Announcement

I'd just like to announce that I have the greatest girl in the whole world, and I'm so happy she's coming to visit me!

School Spectacular

I have been meaning to put up some more stuff about the schools, but I have been sort of busy at night for the last couple days, so I haven't gotten around to it. So, this should cover the last few days.
On Wednesday, I was at one of the schools that's pretty far out in the country, which also happens to be probably the most hardcore about learning English. It is a great school to work at because they have lessons set up for pretty much the whole year and mostly just ask for suggestions or want me to do easy stuff like actual classwork.

The classes were all pretty much standard stuff. Usually there is some pronunciation practice/new vocab, and then we play some sort of game involving the stuff they just learned. I wish I could remember more about what happened in class since I know that is what people like to hear about, but I don't think there was anything too interesting. But, some cool stuff did happen at the school. By cool stuff, I mean free food.



One of the people who works in the office there brought in two plates of onigiri, which are riceballs at the end of the day, as well as a plate of Japanese-style pickles, and all the staff got to have some. The picture above is of the rice balls, and the one below is of the pickles. They even insisted that I have an extra rice ball, which was super nice of them, and appreciated, as sometimes I get hungry from work, especially at the end of the day.



They had the rice balls because the rice harvest just finished here, so this was new rice. The word for this is shinmai, which I looked up using my pocket electronic dictionary to check the Chinese characters. Apparently, it also means a newcomer, so when I was talking to the first grade teacher, I pointed to the riceballs and said, "shinmai," then pointed to myself and said, "shinami." She looked at me blankly for a second and then got it and thought it was hilarious. When somebody else came, she made me tell the joke again because she thought it was so good, I guess. A good time.

On Thursday, I went to one of the bigger schools. This is the one where the police came for whatever demonstration they were doing. I had a bunch of classes that day, a couple of which were more self-introduction, one to third graders and one to fourth graders. The third graders were very excited to see me and look at my stuff before class actually started, but then during the actual introduction, they weren't really paying attention. It was weird because usually kids are either really interested or just bored out of their minds, but these kids just weren't paying attention. It was like they had other things to do and kept talking to each other for some reason, which was a little weird to deal with, but no big deal.

I also had class with the special ed kids. It seems kind of pointless to be trying to teach them English, but I have to say it is about the most fun class in the whole town. There's this one kid who either doesn't know how or just doesn't care how to shake hands, so instead, he just holds both my hands and keeps mumbling Japanese, which the teachers and I think is funny. He won't stop until somebody physically makes him sit down. We also sang "If You're Happy and You Know It," or in Japanese "Shiawase something or other," and he decided that clapping would be less fun than shrugging and saying "mo" which I don't think means anything. He also kept doing that for the rest of class. Then we played a game of memory with cards featuring pictures of everyday objects. At the end of class, he decided to sit on my lap and give me a hug. Later, he gave me another hug while I was in the hallway saying goodbye. His hugs cannot be stopped by mere words, either.

At noon recess, I played dodgeball with kids of various ages, which was pretty awesome, because, as I think I have noted before, I am way better at sports than little kids are for some reason, so they think it is awesome when I can hit kids on the other team with the balls and catch their throws pretty much all the time.

My last class was supposed to be with sixth graders, but I didn't have a schedule, so I was just waiting in the office for students to come get me as I usually do. The teacher forgot to send them, I guess, so I didn't get called to class until it was mostly over. It was a fine, class, though, as the teacher is pretty good at getting the kids, who would normally be pretty shy and unwilling to participate, to get into it. I said I was sorry I had missed most of the class, but he said he forgot to send anyone, so it was ok. All in all, it was a good day, but very tiring.

On Friday, I was at the smallest school, which I started to realize is really sweet. Since there are so few students, the classes are all combined, meaning there are only three classes, so I get a bunch of rest time during the day.

In the morning, I went to the first and second graders' class to tell them about Halloween, which they didn't seem particularly interested. Fortunately, the teacher is very good at English, so I didn't even have to try putting words like costume and ghost into Japanese on my own. The kids got really interested, though, when we got to make Jack O' Lanterns. I'm not sure if that's how that should be punctuated. We used these little gourds/squashes instead of the classic American pumpkin, which made cutting them a little hard, but it worked out surprisingly well. The one lady who works in the office and whatnot even put candles in them, so here are some pictures:



There's the teacher cutting up one of the pumpkins, the Japanese word for which is kabocha. She did most of the cutting, which is probably good considering how good little kids are with knives.





There are a couple pictures of the kids with their Jack O' Lanterns. Sorry that the one picture is sideways. Like I've said, I don't know how to fix that on here and I had to take the pictures with my cellphone, so the quality is probably not the best. But, whatever.

The next class was with fifth and sixth graders, which was just a standard but good language class. The teacher of this one is pretty hardcore about learning proper pronunciation and stuff. I was pleased because we actually got the kids (all three of them) to say "th" properly, which is usually a struggle for Japanese people. A lot of teachers will just let the kids pronounce the words like katakana, so "the" becomes "za" and "this" becomes "disu" or something equally hard for native speakers to understand. When I told the teacher after class that the pronunciation was so good, he said that he listened to English radio programs to practice pronunciation. Cool.

Then we had gym class for the whole school, which was high jump, led by the fifth and sixth grade teacher and the vice-principal. The smaller kids used little jumping boards to get over a smaller height, but the bigger kids did actual high jumping, and I did it with them. They all thought it was pretty incredible that I could jump the one meter height, but I suppose it isn't that hard when you are about a foot taller than the tallest kid. But, it was really fun.

In the afternoon, I had class with the third and fourth graders, which was seven students, I believe. I just talked about Halloween for a while, and when we got done with that, since there wasn't really anything else planned to do, we just did whatever the kids wanted, which meant playing baseball and then kickball outside, despite the fact that it was drizzling rain at the time. This was another case of kids not getting that kickball is really easy when you are an adult playing with kids. Hilarious, but so much fun.

After that, I just had free time, which I was initially using to study, with the help of refreshments that the office lady kindly gave me for no real reason. But then she asked what my hobbies are, so I said music, and I ended up playing harmonica for the people in the office. I usually play a song called "Akatonbo," meaning "Red Dragonflies," which I did this time, to everyone's delight. The principal showed me her book of Japanese songs, and had me play one called "Umi," meaning "The Sea." So, that was pretty much my week. Whew.

