Su-po-tsu

I've been playing soccer with my friend Naoya and his team for the past couple months. As with most other things, playing soccer in Japan has quite a different feel than playing in America.

When I first practiced with the team, Naoya explained to them that I used to play for the USA's national team. Although meant as a joke, every last one of them believed him. And with none of them able to speak English in the least, they could not directly question me on his claims.
However, after a few practices, some (yes, only some) of them stopped believing Naoya, as my performance was below their national team expectations. Our practices take place Wednesday and Friday nights, after I've spent anywhere from 8-10 hours with the screaming, crying, laughing, crotch-poking little English learners. Even on the best of days, finding a reserve tank of energy to play soccer for 2-3 hours after work is a very tall order. So I would tire out after an hour or hour and a half of practice. Hence some of the players begun to doubt Naoya's claim.
Until...
we had a game last Sunday. Without expending energy on the kids, and having the added excitement of playing in a real game, I had my 'A' game with me. After a couple decent saves in the game, some of our teammates commented, "Oh, now I know he played for the USA national team."

During a practice a few weeks ago, the player with the biggest ego on the team was trying to get me to back up for a demonstration. Naoya, the only bilingual one amongst us, was nowhere to be seen. The player, who has the nickname "Kitty-chan" (his last name is Kitta, and when you add "chan" to someone's name, it's basically calling them a little girl. So instead of Kitta-chan, it was changed to Kitty-chan, which is the name of the cat from Hello Kitty), approached me and grabbed each of my upper arms and started to lightly push me backwards. Having been in this position with many guys before, I recognized the situation as the start of a male-bonding wrestle, so I grabbed his arms in the same manner, and pushed back against him.
Kitty-chan then looked pretty terrified... and that's when Naoya emerged and explained to me that they wanted me to back up. When Kitty-chan returned to the rest of the team with me "safely" back in goal, someone asked him why he didn't act as his normal alpha-male self, instead taking the sheepish route. He responded that he thought I was going to lift him by his face with one hand clear off the ground. So much for being the alpha, and for any decent attempt at losing his nickname. And so much for me scaring only kids.

The night of the aforementioned game, when we arrived at the field, there were disbelieving grumblings from the other team: "They have an American?!" "He's a keeper?!" "How'd they get an American?" "He's too tall!"
Yes, at six feet, I was easily the tallest on the field that night. The "ooohs" when they saw I could touch the crossbar of the goal without jumping were hilarious.
Also, having been not indoctrinated in all the "necessary" pleasantries surrounding a soccer match, I did not bow with everyone else before the game, nor did I provide the slew of polite greetings to the other team. Being used to staring the opposing team down and sizing them up, their "holy shit" feeling was only furthered.

This past Sunday, I played for a different team in a tournament. We made it to the finals, and were down 3-2 at the start of the second half. A tripping call somehow escalated into two of my teammates being given red cards before play resumed. The trip was a legitimate foul, and a yellow card certainly was warranted. But a red? Definitely not. I am pretty sure our second player was ejected for yelling at the ref.
But that didn't discourage me, because I was the only one on the field who spoke English. So I enjoyed myself. Here's a sampling:
"Are you out of your fucking mind, ref?"
"What game are you watching?"
"Get your head out of your ass."
"That call was total bullshit!" (I did give a short English lesson to my entire team. Everyone now knows the word "bullshit.")
A little while later there was another foul called, and I said, "Hey ref, where's the red card?" He was all of 15 feet from me, and had no idea what was coming out of my mouth. Being down two players, the game was essentially over (both teams thought what had happened was a joke), we lost 6-4. But speaking English has never been that fun for me.

On a different note, I made it to the batting cages this past weekend for the first time since arriving in Japan. Nothing that different from the cages I have been in for years, except for one thing. The pitching machines were not visible. So how did you know when each pitch was coming? you might be wondering. Well, there was a giant TV screen for each cage which showed a pitcher going into his motion. The ball was pitched at the moment and from the location shown the video.

