Stubbing your toe on the language barrier.

I've had some time to settle in by now, and I'm pretty much found a groove (or 'rut' if you're feeling pessimistic) to life here in a new place. As I mentioned earlier, Nogata really is a lot more 'relaxed' than Sasebo; both in terms of the job, and the place itself.

That means I have time for a lot of things that all too often went by the wayside before; I peruse the newspaper every day, along with finding time to read actual books (I'm on 'The Island of Dr. Moreau' right now, it's really good!) I stroll home after work because I'm not in a hurry to be anywhere and I like the journey, and sometimes I just sit outside on a park bench near my apartment with a cold cola or beer and watch the clouds roll over the mountains. It's all very zen.

The clouds scrape the mountains near my apartment. I can only imagine how picturesque the scene would be without the power lines.

Of course Sasebo is still there if there's a desperate need for crazy parties; I went back for the past two weekends, and while I'd love to say the place has changed dramatically... well, it really hasn't. This is probably a good thing, since the people I knew and loved are still just as loveable as ever. I admit to even being slightly entranced by the continuing soap-opera-esque drama that seems to envelop the town; no details here ('cause I never kiss and type) but congratulations to those who hooked up, commiserations to the post-break up crowd (You're better off, trust me) and 'good luck' the the rest of the population just trying to stay out of the line of fire- you'll need it.

At work, sports-day preparations continue apace; with lots more marching, banging of drums, practicing of dancing, rope tugging and the like; I finally got assigned a 'block' today (it's like a 'house'... y'know, like Harry Potter) I'm on team 'white' (yeah... RACIST right?) :P Anyway, I immediately got drafted into the 'ball scramble' team on the basis of height alone. Better than being on the Kibusen team I guess; that just looks scary.

I had something of an attitude adjustment a few days back regarding my approach to Japanese language learning. During my previous time I really did take an 'osmotic' approach to the language, soaking up a little here and there when and where I deemed it particularly useful, interesting and/or hilarious. There really didn't seem much need to go beyond that, particularly when the population of foreigners had ensured widespread adoption of English, and the use of Japanese was outright forbidden at work.

Now however it's a different story; In a place that often lacks English signage, populated by people who are truly and overwhelmingly monolingual I find myself constantly forced into impromptu games of charades to get anything beyond the simplest thought or request across. While in English I'm a tertiary-level language major who eats discourse, commentary and criticism for breakfast, in Japanese I'm about as accomplished as a crack-head barely holding down a job in a grimy convenience store- you know the one, the guy who can answer 'yes' and 'no', count to ten and ask if you want your insta-burrito heated, but can only manage a 'huh?' when you ask him what he thinks the weather will be like this afternoon.

My shoe locker in the staff lobby at Noko; at least I can write my name (well, most of the time).

Frankly, it's frustrating; I'm sick of dragging the office secretary to the fax machine because I can't read what any of the buttons say, I'm sick of giving questioning looks to friendly staff members who are trying to ask me questions that any Japanese kindergarten kid would be able to answer and I'm sick of asking 'do you like karaoke?' because it's one thing I can say fluently. It's time to do what no person who's not actively enrolled in an educational institution should have to do-

It's time to study.

Tonight's 'strange Japanese product' award goes to this new variety of 'No Calorie' (known as 'Diet' elsewhere) Coca-Cola + (PLUS!) Vitamin. No telling *which* vitamin they put in there, but the stuff tastes the same to me.

And so, armed with two phrasebooks, a Japanese/English dictionary (thanks Taea!), some self-made flash cards and a buncha free time I'm gonna try and crack this thing open; I'm putting in a few hours and work and some extra at night. This, combined with the fact that I'm freakin' living in Japan hopefully means I should be able to muster some proficiency within a reasonable timeframe. I'm aiming to be as smart as a 1st grader within 6 months. I'm asking you to hold me to it people.

And with that, ja matte for now; I'm going to review my particles.

Shaun.

Flyers? Japanese? Kickball!

