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Floating Papers on the Sea of Japanby Keith FenskeJanuary to March 2001Copyright (c) 2001 by Keith Fenske. All rights reserved. |
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Tuesday, January 2nd. People, people, calm down! Despite hundreds of requests in the past few days, I am not going to post a picture of my new curtains! They are just curtains. They were the right size, they were on sale, and they aren't ugly. That's all. But I sure did see a lot of ugly ones. There was one pattern I wouldn't even hang in the windows of a warehouse....
Thursday, January 4th. Late December and early January are a time to tidy up old business and get ready for the new. My biggest computer mess was my Japan web page. You didn't see this when you looked at it, but I made some major mistakes in the page design. First and foremost, I did not foresee how large it would get. My Japan journal started as a 16 KB (kilobyte) text file with only one graphic (the squirrel). Now the text exceeds 335 KB. The photo gallery has about 50 JPEG images (plus thumbnails). Over 200 files were created simply to serve this page. There are so many of them that they don't even have names: they are just numbered.
Except it's not one page anymore, is it? The main storyline currently has nine segments. Each segment downloads as a separate file. The first segment is the smallest: the file called "floating.htm". It has to load quickly, and it has to re-load quickly because this page changes every time I add a new month. (The other pages are static and can be cached by your browser.) So there are no photos on the first page. The text is short: only the original 16 KB from before I arrived in Japan. If the reader is interested, then the polar bears will happily jump to the next page.... On a standard 56K telephone modem, the first page should download in less than five seconds. The later segments take up to 10 seconds for the text, plus even more time for the small "thumbnail" photos. Once you get into the photo gallery, the speed is limited by your internet connection. My Canadian server is very fast and always seems to supply the data as quickly as your computer can receive it.
Working with Japanese text was a new experience for me. Often the layout I chose for an original English page didn't work well for the Japanese translation page, so I went back and found a better layout that worked for both languages. Japanese tends to take up less space on the printed page, which moves the pictures and other design elements closer together.
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Sunday, January 7th. Good news: Miss Elephant Feet in the apartment upstairs is moving out. Maybe she will soon be living near you. Her hobbies include dropping heavy objects on the floor and moving furniture late at night. What she is actually doing, and why it takes several hours to accomplish this in such a small apartment, are both beyond my comprehension. Hopefully she will also take away her defective air conditioner that drones down through the walls and ceiling. She is moving in the same style that she lived here and the banging noises have been constant for the past couple days including most of the night. Unable to enjoy the comfort of my own apartment, I am once again escaping to the office on my day off.
The reason for commenting on my neighbors in detail is to contradict some common stereotypes about Japanese people. Courtesy and politeness are only guaranteed in highly structured situations where correct behavior is almost ritualized. In unstructured situations, behavior is unpredictable. Most people will continue to be polite and considerate. However, many others will not, and will act in a thoughtless or completely stupid manner. There are times when you wonder if they have any active brain cells at all. Then again, people like that are the same ones you swear at back home. Stupidity knows no national boundaries.
I just had a horrible thought. What if all this activity on the part of Miss Elephant Feet is not related to her moving? What if heavy traffic is to become her normal routine?
I should explain a tradition when moving from my apartment building: pile all your unwanted possessions in the garbage alcove, completely filling the space so that nobody else can put out their regular garbage. Be sure to throw away lots of bulky things that the garbagemen won't take, and don't worry about sorting and bagging actual garbage into the correct color of bags, because everyone will understand that you are moving, and they won't mind if your junk sits in the garbage alcove for weeks. If the alcove gets too full, don't close the sliding gate. This will give the crows something new to pick over. Yes, the biggest garbage scavengers in Japan are not cats or dogs but crows! Unless you are lucky enough to have an enclosed location for garbage collection, you must take out your garbage only an hour or two before the scheduled collection time of 8 AM. Otherwise the crows become a great nuisance. There are jokes about the crows in Tokyo being more clever than the attempts to get rid of them.
Tuesday, January 9th. In a reversal from the ordinary, there was a line of people waiting for taxis at Yonezawa station. Normally my train arrives early, giving me 20 minutes to wander around before I take one of the numerous waiting taxis at five o'clock to the company location. Bad weather and poor driving conditions slowed the taxis and increased demand for their services as some people chose to leave their cars at home. Hopeful passengers were peering over huge banks of snow for sight of an approaching taxi. Only four or five came in 20 minutes. By 5:05, there were still ten or so people in front of me. Then a black taxi came: a middle-sized taxi costing 20 to 30% more than the regular small taxis. Nobody ahead of me wanted the black taxi, so I took it and got to my company location only five minutes late, which is a lot better than waiting half hour to save a few dollars.
