New World Order.

Hi! Remember me? Yes, I've been absent for 4 months, which while it doesn't really seem that long in terms of actual linear time, in internet and pop-cultural terms is probably equivalent to the time it took protozoans to turn into amphibians. Consider that at the time of my last post George W. Bush was still running the U.S.A and everyone on Earth could still get a 60 inch plasma TV and an SUV on credit, even if they lived in a cardboard box... seems a while ago, doesn't it?

Truth be told, I had something of a revelation, courtesy of an article by Leonard Twitts Jr. in 'The Daily Yomumuri' wonderfully entitled: 'No Time For Twitter'. (it's here) I think the internet is a great idea, and it’s wonderful that people can share their thoughts and ideas, but do you really need constant on-the-fly updates whenever that guy you once talked to once for a few hours flying from London to Frankfurt has a toothache? In more personally relevant terms, do you really want to hear what kind of fish I get in my bento every day?

I started blogging, because I moved to Japan, and my logic went that it’d be a lot easier to just write about how things were once, rather than sending endless e-mails and accidently leaving people out. I figured there’d be endless wacky tales to relate and strange things to photograph, and that life over here would miraculously always provide a wellspring of subjects of universal interest.

The thing is, life just isn’t wacky and ‘different’ anymore; after 2 + years the endless stream of crazy cartoon mascots, horrendous public displays of English grammar and esoteric supermarket products just seem… normal. I still raise my eyebrows on an all too regular basis, but the thing is that ‘life in Japan’, just doesn’t seem to warrant the wordcount that it used to.

So, I’m gonna shift the focus, and try to get more ‘idea focused’; less ‘I did/saw/went to…’ and more ‘have you thought about…’ perhaps. Of course, I’ll keep putting up photos of stuff that makes me giggle, and you’ll likely see a lot of cross-cultural musing (there’s no escaping thinking about where you are after all). But I’m gonna cut back on the pictures of shrines and ‘I went to the pub and…’ stories, unless specifically requested. Don’t worry, I’m sure you can still fill all your ‘scenery of Japan’ photo cravings with a quick web search.

Back from the carbonite (yet again),

Shaun.

My desk on an average workday. Note the preponderance of manga and the lack of actual work.

Mr. ALT, *this* is your life.

It's been a while again, but this time I'm really gonna protest against being called lazy... I've genuinely been wanting to get into 'cyberspace', 'the blogosphere', 'the cloud'... whatever people are calling wherever this action (typing something that will eventually be made available on the Internet) places me... for a while now. I just haven't had much of anything to write about, and seeing as I'm not one of those people who likes linking news stories or youtube content and adding commentary (Because frankly, I just don't feel comfortable espousing a solution to the subprime mortgage crisis or the Iraq/Afghanistan conflict) it's left me somewhat short of content.

So... I figured I'd give you all (uhhh... all *what*? 5 of you?) a 'day in the life' type summary of what it's like to be me; the life of the quintessential ALT.

6:50AM- Wake up to J-Pop themed phone alarm, stumble blearily from luft-bed trying to avoid ankle sprains or other injury on the stairs. Open the curtains and curse loudly if it is raining again.

7:15AM- Post shower, shave and smacking head on bathroom door consume breakfast; possibly one or a combination of the following: bananas, toast made in the microwave, last nights sushi (retrieved from fridge), yogurt (or yogurt/jelly substance of unknown origin), orange juice, milk, anime-themed cereal.

7:30AM- Leave apartment, consider riding bike if dry otherwise resolutely pop umbrella and trek bravely into monsoonal conditions.

8:00- Arrive at Noko. Smile broadly and yell a combination of 'Ohayo Gazimasu!' and 'Good Morning!' at arriving staff and students to reaffirm 'happy/crazy foreigner' rep. Switch out outside shoes for indoor shoes in staff lobby.

The gates of Noko. The giant clock that greets latecomers with an analog representation of their failure in punctuality is a nice touch.

8:03- Arrive in staff room, continue to say 'Ohayo Gazimasu' constantly to fellow staff while weaving towards desk. Sign up for bento (lunch) on the sign up sheet, dig in wallet for business card when failing to remember how to write your name in katakana (AGAIN).

8:30- Morning staff meeting; stand, bow, sit. Listen to the Vice Principal and various other staff members make announcements and report news, nod attentively and pretend to at least partially understand, clap when appropriate.

