Why are they called PET bottles?

When you first come to Japan, someone will teach you how to use their complicated recycling system. This one is for food waste. This one is for things that can be set on fire. And this one is for recyclables, such as ペットボトル　PET bottles.

"What the shitting fuck?" you may ask yourself. It's clear from context what they are, and you kind of assume it doesn't have anything to do with pets (unless??), but you have no idea why on earth they would be called that here. Maybe you actually take five seconds to look it up, or maybe, like me, you just file it under "stuff I don't really get yet" and then never bother to find out why for years and years and years.

It turns out, as with most of life's deepest questions, the answer is deceptively simple.

PET is actually short for polyethylene terephthalate, also known as Dacron, as in "Toscanini, Dacron, Dien Bien Phu falls, Rock Around the Clock." It's actually used in a variety of other contexts, such as fibres for clothing, interestingly. But basically it's a type of plastic. That's it. Nothing obscure, no tricky parametres for what does and does not constitute a PET bottle. All this time, when I was being confused by people saying "PET bottles," literally all they were saying was "plastic bottles."

I think there's actually a wider point in there somewhere.

Wonder Woman 2017 review

Here's a post that has little, if anything, to do with Japan. Sorry. Sometimes you have to follow your heart.

So, Wonder Woman, you guys.

There's this scene where she's in a WW1 trench, looking out across No Man's Land (get it? GET IT?), where a small village held by the enemy is slowly starving. She wants to cross, but her male partner is like, "But bro, you can't, because you will literally die." And then she's like "BUT I'M WONDER WOMAN" and she fucking SPRINTS across that shit, and suddenly her allies are backing her up, and angry Germans are shooting hundreds upon thousands of bullets at her and she just pulls out her shield and is all "I'M WONDER WOMAN THOUGH." It's pretty great.

I really liked this movie. Maybe more than it deserves, because I badly wanted to, but it's still a good movie. The pacing and editing could use some work, especially the interminable front-loaded exposition scenes, but things pick up once we hit the comic relief detour in London. The fight scenes don't have a lot of tension, but that's endemic to the genre, and at least they're brief enough to at least feel exciting. Characters' abilities are telegraphed fairly well, that is to say, they don't suddenly develop new powers as the plot demands. Wonder Woman gradually manifests her strongest abilities over the course of the story before finally getting a grip on them for the final confrontation, rather than having them come out of nowhere at the end. When Chris Pine has to fly a plane at one point, we don't blink, because we've already been shown that he knows how. The WW1 setting is cool, as well (opening up comparisons with Captain America: The First Avenger, but that's a topic for another blog and another blogger).

Viewing the movie as a man, it seems like the Chris Pine character was supposed to be our audience insert. I was prepared to be annoyed by this, because like, why can't I envision myself as Gal Gadot instead? I want to be Gal Gadot. Everyone wants to be Gal Gadot. But it actually ended up being really well-done. They could have played him as a boorish horndog who only finally comes to acknowledge Wonder Woman by the end, but no, they had him be respectful from the start, not to mention intelligent, funny, and moral. He treats her as an equal partner, if not more so, giving credit where it's due, and admonishing any card-carrying member of the Old Boys' Club who suggests she may be anything less than capable for being a woman. In other words, he's a fine role model for young MEN, which I wasn't rea;;y expecting from this movie.

UPDATE: Here's a column that says everything I just said, except articulately.

Also, Diana gets to have sex! And again, it's done really well! It comes off as a sudden but natural development in their growing relationship. She doesn't “give in” to his advances, and it doesn't devalue her as a woman or in any way whatsoever diminish her power as a feminist icon. She goes for it because she wants it, has fun, and doesn't regret it. Fucking perfect.

I don't know yet what the reaction has been from Japanese women, but women in the English-speaking world seem to be psyched about this movie, and it's awesome. Will Wonder Woman signal the beginning of a new era for women in action movies, or cinema in general? Will we FINALLY get a Black Widow solo film? Wait, does this mean Gal Gadot will get a larger role in future Fast and Furious movies?! Because that would be fucking sick.

By the time I was done, I felt like I'd glimpsed the future.

Friends come to visit

I don't remember this, but apparently a guy I met through English Club actually met me in Canada a year or so earlier. At that time I was very involved on campus doing stuff like interpretation for groups of students on month-long programmes, and I guess he was among one of those groups. Flash forward, and unbeknownst to me, he's spent the last several months living near Seattle, attending an ESL finishing school type deal. He has a month off, so he's swinging through for old times' sake.

“I don't think you went to America to eat Japanese food,” I tell him, “but there's a Japanese restaurant here I think you might find a little interesting.”

Like everybody, he likes my new ancient sports car, which will be getting its own post in due course (it's Japanese; don't worry, this blog hasn't entirely lost all focus). I take him to a Japanese-style burger joint. So like, there's teriyaki burgers, but then there's like burgers with yakisoba on them, shit like that. He's hand-rolling a cigarette with Turkish tobacco before we've even paid.

He wants to take a spin through the downtown area, after which I direct us through a green, sedate park on the river. All the way I'm monitoring his fatigue and levels of interest, mentally planning alternate routes and trying to get the timing right, and yeah now we're basically on a date. As we walk he remembers snatches of places he's been, intersections, storefronts. Phaedrus Moments, you might call them.

I ask him about his school, whose student body he says is predominantly Asian. We start to speak, as you do, of the future. His plan is to go back to Japan when he's done his Seattle thing and finally enter working life.

For me it's a little more up in the air, as we know. I've basically been working at securing Japanese employment for two years with no actual progress. President has long since departed for Koube, where she is teaching English. The distance, in the end, has only confirmed that I really, truly, want to be with this woman. He prods me, so, you think you'll marry her? Well, nobody knows the future. I mean I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about it.

He's startled and even a little angry to learn that there are Japanese people who tell me that, as a foreigner, I will never understand Japan, or learn to speak Japanese. (I wrote a post about this, but can't find it.)

“But you already speak Japanese!” he fumes. “You practically are Japanese!”

When President jettisoned nearly all her physical belongings in preparation for Koube, I ended up with some items of clothing. When I accidentally moved in with her, I didn't really bring much, so I frequently wound up picking through her laundry for T-shirts and jeans to wear. (Lockup thinks this is hilarious.) I developed some favourites, including a pink Sailor Moon T-shirt, a not-pink Sailor Moon t-shirt, and a black one that simply says 「日本」 (“JAPAN”).