The taxi would have gotten me there on time, except that the favored route was blocked off by road cleaning equipment. How do you remove over one meter of snow from a narrow street walled on the sides by concrete (cinder block) fences? With front-end loaders and dump trucks: you carry the snow away because there is nowhere else to put it.
Thursday, January 11th. If today is Thursday, then this must be Tsuruoka. That explains the weather. Oh, really, I should stop saying bad things about Tsuruoka's weather. I should say good things, funny things, like maybe about the wind. I walked from the bus terminal to McDonald's for lunch, a trip of about 15 minutes, mostly walking into the wind. An hour later, I walked from McDonald's to the company location, again into the wind. After class, I walked from the company to my hotel, yes, into the wind. In other words, over the space of several hours, I walked a giant circle, all into the wind. To test my luck even further, I walked from the hotel to Daiei to buy snacks. You guessed it: wind. Coming back to the hotel, however, the wind was at my back so I can't say that the weather in Tsuruoka is totally perverse.
Friday, January 12th. Snow, blowing snow, and zero visibility in places. There is a reason why express highways are raised above the surrounding landscape by about five meters. Well, actually two reasons. First, to prevent snow from drifting over the highway in winter. Second, to allow secondary roads to cross underneath. No, the third reason isn't that highway projects provide massive employment for the road construction industry.
Saturday, January 13th. We have finished translating these notes from June 1999 to October 2000, and that is where the Japanese translation will stop. It simply costs too much money and takes too much time. I estimate that we spent over Y10,000 (US$100) for each person who actually looks at the notes from beginning to end. Many people said that they wanted to read the notes in Japanese, but few did. Why does this sound familiar? Let me share with you a fictional but typical e-mail message that I have received. "Hi, Keith! How are you? What have you been doing lately? Are you still in Japan? What do you think of Japan?" This is followed by a postscript saying, "I haven't had time to read your web page, but I'll do that soon." If I understand this correctly, they don't have time to read the notes that are already written, but I'm supposed to have lots of time to say the same thing again to them in person. Maybe they would like me to write the words by hand and mail them by regular post. It's as if my internet notes are not personal enough, so they have no meaning. Hum. How much free time do they think I have? And, after writing the web page, what else is there to say? More than a few people haven't grasped the idea that by putting the words on a web page, everyone gets a better story, along with pictures and links to other sites.
Monday, January 15th. Off to Uniqlo I went. I did a rough conversion of inches to centimeters, picked out a pair of pants that were close (in waist size and length), tried them on, and found a perfect fit. No wonder Uniqlo has happy customers! Y2900 (US$26) for cotton casual pants with no alterations required? Good price, good fit. I didn't buy them. There was another color that I liked better. Those I bought. The trouble started when I got home. Petiracco saw the numbers on the tag, asked me how "big" the selection was in "fat boy" sizes, and hasn't stopped laughing since. There's nothing worse than living with a sarcastic raccoon. Unless, of course, it's knowing that the same raccoon writes an advice column. His choice for a title? "Ask Petiracco". I said, no, too generic and the words are a problem. Saying "ask" implies that Petiracco is actually going to listen to you. He doesn't. He just tells you what he thinks. My choice for a title? "Stuff and Nonsense". Maybe we'll compromise on "Petiracco Speaks: Advice and Stuff".
Thursday, January 18th. No road trip. The Tsuruoka company called our office and cancelled classes because of too much snow. That should give you an idea of how unusually bad this winter's weather is. The last day with clear blue skies was December 30th. Piles of snow near Yonezawa station are now higher than the people, one major road has narrowed from five lanes (in the summer) to only two lanes, with over three meters of snow on the sides, and the pedestrian walkway is almost a tunnel.
Friday, January 19th. Well, speak of the devil ... it's a blue sky day.
Saturday, January 20th. I think I'll stay home all day today. I'll lie in bed and pretend to be sick. Oh, wait a minute. I'm not pretending. The low-grade fever has returned. That's not even news. It's a repetition of the past. Many things are repeating themselves now. Perhaps one year is the best length of time to be in Japan. You leave in the same season that you arrived and the cycle feels complete.
I have determined that even if you wear all your clothes equally, only the really ugly ones last forever.
