Memory

How precious are our memories. I have been thinking about that sentiment lately and what it's like for those of us who have less than reliable recall. After accepting the lifestyle changes that go along with weak memory, the hardest part is accepting the impact on other people's perceptions. Credibility becomes a major issue -- not always because they doubt the reliability of your memory, but because they doubt your integrity and core values.

If a student, for example, completes their homework but forgets to hand it in, studies all week but forgets to set their alarm for the big test, or forgets the instructions for an assignment, the teacher will dismiss the lapse in memory as intentional or even "carelessness". If one lover asks another "do you remember that time..." an the response is "no", this simple loss in memory makes it seem to one as if the other doesn't value the time they spent together.

A couple of months ago, work brought me into a Borders in Atlanta. I came across a book entitled Japanese Cooking at Home. Inside I found the recipe for 親子丼, which is one of my fondest memories from Japan as far as food goes. This may be the only book I've bought all year (pitiful, I know). I shared it with my girlfriend, and a week later she asked me "How salty is donburi supposed to be?" "What?" "The chicken and egg recipe from that book you bought." "What recipe? I bought a book?"

How painful something so fundamentally "good" as love can become when we can no longer share the memories we value. Some people go as far as to intentionally lock those memories away, but in the end, those memories will undeniably fade away. Whether it be in aging or in death, the longevity of our private memories is limited. What is more important is the chance to make those memories and the chance to impact the memories of those around us.

Independence

With graduation comes a sense of accomplishment, relief, or even anticipation. Many people claim that graduation marks the transition into the "real world", but this is often patronizing younger generations as if they have been sheltered all their lives. Of course, I know plenty of people who have graduated and still believe the world revolves around them. No, graduation doesn't inherently MEAN anything -- at least not to me.

Those little pieces of paper that my dean signed say little about my education. Together, they only attest to a fraction of my college experience. Most of my peers sought out degrees to flash in front of employers; they sought professors who would make the journey easy; they sought tactics that would earn a 4.0 GPA on paper without having done any independent work. Not to blow my own horn, but I would rather fail a class than cheat; I would rather have high grade point TOTAL than AVERAGE; I would rather take classes I'm BAD AT than finish a semester on the dean's list. To me, college was a time to learn something, not a time to impress people on paper. If you were to include the classes I audited, I have around 230 undergraduate credit hours compared to the 130 required for my combined degrees.

But then, graduation means the same as dropping out. It isn't an accomplishment -- it's a transition. Is it independence? Not usually. The government is running out of funding for benefit programs, so our generation has to start saving for retirement as early as possible. We are slaves to money, which makes us slaves to our jobs, slaves to responsibility... which isn't always so bad if you don't mind being a slave. American sentiments make this difficult to accept.

I read in "Polite Fictions" that Americans push independence culturally, whereas Japanese push interdependence. Why would Americans not want to belong to something greater? The military makes soldiers proud to belong, and children everywhere hate feeling outcast... so how is it we as Americans dream of independence knowing quite well it is unattainable in any industrial society? The closer together we all become, the greater the appeal to fantasy games that appeal to the need for independence. I'm losing focus on what my point was at this late hour, but to me, independence is the great joy of being out of school... and unemployed. v_v

In any case, I have purchased a domain name to celebrate my independence. I have also (as you may have noticed) redesigned the site. It's all hand-coded, so I hope to get some feedback. Keep your eyes peeled at crockettquest.com for future updates!

I get around

This post is a bit long. Not really worth the read. It's just old (originally from july 13 2005) and needed to be posted. Oh but check me out in the NUPACE ad below.


So what, you may wonder, did I do with all my time in Japan? Well, at least pretend like you have some interest; after all, you are reading my blog. Aside from going to Japanese lessons, studying Japanese culture, and pretty much being an all-around lousy student, I enjoy a uniquely Japanese lifetsyle I will dearly miss when I go back home. Let me paint you a picture of a typical day.

Most mornings I wake up, almost too sore from exercising the day before to even move. I manage to turn and look at the clock and realize either I've slept through 2 of 3 of my alarms, or the sun has woken me up long before my alarms are set to go off. In the latter case, it must be a day I don't have an 8:45 class, so I stay in bed a little longer, enjoying the peace and qu...

「みんなさん、おはようございます。今日、シーツなんですけど、blah blah blah blah」

ARGH, stupid intercom system. I want to just shut off power to my whole room from the circuit breaker. But then my robotic air conditioning arm wouldn't continue to pacify me through its hypnotic swing. Besides, today is the sheet washing service day, which is much more convenient than washing it on my own, especially given the amount of quality time I spend in bed (NOT NEARLY ENOUGH).

So, on go some clothes, off go the sheets, and we'll skip the rest of the morning routine. Anyway, more often than I'd like to admit, I'm nearly out the door of my building, having reached the lobby from the 5th floor, when I realize I'm still wearing my indoor slippers. These are necessary because the Japanese custom of removing shoes in certain rooms of the dorm is a real pain when you have to unlace and lace them every time you want to grab something from the refridgerator, watch TV, etc. So anyway, back up to the 5th floor to swap out my shoes, and I'm off to school.

