Today, Kana and Emi (ESS [English Speaking Society] members) took me out to Sannomia as a farewell party. At first they wanted to take me 2 hours away on the north side of Hyogo Prefecture to a famous soba shop, but I said I didn't have enough time. "Well, how about...(a bunch of Japanese I didn't understand)" and then, "Otaku kafe mitai." It's kind of an Otaku cafe. "Holy shit! Let's go!" I say, and we were off. (Otaku can be roughly translated as "nerd" but is slightly different. It's someone who is close to or obsessed with manga, hentai, anime and the like).
Justin, Kana, Emi, and I walk by the cafe shrouded in mystery. Fluffy white curtains cover the windows so we can't see in, and we approach the entrance. Two girls in their 20's dressed in French maid outfits greet us and escort us to our seats. That's the appeal of the place: young girls dressed in maid outfits and fluffy curtains. After she systematically pulls out each chair for us individually, we sit and look at the menu. It has all the items one would expect, coffee, main courses, ice cream and such.
The waitress comes over and we order. After taking our order she stiffens her back and bows. But this isn't any ordinary bow. It was the coldest, slowest, most emotionlessly intense bow I have ever witnessed. She bowed slowly until her upper torso was parallel with the ground, and her eyes didn't move a millimeter . I looked over at Justin to make sure we witnessed the same thing. His face was pushed to the side, surprised, smiling cynically as I was. I guess we looked more than shocked, because a table of two girls in front of us started laughing hysterically just after this, trying to hold it in and not look at us. Every time she brought us food or drinks the waitress would be as gentle as possible with the dishes, place them in front of us, and if there was even so much as a tiny *cling* she would say, "shitsureiishimasu" I'm being rude, or sorry. Then she gave the exact same bow as before, each time making me more and more curious as to what lays behind this Otaku culture.
There's a lot to it, and I don't know enough about it to try to make an analysis here. What I do know, though, is that it is completely removed from reality and relies heavily on the mother figure as a symbol of complete comfort and erotic sexuality. I spoke to Makoto about this later, and he told me about more hardcore メイドカフェ (maid cafe's) that actually spoon feed their customers, quite literally. In addition to this, if you ask them to slap your face, they will politley say ごめんなさい (I'm sorry), and then give you a nice smack.
I'm aware that it sounds like I'm exoticizing this a bit, but this is type of stuff that truly surprises me, and I feel the need to write about it. Anywho, I'm sure this kind of thing exists in The United States as well.
As a short note, I apologize that there are no pictures to post, but it's a rule that pictures can't be taken there. I'm sure if one really wanted to see it though, they could find it on a Google image search.
Friday, October 20, 2006
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
The Presentation
Today I accomplished one of the larger feats of my Japanese career. After a few weeks of preparation with Justin, Makoto, Isamu, and Son, we successfully pulled off a presentation that was mostly about Evergreen, Kinan College (the Chinese sister school to Hyogo University), and a little on rural life in China. I actually lead the organization of the event, and although it didn't go perfectly, it went well enough. We drew about 35 people (mostly from the English club that I'm involved with), and provided free tacos, gyoza, harumaki, and other assorted edibles. An enjoyable time all in all. The event as a whole was around 2 1/2 hours, with mine and Justin's presentation running at about 45 min (all in broken, yet understandable Japanese).
This was, by and large, the biggest concern of mine for the last few weeks, and now that it's over I can relax for a couple days and then go back to the US. I guess relax isn't the best word... maybe "stress the fuck out" would work a little better. Cleaning, getting rid of junk and all that will take up a majority of the last days here.
As the end approaches, I think about memory. I think about Sans Soleil. This is an inaccurate quote, but it's something along these lines, "How can anyone remember the past without taking pictures?" God knows, I've taken my fair share of pictures over here, but I feel like all my memories will be stored in these pictures until I die, and then quickly deleted because they are digital. Still, this is something that worries me. I did talk to one of my friends, Atsuko (Justin's girlfriend), who studied in The United States. She told me that she remembers her experience there clear as day because it was such a completely different experience then her typical life in Japan. This may be summed up by the following.
The "The" marks that of her experience in America. The white space marks that of her life in Japan. Something like that. Saying that, I look back on my experience in Korea 6 years ago, and I remember it clearer than ever before. It's completely detached from my everyday life, but attached nonetheless, because I still remember and think back on it quite often.
So, I've been trying to take more pictures out of sheer paranoia, but I've been living too much in the present to do so. As there are too many experiences to explain here, I'll leave it at that.
This was, by and large, the biggest concern of mine for the last few weeks, and now that it's over I can relax for a couple days and then go back to the US. I guess relax isn't the best word... maybe "stress the fuck out" would work a little better. Cleaning, getting rid of junk and all that will take up a majority of the last days here.
As the end approaches, I think about memory. I think about Sans Soleil. This is an inaccurate quote, but it's something along these lines, "How can anyone remember the past without taking pictures?" God knows, I've taken my fair share of pictures over here, but I feel like all my memories will be stored in these pictures until I die, and then quickly deleted because they are digital. Still, this is something that worries me. I did talk to one of my friends, Atsuko (Justin's girlfriend), who studied in The United States. She told me that she remembers her experience there clear as day because it was such a completely different experience then her typical life in Japan. This may be summed up by the following.
