The Area of a Japanese Circle

The formula for the area of a circle is pi times the square of its radius. The Japanese government has evacuated an area around the Fukushima power plants with a radius of 40km, or 5,024km sq. Right after the power plants went critical, the US government strongly recommended (at around 3 AM) that any of its citizens within 80km leave immediately. The U.S. evacuation circle therefore has an area of 20,096km sq. That’s a discrepancy 15,072km sq.in size.

This discrepancy is the reason that this year’s U.S. JETs haven’t been told their placements yet. We were supposed to have been informed in May, but some placements fall into this gray area. The Japanese and U.S. governments are discussing what to do about it, and we are not expected to find out placement assignments until right around the solstice.

If you’re wondering why they don’t just ask the JETs who are supposed to be placed in that zone whether or not they’re willing and then swap them out if they aren’t, then know that you aren’t alone. I don’t know what sort of logistical or diplomatic factors are affecting the decision behind the scenes, but I do know that if asked to go into that 15,072km sq. gray area, I would say yes. How many of the people living there have anywhere else to go, even if they want to leave their homes? They are surely under constant stress and need all the support they can get. Even though the area around the Fukushima power plants is one of the most dangerous in the world right now, I would be willing to share their risks in the hope that my presence there as a foreigner come of my own free will might improve morale.

Of course, I’m lucky enough to have family and friends who are willing to put aside their fears for my safety and support my decision, whatever that may be. I don’t have a spouse or children to consider and I don’t want children, which makes it easier for me to consider living someplace feared to be so radioactive it could render me infertile and give me superpowers.

Either way, I don’t know if I’m one of the people slated for that area and have no way to find out. All I can do is wait… now with 15,072km sq. more anticipation. Looking at the JET Programme forums, though, it seems that I’ve been more patient than most.

The Molted Cicada

This was written for one of my classes this semester. The class is titled Women’s Voices in Japanese Literature. The assignment was to compare/contrast two poems from The Tale of Genji, one of the staples of classic Japanese literature.

There are many tanka poems in The Tale of Genji. These short poems, each consisting of a total of thirty-one syllables in five lines, form the most important conversations in the story. They are used in place of dialogue when the characters’ emotions are strongest; each poem bursts forth from the character, expressing his or her situation or emphasizing a point the way songs do in a good musical. These poems help shape the story for the reader, regardless of whether it is being read in English or Japanese. Since the poems represent dialogue, they often have more impact when all the poems in a dialogue are considered together.

Take, for instance, the two poems found in chapter 3. The first is from Genji to the wife of the Iyo Deputy. Genji writes it after his second foray to see her in the night. She hears him coming and flees from her room to avoid him, during which she leaves her sleeping robe behind. He ends up spending time with her lady guest, so as not to hurt the woman’s feelings, but heads back to his own sleeping area wishing he’d found the Iyo Deputy’s wife instead. Unable to sleep, he composes the poem to tell her how he feels.

Underneath this tree
where the molting cicada
shed her empty shell,
my longing still goes to her,
for all I knew her to be.

This poem uses a molted cicada as a metaphor for the Iyo Deputy’s wife. A cicada crawls out of the earth as a larva, molts, and then climbs into the trees. Genji likens the woman’s actions to the life cycle of a cicada, leaving a shell – her sleeping robe – behind to go someplace he couldn’t reach her, like a cicada moving out of reach up a tree. The poem ends with a straightforward expression of Genji’s longing for her.

The Iyo Deputy’s wife is conflicted after reading the poem. While faithful to her husband and scandalized by Genji’s attempts to seduce her, she can’t help but be touched by Genji’s persistence. The poem she writes in response uses the same metaphor of a cicada having climbed up a tree.

Just as drops of dew
settle on cicada wings,
concealed in this tree,
secretly, O secretly,
these sleeves are wet with my tears.

She directly compares a cicada’s dew-wet wings with her own tear-wet sleeves to let Genji know that she secretly pines for him as well. However, she also makes it clear she plans to keep that passion to herself, never acting on it. The restatement of the metaphor from her perspective also uses the tree to represent the figurative distance between them, but makes it clear that she welcomes the protection it affords. In this way, she effectively turns Genji’s own metaphor against him, simultaneously expressing desire and rejection.