Of course by now I've had more delays than I accounted for despite setting my alarms earlier, so I'm late to Japanese class. Every day of the week has a different concentration. For example, Monday is reading day, where the teacher just ignores me because, unlike the rest of the class (with the exception of the perfect Indonesians), I'm not Chinese and can't just skim all the kanji (Chinese characters used in higher level Japanese writing) to get the message of the passage. Perhaps my favorite day is the conversation grammar day, where we learn 3 ways to say everything. For example, the key phrase to forward a message a friend gave you is ～てって, unless you are talking to superior, in which case you have to make it longer to make it more polite. In the case of a senior student, or 先輩, you say ～ように言われたんですが. In the case of a professor, you have to say ～ていただけないかとおっしゃっていました, which has to be the longest jargon of meaningless kissing up I've ever heard. All three of these phrases basically translate to "said".

After Japanese, since I've exhausted the supply of English-instruction engineering courses offered, I go to a random culture course, be it a comparison of American/Japanese cultural perceptions, a course on cross-cultural training, or even a Japanese history class. But that's not as exciting as is the fact that western professors get absolutely no feedback from the Japanese students in these courses unless they are directly called upon. Through these courses, I've also been exposed to a lot of West meets East films, such as Gung Ho and Tampopo.

Ok I wrote most of this stuff a year ago... so I'm gonna go ahead and post it. Nobody really cares about day-to-day life in Japan (except for our all-you-can-drink self-introduction parties every week). After all, most of my fun "getting around" involved the Korean... incident. I know what everybody REALLY wants to read: the Billy/Lily updates. Oh yes, by popular demand, they may be posted here. I just have to sort through and see if there's any offensive content first.

Unconditional Love

In honor of Valentine's Day...
no... In honor of White Day....

OK, so it's been a while since I've had the time to work on this thing. Truth be known, I have errands I should be doing right now. But I have 3 half-written blog entries that need to be posted. One is dated as far back as July 2005.

I've been thinking a lot about love, and so I started writing this entry on Valentine's Day. Short on time, I thought White Day (Pi Day here) would be a good chance to post it. In Japan, Valentine's Day is a chance for women to give gifts to men. One month later, White Day is an obligation for men to give something to every woman who gave him something for White Day. I guess this is a way to encourage Japanese to get past their shyness. (HAHA from now on, Super Mario Shy Guys are "Japanese Masqueraders" in my book.)

What's been on my mind lately is the ideal of unconditional love. Raised in a Christian home, I heard this term a lot, and it's hardly exclusive to any one religion. (Grace may be the one thing exclusive to Christianity.)

Is unconditional love pracical in today's society? Jesus said if a man asks you to walk a mile, walk two. If anybody asks you for something, give it to them without question. I'm thinking, children who follow this advice will go without lunch money on a day to day basis. A few greedy gluttons will be able to live a very happy life.

With some obvious reservations, I still try to demonstrate unconditional love as much as possible. Unfortunately, I've tried to be loving to a lot of people who maybe aren't used to the attention, so they in turn think they've fallen in love. Hard thing to do, tell somebody "you're not in love with me". Hard thing too, when some of these people expect sex, only to hear me say "not interested". In the end, how am I expected to be loving without eventually hurting somebody?

I'm not especially interested in having a foreign girlfriend, but if I am fair to everybody, equally loving to everybody... the foreigners notice it more. It's not a fetish; it's just statistics.

Free? Free?! It must be a scam!

I know I've talked about having left a lot of money and store credit behind in Japan, but what little I had left in my bank account here at home has just been consumed by a company that goes by Vital Basics, Inc. I had serious difficulties with this past semester's courseload, getting the worst grades of my college career thus far, for all sorts of reasons:

• my natural auditory deficiency -- I can post more details on this, but you might compare this to ADD or dyslexia in terms of contribution to study difficulties
• fatigue from going straight into the fall semester from my summer semester in japan
• inability to sleep due to my roommate and his girlfriend arguing every night at the top of their lungs until 3am
• reverse culture shock
  

So, it occurred to me that I could use some extra help focusing in class. Every day my roommate wuld turn on The Daily Show or just leave the TV on while making dinner and I'd see commercials for this supplement, Focus Factor. The original Focus Factor TV ad went something like this:

Free? Free?! You're giving it away free?

Hi I'm Rob Gray; I'm the president of Vital Basics, and I wanna give you a bottle of Focus Factor, one of our best-selling supplements, absolutely free. Why would we give away a free bottle of Focus Factor? Because we know that if you'll try it, you'll buy it. Focus Factor contains nutrients that work with your natural brain chemistry to support focus, concentration, and memory. Simply call ... and we'll you a full-size bottle of Focus Factor, absolutely free. You simply provide $4.95 to help cover the cost of shipping.