I'm wearing the 日本 t-shirt today, and when my friend saw me sitting there, wearing that shirt, in a Japanese restaurant, drinking a bottle of Oi Ocha, the sight struck him as so absurdly Japanese he burst out laughing and couldn't help but snap a photo.

Three weeks later, I'm strolling past the burger joint when I see my friend who works there, and stop in to say hi. She's a bit of an interesting story. She's going to my Canadian university, now, and her long-term plan is Canada. And of course, if you graduate from a Canadian university, that's a quick ticket to permanent residency. Her problem right now is money, because tuition for international students is exorbitant. I know another guy, a tourism student, whose dream is to do tourism stuff in Hawaii. It makes a lot of sense, if you know a bit about Japan and Hawaii. There's a lot of parallels between our respective dreams, a lot of commiseration – and mutual support – to be had.

Talking with the girl from the burger joint, it turns out a Japanese girl who lived here back in fall 2011 is in town for a visit. She was with a group all from the same university who were here for a semester each. Kinda weird how that worked out, but it was nice. I had them, I had Japanese Club, I had President – we were still just friends back then – and I was taking six classes (the standard being four), so I never wanted for companionship, entertainment, or purpose. And all the while of course, I was prepping for my ryuugaku the following year, so everything I did, every hour of laying groundwork or studying Japanese, took on added weight in my own mind.

My friend told me our guest wanted to see me if she could. I told her it probably made more sense for her to tell me so rather than wait for a random encounter, she promised she'd tell her so, I looked forward to hearing from her, and then completely forgot about it until two days later, when we actually did meet in a random encounter. She's doing well. Since I last saw her, she's graduated university and become a systems engineer at a decent company in central Toukyou. But, she wonders, will she be able to keep working there when she gets married and has children?

Lately it's hard not to feel like everyone I know is both younger and more successful than me. It's discouraging. Even most of the people from English Club are now getting job offers from desirable companies. Anyone my age who is still in school has moved on to graduate studies and will be well-positioned indeed once they wrap that up. Meanwhile I've spent approximately nine decades working on a degree that will be mostly worthless when I finally complete it, at which point I will have virtually no marketable skills or experience. Painfully, President is at this very moment living the life I've always wanted, without me. I'm not jealous – really. We're a team, we share in our successes. But I want so badly to be there doing it with her.

But I have tangible, achievable goals. For the first time in a while, I can almost see things coming together. And it was invigorating to see my old friends. You take whatever victories you can seize.

Nintendou has a new captain

Kimishima Tatsumi (君島達己)

Earlier this summer, the president of Nintendou fucking died. His name was Iwata Satoru, and while he wasn't necessarily the most beloved figure in the industry it certainly came as a shock. In the wake of this tragedy, Nintendou took the opportunity to reshuffle its upper-level management while considering his successor. Yesterdayish, the company released a statement naming Kimishima Tatsumi as the new head of the company.

Additionally, Miyamoto Shigeru has been the recipient of the newly created title of “Creative Fellow.” Head of Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development (formerly R&D1), ie the section of the company that actually makes the games, Miyamoto is responsible for Mario, Zelda, and other masterpieces. The new title seems to indicate more a recognition of his contributions to Nintendou than any change in his role within it. (Some fans expressed a desire for him to become president, which makes no sense. Miyamoto will never be president. Even if his creative skills were transferrable to the financial side of the company, if he became president he'd obviously no longer be making games.) Takeda Genyo, meanwhile, is now a Technology Fellow, seemingly the hardware equivalent to Miyamoto's software stuff. “Fellow” is a bit of a weird-ass ingredient to throw into a salad full of words like “Representative Director,” but oddly enough it kind of fits with Nintendou's style.

That said, Kimishima's appointment is the far more interesting and important part of the announcement. Beginning his career in banking, he joined The Pokemon Company in 2000. (Not to be confused with Game Freak, the development studio that actually makes most of the Pokemon games, The Pokemon Company is mainly concerned with marketing and licensing the franchise.) He then joined Nintendo of America for several years before coming back to Japan, where he was responsibly for various businessy aspects of Nintendou, like Human Resources and the always nebulous “General Affairs.” Clearly the experience and the skillset is there; the question now is how he will stack up to Iwata.

Iwata Satoru (岩田聡)

On the one hand, Iwata clearly had a deep and abiding love of games, believed in his company, and at one point appeared willing to take the fall for lacklustre WiiU sales. He took steps to make himself appear relatable and accessible to his company's fandom, such as through Nintendo Direct, where he “directly” addressed fans (customers) regarding current products and issues. On the other hand, this also gave some the impression that he was weak and simpering, and while “Please Understand” was a stupid, lazy meme, it did represent many people's dissatisfaction with the direction Nintendou was taking. Meanwhile, Iwata presided over one of the weakest periods in the company's history, financially and artistically. If you want to be charitable you can acknowledge that he was facing varied challenges the best way he knew how, and that shouldering the entire blame on one person is absurd, but you can't deny his responsibility for the disappointment.

In contrast to Iwata's attitude, I see one particular sentiment floating around the Internet regarding Kimishima: “He's a businessman, not a gamer.” There's a few things to unpack there. First of all, there's no doubt that Iwata was a gamer, but in the sense that he lead a huge business, how exactly was he not a businessman? I guess the answer would be that he was not a skilled businessman, or that his attitude towards the business was insufficiently businesslike. Except, the implication seems to be that having a gamer leading a games company is good and would naturally lead to high-quality products, while a businessman will bring us soulles cash-ins.

Sure, having a passion for your industry and its products can potentially be a tremendous asset. One way to put it is that as the head of a games company, you are in a position to create the kind of games that you would want to play. Individual tastes and all that, but you can be reasonably sure that a certain proportion of consumers will nod right along with you, and that whatever you make, it will at least have artistic conviction. You may also be better equipped to read the currents of popular feeling; how often have we heard the complaint about company executives being out of touch?

