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!

Underpowered

I spent the last few weeks before my university exchange hanging out with the new Japanese students who were arriving fresh that semester and doing not a whole hell of a lot else. Anybody who's done a study abroad or, for that matter, taught in a foreign country can probably identify with this lazy middle ground, the period in which you've completed all your preparations but you obviously can't start on the Next Thing until you arrive in your new venue. It's a little discombobulating because your day-to-day feels a little lackadaisical, yet technically you're doing exactly what you're supposed to. So while everybody around me was gearing up for classes, I was left a little adrift, which was fine, actually, because it let me catch up on my backlog of books and video games, and also gave me plenty of time to help this new group get acclimated.

More time than usual, in fact, as until this last year helping out the new group has been my customary task for the first few weeks of each semester. With all this white space on my schedule I was even able to get to know some of them a little deeper. Looking back, I think my first post ever may have left the impression that all the Japanese people I knew at the time were dicks, which was not the case at all. It was a pretty typical group, in that they were mostly people I'll never talk to again, some were pretty all right, and then there was one that I formed a genuine friendship with. She was a gyaru from Chiba, very stereotypically girly in matters such as fashion and colour-cons, and, you know, a little rough but unfortunately without the overt sexuality of an Oosaka gyaru. And yes I had a crush on her, of course I did, this is me we're talking about. Actually it's probably a good thing I left soon after, cause I'd have wanted to date her and if that had failed it would have been all awkward and stuff.

I did keep in contact with her while I was in Japan and she was in Canada, though, including one really awesome drunk-dial with her and a friend of hers, who was visiting, so she had to pretend that she was her cousin, so that the guy she was cheating on her boyfriend with wouldn't hit on her. President, who was rather smitten herself, got to be really good friends with her in the time I was gone. She even went to see her when she visited Toukyou (but didn't come to see me...pfft.) President's path to Japanese living began with some Japanese friends in high school, who introduced her to J-pop and Matsumoto Jun, and she's visited a few times, first on a field school and then on her own. To be honest I find that pretty courageous and savvy, given her limited grasp of the language, but she stayed at a hotel in Ikebukuro and everything, it sounds like it was awesome. She and this girl, I'll call her Lock-Up, went to the club where she was working at the time, and to Lock-Up, aaaaaaaand to the onsen. Yeah, she totally saw her naked. And President is bi so she was even able to appreciate it. So super jelly. And now Lock-Up is back in town.

This provided a bit of a brain-teaser for me until I was able to talk to her in person, and she clarified everything that's going on with her. Basically she's going to be taking the TESL program at my university, one a one-year working holiday visa, spending the extraneous six months working...somewhere. She hasn't really solidified her plans yet. Personally I would think that would be kind of an important thing to get sorted out before you travel across the Pacific Ocean, but then, here I am stuck in my home country and writing oddly personal blog entries only vaguely related to Japan, so what do I know. The interesting part of that is, she'll be taking classes with President, all day, every day. President applied to JET last cycle and got alternate, but no farther, so now she's going to get a formal certification to buff up her resumee (and skillset). So I sense good times in the offing.

Unfortunately for Lock-Up, she was compelled to, for a second time, attend much of the university's international orientation, a week-long event primarily informational in purpose but with quite a lot of lighter fun stuff as well. They teach them the finer points of certain immigration laws, school policies, very basic stuff as well as cultural things. Examples:

Canadians are very time-conscious. Being ten minutes late to an arranged meeting can be considered very impolite.

If a Canadian tells you they'll “see you later,” this doesn't actually mean they plan to see you later.

If a Canadian is passing by and asks you how it's going, and then carries on without waiting to hear the answer, it's not because they were being insincere. (It's because the question is meaningless and you're not really expected to reply.)

Pickup etiquette can vary between cultures. In Canada, if a girl at a bar tells you no, that means the conversation is over, not “try harder.”

And I fucking love it all. There's a video in there on safety (e.g. how not to get your pocket picked), which I don't think I've ever viewed from start to finish, but which I've seen so many bits and pieces of that if you put them all together I have probably seen in its entirety several times. That's how many times I've volunteered for this thing. Unfortunately, since I've been back from Japan, I haven't quite had the time...and if I'm being entirely honest with myself, my motivation hasn't been there like it used to be. During my exchange I started to think about building my future in Japan, which naturally necessitated meditation on what my professional career might be, and from that point on I was pretty much ready to sell my soul. Yeah, if 14-year-old Rude Boy could see me now he'd wonder what the fuck happened and how I ended up catching Lame, row row fight the power, but nowadays the coolest thing I can think of is working in an office. All this looking forward has forced me to simultaneously look inward, so I can't be all things to all Japanese people anymore. Not quite like I used to at least. It's all right. It's a natural progression, and...well, for me personally it never really paid much dividends anyway. It was worth it, in the end, to provide a useful service (translation and all manner of other assistance) to the people who deserved, but I just got used and burned too many times. Maybe I got a little tired of it.

Besides which, my work schedule interferes with like, everything else now, since I'm now working full time as a shift supervisor at a large chain of coffee shops that you have heard of (no, not that one), so despite Lock-Up's pleas, I wasn't able to come join her and alleviate her boredom. But President and I were able to meet up with her at one of the two decent Japanese restaurants in President's part of town. It was rather humorous in a Dostoevskyesque way, an intersection of three recent university graduates each desperately trying to get something rolling so that their lives can start. But it was great to see her, and she reported that a huge number of new Japanese students have arrived at my alma mater this semester. Things are getting exciting again.

Kanabata

Tanabata has become a bit of a tradition for our Club. It started out as a fun thing to do in summer when half our membership had vanished into the ether for a few months; the first time we tried it, we got rained out, had to do it in the university student centre, and used me as the tree. But our planning skills have improved since then, and over the years we've managed to grow it to a respectable size. And since we have a limited financial capacity, we usually do it as a potluck.