They let you try it FREE?! It must be good!

After seeing this ad for over a month, I thought I'd give it a try. Sure enough, it turned out to be similar to one of those trial magazine subscriptions where you get a few free before they start charging at the normal rate. The woman on the phone explained to me "If you want to continue receiving bottles of FocusFactor, simply do nothing and we will send out your next shipment in 3 weeks."

One week later, I receive the bottle of Focus Factor. Those pills are huge, impossible to swallow, and have no noticeable affect (unless I can blame the pills for the headaches I got at that time). Just 3 days later, I get a credit statement that I've received two charges from Vital Basics already -- one for $4.95 and one for $69.95. A few days later I try to call, but customer service doesn't have the same hours as the 24-hour promotional number to buy the pills. So I wait another few days and call during their service hours and the guy tells me the next shipment of bottles is on its way and so he can't refund any money until I send them back. So I send back the pills and check my bank statement. An additional $159.85 has been charged to my account. Now nearly a month has passed and still no refund. All I have from Vital Basics is the one "free" bottle, and yet they have not refunded a dime of the $234.75 charged to my credit card.

I'm a Legend in Japan

By popular demand, proof of the living legend.

This is about my participation in the February (middle of winter!) Naked Festival. To show respect, men throw cold water and sake on me throughout the festival, and women try to touch me for good luck.


The above article is all about me and Benjamin Franklin. A natural pair of legends in the eyes of the Japanese.

Korea

Planning my promised visit to China was exhausting. Trying to research and put together the cheapest ways to get around, the locations of all my friends, the places to stay, and the amount of time I would need to wrap things up in Japan took about a month. And of course, I couldn't book anything until I knew everything would work together. As such, it got annoying when people would say to me close to my departure date "You should have planned ahead." Doubling as a student and a travel agent isn't easy when simply being a foreigner adds dozens of other responsibilities you have to deal with, many of which require that you learn a whole new set of vocabulary or process just to learn how to deal with them. The problem with being a foreigner is you even have to learn how to learn; in other words you have to find out how to find information sources that tell you how to find what you need to find. Simply put, if you have a lot to accomplish while living abroad, it is a real struggle to be as efficient as you'd like.

In any case, the trip only happened in limited capacity. Three of my friends booked round trip plane tickets to Seoul, but I wanted to continue on from Korea to China. One way plane tickets are not nearly as economical as round-trip, so I opted for one-way ferry tickets instead. Using the 日韓共同切符, I traveled by 新幹線 across western Japan to the port in 下関. From there, I caught a ferry to 釜山, Korea to catch a KTX train to Seoul. I would have taken my time en route (taking full advantage of the ticket price), stopping along the way to see more of Japan, except we had already bought tickets to a soccer game soon after my arrival in Seoul.

People in western Japan were a lot friendlier than the people of Nagoya. Granted, I met plenty of friendly people in Nagoya, and the Nagoya society as a whole tries to be "nice", but there are so many subtleties in social interaction that simply aren't present in Nagoya. I had dismissed these differences between Nagoya people and Americans as simply part of Japanese culture, but traveling west made me realize how much diversity there is just within the main island. The travelers I met there from Tokyo were also extremely friendly, but travelers tend to be more outgoing.

The ferry was an amazing experience. It wasn't booked anywhere close to capacity, which was nice considering the room I booked had 40 futons in it. Watching the cities go by, socializing with the other travelers, even enjoying the on-boat カラオケ and 温泉 all make for an experience that you completely forfeit when traveling by plane. I have to say I was a little confused when a Korean woman tried to convey (completely in Korean) that I should call the emergency staff because she thought the boat was sinking. It wasn't until somebody else spoke with her that she accepted that a little puddle of water in the observation deck didn't mean the boat had "sprung a leak".

Korean people were everything I wished Japanese people had been at times. I don't mean this as an insult to the Japanese, but I didn't realize how bad my culture shock in Japan had been until realizing how much Korea felt more like home in terms of friendliness. I spoke with some Koreans on my return trip about my thoughts, and we finally concluded that Koreans aren't as "nice" as Japanese, but they are more honest with their feelings. In Japan, this "nice" factor is a result of strict adherence to social roles. As an American, I'm used to everybody in my generation trying to break away from social roles.

Seoul was nice. At this point in writing this entry, that's all I can say. Blame the headache.

The trouble started when I realized I couldn't book a ferry to China from Incheon as expected. And when my 3 travel buddies returned to Japan, I was left without a hotel for the night. I managed to book a ferry to 大阪, Japan for the next day, but I still needed a place to stay the night. My solution? Nightclub. Pretty impressive place. Best layout I've ever seen. Of course I stick out as a foreigner, but that can't be avoided. At least people were friendly and had a good time.

