Consequences Will Never Be The Same

Gotta get down on Friday. Sections had been rearranged, so morning lessons contained a slightly different combination of classmates. Our teacher dubbed us "S-Section," on account of her feeling a bit "special" that morning and in need of our support. The only other notable feature I can remember is that I was told I could probably be mistaken for a Japanese person from behind. But all this is beside the point; I'm sure you all know what I'm really going to talk about.

It was an ordinary day. I'd been sneezing a lot due to a cold I caught the day before and was a little disappointed at how the sections had been divided up. Lunch, homework, sitting in my room during the gap between my Japanese lessons and the Japanese Culture and Art lecture. Routine. Commonplace. Everyday. Words I can still use to describe how I spent the eleventh of March, yet for others it was anything but. I found myself feeling dizzy after a sneeze - was this a very bad cold? No, the movement had nothing to do with me. Rough tides, then? I was on land. Earthquake.

Some 300 miles away in Sendai carnage was being unleashed and people were dying as this "Mega-Quake" moved Honshu east, made the Earth wobble and speed up its rotation and who knows what else. Yet in Nagoya, where the quake registered a mere 3.5 magnitude, I cringe to say that I noted the moving of the earth with nothing more than amused curiosity. Does this make me sound callous? I must stress that I was completely oblivious to the disaster. In our high-speed information age, people across the world knew about it before I did. During my lecture an announcement came on over the speaker system advising people to contact anyone they knew from the Tohoku region and warning of incoming tsunamis (only about a meter high for Nagoya). It just seemed like a natural occurrence and that everyone went about their business as usual.

That's my safe and uneventful experience of this quake. The truth is Japan is a big place and I only got to hear of the real damage done when the news told me. Lots of people lots their lives or homes or families, which is a very sad thing. I feel like all I can do is spout clichés, but I'm sure we can try to honour the memory of those who have passed on, and I'm sure that as a country Japan will get back on its feet.

Encouragement

ニュース

As the week (March 7-11) drew to its end so too did our news-based project work. This week was a good one, and important for me - mainly because it taught me about all the problems there are in Japan. Why is this a good thing? In the Western world (or at least in Britain where we're so ready to condemn ourselves) it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking of Japan as some kind of super-efficient utopia, which of course it is not (oops, spoiler!). It's a country like any other, real and flawed - in some areas it's doing well, in others there's room for improvement. Understanding this reality helps to demystify the place thus making it easier to stay here, and if I may pretend to some nobility of spirit, also gets one thinking about possible approaches to dealing with these problems.

Enough of my extolling the virtues of imperfection, on to the presentations themselves! I can't remember all the topics, but some that stand out in my memory include jury service (a bit complex, but I think it's been proposed to involve a larger number of people in it), security cameras (most people are content to sacrifice the small amount of privacy for the safety they provide, but apparently this is still something of a new idea), whether or not to have lessons on Saturdays and how English should be taught. That last one in particular made an impression on me. I haven't seen many examples over here of hilariously bad English ("Engrish," as the young people say), so I assumed Japan was getting on alright as regards proficiency in this most excellent and heroic choice of language. However, in a recent test measuring English ability in thirty Asian countries, Japan placed 29th (a few others for your information: Singapore 1st, China and Korea tied at 8th). There's as many as 8 years of compulsory English education, with plenty of reading aloud, learning vocab and translation, so where could the difficulty lie?

Well, imagine, for example, if I were to tell you that 傘売り場はどこですか(kasa uriba wa doko desu ka) means "Where is the umbrella department?" You could then say that you know the Japanese for "Where is the umbrella department?" and if anyone were to say Kasa uriba wa doko desu ka to you, you would know what they were asking. But you may not know that は marks the subject of the sentence, that the particle か changes a statement into a question, that です is a polite form non-past tense et cetera et cetera. Upscale this sort of problem to apply to a whole system of education, throw in some lack of practice communicating with native speakers and you have the current situation. Yet what has the government proposed to set this right? More hours of lessons and more vocabulary to be learned. Double-yew very much tee heich. I found this issue surprising as I've always found Japanese to be taught to foreigners very well, and would thought it would be simple enough to follow the same principles in an inverse way.