Soccer in the land of the easily-intimidated and baseball in the land of the future. So goes my sports experience in Japan.

Just So You Know...

It's bad luck to whistle to music after the sun has gone down.

Korea

This post is long overdue (not to mention long). The deadly combination of being either busy or lazy has postponed it until now.

I went to Korea for a few days between Christmas and New Years.
After a long day of travel, as I found myself rather weary and unnerved by yet another very foreign language and another very foreign alphabet, I arrived at my hostel.
After checking in, I decided to go out for some food. I walked around the hostel, and saw a restaurant that not only had pictures of meals above the doorway, but they all had English descriptions. Adding to those two finds, I saw only locals inside. Perfect, I thought. I walked in.
A lady who worked there came up to me and started rambling on in Korean. After waiting her to pause (which seemed to take forever) I said, in English, "I'm sorry, I don't speak Korean." However, this did nothing to slow her conversational speed. Clearly she didn't understand me, and she continued to ramble on in Korean. Eventually I heard the word "menu." I figured, correctly, that they did not have an English menu. (Then why the pictures and English-subtitled signs out front? I wondered) No problem. She kept on talking and talking and talking to me in Korean, so I eventually just started saying "yes" to whatever she was saying. She asked me some more indecipherable questions, and after some more yes'es, she showed me where to sit. After a few minutes, brought me several very small plates of food. Good, I thought, I'm not that hungry.
But then she came back, but with a rather large (really, meant for 2-4 people) plate of noodles with meat and veggies. All for me. And she still kept on talking to me quite fast in Korean. Eventually, this table of 4 men - all about 35-40 - came to my help. One of them spoke half-decent English, but he was able to translate for us. Everyone was quite surprised that I was able to eat this "very spicy" food. Impressed, they asked if I wanted a drink. After downing the first shot, they poured me another. I thanked them, returned to my seat and began to work on my monstrous meal.


After I stuffed all I could of this mountain of food into my body, I got my jacket and went to leave. Those men called to me, "Hey, do you want to drink?" I didn't want to drink that much, but how could I turn down the offer? Experiences like that are a huge part of why I travel. We talked for a long time, as we compared Japanese and Korean life, told dirty jokes, and clanged shot glasses full of soju while shouting "Welcome to Korea!" Certainly a memorable introduction.


The next couple days I visited all around Seoul - palaces, gates, and markets.


I found some distinct differences between Japanese and Korean culture, but I feel I can sum them up by saying that Korea has more color than Japan. I mean that literally and figuratively. The temples and palaces I visited in Seoul were structurally very similar to their Japanese counterparts. Yet they were all painted bright colors - yellow, blue, green, orange... Japanese temples and palaces are rarely any colors other than brown, white, and maybe a little red.

Korean people seemed to have more color to their personalities too. They were a lot less afraid to show their emotions. I went to a jazz club one night with a fellow world traveler, and we both commented on how we felt the singer had more soul (or rather, showed more soul) than just about every other Asian person we had ever met (sorry Josiah, Charlotte...). The above story about the guys inviting me to their table, slapping me on the back, offering me drinks and giving me their business cards in case I needed any assistance during my stay - I feel safe saying that would not happen in Japan.

The markets were interesting experiences as well. Some were open during the day, but the real markets didn't get going until well into the night (I walked around a market one night around 10, and most places were still getting set up). There were markets everywhere - in nearly every subway station, underground passage or alley, there were blankets and stands of all goods from wallets and bags to clothes, shoes, electronics, watches, household appliances, toiletries, and food.
The sheer size of the markets was impressive, as was what some of the stands sold. A bit blurry, but here two stands - one that sells clothes, and one that sells shoes. I took this about 11pm, before the crowd really started to show.


I am accustomed to seeing motorcycles or scooters all the time. Seeing them in Seoul, even in rather large numbers, was not that special. But there were two notable differences. One was that the loads frequently seen on the bikes were loads I've seen only in "Is this a real or Photoshop'ed picture?" email forwards and websites. The other difference is that motorcycles would seamlessly drive from main roads to crosswalks and up on sidewalks, humorously cumbersome loads and all.