The return ferry only cost me 8000 yen, and took 18 hours. But again, I have to say it was my favorite way to travel. Maybe ferry people are just more engaging than plane and train people. Maybe it's just because you can walk around freely, so long as you can stay standing when the boat docks. Walking down the hallway, I probably looked drunk, swaying from side to side.

Osaka was scary. I traveled around with a guy I met from the boat who pretty much only spoke Korean, gathering that he was studying architecture and needed my help to ask where to find interesting buildings. The scary part comes when I looked for a place to stay for the night. Capsule hotel? All night in a club? Some stranger's apartment? I won't say exactly what happened, only that gangsters with girls wearing cowboy outfits were involved.

No Problem

I started two entries about a month ago which, until now, I haven't made time to finish. I'm posting this one now becaues it's finals week and I need something productive as an excuse not to be studying. And I wonder why I never do well on tests.

As the school year end approaches here, all sorts of deadlines are approaching. Somehow I manage to make time for a social life, including trips to cultural sites but more importantly, MOVIE TIME. Unfortunately the theaters in Nagoya are absurd. Tickets tend to cost around $15, plus about $4~8 round trip in train fees just to get to the theater. As such, I've only gone out to see a few films so far. The list so far includes ハウルの動く城, 電車男, Batman Begins, Starwars, and 宇宙戦争. I almost wish I had seen the Japanese dubbed version of Starwars; the dialogue might not have been so unbearable. Plus, Yoda's speech pattern is pretty much Japanese anyway.

We tend to go to the video rental store instead, which is much more reasonably priced at about $2.50. We can even rent music CDs there to identify who is singing those songs we hear in commercials. Just recently we identified the song from a Coca-Cola commercial as たしかなこと. Nintendo DS is advertised using a song by New York native artist Utada Hikaru that goes "You're easy-breezy and I'm Japanesey" which is one of my new favorite lines from a Japanese song, next to "Where is the back door of myself?" Oh and I got the official YATTA! DVD, which has to be the best 5 bucks I've ever spent.

Rather than watching Hollywood, we tend to watch a lot of Chinese, Korean, and of course Japanese films. To further waste my time, I enjoy writing reviews of the films on IMDB. I especially enjoyed writing a negative review of Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator, since it so often appears on the top 100 films of all times lists. Of course, can you really trust the opinion of a guy who gives an 8/10 to a cartoon about pigs from Hong Kong?

One of the films we've recently watched is 無問題, which is about a guy who leaves Japan to pursue is ex-girlfriend in Hong Kong, who work for Jackie Chan. So in order to impress her, he gets a job as a stunt-man. Jackie Chan doesn't make any appearances in the film, but Sammo Hung does, since he directs and choreographs much of the stuntwork in Jackie Chan films. In the end, the main character has to solve his love struggles, questioning whether or not he should continue chasing his love in Hong Kong. The sequal, 無問題2 becomes a little more comical with the introduction to even more stereotypical kung fu, and this time there is even more of a stereotypical Japan and Hong Kong culture clash. If you don't get anything else out of these two films, at least you'll learn how to say "No Problem" in Cantonese.

Anyway, if I could bring one film back to America to share with my friends back home, it'd definitely be 電車男, since it really reveals a lot about modern Japanese culture, particularly Tokyo lifestyles. It's difficult to say whether or not this story could have been as good were it not based on a true story. In fact, the story unfolded online in a BBS chat. After meeting a woman on a train, and not knowing how to impress her, he went online and began posting messages asking for advice. Each day he advanced his relationship with her, he continued the online thread asking what his next step should be. The original dialogue has been published in book form, or you can find an archive of it here, or check out the official movie site.

Of course, I have a whole stack of Chinese and Korean films to show off, such as 春去春又來, 2046, and a few surprises I may bring home... and I really want to get ahold of the Infernal Affairs trilogy. But hey, this blog is supposed to focus on my life in Japan, so all I can say is that 2046, Kung Fu Hustle, and Infernal Affairs are advertised all over in video stores now, much more prominantly than any Hong Kong films sold in America. In the theater, however, Korean films seem much more popular. Also the Korean TV drama 겨울연가 (a.k.a. 冬のソナタ in Japan), having concluded several years ago, is still so popular that a 冬のソナタ-themed park is being constructed here in Nagoya. Perhaps that should take the place of the Pokèpark here. BTW, if anybody wants a Pokèpark Nintendo DS, just send me 200 bucks or so.

Horse Feathers

Keven and I have been talking about exposing the other foreign students (including other native English speakers) to the wonder of the Marx Brothers' films. Reflecting on the title of one of the films, Horse Feathers, I recall learning that the traditional Chinese character for horse, just as does the character for bird (鳥), both of which are used in Japan, has feathers at its base:

馬

True Story. Every couple of months, the university's dining halls have a week long special featuring foods from some other region of Japan. Last week was their “沖縄と九州フェア”. I walked in yesterday the minute they opened for lunch, having skipped breakfast. I said to myself "I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse!"

