopulated populace carrying on.

Day 9?
Tuesday. We hit a motorcyclist into the lake on our bus ride into the village yesterday morning. I heard the metal clatter against the broad side of the bus and turned to look out the window, seeing him standing in knee-deep, muddy water, his defeated motorcycle on its side on the bank next to him, him glaring and gesturing and shouting at our driver. A few of our group went out to check on the unlucky guy. Returning to the bus, someone asked “Is he pretty mad?”
Rob: “Well yeah, but not nearly as pissed off as I would be”. The dirt roads are hardly wide enough to accommodate a bike next to our monstrous, attention-grabbing tour bus.
I've learned to look at cows a lot differently. Not quite as holy yet, but after reading an exposition on the subject by no less than M. Gandhi I've come to respect their gentle, slow, peaceful nature. They pass on roads amidst honking traffic and add a natural, incongruously serene element to the chaos of Indian roads and markets.
The communities here are close knit. At night, from Mumbai to our little Dalit village, most everyone seems to come outside, just to enjoy each other's company. During the day men in twos and women in threes walk together, sit on porches together. Everyone's children mix in throngs. They play volleyball and cricket, no one seems strained, their interactions are genuine and familiar. And they seem happy because of it. It throws our atomized, individualistic, eat dinner in front of the TV in the evening societies of the U.S. and Japan into sharp, unpleasant relief. Logically, humans are meant to live in groups, not at work and on the bus, but in the real settings of life, after dinner, in the mornings, during lunch breaks.

Dalit Talk
Potential of rebirth in higher caste functions as justification for keeping the Atai Shudra (Untouchables; slaves) down. Dalits are restricted in the trades they can choose. In India, only Dalits (still) do shoe making and shoe repair. Dalit means “broken people” in Sanskrit. They prefer to go by “Shudra”, meaning “lowest caste”.
Discrimination and segregation via the caste system is programmed into Hinduism, into India's religion and culture. Brahma (God) is synonymous with justice. Dalit's are born believing that their position is sanctioned by transcendent authorities. No wonder the village we work in and many others are increasingly turning to Christianity instead...

Gmail chat from Reed

RReed: ichibrawn

my love for you is like a lawn

whose grass ever greener grows

whose lengths no sad mower mows

the man's a poet and doesn't know it.

Summertime

Welcome back to Japan. The time is 1:40am, when words come alive. Two months (and some change) have passed since I last wrote, but I'm not dead quite yet. Maybe soon, but not yet.

I could tell you about crashing my bike at 30mph helmetless in the middle of a busy five-way intersection downtown or the threatening late night visit from an adult english student's enraged husband who accused me of having an affair with his wife (then apologized later that night for the misunderstanding by bringing me a six pack of Suntory Rich Malt and some kit kats- Rich Malt has been my beer of choice since), but I don't want to worry the motherly readership of this blog any more than necessary. For the rest of you, when I'm home remind me to tell you some of the stories that don't make it on here.

I can tell you right now that this entry, an attempt to convey where I'm at right now (literally and figuratively), will flip around like an epileptic acrobat at a rave nursing a sprained ankle. Here we go.

I'll start in the immediate future, to help paint a picture of where I am at the moment (in my boxers, on my couch with a fan pointed at me, alone and typing on Alex's computer at just shy of 2am). Come Sunday I'll fight in a local karate tournament against black belts aged 21 and over. Sweet Holy Jesus. I'll be both the only white guy and white belt in the place. It's not full contact (I'm not that tough) so I shouldn't walk away with anything worse than a few bruises and a tweaked neck after repeated roundhouse kicks to the head. The important thing here (for my self esteem) is that Kimura Sensei, to my complete surprise, asked me to join the dojo tournament team a month ago. This ostensibly means I'm making some progress after about a year of training. Just look at this intimidatingly shaved dome from a festival at Japan's primary Honda factory this summer:

Sitting near my sliding door here in the living room with the screen affording a view of the porch outside (along with letting in that pleasant textured melody of crickets that lets you know you live in/near the countryside) I can't help but wonder how many cats pass silently by every night as I sleep. At least four is my guess.

Anyway, I got served another generous portion of humble pie yesterday afternoon when I failed my Japanese Driver's License test for the second time. The test is extremely detail-oriented, and at least from an outsider's perspective, can seem fundamentally disconnected from the practical real-world skills it's meant to gauge. Not unlike the English tests I grade. A Chinese woman, who I had also taken it with last week, passed today after her 12th go at it. The other two American guys and I were shown the big X for batsu (fail) for our collective second tries, all of us given vague instructions to check our mirrors more often (than I thought possible). Meaning the road ahead should be seen only out of your peripheral vision as you swivel like a bobble-head in anticipation of maniac tricycle gangs hopped up on milk tea and Crunky bars who could launch themselves suicidally between you and the curb at any moment.

Here's a picture from a fun hike up Mt. Aso last month:

I own a beautiful white Toyota Starlet which has waited silently and patiently in my parking lot for close to two months now as this licensing process runs its meandering course. Ah, to be a machine. But hey, you either accept these red-tape mountain ranges while living in Japan, go crazy, or go home. I've learned to take constant failures a little more philosophically. And by philosophically, I mean with two tall cans of Asahi and a quarter flask of Jack and Coke on the porch with Lloyd yesterday followed immediately by a nice 5:30pm nap. Which led to waking up at 1am, which led, happily enough, to writing this.

On October 9th I'll take the GRE in Osaka. So I've been studying for that. Not sure yet what I want to commit to doing for the rest of my life, but I'll try and narrow that down in the next three weeks so I know where to send the scores. The Bushey School of Animal Painting is all I have so far for sure, though I hear it hasn't quite been the same since the passing of dear old Ms. Kemp-Welch. Failing that, New York or somewhere else on the east coast could be a vibrant change of pace from the alternative Northwest lifestyle, and of course an entirely different world from Japan. Mmm, pizza bagels.

Next Sunday I leave for Beijing with Alex, then we'll head to Shanghai and return a week later. China! Beyond a Great Wall tour reservation we'll figure things out as we go along, part of the greatness of traveling with a flexible friend.

This is from a visit to my friend Erin in Seoul:

I've been subsisting somehow without a computer since the beginning of July (it fatally overheated almost exactly a year after its first meltdown- pending a second resurrection it's essentially a phoenix) so I've been corresponding sporadically by email via cellphone and have spent only a handful of hours on the internet at work in the last two months. It's been liberating. The endless current of youtube videos, wikipedia articles, NY Times editorials, games, Facebook profiles, stock research, streaming t.v. shows and flash movies can suck up hours in an instant, and when you get cut off from all that you realize how long an evening at home actually is. After a while I picked up Ender's Game and started reading for pleasure again, then went back to the local bar I hadn't set foot in for eight months, and tried out my Japanese with the Ueki townsfolk. I've also come to enjoy spending a bit of time before bed each night out on my porch, no music, no distractions, just sitting there and looking out past the fence. Does wonders for a good night's sleep.

My good friend Greg Hansen came to visit for a spell, and just took off last week. We traveled around Kyoto for a few days then took the overnight bus back to Kumamoto, not an easy twelve hour ride for a man who stands two meters tall, or for the yenny-pinching friend squeezed against the window beside him. Despite his prolonged bout with what may have been the swine flu, we had a grand time stomping around this fair country, culminating in a massive JET beach party down south in Ashikita for the final weekend. Here he is tenderly eating the salt off my head.