This heralded some concerns for us this year, because we had invited a bunch of recent arrivals from Japan and having a potluck with Japanese people can be a little iffy. Basically they tend to bring either far too little, or something completely ridiculous. Sometimes both. I think a single bag of 5-cent candies, as the shared contribution of six people, was probably the topper here, but you're also likely to get single bags of chips or rare, inscrutable treats that elicit furtive gestures and mutterings amongst observers. Maybe it's that Japanese people tend to think of food and drink as the host's responsibility (if so, they probably figure that we Canadians are all incorrigible cheapskates trying to slough off the cost onto the guests), though I mostly suspect that they are just unacquainted with the concept and could be trained up with a little practise.

(If you are now wondering what exactly an appropriate potluck contribution would be, a nice fruit or veggie tray is usually a good choice. A couple 2Ls of pop or some dessert-type stuff is ok, but damn near everybody is going to bring pop or dessert-type stuff, so watch out for that. If applicable, something from your home country will usually go over pretty well. And if there's going to be alcohol involved, a flat of 24 beer is always welcome. It doesn't even have to be good beer.)

Anyway, we needn't have worried. This group arrived bearing mainly a bunch of Taiwanese snacks, which not only ranged from edible to tasty, but were present in appropriate volume, as well. What was better, everybody here was cool. You know, I hate to say it, but as much as ryuugakusei are generally good folk – it takes a certain sort of person to want to learn a foreign language and live within a foreign culture – some of them are just really shitty people. Cause that's just life, you take any large group of people, some of them are going to be shitty, you know? You can try to hang out with just the ryuugakusei you actually like, but you'll always have to deal with the hangers-on from time to time, the ones who only want to use you for your English or think that they are entitled to make you their personal assistant, or that they are somehow above you, just by virtue of being a foreigner amongstforeigners.

You can also organize ryuugakusei into three broad categories: Those who make no effort to engage the host culture or even actively avoid it; those who spend time with their countrymen but still make a substantial effort to engage the host culture; and those who go for full integration, sometimes to the level of eschewing their native language altogether. I've always thought that a Japanese person refusing to speak Japanese in a room full of exclusively Japanese speakers was, you know, kind of really fucking stupid, but who really gives a shit, I guess. I tend to avoid those who fall on either extreme of the spectrum anyway, the former because they're boring, the latter because they're annoying. People who visit another country and then try to pretend they're somewhere else are usually this way because they're reserved and quiet so they're rarely very much fun to hang out with. And anybody going for full integration tends to be so overflowing with cultural sanctimoniousness that they're completely intolerable. As in many things, a balance is best, really.

We lucked out, and these guys were all of the cool, balanced variety. We had a few good icebreakers, too, that is, people who aren't afraid to just go ahead and strike up conversations with strangers, an essential element of any event involving Japanese people.

Additionally, two of them were shakaijin, “society people,” i.e. gainfully employed, although working at A&W rather than a suit-and-tie company, but shakaijin nonetheless. Both have aspirations of Canadian citizenship (the standards for which, if you didn't know, can be a little...stringent), and we discussed the various laws therein in some detail; after becoming a citizen, one of the girls intended to enter a Canadian university for a four-year degree. All of this was immensely interesting to me as not only am I on the cusp of becoming a shakaijin myself, but of course have also been slowly working on a plan to do what they're currently doing but in reverse.

I also learned that many Japanese think that root beer tastes like medicine. So we'll know not to get any of that next time, I guess. Some blonde girl said she'd heard of that from her Korean friends as well. She brought up Korea a couple of times and wrote her name on her cup in Korean, but she left before I could ask what her deal was.

The main event at Tanabata, of course, is writing out wishes and hanging them on a bamboo tree. Despite stereotypes, bamboo trees aren't exactly something you can just go pick up at Wal-Mart in Canada, so we usually use a grate or railing instead (you are welcome to steal this trick for your own Tanabata party). I wrote down “That I may get back to Japan quickly.”

“I knew that was going to be your first wish,” President grinned.

Then I wished that my job search should go well, which admittedly is kind of the same thing, since the one is predicated on the other.

Additionally, every Tanabata I send up some kind of a prayer for my sister. Last year she'd recently gotten married, so I wrote out a wish for her happy married life (or in Japanese, that her household would be bountiful). Now she's expecting a child, so I wished for him or her to be born healthy and happy. This seemed right to me. I tried to think of what would make her happiest in the world, and I am sure her most feverish hope right now is for the health of her unborn child. Indeed, I saw on Facebook later that her own Tanabata wish was for exactly that.

Japanese guy: Please invite me to hang out again.

Rude Boy: Absolutely, you should find me on Facebook.

Japanese: Yeah, I just added your wife, so we can find each other.

Rude Boy: Oh, great.

Then he walked off somewhere before I realised what he'd said.

In hindsight I can sort of understand why they might have some confusion. President rooms in a full-on house, and if they thought it was ours, we probably seem pretty domestic. Plus, I'm 24 this year. I certainly remember how distant and established 24 seemed back when I was 19. Shit, back when I was 17 and my sister was 22, I was in awe of her. She seemed so mature and put-together. It was only when I turned 22 myself that I actually realised, Christ no, she didn't know what the fuck she was doing, nobody does. When you're a little kid, your parents present themselves as omniscient and practised, and it's usually a couple of decades before you figure out that they were making it up as they went along too. I got off-topic there, but I'm going to assume you all understood my point.

It was a fun, chill kind of a night (President's roommate: “This is a drinking party? You can have Asians over for drinks anytime.”) Mostly, I was just glad to be hanging out with Japanese people again – it's been faaaaaar too long since I've done that. I miss it. And it was good, too, to be back in the thick of things. I've always been more comfortable leading than following, and I'm certainly more comfortable on the field than in the sidelines or, fuck's sake, the audience. For at least that night, I felt like President and I really were President and Vice President again; all thoughts of guiding Club rather than commanding it, and being careful not to change the system through observing it, all that shit had fled my mind. Ah, I don't know – maybe this summer will be our victory lap?

Introduction to Japanese Philosophy, Part 2: People and Concepts

In the last post, I outlined the historical and cultural/religious factors that influence the Japanese understanding of Philosophy. And it took way longer than I thought it would, so I ended up having to break it up into another post. Which is fine. Thinking up stuff to write about is hard sometimes. Messes up my posting schedule.

