北の方から明けましておめでとう A Happy New Years from up North (Part 2)

The lone picture I have from the New Years

So I said that it was going to be before the end of the month when I posted the second half of my new years experiences and well, I made it almost.

As we last left off we were at around New Years Eve. However, I would like to delay the ride and steer back a few days before that to explain a few more things.

One of the big mysteries I was wondering about even when I first visited my host family is how in the world do they keep their house warm in the winter? A better question to answer first would probably be why this thought came in the first place. Having a fairly traditional house, sliding glass doors surrounds the two front sides of the house and the rooms inside are partitioned by more glass and paper sliding doors. Well to answer the first question is you put a portable heater in every room. It was sort of cold but luckily I came prepared.

I had brought a toothbrush and everything but I was at the store with my host mother when she asked me if I wanted a new one. One of their family traditions is to buy new toothbrushes for the New Year, which I though was kind of strange. However I noticed there was a high amount of TV commercial ads for toothbrushes and wondered if it wasn’t a more widely spread custom.

I guess you could say this was part the thing that was talked about with a reluctant anticipation was 大掃除 (oosouji) or roughly “big cleaning”. It takes on the meaning similar to spring-cleaning although instead of taking place in spring it usually takes place on the days before new years. In other words, things that only get cleaned once a year get cleaned. From their explanation it sounded like we were going to be head to toe in dust, washing windows, and polishing old trinkets. Thankfully the cleaning wasn’t nearly as severe as it had been explained. The only really cleaning I had to do was change the paper on the sliding doors （襖、fusuma) to the kids bedroom, which were pretty tattered from what seemed like past fighting or fits of anger. The kids had fun punching out holes in the paper before we ripped it off. It is actually really tempting to poke a hole in one every time I saw those sliding paper doors in the house. As if I needed to test the strength of paper.

So on the rare occasion when the kids got the chance to obliterate their bedroom doors I could only stand back in awe as they completely destroyed the paper on four sliding doors within seconds. What moments before were almost perfectly good functioning doors (almost) turned into wooden frames leaving absolutely no privacy between the room and the hallway. I started thinking how fragile these fusumas are and that they’re design makes for a minimalist approach to privacy. They also come with a sense of openness and versatility in that you can easily move the sliding doors out of their tracks and there’s no way of locking someone out of the rooms. Well after four hours, a lot of flying paper, and some serious scrubbing to get the glue off from the previous paper we finished our cleaning.

Anyways, back on track to new years. On New Years Eve I was told that there would be some events and that lots of people and patrons to the temple would come and visit to literally “ring in the new year”. The night came and the snow started to pile up. I was asked to shovel the walkway to the temple and the house so people could easily access the temple. I noticed that there was a huge pile of wood in the middle of the grounds and around 11:00 a bonfire was started. People walking by proceeded to throw items into the fire and there was a huge container of items next to the temple that people fetched from and threw to the flames. I wasn’t able to figure out if there was a particular name for this fire but apparently it is tradition to burn charms and good look mementos purchased from shrines and temples over the past year. I had a lot of fun throwing things into the fire and threw a few of my own charms and fortunes I had purchased from various adventures. It looked like some one had thrown a computer into the fire which didn’t make sense; then all of sudden I’m helping to throw the giant container into the fire as well (apparently they had made a new container for next year). I stood there basking in the flames watching the snow swirl down not knowing what the exact time was and not really caring.

Soon, as more and more people began to gather the crowd started shifting away from the fire and towards the temple bell where my host father, dressed in his traditional priest robes began to recite Buddhist scriptures and those who knew them joined in. What I think is amazing is these sutra or scripture readings are not done in Japanese but in a completely foreign language. The bell is then rung 108 times. Everyone got a chance to ring the bell at least once. I’ve done a lot of research as to why this is and asked my host family but its somewhat complicated and multi layered in its possible meanings. From what I’ve gathered it is a counting up and renewing or banishing of all the earthly human desires of your past, present, and future life based on the teachings of Buddhism (trust me to come back to this some day and correct/improve this explanation). We then drank sake and I talked with old men about how they believed Hokkaido is a foreign country.

It was a really interesting new years and it was probably the first one I experienced in recent memory where I was not chained to the temporal countdown or the ever-aging Dick Clark. I have to say that the western idea of New Years revolves around a single moment. A calculated event where 12/31/xx 11:59:59 crosses over into a new 1/1/xx+1 12:00 am and Hooray! I won’t say that doesn’t exist here but it seemed that throughout my stay New Years in Japan is much more decentralized by preparing for the new year and then in the days following New Years expressing thanks for the previous year and best wishes for the year to come. It is definitely a holiday for family seeing that everyone I know returned home for New Years (but not necessarily for Christmas).

