Noh Play/Mexican Restaurant: Match from Heaven

Last weekend I had the opportunity to see a Noh performance held at the Banna-ji Temple. Noh is a classic form of Japanese theater that featured two actors, maybe 6 people in a chorus, and 2 musicians. My understanding is that only men are allowed to participate, with female characters represented by intricate masks. I have heard several times that these plays are difficult even for the Japanese to understand, which means I caught about 10 words throughout the whole thing. The play itself is a bit dry, but there is a sort of comedic intermission play to make sure you haven't fallen asleep. Quite entertaining.


These first couple of pictures are just random shots of the temple grounds. Of course everyone was really anal about not taking pictures during the play itself, so I don't have anything to show for my hours of sitting and watching.

This thing is worth mentioning. This is a pretty common feature of any temple of decent size. Theres a little ritual of cleansing that you do here before you do your praying. You are also supposed to put some water in your mouth and then spit it out, thereby cleansing your mouth by washing it in water thats been sitting outside all day. When you are done with the little ladle, you hold it upside down so that the remaining water washes your hand prints away as well. At school I often see people gargling just straight water and then spitting it out... I am tempted to believe that there is a connection between the two practices.



Here is a shot of the mayor bowing before giving a lengthy opening address to the audience.

This is a short clip of a couple of monks chanting prayers before the performance.

After the show, many of us went to eat and drink at a Mexican restaurant. Yes, the food was a bit weird, but the corona still tasted the same. One notable presence was that of a Japanese man dressed as a cowboy. His gun belt contained a bottle of tequila in the holster, and shot glasses instead of bullets. And he wasn't afraid to use it.

This is maybe the greatest invention ever conceived. Instead of just taking a taxi and worrying about your car in the morning, you call these guys. A taxi comes with two drivers inside. One guy gets out and drives your car wherever you want it, while the taxi follows. Once you get to your destination, the driver gets back in the taxi and then departs. Just like magic. Apparently it is the same price as a taxi as well. Im getting all kinds of good business ideas from my travels.

Apartment Tour

I finally got around to making a little video of my apartment. Check it out.

One Week in the Bag

I finished my first week of school without a single injury! Huzzah!

It wasn't a week without happenings though. My first problem was that I couldn't get my bike lock to unlock. I was eventually able to borrow another bike, but it didn't have a light on it. Riding your bike at night without a light is illegal in Japan. Its one of those offenses that no one cares about unless you are a foreigner, in which case you get pulled over and possibly a ticket. It didn't have a nice little basket for me to put groceries and whatnot in either, so it was kind of a pain. One of the teachers that lives near my house volunteered to help me with it, which was really awesome. He just pried the whole lock thing off with a pair of pliers... and now Im free! Happy time.


My next little dilema was furniture. This place is a decent size and lacked furniture except for bedroom stuff. There was not a single chair in the whole apartment. I was in need of at least a kitchen table and maybe a couch to fill out the room with the tv. Luck had it that a previous english teacher had left some furniture at the school. All I had to do was to mention it once, and everyone pitched in to load the stuff into a truck and drive it over to my place... all during time that I was supposed to be working... glorious. So I am now the proud owner of a kitchen table and chairs, and a new wardrobe thing. Now all I need is a couch and I will have the hottest pad this side of Tokyo Disneyland.


One day last week, I was given a good size stack of papers that the students have written in English, and I was told to correct them. Fine, I can do that. Then I took one look at the first one and realized the huge undertaking that it is going to become. Many of them are powerful bad. One of my favorite gems of a sentence is "That it can be it as for the first to be able to do it someday if I do not give up till the last." Its the sort of thing that you have to read a couple of times just to comprehend how awful it is. How do you "correct" this sentence other than just punching its writer in the face with a red pen?

The teacher's desks



There are several children's propaganda posters in the hallways. This is one of my favorites.

My latest complaint/observation about Japan. This particular ATM(!) is open from 8:45am-7:00pm. To add to this insult, I believe that my bank's ATMs are closed on weekends. How can you take such a beautiful idea and then execute it so terribly wrong? The whole point of ATMs is that they aren't supposed to close. They are supposed to be (gasp) CONVENIENT!

Here they don't mind making humans work amazingly long hours, but mindless cash dispensing machines? They have to rest!

