new dawn

明けまして御目出度う御座います！
Congratulations on the dawn of a new year!

I've been quiet on here for a while now, maybe questioning whether I had anything worth saying, maybe just thinking to myself, maybe just enjoying Japan. Hard to say. Doesn't matter really.

It was great to return home over the holidays and be with the people I love so much. It was the perfect place to sweep away the old, dried detritus of the past, take the seeds, and plant them to grow in the warmth of the coming year. Thank you. I am grateful to you.

It was hard leaving, heart-wrenching actually. There are so many things in life that are. That's the other edge of the sword, isn't it? It cuts both ways. No happiness without pain. I think all we can do is just choose to carry that love and happiness in our heart and endure the rest. And so, as the earth travels around the sun, and life is constantly ended and renewed, each day opens a new year which is really just a continuation of the old year without end. Everything begins and ends without beginning and ending at all. Revisiting the past, sharing in the present, together we open new doors to the future. Though an ocean separates us, those people I love are with me even now.

In the spirit of new beginnings with old roots, I've started learning the shamisen, tsugaru-jamisen to be exact. Tsugaru-jamisen music was created by blind, itinerant, beggars called bosama in Tsugaru, Aomori, in northern Japan, at the turn of the last century. The spirit of tsugaru-jamisen is innovation; it owes its existence to the innovation of the bosama taking an old instrument that came to Japan from China centuries ago and giving it a new life with a style of playing unlike anything heard before.

It's great to be making music again. It soothes this body and mind given to me by millenia of music-making ancestors. For a long time, I've been longing to start playing music again. Even singing traditional songs for the benefit of my Japanese students' education in Western culture struck a chord deep within me. We humans need music. Not just hearing, but making it too. At a Japanese taiko drum performance over a year ago, there were a couple of brothers who played tsugaru-jamisen. Their lively, dynamic playing resonated deep inside and lifted my spirits. Later, when my new friend Juergen practiced his shakuhachi at the summer camp we were working at, I knew I needed to start playing something again. What though? Taiko? It was taiko that made me fall in love with Japan after all. Not something you can play on your own too easily though. I wanted something that I could do anytime, not just when practice was held. Shamisen? Nah, too expensive. Shakuhachi? Beautiful, but maybe a little too somber. What's more lively? Shamisen. Damn, it's expensive. Tough, shamisen. Ok.

Juergen and his friends helped me find a teacher, and I've begun. Got a long way to go, but that's ok. Just playing a few random notes makes me happy. Even though I can't play anything, I want to share this experience with those people I love so much across the Pacific. If I were there, you'd be complaining about the terrible racket I was making. So that you don't miss out on that experience, here you go:


Someday, I hope to look back at this video and think, "wow, I've come a long way." In the meantime, I pity my neighbors. For comparison, here's what tsugaru-jamisen should sound like:

arashi

here's a promotional video to encourage folks to come to japan. it features arashi (possibly the most popular j-pop group) and includes kagoshima!

(arashi='storm' in japanese. here's my favorite arashi song: troublemaker.)

giant tug of war

Went to the giant tug of war (Oo-tsuna-hiki) in Satsuma Sendai, Kagoshima, Sept. 22. It's quite the event. 3000 people pull a 365-meter, 5-ton rice straw rope. The north/upperside Oshomachi neighborhood (上方 red team) competes against the south/lowerside Mukoda neighborhood (下方 white team) for about two hours.

The rules are more complex than a simple tug of war over a line, and so strategy and penalties play a part. It's nicknamed kenka-zuna (rope brawl) because of the pushing and fighting at the center of the rope. Carts and carts of shochu (Japanese sweet potato liquor) are distributed to the participants, fueling the frenzy.

Most of the participants are wearing tobi or chocho zubon pants which are the trademark clothing of Japanese construction workers. Some of the jackets worn probably cover full-body tattoos. Some were on full-display. These are not guys you want to mess with.

The event commemorates a tug of war held by the Satsuma soldiers before the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 to improve morale. (Incidentally, Satsuma's side lost the battle resulting in the installation of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the beginning of the Edo era. Two centuries later, Satsuma would play a key role in ending the shogunate and returning the emperor to power which began the Meiji Restoration.)