In addition I saw some familiar faces like Hashimoto Sensei who taught Japanese and Yoshi, the English teacher at the High school I visited two years ago. Yoshi took me out to a shrine, as it is customary to visit shrines in the days proceeding new years as a “first visit of the year” type ceremony. Again shrines are different from temples (shrine=Shinto Temple=Buddhism).

I spent the days after New Years playing with the kids (sledding in a graveyard anyone?) and helping with chores. When it came time to say goodbye I was really unsure of whether I’d see them again but it didn’t matter because the train wasn’t going to allow for elaborate farewells. It was great like always and it felt like home away from home.

Speaking of which, as of this writing I realize I have exactly two months until I will be traveling back home. Guess I could make the best of it.

北のほうから明けましておめでとう A Happy New Years from up north (Part 1)

As I'm slipping out of a nasty cold, I’ve been looking back at all the things I’ve done in the past year and thinking on how I’m going to remember it all in the future. I should mention that I feel like the memories of winter vacation are rolling away like scraps of paper in an updraft as I try to stumble and catch them.

I didn’t do much for Christmas except making dinner with a friend and eating it with out ceremony. I spent a good 9-10 hours making and sending New years cards to fill the hole of tradition and consumer buying.

I was invited by my old host family to come and visit for new years and watch after the kids to whom I happily accepted. This being my third time visiting them I was beginning to wonder what the appropriate way to act was or how exactly a relationship changes after no longer being so much of a guest. Well the difference I noticed seemed to be pretty profound.

The first time I visited the Amao family I was treated like a guest and just as I was about to leave back for home began to feel like a part of the family. The second time was like some kind of reunion. Everything seemed like a party and a celebration. It took a day or two to reconnect with everyone but it was definitely a different experience being able to converse more and interact in ways I couldn’t under the host family program (which essentially means relax). The third time however was just as if I was a part of the family and heard the term once or twice when I was with the kids 三兄妹　or three siblings.

They picked me up at my apartment to drive all the way up north literally from one coastline to the other. They had been visiting the grandparents for Christmas and so they were in the neighborhood.

I was met by my host mother, Masae, and as I got into the back seat with Yurika and Yoshihide they hurriedly pushed a gift into my lap telling me to open it. It was a belated birthday present, an awesome scarf, some cards, and pictures of the kids. The drive there was quiet and relaxed. We finally get to Toyooka and stop at a familiar yakitori (fried chicken) restaurant. My host father or Ryushin is a pretty popular guy being a radio personality and a Buddhist priest so we would often run into people who knew him. There were a few people who asked who I was and before I could say anything Ryushin replied, “Oh, he is my long lost son from America.”

While I was there I spent most of my time playing with the kids and helping around the house. I did learn the word komori (essentially babysitter) and would introduce myself as such to guest and strangers. I also watched more television then I’ve seen in a long time. Watching all the new years specials reminded me how addictive and out there Japanese television tries to be.

There were a ton of cultural and traditional events and foods that I got to experience and trying to remember them all and their meanings was enough to make my head explode. I’ll explain a few here for fun. A shimenawa is a braided rope that is usually used to indicate a sacred space and used for warding off evil spirits. For new years these are hanged from the main entrance of the house to ward off evil spirits. I got to hang this from the entryway basically because they needed someone tall to do it. The decoration itself was made of braided rope some leaves and some type of citric fruit attached at the top. There were similarly decorated pieces that were used for putting in your car possibly for safe travel.

The food we had was traditional in the sense that on New Years Eve we had Soba (soba means buckwheat) noodles or what is called toshi-koshi soba or “year-crossing” soba. After that starting on new years day we had Osechi, which comes in boxes that are stacked on top of each other. I got to help make some of the food for this dish. The tradition is that in the first three days of the new years it was forbidden to use fire for cooking. The food comes in three boxes partitioned off for each dish. Most of the foods have specific meanings everything from longevity to fertility to good health to good harvest. The food is served cold with a hot soup or what is called zoni served with mochi (rice cake). We ate the food for about 3-4 days straight but there was pressure from Ryushin to go out for dinner instead. Apparently its good food but everyone seems to get bored of it after eating it for about three days straight.