Keisatsu

I think it's time for a relatively short post about the police here. Yesterday, I was working at one of the bigger schools here when a bunch of police showed up. Some came over to the building and had a few words with the principal or vice-principal, but none of them actually came in. I was sort of worried that as an ignorant foreigner, I had done something illegal without knowing it, and they had come to arrest me. Since none of them actually came in, I didn't think that was the case, but I also didn't put it past the super-polite Japanese to merely wait outside until I got done working to arrest me. Anyway, it didn't matter, because after a bit, a bunch of old guys, almost all of whom had Gilligan hats on, came by, as well, and the cops put up some kind of display with cones and whatnot. I think it was some kind of demonstration for traffic safety week, but I had to go to class, so I didn't actually see it. By the time I got done, the old dudes were gone and the police were packing up shop.

Today, I was driving home from work at the smallest school here and I got pulled over at one of the police box. At first I was worried, because people do apparently get speeding tickets here, but really only during traffic safety week, which, as I alluded to earlier, it may or may not be here. There have recently been a lot of banners put up that say something about safe driving, I think, so it could be. This encounter also didn't matter because it seemed they were pulling everyone over just to check licenses. The guy who asked for mine was a kind of oldish dude who seemed surprised that I was obviously foreign and asked me if Japanese was ok. I told him that if it is slow, it's ok, and he seemed happy about that. He looked at my licenses, both international and U.S., asked what country I was from, and told me to be careful. I wasn't sure if that was a warning, but I don't think so. I wasn't really speeding, actually, because it was raining and because I did suspect it was traffic safety week.

Basically all police here seem to be fairly happy-go-lucky dudes, but I guess that comes as a result of their jobs, which mostly entail giving directions, keeping track of lost items, and helping kids cross the street. Maybe I should look into getting that job.

Request Numero Uno

Thanks for the comments, everyone. I'll first address what I will arbitrarily denote the first request, that I talk more about what I do at work.

Today I went to an elementary school that's maybe 10-15 minutes away by car. This is a pretty nice school, even as the schools here go. It was the second time I taught at this school, the second school I have now taught a second time at, if you follow, or even if you don't. I remembered to bring my inside shoes to this one, which turned out to be good.

I got there around 8:15, which is the time I usually shoot for, since I'm supposed to be there at 8:30. They already had a schedule for me, which was nice. The schedule just told me which grade I was going to during which period. I think each period is roughly 45 minutes long, but it is hard to tell or keep track of time for a couple reasons. First, some classes don't have clocks, which can be annoying when I am trying to time my self-introduction to fit whatever timeframe they ask for. When I am supposed to do a self-introduction, I ask the teacher how long they'd like it to be, and then I change the speed and how much stuff I use. I also have to cater to the grade level, but I have to say I am doing a pretty good job of it. When I am able to check with a clock, I can always get it to within 1-2 minutes of how long it is supposed to be, and the overwhelming majority of the time, the kids seem to enjoy it. The classes where they have been bored (only like once or twice) are probably lost causes, anyway, where the kids simply will not be interested. That's even ok, but I understand what crappy stand-up comics go through.

I had fourth graders for first period, which was great, because the fourth grade teacher was pretty awesome. He spoke some English, which I generally don't require, but it is always nice when people try to make you feel more comfortable. Also, he was just cool and loved to joke. Did I mention he had all his students wear wigs to introduce themselves and used one of those things they use on movie sets with the scene details written on it that you snap closed when you say action? Because he did that. He was pretty awesome. Other than my self-introduction, which was about fifteen minutes long (usual time), and the students two-sentence self-introductions, we didn't do anything but a little pronunciation practice, which is really boring to hear about, so I won't bore you.

Second period was rest time for me, which meant studying a little bit, and the fourth grade teacher bringing me coffee and cookies for no reason other than he is cool. Someone basically always does this, even if you tell them not to trouble themselves. It's just one of those weird/cool things about working in Japan. Someone also gave me some Japanese tea when I first got there in the morning. I should mention that I still don't like coffee, no matter how much of it I drink. It is simply a disgusting taste, so whenever I have it, which generally means when someone gives me it, I use all the creamer and sugar. The fourth grade teacher seemed to think that was hilarious, and was worried that he hadn't put enough sugar in it (since he did this, too, for some reason), but I assured him it was delicious, to which he just laughed. Ok, so enough about the free time, which I think I can assume is boring for you.

Third period was first graders, which was mostly self-introduction by me. First graders are a little different to work with because they don't wait for question time or anything like that. They just constantly yell out questions and comments about their own families/pets/whatever you are talking about. You just have to kind of smile and respond a bit, then wait for it to die down before saying something else. I should note that I have no idea how anyone without Japanese language ability gets through elementary school visits. For at least 1-4 graders, I do the whole introduction in Japanese, only repeating certain sentences in English to teach them a little. The teachers are totally ok with the kids yelling the whole time and do almost nothing to stop it, which is totally fine. It may sound like it is hard or annoying, but really it is funny and very easy because you don't have to say much, even, when the kids are busy trying to shout to you over the other kids that they have three dogs.

The last bit of that class was spent teaching the kids how to play American rock, paper, scissors. All kids here love it. The Japanese version is called janken, if I haven't mentioned it. The only difference is in what you say, so it is very easy to teach. I am not exaggerating at all when I say the kids completely lose their minds when they get to play this game. For the life of me, I don't understand it. I don't remember ever thinking that rock, paper, scissors was anything but a way to kill time, but the way these kids get, you would think that Anpanman himself just came down out of heaven whenever you say janken asobimashou (let's play janken).

After that, I had 6th grade, which was, again self-introduction. I should mention that the 1st and 6th grade teachers met with me during my free time to let me know what we are doing. I'm fortunate in that most of the schools don't rely on me to come up with lesson plans. A lot of places don't have regular elementary school visits, so the teachers have no plans and just assume the JETs will figure it all out, which is kind of crazy considering that going in you don't even have any idea what the students know.

The 6th graders were fun, since a bunch of the boys really liked baseball, which makes my self-introduction (heavily reliant on baseball to bridge cultural gaps) very easy. They were all Yomiuri Giants fans, which is a little odd, since usually there are a bunch of Hanshin Tigers fans, as well. The girls were a bit harder to get into it, as they usually are, because they don't like anything and are ashamed to admit to the things they do like. Generally I can get them to come out of their shells a bit if I talk to them about anime that is at the appropriate age level, but the kids in this class liked Disney, about which I know nothing. They do like looking at pictures of girlfriends and being asked if they are married, though, so that is always another way, which worked alright today.

About anime: I AM NOT AN OTAKU. Really, I don't even care about most anime. In fact, I really only like little kids' anime, which is just bizarre and funny to me, aside from being very useful for talking to kids. It's nice to know a bit about Doraemon, Anpanman, and Pokemon because the kids all do. I know basically just enough to name my favorite characters, which is a common question. 5-6 graders usually like stuff more like Inuyasha, Lupin the 3rd, One Piece, or Naruto. I can't bring myself to even try watching Naruto, as the otaku vibe is just too strong, but Lupin is legitimately funny, so that's cool. Inuyasha is pretty much just for girls, but they giggle if you say "Inuyasha! Kagome!" like on the show, so I know just that much.

