14 posts from May 2007

The tiny leather cover that came with my Tungsten E2 PDA finally snapped off entirely today. That was actually the funniest (and saddest) story of its lifetime: I asked my speaking teacher after class, 「このようなものを買いたいんですが。。。」 ("I'd like to buy something like this...") while pointing at the barely dangling leather cover. Curious about what it was, she tried to pick it up, snapping it completely off. I cracked up, and so did she, but she was also apologizing profusely.

Umm... [insert punchline]

Anyway, I'd like to buy this Palm cover, but as I'm finding, nobody around here has ever even heard of that little company called "Palm." In fact, when I went hunting downtown for a new cover, I tried three electronics stores before I found one with any PDAs for sale at all. The Palm site for Japan is basically just an e-mail link for tech support. The US Palm site doesn't deliver to Japan. I'm going to head downtown following another lead I just got, but then I'm going to continue the hunt online.

Today was Monday: Field Study day. And for the first time in weeks, it lived up to its name: I finally got a break from spending my entire Monday on engineering campus researching for my ISP (independent study project). Today we went to a Zen Temple to practice meditation and veganism, and increase our fear of long, flat sticks.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I?

Bright and early, 8:45 AM GMT+9. The scheduled meeting time for our trip. The bus was waiting patiently outside the 会館 (かいかん - kaikan - nickname for our dormitory). A good number of people were standing next to it getting ready to enter. I wasn't one of them. I was actually scrambling around my room, looking for my watch, and thinking about whether I should try leveling my level 30 Combusken with only two gym badges. I decided to wait until after beating another gym leader, which gave me a chance to finally evolve that Abra into a Kadabra, which tends to own nearly everything until the end-game.

So we got to the temple an hour later. I have photos forthcoming. It was pretty. It sort of reminded me of a castle we visited during Golden Week, but I think every traditional building will do that until I get used to it.

They really cut to the chase. We took off our shoes and were shuffled into what might as well be called the tea-serving room. We lined up on opposite sides of this long room, facing each other, with slightly interested looks on our faces. We were then taught the proper way to bow when our Zen Master enters the room, and where to place our teacups and cake boxes. The Zen Master dude entered, we bowed, returned from our bows, and were served cakes in boxes and tea in teacups.

By the way, I still hate tea. The cakes were good, but I'm already starting to tire of that semi-sweet jelly-like substance they seem to stick inside every pastry in Japan. Anyway, yeah. Good cakes, flat soda (tea).

Then, the magic started. College students started to float into the air, and bare feet suddenly started itch for no explainable reason. Actually, by magic, I meant "pain," because that's when we were taught how to meditate... their way. I'd always had this image of meditation being relaxing, and warnings against falling asleep during meditation seemed to confirm this suspicion. But when you have to curl your legs up into all sorts of directions God never intended, I don't see how you can concentrate on anything but the toe-curling pain.

In order to exacerbate the problem as much as possible, the Zen Master dude walked around the room for the entire 30-minute, whacking anybody who moved with a long, flat stick--four times. We were warned before the trip, of course. They didn't want anyone to be offended. They just never mentioned the immense size of the weapon, and tenacity with which it would be yielded. Thankfully, my tactic of focusing on a floor tile distracted me from my pretzel-pain for long enough that the session ended before I had an overwhelming urge to adjust my limbs. Only one person was smacked, and they actually requested that it be done (see below).

Then we had lunch. We went back to the tea-serving room turned lunch-serving room, and took our places. There were three rows this time because we needed more space. We kneeled behind some tiny tables that weren't there before, and waited until the Zen Master dude entered. We all bowed, at which point, virtually everyone switched to a cross-legged or side-straddle position. Thankfully, my spot on the tatami was sufficiently close to a pillar that I could slowly lean back and relieve my lower back without anyone with authority noticing.

Lunch was served, as was tea, by apprentices. There were three dishes: rice with fried tofu (delish), soup with tofu (meh), and lettuce/cabbagey things (surprisingly, delish). There was a pickled something (disturbingly, delish) with the lettucey something, but that tangy morsel has defied recognition to this very moment.

The apprentices came in groups of two with a large serving pot of a single dish. At each group of three people, they repeated the same ritual:

• They each held out their hands; one in the direction of person A and another toward person C. Person B, the middle person, waited.
• Persons A and C picked up the bowl of the right size for the dish and handed it to their closest apprentice.
• Persons A and C put their palms together as a sign of respect until they received their bowls back.
• Then Person B was served.