The meaning of separate dishes and foods was kind of shocking to me because well I can’t think of a single new years tradition that happens except for the countdown and the banging of pots and pans and that's if I’m at my parents house. Here in Japan with the tradition of food that goes back almost a thousand years and the importance of being with family the whole thing really feels like an event rather then anticipation for some moment to pass. You’d understand what I’m getting at if you saw the seven days of new years specials on TV after new years day. So it’s been half a month and I’ve gotten up to New Years Eve. Any bets it will take me another half a month to finish this? Don’t count on it.

のんびりする時 Carefree times

Max, Jillian, and Kaori; me taking pictures of picture takers

Its nice to have a break every once in awhile isn't it? Just last week I decided to go back to Miyazaki for a few days to clear the cobwebs from my head and get a chance to relax. Like last time I took the Car Ferry from Osaka to Miyazaki. And again like last time, I met another nice person who I got to know on the way there. This time his name was Kenji and he was just getting back from a Linkin Park concert in Osaka. He lives a little north of Miyazaki and works at a butcher shop. We talked about music and movies and such and its always interesting to know whats popular and whats not for Japanese youths. There was another school festival I went to that had a concert with just cover bands. The offspring seem to be quite popular still as well as Green Day and Sum41. I can't put together whether it is some kind of time delay in there importing, or the image these bands produce fitting with the mood/intrest of the youth. I use to think it had something to do with what people think is hip in the states but not so much anymore. What's disappointing is there is a lot of good Japanese music and films that nobody seems to know about that's within Japan.

Back to the adventure at hand: I was about to go to bed when I was asked by Kenji if I wanted a ride from the Ferry terminal to the station tomorrow when we got off the boat. I was kindly reminded of what I love so much about Miyazaki; the people. I'm always blown away by the genuine kindness that comes from people in this area and the friendly greetings you hear from strangers passing you by. I was taken to the station where we parted ways and exchanged phone numbers. He actually called me a few times to check how I was doing and invited me to his shop if there was time. I had made it back to the palm trees and calming blanket that envelops the atmosphere surrounding Miyazaki.

Well I guess there is one thing that can never be quite relaxing is the transportation. Miyazaki is an interesting place in that having a car a bike or some form of your own transportation is crucial if you want to get around without having to plan everything in advance. I scratch that, you just can't really get around Miyazaki unless you have a car. The trains come about once every hour and depending what station you're at the buses will come about 3 to 4 times a day. With that kind of time delay its pretty important not to miss your ride. Which is what I almost experienced by twenty seconds as I had to transfer trains in the morning. Arriving at the foreign yet familiar Kibana station west of the Miyazaki Campus I made the short trek inland at a snails pace to better enjoy the wide open spaces. Its interesting to think how much of an effect your visual surroundings can have on your way of thinking and how you react to things in general. The sky seemed to open up along with my mind.

After arriving, I met with Hirase Sensei, the professor in charge of the exchange program between Miyazaki and Evergreen on this end. I had lunch with him and the two new exchange students Jillian and Max Countryman and Kaori a good friend and exchange student at Evergreen last year. The atmosphere is always a party when you come to his office. We chatted and looked through some of Hirase's photo albums: his trademark possessions.

The Udo Shinto Shrine off and to the left under the rocks

Then Kaori, Jillian, Max and I took a trip down to the Udo Shinto Shrine, a famous shrine built into the cliff side off the beach. The weather was kind of stormy so the waves crashing against the rocks was a nice site to see. The place seemed to have a lot of history and stories to tell but unfortunately I couldn't read all of the signs and information provided. There seemed to be a lot of separate articles from the main shrine in which you could pray for specific blessings. It was really fascinating and I wanted to know more but we ran out of time. I bought a charm for my friend for safe travels who had just passed his driving test. The charms or お守り (omamori) are sold at shrines and can serve for various specific situations. A few that you can usually find are for success on entrance exams, safe travel, safety for a healthy birth, for finding a lover, fortune, general good luck and so on. It is actually a part of the culture I have often times overlooked but it always seems to come back to me whenever I'm driving in someones car and see an omamori hanging from the dashboard.

A big part of my trip this time was buying gifts or おみやげ (omiyage) for the people back in Kobe. Miyazaki is a great place to get these local souvenirs because of the various famous things it has. One of those things being the mayor of Miyazaki. Hideo Higashiokubaru (quite a mouthful) use to be a famous comedian and now is the humble mayor of Miyazaki prefecture. What's comical is that his fame has created his namesake and his face to be profitable gift items and boosted tourism to Kyushu. Just imagine if you saw Arnold Schwarzenegger's face plastered on the side of a laundromat or on gift wrapped chocolates or on bottles of California wine. That's how famous this guy has been made.

