Ventforet olay olay!

After getting my hairs cut Saturday, I went to Kose Sports Park with Tiffany to see Ventforet battle the "bad boys" of Hiroshima. I've never witnessed a soccer game outside of the U.S., so expectations were high.

I was not disappointed. What follows is a list of cultural learnings:

1. Remember the Chicago Bulls entrance music that was catchy enough to single-handedly fuel the sale of not one but several sports music compilations called Jock Jams?

Ventforet comes out to, oh, "Pomp And Circumstance." The last time I heard that song, I was in a stadium filled with peopl... Forget it.

2. The various crowd chants are delivered to the tune of American classics such as "Copa Cabana" and, wait for it, "O Christmas Tree." I am not funny or rich enough to make this stuff up.

3. When the chanting stops, it is dead quiet. Granted this only happens for about thirty seconds every thirty minutes, but it's eerie. The next time I go to a game, I might literally drop pins to see if I can hear them. See if I can hear? What is that, synesthesia?

4. Ventforet is french for "wind forest." Why!

5. NO ONE wears anything other than team apparel. No one but Tiffany and Kevin.

6. Ventforet's mascot is a wolf. When little girls wear wolf-ear barrettes, it is cute. (Sidenote: Kawaii is cute, whereas kowai is scary. A fellow JET once made a little girl cry by confusing the two.)

7. When the concession stand runs out of yakitori, the girl behind you in line will yell "yakitori!" and then moan as if her heart has been broken. It's chicken on a stick.

8. When Kevin's stomach processes the concession stand hot dog, the concession stand hot dog will flip out and kill Kevin's stomach.

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Ventforet won the match 2-1 in the 87th minute, thanks to a goal by Alberto de Souza.

As the team circled the stadium for its victory lap, the collective chant of "Alberto!" silenced all existing pins.

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(Photos by Tiffany Minaret Sakato)

Getting cut up

A man walks into a bar(ber shop). He inserts a 1,000 yen bill into a machine by the cash register. A card slides out of the machine. He grabs the shiny card and takes a seat. He does not literally "take" the seat, but he is using American slang. Bear with him. The man now notices a sign under the machine that took his 1,000 yen bill.

"Sorry, We can only serve people who speak Japanese. Once the haircut begins, we cannot change the hairstyle."

The man panics. He is very keen on changing hairstyles once they begin. He also does not speak Japanese.

He reaches into his bag for an English-Japanese dictionary. He cradles his body over it, hoping no one will notice his illegal operation. He memorizes key words: onaji (same), ue (top), katto (cut), buza de yobu (with buzzer), inchi (inch). He closes the dictionary and then opens it again, believing he has forgotten what he has tried to remember.

"They are totally on to me," he thinks to himself. He realizes he says or thinks the word "totally" a lot, and he becomes self-conscious.

One of the barbers is now available, but it seems the man has made an error. He never signed in. He understands namae, so he nervously scribbles his name down in kanji. Lo Strange Glory, indeed.

The woman hands the man a 10 yen coin, for the haircut is only 990.

The man sits down and says the words from the pocket dictionary. What is the penalty for not speaking Japanese? Just take him away now, for he will fail.

Inches? The man has been ruined by the standard system of measurement. A curse upon your stubborn house, Americatown!

Fortunately, he knows the word for "more." The barber cuts and then cuts some more.

Thirty minutes later, the man meets a friend.

"It looks the same," she says. Onaji.

Hey, wolves. Meet Kevin after I've thrown him to you.

On Wednesday morning at 8:15 (fifteen minutes before school started), I felt a vibration in my left pants' pocket. I reached into said pocket to retrieve my cellular phone, the source of said vibration. I had electronic mail. My co-teacher (who I teach three classes with on Wednesdays) was letting me know that she was sick. Would I be able to teach my classes alone? Surely, you jest. This is dramatic irony of Shakesperean proportions. Where is the laugh track? Where is Ashton Kutcher? Who would play me in a sitcom? John Cho, please.

Even better, I was ready to unleash by pronunciation lesson Wednesday, one that would supremely benefit from translations for tongue and teeth placement. It's OK. I had pictograms. I had my English-Japanese dictionary. Time to consult.

With a combination of repeated hand gestures, miming, laughing, poorly pronounced Japanese (also ironic considering the topic of the lesson), I survived. Did the kids learn anything? No way to know 'til test time.

