Life in the Land of the Rising Sun

Saying Goodbye to a Year of Changes

2012-01-16T21:41:00.003+09:00

Finally I have a bit of time to write a long-overdue blog post. Now that the first month of 2012 is half over, I guess I'll take this time to say farewell to the year just ended.

2011. The Year of the Rabbit.

The Year Everything Changed.

I remember that, at this time a year ago, my biggest concern was for my kids; for them 2011 would be the Year of Hell as they prepared to take the entrance examinations necessary to get into the next level of schooling. My son intended to enter the junior high at Ye Olde Academy. My daughter, for various reasons, decided to go for Sawara High School, the highest-level public senior high in our area and Ye Olde Academy's staunchest rival. In any case, it looked to be a year of academic prison for both of them, as pretty much every hour not spent at school, at their cram schools, or in bed would be marked for study, with their mother ready and willing to relieve them of their scalps should they think otherwise. I knew well that it was going to be a heated battle of wills, and there would be lots of family squabbles about the matter, not that tension was new to our household.

As winter neared its end, other issues began to come into focus. I had finally been invited to join the KSJ Special Project (the staff band for the annual Kashima Jazz Festival, itself something of a municipal jazz project for the entire Rokko District of Ibaraki Prefecture) but had yet to attend any of their meetings or rehearsals. Although I was happy to become a part of the team, I had trouble getting my schedule to match theirs. I also continued to give priority to the Kashima Philharmonic Orchestra, and it was hard for me to justify participating in both groups while my wife continued to be insanely busy with her job and at home. Meanwhile, in the Ye Olde Academy Music Club, it became increasingly clear that our peak-level ensembles would soon be losing almost all of their strength with not much left to fill in the gaps. As the March date of the annual Regular Concert drew near, the mood among the teachers that direct the club became increasingly mournful. Mssr. Maestro Ogawa even spoke of putting the club in maintenance mode for the year and terminating all performances. Even as my status on ReverbNation improved, and people were really starting to listen to my music and even request it to be made commercially available, music itself was becoming an increasing source of stress.

The end of winter was also the beginning of the Hikari Wars. As fiber optic cable ("hikari cable") service was FINALLY due to arrive in my neighborhood at the end of February, I suddenly found myself being bombarded by calls from very persistent phone salesmen, all claiming to be proxy firms representing NTT (the Japanese phone company), all sounding suspiciously like the same people, and all trying very hard to railroad me into using an internet provider called iNext. iNext was said to be the fastest-growing company in Japan at the time, but no one seemed to have heard of them, let alone knew anything about them, so I decided to steer clear. They tried all kinds of pushy and unscrupulous tactics to get me to sign up, even telling me at one point that iNext was my only possible choice if I wanted to use fiber optic service. Calls direct to NTT and Yahoo cleared that BS, and soon I had fiber optic phone and internet service of my own choice.

Two weeks later, it was as if the world had ended. With just five minutes left in my last class of the day on March 11, one of the worst earthquakes in Japan's history came as if from nowhere. It brought with it a tsunami of biblical proportions and set in motion a seemingly endless chain reaction of destructive aftershocks. To the north, along the coast of the Tohoku Region, whole cities were erased. Tens of thousands of lives were lost. Here in southeast Ibaraki, we were fortunate in that we just lost our entire infrastructure. Roads were rendered impassable. Bridges collapsed. Water, power, and phone services were knocked out. Unable to leave the school until well into the freezing night, but still not sure of the safety of the buildings, the faculty and students at Ye Olde Academy camped out in a makeshift tent village in the middle of the rugby field. I was finally given clearance to go home, but I arrived to darkness. It would be days before we had power. It was a whole week before we had running water (but we were lucky in that we had a backup well). Even with our utilities restored, food and gasoline were scarce and rationed for over a month. There was also the very real threat of radioactive fallout from the damaged Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant. It was an apocalypse that tested our mettle and reminded us that we should never take anything for granted.

The earthquake disrupted everything in its wake. All March events including graduation ceremonies and our Regular Concert were canceled. The new school year started in April in uncertainty as buildings, nerves, and schedules were patched together. For a while it seemed like everything was paralyzed as we just did our best to function from day to day.

Less than a month into the new school year, the teacher in charge of Grade 9 English told me he was too busy to manage the job himself and asked for my help. When I agreed, he proceeded to put my name down as the person in charge instead of his; while he continued to set policy (mostly in accordance with his philosophies behind my back), I got stuck with the busy work and the reputation...and got constantly railed at and attacked if I did anything except according to his method and schedule. It got old really fast, but the year was still just getting started. Even when my wife's grandmother died in June, leaving me with all kinds of family obligations, I found myself under attack...and the target of a monumental guilt trip for daring to put my "personal affairs" ahead of the "school" (i.e. Grade 9 English chores). There were some screaming battles in the staff room, and I threatened to quit my job more than once, and I was a lot more serious than they probably thought. In the end, I just had to stand my ground where I could and hope we could get things done as reasonably as possible.

The death of my wife's grandmother was in itself a big change in the scheme of things, though not unexpected. Mourning requirements also meant that all trips and celebrations were off for the rest of the year. Not that there was time for any; my daughter discovered that there was no longer any bus service going to Sawara High School from our area, so she switched her target to Ye Olde Academy. That meant a harder entrance exam and even more demanding preparation.

Summer ended, and fall meant the annual School Festival. The class for which I'm assistant homeroom teacher was planning to do a musical. I couldn't wait to help out. Unfortunately, the homeroom teacher and students completely locked me out. (The homeroom teacher said that he was afraid to ask me to do anything, partly because of my higher age and partly because of the screaming fights I'd had with the "chief" English teacher of the grade. As for the students, they just told me not to worry about it.) I was content to focus my efforts on the music club's projects, but I was still very hurt and pissed off about it, and the wound still hasn't fully healed even though I worked well with the class during our grade's trip to Okinawa in October.

Perhaps as a result of all the stress, as well as new interests encountered on Facebook, I finally got myself a genuine tube amp for my guitars. That also encouraged me to do a considerable overhaul of my guitar and studio gear, which meant a mad buying spree. A new guitar would probably still have been more expensive, but I still dropped a lump.

I was finally able to perform with the KSJ Special Project jazz band, and as my activities with them increased, so did my overall standing. Other than the Kashima Jazz Festival in November, perhaps the high point was a Christmas Eve performance I did with them at a jazz club in Kamisu. Together with the pro rhythm section, I improvised on Christmas songs on the spur of the moment...something that had been neither planned nor expected...and kept getting called back to do more impromptu stints in support of other acts. I apparently attracted some attention, and it's hard to say how it'll pan out.

Now we are into 2012. Both my kids passed their entrance exams and will be going to Ye Olde Academy. The Kashima Philharmonic Orchestra was finally able to hold the concert that was supposed to have happened last summer. Meanwhile, I'm told that my job is probably going to change completely when the new school year starts next April. I'm not sure what I'll be doing, and I'm not sure I like the hints I'm getting, but we'll see. At any rate, 2012 is going to be a completely different chapter in my Life in the Land of the Rising Sun. This much is certain.

Happy (belated) New Year, everybody!

The End of a Blue Era?

2011-12-17T12:51:00.004+09:00

I started driving when I was 18 (though the driving age in Oregon is 16), but I didn't get my first car until I was 26, about a year and a half after arriving in Japan. It was one of those tiny, 3-cylinder mini cars you'd never see in the US, though they're quite common here. Specifically, it was a Suzuki Alto, red in color, and already very well used by the time I bought it from a friend for less than a week's pay.

(Yep...it looked just like this!)

You have to understand; those things are not built to last, and considering it was a first generation model (meaning it was at least ten years old when I got it) with a lot of mileage on its odometer, it got howls of surprise every time I took it in for a tuneup or oil change. It did have its share of problems, though, and after I'd loved it, nursed it, and cursed it for a few years it finally just died. (Actually, I have reason to believe that a vindictive punk at a gas station put sugar in my gas tank, but whatever...) Thus I came to buy my second car, which was...another well-used Alto, white in color. Actually, it was an "l'Epo" model, which was a little larger, fancier, and included such luxuries as air conditioning and a tape deck, which were both very welcome.

(It looked more or less like this...though not in such good condition.)

Nevertheless, though I'd bought it from a very reputable mechanic on the recommendation of several people, it turned out to be a bigger headache than the older Alto had been, and repair bills for such things as an exploding timing belt (and related catastrophic engine damage) added up. When its battery died while I was at work, I made the perhaps fortuitous mistake of letting my American manager at the time take it in for repairs while I taught my classes. He allowed the mechanic he'd picked at random to "improve" the car (so he could sell me a larger battery), and it wound up frying the electronics. Next came the Daihatsu Mira, another bare-bones (white) mini car but bought in nearly-new conditon.

(It looked just like this!)

It turned out to be a very good machine, and it never gave me any trouble in three years of use despite my abusive treatment (read "frequent trips to Tokyo on the expressway cruising well above its rated speed"). I probably would have used it for far longer if passenger and cargo space hadn't become an issue. Finally, in 2000, I bought my first new, full-sized car. That was the BLUE RAV4. It has been my faithful friend ever since.

(Here's a snowy shot of my BLUE pal on a snowy day 5 years ago)

Now, perhaps inevitably, it is starting to show its age. After a decade virtually free of any need of repair, let alone major repairs, problems are starting to appear. I guess it all started exactly one year ago, when a broken fan belt pulley required seriously complicated repairs right on Christmas Eve. Now this year, no doubt to some extent because of my having to drive on all those earthquake-damaged roads, I've so far needed:

a complete overhaul of the steering mechanism, which was bent out of shape and partly broken. Some parts had to be replaced,
a thorough examination and adjustment of the brakes, which were making weird noises and not working well. They never did find the cause, and though they're now working better, they're still not quite right...and still making noise,
realignment of the wheels after only a couple of months,
replacement of all four tires, which had become deformed,
a refill of the oil, which was more or less empty only two months after the last change.

Once all these repairs were complete, I was warned in no uncertain terms that, now that the BLUE RAV4 is more than ten years old and has more than 250,000 kilometers on it, the problems are going to start multiplying. This was coupled with a not-so-subtle hint that I should start thinking about getting a new car.

I admit that I have been thinking about it, and now I'm thinking about it more seriously. The question is what model to get. I suppose I could get a new-model RAV4, but there's another type that I'm seriously eyeballing right now. It offers a number of advantages, would be more convenient overall, and would be more economical even with 4WD. I won't say what it is unless I decide to get one. There's just one problem: they don't currently offer it in BLUE.

Catching Up a Bit

2011-12-12T16:39:00.003+09:00

Good grief (if there is such a thing)...it has been more than a month since I've updated this blog. I guess the Okinawa posts wore me out. Either that or I'm spending wayyyyyy too much time on Facebook. Actually, it's probably both. For now, at least, I'll just try to catch up on recent events for the sake of my readers here who DON'T use Facebook.

Part One: Kashima Jazz vol. 8
They stopped calling it the Kashima Seaside Jazz Festival last year; now it's simply "Kashima Jazz". This year's installment happened on November 19th. As usual, it was a six-hour marathon of music combining pro and amateur acts. As usual, I gave the DJ-style opening greeting. As usual, my school jazz band, the Flying Eggheads, made an appearance. As usual, by sheer dumb luck (though it seems to happen every year), the event coincided with an important event at Ye Olde Academy, making our participation a complicated, migraine-inducing mess.

There was one important difference this year. Although I've always participated in the Festival as director of the Flying Eggheads, and have done various things in support of the event and its staff, this was the first time that I was actually a member of the staff. I was asked to join after last year's event, and though I told them my participation would be limited at best, I've still appeared with them in a number of small concerts over the past year. I also took the stage with KSJ Special Project, the staff band, as the opening act. We had a professional rhythm section, and I stood in the front row together with our band captain (a saxophone teacher and quite a talented player) and a pro tenor sax player. I suppose I had cause to be a little intimidated, and I can't really say it was my best performance, but I had a very good time.

The other acts included a couple of combos, some of whose members were part of the KSJ SP performance, a rather avantgarde ensemble that included violin, accordion, hand percussion, piano and poetry, among other things, and a civic youth band from Shizuoka. The headlining act (which wasn't last) was a well-known pro pianist who graduated from the Berklee College of Music. Backed by an excellent trio with an American drummer, she played long, complicated arrangements of well-known tunes that often included several pieces stacked together if not mixed. The concert bill was finalized by my own Flying Eggheads who, though they are rather weak and inexperienced now, turned in by far their best performance of the year; they were clearly excited and in the groove, and I could tell they were thrilled when it was done.

Part Two: Speaking of Music...
I've been putting as much time into my home studio as I can, and all the new gear I've bought is getting used quite a bit. I'm still not satisfied with it, and will probably get a few more items in the near future, but I'm still able to do a lot more now than I used to be. Even so, I have yet to come up with anything that I'd consider suitable for next year's Torycon (All Japan Amateur Recording Contest). After having been selected as a Judge's Pick this year, I'm giving it a lot more thought...though that might end up working against me. Maybe I'll try remaking some older stuff.

Part Three: Down in the Old Homestead
Frankly speaking, I'm fed up with being an education family, which was never my idea to begin with. All those trips hauling the kids back and forth between home and their cram school lessons are eating up a helluva lot of time, not to mention gasoline. Those still earthquake-damaged roads in the Hinode area near the cram school haven't exactly been good for my BLUE RAV4, either. I've already had to have bent stabilizer rods for the steering system replaced. Five months after my mandatory vehicle inspection, my alignment is clearly off, there are friction noises coming from one of the wheels, and the brakes are being goofy. The cram school headmaster says that both my kids will have no problem getting into Ye Olde Academy, but I have to say I hope it'll be worth even have the cost.

There has also been a price in terms of family stability. My wife in particular is very stubborn about my kids' study habits (read "She won't let them have lives until the tests are done"). The kids, on the other hand, are clearly fed up. We basically can't do anything. We can't even watch videos. My "to be watched" pile is still piled high and will probably only get higher until the entrance exams are done with. It has been kind of frustrating, and there has been a lot of tension.

Meanwhile, my wife's stress over her job has been mounting, while my own job situation has also been very tense. She keeps having other teachers' work dumped on her, for which she rarely gets any credit, and the products of those efforts quite often wind up being ignored. In my case, all the reasons for which I was initially hired by Ye Olde Academy, my main reasons for being there in the first place, are slowly and quietly being taken away. Right now I have no idea at all what I'm going to be doing next year, and I don't like the way things are shaping up. The work atmosphere at the school has been sucking, too, and the tension is seriously starting to get to me. I can't really imagine doing anything else at this point, but to be honest I'm not sure how much of this I can take.

Don't even get me started about my father-in-law...

Anyway, if something post-worthy comes up, I'll put something more substantial on here. For the time being, however, this will have to do.

The 2011 Okinawa Trip, Day Four

2011-11-04T11:37:00.008+09:00

(Sorry about the long delay between Day Three and Day Four...; life got in the way again.)

It is said that there have been human inhabitants on the Ryukyu Islands for more than 32,000 years. It's not certain when a Japanese-speaking culture became dominant, but the local tongue diverged from Yamato Japanese sometime before the 7th century to become the Ryukyuan language (now referred to as "Okinawa dialect", though it is a distinct language). It wasn't until the 12th century that true rulers with organized forces appeared, and a couple hundred years of squabbling between them finally ended with the victory of King Sho Hashi and the establishment of the peaceful Ryukyu Kingdom in the 14th century.

Traditional Ryukyuan buildings looked more Chinese than Japanese, and for a good reason. The old Ryukyu Kingdom maintained very close cultural, commercial, and political ties with both Korea and China and was a vassal of the latter. Even after the Satsuma invasion in the 17th century, which brought the Ryukyus under Japanese control, the Ryukyu king continued to give tribute to and hold audience with the Chinese Emperor clear until the Meiji Restoration in the late 1860's asserted the absolute rulership of the Japanese Emperor.

Even today, buildings with traditional Okinawa-style roofs are clearly different from their mainland Japanese counterparts. Not only are the tiles usually a sandy color rather than gray or red-brown, but they are firmly cemented together. (Refer to the pics of Ryukyu Village in Day One for examples.) This makes perfect sense considering Okinawa gets far more typhoons than any other part of Japan.

Sadly, also because of the often violent weather, traditional-style buildings have disappeared from Okinawa even more quickly than in the Japanese mainland. The overwhelming majority of homes in better-developed areas are brick or cement boxes with flattish roofs.

Even so, there are distinct Okinawan features even in modern homes in Naha like this one. Note the statues on the roof over the front porch. They are shi-sa, a sort of demon lion/dog from Okinawan mythology. Ancient houses used to have them on their roofs as a sort of talisman to ward off evil. Nowadays, it is quite common for homes to have them on their gateposts or over their front doors, as can be seen here. Shi-sa usually come in pairs, one with its mouth open, the other with its mouth closed. (It's believed that one of each is best because the one with an open mouth will spread good tidings, whereas the one with its mouth closed doesn't spread evil gossip.) There is no equivalent on the Japanese mainland.

There are other differences to be found, as well. For example, Okinawan houses are almost always of a very pale color if not white. The reason is simple: lighter colors reflect the intense subtropical sun and help keep the home cooler. Virtually every home also has a tank on the roof to collect rainwater since fresh water is rather scarce and wells are almost useless in many areas.

Tamaudun
Our visit to Okinawa is near its end. We have only to take a brief tour of a couple of famous and historically significant landmarks before heading to the airport. First on the agenda is the ancient Royal Mausoleum known as "Tamaudun".

Tamaudun was built at the start of the 16th century as a tomb for the kings of the Second Sho Dynasty by the third one of that line. Interestingly, the Second Sho Dynasty had no ties whatsoever to King Sho Hashi at all; rather, it was started by a usurper who had overthrown the throne (overthrone the thrown?) but had assumed the Sho name out of respect for tradition (and a healthy fear of China).

Here's a view from just outside the outer wall. The mausoleum was actually carved directly into the rock and then walls built around it.

This stone tablet, said to be the second oldest known surviving example of its kind, bears the names of people who were deemed worthy to pass through the gate into the inner keep of the mausoleum without facing divine wrath. We ignored it and went through the gate anyway.

The eastern chamber, at left, contains(?) the washed bones of the king and queen. The center chamber, to the right of the tower (crowned by a shi-sa, another of which is out of view to the left), was a temporary tomb where bodies were placed in coffins until the bone-washing ceremony could take place.

The western chamber was where the remains of other members of the royal family or important people were placed.

The tombs were crafted to look like ordinary, wooden buildings though they are of stone...and very gloomy looking. Not so the place we went next...

Shurijo
Shurijo, or Shuri Castle, was the seat of power of the Ryukyu Kingdom from the time of its establishment by King Sho Hashi in the 14th century until Emperor Meiji put it under Imperial control in 1879, bringing the kingdom to an end. After the Ryukyu king was forced away to Tokyo to serve as an ambassador and a hostage, Shuri Castle was turned into the command center for the Imperial garrison overseeing the newly-declared Okinawa Prefecture.

Unfortunately, though Shuri Castle had been designated a national historic treasure well before World War II, the Imperial Army continued to use it as its headquarters in Okinawa. During the battle, the massive castle walls held off the American attack until the entire complex was blasted to rubble by a three-day bombardment from the battleship U.S.S. Mississippi.

The castle had apparently been destroyed and rebuilt several times during its lifetime, but after the war the site was used to construct the University of the Ryukyus. Then, just before Okinawa's reversion to Japanese administration, the university was relocated, and the final reconstruction of Shuri Castle was begun in earnest. Using a combination of old drawings and photos, historical records, and the memories of survivors, the entire complex was restored, culminating in the completion of the rebuilt main keep (seiden) in 1992. In 2000 Shuri Castle was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

* * *

Arrival at the last stop on our Okinawa tour proves to be difficult. As I feared, since Shuri Castle is one of the biggest attractions on this island, everyone and his shi-sa is here. All of the upper parking areas are packed, and the innovative underground garage for tour buses is also backed up. Basically, our buses have to wait in line, dump us off, and leave.

After that, we gather in front of the famous Shureimon gate, the front entrance to the castle complex which was also the first of its features rebuilt after World War II. (I don't have a pic I can post here, since all the ones I took show students' faces, so please check out the link.) Then we have only to wait our turn.

At least our wait has the luxury of some pretty flowers with lots of colorful butterflies flitting about them. (It's a shame I can't post the pic I took of a girl with a striking black and orange butterfly perched on her ponytail...) Finally, after what I fancied might be long enough to reconstruct yet another castle structure, we were finally let in. Thus began The Traversing of the Gates.

One of the features of Shuri Castle is its many gates. You have to pass through six of them to get to the inner keep. The outermost ones, not counting Shureimon, are stone arches with narrow wooden defensive structures on top. This one, Zuisenmon, consists of a larger wood structure straddling two limestone walls.

By the time you get to the inner parts, the gates are all wood, such as Koufukumon here, which also served as a residence for one of the magistrates during the Ryukyu era.

By the time you get to Koufukumon, you're rewarded with a wonderful view of the surrounding city. The building in the center of the pic is the Okinawa College of Art, which has traditional Okinawan tile roofs.

Finally...the inner keep (seiden) itself! It shows the Chinese influence on Okinawan architecture more than anything else in the castle complex...but I absolutely CANNOT get a good pic of it. It's certainly a lot bigger than it looks in this shot. Part of the problem is all the temporary structures they have set up for some kind of event. Another problem is that it's hard to find a clear view between all the tour groups. (This pic is the luckiest shot I manage to get before I'm dragged off to yet another obligatory group shot and then jostled between two more school groups.)(Please...check out the link!)(Here's one that also shows some traditional Okinawan-style tile roofs.)

The restored throne room inside the inner keep is sure impressive...far more colorful than anything I've seen in any other Japanese castle. Luckily, photos are allowed in this room.

Interestingly, there are places in the walls where new (or at least "newer") construction was built on top of older remains.

Finally...the march back down to the buses. This is NOT my school group. I got separated.

There are still some places where it looks like more reconstruction may happen in the future. Interesting how lost relics of the past might reappear in the future.

I finally find my school group down in the gift shop circle (Figures...) together with at least a dozen other school groups plus a lot of independent tourists. There we wait until our buses are able to get back into the parking garage. Then we board our buses for the last time and make the journey to the airport.

The airport ordeal is uneventful. The flight is smooth, easy, and quick. The bus ride back to Ye Olde Academy is an ear-splitting explosion of "glad to be home" jubilation, class camaraderie, and off-key singing. Delivering the kids to their parents in the south parking lot is the usual frosty chaos. As for me, I'm feeling the usual after-trip blues but focusing on trying to find wayward wanderers...and being ignored. Nothing new here. Move along...move along...

The trip is over. The kids have tomorrow off. Not me, though...I still have a class full of 11th graders to teach. I also have my Halloween preparations to take care of over the course of two days...in a country where Halloween is only barely acknowledged. Maybe I'll be lucky and manage to squeeze in just a bit of rest before Monday calls me out yet again.

THE END

The 2011 Okinawa Trip, Day Three

2011-10-31T18:08:00.012+09:00

First...a Bit of History
After Emperor Meiji succeeded in removing the shoguns from power and reasserting imperial control toward the end of the 19th century, he set in motion a plan to reconstruct the country along more Western lines. The dialect of Tokyo was made the official language, and systems of administration and education were established based mainly on the British model. Efforts were made to adapt western technology and ways of thinking. One of the more significant of the latter was the concept of nationalism, i.e. loyalty to the nation and its sovereign rather than to a local lord. For perhaps the first time in Japanese history, the whole concept of being "Japanese" became a serious issue...and in some cases a divisive one.

Surprise military successes against China and Russia at the beginning of the 20th century caused the new nationalism to become even stronger and more militant. Ironically, though Japan entered WWI on the Allied side against Germany under newly-crowned Emperor Taisho, his weak rule gave rise to an explosion of democracy and intellectualism...and foreign debt. This changed quickly with the rise of Emperor Showa (Hirohito) at the end of the 1920's; determined not to let Imperial Japan fall under Western colonialism, he set the boots of militarism marching again, and democracy was quickly trampled underfoot. Soon the government was dominated by the military (as it had been under the shoguns). Schools were gradually turned into patriotic brainwashing camps. Harassment of people who spoke anything but the national tongue (i.e. Tokyo dialect) was institutionalized. Intellectuals and dissenters were often brutally intimidated if not accused of treason. The Shinto religion, including the worship of the Emperor as a god, became obligatory. Dissent in the occupied territories was cruelly crushed, which also helped feed the imperial ambitions of the military government.

In 1931, in response to a staged provocation, Japan invaded and occupied Manchuria. Then it began a series of border wars with the Soviet Union. The West responded by imposing sweeping economic sanctions on Japan coupled with a demand that the Japanese military be vastly downsized. Japan refused to give in, resulting in a decade of economic hardship and growing poverty which only fed the militarist sentiment. Finally, on December 8, 1941 (Japan time), multiple attacks were launched against the Pacific forces of the US and Britain. Thus began the Pacific War.

At first the forces of Imperial Japan were virtually unstoppable, and they claimed victory after victory against the Western colonial powers in the Pacific. However, only half a year after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Admiral Yamamoto's dire predictions came true; the "sleeping enemy" woke up, and with the somewhat miraculous victory at the Battle of Midway, the US turned the tide of the war for good.

Now America was unstoppable, and as the flag of the Rising Sun fell inexorably closer to home, the Japanese reasoned an invasion on their soil was inevitable. They also reasoned correctly that the Americans would try to take Okinawa first to use as a staging ground. Thus began a major defensive operation that was never meant to succeed. Indeed, Imperial Japan intended to use Okinawa only as a giant land mine, sacrificing it and its people in a hopeless war of attrition meant only to delay the enemy while defensive preparations were carried out on the mainland. Only a relatively small, token Imperial Army force remained in Okinawa. Meanwhile, the Okinawan Defense Force was organized in desperation...and often in violation of Japan's own laws. Guns (mainly obsolete surplus rifles dating from WWI) were given to any male members of the population able to carry them regardless of age or physical condition. Girl students and young women were pressed into service in support roles, often on the front lines. They were poorly trained, poorly equipped, and regarded by their Imperial Army superiors as little more than cannon fodder.

When the American attack force arrived, Japan sent thousands of planes to meet them (most of them kamikaze attack planes), but more than 90% were shot down before they got there. Similarly, the Imperial battleship Yamato, arguably the most powerful of the war, was sent to Okinawa with a one-way supply of fuel but was taken out by US aircraft before even getting close. Effectively unchallenged, the Americans started off with a heavy campaign of bombing and naval bombardment. Then the troops started landing on the beaches near Kadena. The Okinawan Defense Force was outnumbered, hopelessly outgunned, and had little in the way of support, and yet it dragged on through a battle that lasted three months...and became the one of the worst bloodbaths of the entire Second World War. And if the toll on the battlefield was bad...

* * *

The Cave of Life and Death, pt. I
The day I have long dreaded has finally arrived. It has very much to do with the principal theme of this whole trip, and as an American cursed with a conscience, I'm not relishing this. I will say that I have always intended to make this trip; as an American, I consider it an obligation. It doesn't make it any easier. None of my many visits to Hiroshima ever seemed to get easier. In some ways, this one might be even harder.

For the first part of the day's dark itinerary, our classes separate and go to different locations that are more or less the same thing. They all served the same function during the battle. They all saw the same atrocities. They are all "gama".

Not surprisingly, the one we visit is in a really eerie crevasse...

The "gama" are those among the many natural caves on the Okinawan coast which were designated as survival shelters. Their tunnels were expanded and rooms dug out in order to accommodate people during typhoons or other natural disasters. As it turned out, they wound up housing women, children, and the elderly during the battle plus Okinawa Defense Force members charged with caring for them...as well as deserters from the Imperial Army.

It was apparently hoped that, by lying low in the caves, they wouldn't be found by the American soldiers. That turned out to be very mistaken. Whenever the patrolling American soldiers found a cave entrance, they would shout in Japanese, "If anyone is in there, come out! You will not be harmed!" That posed a two-edged sword for the Okinawan women, children, and elderly hiding in there.

If they tried to surrender, the Imperial Army deserters hiding with them would shoot them, and the Americans would respond to the gunfire by immediately filling the cave with flaming napalm. If they didn't surrender, the Americans would flame-thrower them anyway...or pump the cavern full of tear gas which could still be very lethal. Many hundreds of unarmed civilians wound up dying that way.

As we enter the crevasse and approach the cave, I feel very cold. I do not want to be here. The students already know a bit of the story, and so I avoid their gazes and stay at the back of the group as we await our guide.

Our guide is someone who was actually there. He is a survivor. He was one of the Okinawa Defense Force members there to take care of the civilians hiding in the cave. Now old and frail-looking, he nonetheless speaks with resolve, and we can only listen. He leads us into the natural part of the cave, which served as an ancient tomb and thus includes a couple of very old graves, and brings us to a stop in front of the tunneled-out shelter area. There he begins the tale.

There were some 300 people in there when the Americans came, all packed into a tiny space. As they listened to the battle outside...and later the voices of the patrolling American troops..., they huddled in the darkness as their candles, food, and water ran out. The deserted Imperial Army troops with them demanded special privileges, snatched up the food and water, and treated the others like rats. Anyone caught speaking the Okinawan dialect was immediately branded a traitor and killed. Later, a young girl tried to go out in search of more candles, and she was shot dead by one of the Japanese soldiers. When the American troops inevitably came and spoke their demand to surrender, the Japanese soldiers told the Okinawans with them to keep silent or die. The Americans then flamethrowered each of the cave entrances and detonated large tear gas bombs inside the tunnel. Perhaps two-thirds of the people inside were killed.

The guide asks us to switch off our flashlights and observe a moment of silence there in the darkness. Then he leads us into the shelter tunnel, and as he does so, he defuses the tension by joking with the students, which surprises me. I guess this isn't all going to be doom and gloom after all.

After we finish our tour of the cave, we are taken up above to a nearby park, where we gather under a shelter overlooking the intensely blue ocean. Then the guide starts his speech.

"What were our leaders thinking?" he rails. "What business did they even have trying to pick a fight with a country that was clearly so much bigger, so much more powerful than us? And for what? What did it get us? They didn't care; they just kept their fat asses on their sofas drinking sake and ordering us to go and die for their stupidity! We shouldn't blame America for this. But we need to remember what's important. People are important. Life is important." He looks around at the kids. "You're the future! I'm asking you! Remember what's important!"

I have to admit that I'm surprised and more than a little moved. Despite the tragedy and the atrocity, there is none of the "America did it all" slather that I expected. No guilt trips in my direction at all. If anything, the guide shows far more anger and resentment toward the Imperial Army and the Imperial regime than the US forces. The black cloud over my soul dissipates, and I start to breathe a little easier.

But we're still just getting started...

The Cave of Life and Death, pt. II
As with all students in Okinawa at the time, the 222 high school girls of the Himeyuri Girls' Medical Corps were activated and pressed into service in support of the Okinawa Defense Force. They were assigned to an army surgical hospital located inside of a natural cave.

The memorial to the girls of the Himeyuri Girls' Medical Corps at the mouth of the cave.

The girls never had any doubt about what they were doing. They'd been steadily force-fed a diet of propaganda and patriotism throughout their school lives. They firmly believed that there was no greater honor than dying in the service of the Emperor and being enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine (the Shinto shrine honoring war dead). They firmly believed that the red cross flag over the cave would keep them safe. They also firmly believed that Japan would win the battle in a matter of days (so much so that many showed up for service with their school supplies).

As the battle raged on, they worked around the clock inside the cave assisting the doctors. Their surgical hospital was given the most serious cases, and every day they saw hundreds of soldiers brought in with horrific injuries, few of whom would ever recover. The girls' duties included bringing meager portions of food and water to the patients, trying to comfort them, helping dress wounds, carrying supplies, disposing of amputated limbs, and helping the most hopeless cases commit suicide.

Offerings of paper cranes, a symbol of peace, next to a memorial for those killed in the American bomb attack.

The first girl died when she was sent up for supplies and was strafed by an American fighter plane. About a dozen others were caught in the crossfire as they performed various duties. It turned out that they were the lucky ones.

As the battle entered its final, most desperate days, the Himeyuri girls were suddenly given the deactivation order. Together with their teachers, they were told they were on their own and abandoned. Confused, they remained huddled just inside the cave...and were hit by an American bomb dropped directly inside. Those that survived the attack went crazy. Some went running madly into the battle zone where they were quickly cut down in the crossfire. Others killed themselves either by jumping off the nearby sea cliff or pressing grenades to their chests. A number ran into the caves and remained in hiding, some long after the war ended, some falling prey to disease, madness, or American weapons. Some were found by American troops but refused the orders to come out, resulting in their meeting their fate via grenade or flame thrower. In the end, out of 222 Himeyuri girls, only about a couple dozen survived.