A Souvenir with multiple mayors in different costumes for just this one product he's got his face on here 4 times (15 times if you count the sides and the back)

Not having to cook for a few days was nice too. We went out to several restaurants and in replace of Thanksgiving dinner, Jillian cooked french toast to which people in the dorms where commenting on the delicious smell. I think it really brought me back home for a second, back to my elementary school days. It was a little over a year ago where I first really met Jillian through the three week exchange program to the small town of Toyooka in Japan. It was really nice to see her again and talk openly about each others experiences and catch up on things. That and meeting the cat(s) she provides for was great. I just kept thinking that her kindness for these animals will inevitably attract more.

Jillian and Kaori

Speaking of kindness, Kaori as I mentioned earlier was the one who provided wheels throughout my stay and again, like I said earlier we made it to places that would have been impossible to get to without her. It was nice seeing her even though she was very busy and concentrated on graduating. I felt a little guilty because of the bad timing. On a lighter note we got to visit one of her friends who had just had a baby. We got to hold him which blew my mind that this lady would just hand her several month old baby over for complete strangers to hold. She seemed to be very proud of him.

Causally talking and eating and spending time with friends was I think just what I needed. There were a few people I didn't get a chance to see while I was there but I still got in contact with them. In the idle moments I had a chance to clear my head a little and think about where I've been so far this year and what will happen in the next three months and beyond. I honestly don't know that clearly what the future holds but just like the last time I visited Miyazaki I'm feeling positive and upbeat. For some reason the trip seemed to reinvigorate my wonder and amazement of all that I'm wrapped up in at the moment. I have my doubts and my ups and downs but when I see things clearly there's so much I have to be thankful for and many thanks to say towards a lot of good friends. Best of luck to all of you out in Miyazaki.

学園祭 School Festival

Been pretty busy lately. Last weekend was the fall school festival that is held annually at the Shodai Campus. Schools from around the area and locals come to sell fair goods. Families were selling used goods at the front of the school kind of like a flea market or a massive garage sale. From there you had vendors selling food and prize booths. These tents were run by school clubs or groups to raise money for club treasuries. For the most part it seemed like not a whole lot of money was made but all in all it was a good time for everyone. They had live bands (mostly student bands), what appeared to be a popularity contest, photo galleries, and a booth where you could have 15 minute Chinese lessons. I've been to a few festivals since I came to Japan but this was the first one I got the chance to participate.

A view of the campus during the fair

I was working two booths The English club and the mountain climbing club that were both selling various foods. My job was to stand in front of the booth and try and get wandering eyed customers to come and buy the food. Holding signs and shouting politely if customers would be interested in the various delicious hand made products actually began to get tiring after awhile. I began to feel like the annoying people who stand in the busy streets of Sannomiya shouting at everyone if they'd like to go and sing karaoke. I actually began to pity them because its extremely hard to get anyone to take the sale. The use of polite form makes everything you say so much longer too so you have to speak really fast to get it all out before someone walks by.

making takoyaki!

On the last day there were very few people who came. I don't know who's thought it was a good idea but to have a festival for three days and the last day its on is a regular working Monday doesn't make a lot of sense. Besides some retired folks and wandering children, the majority of the day was slow. That's when things began getting interesting. Since there were was no one to sell to the vendors began trying to sell to other vendors. Promises were made, "if you buy our food we'll come buy yours" and deals were carried out, "Here's some free ____ now promote our booth!". An interesting problem we had over at the mountain climbing club was the confusion of the food being a little different from the usual festival fare. At the festival you usually can get what is called takoyaki Its a dish made from a flour based batter fried into little balls that you put octopus in them and cover it with a sauce and other ingredients. Well in replacement of octopus we used squid; ikayaki. Before the festival I asked what we were making and I was told takoyaki, it wasn't until the day that I found out it wasn't octopus but squid. Which made for a little confusion when we were making the banner.

my drawing of an Octopus. At the top of the banner they wrote: "octopus is not added in"
to which I added "actually it is added in" to which they crossed it out and wrote "its not added in!!!"

Rain...

Unfortunately on the last day we got rained out and things began to get a little crazy. In desperation to sell something a lot of the booths dropped their prices. The foreign exchange group had all you could eat Chinese food for 100 yen (less then a dollar). People started giving away food out of shear kindness. It was insane and I wish more people knew about it or had a minute to stop by and eat practically for free. I ate pretty well this weekend (even if it wasn't exactly healthy) while making some new friends.