Wednesday, January 24th. My blue sweatshirt was not in my closet this morning, and one little raccoon was hiding something behind his back: pamphlets advertising a "fat boy" sale at "Peti Super Sales". My sweatshirt sold for US$9, which is not a bad price considering that it really was getting too small. Postage cost around US$6. From this, he figures that he made a profit of US$15. Shouldn't the postage be subtracted from the selling price, I asked? No, he said, because he bought the stamps with money he "found" in my pockets while I was napping, so the postage is a bonus.... We had a little discussion about what he can and can't sell. In the end, we only agreed that he has to do better with his arithmetic. He's still counting in traditional Raconian: one, two, many, more many, much many.
Friday, January 26th. There is a water shortage in Tsuruoka. Something about the snow not melting fast enough to fill the natural underground aquifers. Anyway, this means that I could not take a shower before coming back to Yamagata. Gosh, darn. I'm so disappointed. Blasts of water that alternate between too cold and too hot, cycling every thirty seconds or so. To tell the truth, I haven't taken a shower at the hotel in Tsuruoka for months: I return to my apartment in Yamagata, shower there, eat breakfast, and walk back to work -- which is, of course, near the bus station where I started from!
The water shortage prevented many businesses from clearing their parking lots in the usual way: a continuous sprinkle of water from pipes buried just under the surface of the pavement. The city of Tsuruoka uses similar sprinklers on a few streets in the shopping districts. With winter temperatures near freezing, this works for small amounts of snow. However, as that running water flows down into the drains, it gets colder and colder, and I can only assume that it makes it all the way to the river before it starts to freeze....
Sunday, January 28th. Sunny and warm. Snow drops from the roof with a soft thump to say good morning.
Wednesday, January 31st. If you don't understand one language, then try another. I saw the movie "Avalon" today because I liked the visual style of the wargaming sequences in a preview last month. Polish dialog and Japanese subtitles. Polish and Japanese names in the movie credits. However, all computer displays were in English -- and very correct English, I might add, noting only one minor spelling mistake. That should give you an idea how strong English is in our information age.
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Saturday, February 24th. I am thinking more and more about going home. I find myself planning things not for myself but so that they will be ready for the next teacher.
(I won't know if the commercial is good or bad because I don't have a TV.)
The TV station gave me about a dozen Piyotama notepads ... all with the old time schedule. They'll have dozens or hundreds more to dump before the commercial runs. As usual, I gave mine away to my students as prizes.
Saturday, March 10th. I put better captions under the thumbnail photos on my Japan web pages. Another ten hours spent on something that hardly anyone will notice.
Monday, March 12th. I was the foreign voice for an English lesson at Radio Monster, FM 76.2 MHz in Yamagata. The studio was so hot that I almost fell asleep. The show ended with them asking about my favorite Japanese song, and then playing the music. I picked a song by Aiko even though I had no idea what the title was or what the words meant. For me, it's just track number three on my Aiko CD, which I bought last year because I liked the tune. My choice happened to be perfect for this season because she's singing about the coming of the cherry blossoms! Later I was able to decipher the kanji characters. The name of the song is "Sakura No Toki". A literal translation is "Cherry Time" but the meaning is "Cherry Blossom Season" even if the kanji character for "hana" (flower or blossom) is missing. The name of the album is "Sakura No Ki No Shita" or "Under The Cherry Tree".
(Radio Monster broadcasts with all the power of a cricket, so I can barely receive this station at home, even though I live within walking distance of the studio.)
Thursday, March 15th. This is the first time in a long time when I've needed my umbrella. The problem in Yamagata is that rain usually comes with a wind that threatens to break the umbrella. In summer, some people also use umbrellas to shade themselves from the sun, or in winter, to ward off the snow. Me? I just put up the hood on my jacket.
Saturday, March 17th. The ceremonial opening of the balcony doors and washing of the floor. And you thought that today was St. Patrick's Day! I wore my green pants and promptly got them dirty picking up a winter's worth of garbage from around the apartment building (one blue bag and one red bag). Everyone should wash clothes twice in one day, and I will refrain from making my usual comments about the people who leave this trash. Instead, I will post an artistic photo of garbage nicely arranged on a sculpture, and will link that photo to my previous comments.
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Tuesday, March 20th (Vernal Equinox Day). There is a hot, dry wind coming down off the mountains, hot enough to hang clothes outside, to clean my winter boots, and to put on summer shoes. Winter is gone in Yamagata. I will check for lingering signs in the nearby cities today and tomorrow. This Tuesday is a working holiday for me: the calendar says spring equinox but my schedule says company class.
(Half a meter of snow still covers the fields near Yonezawa and there was almost a 10-degree drop in temperature. The hot winds didn't blow in that direction.)