The most interesting part of the lesson was that "L" and "R" were not simply hard to distinguish, but the students consistently chose the wrong letter. Any time I said "grass," they swore it was "glass." Vice versa forever.

I also enjoyed "V" and "B" because I got to cross out "Kebin" on the board and see the look of astonishment on thirty faces. "Girls wear vests! We all want to be the best!"

On Friday, I got another go of the lesson with the co-teacher in place. Also in place were both vice principals, as Friday was evaluation day. Honestly, I think it was much more for the co-teacher than myself, and I got a kick out of the vice principals trying to say "right" and "light." Oddly, no students slept for long in this class.

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I apologize for today's sudden blog-iarrhea. Speaking of which, is there a letter arrangement more suggestive of its meaning than diarrhea? The word simply looks uncomfortable!

Verbal crutches

In Japan, the verbal crutches are eto and ano. This entertains me to no end. I mean, like, umm, do Americans sound that, uh, funny when they talk?

I can picture school speech competitions where the teachers say, "OK, now try speaking for three minutes without an eto or ano."

"Ehhhhhhhhhh?"

Five, seven, five

Sprinting through school halls
To deliver my bento
HELLO LUNCH? Hi, you.

Can't say they don't try

As part of my days of the week lesson, I created a calendar with made-up events to test student comprehension. This consisted of me dictating sentences such as "Trash is collected every Monday and Thursday." The students were to draw a trash can on every Monday and Thursday on the calendar.

If you look here, you can see that there are no trash cans on any Monday or Thursday.


Instead, there is a sketch of me.


The best part is that the students are supposed to keep all their work in a folder in their desk. This student was apparently so proud of his depiction that he handed his work into me.

And those things on my shoulders? I was wearing a shirt with epaulets.

Party don't stop 'til (blank) in the morning.

Since Monday was a national holiday, a few (or twenty) JETs gathered in Kofu on Sunday night for a bit of izakaya action. The crab croquet was croquelicious, the pizzas were too personal, and a rumor was spread around that all of Japan was out of rice. OK, maybe just the restaurant, and that wasn't even true. It just took forever for the rice to appear. The selection at izakayas is a lot like at tapas bars, so the dilemma remains. One more app or one more beer? Is that an Andrew W.K. song? And did I just reference a nobody that a lot of people know?

After the izakaya, we boarded the Chuo east for Yamanashi-shi, former home of Cindy T. Lo. A Japanese man on the train asked me (in Japanese) to tell my foreignor friends to be quieter. Again, there are no Asians, only Japanese people, in Japan. I am everyone's Japanese tour guide. Hear me roar inaudibly.

We rolled deep into L-River, a bar that has hosted years and years of JETs in the past. (Cindy and Matt, did you drink here?) It's a tiny spot run by one man, so you actually have to go there early to tell him you are showing up. If you do, he'll keep it open until, judging by Sunday "night," 4:30 in the morning so that crazy kids can sing crazy American songs on the karaoke machine.

I wanted it that way, I asked baby to hit me one more time, I didn't look back in anger, and I hid from the karma police. Oh, and I also happened to sing songs by the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Oasis, and Radiohead.

Bex kept making this high-pitched whistling sound after each song, and I was tempted to jump through the glass windows for a less painful death.

The first train home was at 5:44, so I ate a bag of chips from the Family Mart and drank a Pocari Sweat. It's better than it sounds. A little better.

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On Monday, I drove my car for the first time. I'm not quite sure why my Georgia license is valid here (just needed to fork over $15 to AAA in the states), but I take what I can get. Remember those moats on the side of the road I mentioned a ways back in regards to biking? They are even more terrifying when driving. What if I get too close? My tire will fall in! When my tire falls in, the frame of my car will crash onto the street! When the frame of my car crashes onto the street, I will be embarrassed!

Honestly, the whole driving on the left thing is not that bad. Right turns are hard, Kevin. Left turns are easy. The difficulty is the large number of bikers and walkers who are literally on the road. The difficulty is the narrow streets. The difficulty is the lack of street signs. Oh, and the abundance of FAKE street signs that are meant to indicate that you are near the road you want to be on, but not actually on that road.

