Around October last year I bought a hi-def TV, so that I could enjoy my PlayStation to its full potential. As I said before, I didn't really watch much TV in those days, so it didn't particularly bother me that I was only able to receive crappy, snowy, mono analog channels. As long as I had super-sharp katamaris and Big Daddies to look at I was happy.
Now that my Japanese has reached what I might describe as a low intermediate level, and my culture shock has subsided enough that it doesn't cause me emotional distress to see programmes that I can't understand, I stick on the TV quite regularly. The other night Marie and friends were talking about digital TV, complaining that the analog signal is being switched off soon, so some of them would have to buy new sets. This got me wondering why it is that my fancy new TV can't seem to receive digital.
Just now I donned both my tech and Japanese thinking caps, and realised that the TV was asking me to insert a card in order to receive digital. A quick look on Wikipedia informed me that for some obscure legal reason, although there are free digital terrestrial channels, to decrypt them the viewer must manually insert a card into their set, and their act of doing so constitutes agreement to various copyright conditions. Ok, how does one acquire such a card? They are given away free with every TV, I learned. I rummaged in the cupboard for the box - never throwing anything out has its advantages - and sure enough with all the manuals and warranties was a card. I stuck it in there and bingo bango, I now have crystal clear stereo HD, making me feel like quite the chump. I can turn on subtitles! There is even an option for English subtitles, but it seems that few shows utilise this facility.
Right now I'm attempting to get down with my students by watching Wan Piisu (One Piece), a popular anime about a swashbuckling pirate boy. It's pretty violent for a sunday morning kids show. Of course, what I should be doing is tidying my house in preparation for the gaijin tsunami that will hit it on thursday, when my friends from home arrive. Blog posts may become sporadic or indeed nonexistent for the next three weeks or so, but I'm sure there will be many stories to tell once my summer holiday is over.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
You're really glowing on me
I think the summer had been getting me down a bit. The temperature is knocking on the door of the thirties now, but as everyone says, it's the humidity that's the real killer. Official guidelines for the Japanese public sector dictate that aircon may only be used to keep the temperature under a sweltering 28°C. In winter, heating may only be used when the mercury dips below 18°C. If I must have a masochistic 10°C operating envelope, I would rather set the parameters at 14/24 - you can always wear a jumper. But then I come from Scotland.
Furthermore, it turns out that mid-June to mid-July is tsuyu, or rainy season. This means that on any given day there is a roughly 50/50 chance of a torrential downpour, crimping my cycling ambitions somewhat. These combined summertime blues may have manifested themselves as a propensity to write long, boring, indulgent blog posts.
But it's not all bad news. Last night I was reminded of the main redeeming quality of the Japanese summer: festivals. As you'll see if you go back to the beginning of the blog, August is festival month, which is a bit of a shame for my visiting friends who will leave on July 30th. However, a few places buck the trend and go early. Yesterday I attended Onogawa's hotaru matsuri (firefly festival). Onogawa is a delightful little village just outside Yonezawa, with abundant onsen (hot springs), steep wooded hillsides, and a pretty little river. The characters in its name mean 'small', 'uncultivated field', and 'river', which is actually a pretty accurate description. If I ever have to live in a The Prisoner / Vanilla Sky / Truman Show / Dark City style artificial environment, I would want it to be like Onogawa.
As is my wont, I arrived a little early, so the friend I was meeting wasn't there yet. I strolled around watching all the festival attractions setting up, and trying to scope out good firefly-viewing spots for later. All the usual suspects were among the stalls: yakisoba (stir-fried noodles), konnyaku, crepes, chocolate covered bananas, candy floss, crushed ice drinks, and of course various games ripping off kids for the opportunity to win gaudy trinkets, most featuring blinking LEDs. However, one stall was decidedly out of the ordinary. It was staffed by lots of hip young adults in matching beige T-shirts, and had a projector set up playing some kind of movie trailer.
Curious as to what this was all about, I paused to watch the big screen. Within seconds I was being beckoned in. A conversation followed that I'm quite proud to say took place more in Japanese than in English, and I managed to gather the following rather complicated information. Admittedly, they had to speak extremely slowly and say each sentence about three times.
The beige-T-shirted hipsters were making a movie called Wonogawa (I think the 'w' is silent, but I can't be sure), set in that very village 1000 years in the future. In this vision of the future, there is just one global country, meaning that the population of 31st century Wonogawa is rather more multicultural than that of 21st century Onogawa. Consequently, they are in desperate need of gaijin to be extras.
Being an extra in a Japanese indie sci-fi flick seemed like just too good an opportunity to pass up, so I gave them my details. On a whim, I decided to support their project by buying a somewhat overpriced T-shirt. The guy who appeared to be in charge signed it for me, and I later worked out that he was the director. Unfortunately he signed it 'to Stewart' - even back home people frequently get confused about which of my names is my surname, and here in Japan where surnames go first, and Westerners sometimes follow this convention and sometimes don't, the scope for confusion is virtually limitless. But I actually think that makes my signed T-shirt slightly cooler.
Judging from the slickness of their promotional materials they seemed to have a bit of money behind them - following the success of Swing Girls, I think Yamagata might be trying promote its movie industry. However, filming a low-budget sci-fi epic in Yamagata still strikes me as ludicrously ambitious. I can only assume it's a post-apocalyptic future where people are forced to drive battered old Suzukis and attempt to eke out a living growing rice. Anyway, I think they said filming starts in September, so fingers crossed I'll get the call to make my big screen debut.
My friend then showed up and we watched the entertainment for a while. The highlight was a traditional musical performance by three generations of the same family. They played shamisen (sort of like a three-string banjo), did taiko drumming, sang, and danced, frequently switching roles amongst themselves. At one point the grandmother was doing a very graceful fan dance, but was upstaged by her three-year-old granddaughter (equipped with tiny yukata and fan) adorably trying to mimic her movements. The lowlight was a bunch of juggling youths who kept dropping their implements. I had to stop watching after a few minutes, I felt so embarrassed for them.
Once darkness fell around eight, we decided to go firefly spotting at the river. Never having seen a firefly before, I was quite excited. Sure enough, the bioluminescent insects were out in force. They looked just like green LEDs pulsing slowly on and off as they lazily buzzed around. I couldn't help but think that I'd missed a trick by doing a PhD that heavily involved tracking the flight of a non-fluorescent insect.
We had lucked out on the tsuyu lottery and it was a beautiful clear summer night; standing by the riverside with the green glow of courting beetles in the trees and the white glow of distant raging suns in the sky was a memorable experience indeed. Spoiled only by the morons trying to photograph the fireflies using flashes.
Furthermore, it turns out that mid-June to mid-July is tsuyu, or rainy season. This means that on any given day there is a roughly 50/50 chance of a torrential downpour, crimping my cycling ambitions somewhat. These combined summertime blues may have manifested themselves as a propensity to write long, boring, indulgent blog posts.
But it's not all bad news. Last night I was reminded of the main redeeming quality of the Japanese summer: festivals. As you'll see if you go back to the beginning of the blog, August is festival month, which is a bit of a shame for my visiting friends who will leave on July 30th. However, a few places buck the trend and go early. Yesterday I attended Onogawa's hotaru matsuri (firefly festival). Onogawa is a delightful little village just outside Yonezawa, with abundant onsen (hot springs), steep wooded hillsides, and a pretty little river. The characters in its name mean 'small', 'uncultivated field', and 'river', which is actually a pretty accurate description. If I ever have to live in a The Prisoner / Vanilla Sky / Truman Show / Dark City style artificial environment, I would want it to be like Onogawa.