One day I ventured out of Seoul and took a guided tour of the DMZ - the border between North and South Korea. That was a fascinating experience. The tour took us into a tunnel the North Koreans were digging years after the end of the Korean War to be used to send thousands of troops into the South.
While, quite naturally, it was a serious situation, I could not help but chuckle at how it was presented by our tour guide. It was said that the tunnel was made large so that thousands of troops could get through in just a couple hours. The humor in that statement was that we all were required to wear hard hats because of how small the tunnel is - all us foreigners hit our head on the "ceiling" of the tunnel countless times. I guess Japan is not the only land of the little people (though, to be fair, Koreans generally had noticeably larger frames than Japanese).
It took very little time to grasp the weight of the situation at the DMZ. There was much room left for hope for reconciliation in the future, though. Dorasan train station was recently completed and opened, with the hopes of uniting the North and South. In the station, a neon sign flashed messages in several languages, as well as train schedules:


One of the neatest parts of the tour was when we were allowed entry into a room which straddles the border between the two Koreas. This room is jointly controlled by both countries, and we were allowed to walk freely across the border in the room. So, for a few minutes and by a few feet, I was actually in North Korea (my passport doesn't reflect that, but that's okay - that would raise a few eyebrows upon my return to the U.S.).
This is taken from the room, and that concrete slab in the middle of the picture marks the border between North and South. I was slightly in North Korea when I took it.

In the room there were two South Korean soldiers. This one was in the Northern half of the room.


Just outside this room is a large building in North Korea. As I took the photo, I noticed the North Korean soldier standing out front with binoculars staring in my direction. Neato.


One last tidbit about this area is that 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, there are two South Korean soldiers watching that building. Each soldier only exposes half his body, hiding the other half behind one of the buildings that straddles the border. They're small, but you can see the North and South Korean soldiers staring at each other.


Of course that is not all there is to say about the DMZ - one other notable thing was that the area has been untouched by humans since the 1950s, when the DMZ was established, so many biologists are itching to get in the area to see what ecology has evolved in the last 50 years. Of course, I chuckle at the irony of that. "It's been untouched for too long! We must get in there!"

So all in all, it was a great trip. Ate great food at fantastically cheap prices. But I fount it quite difficult using Korean chopsticks. I am very accustomed to chopsticks - I have used them regularly since arriving in Japan. But at every restaurant I went to in Korea, the chopsticks were nearly flat. It was very hard to get a good grip on them. By contrast, the chopsticks I use almost daily in Japan have some girth to them - they're typically rectangular or cylindrical - very easy to hold on to.
But as I said, the food was outstanding. For the most part, I could not tell you what I ate. But it was delicious. So for those of you who want to ask if I ate dog or cat, it's entirely possible. And if I did, I would like to say that it was absolutely scrumptious.

Kamsahamnida.

Adventures In Haircutting pictures

Before:

In the second photo, my hair was that long in all directions, but after a shower, it needed some coaxing to get to its full length and I didn't pull out the sides.

After:

Saisho gu... (First Rock...)

Janken hai!

Just about every person in America has played Rock, Paper, Scissors (RPS) at least once in their life. It's one of those requisite childhood activities right along with eating veggies and learning about Superman.
So it came as no surprise to me to learn there existed a Japanese version of RPS, called Janken. I saw kids playing it pretty frequently, but I paid it little mind. They're kids, afterall. Kids everywhere play it.

However, it's taken to a different level here. On the basic level, for kids it is used to divvy up cleaning chores and decide who will be on which team. It is also used to break ties, decide which game will be played, which movie will be watched, which food will be eaten, and divvy up chores.

But I've found it's not just for kids. I have been involved in a Janken variant (choki-pa - just scissors or paper, with no winner declared) in a bar to decide darts teams. With adults. One of who was in his 50s. No one needed any explanation of the rules of Janken. That would be like asking someone in America what could possibly happen if you flip a coin.