Dance, too much booty in the pants

I was looking very forward to this post, as I had the “real” internet installed last Tuesday. For whatever reason, it has decided not to work today, so the multimedia extravaganza will have to wait. I am back to grabbing bandwidth from the mysterious “Ninjazz” router. I do have tech support’s telephone number, but I do not have Japan’s official language stored in my brain.

Now, on to the facts:

If there’s been any confusion on this blarg about my daily struggles to accomplish the most simplest of tasks, here’s what happened during Tuesday’s internet installation. A very nice man showed up at my door. He, I assumed, was the internet man. In fact, he was the telephone man, checking the line to make sure I could get the proper bandwidth. (Judging by today’s fiasco, it is possible he failed.) Now, imagine the dismay on my face when the “internet man” asked me where my modem was. Hmm, wouldn’t you have it? He smiled and then made several gestures indicating how to connect the phone cord to the modem once I actually possessed the modem in question. Thanks. I know how to plug things in. Even in Japan. I hesitantly signed his papers as he left my apartment. I was internetless and alone.

About an hour later, another man arrived with my modem. I plugged it in (thankfully, I was recently shown how) and played. I am not ashamed to say that the first thing I downloaded was an episode of Entourage. I missed seeing white people in moving pictures.

On Saturday night, I visited Motosu Lake for the annual bonfire/grilling/dj/dance party. (Had the real internet been working, this is where I would have href-equal sign-img’d the fancy flyer.) I caught the Minobu line with Nicole, and we met Jonny + Mr. Burns in Ichikaiwadaimon for a ride. This event had been billed as one of the best parties of the year, so when we showed up around eight o’clock to just a handful of people, I had a Michael Bluth moment. “I’ve made a big mistake.” It was only a passing phase.

I’m going to use numbers at this point because this is my website.

1. Nick spilled a whole bottle of the *cough* “best meat sauce in Japan” on his clothes. He now has a new nickname.

2. The DJ was spinning this sick mix of hip-hop and remixed funk classics.

3. As a result of #2, Seth danced as if he had no bones. He was fluid. Elastic, even. He should have a new nickname.

4. I slept in a bungalow, and I kept hearing “Hey, Bungalow Bill” whenever I thought of the word bungalow in my head. And bungalow is just another word for shack in the woods. Bungalow. Bungalow bungalow.

5. Andy, the guy who organized the party, poured gasoline on our grill to get it started. Gasoline is certainly a fire starter, kids. My warmed hand would know.

6. When people drink, they speak English or Japanese, whichever one they don’t know. I was speaking Japanese, I think. I do know I discussed the merits of David Lynch and Q. Tarantino with a Japanese man. Japanese. Japanese Japanese.

Rando:
The Japanese word for glasses is megane, pronounced “mega-nay.” If this were true in America, would less kids get beat up in school?

Stay tuned for tales of karaoke ‘til dawn and driving on the left side of the street blindfolded! Ok, not blindfolded.

Don't mind me. Americans are immune to earthquakes and typhoons.

Last week, Nirasaki had an earthquake drill. Earthquakes in Japan are about as common as the terrifyingly large black and yellow spiders in Japan. There are many. This drill took place after sixth period, and I only became aware of this when I got up from my computer to see the entire school body standing outside. An administrator spoke through a megaphone. Wait, scratch that. Minutes before, a teacher who has never said an English word to me before busted out an entire "Will you stay here?" as he left the teacher's room. Yeah, I'll stay. But shouldn't I know what...

Oh, maybe it's a courtesy. I won't know what's being said anyway, so a co-teacher will translate later. Nothing. Must think back to elementary school. Hands over neck? Forward facing fetal position? No, that's tornadoes. There aren't earthquakes in Georgia. I flipped through the recently received prefecture newsletter. Ah. Get under a desk.

This weekend, we had a typhoon. "Typhoon" seems much less threatening than "hurricane," which is what it is in Anglo terms. Hurricanes seem pretty frightening, like those black and yellow spiders I keep seeing. Several meetings were called to discuss this incoming typhoon, and again, no translation. No sweat. I'll just stay inside all weekend with my raincoat on holding both my umbrellas.