As is my wont, I arrived a little early, so the friend I was meeting wasn't there yet. I strolled around watching all the festival attractions setting up, and trying to scope out good firefly-viewing spots for later. All the usual suspects were among the stalls: yakisoba (stir-fried noodles), konnyaku, crepes, chocolate covered bananas, candy floss, crushed ice drinks, and of course various games ripping off kids for the opportunity to win gaudy trinkets, most featuring blinking LEDs. However, one stall was decidedly out of the ordinary. It was staffed by lots of hip young adults in matching beige T-shirts, and had a projector set up playing some kind of movie trailer.
Curious as to what this was all about, I paused to watch the big screen. Within seconds I was being beckoned in. A conversation followed that I'm quite proud to say took place more in Japanese than in English, and I managed to gather the following rather complicated information. Admittedly, they had to speak extremely slowly and say each sentence about three times.
The beige-T-shirted hipsters were making a movie called Wonogawa (I think the 'w' is silent, but I can't be sure), set in that very village 1000 years in the future. In this vision of the future, there is just one global country, meaning that the population of 31st century Wonogawa is rather more multicultural than that of 21st century Onogawa. Consequently, they are in desperate need of gaijin to be extras.
Being an extra in a Japanese indie sci-fi flick seemed like just too good an opportunity to pass up, so I gave them my details. On a whim, I decided to support their project by buying a somewhat overpriced T-shirt. The guy who appeared to be in charge signed it for me, and I later worked out that he was the director. Unfortunately he signed it 'to Stewart' - even back home people frequently get confused about which of my names is my surname, and here in Japan where surnames go first, and Westerners sometimes follow this convention and sometimes don't, the scope for confusion is virtually limitless. But I actually think that makes my signed T-shirt slightly cooler.
Judging from the slickness of their promotional materials they seemed to have a bit of money behind them - following the success of Swing Girls, I think Yamagata might be trying promote its movie industry. However, filming a low-budget sci-fi epic in Yamagata still strikes me as ludicrously ambitious. I can only assume it's a post-apocalyptic future where people are forced to drive battered old Suzukis and attempt to eke out a living growing rice. Anyway, I think they said filming starts in September, so fingers crossed I'll get the call to make my big screen debut.
My friend then showed up and we watched the entertainment for a while. The highlight was a traditional musical performance by three generations of the same family. They played shamisen (sort of like a three-string banjo), did taiko drumming, sang, and danced, frequently switching roles amongst themselves. At one point the grandmother was doing a very graceful fan dance, but was upstaged by her three-year-old granddaughter (equipped with tiny yukata and fan) adorably trying to mimic her movements. The lowlight was a bunch of juggling youths who kept dropping their implements. I had to stop watching after a few minutes, I felt so embarrassed for them.
Once darkness fell around eight, we decided to go firefly spotting at the river. Never having seen a firefly before, I was quite excited. Sure enough, the bioluminescent insects were out in force. They looked just like green LEDs pulsing slowly on and off as they lazily buzzed around. I couldn't help but think that I'd missed a trick by doing a PhD that heavily involved tracking the flight of a non-fluorescent insect.
We had lucked out on the tsuyu lottery and it was a beautiful clear summer night; standing by the riverside with the green glow of courting beetles in the trees and the white glow of distant raging suns in the sky was a memorable experience indeed. Spoiled only by the morons trying to photograph the fireflies using flashes.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Virtual inanity
Whaaaaasssssuuuup? There still isn't a whole lot going on here. There's a mid-term test coming up (I know, we had one a month ago), which means that my job gets a little more cushy. For one thing, I will have a day without lessons because all the kids are sitting tests. Also, teachers often devote the last couple of lessons before a test to old-fashioned textbook drilling, which doesn't really require one teacher let alone two. Mercifully, they sometimes let me sit these ones out. Also, Marie has been busy in her capacity as an after-school tutor because of the test, so I haven't been boozing so much either.
So I've had a bit of time on my hands. I've spent this time reading and pondering what I've read. I would like to warn you now that this post might be a bit navel-gazy and pseudo-intellectual. A bit like a one-man book group, perhaps. (Of course, the only time I joined an actual book group it was an elaborate gambit to get into the pants of a woman who turned out the be a lesbian. But that's another story.) I used to go drinking every friday with a bunch of PhDs, and we would typically get on to some pretty esoteric topics after four or five hours. I guess I'm missing that. Anyway, if you get through to the end of this, I promise to reward you with a link to an amusing YouTube video.
The three books that have got me ruminating are Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, In the beginning... was the command line by Neal Stephenson, and Sit down and shut up by Brad Warner. On the face of it, these would seem to have little in common, being respectively about a fictional dystopia, operating systems, and Zen Buddhism. But there seems to be a common theme running through them. If I had to boil it down to one sentence, they are all about the vain and childish desire to view oneself not as one of the brainless masses of 'sheeple', but as something special: a rebel, an Apple/Linux user, enlightened. No-one is more guilty of this sin than me.
Let's take them in turn. BNW (which I first read about five years ago) is, as you may know, about an oppressive global government. It has some clear parallels with 1984, but for my money is actually more interesting because of its moral ambiguity. 1984's Big Brother is, like his Channel 4 namesake, fairly unquestionably a force of evil. The society of BNW, on the other hand, actually seems like quite an agreeable place to live. (I particularly enjoyed that anyone practicing monogamy rather than the state-encouraged promiscuous lifestyle is viewed with deep suspicion.) Although its citizens have little or no freedom, every effort has been taken to ensure that they don't miss it, or even notice its absence. Those who do reject the programming are not tortured in Room 101, but are simply exiled to a remote island with other misfit individuals. Though I suspect many people would balk at the human genetic engineering (actually it's not genetic engineering, because it was written before the discovery of DNA, but that is definitely what a contemporary author would have used), I think a case could actually be made the world government is a force for good, and their society a utopia. Don't worry, I'm still a libertarian.
ITBWTCL is a rare non-fiction outing for Neal Stephenson, whose cyberpunk (actually, post-cyberpunk if you want to split hairs) novels Snow Crash and The Diamond Age are perhaps my favourite books. It's all about the evolution of operating systems, which I agree sounds about as interesting as a paint-drying expo held in Dundee. But Stephenson is an man whose intelligence kind of terrifies me, and consequently this essay-cum-book (which I'm only about two-thirds through) is full of very smart observations. It was published in 1999, so is now hopelessly outdated, but for a nostalgic geek like me this adds to its charm. It is like a time capsule recording exactly how the computer world was in the late nineties, just as I was starting out on my nerd career. He seemed to think that BeOS would be the next big thing, which of course turned out to be an unusual slip-up; this is the guy who described Second Life, Google Earth, and (sort of) Wikipedia about a decade before they became realities.
Thankfully, the book is not filled with technical details about multithreading and exception handling. He explores in some depth the curious social phenomena tied up with OSs - how it is that people end up defending their OS of choice and bashing the rest with the kind of fervour previously associated with racism or religious bigotry. In the aforementioned Snow Crash he likens culture/religion to an operating system for society, which is an analogy that appeals to me. In ITBWTCL he stretches this analogy some way past breaking point by drawing parallels between the growing popularity of pretty, dumbed-down, patronising interfaces and the trend he perceives of society as a whole becoming more apathetic and willing to be treated like children. I'm not sure I buy it, but it's interesting.
And so to Zen. Regular readers will know that I have been half-assedly flirting with Zen Buddhism for a while. When in Rome, and all that. For whatever reason, I recently got somewhat serious again, and have done zazen (seated meditation) three times this week already. I also broke the habit of a lifetime and paid for the physical instantiation of information, in the form of a copy of SDASU (the previous two books were downloaded onto the Archos). It is the follow up to Hardcore Zen, which I've blogged about previously. I should make it clear that I'm only about halfway through.
I'm sure almost everyone reading this will be relieved to hear the following. With some regret, I've come to the conclusion that Zen is nonsense. Well, let me qualify that. As religions go, it is the best of a bad bunch. If you forced me at gunpoint to be religious, I'd definitely become a Zen Buddhist. Incidentally, I would also accept Quakerism as a decent choice, though of course if you ever actually find yourself in that situation, chances are the most prudent answer would be Islam.