However, I am of the opinion that business acumen is also extremely valuable to have when conducting business. It's also wrong to say that a lack of personal interest necessarily equates to a lack of understanding. Suppose I got hired at P&G tomorrow. As it stands, I do not feel any deep emotion for household cleaning products, but if it were my job to know about them, you can bet that for the next few weeks I would be spending every waking moment learning. I would learn exactly which chemical compounds are most effective at scouring stains from carpet and the thought process that goes into Mrs MacMillan's purchasing decisions when she's at the grocery store. Naturally, games, which are art rather than science, are that much more dependent on instinct, but it's not like market analysis has never steered anybody into a bad business decision, anyway.

Personally, I'm intrigued. I never got as down on Nintendou as a lot of people did, because Mario and Zelda are just so much fun. Still, I feel as though shaking things up like this could really reinvigorate the company. Surely the gravity of his position is not lost on Kimishima. In Shadowrun, Nintendou would be an A-ranked corporation at least, and it is no small fixture of Japanese culture both at home and internationally. Hopefully we get at least a few good games out of it.

56 Flowers: China tries to AKB

Here's an Asahi Shinbun article from a couple days ago:

“An idol group composed of 56 Chinese women has been born. It is called '56 Flowers.' One can't help but think that it is meant to compete directly with Japan's AKB48. That said, the sense of propaganda in songs like their fervently performed 'China is the most Beautiful,' embodying Chinese head of state Xi Jinping's 'Chinese Dream,' is quite strong. Will they really be popular?

“56 is the number of officially recognized Chinese ethnicities. It seems that 56 Flowers is attempting to appeal to a sense of ethnic unity and patriotism. The particulars of the group's formation are unknown, it is supposed that Chinese authorities were involved.

“According to local media, it is formed of various ethnicities of girls, aged 16-23, with skill in singing and dancing. At Beijing Park in June, they stood onstage in front of the Chinese flage and images of Mao Zedong, wearing white blouses and black miniskirts. Staff apparently said, 'Unlike groups from Japan or China, 56 Flowers is not selling sex or looks.'

“There have been comments on the Internet in the vein of, 'They seem like a North Korean group,' and 'It smells like the Cultural Revolution.' (Shanghai)”

Here's another article, this one in English, with a little more information. For good measure, here's a video.

So you get 56 girls between the ages of 16 and 23, dress them up in cotton blouses and short skirts, and have them sing and dance for our entertainment. Totally not selling sex though!

This “various ethnicities” thing is nice, especially given China's historical...struggles with that issue. It only really works, though, if each member is actually a representative of that group. Please let me know if I'm wrong, but something tells me this super isn't the case. At least Team 8 really did go out and recruit a girl from each prefecture. And while I totally understand concerns regarding propaganda, I'm interested to see where this might go.

Anytime I think about the China Century theory, I suspect that it will not really equal the influence of America during the American Century unless it occupies the same cultural space. I mean, setting aside the possibility that we may have entered a period in history in which globalization is so prevalent that no one country can possibly dominate – you could draw some parallels. A rising economic star. Flirting with imperialism. That kind of stuff.

But what made America into America in the eyes of the rest of the world was, I think, its popular culture. The average American on the street cared about Tom Cruise, not Ronald Reagan. I guess the same is true of a lot of countries – probably most non-Japanese people you know can picture Goku, but not Abe Shinzou – so maybe this is a shallow point, but what I'm getting at is that I've always wanted to see what China could give us for soft culture. I can name a couple dozen Korean pop music groups despite having never even been there, but I can only think of two Chinese groups, and one of them is SNH48.

We've got wuxia – that's identifiably Chinese. And that's cool. Wuxia is cool! Can't wait for Iron Knight, Silver Vase! “Hong Kong action movie” is basically a genre, and Sleeping Dogs rocked (that's if we're counting Hong Kong as culturally part of China, but let's not get into that). What else though? By and large I'm gonna go ahead and say that Chinese pop culture doesn't really get much play outside of China, at least not in the English-speaking world. Isn't that odd? China is kind of really big, you guys. This seems to mark a deliberate step towards changing that, and I'm excited! I'd love people to step more Chinese songs for In the Groove. Maybe not “China is the most Beautiful,” but you know.

I'm also not totally convinced that this won't be like the forced hallyu of the mid-2000s up to recent years, where Korean artists started recording songs in Japanese, SNSD appeared on Letterman and there was even talk of getting Americans into K-dramas. This publicity campaign was the subject of much derision by K-bloggers, and the “movement,” such as it is, tends to be regarded as a bit of a failure. This could easily go the same way. It's still interesting, though, and it will likely have a very different character, if only because of the Chinese government and all that it represents.

To close the circle: Does 56 Flowers have a credible chance of competing against AKB 48? Uh, no. They're completely different products. AKB sing about first love, and hair scrunchies, and teenage prostitution. These are very relatable, easily digestible topics that transcend differences in lifestyle and cultural boundaries. The glory of the People's Republic of China is not. To be fair, I don't think it actually says anywhere that they want 56 Flowers to spread its influence beyond China; maybe it represents more of a pep rally for Chinese citizens. If so, they've got work ahead of them, because sadly, nobody cares about politics anymore. Also, they may be a state-driven propaganda machine.

Canyon

During my high school exchange, I saw some people online talking about the first Iron Man movie, which had recently been released. And my first thought was, “Iron Man? I don't even remember seeing trailers for – oh, right.”

Similarly, in a once-recent post by Stupid Ugly Foreigner, he laments the disconnect from English-language popular culture he suffers while living in China. This phenomenon is exemplified in Pharrell's “Happy,” of which he was utterly unware until long after it had already become entrenched in our cultural constitution. Now that I'm back in Canada, I'm facing kind of the opposite problem, and when I get back I'm going to have to relearn everything.

An example: The first time I heard Kyari Pyamu Pyamu's seminal "Pon Pon Pon," it had already been popular for months. In fact it's almost strange to me now to think that there ever was a time when I'd never heard it – it's so clearly ingrained in the cultural landscape of its era. To not know at least that much was to have no idea what a certain type of Japanese person was listening to at the time, and that shit was important to me. I leaped aboard that particular ship as soon as I saw it, and then throughout the rest of the year I managed to catch everything new as it bubbled up into the cultural consciousness of Japanese young people. Unfortunately I've now effectively lost all knowledge of what's trending back there, and it's going to take time to get back up to speed.

