Worried about Obama

Went out to Korean BBQ party with some Japanese friends, all in their 40s. They said they like Obama very much and that is why they fear he will be assassinated.

During the election a popular topic with people I know here is how even tho Americans told pollsters that they like Obama, secretly they didn't and wouldn't vote for him. No one mentions that anymore, it has shifted to expressing concern for his safety, which to me sounds like a cover for unconsciously thinking Americans can't deal with a black president.

Who knows, maybe they are right. Point is, that's the opinion here, recorded by yours truly for future sociologists.

Santa Killings

Like I've posted earler, people get upset every Halloween and think it's a terrible holiday that causes death.

Yesterday in Los Angeles, a man dressed as Santa went to a Christmas Party (of people he knew, maybe an estranged wife) shot and killed several people, burnt the house down, then fled and killed himself.

A crazy tragedy in an armed society, but I'm sure no one will say that this makes Christmas a dangerous holiday. I bring it up just to highlight what I feel is the manipulation of the Louisiana shooting (over 10 years ago.) Though I think if a Japanese person, let's say the lover of the estranged killer's wife, were a victim at the Christmas party, it would probably change the perception of the event here.

Today NYC is 7 degrees C, same as Tokyo. No snow on the ground in either place.
Paris is zero, Madrid -4c (granted, it's 5am there), Berlin -2c and London is 4.

Obama and Me

I'm sorry if these posts seem too negative against Japan. I don't intend to be. It's just that I tend to make not of the things that strike me as odd or funny.

Anyway the other day something interesting happened. I was getting my watch fixed, and the old woman sitting in a nearby chair struck up a conversation with me. We talked about travel to hong kong years ago, how the economy here is bad and so on. Years earlier, she had gone to Hawaii for her honeymoon. I mentioned how Barack Obama was vacationing there as we spoke. (He's just been elected and is big news.) She told me I look like him.

I've had a few people mention this, especially when I had my hair cut very short. Perhaps I'm kind of lanky like him, maybe a similar brow, and kind of a cool (as in not spasstic) demeanor, at least when I'm working. I'm much more spasstic when drinking with friends. I'm not asian so people sometimes compare me to movie stars and other famous people that people in my own country wouldn't. There are probably a lot of asian guys in the states who get told they look like Jet Li or Jackie Chan or whoever whether or not they really do.

Anyway the interesting thing is I'm not black. Not in the slightest. I'm of northern European ancestry, blue eyes and light skin. I like to go out but have to be careful about the sun. I get sunburn just looking a postcards of a beach. But I'm still flattered by the comparison, I like Obama as a professional, I voted for him, and he seems like a cool guy too.

So the interesting thing is, people say this and just leave it at that. No one says anything about the fact that we are of different races. I think it shows how much things have changed and how much he has managed to, for the most part, put the "issue" of his race aside. He is just considered a great guy and I happen to have a similar frame and facial structure as him. It seems across the board. I've had similar conversations with people of different ages, ranging from 20's to 70's. People know he's black and he's the first black president and that there is prejudice in the states (boy are people aware of that), but when it comes to Obama, he's just, well, Obama.

Imeji = said and done

More American Images

Last night (Dec 24) I taught a lesson til 9pm. (Not that I cared, but just to make a note, during that time all over the city young couples were out and about, and I was working on Christmas Eve.)

Japanese tend to think that if a non-Japanese has a holiday, they rush back to the place they were born, even if they just went there 3 months before. Lots of people kept asking me if I was having a party on Christmas Eve (I was working, no problem, but that's just a fact.) and everyone was surprised I wasnt going back to America during my 1 week vacation (I dont know when you7re reading this but it takes 24 hours to get to NYC from where I live and costs a big chunk of money, gas prices are high and the economy is awful. When I say I'm not going "back my country" people think they misheard me and ask again, maybe triple check. If I ask anyone who asks me about going back to the states, if I ask them if they are going anywhere, everyone waves their hand (body language for "nooooo way!") and say "No money! No time" It's bothersome to go somewhere" etc.

So the main topic at my lesson was: American people eat a lot of food at Christmas, why do American people eat so much food, American people are fat, American food is big, American food is steak and coca cola. I pointed out that US supermarkets are in fact very big, but chances are such big places stock more than just steak and coke on the shelves. Not to mention a few feet from where our lesson was held, were several vending machine selling sweet soft drinks, and a convenience store filled with all sorts of potato chips, instant noodles and microwavable food. (But of course there is an explanation for this: it's not the true Japan and is a result of foreign influence, not the change to an industrial society.)

Then I went to a bar, was served some fried chicken wings and a well traveled loudmouth guy who visited the states told me and everyone else that it is impossible to go out, anywhere, in the states at night because you might get killed. A young man added that he had visited Las Vegas in a rental car, was pulled over by a cop and was terrified because the cop had a gun. Japanese cops carry guns.

