Trick or Treat?

So Halloween weekend has passed, celebrated in a country that is only just beginning to accept yet another reason for drunken debauchery and commercial profiteering goodness.

My one regret was not arriving at the AJET party at Desperados in Okayama City earlier than I did so I could spend more time catching up with people. I wore this:I had to remove my costume after maybe an hour because it was steamy hot and I needed to pee, which was physically impossible with a Japanese style squat toilet and baggy cat outfit. The costumes were fantastic! My particular favorites were the Japanese Elvis, the Pink Power Ranger, Rainbow Brite, Trailer Trash with whiskey and cola resting on her perfectly formed baby bump, Daikon, Mr I'm Fine Thanks, Momotaro, and the Black Power Gang (NZ Represents). There was lots of dancing, drinking of shots, and boob grabbing, and the night passed by in a blur. I have a lot of new phone numbers in my phone, and weird abbreviations for them, I have no clue whose these are. Poor Rainbow Brite passed out on the stairs! Once Red Moon shut down around 4 am I got bored listening to a tough guy pimp (he said club owner) with bouffant hair trying to convince some boys to come get some and left. It wasn't until I got out of the cab to go to the convenience store next to the hotel that I realised I had this on my head:
No wonder they were asking me if I was a princess....

O Solo Mio

Today I went to the ongakkai, or music meet, in Shingo. It was really cool. S JHS and Primary School, and N JHS and Primary School packed out the little auditorium, and we watched an educational performance provided by the Okayama Prefecture Symphony Orchestra. It was well presented and entertaining. My favorite bits were kids trying to conduct the musicians, and the Japanese Tenor who everyone thought was Italian. His pants were so tight, I swear I could see a seam line. The crotch on these pants are surpassed only by David Bowies crotch in The Labyrinth. Here is a picture.
Unfortunately, as I was relegated to a seat in the back row with the parents, my zoom didn't reach far enough to catch the details.

I was also pleasantly surprised when I understood a Japanese pun. The MC asked a musician what the strings on her viola were made of. She said "hitsuji no chou" and he repeated "ahh, hitsuji no chou". This means "sheep intestine". He then said "chou bikkuri shita". This means "I'm very surprised". So the Chou means two different things and I was able to have a chuckle along with everyone else.

Also today, this evil creature actually turned it's head to pose for me. *shudder*

Fascist Bully Boys

The 60th kokumintaiikutaikai, or National Athletic Meet has begun, and Okayama Prefecture is hosting the event. Niimi City is hosting the softball event at it's very own Pione Stadium. Not much appears to have changed except for the appearance of the numerous flags hanging around town, the flowers in plastic boxes, and the two extra JR staff at the station.

You can read more about it here: http://www.pref.okayama.jp/cgi-bin/kokutai/top/top.cgi

If you can't read Japanese then just google the address, and click "translate this page". You'll get a similar style of Japlish as that found on fashionable garments here, but you'll get the gist.

I went to Zag Zag to get some cold medication and had to pass by the stadium. I was denied access to the bike park twice and forced to walk a great distance by rent-a-zebra crossing attendants with a thirst for power. Here they are with their spiffy outfits and light sticks.

And here is a picture of the stadium entrance - not very impressive as I didn't get close because I had my bike.

On my way home I stopped in a precarious spot on the 180 highway to take this picture of a little shrine. I didn't know the kamisama, or gods, drank Asahi Beer. Come to think of it, this is possibly a memorial for someone who died along this road.....
Sometime, I will have to tell you about sports day at my three schools. Sports day occurred back in September, not on October 10th, Health and Sports Day, as you'd expect.

FOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/waiwai/face/news/20050720p2g00m0dm024000c.html

For a little Japanese culture, just check out the above link and learn all about Hard Gay, as seen pictured below. Every time I see his face I crack up.


This clown is one of the most popular guys on Japanese TV. He's a comedian, but shows up all the time on variety shows and magazine shows interviewing people for no apparent reason and humping strangers on the street. The boys at school imitate him and his pelvic thrusts. During kyushoku one boy even worked up the guts to ask me what gay meant. I could see the teacher over my sholder trying to keep the laughter in and just as I was about to respond, the girl sitting next to me said in Japanese "otoko to otoko", which means "male and male" or "male with male". Needless to say, I haven't seen any Hard Gay impressions from that class since....

Reggae, Peanuts, Beer, Doobie?