This past week, I went to a soccer store with my friend Naoya. Naoya told me - after we finished our purchases, of course - that we can Janken with whoever rings us up. If we win, we get 20% of what we just bought as store credit. And we get to go again. Win a second time, get 25% of your purchase as store credit. Third, 30%. And so forth. If you win 10 times, you get even money for what you just bought. An eleventh win allows you to pick anything in the store and get it for free.
Intrigued, and well practiced at Janken, I went back today to get some sweatpants. Upon discovering they have a baseball shop on the second floor, I also picked up a batting glove for visits to the local batting cages. As I paid, I asked in Japanese if we could play Janken. The lady smiled, said sure, and then called her coworker down from the other floor.
I thought, wow, they're bringing in the Janken specialist. When he came downstairs, I asked him, "Are you the Janken master?" ("master" = "ma-su-ta")
He laughed, "That's right, I am the Janken master."
"Saisho gu, janken hai!" I win.
I smile, and get ready to go again.
"Saisho gu, janken hai!" I win again.
And again.
And again.
And again. I can see the downright confusion all over his face. How can this gaijin keep winning? I am the Janken ma-su-ta! I win again.
I win 8 times in a row, and so I get 80% of what I just bought in store credit, a total of about US$70.
I smile and think of all the schoolchildren who made this possible, both my American contemporaries and my Japanese students. And I think of my dad, who swears there is no such thing as a free lunch. Dad, clearly you haven't taken Rock, Paper, Scissors into account when figuring that out.

Recently, I have been amused at the obsession the Japanese have with RPS, and then I came across an article on the BBC about the recent crowning of a World Champion of RPS.

Rock Paper Scissors is bigger than I ever thought possible.

Adventures in Haircutting

Question: What's harder to find in Japan than a 6-foot, curly haired person?
Answer: Someone in Japan who can cut the hair of a 6-foot, curly haired person.

After months of letting the 'fro grow, I got tired of having enough hair that it could reach the tip of my nose. I'd been wanting a trim for a while now, but finding someone who can cut curly hair and speaks some English took quite an effort. One or two places had been recommended to me, but for one reason or another, they fell through.

So a Japanese friend of mine volunteered to help. My friend had talked to the woman who cuts her hair who had some experience with some curly hair before. Her haircutter (stylist? barber? I have no idea the right term. hooray for being a guy.) needed to see what she was getting herself into, so pictures of my hair were taken by a cell phone and e-mailed.
A couple days later, the OK was given. (Of course, I had to wonder what took a couple days to respond to the email. What sort of high-tech analysis needed to be done?)

So finally, an appointment was set up. Now, I was originally told that the haircutter spoke English. But that turned out to be a little bit of an exaggeration. And while I was never expecting fluency, the haircutter spoke a grand total of 5 words of English, and none of them had anything to do with cutting hair. "Short" and "long" weren't even in her vocabulary.
Fortunately, though, my friend came with me, and worked as translator. I haven't had a third party at a haircut since I was eight. All sorts of flashbacks of car-shaped barber chairs were coming to me.

On our way to the salon, my friend confessed to me that the haircutter was nervous. I said, "Well, now, so am I."

We get to the salon, and the haircutter greets us, and hands me a form to enter my name and appointment time. All earlier appointments from the day had been filled in, of course in Japanese. Nothing to remarkable about that, except the form itself was in English. Not one soul working there speaks any English at all, but the form was entirely in English. When asked about this, the answer was, "Wow, I never noticed that before. I don't know why."
Now the nervous woman who will be putting scissors near my head then starts fondling my hair and babbling on in Japanese. My friend responds, and she starts rubbing my hair too. So here I am, a grown man sitting in a salon, having two women poking, prodding, moving, pushing around and discussing my hair. For those of you saying, "Dave, you're so lucky to have women fondle you like that!" I reply that it was not that enjoyable for yours truly. And far from sexual, you perverts.