There is a lot that is really cool about Zen. It has no God in the Abrahamic sense, instead holding that God is everything. It has no holy book, just a collection of books written by regular people. It says you have no soul, which works for me. Literally nothing is sacred; blasphemy is actively encouraged and the original Buddha himself said that you should never believe anything just because a preacher tells you it is true, including himself. Furthermore, some of its central ideas really resonate with my own homespun philosophy. For example, while recognising that it is impossible to live your live in isolation, Zen teaches that the best way to lead a harmonious life is to avoid 'attachment', whether that is to people, possessions, ideas, countries, dreams, or even your own personality.
So far so good. So what's my beef? Well, it is said that you cannot achieve an understanding of Zen (I'm deliberately avoiding using the term 'enlightenment' because it is a loaded and controversial word) just by learning about it and thinking about it intellectually. You must practice zazen. Unfortunately, you have to do it more-or-less every day for several years to make any serious progress. Now, part of my problem with this is just plain old laziness, but there's more to it than that. I understand the power of cognitive dissonance (until I looked up that link, I didn't know the origin of "sour grapes"). If you've just handed over a wad of cash for a copy of Windows Vista, you're actually more likely to put up with all its bugs - and, importantly, delude yourself that they don't exist - than you would be with some Linux distro you picked up for nothing. The reason for this is that you don't want to believe that you are a sucker, so you unconsciously twist your reality is such a way as to disguise this embarrassing fact. Similarly, after spending thousands of hours of your life staring at a wall with your legs folded uncomfortably, you are unlikely to turn around after a decade or two and proclaim it all a waste of time. For all Zen claims not to require faith, I can't see how committing to the practice of zazen for no tangible reward whatsoever can be seen as anything other than a leap of faith. Not to mention that it bears more than a passing resemblance to certain brainwashing techniques.
And I have other issues too. The wackier assertions of Zen include that the both the past and future are illusions, and that the self is also illusory. My first problem with these is that every shred of my experience would seem to run counter to what they are saying. This is true whether I approach these riddles just as a layperson interacting with the world (I can move my fingers at will, I can't move yours, therefore 'I' and 'you' are two functionally distinct entities.), or as a scientist (If we are all part of one consciousness, how does it convey information around itself? Doesn't that imply faster-than-light communication?). But maybe I am attempting to run before I can walk, and I should try again after a few years of zazen. After all, I really enjoy trying to ponder the unponderable, like how a photon can be a wave and a particle, or what happens when you play chicken at 99% of the speed of light. But the surreal conclusions of relativity or quantum physics come from indisputable experimental results, whereas the Zen riddles are based only on subjective experience, and as a scientist there aren't many things that butter fewer parsnips than subjective experience.
My second problem is that if one could ever perform the mental contortions required to truly believe these statements, wouldn't it be rather dangerous, and indeed pretty much indistinguishable from insanity? If you sincerely believed that the future wasn't real, mightn't wildly impulsive courses of action seem sensible? And I'm deeply suspicious of any belief system that holds that the self is less important than the whole, whether that whole is the family, tribe, country, or everything in the universe. Surely every kamikaze or jihadist used a rationalisation along these lines shortly before blowing him or herself up. Bringing this full circle, one of the maxims of the society in BNW is "Everyone belongs to everyone else," which seems to be a reasonable representation of the Zen view too, although I suspect they would phrase it "Everyone is everyone else". I am uncomfortable with this.
Sure, selfishness is kind of unsavoury and leads to all sorts of small-scale day-to-day misery, but at least it's stable. All the truly repugnant acts of evil are carried out by people acting selflessly. Of course, Buddhism has something a bit like the Ten Commandments to tell you how to behave properly, but if you can get your head around the above, you probably wouldn't have too much trouble twisting the semantics of these to something that no-one else would recognise as good.
So, I'm not having it. However, I quite enjoy the experience of zazen, so I might keep doing it once in a while, not as an attempt to comprehend the nature of reality, but rather in the way that people take herbal baths or listen to Coldplay - to relax. However, given the paradoxical nature of everything in Zen, I wouldn't be surprised if meditating while professing not to believe in Zen is actually the most Zen thing you can do.
Whew, you made it. Here is an advert that I was astonished to see during half time of the England-Germany game. As far as I can ascertain that really is Jamiroquai singing in Japanese, and the translation is accurate. One of the little bonuses of living in Japan is that you often see big-name Western celebrities appear in ads they wouldn't dare do on their own turf for fear of ridicule. Just like in Lost in translation. But this one really is a bit special. It's amazing what ten years out of the spotlight will do for one's artistic integrity.
So I've had a bit of time on my hands. I've spent this time reading and pondering what I've read. I would like to warn you now that this post might be a bit navel-gazy and pseudo-intellectual. A bit like a one-man book group, perhaps. (Of course, the only time I joined an actual book group it was an elaborate gambit to get into the pants of a woman who turned out the be a lesbian. But that's another story.) I used to go drinking every friday with a bunch of PhDs, and we would typically get on to some pretty esoteric topics after four or five hours. I guess I'm missing that. Anyway, if you get through to the end of this, I promise to reward you with a link to an amusing YouTube video.
The three books that have got me ruminating are Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, In the beginning... was the command line by Neal Stephenson, and Sit down and shut up by Brad Warner. On the face of it, these would seem to have little in common, being respectively about a fictional dystopia, operating systems, and Zen Buddhism. But there seems to be a common theme running through them. If I had to boil it down to one sentence, they are all about the vain and childish desire to view oneself not as one of the brainless masses of 'sheeple', but as something special: a rebel, an Apple/Linux user, enlightened. No-one is more guilty of this sin than me.
Let's take them in turn. BNW (which I first read about five years ago) is, as you may know, about an oppressive global government. It has some clear parallels with 1984, but for my money is actually more interesting because of its moral ambiguity. 1984's Big Brother is, like his Channel 4 namesake, fairly unquestionably a force of evil. The society of BNW, on the other hand, actually seems like quite an agreeable place to live. (I particularly enjoyed that anyone practicing monogamy rather than the state-encouraged promiscuous lifestyle is viewed with deep suspicion.) Although its citizens have little or no freedom, every effort has been taken to ensure that they don't miss it, or even notice its absence. Those who do reject the programming are not tortured in Room 101, but are simply exiled to a remote island with other misfit individuals. Though I suspect many people would balk at the human genetic engineering (actually it's not genetic engineering, because it was written before the discovery of DNA, but that is definitely what a contemporary author would have used), I think a case could actually be made the world government is a force for good, and their society a utopia. Don't worry, I'm still a libertarian.
ITBWTCL is a rare non-fiction outing for Neal Stephenson, whose cyberpunk (actually, post-cyberpunk if you want to split hairs) novels Snow Crash and The Diamond Age are perhaps my favourite books. It's all about the evolution of operating systems, which I agree sounds about as interesting as a paint-drying expo held in Dundee. But Stephenson is an man whose intelligence kind of terrifies me, and consequently this essay-cum-book (which I'm only about two-thirds through) is full of very smart observations. It was published in 1999, so is now hopelessly outdated, but for a nostalgic geek like me this adds to its charm. It is like a time capsule recording exactly how the computer world was in the late nineties, just as I was starting out on my nerd career. He seemed to think that BeOS would be the next big thing, which of course turned out to be an unusual slip-up; this is the guy who described Second Life, Google Earth, and (sort of) Wikipedia about a decade before they became realities.
Thankfully, the book is not filled with technical details about multithreading and exception handling. He explores in some depth the curious social phenomena tied up with OSs - how it is that people end up defending their OS of choice and bashing the rest with the kind of fervour previously associated with racism or religious bigotry. In the aforementioned Snow Crash he likens culture/religion to an operating system for society, which is an analogy that appeals to me. In ITBWTCL he stretches this analogy some way past breaking point by drawing parallels between the growing popularity of pretty, dumbed-down, patronising interfaces and the trend he perceives of society as a whole becoming more apathetic and willing to be treated like children. I'm not sure I buy it, but it's interesting.