The two poems do a beautiful job of approaching the same situation from the poets’ differing perspectives while staying within the framework of a single metaphor. While Genji metaphorically looks up from the ground, wishing for the cicada in the tree to return to him, the Iyo Deputy’s wife sits in the tree and looks down, crying silently to herself over her unwillingness to accede to his wishes. The two poems even use similar formats – the first three lines in each poem use the shared cicada in a tree metaphor as a jo, a prologue section, to introduce the author’s perspective on the situation, while the last two lines describe how he or she feels about it.

This is true of both the English translations of these tanka as presented in Royall Tyler’s English translation and in the Japanese version of the poetry as presented on the Japanese Classic Literature Research Institute’s web site on The Tale of Genji.

If we compare Genji’s poem in Japanese:

空蝉の
身をかへてける
木のもとに
なを人がらの
なつかしきかな

utsusemi no
mi wo kahetekeru
ki no moto ni
na wo hitogara no
natsukashiki kana

to that of the Iyo Deputy’s wife:

空蝉の
羽にをく露の
木がくれて
忍び忍びに
濡るる袖かな

utsusemi no
hane ni oku tsuyu no
ki ga kurete
shinobi shinobi ni
fururu sode kana

then we see the same pattern of a three-line cicada metaphor jo in both poems followed by two lines of how each author feels. Unlike the poems in translation, however, there are three points in each poem where the Iyo Deputy’s wife used the same exact word or words as Genji did in his poem.

These corresponding points occur at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the poems. The first line in each poem is identical: utsusemi no. The third lines are mostly different, but both start with ki, the tree. The fifth and final lines of each poem differ for the first five syllables but both end in kana. Only the second and fourth lines of each poem are completely different when the two poems are compared; the second line in the response poem written by the Iyo Deputy’s wife even contains an eighth syllable.

Since utsusemi is the Japanese word for “molted cicada”, both Genji and the Iyo Deputy’s wife pin the cicada metaphor down right off the bat. The importance of the tree element of the metaphor seen when the poems are compared is emphasized by the identical placement of the word. The use of kana at the end of the poems may or may not be incidental, given its grammatical function of eliciting a pensive tone, but it still serves to tie the two messages and the authors’ feelings of longing together at the end.

A tanka poem’s thirty-one syllables are divided among five lines, with the first and third lines having five syllables and the second, fourth, and fifth lines having seven syllables. In order to keep the poems in this 5-7-5-7-7 format for the English translation, they are not literally translated. Literal translations would have either too many or too few syllables per line. However, they do a fine job of capturing the essence of the poems. In addition to keeping the three-line jo, or prologue, the words “cicada” and “tree” appear in both poems, which keeps the strength of the metaphor intact. There is no equivalent to the repetition of kana, but that does nothing to harm the expression of longing by both parties. The translations are eloquent in a way that sounds natural in English and reflect the eloquence of the originals in Japanese.

There are other technical comparisons readers can make between the poetry as written in Japanese and as translated into English. Rhyme and alliteration, the use of which are pointless in Japanese poetry, are also unused in the English translations. The English versions flow with something closer to fully-formed sentence structure than do the Japanese versions. These differences, however, are the sort of changes which are inevitable when dealing with two languages whose linguistic makeups are so different.

Interestingly, the modified eight-syllable length of the second line of the Iyo Deputy’s wife’s response poem is neglected in the translation. This may be an oversight by the translator, but I doubt it. Since the English language allows for for the use of poetic tools such as stressed syllables, rhyme, and alliteration, western scholars have traditionally emphasized adherence to strictly defined poetry formats. Japanese poets have fewer such tools at their disposal, so the leeway they take with syllable counts serves to add texture to their poetry. Therefore, the translator likely chose to keep to the strict 5-7-5-7-7 format to meet the expectations of English readers.

There is one minor detail that is potentially important to the reader’s entertainment and perception of the work that is lost in translation. The Japanese word for molted cicada is pronounced utsusemi. It is from these two poems, therefore, that the readers of The Tale of Genji take the nickname of the Iyo Deputy’s wife. The metaphor is so striking that over time it has become tied to her identity and purpose in the story. Readers of The Tale of Genji in Japanese are likely to recall this pair of poems and the molted cicada metaphor whenever they see her name. Readers of the story in English translation who have little or no familiarity with the Japanese language, however, are unlikely to recall the association as vividly.

