Fulfilling the Promise III

This brings us back to Japan…

I have friends who are Japanophiles.  I was once one, myself.  But there’s nothing like experience to dissolve the fantasy.

When I was a younger fellow, Japan was a distant land full of strange wonders, source of cool gadgets and animation, comics and schoolgirls with sexy skirts, candy boxes with toy robots or Ultraman figures inside.  If the books I read were to be believed, the people were the closest things to aliens living on our planet as you could get.  Everything was efficient and clean and it was a great place to be.

Now, it’s a place.  A real place, with real problems.

Oh, there are definitely wonders.  The animation and comics are here (though the stuff they brought over the pond was, for the most part, the cream of the crop).  There are the boxed candies and capsule machines with cool toys.  And yes, there are indeed sexy schoolgirls with little skirts.  I have discovered other wonders as well, which I was not even aware of before… hot springs and Japanese-style mountain inns and artist enclaves deep in the mountains that produce startlingly original and beautiful work.  And I’ve learned to love my fish raw.

But there is also corruption and crushing bureaucracy and stifling social rules and a very broken education system.  The government does not protect the environment.  Litter is everwhere.  And while individual people I meet are some of the most wonderful anywhere, the politicians are (mostly) xenophobic, racist, and reactionary, as is the national network, NHK, which might as well call itself Fox News Japan.

Masako and I have a lot of fun.  We travel on the cheap in our local area, enjoy the mountains, have picnics, sample local delicacies, drive to the coast and look out to sea.  We have friends.  I love my co-workers and my students.

But they are people, flawed people, as are we all.  Japan has its ups and downs and problems and more than its share of inconvenience.

This is not a fantasy land.

It is a place, unique, but rooted in worldly concerns, and touched by worldly problems, like any other.

More to come.  Take care.

Fulfilling the Promise II

A few more thoughts…

Then (the beginnings of the Space Shuttle program, me at age nine) and now (currenly July of 2009, when I am thirty-seven…) compared:

Then:  New and exciting, endless potential, the beginings of a new space age, bright tomorrows.

Now:  A little cynical, worn out.  The cornucopia held some tasty treats, but the horn is looking a little bit empty.  Time for the next thing… which will not be a panacea, a magic bullet, a cure for the world’s ills, because such does not exist (or can not exist as implemented by frail and imperfect humanity).

But it’s still the same machine.  It still does the same thing.  And it still inspires dreams.  Those dreams may be more tempered now, less ambitious, more realistic.  But they are still dreams.

Take care.  More to come.

Fulfilling the Promise

Well, I’ve done it again.

Too long has passed without a posting.  I’m sincerely hoping that changes, since I’m now on summer break and thus won’t have endless paperwork for the next forty days.  Between that and keeping up with my writing, this blog has taken a distant third in my priority list.

On top of that, this post isn’t even about living in Japan.  I did say when I started this blog that I would occasionally put in other stuff.  Well, it’s time for some of that other stuff.

The other day I watched the launch of the Endeavor, as I do with every space shuttle launch.  It still brings tears of joy to my eyes, and it never gets old for me.  This time, however, it occurred to me just how long these things have been flying.  I watched live on April 12, 1981, as the first shuttle lifted off.  I was nine years old.  I’m 37 now.  Most things in my life are different now.  The shuttle, and the wonder it inspires, has remained.

This most recent launch was a milestone.  The four-person crew became the 499th thru 502nd persons in space, passing the magic 500 mark.  But how many people out there thought, in the heady days of the Apollo program and early days of the shuttle, that it would take until 2009 to reach this amazing-yet-piddly mark?

Around 1984, I took a test / quiz thing that ran, I believe, in Omni Magazine (RIP, possibly the coolest magazine ever).  Basically, it matched your predictions of the future against the opinions of the late great Arthur C. Clarke.  I frankly don’t remember the contents of the quiz, or my answers, save for a single one.

The question was, by what year will tickets on the Space Shuttle be available to the general public?  The question assumed a pod built to ride in the cargo bay, to be lifted out by the robot arm so that folks inside could get a view of the Earth, and then back again.

My answer was “never”.

Clarke’s answer was “by 1990″, and I remember that the writer of the quiz seemed rather cross if you dared to disagree with Sir Arthur.

My reasons for saying “never” were that, even then, at the tender age of 12, I could tell that the system was too complicated, too fraught with fragility issues (did you know that every one of the heat resistant tiles on the shuttle’s underbelly are specifically made for one spot, and one spot only?  The whole thing fits together like a jigsaw puzzle!), too vulnerable to bad weather and leaks and who knows what else.  I also knew that stuffing people in something that is basically a controlled bomb, subjcting them to launch forces, etc. was not something that would go over well with lawyers… especially on a truly commercial scale.

As of now, the shuttle fleet is supposed to be retired late next year.  Looks like I was right.

I’m not writing this, however, to toot my own horn.  I’m writing it to point out just how long we have to go before we have space vehicles like those depicted in science fiction… ones that are no harder to start, fly, and land than a car… or, at the very worst, a helicopter or airplane.  Who the heck could have thought that something as jury-rigged and awkward as the shuttle, using such volatile fuels, could ever be easy enough to take into space on a truly regular basis?