This legendary man's visit came when I was missing Seattle and the USA pretty strongly and beginning to turn an unfairly harsh eye on my surroundings (having just rounded the one year mark, yearning to drive to an onsen with the AC on). So it was a big breath of fresh air and a good chance to see things reframed through the wry but appreciative eye of a friend with honest insights and similar tastes. Who I could probably wrestle down in a heartbeat (in case you're reading this Hansen). Here's us rolling down a hill in a giant sphere, courtesy of Holly:

If the fates are kind my friend Caity will be flying over in the spring for sakura (cherry blossom) season, which would be Amazing. Especially if we make it up to see Kyoto's fabled hanami vistas.

Here's a shot from a dinner with Terry, who taught down south in Yatsushiro and is now working with the Japanese Consulate in Tennessee, before she headed home this August:

My Japanese is coming along, so very slowly, but the process has significant and usually immediate rewards. I finally reached a milestone earlier this summer- completing the Heisig course of 2,040 common-use kanji, whose forms I can now (often) recognize and match with a simplified English definition, thanks to creating thousands of short stories connecting the disparate elements within the characters. Sound time consuming? Yeah, a bit. The next step is to fit them into actual Japanese readings, and gradually learn to read. The cryptic puzzles of this world will slowly unravel into coherent soft drink advertisements, utility bills, and safety warnings, which for me is more exciting than it sounds.

Here's a picture of a baseball game reunion up north in Fukuoka with most of the India group:

Almost done here. It's about 4:20am, a time which has distinctly different meanings for a Whitman college senior and an assistant English teacher with a special pre-tournament training session in six hours. Despite the consistent routine of 8:30-5:15 workweeks (with half-day Fridays), my experience thus far has felt more like an extended study abroad program mixed with summer camp than the career of a true Japanese schoolteacher (try 8am-9:30pm and near-parental responsibility for a classroom of kids). As I've heard from my predecessors, the government's dual purpose for funding JET is to stir up the admittedly homogeneous Japanese culture with some different languages, natural hair/eye colors, and personalities, while leaving a favorable impression on the promising young college graduates who participate and will go spread the good word about Japan back home, then potentially get involved with some line of foreign service work between the countries. Which, incidentally, is what I hope to do (coordinating joint American/Japanese investments in developing-world microfinance projects is the dream). Unfortunately for a lot of recent college grads JET is being scaled back in response to the pressing economic crunch. 27 new ALTs came to Kumamoto this year, compared to 69 last year. Looks like I made it in just in time.

This is from my friend Taylor's photo show earlier this summer. By accident I occasionally get to be in pictures with beautiful women.

I'm flying home to Seattle for Christmas (December 17-January 4), so hopefully I can see a lot of you then. Here are the things I miss most from home:

Family and friends

New movies in theaters

Being able to read/understand things/ convey urgent messages

Microbrews

Taco Bell and Wendy's

Leavenworth

Diner breakfasts

Watching basketball and primetime TV

Watching awful reality shows on late-night TV

Bagels

Kenmore's Cozy Inn

Ruffy

My old piano

Loud and unpredictable people

Listening to 93.3, 95.7, 97.3, and 103.7FM in the car

the list goes on, but I'll stop before profuse tears of nostalgia fall and short-circuit Alex's computer.

Thanks for reading, and if you ever want to say "hey man, this one Rogaine commercial made me think of you" or "when are you going to pay me back for that couch" or "stay in Japan, slagbiscuit" you can send an email to my phone at anderskg@docomo.ne.jp. anderskg@gmail.com always works too. Hearing from you, however briefly, would make me pretty happy. Atode mata.

my life is average.

it's always funnier when you can you can relate to something.

http://mylifeisaverage.com/

Magic Happens

It’s been a special day, and not just because I rode to work in bike shorts and forgot to bring underwear. Today a small miracle happened during third period English.

Our speech repetitions were suddenly interrupted by a crash on the hall window followed by a little brown wren slamming into a boy's shoulder in the back corner before ricocheting off onto the ground and feebly fluttering in circles on the floor. Immediately my heart sank- the bird was a goner. I'd seen this before. I exchanged sympathetic looks with the handful of students comfortable with openly expressing emotions as my teacher, Kawaguchi Sensei, tenderly gathered the injured bird into her hands. She then cupped it firmly between her palms and slowly paced back to the front of the room, resuming the lecture as she walked. The students seemed to accept that class would go on as normal as their teacher held a perishing kamikaze bird in her hands.

Kawaguchi Sensei then asked me to lead a few pages of reading while she carried the bird out to the sink in the hallway. Was she going to put it out of its misery by drowning it? Let it struggle harmlessly around the sink basin until class ended? Turns out she was just giving it a little drink and smoothing its feathers.

Reading aloud from the textbook, "Andy, this is my friend Takeshi", I couldn't help glancing over to watch her curious efforts with the doomed bird. Teenage voices repeated "Andy, this is my friend Takeshi" back in the usual narrow spectrum of monotones, though the attention of several students was openly fixated on the sink outside.

"Hi, Takeshi. I'm Andy". Kawaguchi Sensei now had the wren on its side, balanced between her two open palms, and was shifting its weight back and forth. "Hi Takeshi. I'm Andy."

"Hi, Andy." The bird was upright, standing on her finger. "Hi, Andy."

"Are you a soccer fan?" She held the poor flightless bird out the window, looking like she was about to fling it into space and let it arc down like a feathery stone into the ground two stories below. "Are you a soccer fan?" I didn't have a great alternative in mind for disposing of live birds that crash into the classroom, so I looked on with trepidation out of the corner of my eye and continued reading.

"Yes, I-." One final launching swing of her hand and the bird suddenly and miraculously took off through the air, flying up freely into the blue sky! I literally stopped talking in mid-sentence. The class laughed as I tried again, "Yes, I am", and Kawaguchi Sensei reentered the room.

"What- how did... Sensei, did you just heal that bird?"
She smiled cheerily. "Re-ha-bilitation, ne?"
"Rehabilitation? That... was magic!"
"Hahaha, yes! I am magic."

I went from wondering if my teacher was picking the broken wren up to snap its neck, to watching it effortlessly take off with a rapid fluttering of functional wings in five minutes. It made me uniquely happy to witness that. Even some of the students appeared to look at their teacher and calm, confident healer of our wayward animal friends with a new sense of respect. At least the class behaved itself for the last ten minutes, a small miracle in itself at this school. So you never really know when magic will happen.

the world as seen through the eyes of an amateur investor

Looks like the global economic crisis is wrapping up. East Asia is doing a lot of the work in making that happen. And now is still probably a good time to buy strong next generation tech stocks- Apple alone has gone up over 30% in the last few months, and Google's looking real good too. Now's the time people! Invest!

Day Six in Andhra Pradesh

I woke up to a phone ringing at 6am this morning, as I have most mornings this week. Sometimes the call is earlier, later, doesn’t come at all, or in the case of this morning, the sleepy young man inexplicably rings one minute after the 6:00 call to say “Hello.” “Hello again”, I respond. “It’s 6:01 sir.” “Thank you?” “You're welcome sir.”

A few leftover scraps of butter nan and empty bottles of Thums Up cola litter the hotel room Taylor and I share. Last night we played cards and ordered room service, the night before we watched a lightning storm knock out the city’s power from the hotel rooftop.

We gather in the hotel lobby at 6:30am and board a rented tour bus to the village, where a cheering throng of village children greet us every morning. Their stream of delighted energy hits us as strong as a pot of black coffee to the face and continues unabated throughout the day, making it impossible not to return some of the love. We spin them and toss them in the air, play cricket and volleyball and a complex variety of hand games, practice English, recite 1-10 in Telegu or simply provide a climbing structure as we lose the strength to lift them by the end of the day.