Because of my city's basin location, the bulk of the typhoon was blocked out by the surrounding mountains. It rained the entire day Thursday, and I attempted to bike to the train station holding one of the two aforementioned umbrellas. This is harder than it sounds (though it sounds pretty difficult), and I only tried it because I saw many Japanese people doing it. I do what other people do. Now might be a good time to explain the city streets. Streets should actually be quote-unquoted because they are more like suggested pathways. Unless you’re on a major road, there’s not room for two cars. There’s a lot of pulling over and allowing the other car to get through. Add me on a bike with an umbrella. And throw in a mini-moat on the side of the street. These mini-moats have been named “gaijin traps” by generations of the past, and I won’t argue. When *knock on wood* I fall in, I will weblog the occasion.

Twice a day at Norin, a funereal tone rings five times in a row to show respect for the fertility of land. The proper procedure is to stand up and slightly lower your head. The first time I heard this, a co-teacher said “Oh my god!”

When you are suspended from school in Japan, you go to school and do chores. Why isn’t this the case in America? My co-teachers found this difference quite amusing.

Speaking of chores, there aren’t janitors at school. The students clean daily. At Norin, they play John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” over the loudspeakers during cleaning time. This drives me insane, and I only go to Norin twice a week. If I had to clean five times a week while listening to the song, I might be tempted to do something really crazy like mixing the burnables and non-burnables! Oh my god!

On Friday, the vice principal played a prank on one of my co-teachers. He called her on the telephone from the same room. Hilarious. The look on his face was like he had pulled the greatest prank known to man. You know, it kinda was.

Next Monday, I’ll have a day off for “Respecting Your Elders” day. This is a national holiday, and Kasai sensei asked if we had the same thing in America. I told him we fear and ostracize our elders. We send them to Florida.

I finally got a response from waving my Nintendo DS around in the air and asking if anyone had one.
Follow-up question: “What is your favorite video game?”
“I like play sexy game.”
I asked to borrow it. Kids laughed.

His name was Robert Paulsen (Smith).

Remember the scene in Fight Club when the band of misfits (not to be confused with the band the Misfits) continually repeats the headline above?

That's like how my class is when I teach them the days of the week using the Cure's "Friday, I'm In Love," only the exact opposite. Please repeat after me. "His name is Robert Smith." *Tumbleweed.* "His name is Robert Smith." *Leaky faucet drips onto no-longer-tumbling weed.*

Regardless, they seem to like listening to the Cure's greatest hits. I tried to bring in something American, but it's hard to argue with Mr. Smith singing the days of the week in order. Then again, this still managed to confuse most of the students when I asked them to fill in the blanks in the provided lyric sheet. And maybe the unarguable Britishness of Bobby Smith confused everyone, because my co-teacher kept calling me Mark sensei for the duration of two classes. (Mark was my predecessor. He is from England. He is not Robert Smith.)

I'm almost through with giving my self-introduction lesson, and the days of the week lesson has confirmed one thing for me (that was never stated before). You see, there's this annoying phrase that's been going around for, hmm, three months, and that phrase is "every situation is different," or ESID. What this means is that for no good or real reason, some people in the JET program get to play with glorious little Japanese children every day, some people pay no rent, some people get free cars, some people get free lunch every day, and some people get to create entire lesson plans and execute them close to 20 times a week. It might be clear which "some" I am, but don't get the wrong impression here. I truly think my experience abroad will ultimately be much more rewarding, but I'll have to work (no pun) for that. So when a student falls asleep with his cell phone open, I just listen to the Cure.

Race and Rice:
As strange as it sounds, a large number of Japanese people have had trouble understanding, err, my existence. America, through the media or whatnot, is black and white. One student had a two-minute conversation with a co-teacher in front of me trying to figure out how I was American. First, she thought I was from Korea but knew English. Whaa? Second, she thought one of my parents was Taiwanese and the other was American (read: white). Finally, the co-teacher said something about Japanese people moving to Hawaii in the past. That somehow did the trick.

The first time I went to Norin, I was supposed to meet with a co-teacher. She could not find me because I "looked Japanese." I was sitting at the only ALT desk.

When I go out with fellow ALTs (read: white), Japanese people approach me (understandably) as if I am the tour guide. I usually produce a blank stare (I'm perfecting it watching my students) or mumble something about wakarimasen, wakarimasen. In the end, I'm pretty sure they think I'm just cuckoo for cocoa puffs. I wish this were true, as I am currently looking for a sweet alternative to rice in the morning.