A life learning language corner #2: The Ultimate Chimera 外来語と和製英語(foreign orginated words and made-in-Japan English)

Recently my Japanese class at the college has been talking about the recent increase of foreign loan words (gairaigo) and the possible positives and negatives it could have on the future of the Japanese language. To clear this up here are a few examples: camera in Japanese is カメラ pronounced kah-meh-rah; Recycle: リサイクル (risaikuru); and then there’s my name Charlie: チャーリー(chāree). All of these are written in a separate alphabet called Katakana, which makes them easier to distinct between Japanese words. For more information on this, check out the Wikipedia entry for gairaigo. It was actually before this class that I read an interesting article that is suitable background information for this topic for those who are interested "Japanese: A language in a state of flux" by Tomoko Otake¹. To summarize, the use of these words are seen rapidly increasing in government, sciences, entertainment, and everyday parts of Japanese life. Some of these words are not simple material objects and represents complex ideas in English making their definition in Japanese unclear. Confusion is being created from the use of these words when very few people understand what is trying to be said even though there are substitute words in Japanese with the same meaning.

In addition to these words some are taken and shortened for example air conditioner in Japanese becomes エアコン　(eakon=aircon), personal computer パソコン (pasokon), and one that has apparently become popular recently is sexual harassment セクハラ (sekuhara). The purpose of making these words shorter is so they can easily be remembered. This trend of shortening words is also a part of young people slang and seems to be an attempt to make speech more efficient or to be cool. An example of slang would be the shortening of the saying 気持ちが悪い (kimochi ga warui) that means a bad feeling, changes to きもい (kimoi). There is one final thing to add and that is made-in-Japan English (和製英語). Aside from loan words, this type of English has completely new and invented meaning. For example American dog (アメリカンドッグ) actually means corn dog or sharp pencil (シャープペンシル) meaning mechanical pencil (which actually originates from the company Sharp).

The shear amount of English that has entered the Japanese lexicon is quite mind boggling and says a lot about the flexibility of the language. However, the use of most of this English has been assimilated into Japanese to the point that its English meaning is no longer present. The news article above uses the example of the word reduce which in Japanese, only serves as one of the 3 R’s of recycling: to reduce the amount of garbage. In this case the word is being used to serve a particular purpose rather then retaining its complete meaning. The use of English in Japanese and whether it is becoming a problem is the subject of a lot of discussion. The reasoning as to why it is becoming so frequent has a lot of possible answers.

One of these is Japanese culture itself, which has a very long history of adopting and assimilating other cultures, and shaping them to fit within Japanese culture. Examples can be seen everywhere from the use of Chinese characters, to the arrival of Buddhism from China, to the western influences in shaping Japan’s rapid Industrial revolution. Takeo Doi, author of the book The anatomy of dependence speaks about this tendancy in Japanese culture to assimilate with the foreign:

“…the Japanese tend to ignore the world of strangers, but even this is far from meaning a lack of interest. They ignore the outside world in so far as they judge this to be possible, but even when they appear to be indifferent they are in fact keeping a formidably watchful eye on their surroundings. And once they have realized that something cannot be ignored, they busily set about identifying with and adopting it.”²

Takeo’s theme of the book explains a common emotion of passive love/maternal love and how this emotion, which is strong in Japan, allows for the easy acceptance of that which is foreign. Rather then create conflict or a standoff the passive love mentality creates assimilation.

Takeo’s book explains how it is this maternal/passive love that allows for easy assimilation, wanted or unwanted. Takeo quotes a newspaper article on the basis of the Oriental civilization in relation to the west:

“At the basis of the ways of thinking and feeling of the Westerner there is the father. It is the mother that lies at the bottom of the Oriental nature. The mother enfolds everything in an unconditional love. There is no question of right or wrong. Everything is accepted without difficulties or questioning. Love in the West always contains a residue of power. Love in the East is all-embracing. It is open to all sides. One can enter from any direction.”³

With this perspective, assimilation is not only a choice but it can also occur unintentionally. If this is the case, the increase of loan words in Japanese is being influenced naturally by a continuous contact with English foreigners. With that continued contact creates a stronger assimilation with foreign cultures including language.

Another reasoning for the popularity of English in Japanese is the thought that Western culture in general is cool and that if one can introduce English sayings and words into Japanese they too can be considered cool. For this reason alone seems to be what is really detrimental to Japanese. The reasoning behind introducing new words is not for easy understanding or lack of a better term but just simply to sound knowledgeable.

