Nintendo Word Play

Happy New Years! And a Happy New Design for everyone to enjoy, thanks to the new and upgraded Wordpress and Michael Tyson (if that’s your real name) for creating the “elegant-grunge” theme.

With New Years, comes new resolutions and this year I’ll be embracing my inner nerd a lot more, attempting to learn Objective-C and iPhone App making, Cascading Style Sheets and basic web design and I’ll be launching a new site. Also, I’ll be competing in my first boxing exhibition tournament as a light-weight… good luck to me and good luck to everyone on their New Year of hopes and fortunes, good luck to America and its economy; I wish you a speedy recover so that I can come home to a nice job.

To good health, good friends, and good eats this year. Enjoy! あけましておめでとう！

Happy New Years!

As you can tell, the site is under a bit of construction. I’ve upgraded Wordpress so I could use the new nifty iPhone app in hopes that I’ll write more. As you can tell the CSS is a bit wonky and I’m going to change the theme a bit, maybe add some colors or something.

And all this construction is going to start during Winter Vacation. When everyone near and dear to me is leaving for home and the road, I’ll be hard at work finishing my check list of do’s and don’ts for the end of the year and next year. There’s quite a few things on my plate, including hard-drive upgrades, apartment makeovers, snowboarding, and boxing training, while excluding things such as laziness and debauchery. Hope it’ll all be finished so I can have a great and productive 2010. See everyone then.

Happy Holidays.

Did I really come here? Is this the place that I want to be? …where I want to stay?

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I changed my tires last month. Usually, in my short life living in Japan, I change my tires at the end of November. That’s just what I thought I had to do, that the law mandated such orders. “Change your tires now or risk penalties while driving in the snow-ridden fields of Miyagi Prefecture.” I heard insurance companies don’t cover drivers who operate a vehicle without snow tires during the winter’s permafrost of Northern Japan.

But today, I heard otherwise. Conversations about what was on the news during dinner with the neighbors turned to issues about the condition of my car. To their astonishment, I told them I changed my tires last month because I thought it was the deadline. “So early!” And when I asked when the deadline for winter tire changing was, I was told, “Whenever you feel the conditions are right”. So, on this particular day, as the night-time temperature dipped, when the icicles could be felt looming in the dark, starless sky, people all over the Tohoku region of Japan were scrambling to change their tires. There were 3 hour waits at the tire and car maintenance shops. And even though there’s no official order, in a country that has a certain way of doing everything from bowing to using the toilet, everyone flocked to do their winter business on the same day.

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Thursday, December 17th. Today it finally snowed. A bit late and not enough. Snow has become my new California pitter patter rain of childhood. Calming and cathartic. Except this one freezes and melts away anxieties, worries, and the disorders of life.

Bags are packed and shipped off to Narita. In about two days, I’ll be on a plane back to America. Back for another friend’s wedding, with presents from Japan. And once again I’ll unpack and unload my belongings and myself onto home soil. It’ll be a short rift in my life here in Japan, and a way to reconnect to things that I’ve neglected, left behind. A chance to figure out what’s important and then what’s next for me. See you all soon.

Time trickles along and the end of a second year is looming near. Two years in Japan, another visit back to America for another good friend’s wedding. Life’s little games playing themselves out.

I’ve turned 29 in this country a couple of months ago. Another year closer to something and by my itinerary, I’ll be careening into thirties while I’m teaching English in the land of rice fields and curry rice.

Before that I participated in my first Japanese semi-traditional dance festival, the Suzume Odori (Sparrow Dance). Suzume Odori is a Sendai tradition that harkens back to the days of Date Masamune and the building of the castles by stonemasons. In their drunken after-parties, they were reported to have pranced around like loony birds, hence the Sparrow Dance. Sendai’s annual event for the dancing festivities is the Aoba Matsuri.

I joined forces with the ladies of Wakuya to partake in the Aoba Matsuri. And at times it was hell. Ruthless practice schedules, language barriers, language-less non-communication issues, and my inability to follow a basic beat reminded me of past failures in other dance routines, but somehow I was able to rise the ranks and become a high flying sparrow in the troupe. And after rain outs, sore ninja-clad feet, legs sore from twirling and walking, livers beaten by after-parties I’m glad I did it. Another nice check-mark on the list of new things to do in Japan.

On the day before my birthday was the last assault on the artistic dignity of the Miyagi area, I sang in a concert in town. It was my first time performing in front of crowd, a lifeless crowd but nevertheless a crowd. And I performed “Falling Slowly”, accompanied by Jane on violin, Takuya on the piano, Hiroko on backup vocals and Endo-lady on the drums (did we really need drums guys?). There’s no video or no pictures yet so you’ll just have to imagine what happened. But I finished, and checked another box off my list.

So here’s to another year as JET and more amusing things to put on my list. Maybe cross-country scooter rides, or moto-cross, or surfing. Who knows, but I know I need to do something to keep thing fresh out here.