I suppose I must also mention how my own presentation went. Writing now it seems as if it passed by in a flash, but I remember being nervous of over- or under-running and stuttering and hesitating quite a bit. Perhaps I put too much faith in my powers of improvisation, maybe it would have been better if I'd written a script for my parts so I'd have had something concretely structured to fall back on. Still, no use crying over spilled milk, and others commented that it went quite well, so perhaps I'm just being paranoid. The inescapable fact of the matter is that one more piece of project work is over, roll on whatever comes next!

"Three little pups from school are we..."

運 Vs 努力

Dear Readers, have you ever had a day, morning or even an hour when all goes right? Things click into place and you start to "fire on all cylinders" and feel really good about yourself? Tuesday 8th March was just such a day for me. In that seemingly vague, improvised way of structuring lessons that I don't think I'll ever get used to, we were given three hours to research, ponder and discuss the idea of 運(un) Vs. 努(doryoku): in other words, which has more influence on our lives - luck or effort?

At first we were invited to recall a few of our own experiences and consider which could be attributed to luck (good or bad) or effort (sufficient or lacking). We then read an article about how people had answered to a similar question in a certain survey, along with some case studies - a fellow falling in love and marrying someone he met on a train as an example of luck and someone who filled in a ridiculous amount of competition entries to win a car as the scion of effort. Having warmed up to the theme in this way, the last task before the break in between sessions was to compose an argument in favour of one view or the other. For a moment I considered playing Devil's Advocate and write in favour of luck, but in the end came down on effort's side of the fence.

I was fairly happy with my composition; if I remember aright my main points were that we humans can't control luck (so why worry about it?), that the right amount of effort can overcome bad luck, and that concentrating on luck creates opportunity to abandon responsibility for one's actions. The next step was dividing the class according to their alliance, then each person read out their argument, and we had challenges and discussion after each one. This was the part which had me feeling so good - in general, to churn out the essays quickly, one writes in more plain Japanese, but to show proper respect speaks in polite form. Somehow I managed to make the changes really well on the spot; it felt a bit like reading from a script - the structure and words were already there, but an element of improvisation regarding to say them.

So, a fairly stimulating day intellectually, plus a decent amount of success, and some social interaction after class (that person will probably never realise how much our casual conversation of barely a few minutes meant to me) all added up to make me feel on top o' the world! I'm sure everyone needs a day like this every now and then to keep them afloat.

Japanese Snacks Vol. 12 - Honey Lemon Fanta. Smokey, robust but sweet taste which makes one think of honey despite it not being at all viscous.

Nyūsu You Can Yūsu

Ain't no rest for the wicked. Barely had our class's kaigo endeavors concluded and e-mails of gratitude sent off, than we were plunged into the next incarnation of project work. This time we divided into pairs and were tasked with presenting on an item of news, with a view to searching for information in Japanese, rather than finding it in English then translating it. Thus m'classmate and I set about scouring news sites in the pursuit of understanding why some people want sale and advertising of alcohol in Japan to be restricted.

For its lenient attitude toward alcohol Japan is described by some as 酔っ払い天国(yopparai tengoku) - The Drunkard's Heaven. There's never any shortage of shops, bars or vending machines that stock drinks, therefore drunken people are everywhere! Or rather, anywhere. Some say that the hootch is a part of Japanese culture - it's always consumed at celebrations and festivals, it's the average businessman's preferred method of relieving stress and there's even a phenomenon cropping up lately called ママ飲み(mama nomi) where ladies get together for a drink during the day. Adverts target men and women alike and generally promote the idea that drinking is fun, cool and competitive. The argument against restrictions is not that problems connected with drinking do not exist, but rather that regulation and moderation should not be enforced by law. Let the advertisers, retailers and consumers work together to create a more responsible environment, the "Against" team cry, then let each individual, thus armed with knowledge of the risks, decide how to drink.