I just got back from a bizarre music festival held at Sami "Beach" - I hesitate to call it a beach because it looked more like sandpit built against a sea wall. The site itself was nowhere near the beach, but on a "marina" - please note the brackets again, the marina was more of a concrete slab outcrop, than anything else. The music was a blaring mix of ska, reggae, rock n roll, jazz......stuff. The vibe was brilliant, everyone was smiling and happy, and there was a great mix of people, young and old, the fashionable, and the not so fashionable, and I had a great time and made some new friends. Willy Wonka was in attendance, as was Orlando Bloom, Junichiro Koizumi, and Shoko Asahara. There was an abundance of gorgeous children roaming about, old hippies, and an extraordinary number of handbag dogs that were being carried around inside jackets and jumpers, danced with, passed around among strangers, and fed beer and sake.
Here's a picture of Willy when he arrived. I'm upset that I cut the bottom of his pants and boots off, they were magnificent. I was trying to take pictures of people in a covert manner. This guy had the dance move stylings of James Brown and Jay Kay all rolled in to one.

Below is a picture of a cool band - don't ask me what they're called as I have absolutely no idea.

Willy came back later in a new suit complete with 70's cut and ruffle front shirt that matched his guitar to play a set with a superb band with it's own brass and woodwind section.
Finally, here are two of the most beautiful looking sax players I've ever seen. The only negative comment I have about the event is that the DJ was a twat, continuously butchering the reggae, trying to get the croud to chant along with him, and as the night wore on, his ultra cool Japlish became more and more slurred till eventually the microphone was taken off him.

Faux Pas and Lolicon

Last night I went out with some teachers - I don't think I will say what school - It started out as a traditional enkai with several courses of Okinawan fare and rounds of drinks. I attempted to play yellow brick road but noone else was game. I had something green, something blue, something purple, something brown (although that's not a colour of the rainbow), something orange......didn't find anything yellow.

By the time the principal had his forehead resting on the table, hand still firmly gripping his shochu, it started to get interesting. The vice principal insisted on pointing out which of the male staff members were single, and which "didn't mind" a kiwi. One of the teachers is quite large and everyone was asking me what I thought about that. I stupidly said "He's like Buddha". Unfortunately, they all thought I said buta, which means pig. I had them literally rolling on the floor with laughter. When I finally figured out the misunderstanding, the damage was done. He had his pot belly rubbed for luck for the rest of the night.....

I made it to "the second stage"! I didn't know there were stages to a night out, but I advanced a level in my social standing. There were bars and karaoke - They were all shocked when I could sing "Linda Linda" in Japanese - it's not hard.

I found out that one of the teachers adores 80's rock and his favorite band is Aerosmith. So we flipped though the karaoke song book pointing out such classics as Whitesnake, Skid Row, Def Leopard - you get the idea. He confided his deepest wish to me - he's looked everywhere for a Warrant CD, but can't find one......haha, Cherry Pie.....

Towards the end of the evening, the same large teacher was being teased for having "lolicon". I stupidly asked what lolicon was. It's short for "Lolita Complex". Everyone said he only dates young girls. I looked at him and he said "only girls 18 to 25". I can't stop thinking that this was added as an afterthought......Nobody knew where the saying came from - try explaining that in Japanese. I looked up the term on the web and found that the age of girls involved in lolicon manga (yes, perfectly legal artwork) are usually between 8 and 13!! Here is the tamest cover of a lolicon manga I could find. It says Hisohiso Asobu, which means "Sneaking Play".

For more information on lolicon, start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolicon
The evening ended for me when I realised I was the only one ordering drinks. Everyone had stopped and were politely waiting for me to empty my glass so they could all take off. I think there was a "third stage" involving pachinko, but I was not invited to this.

I somehow managed to cycle home in one piece and left a trail of belongings from the bicycle park, up the stairs, all the way to my door, which I found neatly stacked on the letter box this morning!

History Repeats Itself

Last night, I witnessed the insanity of a Kenka Danjiri Matsuri or Fighting Float Festival. This one was held nearly an hour away from Niimi by train, in a very picturesque town called Katsuyama. The streets were so pretty and the people so friendly, I was immediately sold on the place and intend to visit again.

I've tried to find out a bit more about the matsuri because it made no sense to me at all while I was watching. The only information I can get relates to similar matsuri's in much larger cities which get a lot more attention than Katsuyama ever would.

It appears that in the 1700's, local lords decided a good way to pray for abundant crops was to open the castle gates, let in the people, and have them parade their floats in teams around the town. Over the years, teams began to race their floats against each other, and occasionally they would crash into each other. This is where the fighting part came in to it.