8:40- Homeroom. You have no homeroom. Pour a cup of percolator coffee and drink slowly while reexamining the schedule you have memorised. Choose between making flashcards for Japanese study later in the day, reviewing flashcards you already made or reading a few more pages of 'Lonely Planet's guide to Hiking in Japan'.

9:00- First Period. Think about what classes you have tomorrow. Plan, make, and print necessary materials after discussion with the Japanese teacher in question. Alternatively, use the same activity you did yesterday/last week, print the necessary materials and debate with the geography teacher over which Michael Crichton novel is best.

10:00- Second Period. Go to class, nurse somewhat tender hand after high fiving every second student you cross paths with on the way. Greet class, and ask a random person 'how are you?' Appeal to Japanese teacher to explain why the answer 'rain' is not appropriate. Make class repeat key phrases and do a carefully planned activity. Try to keep a straight face when random students (boys and girls) respond with 'I love you!' to questions they don't understand.

11:00- Third Period. Return to the staff room, spend a few minutes studying/practicing Japanese, then make some tea and sit down with the newspaper and get up to date on all the ways the world is going to hell. Silently wonder if you are the only person on the planet who has never actually heard what Sarah Palin's voice sounds like.

12:00- Forth Period. Finish the newspaper cover to cover (even the Sumo news). Return to your desk and practice some more Japanese. When stomach noise becomes audible cave in to temptation and sit down with your bento box. Have fun guessing the identity of the various meat, fruits and vegetables you are eating, and indeed which are which. Briefly feel morally superior to your colleagues due to your use of non-disposable chopsticks, lose the feeling when you realise that you've been given disposables again and they're gonna get tossed anyway.

1:00- Lunchtime. Pour another cup of tea and sit down with staff, attempt to practice your Japanese by joining conversations about which students are most delinquent and whose mother-in-law the most intolerable. Tell the staff about your past and plans for the weekend. Field basic questions about the Western world as a whole.

2:00-Fifth Period. Teach again, assemble materials and go to class, 'help' the Japanese teacher by translating their readily understood Japanese instructions (open your books, stand up etc) into English that the students don't understand. Practice pronunciation and try to make students say 'clothes' instead of 'clothezez'. Have an activity, explain it, have the Japanese teacher explain it, model it and then heap praise on the 25% of students that perform it successfully, more praise on the 60% that try and fail and attempt to look disappointed at the 15% that use the worksheet as a fan as they talk to their friends.

3:00- Sixth Period. Go to locker room and change into PE gear. Go to gymnasium and join in whatever class happens to be in session. Watch kids giggle as you routinely fail to get the ball in the basket or whatever. Use your height to unfair advantage as much as possible and celebrate victory in a completely overblown fashion.

3:50- Cleaning time. Go out and supervise kids while they clean the school. Practice your Japanese by mocking them incessantly for failing to actually do any cleaning. Have basic conversations and teach kids ridiculous handshakes. Fend off girls attempting to solicit your phone number and/or organise coffee dates.

4:10- Seventh (extra) Period. Return to staff room and fill out daily work report. Clean up your desk and think about what you need to do when you get home. Make lists as necessary.

4:30- Say goodbye to colleagues and leave. Walk out yelling goodbye and waving to students as you do so. When clear of the school gates strategically loosen tie and tune into mp3 player.

5:10- Arrive back at apartment. Change into civilian clothes, fire up computer and munch a few cookies to revive flagging blood sugar levels. Sign into facebook, g-mail and blogspot and hammer out wordage as appropriate. Try to ignore the implications of cyber-dependence and thank god again that you don't have a World of Warcraft account to worry about.

6:00- Domestic time- washing, cleaning, ironing, tidying. Turn up the music and attempt to find satisfaction in sanitising your domestic realm. Fail again.

7:00- Shopping. Wander over to AEON, head straight to the sushi section and grab whatever's left now that it's late enough for it to all be half price. Do the same with the milk and whatever desert will hit its use by date in 2 days. Feel awesome about rorting 'the system'. Briefly feel morally superior about using eco-bags, but then lose the feeling when you see that every cookie in the bag is individually wrapped. If you encounter students pretend it is the most exciting thing that happened to you in months. Dodge hugs from schoolgirls by high-fiving when they approach with open arms.

7:30- Return to apartment. Make an enlightened choice between watching TV, DVDs or something on the Internet or perhaps even reading or playing a computer game. Eat and drink as you partake in such activity, try your hand at multitasking by managing more than one recreational activity at a time. Text-messaging, eating, watching TV and saving the planet from space aliens simultaneously will surely be a marketable skill someday.