I can use the Internet to keep abreast of the latest vicissitudes in television and idol gossip, but that's a poor substitute for everday immersion because it's all through my own filter - limited, not "off the street," not necessarily bearing any relation to what's actually popular. Metroid, for example, is more popular outside Japan than within it. In the Korean's account of his tour of the South by Southwest music show in Austin, I read that he saw a relatively new Japanese loli group called Starmarie, who were supposedly the most popular Japanese singers going. Except that my immediate reaction was “Who the hell are Starmarie?” Sure enough, it turns out that they are indeed a popular Japanese idol group – in America.

So what, you may say. It's just movies and music and other meaningless bullshit. You might have a point. A mild de-syncing with cultural developments that will no longer be relevant a year from now might seem like a fairly minor loss. But remember that anime and music and dramas and everything else are all things I have a certain dependency on, because they're my primary means of studying the language. I am constantly on the hunt for new material to consume, integrating its knowledge into my biomass, mining it for not only new vocabulary and grammar but cultural tidbits and talking points. Without the constant, effortless exposure you get in Japan, I am forced to subsist on what I can scavenge from YouTube or d-Addicts.

Access to this stuff also affects my studying habits. I've always been a proponent of self-motivation – that is, if you really want to learn another language, you just do it, every day, or else adjust your expectations. That means that on a day when you come home from work or school, exhausted, depressed, and without the slightest desire to study, you clench your teeth and do it anyway. So it'd be idiotic to say that lack of access to Japanese pop culture adversely affects my study regimen, but easy access to it does positively affect it. You should always be able to force yourself to study, but a spoonful of heroin makes the medicine go down.

Also, though I have no pedagogical training, I feel like all the studying I do while in this “engaged” state is more effective. Perhaps I am simply more receptive at such times, and thus better able to absorb new vocabulary and constructions. Or perhaps even more simply, I just pay closer attention when I'm interested. Or maybe it's just my imagination. Anyway I'm not going to stop.

Finally, a big part of a country's contemporary cultural identity either stems from or is resolved in its media trends. I don't think that's too grandiose a statement. The plot twists in big TV shows get people talking. Artists use their media to communicate a deeper message. People will resort to the refrain of “relax, it's just a movie” for as long as movies continue to be made, but that's utterly and obviously wrong. Our art, even our for-profit art, is both informed by our shared cultural experience, and adds to it. It's important. It's not World War II-level historical significance, but you can't just discount it.

And again, for me, soft culture is a part of how I connect with Japanese people - knowledge of what's trending in their pop music and television is often a good ice-breaker. And how many friendships are born from mutual interests? The early conversation of practically any first encounter is spent searching out common ground. Obviously don't hinge your identities on what anime you like, because if you want to be interesting you have to be interesting in and of yourself. But I can't count the number of times I've inspired shock and delight for merely having heard of something Japanese. If nothing else it shows that you're receptive.

On the other hand, I guess if not being quite up on the latest moves and grooves is my greatest concern, as compared to somebody arriving with no knowledge of Japan or Japanese, maybe I'm doing all right. There'll be a brief period of adjustment, but in no time I'll be slinging timely observations and relevant pop culture references like anybody else. Now all I have to do is find a job, win the lottery, or earn the favour of the yakuza, and I'll be good to go.

How to shower and bathe at other people's houses

I think we've all been there at some point or another. You can try to delay the deed until you're able to retreat to your own abode, but from time to time, you're gonna have to clean yourself at somebody else's house. Now if you're a foreigner in Japan, you could be spending a lot of time living off the kindness of people you know, like host families, friends, one-night stands, maybe even dinner hosts, and possibly whoever they shack you up with until they get your actual accommodation figured out.

Fortunately for you, I have a lot of experience living off others people's kindness. Here are some handy tips I've picked up over time.

Towels

You want to get this one out of the way right off the bat. Ideally, your host will think of that beforehand, but if not, you'd better ask before you shower, because afterwards you'll be naked and wet and not in any easy position to ask, especially if they're somewhere out of earshot. You have the option of just grabbing a hanging one at random if you like, depending on how close you are with the person in question and whether or not any old people live there too.

If you do forget and are left without recourse, you can use an item of clothing as a makeshift towel, especially if it's not something immediately necessary to your wardrobe, like if you've layered a couple of shirts or something. If it's winter, definitely use a shirt because you can keep it under your jacket and it won't freeze. If it's summer and you're in a dry climate, you can pretty much just put your clothes back on normally if you really want and they'll dry soon enough, but if it's humid, don't even try – you'll be sopping all day. Actually, you will be anyway, but this way it'll be even worse.

Taps

Again, preparation – remember to figure out how they work before you strip. That way, if you're absolutely baffled, at least you don't have to get dressed again before you can go ask for a demonstration. Once you've got it all worked out, you'll be ready to get naked, crank a knob until a stream of hot fluid bursts over your face and cascades down your chest, and exhale in ecstasy.

Some Japanese baths have an electronic control panel for the bath itself. You maybe shouldn't touch it. And actually it's probably set to the preferences of the owner(s), so you shouldn't touch it anyway.

Japanese bathing

As I'm sure you know, Japanese families all share a single dispensary of bathwater amongst them, which isn't emptied until everybody is done. Some people find Japanese bathing to be one of the best experiences available to humanity, but I've always been a little iffy about it, not because I have to bathe in other people's filth, but because I don't want to make them bathe in mine. You're not supposed to go in until you're spotlessly clean, and I just don't trust myself to be able to do that. Worse, as a guest you may be afforded the respect of bathing first.

Luckily, there's an easy fix: Just say that you would prefer a shower. Basically, you're just skipping the second half. You'll be clean, so it's not like you're being rude, and you can even invent a cultural explanation if you want. I've never had anybody insist I actually bathe, because that would be crazy. How would they check, anyway?

If you do decide to take the plunge, so to speak, obviously just be very thorough. Wash everything twice. Wash all the places you usually don't bother with (you have some, don't lie to me). When you're done the bath should be a basin of crystal clear water and nothing else. In practice even the Japanese sometimes accidentally shed detritus, but if you do, you just know it'll be because you're a foreigner and not because you're a human being, so scan carefully for any stray dirt or hair and scoop it out with your hand. There's a grate in the floor you can drop it down.

The bucket

You can use this to pour water over your head, or as a little stool. I like to just sit on it and douse myself with the jet.

Shampoo and soap

One abiding principle: Honestly, they're letting you use their shower. You really think they're gonna get offended if you swipe some of their shampoo?