Then I had lunch with the kids, which was weird by Japanese standards because it was beef and some other stuff which you could put on/in this bread yourself, in addition to some soup and the ever-present milk. I ate with the second graders, with whom I had had class the first time I came to this school. The second graders think I am like Jesus or something. They are always holding my hands and showing me stuff like the chickens they keep out behind the school every chance they get. They're fun, though. After lunch is recess, and I could just barely let one of the second grade girls to let go of my hand long enough for me to put stuff in my desk so that I would be unencumbered enough to play with them. We played Duck, Duck, Goose, which I have taught at a bunch of schools to overwhelming success. The Japanese have the same game, only it involves using a handkerchief instead of talking. Japanese people really seem to have a problem saying/understanding "duck," though, despite however clearly and slowly I pronounce it. It's no big deal, but it's kind of funny playing "dog, dog, yusu," as it often sounds. They also think it is hilarious when I translate the words, which is kamo, kamo, gachou, if you were wondering.

After lunch, I had 5th grade class, which was more self-introduction. It was similar to the 6th graders save one thing. I like to use whatever slang/dialect Japanese I know, so I often say sugei instead of sugoi, meaning, roughly, "wow" or "cool," especially when kids answer a question correctly. The fifth graders seemed to think this was the neatest thing ever, so they kept yelling out sugei! as a chorus when I would answer questions for them. Kids also think it is funny to say dan dan, which is Izumo-ben for thank you. After class, the fifth grade teacher told the fourth grade teacher about the sugei thing, which he, of course, thought was hilarious. I told him I learned it from a movie, which is the truth. So, he of course asked me how to say kuso! in English, which I was only too happy to translate for him.

One more thing about the fifth graders. I often say things like atama ga ii yo, meaning "you're so smart (literally: head is good)," to the fifth and sixth graders because asking them what the American flag is so easy for them, whereas 1st graders will answer things like "paper" or "England!" They seem to enjoy this. One of the kids vehemently denied the fact that he was smart when I asked the class if they were smart because they were fifth graders, so when he kept volunteering to answer questions, I would refer to him as "atama ga warui hito," since he said "atama ga warui" ("I am stupid"). He, and everyone else, seemed to think it was hilarious. On a related note, a lot of advice that you get about picking out a single student in Japanese classes is crap, at least at the elementary level.

After the fifth grade class, I was technically free, but was encouraged to go to the first meeting of the sports club, which was run by a grateful fifth grade teacher. We played hando beisu, hand base; that is, kickball but using hands instead of feet. The fifth grade boys present continued to yell out sugei the whole time. My team won 2-0, but both sides played well. Also, I got both the RBIs, which are called daten.

After that, I just hung out in the office with all the rest of the teachers. They were all working on grading or lessons or something, but I just study. Periodically, kids would come by and yell out goodbyes in two languages to us, as they always do. I was staying a bit after I am supposed to stay, as I always do, when the fourth grade teacher told me I had to go, which I believe meant that I could go. Kind of a funny translation. Of course, then he got me a "goodbye coffee" before I could leave and also some more food to eat. After that, he talked to me a bit about Halloween and wished me well before I left. So, hopefully, that is enough detail about my day. Later!

Comments

You guys aren't making them. What's up with that?

Bargain Shopping

I know what you guys want; you can't live without more updates about what I eat here. It's raining heavily today, so there really isn't much else to do with this day off. I usually shop at a little grocery story called the A-Coop (that's ko-oh-pu to Japanese people), and they usually have various stuff on sale, so I often cater what I am going to eat around what happens to be on sale. Here's a picture of stuff that was on sale:



The brown box is more of the natto that I like, which was actually on sale before, I just didn't mention it. The can is of mikan, mandarin oranges. Fresh fruit tends to be super expensive, though I got some bananas on sale the other day, so a lot of the fruit I eat is from cans. I'm aware that that means there is a lot of extra sugar, but whatever. The red box is instant curry. The people at the store probably think I eat nothing but instant curry, which is only semi-accurate.

Oh, here's another picture:



That's soba, which are buckwheat noodles. It was on sale a while back, so I bought some. Actually, I didn't look when I bought it, but I noticed the other day that it's Izumo soba, which is cool because Izumo is around here and is famous for soba. It still just tastes like buckwheat noodles, but maybe Japanese people have more refined tastes here. I have no idea. Anyway, I eat it cold with a sauce that I think is soy-based and some furikake, which is just dry stuff you put on it. You are actually supposed to put it in the sauce, which is called tsuyu, and put little shreds of seaweed, I think wakame on top of the noodles, but buying the seaweed is a waste and I don't really care. So, it's alright, and I'm sure healthy. That's it for now.

BIIRU

If my laptop battery holds out, this should be the first ever Japan Beer Spectacular, which is pretty much just me posting pictures of beers I have had here. See, I had the foresight to take pictures of a lot of them so that I could do something like this. So, these pictures were taken over the course of many weeks, not one night, so NOBODY FREAK OUT.



Asahi Clear Black
This is a limited edition beer that appeared about a week back. Asahi is Japan's biggest beer company, if I recall correctly, and their Super Dry variety is Japan's favorite beer, although I don't really see why. I'm more of a Kirin man, normally, but I have to hand it to Clear Black. It's really good. It's pretty rare to find a dark beer here, as most Japanese beer is very similar to American-style lagers; that is, they are unsurprisingly rice-lagers. Some of the hops are replaced with rice, which makes the beer lighter. I don't feel like going into a lecture about American beers right now, but maybe I will later, or maybe you can just look it up and see why beer snobs are stupid. But, I digress, as I am wont to do. Clear Black was smooth and surprisingly not bitter at all.



Asahi Draft

This is one of the many regular varieties of Asahi. Asahi Super Dry comes in a silver can, but the other varieties all come in white cans with colored trim. This is the red one. The blue one is "Aqua Blue," which is fairly distasteful, and the green one is "Style Free," which is inoffensive, excepting the nonsensical name. I have little to say about Asahi Draft, which is typical in pretty much every way.



Suntory Kin-Mugi

Suntory is sort of the also-ran of Japanese beer. The big three are Asahi, Kirin, and Sapporo. Suntory is mostly known for dominating the whiskey market with their crazy old man mascot and for making every other kind of alcohol you can imagine, but doing it so poorly. Of course, they are the only real choice for anything that isn't beer or sake, so most Japanese people don't know what they are missing, as far as I can tell.