And so to Zen. Regular readers will know that I have been half-assedly flirting with Zen Buddhism for a while. When in Rome, and all that. For whatever reason, I recently got somewhat serious again, and have done zazen (seated meditation) three times this week already. I also broke the habit of a lifetime and paid for the physical instantiation of information, in the form of a copy of SDASU (the previous two books were downloaded onto the Archos). It is the follow up to Hardcore Zen, which I've blogged about previously. I should make it clear that I'm only about halfway through.
I'm sure almost everyone reading this will be relieved to hear the following. With some regret, I've come to the conclusion that Zen is nonsense. Well, let me qualify that. As religions go, it is the best of a bad bunch. If you forced me at gunpoint to be religious, I'd definitely become a Zen Buddhist. Incidentally, I would also accept Quakerism as a decent choice, though of course if you ever actually find yourself in that situation, chances are the most prudent answer would be Islam.
There is a lot that is really cool about Zen. It has no God in the Abrahamic sense, instead holding that God is everything. It has no holy book, just a collection of books written by regular people. It says you have no soul, which works for me. Literally nothing is sacred; blasphemy is actively encouraged and the original Buddha himself said that you should never believe anything just because a preacher tells you it is true, including himself. Furthermore, some of its central ideas really resonate with my own homespun philosophy. For example, while recognising that it is impossible to live your live in isolation, Zen teaches that the best way to lead a harmonious life is to avoid 'attachment', whether that is to people, possessions, ideas, countries, dreams, or even your own personality.
So far so good. So what's my beef? Well, it is said that you cannot achieve an understanding of Zen (I'm deliberately avoiding using the term 'enlightenment' because it is a loaded and controversial word) just by learning about it and thinking about it intellectually. You must practice zazen. Unfortunately, you have to do it more-or-less every day for several years to make any serious progress. Now, part of my problem with this is just plain old laziness, but there's more to it than that. I understand the power of cognitive dissonance (until I looked up that link, I didn't know the origin of "sour grapes"). If you've just handed over a wad of cash for a copy of Windows Vista, you're actually more likely to put up with all its bugs - and, importantly, delude yourself that they don't exist - than you would be with some Linux distro you picked up for nothing. The reason for this is that you don't want to believe that you are a sucker, so you unconsciously twist your reality is such a way as to disguise this embarrassing fact. Similarly, after spending thousands of hours of your life staring at a wall with your legs folded uncomfortably, you are unlikely to turn around after a decade or two and proclaim it all a waste of time. For all Zen claims not to require faith, I can't see how committing to the practice of zazen for no tangible reward whatsoever can be seen as anything other than a leap of faith. Not to mention that it bears more than a passing resemblance to certain brainwashing techniques.
And I have other issues too. The wackier assertions of Zen include that the both the past and future are illusions, and that the self is also illusory. My first problem with these is that every shred of my experience would seem to run counter to what they are saying. This is true whether I approach these riddles just as a layperson interacting with the world (I can move my fingers at will, I can't move yours, therefore 'I' and 'you' are two functionally distinct entities.), or as a scientist (If we are all part of one consciousness, how does it convey information around itself? Doesn't that imply faster-than-light communication?). But maybe I am attempting to run before I can walk, and I should try again after a few years of zazen. After all, I really enjoy trying to ponder the unponderable, like how a photon can be a wave and a particle, or what happens when you play chicken at 99% of the speed of light. But the surreal conclusions of relativity or quantum physics come from indisputable experimental results, whereas the Zen riddles are based only on subjective experience, and as a scientist there aren't many things that butter fewer parsnips than subjective experience.
My second problem is that if one could ever perform the mental contortions required to truly believe these statements, wouldn't it be rather dangerous, and indeed pretty much indistinguishable from insanity? If you sincerely believed that the future wasn't real, mightn't wildly impulsive courses of action seem sensible? And I'm deeply suspicious of any belief system that holds that the self is less important than the whole, whether that whole is the family, tribe, country, or everything in the universe. Surely every kamikaze or jihadist used a rationalisation along these lines shortly before blowing him or herself up. Bringing this full circle, one of the maxims of the society in BNW is "Everyone belongs to everyone else," which seems to be a reasonable representation of the Zen view too, although I suspect they would phrase it "Everyone is everyone else". I am uncomfortable with this.
Sure, selfishness is kind of unsavoury and leads to all sorts of small-scale day-to-day misery, but at least it's stable. All the truly repugnant acts of evil are carried out by people acting selflessly. Of course, Buddhism has something a bit like the Ten Commandments to tell you how to behave properly, but if you can get your head around the above, you probably wouldn't have too much trouble twisting the semantics of these to something that no-one else would recognise as good.
So, I'm not having it. However, I quite enjoy the experience of zazen, so I might keep doing it once in a while, not as an attempt to comprehend the nature of reality, but rather in the way that people take herbal baths or listen to Coldplay - to relax. However, given the paradoxical nature of everything in Zen, I wouldn't be surprised if meditating while professing not to believe in Zen is actually the most Zen thing you can do.
Whew, you made it. Here is an advert that I was astonished to see during half time of the England-Germany game. As far as I can ascertain that really is Jamiroquai singing in Japanese, and the translation is accurate. One of the little bonuses of living in Japan is that you often see big-name Western celebrities appear in ads they wouldn't dare do on their own turf for fear of ridicule. Just like in Lost in translation. But this one really is a bit special. It's amazing what ten years out of the spotlight will do for one's artistic integrity.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
We're ramen (and I hope you like ramen too)
Nothing especially interesting has happened since my last update; last friday and saturday involved drinking beer while eating sushi and singing karaoke, and drinking beer while watching movies, respectively. Nevertheless, I'm in the mood for blogging, so this post shall be one of my glimpses into an aspect of Japanese (pop) culture.
Today I want to discuss noodles. While a lot of bullshit may be talked about Inuits' snow jargon, I can personally vouch for Japanese having at least three commonly used words for noodles. Nobody ever refers to them generically, but instead specifies the type of noodle in question: soba, udon, or ramen.
As a bit of a tangent, you also rarely hear fish or other seafood spoken about generically. This is a country that takes fish very seriously, so while us Brits are happy with fish and chips, the Japanese would want to know exactly what species is under the batter. Conversely, it is not uncommon to see dishes here advertised as containing unspecified 'meat', which would surely set alarm bells ringing back home.
But, noodles. Udon are the fat pale ones made from wheat, while soba are the thinner brownish-grey ones made from buckwheat. The distinction between white and brown bread is a fairly good Western analogy. Historically, soba was stigmatised as peasant food, because buckwheat is essentially a weed that grows anywhere, whereas proper wheat requires proper fields. However, here in Yamagata, soba is favoured as a point of pride. The mountainous terrain here really isn't much use for arable farming, so the hardy buckwheat plant got the region through some tough times. I'm struck by the similarity to the Scots' penchant for oats, which the English deemed suitable only for horses.
Talking of weeds (yes, another digression - what of it?), I learned today that marijuana grows wild around these parts. I was confused by a poster at school that had pictures of the iconic fan leaves, alongside photos of poppies. Asking a teacher, I gathered that the poster was instructing you to report any sightings of these plants to the police. The draconian drug laws here make the UK look positively progressive, so you can rest assured that I won't be going on any suspicious foraging expeditions in the mountains anytime soon.
Back to soba. Now that we have entered the hot and humid summer months, people like to eat cold soba. One is given a big pile of greyish noodles on (not in, on) a slatted bamboo box. Accompanying this is a bowl of dilute soy sauce with bits of spring onion floating in it, to which, if you are any kind of man, you will add a raw egg. One dips a chopsticks-ful of soba into the bowl and then eats it, though to watch a Japanese person do it, the action looks more like inhalation. Squid tempura (also cold) is a popular side-dish to round out the meal. So all-in-all, quite a challenging dish for the gaijin palate. Not bad once you get used to it, though.