Surely enough, I was given that opportunity. Pretty sure it was sashimi. I have been working on getting pictures together for other sections of the site, so once that's taken care of, expect a more lengthy update.

Updates

Time for one of those mandatory blog updates even though nothing's really going on. New Semester rolled in, and my computer's not starting. Go figure. At least I hear everybody's updating to Tiger, the latest operating system from Apple. At least everybody with the good sense to jump out of the Windows experience.

Here are my 2 cents on the Mac vs. Windows debate. Of course the list goes on and on, but to me it can be summed up by the kind of computing "lifestyle" these two operating systems promote. If Windows is like a window to the world, Tiger is certainly a more lively experience. With windows the biggest challenge is keeping your window pane clean, and any attempt to express yourself by going into carpentry yourself on this window can be disastrous. At the very least the more cluttered your window becomes with helper applications, the less you are able to use the window itself. Trying to feel secure behind a clear pane of glass is pretty difficult as well.

The Mac experience, on the other hand, is nothing short of a pet begging for attention. This operating system, always named after some sort of cat, is ready to please and, once you know how your tiger thinks, you can really express yourself in the world with it. Applications feel more like amazing pet tricks than simple tools at times, but they are no less reliable. (In fact it seems I have always been able to rely on my Windows machines for nothing short of crashing or accumulating corporate graffiti.) Of course no animal is perfect, but this is just my impression of the beast.

Anyway, I was wrong about seasons not being so dramatic here. I swear half the nation is littered with about 5 flowering plants that each take their turn to bloom, the first of which I've seen so far: 桜 and つつじ. Also, disappointedly, there are no more steamed buns to be found anywhere. I can't get my fix of Chinese buns without going to an expensive Chinese restaurant now! Also, finally, t-shirts have come out. So I feel bad that I can't post any Engrish pics for you guys lately, but at least I can provide a phrase I saw on a t-shirt recently:

Those who are doing I directly are what to tie to the next from there, even if it falls since.

Hope that tides you over 'til my computer's fixed. By the way, to see what Japanese Azaleas look like, check out this page.

Parentals

A little late, but I'd like to take this opportunity to log my parents' visit to Japan. My computer has been giving my trouble, so I'm typing this in a school lab. Unlike my general blog entries, this one is pretty much just a list of events.

I didn't switch to the appropriate train on the way to the new airport in 名古屋, so I called the airport ahead so they wouldn't worry. I think it must be frightening to arrive in Japan without a guide. Anyway, we took a bus back into town, found some strangers to help us locate my parents' hotel, then checked in.

Sunday, headed to 犬山, home of one of the oldest original castles in Japan. Many castles in Japan were burned or bombed last century, so they are mostly recreations now. Afterwards we headed out to Monkey Park and played with some primates. Returned at night for a meal in one of the towers above Nagoya Station (42nd floor). Beautiful view of the city out the window.

Monday, visited the Aichi Expo. Despite the heavy rain and the fact it was a weekday, the crowd was still a nuisance. Still too early, I suppose. Most interesting to me was the pavilian with a video about the creation of the expo, accompanied by a live opera singer. Least interesting was the ability to walk into a model futuristic train (600km/hr), since you just see the seating arrangement. Due to the crowds (3 hour wait just for Toyota's pavilian), we only saw a fraction of the park.

Tuesday, visited Toyota Museum of Textile and Automotive History. The place is constantly growing. I would have liked to see the special exhibit on Japanese marionettes, but we had gone to a dedicated museum in Inuyama just 2 days prior. Spent a good part of the day there, leaving no time for a trip to the port, which continues to grow as a tourist attraction. Instead, I took them by my university campus and ate at a spaghetti restaurant where I hoped Dad would branch out of his search for the perfect meatsauce. He did, but it ended up being too spicy.

Wednesday morning, it was off to 京都 via bullet train. No cherry blossoms yet! Cold front still persists. Took a guided tour, visited some shrines, same as every other tourist in Kyoto. No time for Nara, unfortunately.

Thursday, caught a few more sites in Kyoto. The taxi driver took pity on our tight schedule and seemed to appreciate conversing in Japanese with a foreigner, so he turned off the meter and just took us around Kyoto University's campus, and by a few shrines lesser-known to foreigners. Caught Silver pavilian, which I'm sure is gorgeous once Cherry Blossoms are blooming. Took an evening bullet train to Tokyo. Checked in that night to Takasomething something New Prince Hotel.

Friday (東京), had another guided tour, although these tours don't seem to ever let us get a feel for the well-known parts of the city. Didn't see Shinjuku, Rappongi, or Akihabara. My parents had walked enough for the day to go exploring too much. I met some friends for dinner. Crazy Taiwanese restaurant that was fashioned after some sort of dungeon. Not sure what's up with Tokyo. That place is just odd. Tried to find souvenirs, but Ginza turned out to be a bad place to look. Should've gone by more places in Nagoya where I know they can find some.