One of them is in the museum at the Himeyuri memorial, and our students talk to her.

The museum, as expected, is gloomy, and yet there is no obvious blame game. It just shows what was, and what happened. I think what moves me the most is the room entitled "Requiem for Himeyuri". It is surrounded by blow-ups of the original class photos of the Himeyuri girls captioned with their names, birthplaces, hobbies, school activities, and how they died. Our students are far more interested in the collection of diary entries written by the girls, and as they pore over them, I walk around and look at each of the photos and read each caption. I glance around at my own students and realize that it could just as easily have been them. The only real difference is the era.

Tragedies have far more impact when they have a human face.

We have lunch after that, traditional Okinawan fare, and I'm surprised I have any appetite.

A Memorial to Peace?
Our next stop is the huge Peace Memorial.

The peace monument is elegant but its impact seems rather muted...

The Peace Museum with its Peace Tower pulls most of the focus.

There is also the monument to those fallen in the Battle of Okinawa: a huge expanse of dark, granite slabs with the names of the dead carved into them, separated by location. Naturally, Okinawans account for the overwhelming majority.

Over in the comparatively tiny Ibaraki section, I find a name or two that might be members of my wife's extended family. I may have to look into it.

There are also a few names in the American part that might be related.

After the obligatory group photos, we get a chance to look out over the sea cliffs where so much death occurred...cliffs that were literally blasted into a completely different shape by American naval guns. It looks so peaceful and beautiful now...

Next we head up to the imposing museum, designed with traditional Okinawan roofs.

Inside, the museum is an impressive display not only of the Okinawa battle but of the history of Japanese warfare from the Meiji period onward. It also shows quite a bit of life in Okinawa when it was under US administration from 1945 till 1978.

Not surprisingly, it is quite crowded, mainly with students on school trips. It isn't nearly as bad as the aquarium was, but now I'm getting more than my fill of "Look! An American!" (followed by mimed shooting), punks speaking with mock American accents in my vicinity, or grade school kids recoiling from me with wide eyes. Fortunately, I'm not the only gaijin there, though one foreigner, a big guy speaking what sounds like Russian, is clearly railing on and on to his Japanese partner about how evil the Americans were (or are). It is the only real psychological warfare I've had to deal with so far on this trip, but instead of feeling depressed or guilty, now I'm just getting irritated. Still, I understand that it's par for the course and something that, as an American in Okinawa, I just have to deal with.

On the other hand, I also can't help noting with some cynicism that all the big peace monuments, including this one and the ones in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, are located in countries that lost wars. By comparison, peace monuments in the US seem rather small and half-hearted. I guess people are only really interested in peace if they suffer defeat. What does this say about us as a civilization?

Okinawa World
The last item on the day's itinerary is a visit to the theme park called Okinawa World. It has two main parts.

The first, Gyokusendo Cave, is a half-mile-long natural cavern with some pretty impressive subterranean scenery including some really huge stalactites and stalagmites. (Of course, I'd enjoy it more if I weren't sharing the narrow catwalk with kids who are apathetically plowing their way through in a hurry to get back out.) The next part is a village constructed in old Okinawan style (No pics that I can post available...sorry) including a fruit market/juice bar, glassworks and potters, a traditional tea house/restaurant, traditional dance performances, and lots of street vendors. In other words, it's specially designed to get me to empty my wallet in a hurry. Fortunately, I restrict myself to only a few items of glass and pottery, a couple of small traditional musical instruments, and some juice while spending plenty of time watching the glassworkers and potters do their thing. Then I have to sprint to get to the buses at departure time. The students have a good laugh about that...

The International Street of Commercialism

Naturally, our day in Naha is crowned by turning the students loose on Kokusai Dori (literally "International Street") to blow what's left of the money they've brought. I and some other teachers then follow on "patrol" (chuckle) so we can drop some yen, too. I have to hand it to the Okinawans, though; as crassly commercial as Kokusai Dori is, it's nowhere near as obnoxious as similar shopping streets in other parts of the country tend to be. It actually has a certain kind of class...though I can do without the street hawkers trying to get in my face. In the end, I come away with a couple of obligatory gift items, a couple of bottles of Okinawan sake to try, and no new musical instruments (not that the sanshin vendors make it any easier...).

The trip is almost at an end. Tomorrow we say goodbye.

The 2011 Okinawa Trip, Day Two

2011-10-29T12:20:00.005+09:00

Japan is a long, narrow country with a vertical alignment. Compared with the Eastern US, the northernmost part of Japan, Hokkaido, is at the same latitude as New England, while Ibaraki Prefecture, where I live and work, is equivalent to North Carolina. Okinawa, which is the southernmost part, is at the same latitude as the southern tip of Florida. Needless to say, the climate, flora, fauna, and customs are very different.

The fact that the Ryukyu Kingdom was originally a separate nation with a unique culture, language, and even ethnicity only serves to heighten the difference.

* * *

Wet and Wild
The Boy Scout motto is "Be Prepared," but despite my Eagle title, I seem to be anything but. Today is the day that our students are dividing into two groups for some water fun. One team is doing "marine sports", i.e. snorkling or "banana boating" (i.e. rubber rafting). The other is going canoeing (in sea kayaks, actually) and hiking in a mangrove wetland. I'm assigned to the latter group, and I'm faced with multiple dilemmas. For one thing, I seem to have forgotten to bring any footwear other than my heeled dress shoes. For another, though I brought swimwear, it is the brightly-colored, Bermuda-style suit I got for the Australia trip three years ago...the one I wound up having to miss..., and everyone else is wearing ordinary athletic shorts. Unfortunately, since our wonderful hotel is located out in the middle of nowhere, there is absolutely no chance of my going to buy suitable gear. I'm stuck with what I've got, i.e. a potential disaster.

I manage to borrow a pair of beach sandals from the hotel just before our buses roll out, but they are way too snug. I have a feeling I'm going to regret this.

Our bus pulls off the main road and onto a smaller one that passes between a couple of lagoons. There we stop to rendezvous with our guides...who fortunately have a supply of loaner Crocs, so I'm able to get something that won't give me blisters (probably the first pair of Crocs I've ever had on my feet in my life). Then the guides lead the bus further down and onto an impossibly narrow road to a local community center, which is where we leave our luggage (including my camera, unfortunately, so no pics). (The original plan was for everyone to change there, so I squeamishly hoped to put on my gaudy swimwear, but the plans kept mutating randomly. Everyone else showed up this morning already in their athletic shorts, so they decided to go with that, i.e. no time to change. I just have to go with the [fortunately inexpensive] slacks I have on.) Then we walk over to the lagoon, where our kayaks and life jackets are ready. After a quick lesson in use of the double paddle and proper boarding techniques, we separate into kayak teams and hit the water. Together with a Japanese language/lit. teacher from my grade staff, I paddle off in a bright red and orange kayak and soon became the Pirate of the Karibian, or something like that. (Cue cliche but fun swashbuckling music in 12/8 time.)

I have an absolute blast. I also get very wet...especially in my posterior region (i.e. my arse).

After an hour or so of that, we bring in the kayaks and head back to the bus. My slacks are "easy care" types that dry really quickly, so the damp spots on my pantlegs quickly fade. My aft end, however, is another story; it still looks like I wet myself and will probably remain that way for a lonnnnng time. Luckily, I have a plastic raincoat to sit on in the bus so I don't sog the seat.

Soon the bus is heading off through the scarcely-inhabited North Okinawa countryside. There isn't a rice paddy in sight. (In fact, we're told that rice paddies are extremely rare in Okinawa...mainly because the US Occupation banned all local rice production in order to keep the Okinawans dependent...and help the Californian rice industry. Okinawa was reverted to Japanese administration in 1978, but local rice cultivation has yet to recover to its former levels.)

The overwhelming majority of the fields we see are for sugar cane or fruit trees.

Every once in a while you can find a pineapple patch, too.

Soon we get off the bus, separate into groups (mine being all girls), and hike along dirt farming roads toward the lagoon. We pass a small group of farmers along the way, and they're amused when we greet them with the native Okinawan, "Haisai!" (They also have a good chuckle at the sight of my soggy backside.)

It isn't long before we arrive at the mangrove bog. It really is like another world in there...a wet and slimy one, true, but fascinating.

At high tide this area is under a meter of water. Now, at low tide, the ground is a tangle of weirdly protruding tree roots that look like a troop of sprites or some kind of fantasy festival. The air inside is strangely cool and comfortable. The ground is soft and is criss-crossed with multiple currents of sea and spring water less than a centimeter deep.

Eventually we head out of the canopy of mangroves and into the vast tidal flat. There everything changes radically. For one thing, it's a whole lot hotter under the intense subtropical sun. For another, the ground becomes a pure expanse of boggy sand that is far better suited to bare feet than footwear (and is said to be good for the skin, so going barefoot offers fringe benefits).

First we skirt the edge of the mangroves, and the guide explains the various curiosities of the local ecosystem.

The kids also get a hands-on look at some of the local wildlife, such as this BLUE, pincerless crab.

The guide shows that, by stomping your feet up and down, you can sink into the bog. The girls immediately get in on the act, some of them going down to their knees...and then seeing how far back they can lean before popping loose. (Naturally, more than one girl winds up with a goopy butt.)

The last thing we check out before leaving is a little pond formed by a small creek. It and the surrounding bog are filled with mudskippers, small fish, shrimp, crabs, hermit crabs, and water beetles in abundance. It's all we can do to pry the girls away. As you can see in the picture, we have left the area pretty much a mess, but all trace of it is certain to be erased when the tide comes back in.

* * *

Glass Tanks Full of People

Thankfully, my butt is almost completely dried out by the time we get back to the bus. Then the kids change into their uniforms, we rendezvous with the other groups, and we board our regular buses for the trip to the next big attraction, Okinawa's famous Churaumi Aquarium.

Once again the sky turns ugly as we go.

We arrive at the aquarium parking lot to find it a solid mass of tour buses. It seems that half the high schools in the country have the same idea as us.

Unfortunately, as impressive as the aquarium is, and as much as I usually like aquariums, it is impossible for me to enjoy it. Inside is a solid mass of teenagers. Those that aren't just apathetically plowing their way through (making it hard to stop and look at anything) are being extremely obnoxious with their cameras and cell phones, either whipping them out in people's faces (for example mine) or suddenly blocking the lanes and monopolizing them for posed shots of their friends. There's also the fact that I'm the only foreigner in sight, and I get a fair amount of punks thinking they're being clever by talking with mock American accents in my vicinity. The main indoor attraction, the giant tank featured on their website, is jammed solid, and as I try to dig my way through the crowd to the other side, I also have to put up with self-centered pricks elbowing me aside from behind while yelling, "Sumimasen! Sumimasen!" ("Excuse me! Excuse me!") as if they are privileged or something. I have to admit I'm more than a little tempted to haul off and deck someone.

It isn't long before I get totally fed up with the whole thing and make a beeline for the first exit I see. At least the manatee and sea turtle enclosures outside aren't crowded. I also have time to get something to drink and chill for a bit before we go.

The aquarium complex is still under construction, so it's going to get even bigger.

As I head up to the buses, it starts to rain. Luckily, it stops well before evening, when we are able to have our planned beach barbecue without any trouble. I manage to eat wayyyyy too much...and not even give a damn.

I fully intend to enjoy myself tonight. Tomorrow is going to be the most difficult day of all.

The 2011 Okinawa Trip, Day One

2011-10-28T22:49:00.006+09:00

"No! Ryukyu is peaceful! We have no weapons! You couldn't possibly..."
"You have a better target? A military target? Then name the island!"

* * *

For hundreds of years, despite its status as an important and wealthy trade hub, the Ryukyu Kingdom was indeed peaceful and weaponless. Even when the Satsuma clan from Japan invaded during the latter's Sengoku (Warring States) Period from the 15th to 17th centuries, the Ryukyu offered no resistance and were thus allowed to go on living as they had before as long as they paid the Satsuma daimyo tribute. (History tells that when Emperor Napoleon of France heard about the Ryukyu Kingdom, he was so flustered by the idea of a peaceful, weaponless nation that he threw a tantrum!) All this changed when the Emperor of Japan finally reclaimed full control of his country from the shoguns at the end of the 19th century, ushering in the Meiji Period. Emperor Meiji forced all of Japan's various provinces and autonomous domains to submit to his Western-influenced political system. The king of the Ryukyus was forced to abdicate and relocate to the new Imperial capital in Tokyo, where he served as both a minister and a hostage. The Emperor also took away the name of the Ryukyu Kingdom and replaced it with one of his own choosing:

Okinawa.
* * *

(Note: I'm under orders from the Principal of Ye Olde Academy not to post any pictures on this blog which show faces of students and/or the name of the school clearly enough to be recognized. That limits my picture selection, but that's the way it is.)

I admit that I was as much worried as excited about the coming of the school trip to Okinawa. I'd been on several such school trips in the past, but they'd always been to Hiroshima and Kyoto. I'd always enjoyed those, but, American as I am (and neither apathetic nor mindlessly patriotic enough to be immune), going to Hiroshima was never easy. I had a feeling that Okinawa was going to be even worse.

I leave home just as the sun is starting to rise on the morning of October 25th. It's a bit chilly in my light shirt and school windbreaker, but I know Okinawa is going to be quite a bit hotter, so I'm compromising. I get about a quarter mile down the road when I realize that I've gone off without my camera, so I whip a U-turn on the empty street and head back. I manage to get to Ye Olde Academy just in time, which means that the rest of our trip staff has already been there for at least ten minutes (which will later turn out to be one of the themes of the entire trip). There is a short ceremony and a briefing, after which we head down to the lower parking lot where the buses are waiting. Some students are already there waiting, too, though the main mass of Grade 9 (quirky fanfare) is only just starting to arrive. There is a lot of tension and anticipation in the air; a lot of the kids have never been on a long-distance trip before (or even a short-distance one, in some cases). Departure time finally arrives, and the Principal gives us a formal sending off before each class goes to its bus. Soon our caravan is heading off under mottled skies bound for Haneda Airport in Tokyo.

Any school trip is an exercise in "hurry up and wait", but this time it is particularly bad. The airport is packed with school groups going on similar trips, and at least two others are sharing our plane. Moving is difficult and requires deft maneuvering. All the restrooms have lines going out into the hall. I have yet another bad feeling about this. In fact, I have several.

The flight to Naha Airport takes about two hours, most of which I mercifully sleep through. Landing is extremely rough. As soon as we leave the plane, we're immediately hit with proof that we are now a lot closer to the tropics than Ibaraki, and layers of clothing are quickly peeled off. Each class is put on its bus and introduced to the guide who will be a companion for the next four days.

Our guide is a very intriguing woman, youngish but of uncertain age, who I quickly note reminds me a lot of my longtime internet friend Selba. Not only is she good at keeping up an interesting monologue punctuated with bits of Okinawan language and folklore, but she has a fantastic singing voice. She keeps us all very much entertained as we make our way to our first stop...and the first hammer blow on my conscience:

Kadena Air Force Base, USAF
The bus goes past a swath of barbed-wire-topped walls and fences that seem to go on and on forever. All of the buildings on the other side of the wall are the same cream color and have numbers on them. I also see a number of people there who are clearly Westerners. The guide explains that that is the famous Kadena Air Force Base, and that it is technically US territory complete with a California zip code. After a while, the bus arrives at a "rest stop" that has a four-story observation tower placed so as to offer an excellent view of the base.

There, an unbelievably (or perhaps deceptively) short distance away, are at least three runways. Behind them are rows and rows of low, blast-shielded hangars. Further away can be seen the various command, control, and radar installations that keep it all going as well as what are probably storage facilities. The complex is huge...and it's right in the middle of the town. In fact, as we're soon told, the base and its various attached facilities and reservations now account for around 80% of the total area of the town of Kadena.

As we watch, a group of USAF F-15C fighters performs practice maneuvers, coming in only about a dozen meters over the runway before suddenly pulling up hard into a chandelle. There are several planes involved, and as each one does the hard, climbing turn, it points its twin turbofans right at us...and right at the residential area behind us...blasting us with that ear-splitting roar. Meanwhile, another trio of F-15s is circling around overhead. Apparently such maneuvers go on almost all day almost every day. They also sometimes get supplemented with the odd P-3, C-130, or C-5 coming in or out. Reportedly F-22s come in from time to time, too, among just about anything else the USAF uses other than strategic bombers.

You have to understand that I'm normally an aviation buff. I could sit and watch maneuvers like that all day. I fully understand the importance of the Kadena base, too, along with the USMC Futenma Air Station situated right in the middle of another town not too far away. It's still depressing. The fact that Okinawa, formerly a nation of peace, got stuck with that burden is sad. The fact that local governments and people in mainland Japan staunchly refuse to allow any percentage of those bases to be relocated to their areas is sadder. But then again, perhaps the saddest thing of all is that those bases were not originally established by the US military, but by that of Imperial Japan during World War II. The US simply took over the existing facilities when Okinawa fell. In that respect, one could say that even though Okinawa is part of Japan, it has been made a victim of Japan.

I didn't take any pictures. I just wasn't in the mood.

Ryukyu Village
After driving further north into the less-developed hokubu (northern part) of the island, we arrive at Ryukyu Village, a theme park based on the original Ryukyu culture.

Some of the buildings there are modern but modeled after the ancient style, such is this small exhibition hall showing a gigantic rope made to get a Guinness World Record.

However, many if not most of the structures there are authentic, old ones that were located and transplanted.

Take, for example, this house that was built in the late 19th century. There are some there that are even older.

Between the thick jungle and sometimes weird rock formations, there were some pretty eerie places.

There was also a display and small research center there devoted to the habu, an aggressive and very dangerous species of pit viper native to Okinawa. Since ancient times, they've been notorious for crawling into homes and storerooms, especially at night. They're prone to attack, are able to strike out to a range almost equal to the full length of their body, and have very powerful venom. Apparently mongooses were brought over from India in the early 20th century to help eradicate them. Now modern medicine means that the habu's bite is rarely fatal, and the mongoose is starting to cause environmental problems.

Many of the facilities in the park are craft studios. The pottery studio makes, among other things, pots crowned by the traditional Okinawan "shi-sa", or demon dog. This one has its head stuck in the pot! Normally a sucker for handmade items, I still managed to come out of there without buying much.

Then there are the traditional arts, such is this ancient-style sugar cane press, powered by a water buffalo.

The inner circle of the park. Different types of roof representing different periods of time can be seen.

Still feeling a bit bummed, I get some fresh coconut/mango juice at a stall, but it only perks me up a little, so I decide to leave the park ten minutes before the buses are due to depart.

The sky is already turning nasty.

Manzamo Point

We then drive a bit further north to Manzamo Point, a famous sightseeing spot. Its cliffs are full of bizarre rock formations such as this elephant-like natural arch.

Looking the other direction, you can see one of the smaller satellite islands. Okinawa's seas are famous for being colorful, but it doesn't help when the sky is gray...

Going around the point and looking into the cove to the north, you can see these stones. There are many like them, i.e. worn down at surf level so they look like they're sitting on top of the water. However, these two have a sacred rope between them, meaning they're believed to be an abode of spirits.

After scouting the nearby gift tents (and not buying anything), I get on my bus with the rest of my class, and we head out to our hotel for the next couple of days.

This is the view from my hotel balcony...and I have the room all to myself. Of course, the teenage punks I have for neighbors really need to go boom, but whatever. They're having a good time.

MORE TO COME!!!!

The Power of Prayer...or at Least the Prayer People

2011-10-20T21:55:00.004+09:00

"Excuse me," said the man. "Can you spare me a few minutes?"

The year was 1992, and I had just walked out of Tsuchiura Station when he'd approached me. Considering some of the experiences I've had in Tsuchiura, especially in the mob-infested area near the station, I'd normally consider bolting at such a request, but for some reason I didn't. Maybe it was just the vibes the guy was giving off.

"I'm not selling anything," he went on. "I'm not asking you for anything. If you don't mind, I just have one request." When I asked him what it was, he replied, "Please let me pray for you."

Ex-pats here in Japan tend to call them the "prayer people". They're generally members of the various sects of Nichiren Buddhism. They believe that they're helping the future of the country if not the world by purifying the public one at a time through prayer. They tend to go to crowded places such as train stations in order to find people to pray for. I'd already been approached a couple of times before but had declined the offer, using my being in a hurry as an excuse. This time, however, I wasn't in a hurry, and I guess I was just in that kind of mood.

"Alright," I said.

And so the guy prayed for me. He put his hands on my head, intoned his prayer, and then asked me to chant a short mantra. The whole thing lasted maybe two minutes, and it was utterly painless. However, something very freaky happened that has nagged me to this day:

As I said, the man put his hands on my head while he was praying. Both of his hands. I felt both of those hands on my head the whole time. However, during the course of the prayer, and especially while I was chanting the mantra, I swear to you on a stack of whatever holy books you may choose that I felt a second pair of hands on my shoulders.

Anyway, the prayer ended, the four hands were withdrawn from my person, and the man took his leave with a polite urging for me to pursue prayer and meditation for my own well being.

*** Cut to today ***

The woman who called my home phone last Sunday said that she was a former student of Ye Olde Academy. She gave her name and asked if I remembered her. When I said I wasn't sure (with some suspicion since she called me by a different name from the one my students have always used), she said she had something important to discuss and asked if I could come and meet her somewhere up in Mito immediately. I said that I couldn't (especially since Mito is a bit far), and her tone became more urgent as she asked if we could get together some time during the week. I suggested a possible time and place, and the plan was set. She called again two days later to reconfirm sounding even more urgent but still not really telling me what it was all about.

Our scheduled meeting was for this evening. I headed for the appointed place over in the city of Hokota feeling strangely calm though I really had no idea what I was getting into. I guess I figured that, as had been the case with similar meetings in the past, she either wanted me to translate something, give her information about traveling in the US, look at some pictures she'd taken in Oregon, let her practice her English a bit, or do some kind of job (which I would decline). When I arrived and found myself face to face with the person, however, I suddenly felt on my guard. I also started feeling very tongue-tied and strangely unable to meet her gaze.

Her face seemed only vaguely familiar at best, and she admitted that she'd never been in any of my classes (meaning either she'd graduated prior to 1999 or had entered the school from another junior high school. Everyone else from Ye Olde Academy has been in my class at least once). She spoke of several teachers that I know, however, and her personal favorite was one former English teacher who used to be one of my closest friends in the faculty. We went on to talk about both the past and the present at the Academy, finally getting to the Day of the Great Earthquake last March. It was then that the conversation took an abrupt change...one that finally revealed the whole point of the meeting.

She told me that the Great Earthquake and the subsequent Fukushima nuclear accident were only the beginning, and that Japan was heading into an era of disaster that had been foretold centuries ago. Illustrating her points with a newspaper she took from her bag, she went on to explain that Japan had entered the period of doom because it had become too spiritually corrupt. The only way to avoid the catastrophe would be to purify the people and get them back on the true path. All of this had been prophesied by the famous Buddhist monk Nichiren long ago.

Basically, I was being shown the Buddhist equivalent of the Watchtower by the Buddhist equivalent of a Jehovah's Witness. As I've always done with such people, I listened patiently to what she had to say, letting her do what she felt was good and right at no cost to myself other than that of having something new to think about. Meanwhile, I kept my feelings guarded.

Then a second person arrived. The woman I'd been talking to said that she'd been a classmate (and she did look oddly familiar), but I was never told her name. (For those of you who understand what I mean, my first impression when I saw the newcomer was, 'Wow...she could pass for a Hergoth! She even has the pendant of a Kai-Tempu'era lay priestess!') The newcomer jumped right into the conversation and wasted no time getting into the religious theme, raising some very compelling points. She also had a curious habit of punctuating everything she said with a sort of hum.

It was then that my whole state of mind began to go out of control. A strange feeling of both warmth and dread washed through me, as if half of me longed to listen while the other half wanted to flee but couldn't. It was only with great force of will that I could make eye contact as we talked. And when I was finally asked the inevitable question about letting them show me how to be saved, I tried to decline, even politely tell them off as I'd done many times before, but first my mouth wouldn't open, and when it finally did, my voice wouldn't engage. Now starting to worry, I focused my full attention on the dish in front of me, isolated my thoughts, and with effort managed, "Thanks for giving me something important to think about, but I've been walking my own path seeking the truth on my own for many years and wish to continue doing so. I don't want any ties to any group." They seemed to understand, but the newcomer was ready for that. "All you need is for us to show you this once," she said. "Then the rest is entirely up to you. You have only to practice it yourself as you like. There will be no tie. You'll be doing a service not only to yourself, but to everybody, even your precious family. And it will change your life."

Man, did I feel tempted...even above and beyond my own better judgment! I may very well have agreed then and there if she hadn't added that final, decisive statement:

"There will be a cost, of course, but it's not much. Just 520 yen (about $6) for the first session."

That sank the ship. Again having to focus my mind in order to get my voice to obey, though with less effort this time, I replied, "You've given me something important to think about. But for now at least, that will be all."

Their disappointment was as tangible as if I'd felt it myself, but they gave me some literature to read and immediately excused themselves. Just before we parted, they used the Japanese greeting, "Mata," which literally means, "Again (i.e. "Till we meet again")." I had a feeling the story wouldn't be ending so easily. And tonight, at least, it didn't.

I was still in the grip of bizarre feelings as I made my way through Hokota toward home. The words they'd said, especially those of the newcomer, kept ringing through my mind, and I kept having a nagging feeling that maybe I'd done the wrong thing. I had an overwhelming temptation to turn around, go back, and tell them that I wanted to go through with it after all. But then, as if I'd crossed some invisible borderline or reached the range limit of someone's power, the feelings suddenly and abruptly vanished. It was literally as if someone had snapped his fingers and brought my mental state back under my own control. Then I felt confused, maybe even a little frightened, as I drove the last ten minutes home. I also couldn't help thinking about the hands I'd felt on my shoulders when that Nichiren "prayer person" had prayed over me almost twenty years before.

How can I explain this? Anyone who has read this blog for any real length of time will know that I've had some strange experiences in the past, ones that could possibly be called paranormal (though rational explanations are also possible, if a bit shaky). Is there really some hidden power behind the "prayer people"? Or am I to blame? Is it evidence of what those Wiccans and occult enthusiasts kept trying to tell me in my college days: that I'm attuned to, and therefore particularly sensitive to, that sort of thing? If so, then I really need to be careful. After all, they did say, "Again."

Calling the Hatchlings Home to Sing

2011-10-08T21:45:00.002+09:00

Today (Saturday, October 8th) is the first-ever regular concert of the Vent Bleu Philharmonie aka the Alumni Orchestra. It's the new pet project of Mssr. Maestro Ogawa, an orchestra made up of graduated former members of our very own Ye Olde Academy orchestra. It has been a monstrous undertaking tracking down all those alumni, sparking their interest, convincing them to dust off their old instruments or find ones to borrow, and getting them all together to rehearse. Also, since they're all either college students or adult members of society now, there is also the usual issue of actually getting them to participate with any degree of diligence rather than just showing up at the last minute. It has been frustrating, and yet it has clearly been a labor of love.

Since I've been co-director of the Ye Olde Academy music program since 1998, it's only natural that I should be here helping out, too. My job? Standing across the street from the Kashima Workers' Culture Hall (the performance venue) at the entrance to the Homac Home Center parking lot holding a sign telling concert goers to park in the Culture Hall parking lots instead. It's a thankless and largely-ignored job, but someone's gotta do it.

A cell phone shot of the Kashima Workers' Culture Hall taken from my position at the Homac parking lot entrance.

The entrance to the main Culture Hall parking lot, which my sign directed concert goers to use.

The Homac Home Center parking lot directly behind me, which I tried to discourage concert goers from using, but many did anyway.

As soon as I finish my work for the day at Ye Olde Academy, I hustle to the Culture Hall, collect the sign, take my position at the parking lot entrance, and assume my best farmer-with-a-pitchfork pose (only with a sign instead of a pitchfork). I then remain that way for what will be a 90-minute stint, doing my best to ignore the stares from passersby, the occasional near traffic accidents caused by gawkers, the wonderful cocktail of exhaust fumes, and, as it turns out, the more annoying concert goers.

For the first half hour not many people concert goers arrive, and those that do are decent enough to park in the Culture Hall parking lot like they're supposed to. Suddenly, one grumpy-looking, old redneck in a Toyota Mark II (a favorite of asshole blue-collar types) glares at me before turning hard into the Homac parking lot without signaling, passing as close to me as he can possibly get without hitting the rail I'm purposefully standing behind, parks, and then walks across the street to the Culture Hall, scowling at me as he goes. I dunno; maybe he did that just to spite the gaijin, but what the hell. At least it meant one more person in the audience.

Finally it gets to be the time the hall doors open, and the number of arriving guests increases exponentially. Most of them go into the Culture Hall parking lots, using the grassy #2 lot when the main one fills up. However, an increasing number ignore me completely and park in Homac's lot, which is admittedly more convenient. As they walk across the street to the Hall, most of them try to keep their distance from me and not acknowledge my existence. One woman, however, approaches me very deliberately...

"Are you [the Moody Minstrel]?"

"Yes, that's right. Good evening!" I admit I'm sorely tempted to put my sign directly in front of her face, but I decline.

"Did you quit the Kashima Concert Band?"

"Yes, I did." [I only quit the goddamned thing back in f***ing 1999...] "I'm participating in the Kashima Philharmonic Orchestra, however."

"Yes, I've seen every concert! The last one was wonderful!"

A devoted fan! "Thank you very much!" I'm STILL tempted to jam my sign in her face and ask her if she can read the f***ing thing. Hello? Homac parking lot...BAD!!! Culture Hall parking lot...GOOD!!! SAVVY??!? But I decline the temptation, and the woman cheerfully excuses herself and crosses the street.

The sun quickly fades, as do the arriving guests, and then it is time for the concert to start. I steadfastly maintain my position, visualizing nightmare scenes of traveling down a sewer pipe in a paper boat, being swallowed by a fish, or thrown into a stove to melt into a heart-shaped lump. Then one of the kinder band mothers comes marching across the street to my position and urges me to wrap it up and come inside. It is already several minutes into the performance, but I point out that some people are still arriving (and one does while I speak, ignoring my sign and parking at Homac). I then continue my lonely vigil for another half hour, when I finally decide to call it a night.

Going into the lobby of the Hall, I'm suddenly treated like a celebrity and invited to sit and have some tea. I can just hear the performance from inside the hall, which I can't yet enter; the guest clarinet soloist is just finishing his concerto, and it's brilliant, as is his encore. Then it's intermission time.

I go in to watch the second half of the program, which is Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade". It's a really cool piece, but what is perhaps even more entertaining for me is looking at all those old faces that have passed through our music machine and into the world, now having come back to give yet another gift of music to this little, coastal city. There are a few faces I don't recognize (because they're paid extras), but I remember the others very well. I even remember a good portion of the names. Even more amazing is that some faces are those of kids who are still in our music program, there to support their seniors by filling some of the gaps. Most extraordinary of all is that two of the most impressive performers are currently 9th graders, one on cello and one on harp. I'm happy knowing that we'll still have them for at least a couple more years. Overall, the performance is far from perfect (since getting all those alumni to dust off their instruments was hard enough, let alone getting them to practice), but it's still a good evening's entertainment and well worth it. (Besides, I didn't have to buy a ticket.)

I leave immediately when the concert ends. It's clear that they expect me to stay and greet people, but I'd rather not. In my experience, alumni tend to be rather cold and unfriendly to me, especially those that were students of mine more than five years ago. Back in 2000 a newly graduated student put it to me very bluntly by saying, "Now that I'm graduated, the teachers are no longer teachers to me, but fellow human beings, so the sense that you're a gaijin is stronger than before. So is the feeling that trying to talk to you would be too uncomfortable." Those words still haunt me, so as a general rule I tend to avoid alumni like the plague, just as many if not most would prefer to avoid me. C'est la vie. The music was the important thing, anyway, and I got my dose of that. I also got my fill of being a human sign post for at least the next few years.

Life in the Wake of the Great Quake pt. X: Hayabusa

2011-10-03T15:22:00.005+09:00

Just over half a year has passed since the Great Tohoku Earthquake of March 11th (aka the Day Everything Changed). Here at Ye Olde Academy, we've just had a presentation by one of the experts associated with the Hayabusa program. Naturally, the two events have absolutely nothing to do with each other, and yet...I can't help feeling a strange sense of oneness, a spiritual connection between the two, as if one were a sort of metaphor for the other.