Thus, we slowly, but surely filled our bowls.

Anyway, after we'd finished eating, the serving apprentices made several passes at serving us more food. They were purely ritual: we were all told not to request any food from them as the meal was effectively over. It was basically a chance for us to give them one last thank-you bow before they left. After we did that, there was one more Japanese mystery prayer and we all stood up to go back to the meditation room.

Mind you, I was still hungry at this point, but there was no amount of that food they could have served me to fill me up. Some foods are just designed not to be filling. And most of them probably include tofu.

Unfortunately, this next 30-minute session was my unlucky one. You see, there were two ways to get smacked by the Zen Master dude: you request it, or you do something that ticks him off. And if there's anything that ticks off a Zen Master, particularly ZMd, it's moving while you're supposed to be meditating. While not actually angry, and probably not even ticked off, this dude was carrying a big stick.

You request to be beaten, for whatever reason, by bowing to ZMd as he passes. He would bow in return, gripping the stick with both hands. You then bow again, stay down, and lean to one side to put one shoulder within easy reach. After a soft warning tap, he slams that baby down twice more. The room echoes with "Whack, WHACK! WHACK!" Then, you present the other shoulder for a repeat of the same ritual. You and ZMd bow once more, and you're done.

The only difference between that and what happens when you screw up is that when you mess up, he drops the first bow. So when he's walking by you, turns, and makes you feel all respected with that 90-degree bow of his, what you should really be feeling is a deep fear. You just screwed up!

And so I did. As I said, the recommended sitting position was an inversion of both the normal cross-legged form and my legs' normal range of motion. After the morning meditation session and the kneeling at lunch, my feet were looking for any reason to deprive themselves of blood. When they froze up, they really started to hurt, so when ZMd left the room, I unfolded a little piece of space-time and pulled out my legs into something resembling a normal sitting position. Little did I know, the left side of my body was still visible from where he was standing.

60 seconds of mixed relief later (I was still sitting cross-legged, after all), he came strolling in, no doubt imagining the joy he would have smacking some meditation lessons into my back-side. I thought I had pulled off the caper until just as he was about to pass by, he turned and bowed. And I cried a little inside.

But no hard feelings man, if you're reading this. I can forgive.

But to speed up the rest of this article so I can get to my homework:

• I was hit.
• It hurt.
• I survived.
• We took a small break and did it again. That's about 90 minutes total, more than any previous year's fieldtrip.
  
• We had a little tour of the rest of the temple. The most ornately-decorated room, in my opinion, was the one with the enshrined names of previous Buddhists. There was also a gigantic Chinese character mural in one room which apparently cost ￥１０，０００，０００ (~$82,000 USD), and probably made an even better meditation focus than my floor tile.
• We rode the bus home.

What a great day.

Oh, my Combusken is level 32, and doing just fine.

I did squat this weekend, and when I feel like doing squat, I have an amazing habit for not giving a second thought to my todo list, which usually recommends I do anything but. So I never wrote "A Hostful Morning, part 2," the sorely unneeded sequel to "A Hostful Morning, part 1." Since so much has happened since then, and I still have hundreds of Golden Week photos to document, here is that sequel, in bullet-time.