That brings me to ramen. There are precious few things Japan likes about China, but ramen - Chinese wheat noodles - is undoubtedly one of them. Ramen fulfills a role similar to the doner kebab at home, namely that of late-night food of choice for the inebriated. However, unlike doner kebabs (to anyone except me), they are also enjoyed as a hearty meal when stone-cold sober.
Within the basic framework of noodles in some kind of broth, there is a lot of scope for variation. The three most popular bases are soy, miso, and salt. The last one strikes me as rather unimaginative, not to mention unhealthy. Every region has its own style, and Akayu ramen are actually modestly famous. I suppose this stands to reason - Akayu is a bit of a party town thanks to its onsen (hot springs) which attract tourists, and after an evening of bathing, drinking far too much, and sexually harassing hostesses, you're going to need some ramen. Anyway, Akayu-style is miso with a generous dollop of fiery chili paste, which I believe is made from locally-grown chilis. Supplementing this are the standard ingredients: char siu pork, bamboo shoots, some leafy vegetable, and a single slice of kamaboko, a weird substance made from processed fish. It's good stuff, but as a resident of Akayu I would say that.
The reason that this is on my mind is that today and yesterday were bento days at school, meaning that the school lunch service was suspended and therefore one should bring a bento (packed lunch). This happens whenever some event is on that means that the school has substantially less than 100% of its students - this time it was a track and field competition. Yesterday it caught me out, necessitating a run to the shop. But today I came prepared with a bowl of Ryu Shanhai instant ramen (literally, 'Shanghai dragon' - ryu means dragon, and should be pronounced as a single syllable, which I didn't realise as a Street Fighter 2-playing 12-year-old).
Japan is of course the brithplace of the instant noodle, and they've raised this much-maligned convenience food to an art form. I'd gone for the top end of the market; Ryu Shanhai is Akayu's number one ramen shop (actually, I think it has spawned a small franchise), and in a massive publicity coup, you can buy a dehydrated approximation of their spicy miso ramen (containing four - count them, four - different sachets) in the supermarket.
My fellow teachers were quite amused by my choice of lunch; I'm not sure whether they were simply happy that I was flying the Akayu flag, or if they thought it was ridiculous that I was eating the freeze-dried facsimile when the actual restaurant was just down the road. At any rate, it was a good conversation point. Everyone has an opinion on what the best ramen joint in town is (there are plenty to choose from) - while Ryu Shanhai is the most famous, not everyone thinks its reputation is deserved. Apparently their recipe is oilier than most, which puts some off. I don't eat ramen all that often, and when I do I am quite often smashed, so I don't have a particularly well-informed opinion on this question. Nevertheless, I claimed that Marie's favourite ramen shop (Shin Ryu - 'new dragon' - are you spotting a theme here?) was my favourite, which got some approving nods.
Today I want to discuss noodles. While a lot of bullshit may be talked about Inuits' snow jargon, I can personally vouch for Japanese having at least three commonly used words for noodles. Nobody ever refers to them generically, but instead specifies the type of noodle in question: soba, udon, or ramen.
As a bit of a tangent, you also rarely hear fish or other seafood spoken about generically. This is a country that takes fish very seriously, so while us Brits are happy with fish and chips, the Japanese would want to know exactly what species is under the batter. Conversely, it is not uncommon to see dishes here advertised as containing unspecified 'meat', which would surely set alarm bells ringing back home.
But, noodles. Udon are the fat pale ones made from wheat, while soba are the thinner brownish-grey ones made from buckwheat. The distinction between white and brown bread is a fairly good Western analogy. Historically, soba was stigmatised as peasant food, because buckwheat is essentially a weed that grows anywhere, whereas proper wheat requires proper fields. However, here in Yamagata, soba is favoured as a point of pride. The mountainous terrain here really isn't much use for arable farming, so the hardy buckwheat plant got the region through some tough times. I'm struck by the similarity to the Scots' penchant for oats, which the English deemed suitable only for horses.
Talking of weeds (yes, another digression - what of it?), I learned today that marijuana grows wild around these parts. I was confused by a poster at school that had pictures of the iconic fan leaves, alongside photos of poppies. Asking a teacher, I gathered that the poster was instructing you to report any sightings of these plants to the police. The draconian drug laws here make the UK look positively progressive, so you can rest assured that I won't be going on any suspicious foraging expeditions in the mountains anytime soon.
Back to soba. Now that we have entered the hot and humid summer months, people like to eat cold soba. One is given a big pile of greyish noodles on (not in, on) a slatted bamboo box. Accompanying this is a bowl of dilute soy sauce with bits of spring onion floating in it, to which, if you are any kind of man, you will add a raw egg. One dips a chopsticks-ful of soba into the bowl and then eats it, though to watch a Japanese person do it, the action looks more like inhalation. Squid tempura (also cold) is a popular side-dish to round out the meal. So all-in-all, quite a challenging dish for the gaijin palate. Not bad once you get used to it, though.
That brings me to ramen. There are precious few things Japan likes about China, but ramen - Chinese wheat noodles - is undoubtedly one of them. Ramen fulfills a role similar to the doner kebab at home, namely that of late-night food of choice for the inebriated. However, unlike doner kebabs (to anyone except me), they are also enjoyed as a hearty meal when stone-cold sober.
Within the basic framework of noodles in some kind of broth, there is a lot of scope for variation. The three most popular bases are soy, miso, and salt. The last one strikes me as rather unimaginative, not to mention unhealthy. Every region has its own style, and Akayu ramen are actually modestly famous. I suppose this stands to reason - Akayu is a bit of a party town thanks to its onsen (hot springs) which attract tourists, and after an evening of bathing, drinking far too much, and sexually harassing hostesses, you're going to need some ramen. Anyway, Akayu-style is miso with a generous dollop of fiery chili paste, which I believe is made from locally-grown chilis. Supplementing this are the standard ingredients: char siu pork, bamboo shoots, some leafy vegetable, and a single slice of kamaboko, a weird substance made from processed fish. It's good stuff, but as a resident of Akayu I would say that.
The reason that this is on my mind is that today and yesterday were bento days at school, meaning that the school lunch service was suspended and therefore one should bring a bento (packed lunch). This happens whenever some event is on that means that the school has substantially less than 100% of its students - this time it was a track and field competition. Yesterday it caught me out, necessitating a run to the shop. But today I came prepared with a bowl of Ryu Shanhai instant ramen (literally, 'Shanghai dragon' - ryu means dragon, and should be pronounced as a single syllable, which I didn't realise as a Street Fighter 2-playing 12-year-old).
Japan is of course the brithplace of the instant noodle, and they've raised this much-maligned convenience food to an art form. I'd gone for the top end of the market; Ryu Shanhai is Akayu's number one ramen shop (actually, I think it has spawned a small franchise), and in a massive publicity coup, you can buy a dehydrated approximation of their spicy miso ramen (containing four - count them, four - different sachets) in the supermarket.
My fellow teachers were quite amused by my choice of lunch; I'm not sure whether they were simply happy that I was flying the Akayu flag, or if they thought it was ridiculous that I was eating the freeze-dried facsimile when the actual restaurant was just down the road. At any rate, it was a good conversation point. Everyone has an opinion on what the best ramen joint in town is (there are plenty to choose from) - while Ryu Shanhai is the most famous, not everyone thinks its reputation is deserved. Apparently their recipe is oilier than most, which puts some off. I don't eat ramen all that often, and when I do I am quite often smashed, so I don't have a particularly well-informed opinion on this question. Nevertheless, I claimed that Marie's favourite ramen shop (Shin Ryu - 'new dragon' - are you spotting a theme here?) was my favourite, which got some approving nods.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
A state of confusion, to keep you all Gassan
I really struggled for a title on this occasion.