(Image from the NASA website)

In case you have no idea what Hayabusa was, it was a space probe that was a wholly Japanese project. It was launched in 2003 on an ambitious mission to study an asteroid at point blank range, make surface contact, and then return to earth with samples. Other probes sent by the ESA and NASA had made close surveys of asteroids before, but this was the first that was intended to bring back actual asteroid material for study. It was quite an undertaking, especially considering the probe was a wholly Japanese design using locally-developed technology.

As it turned out, it could have been called a comedy of errors. The fact was that it was originally intended to study a totally different asteroid, but problems with development of the rocket booster intended to launch it delayed it too long. Another potentially crippling launch delay happened when it was discovered that the company that had made the rocket booster had (by accident or design) used the wrong materials for at least some of the O-ring sealants, which then had to be replaced. When the probe finally got into space, its solar power system was badly damaged by a solar flare, crippling it and reducing the efficiency of its ion engines. Hayabusa arrived at the asteroid (later named Itokawa) as planned, though way behind schedule, and established a position following it in orbit around the sun. However, while conducting the initial mapping runs, the probe's gyroscopic maneuvering system failed, meaning the thrusters had to be used for all navigation. Fuel limitations meant that a lot of plans then had to be scrubbed. A conflict between the commands from Earth and the probe's automated systems resulted in the Minerva mini-lander missing the asteroid and spinning off into space. When the probe itself attempted its planned point-blank pass to scoop up a sample of material, its sampling arm failed to deploy. Instead, the probe was landed directly on the asteroid surface and its ion jets fired in a desperate attempt to kick up some dust and catch it in its sample container. Without knowing whether the move was successful or not, the crew ordered Hayabusa to return home. It finally came limping back to Earth in 2010 (a couple of years late) with only one of its four ion drives still functioning at reduced power and its electronics all but dead. Nevertheless, it released the re-entry pod with the sample container as planned shortly before burning up in the atmosphere. The pod survived the plunge and made a landing in Australia, where it was recovered. When the pod was brought back to Japan and opened, it appeared empty, but just when it seemed all hope was lost, closer scrutiny revealed tiny particles of dust inside that were clearly not terrestrial in origin. Despite it all, Hayabusa was a success.

A lesser crew may very well have given up hope and scrubbed the mission at any one of several failure points. Instead, they stubbornly kept on going, using the resources at hand to turn defeat into victory. Indeed, you can't help admiring the Japanese staff of the Hayabusa project both for their stoic ingenuity and for their tenacity.

And as the March earthquake disaster showed so plainly, that tenacity is present in the population as a whole. Despite the unbelievable scale of the tragedy and the impact it has had on all our lives here in the Land of the Rising Sun, it's really just one more setback to work around. In the end, Japan will forge ahead.

The Making of a Gear Slut

2011-09-09T22:58:00.021+09:00

It's hard to explain this recent studio/guitar gear craze of mine. Indeed, I've probably bought more stuff during the past year than in the entire decade before it. One reason is probably the fact that my song "One Rare Moment Together" was a judge's pick for an all-Japan amateur recording contest. (Another of my tunes, "Swarga ki Sans", was only half a point behind it...and the pro producer/studio musician judges said they remembered me and expect more in the future.) Together with requests to make my music available on iTunes, etc., this event has caused me to take my musical work far more seriously than ever before. Another reason might be the death of my old friend David Robison last year; I say this because what I've been doing, wittingly or not, is following advice of his that I'd long mocked.

This is actually the second round of major gear-buying. The first was during my first few years here in Japan, when I first started fulfilling my longtime dream of creating a home studio and recording my work. At any rate, since I keep talking about it on Facebook, I thought I should explain a bit more as to what it has all been about, concentrating on the guitar gear.

In my early high school days, perhaps my most treasured Christmas present was a cheap Les Paul copy guitar and a tiny Guyatone practice amp. Those quickly became a keystone of my world, but since my musical tastes were becoming increasingly progressive, it wasn't long till I wanted to expand my horizons. Thus, a couple of years later, I got my first ever effect pedal, an MXR M117 Stereo Flanger (now called the Micro Flanger) (1981). I actually took some crap for it; in those days Boss pedals were what everyone dreamed of owning, what all the professionals were using, and they were expensive. The MXR pedal was relatively cheap. (The experienced bassist of one semi-pro band I was in said, "Don't use that thing! You're killing your signal!") Still, I loved "that thing". This was then joined by an Ibanez CS9 chorus (loved it!) (1983). My guitar and amp were stolen in the summer of 1983, but miraculously the pedals remained. After I got a new Arbor guitar and Peavey amp, I later (1985) acquired a cheap phaser and analog delay of an unknown brand I grabbed at a warehouse liquidation sale. I used these all through my college days.

Then came my voyage to Japan, my first real occupation, my first real salary, and the creation of my first home studio. To replace the gear I'd left behind, the Fender Precision bass and Yamaha "Yamacaster" guitar I bought within a month of arrival were immediately joined by:

Boss OD-2 Turbo Overdrive (1990)- I tried one of these in college and fell in love. It was an upgrade of the original, iconic OD-1 overdrive that included a regular medium gain mode and a high-gain "turbo" mode. As my first Boss pedal, it had special meaning. It also served as my main workhorse overdrive for more than ten years. Now I keep it in reserve. As with most Boss overdrive or distortion pedals, it compresses and colors the tone, which can be good (mainly for unskilled players) or bad (mainly for experienced players).
Boss CH-1 Super Chorus (1990) - I grabbed this to serve as a replacement for the Ibanez chorus I'd left at home. I used it nearly to death...and recently took it back out of mothballs rather than replace it. It's a testament to the quality of this pedal that it is still being produced...and still used by professionals. Mine is rather beat up and quirky now, and I'm still debating replacing it, but it's definitely a good pedal. Some complain that it has kind of a tinny sound (like a lot of Boss pedals), but it's easy to fix with its tone knob.
Boss HF-2 Hi-Band Flanger (1990) - This was meant to replace the MXR flanger I'd left at home. It didn't. It never really sounded right to me, so I wound up not using it much. I also didn't take care of it, so it wound up in bad shape and mothballed. The funny thing is that I recently found out I'd been using it wrong..and it's now a much sought-after collector's item! I tried using it right this time, 20 years later, discovered it works beautifully, and now it's back in my standby rack.
Yamaha Digital Delay (1990) - Owning so many new Boss pedals was like a dream come true back then, but my budget started to protest. Instead of getting a Boss digital delay, I got its Yamaha equivalent for much cheaper...and discovered I really liked it. It was both highly versatile and surprisingly good for its low price. I basically used it to death and was forced to mothball it right around the end of the '90s.
Boss DF-2 Super Feedbacker and Distortion (1991) - I tried one of these in college, too, and got one mainly because I didn't know better. It was a version of the famous Boss DS-1 distortion pedal with the addition of a feedback circuit. I got it to get a bit more hard crunch and lead scream out of my guitar. I used it a lot but never really liked it much, and I was already phasing it out by the time it started malfunctioning in 1992 (the only Boss pedal I've ever owned that went bad).
Arion Octave Pedal (1991) - This was a really cheap impulse buy and didn't impress me. I fooled around with it a bit and then mothballed it.
Ibanez TS5 "Soundtank" Tubescreamer (overdrive) (1991) - When I bought a Fender Stratocaster in 1991, I decided I wanted something better than the Boss Feedbacker Distortion for it. I'd read about how popular and famous the Ibanez TS808/TS9 Tubescreamer overdrive was, but it had been discontinued. I therefore scoured the music shops in Tokyo, and I found this. The TS5 was a new, lower-cost version of the TS9 that was factory-built with cheaper parts. I snapped it up and used it a lot...until it pretty much fell apart in 1994. (Definitely cheap...)
Boss PH-2 Super Phaser (1991) - This is another legendary Boss pedal. I got it to go with the Tubescreamer. It is still part of my standby team, and I do use it sometimes. I especially like the fact that it has separate guitar and keyboard modes.
Zoom 5050 Choir (chorus/reverb/delay) (1992) - After I'd had the Strat for a year, my style became more progressive, so I sold it and bought a Strat HSS with a Floyd Rose-style bridge. Then I set out to get new gear for it. I only saw this at one shop: a little CD/music store in Itako. I grabbed it on impulse and loved it. I've used it intensely, even onstage, and it is pretty well beaten. Still, my only complaint is the power; it doesn't use a regular 9v battery or adapter but rather uses either a pile of penlight batteries or an adapter of a really weird, proprietary voltage. In other words, it can be inconvenient to use. I still like its sound, though, so I do get it out from time to time. It is now a collector's item.
Zoom 5000 Driver (distortion) (1992) - I liked the Zoom Choir so much that I went back and got its counterpart, this interesting digital high-gain distortion pedal. It wound up being my primary lead dirtbox for more than 10 years. Unfortunately, it has the same inconvenient power requirements as the Zoom Choir, but it is designed for direct-to-mixer capability, which was perfect for my needs until I started using processors. It is now a collector's item. It sits in my "second tier" rack, but I may try using it again.
Boss CS-3 Compression Sustainer (1992) - Yet another famous Boss pedal that is still in production. I got it mainly for lead use, but it has proven to be quite versatile and is still part of my main team.
Ibanez WH10 Wah Pedal (1993) - What can I say? I wanted a "wah" pedal, , so I got this reasonably-priced Ibanez. It's certainly no Cry Baby, but it's not bad by any means; I like its adjustable sweep range. I've used it off and on ever since.
Boss FV-50 Volume Pedal (1993) - And while I'm at it, why not get one of these, too? It's dirt simple, which is nice. I haven't needed it much, but it has proven very useful on occasion.

Getting married in 1994 and having a kid in 1996 put a temporary stop to my gear buying. A temporary stop.

Marshall DRP-1 Direct Recording Preamp (1997) - The idea of a Marshall JCM-900 amplifier in a tiny box with no speaker designed mainly with direct-line recording in mind seemed too good to be true. In a way, it was. I really liked my DRP-1 and used it in a number of significant recordings such as "Tlesca" and "You, Me, We". However, its controls became corroded after only about a year of use, and it got to the point that certain knobs were stuck in one position. I wound up giving it to a friend...who now wants to give it back.
Zoom 505 Multieffector (1998) - In 1997 I performed on guitar at a school event. I used my Zoom Driver and Zoom Choir. Some student band members looked at my gear with a mixture of curiosity and contempt before one of them asked with a snicker if I wanted to borrow his multieffector. Those were very much the vogue, after all, and stompboxes like mine were considered passé. I refused, but I began to think about it. Then I saw someone using one of these 505 mini-multieffectors at a party and bought one out of curiosity. I toyed around with it, decided it was a pain to use (Sorry...I DON'T like having to punch my way through menus to adjust a tone setting) and too artificial, and consigned it to a cabinet.
Boss RV-3 Digital Reverb/Delay (1999) - My poor Yamaha digital delay started to wear out from around 1994 and by 1998 was pretty much falling apart. I bought this popular yet controversial pedal to replace it. It's still my standby delay, though I prefer analog to digital.
Boss BD-2 Blues Driver (overdrive) (2002) - In 2002 I was invited to join a friend's blues band. I didn't think any of the gear I had was suitable for such a gig, so I got one of these iconic pedals. They're popular to the point of being almost an industry standard, and yet they are also controversial; it's almost a mark of status to have them modified...or not to have to use them at all. Anyway, I wound up not joining the blues band, but this pedal is on my standby rack for bluesy solos and does get used from time to time. It also works well as a treble or midrange boost.
Boss TR-2 Tremolo (2002) - I also got this to use in the blues band. It has proven useful.
Yamaha FX550 Guitar Processor (2002) - This was a very significant impulse purchase. It was a discontinued model I found for a ridiculously low price in a bargain bin at a Tokyo music shop. Until then, the overwhelming majority of my recording had been done using direct-lined pedals. Now at last I had "real" amp tone...and it started having a dramatic effect on my playing technique, not to mention my whole approach to guitar playing. Unfortunately, though it had great sounds, it was inconvenient to use. (Sorry...I DON'T like having to punch my way through menus to adjust a tone setting.) And so...
Line 6 PODxt Guitar Processor (2004) - This purchase, finalized by a rock-scissors-paper match with my daughter at a music shop, marked a serious turning point in my guitar work. It was essentially a whole collection of famous amps and effects condensed into one digital powerhouse that even came equipped with a full set of tone knobs! It finally made me conscious of the concept of tone rather than just noise and effects. I love that thing, and I appreciate what it did for my playing. When I got it, I essentially mothballed my entire pedal collection except the "wah" and even considered selling the lot. I'm glad I didn't. Unfortunately, the one drawback of the PODxt is that its inbuilt effector collection was apparently thrown in as an afterthought; it's limited, and the controls don't work quite like the originals. After a few years passed, I began to miss some of the sounds I'd gotten with my pedals, so I started getting them back out. And then I started wanting sounds I couldn't get with what I had...
Marshall GV-2 Guv'nor Plus (overdrive/distortion) (2008) - This pedal, apparently digital, is designed to be a JCM-2000 amp in a box. It has the same 4-band EQ and gain range. It is capable of sounding bluesy, but it is best at making a really fat, beefy, high-distortion sound which has proven very useful. Even better: IT ISN'T EXPENSIVE. The only problem with it, other than those hard-to-see gold knobs, is that it sometimes gets fizzy on sustained chords. It also doesn't give a modern, tight-bottomed sound, so...
Boss MT-2 Metal Zone (distortion) (2008) - The PODxt includes a few high-gain amp models, but I still couldn't quite get a certain, ultra-intense distortion I wanted. I'd read some favorable reviews of this pedal, so I got one. It really does produce a sharp, biting, death metal sort of sound that some pros in the genre apparently swear by (even though Boss's popularity among pros in general has declined a lot since the '90s). It also has multi-band EQ, which can be nice. (Listen to the tail end of "The Glowing Zone". It ends with the Metal Zone ripping in the right speaker and the Guv'nor Plus bubbling in the left one.)
Marshall RF-1 Reflector Reverb (2008) - I ordered one of these when I bought the Guv'nor Plus. I'd wanted a reverb pedal that had a good spring reverb and/or a reverse-gate reverb sound, neither of which were in my Boss RV-3. This had both. It's digital, but it has a nice, natural sound that I like a lot better than the Boss reverb even though the Reflector costs a lot less! Unfortunately, the Reflector is a troubled pedal; it was widely reported to be prone to malfunction and even stop working. Alas, I was not immune. After a month of trouble-free use, mine suddenly started emitting an awful, crackly distortion followed by weird noises before the effect just stopped. The LED would come on, but only my dry sound would come through. (No, changing the battery didn't help.) I considered sending it back, but I toyed with it a bit, and I seem to have figured out the cause. Now I can use it without any trouble, and I really do like its spring and reverse-gate sounds. Its room reverb is really good, too.
Vox Satchurator (distortion) (2010) - I just remembered that I talked extensively about my dirt boxes in an earlier post, so I won't go into so much detail here. I'll just say that I hoped to get a "singing" overdrive box, preferably something a bit more high end than what I had. I found a pedal on my list at a music shop, but it was too expensive, so I wound up grabbing this instead. It was designed in partnership with guitar master Joe Satriani with his sound in mind. His signature sound was actually a combination of the original 80's (i.e. before they cheapened it) Boss DS-1 distortion and Ibanez TS808 Tubescreamer. If you want a guitar sound that is cutting yet ringing, this does it very well...and it is actually cheaper than Boss pedals tend to be.
Xotic BB Plus (overdrive/boost preamp) (2010) - Right after I'd bought the Satchurator, I stumbled on one of these in a used gear shop. It happened to be one of the high-end models on my list, but since it was used, the price was a bit less painful. I tried it out, and it went home with me. It's a great lead pedal and very versatile. My only complaint against it is that it tends to be kind of noisy (Maybe a minor defect?), which might be why it's original owner parted with it. The PODxt is supposed to be usable with pedals, but it seems to be highly sensitive to line noise, and my BB Plus was particularly bad in that respect. That was one reason why I finally decided to get an actual amp.
Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi (fuzz) (2010) - The PODxt includes a model of this famous, vintage fuzz box (what EHX calls a "distortion/sustainer"), and I really came to like it. I decided I wanted the real thing, however, and I just happened to find one in a second-hand shop. It's a fun, old clunker, and while it isn't very versatile, it does what it does very well. It uses an old-style AC adapter, meaning it won't interface with my powered pedalboard, but its classic sound comes best with a battery anyway.
Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor (2010) - My last Boss purchase, this interesting box was intended to cut the noise, especially from the BB Plus. It is a highly effective, fully automated noise suppressor, really quite amazing, but it only put a band-aid on the problem rather than solve it.
MXR Stereo Chorus (2010) - This is a famous and powerful chorus unit with an awesome sound and a wide range of possibilities. A lot of famous guitarists (including Slash and Alex Lifeson) have used it. Its only drawback is that it requires two 9v batteries for use, and it tends to eat them quickly. An external adapter can be used, but it won't interface with my powered pedalboard. Therefore, I have to be rather particular as to how and when I use it and stick with a more typical chorus (like my Boss CH-1) when I'm working "on the fly".
TC Electronic Nova Repeater (delay) (2010) - I wanted a delay unit that was a bit more versatile than my Boss RV-3, and this one comes packed with options. Since TC Electronic products are generally a bit more "high end" than Boss (which I view as the standard), they are pricier, but this was definitely worth it. It also helped attract my attention to that particular brand.
Dunlop Cry Baby (wah pedal) (2010) - Aw, come on...what guitar player hasn't wanted to own one of these?

As 2010 gave way to 2011, I started getting a bit fed up with the noise problem when I used pedals with my PODxt and wondered if a real amp might work better. Then my wife gave me a Vox Pathfinder 10, a little solid-state practice/recording amp, for my birthday. It really is a nice, little amp, especially considering it was cheaper than most of my pedals! Unfortunately, while its speaker has a really good sound, the "specially filtered" line out, designed for direct-to-mixer recording, doesn't. It's tinny even with the treble way down and the bass dimed. And when I tried using it with pedals... *cough* It was obvious the direct line recording was useless, and I figured that if I had to use the speaker, I might as well get a genuine tube amp. Therefore, I got myself a little Vox Night Train NT15H tube amp head...and waited months for the cabinet to arrive. And during that time...

TC Electronic Hall of Fame Reverb (2011) - I've spent quite a bit of time viewing "guitar porn" online during the past year or two, especially demos for pedals. One TC Electronic pedal that definitely caught my eye was this little, red box, part of the new "Tone Print" series. It wound up being my first purchase at the Soundhouse sound & stage gear outlet. It has an amazing array of sounds which offer a lot of creative potential. I still like my Marshall Reflector's sounds for "on the fly" reverb, especially "slap-back" spring, etc., but if I want to create dreamlike textures, the Hall of Fame is the one!
TC Electronic MojoMojo Overdrive (2011) - And since I was impressed with TC Electronic's new "Tone Print" line of pedals, I went ahead and got their new MojoMojo, which is actually an analog overdrive, and a very good one (though opinions vary). Its sound is kind of reminiscent of the old "tweed" Fender amps, with a smooth distortion. It took a while to get the hang of its highly sensitive and interactive tone knobs, not to mention its unique characteristics, but this is a great pedal. I especially like its responsiveness; it will give me a biting growl if I bang on the strings and a sweet hum if I strum lightly, even on subsequent strokes.
TC Electronic Dark Matter Distortion (2011) - I went ahead and got the higher-gain counterpart to the MojoMojo, though the Dark Matter is rather a different animal. It is also a true analog pedal, but its sound is based more on that of a cranked vintage Marshall "plexi" amp. It's not a heavy metal pedal, but that's not what I want it for. I'm still getting acquainted with this one, and so far so good. What's cool is how well the MojoMojo and Dark Matter work in tandem, giving me a nice, open, screaming lead sound.
Digitech Bad Monkey Tube Overdrive (2011) - This was a pure impulse buy, and I don't regret it. It's one of those cheap gems that people talk about; it costs half as much as a Boss overdrive but is widely considered to sound better. Some pros apparently swear by it. I had to check it out. You could compare its sound to the Ibanez Tubescreamer or even my MojoMojo, but it has its own qualities. As with a Tubescreamer, it is perhaps at its best used with an already-overdriven amp (or another overdrive pedal!) to smooth out the distortion and warm the tone. It's a digital pedal, built tough, but very light. Sometimes it betrays its cheapness, but it's still very useful. It even comes with a built-in amp emulator, meaning you can play it direct to a mixer. It's a good pedal to carry around in your bag "just in case".
Behringer HD300 Heavy Distortion (2011) - This was another one I just had to get to try it out. As with most Behringer gear, it was unbelievably cheap...almost like a joke. It even came in a vac-u-form plastic pack like a toy car, which wasn't surprising considering the pedal itself is all plastic and very toy-like! However, the fact is that it is a copy of the Boss Mega Distortion with the same circuit, same controls, and same sound...at one-fifth the price! I don't know how much I'll use it, but it can produce quite an impressive roar. I think it's fun just having the thing!
Danelectro DJ-13 French Toast (octave fuzz) (2011) - This is another cheap gem I bought just for the heck of it at Soundhouse. Danelectro is an old brand, but in recent years it has made a new name for itself as a maker of budget pedal effects that work. Its gear comes in different lines representing different price and quality levels, and while some of them sound...well...like budget pedals, some of them are actually quite good. I'd say this is one of them. It is an octave fuzz, and it does what an octave fuzz is supposed to do...at a fourth the price of a "respected" model. A pedal like this isn't for everybody; it is an octave fuzz, after all, and you have to know how to use it. I've found it to be a lot of fun.
MXR Micro Flanger (2011) - Here I've come full circle. This is a reissue of the original, 1980's M117 "stereo flanger", the first effect pedal I owned back in my high school days. Although people sometimes made fun of the "cheap crap" almost 30 years ago, now people are praising it...and it's STILL not really expensive! It still sounds great, too...just like I remembered.
Subdecay Liquid Sunshine (overdrive) (2011) - This is my latest purchase...at least until the one I just ordered from PedalGEEK arrives. Subdecay is a well-known maker of boutique guitar effects based in Newberg, Oregon. The idea of buying a pedal from home was enough fun as it was, but this is actually a very good, little box (and was Guitar Magazine's 2007 pick of the year). It's a low-gain overdrive, meaning its effect is more subtle; it mainly warms and colors the tone and/or boosts it rather than provide heavy distortion. It is also unique in that it has two different gain stages rather than tone controls. It works very well in tandem with other overdrive/distortion/fuzz pedals. I'm already in love with it.
Catalinbread WIIO (overdrive) (2011) - I will freely admit that I just ordered this from PedalGEEK yesterday, my first purchase from that site I've been happily perusing for the past couple of years. With the dollar-yen exchange rate where it is now, it will cost only a little more than half what the local vendors are asking for it. I guess I also went for it to salve all my recent stress. Anyway, Catalinbread is another highly respected maker of boutique pedals and happens to be based in Portland, Oregon. (Another Oregon pedal!) The "WIIO" (literally "WHO" minus the crossbar) is a "foundation pedal", i.e. it's not only an overdrive, but a preamp designed to act as an amp in and of itself in tandem with other pedals. Its all-analog tone is modeled after the famous Hiwatt DR-103 amp used by Pete Townshend, Alex Lifeson, Martin Barre, and David Gilmour, among many others. It also works well with acoustic guitar. The demo videos I saw were more than enough to make the sale. Anyway, it should be here in about a week. With this, my pedal setup together with my amp will be exactly as I've envisioned it, i.e. no more purchases should be necessary...providing I can get my old Boss CH-1 chorus to work reliably. There's also no telling if I'll end up grabbing another really cheap Danelectro, Behringer, or Digitech box just for the sheer fun of it.

And these are just the guitar pedals!

Looking forward to the next time I can dig it all out and make some NOISE...

The Theory of Experience

2011-08-30T11:53:00.003+09:00

"Here," said Mr. K as he handed me a stack of books. "I'd like for you to read all of these."

The year was 1994. The corporate English school where I was working at the time had decided to make a series of tests. The textbooks we were using came with tests of their own, but they were all of the oral interview variety. Our managers had thought that too inconvenient, so they'd decided to convert the oral tests into multiple-choice listening ones; each question would be followed by four answers to choose from, only one of which would be in correct English. Since the original tests had only the questions, that meant that we had to come up with the answer sets ourselves. And naturally, "we" wound up being "me". I didn't think that would be any problem, but apparently Mr. K, my American manager, didn't agree.

"This is so you can do research to find out the kinds of mistakes that Japanese tend to make," he continued.

I honestly thought he was joking. At the time, I'd already been working with Japanese students for at least six years, both in the USA and in Japan. I had a pretty good idea what kinds of mistakes they tended to make. Mr. K himself had been teaching English in Japan for perhaps six times that long. Surely he had heard enough mistakes over the years to have a pretty clear picture. Why would formal research even merit discussion? But he was serious, and he was adamant. Telling me to take my time, read the books carefully and be sure I understood their content, he handed me the stack and sent me on my way.

It didn't take long for me to figure out that the books were no help at all. There was an awful lot of theory, to be sure, but as far as concrete examples of errors Japanese tend to make, what I found was either painfully obvious or totally ridiculous. In other words, it was either stuff I'd already heard on a regular basis or stuff I'd never heard once among hundreds of students in more than half a decade. To make matters worse, it turned out that the authors of most of the books had never even been to Japan, let alone had any realistic experience teaching English to Japanese in a Japanese classroom, and yet here they were using all these wild theories to speculate on what I had to deal with directly day by day. And a veteran teacher with decades of experience wanted me to use these pipe dreams as the basis for my work.

Throwing the books aside with disgust, I sat down and cranked out the answer sets for the tests based on my own experience. Naturally, Mr. K was suspicious at my having finished so fast. After poring over my work, he called me to his desk.

"You didn't do the research I asked you to do, did you?" he asked with the faintest hint of sternness creeping into his eternally pleasant demeanor. "Dr. [X] said in [book Y] that Japanese mainly make mistakes with word order. You should have more word order errors in your answer sets. For example, for this problem..." He then gave me some sample errors that seemed just plain ridiculous.

"Tell me," I challenged, "in all your years of teaching, have you ever heard a single student make a mistake like that?"

Mr. K paused as if totally dumbfounded by my question. Then he replied, "Well...no, but... I guess I really haven't, but...I mean... Well... Um, anyway, Dr. [X] says so in his book, and it's generally a good idea to trust the experts!"

This is a very good example of why, though I tend to lean a bit left politically, I tend to be conservative when it comes to teaching. It's not that I'm reluctant to try new ideas; on the contrary, I've tried some "revolutionary" approaches and found some of them to be really good. But as a general rule, I have little faith in theory. I want concrete facts, or better yet, I want to see first hand what works and what doesn't. I want substance. I've seen too many bright ideas put forward by "experts" turn out to be a total bust when applied in the real world. Maybe their theories worked in certain, select conditions, but they didn't where I am. That's why, when someone starts using lots of big words and talking in terms of "ideals", I immediately turn into a die-hard skeptic.

Which puts me in kind of an awkward position right now. I mentioned in my last post that our more motivated English teachers at Ye Olde Academy right now are quoting theories while explaining why my communication course should be abolished. It turned out that there had been a few misunderstandings; they want to modify my course, not eliminate it completely. It also turns out that the theory they're promoting is the one now being embraced by the Ministry of Education and Technology (i.e. they're not just pulling it out of their rectums). It even turns out that I actually agree with some parts of it. However, the central premise of the theory contradicts what my own first-hand experience over the past two decades has taught me and even seems in some ways to be a fancy recycling of the 1980's approach. My job probably isn't going to be changing quite as much or as fast as I thought, after all, but this is still the reality I'm having to deal with now: the reality of people who ignore reality and create their own...and call it progress. This is what I have to fight against.

I'm really starting to sound like an old fart.

Trucks Suck

2011-08-22T20:09:00.004+09:00

Yes, I'm in a bitter mood. At Ye Olde Academy it was announced that, thanks to a weird curriculum change, the course that has been the main focus of my work for the past sixteen years is now inconvenient and will therefore be scrapped. To make matters worse, at a recent department meeting in which we discussed what to do with my course, the two most motivated (read "vociferous") teachers basically said we should take this opportunity to do away with communicative English teaching, period. One said, "There's little practical merit in communicative English." The other, while quoting fancy words from some book, said, "Junior high students need to spend more time in passive learning first," followed by, "Communicative English is useless for entrance exams." (Holy shyte, what year is this? Did we go back to 1990?)

In other words, they want to drag English education back several decades in defiance of conventional wisdom, the rest of the planet, the Ministry of Education and Technology, any degree of rational thinking, and simple reality. And I'm told I'm just supposed to cooperate.

Anyway, I was talking about trucks. There was a time in my childhood, no doubt driven by the CB radio craze of the late '70s, when I was into trucks and dreamed of being a truck driver. Actually, I still have a certain level of respect for American truck drivers, since they seem to have certain standards they adhere to.

COOL!!!!!

As for Japanese truck drivers, however...I'm now firmly convinced that they, as a general rule, just suck. My reasons include:

Trucks here basically go, stop, or park whenever and wherever they want and dare anyone to do anything about it. That can include turning or whipping right out in front of moving cars, changing lanes without warning (or looking), stopping in the middle of busy intersections rather than behind the stop line, or parking in the middle of the lane of a parking lot, blocking several cars (including ones that are in the process of backing out when they arrive).
Their tendency to park anywhere also means they tend to block traffic lanes in the vicinity of ramen shops at mealtimes. That can include parking right on corners, making them dangerously blind.
Trucks, especially dump trucks, have a tendency to think they're clever by ignoring the designated truck routes and taking short cuts on narrow local roads which are already barely wide enough for two lanes of cars. I once watched as one dump truck sat and blocked a road until a whole line of cars got out of his way. Another dump truck sideswiped me into a guard rail as he passed me on a curve (but my side bumpers took it with only minor scratches, thank god).
In order not to worry about taking up parking space at their companies or using tolled parking, truck drivers here often park their rigs in the middle of residential areas. They then start their engines in the wee small hours and idle them for long periods to warm them, waking everybody up.
When the government instituted the policy of discount times at automated toll gates, trucks soon started the custom of camping out on the shoulders in front of them until a discount period arrived. Then they would converge on the gates, clogging up expressway traffic badly and worsening the traffic jam problem.
When the government started the strange "grace gate" (my term) policy allowing trucks to waive highway tolls at entry gates to expressways leading to and from the worst earthquake-affected areas (to help facilitate quake relief, at least in theory), trucks soon learned that, by taking a detour on the expressway to one of the designated gates, exiting it, re-entering it, and then continuing on their way, they could use the expressways for free regardless of their destination. One such gate is located in Mito, our prefectural capital. Now not only the gate, but also the surrounding residential neighborhoods are clogged solid with a steady stream of trucks taking advantage of the glitch. And the trucks aren't too careful about where and how they turn around to re-enter the gate, either, and apparently some people's gardens, fences, and cars have paid the price for the oversight.

I still respect American trucks, but here in Japan...trucks suck.

You SUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!! You suck so MUUUUUUUUCH!!!!!!

Creativity or Desperation?

2011-08-12T02:11:00.005+09:00

I've really got to hand it to Pepsi. Unfortunately, I'm not sure exactly what "it" is that I should hand them. I'm not sure about back home in the USA, but here in Japan they keep coming up with interesting (weird?), new, flavored versions of their cola. Over the past several years, these have included:

Ice Cucumber - The flavor was apparently modeled after the iced cucumbers that are a popular summer treat here, particularly in the Kansai region (Kyoto, Nara, Osaka). Poured over lots of ice, it could actually be strangely refreshing on a hot day. However, drunk straight out of the bottle, especially if only slightly cooled, well...let's just say getting rid of that lingering aftertaste could be a chore. Nevertheless, I continued to buy it for the entire three-week period it was available.
Shiso - Shiso is a Japanese herb that is a member of the mint family. It is used to flavor a number of different dishes and condiments including sushi and aojiso dressing. Shiso Pepsi really did taste like it. Mint lover that I am, I actually liked it and drank it frequently, though I saw it make other gaijin gag. It was on the market for about a month.
Baobab Pepsi - I'm not sure what to say about this one. The label showed a picture of a baobab tree and animals in an African style. The cola itself was a golden color and had a fruity taste which I assume was modeled after the "monkey bread" fruit of the baobab tree. It was actually pretty good, if a bit sugary like an artificial fruit punch. It's hard to say how long it was sold; it was only widely available for a few months, but one store continued to sell it for the better part of a year. I bought it from time to time.
Mont Blanc - The flavor was clearly modeled after the rich dessert of the same name, which is based on chestnuts. I tried very hard to like Mont Blanc Pepsi, which was supposed to have a latte-like flavor, but I just couldn't bring myself to drink it. It just overwhelms the taste buds and leaves them begging for mercy. (Then again, I only drank it while eating, which was probably not a good idea.) Not surprisingly, it was only on the market for a few weeks.
Pepsi Dry - Now here was an interesting concept: a cola of reduced sweetness for the stated purpose of giving it a more naturally coffee-like flavor. (Strangely, the #1 ingredient is still sugar...) I actually think it's a good idea, and I like it. I drink it from time to time. It has been on the market for a couple of months now, though it's mainly found only in drugstores and certain convenience store chains.
Energy Cola - This is a new one that came out last month. It is exactly what the name implies: Pepsi with added vitamins, proteins, and royal jelly plus stimulants beyond the normal caffeine load. It tastes like (wait for it...) a cross between Pepsi cola and those vitamin drinks that have long been a staple of Japanese life. It comes in a small can that is (wait for it...) the same size as that of Red Bull. It is only sold by certain store chains, but there have been some PR campaigns for it. At any rate, I do drink it on occasion...which is strange, since I have thus far avoided Red Bull like the plague.
Caribbean Gold - This one just hit store shelves a few days ago. Not surprisingly, its label has a tropical theme. It is indeed a golden color. Its flavor is based on the white sapote fruit, but to me it tastes (and looks) suspiciously similar to the Baobab cola I mentioned above. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Again, it's good if you're in the mood for something fruity in a sugary kind of way.