1. After lunch, we went back to their home. It's an apartment way up high (10th floor or so), with a kitchen, office, Japanese-style おふろ・トイレ (ofuro/toire - ofuro/toilet) combination, living room, balcony (interestingly wide), and bedrooms. It was well-decorated and very cozy. We sat around the living room and watched a little TV, and お母さん (mother) served an orange-flavored tea. I could write a whole post about just the TV, but I'll leave it at "awesome."
2. After tea, we went to a natural disaster museum which serves the area by teaching tiny schoolchildren about what to do during natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis, and their after-effects like burning buildings. Despite my age, it was entertaining. I was struck by their eagerness to participate with me: imagine your parents covering their faces with clothing so navigate a burning building with you, or climbing under a kitchen table with you during a simulated level 7 earthquake.
3. After that, we took a walk on the beach. The weather was beautiful. There was a group of freshman/sophomore-aged girls drawing pictures in crayon, and even though I don't believe she knew any of them, お母さん (mother) walked up and started asking them about what they were doing. Not three minutes in, she turns and introduces me, and suggests that we all "play." Whoa, there. Either this was normal, or they were really good at playing along: one of them took out a volleyball and nearly dragged me out onto the sand and we started passing back and forth. A few others joined, and it was fun, but incredibly awkward. お母さん and お父さん just sat down and started taking pictures. I don't have these photos, I don't want them, I won't get them for you, and you will never see them.
4. Then we walked around to a nearby restaurant district, which happened to have an expansive arcade (a staple around these parts), and since I'd said that I loved games, we walked through. お父さん (father) had some coins burning a hole in his pocket, so he put some in one of the shooting game machines. I picked up a gun and offered him one, but he shook his head, and stood for the next ten minutes just watching me play. And when I died, he put in another coin and stepped back. And then again. It was fun, but I wondered why he was suddenly so passive.
5. We stopped at a grocery store called "Red Cabbage" (or something like it: Google shows nothing). お母さん (mother) started asking which foods I liked, picking them up as we went. I think we left with a bottle of water, a box of crackers, and a box of cookies, which I ended up taking home at the end of the day, much to my surprise. I wasn't expecting to take home such a bounty. I thought we were shopping for their apartment.
6. Lastly, we went to dinner at pseudo-Italian restaurant. (If I ever describe a restaurant or food in Japan with a word like "Italian" or "Mexican" without a "pseudo-" in front, just add it for me. I must have forgotten.) I got spaghetti [sic: it was fairly authentic] There was パン食べ放題 (パンたべほうだい - pan tabehoudai - all the bread you can eat) and it was some delicious bread. おいしかったよ！もう一回行きたいね。
7. Then we went back to their apartment to get the car, and they dropped me off back home (with delicious goodies in tow).

Unfortunately, confining myself to bullets didn't make this article any shorter, only harder to read. しまった！ You'd better enjoy every letter!

Today I spent about an hour at U Para, a local arcade of sorts. Mostly it was a dancing and drumming workout, though it ended on a disappointing note. After only about four visits, I've nearly outgrown the aging DDR 3rd Mix machine. I can "A" all of the songs, and only about five are still fun. Oh well.

The drum game is still fresh new to me, but I can't remember what it's called. Just think of it as DDR with a drum set instead of foot buttons!

Two interesting things that have tripped me up since arriving.

1. World maps have Japan in the center. (This one didn't originally, but I edited it to show what I mean.)

World Map

I thought that joining a university karate club would be more scary. I hardly speak their language. I hadn't practiced karate for more than a decade. I was way out of shape. But my experience has been very positive.

I heard that Japanese university students are defined by the clubs they are a part of. I took this to mean that clubs were like cliques, and would be hard to join. Perhaps I would have been a harder sell if I didn't have my Japanese speaking partner to introduce me. As it is, I was welcomed and people started voluntarily guiding my movements when I was obviously confused. They also invited me to the club dinners from the first night, despite having two social strikes against me:

1. I don't drink.
2. I don't smoke.

I'm asked about the former every time I meet a new person around dinner-time. Every time. But all my answer seems to mean after karate is that we make an extra stop at a コンビニ (konbini - convenience store) for some お茶 (おちゃ - ocha - tea) before we eat. And other people drink the tea too, which is great. (Sorry Boz, I still don't really like tea, but after the dinners we tend to eat, I usually can't taste it anyway.)

The most awkward experience with them so far (yes, even more awkward than changing clothes in mixed company) happened just yesterday. A club member who I hadn't seen before showed up to practice and started conversation with me.

Very early in, he asked the (now familiar) question, "Do you have a girlfriend?" No, I don't. "Have you ever had a girlfriend?" No, never. The next question I didn't really understand, but it was okay, because after seeing my confusion he started excitedly thrusting his hips. The best English speaker then translated it: "Have you ever had sex?"

And I'd just met this guy!

Fellow club members are very... familiar.

Karate club is awesome.

I have a lot to learn about the gender boundaries here: after karate practice today, as I was changing my pants at the side of the gym (along with everyone else), one of the girls came up within two feet behind me and started having a conversation with someone. These boxers fit like swimming trunks, but it was still a little awkward.

I met my ホストファミリー (hosuto famirii - host family) for the first time yesterday. We spent the whole day together doing wacky stuff. But first, some context.

JTW host families don't host full-time. They're basically available for weekend get-aways. Each student is pretty free to form whatever kind of relationship they like with their family. I know one person who hasn't ever heard from their host family even after several contact attempts, and so hijacked a friend's host family who was a lot more supportive.

My host family consists of a mother, father, a son, and a daughter. The children are both old enough to not live with them any more, so they don't. So I spent all day with お母さん (おかあさん - okaasan - mother) and お父さん (おとうさん - otousan - father). They asked me to call them this way, which I don't think is unusual. I should ask around.