In the video below, you'll notice that the white side seems to be winning, then all of a sudden the rope gets pulled very quickly the other way and the white team carries the rope to a post in the center. Later, you'll notice the reverse happening. I have no idea why and most of the bystanders don't either. It might be strategy, it might be penalties. The graphics in the video on this page, may give some insight (though it's all in Japanese). I got recruited to the red side near the end of the night, and some guy gave me his headband 'cause he got a kick out of seeing a white guy wearing it. I don't know if he was just lending it to me, but in the chaos at the end I lost track of him. Watch the end of the video to see who won.

north sea circuit

a week has already passed by since arriving in hokkaido (literally, north sea circuit). the first night my friend jim and i stayed in an industrial port town called tomakomai that, compared to kagoshima, was so cold, i worried i had packed the wrong clothes. we went to a nearby ainu museum that was situated in a recreated village. it was interesting but sad to see and learn about these indigenous people of hokkaido and northern japan who have all but been obliterated. i was struck by the similarities their culture shared with the japanese (the animistic ainu and shinto religions for one).

we headed to sapporo where it's pleasantly cool but not cold. it's a great city and the people here are much more cosmopolitan and laid-back than kagoshima (naturally). i've been busy going to my japanese class and doing homework, but i've been able to explore the city a little, and now i'm on a train to see hakodate for the weekend. the view of the coast from the train is amazing!

ogionsaa

ogionsaa is a shinto festival in kagoshima where portable shrines called mikoshi are carried around to ward off the plague and bring good luck.

a year

well, one year ago, i landed in tokyo and began this journey in japan. i was full of excitement and anxiety then, and incredibly jet-lagged. in the months before, there was also a little dread--knowing that it would take an immense amount of energy to pull this off. i remember sitting at the gate in san francisco surrounded by japanese speaking japanese, thinking how that would soon be my daily reality. now, i don't even give it a second thought and find it unusual when someone i don't know speaks fluent english. i think i even forget sometimes that i look different, but not for long, as i am almost constantly stared at. even that doesn't seem to phase me most days.

i still can't read most of the stuff in front of me, but i can read a bus schedule, order food, and even send texts to japanese friends. it did take a ton of energy. there have been so many days i just collapsed in exhaustion at the end of the day. i'm so glad i chose to stay another year though. i'm just now getting to the point where i can enjoy things without worrying about figuring basic stuff out.

about a year ago, i bought a 100 yen folding fan to cope with the heat. recently, students have been talking with me about what's written on it: lao-tzu's 千里の道も一歩から 'journey of 1000 ri from one step' or more often translated 'the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.' (1 ri = 2.44 miles)

family and friends, thank you for all your support and encouragement.

field ball

went to my first yakyuu (baseball) game in japan. it was the last game for our high school seniors, so we all went to cheer them on.

yakyuu (野球) literally means field ball. in terms of the rules, it's pretty much the same as american baseball (aside from a slightly smaller ball, strike zone, and field). however, in terms of the discipline with which it's approached, it's a whole 'nother game. like many things in japan, it seems to be practiced with the same earnestness as budo (martial arts). japanese high school baseball players are extremely disciplined, respectful, and enthusiastic. as i was waiting outside the stadium for the others, every baseball player i saw stopped to take off their hat, bow, and say good morning. at first, i looked behind me thinking they were greeting someone else. in the classroom, i've found that baseball team members are almost always respectful and enthusiastic. their attitude is refreshing in comparison to the cynical, apathetic attitudes of some of the other students.

during the game, the first-year (sophomore) team members were in the stands with us (in their uniforms of course) and held up signs with each batter's name so we could all chant in unison. this youtube video is a good example of what it's like:

there's no jeering, no boos, no attempts to throw off the opposing team's batter. it was truly amazing how good-hearted it all was. and at the end, the teams bow to each other, then bow to their fans. it was hot and i'm well-sunburned, but it's stuff like this that really makes me love japan.

climate shock

now that i'm more or less over the worst of my culture shock, it's time for some climate shock. being from bone dry colorado, i'm finding i'm ill-prepared to deal with the level of moisture here. 90% and up humidity here, raining almost constantly, and this morning i discovered some of my tatami were covered in green fuzz. i just bought my first dehumidifier. i've run plenty humidifiers, but i don't even know what to look for in a dehumidifier. after running it for about 8 hours, about 1.5 liters of water had collected. where did that come from?! wow. it's humid here.

now that i'm battling mildew, i'm finding it everywhere. it doesn't help that the kitchen window sill is leaking which explains why there was mildew in the cupboard when i moved in last july. my slumlord...err, landlord has known about it for more than 2 weeks but says he needs a couple dry days to fix it. so far we've had two consecutive dry days on two separate occasions. i'm sure it's just too complicated for my simple foreign brain to comprehend why those days weren't really suitable.

plum rain

it ain't for nothin' they call this the rainy season (梅雨). it rains a lot here. a lot. and when it's not raining, it's humid. very humid.

things don't dry so well at this time. maybe because it's 89% humidity right now. maybe this is why there's another way of writing rainy season which means 'mildew rain': 黴雨. the usual way is 'plum rain.' i don't know why. there's a lot of plums at this time? the rain drops are the size of plums?