There have been others, too. So why does Pepsi keep coming out with all these weird and often short-lived varieties? Well, although Pepsi competes well with Coca Cola in the US and elsewhere in the world, here in Japan it is still a hill to Coke's mountain. A lot of Japanese will tell you they've never tried Pepsi and have no reason to, or have but don't see any need to drink it again. The reason is that Japanese society has always been very ordered; everything here has tended to be based on established "if - then" statements, and in the minds of most people here, if it's cola, then it's Coke. Thus, you could say that Pepsi really has nothing to lose by trying out all kinds of inventive ideas to get the public's attention. It also provides a healthy bit of variety...even if it doesn't always taste so good.

Music Camp 2011

2011-08-09T19:45:00.003+09:00

Well, yet another summer training camp for the Ye Olde Academy music club has come and gone. Once again we were up at the Ohshima Forum in Nasu near the Nasu Yumoto Hot Spring. Rather than write a lengthy journal about it, I'll just give you the highlights:

The food was much better...and artsier...than I'd remembered.
Since they didn't give me any time to rehearse with the Flying Eggheads jazz band, I had no music-related work on the schedule at all. My main job was to use my BLUE RAV4 and once again be the BLUE TAXI, ferrying people to and from the shinkansen (bullet train) station down in Nasushiobara City. I also had to take care of all the shopping trips to prepare for the nightly welcome parties for the guest clinicians.
My taxi outings included one incident where I was sent to pick up one guest clinician who'd happened to arrive with another at the same time. The student in charge of scheduling the clinicians had already asked the hotel to pick up that second clinician, so they both wound up going in the hotel van together. Meanwhile, I made the half-hour trip, sat for an hour at the station before calling the hotel on my cell phone (and finding out my charge had already arrived there), and made the half-hour trip back, missing dinner. Naturally, nobody bothered to ask the hotel to set aside a late plate for me. My Family Mart dinner was enough to tide me over till the inevitable drinking party anyway, so it was okay.
The weather was cooler and rainier than normal, which also meant fewer bugs. No complaints there...
I did end up taking care of the extra practice and training sessions for the new 7th grade wind players, however. That's always fun, though it takes a lot of patience.
Since I'm in charge of arranging tunes, I also had the job of preparing music sheets. I didn't have much to do in that department for the first two days, but there was a sudden rush on day 3. It was a damned good thing I'd brought my laptop and a copier/printer.
Actually, the copier/printer I got for the music club two years ago, a rather nice Brother model, broke. They didn't use it at all last year (while I was in Australia), and whoever used it for the school festival two years ago left the ink cartridges inside (a serious no-no for that model). I managed to get the colored ink to work after monkeying with it for almost a full day, but black wouldn't budge. I gave up and went shopping in Nasushiobara City. I stumbled on a good Epson model that had a "Today only: 60% off" sticker on it, so I snapped it up. It got suitably broken in. Hopefully it'll last longer than two years.
The hydrangeas that line the main roads there were in bloom, as usual, but they seemed more vividly colored than I'd remembered.
On the last day, Herr Maestro Ogawa asked me if I could "improve" the (professional) arrangement of a tune being practiced by the junior high orchestra, a Sound of Music medley. While I was thinking about it, our new club counselor, a graduate of Ye Olde Academy and an alumnus of the music club, suggested we work on it together. She's good at ad-libbing on the piano, so I grabbed my sax, and we went to the piano in the hotel lobby to brainstorm. We came up with a whole bunch of cool ideas, and then we wound up having an impromptu jam session (earning some applause from clinicians and students up on the second floor balcony above us). That was fun!
After several years of strong showings and successes in contests including being #1 in our prefecture in our division last year, our concert band is currently in maintenance mode. We lost almost all of our "muscle" to graduation and quitting. Our brass section in particular is now made up of young, inexperienced members who probably should have been given more training last year, but were ignored in favor of all those strong players (a common trap to fall into). We're at the point now where perhaps our most significant guest clinician ended his stint at the camp by basically telling the band not to worry about it since they clearly weren't going anywhere. (Way to build confidence, guy...)
The orchestra isn't in much better shape. It has the same brass players. Moreover, the violin section is also weak even though it's mostly made up of older, more experienced (but not necessarily more intelligent) players. Herr Maestro Ogawa actually let me direct the last orchestra session of the camp so that he could take a break (though I practically had to twist his arm to let me do it). It felt good, but it was also kind of depressing. I'm used to the kids being better than that. They seem to be trying their best, however, and I can't ask for much more than that.
There was an unusual amount of bad blood and bad vibes this year. The 11th graders (the eldest members since 12th graders don't participate), who are supposed to be in charge of everything, were divided into feuding factions. The leader of the sax part suddenly teamed up with all the junior high members and started bullying the lead alto player, the strongest and most diligent member. There was similar clique-forming and excluding happening all over the club, mainly among the younger set. And in the teacher/clinician fraternity, a huge percentage of the dialogue consisted of caustic criticism of the teacher who directs the concert band. They just went on and on and on, ripping on him brutally, mostly behind his back (when they believed he couldn't hear...though I know better). Certainly, a lot of that criticism was on the mark, but it got to be agonizing to listen to...especially since I've had the experience of being ripped on in a similar manner myself (though only once to my knowledge, it was only one conversation they thought I couldn't hear, and the clinicians actually stuck up for me). To make matters worse, when the topic of the one year that I directed the concert band at the contest came up, Herr Maestro Ogawa immediately countered with the same, old story: the oboe solo that I couldn't fix, but he did. That happened a decade ago, but apparently he still considers it "proof" as to why I shouldn't direct the concert band, though he won't say so directly. (Then again, it's a given he doesn't believe the current director could do any better...or even as well...which really makes me wonder.)
Perhaps the bad vibes were influenced by the radiation level. We found out shortly after we'd arrived that a group of college students doing independent research had discovered the Nasu area to be a "hot spot". Apparently the prevailing winds had been blowing directly from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant, and the recent spikes had had some effect on our location. It wasn't high enough to be dangerous, especially during our brief stay, but it was kind of scary, especially since it rained so much.
As I headed out to go home, I finally stopped at a place clearly indicated on my car GPS navi system and frequently advertised in local pamphlets. It turned out to be a really cool little mall-let filled with gift, craft, and novelty shops. And even though Nasu was crowded, that mall-let was not! I love places like that!

Anyway, another year, another summer training camp. Next comes the school festival...

My Take on an Old Proverb

2011-07-22T21:50:00.002+09:00

As a teacher, it isn't really an issue whether my students know or know not whether they know or know not. However...

A student who doesn't try, doesn't succeed, and doesn't care is probably a dead horse, but it doesn't matter. Keep beating him.
A student who doesn't try, doesn't succeed, but does care is an opportunity. Wake him.
A student who doesn't try, doesn't care, but succeeds is wasted talent. Shame him.
A student who doesn't succeed, doesn't care, but tries is dancing reluctantly on someone else's leash. Free him.
A student who tries and succeeds but doesn't care is snowing his way through the system. Scorn him.
A student who tries and cares but doesn't succeed is a student in need. Help him.
A student who cares and succeeds but doesn't try is missing his calling. Encourage him.
A student who cares, tries, and succeeds is probably a figment of your imagination, but if he is real, consider yourself lucky. Honor him.

(Should I do one for teachers next?)

One for Dave: The King of Rock and Roll.

2011-07-09T12:06:00.010+09:00

The tail end of the '70s and the '80s decade that followed were a time of big hair and big dreams. (The '90s, on the other hand, were a time of disheveled hair and disheveled personalities. I won't even bring up what came next.) It was an era of stress but also of great creativity, when sometimes violent demands for conformity went hand and hand with a belief that any fantasy could be allowed to take shape. Some products of some imaginations continue to affect us even now.

I have already talked about Dave Robison since his sudden death last September. I've already mentioned how I first met him when he was drawing TIE fighters on a blackboard at a church banquet, and how we came to be friends, close friends, even best friends, sometimes even despite the physical or ideological differences in between. This time I want to focus on the musical arena.

Dave already played trumpet and a bit of piano when I first met him. Almost from the start, when we combined our interest in sci-fi and cartooning and started creating our own, joint story/art universe, we toyed around with the idea of making our own background music. We came up with themes, mainly on the piano, for different races and characters. At one point, we even experimented with recording ourselves playing trumpet and clarinet together with a taped piano accompaniment. However, the biggest leap forward came with Dave's announcement in the 8th grade that he had started to learn bass guitar.

Talented as he was, Dave took to the bass very quickly. It also wasn't long before he became dissatisfied with his first instrument, a rather cheap, used model, and rebuilt it. He also made his own amplifiers. I already played guitar, so it was only natural that we wanted to try playing together, but the only instrument I had available at the time was my dad's classical guitar. Dave was never one to let such things stop him, however, and he made a sort of pickup for me to attach to the guitar so I could amp it. Thus began our first jam sessions (so to speak).

At first our repertoire consisted mainly of Kiss and Judas Priest plus a few various songs we plucked off the radio, but I didn't waste any time before I started making my own tunes. Most of those old songs (thankfully) disappeared along with my first song notebook years ago, but the whole idea of being able to write songs appealed to Dave, and it wasn't long before he started coming up with his own.

His first offering was a song called "King of Rock and Roll". Actually, it wasn't a "song" so much as a tune with the possibility of adding lyrics later. I have to admit I wasn't all that impressed at first. For one thing, I thought the title sounded like something a band on a Saturday morning kids' show would play. It was also a very simple, repetitive number with no musical development. Still, I really liked its main hook, and there were lots of possibilities. While we played around with it, I started coming up with various ideas for expanding the arrangement, and Dave answered with some adjustments of his own. In the end, it wound up becoming a song that was probably two-thirds his and one-third mine with lyrics that were wholly his. I finally got my first electric guitar and amp (a Drifter Les Paul copy and a tiny but potent Guyatone practice amp) the following year, and "King of Rock and Roll" became a staple of our jam sessions. As much as we liked the tune, however, we never got the chance to perform it for an audience.

Before we finished high school, musical and ideological differences together with frustration with our "band's" lack of progress led me to end my partnership with Dave and join a different group. That led to some complications, since we had a few songs we'd written jointly that we still wanted to use. In the end, we wound up accepting joint ownership of almost the entire pot. However, "King of Rock and Roll" was the only song that Dave insisted I not use unless we could do it together. I figured I could give him that much, especially since we were still friends, and we still got together to jam once in a while.

Dave actually got into the field of studio recording before I did, first taking a studio engineering class in college and then getting a multitrack recording setup of his own. At his urging, I started making my own home studio soon after coming to Japan. But again, once I started churning out my own, homegrown albums, he asked me not to touch "King of Rock and Roll" until we got a chance to work on it together. I honored that request. In fact, tempted though I was to do something with the song, I left it on the "pending" list for twenty years. I was even about to suggest we try e-mailing tracks back and forth as a sort of internet studio recording.

But then Dave passed away suddenly in his sleep in September of 2010. Any chance of fulfilling his hope of recording "King of Rock and Roll" together died with him. However, I was determined to make some kind of musical tribute to my friend, something to acknowledge his tremendous influence on my own musical endeavors. "King of Rock and Roll" seemed like the only logical choice. We could never work on it together, at least not in body, but perhaps his spirit could help me as I did the project.

It was definitely a labor of love, one which combined "how it was", "how it might have been", and "how it would be". There were a couple of small but troubling problems with the equipment that popped up; I was able to work around them, but it made production perhaps it bit rougher than it could have been. On the other hand, though my voice was stubbornly hoarse and hard to keep on pitch (mainly thanks to the season), my guitar chops were in far better shape than I'd expected. I also got the opportunity to break in a few newly-purchased pedals. But anyway, from the garage experiments of a couple of naive but eager 14-year-olds to the home studio project of a moody minstrel, with a salute to Dave, I bring you:

The King of Rock and Roll

Listen, and help me keep the memory of my old friend alive.

PS: I should probably point out that no written copy of Dave's original lyrics to this song remains, or at least has yet to be found. I was fortunate to remember most of the second verse plus the last, slow part, but I had no recollection of the first verse at all. Therefore, I made my own based on the original theme as best I could recall.

The Nose Knows

2011-06-28T11:38:00.002+09:00

So now we've come to the infamous rainy season here in the Land of the Rising Sun. Actually, "rainy season" is a bit of a misnomer. It would probably be more accurate to call it the "season of high temperatures coupled with insanely high humidity resulting in such phenomena as hot mists, frequent warm drizzles, the occasional torrential rain, condensation inside of buildings, explosive mold growth, and sweat that just won't go away." (Yeah, that's a mouthful, so I guess "rainy season" will do.) It's not the most livable time of the year. The heat and the dampness are only part of the problem, too. Outside, the fragrance of flowers combines with the reek of industry in the languid air. Inside, the nose gets pummeled into a stupor by the stench of sweat and mold. This time of the year is the olfactory equivalent of a college dorm on "crank day"; no matter where you go, your senses get beaten around by several different things at once, few of them good.

...which makes it very understandable that smells have long played an important role in Japanese culture.

The Tale of Genji, a Japanese novel written in the 11th century and considered the first novel still regarded as a classic (if not the first real novel, period), often deals with the issue of smells. The Heian Era, when the novel was written and takes place, was long before the Japanese started bathing frequently. Characters are often described as "burning perfume" into their clothes, i.e. imbuing them with incense smoke, and the amount of time and effort spent doing so reflects their psychological state. Moreover, the second part of the novel centers on Genji's son Kaoru (a pun on the word meaning "to give off an aroma") and his friend and bitter rival, Prince Niou (a pun on the word meaning "to smell", actively or passively). The almost too good to be true (in a moral and intellectual sense) Kaoru is described as having an intense but strangely captivating natural body odor which he makes no attempt to hide. Prince Niou, who is handsome but not too bright - and insanely jealous - goes to great lengths to outdo Kaoru by mimicking his style but trying to make it one better...to the point of perfuming himself almost to death. The battle of the smells mirrors the basic premise of that part of the novel; Kaoru does things to the best of his considerable ability, always in a moral manner, but Niou "smells" what his friend is up to and tries to beat him at his own game by crafting an even better "smell"...one that is an immoral deception but winds up winning in the end. (Well, maybe. That's the one thing that really frustrates me about The Tale of Genji: it just stops. Either the ending was lost, or Murasaki Shikibu died before finishing it. At any rate, I would've loved to see Kaoru forget his Buddhist ascetism and beat the shyte out of his even stinkier buddy, but oh well.)

Image from the taleofgenji.org website.

The Tale of Genji takes place in Heian-Kyo, the capital of Japan during the Heian Era (which is why it's called that). Now it is known as Kyoto. Even today, if one visits that fabled city, one smells incense. Lots of incense. And not just in the many temples, either. There's a very good reason for that. Japanese incense is easily among the best in the world if not the best, and for over a thousand years the center of that tradition has been Kyoto. Go to any good incense shop anywhere in Japan (if you can find one; they seem to be disappearing), and it's virtually guaranteed their best wares all say "made in Kyoto". As for Kyoto itself, incense shops are easy to find there, and they have quite a selection. So do the many gift shops. Incense in Kyoto is more than just something you stick in a dish on a family altar or in front of a grave. It's a part of everyday life, and one I've always admired. Indeed, the smell of certain kinds of incense brings back vivid memories of my visits to the ancient Imperial capital and its many treasures.

A selection of Japanese incense offered by Incense on the Way.

I mentioned that incense shops seem to be fading away in areas of Japan outside Kyoto. What has replaced them? It's hard to say, but I have noticed something ironic. The Japanese have been almost obsessed with bathing and cleanliness for at least a couple of centuries, but I found it odd that deodorant was virtually non-existent when I first came here. However, from the late '90s deodorant spray and lotions for both sexes suddenly became all the rage. Coincidentally, this was also the time when actual running sewer lines finally came to be widespread. It used to be that, wherever you went, there was always the sulfurous reek of poorly-sealed cesspools and open sewage ditches in the background. It may be that people's noses used to be more or less numbed by it. Now that the sewage stench has been all but eliminated, people are suddenly taking more note of their own smells. That's why Axe is now part of the modern culture here.

There is also aromatherapy oil. When I first got an oil burner and started using it at home, it was still something of a curiosity here. Now not only the traditional burners, but also sophisticated, self-regulating steamers are widely available and very popular. It is also easy to find a wide selection of essential oils. I'm happy to announce that I (finally) even found and bought a little aromatherapy burner that plugs into the cigarette lighter socket in my BLUE RAV4! Perhaps inevitably, when I'm in my studio or cleaning upstairs, I always have to deal with the debate as to whether to burn incense, use the oil burner, or use both in turns. That makes me wonder whether the stress of the choice winds up being more than the stress reduced by the incense/oil, but whatever.

It's hot. It's muggy. I'm sweaty, and it smells like a dust-fueled, sulfur-fertilized mildew factory in this room deep in the bowels of Ye Olde Academy. I have no incense or aromatherapy oil here, unfortunately, but at least I'm able to enjoy the smell of coffee.

Does Friendship Have Value or Meaning?

2011-06-23T12:56:00.004+09:00

I remember back in my elementary school days, (which was in the late Heian Era, if I'm not mistaken,) "disposable" somehow become synonymous with "modern". It seemed like they were coming up with cheap, throw-away versions of everything, and wanting to hold onto an item you liked could get you branded as a geek. But while people were happily filling up the garbage cans with their everyday lives, there was a lot of concern expressed that society was forgetting how to value things. From entertainment TV to those annoying newsletters they kept shoving down our throats at school, there was all kinds of moaning that nothing mattered anymore; once something was no longer new and exciting, or if it had a little flaw, you just dropped it in the bin and forgot about it. How long would it be, it was often asked, until people started treating other people with the same level of callous disregard that they treated their disposable lighters? Would relationships between people become just another throw-away convenience?

(Actually, I've met quite a few people of either gender that generally treat the opposite sex that way, i.e., "Use once or twice and toss out," but I digress...)

My first forays into the world of cyber-friendship happened when someone talked me into using the social network called ICQ. The original intent was to chat with friends and family back home in the US, but there was this thing called "random chat" which was enabled by default. Suddenly I was getting chat requests from people I didn't know in all kinds of different countries. It was a new and exciting thing for me. Most such "chats" were no more significant than chewing the fat with a stranger sharing the same park bench (I might offer the example of the Taiwanese teenager who insisted s/he was a frog), but I also soon encountered the "friendship request", i.e. being asked for permission to be entered onto a regular contact list so we could stay in touch. That was even more exciting for me, and I've made some very important friends as a result. However, it also meant that I had to endure the experience of being "unfriended".

Perhaps the first was a German woman who, after being an ICQ friend for about a month, suddenly said, "I only talk to happy people, not moody people," and vanished from my list. I was more than a little put out. Still, it didn't bother me quite as much as a Japanese guy, a music aficionado who had been a "friend" for the better part of a year, who suddenly started getting on my case about my (at the time) slow internet connection before all at once typing, "Aw, fuck it," and disappearing. The whole idea that friendship was less important than one's internet provider service was something I found very disturbing.

I eventually stopped using ICQ random chat (when it became nothing but porn ads) and then quit ICQ altogether. By then my regular friends had all migrated to other services, but I didn't follow suit because I'd found a new passion: blogging. That earned me an even bigger and more varied circle of friends, but it also brought even more distressing losses of friendship. Some simply faded away as life paths went in different directions, but others just came crashing down. There was my longtime friend Dave R., who had a habit of breaking contact with me every time he lost an argument, though I was always fairly certain he'd be back, and he always was. On the other hand, I could mention a certain Palestinian woman and a few Jewish men whose passionate yet surprisingly rational debates over the Israel/Palestine issue brought me into their circle. Suddenly the Palestinian woman closed down her blog citing death threats but thankfully reappeared later under a pseudonym...only to delete her new blog a few months later and disappear completely for reasons unknown (though I have to wonder if she was the "anonymous" who strangely attacked me a few times on this site). As for the Jewish men, one made his blog "access to invited members only" and took me off his list right after W. Bush invaded Iraq, and the other suddenly became ultra-militant and blocked me when I tried to reason with him. Blogging isn't quite as personal as social networking, but I found these losses painful.

Which brings me to the almighty Facebook. It's amazing how many of my old classmates and even former ICQ friends have come to be on my list. However, the fact is that the overwhelming majority of my "Facebook friends" were and are actually game friends, i.e. "friended" for the purpose of mutual support in games like Mafia Wars and Farmville. Most of them have had little or no contact with me outside the game arena, and their personal posts don't appear in my feed. I wasn't at all upset when 200 of them vanished after I stopped playing Mafia Wars, either. However, some of those game friends came to be, or at least seemed like, real friends, which made them more important.

Even when it became clear one group "friended" me for the sole purpose of inundating me with a steady stream of Tea Party propaganda (which ranged from interesting and informative to some of the most ridiculous, bottom-scraping tabloid sludge I've ever seen), I still valued them enough to comment in a respectful manner when I pointed out blatant factual errors and outright hypocrisy in some of those posts. I wasn't surprised when their inability to refute my arguments led them to attack my character (classic Rush Limbaugh style) and then "unfriend" me, but I still felt a strong sense of loss. I felt even worse when, soon after that, my old friend Dave R. did the same thing to me (yet again, though this time more maliciously, though I'm happy we patched things up again before his tragic death).

Then there's this latest incident, which involves a "game friend" who has been a frequent face in my news feed and has come to seem very much like a real and significant friend over the past couple of years. Without prying too much or getting too personal, I'd done my best to be supportive as she'd gone through what was clearly a very difficult time in her life. Finally, after things had taken a strong turn for the better for her, she posted an open question which I answered quickly and bluntly. She said she agreed with me, but it turned out my wording had been careless; it sounded like I'd attacked someone close to her. My attempt at damage control apparently went wrong. The post soon disappeared, and over the next day or two I apparently got "unfriended" (though the person's "likes" and photos tagged to me keep appearing on my profile at times she's usually offline and disappearing again when she's likely online, meaning I was more likely blocked). What's really ironic is that, about a year ago, this person wrote a number of posts asking what I'm asking right now: has friendship been reduced to the level of a video game? Do people declare someone a "friend" when it seems like fun at the moment and then delete him or her from their world without a second thought when it seems old or inconvenient? Is real friendship passé? And if so, what does that say about us as human beings? Is it old fashioned to care about anyone other than yourself?

At Ye Olde Academy I was once told that a need for friends was a sign of immaturity or even mental sickness. Fine. I'll be immature, mentally sick, and old fashioned. It makes for a more attractive world.

Mother Knows Best

2011-06-20T23:11:00.004+09:00

When I first mentioned Mi on this blog, she was known to my family as "Urusai Neko" ("the annoying cat"), and she definitely was. She was one of three abandoned cats that suddenly appeared and made themselves at home on our property during the summer of 2009 when we were trying to observe the first anniversary of my mother-in-law's death. As for the other two, Hana quickly became an established member of our household, and Kushi (formerly known as "Shiro-Kuro") still wanders by at feeding time. As for Urusai Neko, she continued to be annoying.

("Urusai Neko" in 2009)

It wasn't just that she was so damned stubborn and persistent. It wasn't just that she had an aggressive personality and was good at rapid ambush attacks. It wasn't just that she made life for our other cats miserable. It wasn't just that she was too smart to be fooled easily. It wasn't just that she was affectionate to the point of being obnoxious. It wasn't just her occasional habit of giving love bites that drew blood. And it wasn't just that GODAWFUL, NASALLY YOWL of hers and the demonic grimace she made every time she uttered it. It was all that and more.

And yet we couldn't deny some things. For one thing, she was beautiful. She was definitely a people cat and hated to be alone. A lot of her pestiferousness could be offset by just pausing and giving her a scratch on the back (which would send her into total ecstasy). Once, when I thwarted her attempt to raid some garbage, she sat down, straightened herself, curled her tail around her body with a dignified air, gazed off into the distance with a resigned look, and sighed. I suddenly felt so sorry for her, that I went and got her some food. It wasn't long before my FIL succumbed to her flawed charms, too. He started calling her "Mi" (which is what he calls ALL female cats out of habit...or sheer mental laziness) and treated her as a bona fide pet. She wasn't allowed into the house (as if that stopped her, smart as she was), so she mainly lived out in the greenhouse, but she still became more or less a member of the household. And unfortunately, since FIL refused to have her spayed (just like he refused to have Kushi neutered), we figured it was only a matter of time before she gave us an unwanted present...or several.

Her first litter was three babies, which she placed inside an old school desk in the greenhouse. That may have been a fatal error; all three of her young soon disappeared without a trace, and she didn't seem concerned. It was really hot that year, and the greenhouse was like an oven inside even with the vents open. We figured the three babies probably died of dehydration and were disposed of somewhere by the mother.

She had better luck with her second litter, which consisted of four. She kept them in her own bed near the greenhouse door. They had actually grown up to the point that their eyes were fully open and they were starting to explore their nearby surroundings when FIL decided to keep one and cull the rest. He chose the friendliest of the lot, but while he was busily catching the skittish remainder and disposing of them (I won't elaborate), Mi apparently figured out what was going on. She quickly grabbed her remaining baby and vanished. We searched all over and finally found that she'd placed her now-solitary offspring inside the living room of FIL's house! It was then that FIL decided to let Mi be a housecat, and she has remained so ever since.

As for the baby, he was named Koko, and he gradually overcame his trauma and skittishness to become quite a friendly and easy-going youngster...till he wound up losing an argument with a motor vehicle out on the road. FIL was devastated, but we figured he'd get a replacement soon enough.

Earlier this year, Mi was obviously pregnant, and then she'd obviously given birth, but we had no idea where the litter was. After a while, FIL found it buried in the depths of his bedding closet. Mi eventually moved it out to her bed, where it was revealed she'd had five babies. Once again FIL decided to keep one and cull the rest, and when he did so, Mi quickly relocated her remaining baby not just once, but frequently. If anyone found it, let alone touched it, she'd immediately haul it off somewhere else. Finally she put it somewhere we weren't able to locate. About two weeks passed before FIL finally stumbled on it nestled in a pile of junk in his (mostly unused) study. He prepared a sort of bed there for mother and baby but reported to us that the youngster was not people-friendly; it had apparently grown up hidden from humans too long and had become wild. I went into the study to have a look, and sure enough, there was the little one...giving me the most evil-looking threat display I've ever seen on a little fuzzball.

"That's just great," I grumbled to my wife afterward. "We have a feral cat growing up in grandpa's house!"

But I'd underestimated Mi.

The very next day, to everyone's amazement, Mi actually came into the living room of my FIL's house, carrying her baby by the neck, while we were there. She then deposited the little fuzzball in the middle of the room as if to present it. It immediately scurried for cover under a table, but the proud mother then moved to the nearest human and asked to be petted. When the human obliged, Mi started calling to her baby, encouraging it to come closer. Then she moved to a different person and did the same. In this way, she seemed to be showing her baby that we weren't a threat. Slowly but surely, the baby gained the courage to come out, eventually even curling up to snooze right next to my knee.

(Who needs a hidey-hole, anyway?)

Now the little one (who my FIL named...wait for it...Koko II) is mostly used to humans. He's (she's? I don't know yet) still skittish, and you have to let him set the social pace, but he has already let me pet him without running away, and he likes to be able to play with a human. As for Mi, she has already trained her kid to use the litter box and has been encouraging him to eat solid food. She still seems more interested in being petted than caring for her baby, but she hasn't been negligent.

Never underestimate a mom!

Life and Death in the Big City, pt. II

2011-06-17T23:34:00.003+09:00

As with my mother-in-law, the grandmother who died recently had her funeral scheduled for one week after her death, partly because of limited availability and partly because of Buddhist superstition regarding calendar dates (i.e. there are lucky and unlucky days that follow a regular cycle). Although she is scheduled to be buried in the greater family's graveyard here at our local temple, the action-packed sequence of events that constitute the Japanese funeral was to take place at a funeral home/crematorium there in Tokyo not far from where she lived.

I've described the process involved in the Japanese funeral before (when my MIL died), but I'll briefly reiterate. There are actually three different observances. The first, called tsuya (通夜), is a sort of preliminary rite held the evening before the main service, known as sōgi (葬儀). This is followed immediately by the cremation, after which the family members take turns putting the remaining bone fragments into the burial urn. There are also feasts after the tsuya and again after everything is finished. At any rate, the whole thing takes a couple of days to complete.

As it happened, the calendar worked out in my favor. The sōgi and cremation were to be on Thursday, which I already had off for my regular substitute Saturday half day and "training day". The tsuya was on the Wednesday before that, which I already had off because the Ye Olde Academy music club was participating in a regional high school music event. I went to that just long enough the direct the performance of the Flying Eggheads jazz band before lunch, and then I took my leave, hurried home, threw on dress black, loaded my wife and son in the BLUE RAV4 (My daughter, as I mentioned in the last post, was away on a school trip), and headed for Tokyo.

Traffic was thankfully light, and with the help of Navi-chan (cute, electronic fanfare), I was able to find our hotel without any trouble. Of course, parking was another story; the family had been booked into a medium-sized travel hotel not so far from the funeral home, but its parking lot was probably designed to humiliate country hicks like us. It consisted of a row of two-level elevator parking spaces arranged around a lane that seemed impossibly narrow even without the obstacles. Having no idea how to operate the elevators (and having NO help from the hotel staff whatsoever), I just tried to back into one of the lower levels...and found out the hard way that my BLUE RAV4 was too tall to fit. (Luckily the thing was cushioned.) Abandoning that idea, I aimed instead for the one lot that was in the lowered position, i.e. open above. Maneuvering my car into the space was an excruciating ordeal of going forward and backward a few centimeters at a time, gradually rotating myself enough to get the wheels into the grooves. Once that was done, I was able to get us checked into the room so we could clean up a bit and then grab a taxi for the funeral home. We got there just in time.

Of course, as with so many things here, "just in time" translated as "hurry up and wait", but it gave us time to greet various relatives we hadn't seen since the last time someone died.

The funeral for my MIL in 2008 was held at a typical funeral home here in the country, and we had it all to ourselves. However, this time the Tokyo-based funeral for my wife's grandmother was in a very Tokyoesque, big complex like a multiplex cinema with several (small) service rooms all crammed in next to each other. We'd brought the priest from our local temple to conduct the rites. As with the overwhelming majority of rural temples, ours is of the Sōtō sect, which is Zen Buddhist. Sōtō rituals tend to be rather low key; the "hocus pocus" is kept to a comfortable minimum led for the most part by the priest, whose chants I've noticed are never exactly the same. This contrasted sharply with the group in the room next to ours. They were obviously of one of the mainly urban Nichiren sects, who are very big on (loud) unison chanting and don't give a damn about any heretics outside their group. All the time our tired, aging priest did his best to lead our simple tsuya ceremony, a blaring cacophony of, "Namu-Myōhō-Renge-Kyō," repeated over and over like a college basketball cheer raged from next door. As if to add insult to injury, the official attendant/hostess of our event apparently wasn't familiar with our country bumpkin Sōtō funeral procedures, and the priest had to pause and gesture for her to carry out the next step. There were some annoyed looks in our group, but we managed to avoid a repeat of the intersect battles that kept trashing parts of Kyoto back in the 13th to 16th centuries.

The feast after the tsuya was, well, a typical greater family feast. I purposefully stuffed myself so that I wouldn't be done in by the constant refilling of my glass by distant relatives of my wife eager to chat with a foreigner (and get him as drunk as possible). I managed to come away in good shape, and we got back to the hotel without incident. Once there, however, my wife and I found out that the drainpipe shared by the sink and shower was not only mismatched but also partly stopped up; using the shower resulted in the bathroom floor becoming a pool. We were too tired to care too much. We turned in early for what promised to be our first good night's sleep in ages. (Or at least it would've been if I hadn't been awakened by horrible heartburn at 3 a.m..)