There is a lot more refining to be done, a lot more work, a lot more engineering. It is such an enormous task, and I myself do not have the training or background to contribute one bit.  I can only dream along with the rest of humanity.

The promise was always that the shuttle would be easy and cheap and quick.  It was impressive.  It did its job.  But it was none of these things.  I’m coming to grips with the idea that I’ll never go into space (I don’t have $20 million to take a ride with the Russians).  I hope someday that someone will be able to hop in their ship and go for a spin to the moon and back.  It probably won’t be anyone I know, though.

In the meantime, check this out.  A 400-second ride that’s very, very cool.

Back soon.

Shin-Hodaka Onsen

Gee whiz, it didn’t SEEM like that long since I last posted… I’ve been a busy boy, and we’ve had some health concerns, but I won’t bore you with the details.  Instead, let’s talk about getting naked and dipping in hot water.

One of the pleasures of coming back to Japan after a five-year hiatus has been rediscovering the places that we loved the first time around.  Masako and I remembered an onsen town somewhere in central Nagano Prefecture that we just loved, but neither of us could recall the name.  After many hours poring over maps (there are hundreds of onsens- hot springs- in that part of Japan), we finally hit upon it:  Shin-Hodaka.   Besides being high up in the Kiso mountains and having nice views, Shin-Hodaka is great because most of the onsens are mixed gender, so Masako and I can go together.   Mixed onsens are still somewhat common in northern Japan, and central Nagano represents the virtual “dividing line” between the natural and the prudish.

This was mid-April, a time when all of the snow (what very little there was of it) had utterly disappeared from our neck of the woods.  I’m sitting in the onsen at the Shinzanso ryokan (inn), a very pleasant 90 degrees or so.  The water here is chock full of minerals and stinks of rotten eggs (sulfur), which isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds.  The concrete snakey thing in the background is the rock shield over the highway, which runs along the river.  Yes, you can see nekkid people from the road, but they’re so far away that no one should be worried about it.

Looking the other way, we see the big wooden parasol thing for hiding under if it rains and a building hiding one of the pump mechanisms.  Masako and I were the only ones here at this time… most people were working, heh heh heh.

One of the lower pools, which flows down from the water inlet and thus is a bit cooler.  At the bottom is the river.   The ugly concrete thing is the actual spring itself, capped over and sending its water uphill a bit to the top pool.

Apologies for the shot of my hairy gams, but I wanted you all to see the mineral flakes in the water.  No, that’s not leg hair dandruff.

Part of the secondary pumping system that supplies spring water to the ryokan, where you can stay overnight if you don’t have a micro van with a futon like ours.  While it looks like Rube Goldberg was the designer behind this system, I’m sure there’s a logical explanation… really…

A shot of the Shinzanso ryokan and the bridge across the river from the parking lot.  The spring we were sitting in is off the right hand side of the picture.

Late afternoon sun on the mountains…

Next, we went to a ryokan by the name of Suimeikan, with a pair of really huge pools and lots of big rocks.  Water is pumped in through the fountain there in the center… which you shouldn’t touch, to avoid scalding.  Hot hot hot!

Ahhhhh…

Suimeikan’s pools are also fed by this artifical waterfall, which cools the water a bit… check out the flora and mineralization.

There’s also this nifty cave, where you can sit and contemplate and soak.  It was hard to get a shot because of all the steam, and it was a bit too hot and close for me to stay for very long, but it was still awesome.

More to come, as usual…

See You

Graduation Day.  I don’t have a big flash, and they kept the gym a lot darker than I though they would, AND I had stuff to do after the ceremony, so I only caught a few groups of students on film.

See you, boys.

See you, girls.

Another year’s worth of memories to be filed away, to slowly fade into nostalgia.  On April 7th, it starts all over again.

More to come.

One More Turn of the Wheel

As of March 19th, Masako and I have been in Japan for a year on our current stint.  I’ve lived here for just under seven years total now, or just about one-fifth of my life.  Odd to think of it in those terms…

As another year passes, so too does another school year.  The 9th graders are gone now, and the 7th and 8th graders are finishing out their time and getting ready to move up a grade.  In early April comes a new crop of newly-minted 7th graders and it all starts over again.

Class 3A, the old crop of ninth graders, in our last class together.  One guess who the most outgoing student was… ?

3A, with my colleague Mr. Katsuki working the floor.

Class 3B, our last together.

3B, busy with an an assignment.  The lyrics of Poco’s Crazy Love are on the board (I had them listen to the song and fill in the blanks).  My other English-teaching colleague, Mr. Kunieda, is leaving next year, having been transferred to another school.  They usually rotate teachers out of schools at five to six year intervals.  I’m going to miss him.

I gave a little speech to the 9th graders, and it went something like this:

Take advice.  Listen to what your friends and family have to say.

BUT

It’s your life, not theirs.  Do your own thing, and pursue your own dream.  Do something that makes you happy.