On the other hand, if you're having trouble with the shampoo, you don't have to wash your hair, you know. And also try to be at least a little careful that you're using your friend's (or whoever's) stuff if possible, rather than their roommate's or something. That's just called respect.

However, the preceding rule can be safely ignored if there is both bar soap and liquid soap. In that case use the liquid no matter whose it is, because which would you rather be rubbing all over your body? Liquid is better for everybody. If there's only bar though, it's not a big deal, it's not going to hurt you, because, you know, it's soap. It does the opposite of that. But! If you're still not comfortable, check to see if there's a liquid hand soap you can grab off the sink. Works fine. I only ever used hand soap during my last study abroad. Cologne once said “I picked up some more hand soap for you to shower with.”

In a pinch, shampoo or conditioner can also be used as soap – it's not as effective, but it's all cleaning agent. Just make sure to wash it all off or it can dry out your skin and leave a painful rash.

These are just a few simple shower hacks to help you with your stranger showering experience. Got a tip of you own? Let us know in the comments!

Kanadajin Tales! Everyone Rude Boy knows is inappropriate

Cute upbeat smiley young blonde Mormon missionary: Do you have a belief in Jesus Christ?

Rude Boy: Uh, no, I haven't.

Missionary: (ridiculously perky) Why not?!

*

History teacher: And another theory is that neckties are supposed to point the way to your crotch. I purposely wore a necktie today, and you can see how it does, in fact, point to my crotch. Now in case I get in a car accident today, I don't want your last memory of me to be of me talking about my crotch, so I'm going to say a couple more things.

*

Rude Nephew: So I think my friend Jim knocked some girl up again.

*

History teacher: There are so many ridiculous kitchen gadgets in this day and age. You don't need an avocado peeler. I got news for you, you already have an avocado peeler, it's called a knife.

*

Stopping for gas late one night, I noticed a bunch of thuggish young men surrounded by the type of young women who hang out with thuggish young men, crowding around the door. Then I got closer and heard them speaking in Russian. My kneejerk reaction was to calm down immediately, because, oh, foreigners, ie harmless and friendly. Not sure what that says about me.

*

Female friend: I feel like I'm banging my head against a concrete wall. Except the front instead of the back, you know?

*

Chinese Politics teacher: I have a YouTube video here, let me just show you a little of what Macau is all about.

*loud Beyblade commercial plays*

*

Politics teacher: Of course, France has a long history of acculturation. No matter where you were born if you learn to speak French and learn French culture and can, you know, identify 24 different types of cheeses by smell, then you're French.

Hot French girl: (laughing in delight)

I thought it was pretty stunning in comparison to Japan, where if you're not born Japanese you will never be Japanese.

*

Rude Boy: Hey, if there's grass on the field, play ball.

President: What if there could be grass, but it's mowed?

*

President: Well, I guess I should start getting ready for my rope-bondage thing pretty quick. I'd say “wanna come,” but I don't think it's quite your thing.

Later:

President: Sorry about that, couldn't text for a while

Rude Boy: Oh yeah? Were you...a little tied up?

And the next day:

President: Oh, when you come over, I need to show you something I learned last night that's like, super quick and so damn handy. You can restrain a girls hands in like 10seconds

Rude Boy: Best text message ever

*

Remember how President and I have a running joke that every time we have a History class together, something terrible happens in Japan? The first time, we took a course together and the 2011 earthquake happened. Then last year, we took another one together and Kyouto flooded.

Then last semester I decided to sit in one of her History classes, just for fun, and that very fucking day Juuso Eki caught the fuck on fire.

*

Jugs: Last week Valentino said “Yeah, there was a whole episode of Dr. Oz about that.” It was the gayest thing he's ever said, and he talks about making out with dudes.

*

I gave both President and Jugs white chocolate for White Day. I wasn't dating either of them, but in my mind it's not just about that – in my interpretation, it can also be a day to just generally appreciate all the women who make your life that much better.

As if you need a reason.

*

30's white girl's shoulder tattoo: 性的

(Maybe she meant “sexy?”)

*

President: Great, so on Monday night we'll come back here, fuck, and then figure out something for dinner.

*

Jugs: “This cabinet requires two people to assemble.”

Jugs's sister: Challenge accepted.

*

Rude Coworker: (teaching Rude Boy how to do temperatures) So yeah, then you basically just go around sticking it in all of them.

Rude Boy: That's how I've lived my life so far.

Rude Coworker: (slowly raises fist for pound)

*

Rude Boy: Not sure I can stay. I don't have any clothes.

President: If you were a girl and we were lesbians, you could just borrow some of my clothes!

*

Driving through a rural area, I suddenly came upon what looked like an enormous black dog, walking down the road away from me. With no time to slow down but with plenty of room, I thought I'd just cruise past it, when for no goddamned reason it swerved towards me and I saw that it was actually a young black bear. I tried to get away but it impacted with a thunk.

I loosed an articulate “Grrrwuuughhhh!” and then, like a responsible, moral human being, continued driving. Well, if it was injured, what the fuck could I have done? More importantly, what if wasn't, but now it was pissed off because it had just been hit by a car?

By some miracle, it impacted right between the headlight and the wheel, so the car was fine, and I was fine, and I don't know whether the bear was fine, because they're pretty tough, but it also got hit in the face with a 1500-pound bullet travelling more than a hundred kilometres an hour. But I got the vehicle's first dent, with kind of a cool story to go with it, because everybody's hit a deer (I haven't, actually), but how many people can say they've hit a bear?

*

President's gay co-worker: (about Lock-Up) So who was that hottie you were with?

President: Oh, that was my really good friend from Japan.

President's gay co-worker: Really good friend?

President: I wish.

President's gay co-worker: Aww, why not!

*

Rude Right-Hand Man: (dating pulls) And these are good for two days...

Rude Boy: You're good for two days.

Rude Right-Hand Man: I expire after 24 hours, actually.

Rude Boy: Oh.

Rude Right-Hand Man: It's good though...it means I contain less sodium, so I'm better for you.

*

Lock-Up: (in English) Whaaaaat? Germany was in both wars? And it lost twice? Poor Germany!

*

Rude Grandfather: ...I think it would make more sense if they legalized marijuana, and criminalized Brussels sprouts.

*

President: Lock-Up's going over to Hiro's to play Mario Kart.

Rude Boy: Right...she's going over to Hiro's to “play Mario Kart.” At 10 o'clock at night.