The work itself is exhausting, passing cement trays and bricks to form foundations, corner pillars, walls and slabbed roofs. By noon we are soaked in sweat, our clothes filthy with dirt, dried cement and brick dust. A vegetarian lunch and one-hour siesta follow before getting back to work for the cooler afternoon work session. At dusk we eat dinner, play with the kids and unwind, pleasantly exhausted, having shared and accomplished a very tangible goal for the day. The bus ride back provides an opportunity to mitigate the profound ninety-minute transition from mudflat village to bustling industrial city by playing word games, sharing travel stories or quietly listening to music and processing the last thirteen hours.

Allow me to shed some light on this experience by sharing some fast facts about the Dalit.

1. The Hindu potential of rebirth within a higher caste functions as justification for keeping the Atai Shudra (Untouchables; slaves) subjugated throughout their lifetime.
2. In addition to being physically separated from the rest of society, in the economic sphere Dalits are explicitly restricted to a few undesirable trades. In the traditional regions of India, only Dalits (still) do leather tanning and shoe-making.
3. Dalit means “broken people” in Sanskrit. They prefer to go by “Shudra”, meaning “lowest caste”.
4. Brahma (God) is synonymous with justice, and Dalits are born believing that their position is sanctioned by transcendent authorities. Not surprisingly, the village we work in and many others are increasingly turning to Christianity instead...

Despite the heavy burdens placed upon Gummallapadu Village, hope exists not only by means of external volunteer efforts, but from the internal resiliency of its citizens and healthy ambitions of its younger members (one of whom will leave in a few weeks to study as a mechanical engineer in Shanghai). Along with the open communication, honesty, and a strong sense of community pervading the village where we did our work, this is proof that beautiful things often grow in harsh environments.

home/sickness

I'm now on my 6th day home sick from work after returning from India. Nothing serious, and I'll be back at work tomorrow, but I've had an expansive amount of down time to listen to music, read, watch movies and tv shows, eat cereal and make cocoa, do those kinds of things. In spite of the heroic bacterial war being fought in my intestines it's been pretty nice to sit around and unwind.

Unfortunately this all means I've been fully immersing myself in American creature comforts for the past week. A few minutes ago "Hate It or Love It" by 50 Cent came on the tail of a long progression of other random songs chosen by shuffle on iTunes which formed the secret combination of emoti-musical stimuli that would trigger a chain reaction of fond Seattle summer memories, evoking a cresting wave of homesickness from deep within me that rose high over my head, paused a moment for me to consider my reflection standing under it here in Japan, and then sort of knocked me flat.

As a man I'm not expected to focus on or talk about my emotions too much (I've been thinking more about such things since reading Jeffrey Eugenides' "Middlesex", highly recommended), but when I closed my eyes to envision driving south on I-5 into the city with the windows down and 95.7 up on one of those rare blue-skied Seattle days where the Columbia Center gleams on the horizon next to the looming majesty of Rainier and the trees lining the highway seem too vividly green to be real and you come around that last bend in the road and see Elliot Bay and the Puget Sound sweeping out in front of you... as I did again now when writing it, I opened my eyes to find a tear or two in them and felt a little empty space inside carved out by memories of home. For real.

Thank you, 50 Cent, for helping me to explore my emotions as a man.

things not to forget about Mumbai

here I sit in an internet cafe, sweating profusely, fresh out of a tour of asia's largest slum.

slum tour- we went on a tour of Mumbai's (and Asia's) largest slum, Dharavi, and got exposed to what it's like to have more than a million people packed into a square mile. The residents make do though, and keep busy with countless mini industries, including processing recycled goods from both the city and abroad, then selling the raw materials back to manufacturers.

gandhi museum- Gandhi's old house in Mumbai was turned into a museum about his life and work.

raj from rajhastan- Raj was a friendly young man who introduced himself on the street, then took us out for chai tea, then drinks, and offered to help us find pants or anything we needed in the city the next day. then we deduced that he was just interested in our girls.

jain temple- as part of a city tour we embarked upon the second day, we were lucky enough to see an annual festival held at the Jain temple. it gave us a chance to see Hinduism in action.

mumbai trains- the ones we rode had no doors, letting you lean out the side into the night air as you rode.

mumbai markets- spent a whole lot of time bargaining in these. all the fine silks you've ever dreamed of, and the price is right.

calaba's back streets after midnight- dangerous.

day n nite

if you like hip hop, check this out.

infancy to infinity

infancy to infinity,
from Allah to the trinity,
they try to cure the sin in me,
but they're still preaching cynically

"conform to this, or burn in hell"
"under heaven's banner we can kill"
"you have no choice, it's all God's will"
today that product doesn't sell

see I'm looking for the best in us,
identifying what to trust
cause in the end each of us must
define parameters for 'just'

there's passion, greed, there's lust and rage
life lives and breathes and comes of age
reprints can't keep up with change
while words and blood fade on the page

core values shift, laws get rewritten
and God just doesn't seem to fit in
priests cover ears we use to listen
as old faiths fall to new decisions

from knowledge to the act of mating
we were born to feed our cravings
the future's bright, the past is fading
why not play God? it's us who made him

so keep what works as we move forward
say what we need and not one more word
don't kill or steal and love thy neighbor
then cut the rest with occam's razor

you strive for heaven, fearing hell
but life's more than a righteous shell
what happens after? no one can tell
so live each day and live it well

japanstats.

Japan now has a far higher percentage of single women between the ages of 20 to 40 than the United States--higher than almost anywhere in the world except Scandinavia.

80% to 90% of single Japanese women live with their parents, as do about half of the men in their 20s. Most pay little or no rent and do no housework.

Only 1% of Japanese children are born "out of wedlock," a phrase still used here. In the U.S., 32.8% of births are now registered as "non-marital."

Q: What is the Fertility rate (babies per woman) in Japan in 1950 and in 2000?
A: 1950: 3.65
2000: 1.35
(Tokyo, 1998: 1.06)

Full article:
http://www.ezipangu.org/english/contents/news/naname/kekkon_etc/kekkon_etc.html

Devil's Advocate

Discussion/debate game.

Goal: Discuss specific topics that involve abstract philosophical, religious, political, and ethical arguments. Each speaker has a time limit. Everyone gets their say.

Debate format. The person who can get the most people to agree with their viewpoint is the winner.

If you have the time to read it and think this game could be(come) fun or interesting, please suggest any changes that would help or ideas for discussion topics. I'm planning on playing a simplified version with my Adult English Conversation class, and this version with anyone who's willing. Somebody? Please? The idea came earlier this week as I and the other three ALTs sat around discussing and pondering similar deep issues at the Ueki Board of Education office, while the students all ran around outside on spring break.

The young bachelor

The young bachelor hits the sack directly after an 宴会　dinner party on Monday night and wakes up at 3:30am Tuesday morn, roused by a strange shifting sound in his apartment. Still half asleep beneath the comforter, he imagines leaping up unclothed, flinging aside the sliding door to the living room and tackling the thief that has stolen into his house. Will he be able to grab the miniature crowbar from the tool drawer in time to crack the intruder's skull, or should he just rely on his fists and feet? Maybe two robbers are out there, so the first would have to be dispatched quickly. Better go for the crowbar.

He wonders what the Japanese laws regarding physical harm done to strangers on one's own property might be. He wonders what his chances against two hardened criminals might be. His guess is "not good". Straining his ears in the darkness for another sound, he hears nothing but the usual cars on the highway and the two clocks. Relief. His tense muscles slowly relax. Though deep down he knew the house was empty all along. And what would he have really done had there been a stranger out there? Who knows. Hopefully what his Long Island-dwelling Grandpa did a few weeks ago when he awoke to hear a burglar rustling outside his bedroom. Leap up, throw the door open and bellow "GET OUT OF HERE YOU SON OF A BITCH!". How would he say that in Japanese? Doesn't matter, the bellowing should do the job. Always best to avoid physical confrontation. His Grandpa is as much wiser and tougher than his grandson as he is better at skiing, fly fishing, and theoretical physics.