My second agenda in this post is to introduce you to one of my child hood passions, video games and how they relate to this topic. It’s not surprising that since video games have surpassed the sale of movie tickets it is slowly becoming mainstream entertainment⁴. It has also proven its ability as a medium to tell engaging stories as well. The game titled Mother 3 (the series is known as Earthbound in the states where only one of the three games was ever released) is the third in a trilogy written and created by one of my idols Shigesato Itoi. The overarching theme of the three games is centered on the power of maternal love. One of the themes that comes up in this story has to do with the mixing and borrowing from other cultures that is a part of Japan’s culture. The Antagonists in the game come from outer space and are called the pig army. If you look at the character design they are an obvious homage to storm troopers from the Star Wars movies as they wear full body suits similar to their Star Wars counterparts.

The pig army crash-lands on the island and begins to wreak havoc on the land burning down forests and transforming the creatures. It is when the main characters father is in pursuit of this enemy that he finds a note from the retreating army. The game is in Japanese so here is a translation of that note:

“None of the animals in this area will do. We have to make them cooler. The themes are: Stronger! Badder! And more Violent! Take this and that and put them together to make something completely new. If we were to name it, it will be called the Charming Chimera Plan. We’ll work hard at reconstruction.”⁵

The idea of combining creatures is parallel with this idea of assimilating and mixing cultures and words. The chimeras themselves represent the assimilation of culture or English as I have been talking about. The idea of “making them cooler” seems very familiar to wanting to be cool by using and making your own English words. The pig army, although supposedly coming from space, is not foreign in that they have very human like qualities. Arrogant and childish, they seem to embody the mischievous side of humanity.

As the game progresses you run into more and more creatures that have been fused with machinery or some kind of combination of random animal parts. Some of the chimeras themselves have names that are a combination of English and Japanese words. For example トビマウス (tobimausu) has two parts, tobi, the noun form of the verb tobu, which in Japanese means ‘to fly’ and the gairaigo mausu (mouse); flying mouse. The name is also a pun since tobimasu (tobimausu) in Japanese is the polite verb form for ‘to fly’.

Eventually you end up at the research facility where these creatures are being made and you begin to hear rumors of a creature that people are referring to as the Ultimate Chimera, has escaped and is destroying the facilities and the people inside it.

This is the Ultimate Chimera.

This comical Frankenstein of a creation seems to represent the fear of complete assimilation. Where language and culture are so completely mixed as to destroy the original cultures, consuming identity and logic in the process. It is essentially the worst-case scenario and the metaphorical shape of the negative points about foreign loan words and cultural assimilation.

The creature cannot be defeated and is finally trapped with the help of a monkey. The fact that a lower creature that cannot speak ultimately saves everyone from this creature suggests that the answer to the problem of assimilation or foreign loan words is simple or primitive. It may be that if people where not so obsessed with keeping up with the rest of the world or being cool and instead, living a life that's easy to understand. If we could only return back to a simpler time maybe this problem would not exist.

The scene ends with everyone leaving the room and the creature escaping once more, never to be seen again. Obviously this is suggesting that this problem of assimilation and the mixing of English and Japanese has yet to be answered and whether there will be happy or difficult ending is unsure.


References
¹ Otake, Tomoko. “Japanese: A language in a state of flux” The Japan Times Online 23 September 2007
² Doi, Takeo The anatomy of dependence Trans. John Bester. Kodansha America, 1971: pp47
³ Suzuki, D. “Toyo Bunmei no Kontei ni aru Mono” Asahi Shimbun, December 22, 1958
⁴ Holson, Laura M. “’King Kong’ Blurs Line Between Films and Games” The New York Times October 24, 2005
⁵ Itoi, Shigesato Mother 3 Nintendo, HAL Laboratory, Brownie Brown 2006

Back to Toyooka aka 鼻から牛乳第２回 (Milk coming out the nose part two)

9/24/07 the host family (bottom left) and friends

About a year ago I made my first trip to Japan to a little town called Toyooka. There I stayed with a host family for about three weeks taking in the scenery, visiting sights and city officials, and teaching English on the side. It was probably one of the most memorable moments to date and definitely the first time experiencing a foreign country where communication barriers and cultural barriers where so acutely visible. Everything about that trip was better then I could of asked for. I remember the last thing my host father said to me, please come to Japan again. It was a kind thing to say and easy to understand for a discombobulated foreigner. However, I don't think I realized how seriously I would end up taking that sentence.