Saturday, March 24th. To re-create the atmosphere of an old-time market, some stores have recorded voices that shout a welcome and give a running spiel (sales pitch) about the specials of the day. Nobody really pays attention. Today my Yamazawa grocery store did something that was impossible to ignore: they had two cassette decks and the regular PA (public address) speakers giving three different spiels. The worst place was in the pasta aisle at the back of the store. Hearing three loud voices talking at the same time in a language that I only partly understand, the mental aggravation was overwhelming. I didn't know whether to scream or to vomit. I concentrated on finding the mustard -- which I found near the spaghetti, not with the other condiments -- and then got out of the store as quickly as possible. The front of the store was calmer, and I did think about complaining to the store manager, but realized that (as a foreigner) I would be the only person who found those voices unpleasant. This has to be the most annoying mustard that I have ever bought!
Sunday, March 25th. There was a rather nice comment about my Japan web page yesterday. Allow me to paraphrase. "When I'm thinking about you, I can go on the internet and get an instant letter!"
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Monday, March 26th. April is the start of the new school year in Japan, so March is the start of schedule shuffling season in the office. Kids appear and disappear; classes shrink and grow. Small classes merge. Big classes get split up. Some classes survive intact. Elementary schools don't have English classes while junior high schools do, so after grade six of elementary school, students often stop coming to private schools for English conversation and start coming for extra help with the more grammar-oriented curriculum that they face in junior high school. Grade nine students (third year of junior high school) often stop coming altogether because they are busy studying for high school entrance exams. They return in grade ten (first year of high school) and disappear again in grade twelve when they are studying for university entrance exams. It's not unusual for a student to start and stop several times at the same private school during their twelve years of regular school. They may even return later as an employee, as our part-time secretary did after graduating from a technical college.
Tuesday, March 27th. A lousy day. My stomach hurts. Road trip. No students. Can't find a taxi. Walk in the dark. Watch my train leave the station. Lost my ticket. Buy another with my own money. Take the next train. Get home late. Don't feel like eating supper. Forgot to buy milk for breakfast the next morning.
Wednesday, March 28th. The manager of my local bento shop, his wife, and I went out for dinner ... to their favorite bento restaurant. The difference? His shop sells take-out bento that is ready in a few minutes. We went to an eat-in restaurant where the bento is freshly prepared after you order. There is a difference in taste and, of course, price. In case you haven't figured it out by now, bento is a Japanese box lunch. The box or tray is divided into several compartments, one of which is always rice. The others vary; ours had hamburger in sauce, breaded fish, egg, salad, pickles, and a side dish of miso soup.
Friday, March 30th. Winter came back briefly. Did you really think that it would go away so easily? In March?
Saturday, March 31st. My aunt asks if I have fixed all of the noisy apartment doors in my building yet. No, but as of today, I have done four of the nine doors on my floor. There are at least two more to do. One belongs to the guy whose car has a really loud muffler, currently the style for motorheads in Japan who have this deep-seated need to yell, "Look at me! Look at me!" If I showed him how to adjust the door, he might make it even worse.
After ordering and paying for my pizza today, I complained about the bad pizza that I got last week. "Senshu no piza wa dame desu." I didn't like last week's pizza. "Piza no ue ni mizu ga arimashita." There was liquid on top of the pizza. "Oishikunakatta desu." It was not tasty. Of course, they apologized. However, I'm not sure that they understood what I was saying. Last week's seafood pizza had so much liquid on top that I tilted the pizza sideways to pour off the liquid. It looked as if they forgot to thaw and drain the seafood, so ice from the packaging got mixed in. This week's pizza was better but I'm still grumpy about last week. Paying high prices for poor quality is not my idea of being a good consumer. The options seem to be four in number. (1) Say nothing and hope that the problem doesn't happen again. (2) Say nothing and suffer through a repeat of the same problem. (3) Say nothing and walk away, never to return. (4) Tell the store why you're not happy and hope that they do something to correct the problem. If they don't, then it's time for option (3).... I thought about walking away because explaining anything in Japanese is very difficult for me. However, in general, I like this pizza place and it is conveniently located, so I thought that I should at least let them know that there was a problem.
Later, after eating today's pizza and finding it satisfactory, I went back to the store and asked for one of their small pizza boxes. I told them that I wanted to make a card for my parents because of the fun words on the box. It was a way of showing that I'm still a customer, and for them to feel that they did something to make me happy.
Copyright (c) 2001 by Keith Fenske. All rights reserved.
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