Now the young bachelor is wide awake, and after another half hour studying the dim contours of his bedroom waiting to be drawn back into an unfinished dream, he gives up, gets up and takes the thick red fleece robe off its hook and steps into a pair of wool-lined slippers. The apartment is cold and quiet. He pours a bowl of cereal and makes a pot of tea in the kitchen, then moves to the living room couch to sit and eat. For some reason this particular bachelor finds a big bowl of late night cereal both mind-blowingly delicious and uniquely comforting, and tonight is no exception. Contented, the young man opens the Murakami novel lying nearby and reads the A.M. hours away, sipping tea with the perfect balance of honey dropped in, the pleasant reality around him slowly bleeding into that of another world. Around six he sets down the book and goes for a run under the purple sky and through the green fields, and around seven he sits down at his laptop and recounts the morning before getting showered and dressed for work. A surreal start to an otherwise normal weekday, but not entirely foreign to the bachelor lifestyle.

hedgehog in the fog.

Classic animation from an old Russian folk tale.

Oita charity bike ride (or why my legs don't really work this week)

Last Friday was the vernal equinox, the first day of Spring. In keeping with the well justified Japanese reverence for the season it was a national holiday, and thus a three day weekend. Another Kumamoto JET named Nick connected me to the Oita charity ride that spanned the weekend, and around 300 km of roads through Oita prefecture (2 hours east of Kumamoto prefecture where I live). Thank you to the relatives who are donating money toward the Indian village where I'll be working in a month for this trip. To make a long story short, it was both awesome and tough. To make a short story long, here's a more detailed account:

I put 3 pairs of underwear, 3 pairs of socks, a small towel, a pocketknife, flashlight, mp3 player, compact book (Battlestar Galactica), sunscreen, toothbrush and toothpaste into my backpack and headed down the bike path to Kumamoto after dinner Thursday evening. Made it to the bike shop before closing and got a tune-up for the ride, and bought special bike shorts for the trip and a water bottle holder to mount on the frame. Turns out you ride commando in bike shorts, so more than one pair of underwear wasn't really necessary. Met up with Nick after that, he dismantled my bike and somehow fit it in his K-car along with the two of us, his girlfriend Mari and his own bike. On the two hour drive east through the mountains to Oita we celebrated our shared nerd heritage by discussing Starcraft battle strategies. Arrived in Oita late that night and met Joe, our leader for the trip, and the other people in our biking party (there were nine of us altogether). Joe has the coziest feeling house I've stayed in for a while, it felt like being back in a real American home. Well insulated and warm, made mostly from logs, lots of personal style touches from an Alaskan native that immediately separated it from the more sparse Japanese style homes one grows accustomed to.

Early the next morning (Friday) we headed out of Joe's in cars, and met with the rest of the 40+ group of riders at a park. Re-assembled the bikes, discussed the routes (I determined to just stay as close to Joe as possible) and started riding. I didn't realize until after we started that there were volunteer cars that would take our bags to the evening's destination while we rode, so spent the first day with my pack on my back. Immediately discovered that the people I was riding with were far stronger than me. The day proved to be sunny and beautiful, despite less optimistic forecasts from the weather report. We started climbing into the mountains, while I realized my time spent riding on the level bike path and suburban roads around Ueki hadn't prepared me for this trip. But the group kept a moderate pace, the scenery was beautiful and riding down the other side of a hill after climbing it on a warm day is one of the greatest joys in life. Plus the trees were starting to bloom everywhere.

Everyone ended up at a campground in northern Oita that night and slept in two large cabins, trading stories with the other volunteers, only two of whom I had ever met before since I was in a different prefecture.

Second day, Saturday, was clear blue skies and balmy weather, and a long but relatively level route. Stopped in a charming village with an open onsen underneath a bridge, then our team took a buffet restaurant for all it was worth. The place would be out of business in a day with more visitors like us. After hitting the roads again, our team of nine practiced riding in a tight line, keeping a steady pace, cutting the wind for each other and rotating out the leader to the back of the line. Got to know the other members of my biking team better as we rode for kilometers next to each other talking. Guy traveled the world for years, Jemma was pursuing her PhD in ergonomics, Joe was a former world-champion Shotokan karate tournament fighter.

In the Spring farmers burn the dead residue from the winter to prepare for a new season of growth, so the air was filled with ash and the hills were literally on fire. We breathed through our noses and were fine. A mountaintop view of miles and miles of burning fields bordering flowering trees and green valleys made for a striking image. The longest uphill climb I had yet known (where beastial cries of victory welled up inside me and escaped my chapped lips at the crest of the hill) was followed by the most exhilarating downhill coast that took me to the end of the day's route. Dipped into the nearby onsen with the other dudes, letting the cold bath work its magic on sore muscles. That night we all stayed in a collection of smaller cabins, wolfing down curry rice and a few beers, recounting the days' struggles and scenery, sharing exhaustion and the satisfaction of finishing another days' ride

Third day, Sunday. Brutal day. As forecasted the day turned cold and heavy rain fell from 9am onward, to accompany the most grueling ride of the weekend. Within minutes we were soaked to the bone, commando-style bike shorts clinging and chafing with each pedal stroke, shoes filled like squishy buckets with cold, heavy water, squinting through rain-streaked sunglasses to see the gray road as passing trucks splashed us and wet grates threatened to introduce us to the pavement at 40 km/hr. After climbing innumerable switchbacks of a mountain and losing the rest of our body heat from the wet wind coasting down the opposite side, we stopped for lunch at a deliciously warm noodle shop. Poured the water out of our shoes, wrung out our socks, gloves and clothes, dried as much as we could with newspaper and sat our soggy butts down on additional newspaper sheets. All the while making quite the gaijin spectacle in the small-town shop

After refueling with a big bowl loaded with hot Champon (noodles, vegetables and tons of pork and seafood), donned our damp gear and got back out in the rain. Shortly it became clear that the ladies of our party were done riding for the day, so Joe (our leader) led the group to a nearby onsen where they could warm up and relax, while the five guys pushed on to finish the last leg of the journey. Of these five I was far and away the slowest, and soon fell behind as we climbed in our lowest gear up a constant grade 8 road winding up a forest ridge. This hill made yesterday's climbs look almost cute. Trying to catch up with the other four superhumans, I kept pedaling up the path until my legs quit about three quarters of the way up and I sort of fell over. Drank some water, threw back a pack of fruit snacks, and got back on, feeling a slightly worrisome sharp pain in my right knee. Just as I got going a white k-truck coming the other way stopped and an old lady got out, handing me two hard candies shaped like cartoon feet. Maybe it was karma from helping clear that tree out of the road for a similar lady so many months ago. The candies tasted like some curious mixture of ginger and brown tea and filled me with magical energy, and I strained onward.

It was near the top (though I didn't yet know it because of the tree cover) when I started talking to myself, mixtures of muttered cursings and self-encouragement, with a few snatches of old soul songs ("Ooh Lord, I've traveled so far...") thrown in. Then suddenly I turned a corner and the road disappeared over a crest, no longer rising. The feeling was probably comparable to finally reaching heaven after an eternity spent in limbo rolling a boulder up an endless hill. This epic quest within my mind was a fun little race up a hill to the other four, of course. Nick and Guy were in the distance riding back to check on me, and the three of us went back to Joe's house, got changed into warm, ridiculous clothes (tiny pink shorts and a suave white button-up for me, a spandex wrestlers' uniform for Guy, and a flannel coat with surfing shorts for Nick). After wiping the grit and mud off the bikes, the three of us headed toward the nearby thatch-roofed onsen and lowered ourselves tenderly into the healing waters, turning curious Japanese patrons' heads with sharp gasps of pain and unabashed moans of pleasure.