I had a fairly eventful weekend as well, I'll write a bit about that shortly.

Children Everywhere!

I finished my third day of school, and I am starting to figure out where everything is and understand how things are going to work.

My first day at Yamabe Junior High School was eventful. I arrived a solid amount of time early just in case I got lost on the way there or some other emergency presented itself. I was told to wear a shirt and tie, and after a half hour of bike riding in the desert heat, I needed a good amount of time to cool down once I arrived. My first little introduction was for the teachers. I did my little script and then I went and sat at my desk. Offices in Japan are a bit different than the US equivalent. A room of 50 teachers is divided into little clusters, based on some sort of hierarchy that involves age and title. All of the desks are in direct contact with each other, and there are no cubicle walls or anything of that sort. Not a lot of privacy, but it makes it easier to chat with coworkers.

Some time later I gave a little speech about myself in front of hoard of Japanese children in the gym. A bit in English, a bit in Japanese. I'm sure that they were all thoroughly bored by the experience. Among some other quite long speeches, everyone sang the school song to piano accompaniment. I assumed that the kids would all be hardcore about school spirit, but most of them didn't even pretend to sing.

A sea of children

The classes themselves have been pretty enjoyable so far. I have been giving quite a few self introductory lessons, which are interesting. With variations, I usually talk a little bit about myself and then quiz the students in some way on what I said to test comprehension. One especially cool teacher had each student read aloud from a book as fast as they can, and timed them with a stop watch to strengthen their reading ability... quite fun.

Every day I have a different group of kids that I am assigned to eat lunch with. I suppose its a nice way to meet everyone, but it seems like it might prevent me from making any genuine friendships. I feel a bit like a politician, just sort of shaking hands and then moving on.

That leads me to another interesting point. The kids eat on their desks in their individual classrooms. School lunches are made in a central location in the city, then trucked out to the individual schools. When lunch time rolls around, the students lug the big containers of food to their respective classrooms. As far as I know there is no janitorial staff. At a certain time everyday, the students all go to a predesignated place and clean it. Some students clean the floors in the teachers room, others clean our coffee mugs in a nearby sink. Some are honored with cleaning the bathrooms. I get to go outside and sweep a set of stairs everyday.

There are all kinds of interesting things going on around here. More later.

I Guess I Should Probably Start Working Now..

My solid month of paid "learn the town" time has unfortunately come to an end. Tomorrow is when the grind begins. I don't really understand the details (this will become a recurring theme unfortunately), but I am going to give a good size intro speech in Japanese to everyone, then I am going to do an introductory english lesson for each of the classes.

I was assigned a host family to spend a little time with. This family consists of a widow whose children are old enough to all be living in different cities... riveting to say the least. Today I returned from a day trip to her summer home. It was a nice town in the mountains called Kitakaruizawa-about three hours to the north by car. Not really a whole lot to say about the trip.. pretty tame. It was nice to see a new area without dealing with the train system, though.

This is a little shrine that is typical of households. I'm not going to get into all the details, but this is a place to pray to one's deceased relatives. From what I witnessed my host parent made a new cup of tea and lit a stick of incense here everyday. Recently the Japanese celebrated the Bon Festival. At this time everyone returns to their hometown to have family reunions, and apparently the spirits of one's ancestors also attend the festivities.

Anyway, this place was in the mountains and kind of isolated with lots of farming going on everywhere, and as a result there were little fresh produce stands dotting the roads. Several seemingly out of place hotels and upscale shops made it obvious that although this was a smallish town, rich people like to play here.

An outside view of one of the fruit stands

Here is some overpriced fruit at a stand. I hope I am misunderstanding, but it seems that 3 peaches are around 8.50, and 6 peaches are around 25.00. Note the silly little jackets that the peaches wear.




The fancy looking hotel/restaurant that we dined at.

On a completely separate note, the Japanese really need to learn how to make a quality toilet... They all suck for different reasons. The classic Japanese toilet is basically just a hole in the ground covered in porcelain. Most homes will have a normal seeming toilet, but don't be fooled. Yes, many of them have a Startrek amount of buttons on them, but sometimes theres not enough water in the bowl, or it doesn't flush properly. Its probably a conspiracy to keep people from flushing their trash when they miss that special Monday....

Sometimes this passes as a toilet around here..