President: Nooo! I don't think she's as slutty this year!

*

Co-worker: Me and (other co-worker) are going out again tonight.

Rude Boy: I thought you vowed never to go out with him again after he fell asleep in the bathroom at Denny's for three hours.

Co-worker: We decided not to go to Denny's this time.

Rude Boy: I think you might be missing the point.

*

President: One of my staff told me today that his most disliked word is “cunt,” and another one told me her most disliked word is “moist.” So I kept going around saying “moist cunt” to both of them.

*

President: What's the point in playing a female character if you can't admire the womanly curves?

*

President: Japan's population fell by a record number this year.

Rude Boy: Hm...well I don't think I can solve that problem by myself, but I'm willing to try.

Nobody is allowed...

...to call Japanese culture weird ever again.

Japanese traffic

Previous experiences with Japan had girded me against nearly all the vagaries of culture shock, but there was one part of the country that just didn't wash: The driving was just plain messed up. I haven't had the pleasure yet, but I've gleaned a fair amount just by observing my surroundings, such as the razor-thin alleys and switchbacks that pass for residential streets in the country. Reed Richards would be hard-pressed to squeeze through the average Japanese neighbourhood. Roads near my university were so poorly maintained that cars rolled up and down like a ship on stormy seas, creating the impression that everyone was constantly flashing their lights at you, a prospect that seems not entirely unrealistic to a foreigner in Japan.

Vehicles are not allowed to turn left on a red in Japan, which to me seemed totally bizarre until I realised the reason for it. Fact is, stop lines are generally set back several hundred kilometres from their associated intersection, requiring all Japanese motorists to carry a telescope in the glove compartment in order to discern when the light changes. This would make any attempts to creep up to and slip around the corner potentially disastrous. The eccentric positioning of these stop lines is, in turn, a necessity borne out of the narrow streets, as any lateral traffic that turns towards you needs to be able to swing into your lane without punching you in the face, otherwise buses, fire engines, and monster trucks would find most every route impassable.

But that's just the conditions; the real issue is the participants. Driving in Japan is less a means of transportation and more a contest to see who can break the largest number of traffic laws at a time. When I first arrived and began observing the traffic, the entire ecosystem seemed chaotic and dangerous. Japanese drivers constantly made risky manoeuvres that would have caused Canadian passengers to scream in fear and anger. They pulled out to block an entire lane so that they could turn in. If somebody ahead of them was waiting to make a right turn, they freely swerved around them, continuing on like it was no thing.

While often in Canada the centre line may as well be a physically impassable barrier, here it does little more than demarcate the midpoint between either side of the road. You park wherever you can, be it in a marked parking space, a random nook or cranny, the middle of a busy thoroughfare, a stranger's living room, on roofs, in alleys, every way but upside down, really. People whip around at a startling pace, dodging grannies and inconveniently placed hydro poles, giving the reflexes and brake-pads of every other driver a good solid workout, and it's all just considered normal.

Pedestrians aren't much better, possessing a relationship with self-preservation that is antagonist at best. They are fond of wandering around on the road when there's a perfectly good sidewalk across the street, swaying back and forth, stumbling around blind corners, and generally presenting as large a profile as possible when ambulating in groups, for the benefit of any casual human-hunters should they happen to make a go of it on their way to the store. I ended up becoming eminently comfortable with cars hurtling past my body at breakneck speeds, casually forgiving scandalous incursions into my personal space bubble that would earn them a stream of expletives and public humiliation in Canada.

At about the seven-month mark, however, it finally dawned on me that while the Japanese style was certainly much less cautious, it wasn't necessarily worse. I never actually encountered an accident, after all, despite weekly witnessing situations that in Canada would have caused ruination or, at best, an interminable delay as the confused drivers tried to work out how to extricate their vehicles from the tangle they'd tied. Japanese drivers, meanwhile, balletically weave between each other at high speed, never in doubt, never in danger. It was frankly beautiful to see in action. It was as if tight Japanese traffic conditions had forced the drivers to hone a better sense of timing and spatial understanding, a deeper intuition regarding the intentions of the vehicles around them, or, if not that, then at least they as Japanese drivers had a better sense than I had of how another Japanese driver was liable to react at any given moment.

In other words, all these differences that had initially seemed incredible turned out to have their own logic, which became perfectly clear once I'd discovered it – much like many things I came to grips with in Japan. It was an interesting revelation. Culture really is pervasive. When we imagine foreign countries, we think of the food, the music, the language, but the driving culture doesn't generally occur to us until we're forced to confront it. And, as in all those other cases, unfamiliar doesn't automatically mean worse.

Reparation

Now to provide a little context for my last post. Every spring, a university from Toukyou sends a cadre of Psychology students to my Canadian university. The students commune with Canadian Psychology majors, receive an intensive English course, and explore the world outside Japan. (Sometimes we also get groups of future CAs coming to practise English for their internationally oriented jobs, but this seems to be more sporadic, although, as you might imagine, also more fun.) Back when President and I were the Japanese Club leaders, we also tried to show them our hospitality, holding parties for them, sharing meals with them, and, as if I even have to say it, taking them out drinking.

And that's awesome. Unfortunately, that's also what got me into trouble a couple of years ago. I ended up getting way too drunk at an informal function at the campus pub, and, I am told, mouthed off a lot. I say “I am told” because I actually recall very little of what transpired. I do remember falling asleep in the bathroom and being set upright once more by a concerned citizen, then leaving suddenly for no apparent reason, to President's consternation. She ended up tracing the route back to my apartment, but missed me, because I'd stopped off at another bathroom and fallen asleep there too. After a while I woke up on my own and made my way to the next building in my path, where I fell asleep in a third bathroom. Luckily I did eventually make it all the way home, where I finally fell asleep for the night...in my own bathroom.

So I got an amusing anecdote out of it, but unfortunately, before all that happened I ended up getting in a scrap. For all the reasons I explained in that last post I feel I had call to get my hackles up, at least in regards to the one asshole who was provoking me. Unfortunately, that one asshole was their teacher, who comes every year. I'd obviously offended him at least as much as he'd offended me, hence the escalation of the confrontation. And since we never actually resolved our dispute, my anger never really dissipated, even when they'd all gone back to Japan. You can see how diplomatic relations might become strained.