This is the gist of what our research revealed, but simply understanding an issue does not a presentation make, so we arranged to meet up and spend a bit of time tweaking and structuring what we might talk about. Timetable differences meant the only day we could both manage was Saturday (5th March), forcing me to set foot on campus during the weekend for the first time since coming to Japan. I was determined to still get my weekly fix of wandering, however, so I rose early and strode off in the direction of Sakae, which as usual did not fail to supply a diverting spectacle or two. In addition to some kind of safety awareness event at Oasis (complete with a bouncy inflatable crocodile - if that doesn't say "Safety" I don't know what does!), a fair-sized crowd had gathered in the park to see something special. Recently a movie called Gantz (based on the manga of the same name) and there was a promotion going on with people queuing up to get pictures with props from the film, which looked as though they'd made the transition from page to RL quite well. Alas, I had not the time to queue or wait to see if anything else happened, and hot-footed it back to Nanzan.



A University campus on a weekend feels like a bit of a ghost town, and I find myself assuming that anyone I see in such a time and place must either have an important appointment to keep or be an especially earnest student. Or perhaps has bad timing, like myself. M'col and I managed to hammer things out here and there - what was to go on each slide of our presentation, who would cover each point and in which order. We decided not to write a script and leave the exact details as a matter of personal consideration, and parted ways feeling optimistic.

The only other notable feature of this weekend is that I bought my first CD in Japan. It's Drum & Bass, which isn't usually my style, but I think I can be excused as the tracks are all remixes of music from games.

介護

The week starting 28th February was mainly occupied by plunging into the world of 介護 (kaigo - care work), centring around an afternoon spent volunteering at a day centre (I think that's the term I want, not "Old Folks' Home" as they weren't in residence there) in the company of folks of advanced years. Why? The previous week we'd been introduced to articles and reading materials about the Koureika (see previous entries) phenomenon, as well as Japan's welfare system, or lack thereof in some cases, but more on that later. In any case, I suppose this volunteer activity can be seen as a way of supplementing this knowledge with a bit of real-life experience. It's also been one of those lovely unique experiences with which study abroad is supposedly littered.

On Monday we were divided into groups and briefed on how to get to our assigned day centre and the proposed schedule. Tuesday we got off, supposedly for mental preparation or some such. Then finally Wednesday dawned - the real thing! I'd been a little nervous at first, as I always am when meeting new people, but I was able to rationalise away most of my fears - after all, I'd be there with classmates and hopefully we could cover for each other if there were moments of hesitation or misunderstanding. I also knew I'd have something to say just at first, for we'd each prepared a little presentation about our countries, so even as I walked to the centre with my classmates I was rehearsing explanations of scones, Stonehenge and London lifestyle in my head.

All in all I think it went rather well. The folks were all gathered together in one room, so waiting to meet them felt like being backstage before a show. We came on, did self-introductions, then launched into presentations, in the order Vietnam, China, England and Hawaii. It was quite interesting to see which aspects of their countries everyone chose to play up and which pictures they used, though I'm very relieved that Hawaii was the finalé. With its gorgeous scenery and popularity as a holiday destination for retired persons, it would have been a difficult act to follow.

After the presentations a visitor not affiliated with us led a Yoga session. Now, I've done a bit o' Yoga in my time... by which I mean I've watched videos and noticed my mother doing it, so I have a fairly clear idea of how it should look. This version had obviously been adapted so that even people whose bodies were in a state of ill repair could participate, for it was entirely conducted from the sitting position. By which I mean while sat on chairs, not 正座(seiza), the traditional formal way of sitting. Some stretching of limbs and deep breathing later we moved on to the final section of the day - a casual chat and a cup of tea!