I had dinner earlier with 4 people who couldn't believe that we have okra in the states. It is only in Japan. I'm not sure, but my guess is that okra was introduced in Japan by the US. People likewise think its downright strange that Americans sometimes eat enoki, shiitake mushrooms, tofu maybe even soy sauce but take it for granted that food like tomatoes, eggplant and broccoli are common in Japan. I bet very few samurai ever saw and eggplant or drank beer.

Okra has a sticky texture inside. Somehow the rumor got started that foreigners can't eat those kinds of foods, perhaps because most foreigners, at least those that just got here, don't like natto. Half of Japan also doesnt like natto, but that's besides the point. So it's been decided but the mythmakers that foreigners dont like sticky food. and the conversation goes like this:
Kirk, do you like natto?
No, not really.
Because it's sticky?
No, it just tastes bad. Like it's spoiled. It's mouldy.
Ah, so it's the sticky fibers?
No, it smells bad and tastes awful.
Ah, just as I thought, foreigners don't like sticky foods.

Okra, therefore couldn't possibly exist elsewhere because who would eat it?

Then I worked today, it's Christmas, no problem, I celebrate Christmas in my heart and with loved ones on another day, but I finished a lesson and had lunch. The restaurant staff asked if Christmas is a holiday in the US.
Yes, It's a national holiday, I said.
Ah, you poor thing. You work like a Japanese.
It's no problem. I'm used to work. I worked a lot in America.
Ah but it must have been a shock to come to Japan.
How come?
It's totally different than America. You have to work a lot here.
No, I worked a lot in America.
Get out, no way. Americans have like a month off in the summer.
I never did.
Yeah but Americans get Christmas off. We Japanese dont.
(Over her shoulder was a calendar. Most numbers were listed in black. Dec 23, two days before was in red ink. Why? Because it was a national holiday.)

Mind you this occured across the street from the national university which shuts down for 2 months in the summer and 2 months in the spring, and the teachers have no lessons, but I continue to teach at other places. So while the Japanese teachers have no lessons, I am in front of a blackboard in a class somewhere, so I am like a Japanese.)

So all in the space of about 12 hours I got:
Americans eat steak and cola.
You get killed if you go out at night.
Cops in the US carry guns, unlike other places.
Americans can't eat vegetables (I didnt write about it but it came up during the okra conversation. People often ask me if I can eat vegetables, then compliment me on having adjusted so when when I answer yes.)
Okra is Japanese-only-food
It's a snap to fly halfway across the planet for the weekend.
Americans get long holidays, and if you don't you are like a Japanese.

New York is cold, again

It's Christmas. New York is 11C with scattered rain, and Tokyo is 4.

NY = cold and only cold

I know New York is colder than LA, but I never considered it a "Cold Place", until I came here and found out everyone thinks of it that way. Sure it's cold, but I wouldn't put it up there with Moscow or Rekjavik, but most Japanese seem too. I'm not sure why, my guess is because so many Christmas movies take place in New York, and sometimes there is a big blizzard that makes the news.

So if someone I know from London or Paris introduces himself, Japanese people say "Oh, wow, nice place." But if I say I'm from New York, people shiver and hug themselves. Seriously.

In the north of Japan is a beautiful island called Hokkaido. It has good skiing, lots of cows and therefore cheese and ice cream, apples, nice flowers in the summer. In the Japanese psyche, it's a vast, undeveloped wild place that even seems like a foreign country because it's more recently settled and has wide open spaces. It also happens to be the same size as New York state and on about the same latitude.

The other day I told a woman that the first time I went there I was surprised because it really reminded me of New York (state). The gears in her brain just sort of froze up. It would be like saying a sumo wrestler reminded you of a gay hamster- how coulkd the two possible be related?

Then she had an idea. "Oh I see, because it's cold."
"No, I mean the scenery. It really looks like the New York countryside, up where the ski areas are."
"Because it's cold?"
"No, what I mean is Kochi is squeezed between the mountains and the see. Hokkaido and New York have similar tees, and mountains. And houses aren't walled in like in Kochi. It's wide open. Yeah, when my plane landed there for the first time, it felt funny, like I got on the wrong plane and was landing in New York." (This was after I had shown her pictures of upstate New York the week before, which had blown everyone away.)
"I don't understand." she said. "Same because both cold?"

There is just no way the the most wild part of sceneic Japan could even remotely resemble the most crazy, dangerous, built up, noisiest part of the US. It would be like a Japanese person telling an American you that Alaska really reminded them of Tokyo.