In both languages, the two poems form a closely-related pair. They have a symbiotic relationship. Genji sets the stage by creating a simple image with which to express his longing for Utsusemi, an image which she uses to illustrate the tension between them. Neither poem is complete without the other, though; it is only in juxtaposition that they express the full complexity of the relationship between the two characters. In a sense, they define the relationship for the reader. Before these two poems are presented, Genji and Utsusemi are just playing a brief game of cat and mouse.

Japan & America: Linguistic Differences, Cultural Differences, and Being a Foreigner in Japan

I just finished reading a book called Japan & America, by Bernice Z. Goldstein and Kyoko Tamura. It examines certain differences between Japanese and American linguistics in the interest of using those differences as a base for analysis of cultural differences between Japan and the United States. Their specific interest is in who is talking, how that person talks to the listener, and how they talk about a third party, when mentioned. In their own words:

We assume that any language is a pattern through which a speaker learns how to conceive of himself in relation to others and learns to think of others in relation to himself and still others. Most particularly throughout the course of this book, we suggest that Americans and Japanese see these relationships of speaker to listener and to third parties in very different ways, and we believe that the differences between American English and Japanese melt into differences between culture and personality in our two societies. Fundamentally our problem concerns the question of who is related to whom and how. This question is pertinent to the study of any language, but our focus is “who is related to whom and how” as it applies to differences between American and Japan, first from the vantage point of language differences and later as it applies to differences in culture and personality.

They conclude that American English and the child-rearing practices of the American mother serve to create a person who relates to other people by linguistically minimizing differences in rank and status, for the most part, between himself and others. Self-identity is expressed through means such as personal comments tacked on to standard polite forms. An individual may be part of a group, but group associations are often fleeting and not usually considered part of the definition of his identity.

The Japanese language and the child-rearing practices of the Japanese mother, however, teach a child from early on to be keenly aware of differences in status between individuals and the groups they belong to. Part of one’s self-identity as expressed in conversation concerns the manipulation of polite and humble linguistic forms to indicate to which groups the speaker and listener belong and how they relate to each other.

The book is 35 years old, but based on things I’ve learned from other sources and my own experiences in Japan, the information contained therein remains relevant. Personally, I found it an enlightening read. As I read it, little memories popped into my head, providing illustrations from personal experience. Mistakes I made during my stay in Japan punched me in the mental nose. Jumbled information about Japan and the Japanese language clicked into their proper places. This one book solidified my understanding of aspects of the Japanese language and culture which I have studied for almost ten years with middling success. Now I’ll be armed with much better manners when I return to Japan.

I recommend Japan & America to any native speaker of English who is studying Japanese, of course, but it’s suitable for anyone with interest in the differences between the Japanese and western cultures. I am unfamiliar with differences between the United States and other English-speaking countries, but my limited understanding indicates that there are at least some parallels. And if not… who knows? Maybe you’ll learn something about the USA while you’re at it.

On Being a Foreigner in Japan

Upon closing the book on the last page, my mind flitted back to a post on Gakuranman’s blog earlier this year about becoming Japanese. A bunch of J-vloggers (Japan-related video bloggers, for long) over on YouTube got into a lengthy and heated debate about the Japanese people’s acceptance of foreigners who have chosen to live in Japan.

Any foreigner who’s lived in Japan for longer than a week has experienced an array of special treatment in every range of the spectrum from good to bad. Sometimes you encounter someone who believes so strongly that foreigners can’t learn Japanese that he’ll refuse to listen to you long enough to realize that you’re not speaking English. Other times, people will buy you pricey gifts or food just for the chance to practice their English on you for half an hour. At all times, though, there is an invisible wall, of sorts, a distance between you and them. There are exceptions of course, usually among younger folk who have visited a foreign country before or would like to in the future, but for the most part, you’re never quite accepted.

Some foreigners (at least, among us English-speakers) are bothered by the fact that the Japanese refuse to adopt us. Others (myself included) are okay with it. If you visit that post of Gakuranman’s, above, and watch the videos, you’ll see an interesting array of perspectives on the topic from a variety of people whose experiences in Japan differ by length and type.

Now, while I don’t mind that I’ll always stick out a bit in Japan, it is nice to have a better understanding of why that’s so. This is where Japan & America connects to the issue.