The "The" marks that of her experience in America. The white space marks that of her life in Japan. Something like that. Saying that, I look back on my experience in Korea 6 years ago, and I remember it clearer than ever before. It's completely detached from my everyday life, but attached nonetheless, because I still remember and think back on it quite often.
So, I've been trying to take more pictures out of sheer paranoia, but I've been living too much in the present to do so. As there are too many experiences to explain here, I'll leave it at that.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Garbage.
So, I'm currently preparing to leave Japan. It's quite the endeavour, I must say. Speaking to all the sensei's that I know, cleaning my apartment (that hasn't been thoroughly cleaned in 10 years or so), saying my goodbye's, using as much Japanese as possible, and above all, trying to get rid of stuff.
Japan is a small, relatively isolated country. There are also a lot of people. Therefore, they're super strict about what one can throw away and when. Every first and second Wednesday of the month is cans and bottles, every Monday and Thursday is burnable garbage, the last Friday of the month is non-burnable garbage, and so on. I've been approached a few times about putting the wrong garbage in the wrong bins because, well, all the other Japanese people living here have had to deal with this their whole lives, while I and the other gaijin here have only dealt with it for a few months. I'm a likely suspect. In fact, they sent out a letter to everyone in the building saying that "one person has been putting bottles in their burnable garbage. This is incorrect, and as there is a garbage can in the lobby for plastic bottles, we politely request that blah blah blah...." The exchange faculty from Evergreen, Helena Meyer-Knapp, experienced residents from her building, not the garbage collectors, rummaging through her garbage and telling her that she was mixing things up.
One part of me says, "Jesus Christ! Can't I just throw some shit away without being hassled?" while the other part thinks that this system is absolutely necessary in Japan for reasons I've already listed. But, they don't even really recycle here. They use incinerators for everything possible.
On a semi-related note, a while ago, I went to the most beautiful incinerator I've ever been to in Japan.
Notice how there's no smoke coming out of the building. That's because the facility takes all the energy from the burned trash and recirculates the energy throughout the building and the city of Osaka. It was designed by... I forgot his name, but rest assured he's famous. The idea was to bring trash, nature, and the modern together in the design, thus the random lines and windows. The most postmodern building I've seen in my short lifetime. It was built to help with their bid for the Olympics, but failed, and so a lot of people got really angry because it cost a lot of money. What they fail to see is that the building will pay for itself within 20 or 30 years, and was thus a sound investment.
But, enough of tangents. As much as I criticize Japan in these posts, I am going to miss this country. It may be one of the most socially strict countries in the world, but a natural offshoot of this is that it's one of the most polite and helpful societies in the world (on a strictly 1 on 1 basis). Some of the most hospitable people I've ever met have put me up for a few weeks at a time and asked for nothing in return, providing me meals, transportation, presents, and straight up cash. This exists everywhere, but Japan truly embraces friendships, friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends. Japan has always had to work together, and this shows through strong even today. If only America and Japan could meet somewhere in between and create a new country it might be a utopia...
Japan is a small, relatively isolated country. There are also a lot of people. Therefore, they're super strict about what one can throw away and when. Every first and second Wednesday of the month is cans and bottles, every Monday and Thursday is burnable garbage, the last Friday of the month is non-burnable garbage, and so on. I've been approached a few times about putting the wrong garbage in the wrong bins because, well, all the other Japanese people living here have had to deal with this their whole lives, while I and the other gaijin here have only dealt with it for a few months. I'm a likely suspect. In fact, they sent out a letter to everyone in the building saying that "one person has been putting bottles in their burnable garbage. This is incorrect, and as there is a garbage can in the lobby for plastic bottles, we politely request that blah blah blah...." The exchange faculty from Evergreen, Helena Meyer-Knapp, experienced residents from her building, not the garbage collectors, rummaging through her garbage and telling her that she was mixing things up.
One part of me says, "Jesus Christ! Can't I just throw some shit away without being hassled?" while the other part thinks that this system is absolutely necessary in Japan for reasons I've already listed. But, they don't even really recycle here. They use incinerators for everything possible.
On a semi-related note, a while ago, I went to the most beautiful incinerator I've ever been to in Japan.
Notice how there's no smoke coming out of the building. That's because the facility takes all the energy from the burned trash and recirculates the energy throughout the building and the city of Osaka. It was designed by... I forgot his name, but rest assured he's famous. The idea was to bring trash, nature, and the modern together in the design, thus the random lines and windows. The most postmodern building I've seen in my short lifetime. It was built to help with their bid for the Olympics, but failed, and so a lot of people got really angry because it cost a lot of money. What they fail to see is that the building will pay for itself within 20 or 30 years, and was thus a sound investment.
But, enough of tangents. As much as I criticize Japan in these posts, I am going to miss this country. It may be one of the most socially strict countries in the world, but a natural offshoot of this is that it's one of the most polite and helpful societies in the world (on a strictly 1 on 1 basis). Some of the most hospitable people I've ever met have put me up for a few weeks at a time and asked for nothing in return, providing me meals, transportation, presents, and straight up cash. This exists everywhere, but Japan truly embraces friendships, friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends. Japan has always had to work together, and this shows through strong even today. If only America and Japan could meet somewhere in between and create a new country it might be a utopia...
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