My computer arrived yesterday, so I am once again in the fast lane of the information superhighway, as people haven't called it since about 1997. Not a moment too soon! Now follows the story of my weekend, which I was going to tell you before got stuck in a rant about driving licences.
Supply and demand are fickle mistresses. From January to March, if one wants to partake in snowsports in Yamagata, one is spoilt for choice. Little ski areas are scattered throughout the mountainous prefecture, and of course the grandaddy of them all is Zao, where 4,800 yen buys you access to 42 lifts, and not a surface lift among them. One would not dream of paying 4,600 yen to go to a resort with a single, slow chairlift. Yet that is exactly what I did yesterday.
I went to Mount Gassan (literally, 'moon mountain'), a resort which claims to have the latest season in Japan. The area collects such a quantity of snow that it is inaccessible until April, and typically remains open until late July. Though it is an underwhelming ski area in every other respect, this temporal offset earns it a certain fame around these parts. Having heard so much about it, I decided I had to experience summer boarding for myself.
Feeling flush, I took the toll road there. Initially, these expressways intimidated me in my little Suzuki, but now I like them. It's a good system - if getting somewhere fast is important to you, you can pay for it; this charge deters all the old farmers that clog up the regular roads in their kei-trucks. I hear that the current (socialist) government plans to abolish the tolls - a plan which, should it come to fruition, would cause me to curse the new Prime Minister Kan's name at the top of my lungs, like this.
My initial impressions of Gassan were not good. For a start, I had to walk almost a kilometer from my car to get to the chairlift. The altitude did little to reduce the heat; I was walking uphill, carrying my board and wearing boarding gear, at a temperature somewhere in the low twenties, and was consequently sweating rivers. Finally reaching my destination, my heart sank to see a lengthy queue snaking back from the lift. When I finally got up, I decided to head for the two drag lifts. At one of these, I was told that I couldn't use it without paying extra, which seemed outrageous considering the over-the-odds amount I'd already handed over. I suspect this may have been the case at the other one too, but that the guy there was just less on the ball about checking tickets.
As the draglifts didn't seem to unlock any particularly juicy terrain, I decided that they could stick their T-bars, and I headed for the run served by the chairlift. I found that snowboarding in summer presents a number of unique challenges, which I shall present in one of my beloved bulleted lists.
So, I'm glad I've now been to the legendary Gassan, but I can't really recommend it. Saying that, when I think of some of the other desperate measures I've taken to get my boarding fix during the summer - riding the hexagons of pain at Hillend, or paying 35 quid for four hours in a cold warehouse outside Glasgow - Gassan doesn't seem quite so insane. Bring on the winter!
My computer arrived yesterday, so I am once again in the fast lane of the information superhighway, as people haven't called it since about 1997. Not a moment too soon! Now follows the story of my weekend, which I was going to tell you before got stuck in a rant about driving licences.
Supply and demand are fickle mistresses. From January to March, if one wants to partake in snowsports in Yamagata, one is spoilt for choice. Little ski areas are scattered throughout the mountainous prefecture, and of course the grandaddy of them all is Zao, where 4,800 yen buys you access to 42 lifts, and not a surface lift among them. One would not dream of paying 4,600 yen to go to a resort with a single, slow chairlift. Yet that is exactly what I did yesterday.
I went to Mount Gassan (literally, 'moon mountain'), a resort which claims to have the latest season in Japan. The area collects such a quantity of snow that it is inaccessible until April, and typically remains open until late July. Though it is an underwhelming ski area in every other respect, this temporal offset earns it a certain fame around these parts. Having heard so much about it, I decided I had to experience summer boarding for myself.
Feeling flush, I took the toll road there. Initially, these expressways intimidated me in my little Suzuki, but now I like them. It's a good system - if getting somewhere fast is important to you, you can pay for it; this charge deters all the old farmers that clog up the regular roads in their kei-trucks. I hear that the current (socialist) government plans to abolish the tolls - a plan which, should it come to fruition, would cause me to curse the new Prime Minister Kan's name at the top of my lungs, like this.
My initial impressions of Gassan were not good. For a start, I had to walk almost a kilometer from my car to get to the chairlift. The altitude did little to reduce the heat; I was walking uphill, carrying my board and wearing boarding gear, at a temperature somewhere in the low twenties, and was consequently sweating rivers. Finally reaching my destination, my heart sank to see a lengthy queue snaking back from the lift. When I finally got up, I decided to head for the two drag lifts. At one of these, I was told that I couldn't use it without paying extra, which seemed outrageous considering the over-the-odds amount I'd already handed over. I suspect this may have been the case at the other one too, but that the guy there was just less on the ball about checking tickets.
As the draglifts didn't seem to unlock any particularly juicy terrain, I decided that they could stick their T-bars, and I headed for the run served by the chairlift. I found that snowboarding in summer presents a number of unique challenges, which I shall present in one of my beloved bulleted lists.
- Moguls. Obviously no fresh snow is falling, and I have my doubts that this two-bit operation even owned any piste bashers. Thus skiers create moguls and they just keep stacking up. While it is possible to ride moguls on a board, it is no fun at all. To be honest, I can't really see how it's fun on skis either. So I had to take some pretty creative lines to avoid these killing fields.
- Heat. One ends up having to make an uneasy compromise between safety and comfort. After a brief experiment with just a T-shirt (specifically, my bright red School of Informatics T-shirt) on my torso, I gave in and put on my jacket (waterproof outer only, naturally) - snow on bare skin hurts. However, there was no way I was wearing my helmet.
- Snow. The snow was very soft and melty, as one might expect. Now, I've been known to quite enjoy spring snow, but the stickiness of this stuff in places was getting a little silly. Still, I'll take it over ice any day.
- Insects. I'm convinced they were more attracted to my gaijin sweat than anyone else's on the mountain.
So, I'm glad I've now been to the legendary Gassan, but I can't really recommend it. Saying that, when I think of some of the other desperate measures I've taken to get my boarding fix during the summer - riding the hexagons of pain at Hillend, or paying 35 quid for four hours in a cold warehouse outside Glasgow - Gassan doesn't seem quite so insane. Bring on the winter!
Monday, June 14, 2010
You drive me crazy
As of today, I'm a little bit less of a gaijin. You see, I finally got my Japanese driving licence. Thankfully I was exempt from taking any kind of aptitude test thanks to an agreement between the UK and Japanese governments. However, getting my licence was still far from easy, involving running an incredibly tiresome bureaucratic gauntlet.
It took no fewer than three trips to the prefectural capital, and on each occasion I had to be accompanied by my supervisor to act as interpreter. Thus, upwards of three man-days of public servant time was wasted in order to negotiate the red tape of another branch of the public sector. It's no wonder this country has a national debt of 200% GDP.
The first trip was to get my British licence translated, which seems reasonable on the face of it, but when you think about it is a bit of a nonsense. It's not like I come from Sangala or something (I'm currently rewatching 24 season 7) - they must have seen a British licence before. And what is there to translate, really?
The second trip was actually applying for the licence, which was far from straightforward. It seems they are very concerned about illegal immigrants and/or counterfeit licences. I was asked all sorts of questions about the particulars of my licence and test. Often, I didn't know the answers - I challenge you to tell me what all the letters on the back of your licence mean. When I said I wasn't sure, my interrogator said that wasn't good enough: he needed a definite answer. This really got my back up, and I felt like arguing that his request was unreasonable, and I was unwilling to potentially lie to the Japanese government because he was bullying me. But I realised it was one of those situations where you should just give them the answer they want to hear. Like at airports, where they won't thank you for giving an inventory of all the things in your baggage that could conceivably be used to kill someone, as truthful and carefully thought-out as the answer may be.