This was a lot more fun than I had expected – no dodgy ancient dialects or distrust of foreigners for one thing, and I found I wasn’t strapped for conversation subjects, either. The folks were quite eager to hear what I could tell them about England, and to tell me their own experiences, for some of them had visited or had children living abroad. It turns out sometimes you can be interesting just by being foreign. I mean, being yourself. Moreover, an ice-breaking question that often comes up in Japan is “What is your hobby?” and recently I’ve found that answering “Collecting hats” opens up all kinds of avenues of conversation.

Before long it was time for everyone to head back to their respective abodes. Even at the best of times talking to new people is one of my major weak points, especially if they’re considerably younger or older than me. But I think this visit has helped dispel some of the fears connected with such situations – after all, if I can chat to folk in Japanese, doing so in English should be a breeze!

Regrettably I must end this entry on a pensive note, for it occurs to me that there must be a fair few people like the ones I met who aren’t as well provided for. In Japan there’s an attitude that it should be the family’s responsibility to take care of the elderly. Sounds good from a cultural point of view, but the pressure it puts on people and the assumption that everyone will have a complete family unit makes it a tad impractical as a governmental policy. Still, if articles dealing with issues like this are being reprinted in textbooks, it may be that things are changing. Let’s hope so.

Train Station And Beyond!

When the weekend rolled around I decided to spend Saturday (Feb 26) exploring Nagoya station and the surrounding area. Sounds a strange choice at first, I know, but after the presentations given during the project work I got to thinking it might be an interesting place to check out. On top of that I thought it would be prudent to acquaint myself with the station in case I want to do some travelling at a later date. Nagoya station is very wide, and surrounded by large buildings and shops so trendy I felt like I would devalue their goods simply by hanging around outside their doors. Nonetheless, this cutting edge fashion and towering offices of who-knows-what made me a little nostalgic for London and I found myself a little homesick. My solution? Walk it off!

This next leg of the journey requires a bit of background information. The main reason I'd never explored the station before is that in my first term I was too insufferably stingy to pay for a trip on the underground, since it's a bit far even for me to walk. Even in these scholarship-funded latter days, when I think nothing of buying a single ticket, I still like to walk and found myself navigating toward Sakae for a look at some of the shops more familiar to me. Whether I was planning to walk all the way home afterwards the world may never know, for I came by a discarded all-day travel ticket, which I used to get to Osu (for there was something I wished to buy not in stock in the Jump Shop) and thence homeward, bringing the adventure to a satisfactory conclusion.

The other highlight of the weekend was my monthly meet-up with Chihiro and Takahiro, my great guides to Japanese culture and restaurants! This time around they introduced me to 焼肉(Yakiniku), at a place very nearby - just down the road from my dorm and situated next to a small lake, creating a rather pleasing effect. I'd never ventured inside before, but often noticed it... in fact, you can barely miss the place as it's covered in flourescant red signage.

So what is this mysterious cuisine in the shining establishment (where disposable aprons replace napkins) I speak of? It involves cooking meat over a charcoal fire, so the nearest English equivalent would be barbeque, though there are quite a few differences. Immediately obvious is the fact that it's done inside and that there are restaurants that specialise in it. I feel this could never be the case in Britain, as I doubt people could be trusted not to burn the place down or give themselves food poisoning. There's also a difference in the kind of meat that's used - rather than burgers, chicken wings et cetera yakiniku uses thinly sliced portions, which of course cook faster and may even be of better quality (balanced by some which are taken from intestines and other such places Western people wouldn't usually deign to try eating). It tasted amazingly indulgent and tender, and we passed the time as always with pleasant conversation and sharing of cultural knowledge and experience. In spite of the difficulties I've already mentioned, I feel that if it were at all possible I would like England to experience Yakiniku, even if it were only through one specialist restaurant somewhere in London...