A little less then a year later I wound up in Kobe Japan, a completely different experience altogether. Big city, support for international students, crosswalks a quarter of a mile wide and half a mile long,things I had never experienced. I knew I would eventually make it back to that little town but the question was when. After a couple letters and emails to my host family it wasn't until the end of the summer that I made a phone call and got a hold of Masae the mother of the household. After a good talk I was invited over again and we planed on a week long stay. I took the Hamakaze train north to Toyooka with freshly bought gifts for the family. I get there late at night and Ryushin, the priest and father wearing his casual clothes, and the two kids, Yurika, who has just joined the basketball team as it's shortest member and Yoshihide a continuing soccer team member (also the shortest), are waiting for me at the station. We get back to the house up on the mountain where Ryushin proceeds to show me the beer keg and tap he has rented. We quickly get to drinking and start talking about the past and whats happened in the last year.

To be honest it wasn't a sight seeing and event filled trip but instead an extremely relaxing, for the most part, low key stay. I felt more like a part of the family and less like an intruder or a helpless foreigner. I helped with chores, learned about the family and their past, played with the kids, and even helped clean the temple. For those who don't know Ryushin is a Buddhist priest for the Shingon sect. He's nothing like what you would expect a Buddhist priest to be. Try and picture a man who drives a BMW mini, smokes, drinks, and enjoys red meat and see if that matches up with what you thought a Buddhist priest was.

I met up with the Japanese teacher, Hashimoto Sensei, who gave her time to the 5 of us who came last year, to talk about the city and how its changed in the past year. The city of Toyooka is famous for its oriental white storks and the effort being made to save them from extinction and return them back to the wild. For several years they've been trying to get them to breed with no success. Last year there was a ceremony for the release of one of the storks that was attended by Japanese Royalty. Not long after the research facility had successfully mated the storks and the news went national. This little town was all of a sudden on national news. As time went on it became a destination for new housing. With a newly build hospital and new shops sprouting up here and there thinks were changing in Toyooka. Hashimoto Sensei has been keeping busy teaching Korean and working at the local radio station, FM-Jungle, as DJ Hershey. There is one other teacher Yoshi, who I regrettably didn't get a chance to see, who has his has own radio show. Ryushin, my host father as well has his own talk show on topics about Buddhism. Everyone's a radio personality in Toyooka!

Hashimoto Sensei! She does interpreter work too

Yurika, (bottom center) Shin chans wife (top center) and Friends (sorry I was briefly introduced to the other two...)

On the last night Ryushin hosted a big party in which through out the week he was constantly calling up friends and literally running into people he knew and asking them to come. It was way more then I was expecting and I think a lot of the people who came thought the same. It was a very warm group of people, friends, and the host family. I felt very welcome and at home. I was even given a gift by Shin chan and his wife, a friend to my host father and the other Buddhist priest who is a part of the radio show.

Shin chan's gift a Japanese fan (扇子、sensu)

Later in the night the group began to dwindle and then swell again as we moved to a karaoke bar. People sang, danced on tables, and had a good time. For some reason Hashimoto Sensei kept saying that Shin chan the priest, was a Yakuza mobster , jokingly but repeating it enough to the point I thought she was serious. Then Ryushin, began singing the song. This song's title is チャラリー鼻から牛乳 meaning milk coming out the nose. For some reason or another it became an inside joke with me and my host father the last time I was there and the absurdity and strangeness of this karaoke tune was again brought out again. It actually says a lot about his personality I think, wild, out of the norm, and hilarious. It will probably be one of the few karaoke experiences I would say was great in every possible way (which says a lot because I wouldn't be caught dead doing karaoke in the states.... again).

On the last day I packed my things and found another giant bag of fruits, snacks, and other assorted food stuffs from Masae, a truly amazing women and host mother. She kept asking me to come back for the winter break which I willingly said yes. We drove to the train station and they waved me off as I tried to stumble out my appreciation for them and how I can't thank them enough (always seems hard when you have so much to say and so little time and then there's the language barrier..). A couple final waves and the train pulled out of the station to take me back to the busy life of Kobe.

The familiar sites of Toyooka and the slower pace to life were all welcoming sights, especially unlike last year I wasn't completely trained from teaching and going to classes. I think what I'll treasure most about this trip was the ability to converse with my host family that wasn't possible a year ago. That and just being able to see them all again. They are truly genuine people who can take the negative energies out of anyone (well at least me). It makes you think about all the stereotypes about Japanese culture and people, the comparative studies and cultural research and just blows a giant hole in those thoughts and all you see is a family and friends. I've learned so much from the Amao family and they have done nothing but give and give again. All I can say is: Thank You, and if possible I would be happy to babysit for the kids again.