More of the Shinkansen girl, here in her Autumn getup. I'm still waiting for a Pachinko machine to be made out of this ad series.

10:30- Get into bed and possibly read something deep and mentally nourishing... or whatever you can get your hands on that happens to be in English. It may end up being a bilingual pamphlet about trafficking in human sex-slaves.

And that's about it! Wash, rinse and repeat! Maybe next time I'll write something about the 'average' weekend. Right now though I'm off schedule; and those DVDs don't watch themselves ya know...

Ciao for niao!

Blog defrosting.

Right, so it's been forever since I wrote anything on here. In fact I'm pretty sure you could have written a screenplay called 'Kanji for Beginners'; pitched it to some studio execs and singed a bunch of A-listers and made a movie about some guy who was out of his depth in Japan in the time it's been between posts. Come to think of it, why hasn't someone done that?

My official excuse is that my computer melted, I got coerced/seduced into facebook, got a girlfriend and was otherwise too busy having adventures to actually write about them.

Or you could just say I got slack. That's accurate too.

Anyway; since I'm heading back to Japan I figured I'd give this another shot. Maybe this time with a preponderance of free evenings and some zappy 'can-do' spirit (the sort I'm telling myself will be engendered by work in the public education service) I'll manage to stay on top of the chronicle this time around.

Right; so I've got a new layout inspired (read: stolen) by (from) the work of Japanese manga genius Kiyohiko Azuma. I've got a new laptop, a new haircut, a new apartment, a new job and a new town to work in. I also have new anxiety and old foibles. But whatever; I'll deal.

My new job involves teaching high-school kids in a town called Nogata, Fukuoka prefecture. Don't know where that is? Let me help.


Right, so now you all know enough to come and visit, I promise spare futons for all! (crazy random internet people excepted: please apply elsewhere). Not sure if you want to visit? Here are some fun facts to encourage you:

- Nogata used to be a coal mining town.
- There is a coal mining museum in Nogata.
- I will be living in Nogata.

Most importantly:

- Nogata is near Fukuoka.

I have also developed a methodically planned 'to do' list, to maximise my 'Japan time'. Notable aspirations include:

- Spending an entire day in an onsen and seeing if I feel better or worse afterwards.
- Going to a Puffy AmiYumi concert.
- Finding a Japanese person who not only has heard of, but likes 'Azumanga Daioh'
- Devising a plan to somehow get paid to lie on a beach in Okinawa
- Going a week without eating out of a convienience store
- Keeping this blog semi-regular.
- Upholding the ideals of the founders of the United Nations.
- Bringing peace to the Korean pennisula

If anyone has any other suggestions or ideas I'd be very happy to hear them; otherwise, start booking those tickets; I need company!

Shaun(y).

Translations For the Lost.

2 days 'til I fly, fly away to this mystical land called 'Japan' where I'm told I'm sure to be amazed, get married, 'experience an engaging blend of old and new' (I stole that from the AEON website), and binge drink. Excited? Yeah. Kinda terrified beyond belief? Ummm... lotsa yeah.

Anyway, I've managed to fight off the mind-numbing fear enough to actually get ready, I've gotta go get a haircut, pack a bit more, go out for dinner with my family one last time this year and choose an outfit to wear on my jet-plane odyssey. *gulp* Here's hoping I can actually calm down enough to actually sleep and stop manically trying to memorise my entire phrasebook before then.

I had an (off-line) request the other day to explain the headings of the page-elements on the left; yes, they're all in Japanese (or at least romaji) because we all know that using a foreign language to write artsy/obvious things makes your site 47% cooler, right?

- 'Mihari Kaki Dokei' means 'watching the clock' (y'know, like you used to/do in class) kinda appropriate huh? 'Cause that's obviously what you're doing if you're looking there.

- 'Kikan Onden Na' is 'temperate period', which is more hopeful than predictive; I'm hoping that after a week of seeing a perpetual 'storm cloud' on the forecast the irony of the caption might raise a smile.

- 'Shaun's Soramimi' can be translated as 'Shaun's ears playing tricks' or 'Shaun's misheard lyrics' depending on your preference. Anyway, it illustrates my constantly changing playlist nicely, as well as acting as another Azumanga Daioh reference (the theme song to the anime being the infectiously boppy Soramimi Cake)

- 'Sukina Toshokan Desu' means 'my library of favourites', quite simple really.