We make it over to the chair and I sit down. After a minute or two, I realize this woman is working very hard to reach the top of my head, even though I am seated. I look down and see her standing on her toes, and so I slouch down like a teenager watching television. (more flashbacks) This draws laughter and looks from other people in the salon.

Eventually my nerves calm as I see the haircutter seems comfortable with the task in front of her. She settles in, as do I, and she does a pretty good job.

When all is said and done, I pay and get ready to leave. Not so fast. At this point all the other employees have gathered around the "man with the crazy hair." Everyone is staring and remarking how tough it must have been for the woman to cut the crazy curls on my head. Some of them even find it funny that the hair which is now on the floor has curled too. I'm not quite sure why they are so amazed that my hair is still curly after it's been removed from my head. Do they think my head has some magic curly energy that twists anything that touches it, and so once something leaves my head, it automatically straightens out?

So now the pointing and joking starts to subside, they have formed a semi-circle around me. I'm a celebrity. Then the camera comes out. The woman who cut my hair was so ... something (honored? proud? relieved??) that she wanted a picture taken. I was half expecting to sign autographs before I left.

I did have an even longer-than-usual thank you and good-bye exchange, as I had to say that to each of the gawkers standing in the horseshoe.

Yes, it was quite an adventure to get my hair cut. Fortunately, I have a while to go before doing that again.

"Deibido-sensei, you wrote 'M' wrong."

"What?" I replied. I've been writing the letter M for over 20 years, so you could say I'm a little familiar with how to write it in all its various forms.
"Yea, write it this way." The student wrote the capital M in 4 strokes of the marker, each stroke originating at the top of line and ending at the bottom. Now, even for those of you who don't have a background in engineering, clearly writing the letter M with one pen stroke (I'm counting one "stroke" as from when the pen is placed on the writing surface to when it is removed from the surface) is a smoother and faster way of writing than lifting the pen 4 times.
But that's not the "correct" way. According to how the capital M is "supposed" to be written, the student was correct. But how many of you write your M's that way?

But so it goes with Japanese learning. There's been a lot of talk in the West how Asian students fare better on standardized tests than their American counterparts. But these tests are standardized. They don't measure the ability to think for oneself. They measure memorization. Regurgitation. "Vomiting," as my high school calculus teacher called it. "But you are not learning math!" she correctly stated.
I can't speak for the educational methods of other Asian countries, but certainly Japan does not promote individual thinking. It does not promote (and as the students get older, allow) coloring outside the lines. A Japanese friend of mine studied abroad in America when she was in college. She was startled when the teachers asked, "So what do you think about this?"
"We're never asked that as students here," she said. She went on to explain how Japanese teachers just test factual information, and how now, years after she's been out of school, she has forgotten most of what she was made to "learn" in school here.

So say what you will (and I could say plenty) about how Americans blindly follow advertisements, politicians or macarena-type fads, and how they fail to think for themselves. Americans are far more mentally liberated than people here.
Even "rebellious" kids here rebel in certain designated ways. They dye their hair one of 3 colors. The shirts or earrings they wear are all of the same ilk. Wearing big boots is a great way to rebel, apparently. So here, if you rebel, you do it in a conformist way.

This has been one of the biggest things I have realized about Japanese culture. It's the nice little box everyone is placed in. A saying in Japanese says, "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down." If you think for yourself, draw outside the lines, or *gasp* express your own opinion, you will be hammered back down into that small unit until you fit in with everyone else.
In Japan, the whole is far more important than any of its units. People here are taught to fit in, or else. Become part of the system (they call it being a "good Japanese"). I have one student whose father is American and mother is Japanese. She is growing up with both English and Japanese as her native tongues, and will be greatly aided in life being fluent in both languages. But right now, as her hair and eyes are lighter than the "pure" Japanese dark colors, she is often ridiculed by her peers for being different. In turn, she has become very shy about using her best-in-the-class-by-far English as a way of preventing further ridicule and social distance from her classmates. Even though she can help translate something her classmates have said to me, or something I have said to them, she is learning to hold that inside, and not be special in any way.