A life learning language corner #1: Me, Myself and I

This is a new part of the blog that you'll be seeing more of in the coming weeks and months. Its about time I started talking about language and what effect it has on my reality. The hardships, the successes, and the continuous confusion will be analyzed and the everyday experiences will be explored. Some of the comments I make are from personal experiences and others from excessive studying. However, I also state my opinions and realize that I’m not going to get things right on the first try essentially. This I can say is the beginning of a gathering of ideas and thoughts I have been holding onto for some time.

I can remember back to the first days of language class where I learned my first words in Japanese. Words like ‘book’, ‘sun’, ‘Japan’, ‘library’ and ‘I’. I remember very vividly my first Japanese Sensei in high school telling all the boys in the class they’d be referring to themselves as ぼく (boku) and the girls as わたし (watashi). Immediately I begin to believe there’s a male and female form for addressing oneself. “Not to worry”, my Sensei said, “When you grow up (or if you want to sound like an adult) then you can use watashi”. This was how we began to structure some of are first sentence like ‘I like Japan’ and ‘Today I am going to the Library’ thinking we had it right saying boku and watashi with every sentence. Well there are a lot of things they don’t teach you in textbooks. It turns out that addressing yourself and others with English speakers call pronouns is quite a different thing all together in Japanese. First off you don’t need to say “I” and “you” especially when its implied or context sensitive. If you’re talking about yourself, family, etc. it is implied after the onset of the conversation, which is why missing the beginning of a conversation can lead to huge confusion. One of the things I come across the most when correcting English paper from native Japanese speakers is leaving the subject out of the sentence when grammatically it is impossible to finish the sentence without one. The subject is not important if it’s already known what is being talked about. However, English is subject crazy. I can remember back to the elementary school days when the teachers would ask you to find a way to write a paper without starting every sentence with “the” or “I”. It got to the point where I was to believe that you weren’t suppose to refer to yourself at all in Japanese or as little as possible, which also lead to confusion and people wondering if I was talking about myself or someone else. So obviously there is a middle ground for how these words should be used.

So another problem I’ve had is how to refer to others. There are various ways to say you but unlike the word you they imply a relationship with who you’re speaking with. I remember really early on in my stay here talking to a friend of mine using the word あなた (anata) and being told to stop. The reasoning was is that the word is rarely used and can have the connotation of addressing one’s lover. It was kind of a surprise because when I learned this word that was never explained. At this point I’ve given up on using these types of words and just sticking with people’s names. There is another form 君 (kimi) that is an informal way to refer to "you" and is also used as a title following the name (kun) usually for males, and boys (12/8/07 thanks for the correction Justin). Maybe the most confusing form is the he/she form referring to someone 彼、彼女 (kare, kanojo) which can refer to a formal way to refer to someone at the same time it also has the meaning of boyfriend or girlfriend. This right here is enough to stop me from referring to others with out creating confusion about the relationship of the person I’m talking about.

When using these words something interesting happens. Instead of just saying “I”, “me”, “you” one has to think about the relationship he/she has with the listener. There is the very informal male form of “I” 俺 (ore) which can be offensive to some people (I've actually heard that some women don't like guys who to refer to themselves this way) and the very formal non-gender form わたくし (watakushi) that’s purpose is to place you below the listener. To be straight, none of these words translate and are really quite numerous if you count some of the more archaic forms and honorific forms (more on honorifics another time).

Some of these pro-noun like words have contextual meaning that paints an image to the listener whether to show the speakers affection or pique towards another. One of these words has changed quite a bit in the recent past. お宅 (otaku) once a very formal form of you is now used to describe someone who is obsessive or nerdy. The form is not only a reference to another person but can also mean that person’s residence. Another mystery to me is the use of the word うち (uchi) usually used by women referring to themselves, their possessions, or family members kind of like the word "my" in english. The mystery is is this the same uchi that refers to house or home? One source says yes and another says no. If the answer is yes then a sense of self and a sense of family or household could be one and the same. Another thing I’ve noticed is a tendency for some women to refer to themselves in the third person. This makes me question what is the sense of self that these people hold and how is it different from how other people think.

I do think that studying Japanese makes one rethink how they think about themselves and others, or at least how to rephrase sentences without the pro-nouns. It leads me to think a lot about English and so much of it seems to be about “us” and “them”, “you” and “me”, “mine” and “yours”. I’m reminded of the various seminars at Evergreen where giving an opinion seemed to be so confrontational. The delicate way of phrasing how you have an opinion differing from someone else’s will seemingly come down to a my opinion vs. someone else’s. Those tension thick discussions I have yet to witness in any of the seminar classes I’ve had while being in Japan. I can’t say that it has to do with how people phrase their sentences but its definitely a different attitude.