Go tell it on the...

This is what I saw when I woke up this morning:


Okay, granted, I wasn't at my apartment in Tokyo. I was staying at a hotel perched atop a mountain on the Izu peninsula. This was the view from the window at around 5:25am. By 5:40, fog had completely shrouded Mt. Fuji, so it was literally by a coincidental matter of minutes, that I got this shot. Amazing, huh?

I don't know, I heard about it from...

Facebook is an interesting site and I still haven't figured out what to make of it yet. One cool feature that it has is to see what random groups your friends have joined. Today, I saw that my friend Lara had joined a group called "When I was young I watched Macgyver, Gummy Bears, Airwolf & Night Rider..." The group is mainly made up of South Africans, so I didn't join, but I did read one of their discusion posts - "What's it called??? SOMEONE must know!!!!!!" I've had this exact same sentiment many times when trying to remember the titles of those cartoons I used to love so much that make me say really old people things like, "Cartoons these days just aren't as good as they were when I was a kid." Anyway, the show this guy was talking about is apparently called La Linea. Here's how he described it: "The whole show was a line drawing of some character which just used to yell at his illustrator to draw him stuff to use/eat. If the character didnt like what was drawn he used to yell louder."

It wasn't one that I watched in California, but apparently it was a real hit in Germany and South Africa!

Second Harvest Japan

Watch this.



Saturday, instead of sleeping in - because how would that make Saturday any different from any other day in my current unemployed schedule - I got up bright and early and headed to Akihabara to help prepare and assemble a whole lot of food - I helped with cookie packing (don't think I'll be able to look at a chocolate chip cookie again for a long time... this is a good thing) - for distribution to the homeless of Ueno park. After we finished with the preparation, I went with the other volunteers to Ueno, where we spent a couple of hours handing out hot and cold food to over 500 people. We even had enough to give some people seconds, so in total, we handed out over 700 meals plus bags of cookies, edamame, beef jerky, fresh fruit and veggies, bread, and pastries for people to eat throughout the week until Second Harvest shows up again, same time, same place, to do it all over next Saturday.

Today had no one, huge life-changing moment for me, but rather, more significantly, small reminders of how we're all just neighbors in this world, so to speak, and hopefully we lend a helping hand when we can. It's easy to wonder how the people I saw today got into the situation they're in and, somehow, it always occurs to me when I meet people who are in living situations so different from my own, how it was probably one small thing, one choice at a crossroads, that brought them to a line at a soup kitchen, or a park bench as a bed, or a sketchy job on street corner. Or maybe it wasn't even their choice at that crossroads, but a choice made by someone else, out of their control, that brought this man or that woman to stand in that giant line, waiting for a bowl of rice, potato salad, sausage, pickled vegetables, and a cup of clam chowder. Whatever the case may be, what's more neighborly than making sure that a couple of your neighbors get a hot meal once a week.

If you're interested in volunteering with Second Harvest or if your company could possibly donate money, supplies, or time to the effort (a group of employees from NuSkin Japan was helping to serve up grub today), please check out the website and/or get in contact with Patricia (volunteer@2hj.org). Every hand helps.

Desert storm

Okay, I don't know what to tell you about that new picture behind the blog title. I took that photo while driving through the Arizona desert last December. And I just figured out the whole "you can put a picture as a background for your title" thing. So, this one just happened to look really cool and be the right angle. What can I say? Um, there'll be a storm a-brewin' if Tokyo ever looks like that? Who knows. If you can come up with a more clever (cleverer?) explanation, more power to ya. In the meantime, that picture will just have to do because I think it looks pretty and I haven't yet found one from my time in Tokyo that has the same proportions.

The Gaijin Strata

Generally speaking, gaijin fall into 1 of 3 categories (for none of which do I qualify):

1) Livin' the High Life

These are the lucky ducks who were either hired from overseas or transfered from overseas and are not only earning big bucks (or pounds or euro, as they're generally paid in their home currency and hence really benefit from the weak yen), but they're saving big bucks. They are paid a competitive salary based on their home country's rates, but almost all their living expenses are taken care of by the company, including, but not limited to, their housing, car(s), children's private international school education, health insurance, transportation within Tokyo, at least one trip home per year for the whole family, driver (if they're big enough of a big wig), membership at the Tokyo American Club - a kind of country club (or something similar), and housekeeper or nanny for the kids. That means that pretty much everything they're making is going right into a savings account back home. And sitting there, earning interest. This is pretty standard operating procedure for most situations like this, it's not particular to Japan. An Italian guy I know who's here working for a German company recently challenged my declaration that Tokyo is an expensive city. To which me and all the Japanese people sitting around him replied, "Eeeeeee?!?!" His 75 sq. meter, 2 bedroom apartment for one single guy is fully paid, including utilities. He didn't even know how much the average electric bill is in Tokyo! But, hey, more power to 'em because it's one of my greatest aspirations to work me out a deal as sweet as this one someday. Also, I benefited from being in this stratum when I lived in Tokyo as a kid, and I can tell you, it's as great as it sounds.