My, what an active few days; there’s been the standard rigmarole of work which never fails to keep one buzzing of course, but this week I had things shaken up a bit by the beginning of a series of trips down to the local university to do ‘promotional work’, ‘promotional work’ in this case is a super-secret codephrase that translates to ‘hand out flyers’. Ok, it’s not exactly what I imagined myself doing when I was riding the plane on the way over here, but it’s actually kinda fun it’s own way; I mean, you nod, smile and say ‘Hello, how are you?’ about 48 zillion times and shove flyers into the hands of university students. Personally I’d prefer to be giving out tissues, because that would be uniquely Japanese, but hell I’ll take what I can get, and a bit of overtime never goes astray right?

I finally went to my first Japanese lesson on Friday too, well at least my first Japanese lesson that actually involves sitting in a classroom and doing exercises; it’s not like I never get a chance to practice after all. It was fun, I learnt all about introducing myself and saying basic stuff like ‘Hello’ and ‘Goodbye’, which was nice because I already knew most of it, so I felt like I was doing really well. I’m sure it’ll be harder next week though. It made me feel slightly guilty about my paycheck too, I pay 500 yen for a months tuition by dedicated volunteers who come in on their day off to help poor people like me make their way in the country. That’s genuine altruism yo.

It’s been a week of firsts, I also went to my first AEON kickball game this weekend… that’s right, kickball; that game we used to play in primary school. It’s back baby, laced with an attractive new coating of beer and karaoke after parties. Anyway, I’ve decided that kickball is indeed a fantastic sport and I’ve decided that my co-workers are all ultra-cool. They must all have hearts of gold to give me a standing ovation for my inebriated rendition of ‘In the Navy’ (a song, I wisely avoid back in Sasebo on account of the local demographic). Bonus props to Mitsumi too for letting me sleep on her floor instead of Fukuoka central park.

Katy and Mitsumi on the field of kickball glory (otherwise known as Ohashi Koen) representing the US and Canada respectively. They both kick balls most admirably.

Best of all, my travel was all paid for, on account of my visa needing to be re-designated; ok, so sitting in the immigration office is never fun; but I’ll take my breaks where I can get them, besides it gave me an excuse to hang around and shop for the rest of the day, which is something I never really get sick of in Fukuoka (wooo! All you can eat engrish T-shirts!)

Go team Kareoke! Singing, dancing, teaching English... is there anything we can't do?

So by now obviously I’m kinda wiped, and yet I have to get back to work tomorrow… yike, oh well… maybe watching ‘Columbo’ tonight will refresh my tired brain… he’s even more hilarious in dubbed Japanese!

Kick on world,

Shaun.

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!

Paperwork and Phraseology

I mailed off my final paperwork to AEON today and dropped down a ridiculous amount of money to fly into another hemisphere (how much can jet fuel, freeze-dried food and those crappy in-flight magazines cost anyway?) So barring some giant problem with my Visa I'm pretty much locked-in... like on one of those rides at theme-parks, the ones that semi-frequently explode spreading mayhem and blood all over the general candy-floss munching populace...

Anyway, 35 days to go (not that I'm counting... much) and I've still got a bunch to organise; finishing up with my visa, cataloging my clothing requirements, buying a years supply of deodorant (I'm not kidding, the manual says that Japanese deodorant is totally weak), setting up my laptop and choosing what CDs to take... not to mention planning my going-away party (suggestions gratefully received).

I'm still vaguely trying to learn Japanese, and I have a grasp of some basic/useful phrases: "Iie! go-ryoshin dewa arimasen! Kaishain desu!" ("No! I'm not your mother! I'm a company employee!") It's the written stuff that I'm finding hardest, having to translate not one but THREE different alphabets into romaji (the English syllabic equivalent) and then translate *that* into English is... confusing. Here's hoping I don't die by accidentally ordering/wolfing down octopus balls. :P

Also in the name of 'research' I started reading this novel by Rob Payne called 'Sushi Days', which is about this Canadian guy who goes to work for a English-school called BIGSUN (a shockingly disguised NOVA variant). It's really good and despite the horror described has actually has made me feel somewhat more confident- after all if some fictional Canadian wannabe-DJ can do the job and survive I can too, right?... right?!

Ok... time for me to quit and go to bed, I've got a big day of buying shirts, drinking coffee, phoning consulates, watching movies and whining to friends tomorrow!