The next morning we got up, had breakfast, put our dress blacks back on, and caught a taxi for the funeral home again. We'd gotten about halfway there when my son noticed that he'd forgotten the farewell letter he'd written (an important tradition), so we asked the driver to turn around. We finally got to the funeral home just in time for the actual funeral, or sōgi. It was similar to the tsuya the night before (including the loud Nichiren yelling next door), but there were more people there...such as members of my father-in-law's family (including one aunt who recently sued him). (I also couldn't help noticing that there was one large bouquet that had been sent by the relatives on FIL's side who live in Rikusen Takada, Iwate Prefecture, a city completely obliterated by the tsunami last March. They're apparently doing okay even though their neighborhood and main shopping areas are gone.) There were also some more intense farewell gestures and lots more tears shed. Once that was all done, the casket was put in a hearse and driven across the parking lot to the crematorium, where we gave a last prayer, watched as the casket was loaded in the oven, and then waited until it was time to sort out the ashes.

Special chopsticks are used to pick up the remaining bone fragments and put them in the burial urn. It is always done by two individuals in tandem so as to reduce the risk of a curse or possession. Once everyone present has had a turn, the official attendant carefully places the remaining bits in the urn saving the skull fragments for last. Then it's all done till the burial takes place. But of course there is another feast after the rites are done for the day. (I avoided drinking since I had to drive, but I stuffed myself silly...despite being chatted up still more by people eager to compare the Japanese and American educational philosophies.) Then we went back to the hotel, got back into the BLUE RAV4, and headed for home.

Thank heaven there was a Starbucks at the highway rest stop we picked for a break...

I'm told the burial will take place in about two more weeks. It won't be in Tokyo, but will be here at our local temple and graveyard here in Namegata. That'll make it simpler and quieter. It won't be as flashy, and I'm sure there won't be as many people there, but at least we won't have loud, invasive chanting next door or an attendant who doesn't know what to do. I also won't have to worry about not being able to navigate the parking lot.

Life and Death in the Big City

2011-06-11T21:37:00.004+09:00

Tokyo has often been called the ugliest city in the world. Looking down on it from a height, it looks like an endless expanse of LEGOs dumped at random and then jammed together into a sort of carpet of horribly mismatched blocks separated by avenues that show no hint of any pattern comprehensible to a sane human mind. Every part was created as if in a vacuum, i.e. without any attempt to blend in with its surroundings. The result is a chaotic mess that would make the designers of R'lyeh green(er) with envy.

And yet it is perhaps for this reason that Tokyo is so full of surprises; there is simply no way to predict what vistas or unexpected forms of entertainment lie in wait to leap out at the unwary.

It was my first trip to Tokyo since January, and the first time I'd been on its subway system in years. Things had definitely changed a bit. For one thing, instead of simply "Subway", the signs in the trains and stations all said, "Tokyo Metro", which was a new one on me. The old LED displays in the trains had been replaced with LCDs, too. I was also taken by surprise by the walls with automated gates on the platforms to help prevent people from falling/jumping/being pushed onto the tracks. It would've been nice to travel around a bit and maybe hit some of my old favorite haunts (like the Ochanomizu music village...*pant pant*), but the purpose of the trip was anything but fun.

My wife's 93-year-old grandmother, her last surviving grandparent, had died the day before. The woman's health had been failing for a number of years, but her mind had remained sharp as a tack right up till the end. The last time we'd seen her had been during our last visit to Tokyo back in January. Then she'd moved only with difficulty, had to wear an oxygen mask, and spent the overwhelming majority of the time asleep, but she still had all of our names straight and was surprisingly up to date on our current events. Her knack for pointed comments hadn't faded a bit, either. As it turned out, on that fateful day this month, she'd gotten up, had her breakfast normally, and then complained that she wasn't feeling well. The one son (my wife's Uncle T) who had been living with and caring for her since her husband died took her to the hospital, and she passed away quietly a few hours later. If nothing else, the end came peacefully.

For a number of reasons, the funeral had to be scheduled a full week later. Unfortunately, as it tends to happen, it coincided with my daughter's school trip to Kyoto and Nara, a once in a lifetime chance. Her school was fully prepared to excuse her, but the extended family didn't think that would be right. Instead, since I already had the day after the grandmother's passing off for my "substitute Saturday holiday / training day", it was decided that I would take both the kids to Tokyo to let them say their own farewells. My wife took the day off, too ("conveniently" missing a demonstration lesson), so it became a family event.

My wife's grandmother (and grandfather, who'd died ten years earlier) were both originally from our little rural town in Ibaraki, but they'd moved to Tokyo for career reasons soon after getting married. Uncle T, having been born and raised in the Metropolis, had little understanding of rural ways, and our visit baffled him. He insisted that no one was going to come, and that he was going to have to deal with almost all of the funerary necessities himself. We countered that pretty much the entire clan was already making preparations. To punctuate the point, a phone call came announcing that the first carload, consisting of my FIL and a couple of siblings of the grandmother, was already getting ready to head out.

Uncle T was livid. "I just don't get this!" he railed. "I grew up here in Tokyo! I don't know the names of any of my next-door neighbors, and I like it that way! We all live and die. It's just what we do! Why is it anyone else's business?"

Ironically, I remembered hearing something similar when my wife's mother died three years ago. In fact, I remember SAYING something similar. The extended family on the mother's side, being mainly based in our neighborhood, came to support us from the start (read "starting with one great aunt suddenly bursting into our house in hysterics at 5 a.m. the morning after MIL died"), but only little by little. The support and mourning seemed to be a sort of rotating duty performed in shifts. This contrasted sharply with the extended family of my father-in-law, who hail from Iwate Prefecture (in a city that was erased from the map by the tsunami last March). In accordance with Iwate tradition, pretty much the entire clan tried to converge on us all at once and shoulder our burden, and we practically had to beat them back with farm implements. In the end, the locally-based mother's side and Iwate-based father's side wound up basically hating each other. And of course, no one even bothered mentioning the branch that had moved to Tokyo. Them city slickers is just all high n' mighty n' don't give a dead cockroach 'bout nothin', anyway.

Except that that's not true. It's just that city slickers in Tokyo, as in pretty much every big city in the world, tend to have very thick walls. Despite Uncle T's griping, it wasn't hard to tell that he appreciated all the support...and even felt a bit guilty about it. Speaking of which...as it turned out, my family's dropping in on him that day turned out to be surprisingly fortuitous. You see, in Buddhist tradition, especially in the Soto sect of Zen Buddhism, before the body of a deceased individual is moved to where it will lie in state before the funeral, there is a little ritual that is performed first to help prepare the soul for its transition...and help prepare the body so that it will be preserved for the duration of the period till cremation. Usually the rite is attended by the closest available immediate family members. Uncle T had expected to participate in it alone with the priest and attendants. As it happened, we had arrived just in time, so we were able to take part, too. It allowed my kids to say their farewells, helped bring some closure right off the bat (if there is such a thing as closure here in Japan...where people live with their dead), and did a lot to lighten Uncle T's heavy spirits.

It was still pretty hard, especially for my wife. She'd been close to her grandmother in her younger days and had even lived with her during her time in college. It had been hard enough seeing her looking so weak and frail back in January. Seeing the body lying in state, we could see just how horribly emaciated she'd become. Her face, wearing a toothy smile, looked peaceful enough, but her body was more or less a skeleton, as Uncle T said it had been for weeks. He'd kept that fact hidden from everyone...once again rationalizing it with his Tokyo, "It's our business," attitude. My wife and kids were horrified. As for me, though I admit I say this with some guilt, I felt the same way as I had when my MIL had died: If the body has become wasted to the point that life is hell, with no hope of reprieve, it's a far better thing...a far more merciful thing...to let it end peacefully. I wouldn't want to hold a tortured soul in its agony just for the sake of keeping it near me; better to say goodbye, let the suffering end as gently as possible, and then celebrate the life that we were blessed with before. My wife's grandmother had lived a long, full life and, despite her fading body, had stayed in sound mind till the end. She'd been blessed, and thus had many others been blessed. Now it was time to see her off hopefully on her way to something better.

Meanwhile, all around us, life in the ugliest city in the world went on as always, each part within its own walls, its own vacuum, without any concern for anything around it.

Kind of a shame, really. You never know what you're going to see! This very eye-catching structure buried within the morass of Tokyo is the great hall of the Rissho Kosei faith (English website here), a lay Buddhist sect, kind of the Buddhist equivalent of Assembly of God, or something like that. Apparently my wife's grandmother was a member, as she died at their hospital, and the great hall pictured above was across the street from where we performed the preparatory rites. To their credit, they neither proselytized to us nor had any qualms about performing rites associated with the Soto Zen sect, a rival branch whose teachings they do not support. Then again, they apparently do a lot of interfaith activities...including conferences with the Vatican. I never even knew they existed even though they have millions of members worldwide. Just another LEGO in the pile?

Life in the Wake of the Great Quake, pt. IX: The More Things Stay the Same...

2011-06-05T21:37:00.002+09:00

I've never been good at making plans.

Actually, that's not right. I've never had good luck with plans, especially those involving my course in life. I was actually quite adept at making them; during my college days I made lots of them. It also got to the point where I tended to make alternative plans, back-up plans, back-up back-up plans, alternative back-up plans, plans with Spam, emergency survival plans, emergency plans with Spam, and last-resort face-saving options (with or without Spam). They had a bad habit of not working out. Instead, things would wind up running smack up against walls of solid granite (or Spam) for reasons that were completely beyond my control. It seemed like fate, or whatever, was determined not to let me call my own shots.

And yet, as with Parsifal the Pure Fool, things always seemed to turn out for the better as a result. For example, the failure of my engineering and chemistry majors led me into fields to which I was far better suited. Disasters in my social and romantic lives actually saved me from what later revelations showed would probably have been even bigger woes. Had my plan to go to Germany and change my major to music succeeded, in all likelihood I would probably be a far poorer and more frustrated man now. Instead, a whole string of almost random choices, unexpected opportunities popping out of nowhere, people suddenly appearing just at the right time to steer me in just the right direction, and successes I never would have dreamed possible all combined to get me where I am now.

It's one of the main reasons why, despite my objective, question-asking, "doubting Thomas" nature, I stubbornly believe in God.

There's just one problem: I'm a teacher.

I know I've mentioned it here more than once before, but teaching was the one occupation I vowed to avoid at all costs. I saw what being an educator did to my father, and I had no intention of putting myself through that. However, like Parsifal, it seemed like I was cursed to wander without ever being able to find my true path in life until I was finally just led...or maybe pushed...onto it. And even then it never went where I expected.

My very first job here in Japan was as an "ALT", an Assistant Language Teacher, i.e. a teaching assistant who was never supposed to have any real responsibility. Nevertheless, I was put partly in charge of an international course I helped create and made responsible for several hours of solo teaching of that course every week. (That was what led me to stay the full three contract years instead of my planned two.) After that, having gotten engaged, I accepted the first invitation I got to work at Ye Olde Academy...which turned out to be a hoax, or at least somebody's failed pipe dream. With my visa's expiration looming only a couple of weeks away, I got the "just in case" miracle call asking me if I was willing to work for IPK English School. There I fully expected to be attached to marionette strings and made to dance to a pre-recorded script, but it turned out that they'd just ditched their regular program and were trying to come up with new ones, giving me plenty of opportunities to apply what I'd learned and test different things. Finally, when I got the second (and this time legitimate) offer from Ye Olde Academy, I was asked once again to be mainly a teaching assistant, not responsible for my own classes. I was told I'd be team-teaching 9th grade reading classes and 12th grade writing seminars. But after one year, I was told I'd been judged fit to teach solo and asked to make a 9th grade English Communication course and my own 12th grade writing seminar. I was also told that I was to be chiefly responsible for the school's international affairs.

Cut to now, fifteen years later. My role at Ye Olde Academy has evolved in various ways, but it has remained largely the same. I was asked to create and teach a 7th grade English Communication course a little less than ten years ago, but the 9th grade course is still my primary focus. My 12th grade writing seminar was taken away from me and given to a different American teacher three years ago, but now I'm teaching an 11th grade writing course which is largely the same thing. In other words, for sixteen years I've worked more or less as a specialist, revising and (I hope) improving the courses I teach but still sticking largely to the same, basic game plan. As it turns out, however, as with so many other things in the wake of the Great Tohoku Quake last March, that plan is suddenly taking unexpected and ominous turns.

For one thing, after having been a member of the 7th grade staff for several years in a row, I was quite surprisingly moved to grade 9 for the new school year starting in April. The teacher in charge of grade 9 English, himself having been suddenly plopped there to replace someone who'd gone on maternity leave, started making all kinds of demands. He told me he wants me to be at least 50% in charge of the program (though he replaced his name with mine on the official list as the "guy in charge"...which has me seriously worried) and is rather noisily insisting that I drop a lot of my other activities (i.e. my music club work) just so I can be his spare tire. With the full backing of the new chief of the English Department, he has been demanding that I completely change my whole approach to my job, let alone my longtime work (and even life) habits, apparently with the aim of somehow increasing my overall usefulness. I'm suddenly being told that I'm "bad" and "wrong" because I've been working as a specialist (as I was hired to) and largely left out of the loop for sixteen years but somehow haven't been keeping myself fully updated on and experienced in the teaching methods of the rest of the faculty in their reading courses (which, quite frankly, has been of little relevance or interest to me even if the regular teachers had wanted to take the time to indulge me with such information). I'm told that I'm "uninformed" and "unprofessional" because I value first-hand experience and concrete reality over abstract theories printed in some "expert's" book. And to top it all off, all these attempts to remake my life in his image are coming from a teacher with less than half my experience (though he insists, as one of his base principles, that experience is meaningless).

It wouldn't be half as bad if I didn't have so much respect for the guy. He's actually one of the better teachers, as far as I'm concerned. That still doesn't mean he isn't going way out of line.

That's just the beginning. I've been told that, in light of new (and baffling) changes to the curriculum to be implemented next year, my 9th grade English Communication course has been labeled "In The Way" and thus is to be scrapped. They're also saying that my newer 7th grade course may very well suffer a similar fate, blended with if not absorbed outright into the regular reading course. There has even been talk of eliminating the 11th grade writing course since it is widely accused of being "too difficult" (in a high-level academic school?). Even my work with the international affairs committee has been eroded to the point where virtually all tasks related to the sister-school project I created myself almost single handedly (after numerous administrative fuck-ups) are now being given to other teachers, and I'm being left completely out of the loop. The bottom line is that the roles I've had for the last sixteen years are suddenly being taken away. Sixteen years' worth of effort on my part has suddenly become a disposable inconvenience. And the trade-off is that now they're apparently determined to make me abandon and forget everything I've done till now and become a regular teacher teaching a regular course as part of the regular system ...precisely the thing I was hired NOT to do. Precisely the thing I DO NOT WANT to do. And I'll be damned if I give everything else up just to become another ritualistic, one-pattern, pretend workaholic member of the team.

The Great Tohoku Earthquake of last March changed life in the Land of the Rising Sun perhaps forever. Now the Great Ye Olde Academy Englishquake taking place right now is threatening to shake things up just as bad.

Still, if things follow their usual pattern, it'll all work out for the better in the end. I don't have any reason to lose faith just yet.

Sounding It Out

2011-05-28T17:42:00.003+09:00

The name "Soundhouse" alone was enough to tickle the attention of a musician or sound artist. Hearing Mr. S talk about it, it almost sounded like some kind of audio wonderland, a sort of paradise on earth for people keen on things that make and shape noise.

I first heard about it back in 1997, when the music club at Ye Olde Academy was suddenly given a throbbing wad of money to be used to buy a SOUND SYSTEM for the school's 20th anniversary celebration. (We'd already been using a sound system, but for an event like this we definitely needed a SOUND SYSTEM.) Mr. S was no longer really a faculty supervisor of the music club, having been put in charge of the kyudo (Japanese archery) club right at about the time I'd come on board, but he had long provided various kinds of support since, unlike the rest of us, he'd had actual working experience as a stage hand and sound engineer. He was the one who knew everything there was to know about microphones, mixers, amplifiers, noise reducers, pink noise generators, white noise generators, sound spectrum analyzers, equalizers, digital and analog reverb, drum-type washing machines, machines that went "bing", and a partridge in a pear tree. After Herr Maestro Ogawa had pored over various catalogs and spoken with consultants, he finally gave up and put the whole SOUND SYSTEM project into Mr. S's capable hands. It wasn't long before an eye-popping array of gear started arriving, not least of which was a giant mixing console that looked like it belonged in a Roppongi studio rather than in a modestly-sized private school in the middle of the sticks. Nevertheless, it all somehow wound up being well within the budget. We asked Mr. S how he'd done it, and he smiled and said, "Soundhouse!"

The catalog he showed me was enough to get my senses spinning. However, he said that was nothing compared to their warehouse showroom at their main complex in Narita. He also warned me that, as a musician and home recording artist, if I actually went there, it would be at my own peril.

It turned out that I'd been driving by that main complex every time I'd gone on shopping runs to Narita. However, it just looked like an old warehouse or shipping depot and didn't seem very welcoming. After just a short period, it didn't look very open, either. Mr. S insisted that it was still in operation and showed me the updated catalog to prove it, but my attempts to make an intentional trip there always ended at a locked gate. Not long after that, the signs were all gone, and the place looked dead as a ghost town. I finally just gave up, and the Soundhouse fantasy disappeared from my consciousness.

Cut to a few weeks ago. As part of my recently-renewed interest in guitar-related gear and especially effect pedals, my attention had been drawn by a new line of pedals put out by TC Electronic. I already have (and really like...and have already used quite a bit) their Nova Repeater delay/echo, and would be happy to own ANY of the new line (he he he...he he he), but I was limiting my focus to their Hall of Fame reverb unit. My old BOSS RV-3 delay/reverb, though definitely not bad, was a bit too limited for my satisfaction, and my Marshall Reflector reverb, though having great sound despite its low price, has some design flaws which make it problematical to use (and got it taken out of shops after only a year or two). On the other hand, the demo video for the Hall of Fame pedal had me very much in love (with the PEDAL, you moron!), so I started shopping around. It was considerably less expensive than I'd expected, but I wanted to avoid getting yet another item from Amazon. It was listed for the same price on the catalog for my usual chain music store haunt, so I made the rounds...without success. Other online music shops had it listed, but were more expensive, so I was about to bite the bullet and call up Amazon again when I suddenly found it for quite a bit cheaper in a very unexpected place: the online catalog for Soundhouse! Prowling around the site like Charlie in the Chocolate Factory, I found that they had the Hall of Fame pedal in stock at their NEW complex in Narita...for which they provided a map complete with a video showing how to get to it! I don't need to tell you where I went on my next Thursday morning substitute holiday...

Once again I was greeted with what looked like a factory or warehouse rather than a customer-direct store...complete with a customer parking lot located on the opposite side of the street requiring a walk through a security gate, but there was no problem finding the showroom and order desk. It was interesting to note that I came in right behind a foreign-looking heavy metal band who proceeded to serenade me with some impressive (and LOUD) shredding as they tested out a Bogner amp. Meanwhile, I walked drooling around stacks of amp heads, cabinets, and combos (Marshall, Matchless, Behringer, Bogner, Carvin, Peavy, Fender, Vox, Line 6, Roland, Mesa/Boogie, Soldano...)(*pant pant pant*) and then checked out the rooms dedicated to studio and club equipment before I finally went to the order window and asked about the little, red pedal. I had to register, but soon I was carrying a receipt downstairs to the pick-up room, where I had to ring a doorbell and provide numerous body scans (well, I DID have to ring the doorbell) before they'd unlock the door and give me my order. Considering the items they had in stock, I could understand the need for all the security, but it was still a bit unnerving. At any rate, I had my Hall of Fame pedal, and now I know where to go if I want to get good gear for a lower price than the regular retail outlets.

Now I just need time to play with the toys I have...

Some May Colors...Just Because

2011-05-17T23:40:00.002+09:00

Some purple ayame (iris) growing by the fishpond near my house. (I have yet to find a camera that effectively captures that color!)

Praying ayame beckon to a sky
Ugly and gray, not wishing for sunshine.
Rather, they hope the rain that draweth nigh
Pours not with cesium or iodine.
Lovely flowers, but even they
Endure the isotopes of May.

You can also see a few scattered remnants of the magenta azaleas in the background.

May's greeting
Against the green bush,
Great blast of color bursting forth,
Enraptured herald of the new beginnings
Neither stymied nor slowed by the
Tectonic ripples of March.
Affably pink.

Here's a white ayame growing in my late mother-in-law's little garden next to my father-in-law's little "field" ("fieldlet"?). A little of my neighborhood(?) is also visible.

Where are all the houses, I say?
Have they jumped up and run away?
Indeed, they are there,
Tucked away tight somewhere
Exiled even from the light of day.

Speaking of white, this large, pure white hydrangea bloomed wayyyy earlier than the others.

Wetness in the air
Humidity increases
Insects cry and fly
Tremors rattle every day
Even so the flowers grow

Then there are these yellow things that keep popping up in the "20th-of-an-acre farm". They're apparently a weed and kind of a pest, but FIL insists that they have value, so he always leaves them where they appear.

You never know just what you can expect
Each year my wife's dear father grabs his hoe.
Lord only knows just what he will do next;
Lots of the time he simply lets it go.
Of course he always plants some seeds
While also cultivating weeds.

And of course, we can't forget the most basic color of Spring:

Good riddance, winter cold;
Really, it was just getting old.
Even so, I know well
Ere the hot humid hell.
Now it's time to start dealing with mold...

...but it's still pretty. More to come!

Real-Life Cursed Videos...and a Real-Life Cursed Song

2011-05-06T21:57:00.002+09:00

Recently, perhaps the MWP (Most Watched Program) on our TV these days has been "Honto ni Atta! Noroi Bideo" (本当にあった! 呪いビデオ), which literally translates as "Cursed Videos That Really Were", or perhaps "Real-Life Cursed Videos". The popularity of the 1990's Japanese horror novel "Ring", and the various movie and TV drama versions of it that were made in various countries around the world (including the US), firmly ingrained the idea of the cursed video in the Japanese psyche. It was therefore only natural that a TV series would eventually be made showcasing home videos that accidentally contained something spooky...or had a spooky real-life story associated with them.

"Honto ni Atta! Noroi Bideo" was made in the early to mid 2000's for direct-to-video release. It consists of the regular series, which includes 14 regular episodes and 10 "specials" including the eponymous full-length movie described here. At any rate, one of the satellite channels has been showing a run of a few episodes each week, gradually rotating through the series so that each episode gets repeated a number of times. Each episode centers on the work of one particular investigative team (I'm not sure how many different ones there are) as it checks on the background and surrounding circumstances of each video featured. One episode usually includes a little fewer than half a dozen such videos. Some also have some kind of running story that continues through a number of episodes, such as the ongoing investigation of a rumor or a particularly chilling case.

Most of the stories involve a home or surveillance video in which something strange appears in an otherwise ordinary situation. It can be something like a weird shadow or reflection, what seems to be a person in a place where no person should logically be, a ghostly apparition, a strange distortion in someone's face or a part of their body that was later injured, ghostly voices, unexplained sounds, or the unintended(?) filming of something that just should not be. While some might merit a smirk and a "Yeah, maybe with a little imagination and some good rice wine, that might look almost kind of like a hand," others are just plain freaky. Some have been positively disturbing. Of course, perhaps inevitably, there are also those that strain their credibility well past the breaking point, sometimes to the point of making a whole episode seem like it jumped the shark. It's still good, clean, spooky fun to watch...especially when a particularly freaky story sends my son into a jittery fit.

Speaking of which, although I have posted this story on this blog before, I'm going to re-tell it in response to popular demand. This isn't a "real-life cursed video", but rather a "real-life cursed song". I swear that this story is 100% true, at least to the best of our observations at the time; although I'm sure there are many logical explanations for what happened, at the time it all added up to something extraordinary.

The year was 1998. I was still a fairly new face at Ye Olde Academy. It had also only just come out that I was able to compose and arrange music. The chief director of the music club told me that he'd be more than happy to have the orchestra perform anything I came up with. High on the success of my first, surprise arrangements (another story...), I decided to go for broke and write an orchestral suite. It was entitled "Wahluna" and was based on the legend of the Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) princess of that name...the noble but ill-fated figure who, together with her newlywed husband Tlesca (or Tlescaoe) of the Blackfeet, became the most famous victims of Oregon's Wallowa Lake monster (story here). It was a story I'd long been taken with, and the musical strains were already in my heart. I reconfirmed the issue with the chief director, got his enthusiastic approval, and tore into the project as if my life depended on it.

You have to understand that this was at least a full year before I got my first music-writing software, and I was writing the score by hand with pencil and paper. I was spending every available minute on it with a level of obsession far greater than Facebook or Zynga could ever hope to coax out of me. It was getting to the point where my eyes could barely see and my hands were too stiff from writer's cramp to be of much use, but still I kept at it.

That's when things started to happen.

First items started disappearing and then turning up in weird places. Household appliances started malfunctioning for no apparent reason. Then my daughter, still less than two at the time, suddenly started having screaming nightmares every night. We'd close and lock all the windows and doors when we went to bed at night and then wake to find the window in my daughter's room open (at a time of year when it shouldn't be). Then we started hearing what sounded like someone walking up the stairs at the same time every night, and then walking back down at the same time every morning (waking us up...and there was never anyone there).

Then my wife seemed to fall under attack. She started having minor but strange health issues. Almost every morning she'd go out to her (locked) car to go to work and find it still locked, but with items thrown about the interior. One night she left two bags of marked exam papers in there and found them all dumped out (but nothing stolen...not even valuables she'd left in there...and the car still locked). At the same time, various knobs and bits in her car started falling off, and the engine started acting goofy. One morning she found a mirror had dropped off. Another morning she found a flat tire.

To make matters worse, in my dreams at the time I almost always saw what looked like a dark-featured woman watching me from the shadows...and felt like I was being pursued.

I finally finished "Wahluna" and turned it over to the chief director. (He had the orchestra try it once...while I wasn't there..., declared it "over the kids' heads", and filed it away till further notice. It's still there in a box.) However, the strange goings-on didn't stop, and while my wife moved our daughter downstairs, I slept alone upstairs and did my best to meditate and try to figure out what was going on. That's when I had the ultimate dream.

In the dream, I was standing there looking at my sleeping body while a strange light filled the room (not the first time I'd had such an experience). Then I felt like I was pulled through some kind of door, and suddenly I was being guided by a group of people through a village to a campfire deep in the woods...next to which was what looked like a Native American medicine man. A very ANGRY medicine man. He told me his name was "Tlaloc" (which, I later found, happens to be the name of the Aztec god of rain, but anyway...), and he told me it was all my fault. Apparently I had put so much energy into my composing of "Wahluna" that I'd actually summoned her spirit. She'd been deeply touched...even infatuated. That had aroused the jealousy of her husband, Tlesca, and he'd started causing trouble. That had led Wahluna in turn to attack my wife both out of jealousy and to spite her husband. "Tlaloc" told me that the best way to solve the problem would be to compose a tune for Tlesca, too. That would satisfy his great pride and cool everyone down.

I woke up the next morning and immediately started work on "Tlesca", which ironically turned out to be one of the most successful tunes of my early, analog recording days (even despite that LONNNNNNNG, sloppy introduction..). Sure enough, all the strange goings-on came to a full stop. Things stopped disappearing or opening of their own accord, my daughter stopped screaming at night, my dreams stopped freaking me out, the footsteps on the stairs went away, my wife's health cleared up, and her car stopped getting messed with. My wife and daughter started sleeping upstairs again, and everything seemed normal and peaceful again.

However, the story doesn't end there.

My muse was exhausted...not to mention frustrated by the curt dismissal of "Wahluna" after all that trouble (even though not doing it had probably been a very good thing). However, after a while I got the urge to create again, so I went back into my little home studio and started work on an acoustic guitar-based tune. I managed to lay down a couple of guitar tracks plus drums, bass, and an organ part before I decided to turn in for the night.

As I walked up the stairs to the bedroom, I suddenly heard what sounded like soft footsteps and a rustling of fabric like someone wearing a robe was moving through the room. But at the same time, I could hear my wife snoring in the bed. Then I heard my daughter shriek in her room. In a panic, I tried to dash in, but I ran into...something. How do I describe it? There was nothing there, but yet...it was like a patch of chill. Like a little gust of cold wind that was trying to be physically solid, but not quite succeeding. It knocked me off balance as it passed right through me...and then I heard what sounded like someone running down the stairs on their toes. A bolt of adrenaline went through me, and in a pure rage, I ran down in hot pursuit of whatever it was. Slowing as I passed through the almost pitch-dark living room, the surge of anger faded, and I started to wonder what the hell I was doing. That's when I heard the crash inside my studio. That's when I said, "FUCK IT," went back upstairs, and stood guard until I gave up and finally went to sleep.

The next morning, I went to check on my studio. The acoustic guitar I'd used to record the night before had been flung across the room. I guess Tlesca, or whoever it was, had gotten it out of their system, because, as far as I know, they haven't been back since.

Yes, I swear this story is true. Misinterpreted and/or over-imagined perhaps, but still true.

Life in the Wake of the Great Quake, pt. VIII: The Fairer Sax

2011-04-29T14:29:00.004+09:00

I finally drove through Kamisu for the first time since the Great Tohoku Quake. Although the debris has long since been cleaned up and some repairs carried out, it's still easy to tell where the tsunami came through...and where the sandy soil suffered the worst liquefaction. There's one area of The Strip on Route 124 which used to have some of my favorite restaurants. Now it looks like a ghost town that suffered a Lovecraftian horror; buildings, signs, and poles lean at crazy angles, the sidewalks are full of strange bulges, and the whole, 4-lane boulevard is banked. Going through it can send one's sense of balance into a tailspin. They'll probably have to tear everything down and start over.

The reason I went through the avenue of destruction was that I was invited to a jam session. Actually, it was a rehearsal. The Kashima Jazz Friends, originally known as the Kashima Seaside Jazz Friends, is an open-participation jazz ensemble that was founded together with the Kashima Seaside Jazz Festival (now simply "Kashima Jazz") in 2003. It was intended to be a jazz counterpart to the Kashima Philharmonic Orchestra with the same stated objective, i.e. to help raise the cultural level of Kashima so that it won't only be known as a "sports city". From the start it was an unwieldy but good-natured alliance of pro and amateur musicians. However, though I'd worked with them closely every year to help carry out the Kashima Jazz event, I'd never been a member of the group, and I'd never joined them in a regular performance. I was told that they'd assumed I was too busy. They were probably right, but this year they finally invited me to join them, and I decided to give it a try. Sure enough, my schedule kept me from attending their rehearsals in January and February, and the Great Quake wiped out all activity in the month of March. Then it was announced that they'd be doing a rather hastily organized performance as part of a local charity event for earthquake relief. The evening of April 27th was scheduled as the one and only rehearsal. I was invited, and so I made the time. However, since the usual Kashima Jazz Friends practice venue was still out of commission, we had to use an alternative venue down in Kamisu; hence the journey down through the tsunami ghost town.

I arrived there not knowing quite what to expect. There were some faces I recognized and others I didn't. I was told that at least two of them were professionals if not more. It was also made clear from the start that I was to be treated almost as a sort of guest celebrity, i.e. I was given lots of feature spots. That got the nerves going; I was asked to play tenor sax and flute, neither of which I'd touched in ages. In fact, it had been a very long time since I'd done any kind of jazz performance except as director. I was well aware that I had a reputation that had probably long since become more myth than reality, but now I was faced with the prospect of dashing it.

They didn't waste any time throwing me into it, either. They started right off with the piece that had me on flute with a switch to a sax solo in the middle. Naturally, they insisted on miking the flute, too...so no faking it. I played it as best I could, promising to practice more later. (Actually, the biggest problem was probably playing in tune.) I had no changes written for the sax solo, so I winged it by ear. It was fun, but I still felt rusty as hell. The rehearsal continued for a few more tunes, including a couple that I sang, and then I noticed something. The wind players consisted of a whole bunch of saxes (all but one alto not counting myself) and one trumpet. All of them but one were men my age or older. The one exception, a younger female alto saxophonist, was clearly the leader and by far the most aggressive and competent musician of the lot. She definitely had some solid jazz performance chops, which told me that I needed to get my act together or else. However, she was very civil and totally cool about the whole thing, helping me to follow the group's long-standing arrangements once the initial jitters had faded. There was one tune in which we had back-to-back solos, and that got me thinking...