The downside to being in this group is that the people lucky enough to be a real 'expat' have the unfortunate situation of rarely being forced to learn the native language of the country they're living in. They tend to live in gaijin ghettos where almost everyone speaks English to some extent and, therefore, sadly lack in creating an authentic local-living experience. They also tend to work in environments where it's not necessary to learn the local language. I had a situation kind of like this (without all the above perks, of course, though I did get "free" parking all over the city) when I was in Paris and I ended up deciding to take a four-nights per week French class because I was hardly using French at all in the international office I was working in - I ended up using French more to chat with my new friends from Spain, South Africa, Uruguay, and Japan than with French people. Ha! Hey, there's got to be some pluses and minuses for every deal, right?

2) The rare but suuuuuper lucky university-level professor

There aren't too many of these wandering the streets of Tokyo these days, but if you can figure out a way to set yourself up in one of these cushy jobs, consider yourself Charlie (as in "Chocolate Factory, I've got the Golden Ticket" Chuck). These folks get similar deals on housing and paid trips home, but they're paid in local currency and have to pay their own utilities. But the BIG bonus here is that they get FIVE, yes, 5, months of vacation a year!!! And, during the school year, they rarely teach more than 15 or 20 hours a week. Of course, they have to put in time planning lessons and having meetings, but, otherwise, they're free to live the semi-high life. Another benefit of this stratum is that you generally get more of a chance to meet and work with locals and, if you make the effort, learn the language. The major obstacle to hooking one of these posts is that you MUST have a Master's degree. Usually in some kind of language or teaching-related field, but if you don't, that's not an automatic disqualification.

3) The lowly NOVA (or any other massive foreign language-teaching company) teacher

This is still not such a bad gig. You still get a fairly decent pay and are guaranteed a certain number of hours per week so you don't have to worry too much about how much your next paycheck will be. However, these companies are also widely known for ripping teachers off, being really strict with dress and time policies (e.g. Nova doesn't pay you anything if you're 5 minutes late for a lesson even with good reason), having sometimes strange student experiences, forbidding any kind of socializing with students outside of class (e.g. if you happen to be at the same party but didn't know some of your students would be there, you're supposed to leave), and you have to pay all your own expenses, except the initial flight over and flight back to your home country, which they reimburse you for after the fact. Another big minus for me is that you have to use all their materials and there's not much room for including your own lesson plans. This makes perfect sense from a standardized course, chain company point of view, but it just doesn't work for me.

*4) Special mention: Hostesses

There's only one word for this group. This final group is not usually mentioned because of it's bad reputation, long nighttime hours, relatively low pay, and inevitable association with stripping, prostitution, and organized crime. There's definitely no minimum level of education required for this, though I'm pretty sure that most have at least a high school diploma. One girl I met hadn't finished high school, but still seemed a smart cookie as she was teaching herself how to write kanji. Of course, I'm also pretty sure she had some kind of serious drug problem. There's always the stories of the nice girls from overseas who think it's gonna be just partying and a chance to earn a lot money (which of course they'd use to pay their way through school, a PhD no less), but I'd guess that most girls are just looking for some easy money and don't mind having to chat with drunk businessmen who want to grope you. I almost considered doing this just to see what it'd be like - I mean, I'm definitely never gonna be a prostitute or a stripper, so I figured this was the closest I'd ever get to see how the other half lives. However, a fateful all-nighter in January where I was obliged to be nice, out of consideration for my friend, to the really drunk, really obnoxious ass friend-of-a-friend who was out with us at 4 am after hours of watching him get progressively drunker and progressively more obnoxious and me getting progressively less patient (I was seriously ready to ditch the people I was with to escape this guy), I figured that was close enough for me. Final verdict: NOT WORTH IT!! I'm not that desperate though I don't begrudge the girls who are - everyone's got their own situation to deal with.

So there you have it, the 3 plus 1 groups into which most gaijin in Japan fit. My limbo-ness in terms of a job extends to my limbo-ness in terms of stratum status too. I'm not quite gaijin and definitely not quite nihonjin, so while I haven't been forced to take a Nova-type job, neither am I qualified to work as a regular Japanese person (the language barrier seems to grow as an obstacle daily!). I may be poor-ish, but at least I don't have to worry about being deported. Anyone looking for an under-qualified bartender or an over-qualified assistant who can't help you with any logistical problems?

NOT singing in the rain

Possibly the item which represents the greatest cultural divide between the Japanese and gaijin is...

The umbrella.

Yes, you read that correctly.