Thank you to the friends and family who supported the trip! It was incredibly challenging and equally rewarding, but I can't wait to get in better shape and go on more of these tours. Joe leads similar trips around Kyushu for a living these days, so he's a good man to know. And some of the kids looked at me like a lesser Lance Armstrong when I told them my tale at lunch on Monday, though most just made fun of the fact that I couldn't really walk straight for a few days.

"I just want to create something meaningful."

We can work with our hands, shaping metal or picking dead leaves off a growing plant. Operate heavy machinery, pour cement into a foundation, wash and peel potatoes, put new steel strings on a used guitar or scrape muck out of gutters.


We can write words that trigger sympathetic reactions in diverse minds, channel a melody that swims through the air and into a million tiny bones in a million different ear canals, reverberating tiny membranes and resonating through hearts and bodies, make beats that bob heads and tap toes. Capture wildlife in watercolors or generate timeless children's folktales.


We can coordinate a public university's internet network, develop and edit underground films, analyze the mechanics of plane engines, teach kids a foreign language, preside over elementary schools, administrate a medical research lab, or tirelessly study law in the joint pursuits of making money and promoting justice.


We can come late to work, cheat on tests, cheat on spouses, take drugs, lie to parents, manipulate friends, steal until we get caught. We can feel purposeless, scrape our chins through the grit of depression, doubt our relationships and withdraw, brooding behind walls and sliding doors. Alone in the dark, we can question our own worth.


We can see from a new perspective. We can regard a good choice in retrospect with complete satisfaction. Lay for hours under a flowering tree reading for pleasure in the spring sun. Draw warmth and comfort from one good friendship. We can forgive ourselves, even for the big things. As long as we don't repeat those mistakes. We can accept what changes as time passes. We can practice the cello, push our limits on marathon bike trips, focus on a new project and see it through. Handwrite a letter to an old friend, send a text message to a new friend, roll the dice and pursue a romantic spark to see where it might lead.


I want to challenge myself, feel content with the results. I want to be consistently honest, achieve a balance of personality where I know who I am and don't struggle to reveal a cohesive self to strangers or friends. I want to earn people's trust and mislead no one. I want to show friends and family how much I care about the abstract things they think about and what they choose to do on a daily basis. I want to create a satisfying lifestyle for myself while helping with all the smaller and greater things connected to me.


I want to look back when it's all said and done and feel like I've created something meaningful. That's about as much as I can ask for, really.

Reassembled in Japan

This is my entry for the 2009 JET essay competition. It's okay, I guess.

Starting something from nothing ain't easy. Just writing the first sentence of an essay others will read is surprisingly daunting, like being thrust into a room full of strangers and told to introduce myself in six short words. As nerve-racking as performing a strict and unfamiliar martial arts routine alone in front of a stone-still hall of black-belted masters. As onerous as attempting to control, lead, and teach a classroom of rebellious adolescents without any formal experience behind me. As formidable as the prospect of starting a new life in an alien country and living alone, cooking and cleaning and caring for myself, paying bills covered in indecipherable pictographs, ultimately relying on myself for survival.

Of course when I take a deep breath and get started, things only get easier from there. Obstacles and anxieties fade, replaced by experience and confidence. Eventually I realize how much stronger I've become, how glad I am to have made that choice to throw myself into the unknown, into an entirely new world; to have strapped myself into a catapult set to launch over the horizon, far past my line of sight with only a vague idea where I might land. That's what it's been like coming to Japan.

Throughout life my surroundings have tended to change frequently. I moved a lot growing up, from house to house, apartment to condo, condo to college. The last four years I changed rooms every semester out of habit more than necessity. When the reality of life after Whitman College reared its head, offering a seat in the same cubicle with no window view for an indeterminate number of future hours, I decided to apply to the JET program instead. Completely new surroundings, new people, new food, new culture. A wonderful prospect. A certain hunger for the unfamiliar flows deeply through me and (I believe) the rest of the JET community. Something impelled us to move across the world, after all.

My expectations were admittedly high coming in. An older friend from Whitman working near Shizuoka would enthusiastically relate stories about the kindness and generosity of the Japanese people, how the rich culture and well-balanced society was evident throughout the country. It was clear the JET program offered an incredibly wide variety of opportunities to experience a new reality. I expected things to be different, of course. But I failed to guess how much seven months in Japan would change me after twenty-two years in America.

Japan is renowned for its ability to import rough, unfinished materials from abroad and meticulously combine them with other elements, replacing the superfluous with the practical. The result is a compound product whose functionality and overall value to society is greater than the sum of its original parts. It's how a small island nation with few natural resources developed into the world's second largest economy. A year ago I marveled at the 'economic miracle' of Japanese growth from behind textbooks and lecture notes. Now I'm physically becoming a part of that process- I'm being reassembled in Japan. My body and mind are composed of the same raw stuff, and yet I am constantly being reformed into a new, more productive, more punctual, more thoughtful member of society as I make efforts to adapt to this environment.

The best advice I got before coming here (from a Tarot-card reader at my college's annual medieval fair), was to "keep an open mind" toward the multitude of new experiences headed my way. Simple advice, humorously received and cynically disregarded. Simple advice that has since become a personal mantra. On the very first evening in my home town of Ueki (なつかしい / it takes me back), my supervisor took me to the renowned local Izakaya restaurant I would come to know and love after a dozen more えんかい parties. It took an open mind to try the Kumamoto prefectural specialty- ばさし, or raw horse meat. It was crazy delicious.

It took an open mind to rationalize why everything is written in the complex 3,000+ character set of kanji, when two other syllabaries capable of depicting any word or phrase already exist. Now, as I continue to study, the ubiquitous literary puzzles around me slowly unravel and reveal unique forms of expression. The kanji themselves become strikingly beautiful works of art, rich in meaning and steeped in cultural significance.

It took an open mind, when autumn faded to winter, to accept that despite Japan's status as a world leader in both standard of living and per-capita GDP, my apartment had no insulation and my schools weren't heated. I was going to have to steel myself and spend the next few months wearing sweaters and long underwear beneath my slacks and dress shirts, while my fingers grew accustomed to operating without the sense of touch. Now I appreciate how this practice engenders a basic hardiness and respect for nature in all of those forced to endure it, as well as the sheer amount of energy a cold building saves over the long course of a winter. At night I learned to sleep with a hot water bottle clutched to my chest and another between my feet, like a cold-blooded lizard warming its bones on rocks still warm from the day's heat. It's all about adaptation.

The JET program challenges us, essentially forces us to fit into a foreign environment. The key to the program's success is that it also provides us with relative freedom and opportunities to explore our surroundings, to expand our abilities and lifestyles in a brand-new context. Every time we encounter one new person, two introductions are made. Two exchanges are invested in, and two social bridges are better paved for future interactions. A lucrative potential for cultural profit exists in that formula. So in the enduring spirit of maintaining an open mind, I resolved to get out there and try something new, to fulfill an enduring dream. I decided to start training in a martial art. One hot September day, as we sat fanning ourselves at our desks, I asked my ALT sempai if there were any options in the immediate area. “You want to study karate in Japan, huh?” He smiled knowingly, made a few phone calls, and then led me to Kimura dojo.

I still remember my first meeting with Kimura Sensei. The quiet strength and dignity with which he carried himself, the way his presence effortlessly dominated the room. His wife Keiko, whom I now fondly call Oba-chan (Auntie), poured us tea as we discussed a training schedule. Monday and Wednesday evenings starting the following day, and Sensei refused to accept more than 2,000 yen each month. I consume at least that much in tea, coffee, and snacks in a four-week period. With my ALT sempai generously translating, Sensei proceeded to explain that we would be studying traditional Okinawan karate, not modernized tournament-style karate. His teachings would be deeply infused with Japanese-Buddhist philosophy, progressing strictly and slowly. Requiring patience and sustained effort from both master and pupil. I honestly didn't know if I was up to the task. Taking a deep breath, I agreed to give it a shot.