I took the 3rd level Japanese proficiency test (日本能力試験) back in December. It was first time that I really seriously studied Japanese, the first time in years that I studied any subject intensely. And it was nice to know that I still had some self-motivation left in my weathered brain. And I passed, a small accomplishment. Perhaps I’m just good at taking multiple choice test, the 25% odds aren’t too bad, give yourself some “Life Lines” with a bit of preemptive studying and you got around 65-85% chance of success.

And what does passing Level 3 of a Japanese proficiency test mean? Well from one friend, it means that I can talk as well as his 5 year old daughter. But small battles here and there, small conversational subjects to add to a growing check list, and another level to prepare for. And if I can pass Level 2 in the near future one of my goals for living in Japan will be accomplished and perhaps the next step in my traveling and being an ex-pat will be a possibility. For now I’ll just try to understand the jokes that thrown at me by the old P.E. teacher at Nonodake JHS.

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Kanji: I like it. It fascinates and baffles. And I enjoy studying it. Recreating the shapes is different from handwriting, its more a creative process of joining lines in the proper order in order to make some recognizable pattern, kinda like drawing Doraemon’s face.

And sometimes I think my zeal for wanting to learn kanji is caused by the French. Vietnam’s colonizer, pillager, and ancient script remover. For there was a time when Vietnamese people had their own written language, something akin to Chinese characters, but it was tragically expelled from the writing system. Because you see, if you can tame a nation’s language, manipulate and control it, then you have an easier means to make the people docile. If you make a language more readable it paves the way for administrative control, smooths the lines for subordinating, and brings familiarity to the conqueror and the ensuing traffic of tourist. Most tourist like a semblance of the familiar when they travel, a notion that their own country is somehow linked with this one, either through borrowed food, tradition or language features.

So in my futile attempt to battle the linguistic wars of the past I will attempt to learn another country’s ancient script and regain a part of me lost in a war of languages and tongues.

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Besides, kanji reminds me of the spellcasting systems in old RPG games. Take an elemental magic, fire 火 and then throw some wood on top of it, 木 and then you got a burning fire spell 焚. Want to create a forest, take some trees 木, add some more and then you have a forest 森. You can make water spells and love spells, spells to build or destroy, its all there in your spellbook of kanji. And the good thing is there’s no MP (magic points) to use up. Its like being a magic user on crack. Zoinks.

I look upon my generation with a growing ambivalence. A generation of lost youths, displaced by technology and the controlled world that our parents had given us. A wandering, lustful group of people that dream of the next locale and the next adventure, lost within their hazy minds their true purpose, with dreams of the future lost in the pains of their past.

And I envy the ones that take the leap, that jump into the waters of a new ocean without trepidation, without looking back or without care for their obligations. Sometimes I give sordid looks to the ones that have put their debts in their pockets and in the souls of their unborn children. That somehow those deficits will be repaid by another unwilling donor.

One glorious day all this wandering will come back to haunt us all. As the world and state crumble around us, we will lose the ability to raise ourselves up, and instead flee to the next destination on an itinerary of escape. God help us all :)

Yesterday was a glorious, unusually warm winter day in Japan. The sun shone brightly and my soul matched its warmth. Today, Friday the 13th, the weather is back to cold and dreary and so are my spirits. The pain of everything is sweeping over me again and I can’t seem to shake it this time.

And here, I can’t break down, here I have obligations and duties that need to be finished. Here the sorrow is unforgiving and the anguish is crippling. Just a few more hours and I can spiral away into the darkness by myself.

I’ve been soaring and crashing all week long and I don’t know when it’ll stop but I guess hurricanes have a way of doing that to a person. And even though I’ve readied myself for this storm, I don’t think I’m strong enough to battle it on my own this time.

He kept slipping, sinking to depths I never experienced. It was the first time I knew of such things. And he would disappear, flickering in and out of the night like a drunken imp. Happy and celebratory at times, violent and quick tempered at other instances. The imp’s voice was unrecognizable but there were signs that he was still with me. I tried to pull him back, I spent my energies trying to make the trans-possession leave him . I was the hub that night that kept all the forces of the world connected to him and eventually he slumbered, deep in the bowels of his demons.

And now I’m the one slipping…

I’m not quite back from Singapore and Bali. The pictures aren’t up on Flickr. Luggage stored away, presents given out, but my heart and soul haven’t been unpacked.

I gain a lot from my experiences while traveling and I left behind some trinkets and unnecessary baggage. I received an unexpected present from a new friend, gave an old pair of shoes to a new cousin, bought promised gifts from a lady on the beach, lost a irreplaceable pocket knife, gained unconditional kindness from a people who I knew nothing about before, and lost a great burden that’s been resting on my chest for too long. I gained new insights into old friendships and strengthened bonds on a new lifelong friendship. My old energy flooded back to me and the darkness of the winter seemed to lift.

I left with many great memories and returned with stomach issues. Hey you can’t make eggs without cracking an egg or three.