Obviously, I completely mishandled the situation. Setting aside the fact that I should never, ever have gotten that drunk to begin with, I shouldn't have risen to him, either. What the hell did I think I was going to accomplish? Nothing I could say would have persuaded him to my point of view, because he had his mind made up and just wanted to unload at me. And when it's somebody of authority such as a teacher, even if you win, you lose. Especially if you win, you might argue. No, I should have just kept my head down, bitten back every response, and quietly accepted his completely unwarranted criticism of my entire lifestyle.

Instead, I put a palpable strain on the rest of that group's trip, and holy hell do I regret that. That experience specifically is why I never drink “on the job” anymore. So I absolutely take responsibility for that mistake (God knows I've pissed enough people off while drunk), and for some time feared that I'd caused irreparable damage to what had been a very profitable partnership between the other university and our Club. By putting my own aggravation ahead of the interests of the Japanese students, I'd betrayed the very people I was supposed to be serving.

Of course, I wasn't around last year, and since I'm no longer officially affiliated with Japanese Club I was able to put a little cognitive distance between me and my own past transgressions. So when a group came this year, I considered avoiding the whole thing, but ultimately decided, fuck it, if there's a problem, I'll just stare it down. When I arrived at the campus pub, it was already roaring with a crowd of J-students and a complement of white people. Gently squashing the realisation that I was blowing off class to go hang out at a bar, I quickly found President, pulled up a chair, and – within minutes – was offered the teacher's hand.

Not in marriage, mind you. I mean he reached around the guy beside him – I mean like tried to lean past him, not give him a reacharound – and he wanted to shake my hand, that's the point I'm making. No, it's actually not, of course it isn't. The point I'm making is that he greeted me with a goddamn smile. “It's good to see you,” he said, and he seemed to actually mean it. Well, fuck me. That's just great. Here I've been holding a quiet grudge against this guy for two goddamn years and he hasn't thought twice about me. Of course he hasn't. People think about you way less often than you think about them thinking about you. So I felt awfully silly.

Tell you what, though. President and I had a great time at that thing. Somehow the two current executives, neither of whom actually speak Japanese, had gotten all caught up in a group with the aforementioned teacher and one of the Psychology dudes from our university, so we broke for the far end of the table to chat up some of the other students. President just led us straight into the crowd and we sat down with some people and suddenly, socializing. It was just like the old days: President intrepidly charging into battle, me at her side as loyal lieutenant, in this case providing translation and social lubrication. Not that she needed much of either; she manages quite admirably to communicate with a mixture of English and Japanese, and she's one of the most social damn people I know (as am I, which is one of the reasons we get on so well).

Right after, we had to practise for our performance at the international culture festival the following week. I'm using the Royal We here because I was not, myself, performing, rather I offered feedback as a group of about ten practised in a dance studio at student residence. I'm pretty damn brutal about it, but it's all out of love. As a huge fan of rhythm games, I can tell instantly when any individual member is off time. Not that it's very hard when half of them are following different beats and others, none at all. But that's just a matter of practise. Anyway, this is part of the story because some of the J-Psychology Majors came to watch for a little while. When they'd seen a couple of runthroughs they retired to the penthouse, where their teacher was holding an afterparty, which he does every year, and which does not in any way scream of harassment lawsuits.

President had managed to get us invited to lunch two days hence. As always, we seemed to have hitched ourselves to, or been hitched with, a small group of students, in this case five of them. I don't know why it so often seems to work out this way; I guess just because the people most motivated to make friends tend to find each other, and because it takes time and energy to get to know someone and you really can't do that with 20+ people in just two weeks. Of course, they've left now, and we'll never see them again. Every once in a while, though, we'll pop up on each other's Facebook feeds, until the day we all die. More to the point, we made their visit as much fun as we could. I hope that, this time, they walked away with a favourable impression of Canadians, and that maybe that's something they'll take with them.

Attitude

I originally wrote this way back when I was still toying with the idea of starting a blog, after a particularly frustrating incident left me needing to vent. That was over two years ago, so the writing is a little amateurish compared to my more recent stuff. Next post, I'll tell the story that inspired it.

*

When most Japanese people I meet find out that I'm interested in the language and the culture, they're delighted. They're flattered that I'm trying to participate and pleased that I'm trying to understand. They're forgiving when I make mistakes and wonderfully supportive of everything I'm trying to do. This has overwhelmingly been my experience, and I'm grateful to all the people who have helped me, been my friends, and invited me through the door.

Some aren't like this.

Some are of a very different opinion. Because I'm not Japanese I can never understand Japanese culture. Sometimes I screw things up when I talk, therefore I don't speak Japanese at all. My goals are messed up, or else they're a waste of time because I could never possibly achieve them as an outsider. I'm just a sad hanger-on, a skinny obsessive little weeaboo, and would I just knock it off and go wallow in my own ignorance with my little white friends who, like me, also speak only one language but fetishize Asian girls and sit alone in our rooms by ourselves all the time.

And it pisses me right off. When I encounter stuff like this elsewhere in my life, I can pretty much let it be. Because I've made a point of surrounding myself with people who like me, and will call me out if they think I'm wrong but mostly just make me feel good about myself. Anybody who tries to go against that, I don't need. But this is a little different. A handful of magic words can make my blood boil.  "You can't X." "You don't know what you're talking about." "Your Japanese doesn't make any sense." I can and I'm going to. I've been looking into the topic for YEARS of my life now and I've earned the right to put forth an informed opinion. It does make sense and you goddamn know it, it's just not perfect. It's the attitude, the condescension. It's the dismissiveness.

As soon as I can, I'm going to move back to Japan and then I'm going to live there for the rest of my life. I decided that a very long, long time ago. This is the primo goal I'm working towards at all times, to which all others are subordinate. So when someone tries to tell me that all the energy I'm putting towards this – the hours of study I put in each day, all the work I do, both as Japanese Club Vice President and on my own time, trying to make sure the Japanese students on campus are taken care of and feel comfortable and welcome, without agenda, simply because I love Japanese people – is basically worthless, I get angry, because they're making me feel like my identity is being invalidated. Not as some loser white guy trying to 'be Japanese,' but as a proud Canadian who has decided to make Japan his home.