Six months later I still don a white belt every Monday and Wednesday night. I'm only just beginning to verbally communicate with Sensei in basic Japanese, and any one of the three children studying at the dojo could easily whip me blindfolded with both hands tied behind their back. Probably with a swift kick to the crotch- I've seen them demonstrate the technique. But I have learned more about discipline, respect, patience, and the true nature of strength and power from karate than I could have imagined in my pre-pubescent dreams of street fighting and kung-fu movies. Thanks, of course, to my teacher.

A proud warmth extends from Kimura Sensei's eyes if I correctly demonstrate a difficult kata or employ a new Japanese phrase after training. Meanwhile, the stern and intimidating master always observes me from beneath that white crown of hair and those thick, expressive black eyebrows. When that master instructs me to place my shoes neatly pointing toward the door in proper Japanese-style; to remove my coat and fold it with precision in the corner; to keep my hands by my side unconditionally when bowing; to continue pushing my body until my limbs no longer cooperate; when that master gives me a command, I have no choice but to listen and obey.

Outwardly, Japan can be a rigid and formal society. But the hard exterior hides a core glowing with warmth and vitality. Warmth which emanates from Kimura Sensei and Oba-chan as we chat around the kotatsu table after training, vitality which they have imbued in their son Nari. Nari is one of the four black belts still practicing at Kimura dojo, who presides as Sempai over our recent Sunday morning trainings and is becoming a good friend of mine. He spent eighteen months studying karate in Canada and has been yearning to speak English since returning home, helping generate the kind of mutually beneficial relationship common between JETs and Japanese friends. 'Mutual' being the operative word. The people who selflessly help us are often people we help in return. Through reciprocated generosity in the future, by providing an opportunity to learn something new, or from generating the simple satisfaction of guiding a lost stranger. The more we give each other the more we weave ourselves together, and into the greater social fabric that constitutes our environment.

Strange as it may seem, I have yet to feel a deep sense of homesickness since coming to Japan. I miss my parents, my brother, my best friends. I miss them deeply and consistently. But more than a desire to hurry and get back to them in the States, I'd rather try to help them climb into their own catapult. Fly across the ocean and be introduced to this world. Mid-winter nabe parties, mid-summer fireworks festivals, late autumn こうよう viewing (when the trees burst into brilliant red and orange), the legendary glory of cherry blossom season. I want to hand my Mom the giant mikans (Japanese oranges) Oba-chan makes me take home if I'm catching a cold, show my Dad how I set up my apartment to make it my own, describe to friends what it's been like to gradually feel welcome in a society where I began as an outsider. Such things make Japan, and my little town of Ueki, comfortable and familiar.

Summer, fall, and winter have now passed, and my process of cultural adaption is developing into cultural evolution. Actions now complement reactions. I find myself contributing to the small world around me, endlessly sharing stories and games with the local えいかいわ (adult conversation class), or organizing community Easter egg hunts and Fourth of July celebrations. Creating sports-themed English lessons capable of engaging teenage students. Finally, I am beginning to fulfill my role as a member of society by giving back. Finally, I’ve settled in a place where I’m thinking about how much I can change, not how soon I can move on. Finally, Japan is starting to feel like home.

a day in the life

if you happened to read the "day in the sei" tale of yesteryear, this is more or less what that scene looked like, now etched on paper as it has been indelibly etched in my memory.

p.s. a big thank you to the two lovely ladies of Kumamoto who created the magazine that motivated this sketch.

workplace dynamics

Beyond the occasional poop-related anecdote I haven't written much about my actual job here yet, and today is a good day to start. It's been a special day.

To begin with I shaved my head on Saturday, which startled some people when I came in this morning. I did the same thing shortly after coming here seven months ago, but since then I think the kids and my coworkers have grown accustomed to a reasonable amount of hair covering my dome. Frank appraisals of physical appearance are surprisingly common and acceptable in Japan, and the reactions have varied. They have included a girl screaming in terror and dropping her books when I came around a corner, a vague comment about the visibility of my skull shape from a teacher who never said a word to me before today, and random combinations of outright mocking and shouted compliments from the students. “Bald man! Beckham! Britney Spears!” At least 'bald' is pretty high level English vocabularly, I was impressed.

The change has also inspired some new camaraderie in a few of my students sporting the same “ぼうず”(Buddhist monk) style, netting me some more conversation and an extra milk at lunch today. Every day at lunchtime a small ritual takes place- two students will enter the teacher's room and formally ask me to accompany them back to their classroom, an offer I have yet to refuse, then take my lunch tray and walk by my side through the school as I ask them about their weekend. Then I sit down among them, ostensibly to converse in English. Since this is usually impossible, we instead talk in extremely basic Japanese, about my height or relationship status, my pick for the most handsome boy and girl in the class, or which Smash Brothers character is our favorite (we both liked Captain Falcon).

Anyway, today is also special because it's the last day of official classes for the year. The third years will all graduate next Monday, several teachers will rotate to other schools, and we'll get a whole new third of the student body fresh out of elementary in a couple weeks. I was pleasantly surprised with two goodbye notes today, one collectively from a third year class and another one from a student who I helped prepare for the English recitation contest last fall. It makes all the blood sweat and tears I've poured out to these children worthwhile.

The final reason today stands out is that I realized my responsibilities as a teacher are gradually expanding. Reading words and sentences aloud and walking around correcting written assignments with a red pen are still the bread and butter of my job, but a few teachers are starting to ask for more. Japan is captivated by Barack Obama and his speeches, and many of my teachers are extremely interested in the history of civil rights in America. While often wary of foreigners, Japan has remained a homogeneous society for thousands of years and can't really relate to the concept of discrimination (though some might disagree). So in the last few weeks I've given a handful of Powerpoint presentations outlining the work and significance of MLK, Rosa Parks, Kennedy and Obama, and read King's “I Have a Dream” speech and Obama's “Yes We Can” victory speech many, many times. To try and engage the students I've taken to doing over-the-top dramatic readings of most everything, and I'm sure at least a few second years had their teenage hearts moved and souls stirred by King's powerful words as I raised my hands gloriously to the sky proclaiming a dream and made sweeping gestures to illustrate the red hills of Georgia where everyone will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

The topics vary. Last week at Goryou J.H. a teacher asked me to make a presentation on anything I thought might be interesting, and after soliciting some student input I taught them all about sports in America. It's not a bad job that leads you to reviewing sports highlights on Youtube well into the early morning hours on a Thursday night. And damned if they didn't finally listen. The nice thing about rotating between three different Junior Highs using the same textbook and a nearly identical teaching system is that everything has the potential to do triple duty, so tomorrow I'll be giving the same presentation, projecting Michael Jordan flying from the free throw line in '93 and Babe Ruth's legendary 60th home run set to "Final Countdown" and "We are the Champions" on the pull-down classroom screens at Kanan Junior High.

Beyond that kind of stuff, the time I spend outside the classroom is usually occupied by studying kanji and Japanese vocab at my desk in the teachers' lounge, and more rarely by correcting a recent quiz or typing out the bones of a blog entry.