As I noted before, most of the big names in Japanese philosophy are Buddhist thinkers. Here's a few of them and a couple of abiding concepts.

The 17-Article Constitution

Shoutoku Daishi

Way, way back in the day, Japan was ruled by the young 聖徳大師 Shoutoku Daishi or, as he is called in English, Prince Shotoku. He was responsible for the drafting and promulgation of Japan's first constitution, except the thing is, it is entirely unlike what you or I would envision. Rather than a system of rights and regulations, Shoutoku Daishi's constitution had more to do with what was considered acceptable and virtuous behaviour. To some extent it was a little biased towards court officials, who were expected to lead by example; this kind of follows the ancient Chinese thinking that if the Emperor is good, his underlings will emulate him and be good, and so on, so that ultimately all of society is good. Trickle-down morality, basically.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Harmony is to be valued
• Sincerely revere the Buddha, his teaching, and the ordained community
• Turn away from that which is private, and turn toward that which is public
• Important decisions should not be made by one person alone.

So there's Buddhism, right there, written into the ancient Japanese constitution. You are literally required by law to be a good Buddhist. The first and third, meanwhile, would not seem out of place in modern Japan! Let's not exaggerate, but it's not unfair to say that Japanese people strive for harmony and facilitation in their everyday lives. And finally, that last one – one person should not have absolute power? That's an interesting thing for an autocratic dictator to write into official policy.

Interestingly, since it was never actually struck down by any act of parliament, some Japanese legal scholars theorize that the 17-Article Constitution is technically still part of Japanese law.

Kuukai

Kuukai

Also known posthumously as 弘法大師 Koubou-daishi, 空海 Kuukai was an explorer of tantric Buddhism and of the most prominent religious figures in Japan. A poet of some note, he is credited, perhaps apocryphally, with writing the いろは歌 Irohauta, which uses every character of the ancient Japanese syllabary exactly once. It's one of the most famous works in all of Japanese literature and is sometimes thought to embody the very spirit of Japan itself (that's “spirit” as in a shared sense of values, purpose, and culture, not like a religious spirit). Also, if I recall correctly (and I may not), Kuukai was the first Buddhist of influence to assert that women could reach Heaven without needing to first be reborn as men and then taking another crack at it. Also, his name is a combination of the character for “air” and the one for “sea,” so that's pretty cool.

Nenbutsu

Yoshimitsu from Soul Calibre

In brief, 念仏 nenbutsu is the Japanese word for invoking the name of Buddha. If you have a passing familiarity with Japanese popular culture, you'll have heard the most basic version before – namu amida butsu. For example, Yoshimitsu from Soul Calibre sometimes recites it after battle. The idea is that invoking Buddha himself brings you closer to the enlightenment he was able to achieve. The nenbutsu is often done in repetitions of 108, which is the number of worldly temptations that humans must attempt to avoid (or seek out, depending on your point of view). To help with counting, Buddhists will sometimes use a string of prayer beads, which, again, you've no doubt seen people holding – hell, some of the pictures on this very page have them plainly visible. But while the basics of nenbutsu are more or less agreed upon, there is still some contention, such as that between...

Hounen and Shinran

Hounen

放念 Hounen and 親鸞 Shinrann are kind of the Obi-Wan and Anakin of Japanese philosophy. The latter studied dutifully under the tutelage of the former, soaked up every bit of knowledge he could, and then said “thanks for that, Imma go do the exact opposite nao,” and then founded an evil empire. Or in the case of Shinran, a competing sect of Buddhism, which I guess isn't quite as bad.

The two had many minor points of contention, but one of the most important was their differing beliefs regarding salvation. Hounen thought that through dutiful nenbutsu recitation, you could effectively reach out to Buddha and rise up to Heaven of your own accord when you died. Shinran was a little less optimistic. He thought that since humans are so utterly mired in sin and confusion, there was no way they were getting anywhere without Buddha's direct intervention. Concordantly, where Hounen advocated busting out the nenbutsu at the slightest provocation, the better to achieve a more thorough enlightenment, Shinran held that it was more for giving thanks to Buddha rather than asking him for more stuff, sort of like saying grace in Christianity, I suppose.

On the whole, I've always felt that Hounen doesn't get nearly the respect he deserves. Shinran is by far the more famous, but Hounen is pretty interesting too, and his temple is pretty rad. Plus, compared to his pupil, he was a rugged individualist who believed in relying on your own power, so where are your stereotypes now, hypothetical Japan-hater who I invented just now?

Dougen

Dougen

I haven't studied 道元 Dougen as much, so I'm less familiar with him (because that's how studying works). Mainly I'm aware that he was pretty up on 座禅 zazen, which is – know what, just go ahead and imagine a Buddhist deep in prayer. There, you almost certainly envisioned him doing zazen, the sitting meditation with legs crossed. For extra potency, you can have his thumbs and forefingers around his abdominal chakra. My History of Japanese Thought teacher demonstrated on himself. “I know it feels stupid,” he said, “but don't be embarrassed, and give it a try.” No one did.

Kyouto School

Full disclosure: I did not talk about the Kyouto School in my original presentation and took most of the information in this next section from Wikipedia, although I had heard of it before, it just completely slipped my mind until I rediscovered it recently while researching something unrelated to this project.

I thought it was interesting for a couple of reasons, one of which is that it originated in the 20^th Century, balancing out the ancient slant present in the rest of the post. I'm not a huge fan of 20^th Century philosophy – it has, what? John Rawls? Ayn Rand? Vandanna Shiva, if you can call that philosophy? A couple of French guys, Camus I guess, and (that guy Bruce translated). And a handful of Germans, of course, but Germans are just extremely dominant in philosophy in general, owing, perhaps, to their having the best educational system in the world in the 19^th Century.

Fittingly, the Kyouto School is heavily influenced by the German tradition, particularly their own German contemporaries. This is pretty natural, though – once you hit the 19^th Century or so, the Germans become pretty heavy hitters in philosophy. In fact, my teacher actually went to Germany to study philosophy – in German. (And some of my friends told me not to worry because I could speak German if I wanted to, even though I don't speak German, but do speak Japanese, and they all should have known that, particularly as they were explaining all of this in Japanese and we'd never spoken anything else to each other before then either, but that's another story.)