What really gets me is the double standard they apply, a sort of Japanese exceptionalism wherein it's totally possible for them to grasp Canadian culture (and yes, there is such thing as Canadian culture, but we're not going to talk about that right now), but I can't do the reverse, and when I point this out they just wave it off as me just plain not understanding. Can you imagine if I went around telling foreigners in Canada that they'll never be able to learn English? People would think I was a complete asshole! That's not  really material, though. And I've done some things in the past that people had every right to get angry about, and from time to time I still do. But I think that's a separate issue, too, and when that stuff happens it's usually an honest mistake, or at least not because I'm trying to make waves.

I really believe that the good I do outweighs the bad, and that I take more flak than I deserve. The only thing I can think to do is refuse to give in. Try to show how I earnest I really am, that I mean business, and maybe, every once in a while, get somebody to rethink their view of me. I don't expect to change many minds, but I really shouldn't let the naysayers upset me, either. Keep studying Japanese, keep trying to learn about the country, and keep making Japanese friends. Then surround myself with the ones who get me.

I want to ride my bicycle

Hurm.

Mother Russia caught a bad break within a week of arriving in Japan: After heading downtown and spending a couple of hours shopping, she returned to where she'd parked her bicycle only to find it gone. Uncharacteristically, she burst into tears. A young Japanese chap, spotting a winsome hottie in distress, swooped in, ascertained the cause of the problem, and assured her that he would search for it on her behalf. When she came home and related this story to me, I pictured him delving into seedy bars throughout Sanjou-Shijou like Rorschach in Watchmen, demanding information, cracking skulls when he failed to get the reception he desired, tirelessly striving to repatriate the errant machine.

In reality, he probably asked around at the local police huts, perhaps on nearby Kiyamachi. Bicycle theft, though a popular activity when the opportunity presents itself, is quite difficult in Japan due to a lock placed on the rear wheel of every unit. More likely, hers had been collected because she'd parked it illegally, not a big deal throughout much of the city but a potentially serious nuisance in the downtown area. They take them away in big trucks, hoisting them up through sheer muscular fortitude. At bigger stores, it's also somebody's job to go outside and redress the ranks every so often, to conserve space; once again, the locks leave them no choice but to pick them up and heave them to their new resting spot.

In return for a modest fine, her bicycle was returned to her with no further complications, and as if that wasn't enough, the guy lent her his bicycle in the meantime, claiming that he lived and worked close enough that it didn't really matter. In fact he tried to just give it to her, and it was she who demanded his contact information so that she could return it later. The following weekend she went to a barbecue at his house, so I'm not entirely convinced he wasn't making a play, but if he wasn't, well isn't that just Japanese kindness for you!

Had this helpful stranger not appeared, she would have been in a bit of a jam, because bicycle is by far one of the most common methods of transportation in Japan. Coming from Canada, I have a lot of trouble thinking of it as anything other than a child's toy, but in Japan, there is absolutely nothing undignified or stupid-looking about it. Schoolgirls ride to school. Suited businessmen ride to work. Stylish young people ride between engagements. It's even common to carry a passenger, regardless of whether or not your particular model was built to carry a passenger, their feet flapping in the wind, seemingly ever in danger of toppling straight off onto the cement but somehow never doing so.

Now you might want to wax poetic and spew speculation as to why Japan's unique culture has driven it to adopt the bicycle as such a prevalent means of transportation (and maybe throw in something about how the trains are so quiet, which you will believe to eternity unless you're avant-garde enough to venture anywhere outside Kantou). Actually though, we sort of know the answer. As I had it explained to me in my Japanese Foreign Policy class, the first few economic movements of postwar Japan can be examined by their top three most desirable commodities:

The early years, 1945-1950, and the Korean boom, 1950-1953: radio, bicycle, sewing machine

Jinmu boom, 1954-1957: refrigerator, washing machine, television set

Izanagi boom, 1965-1970: aircon, car, colour TV

You can see how this reflects changing markets and a gradual return to prosperity, as we progress from basic mechanical necessities to modern luxuries. But for our purposes here, you can see how the bicycle was established early on as a must-have item. Still is today.

(Another historical footnote for you: My mother tells me that when she was a ryuugakusei herself (completely coincidental to my own Japanese aspirations), it was quite usual to buy a dilapidated bike, ditch it at the train station, and grab another abandoned one when you arrived at your destination station. When you were finished whatever you'd come to do, you would toss your new friend, train back to your original station, and then grab a bicycle with which to head home, possibly even the same one you'd bought. This sounds like a very interesting system with startling implications for the principles of Touka Koukan, but unfortunately I can neither confirm nor deny it, as I have never lived in Toukyou during the 1980s.)

So despite my protestations, bicycles are pretty entrenched into the daily reality of Japan, where they are not just discreetly convenient but actually own the sidewalk. As you will discover if you spend more than two minutes in the country, Japanese bicycles are all equipped with a bell, whose distinctive cry carries over the roiling chaos of life to seize attention and scatter crowds. It's a pretty demanding little sound, in fact, of which cyclists are unafraid to make liberal use, and it was some time before I was able to start interpreting it as “Excuse me, pardon me,” rather than “Hey, dumbass, out of the way!”

Though it helps that nobody in Japan wears helmets (as there is no law mandating it), I can't quite shake the impression that a bicycle automatically makes any rider look like a ponce. I never did give in, partially also because I secretly find them kind of terrifying, so instead I preferred to ride the train, which is much more fun and interesting anyway. However, nearly everyone else at my dorm bought one as soon as they could. They rode them to Cologne's mom's house. They rode them to Sanjou-Shijou. They even rode them to class, which always puzzled me, because the university was so close it seemed to save no time whatsoever. I would often depart at the same time as a rider began fiddling with locks and navigating bike-unfriendly paths, be overtaken halfway through, and then once more assume the lead in the final stretch as they stood waiting to cross the road to the bicycle parking lot, or searched feverishly for a vacant spot.

That said, I wasn't completely left bereft of two-wheeled temptation. I always thought that Sorachi Hideaki gave Gintama protagonist Gintoki a scooter because they're so unconscionably goofy, but then I arrived and found out that no, that is just considered a legitimate form of transportation here, especially among starving students. At my university, they even had their own parking lot, filled with rows upon rows upon rows of the little machines; when fourth block ended, their owners would leap astride them and take off in roaring crowds of a hundred at a time.  And, lacking a car, I came to badly want one of my own. Because, you know, I was too cool to ride a bicycle, but there's real dignity in a scooter.