What I saw was large teams of men, mostly drunk and very boisterous, pushing these dirty great floats intentionally into each other on the narrow lantern lit streets of Katsuyama. The resulting thud was bone jarring. I heard many stories of people who had been injured or even lost limbs getting caught between the two floats. There was even a minor scuffle that broke out between two men on opposing teams.


I tried unsuccessfully to get a decent photo all night but didn't manage it. I did achieve an elbow to the boob when a photo journalist was knocked off his portable ladder in the melee.

There was a festival in Niimi over the weekend too. The procession was cancelled due to rain however. Japanese don't seem to like postponing events... This festival is called goshinko buki gyoretsu matsurii, or "festival of transporting the gods and procession of arms", daimyo gyoretsu matsuri, or "daimyo precession festival", or dogenza matsuri, which means "kneeling festival". To cut a very long story short, the daimyo used to move to and from Edo once a year and as their procession moved through villages, the population had to kneel. I've heard that If you didn't kneel, there was a possibility of losing your head! Around 1697 the festival began to have more to do with the local shrines and with crop harvests.

If you'd like to read a brilliant essay on the topic of daimyo processions, complete with artwork and photos of Niimi, please go here:
http://http://202.231.40.34/jpub/pdf/jr/IJ1701.pdf

There's a festival happening here almost every day. I hope I get to see more of them.

Sincered Love and Respecting Each Other

Today I purchased one of the most horrendous stationery sets I have ever seen, complete with gaudy colours, rainbows, Japlish, and those horrid handbag rat-dogs. Here is my dinnerbat! Witness the splendour.

Who wants a letter?

I also purchased a Pour Lolita Gothic Edition and Punk Edition Hello Kitty writing set, and a Nightmare Before Christmas set. I am a sucker for stationery.

Also today at N JHS, there was a gateball tournament between the students and staff and the local old folk. Gateball is similar to croquet, but at the same time completely different (same same but different, just like everything else in Japan). It's the game that retirees play instead of lawn bowls as we see in the west. I managed to get my ball through the first hoop on my second go, and after that was told off several times by the ref for making illegal moves. The old folk totally owned the tournament. The little bent silver teethed old folk were really serious about their gateball. They all had special shoes, gloves, wrist bands, wrist computers for keeping scores and times, and special titanium alloy sticks (yes, they play this game with sticks and balls - there are no Japanese words used). I especially liked the shiny hot pink stick one obaasan had.

I also need to show you this amazing bee hive I noticed hanging from the eves of a house. I've never seen anything like it before.

Finally, I caught sight of a monkey while traveling home by train today. It made my day! It was huge, with a red face and grey hair, and it was sitting in a veggie patch eating something. It was surprised by the train. I was surprised by how out in the open it was; it was quite far away from the cover of the forest on the mountain side. No LPG surprise for that monkey.

Beware the Sausage!

I had planned a crackers and camembert cheese evening and popped across the road to get some salami or luncheon sausage, and tomatoes to top off the meal. Imagine my disgust and outrage when, once my cracker was already in my mouth, I could not identify the meat used to produce this unassuming sausage.

I've since been told that maguro is tuna. I don't know if I want to find out what kajiki meat is.

The flavour is so revolting that I will recollect it whenever I need to make myself throw up. It's right up there with the idea of a fish milkshake or chicken liver salad.

Japanese Ghost Story

S JHS is haunted. The teachers do not stay later than 6 pm at the school, and some are even scared to go to upstairs alone if no-one else is up there! The history teacher has seen the figure of a very tall old man appear, and my JTE has heard one of the classrooms sliding doors slam shut in a way that is physically impossible for the wind to have done it.

My vice principal drew me some pictures of traditional Japanese ghosts, spirits, and legendary creatures. They look suspiciously like anime to me, but I'm assured they're not.

From my sources (read "the interweb") a nurikabe is a huge invisible wall that blocks travellers on a journey. When you don't reach your destination though you have been walking for a longer time than usual, it can be blamed on a nurikabe. It is said that sometimes nurikabe manifest themselves in a visible form. They look like a huge stone wall with a pair of small arms and legs.

An ittan-momen looks like a long white cloth flying in the air. It frightens people by appearing suddenly in the night, and suffocates its victim by wrapping around their nose and mouth. Ittan is an old Japanese unit for counting cloth length. Momen means "cotton".

A konaki jiji (or zi) is a monster that can manipulate its own weight. It takes the form of a small baby with a face of an ugly old man, and lies by the road to wait for a victim. When the victim picks the baby up, it starts crying. As it cries, its weight increases and finally its enormous weight crushes the victim. The name konaki jiji means "an old man crying like a baby".