During a break, the founder of the group, a professional jazz drummer and totally interesting guy, got behind the drum set and invited me to do an improv jam. My heart immediately landed in my stomach; it had been too long since I'd done anything of the sort, and I couldn't conjure up any jazz tune I could play on tenor sax with any real degree of confidence. The alto sax woman immediately jumped in, and she and the (pro) pianist played a tune I'd never heard in my life. Embarrassed, I took the plunge and started in on a tune of my own afterward, specifically "Harlem Nocturne", but I'd only ever played it on alto sax, not tenor, and not long after the piano and drums picked it up, I totally lost it and started foundering all over the place. I improved around it when I could, but after a while the pianist mercifully brought it to an end.

We were debating what to do next when a key member, the guitarist, finally decided to show up. He wanted us to go through some tunes we'd already practiced, which was good for me, anyway. It also got me thinking again...and when we came to the tune where I played a back-to-back solo with the alto sax woman, I decided to go for it and asked if she'd be interested in trading 8's and 4's. She was most definitely game.

"This is going to be fun," she said impishly.
"And I fully expect to get my ass kicked," I replied, "but that's fine."

So, without telling anybody else what we were up to, we traded 8 bar solos followed by 4 bars, stretching it out (while the rhythm section competently followed, and the other wind players looked confused and squinted their eyes at the music sheets), and finally closing it by doing the last 2 bars together. Yes, I got my ass kicked, but she was very cool about it. We did our best to play off each other, and she even playfully mimicked my style(?) toward the end, so it was easy for me to come in onto it to close it.

Sometimes getting your ass kicked is good, because it gives you motivation to try harder. The performance is in a week. Time to practice...

Life in the Wake of the Great Quake, pt. VII: The (Not So) Big Regular Concert

2011-04-19T21:23:00.003+09:00

The music club at Ye Olde Academy always holds its teiki ensoukai (定期演奏会 - regular concert) in either late March or at the beginning of April, capping off the school year with an event that culminates the efforts and progress of the previous 12 months. It is also the last hurrah and farewell for the retiring 11th graders. (12th graders don't participate in the music club.) Needless to say, it's a very important affair, possibly even the high point of the entire year.

It's also an enormous undertaking. At over a hundred members, the music club is the largest extracurricular club at Ye Olde Academy. It is also subdivided into a number of different ensembles. Both the students and the directors hold themselves to a high standard...and won't settle for "normal". Therefore, the regular concert is usually more than two hours' worth of carefully staged entertainment, complete with professional sound and lighting, held at the Kashima Workers' Culture Hall. Promotion leading up to the concert is also active and professional (and expensive); most years we play to a nearly-packed if not packed house.

We were just over a week before the Big Regular Concert, well into the final approach, when the Great Tohoku Earthquake struck. When the faculty and students at Ye Olde Academy stood half-traumatized out on the piloti and watched part of the auditorium roof collapse during that first, massive aftershock, I had a terrible feeling that the concert was crumbling along with it. After that, everything just stopped. We were too tied up just with getting the school back into functioning order and keeping the lifelines open. All thought of the concert simply vanished, and it wasn't until we arrived at the date that we said, "Hey, wasn't it supposed to be today?" By then it just didn't matter.

But we weren't going to give up. We'd already put far too much time, effort, and money into the Big Regular Concert to let it go just like that. Moreover, the retiring 11th graders (by then officially 12th graders) had been a very significant group including many power players, among them some of the best brass players we've ever had. It seemed a shame to dump them off without a proper farewell. However, simply rescheduling the concert wasn't that simple:

The Kashima Workers' Culture Hall was being used to house disaster refugees and wouldn't be available for at least another month or two. All the other concert halls in the region were either occupied the same way or closed down due to damage.
The school auditorium would be a possible (albeit limited) alternative in a normal situation, but it was located in the school building that had suffered the worst damage and was in pretty bad shape itself.
Even if the auditorium could be used, there was still the continuing danger of aftershocks.
We still weren't sure how long it would take before transportation lines, to say nothing of communication lines, could be restored to some areas. That would make it difficult to get the members together.
A considerable amount of time had passed with no rehearsing whatsoever. It was uncertain whether the students would even be in any shape to perform.

In the end, once the new school year started limping into motion, we discussed the issue with the administrators, did some begging, and made a whole lot of compromises. We were granted permission to hold a massively scaled-down concert event in the school auditorium after repairs were complete. The whole idea seemed nuts, but it was very much better than nothing.

Plans were made, a date was set, and preparations began in earnest for the Not So Big Regular Concert. The original two-and-a-half-hour program was snipped and compressed down to about a single hour. A number of planned stage sets, costumes, dance routines, and even a couple of ensemble performances were abandoned. We also made do with the sound and lighting gear that was already in the school auditorium, i.e. bare-bones simple, and put students in charge of working it. Mindful of the lack of available seating, we decided not to promote the event except by word of mouth through the club members. We used the fancy program guides we'd already had printed up for the original event, but added inserts showing the actual, abridged program...plus emergency evacuation instructions in case another big quake happened!

Preparations and rehearsals were jammed into any slot of time we could get, which wasn't a lot (since new school year functions kept getting in the way). There were lots of sudden schedule changes. After a couple weeks of isolation and uncertainty, it was like the kids had suddenly been thrown into a fast river and told to swim. There was a lot of frustration, and it was all we could do to keep morale up. To make matters worse, at least one rehearsal was interrupted by a strong aftershock that made the auditorium ceiling buckle and led us to evacuate outside. Still, it was clear that the kids really did want to do it, so we did our best to pull off a miracle.

And so it was that in the afternoon of April 17th, 2011, the Not So Big Regular Concert opened in in the scarred auditorium of Ye Olde Academy to a surprisingly packed house. It started off with the concert band playing a single tune, a Latin-style number called "El Camino Real". Next up was the Flying Eggheads Jazz Big Band, with me at the helm. We kicked off with the Cab Calloway standard "Minnie the Moocher", which I'd rearranged to make it more like the version sung in the Blues Brothers movie...complete with me leading the call and response singing with a little help from the rest of the music club! After that we closed with a jazz band arrangement of "Mambo" from West Side Story and then played Glenn Miller's "In the Mood" as an encore. I can't say that the Eggheads were in their top form (which wasn't really their fault), but they still did a fine job and closed out the year with style, camp, and energy. Next up was the orchestra, which played selections from the "Coppelia" ballet composed by Léo Delibes. That was followed by a performance put together by the retiring 11th (now 12th, actually) grade members themselves playing a fun Japanese tune I'd never heard before. And finally...time to say goodbye.

Actually, the entire music club formed a "grand orchestra" to perform my personal (and probably not entirely legal...though I'd argue it qualifies as fair use) arrangement combining "Time to Say Goodbye" with Ravel's "Bolero". I've done quite a bit of arranging for the music club, especially this year, but this is still what I consider my proudest achievement. I first made it in 2005 to showcase our departing 11th graders. We've done it three more times since then, including this year, and each time I've changed it to reflect the 11th graders saying farewell that year. This time was by far the most profound alteration. Last year's version started out with a cello duet that I still believe is the most moving we've ever done. This year's was based on that one, but with two cellos and a viola (with one cello part scaled way down out of consideration for ability level). It then segued into a brass ensemble, a new experiment featuring those historically significant (and now sadly gone) brass players, and it turned out even more beautifully than I imagined (thankfully, since a brass ensemble I made for them last year kind of sucked). Then the scales were balanced by a baritone sax solo accompanied by the 11th grade woodwinds (a bit heavy in the clarinets, but lovely). Then the usual Bolero-but-in-4/4 beat started, and the piece proceeded as it has every time...with one monumental exception. In answer to what seemed like an insane request from the director, I modified it so that in the middle, after a dramatic build-up, it suddenly modulated into Bolero's original key and changed to the original 3/4 time so that our departing (and exceptionally talented) 1st trombone player could play the original, chop-busting Bolero solo! (It was a little rough, but I've heard highly-paid pros brick that damned thing!) Frankly, I didn't think I could possibly make it work, but it did. I'm even more amazed that I was somehow able to switch it back to the "Time to Say Goodbye" key and 4/4 beat again so it could build to the finale without sounding frightfully stupid. It actually worked. Overall, although I still love last year's outstanding cello duet opening, this year's version was probably the most dramatic overall that we've done to date.

The whole concert was just over an hour long and dirt simple. It seemed crazy, but the audience appeared to be quite satisfied. The donation box we set up in cooperation with a local quake aid charity took in over $500, too. Most importantly, the departing 12th graders seemed genuinely relieved not to have been lost in the shuffle. They deserved a grand send-off; after all, they are leaving us something of a hamstrung group that will probably have to be in maintenance mode for a while. We had to have our usual farewell party in a different venue, too. (The one we originally booked is still under repair.) It didn't matter. Even in an old, yellowed ceremony hall with a musty smell and creaky equipment, emotions were charged. We managed to end the year properly, and the kids appreciated it.

Now this looks to be an interesting year...though I'm not sure if that's good or not.

Life in the Wake of the Great Quake, pt. VI: The Cycle Goes On

2011-04-16T11:02:00.003+09:00

Spring came late this year, but it came nonetheless. Neither the ravages of the Great Tohoku Quake of 2011 nor the fallout (literal as well as figurative) left in its wake could stop the cycle of life.

The famous cherry blossom canopy framing the road into Ye Olde Academy usually appears just in time to herald the new school year and welcome the new students. This year it came just a little too late.

The delicate beauty of the sakura blossoms normally forms a welcome contrast to the brown-tinted, pollen-belching sugi trees [*ACHOO* sniff...] that ring the campus. Now the short-lived blooms seem pale yet defiant, standing against the gray of a troubled month, reminding us that things may not be the same, but at least life is going on.

Look one way, and you see the visual song of life, almost forgetting that scars of the quake are still there right behind you.

Even now, only a short drive away, there are still neighborhoods without working sewers or running water. There are still roads that are shattered ruins. There are countless roofs whose wounds are covered with blue tarps. There are still store shelves standing bare of certain products. The nearby beaches are still covered with tsunami debris and oil that is likely radioactive. The news from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is like a pendulum bouncing between hope and despair. Aftershocks continue to shake us several times a day, and seismologists warn another big one could hit at any time. And yet here, in the middle of it all, nature tells us that we have only to take what we have and keep going.

The new school year got off to a weird start, but at least it started. Preparations for the annual Sports Festival in late April got disrupted, but they are progressing nonetheless. We were forced to cancel our Big Regular Concert in late March so that refugees could stay in the performance hall, but we're going to have a scaled-down performance tomorrow in our own school auditorium...a performance that will come complete with emergency evacuation instructions, but a performance nonetheless. We move on a path that is less secure, less certain than usual, but we are moving forward.

We're told that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster is now officially on par with Chernobyl. People fear the rain. They fear the sky. But if you look up, you see that things aren't as ugly as you might believe. The radiation contamination is still largely local, and is far less dangerous than what Chernobyl belched out. Actually, farm produce in many parts of Fukushima and Ibaraki prefectures that were banned from sale a few weeks ago have been retested recently and found safe. The worst danger may already be over.

Instead of cowering, we should be moving ahead and upward. Damage can be fixed (like this stairway, which was damaged by the quake and blocked off, but is now open again). Instead of crying over our losses, we should be counting our blessings.

The healing will take a long time, but it has to move forward. Life will go on.

Life in the Wake of the Great Quake, pt. V: Beyond the Hills

2011-04-01T11:29:00.006+09:00

Life in Namegata, where I live, and in Kashima, where I work, seems to have returned to normal. As I've mentioned before, both areas benefited from the fact that they mostly stand atop granite hills. Namegata was without electricity and phones for only three full days after the Great Quake. Central Kashima never lost its power, and its phones were back online within a day. Both cities had their running water and sewer services restored within five days. Damage to roads and buildings in both cities was minor. Of course, we had to deal with the shortages of gasoline and certain staple food items, but we dealt with it, and life went on.

Now, three weeks after the Great Quake, all the regular businesses and services in Namegata and Kashima are up and running. I and my family are able to go about our normal lives more or less the same way we did a month ago. The routines are back in place. Everyday things are taken for granted as before.

And yet, even now, everything changes once you come down from the hills.

I tried to make a routine trip over to the little Apita shopping center in Inashiki City a few days ago, and reality hit me square in the face again. Route 51, the main boulevard linking southeast Ibaraki Prefecture with Mito (Ibaraki's capital) and Chiba City, was suddenly filled with dips (I mean besides the usual idiot drivers) and ruptures. I turned off onto one of the side streets leading into Apita and was shocked to find myself driving on mud and rocks; the road, along with almost all the smaller streets in the area, was just plain gone...as was half of Apita's parking lot. The shopping center itself was closed. I tried again yesterday and found half of it open (including my favorite little import goods shop, thank goodness!).

An even worse scene of devastation greeted me when my kids' juku (cram school) finally reopened in the Hinode district of the city of Itako. I don't think I saw a street there that didn't look like giant hands had pried it apart. Some had pavement that had shattered as if it were glass. Not surprisingly, several roads were blocked off. A lot of areas had subsided as the soft ground, set on reclaimed marshland, had liquefied and flowed away. Almost all the poles were leaning, as were some of the buildings. Some areas were reportedly still without water weeks after the quake.

The city of Kamisu, just downhill from Kashima, got it even worse. As I've mentioned before, it sits on a giant sandbar. Not only did it get shaken apart, but parts of it took the brunt of the tsunami. The scenes of devastation are nothing like those still seen on TV from further north, but it's still sad. As for me, I've had no reason to go that way, so I've been staying away on purpose, but my friend Pandabonium has posted pics and videos from Kamisu on his blog.

We should never forget how fortunate we really are to have been safe atop our hills.

Even so, there are little changes here and there that remind us life is still not fully back to normal. Most businesses are closing early, and those that stay open after dark are keeping their outdoor signs and parking lot lights turned off to ease the burden on the damaged power grid. Certain food items continue to be scarce, many of which we never really thought about much until they vanished, such as spinach and parsley (banned from sale because of radioactive contamination). Milk is available now, but many of our most familiar types are still gone (also banned from sale due to contamination). Although I'm not a smoker by habit, it's still strange to see normally packed cigarette shelves standing empty and the ubiquitous cigarette vending machines switched off (as tobacco has also been banned from certain areas due to contamination). Many if not most stores are limiting purchases of bottled drinks (PET bottle rationing). Moreover, certain popular drinks, such as Coca Cola, have suddenly vanished with no explanation given. (On the other hand, Dr. Pepper seems to have suddenly become more abundant than before.) So while life in general seems to be back to normal, a lot of our usual comforts are either still missing or have taken on a strange, new form.

Radiation? Last I heard, we were still in the nanosievert range, i.e. no health risk. They say the biggest problem now is intensely radioactive water leaking out of the reactors into the tunnels under the buildings at Fukushima No. 1. They hope to stop it from getting into the ocean. They've also said that another nuclear plant up there, No. 2, has been steaming a bit. Whatever.

This is reality, Ted. It's what we live with. And at least I was able to get this year's tunes submitted to the Torycon all-Japan amateur recording contest.

(I'll try to add some pics to this post once I get some usable ones available.)

Life in the Wake of the Great Quake, pt. IV: Ye Olde Academy After the Quake

2011-03-31T13:15:00.002+09:00

Here are a few pics I took strolling around the campus the other day:

This sinkhole opened in the middle of the baseball field during the quake. It's not very big, but it's quite deep...and would seem to indicate there's a hollow space under the ground. Other parts of the field turned to quicksand because of liquefaction.

Inside the auditorium building looking toward the lobby and library. The underside panels of the eaves outside fell off. So did some of the ceiling inside.

Cracks around the pillars show how the whole building rocked back and forth during the quake.

In the auditorium. The windows on the front of the lighting gallery dropped off along with part of the ceiling.

Outside the auditorium building. We had already evacuated after the first, main quake, but most of the damage happened during a huge aftershock that hit us directly twenty minutes later. We were out on the piloti, or assembly ground, near where I took this picture when those panels came crashing down. The students freaked out.

Looking toward the piloti, where we were gathered, from under the art building. During that first, big aftershock, the art building was literally swaying back and forth on its legs. The students panicked and crowded back away from it, but it fortunately didn't collapse. You can see how the legs are damaged, though.

(Hopefully I won't get in trouble for this pic.) This is a view of the main playing field, where we set up tents and makeshift survival shelters to keep the kids warm while we waited out the disaster. It was hours before any of them were able to go home, and some wound up stranded and having to spend the night (though by then some rooms of the school had been cleared for safety).

Irony of ironies: This extra earthquake-proof reinforcement was added in the junior high and senior high buildings in the mid 2000's after a large quake had hit Niigata. At the time, many people called it a waste of money. As it turned out, the buildings (or at least the parts of the buildings) that had the reinforcement suffered no damage. I believe the proper Japanese phrase to use in this case is, "Hora, mirou!" (It's kind of like "I told you so!")

Hopefully I'll have some pics around town to post soon.

In the Wake of the Great Quake pt. III: Joyful Moments

2011-03-24T11:57:00.002+09:00

There are times when something small, something you wouldn't even notice on a typical day, suddenly becomes a thing of great joy. I'm talking about things like:

The sound of a transistor radio. During that long afternoon and evening immediately after the quake, as we hunkered down in the sanctuary of our battered school campus, it was our only link to the outside world. That night, and for the next couple of days, my family stayed huddled around one for comfort as much as for information.
The sound of my daughter's cell phone ringing. For some time after the quake, regular phone service was down, and mobile phone service was jammed. A quick e-mail from a worried friend of my daughter was music to all my family's ears. It meant we were also able to call out...to an extent.
The sound of the refrigerator coming on. It meant that our power had been restored on the third day after the quake.
The sound of the well pump. With our power back, we had the use of our backup water supply and no longer had to drive out to the water distribution points.
The sight of my regular home page opening. Fiber optic cable service was apparently never compromised. I was able to get on the internet almost as soon as we had our power back.
The sight of almost five dozen notifications on Facebook. Though I happily play a couple of network games via Facebook (down from a peak of six), I admit I'm often annoyed that my feed is largely limited to game-related messages. This time, however, the list was mainly messages of concern and support from people I know all over the world. It did a lot for my mental stability in anxious times, and I can't tell you how much I appreciated it.
The sight of the phone line LED lighting up. For some reason, even though I had internet access, the phone still stayed down for almost another entire day. I kept my eyes glued to that one darkened LED on the router and gave a shout when it finally came on. The first thing I did was call my family in Oregon and assure them we were all okay.
The sight of an open gas station. All the major refineries supplying our area had been knocked out if not taken out by the earthquake and tsunami. Moreover, a lot of roads were in poor condition, making it hard to transport any kind of cargo. Panic buying of gasoline quickly wiped out the supply. For some time after that, getting gas was a matter of catch if catch can. When the shortage first started, I was lucky enough to catch a smaller station whose owners I know just as it was closing down, and I was allowed ten liters (a little more than two and a half gallons). A few days later, I spotted a small, independent gas station open on my way home, got in line, waited for an hour and a half, and got twenty liters (a little more than five gallons). That was enough to keep me going for at least a week if I avoided unnecessary driving.
The sound of the toilet tank filling up. We were using buckets of recycled bath water to work our toilet (or going outside and feeding the trees). After filling the toilet tank from the bucket yet again and flushing it on the fifth day after the quake, I heard the tell-tale trickle of water flowing inside. I immediately dashed to the kitchen and tried the faucet. It hissed, it gurgled, it spat, and then it rewarded me with the music of flowing tap water. The city mains were back online.
Getting calls from relatives. Both my wife and I have always tended to find it a bit awkward talking on the phone with relatives on her father's side of the family (especially because, in my case at least, it can be difficult following their strong Tohoku dialect). However, we found ourselves eagerly welcoming the slightest word. We were especially happy when we finally heard news about the uncle and his family who live in Rikuzen-Takata, Iwate Prefecture, a city which had been obliterated by a ten meter high tsunami less than half an hour after the quake. All of them were safe, including one who had been caught up in the tsunami and had survived by clinging to a floating log.
Seeing the faces of students. One week after the quake, we opened the school just long enough for students to come and get their things, which had remained in the classrooms till then. Some were unable to make it, but it was a welcome relief to see the ones that did.
Finding food on store shelves. Gasoline wasn't the only thing that became scarce. Panic buying and shortages of certain goods had led supermarkets and convenience stores to shorten their hours and ration some items. One week after the quake, I was happy to be able to go into a supermarket in Kashima after work and actually find meat, fish, and milk, all of which had become rare and precious. On the next day, it was announced that bread rationing had ended, and I was able to replace the one loaf (a lucky grab on my wife's part) that had helped sustain us during the previous week.
Seeing gas stations open for regular business. Today, two weeks after the quake, I drove by the biggest self-service gas station in my home area on my way to work...and was surprised to see that not only was it open, but there was no line, and people were pumping their own gas, i.e. no rationing. Last night I saw similar sights at most of the smaller gas stations along my regular route. This is a very important sign that things are returning to normal.

We're not fully recovered yet, and some areas are still in a very dire condition, but we're getting there!

Oh, and by the way: Ibaraki milk and vegetable produce has shown a trace of radioactive iodine contamination thanks to that wrecked nuclear plant up north, but you'd have to consume a ton of it for it to pose any health risk. In other words, IT'S NOT DANGEROUS!!!!!

Have a nice day!

In the Wake of the Great Quake, pt. II

2011-03-16T11:41:00.003+09:00

Today saw the arrival of yet another small miracle: the restoration of our running water, which had been out for five full days. We were fortunate in that we were able to use my father-in-law's well (as long as we had working electricity), but it's nice to be able to cook, wash, and use the toilet at home again without having to run next door with a bucket. The news that my uncle-in-law in Rikuzentakada (a city in Iwate Prefecture erased by the tsunami) and his family are safe means that pretty much all members of the extended family are accounted for. Things are slowly but surely returning to something that might pass as normal. Still of concern are:

Aftershocks - They're not coming as often as they were, but we're still getting rocked a few times every hour. The scary thing is that they're actually happening in seemingly random places all over the northern half of the country - and some of them have been strong enough to cause damage in places. There's just no knowing whether we might suddenly get another big one.
The weather - A lot of houses, including mine, suffered roof damage. My FIL and I covered the gap with a tarp attached to a frame lashed to the house and anchored with sandbags. Unfortunately, during the rapid, chaotic change from winter to spring this time of the year, strong winds and sudden rains are common. We've already had to go up and repair the patch once...despite an even more ominous problem:
The Fukushima Nuclear Plant - At this point it's hard to separate fact from hype, and there's also no knowing whether we're hearing the whole story. The plant was designed with a comprehensive set of safety measures, but the one thing they never bargained for was a tsunami (even though the plant stands in an area with a history of tsunami strikes!). The initial quake caused an automatic shutdown, as it was supposed to. However, the backup diesel generators that were supposed to keep the cooling systems going got taken out by the tsunami, and the emergency batteries were only good for 8 hours. The Self Defense Force quickly brought in truck-mounted generators, but (cue Benny Hill background music) the connectors weren't compatible. They were trying to jury-rig a connection when the first explosion happened. That blast was apparently caused by hydrogen built up inside the building, and the reactor remained safely contained. Giving up on the generators, the plant crew went to their suicide last resort: pumping in sea water. However, they were apparently not able to keep ahead of leaks in the pipes, and a second reactor blew its top. That one (they say) also stayed contained, but the blast damaged another reactor, one which had been under maintenance. A storage pool containing spent fuel rods was apparently opened to the elements, and radioactive steam escaped. Now they're saying that an explosion has happened in the one remaining reactor at the site, and they're speculating that a meltdown may be inevitable. The radiation leak led to the evacuation of about a ten mile radius around the plant and a warning to people within a 20-mile radius to stay indoors. They're saying that the radiation levels in my area peaked at less than 10% that of a typical chest X-ray. However, a professor at one of Japan's foremost science universities phoned the principal at my wife's school (an old friend of his) and told him that potentially harmful levels of radiation had been detected as far away as Yokohama, which is 100 miles southwest of us (i.e. we're between it and the plant). The news is still reassuring us that we're in no danger, but at this point I'm not sure what to believe.
Rolling blackouts - Because of damage to power plants and to the power grid, TEPCO has instituted a rotating schedule of blackouts until further notice. All parts of the Kanto Plain are told to expect three to four hours of shutdown per day. This has seriously disrupted both transportation and business. However, perhaps the worst part of it is that TEPCO keeps NOT instituting scheduled blackouts. In other words, we never know if our area is going to get shut down at the indicated time or not, which can be awfully frustrating. Stores are moving their perishables into cold storage (or dumping them) only to find that the power stays on. On the other hand, being smug is never a good idea, because one can easily find oneself trapped in a gridlock with all the traffic lights dead.
Gasoline shortage - Wouldn't you know it; the main gasoline refineries serving our area are in Sendai (near the epicenter of the quake and pretty much trashed), Kamisu (damaged by the quake and tsunami and suffering from compromised access), and Ichihara (suffered multiple explosions during the quake). Those gas stations that are able to get supplied are having to deal with long lines of panic buyers. Most are selling limited quantities only. Our vehicles all have enough to last us at least a week, barring any unforeseen travel, but things could get ugly fast if things don't get moving again. Ironically, I'm probably the only one who really has to worry about this; my job requires a 25 kilometer (16 mile) commute.
Staple shortages - The supermarkets are faced with a similar problem. Some goods, such as toilet paper, are currently out of supply because the manufacturers are either out of commission or unable to truck through. The biggest problem, however, is that people are panic-buying and hoarding supplies of food and basic goods, meaning stores empty fast. We pretty much have to snap up what we can when we can. We're not in any immediate danger, since we already had a good supply stocked up when the quake hit, but again, things could get ugly fast if the infrastructure doesn't get moving a bit more normally soon.
Boredom - All the TV channels are understandably dominated by news updates, and I prefer to keep them on. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of the commercial slots have been bought out by disaster preparedness agencies and insurance companies. We keep hearing the same jingles over and over and over and over again. And with all school activities and cram schools down for the time being, and unnecessary travel out of the question, the kids (and everyone else) are going stir crazy. Yes, I'm well aware that we've been very fortunate, and I know that things can still get a lot worse fast, but the psychological issue is not something one can prepare for very easily. All we can do is try our best to grin and bear it...and live from day to day. Hopefully the kids won't kill each other.

As I typed this, we got hit by a massive aftershock centered directly in our area. It was rated Lower 5 on the Japanese scale (incompatible with the Richter Scale as it is based on damage-causing potential rather than pure kinetic energy). By contrast, the 2nd shock we felt last Friday, the one that caused all the damage, was rated Upper 5. This one only knocked over a few books, thank goodness, but it's enough to remind us once again that the danger is far from over. I'll continue to count my blessings...and be thankful for all the support.

Here's a view of the home of one of our next-door neighbors, showing the tarp they've put over their damaged roof. They've already had to reset it twice on account of the strong wind and aftershocks.

Here's a view of the upper section of my house. The lower section has a stainless steel roof (like my FIL'S house at left), and it's undamaged. The upper section has a traditional tile roof, and it lost its cap. As you can see, we've covered it with a tarp lashed to a frame which is in turn lashed and anchored. It has held so far. Hopefully it'll stand up to these winds...

Maybe I'll go out and take some more pics if the gasoline situation - and radiation alert - calms down a bit. Until then...

In the Wake of the Great Quake

2011-03-13T19:47:00.004+09:00

6th period on Friday was drawing to a close, as was the school year. It was my last time to be working with that particular 9th grade class, so I started to head around to the front to cap the lesson with a farewell activity I'd planned. That's when the tremor started.

Japan is, by nature, a very geologically active country, so tremors are a part of life here. However, this particular one seemed to be a bit stronger than most, rather like one we'd inherited from Miyagi Prefecture not long before. As the class reacted to the jolt with the usual hoots of surprise, I sarcastically joked, "What's Miyagi doing to us now?"

But instead of fading away in a second or two as usual, this tremor kept going...and kept getting stronger. Soon the windows were rattling in their frames and items of furniture were starting to move.

"Uh oh," I said.

The seismic throttle just kept opening wider, and it was all I could do to keep my footing as the floor bucked like a boat in a storm. The humored surprise among the students started to turn into genuine fear as we could see the very walls and ceiling starting to bend.

"Teacher," said one of the boys, "this is bad, isn't it?"

"Very bad," I replied with a forced laugh. Then I ordered the students to get under their desks. Struggling to stay on my feet, I held on to the new flat-screen TV and the server to keep them from falling on somebody. The shaking just kept going on and on for the better part of a minute (which seemed more like an hour) with no sign of letting up. Then, without warning, it just dimmed down to a stop. As the students emerged with dazed looks on their faces, the evacuation bell went off. (Ironically, they'd had an evacuation drill just the day before.) I quickly ordered them to clear the building and then did my best to keep them from bolting out in a panic.

The entire student body assembled up on the piloti, a brick-floored area on the upper half of the giant courtyard formed by the circle of school buildings. The excited chatter stopped abruptly when the principal took the mike to address them, and what he had to say was grave.

The quake had indeed been centered off of Miyagi Prefecture to the north, and it had been huge. We would later hear that it had been nearly 200 times as powerful as the Great Hanshin Earthquake that leveled parts of Kobe in 1995. Indeed, it had been one of the most powerful earthquakes in all of recorded history.

He was still speaking when the next quake started. We thought it was just an aftershock, but it turned out to be a separate earthquake centered in our area, one of many set off in rapid succession like a string of firecrackers as a chain reaction touched off by the first quake spread along the fault system. It hit us even harder than the first one did. We watched terrified as the art building right in front of us swayed crazily on its legs, but fortunately stayed solidly on them, and then a whole section of roof came tumbling down off of the auditorium building. After that some students were in hysterics, and it was all we could do to calm them down.

Not long after that, the principal called the teachers together for an update and then addressed the students again. We were very fortunate, yet the situation was grim. Ye Olde Academy is situated atop a rocky bluff that is the highest part of Kashima City. Although we'd lost our running water and both regular and cell phone service was down, we still had electricity, and damage was only slight. All around us was a much bleaker picture. We could see smoke rising from fires that had broken out in several locations. The city of Kamisu to the south, situated on a giant sandbar, was torn to pieces, and most of its roads were impassable. The same was true of parts of Itako, to the west, and Hokota, to the north. The Rokko Bridge (which I've called "the stupidest bridge in the world" in earlier posts) had collapsed, and both Jingu Bridge and the Omigawa Bridge had damaged pylons. All the trains were halted, and the buses were stuck unable to get confirmation from their controllers. We were also told that tsunami were on the way...and were expected to be at least several meters high. One thing was clear: we couldn't send the students home. They were safest there in the academy. At the same time, however, we couldn't let the students go back into the buildings as aftershocks were hitting every few minutes, and though all the structures were still intact, we couldn't be sure of their safety.

The sun sank lower in the sky, and the temperature began to plummet. While the teachers wore themselves ragged trying to explain to the students repeatedly why they couldn't go back inside for their things, the boys in the senior high rugby team got busy crafting emergency shelters out of hockey goals and tarps. Meanwhile, members of other sports teams generously distributed their teams' jackets, blankets, and tents, and all available faculty hands went inside to fetch lab coats and any cushions or mats we could find. We thus set up a sort of tent city out on the main playing field and kept the kids warm until their parents were able to come and get them. As the night wore on, however, it became clear that quite a number of kids, mainly ones from the cities of Kamisu, Choshi, and Mito, were stranded. Some of the faculty went into the cafeteria and whipped up a most welcome batch of onigiri (rice balls) and tea for everyone. A decision was also made to use one of the gyms as a shelter, so the kids were relocated inside. As it got even later, the maintenance staff declared the administration building safe, so sleeping mats were set up in the main conference room and English and music classrooms (which are heated, thank goodness). Those members of the faculty who didn't live near the campus were given leave to go home, so I gratefully hopped into my BLUE RAV4 and headed out.

Things didn't look so bad at first during the drive home, but once I got away from the bluff and headed north along Lake Kitaura, suddenly everything went totally black. There was no power at all ahead or on either side, even across the lake. The streetlights were all down, as were the traffic signals. There were also occasional wrinkles and rips in the road itself. Luckily, in the late hour, there was virtually no traffic. The Kitaura Bridge was also thankfully intact, so I was able to make it home okay...only to find the house stuck with no power, no water, and no phones.