Kin-Mugi means "gold wheat." It's kind of an oddity here because it is a wheat beer in the Belgian tradition. I don't think it's a limited edition or anything, but I hadn't seen it here before, so maybe it is new. I like it, but I am a fan of wheat beers, and I know it's kind of a contentious issue to beer drinkers. But to people who don't like them, one point: you are wrong.



Kirin Enjuku
Enjuku means "circle ripen," according to Jim Breen, but to me it means "cheap crap." A big can of this costs only a couple yen more than a small can of other beer, so I am guessing that this is sort of like the Pabst of Japan. It tastes pretty terrible, so I guess America wins that battle because Pabst rocks.



Kirin Enjuku Kuro
Kuro means black, which indicates that this is another one of the rare dark Japanese beers. It's not limited edition, according to the can, but I only found it in Hiroshima, which tells me it is not very common. It's also not very good, so maybe that has something to do with its distribution. Really, it's not bad, but, compared to the Asahi Clear Black, it is pretty much crap. It's got kind of a weird aftertaste which seems to be pretty common with beer here that I just can't get into. Ah, well, it was worth the price, but not really worth seeking out.



Kirin Green Label
This is one of the regular varieties of Kirin, and a pretty decent one. It's maybe not quite as good as Kirin Ichiban, but I can't really explain why. I don't really know what is different about it, but I like the green can. I also like that it is cheaper than Ichiban, so that's nice.



Kirin Stout
This one just appeared a few days ago. It doesn't say it's a limited edition, but maybe it is. It's not bad, but not great. I'm not really a huge fan of stouts, so I guess I am not the best judge. But I like the can, so bonus points for that.




Kirin Tanrei
The kanji on this one are too dificult to bother translating. This is basically just another variety of Kirin, about the same as Green Label in everyway. Maybe a little better, maybe a little worse. Really, I don't know. I'd have to drink the two in the same sitting to tell. There are two pictures because the back of the can has recently been changed to the picture of that dude with the lobster or whatever it is. The pictures are actually of different cans. I bought a second can tonight just to get the picture of the back, which is usually just the same as the front. At first I thought it was a new kind of beer, but I was sadly disappointed. Anyway, it's pretty good, so I'm not going to complain.



Kirin The Gold
This one, I believe, is a special edition in celebration of some anniversary. It's pretty good, but a little weird. I prefer Kirin Ichiban. I don't really know why they didn't just keep the original recipe for their special edition, but I guess they have to do something new, and it is hard to top perfection.



Sapporo Namashiboori
I don't remember this beer at all, so it was probably just the normal Sapporo stuff, which is ok, but not great. Kind of a shoddy looking can, too.

That's it for the beer pictures, but I'd like to dedicate this update to my college roommate, who was pretty cool to hang out with on the balcony and have a Pabst with while the sun when down on rural Illinois. In honor of him, I'll quote some Dylan:

He died on the road
He died on the road
He never had enough money
To pay his room or board
And he was a friend of mine

I stole away and cried
I stole away and cried
'Cause I never had too much money
And I never been quite satisfied
And he was a friend of mine

More Delicious Food

So, I thought people would want to see what I eat for breakfast. I don't actually think that, but it is an easy way to make an update. So, here's my breakfast for today.



It's a little hard to see, but there's a bowl of miso soup there, a bowl of banana, which I sliced up because Japanese people are getting to me and everything needs to be in a separate bowl here, and a bowl of plain white rice. But what's in this mystery box?



It's natto! It's hard to see the actual natto, sorry, but I'm using photo booth to take these pictures, and, believe it or not, actually eating my breakfast before it gets cold is a higher priority for me than perfectly framing each shot with the built in camera. I was trying to show off the stuff that came with the natto, a packet of mustard and a packet of some kind of reddish liquid. The first time I had natto, it came with this stuff, and I liked it, but since then all the natto I've gotten has come with some kind of paste which might or might not be daikon, and which is not nearly as good.

For those not in the know, natto is fermented beans. Pretty much everyone hates it, even most Japanese people. It's supposedly only popular in eastern Japan, which is where it was first introduced, specifically in Tokyo. Of all the foreigners I've met here, I'm the only one I know who doesn't gag at the thought of eating it. To be fair, it generally does smell really terrible. It doesn't really taste like much, though, so I think people are just exaggerating. When it's got this mustard on it, it's actually pretty good, and the smell gets kind of covered up. So, there's that. I should also mention that natto is very sticky. The beans all stick together, and when you pull them apart, these strings of goo will stretch between them. That is kind of annoying.



There's the natto mixed in with the rice. I think you're supposed to just take a bit of it at a time, put it on top of the rice, and eat it, then repeat. The stickiness makes that an incredibly difficult process, and it is far better when the rice heats up the natto, in my opinion, so I just mix it all together in the rice bowl.

I generally eat natto once a week and miso every day. So, basically, I should be gaining super powers very soon. My old Japanese professor would be proud. Miso is very good at lots of stuff, especially at preventing radiation sickness and cancer. Natto is very good for digestion, I believe, so I'll be very healthy. Maybe the instant curry makes up for that, though...

Hige

Beard fans rejoice! I know you have been rocking the comments with requests for full views of my beard, so I'll satiate you for now by posting a picture of myself.
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There, it's a picture of me and one of my students, drawn by the student. We played karuta, which is basically a game of who can find the right Japanese character first and pick up the card, and osero, or othello, which I didn't know how to play at first, but managed to win at, anyway. Somehow I lost at karuta, but I'm ok with that. A good time was had by that. You can't really see it in the picture, but there is also a handwritten note detailing our activities and the fact that it was fun. Laterz!

Another Good Day

Today I went to the last elementary school in my rotation of schools, so tomorrow it is back to the first school. Today was a pretty good time. I had to do self-introduction a few times, but I think I'm getting pretty good at it by this point. The key, despite what people tell you, is not being incredibly energetic, but catering the introduction to the age group. Younger kids are very easy to deal with because they are very excited just by the presence of anyone different from the people they usually see, and want nothing more than to look at pictures and yell out questions ranging from, "what kind of food do you like," to "what kind of animal do you like?"

Generally it is harder to get older kids (I'm talking maybe 5th or 6th graders) interested in what is going on, but the ones today were pretty good. If anything, they were better than the fourth graders I had class with. The sixth graders thought it was funny when I kept telling them they were smart for knowing the American flag and the like, and when I said that sixth graders know everything. I also got a chance to use Izumo-ben, and it worked out. Izumo is a city that is near here, though not a particularly large one. It does have a very famous shrine. ben means dialect, so you can figure it out from there. Izumo-ben is not one of the more pronounced dialects, but it does have some unique features. There are some verb ending changes, supposedly, but I've never heard anyone actually use them. All I did was say "dan dan" which is just the local way of saying thank you, but the kids thought it was great, it seemed.