The other reason I thought them particularly relevant is that the Wikipedia article contained a couple of quotations specifically on the relationship between Japanese philosophy and religion, which, as I've intimated elsewhere, is something I've grappled with myself in trying to understand the topic. I'd feel a little chintzy directly quoting something I'd heard about before but never properly researched, so I'll just recommend you follow the link if you're interested, which, if you've read this far, you probably are. Pay special attention to Nishida, who founded the tradition, and explored the concepts of 無 mu, “nothingness,” and 場所論 bashoronn, “the logic of place.”

The Ten Bulls

Finally, we've come to the main thing I wanted to talk about, and the focus of my presentation at the conference: The Ten Bulls! I'm actually not sure I like the translation, because there's ten images, but only one bull, and he doesn't even appear in all ten panels. The Japanese is 十牛図 juugyuuzu, more like “ten bull pictures,” but anyway, it's an allegory of the search for knowledge, the truth, inner peace and understanding, something along those lines. It actually originates from the Chinese equivalent of Zen Buddhism, but is studied enough in Japan that I'm willing to consider it Japanese philosophy as well. So we're going to go through, step by step, and see what we can figure out.

#1, the boy – or man or whatever he is – is alone in the forest, searching. But he has no idea where to go, or what to do, so he wanders aimlessly, lost.

#2, he comes upon some footprints – a path to follow. He hasn't found what he's looking for just yet, but now he's moving in the right direction. This could be in the influence of Buddha, or a Bodhisattva, trying to help us out. It actually reminds me of that little place near the front of Kiyomizudera, where you descend into a pitch-black basement, and have to follow a railing so you don't crash into anything, and the railing is supposed to represent Buddha's guidance.

#3, he spies the bull's back legs and hindquarters. The bull seems to represent “wisdom,” or whatever you want to call it. But he hasn't caught sight of the important part of it yet – just the tip of it, the ancillary, irrelevant parts.

#4, he manages to actually catch the bull. But it doesn't immediately relax under his grip, it struggles for control. This is significant – at times, the things we most want seem to actively reject us.

#5, the boy has gotten to a point where he can take the bull around on a lead. He no longer needs to exert quite so much discipline to get it to do what he wants.

#6, now he's attained REAL mastery! He's riding on the bull's back, he's playing the flute while he does it, he barely even needs to pay attention to what he's doing. He rides it all the way home.

#7, sitting at home now, alone. The boy seems to have aged, matured. More importantly, the bull is gone – the target was an illusion. He doesn't need it anymore.

#8, this one sometimes moves around, but I'm going by the most common order. My philosophy teacher, in Kyouto, said that this was the most most important image of all. When he explained it to the class he said, “As you can see, this one is blank. Why do you suppose that is? There must be some meaning hidden in that. …Think about it, it's going to be on the final exam,” and then he moved on, without any further explanation whatsoever.

As far as I can tell – through reading various secondary sources – this panel is meant to imply a sort of transcendence. The boy has moved beyond the trivialities with which he was so concerned until now. Another interpretation is peace and tranquility, as the mind has been allowed to fade to white. Personally, I am reminded of Wittgenstein (fucking Wittgenstein), who believed that words, by themselves, were insufficient for understanding ideas. They could cajole you into understanding, drive you down the right avenues of thought, but they could not, by themselves, transmit knowledge. So you could use them as a sort of crutch, a ladder, but one which, as he said, you would then have to “throw away after you have climbed up,” because they're just tools, not the object of the exercise themselves.

#9, both boy and bull are still gone, nothing but the sound of cicadas chirping. Again, tranquility perhaps? Or signaling that he is now attending to more important matters?

#10, the boy has become a sage or Bodhisattva, and is now using what he has learned in his experiences to educate others.

Obviously, the intent behind this series is very Buddhist. That would make it of very limited interest, but it doesn't have to be that way – actually, you can take this and apply it to almost anything you want to learn! Hell, I could use my own experience learning Japanese as an example.

1. I knew that I wanted to “learn Japanese,” but I certainly had no idea where to start, or how to go about it.
2. Fortunately, I had many excellent teachers to show me the way. They provided learning outcomes as well as relevant materials, helped me with difficult concepts, etc.
3. Naturally, I started simple. Everything written out in roumaji and exceedingly simple. I was not, at this point, actually communicating in Japanese in any meaningful way, but it was a start.
4. Try as I might, I couldn't actually get to a point where I could use Japanese fluidly or for any length of time. Frustrated, I actually considered giving up a couple of times.
5. Once I'd mastered the basics, I started to show measurable improvement. Further progress became a little easier. Eventually, I even started having bursts where I could use Japanese without first translating in my head (without even noticing when it happened until later).
6. Finally I actually came to be able to use it with some degree of fluency, to make it do the tricks I demanded of it. (In the analogy I would now be “done learning,” though in reality of course you are never done learning a language.)
7. The goal was never to make it all the way through the textbook, or to get a certain score on a test; the goal was to learn Japanese. I don't need those things so much anymore, so I abandon them. (Though if I ever find another textbook that works for my current level, I'm obviously not going to pass it up.)
8. While I still actively strive to improve my Japanese, I've gotten to the point now where I can just use it.
9. Cicadas. I admit I don't really get how this one works.
10. Nowadays, I am capable not only of teaching Japanese to others if I wanted to, but of helping them through the same steps and struggles that I have already overcome.

See that? Ok, it's certainly not perfect, but for the most part it works. Philosophy isn't just this academic, impractical discipline; if it were I'd never have become wrapped up in it. It honestly doesn't provide any answers, either, because for every assertion there's a million objections, and nine different philosophers will give you nine contradictory proposals. But the fun parts of philosophy are finding applications for it in your everyday life. Apply the categorical imperative to your coworker's bad behaviour. Do a Marxist analysis of the other tabs you have open right now. See if you can prove your own existence. That sort of stuff.

As long as Japanese philosophy gives me things to think about, I'll keep it in my mental notebook.

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.