That night, and all the next day, we basically camped out and hoped for the best, though things looked bleak. I'd been asked to come in and work on Saturday, but I woke up feeling terribly sick and so just stayed put. The city government was still able to use their PA system, and the announcement was given that neither electricity nor water was expected to be available any time soon. We still had use of our gas cooker, but the only potable water we had was the meagre water rations that were distributed to each household. Afraid to open the fridge, we lived mainly on nuts, dried fruit, and crackers. We also used leftover bathwater to flush the toilet. I used an adapter in my car to recharge my dead cell phone, but I still wasn't able to call out. A lot of things had fallen off of shelves and smashed, and lack of the use of our vacuum cleaners meant some rooms were best kept off limits. We therefore stayed for the most part in our living room and dining room glued to a transistor radio listening to the dark news about the hell that had broken loose elsewhere. Meanwhile, aftershocks kept coming anywhere from a few minutes to only a few seconds apart, but fortunately none of them were big enough to matter. None of it made it easy to get a good night's sleep.

Sunday brought one thankful development: our power was restored. That meant that our auxiliary water supply, the well we use for the bath and utility room, was now available. (The town had tried very hard to get us to cap it off for good, saying the mineral content of the water was just a bit too high to be safe, but my FIL had thankfully been too much of a cheapskate to give in.) That also emboldened us to try to deal with the most serious damage we'd suffered; like so many people in our area, we'd lost the decorative cap on the tiled roof of the upper section of our house. That meant that there was a gap in the tiles that could be a problem if it rained. My FIL and I left to buy some needed supplies, and we found all the hardware stores crowded and nearly sold out of everything. There were also long lines at the gas stations and supermarkets, so we were thankful we didn't have to go to either. We were somehow able to get what we needed, so we spent the rest of the day putting a tarp over the gap in the roof and anchoring it down enough to last until we can get a roof repairman. Then we had the first square meal - and very welcome first bath - we'd had in days.

Even with the restoration of our power, it was a while until our phones came online and I was finally able to call home and access the internet to relieve the fears. We were then finally able to turn on the TV and see what people on the other side of the ocean had seen first. We had indeed been fortunate. The Kashima Port area had been hit by successive tsunami that had gotten up to a couple of meters high. A little further north, the picturesque coastal town of Oarai had been struck by tsunami a full four meters (thirteen feet) high, though fortunately only a few people had been killed. Things got exponentially worse the closer one got to the epicenter of the quake; up in Fukushima, Miyagi, and Iwate Prefectures, whole towns have been more or less erased, with only scattered piles of muddy, matchstick-like rubble left to mark their passing. Among them is the sleepy city of Rikusen Takada, Iwate Prefecture, my father-in-law's hometown; just a few minutes ago we saw a video taken on the scene by a fireman there while his crew desperately encouraged people to flee to higher ground as a giant wall of water swallowed up the whole downtown area. There's nothing left. My FIL has a brother living there with his wife and kids, and we have no idea of their fate.

To make matters worse, they fear that a nuclear power plant in Fukushima City suffered a meltdown and exploded. In any case, Tokyo Power has announced that they no longer have the capacity to provide enough power, so we're all going to have to deal with rotating blackouts until more plants can be brought back online.

Meanwhile, closer to home, it looks like most schools, including Ye Olde Academy, are going to have to cancel their graduation ceremonies. We're also faced with terminating our Big Annual Concert since the Kashima Workers' Culture Hall is currently being used to house evacuees. It's usually good for the school year to end in a memorable way...but not like this.

All I can say is that we should never take ANYTHING for granted. I can't tell you how much I now appreciate such things as being able to brush my teeth or take a shower, being able to use a toilet, having a warm meal and a cup of tea, being in a comfortable home secure from the weather, being able to get what I need when I need it, or being able to get in touch with loved ones to be sure they're safe. We don't really know how blessed with luxuries we are until they're suddenly taken away, and then we're quite often not prepared to do without them. That's why it always helps to plan ahead and have an alternative ready just in case.

I'm also very thankful for...and deeply touched by...the unexpectedly huge outpouring of concern on my behalf I saw on the internet once I was finally able to get back on it. You people are indeed the best, and it's good to know that I'm never really alone no matter what. God bless you all!

Hikari Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

2011-02-21T19:00:00.004+09:00

The chronicle of my conversion from ADSL to fiber optic cable service continues...

In the Director's Cut of the last episode, I mentioned that Soft Bank / Yahoo sent me the router for my FOC service a full month before I was due to have it installed. They assured me that billing wouldn't start until I used it, so I heaved a (sharp, trembling) sigh of relief and waited for the impending Day of Connection.

About one week before the DoC, my fiber optic TV tuner arrived. I only vaguely remembered having said I was interested in trying out the internet TV service, especially since they said I'd get a two month free trial, but the box that came immediately presented some logistical problems regarding hookup; you see, the router and the TV are in separate rooms, and there's already a long cable stapled to the wall molding leading from the router to the phone. Then of course there was my wife's anticipated fit; she already feels that our satellite TV service is too much considering both our kids are supposed to be studying to prepare for entrance exams (i.e. no lives allowed). The new internet TV tuner box remains unopened and will probably be sent back.

The weather forecast for the DoC was cloudy with partial clearing later. Naturally, it rained. That didn't stop the erstwhile hookup man from doing his job. Bravely shrugging off the cold, the dampness, the inconvenient location of my computer, narrow spaces, aggressive shrubbery, and my FIL's attempts to weasel him into hooking his phone to my connection (i.e. trying to get me to pay for his phone calls like he already suckered my wife into footing his cell phone bill), he got the cable installed, surgically removed my Softbank / Yahoo BB ADSL modem, set up an NTT (i.e. the phone company) router, hooked everything up, and got the phone working. Then, after an obligatory cup of tea and a friendly chat, he got called off to perform his next mission.

(When he took the call, I couldn't help noticing that at least one name of a colleague he mentioned was the same as one of the 'NTT reps' on the phone that tried to fast-talk me into subscribing to "iNächste" internet service. Yes, it wasn't an uncommon name, but still...)(Cue Boba Fett's theme)

Now I was left with some interesting, new problems:

The hookup man had connected and set up an NTT router. That left me with the puzzle of what to do with the one Soft Bank / Yahoo had sent me. Since both incur rental fees, one definitely has to go back.
There are basically two kinds of fiber optic cable service available through "Flet's" (apparently the universal cable service here in Japan, contracted through NTT or local providers). The most common one is called "Flet's Hikari Next", and it's compatible with regular fiber optic phone service. The other one is called "B Flet's", which is faster but not compatible with regular fiber optic phone service (though it does work with NTT's phone system). When I made my reservation with Yahoo BroadBand for fiber optic internet, NTT hadn't yet given me all the details of the service I'd be getting (or if they had, I hadn't understood them). The Yahoo rep told me that they'd call me back later to get that information. They never did. Instead, they just sent me a router and documentation assuming I'd be getting Flet's Hikari Next service. It turned out to be B Flet's. Correcting my account was solved by a "quick" (if you don't count the twenty minutes I spent on hold) call to Yahoo and incurred no extra cost. However, it did add another complication.
Using NTT's router instead of Yahoo's meant that I wouldn't be able to keep using Yahoo's BB phone service. BB phone does offer some advantages, but its main selling point, the fact of being free, no longer applies; apparently NTT imposed a universal service charge on all firms offering internet or fiber optic phone service since they still have to use NTT's facilities (cue Imperial March). It's still cheaper than NTT's phone service, so I hoped to keep my account going. However, if I read the oh-so-confusing fine print correctly, BB phone can't be used on a B Flet's account anyway, so that pretty much settles that. At any rate, I decided to cancel the BB phone option, send back the Yahoo router, and just use the NTT router that was installed. That led to another problem.
Basically, the instructions for the "start-up kit" that came from Yahoo for activating my new service could be summed up like this: "If you use our router, just insert the included CD in your computer, enter the codes, and you're done! If, perchance, you...ahem...use a *cough* NTT router instead, well...huh huh...pray to whatever ugly, alien gods you worship and prepare to be taunted until you gnash your teeth and wail in unspeakable anguish." You see, the NTT router also came with a CD, but it wasn't a set-up utility, just interactive instructions and a summary/checklist. In order to change the settings you had to access a set-up utility on the internet. Therein lies the rub; since Yahoo apparently isn't one of the "accepted" internet services supported by NTT, my router wasn't preset for internet access. When I turned on my computer, it accessed the "home network" just as with my old ADSL modem, but the home network wasn't connected to the internet. I flailed around for I don't know how long, poring over the NTT and Yahoo documents trying to make sense of all the Japanese technical jargon, and finally I tried logging onto my Yahoo account manually. First it told me that access was denied, but after a little while I noticed that I was, in fact on the internet. Then I was able to call up the set-up utility and (after struggling with the user-unfriendly access protocol) put in the codes necessary to make the router connect to my Yahoo FO service automatically as the family default. Now log-in happens on boot-up on any machine connected to the router. Hopefully, that took care of it. (Cue The Force/Obi-Wan's theme)

(While all this was going on, I couldn't help wondering how much easier it would have been had I just allowed myself to be railroaded into dropping Yahoo and subscribing to "iNächste" instead. But then again, I'd have to deal with using "iNächste"...)

Well, for better or worse, now my family is online using gigabit fiber optic service. I just hope it'll be smooth sailing from now on...if you don't count these options I have to cancel and hardware I have to mail back.

Situation Normal: All in the Family as Usual

2011-02-13T00:02:00.003+09:00

Saturday, February 12th, 2011 (Day 3 of an accidental 4-day weekend from hell)

3:45 p.m. - The Saturday rehearsal of the Flying Eggheads Jazz Band ended, and I hoped to be able to head home by 4:00.

3:50 p.m. - Discovered that the chief music director at the school had left without saying anything, leaving me to hold the fort until all the students went home. Got pestered by the student committee about a score I'm arranging, so I opened the file - and found that someone had played around with it and chopped it up.

5:30 p.m. - Finished fixing the damage in the score and adding another section to it, signed off, and left. All the snow was long since melted away, but it was raining again.

5:45 p.m. - Since there was no hope of my getting home in time to take my son to his cram school (meaning my FIL had probably already done it anyway), I went to a nearby home center to do some shopping.

6:10 p.m. - Headed home. Rain mixed with snow.

6:25 p.m. - Cell phone text message from my wife saying she was on her way home from her 2-day business trip and asking if I could pick our son up from his cram school at 7:30. Stopped at a 7-11 and replied that I could. Phone rang as I started to leave; it was my daughter asking the same question. Replied that I could, hung up, drove home.

6:40 p.m. - Arrived home. Another text message from the wife telling me that she'd promised our son she'd pick him up after coming home. Mixed rain and snow was falling pretty hard. Worried about her highway bus arriving late, I sent a text message saying I'd get our son if I didn't hear from her. Started doing some housecleaning.

7:10 p.m. - Still no word from the wife, so I left to pick up my son. Now it was snowing.

7:35 p.m. - Arrived at the cram school at the same time as my wife. She told me the battery in her cell phone had died. My son went with her. Since he'd just won a Prefectural award for an essay he'd written, my wife suggested our family go to Sushiro, my son's favorite conveyor belt sushi restaurant, for dinner. The nearest Sushiro is over in Kamisu. Since driving back to Namegata to pick up my FIL and daughter would take too much time, my wife suggested that I ask my FIL to bring my daughter in his car. I thought that sounded a bit optimistic, but I agreed. With that, my wife took off for Sushiro with my son.

7:38 p.m. - Called my FIL on my cell phone and explained the situation to him. He said it would be no problem. I then headed for the Sushiro in Kamisu myself.

7:48 p.m. - My cell phone rang while I was driving on a highway with no shoulders, i.e. no way of answering it. Continued on to Sushiro.

7:50 p.m. - My cell phone kept ringing intermittently, so when I finally got stopped at a red light, I answered it. My FIL said he wanted us to go to the Coco's restaurant over in Itako. I reiterated that we were going to Sushiro in Kamisu and that my wife and son were already well on their way. He replied that he refused to go any further than Itako. The light turned green, and I hung up. Tried to call the wife at the next red light, but her cell phone was dead.

7:52 p.m. - My cell phone rang again. By now there was a shoulder, so I pulled over and answered it. My daughter told me that her grandfather (my FIL) refused to drive unless we went to Coco's in Itako. I told her I would come and pick them up, pulled onto a side street, whipped a quick U-turn, burned rubber, and raced home. Luckily it was only raining by then, and I didn't encounter any cops.

8:17 p.m. - Arrived home to find my FIL and daughter waiting outside. My FIL was being unusually jovial.

8:50 p.m. - Finally made it to Sushiro. My wife and son had already finished off several plates of sushi each. The rest of us dug in in earnest while constantly having to re-explain the concept of a conveyor belt sushi restaurant to my FIL.

9:20 p.m. - Finally decided we'd had enough. Paid the bill. My wife and son left immediately. My daughter and I had to wait several minutes for my FIL to stop screwing around. By then all precipitation had stopped, and the roads were drying. I somehow caught up with my wife on the way back.

10:00 p.m. - Arrived home. FIL went into his house, we went into ours. Sat around the kotatsu and watched TV. I had my first gin & tonic in ages. Everyone fell asleep except me.

11:00 p.m. - Facebook time.

12:00 p.m. (or thereabouts) - Started work on a very lame blog post. But that's the way my life has been these days. I guess we'll see what tomorrow brings...and until then,

Oyasumi-nasai!

What Does Achievement Really Achieve?

2011-01-31T10:26:00.003+09:00

Yale law professor Amy Chua made huge waves recently with an article published in the Wall Street Journal entitled, "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior". The gist of the article is exactly what the oh-so-blunt title says; Amy goes on to assert that Chinese children will always outperform and out-achieve Western children for one simple reason: their mothers are better parents. She then goes on to explain using herself and her own mother as the main examples.

In a nutshell, the parenting philosophy of the Chinese "tiger mother" extolled in the article consists of these basic rules:

Children owe their lives to their parents. Therefore, mother is God.
Mother knows best; therefore, mother decides everything.
Children don't know what's good for them; therefore, mother intervenes in everything.
There are only two possible results to everything: perfection or failure.
A child's success is its mother's success; A child's lack of success is its mother's failure.
Success only comes as the result of hard work.
All of a child's spare time must be spent studying or practicing a skill chosen by mother.
Study means rote memorization and drilling, and practice means repetitive exercises; thinking and feeling are irrelevant, and creativity is counter-productive.
Things are only really enjoyable if you're good at them.
Fun is something you have once you've become a successful adult.

Amy, who was brought up strictly according to these principles, goes on to describe the struggles she faced being a Chinese "tiger mother" to her own children. Some of her methods would (and do) widen the eyes of many if not most conservative American mothers; liberal soccer moms would (and do) go into a frothy fury. She tells of dealing out screaming abuse if one of her kids got anything less than an A in any of the academic subjects. (Even an A minus was unacceptable.) She describes eyebrow-raising punishments threatened if not actually meted out if her kids showed any reluctance to keep up their repetitive drilling and practicing for hours. She boasts about how her kids were barred from going to play with their friends or participating in any extracurricular activities (or indeed engaging in ANY kind of social activity outside of school). She also talks about all the pressure to lighten up she kept getting from the people around her, including her kids' teachers as well as her own (Jewish) husband. She finally felt forced to back off a bit, but goes on to offer her kids' accomplishments as proof of the correctness of her ways.

Interestingly, when shown Amy's article, the overwhelming majority of mothers in the People's Republic of China said they were shocked at her adherence to such "ancient" ways. Clearly, the people of the Chinese Motherland have become more like the Westerners Amy portrays as weak, lazy, and indulgent.

And then there's Japan. The "tiger mother" style of parenting used to be the norm here, too (as I've come to see all too clearly in my own family here). However, things started to loosen up in the wake of the bubble economy expansion in the 1980s. The sudden prevalence of wealth led many adults who had grown up poor after the war to indulge their children. Later, when those children came to be parents themselves, their parenting style was influenced strongly by their spoiled upbringing, creating the "monster parent" phenomenon of today. (Be careful not to confuse the terminology here: Whereas a "tiger mother" demands perfection from her children, a "monster parent" demands special treatment for her children from others.) Now it's more or less the norm for children to be raised in a permissive manner. Nevertheless, there are still children brought up in the traditional "tiger mother" fashion, and they are the ones that tend to be regarded as the elite.

Ye Olde Academy, where I've been teaching for the past fifteen years, is a semi-prestigious, private institution with a college-aimed curriculum. It goes without saying that we get our share of kids raised in the traditional manner. They're naturally the ones that tend to get the best test scores, so they're the ones crowed over by both our school and society at large. Frankly speaking, they tend to be the most annoying and frustrating students I have to deal with. I say this because:

They're very good at tests, especially the ones based on rote learning, but put them in a situation where they actually have to think or make decisions, and they're totally lost.
They tend to have a very smug and egotistical view of themselves and their abilities, but since they're only really good at tests, they consider everything else (i.e. life) beneath them. Unfortunately, their parents encourage such an attitude.
They see their parent-driven home study, quite often supplemented with expensive tutors and/or cram school, as the sole reason for their "success", so they dismiss their classes at school as irrelevant. That's why they tend to do very well on standardized achievement tests but start to get increasingly mediocre grades in high school. That's also why they tend to have a contemptuous if not uncooperative attitude toward their teachers.
Saddest of all, most if not all of them get into prestigious colleges after graduating. That makes them the principal measure of our success as a school in the eyes of the public. However, what the published statistics DON'T say is that a very large percentage of them wind up dropping out within two years simply because they can't handle life without mother making all their decisions for them. In other words, it all ends up being for naught. Despite all the hype and self-righteousness, despite all the pomp and posturing, in the end the arrogant test machine quite often winds up being an embarrassment to himself and to us. I'd call it poetic justice if I weren't compelled to share the collective blame. There's also the percentage that make it through: They're the ones most likely to wind up having to make decisions that affect the entire country...even though they weren't brought up to have the ability to make decisions!

I can't deny the merits of the "tiger mother"...which is partly why I put up with the degree of it occurring in my own household right now. However, Professor Chua should be careful not to belittle the Western style of parenting too much. My own experience has shown me that test scores aren't everything. Emphasizing achievement over everything else quite often winds up achieving nothing. And besides...if you're going to compare China and the US in such an egotistically judgmental way, I'd have to counter by asking which of those two countries is famous for its innovation, and which is notorious for its habit of copying what the other one creates!

Hikari Wars

2011-01-10T21:34:00.005+09:00

"Hello! This is [...] of NTT proxy [...] Communications!"

That was enough right there. For at least the past year I'd been getting such calls on a regular basis from some telecommunications company claiming to be a "proxy" for NTT (the phone company). They were pushing fiber optic cable phone/internet service. At first I said I was interested, and they'd ask for my zip code before informing me that fiber optic service wouldn't be available in my area for at least the foreseeable future. They'd hang up, and that would be that until the next call came a few weeks later. Finally, I just got in the habit of saying:

"Sorry, but there's no fiber optic service in my neighborhood. Goodbye!"

"But it will be available in your area from next February!" retorted the cheerful, female caller very quickly.

Wait. That was a new development. "Next February?"

"That's right! Construction is due to take place in your area over the next month, and full service will be available from February! You're currently using Yahoo Broad Band, correct? Are you aware that, with fiber optic service, not only will your internet speed be faster, but both phone and internet service will be cheaper?"

I had been aware of that. I'd been eyeballing Yahoo's own promotion campaign for its fiber optic service for months and wondering how and if I could ever switch over to it.

"I'm not going to make any decisions on this today," I said resolutely, "but I'm interested in learning more about this. Please tell me more."

The woman on the phone did. In a casual, friendly, and charming manner unusual for phone salespeople, she asked me some basic questions about my household internet use. I gave guarded answers, and she proceeded to give me the rundown. It did sound very nice, and I had been very much interested in fiber optic service. However, I again made it very clear that I had no intention of making an on-the-spot decision, especially over the phone.

Finally, she said, "If you're interested in learning more, I'll put you in touch with a local service representative."

I figured why not, and the local service representative called me about ten minutes later. He asked me some more detailed questions about what sort of phone and internet service I'd be looking for, and then he started the L O N G S P I E L . He just kept yammering on and on and on while I kept glancing at the clock and hoping for a chance to get a thought in edgewise. Meanwhile, my mind was starting to spin.

Suddenly, he said, "By the way, your internet provider will change to 'iNächste' (name changed to avoid possible legal complications)."

"Huh?" By now my mind was mush. "i - WHAT??!?"

"iNächste. You'll have to cancel your Yahoo account. This is the phone number you'll need to do it..."

"What?" I said, as I dutifully wrote the number down. "Um, I..."

"Just dial the number, then press '6' when prompted, and when the clerk comes on, say, 'Cancel'."

"But..."

"Your installation will take place on February 15th. The reservation is logged. I'll call again tomorrow to get the information I need for final confirmation. Thank you very much! Goodbye!"

I don't know how long I stood there before I was able to reassemble my wits enough to figure out what had just happened. Had they gone ahead and signed me up? And who or what was "iNächste", anyway? I immediately got on the internet and did some searching. It turned out that the NTT proxy that had called me was from a phone sales outfit based in Chiba Prefecture. As for "iNächste" (again, not the actual name, but...you figure it out), it was an internet provider that seemed legitimate enough. It had branches all over Japan and was billed as one of the fastest-growing businesses in the country. However...when I did a more general search and started looking at blogs and chat forums, my blood began to turn cold.

Basically, "iNächste" popped out of nowhere about a year or two ago and started raking in customers, mostly through aggressive and somewhat underhanded phone campaigns like the one that had just nailed me. The main target was people who simply didn't know better, but they also used the "drone on 'em till they drowse and then sign 'em quick" technique as their standard MO, and it was apparently working very well (as I'd just found out). People who used their service said there weren't any problems, but quite often reality didn't match the promise. For one thing, "iNächste's" main selling point was that it was supposedly a lot cheaper than the mainstream broadband and fiber optic providers. However, they had a habit of quietly tacking on all these extra little charges here and there so that the actual cost ended up being about the same if not more. Also, once you started using their service, it could be very hard to cancel; much if not most of the time the service number given to do so would ring and ring with no answer. And unlike every other provider, once you got past the grace period, terminating their service would incur a hefty cancellation fee.

Fortunately, I had a handy excuse. I found out later that evening that my father-in-law had already talked to an NTT service rep about getting a fiber optic connection for both our houses, so I immediately called the "iNächste" guy back and told him his services weren't needed. I hoped that would be the end of it.

Fast forward two weeks.

"Hello! This is [...] of NTT East. A reservation has apparently been made for [my FIL's phone number], but not for yours. Would you be interested in adding yours, too."

This time it wasn't a cute-sounding woman, but rather a burly-sounding guy with the manner of a blue-collar worker. And no "proxy", but someone calling direct from NTT. Oh, good, I thought. "Yes, I would. I'm hoping to switch to Yahoo Hikari (fiber optic) from Yahoo Broad Band."

"Yes, of course! You know that fiber optic service is cheaper than ADSL like you've been using! Anyway, I need to ask a few questions about what kind of service you want..."

And so it went. I was asked pretty much the same things I'd been asked before, but at least this time I was talking to an actual NTT East person, not some proxy or agent, right? Anyway, the guy on the phone assured me that I could continue using my Yahoo account and e-mail addresses without any trouble. Then he finished by saying a follow-up call would be coming later that evening. Sure enough, about fifteen minutes later I got another call from someone saying they were from NTT East.

I could swear that the guy's voice and manner sounded identical to the "iNächste" guy I'd talked to before, so I was on my guard. He asked me the same questions as before, but I cut him off when he tried to start the L O N G S P I E L , saying I had to leave. Sure enough, he told me that my internet provider would be changing to "iNächste".

"iNächste?!?" I railed. "That's not what the guy who talked to me first said! He said I could stick with Yahoo!"

"There must have been a misunderstanding," replied iNächste Man politely, though I could detect a bit of edge in his voice. "Perhaps the NTT person you talked to didn't explain it well. They meant that you could continue using your Yahoo e-mail address, not the internet service. Of course, using your Yahoo e-mail address will incur an additional charge...especially if there is a large volume of mail at that address..."

"No, wait!" I snapped. "That is NOT what I was told."

"If you use NTT fiber optic service," iNächste Man went on, "your provider will change to iNächste."

"No," I said. "No, this isn't right! I'm not making a decision on this! Not now! Not like this! I want to look into a few things before I do anything else!"

iNächste Man suggested calling me back later that night. I said four days. He suggested calling the next day. I said four days. We finally settled on three. I figured that was enough.

The next day, after consulting the resident computer expert at Ye Olde Academy for advice (He'd never even heard of "iNächste" and advised me to stay away), I looked at NTT East's website, and there was no mention of "iNächste" whatsoever in their fiber optic service promotion. I then called the main office of NTT East directly. It turned out that they had indeed been promoting fiber optic service via proxy telecommunications outfits (i.e. contracted phone salesmen); however, the way I was being railroaded into using "iNächste" was NOT sanctioned by NTT. I therefore went ahead and made my installation reservation with them directly...and was asked all of the same questions yet again. This time I made it clear from the start that I wanted to choose my own provider, and my request was honored. Next, I got on the phone with Yahoo. After being made to wait for almost half an hour, I finally got someone who could sign me up for Yahoo Hikari. The policies seemed rather more anal than those of "iNächste", but at least I knew who and what I was dealing with and exactly how much I would be paying (and my FIL gets certain perks since he owns stock in Yahoo Japan's parent firm).

After that, I called the service number given to me by the "NTT East" guy who had called me before so I could tell him to go shove it. Interestingly, the person who answered the phone said, not "NTT East", but the name of a phone sales outfit. Even more tellingly, he sounded just like iNächste Man. He sounded a bit tongue-tied when I asked for the "NTT East" guy by name, but he put the guy on...and he sounded kind of flustered, too. Anyway, I told them very politely to go bite themselves. Hopefully that will be the end of it...at least till I get my fiber optic hookup in late February. Then I'll have, or at least I hope I'll have, much better internet and phone service.

Hopefully that won't mean dealing with even more phone salesmen...

P.S.: More BS. My FIL never did make a reservation for a fiber optic connection. He was called by an "NTT East" person, but he told them he didn't understand what it was all about and suggested they talk to me about it. It was probably the "NTT East" phony who called me the second time. Whatever. We'll figure this one out ourselves...or with someone we know.

Update P.P.S. (January 15th): My new fiber optic cable phone/internet modem arrived in the mail from Yahoo today. The problem is that I won't get my cable connection for one more month. Yes, I told them that when I made my reservation. Are they going to charge me a month's rental for a modem I can't use yet? The Hikari Wars continue...

Update P.P.P.S. (January 17th): I guess Yahoo!BB's customer service is better than I thought. After navigating the maze that is their e-mail customer inquiry form, I got a prompt reply assuring me that no rental will be charged on the new modem until I start using it and, until then, my current ADSL account will continue as always. So...no problems for now, at least, and kudos to the quick-responding service rep.

Image Matters

2011-01-05T22:44:00.006+09:00

Just how much power is there in a physical image?

The Second Commandment that God gave to Moses reads:

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:4-6)

There has been a lot of controversy over the ages as to what this really means. It's generally accepted that it's a ban on idol worship, whether to an animal or human representation of a pagan deity or the Judeo/Christo/Islamic God himself. Historically, some more fundamentalist branches of Islam, Judaism, or even Christianity have taken it to be a blanket ban on making a physical image of ANY living thing for ANY reason. (Indeed, having a doll in your possession could get you hanged in 17th century New England.)

But what about in other cultures, such as here in Japan?

For more than 1500 years, the two principal religions of Japan have been Shinto and Buddhism, which are totally unrelated and yet strangely compatible. The two faiths coexist even though they couldn't be more different, and one of the more obvious distinctions is in how they use images.

Buddhism came about as an offshoot of the Hindu religion and thus is built on the same foundations. It shares the Hindu principle that the cosmos is filled with all kinds of deities, saints, helper spirits, divine messengers, etc., none of which is the supreme power, and all of which are really just lesser manifestations of the supreme power (referred to as "The Godhead" or even simply "God" in Hindu, but generally not referred to at all in Buddhism.)(Oh, and Buddhists do NOT believe that Buddha is God). The belief is that these many deities exist as a result of our own thoughts and perceptions. In other words, the Hindu/Buddhist deities are simply images we can comprehend formed from something beyond our comprehension. That means they have no identity save that which human beings give them...or, more accurately, that to which we confine them (just as the identity of one's own soul is defined by the physical body which confines it). That is why images are so important in Hindu and Buddhism; they allow worshipers to interact with a power that is otherwise far beyond the human scope. Therefore, when people pray to a Buddhist deity, saint, helper spirit, or Buddha, they direct their attention to an image which provides the means of direct interaction. The prayer ritual is simple and direct.

Shinto takes an entirely different approach. It resembles Native American shamanism in that it believes everything has a spirit. That includes not only living creatures but also inanimate objects, actions, words, and even thoughts. Shinto believes that everything began with a single God creating the universe in a big bang. (I kid you not!) Anything coming into existence in the wake of that Creation, i.e. anything identified as a thing, is the birth of a corresponding spirit. (Hmm...sounds kind of like quantum physics!) It is also believed that spirits exist on several levels ranging from the tiniest particles to actual deities. However, though Shinto deities are given names, their identity is not confined to any kind of physical manifestation. Therefore, in Shinto, prayer is ALMOST NEVER directed at any kind of image. That's also why Shinto prayer rituals are more elaborate; since there is no image to establish the spirit's identity and focus its presence, one has to get its attention by ringing a bell and/or clapping the hands and bowing a set number of times.

The importance of images in Japanese culture doesn't end with religious observance; it also manifests itself in everyday life. Of particular interest is the way the Japanese treat dolls. Dolls are as much a staple of childhood life here as they are in any other country if not more. Even teenagers and young adults, particularly women, tend to be fond of collecting "cute" molded or stuffed figures and can often be seen with such items attached to their purses or piled in the backs of their cars. However, though Japan has long been a trendy, consumerist culture obsessed with throwing away the "old" and buying the new, dolls tend to be given special treatment. You have to understand that this is a country where it's considered normal to replace one's car and/or computer every few years, to sell if not throw away CDs after listening to them for only a month or two, to find illegal garbage dumps filled with like-new appliances and furniture, and so on. But dolls are generally not something one just throws away.

Whether it's the Buddhist belief that an image is a portal for spirits, the Shinto belief that an image with identity has a spirit with identity, or a combination thereof, there is a reluctance among Japanese to abandon dolls the same way they abandon thousand-dollar stereo components. One example was when we were cleaning up at Ye Olde Academy in preparation for entrance examinations this week. I found a little, stuffed Care Bear that someone had apparently dropped and forgotten long before. Not sure what to do with it, I gave it to one of the chief teachers, who tried to find someone to take it. No one did. The chief teacher then fed the bear to the bin, but not before saying a quick Buddhist sutra first. Yes, it was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but the fact that the bear was given even a mildly sarcastic prayer for its afterlife showed a level of respect not usually shown to anything bought. Another example was my wife's decision finally to dispose of my daughter's Ricca-chan (the Japanese Barbie) collection. My protests that some of the dolls were now collector's items fell largely on deaf ears. Still, the dolls were not simply tossed in the trash. My wife put the whole collection in a box and took it with us to Kashima Shrine when we went there for hatsumode (see previous post). Apparently it's considered proper to burn a doll at a shrine so as to release its spirit safely. Unfortunately, at Kashima Shrine there was a big sign saying that the big bonfire was restricted to holy items only, and dolls were prohibited. There were also guards posted to enforce the ban. Grumbling, my wife nevertheless brought the box of dolls back home and put it back on its shelf. The potential wrath of doll spirits tends to be taken very seriously here.

On the other hand, as with just about everything else here, the respect for dolls in Japan sometimes leads to some very weird things. There are actually Shinto shrines in certain, isolated locations that are notorious for people leaving or hanging dolls; considering the remoteness (and just plain spookiness) of these shrines and the manner in which dolls are piled or hung around them (some of them apparently with the intent of cursing someone), one can only assume that people have traveled long distances to put them there...which leaves one to wonder why. There are also shrines created specifically in honor of dolls. It also happens that people sometimes bring dolls they believe to be cursed to Buddhist temples, which then store them in rooms designated for the purpose. Some such dolls have weird properties, such as moving around apparently of their own accord or having hair that seems to grow. (Some such dolls have been the subject of televised investigations, and some of them have stumped scientists.) Perhaps most disturbing is a reported trend among girls in which they mark their loss of childhood innocence (i.e. becoming a bratty teen) by beheading or otherwise mutilating their Barbie or Ricca-chan. Thankfully, my own daughter never did that...

Speaking of dolls, when I got married, both my mother and my sister got dressed up in Japanese kimonos. As they walked around in the hotel where the reception was held, my sister in particular got mobbed by men from another event wanting to take her picture. They kept saying, "Ningyou mitai! Ningyou mitai!" ("You look like a doll! You look like a doll!") My sister didn't complain, and why should she? After all, it's all about image!