If the authors, a linguist and an anthropologist, are correct about how the association of individuals to groups and of groups to other groups make up such an integral part of the Japanese collective psyche, then it may very well be impossible for them to forget that we are foreigners. Those of us who are non-Asian stick out like bright blue thumbs in such a homogeneous society that they can’t help but be constantly reminded that we’re in a separate group. The rules of Japanese society practically require them to treat us like members of an out-group at least part of the time.

To compound the problem, we’re part of an out-group about which everything they know is learned from movies and on TV and in other media. You all know how the media distorts things, right? Right. Well, the Japanese media does it, too. So they’re left to categorize us as a group by what they’ve learned through the media, giving them either an idealized or criminalized view of us, full of oversimplifications and rife with misinformation either way.

I think it’s unfortunate that so many people are bothered by how the Japanese treat foreigners. It makes me wonder if the people who are bothered have really tried to understand the Japanese people or if they’re just looking at it from a western perspective and expecting Japan to conform to western ideals. Our cultures are so different on so many basic levels that I believe trying to make the Japanese accept us using western ideals is uncool and a fruitless effort. If they’re unhappy with how the Japanese treat them when they live in Japan, then maybe they should consider returning to wherever they came from.

Bright Green Gaijin Pants, Post 3-11

My first blog, titled Bright Green Gaijin Pants, was a chronicle of my time as an exchange student in Kushiro, Hokkaido, Japan. I’ve decided to repost its contents on this blog. For a full list of all these posts, click Bright Green Gaijin Pants on the menu, above.

The first blog post of any real worth that I published from Japan was far larger than it had any right to be. It was actually several posts combined and posted at the same time because I didn’t have internet access when I first got to Japan. I have reposted them separately, as they were meant to be.

Small Victories

Originally posted on October 16, 2005.

I have successfully explained binary and how to count in binary on your fingers to a Japanese person who has no computer programming experience using the Japanese language. You have no idea how awesome that felt. I can feel the power of the Japanese language growing within me daily. Soon, I shall conquer the universe.

…

I mean, be fluent.

Anyway. The other day, Sato introduced me to a large group of her fellow Okinawans, and we went to a robata. A robata is a restaurant where the table is a grill with boards around it on which you can set your plate. You pick a table, then go up and pay for the food you want (Actually, you paid at the register for vouchers that you could then take to the food counters to exchange for the tasties arranged before you, but whatever), then take it back to your table and cook it. They have small portions of some things on sticks, some whole fish, some whole shellfish, a few things that come in a tin so you can cook them together for flavor, some plain ol’ vegetables, squid — all kinds of stuff. So.

This was taken with my cell phone at the robata. (Photo added to this post on August 17, 2010.)

Taste-O-Meter!

Ika (Squid): 3
It tastes fine, but the texture is a bit rubbery, making chewing and swallowing take a bit more time.

Tama, Sanma, and Hokke (each a kind of fish): 3
I’m not so fond of fish.

Hokke bones: 4
Once a fish had been divested of flesh, the Okinawans placed it back on the grill. Later, I saw Sato chowing down on Sanma skeleton, and went o_O . Then, one of the guys (I never found out his name, though I talked to him a bit) offered me the opportunity to try some of his Hokke skeleton. It’s tastier than the fish, and since it was well cooked, the bones were brittle and not dangerous.

Kaki (a shellfish): 3
I prefer oyster, but this is pretty good, too. Bigger than oysters are. The meat of the kaki is bigger than an oyster in its shell.

Aspara-Bacon (Pieces of asparagus wrapped in bacon): 5
Hot diggety-damn. I don’t know who came up with this idea, but it was a good one. This is some tasty, tasty stuff. (August 17, 2010 Edit: Since returning to the States, this has been a major hit every time I’ve shared it. You should try it — it’s easy and delicious!)

Hitsuji (Lamb) and Sprouts: 4
This actually came in a pan. When we told the person behind the counter that we’d have that, she added some sort of oriental-flavored sauce to it. It was good, but I still prefer my baby sheep meat on pita bread.

Toriniku (Chicken): 5
Chicken on a stick. Speaks for itself, I think.

Butaniku (Pork): 4
Three pieces of pork on a stick, with some kind of vegetable (from the onion family, maybe) in between the pieces. The vegetable is an excellent choice to go with the pork.