Saturday, my parents took a shuttle to the airport. Being the terrible son I am, I didn't accompany them. Instead, I flirted with the massive tourist group from 广州 (Canton region, China), hoping to practice my Cantonese. Sweet. Now I have a friend to show me around when I visit Guangzhou, in addition to those I intend to meet in the north. She recommended I visit 新宿公園, so I do. Leaving the hotel with too much baggage (getting heavier throughout the day), I realize the weather has suddenly turned warm, and amazingly, cherry blossoms are everywhere. I can't stress how dramatic this change was... going from about 53 degrees(F) to the mid 70s in one day. I only wish my parents could have come a week later. Shinjuku Koen was absolutely the most beautiful thing I've seen in Japan. Sharp contrast from my expectations of Tokyo. 200 yen admission includes different style gardens, a greenhouse, a pond with GIANT carp... oh man I wanted to take pictures like the other 1000s of Japanese that poured in that day. Even the prime minister gave a speech there the next day. Managed to do some souvenir shopping, met up with my friend Kayono's boyfriend, who gave me a room for the night out in a neighboring prefecture.

Sunday, hit up Ueno Koen, which is another popular spot for 桜の花見, only this one is free and frequented by street performers. Not nearly as beautiful as the Shinjuku, I watch some Australian sing Simon and Garfunkle hits before entering the nearby Tokyo Museum (of something-rather). 150 yen for students, a great deal given the large number of exhibits on display. I only laughed at some guy trying to get in free with a media pass. Mwahaha I am STUDENT! After paying an extra 300 yen or so to see a single statue that was considered the epitome of beauty, I hit up 横浜. Already dark by this time, but it only cost about 400 yen to get there, so I went for it. Had dinner in China town, notably the largest in the world. Had to catch a train home, so I didn't see much else. I'll go back later, I hope.

Only Sorry Is Not Enough

So lately I've noticed that my scarce blog entries tend to be mild exorcises in creative writing, with the title somehow forming an underlying motif. I'm not that creative, and I've come close to failing every writing class I've ever taken. So I apologize, but out of boredom (can't sleep and it's too late in the day to do anything productive without risking sleeping in tomorrow), I'm going to try to break the trend and just fill everybody in on what I've been up to these days. Sorry.

Rather than accomplishing my original goals for the break, namely studying Japanese and traveling to nearby countries to fulfill 2-year old promises that I'd visit friends this year in their respective countries, I've just made and tackled a set of new goals that presented themselves just as it seemed possible (convenient) to achieve them. Namely I've gone snowboarding twice, participated in a Japanese "naked festival", read a few chapters of Me Talk Pretty One Day, learned a number of no-bake recipes, begun a rigorous weight-training program, prepared an itinerary for my parents' upcoming visit, and watched a bunch of movies. Among the Chinese movies I've watched (since those help strengthen my Japanese language comprehension sooo much v_v), a line from 天下無賊 spoken by Andy Lau in English keeps popping up in daily conversation with the Chinese exchange students in my dorm, namely the title of this blog entry. (Ha! I bet you believed me when I said I was giving up the title-motifs! Now if I wanted to turn it into a full-fledged theme, I would have to rant about personal relationships.)

On a side note, I am mastering new social arts as well. My friends like to go out clubbing, often trying to make new friends at the club. The standard plan is to go to the R&B floors, sneak up behind somebody, and dance in a manner that suggests you have only one thing on your mind... making friends. This success rate in meeting conservative friends with this technique is less than desirable. Since 90% of the men at these clubs have this same game plan, women tend to go in pairs and dance with each other to have a plain excuse for not engaging in dance with creepy people. However, those who feel less than comfortable with this game plan (me included) get together and do quirky little dance moves such as the lawnmower, which immediately grants friendships with all the 30+ year old women trying to latch onto stronger-looking excuses for avoiding the creepy perverts in the club. My most successful tactic thus far has been going down to the retro floor, waiting for Bee Gees hits to start playing, and breaking out John Travolta's disco moves. Nothing says safe fun-loving guy better than an idiot making a fool of himself on the retro floor.

But I admit, there is a hidden agenda behind this clubbing. Not only do I get to learn about new places to go in the city and practice Japanese with new friends, but I have mastered the art of getting free food from women who are trying to foster a healthy relationship between the token foreigner (me) and their daughter. This past week, I visited a home where I received a declaration along the lines of "This time I cooked for you, but truly, my daughter can cook well also! Please come back often so she can prove it to you!" So my buddy and I took her and one of her friends out to the StarWars museum, featuring original props, costumes, and sketches for the 5 episodes made so far as well as the upcoming film. Not to spoil anything, but apparently there are robots with capes, and the Jedi have some big sci-fi-esque planning room that just seems to go against the image of the Jedi. Despite those drawbacks, wookies are introduced, and Yoda will continue to please the crowd with his awesome skills. The girl I was escorting seemed more than happy to go against the no-photography and no-touching rules posted about 5 places in every room. Security wasn't too happy with us, but just sorry was enough for them.