As for the rest, I'm not sure about them.

So, I've discovered that Japan has a wealth of mythical creatures and there is a strong tradition of ghost stories that will be spawning anime and Japanese horror for years to come I'm sure.

For more information, you could try looking here http://www2.kanawa.com/Japan/critter.html or http://www.asianart.com/articles/rubin/

Vapid Vernacular

Yesterday at N JHS I suffered two firsts.

Firstly I listened to my first benrontaikai or speech competition. This consisted of each student giving a speech for at least five minutes on a topic of their choosing, while the rest of the school sits attentively and marks the speech. Within ten minutes both the principal and vice principal were nodding off, and the English teacher and science teacher's shoulders were shaking with barely controlled mirth. I couldn't understand most of what was said, but topics ranged from the globally aware "river pollution", to the enthralling "how to play poker", to "school lunches". The most redeeming point of the benrontaikai was that the school only has 25 students!
Japan Self Defence Force Mach II

Secondly, whilst trying to teach the finer points of actually saying goodbye before hanging up the phone by conducting role plays with the students, I got my first "I love you". Stoked!

Last week was a bit more eventful. The students spent two hours outside in the garden harvesting kumara! I've been told that the teachers disapprove of the garden as it takes away from precious study time, but the principal instigated it because he enjoys gardening. The entrance to the school is now carpeted with drying kumara, which I hear will be baked for the school festival in the next few weeks. The vice principal did not believe me when I said these root vegetables also grow in New Zealand.

During the excavation of the garden, one of the students found a frog, which was passed around. Finally a girl had hold of it, and was carrying the poor thing around by one leg. Eventually she hiffed it off the bank where it landed in the grass with a thud. I saw it make a single feeble hop. I was so angry I wanted to yell at her, but nobody batted an eyelid. I sometimes wonder about the way animals are treated here. The ridiculous thing was the whole time she had the frog, right up to the moment she threw it, she was saying "kawaii, kawaiiiiiiiii" or cuuuuuuute!

Holy Cow!!

During class today at S JHS I noticed the students were neglecting their Sunshine English text in favour of talking about cows. I busted in on the conversation with the intention of directing them back to Yuki and her favorite icecream when I found myself being invited to a students house to see her very own cow! What the...? It turns out that this family not only has one cow, but three! Owning a cow in these parts appears to be a very prestigious thing, due to the space and expense required to have a cow....man. (Yeah, I couldn't help it). Unfortunately I was unable to attend the cow viewing, but I must make a point to go at some point; it'd be interesting.

I'm always on the lookout for Japanese wildlife seeing as I have an interest in all creatures great and small. Japan has an over abundance of small....Birds, snakes, frogs, bats, dragonflies, butterflies, moths, beetles and numerous other insects. I encountered a guide map eating deer when I visited Miyajima. What I'd really like to see is a tanuki (raccoon dog), an inoshishi (wild boar) or a monkey.

This snake was basking in the sun on the mountain road leading to my school until I nearly trod on it.

The map eating deer on Miyajima.

I think I saw a dead tanuki on the side of the road today - I'd rather see a live one. I see plenty of evidence of inoshishi at S JHS. The principal shakes his head and tut tuts every morning when he spots the flower beds dug up by dirt bath loving inoshishi. I don't understand why he insists on replanting the sunflowers when he's only going to find them dug up again the next morning. As for monkeys, I wasn't at I JHS the day a baby monkey came to visit. On the odd occasion I can hear a resounding explosion bouncing off the mountains surrounding the school. When I asked what it was I was told it was an LPG surprise. On asking for further clarification, I was told that it was a gas explosion to frighten off "naughty" monkeys and inoshishi. One wonders how big this LPG surprise is, how close the animals actually get to it, and if it hurts....

Off to a Great Start...

On my way to pick up some curtains and toilet paper, I stopped off here to explore in the hopes that I'd run in to a dilapidated insane asylum.

While trying unsuccessfully to look through the broken windows, I found I was surrounded by these.

I've since learned they are called Nephilia clavata, Orb Web Spiders, or in Japanese Joro-gumo or Oni-gumo. They are HUGE, they kill their prey by aiming for the neck, and they did not like the flash on my camera.

I disentangled myself from the ivy and looked up to see there were bigger spiders sitting in webs spun between the power lines. They were three times as big as ones I'd already encountered!

So what started as a Skip to my Loo ended up as a David Attenboroughesque nature walk.

And to top it all off, I was knocked off my mamachari bicycle by a motorist on my way home....