大南瓜冒険
Spring Textures, originally uploaded by jasohill.
It has been a few weeks since I posted something in the photo department. This week’s photo is a tribute to spring. It’s also a tribute to what you might find when you walk around in small town Japan. The colors are finally coming back.
As you look at the title of this blog entry, I bet you are wondering if your encoding is setup correct. Don’t worry, it’s not you. This is the title of the event I signed up for today. It’s a 5km race in the town I work in. What makes this title truly awesome is its length. This can be intimidating to people who can’t read Japanese. Let me break it down for you. Most Japanese titles are made up of words that are smashed together into one large “super word.”
第３７回 －37th Annual
八幡平市 － Hachimantai City
安代地区 － Ashiro Area.
健康 － Health
マラソン － Marathon
大会 － Meet
So if I were to attempt translating this into English, I would attempt saying:
“The 37th Annual Ashiro Good Health Marathon”, or something along those lines. I have less than a month to train for this puppy. I’m boned.
Maybe it’s because spring is here, or maybe it’s because Japanese folk are settling into their new jobs. Whatever the reasons, 合コン(gokon) season has arrived. What exactly I am talking about? 合コン is the Japanese version of the “blind date”, except usually with all things Japanese, it happens in large groups. It is a way for single people meet without all the crazy searching and meeting and talking(and energy that goes into dating.) This is prearranged, usually by people in relationships, to get their pathetic friends hooked up so they no longer have to whine. For a couple of nights this month, I have been that “pathetic friend.” Here is my story.
I get a call from “Joe” on Monday. “Jason, are you free Friday night? My girlfriend “Kokonoko” wants you to come out to dinner on Friday. She is bringing her single friends. Hint, Nudge.” How am I to refuse such an offer. I usually spend my nights tending empty rice fields. I’m in.
So Friday night comes along and I arrive at the target location. The food for the evening is Okinawan and it’s supposedly spicy as hell. When I get up to the table, I sense some commotion. It seems the seating hasn’t been properly arranged yet. Usually, in gokon, the men and women sit across from each other and stare shyly, casting glances, while evil machinations take place to get them to pair up. Tonight was a little different. I was a foreigner, and therefore I needed to be seated in the middle of all the single girl action. This was a little unfair to “Yukitaro”, the other single chap who showed up a little later. I, however, wasn’t in the mood for complaining.
As a foreigner living in Japan, one of my unfortunate plights is that before I came, I was inoculated against the Yellow Fever. No, not the real disease that will destroy your liver and kidneys, I’m talking about the Yellow Fever that drives you mad with attraction to Asian women (or men) simply due to their exotic nature. Yes, for some reason, I have no natural attraction to Asian women, and never have. This gave me a bit of a hard time during my initial run up to coming to Japan, as every uncouth male around me was mentioning how lucky I was going to be, surrounded by all the Asian hotties… For me though, it’s water water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.
However, on with the story. As you may already be aware, the groping of young women on trains has become quite a problem here in Japan, to the point where most railways now offer women only cars on their train lines. Most of the time, they are located at the head of the train, and usually only are in effect during the early morning commuting times of about 0600 - 0900 hrs.
Continue reading ‘New Findings Show Yellow Fever Inoculations Can Cause Lapses in Judgement’
Let me give you a little bit of a background here. Back when I as in University, there was a meeting held, where we decided what direction to take our lexicon in. After many hours of hot debate, a consensus was reached on two new suffixes that could be added to almost any verb, thereby transforming them into a noun. “-xor” would be added to anything to make it good, see “l33t haxor”, or “delicious meatxor” for examples. “-mo” would be added to the end of any word, to signify displeasure, and a certain air of mental retardation, see “lame-mo” or “tard-mo”.