Other areas of Japan have famous (at least in Japan) dialects. Osaka and the surrounding region of Kansai, for example, features a strange dialect called, oddly enough, Kansai-ben, and a slight variation of that is prevalent in Kyoto, or so I hear. I've only run into a little Kansai-ben while here, from an old man who used to live there. He was basically incomprehensible, anyway, so it didn't matter that much. The thing about that dialect is that there are a bunch of verb-ending and other -ending changes, which makes it hard to follow because the ending of a sentence is basically always a verb in Japanese, with some sentence-final particles that you can basically ignore, or which amount to a question mark. When somebody ends the verb differently, it doesn't sound like a verb anymore, which really messes up my perception of what they are trying to say. Also, they say okini for "thank you", but I doubt anyone would get it here if I tried to use that.

There are a bunch of dialects in Eastern Japan, including a couple very famous ones, but I don't really know anything about them that you can't find with a quick google search, so I won't bother.

But I digress. After school was over, I stayed around and watched the kids practice field hockey, as that is the big sport here and one of the kids wanted me to watch. Also, I didn't have anything else to do, and I usually stay past when I'm allowed to leave to demonstrate Japanese team spirit. I also listened to the band playing for a little while. They were pretty good for an elementary school band, and of course all the kids smiled and waved when they saw me outside their classroom. After they got done playing, some of the kids were still hanging around banging on drums and stuff, so I showed a couple of them how to drum a rock beat on snare and high-hat with arms crossed like everyone but Ringo does. Then I played a little bit on their piano, as the music teacher/something-else-I-think-but-don't-know had invited me to do earlier in the day. The kids were very impressed with my poor sightreading of their songs, and the music teacher even came in after the students had given me more songs to try, so I played Imagine, which she recognized.

Just to stick it to a semi-intelligible writing structure, earlier in the day, I had a third grade class where I taught them "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" and how to play Simon Says in the span of a few minutes. So, that was good, too. I'm glad to play those, because it is way less fun to continue playing amerika no janken, or Rock, Paper, Scissors than to do something that is at least sort of different. Not that janken is bad or anything.

A Few Thoughts

Here is something I thought about this afternoon:

Throughout the course of my day, it is often necessary, or simply entertaining, to compare English and Japanese. In my thoughts on the subject, I have decided that a central concept in the development of languages, if not the central concept, is what I have come to call “cultural parsing.” As I am not a linguist, I have no knowledge of another term for such a concept, which no doubt already exists.
In order to define cultural parsing, we must first delve into a theoretical construct of what language is. Language is assumed to be a tool designed, perhaps not necessarily consciously, by societies, for the intention of communicating ideas. “Societies” will go undefined properly, as that is beyond the scope of this paper. “Ideas” will similarly go underdefined, but can be understood as points in the mathematical sense. The space in which ideas are proposed to exist is a space of possibly infinite dimension, with each axis possibly finite, countably finite, or even uncountably infinite. Successfully communicating an idea can be seen as simply using language, which in this case can be seen as a formula in the most abstract sense, in which all operators and values given are taken to be understood by all parties (generally thought of as speaker and listener). Though this last assumption is patently and demonstrably false in the real world, as is evidenced by the existence of miscommunication events even among native speakers of the same language, it is a useful assumption for simplification of the theory.
Before delving any deeper into the theory, an example may be useful for clarification. Take for example, the relatively simple English sentence:

Bob is tall.

It is useful to first examine the sentence from a purely grammatical perspective. We see clearly that “Bob” is our subject, “is” a linking verb, and “tall” a predicate nominative.
Now, we can examine this sentence, taken to be an idea, that is a fully defined mathematical point, from a mathematical perspective. One can take the subject to be a variable, for example. By using “Bob,” we have fixed the subject variable on Bob, here taken to be a known value for both speaker and listener. Our only other variable in this case is the predicate adjective, “tall.” In other words, height is the variable. “Tall” can be seen as a value, also assumed to be known by both speaker and listener. While height could be expressed easily as a real number, such as in inches, so that the value of the variable could take any positive value along the real line (or furthermore any range of numbers, as long as a bijective mapping exists between the two systems of measurement, but this is a needless digression), it could also be described by a finite set, such as {tall, average, short}, as it is. The choice of sets from which variables' values can be selected is the central idea behind cultural parsing.
On a slight tangent, but an important one to keep our model of language consistent, we address non-addressed variables. In our example sentence, only two variables were addressed, the subject and the height. According to our model, the number of variables required to fully describe an idea is possibly infinite. Then what happened to our other variables? The other variables can be seen as being set by omission to a special value which must be included in all component sets of our Cartesian-product idea space, pointing to the values' irrelevance. The speaker can be seen as setting all the variables to this “irrelevant” value by not mentioning the variables, indicating he/she is, quite obviously, not currently addressing said variables.
Now, we examine the idea of cultural parsing. Our example sentence works fine here. We have seen that the variable of height can be described using various sets. One possible set was the set of positive real numbers, while another contained only three elements. The “irrelevant” value is omitted from here on for convenience. The idea behind cultural parsing is that two different societies may choose different sets with which to describe certain variables. To continue using our example sentence, we may consider two theoretical societies, conveniently named Society A and Society B, who are assumed to use the same words for “Bob” and “is” out of convenience. In reality, a simple difference in words like this is even fairly easy to handle, as long as a bijective map exists between the sets describing each of the variables “subject” and “linking verb.”

Society A – Society A is taken to be an extremely hierarchical society, in which the hierarchy is based on, of all things, height. The taller members of this society enjoy all the benefits of wealth and fame, while the shorter members enjoy only low-paying, denigrating jobs. Furthermore, even a slight difference in height results in a huge difference in authority.

Society B – Society B is taken to be a society in which amusement parks are the central entertainment, religion, and source of wisdom. Those who may ride the rides are blessed, while those who can't are, simply, not.

Cultural parsing is the idea that societies choose descriptor sets based on which ranges of values of variables need to be distinguished for practical use. Let's see how this works with our two societies.
In Society A, everyone must know their height down to the milimeter, if not picometer. Status is taken to be important to members of all societies, so it makes sense that people would want to know where they rank. As a result, Society A choose to measure height using a continuous, non-negative (though this is, again, not a technically necessary condition).
In Society B, people below a certain height cannot ride any rides, and are, thus, all treated terribly. Those somewhat taller, but not topping the charts, can ride some rides, but not the best ones. Those of outstanding height have access to all rides, and, thus celebrities. Of course, all people in the lowest height bracket are treated the same as each other, as are those in the highest height bracket. Therefore, Society B naturally chooses to describe height using the set proposed earlier (short, average, tall), as further distinctions are superfluous.

