Blurry pre-drinking photos of Hakata

Big cities at night make me feel awlraaaight! I'm not doing this because I think I can take photos (BECAUSE I CANNOT!) It just reminds me of a certain time and a place and the onset of winter in a glittery city. Hmm, luurvely! It's about time we had some cold over here.

HAIKU!!!

I went-a drinking,

Because I was thinking

I should get legless.

The tricky subject of Karaoke

Karaoke! It is a big hand which divides the population exactly in half. Some people get drunk and will never, ever do it, the second half get drunk and have to have the mic prized from their cold, dead hands.

Unfortunately, I am embarrased to even hum a tune in the sober daytime air, but, after 10 beers and rounding a few people up, I always seem to be the karaoke ringleader. Once I'm in the room, I grab a catalogue, throw the remote control away and kneel down by the video box. This is to usurp the remote control users-if a song comes on which I dont know, I'm king of the CANCEL button.

The favourites all emerge right away- "I Touch Myself", "Debaser", anything by Guns N` Roses or Queen and (how this began I dont know) "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues". But, everyone knows that the worst songs are the best in karaoke, and otherwise, there is no point in going.

However, I will not do it anymore!!! It's the point where the night just goes too far. Karaoke is what happens when everyone has had more than too much and should definetley go home. But, instead, they put themselves in a private, comfy room with a big wall-length couch, several microphones, loads of music, friends and can order food, beer and anything they fancy at the push of a button. It is just basically evil. No more karaoke- It's bed for me!

Sunderland Boys and karokebox

I just got these photos developed from a disposable camera I bought in August. Dont you just love it when you find an old camera and the photos really surprise you? These are gold! I met some blokes from Sunderland in a little hip hop club in Kokura one Saturday night. They were there the next week, and a few weeks later, then we arranged to meet up one Saturday during a festival so we could scout around and see the sights. They worked for Nissan and were here to fix some cars which had been sent to Japan.

Only, there was nothing much wrong with the cars anyway, so they spent a lot of their time here getting completely legless and staying out until at least 5am, even on worknights. The Saturday of the festival turned out to be one of the funniest nights here, the blokes had loads of banter and stories to tell, were really game for anything and generally, great company. We sat in Kokura castle garden with bottles of ASTI from the supermarket, ended up getting locked in and having to climb over the gate to get out. THEN....KARAOKE!!! Damn! Not again. Good night, though!

They went home the following Tuesday, and me and my mate Guy met them for a farewell drink. They were dressed in pimp outfits, cowboy hats, diamante glasses and big plastic rings, etc.. and because it was the peak of the humidity here, they were sweating like...well, stocky, balding lobster-coloured men in their forties, really. Dipping the little Japanese flannels in champagne buckets, ringing them out and resting them on their sweaty fods. One of the best weekends I've had, without a doubt.

"Cultural Event" at a countryside Kindergarten.

Hahaha! Culture! Not to be too cynical, but an event which involves tiny girls in far too short dresses all doing the same dance in different national costumes and boys either prancing about in tribal dress banging hollow drums or jumping over impressive sized sports horses is not as varied as the title suggests.

I do admit that it was a nice show for parents, though, due to it being much more anally organised and coordinated than anything I was ever in as a kid.

Encho sensei does an annual magic show...the dance he came exploding onstage to is apparently called "The moustache dance" and was popular about 15 years ago. So, a typical old dude then, really, sticking firmly to his memories. I do admire his ability to make fun of himself, though (see video below) and think he's not such a bad sort. It was pretty funny halfway through his piece de resistance of making a handkerchief float, when a little kid shouted out "I can see strings!" See the vid.

They really could have offered us a seat, after going to the trouble of inviting us on a Saturday bloody morning. I may not have been so cynical if I was sitting down for the 2 and a half hours we stayed for. Lower back pain is not the phrase!

Kindergarten Cultural Event

Koujyaku "Cultural event".
After being dragged unwillingly by aforementioned invisible "duty" from my lovely Saturday morning bed to attend a kindergarten "Cultural event", I took this brilliant video, which wont upload right now, so I've posted a picture. The little boy (in the middle) made my day...have you ever seen that bit in "Wayne's World" where the show goes live but Wayne resigns halfway through and Garth has to do it alone and just stares at the camera for ages? This boy carried out his own revolution against the stringent order of the perfectly coordinated dance...or maybe just a touch of stage fright, ne?

A Post For Nothing...

Just to get that horrible picture of my less than appetising leg off the top spot.

Mosquitoes launch a final attack...

Before going to "live underground" for the winter, as one of my partner teachers told me (is this true? I thought they just died, like cicadas or spiders...) it seems the Kitakyushu mozzers are launching a last attack on my ravaged ankles and calves. A war on two fronts, just like 1914...

Do mozzers sit underground sleeping like cute, tree-bound furry squirrels and lovely hibernate-y creatures in general, or do they actually just pop it mid-air one day, like the suspicious, creepy articles that are spiders and cicadas?

I would have placed them in the latter camp myself. They are the LAST things I would put underground for protection. Surely there are more deserving beings than mosquitoes to be hibernated for fear of their lives.

The same, obviously, goes for Hitler. Why dont witness protection programmes evict the mozzers and hide folk there? I'm sure people like Trotsky and Catholic Priests during the reformation would have appreciated that insight. And vampires.