In short, I'm really starting to enjoy the relative day to day diversity of teaching along with the room it provides for creativity and initiative, and things only get better as I gradually get to know my students and coworkers better. Being able to talk to them helps speed up the process, as do little things like playing basketball or music with the kids during lunch breaks and participating in teachers' soccer tournaments. Only music and sports can transcend otherwise insurmountable language and cultural barriers. And every day presents enough unique challenges to keep life interesting, like being given 30 seconds at the end of class to explain in the most basic possible English the progression from Martin Luther King's work in the fifties to Obama's presidency today, and what all this means in the hearts of the American people. I can't even remember what spilled out of my mouth, but I remember the teacher writing “Change” several times on the board so I think that was the theme I went with.

So, while I'm not planning on pursuing a lifelong career in middle-school education or anything like that, I'm having a good time with it right now.

wise words from the sea

(on the risks of extreme water skiing)

"I feel you can buy more skis, but... you can't buy more people"

-surfer guy on "Step Into Liquid" (recommended)

running with ghosts

The two clocks in my apartment steadily tick and talk away increments of time, debating the finer points in low, measured voices, but ultimately agreeing on a singular truth. As I listen the dialogue crescendos and fades, the cadence shifts ever so slightly then pauses to emphasize a point, but I know that's just my own second-to-second take on reality.

Strange how that small tock can become deafening in a silent room when you lie in bed. I used to have to take the battery out of my clock at night in high school to fall asleep. Though I never really wanted to fall asleep yet anyway.

Why- why am I so deeply, so fiercely in love with this time of night? The early a.m. hours draw a serene veil of dark, electric mystery/possibility over the slumbering earth, all of its appointments suspended, its anxieties forgotten. This is a time for creativity, a time for solitude and introspection, a time to step outside and run with ghosts. Only a few other living souls roam about- though you seldom see a face you'll hear them driving down the highway, engaged in secret agendas, destinations unknown.

Mind ablaze you set out alone to jog through the still suburban backstreets, down the deserted bike paths and into the inky bamboo forest that exists for only a few unobserved hours each day. Focusing on the rhythm of your breath, suddenly a twig snaps loudly in the darkness to your left and squeezes a trigger deep in your brainstem, surging an involuntary shotgun blast of adrenaline through your blood that simultaneously shuts down the capacity for abstract thought and inverts all your instincts to Prey like the broad edge of a finger flipping off a row of light switches. Other nocturnal animals greet your newly sharpened senses; hidden jungle creatures that holler challenges from the treetops as you pass; dogs hoarsely asserting their respective jurisdictions in the distance; roosters who cry a siren's herald for the imminent dawn.

Through swirling clouds of breath I glimpsed a small Buddhist graveyard crowning a hill to the left, nestled against the crouching skeleton of an empty greenhouse. So I climbed up to sit among the polished marble and granite monuments, crafted with the harsh elegance of simple geometric figures, all angles and planes carved from smooth stone that gleams with a modest, understated luster in the faint moonlight, providing sanctuary for the spirits and earthly remains produced by generations of the same bloodline.

And I found a spot that felt right and sat there for a long time- clearing my head, listening to the wind combing the ricefields and the distant roar of the superhighway, jarred by the rooster crowing again and again- thinking about graves and my future and the last time I watched the sun rise, considering what it would feel like to become a ghost.

the noontime blogger

this is a quote from noon, made during a discussion between three friends shooting a movie, regarding two of them swapping their proposed characters.

Ken: "Yeah, it might work well that way-"
Holly: "Right! I just... I just think Taylor's a little more, you know, terrifying."
Ken: [nodding] "Probably, yeah."
Taylor: "Oh!.. I just thought Ken would make a better hermit living in the mountains, because of the beard, and the Karate, but all right..."

maybe he didn't realize how happy it made me to hear that.

the midnight jogger

You know those times when you're falling asleep, helpless and exhausted, your eyes drooping as the fading threads of your mind weave together a patchwork quilt of half-dreams, and you finally decide it's time to crawl into bed? Into your warm, pillowy bed, where you can let those weary eyelids close, relax every muscle and release your thoughts into a current of unpredictable and captivating dreams always waiting to embrace you on the dark side of your subconscious.

But first, you have to brush your teeth and wash your face, finish transferring the lesson for tomorrow's class onto your USB key, wash the last of the dishes and put them on the rack to dry, turn off the TV, stereo and lights... and when you lie down at last, you realize that the gentle fuzziness enshrouding your brain has been rudely swept away by an undesired second wind.

Balancing constantly on the verge of exhaustion throughout college had dependably subdued these curious energy reserves for the last four years, but now they are creeping back into my nights and pushing me further and further into the early a.m. hours. Despite getting up at half past seven, putting in a full day of work followed by dinner, karate, a few episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and a starlit jog to the school where I'll work tomorrow that landed me home a few minutes ago, I still can't sleep. The time is 3:11am.

I did get a new weekday record of sleep last night (almost nine hours), which made me feel amazingly awake at school today. I think it made me friendlier. Which in turn gave the kids more incentive to talk to me, certainly something I need to encourage. I even got a big hug from one of the 'cool kids', the school soccer star, a powerful leader of children. Hooray! Dear diary, maybe this means I'm popular now. Can I somehow relive my awkward junior high days as the grizzled foreign jock / occasional musician/ cat's cradle master and repair all my insecurities from that transitory time? No, I guess not, but it's nice to notice that many of those insecurities seem to have faded away with time. Along with my hairline. (well, maybe they've just been replaced by different insecurities. but I like to think that relatively mild premature balding has forced me to come to grips with my own mortality at an early age).

Anyway, now the shadowed fingers of sleep are gently brushing the fringes of my thoughts, beckoning seductively toward the dark bedroom. Hopefully now, at last, I can rest.

The challenge? Defeat 9,000 other near-naked men. The prize? Glory.

Check this out.

Though it's description as one of Japan's three oddest festivals may lead you to believe things like this are rare, I came dangerously close to joining a similar-sounding event translated as "Naked man wrestling" up in Fukuoka last month.

Also, please consider the fact that Near-Naked Man Wrestling has been around longer than America has been a country.

saturday

here's what's happened today thus far:

• woke up around 10am, amidst the four others who spent the night last night. something about our circumstances here in the JET community generates frequent sleepovers and the occasional surreal adventure. it's like being back in grade school in a few glorious ways.
  
• cooked up some spaghetti and moved the couch out to the porch to enjoy the sun and one of the first truly spring-like days of the season. listened to the best of Motown while eating, that was a very important element of the experience.
  
• drove to one of Ueki's most beautiful and historic parks, watched the coy swim lazily around the large shallow lake at the bottom of the park, then climbed a long stone staircase to a series of shrines and prayed at each. we continued to hike further along a small trail until we came to a dwelling identified as the Demon's Cave (in Japanese, Spooky translated), which was an ancient stone dwelling burrowed into the side of a hill amid a magical copse of trees. it was created in the sixth century and has remained there since. I had no idea such things were in Ueki.
  
• drove to the onsen we all love and lay in the sun and warm water, rejuvenating our souls.
• stopped and ate some basashi (raw horse meat, kumamoto's famous for it) on the way back.
• skyped with my ol' friend Greg, who's riding the daily grind for all it's worth in Washington D.C. doing what every creative liberal arts graduate should aspire to- selling gourmet chocolates and editing copious amounts of army propaganda footage and the occasional Bin Laden construction company infrastructure advertisement.
  
• now we're making tacos as some clothes and sheets dry outside, preparing to drive down south for our friend's going-away party. he has to return to south africa, which is a damn shame. I think we'll all miss Jamie's warm smile, attentive ear and heart of gold.
  