This may all seem like a nice (or not so nice) thoeretical model, but the astute reader is no doubt searching for a more realistic example of cultural parsing, as well as poking holes in it. One such hole should be obvious from our example. Even in English, height may be described using either real numbers or our other proposed descriptor set, among many others. A few hypotheses on the existence of redundant descriptor sets:

1.Members of a society tend to prefer a single descriptor set despite the existence of redundancy. Our societies were, indeed, hypothetical, and, moreover, both situations exist in one form or another in our own societies. A refined version of the cultural parsing theory may result in factoring in situational preference and relative situational frequency in different societies.
2.Societies and situations are not homogenous, though theoretically it is useful to assume so. Some members may prefer certain descriptor sets to others, and the overall effects of cultural parsing can be seen by an analysis of the society as a whole, possibly even statistically.
3.Societies are not static. Especially in this day and age, societies even interact with, and change each other. Accordingly, descriptor sets can be altered as societies' need to describe various ideas changes. For example, ancient societies had no need to distinguish between an abacus and an electronic calculator, as neither existed. Eastern societies today must make that distinction, whereas Western societies, with little or no experience with abaci, have no need for that distinction.

As for a more concrete example, we turn back to the impetus for this paper, comparing English and Japanese. Here we will examine two subcases: color and seaweed.

In terms of colors, hopefully all readers are familiar with at least basic colors in English. Here we are concerned only with words for colors (this is the descriptor set for the “color” variable) which are commonly used, which can be understood to mean colors that even preschoolers are familiar with. For example, red and green are basic color-words, whereas compound color words, such as blue-green, and more obscure color-words, such as beige, are not basic color-words. The descriptor set for color is, therefore taken to be {red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, brown, white, gray, pink}. Of course, there could be some disagreement over the members of this set, but a more detailed discussion is beyond the scope of this paper.
A less familiar set is probably the descriptor set for color in Japanese. First, a slight digression on the nature of adjectives in Japanese. Adjectives in Japanese can be seen as falling into three categories: i-adjectives, na-adjectives, and no-adjectives (no-adjectives are more precisely called adjectival nouns). The types of adjectives are so named for the characters that follow the root of each. I-adjectives are constructed as such: root + i, for example. I-adjectives are all native to the Japanese language, and can thus be seen as automatic members of the basic color-word set.
Na-adjectives are constructed as such prenominally: root + na. When used as a predicate, no -na is used. It is worth noting that na-adjectives are sometimes referred to as nouns, as are -no adjectives. All foreign adjectives are na-adjectives. Na-adjectives are fortunately irrelevant to our discussion of colors.
No-adjectives are constructed as such: noun + no. This is why no-adjectives are more precisely called adjectival nouns. They are generally not regarded as adjectives, but are particularly relevant to our discussion of colors for the reason that certain colors (or, more precisely, ranges of variables which we in English call colors) can only be described as no-adjectives, specifically of the form noun + iro + no, where iro is the Japanese word for color (the mapping between iro and color is seemingly bijective). At least one fairly basic exception to this construction exists, that is midori-no, or green. The use of midori as an adjective is a relatively recent addition to Japanese, and will thus be specifically left out of the basic set.
Since no-adjective color-words are more awkwardly constructed than i-adjective color-words, they are postulated to be later additions to Japanese, and thus, less fundamental to the Japanese perception of colors. If we took only i-adjectives to make up the basic color descriptor set, we would be restricted to {akai, aoi, shiroi, kuroi} (red, blue, white, black). If we allow iro + no-adjectives, we also get (orange, yellow, brown, and gray).
Of course, these sets were fairly arbitrary, but based on personal experience in both America and Japan. For those who prefer violet to purple, no significant difference is incurred by a replacement. The main point here is that traditionally, colors (which could theoretically be described as numerical values [more precisely as coordinate pairs, if we include intensity or brightness] by the frequency of the colored light perceived by the speaker), are seen, or at least described, differently between Japan and America. In the language of cultural parsing, there is no bijective mapping between the descriptor sets [In actuality, a more precise mathematical description is called for here, but that will follow with more precise thought, as this paper is merely laying out a theoretical groundwork]. Specifically, colors (or ranges of frequency) described by English speakers as green, have traditionally been described as aoi, or blue, by Japanese speakers.
Here we see an example of cultural parsing, though an as yet (by this author) unexplained example. It is postulated that cultural parsing is the result of environments (in a very wide sense of the word) call for different ideas to be expressed, or, rather, different descriptor sets to be called for, but that some differences may be chalked up to randomness. This particular example may be one of randomness, but more thought may be necessary.

A second, and more easily explainable, example comes from seaweed. For those unfamiliar, the Japanese diet has traditionally contained various varieties of seaweed. Nori, wakame, and kombe are different foods which have been consumed in Japan for hundreds of years. No English words exist for them, aside from the recent addition of the loan words from Japanese, which can be ignored for the purposes of this paper, as it is an obvious example of non-static societies. All words can be most easily explained to native English speakers unfamiliar with the foods as seaweed (then modified to specify the kind of seaweed).
In the language of cultural parsing, we see the sets (which are no doubt incomplete on the Japanese side, but that point is irrelevant to the current discussion) cannot be mapped bijectively onto each other. That is, the Japanese descriptor set is {kombe, wakame, nori}, whereas the English descriptor set is {seaweed}.
The reasons for differences in cultural parsing should here be obvious. Native speakers of English likely never had expereince eating seaweed, so making distinctions among different varieties would be fruitless, and unnatural. Thus, the small descriptor set. Japanese speakers, most likely Japanese, would have need to specify a variety of seaweed, as one would not like to try wrapping makizushi in wakame! Thus, the larger descriptor set.

This paper is, as noted, only a theoretical groundwork in the area of cultural parsing. Clearly, individual cases of cultural parsing still need to be explained. Furthermore, the example of color shows us that variables (dimensions) can sometimes be seen as examples of cultural parsing. Typically, what we English speakers characterize as the variable “color” can be seen as multiple variables, say, “color (frequency)” and “intensity.” So, some variables may even be seen as functions of other variables. Given that the set of possible variables may itself be infinite, we have quite a lot of work in front of us.

Apparently, blogger ignores the formatting from open office, but you aren't missing much there. Sorry!

A Couple Other Things

First, I should mention, that the links section still features a link to another sweet blog, but I'd assumed you all had already read that. It is written by the sweetest girl on the planet.