The little buggers! I just cannot think of an upside to them (mozzers, not Vampires, chill out Ms.Rice...), there is no silver lining to that ugly, tiny, viscious cloud-see illustration for details...

PS) Those legs are from the UK, make no mistake.

It all begins in the middle...

So, here I am, a blogger. I hate blogging and I pity peple who spend hours at computers- or at least, I did when I last checked.

But that`s the point. I can`t remember what I think sometimes, my opinions, once unflinchingly defined, have blurred far too much for my liking with the niceties and routines of the country I've been living in for the last six months.

Good old Japan, the place where everything asserts itself with a determined, masculine presence, only to be completely contradicted a few moments later. Everything sits, literally, on shifting ground here. Except for tradition and a not-always-logical sense of what is right and wrong, which is, frustratingly, invisible to the 'outsider'.

I am starting this blog firm in the belief that as well as having amazing, life-changing experiences here that tempt me into wanting to stay forever, Japan can be unflinchingly cold to people who don't 'belong' here.

This is not directly the fault of Japanese people, but rather an instinctive reaction to something novel in a place which was closed to the outside world for the best part of two hundred years.

Buuuut...theoretically, at least, things should have changed here by now. I just want to make it very clear that I've come across some amazing politeness and kindness here, so I'm not damning a whole country full of people, but simply, reflecting on what I see on a daily basis.

This is also, please bear in mind, the perspective of a person living and working here for an extended amount of time. Tourists, holidaymakers and brief visitors won't experience, or have to think much about, the barriers foreigners may face when trying to seriously think through the viability of making Japan their new home.

How can it still be acceptable for people of a country with an oft-celebrated reputation as the hub of technology, innovation and development to commonly and without controversy band around the word "foreginer" (gaijin - a word I am a little over-sensitive about, I admit) on the street in the faces of people who are not the same race as them? Can you imagine the same thing on the streets of London, New York or Paris? Would it be OK for me to go up to a Chinese man in Manchester and say 'foreigner'? Japan, as part of the developing world, should adopt higher standards and considering that this kind of treatment can very easily be helped, so it should be.

Japan, after my six-month stint here, is to me a constantly surprising place with vast possibilities and sights which would be impossible to appreciate fully in one lifetime. But, traditions and values can still be upheld without so stringently shunning those deemed not to "fit in" by decades of barely-considered norms.

Greater open-mindedness and willingness to help people up out of the gutter and find their feet in a very insular country would, in my opinion, do no small amount favours for Japan. It would lead to greater understanding and experience of more cultures, (rather than an unhealthy obsession with mimicking America), and would perhaps, bring about some more consideration for those who just dont 'fit in' in society.

These people include, among others, the homeless, the tattooed, children who dont want to be like their parents, anyone with a waist measurement over 29 inches and of course, the "FORGEIGNER!" As Shoko Tendo recently said when discussing her recently translated book about the Yakuza,

"Japanese society looks very calm on the surface, but underneath it is in turmoil...discrimination is rife."

After six months here, I have decided, primarily for personal reasons, (but partially because I miss sausages, roast dinners and good old English rudeness), not to renew my work contract for another year.

So, now I know now I am leaving Japan, I have frequent pangs of regret. Like when you dump someone and see them a week later with another girl.

My biggest worries are that I haven't documented my stay here well enough and my terrible memory will mean that once the plane wheels hit the Heathrow tarmac, all of this will feel like a year-long day dream. So, here goes my attempt to save some of my experiences here from the quagmire of things I have forgotten in my life as I count down my last six months in Japan.

Big deal-I'm already halfway through. I've lost all of the fresh-faced wonder of a newcomer. What insight can I possibly have to offer? Will I learn anything new?

If not, this Blog will be pretty pointless, not to mention completely self-obsessed and boring... but, would I do that to you? Do the Japanese eat sushi all day and go home to pet robots? Welcome.

Japanese Kindergarten sports day.

This event was fairly funny (as they all are to someone whose sports days at primary school, never mind NURSERY, constitued a quick dash around the playground for an hour and a half max, involving a few bean bags balanced on heads and rubbery hoops being hurled around towards bored looking parents hovering around the tarmac,) but would have been even funnier had I not got up too late for my usual coffee breakfast.


However, Michiyo, my partner teacher, and I were ushered into a small marquee, which had undoubtedly passed it's finest years, and were given some iced oolong tea in little paper cups. This seemed to keep me awake for the stretch, so, every cloud...


Halfway through the sports events, this woman, who always seems to be EVERYWHERE in the kindergarten grounds at any given time, did that fussy, urgently feigned half-run that people have and sprayed the dusty playground with water from a hose. Why??? Actually, it was to stop the dust blowing into the picnicing parents eyes. Obviously, it dried a few minutes later and the aforementioned people were restored to full gritty-eyed conditions with every fresh sheet of wind. I was expecting the forecast typhoon to merrily open it's powers on the whole thing, but, typical to weather forecast-istry, it never actually arrived in Kokura.


Ah, well. It wasnt such a bad morning. I do have to wonder, though, would "YMCA", which they used during the military-like, but impressive formations have survived the red tape if the Japanese kindergarten teachers knew what the song celebrated? Watch the video, if you're intrigued.