• tacos are ready, time to go. adios. paz y amor a todos.
  

stalled on a full tank

VS.

this is pretty embarrassing, but in the interests of accurately portraying my life and job here, this story must be told. the events which follow really happened, about five minutes ago. here we go.

there are two designated teachers bathrooms, one for each sex, right outside of the staff room at any given school. teachers use these rooms and never any others, and now I finally understand why. the men's room is replete with three urinals and two stalls, enough to handle everyone's needs. the problem is that the two stalls at this particular school contain only traditional japanese 'squat' toilets, which for reasons of comfort I still avoid using at all costs. so when the forces of nature called today, I was forced to venture into the untamed wilds of the students' bathrooms in search of a proper seat.

aware that the school day had just ended and the kids were now roaming free, I slipped from the staff room and tread down the hall, every sense simultaneously straining, searching for the slightest shuffling sound or surreptitious signal of a stealthy student. detecting a small group of second years crowded around their own bathroom on the main floor, I turned the corner and padded down the stairs to the first year level. hallelujah, the coast looked clear all the way in.

but alas! I entered to find a lone first year washing up inside the bathroom. this kid and I have a relatively familiar and amiable relationship, so I hoped that he would let this particular sighting of Ken-sensei slip by, and instead just run along to join his pals. but of course, that's just not how these things work.

after asking him if there was a light over the stalls, which he promptly turned on for me (why, thanks friend!), I took my seat as I heard his footfalls retreat down the quiet hall outside. a minute or so passed. such a peaceful, contemplative minute. "I wonder if Spring really is here?", I thought. "I can't wait to see those cherry blossoms for the first time".

suddenly I was jerked from my reverie by what sounded like a small army of plastic sandals in the distance. soon the very ground seemed to pound rapidly, and my heart moved to keep the beat as the steps and giddy chatter grew louder. then a cresting wave of sound exploded into the room, with shouts of "KEN SENSEI!" and "OH! MR. KEN!!" echoing and re-echoing like bullets off the tile walls, followed by what seemed like hundreds of swift hands knocking on the door of my cramped stall.

next, the true siege began. in mounting despair I watched small, powerful fingers curl over the top of the stall walls moments before their owners' heads followed, beaming down at me, pointing and laughing and wrestling with each other for a viewing spot as I sat helpless below, waving my arms over my head and commanding (begging) them to "DA-ME! DAME!! (STOP!/NO!/BAD!/HAVE YOU NO MERCY?)" but it only seemed to fuel their frenzied excitement.

finally I stood up with a bellow of warning, making them drop off the top, and cleaned up shop as quickly and carefully as I could, knowing the stall was about to be submitted to a thorough inspection by everyone present. I took a deep calming breath as they flicked the lights on and off (a tactic designed to force me into the open?), then emerged, ducking through the doorframe. my exit elicited an enthusiastic cheer from a small troupe of no fewer than fifteen boys who now stood around me, lining the small bathroom in a primal sort of chanting ring. shaking my head, I strode to the sink with as much dignity as I could muster and began to wash my hands, ignoring the questions being thrown at me from all directions in less-than-formal Japanese, "are you alright?" "did you eat vegetables?" "is that how americans do it?"

desperately trying to salvage the end of this situation by making it an educational opportunity, I told them I would only speak in English whilst in the bathroom. the question they ended up forming was "Ken-sensei, why didn't you use the teacher's bathroom?". all in all pretty reasonable, considering no teacher ever has or will use a student toilet.

returning upstairs with the remaining contingent following close behind, led by the boy I had once considered my friend, I tried to explain that I had some difficulty using the low toilets, which we don't have back in America, and prefer to sit. needless to say, I now agree with my young pupil's suggestion that I try and adapt to this last of Japanese traditions, because I hope to never in all my days return and sit again on that cold, porcelain throne of shame.

this does not legally constitute financial advice

... but if you have around $1000 in the bank right now and no pressing need of it for the next coupla years i'd recommend starting an etrade account, transferring the money electronically from your bank, investing it in apple computers and watch it grow, grow, grow. but, ya know, that's just my opinion*.

*(simpsons-style fast-speaking infomercial disclaimer) the opinions of the blogger expressed herein do not constitute legal or financial advice, and neither the blogger nor any related party may be held accountable for any injuries, hair loss or bankruptcy caused as a result of being influenced by said opinions.

p.s. this entry is made after two consecutive all-nighters and precious little sleep, so please don't judge me if it seems either dreamlike or reads like the fragmented, urgent thoughts that might spill out as a mind slowly unravels.

happy heart day

Before I try to describe the weekend, here are the most recent 11 pictures from my cellphone, which tell a story of their own.












Ahh, this is a nice change of pace. riding the bus around the city, taking in the scenery and fascinating, muted snippets of strangers' lives glimpsed through the window, choosing the long route to where I'm headed and having no reason to rush it. 95 percent of weekend mornings I'll end up sleeping in until at least eleven, but every once in a great while I find myself wide awake, out and about before 8am on a sunny sunday. My laptop happens to be with me at the moment since it served as the jukebox for the JET fundraising valentines day party this last friday. The funds were being raised for a volunteer trip to India to build a house in late april that I'm real excited to join.

Later today Alex and I will host the first ever monthly Ueki teacher's eikaiwa (english conversation meeting) with whoever shows up. We have high hopes for a solid turnout of 2 or 3 this time, but with greater advance notice and fun little event cards we may be able to double those figures next month. Big changes are happening in Ueki, yes suh. This last friday we laid the planning foundations for a kids' easter egg dying and hunt on easter sunday and a (hopefully) big fourth of july bash this summer. Alex and I were both feeling we could try harder to bring some cultural flavor from home to our new hometown (it's Japanese Exchange and Teaching Program after all), so we're endeavoring to start some small-scale community events. So far they are fully comprised of american holidays we would otherwise miss celebrating, but it's a start. the Ueki board of education seems receptive to our efforts so it just might work.

Alex certainly earns her money teaching 5 elementary classes a day, making posters and planning lessons, but sometimes I wonder if the stated requirements of my position in junior high really warrant the pay grade JET has allotted me. Fortunately a combination of mind-numbing stretches of free time at work and a vague sense of unproductive guilt, coupled with the cheery determination of a friend with much better people skills and practical organizing sense, can help produce some good holiday family fun for the whole community.

I have a few minutes before getting off the bus, but I just want to note that this has been an amazing week and weekend. Two nomihodai parties in two days is a pretty fail-safe recipe for meeting some new people and having a story to tell, but a lot of factors combined to make this weekend especially memorable. For starters I was single on valentines day, which manifested itself as it should- with me hanging out watching movies and 30 Rock with two other single dudes all weekend, enjoying a romantic stroll around a beautiful lake in central Kumamoto and taking some pictures with the aforementioned dudes, and spending the special night itself passing out exhausted on my (younger) karate sensei's couch at his apartment in the city.

Saturday night's party took place at a friend's English conversation school, so there was a serendipitous mixture of English-speaking foreigners with varying degrees of Japanese-speaking abilities wanting to make Japanese-speaking friends and vice-versa. So I met some interesting new people, including a trilingual guy from Belize who professionally plays the steel drums (amazingly graceful and beautiful to watch-both the instrument and the man himself of course) and is seeking a pianist who only has to know basic chords.

Alright, time to wrap things up. I think I'll actually post this blog entry after only one (make that two) revision(s), rather than putting it up after 4 or so revisions then immediately deleting it and starting from scratch again later. I just want those few of you who read this blog to know that I sincerely do want to keep a decently substantive running account of my life, but I have a troublesome touch of semi-neurotic perfectionism that prevents me from being satisfied with almost anything I produce, compounded by the formidable goal of trying to please a varied audience that includes both my grandmother and some meathead fraternity brothers, to whom i would normally speak a little differently. but if I can get in the habit of putting down a stream of consciousness after significant experiences here, revising it a few times then posting (and leaving) it, hopefully I can break down the mental barriers and update this more regularly. I do love writing, and i'd like to do more of it. well, that's all for now, thanks for reading.