The Japanese educational - and social - system does not promote expressing your own opinion, or even, appearing to act outside the lines of what is "supposed" to be done. And oftentimes, the reasons for the "supposed to"s are long-lost, and things are done just because that's what's done.
As a foreigner, I am pretty much exempt from these expectations, although I have been chastised for crossing the street on red, days after I did it. The word got through the grapevine from a parent of a student to the principal of the school to my boss to me. That definitely has not stopped me from crossing whenever and wherever I deem appropriate, but it's amazing how pervasive this "you can't think for yourself" idea is.

As a result, everyone works extra hard to fit in. To be that nondescript little box that everyone else is.

Well, more accurately, it's that everyone works extra hard to appear to be that nondescript little box.

Sure, I imagine there are people who internalize this, and really monitor their every activity, even when not in public view. But every Japanese person I have met - every single one - who I have become friends with breaks the rules. At first I, along with the rest of the world, have been shown this I-cross-only-at-the-crosswalks face. But as we get to know each other better, and they allow me in past their public exterior, I hear things such as, "Don't tell my boss, but I don't wash down my desk everyday the way I'm supposed to." or "Don't tell my coworkers..." (who I've never met anyway) "...that I am friends with a student's parent." (a HUGE no-no) or "Don't tell my boyfriend, but I used a different kind of soy sauce last night because I forgot to go to the store."

It's fair to say that almost all people - regardless of their nationality - have secrets. Most people have different faces for the world and for themselves and their close friends. However, I'm finding that the gap between the two faces for the average Japanese adult is larger than the gap in just about every other culture I have encountered.

There are, naturally, some really ugly side-effects to this mentality. If someone is outside the box, and is not trying to rebel, it is often looked down upon in the severest way. For example, while physical illness is understood and accepted, mental illness is not. Patients are frequently advised to hide their behavior - which oftentimes makes said illness worse - for fear of not getting a specific job, or acceptance to a school. Problems are often swept under the rug in order to fit into the prescribed role of a "good Japanese."

I really wonder about other Asian countries. Is this true in Korea, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam?

The New Year Is Open! Congratulations!

Is a rough translation of how Happy New Year is said in Japanese.

During a phone call with the folks the other day, my dad asked me if New Years is a big holiday here. New Years here is called shogatsu, and is a 3-day celebration (Jan 1-3) which has many traditions associated with it. I by no means know them all, nor am I going to recount them here. There are special foods, drinks, visits to shrines, words to be said, and prophetic interpretations of dreams.
So I used the best barometer I could. "Dad, there is no trash service for 3 days." None. Big X's cover the dates on the color-coordinated novel of instructions for separating and disposing of trash. Forget about using the opening of post offices and schools to determine how big a holiday is. Trash service is the best measuring stick here.

One very neat thing about watching the calendar change in Japan is that it is save New Zealand, part of Australia, and a couple remote places in Siberia, Japan gets the first sunrise of each day. Hence its nickname "The Land of The Rising Sun."
So it was neat being awake to witness the world's first sunrise of 2007. It was also very weird thinking, at 12:45AM, that the rest of the world was still in 2006. An American friend of mine pointed out how each year, as midnight approached in America, the television programs would show celebrations from the other major cities in the world. Of course not here. There aren't too many major cities ahead of Japan.

2007 is the year of the boar in Japanese culture (other Asian countries too??) so there are boars everywhere in advertisements. "Piggy banks" have been popular gifts recently. As have been boar balloons, boar-shaped pastries, and greeting cards. It's January 2nd here, and I'm already sick of boars.

In Japan, people send out New Years greeting cards the way many Americans send out family Christmas cards. Except here, there is frequently not a family photo and an update of the past year. Instead, there's a big boar (or the designated animal of the year).

But in any case, congratulations, the new year is open! I know you all deserve congratulations, for your incredibly hard work to keep the world spinning on its axis and revolving around the sun. With your continued dedication, I know we can make 2008 a reality too.