- 'Mugen Chishiki Kai' translates as 'endless sea of knowledge' which is the sort of laughably optimistic view of the internet that hasn't prevailed since it was still being used to fight the Cold War. 'Mugen Hentai Kai' (endless sea of perversion) might be more appropriate, but since I'm not linking porn I'll stick with what I've got.

- 'Shima Hanashi' means 'island talk' (it can also mean 'stripe conversation', but let's ignore that) Japan is an island (a chain of them actually), I am talking... witness my awesome logic!

- 'Ningen Yoso' is 'human factor', because what would a blog be without a blogger? Another ghost-blog is what!

And finally, the title; most people know that 'Kanji' are the Chinese characters used in the Japanese writing system, but did you also know that the word can mean 'feeling', 'perception' or 'impression'? Any of which placed before 'For Beginners' sounds very avant-garde (or perhaps just massively pretentious). Duality of meaning! Subtext! Maybe all those thousands of dollars spent on that English major weren't wasted after all!

Ok, explanation over; there are now offically no more mysteries to reveal and we can all move along; travel safe!

90% Inspiration, 10% Inovation, 26.2% Fluffy Bunnies

If you try hitting that 'next blog; button at the top of this page, chances are you'll rapidly be amazed, flummoxed, annoyed or incredulous; there's a dizzying array of purposes and personalities out there.

Of course, I'm hardly the first (or probably even the thousandth) person to start a blog about going to a foreign land. The novelty of the concept itself has assuredly vanished, and if you read enough of them even the content seems to repeat itself; rants about language barriers, jokes about vending machines, photos of bizarrely translated (or just plain bizarre) English signage.

All the same, some of the musings of these people manages to provide an engaging reading/viewing experience; I've collected some links to what I think are the most engaging such sites out there; Think of them as my 'esteemed contemporaries':

An Englishman in Osaka : He's English, he's a man and he's in Osaka. He also happens to have a great website devoted to his quirky (and very English) perception of Japan's second largest city. His photographic finds in particular are priceless.

Gaijin Smash! : You've possibly heard of this one before, seeing as it's something of a minor 'internet legend'; and possibly the 'original' (or at least most well known) 'American guy in Japan' blog. It probably helps that it's also really well written and consistently interesting.

Sushi and Maple Syrup : This one has a particular resonance with me, since Mr. LaFleur also served time as an AEON employee, in his two years he made a bunch of friends, skied a lot and got married. Yikes! :P Obviously that kind of adventure makes for some great stories. His photos are also excellent.

Tokyo Times : Ok, this one is technically cheating since it's not a 'blog' per-se, still it's far too hilarious to not mention. Few websites as adroitly highlight the 'uniqueness' of Japan as well, and I'd wager that none offer the same laugh/jaw-drop to wordcount ratio that the Tokyo Times does... check out their youtube links if you feel like taking a real head-trip.

As for me, time continues to tick by... the Japanese consulate in Melbourne still has my passport held hostage while they (presumably) verify that I've never been convicted of anything that wasn't a parking offense and/or laugh at my not-exactly-awesome passport photo. The facial holograms built into the new passports are probably a great anti-counterfeiting measure, but they aren't exactly flattering, in fact staring at my own blurry visage makes me feel slightly nauseous. I wonder if that's how I look to people who are inebriated? If so it certainly explains why they would choose my shoes to vomit on.

I went out with my parents to see Miss Potter tonight, and surprise, surprise it actually turned out to be rather good! Not that I have anything against Beatrix Potter (like generations of children in the U.K. her stories formed a cornerstone of my bedtime story material), but period-pieces aren't generally my thing. Ewan McGregor again demonstrated his amazing ability to make just about role interesting, and just about any film watchable (to me, he will forever be remembered as the man who saved Star Wars by steering episodes 1-3 into a controlled crash instead of letting them crater completely). Anyway, the point is, if you like cute bunny drawings, the English countryside, pinafores and Renee Zellweger then check it out, you won't waste your 90 minutes, and if you're one of those people still obsessing over Moulin Rouge then you also get to hear Mr. McGregor sing for a few more seconds... yay! (?)

Right, I'm off to bed, 'cause I have this thrilling plan to start a new book tonight; I'm tossing up between Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata and White Teeth by Zadie Smith... choices, choices...