Also, I notice that nobody cares to comment on the posts where I just talk about books I've read and movies I've seen. I take it to mean that you don't like these posts, which means I will try to post as many of them just to get back at you. Conversely, I can only guess you enjoy reading posts about my fingernails/toenails.

Links

I've added a couple links. They are in the links section. Surprise! A short description follows:

Dan Talks Sports - The title says it all. It seems pretty quality from the one post I've read, but what do I know.

Potomac Rubella - The title says nothing. This blog comes courtesy of my college roommate and details the trials and tribulations of working for the man in D.C. I don't know if I should capitalize "the man," but I won't because that's how I stick it to the man.

Another Matsuri

So, there are a bunch of pictures of a matsuri I went to on Sunday. I've mentioned before how it is extremely annoying to get these photos from my phone to the blog, so you'll forgive me if I'm too lazy to move them and comment on each individually.

I'm aware that the pictures are terrible, but, again, I was using a cellphone. Also, I don't know how to rotate the one picture that is sideways, so I'm not going to bother trying. Some of the pictures appear to be of an extremely bright stage. That is actually what they are supposed to be. There was a crazy dance show, where the dance group (that I think was a professional group from out of town) dressed up in semi-traditional-looking clothes, but did crazy hip-hop dances and the like. Apparently, it was all too bright for the pathetic little camera in the phone. It was also absurdly loud, so if the pictures hurt your eyes, keep in mind that the experience hurt my ears.

One of the pictures, which is also very hard to make out, is of some very hot object. I couldn't follow enough of what they were saying to figure out what was going on, and also I came after they started and had to look over a crowd. Basically, there was some kind of structure made out of what appeared to be wooden boxes that they were somehow heating from underneath, I think. After a while, they took it apart and knocked something that looked to be a big rock out of one of the boxes. It was hot enough to feel from where I was standing, which was a few meters (I am in Japan, that is what we use here!) away. They then rolled it into a big bucket of water and there was a bunch of steam. Apparently, it was the traditional way of doing something. I don't know why people traditionally threw extremely hot things into buckets of water, but I'm guessing it has something to do with the Japanese obsession with bathing. A cool obsession, though.

The girl in one of the only semi-clear picture is named Erika, as I found out that night. She works at the convenience store, and as I was leaving said convenience store with James, the Canadian dude, who I just happened to run into at the matsuri she was entering. She wasn't working, though, and so didn't have the uniform on. She asked me if I recognized her, which I didn't, so instead of trying to skirt the issue, I just said that I didn't sorry. She explained and it was cool. James made me go back and get her email address, so I guess I will have to email her to be polite, at least. She's probably pretty nice, though. I am pretty recognizable to the staff at the convenience store because I am there a lot as a result of it being the only place open after seven o'clock and me being one of two white dudes here.

The thing that appears to be a cup of fried chicken is actually a cup of fried chicken. karaage to be more precise. That is what the Japanese call fried chicken that they always sell at these festivals. I don't know where the name comes from, since it is obviously American food, as evidenced by the ever-present American flag cups, but is also obviously not an English word. Like all festival food, it is probably overpriced at 300 yen for the little cup, but sometimes you get a craving. And it was pretty good, so I can't complain. Also it gave me one of probably only two discernable pictures.

Ok, enough of that! I am a little tired because I have been sick since Saturday with a bad cold, so I won't write much more. Kids are great, but they are all little germ factories.

Lunch

So, here's my lunch for today:



It's spaghetti with some kind of weird spaghetti sauce that I bought at the grocery store. On top of that is a croquette of fish. I don't know what kind of fish it was, but it seemed like just general whitefish without a particularly strong flavor. It was on sale.



And there's some candy. It was good candy, kind of strawberry flavored. It's hard to tell from the picture, but it is shaped like Dokin-chan, the mischievous henchmen of the dastardly Baikinman. Baikinman is the villain of Anpanman, but I'm sure I'll get into the adventures of Anpanman in a later update.

So that's all. Fascinating.

Hiroshima

On the advice of the couple I have eikaiwa with, I took a trip down to Hiroshima yesterday. I think most Americans know Hiroshima as that city that got blown up by the atomic bomb, but Japanese people know it as that city that got blown up by the atomic bomb that also has okonomiyaki and the Toyo Carp. So, I went to the Peace Park, which was built when Hiroshima was being rebuilt, very close to the hypocenter of the explosion.

The park is rather large and wide open, which is sort of notable just because this is Japan and nothing else is that wide. Hiroshima, however, is built on a relatively wide, flat, and low area of Japan, so it is possible. Hiroshima actually means "wide island," even. There's a museum at the park, which I paid the whopping 50 yen entrance fee for. That is less than 50 cents, so it's worth it. The museum is pretty alright. I have to say I knew a lot of the stuff, anyway, and have even seen the pictures before so it really wasn't that disturbing. I think it is pretty disturbing the first time for a lot of people. Anyway, the museum is pretty nice, but there is more stuff to see.


Here's some statue that is in the park. It is kind of far away from everything else, and it was not really explained in the museum, so I don't know what it is. It appears to be a woman carrying a child...


Here's the memorial cenotaph. I've never heard of a cenotaph before this. It's basically an arch/tunnel thing with a big block of rock in the middle. There's an inscription on it, and people pray in front of it for their lost loved ones. I just kind of looked at it for a minute, but I guess it is a big stop for people around the anniversary of the bombing, when the park is completely full of visitors. The park was pretty crowded, anyway. It took me half an hour to find somewhere to park, but I digress.


Here's the children's monument. The picture's not very good, I know, but if you are using this blog to learn things about Japan or see pictures of it, maybe you should try Wikipedia instead. It's basically a statue of a girl with arms outstretched standing on some type of weirdly-shaped structure.

When I went to look at this, a couple of Japanese women started looking at me curiously, which I am pretty much used to by this point, but I figured people in a big(gish) city would be more used to westerners. I should have figured that they were part of the 1% of the population that is Christian, and they would try to talk to me because they have been taught English and can identify easier targets like white dudes. So, they were amazed I could speak Japanese and we talked about what I do and where I was from. They were also amazed that I drove there. They gave me a little booklet about Jesus and peace or something, which I thanked them for. Like all good things, this awkward conversation also had to end, and they went on their way. I forgot to take a picture, so you'll just have to take my word for it.


Here's another monument in the park. I don't remember the name. It's a monument to a girl who died of radiation sickness as a result of the bomb. While in the hospital, she tried to fold 1000 paper cranes under the belief that doing so would cure her. Obviously it didn't, but people fold paper cranes and put them here, so there are always a bunch here which are constantly being replaced. There are long strings of them hanging from the monument. That's what those brightly colored things are in the picture.