This weird old guy I met

I don't blog every single story, obviously. Some just aren't that interesting, like the farewell party with my Doushisha friends, which, while fun and maybe suitable for a Tumblr mention, was too uneventful to lend itself well to a spirited Blogspot retelling. Others I feel it would be too crass to post publicly, so I excise details or hold my tongue entirely. In this case, I felt like it was kind of ongoing, and I didn't want to psych myself out about it too much, so I let it sit. Obviously it's now progressed as far as it's gonna go for the time being, so let's have at it: my last big story from last year.

It starts, in a way, the night I first met Udon. You'll recall that she was there with three other people – I didn't explain this part? I'm telling you now. One was a guy in his early 50's, with a short grey mohawk and what I remember as a Hawaiian shirt, although it probably was not, but it fits his character so let's go with that. He got my LINE and the promise to hang out again. At first I thought he was kind of a pest, as he repeatedly asked me to introduce him to some other ryuugakusei so he could expand his social network, though at least he was transparent.

But I quite quickly grew to like him, as, I believe, do most of the people who meet him. Udon says he's “like her father” and sends her LINEPOP hearts every day. And every morning, he sends the message 「今日もいい一日を」 to every single person he knows. Sometimes pictures of things he finds interesting, too, usually bridges or potted plants. He's a weird one. Anyway, within a few days he'd invited me to a party at his house. I envisioned uncomfortably sitting on a couch in a smoky, poorly lit living room, drinking tea and politely refusing endless slimy delicacies while making awkward conversation with various quintogenarians. I hummed and hawed for a few days, trying to find an elegant way to beg off, but in the end I decided to give it a chance. Maybe it would be fun. Besides, I could cite my busy schedule and duck out halfway if it sucked.

It did not suck. In the car ride over (he picked me up from downtown), Jin-san, as he liked to be called, explained that in all the world he wanted nothing more than to bring people together, and so from time to time he held parties like this one as a low-stress meeting place. This is why he wanted me to introduce him to ryuugakusei, as, unsurprisingly, those in his regular circle were all Japanese and almost exclusively shakaijin. He lived in a fairly big mansion near Karasuma Oike. The first thing I saw when I walked in was two women working in the kitchen, one of whom, I knew, would be Jin-san's fiancee/wife/girlfriend-type-deal; he had referred to her as all three on various occasions. And I really hoped she was the one stirring soup, because although both were extremely attractive, the one making salad was downright smokin'.

I was led into the attached dining room and was relieved to find that, although I was indeed the youngest there, there were two other young guys as well, one my same age and one a year our senior. Also in attendance was one of the other old guys from the night I met Udon, as well as a stranger, and, arriving later, a couple in their thirties. It turned out that, with a handful of exceptions, everyone there was only just meeting each other for the first time – Jin-san was for many the only common connection. Meanwhile, the entire apartment was sleek, professional, and clean. It was an unusual situation, but there wasn't a thing suspicious about it. Jin-san mainly sat back and let friendship happen, gently guiding conversations and providing details where need-be, and what started as hesitant, very formal discussions gradually evolved into a lively, boisterous party over the course of the night.

Of the couple, it had been organized partly in the guy's honour, as he was leaving for Australia the following week – to walk across it. For fun. He'd already done the Philippines, and he told me that he was planning to do Canada next. Which suggested to me that he might not realise how big Canada actually was, but I casually suggested that if he came near me, I could probably get him into the newspaper and if was interested maybe meet my university's Japanese Club, of which I was formerly Vice President. He frowned with gratitude.

“Ah, that would really save me!” he exclaimed. “I can collect donations for my trip!”

Um...no. Ask university students for donations for your world travels? Yeah no, that's not going to be a thing. Especially after we've graciously invited you onto our campus. Some people, I swear.

There emerged comparisons between me and the same-age guy. He was loud and spoke without thinking; I was thoughtful and chose my words carefully. He, they said, was immature; I was sophisticated. In truth, I was on my best behaviour. Surrounded by a bunch of elders, none of whom I had ever met before, and also definitely wanting to be invited back at some point, I was listening carefully, nodding along deferentially, and bringing out my very shiniest of keigo. Which is, all things considered, not especially shiny, but although I'm much more comfortable banging on like an Oosaka gutter rat, speaking politely in Japanese, as in English, has the effect of making me seem more intelligent, even when the ideas expressed are exactly the same. Certain people like me a bit better when I try to speak keigo, is what I'm trying to say. And tonight I was really turning on the charm.

The smokin' girl turned out to be Not Jin-san's Wife, as I had hoped, and, I'm not exactly sure how this happened, but somehow me and the older young guy got moved to the seats beside her, competing for her affections. And...well, what can I say? It was a blowout.

For me, I mean.

I sort of wish I knew what I said, but I at least remember that I was complimentary, politely confident, and genuine, which sounds like an obvious strategy but I guess I was doing it in a particular way that I can't often pull off. She asked for my LINE and everyone cheered, because somehow this had become the main event of the night and the entire rest of the table was spectating. “Appeal Time” was over; the other guy hadn't even gotten to try. Ha!

It wasn't long before I was asked to guess her age, and I thought, well, isn't that always a fun question. She looked about 25, but what if she turned out to be younger? That would certainly be points against me. So, thinking quickly, I said that she had the cuteness of a 20-year-old, but the prettiness of a 25-year-old. Nice one, Rude Boy!

Her actual age? 31.

Holy...wut.

To be completely honest, for about five seconds, this really threw me, and everyone saw it. I mean, I can go a few years older, but I don't know if I can surmount a gap that wide! But then I recovered and just kept laying it on. 31? Sure! With everyone around us prodding, we jokingly declared that we were now dating.

Rude Boy: You know, the sooner we get married, the sooner I can get my citizenship.

Nuna: Oh, great, I can have mixed kids!

Oh, I named her Nuna because we were discussing the Korean language and I taught her a couple of words. You tired of nicknames yet? I'm not.