One of the first things I think of when thinking about my Japanese grandmother and the time I lived with her and my aunt back in 2000 is how every time I was getting ready to leave the apartment, she asked me, without fail or regard for season or real-time weather conditions, was whether I had my keys and my umbrella with me. Every single time. It really got annoying after a while and I couldn't understand why she always asked me. Of course I had my keys, how would I get into the apartment after work if I didn't have them? Even if I didn't, I would just wait outside until she came home to let me in if for some reason she wasn't already at home. And, of course, I didn't have my umbrella with me because it wasn't even raining and it's a pain in the butt to have to carry an umbrella around all day, especially when it doesn't even end up raining. I always said, "Hai (yes)," in response to her questions, before I walked out the door, key in one hand and no umbrella in the other. I probably got caught in the rain a couple times, but having just survived a semester in Brussels (otherwise known as Hell on Earth but with lots of rain) and grown up in rain- and season-free Southern California, I didn't mind getting a little water on me if for no other reason than I could blame the rain as the reason my hair never looked as perfect as all the straight-haired Japanese girls' hair looked.

Fast forward seven years later. I literally, within the last month, just figured out why she always asked me if I had my umbrella.

My grandmother, now suffering from dementia, doesn't really talk to me anymore. It's ironic that now that I could probably understand at least fifty percent of what she'd be saying to me that she no longer has the ability to say it. She can, however, still understand most of what we say to her, so I practice my Japanese with her and ask her to write things in kanji for me to try to help keep her mind sharp. Nonetheless, I can't really ask her about the umbrella situation since she'd have trouble probably first with the question ("What a stupid thing to ask! Doesn't everyone want an umbrella when it rains?"), and second articulating the answer. So, it was by pure chance and my keen observation skills that I figured this out: It's the job of grandmothers and mothers all over Japan to verify that those who they send out into the world are equipped with their keys, their bento, and their umbrella. That is the only explanation for how I found myself a couple weeks ago, quite literally, the only person in Tokyo (okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration) who had forgotten their umbrella on a day when it rained.

I had actually not forgotten it originally. I had been staying at my dad's hotel (Gotta love free breakfast in a lounge that has a view of Mt. Fuji on a clear day... plus, I always steal the newspaper.) and after enjoying a breakfast of scrambled eggs, a perfectly toasted bagel with butter and onion cheese, fresh fruit, warm croissant, delish pastries, perfectly foamed cafe au lait, and orange juice, that I neither had to prepare nor clean up after, I stopped by the room to gather my things for Japanese class. My dad asked me if I had an umbrella because it looked like it would rain. I said no, so he wisely (Yes, Dad, I said 'wisely,' it's in print, for all the world and posterity to see, be excited.) suggested and offered that I take one of his. (Being a good Japanese properly raised by my similarly umbrella-obsessed grandmother, he has two that he always keeps in his bags in Japan.) I agreed with him, took the proffered umbrella, and said goodbye as dad headed off to his meeting. I had already put everything in my bag and had set the umbrella next the bag, but I still had some time 'til the shuttle to the station would leave, so I settled in on the settee for a couple minutes with my stolen newspaper. After an article and some CNN, I checked the time, picked up my bag and umbrella and headed out the door to the elevator. As usual, I realized I'd forgotten something (I don't even remember what it was now - something stupid, I'm sure.) by the time I rounded the corner for the elevator bay, and so made a u-turn for the room to retrieve the forgotten item. I dropped my bag and umbrella on my bed to look for whatever it was I'd forgotten, found it, grabbed my bag (I was cutting it close on shuttle time by now), and jetted out the door, down the elevator, through the hotel lobby, up the shuttle steps, down the aisle, and into a seat, where I immediately realized that I'd forgotten my umbrella. Shit! But, then again, maybe no problem, seeing as how the sun had come out and the clouds were clearing. At the station, I got on the train with sunny skies outside.

Two stops later, I walked out into a warm drizzle that had a worse bark than bite, meaning it looked bad, but once I was out walking in it, it wasn't the downpour I'd originally feared. Luckily, I had my newspaper with me. I flipped it over to the Sports section - Who reads that crap anyway? - to form a triangular hair and face cover and continued down the street, very pleased with myself for having remembered to steal it in the first place and for having read all the important stuff already in the second place. The 15-minute walk I had in front of me didn't seem too bad now that I had some Japanese baseball player's picture to protect me from the rain. I enjoy that walk and have started to make it a regular part of my day. I can listen to my music, sing along if I feel like it(All foreigners are crazy anyway, right?), smile at the little dogs I pass (ditto), etc. Except on this day. I almost had my eye taken out when someone with an umbrella hit me in the face as they walked by. Then there were the more than usual stares for this gaijin-friendly neighborhood. Slowly, it dawned on me: I was the ONLY person out on the sidewalk who had forgotten to bring an umbrella with them. Really. The ONLY ONE. There were two guys I passed on bikes who didn't have umbrellas, but based on the serious raingear they were sporting, my assumption is that this was on purpose. No one in Japan forgets their umbrella. No one. Except me. And now I understand why seven years ago, my grandmother sent me out into the world every day after making sure that I was protected - not from crime (there's nothing to protect from), but from the elements. I guess that's the Japanese way of showing you care. :)