I ran into particular problems because I renewed my passport shortly before coming to Japan. Consequently I couldn't prove that I'd lived in the UK for 90 days prior to getting my international driving permit, which is a condition of its validity. We ended up getting my degree certificates faxed through from the JET people, to confirm that I had indeed been resident in the UK before coming to Japan. The guy further tried my patience by complaining that my signature didn't match the one on my licence. Though to be fair, it doesn't. My signature has evolved a lot in a decade. Signatures really are a terrible way of verifying identity. Roll on retinal scans - the occasional eye theft would be a small price to pay to avoid all this hassle.
After about three hours the inquisitor was finally satisfied. It's almost literally true that I've been awarded doctorates with less of a grilling. Bear in mind that I come from a respectable first-world nation, am a Japanese public servant, and was accompanied by another civil servant who could vouch for me. I dread to think what kind of treatment the average Filipina hostess would receive at the licensing department. Waterboarding, probably.
Today I had to return to get the the actual licence. All this involved was having my photo taken (though of course for my application they didn't let me use their camera, instead expecting me to pay 600yen for the photo booth). Also, myself and all the other applicants had to be there between 8:30 and 9:00 to sign up, meaning I had to leave Nanyo at 7:30, and I imagine many of the other people there would have come from much further afield. Somehow, showing up, getting my picture taken, and them printing it on a licence took all morning, but I am now the proud over of yet another form of ID.
I'm sorry, this was only meant to be a preamble to a post about my weekend. Like oil from a BP well, it's difficult to stem my flow of bile for governmental harassment once it gets started. Normal service will resume shortly.
It took no fewer than three trips to the prefectural capital, and on each occasion I had to be accompanied by my supervisor to act as interpreter. Thus, upwards of three man-days of public servant time was wasted in order to negotiate the red tape of another branch of the public sector. It's no wonder this country has a national debt of 200% GDP.
The first trip was to get my British licence translated, which seems reasonable on the face of it, but when you think about it is a bit of a nonsense. It's not like I come from Sangala or something (I'm currently rewatching 24 season 7) - they must have seen a British licence before. And what is there to translate, really?
The second trip was actually applying for the licence, which was far from straightforward. It seems they are very concerned about illegal immigrants and/or counterfeit licences. I was asked all sorts of questions about the particulars of my licence and test. Often, I didn't know the answers - I challenge you to tell me what all the letters on the back of your licence mean. When I said I wasn't sure, my interrogator said that wasn't good enough: he needed a definite answer. This really got my back up, and I felt like arguing that his request was unreasonable, and I was unwilling to potentially lie to the Japanese government because he was bullying me. But I realised it was one of those situations where you should just give them the answer they want to hear. Like at airports, where they won't thank you for giving an inventory of all the things in your baggage that could conceivably be used to kill someone, as truthful and carefully thought-out as the answer may be.
I ran into particular problems because I renewed my passport shortly before coming to Japan. Consequently I couldn't prove that I'd lived in the UK for 90 days prior to getting my international driving permit, which is a condition of its validity. We ended up getting my degree certificates faxed through from the JET people, to confirm that I had indeed been resident in the UK before coming to Japan. The guy further tried my patience by complaining that my signature didn't match the one on my licence. Though to be fair, it doesn't. My signature has evolved a lot in a decade. Signatures really are a terrible way of verifying identity. Roll on retinal scans - the occasional eye theft would be a small price to pay to avoid all this hassle.
After about three hours the inquisitor was finally satisfied. It's almost literally true that I've been awarded doctorates with less of a grilling. Bear in mind that I come from a respectable first-world nation, am a Japanese public servant, and was accompanied by another civil servant who could vouch for me. I dread to think what kind of treatment the average Filipina hostess would receive at the licensing department. Waterboarding, probably.
Today I had to return to get the the actual licence. All this involved was having my photo taken (though of course for my application they didn't let me use their camera, instead expecting me to pay 600yen for the photo booth). Also, myself and all the other applicants had to be there between 8:30 and 9:00 to sign up, meaning I had to leave Nanyo at 7:30, and I imagine many of the other people there would have come from much further afield. Somehow, showing up, getting my picture taken, and them printing it on a licence took all morning, but I am now the proud over of yet another form of ID.
I'm sorry, this was only meant to be a preamble to a post about my weekend. Like oil from a BP well, it's difficult to stem my flow of bile for governmental harassment once it gets started. Normal service will resume shortly.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
The primate psychedelic reel
Back in the day, when I worked at King's Buildings, Danny and I devised a plan to help motivate ourselves to work on our respective PhDs. We would arrange to meet on the corner between our flats at 9am sharp, and then walk to uni together. The intention was that we would put in a honest morning's work, rather than rolling in at half ten and spending the first hour checking email and reading news, as both of us were prone to do. We called these morning meet-ups 'powerstarts'.
How things have changed. 9am now seems disgracefully pedestrian to me, as I have to be at school by 8:20 every day. But yesterday I had a start that threatened to set the rice paddies ablaze with its raw power. You see, on sunday night I was drinking with Marie et al, and one of the al is the wife of the local Buddhist priest. She mentioned that their temple was hosting the Rotary Club (a different one to the one I've been hanging out with - Nanyo appartenly has at least two) for a special morning zazen (Zen meditation) session. Knowing that I was interested in Zen, she asked me if I would like to go to. Possibly against my better judgement, I accepted the invitation. Thus, I awoke at 5:40, to be at the temple for 6:30.
First we had a spartan Buddhist (i.e. vegetarian) breakfast of okayu (watery rice porridge) and tsukemono (pickles), including umeboshi (pickled plum). Allow me to go on a quick umeboshi digression. This breathtakingly sour plum has a reputation second only to natto for troubling foreigners. It's taken me a while to get used to the squishy pink fruit, but I now quite enjoy it. Popping in an umeboshi is the perfect way to enliven an otherwise boring glass of shouchuu (rice spirit). The thing is, you have to be mentally prepared for umeboshi. If you're chomping on a riceball that you believe to contain salmon, then hit an unexpected umeboshi, it can be quite a shock, rather like the time I mistook cullen skink for white chocolate mousse.
Breakfast over, some obligatory speeches were made, and the priest explained what to do. Obviously I didn't understand much of this, but having done zazen before I felt confident that I knew the drill. Actually, this was a very non-threatening context to meditate in, since the guests were all businessmen rather than trained Buddhists. Despite the language barrier, I felt that I probably had a firmer grasp of what was going on than most in the room. We only had time for about about five minutes of actual zazen, which really isn't enough - it usually takes about twice that for my mind to get anywhere near settled. The priest said that he normally does eighty minutes of a morning, which is an impressively long time to do absolutely nothing.
Ok, let's backtrack to the weekend. A dozen gaijin form Yamagata (actually, 11 and a Japanese girlfriend) decided to take a trip to Fukushima City, the capital of Fukushima, which is one of the four prefectures neighbouring ours. As I said before, it's not far away, but it seems distant because between here and there lies a formidable mountain range. Driving there I seemed to spend about as much time in tunnels as out of them. First on the agenda was a trip to Round One, a kind of adult playground. By this I don't mean that it was filled with S&M gear, but rather that it was essentially a warehouse packed with all manner of sports, games and entertainment for you to play. Highlights for me included:
How things have changed. 9am now seems disgracefully pedestrian to me, as I have to be at school by 8:20 every day. But yesterday I had a start that threatened to set the rice paddies ablaze with its raw power. You see, on sunday night I was drinking with Marie et al, and one of the al is the wife of the local Buddhist priest. She mentioned that their temple was hosting the Rotary Club (a different one to the one I've been hanging out with - Nanyo appartenly has at least two) for a special morning zazen (Zen meditation) session. Knowing that I was interested in Zen, she asked me if I would like to go to. Possibly against my better judgement, I accepted the invitation. Thus, I awoke at 5:40, to be at the temple for 6:30.