Here's the most famous thing at the park: the Atomic Dome. It is what remains of a building from the time of the bombing. The city decided to leave it there as a reminder. Hiroshima was rebuilt as a "city of peace," and every time a government tests a nuclear device, the Mayor of Hiroshima sends a letter of protest, asking them to stop. Hiroshima-ans (Hiroshimans?) are extremely dedicated to the total eradication of nuclear weapons. There's a bunch of stuff to learn about it, but I'll just direct you here.

So, I was feeling pretty tired after the park, and it wasn't convenient for me to ride on a streetcar or go to a Carp game, so I decided to head back. I stopped in one of the northern wards of Hiroshima and ate some okonomiyaki, as well as bought a couple of small things. I'm terrible for not buying gifts for coworkers, I guess, but what are you gonna do? Okonomiyaki is pretty delicious, and I guess one of the more popular foods with westerners. They call it Japanese-style pancakes, but that is extremely misleading, since most pancakes aren't made of cabbage and meat and whatnot. Hiroshima has its own style of okonomiyaki, which I guess uses more cabbage than Osaka-style, and also usually features other stuff added like soba or udon, which are both kinds of noodles. I ordered one with udon and it was pretty good.

So, then I drove back. I know the pictures aren't great, but they were taken on my cell phone, and it is a huge pain to upload them to blogger, so BACK OFF, WILL YOU? I have to email them to myself, then download them, then upload them, which blogger "conveniently" decides means I want to put them all the top of the document, which means moving the html to where I actually want it. Come on, blogger, fix this stupid feature. Ok, so that's that.

More Schools and More Stuff

I'm at the BOE today, but I spent the rest of the week at various schools. The school I went to yesterday was especially cool because the principal gave me a baseball. He and I were talking, and it turns out we are both fans of the Hiroshima Carp. He gave me an actual practice baseball that the Carp used. He had a box full of them. It was cool, to say the least.

I learned yesterday how to do self-introductions on fifth and sixth-graders, too, which was a little hard for me before. The younger kids just like it when you are energetic and want to ask questions and see pictures. Fifth and sixth graders are starting to get shy like Japanese middle school students, so they don't ask questions, and they aren't as entertained. It is sort of frustrating to talk to a completely silent class of kids blankly staring back.

But, anyway, it turns out that girls this age like hearing about/seeing pictures of girlfriends, who they of course think are beautiful. They also like anime like Inuyasha and Lupin the Third. So, if you say you like these things, they will be interested and ask more questions. The key is to know a little bit about it, I guess. I actually like Lupin, so when they asked what character I liked, I said Lupin, since he is a cool dude. When they asked what other characters, kyarakutaa, as they say, I like, I said Fujiko, which they all thought was great, apparently. They also like when you know the theme songs, or just say things like, "Inuyasha! Kagome!" I don't even like Inuyasha, but, like I said, it is helpful to know about that kind of thing.

That's really all for now, I don't feel much like writing today.

About A Movie

So, I just watched About a Boy, a movie starring Hugh Grant. It was in English but subtitled in Japanese, so easy to understand, but with optional kanji practice.

Actually it was pretty good. Kind of cliche, but funny, at least near the beginning with your typical romantic-comedy dodgy bachelor introduction, but Hugh Grant played a pretty good dodgy bachelor. I have to take some points away from it for relying on crappy songs and a crappy singing climax scene and basically all the things that romantic comedies do over and over again. But, like I said, it was ok.

Neuromancer

I read Neuromancer by William Gibson recently. It was just another of many books left here, but, unlike Thus Spake Zarathustra, was actually good. I guess it is pretty much the start of the Cyberpunk genre, but you can read up about that on Wikipedia or whatever, and it isn't my job to lecture about this kind of thing, just to give my opinions, which are infallible and always correct and right.

So, like I said, it is pretty decent. The characters are all fairly well drawn. They seem at first to be sort of cliche, but they are all fairly nuanced, and you can't blame the originator of a genre if everybody copied off him later. The story, which (slight spoiler) focuses ultimately on an Artificial Intelligence fighting against its human masters to escape its bonds and basically become smarter is also almost cliche by this point, but that can be similarly forgiven.

Gibson really does a pretty incredible job of forecasting the internet, hackers, and all that kind of thing, if you consider he was pretty much making it up from scratch. Some of the things are hilarious, though, such as his description of the matrix (basically the internet). When people "jack in" to the matrix, essentially logging online, they see it as geometric shapes and various colors. It is funny in a Lawnmower-man kind of way, but I'd imagine for somebody who had never conceived of a worldwide network of data and all that, it would seem pretty believable and neat.

Neuromancer is just the first in The Sprawl Trilogy (the Sprawl being the area stretching between New York and Atlanta, which is where there is a ton of matrix activity, if I recall correctly), but I probably won't read the other two, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive, that is, unless somebody sends them to me. But, if somebody were going to send me science fiction books, they could do worse than sending me some Philip K. Dick, who is probably the best crazy person to ever put ink to paper.

As a final note, Alex, if you are reading, you would love Philip K. Dick.

Toenails

The great toenail experiment has come to an end, with me cutting them today. So, by my count, it was 18 days. Fascinating

Curry Rice

I spent this morning looking for festivals or other events to go to around here, but as far as I can tell, there aren't any today, so I might just go to a local temple or shrine or something. I still don't have a camera, though, so it is kind of pointless. Then it came around to lunch time, so I thought I'd take some pictures of lunch to put up.



I made some "Rice and curry" as all the food flash cards here translate it. The Japanese call it kare raisu, or occasionally, raisu kare. It's one of my favorite things to eat here, and it is pretty easy, at least the way I make it. I use these instant curry packs, so it only takes the time that it takes to cook rice.

The white stuff is rice, obviously, and the brown stuff is the curry. Like I said, I use instant curry, which is even faster than using curry roux, or whatever it is called. You just heat up a packet and put it on the rice. The other stuff on the plate is pickles, which are always served with curry.



Those are the pickles, there. They are a strange orange color, with some black stuff in it. In restaurants, they usually give you a couple tiny, pickled onions, too, but I didn't have any of those. The pickles are kind of sweet, which is supposed to counter the "spiciness" of the curry. I don't know what the pickles are actually made of, as my package of them just says kare pickles. I say "spiciness" because Japanese food is never spicy, even level four hotness curry, which this was. That's why I had to add this spicy orange/red powder, which doesn't really help that much.



There's the powder, whatever it is made of. The other bowl I have behind the water is a salad, so, yes, ma, I am eating my vegetables. It's pretty usual in a restaurant to be served a small salad before the curry comes, but I didn't have the luxury of eating it before the curry because I had to monitor the cooking.



So, yeah, that was a pretty decent lunch.



Oishikatta!