New Year in Japan, 2011

2011-01-03T18:37:00.005+09:00

I have posted about New Year celebrations in Japan before, but since I've made so many new friends - and reconnected with so many old ones - on Facebook recently, I figured it would be a good idea to talk about it again.

As in most Buddhist countries, in Japan the New Year is the biggest and most important celebration of the year. In many ways, it is actually like Christmas in the West in tone and scope. (On the other hand, Christmas in Japan is more or less just a date or party, like the New Year is in Christian countries.) The Japanese New Year celebrations also differ from those of mainland Asian countries such as China in that they are more somber and sentimental in tone, again like Christmas in the West. (Chinese New Year celebrations, in contrast, are filled with flashes and bangs...quite literally!) The festivities take place over a span of several days.

Pt. I In the Home
Just as there are traditional decorations for Christmas, there are some for the Japanese New Year, as well. The most basic is the kadomatsu, a standing ornament usually consisting of three bamboo posts cut into a wedge and hung with flowers and one or more pine (matsu) branches. It stands for purity and longevity, symbolized by the evergreen.

This is a typical example of a kadomatsu, taken from the E-Ibaraki Report English website. They come in all sizes, from small, table-top varieties to meter-high ones stood outside of homes or businesses. You can either buy them or make them yourself. My father-in-law, being the ~~chronic cheapskate~~ industrious soul that he is, always makes most of the family New Year decorations himself.

His homemade kadomatsu, as you can see, tend to be rather rough and simple. You can also see in the above pic that there is an ornament hung over his front door.

Here's our own front door, with one ornament that we received and another that we bought ourselves.

Here's another one inside our house, suspended from the hook that held our Christmas wreath just before. There is also a small talisman, crafted of twine, pine branches, and paper, hung on every single water faucet in both houses and out in the yard. (If I understood the explanation correctly, their function is to keep the water spiritually pure. Otherwise there is apparently a danger of being possessed if you drink or use it.)

This particular one is attached to the hand-washing basin on top of our toilet. The zig-zag paper strips, which have become a bit discolored, are a Shinto tradition and signify the presence of a kami (usually translated as "god", though I prefer to say "spirit" since Shinto is a lot like Native American shamanism).

Another important symbol of the New Year is mochi, or pounded rice cake. It is used both as a food item and as a sacred decoration. Rounded patties of mochi are often arranged in a stack atop a piece of paper and placed as an offering in a tokonoma (decorative alcove) or on a family altar.

We don't really have a family altar in our house, but mochi offerings were put in our upstairs tokonoma and in front of the little memorial for my mother-in-law. Again, my father-in-law prepared these himself. (Store-bought ones are usually bigger, more regular in shape, and prettier. Unfortunately, they are also increasingly being made of plastic.)

Mochi is not only a decoration, but also an important New Year food item. It is traditionally made by putting specially-prepared rice in a wooden pestle and beating it with a large mallet. There are more convenient, modern methods, but we never have to make our own. We always get more of it from relatives, acquaintances, and neighbors than we know what to do with...

This is just some of the mochi we got this year. Most of it comes pre-cut into little blocks like the ones in the Ziploc bag at upper left. Store-bought types tend to come in sheets such as the ones in the package with a red rabbit (since 2011 is the Year of the Rabbit). The rest come in great, big blocks or logs like the one wrapped in newspaper at lower right. There are many ways of cooking mochi, whether boiled as zoni (dumplings in soup), baked, or steamed. The latter forms are usually topped with various things such as soy sauce, cheese, natto (fermented soybeans), or the kinako (soybean flour) and azuki (sweet bean jam) pictured here. It's a good thing there are so many different ways of preparing mochi, because, as with Christmas turkey, we wind up eating it for every meal over several days. Fortunately, it isn't the only thing we eat.

There is also "o-seichi" food, or celebratory New Year fare. There are usually a lot of different dishes, many of which would qualify as fish bait in the US, but they are both delicious and very colorful. Again, we eat it over the course of several days...which seems fitting considering how much time and trouble it takes to make it! (More and more people, especially younger families, have started buying pre-made o-seichi or doing without it altogether, which is a shame. The making of it has been an important tradition bringing family members together since antiquity.)

One other important New Year tradition is the nengajo, or New Year card.

Here are some (of the very few) that I got this year. They are similar in principle to the American Christmas card, but they are always printed on a special, pre-paid postcard that includes a lottery number for a cash prize drawing. People either buy them or make them at home. There are some excellent and easy-to-use software applications for making them, like the one we use at home. That is a very good thing, because people often send hundreds of them in a single season. (My father-in-law always sends at least several hundred, which is why I bought him a copy of perhaps the easiest-to-use software for making them. Naturally, he won't even try to use it himself.) Unfortunately, sending nengajo has become more inconvenient in recent times because of the increasingly draconian privacy laws. For example, Ye Olde Academy used to give every member of the faculty a staff directory, which made it easy to send everyone a card. They stopped doing so in 2001 out of "privacy concerns". Hence, I'm now only able to send cards to a few select individuals. It makes things easier for me, but it has also weakened the workplace bond.

Pt. II In Popular Culture
As with Christmas in the US, New Year in Japan is heralded by a barrage of TV specials. Many if not most of these are celebrity competitions. There are also programs that go over the highlights of the previous year. There are virtually no traditional New Year songs (which some might consider a very good thing), but there are New Year singing contests.

Another important custom in popular culture is shopping. One reason is that most businesses offer special New Year sales. Most also sell traditional gift grab bags. The prices can vary widely depending on the business in question and the type of merchandise. Usually the contents of the bags are secret, making it a gamble to get one, but they are unquestionably a bargain. For example, this year my wife got talked into buying a grab bag at a DAKS of London store. It cost 50,000 yen (about $600 at the current exchange rate). When she brought it home and opened it, she found a suit with a skirt, a blouse, a sweater, and a muffler whose total price added up to more than 200,000 yen (about $2400), or four times what she paid!

Pt. III Observances
Most Japanese say that they have no religion. However, on the designated calendar dates, the overwhelming majority will visit a Buddhist temple or Shinto shrine, perform the appropriate rituals, and buy the appropriate items. New Year is important in both Shinto and Buddhism (which are compatible and have co-existed for around 1600 years), but Shinto seems to be given the most attention. When the hour of midnight arrives on New Year's Eve, the Buddhist temples start ringing their bells. Meanwhile, the more devout individuals go to visit their neighborhood shrine and leave offerings. It is considered significant to see the first sunrise of the New Year, especially from a holy place. However, even if one doesn't do either of these things, it is considered a must to observe hatsumode, the first visit to a shrine or temple to pray for the New Year.

Although some go to Buddhist temples for hatsumode, the overwhelming majority go to Shinto shrines, particularly the bigger and more important ones. Famous shrines such as Meiji Jingu in Tokyo are invariably packed to overflowing during the first three days of the New Year. As for my family, we are lucky(?) in that we have a significant and historically famous shrine in our area, Kashima Jingu. This year we took a chance and paid our visit on New Year's Day.

Here's a view looking toward Kashima Shrine's red mon, or Chinese gate, one of its trademark features. It's unusual for a Shinto shrine to have such a gate, which is the only remaining structure from the era when Kashima Shrine served a dual role as a Buddhist/Zen monastery. It's also unusual to see bare gravel on a day like today. Behind me was a solid mass of people.

This is the view while standing in line in front of the reiden, or worship hall, of the outer shrine. It's hard to see in this pic, but the building is quite colorful. The honden, or main hall, which is only entered by the high priest and the spirits, is even more vividly painted, but I couldn't get around to photograph it. The bright colors identify it as a shrine structure dedicated by the Tokugawa Shogunate in the late 17th century, though they say the shrine itself has been in use for almost 3000 years. Shinto shrines are supposed to be torn down and rebuilt every twenty years, but since this one is a national treasure, only its thatched roof is replaced. Incidentally, the pic also shows a torii gate, a traditional entrance to a Shinto shrine.

Here's a closer view. You can see the giant offering box. Each person tossed a coin into the box and prayed. There was a group doing a special worship service inside the hall, but I hear those cost a lot of money.

Here's a quick, from-the-hip shot while walking down the avenue from the outer shrine to the inner one. Even a lot of Japanese don't really understand that the shrine is not really the buildings so much as the forest around them. It really is quite a forest, too...and right in the middle of a city! Incidentally, on the right side of the pic you can see people tying their omikuji fortunes for the year to strings set up for that purpose (so they don't tie them to the rapidly-filling trees). If you draw a bad fortune, you're supposed to tie it somewhere in a shrine so the shrine's power can help protect you and then try again to see if it helps. (As for me, I drew "kyou" which is second worst. My wife tied it to a tree, and I tried again...drawing "han kichi" - literally "half fortunate". That means that the year will probably start out bad but get better.)

A quick shot of the wife and spawn next to one of the hinoki (Japanese cypress) in the shrine.

And a quick swap...

This is the enclosure where Kashima Shrine's famous deer are kept. The name "Kashima" means "deer island", and the deer are considered sacred. They ran around free until the early 1970's, when the area's sudden industrial growth brought increased traffic. People were able to buy food for them at a nearby stand and feed them through the gap in the chain-link fence until just a month ago, when the wooden fence in the foreground was put in.

The sign at left explains why feeding...or even approaching...the deer is no longer permitted. Last summer some dumbass or dumbasses apparently fed the deer bits of torn-up plastic shopping bag, and seven of them died. Leave it to a few idiots to wreck a centuries-old tradition.

And yet another line...this time to pray at the inner shrine. The building is smaller and simpler than the outer shrine, being constructed of plain, unpainted wood. It is also both older and more sacred. It, too, is a national treasure and thus only has its roof replaced at intervals rather than being totally rebuilt. The line was long but not as wide as the one at the outer shrine, and it went very quickly.

I didn't take any pictures to show it, but another main point of hatsumode is to buy charms and talismans for the new year. These range from tiny, colorful, cloth ones for success in study or work or safety while driving to big, fancy, expensive ones for safety in the home or company. Usually there is only one, main stand for selling such items, but during the New Year season they set up a few more, and all of them have long lines. Also, people bring the charms and talismans they bought the year before to "return their spirits", i.e. burn them, in a large fire built for the occasion in a special place safely apart from the other shrine buildings. Every year it's burn & buy, burn & buy, burn & buy. I'm sure the cycle is very good for the shrine's coffers.

We were in a bit of a hurry this year, since we had other things to do, so we didn't buy roast dango (rice dumplings) like we usually do. However, we did get to enjoy a performance by a guy playing an ocarina over in the gazebo in the shrine's lower garden as we came in. Another New Year, another visit to Kashima Shrine, and so the cycle continues.

Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu. Happy New Year, everybody!

Christmas Eve 2010

2010-12-25T00:01:00.002+09:00

Good: Taking my ten-year-old BLUE RAV4 in for a free maintenance package check, tune-up, and oil change.
Anxious: Telling the mechanics that one of the belts appears to be slipping.
Not good: Being told that the belt is shredded and needs to be replaced ASAP.
Not quite so bad: Being charged only for the new belt, not for the installation.
Definitely bad: Being told that, when changing the belt, the mechanics have found that the tension-adjusting wheel is broken and jammed, a potentially serious situation that needs immediate correcting.
A little less bad: Hearing that, again, I'll only be charged for the part, not for the service.
Frustrating: Hearing that the additional repair work will take another half hour to finish.
A little more frustrating: Remembering that mechanics last year warned me that the tension-adjusting wheel wasn't quite right and probably needed looking at.
Irritating: Being told that, in order to replace the damaged tension-adjusting wheel, the mechanics have to remove a whole bunch of other stuff, including dismantling the ABS brake system.
Hair-pullingly nasty: Being told that, because of all the extra work needed, getting everything done will probably take another hour or more.
Agonizing: Having to sit and wait in the car shop lobby for a total of two and a half hours, wiping out almost all my final Christmas preparation plans.
A little soothing: Being charged only for the part, not for the service, and given both a 30% discount and free gifts for my trouble.
Amazing: Noticing that both my engine and my brakes are performing noticeably better than before while driving home.
Nuts: Arriving home after all this, far later than planned, and finding both kids upset and the wife about to blow a gasket on account of the kids' bad habits. In other words, same old, same old.

Hopefully Christmas Day will be better than this.

Merry Christmas / Happy New Year, everyone!

Weep in Heavenly Peace

2010-12-22T15:52:00.002+09:00

I'm writing this post mainly in response to all the anti-Christmas music wharrgarbl going on in my Facebook news feed these days.

Ever since 2002 or so, I have made it a habit to bring my guitar to my 7th grade English Oral Communication classes during the week before Christmas and sing a selection of Christmas songs. The program I have followed more or less from the beginning consists of:

We Wish You a Merry Christmas. The Japanese are very much familiar with this 16th century English carol, and the kids often sing along, but only the very first part. They don't know the rest at all, particularly the thing about bringing figgy pudding right now. I use this song to introduce the centuries-old British custom of "wassailing". (The kinder and gentler American equivalent is called "caroling".)
The Wassailing Song. (Known as "Here We Come A-Caroling" in the USA.) As long as I'm talking about wassailing, I might as well do this 17th century English number, too. It has always been one of my personal favorites. However, being non-British, I only know the first verse by heart. That's still more than my Japanese audience; this song is almost completely unknown here. Actually, I've been caroling many times in the US and have always loved it, but I'd still like to try traditional English wassailing someday. The "wassailing bowl", which was usually filled with a mixture of ale and mead, sounds like a nice reward for a wish and a song or two.
Jingle Bells. This 19th century American song is a well-known favorite just about anywhere you go, and my students recognize it immediately. However, they're always shocked to find out that it's not really a Christmas song! (It was originally written for Thanksgiving and wound up getting transplanted.) The Japanese version of the lyrics is about Santa Claus, after all! When I translate the first two verses of the original American version for the students, some of them actually look like their bubble has been burst. They're also surprised at my energetic (and even raucous) way of singing the song. It's still good fun for everyone.
Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I always make it a point to contrast the serious-yet-not nature of traditional English carols with their just-plain-fun American descendants. At the same time, I draw attention to the fact that some American carols seem fun and/or silly yet have an important message. The story of Rudolph was first concocted in 1939 for, of all things, a coloring book. It was made into a song about ten years later. (The first and most famous recording was made by singing cowboy Gene Autry in 1949.) Kids here in Japan are quite familiar with this song, but don't seem to realize what it's really about. Bullying, and the suicides that tend to follow it, are a serious problem in Japan and a current hot topic. This song gives me a convenient chance for a bit of moralizing...that the kids usually shut up and listen to.
Stille Nacht (Silent Night). When I first came to Japan back in 1990, it was more than a year before I was able to make a visit back to Oregon. That trip was to happen during the winter holidays, which made it even more special. I was very openly excited about the fact that I was going to be home for Christmas. My coworkers at Kashima High School, however, kept looking at each other and shaking their heads. When I finally asked what was up, one of the English teachers said, "I'm sure you can find your date here in Japan! Why do you need to go back?" What, I wondered. Find my "date"? Confused, I asked for an explanation, which made all of them confused. You see, in Japan, as well as most Buddhist countries, Christmas has come to have a mainly romantic theme. (More like a winter sex festival, actually.) If you're a teenager or adult who is not yet married (and sometimes even if you are married...to someone else), you are OBLIGED to go on a date for Christmas...preferably finishing it in a hotel room. The problem is that THE JAPANESE FIRMLY BELIEVE THAT THAT'S THE WAY CHRISTMAS IS CELEBRATED EVERYWHERE. (I even saw a "Christmas special" on TV here once in which an image of the Nativity was superimposed over a scene in which a couple was having sex in a cheap hotel room! I'm not the most religious person in the world, but I just about threw my TV through the window!) Sentimentalist that I tend to be with regard to Christmas, I was outraged, and I explained that, where I come from, Christmas tends to be more of a family-oriented and/or religious affair like the Japanese New Year. My Japanese coworkers figured I was either lying or nuts! "After all," the English teacher continued, "the number one Christmas song is very clearly about romance!" "Silent Night?" I asked. "NO!" retorted the English teacher like I was the biggest idiot in the galaxy. "LAST CHRISTMAS!!!" I...just about...died...laughing. First of all, it's not even really a Christmas song. Second of all, I totally loathed WHAM! in my college days! Ever since that incident, I have always made a big point of making sure my students understand that the official number one Christmas song in the world has long been and is still "Stille Nacht" (Silent Night), that heartwarming song written in turn-of-the-19th-century Austria by a priest and a school principal, originally for performance on guitar since the church organ was broken. It is also a sentimental favorite of mine...one that tends to make me feel especially homesick, so I sometimes have to fight to keep from choking up when I perform it.

Actually, as it turned out, it had that effect on someone else. I've performed this program set several dozen times already and have gotten various reactions from my student (and sometimes teacher) audiences. I didn't expect what happened this year, however. In one of my classes, one which was reacting very positively to my performance, my closing rendition of "Stille Nacht" moved one boy to tears. His crying was obvious and noticeable enough to set the other kids, especially the girls, into fits of laughter afterward. What's really amazing is that the boy is a rugby jock! What's the number one Christmas song? As far as I'm concerned, there is no doubt in my mind.

Merry Christmas, everybody! Keep your wassailing bowls ready near the fire!

The Suite Sound of Fireworks, Sorcery, and Cracking Nuts

2010-12-14T12:16:00.005+09:00

And so Year Ten of the Kashima Philharmonic Orchestra (motto: "What was our motto again?") comes to a close with yet another iconic performance (or should I say "apocalyptic"?).

Once again our music director showed his uncanny ability to pick pieces that we probably had no business even trying, and yet as always we somehow made it work.

It all opened with the exciting "Fanfare pour preceder La Peri" by Paul Dukas, played by our brass section standing in a row at the front of the stage, and it went reasonably well.

After that, the whole orchestra (sans the flute and trombone sections) came in and hopped back to the Baroque Era with the first movement of Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks. (There's no clarinet part in that piece, since the clarinet wasn't yet accepted in Handel's day, but the 2nd clarinetist and I properly assumed our positions anyway and waited. It's actually rather impolite and unprofessional for musicians to go on and off the stage during a program in progress, but people here don't seem to realize that.) Music for the Royal Fireworks can be challenging, especially for the trumpets and horns, but our struggling sections were helped a lot by the addition of a few skilled extras, and it went quite well.

After that came another Baroque tune, this time a movement from Vivaldi's "Winter" from The Four Seasons. It's a strings-only piece (so all the brass players promptly got up and left...while we woodwinds cringed...) featuring a violin solo, played beautifully by our professional concertmistress, and it went very well.

Next, we jumped ahead a bit to the early Classical period and played the second movement from Haydn's 101st symphony, popularly known as "The Clock". (Thank Heaven that Haydn, following the example of his young friend Mozart, had by then added clarinets to his orchestra lineup!) As with so much of Haydn's work, it wasn't particularly hard to play, it was a lot of fun, and it went quite well. And then...

"The Clock" was followed, perhaps ironically, by a composition made by perhaps Haydn's most ungrateful student, Ludwig van Beethoven. Specifically, we played the first movement of his Sixth Symphony (Pastorale). Beethoven has been a regular fixture of our performances for the past five years or so, which seems odd considering both directors during that period have said rather bluntly that the old Ludwig van is over our collective heads. Beethoven's music, like Haydn's, doesn't usually involve heavy finger work. The first movement of Pastorale is no exception; while not exactly easy, it doesn't require a fast technique or even much (if any) practice time to get the rhythms down. However, it does require discipline and control. It seems like every single note has to be played a certain way, or aficionados get upset. We'd rehearse the same passage over and over again, hitting every single note spot on, and still the conductor would stop and cry, "No, no, NO!!!" Every attack, every note length, every decay, every crescendo and decrescendo, and every trivial form of articulation had to be just right. (As principal clarinetist, I bore a massive portion of the burden seeing as I had a solo in every other passage.) We spent the lion's share (if not that of half a zoo) rehearsing the 6th, and I'm very happy to report that it went very well.

Then came the very antithesis of Beethoven: Dukas' The...Sorcerer's...Apprentice.....

I actually tried my hand at conducting The Sorcerer's Apprentice when the concert band at Ye Olde Academy played it in 2000. It was also a piece that I'd always wanted to try. However, when I got my copy of the 1st clarinet part and looked at it, the sound of my jaw hitting the floor could be heard a kilometer away. It had far more black ink in it than should be considered legal. The fact that it starts and stops with slow, easy, expressive clarinet solos was probably Dukas adding insult to injury. Once the piece gets going, it doesn't let up. Either the fingers are flying, the tongue is working double-time, or both. To call it "exhausting" would be like calling a neutron star "heavy". Some of those extended 16th note runs and grace note rhythms don't seem physically possible for a normal human being to play (which makes me wonder how I was able to pull most of them off). And the fact that the end of one passage-from-hell only serves to introduce the next one in a never-ending series like successive layers of the abyss means that, when it finally hits that explosive climax, one is left physically and psychologically drained. In other words, it was among the most fun I've ever had. Despite some inevitable gurgles and squeaks all over the orchestra, it also went unexpectedly well.

Mercifully, we took a break. After that, there was an interesting segment in which we played part of the second movement of Dvořák's "New World Symphony" and invited the audience to play along on recorders. That was fun. Amazingly, a lot of audience members actually brought recorders and participated.

After that was another break followed by the big production number: Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. Tchaikovsky was certainly a musical genius of high caliber, which unfortunately tends to be synonymous with "chronic sadist". The various pleasant, little tunes he culled from the Nutcracker Ballet to form the Suite don't sound very difficult. They don't look difficult, either. However, playing them is another story entirely. Once again, part of the problem is that you can't just play the notes on the page and expect it to sound good; you have to create the right atmosphere, and that takes control, discipline, and the right kind of sense. There is also the fact that, intentionally or not, Tchaikovsky scored the thing so that many if not most of the solos are centered in very inconvenient locations on the instruments. (It is widely said that Tchaikovsky wrote the Nutcracker unwillingly and was never happy with it. Some reports say he was openly contemptuous of it. That makes me wonder whether he really was taking out his frustrations on the performers!)

Naturally, the clarinet has all kinds of solos in the Nutcracker Suite, and all of them are far trickier than they sound. They even make pros nervous. In fact, when the Kashima Philharmonic first attempted the Nutcracker back in 2002, I was NEVER able to get either the solo in the first tune ("Miniature Overture") or the duet with the flute in the second ("Marche") under my fingers no matter how much I practiced, so I wound up asking the just-joined Mrs. Ogawa to take over the 1st clarinet part (which she then held for several years afterward). Now she's no longer in the orchestra, so it was all up to me. However, this time I surprised myself by pulling them off almost like nothing the first time we read them...possibly a fringe benefit of having practiced "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". The director and rehearsal director kept saying, "Don't push the tempo or poor [Moody] will be in it deep," and I kept replying, "Push the damned tempo! I'm ON it!" And I was.

However, that famous solo in the "Flower Waltz" was another story; it had me deeply worried. Again, it doesn't look or sound difficult, but it's in a really inconvenient place on the horn...especially for someone who has a bit of carpal tunnel syndrome in his left hand. I've performed it a number of times, mostly without incident. But when we played the "Flower Waltz" as an encore two years ago, right after the "1812 Overture", my left hand was so numb and shaky that the solo sounded like an elephant dancing in a swamp. The ham-handed flopping wasn't so obvious in the recording, but it was a personal disaster to me, and I nearly quit there and then. Cut to this year. That solo was NEVER a problem for me in rehearsal...until the dress rehearsal the day before the concert. My left hand froze up solid, and I came to a dead halt in the middle of the opening run. Suddenly everyone forgot that I'd managed it flawlessly till then, and all around me were mutterings of, "Why can't he play that?" The director himself was...well...a bit annoyed. After that, I had all kinds of well-meaning professional extras coming to me with kindly patronizing smiles and saying, "There, there. Don't worry about it. Even pros are scared of that solo." I was furious. Maybe that's why I steeled myself, fought my exhausted left hand into submission, and gunned my way through the f*****g thing during the performance. After it was over I was told I'd never sounded so good. Okay, I guess I won't quit.

But enough about me. I should also mention that our music was accompanied by a performance by a local ballet school. The littlest girls did an adorable dance with the "Chinese Dance". The eldest ones, all teenagers, gave a beautiful and graceful exhibition during the "Flower Waltz". The ones in between came on during the "March". It was a very good idea, since it allowed another bit of local talent to be put on display. It was also appreciated by the audience, who gave us thundering applause.

The encore was Leroy Anderson's "Christmas Festival", a fun medley of Christmas songs (with an AWFUL LOT of sharps). Unfortunately, we were pretty worn out by then, so there were some spectacular bricks....especially the opening fanfare. It still ended everything on the right note (ha ha). All in all, it was yet another potential disaster that turned into an almost magical success. At any rate, the audience went away pleased, and we felt pretty good about ourselves, too...between sighs of relief.

Until next time!

Changes

2010-11-27T12:30:00.004+09:00

(Cue Yes soundtrack)

When my adventure here in the Land of the Rising Sun first began, getting across Lake Kitaura to and from the Kashima Peninsula was never an easy task. Basically your options were:

Going across the Jingu Bridge. This was the main bridge connecting Kashima City directly with the mainland. Unfortunately, it's on Route 51, which in those days was always bumper-to-bumper traffic moving at sub-walking speed. Even now it can tend to be a slow, aggravating route.
Going across the Rokko (Great) Bridge. (I inserted the "great" because they call it an oh-hashi [大橋], which literally translates as "big bridge" or "great bridge".)I don't know whose idea it was to call this a "great" bridge. In fact, I'd like to track down the person who designed the thing in the first place and throttle him for the good of humanity. This has to be the most idiotic bridge ever conceived. The span, which links the villages of Kitaura (now part of Namegata City) and Taiyo (now part of Hokota City), consists of a single lane with turnouts. Getting onto it and off again requires passing through a gate that is only just wide enough for a full-sized car to get through without losing its mirrors and then carefully taking turns with oncoming traffic hopping from turnout to turnout. It's almost like someone was trying to fulfill a video game fantasy when they built it. At any rate, most people avoid it at all costs.
Circling around from the north. Yes, bypassing Lake Kitaura altogether was always an option...if one didn't mind spending an extra half hour or more weaving around on narrow country roads.
Circling around from the south. Going down through Chiba Prefecture and coming up via the various bridges into Kamisu offered better roads than the northern route but also meant a much longer distance. In other words, it wasn't any better.

Finally, in the late '90s, they opened the Kitaura (Great) Bridge, and it was a godsend. It gave us a nice, two-lane span with plenty of room and a link to the just-completed Route 18, an open stretch of road that allowed a decent flow of traffic. At the same time, the bridge was still just remote enough not to wind up overwhelmed. It became my principle route to and from work and remains so to this day.

The New Jingu Bridge was added in the early 2000's, paralleling the old Jingu Bridge a few hundred meters away along a new bypass route that leads directly to the expressway. Now they are once again continuing work on a (long-stalled) replacement for the ~~Dumbass~~ Rokko (Great) Bridge which, when completed (hopefully before the end of the next decade), will open the flow of traffic even more.

Yes, there has been an explosion of road and bridge improvements during the two decades I've been here. It has come together with an equally explosive increase in population and development that has completely transformed the landscape of this area. At the same time, it's kind of ironic to note that the Kitaura (Great) Bridge is now undergoing construction to repair sections that have become decayed or damaged during a little over a decade of use. It has been here only about half as long as I have been in Japan, and it's already looking old. What does that say about me?

Some other significant changes that have occurred over the past two decades include:

The Death of Towns and Villages. The fact that Ibaraki Prefecture consisted mostly of rural towns and villages with very few cities was part of its charm. Then, in the early 2000's, Prime Minister Koizumi enacted a policy of consolidation as a way of trimming government costs. Suddenly the map underwent a sort of reverse mitosis. First the towns/villages of Kashima and Ono linked to become Kashima City. Then Itako and Ushibori became Itako City, while Kamisu and Hasaki united into Kamisu City. Then Aso, Tamatsukuri, and Kitaura disappeared into Namegata City as Hokota, Taiyo, and Asahi became Hokota City. In a disturbing game of big-eats-little, towns and villages with long histories were sucked into larger neighbors and quite often forced to bear the latters' names. Pretty soon the Ibaraki Prefecture map became a lot less complicated but a lot less recognizable. Unfortunately, far from saving costs, the consolidation drive quite often left the new cities with horrible debt as the burden of raising poorer former villages to the standards of the richer siblings fell onto the new municipal governments. Changes in public utility contracts and services forced by annexation sometimes boosted fees for some districts as much as 300%. Only now are things starting to settle back down into an uneasy equilibrium, but a lot of problems have yet to be solved.
The Death of White Cars. In the '90s, the overwhelming majority of cars here were white, and any other color stuck out like a sore thumb. That is happily no longer the case. Now silver seems to be the color of choice for most, but it is not a whopping majority like white used to be.
The Death of Full-Service Gasoline. Japanese gas stations have long been renowned for their excellent service. Entering one, one could expect to be descended upon by a whole team of workers in clean, well-pressed uniforms cheerfully shouting confirmations to each other as they gave the car a full going-over. Then the first self-service gas stations started appearing in the early to mid 2000's. At the time they were considered something of a curiosity. Strangely, they were also quite often more expensive than the regular stations. However, once the intimidation wore off and the prices started coming down, people started using them in greater numbers, which naturally meant that they began replacing the conventional full-service stations. As for me, a native of Oregon (a state in which self-service gasoline is illegal), it took a while for me to muster the courage to try one. Now I tend to prefer them. The full service is nice, but I like the speed and in-my-own-hands security that comes with pumping my own.
The Death of the "Drop" and the "Squatty". Traditional Japanese "squatty" toilets were still very much the standard when I first arrived, and I had to get used to using them. I also had to get accustomed to the general lack of sewage systems, which meant many if not most toilets dropped directly into tanks which had to be hosed and vacuumed out at intervals and were often not well sealed (i.e. the smell of human waste was an inevitable part of everyday life everywhere you went). However, perhaps as a metaphor for things to come, in 1992 the drop-squatty toilet in my teacher's flat was replaced with a Western-style flush-toilet which was then connected with a newly-installed local sewer line. I considered myself extremely lucky. However, as sewers became more widespread in the early to mid '90s, flushing toilets became the norm rather than a luxury. By the turn of the century, Western-style toilets had also begun to displace the squatty. Now they are saying that many if not most Japanese children are unable to use squatties, partly because they don't know how, and partly because they no longer have the leg strength to squat long enough to empty themselves. All of the student restrooms at Ye Olde Academy now offer a choice of squatty or Western-style toilets, though the latter is by far the favorite. It's kind of a pity, really; squatties are definitely nice in winter, since your hind end never touches them.
The Death of the Directory. You need to find someone, but you don't know their address or phone number? Tough. Not yours. It's extremely ironic that, in this age of cell phones, GPS navigation, and The Internet, phone directories are officially extinct. In fact, my school doesn't even give us a staff directory anymore. You see, the issue of personal privacy became a witch-hunt in the early 2000's. That's when the government decided that the white pages were evil and had them banned. In fact, you can't find any kind of phone/address directory for anything except businesses and services...unless you happen to be a business or service. They have access to personal phone and address information, particularly if they do anything that involves mailing. As for the rest of the population, well, we're all just SOL, which makes giving obligatory summer and winter gifts a far more complicated thing than it used to be.
The Death of Manners. Japanese etiquette is extremely complex. There are just so many rules. Even the way you talk to someone is regulated by a system of codes and standards that dates back centuries. Children are sternly indoctrinated from a very young age so that they know all the proper turns and phrases. Or at least they used to be... Actually, from the mid '90s observance of proper speech and manners...or even awareness of it...by children took a sharp nosedive. This accompanied the explosive growth of parents who flip out if their kids get anything that even slightly smacks of discipline. Now there are actually quiz shows on TV based on knowledge of proper etiquette, and kids tend to get a big bang out of them simply because they see it as such a novelty.
The Death of Self-Respect. I know this is kind of an iffy topic, and there are lots of opinions out there, but when I first came to this country it was still acceptable to be acceptable. The Yuppie '80s had only just ended, and the proper-and-successful style was still very much in. Then, in the late '90s, the key fashion points became "lazy", "sloppy", and "sleazy". Guys dressed (and acted) like they'd just woken up after a drunken party and thrown something on. Girls dressed (and acted) like whores. In fact, in the early 2000's, a lot of girls really were whores as the trend of "compensated dating" (a polite term for prostitution) caught on as a way to get easy money to feed the insatiable appetite for brand-name items. When that generation finished school and entered society, there was a sudden explosion of so-called NEETs (Not in Education, Employment, or Training), i.e. young freeloaders living on their parents' money. That seems to be on the decline now, and there are indications that pride is starting to become acceptable again, but it looks like a long, hard climb.

Anyway, the roads and bridges are being repaired. Things will continue to flow.