By the time I left, it was four in the morning and I'd been there for over eight hours, just chatting with Other Old Guy, Jin-san, and his shy, beautiful, feminine woman. As for Nuna, joking aside, I'm pretty sure there was some mutual attraction in there, but I didn't actually expect to ever see her again. I was therefore quite surprised and rather pleased to hear from Jin-san that she would, in fact, very much like to see me again. Unfortunately, her work schedule transpired to be quite rigorous, but she did offer that although she would not be attending the bowling tournament the following week, she could at least drop by the nijikai. Well, ok then! I'll take it!

The bowling “tournament,” such as it was, was pretty fun, except for the huge delay at the end. I'm not comfortable saying this is an entirely Japanese thing, but, well, every big bowling event I've ever been to in Japan has had this problem. There seems to be this inexplicable belief that there must be prizes, and that the doling out of them must be undertaken with great solemnity and thorough scrutineering. When this collides with poor organization, you get excruciating results. I know some people don't have a lot of experience in event planning, but come on.

First the scores of over a hundred people were tallied by a team of only three, while the organizers desperately attempted to keep us entertained with increasingly boring and nonsensical monologues about not really anything. Then they finally announced the results – of every single team. All of them. One by one. The number of the team, their members, the scores they got in each game, their total score for all three games, and finally, where they placed. And then all members had to come up, take a commemorative photograph, and then individually high-five the captains of all other teams. My fingers brushed my chin and I realised I'd grown a beard – and it was white! Then a Morlok wandered in and a man flew by on a jetpack and killed it with a laser gun.

Luckily we were off to eat, drink and be merry, and, in my case, hopefully meet Nuna again. The restaurant was Vox, which I'd always assumed was a girls' bar or maybe a skeezy but legitimate club, but which turned out to actually be a fairly nice spot to sit down and dine. I was a little distracted, of course, and couldn't keep myself from constantly looking at the door, as if she might walk in just as I craned my head around, or that my staring might somehow hasten her arrival. No dice; she couldn't get away from work, and I never saw her before leaving Japan.

In a way, this did at least simplify things for me somewhat. See, this is right where I was really starting to talk with Udon, and to be perfectly honest with you I had (and still kind of have) every intention of pursuing them both, since both seemed open to persuasion. Which is an excellent problem, but at the time it was a source of great distress for me, like, really? Why NOW, right as I was set to leave, and not in, say, November? I seriously felt like I was being trolled by life. So once I knew that Nuna was at least temporarily out of the equation, I was able to focus on Udon, whom I still message from time to time, trying to keep the oven warm in the hopes that I'll be able to make it home relatively quickly. Though, assuming she even remembers me, I won't entirely discount Nuna just yet...is that lame? Oh, let me have my fun.

I guess the takeaway here is, the next time you meet some weird old guy in a shady dive bar at 3 am and he invites you back to his place, you should totally go.

Showbiz!

Stay in Japan long enough, and eventually you will be asked to appear on TV. It's practically a given. You might be approached at a festival, to be seen basking in the local culture, or perhaps cornered in the street and solicited for a reaction on some current event of which you have no knowledge; there are many paths to glory. There's just something newsworthy about a foreign face, regardless of how irrelevant the person may be to the actual topic at hand. Some have even managed to parley a handful of bit parts into moderately successful careers. I, unfortunately, did not.

(So far!)

But I did get the opportunity to dance like a twat. The director of the International Office sent out a mass e-mail letting us know that they'd been contacted by a television company in Oosaka, and did anybody want to appear on TV? An initial meeting was set for whoever wanted to go, and a couple of weeks later we met with two AD's in the dormitory lobby. Each was in his mid-20's, but were otherwise polar opposites; one was well-dressed, straight-laced, and clean-cut, while his partner, who seemed to be the more dominant of the two, arrived wearing a leather jacket, with several days' growth on his face, and spoke in a nonstop stream of inappropriate comments. They could have been in a buddy comedy. You could make a TV show about these guys making TV shows.

They each sat down in the tatami room and we went in for pre-interviews one-on-one, except for Anarchy in the UK and his little gang, who went in together. They refused my offer to interpret with an air of deep indignation, perhaps momentarily forgetting that none of them spoke Japanese. Whatever. Do whatever you want. 

As my own interview progressed, a theme quickly became apparent. These guys were clearly not looking for swooning and adulation. They didn't want to hear about what a wonderful country we'd stumbled upon and how orgasmic our everyday lives were. They asked questions like: What problems have you faced here? What negative stereotypes have you faced from Japanese people? What do you find the weirdest or most troubling about Japan? That, and a disturbing number of uncomfortably detailed questions about my previous relationships with Japanese girls. When I translated for a grateful Australzealand (who actually does speak Japanese somewhat passably), as soon as the guy found out she has a Japanese fiancee, he took that ball and raaaaan with it. All in all, I wasn't surprised.

If you are unfamiliar with the country, you might reasonably assume that we as foreigners were consulted in order to purvey a unique viewpoint, to share an outside perspective and thus cast our surroundings in a new light for those who had grown up with them. In this case you would be mistaken. If you're from Hate Japan, you will no doubt contend that its inhabitants have long since secretly acknowledged its backwardness and inferiority, and are desperately hoping to have their shortcomings revealed by a knowledgeable and benevolently dictatorial Westerner. In this case you need to open your eyes, and perhaps also never speak ever again. On the other hand, if you imagine that foreigners in the media are used primarily for comedy purposes and absurdity value, you are hitting a little closer to the truth.

With all this in mind, let us add one more wrinkle: They were trying to make a show. Smiles and happy days are all well and good but they don't make for good TV. They needed a little tension. Something to resolve, or at least reflect on. I didn't like it, but I understood, so I gave them some of my misgivings – I think most of it hinged on my being constantly “othered” by the Japanese, even those who know me. One quote that the inappropriate guy quite liked, and asked me to use for the recording, was a very energetic, wild-eyed, “I'm not weird because I'm foreign, I'm weird because I'm me!” (「変なのは外人じゃなくて俺や！」).  We got word soon after that we had been selected as one of four participating schools. Another couple of weeks later, the segments were decided upon.

*Australzealand would visit her fiancee's parents up in Aomori or wherever the hell it was, somewhere up north anyway.

*Anarchy in the UK had confessed he couldn't slurp noodles, so the Korean guy and the Spanish guy would teach him.