Happiness is more important than money, because happiness cannot be given and cannot be received.  It cannot be bought or sold.  It is made, inside of you, and if you’re not happy, nothing will make you happy.

If you’re happy doing something, you will be good at it.  If you’re good at it, someone will give you money for it.  Money comes from happiness, not the other way around.

So do what makes you happy.

It took me thirty-five years to learn this lesson.  I hope just a few of them get it before I did.

More to come.

Another sense of accomplishment…

On March 3rd, I finished another novel-length manuscript.  Four days after that, I finished a 40-page short story (12,000+ words).  I continue to rock along.  This makes the third novel-length work and second short work I’ve completed while in Japan.

More to come soon.

Hamster 2 (660cc Boogaloo)

First off, if anyone “gets” the bit in parentheses in the title, congratulations, you are officially on the cusp of being an old fart.

We have ourselves a new (used) van.

The reasons for this are myriad.  First off, the auto policy at my company is changing in April, and they are essentially saying that if you want to drive a car into the ground (which we do, being avid travelers), make it your own.  Aww.

Second, we wanted something that could carry more than 2.5 human beings without chopping them into little pieces (which usually kind of puts a pall on the party)

Third, we wanted something we could throw a mattress into and stay overnight in.

Fourth, the company gives a stipend for using your own car, and we figured if we bought cheap enough, it would pay for itself quickly.

Thus, we would like to introduce:  the Hamster 2

This 2002 Daihatsu Hijet is a “Kei-Jidousha”, meaning the engine displacement is less than one liter (660 cc in this case).  Thus the yellow license plate.

These little commercial trucks are common as heck, available in van and pickup styles, exceptionally simple, even primitive, in construction, but sturdy, tough, reliable, and very easy on gas.

The interior bed is two meters long, which is great, since I am 199 cm tall!  There’s a bench seat in the back which folds flat into the floor.  This one, like about 99% of this model on the road, was originally used as a local delivery vehicle.  This is why it’s seven years old and yet has only 17,000 miles on it.

Being a kei, we shall enjoy lower taxes (for example, the city tax is $70 per year on a kei, compared to $400 on a regular car), insurance, tolls, and general cost of ownership.  As a commercial vehicle, the highway tolls for it are actually even lower than for regular kei-cars, a nice little bonus.

As you can see, the driver sits right over the front wheel, and directly atop the engine.  The driving position is thus nice and high, but you do have to get used to the feel of the vehicle.  Since you sit all the way up front, with nothing in front of you, the sensation is, at first, a little odd.

The kid who sold it to us (I say “kid” because he looks like he’s 12 years old and has never had to shave in his life) was very nice, tossing in a nifty CD player for free.

My favorite feature… lift the insulation, lift the latch on the front of the seat…

…flip the seat back, and there’s your engine!

One drawback… see the little locked door to the left of the tire?  That’s where you put the gas in.  Yes, it’s about a foot and a half off the ground, meaning one either has to kneel or bend WAY over when fueling up.  Oh, well.

We figure it’ll pay for itself in about 10 months.  More adventures of Hamster 2 coming your way soon.

Charcoal Making

One of the little pleasures that Masako and I have (living as we do on an extremely frugal budget) are our weekend rambles into the Toyota countryside, randomly taking little roads, going hither and yon.  It’s a great chance to enjoy the scenery and unwind, and we are also constanly rewarded by finding things like this.

We saw a group of older folks hard at work and stopped to chat.  They make charcoal the old-fashioned way, and host their neighbors for charcoal-making parties once or twice a year.  It’s a great excuse to get together, and a way to keep a traditional art alive.  The photo above is a charcoal kiln, made of earth, with the smokestack running out and being supported by the tree.

A closer view of one of the kilns.  The charcoal is made from slim sticks and halved bamboo, and is useful for firing up your hibachi, deodorizing your home, or even decorative uses.

I didn’t get a photo myself, so here’s one I swiped from the web.  Pretty neat, huh?

Another project was this strange collection.  I had seen assemblages like this and wondered what they were for… drying out the wood?  A primitive enclosure for something?  Nope.  It’s a mushroom farm!  They let us pick some…

There was also this giant pot of something that smelled really good…

…which turned out to be wild boar stew!  Delicious, especially with homemade pickled daikon!

In a little building was this very nice irori, an indoor fire pit that used to be the center of every Japanese home.  Alas, times have changed.  It’s true that there are far fewer house fires as a result, but still…

There was also a little spring to supply water.

In the end, we learned about days past, got some mushrooms, bellies full of stew, and some charcoal… all through serendipity, and the kindness of strangers.  We were very happy to have met them, and very thankful for their hospitality.  They invited us back for the next charcoal party, and we plan to attend.

Until next time…

Louis Vuitton Presents: The George Orwell Collection

…for your Brave New World of shopping. At Fahrenheit 451. Or something.

I stared, rather gobsmacked, at this window display in Nagoya for a long time.  What does it say to you?

I could also make a joke about the George W Bush warrentless wiretap tribute line, but he’s no longer president (I will never, ever tire of typing that), so who cares?

Let’s party like it’s 1984!

Something resembling a real update coming soon. Promise.