Foreign fixation

I'm treated very well here, but still wonder why certain people have an obsession with foreign-ness. I'm not talking about women who want to marry foreign guys, or people who love German cars and Italian wines, things like that. What I mean is some people, not everyone but really a lot of people, can't see anything I do or explain without some kind of foreign connection. In other words, some Japanese who I know, who know I've lived here for years, are surprised to see me at the neighborhood supermarket, as if my food magically appears from some foreign place.

So a week ago, I was on my way to a restaurant with a woman, she's known me for 7 or 8 years, she knows I've traveled around Japan, speak the language, and so on, but the whole way to the restaurant she was pointing out local landmarks to me.
"Oh, and here on the right is the library. Have you ever been there?"
"Yes, many times actually."
"Wow! That's amazing! Oh, and on the left is the prefectural office." an imposing building in the heart of downtown. Frankly I've probably been there more than she has because as a foreigner I need to go there for visa information and so on. It would be kind of like pointing out the white house to a French person who has lived in Washington DC for 8 years.
"Oh, and across the street there is Ohtemae High School. Do you know it?"
Anyone who has spent 30 minutes in downtown Kochi knows it. It's another imposing old building in the heart of downtown. Put another way, it's on postcards and has been used several times as the location for TV dramas. Oh, and I worked there for 2 years, which she knows.

I had the following conversation with another woman the same week.
She said "I was late today so I drove very fast. I almost had an accident."
This woman is a scary driver so the idea of her going fast is terrifying.
"Oh, please be careful. A few days ago one of my students had a bad accident." Not that there's a causal relationship, but it's my job to keep conversation moving.
"Foreigner?"
Overlooking the fact that chances are someone studying English with me is not a foreigner, we still have to wonder, what has that got to do with anything? How would the knowledge of her being Japanese or non-Japanese have any relationship to the story? But it comes up like that all the time. So I ignored the question.
"Do you have a big car?" she asked.
Even though there are maybe a half dozen US made cars in this city, and people are proud of the success of Japanese makers in the US market, people assume I must drive an American car. Oh, and American cars are big, unlike a Toyota Land Cruiser or Lexus LS450.
"No my car is not big."
"Eh? Not big? What kind of car?" (She's seen my car by the way.)
"Mazda"
"Huh? Not a foreign car?"
"No, it's a Japanese car."
"Where did you buy it?" (because you know, maybe I went to the states 3 years ago, bought a Japanese car and brought it back to Japan with me.)
"I bought it here in Kochi."
Her eyes were getting wider and wider, as if I was showing her for the first time a photo album of me before the sex change.
Then she asked "Did you buy it from a foreigner?"

So anyway, that's what I mean by obsession with foreign-ness. Any story I tell, some people can't comprehend that it took place in Japan, with Japanese people, and Japanese stuff, using the Japanese language and Japanese money and Japanese food and so on, even people that have known me for years.

Somali Pirates

I often watch CNN and the BBC for news, and recently an item that comes up frequently is the increased piracy off the coast of Somalia -- ships are often hijacked, either for the goods or for a ransom for the crew. It has gotten so bad, several nations have decided to send armed ships there to patrol. The US, Canada, Britain, France, Spain, Greece, even India, Iran and China are involved. It has gotten so bad the UN said it's ok for nations to pursue the pirates onto land if need be.

I think this is an intriguing situation for Japan: so many of its good pass thru the area, perhaps all of its oil as well, and the trouble is occurring mostly in international waters, not inside the borders of a sovereign nation. So the question for Japan: can or should or will Japan send its own navy to help patrol the area.

I posed the question to several friends and students recently but got blank stares. No one was aware of the trouble. They heard that a few weeks ago a big tanker was captured, I think it was Japan registered, so it made the news. But the imp@ression seems to be that it was an isolated incident that is over.

That means the only person proposing the question is me. But still I think it's interesting: Can Japan send armed vessels to help patrol international waters. It's not an act of war, it's helping keep order, but it also involves Japanese military going abroad.

I was really just playing Devil's advocate. I knew what everyone would say. The general response was what people usually say: No, Japan loves peace, war is bad, we can't get involved. An admirable thought, but often said without much reflection. people tend to blurt it out and then kind of shut down, refusing to discuss matters further.

Anyway, the feeling is that it is not immoral for other countries to protect commercial vessels in the area (no one said anyone has a responsibility to, just that if they want to they can) but someone else should do it because Japan likes peace. Mentions were made too that Japan's self defense force was forced upon the population, shouldn't exist, and the discussion is moot.

Japan can't go because it's bad. But someone should go. It would be a good thing to do. But Japan can't get involved because Japan doesn't like such bad things, that are ok to do if someone else does them. So it is good and bad. But bottom line is Japan won't/ can't/ shouldn't get involved. It's a convoluted line of logic sometimes.

I'm not advocating for Japan to go. Just wanted to get people to think about the situation and maybe see the way other countries might view their action or inaction.