I didn’t try the chicken skins on a stick (though I will next time, I think). Between what I paid for and the massive amounts of food that got shared later I ended up trying almost everything the store had. At the end, everyone was full, so I ended up with the leftover vouchers. They had to be used by Saturday if they were gonna get used, but I forgot until it was raining pretty hard Saturday evening. The robata is in a nice spot on the riverfront, but it’s a 15-20 minute walk, and I didn’t want to go there in the rain with no umbrella.

I’ve never been much of an umbrella-user, but now that I’m walking everywhere I’m starting to see the appeal. It’s sunny today, so I’ll probably see if the nearby 100 yen store has any. I know that the first 100 yen store I went to had a bunch. If nothing else, I know they sell them at the Co-op, though it’s a bit more expensive there.

Traditionally, the kettles are heated over coals in a pit set into the floor (with a trap tatami mat to cover it when not in use). The school washitsu had such a pit, but fire is dangerous and so we were required to use electric heating devices. (Photo added to this post on August 17, 2010.)

Friday, I got my own supplies for sadou club. ^^ It was a lot of fun; I got to run through the whole tea ceremony three times. There are multiple tea ceremony set-ups. I got to do the one with a good old-fashioned tea kettle twice, and the one with a kama (the kind you usually see in pictures; it’s an iron kettle with a small lid that you have to dip water out of with a scoop called hishaku) that is set into a table.

Taste-O-Meter!

Kusadango (a candy eaten with green tea): 5
They tasted a little weird at first, but I quickly fell in love with them.

After that, I headed home. Two of the other girls in sadoubu live in my apartment building, and one other lives up towards the buddhist tower just up the hill from me. Ryoko is one of the girls who lives in this building, and she invited the other three of us to her house for dinner. When we got into her apartment, I discovered that I really don’t have a lot of stuff. I’m pretty sure that if I were in America with all my stuff in an apartment this size, it’d look pretty similar to hers, but at the moment, I have like nothing. (On the plus side, when Conrad, Jordan, and their friends come to Japan, there’ll be room for them to sleep at my place when they come to Kushiro. [August 17, 2010 Edit: The bastards never came!])

Ryoko has a Gamecube. :D The first person I’ve socialized with in Japan to play video games is a girl with the exact same color Gamecube I’ve got back home. That was pretty awesome. It may not sound like much, but there are more Gamecube colors available in Japan, reducing the chances of the same color. While cooking was getting started, we talked about games in America and Japan. I ended up listing some game franchises in America; the only ones that got really spiffy reactions out of the other girls (all three of these knew something about games) were Mario (eternal), Suikoden, and Katamari Damacy. I also found out that Jak & Daxter have made it over here, but aren’t very popular. Didn’t surprise me at all.

Conversation moved on to other things, too, as conversations, do. The other long-standing conversations was how much pizza and beer North Americans down. One of the girls went to Canada on exchange, and her host mother wasn’t much of a cooker, so they had lots of ravioli and pizza. Then the food was done and ready to eat. There was kabocha (pumpkin), which was dished out in equal portions on small plates. In the center of everyone was a plate that had somen (a kind of noodle) and tuna.

Taste-O-Meter!

Somen with tuna: 4
Somen is a pretty tasty noodle. It’s got a milder flavor than ramen or pasta, but it went really well with the tuna. Originally, Ryoko was going to use pasta with the tuna, but she didn’t have any sauce. She had a zillion packages of udon, though, it turns out, but I guess udon doesn’t go well with tuna, ’cause as soon as she found the somen, everyone but me was like, “Aha!” (August 17, 2010 Edit: After this, somen with tuna became a common meal for me.)

I didn’t catch the other girls’ names, but next Friday we’re to have dinner together at the apartment of the other girl in my building, then mine. I’m planning to make grilled cheese sandwiches. Yum.

Realizations of the Period

1) Joining a club has proven the best way for me to immerse my ears in Japanese so that I can get my brain more used to processing it. There’s a lot of friendly conversation going on during and after sadoubu.
2) Sato and the other Okinawans all transferred here for this semester, so they know just as little of Kushiro as I do, though they’re obviously far better versed in the Japanese language and customs.
3) This stupid blog post is done. DONE! AHAHAHAHAHA!

August 17, 2010 Edit: Done, indeed. The next BGGP blog entry will be Post 4.

Bright Green Gaijin Pants, Post 3-10

My first blog, titled Bright Green Gaijin Pants, was a chronicle of my time as an exchange student in Kushiro, Hokkaido, Japan. I’ve decided to repost its contents on this blog. For a full list of all these posts, click Bright Green Gaijin Pants on the menu, above.