*Taiwan and the French girl would cosplay.

*Everyone would also do a talking segment.

Take a hard look at this list and tell me you can't figure out what's going on here. In one, we've got a Japanese guy marrying an older foreign woman. In another, we've got silly foreigners who can't comprehend our Japanese ways. And in the other, we've got hot young foreign girls dressing up. Good TV? You bet!

I was among those who made the final cut and would do the talking segment, at least, and on the day of shooting I came home after school to find the lobby now ensconced by solid temporary barriers, presumably for acoustic and lighting reasons. A crew of at least thirty PD's, AD's, set directors, costume designers, those people who stand around with clipboards looking busy while not appearing to do any actual work, and sound technicians buzzed around making final preparations. The rough AD from before caught sight of me and sent me to wait upstairs, where the Korean guy was already hanging out.

Correctly predicting that we would probably not start until at least ten or fifteen minutes after we were scheduled to, I suggested that we talk about something, anything, to warm up. He was remarkably indifferent to the whole process, but I wanted to make sure I got my Japanese up to speed, so that if I couldn't be eloquent I at least wouldn't go on television sounding shittier than I actually was. Eventually more of us floated in, and finally, they started calling us downstairs to have at it. I was first up.

AD: Ok, when I give you this signal, I want you to walk down the hallway, go in from the side, and you'll see...something there. So go up and you can start. Just answer the questions, and try to talk about the stuff we went over before. Wanting to be accepted by the Japanese, those things.

Rude Boy: I'm guessing the interviewer is going to lead me through it pretty well, anyway.

AD: That's right.

Rude Boy: Sounds good.

AD: You don't seem nervous.

Rude Boy: I've been on TV before in Canada.

After another five minutes or so, everything went deathly quiet. The AD gave me the signal, and, trying to pretend I was not surrounded by a massive crowd, I walked into the lobby, expecting to find somebody seated at one of the tables, and...was disappointed, as I seemed to have walked into an empty room. Then I noticed a big rokujizou set up against the far wall, so, trying not to appear overly confused, started to approagahhh there's a guy in there.

Oh geez, now he's talking to me.

He's awfully loud.

As I later learned, this old man was a fairly famous comedian from Oosaka, but as that's not a scene I am particularly given to follow I was not familiar with him. My friends oohed at his name, though. Anyway, harshly aware of the fact that I was holding on a conversation with an anthropomorphic rock, I gave one of the more embarrassing performances of my life, which is to say, I danced to AKB. While singing. Well, what could I do? We were discussing karaoke as a good way to break cultural barriers, he asked what I could sing, and I happened to know the dance. And I did it for a broadcast audience of 23 million.

I was also in my socks, and so slipped and fell after like five seconds. The clean-cut AD laughed audibly.

In actual fact, this entire venture was scripted, a result of me and the AD discussing different gimmicks I could bust out. The conversation didn't go exactly as planned, but I tried to weave my most important talking points in. There was a slight problem in that he used the funny voice popular with that brand of Oosaka comics, making it hard for me to understand him, and his ears were covered by his helmet, making it hard for him to understand me. We managed to work all my major points in, though. Of course there was no way to know, in the moment, whether it was going to be funny or not. There is the problem of not being able to see how it will look once edited, but there was also the fact that everybody else in the room was doing their best to remain absolutely silent, so I had no feedback. The rough AD assured with me a laugh that it had been funny, though. I certainly hoped so. I do have my pride and dignity but I'd far, far rather be ridiculous than boring.

Everybody gathered in that same lobby when the time came to watch the broadcast, but I was a little too embarrassed, so I did something else. Which turned out to be just as well, because the planned forty-minute full episode had been cannibalized into a series of ten-minute segments. The first was the main one, however. And yet nearly all of it had been cut. “But I got on,” Anarchy in the UK assured us without irony, as though we would be genuinely relieved by this news, “so that's the important part.”

So can you guess which part ended up being the focus of the programme? Come on, guess.

It was Taiwan and the French girl's cosplay thing. Of course it was. They dressed them in junior high school uniforms. You can't not use that. Over the course of the next few weeks they re-aired those parts along with chopped-up versions of the others.

Did I ever appear? I have no idea. But none of my friends mentioned seeing me, so perhaps not.

Things I missed

I imagine I've made it pretty clear that not only would I rather be in Japan right now, I'd rather have never left. In fact I hardly ever shut up about it, on this blog or anywhere else. But there's nothing to be gained from idle negativity, so as long as I'm here, I might as well avail myself of the Canadian experience. Here are a few things I missed while I was in Japan and am now enjoying again, in no particular order. Well, they are in a particular order. They're in the order I thought of them. It's just that the order is meaningless.

Jugs

Living abroad ain't what it used to be. Nowadays Facebook and Skype effortlessly keep us connected with the people we love. Before my time, it was a more trying affair. Ten years ago, there was the less dynamic but still reliable method of e-mail, although you had to be sitting at an actual computer in order to use it. Prior to that it was all expensive long-distance phone calls, snail mail, and desperate hopes. Go back far enough and moving to another country was a months-long journey that you might not even survive, and undertaking it meant you'd never see your friends and family ever again.

Really, I'm grateful that I was able to chat with Jugs on an almost daily basis through the Miracle of the Internet, but now I get to see her face-to-face at least weekly. I've met great people in Japan, both Japanese and non-Japanese, and I hope that never ends, but Jugs and I, and my other Canadian friends, have a long history, and we know each other back to front, and that's hard to beat. She's interested in Japan, too, so I hope to one day show her a bit of it.

Tim Horton's

Have you ever tried Tim Horton's hot chocolate? According to my page statistics, if you're reading this blog you're most likely American, so probably not, in which case you're missing out. Actually I hear there's Tim Horton'ses in like Vermont now or something, so maybe some enterprising businessperson will open a franchise in Oosaka. They also make good sandwiches. Speaking of which...

Subway

Japanese Subway is good, but it just doesn't measure up to what they've got over here, where the bread is softer and has more options, the pricing model isn't idiotic, and they have bottomless fountain drinks. And the subs are just tastier.