First we had a spartan Buddhist (i.e. vegetarian) breakfast of okayu (watery rice porridge) and tsukemono (pickles), including umeboshi (pickled plum). Allow me to go on a quick umeboshi digression. This breathtakingly sour plum has a reputation second only to natto for troubling foreigners. It's taken me a while to get used to the squishy pink fruit, but I now quite enjoy it. Popping in an umeboshi is the perfect way to enliven an otherwise boring glass of shouchuu (rice spirit). The thing is, you have to be mentally prepared for umeboshi. If you're chomping on a riceball that you believe to contain salmon, then hit an unexpected umeboshi, it can be quite a shock, rather like the time I mistook cullen skink for white chocolate mousse.
Breakfast over, some obligatory speeches were made, and the priest explained what to do. Obviously I didn't understand much of this, but having done zazen before I felt confident that I knew the drill. Actually, this was a very non-threatening context to meditate in, since the guests were all businessmen rather than trained Buddhists. Despite the language barrier, I felt that I probably had a firmer grasp of what was going on than most in the room. We only had time for about about five minutes of actual zazen, which really isn't enough - it usually takes about twice that for my mind to get anywhere near settled. The priest said that he normally does eighty minutes of a morning, which is an impressively long time to do absolutely nothing.
Ok, let's backtrack to the weekend. A dozen gaijin form Yamagata (actually, 11 and a Japanese girlfriend) decided to take a trip to Fukushima City, the capital of Fukushima, which is one of the four prefectures neighbouring ours. As I said before, it's not far away, but it seems distant because between here and there lies a formidable mountain range. Driving there I seemed to spend about as much time in tunnels as out of them. First on the agenda was a trip to Round One, a kind of adult playground. By this I don't mean that it was filled with S&M gear, but rather that it was essentially a warehouse packed with all manner of sports, games and entertainment for you to play. Highlights for me included:
- Inline skating. Whenever I don protective gear I throw caution directly into the wind, so despite having negligible skating ability I was charging around aggressively, several times eating wall with considerable velocity but always getting back on my feet laughing.
- Baseball. Being British, I had never swung a baseball bat in my life. Here they had those machines that fire balls at you, like in the movies. Even at the slowest setting, I found it a real struggle.
- Bucking bronco. This was sufficiently tame that boredom, as opposed to the robo-bull's gyrations, was the real limiting factor to one's stint in the saddle. I attempted to up the ante by riding it backwards, a position which looked at least three times as obscene, but my reverse-cowboy antics were swiftly shut down by a vigilant attendant.
- One-man table tennis. Inside a cell made of netting (there were a lot of those in this place) a ping-pong table was set up, with another machine firing an ever-quickening barrage of balls at you. The opposite half of the table was split into sixteen squares kitted out with LEDs and sensors. When a square lit up, you had to hit it, just like Whac-a-mole. This was incredibly addictive, and around 60% more fun than actual table tennis.
- Free arcade machines. Arcades are pretty popular in Japan, so I find myself in them quite frequently. I've noticed that most of my gaijin buddies favour the shooting games, but not me. I'm very much a rhythm games man. The king of arcade rhythm games is of course Dance Dance Revolution, and on this particular machine I was delighted to find a cheesy J-pop reworking of My Favourite Things. That's the second weird cover of My Favourite Things I've encountered in the space of a month.
- Kids' area. This was set up as two well-padded forts, with hundreds of little foam balls lying around. So far, so Codona's. But these forts had weapons, namely cannons, into which you fed the balls before propelling them out with a burst of compressed air at the slap of a button. Trying to hit the opposing gunners while dodging their salvos was, I'm pretty sure, more fun than any adventure playground of my childhood.
There were also tiny electric bikes you could race, but unfortunately I had to sit that one out because I weigh more than 80kg. Comfortably the oddest thing I witnessed was the fishing corner, where there was a circular pool maybe 3m in diameter, into which a lone old man was solemnly dangling a crappy plastic rod. I found it strangely heartbreaking. Judging by the organic bait, I think the fish were, unlike the bull, real. However, I didn't see any fish in the two minutes I watched.
For us gaijin living in the inaka (countryside), any trip to a big city is a golden opportunity to eat food that isn't Japanese. Dinner that night was Mexican. The food was very tasty, but the place was jumping and the waiting and/or kitchen staff seemed to be struggling to keep up. Anything we ordered had a roughly 70% chance of arriving. The make-your-own tacos in particular were a logistical nightmare due to their numerous components. Then duplicate items started appearing, as stuff which we had presumed forgotten turned out just to be horrendously delayed. I identified that there was virtually no chance of the bill being correct, and was preparing myself for a painful dispute over renumeration. While I was right about the inaccuracy, fortunately it had gone in our favour, and I ended up paying about 12 quid for a big bowl of 'taco rice', a beef enchilada, a tequila, a margarita, and one-sixth of a copious raft of appetisers. I felt more than a little guilty, but couldn't face trying to explain the mistake in Japanese.
It is interesting to see the Japanese interpretation of foreign food. My aforementioned taco rice is a case in point. The Japanese love a rice bowl - rice topped with beef and onion is gyuudon, with curry sauce is kareeraisu, and with raw fish is chirashizushi. Taco rice, it turns out, is a bowl of rice topped with chili beef, cheese, salsa, and - unexpectly - a fried egg. I have long contended that any hot savoury dish can be enhanced by adding a fried egg. Though inauthentic, it was filling and delicious; I approve heartily.
After the Mexican we went for a late-night karaoke session, eventually getting back to our hotel around half two. The next morning I took a stroll around Fukushima, which seemed like a nice place, but then most places do under a cloudless summer sky. Something seemed not quite right but I couldn't put my finger on it, until I realised that I had virtually no shadow. Approaching noon in Japan in June, the sun is almost directly overhead - an unusual phenomenon for a Scot.
We didn't squander the opportunity to have more foreign cuisine at lunch, enjoying a tasty and reasonable Indian buffet. After that we went our separate ways. Because it was such a beautiful day, I decided to take the spaghetti-like mountain road back, instead of the more practical tunnel-fest of the previous day. First I encountered a dam which was striking enough that I decided to park the car and check it out. (I currently lack the facility to extract photos from my camera, so you'll have to rely on my turgid prose for now.) After this the road became very silly indeed, just a single track barely clinging to a forested mountainside. Rounding one of many sharp, blind bends, I was astonished to see a group of three or four Japanese macaques gambolling across the road not ten metres in front of me. I quickly pulled over, killed the stereo and hit the hazards, but the monkeys had scarpered into the forest, the shaking treetops being the only indication of their existence. I later spotted some more further along the road.
I had known that there were wild monkeys around these parts - there are road signs warning of them, and at the dam earlier in the day there were signs instructing you not to feed them. I had never seen any before, leading me to suspect that they were mythical. But no, I can confirm the primates are genuine. I was/am really excited about this, and told anyone who would listen at school the next day. They didn't share my enthusiasm - it was like my first earthquake all over again. I suppose if someone was waxing lyrical about seeing a deer in the Scottish Highlands you would think them a little foolish.
The border between Yamagata and Fukushima - at the summit of a mountain pass - was the second time I was moved to disembark my vehicle by the sheer beauty of my surroundings. To the west was the rice-covered basin I call home, to the east a steep-sided leafy valley stretching into the distance. I continually surprise myself with how much I love the mountains. Fetching though Scotland's mountains are, they have all been worn down and smoothed off as the result of being buried for aeons under incomprehensible masses of ice. The mountains around here have not been mellowed in this way, and thus thrust up from the surrounding terrain at gradients that seem, to my eyes at least, frankly implausible. These conical volcanic peaks are like a children's drawings of mountains, beautiful in their simplicity.
To a scientist like myself, I am struck with the irrationality of being happy at the mere existence of mounds of inanimate rock. But what can I say? Cheesy though it sounds, just looking up at the mountains that permanently ring my horizon is enough to lift my spirits whenever I'm feeling down.
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