Yikes so it's really late and tomorrow (now today) I will attend a graduation ceremony. Blog to ya later!

Appreciation

I visited a non-demoniational (Lutherans in disguise) church today. Walking into this place is like walking into a Lutheran church in America. Everybody is suddenly speaking in regional American accents, the music is provided by two guitarists and a bongo player, the hymnals give 4-part harmony which is scrapped for new chord progressions that preserve only the melody, and the service itself is a practice in recitations of how we are selfish hateful sinners. Rather than reciting how we are unworthy of a relationship with God, whatever name He is given, I believe a church is responsible for encouraging a relationship with God. The pastor did say something that stuck with me. He said:

You must learn to feast before you can learn to fast.

His meaning, though I think it went right by the Japanese visitors, was that without true appreciation for time of celebration, fasting is miserable and meaningless. However, I think this kind of advice is only meant to suggest that life requires balance. It's right along the lines of "Good cannot exist without evil." I've spent a great deal of my life believing that I must understand all walks of life and be able to appreciate all forms of art and expression in order to comprehend the significance of anything. I've stretched myself too thin, and I exhausted my resources in the process. Granted, not many people have the bragging rights of becoming a senior after only 3 semesters of college, but close to half the courses I've taken by now have been classified as non-degree pursuits. My attempt to appreciate life looks more like a lack of focus on a single goal.

This week I've gained an appreciation for money, having spent most of my scholarship funds too quickly, counting the 10 dollars I have left to get me through the next week one by one. I've gained an appreciation for free food (er, I mean for Chinese-Japanese relations) at the two-day conference I attended with 2 wonderful performers of Chinese traditional instruments. I've gained an appreciation for people's complex emotions, encountering all sides of the human spirit this week. However, I still have no idea how to respond to people under certain kinds of stress. There are those who will hate you for trying to help, and those who will hate you for not trying to help. There are those who can only be happy with their expectations are met, and those who seek only the unexpected. There are stalkers, and those who wish to be left alone for life. This is far more complicated than a matter of there being leaders and followers. Perhaps I can never expect to understand what people want and what people need, and as long as there are people who follow nothing but their emotions, they will never be classifiable into any realm of rationality. I just wish these people would be willing to open up a little so we can learn to appreciate each other.

Awakenings

I always loved the film Awakenings with Robert DeNiro, and my apologies for spoiling the film, but the awakenings in the film prove to be short-lived. Among those who are staying in Japan for a year, I have heard many people say here at the halfway point that they are unsatisfied with the way things are going in their life and are ready to turn a new leaf. The hard part is following through, and even if there is a perceived awakening into a new life, often times this new leaf gets brushed away as the novelty of change has worn off. For example, I have heard many incidences of smokers being unable to quit until they think about the consequences it will have on their unborn child. If change requires this kind of serious motivation, then it's a shame that too many people are so unwilling to take care of themselves, possibly a sign that this age of information is also an age of poor self-esteem. At least I don't recall ever having read an uplifting book in the Wake County public school system.

So on top of learning to cook, my latest awakening is to shrug aside all my twisted perceptions of morality that pretty much equated to me being a slacker. The new goal is a disciplined schedule, a more active social engagement, no more fear of confrontation, and most importantly, not taking an hour to think through every sentence before I speak. Usually the topic has changed by that point anyway. Wish me luck.

Foodage

It's vacation time for me in Japan, and I figure it's time to spend my free time learning a few things. I'm reviewing some of my Japanese grammar and vocabulary, but I really have a couple of things I want to learn ASAP. First off, I'll have as much as a month's time to travel outside the country, so I wanna visit China to see a bunch of friends I haven't seen in a couple of years. Thailand and Vietnam also sound appealing as well, but I'll need some tips on getting around. Wanna get a tour of the local cuisine especially.

Speaking of which, that's the other thing I want to learn. I can bake pastries just fine back in America, but living without an oven, I need to expand to the stovetop. I've found recipes of all sorts of foods I love from back home, but I have a hard time finding many of the same ingredients in Japan. As such, if anybody has had the experience of cooking western food in Japan, I'd love some help learning what I can actually make over here. Maybe I should just accept that I'm here and start cooking Japanese cuisine.

春夏秋冬 Seasons

Japan is said to be a country of four distinct seasons. While there are places that have snow year-round and those that remain warm year-round, the tourist industry loves making a big deal out of something that tourists will never notice. A week-long vacation can't see the effects of changing weather, and the only big seasonal tourist attraction is cherry blossum viewing. Of course every region has its major seasonal festivals, but there is really only one seasonal change that seems to affect my city -- the food.

Best seen at the local LAWSON convenience store, many of the offered selections remain in stock for a mere month. We get such seasonal drinks as winter apple Fanta, such seasonal stacks as winter BBQ Pringles, and such seasonal candies as winter Pocky. Around the turn of the year there was even a なんちゃって cola that lasted just over a week. Aside from the seasonal commercial madness in the convenience stores, there are seasonal changes in the fruits, nuts, and おでん selection, but these are hardly what comes to mind when Japan is described as a country of four distinct seasons.