Anyway, a week ago or so I got a voicemail on my ケイタイ (keitai - cell phone) from an unrecognized woman's voice. It was in 日本語 (にほんご - nihongo - Japanese), which was my first hurdle to understanding, but the second was that all she said was her name and to call her back. At this point, I had received no indication that I would be contacted by my ホストファミリー, so I had absolutely no clue who that person was. I heard from QZ that it was ホストファミリー time and that was probably who it was, so I answered the next time she called. (I also got confirmation from the JTW office, of course.)

The call was a mixture of 日本語 (Japanese) and 英語 (えいご - eigo - English) and I hardly knew what was going on. I think there was some kind of self-introduction, a description of her family, where she lived, and when we should next meet. But I really couldn't tell. She knows a lot of English, but it was hard to understand. Luckily, she called again and I sent her e-mails and she sent me e-mails and she called me again (she doesn't like e-mail). Eventually I understood that she wanted to pick me up from the 会館 (かいかん - kaikan - dorm where I live) on Saturday.

So they did. 土曜日の午前１１時に (at 11 AM on Saturday) I got a phone call from her and she told me that they were at the gate. It was kind of funny to me that they had spread out from the car to maximize their vision of dorm while still being able to see each other, so that they would see me approach. Unfortunately for them, I took a back way and still managed to sneak up on them. Mua ha ha! That's when お母さん (mother) took out the photo I'd attached to my 申し込み (もうしこみ - moushikomi - application form) and told me that I didn't look the same. We hopped in the car and took off!

Their 車 (くるま - kuruma - car (the character means "cart;" doesn't it look like one?)) looked like a typical Japanese model to me. Things I noticed:

• The steering wheel was on the wrong side! Not a shocker, obviously.
• There was a tiger print cover over the back seat. It was very comfortable.
• The back seat seatbelt buckles were hidden. They were covered by the seat cover, and also embedded into the seat. お母さん (mother) explained that they are typically not used, and not required by anyone. Their last car didn't even have seat belts in the  back. The back of the front seats looked pretty comfortable, so I figured that I might be able to walk away. I wore the seat belt anyway.
• Their GPS was awesome. It was higher-resolution than any I'd seen, it showed you which lanes you could use to not miss your turn, and it seemed to show which highway lanes you could use depending on the type of toll you wanted to pay. Really cool.

About ten minutes of awkward conversation later, お父さん (father) idled in front of a レストラン (resutoran - restaurant) while お母さん (mother) and I went to look at the menu posted by the door. After hearing my approval of the traditional style breakfast, she signaled that it was okay and he parked the car and joined us. We arrived just before lunch hour, so we got seats immediately.

There were mats and the table was low so that you could sit Japanese-style while you ate. But there were also giant holes in the floor beneath the tables so that you could also sit western-style, for which my knees thanked me. A very, very short time later, a gigantic tray of そば (soba), チャーハン (Chinese-style fried rice), pickled fish, soup, 天ぷら (てんぷら - tenpura - tempura), and probably more was placed in front of me.

More in Part 2! (I'm tired of writing!)

Update: A Hostful Morning, part 2, Evening Edition

A teaser, perhaps? (Or perhaps, you've viewed my photos?)

The longer you sit, the more the garden fascinates. The branches of the trees beyond the earthen wall with its peculiar but natural designs are "borrowed scenery" - they bend and straighten, they cast fantastic shadows with the moss that fills the pocks and spaces in the rocks. The raked lines are circles around the rock groups and yet straight elsewhere - and you will love how the lines stop without a single misplaced pebble when they touch the circular patterns, and then resume unchanged beyond them as if the rocks are islands. It changes with the seasons - cherry trees beyond the wall blooming in spring, snow clinging to the moss in the winter. It is never the same twice. And although the rocks do not move, there is something about those spaces between the rocks.

-- Taken from "Ryonaji Temple in Kyoto, Japan"

Things seem to be very dependable in Japan. My cheap-o bike is holding together, I haven't noticed any power problems (surge or brown-out), and my solar-powered 招き猫 (まねきねこ - manekineko - beckoning cat) has been going at it every day since I bought it. But in particular, my phone has been amazing. It's battery reads full charge all day long, it's never crashed, applications like the camera mode and the phone book are very responsive, it regains signal within seconds if I move out and into range, and I never have to reboot it. I hope that I can keep using it when I get back to the US.