friday, there were some big lightning strikes near our school that blacked out the electricity. everyone was freaked out. it just reminded me of colorado summer thunderstorms. i actually enjoyed it.

went surfing last weekend in miyazaki:

it's so beautiful over on the eastern peninsula! it reminds me of costa rica.

got a little tan as a result which prompted the students to exclaim, "tyler sensei, you're baked!" and "you're toasted!" now, i realize that i must act pretty strange to them, but it's just due to being foreign, not drugs. so, in japanese, to say someone is tan or sun-burnt you say hi-yake (日焼け), sun-baked. this is the same 'grill/roast/broil/bake/fry' as teriyaki and yakisoba. when i tried to explain the difference between burn and tan, they were totally confused. it's all the same to them.

learned another japanese word this week, yaeba (八重歯). when i had smiled, a student remarked, 'you have yaeba! cute!' referring to my upper eye teeth that protrude a little because i made my dentist grandfather take my braces off early. yaeba literally means 'eight stacked teeth.' japanese are infamous for having "crooked" teeth. all along i thought it was because they had poor dentistry. turns out, they're just not obsessed with straight teeth like the west. good thing 'cause straight teeth seem to be the exception. here i was feeling sorry for all these kids with crooked teeth when in fact they have a desired trait! just goes to show, beauty is not absolute.

to update you on my battle against government-mandated irradiation, i'm being allowed to take a tuberculin skin test (at my own expense) instead of the pointless chest x-ray, and i don't have to take the stomach x-ray until i'm 40 (when it is absolutely required by law in japan).

x-ray vision

after reassuring everyone for the umpteenth time that, yes, i am as safe in kagoshima as anywhere else, 700 miles away from fukushima, exposed to the same levels of radiation that people in the u.s. are exposed to everyday (0.34μSv/h), i now have a new menacing radiation source to contend with: the annual 'routine' japanese medical exam.

i wrote about the 'pee' test in my last post in april (sorry, i've been busy, alright?). like all things japanese, they seem to like to draw things out and with little regard for privacy. between then and now, i had blood drawn, had an ekg, an eye check (which involved detecting whether a little c was on its back, pointing down, backwards, or normal), hearing check, and weight and height measured, on a few different days.

thus far, i've eluded the annual chest x-ray and upper gastrointestinal series, but they may get me yet. everyone is subjected to the chest x-ray, and if you're 35 or older, you get the lovely 'extra bonus' of a barium meal and being shot with 15 times the radiation of a chest x-ray (along with the ekg and blood test). it is no coincidence that japan's x-ray attributable risk of cancer is 2 to 4 times greater than other developed nations. they x-ray the hell out of their people.

the supposed purpose of the chest x-ray is to prevent the spread of tuberculosis and is government-mandated as well as tragically misguided. tb can only be detected with an x-ray if the person has active tb (coughing for three weeks or more, spitting up blood, sweating at night, weak, etc.) and even then it's not conclusive. if someone has latent (inactive) tb (i.e. no symptoms), a chest x-ray will be normal. only a skin or blood test will detect latent tb. in addition, latent tb is not contagious until it becomes active. so, while it might make sense to x-ray folks who have been coughing a heck of a lot, a far safer and more reliable route would be to do blood or skin tests first. in other words, people are needlessly being exposed to radiation on a yearly basis.

so how does this affect me as a foreigner? since i'm a public employee working with minors, the school must assure that i do not have tb, which i think is a completely valid concern; however, given that i am not coughing at all (let alone for 3 weeks), feverish, weak, etc., an x-ray will show nothing even if i have latent tb, which again is not contagious. i may be able to do a skin or blood test at my own expense in lieu of the x-ray, but i'm still waiting to hear.

as for choking on barium and being pumped full of far more radiation, japan has one of the highest rates of stomach cancer in the world. some posit that the high-powered barium meal x-ray may be a contributing factor--this japanese clinic for one (the link is in japanese. why don't you have chrome by now so you can automatically translate pages?). even if that's merely conjecture, gastroscopy is now considered far more reliable in detecting stomach cancer. what's more, i am from a country that has a relatively low stomach cancer rate. most likely, i will be able to forego this nightmare of an exam, since the outcome would only affect me, but i'm still waiting to hear. two days ago i was told that i would not be able to re-contract if i didn't submit to these exams. in japan, you don't question doctors or the government, so i'm a bad, bad foreigner right now. i may have to do the chest x-ray in the end (ahem, sounds uncomfortable), but it doesn't appear that the stomach exam is legally enforceable.

so, while i'm still a fan of universal healthcare, you best be sure there are some safeguards to make sure the government cannot play doctor (not that insurance companies playing doctor is any better).