For me, this is a season of goodbyes. When I moved into international housing at my university in America, one of my good friends at the time who had lived there before told me that she didn't like living there because it only meant having to say goodbye to everybody you met there within a year. Regardless, I chose to live there 2 years and am now in a similar situation in Japan. However, to me, if you truly grow close to anybody in your time with them, there is no need for goodbyes in this day and age. Mail reaches most of the globe, so the only goodbyes are for those without the patience for meaningful relationships. If you're too afraid to meet somebody you'll have to say goodbye to, you might as well never leave home. But anyway, I'll miss spending time with all you guys who are leaving and hope we can meet up again someday. Here's to all of you!

Creativity

I've ruined my sleep schedule after working on my final reports for this semester. At least this shows me just how vulnerable our bodies are when we don't care for ourselves with proper discipline. Certainly my shortcomings in college have two causes. First, I refuse to live out my life only having gained the limited scope of an technical profession without any awareness of the significance engineering can play in humanity, so I take far more courses than I am capable of handling (I was already classified a senior by the end of my third semester at NCSU). However second, and more importantly, is my inability to maintain a disciplined sleep schedule. This lack of discipline means missed appointments, low mental acuity, even eventually leading to poor physical and social health. Because I've had at least two roommates who contributed to this situation, and realizing now that living alone in Japan has been the best remedy for me, I don't plan on returning to Alexander Hall in the fall.

What makes this particular instance so depressing is the vividness and length of the dream I just awoke from. I was enrolled in some sort of class in Japan (I think I believed it was a metropolis city like Tokyo in my dream) in which our assignment was to compose a J-Pop song. My dream spanned the full course of writing the song, growing friendships with others in the class and witnessing their struggles with writing their own pieces, and eventually giving feedback on each other's pieces at our final performance which doubled as a sort of ceremony for placing our final published piece in a sort of final project shrine. As I started to wake up I realized I missed one of my classmate's performances and I was scolded for not having paid attention. Now that I had been kicked back into dream mode it started to feel like a turn towards one of those came-to-class-naked dreams (I've never had one before), so I quickly shifted gears to a flying dream. I hadn't had a flying dream since I was maybe 12 so this was great. However the experience was completely different. In the flying dreams from my childhood, I remember just wanting either to escape some situation or merely to force my will into the dream, so I would fly to nowhere in particular and everything below looked the same -- one giant residential block. This time was quite different. I have never imagined such a vivid landscape as that which I saw in this dream. The most beautiful metropolis setting imaginable, I went between diverse building zones where all kinds of people and architecture could be found. I had everything from bridges and skyscrapers covered in ivy to children's sandboxes. Of course in the last few moments before I woke up the city started making less sense, like people driving on bridges to dead ends, or giant swingsets 40 stories high. But until that point, all the places I had seen, all the songs I had composed just for the sake of this dream, everything had made me envy the power within our own minds that is restricted when we're awake. If only it weren't for this, I think I would take my music composition book with me in all my travels.

豚 (Pig)

There is something depressing about eating pork-filled steamed buns when they make the bun look like a pig. I know many fans of the movie Babe, but I tend to think more about McMug and McDull from the famous Hong Kong comic strip. In America, my copy of My Life as McDull was run over by a car, and when I visited Hong Kong, I was only able to find the new film entitled McDull, Prince de la Bun. To my despair, the original is now out of print, meaning I'll have to eBay it. Oh well. Anyway last week of classes for me. Time to study hard!

Apple Store Grand Opening

So yesterday I was one of the first 1500 people to enter the brand new Apple Store in the Sakae district of Nagoya, Japan. Kevin and I watched as the iPod shuffles got attacked by an angry mob, some people buying half a dozen shuffles in a single purchase. Within 10 minutes of entering the store, the shuffles had sold out, and there was still at least a 5 hour line waiting in the freezing cold outside. We probably should have told everybody that they had sold out, but my whole body was still frozen from having waited since 6AM outside the store after a full night of karaoke. While neither Kevin nor I made any purchases, we did get free Apple Store - Sakae t-shirts and got to groove to the music of the in-store DJ. Deciding he wanted a shuffle after all, we headed to MacMall near Nagoya station, but of course they were also sold out. After a pair of speakers, I was disappointed at the hiked price I found there. The high point of the day was definitely the meal at Wendy's afterwards, where we reminisced about the "think of something hot" spicy-chicken commercial.

And wouldn't you know it, I finally discovered a program on my computer that will allow me to choose JPEG export quality. I may fix some of the photos I've already posted (that look terrible due to Paint's poor export quality). I already borrowd iPhoto to fix up those Hong Kong pics.

Hong Kong Photo Montage

Adornment

Horse of a Different Color

Sea Urchin Fisherman

Victoria Peak