Real cheese

Oh my God, have you tried to buy cheese in Japan? Again, statistically, you haven't. Well it's not fun. Because there isn't any. At least none that's good. You might be able to find something at an organic grocer or a co-op but that's always a pain and what you can find still isn't that great. I guess I shouldn't be surprised though, cheese doesn't exactly figure heavily into Japanese cuisine, and me complaining about it is like a Japanese person complaining about the difficulty of finding decent seaweed in Canada. Though come to think of it, that is a very legitimate complaint. Ah, but now we're getting into a totally different post.

Christmas

This one startled me. I mean there were things I anticipated missing (Jugs), and things I didn't (cheese), but I outright hate the Christmas season and the way it's shoved down our throats for two months straight. I'm just grateful that Halloween is a thing because it forms a hard barrier against the increasingly early starting gun, but even that is starting to crumble. In the future, the entire year will be Christmas season, and that will be a glorious time because it will have finally lost all meaning and we can all stop caring about it. It's such a saccharine, stupid holiday anyway. Not the birth of Christ, that part's cool and all. But all this stupidity about “the true meaning of Christmas” and “come on, it's Christmas” and all of that can go straight to hell. Guh.

As I mentioned around this time last year, though, I kind of ended up forlorn at the complete lack of Christmas cheer in Kyouto. Setting aside that it's a completely different holiday in Japan (couples rather than families), there was just nothing. A few lights and stuff, yeah, but no music, no real sense of anticipation, no atmosphere whatsoever. Yet oddly, though I was happy to be free of it, I was sad for its absence. That whole block ended up feeling so empty, even though it was quite as exciting as any other month in Japan, just because I was used to expecting something extra. Also, for some weird reason I have a strange fondness for bad Christmas movies, so lately I've been getting my fill of those on TV.

All of that said, with December now underway I have little doubt that my seething rage will soon reassert itself.

Snow

Of course this is integral for a good Christmas atmosphere, but snow is also great just on its own terms. You can roll around in the snow and make snow angels, or roll snow around in other snow and make snowmen, or go around smashing other people's snowmen, or construct complex snow forts from which to wage snowball fights and then get pissed off when you start losing and start facewashing everybody and dumping snow down their backs and so on. Those are rites of passage for every young Canadian. Good luck doing any of that south of Hokkaidou, though. A couple centimetres may accumulate overnight, but the ensuing sun will melt it all within hours.

News

Sure, you can seek stuff out on the Internet and stay informed about what's going on wherever you came from. Thing is, I get all my news passively, by listening to the people around me. This is also generally how I find out about assignment due dates and impending exams so it is quite a useful skill. Still, having little to no idea what was going on over in Canada made me feel disconcertingly disconnected, despite the fact that I had no desire to even be connected.

Paper towels

Japanese public bathrooms often don't have anything to dry your hands with. Weird, eh?

Skateboarders

Ok, this is actually just one I remembered from my high school days, which of course is when skateboarders were an everyday sight because the hardcore kids skateboarded around during every moment, and then years later the best of them all got sponsorships and appeared in movies and made all their parents and teachers feel awfully stupid. Skate culture is very different in Japan; although you have a few who might try to emulate the Western style, those are mainly the people who are already on the fringes of polite society anyway. Instead it's a more “legitimate” kind of thing, with most of the action occurring in large indoor skate parks rather than the streets. This affects the image of skateboarding and skaters themselves, so there's not quite the same view of skaters as rebels. Consequently, there aren't so many rebels who are inspired to take up skateboarding, which then means that skateboarding doesn't take on the same rebellious overtones, and you see how this starts to loop. I don't know if that's a good thing or not (my inner child screams conformity but my inner corporate drone shrugs legitimacy), but it was always nice to just be walking down the sidewalk and spot some kid kickflipping over a cinder block.

Poutine

For the Canadian impaired, poutine is a Quebecois dish of French fries buried in a mountain of gravy and cheese curds. For some reason, it hasn't caught on in Japan yet.

Peanut butter cups

You can find almost any American candy bar in Japan, but not Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, my favourite. Why that should be, I have no idea. Maybe peanut butter is still a bit of a foreign concept to the Japanese? That wouldn't surprise me. It is a strange idea if you think about it.

Driving

I love driving. Loooooove driving. Top five favourite things to do, easy. I read about driving. I daydream in class about driving. I play video games that involve driving. I research techniques for driving. First time I got behind the wheel of a car I was like aw yeah this feels so riiiiight. I really don't know how I went without for a year. Fortunately next time I should not be under any constraints as to operating motor vehicles – which the university condescendingly claimed was for “safety” but which was obviously actually about their insurance – so I should be good to go as long as I pass the road test. Oh, I'll blog about it. Never fear.

Things being easy

This, then, is the one that ties everything else together. To be honest, I didn't even notice that this was something I missed until I was back in Canada, because everything I did having some extra layer of complication had just become my normal. Ordering at a restaurant? Better get a headstart on perusing the menu, and possibly ask what some stuff is. Filling out a simple document? We're gonna need somebody to look it over for mistakes and also maybe read it to us. Need to ask directions because we're lost? Well, are we sure we're lost? If we keep going this way just a couple more blocks do you think we might figure it out? Ok, well should we ask that guy over there? Let's ask that—ok, well, he obviously was in a rush, what about this grandmother? Oh God, what dialect is that? But it is Japanese, right? How can we end this conversation as quickly as possible? If we just thank her and walk away will she stop? How far do we have to go to keep her from realising we don't know what she said?

In Canada, everything is so damn simple. I can skim whole pages at a glance, out of the corner of my eye, from across the room. I already have a mental map detailing the location of every shop, landmark and shortcut I could ever need. In any given group I'm usually the strongest speaker of the lingua franca, not the weakest – unless, that is, I'm with my Japanese friends, in which case I'm still the most knowledgeable and am to be relied on for interpretation. But most significantly, things just make sense in a way that they don't quite do in Japan. They're set up according to a system of heuristics and algorithms I was raised on, to the point that I can navigate my day-to-day affairs mostly on reflex. An easy life isn't necessarily a good life or even a happy one, but for the moment, it's one in which I'm willing to indulge.