Well, it seems that Japan has once again chosen something from the west to latch on to. Enter the Pasmo! Pasmo, from what I can gather with my limited Japanese, is two things. First, it is a wonderful RFID based rail pass system, that can easily be recharged at any train station. However, unlike its brilliantly marketed cousin Suica, Pasmo not only works at JR stations, but also on the Tokyo Metro, Busses, and most notably to me, the Noda Tobu line and Tsukuba Express! It also appears that Pasmo, and Suica can be friends, but more on this later.
Continue reading ‘I am a Pasmo, and Proud of It’
For those who aren’t already aware, Kanji is one of the three alphabets used here in Japan, along with hiragana ひらがな, and katakana カタカナ. Kanji are sometimes referred to as “Chinese Characters”, as they are borrowed straight out of written Chinese, though their pronunciation, and sometimes their meaning are very different.
So where do flowers = snow? Japan, that’s where.
The new year is in full swing and I have been quite busy. The craziest day so far was Monday, where I started at a new Junior High School and had a welcome part for some new teachers. Both events took places in different areas of my town. Yes, you may be wondering why there was a welcome party(involving heavy drinking) on a Monday night. Your guess would be as good as mine.
The highlight of the night was after the main meal. We were all quite drunk at that point and I heard someone yell “Tuna’s here!” Then, I looked over and noticed two large platters carrying some massive overcooked tuna heads. The head of the school was sitting across from me and urged me to head on over and crack one open, so that I might feast on the tasty meat inside. I complied, however, I had this uneasy feeling as I was scooping meat out the side of the fish. It just stayed there, looking at me disapprovingly. I will always remember the night I went out on a Monday for heavy drinking and Tuna head consumption.
My calm and unexciting Iwate life just got mildly more exciting. It appears NHK is airing a new television drama called ‘dondohare’ or ‘どんど晴れ’ The show follows the life of Yokohama native Natsumi Higa as she struggles to start up her own traditional Japanese Ryokan. This show is a type of morning drama call a ‘asadora’, or ‘Morning Drama.’
The reason I find this sort of exciting is because it takes place in Iwate Prefecture. Yes, for those of you not keeping track, that is the prefecture I live in. In fact, the show is based in Morioka, which is only 30 minutes from my door. I might tune in just to see if I can spot any of the locales. There is a ton of info on the show over at D-addicts. If you can read Japanese check out the Official Page.
Update: Ouch! The wonderful people over at J!-Ent news have revealed the opening broadcast of Dondobare brought NHK’s lowest reviews ever. It’s probably as I feared. No one outside or inside of Japan cares about Iwate.
First of all, this isn’t an April Fool’s day joke. This also isn’t a case of me tripping down the stairs and scrambling up my noggin balls. What I am writing about, however, is the start of the new fiscal year. So today, let’s learn the difference between the regular and the fiscal years in Japan.
The regular Japanese year begins on January 1st like it does in many countries. The traditional way of marking a year in Japan is to first state the era. This is based on the named of the current reigning emperor. That would be ‘heisei’ or ‘平成’ in Kanji. I need to point out that this is the name the emperor will recieve after his death. It’s the name the marks his reign. One should never approach the emperor, and say, “Yo, my man, Heisei, what be happenin’?”
After this, we want to state how many years the emperor has been on the throne, and for those who aren’t counting, this is the 19th year of the emperor’s reign. When you put them together you get ‘heisei 19′, or ‘平成１９’. This is the way the date is stated on most important documents. You might know this year marker by its English name, ‘2007′. Eventually, the emperor will pass on, and the name will change. The number will reset back to 1. This is how this do it, baby. It’s not rocket science. It’s emperor science.
Okay, so we know how the date is made, but how do we differentiate between the fiscal year and the regular year? This is actually quite simple. Just add a ‘do’ or ‘度’ to the year. therefore, ‘heisei 19′ becomes ‘heisei 19 do’, or ‘平成１９度’. Now you won’t be a lamer in Japan. Your boss will probably still think you’re a English Monkey, but you can now show them you’re an English Monkey who knows what year it is.