The first blog post of any real worth that I published from Japan was far larger than it had any right to be. It was actually several posts combined and posted at the same time because I didn’t have internet access when I first got to Japan. I will be reposting them separately, as they were meant to be.

More News

Originally posted on October 16, 2005.

It’s been a week since I updated this… o.O Holy Hand Grenade, it HAS been a week. Well. Let’s start with…

Taste-O-Meter!

Natto up close. Fermented soy beans. Definitely an acquired taste. (Photo by Jasja Dekker.)

Natto: 3
Ever since I got to UAF, I’ve heard about natto. It’s slightly fermented soy beans. Generally, foreigners come to Japan can’t stand the stuff. I’ve heard horror stories about how the first thing people wanted to do after putting it in their mouths is to spit it out. I did not have that problem. Maybe it’s my faulty nose making my taste buds think the wrong thing, but I just found the taste to be… interesting. I don’t really want to eat more natto, but I’m sure that if I had to eat it every day it would quickly become palatable, then tasty. Foreigners who’ll eat natto are rare, so Sayaka wanted a picture.

Korokke: 4
I’m not sure what, exactly, korokke is, but I like it. I grabbed it ’cause I wasn’t paying attention and thought it was tonkatsu. (August 10, 2010 edit: It’s like a breaded potato fritter. Carbs, carbs, carbs. Delicious carbs, but carbs.)

Aka Ringo, Ao Ringo Apple Juice: 5
The Sunkist apple juice pales in comparison. This is more like the apple juice you get in America yet still more apple-y, in the Japanese Sunkist apple juice style. Aka means red, Ao means blue. Blue here means green; the Japanese word for green is a pretty new thing in their language, so they still use blue to mean green as often as not.

Other Apple Juice: 4
I forget the name of this one, but it comes in a black box. Better than Sunkist, not as good as Aka/Ao.

Bacon Mayo Roll: 5
I don’t really like mayonnaise, though I do like it cooked into things at times. Deviled eggs, potato salad, and the like are actually some of my favorite foods. The bacon mayo roll (which I have so far only found at 7-11 stores [which are kind of cool to see again after so many years, coincidentally]) has enough of a mayo taste to be noticeable, but the main flavor is still bread and bacon. I woke up this morning and wanted one, but I went to Sunkus (another convenience store) and discovered they don’t have it.

Pork Winter Roll: 5
This is a lot like the bacon mayo roll. It was, in fact, my breakfast today, since I couldn’t find a bacon mayo roll at Sunkus. It’s got the same kind of bread as the bacon mayo roll, but instead of bacon and mayo, it has a hot dog and some kind of cheese sauce. Yum!

I couldn't find a picture of a Mister Donut milkshake. Have some donuts instead. The third from the left is the brand's iconic donut shape, which looks kind of like a teething ring. (Photo by Yumi Kimura.)

Mister Donuts Vanilla Shake: 5
It’s a good shake. But it’s tiny compared to the servings you get of milkshakes in America. This thing was only about 8 ounces. For 200 yen… kind of expensive. The donuts at the shop were good, too. (They don’t get their own Taste-O-Meter entry because, as usual, I got glazed. A glazed doughnut is a glazed doughnut.)

Anko-Filled Rolls: 3
Anko is a sweet bean paste. Not generally something I look for inside a bread, but it doesn’t taste bad.

Japanese Nabisco Saltines: 5
These get their own Taste-O-Meter entry for two reasons: first, they’re less salty than their American counterparts (which is actually pretty nice); second, when I opened the box expecting two packages of crackers, I actually found nine. There were like 6 crackers to a package. It was convenient, but made the crackers even more expensive than they already were.

Random Blue Cup Noodle: 3
It had some kind of fish in it for meat. Didn’t taste bad, but wasn’t really good either. Noodles.

Random Green Cup Noodle: 4
Pork. Mmm.

Pork Ramen: 5
Real ramen is better than instant ramen, and the portions are big, too. Hallelujah. There’s also large chunks of pork and some vegetables in it. Woot! (I still think Harlan should do a ramen cook-off as a dorm program, btw.)

So there’s the Taste-O-Meter for the past week. Eating isn’t all I’ve done… in fact, I’m skimping on food a bit to save money. Not going hungry, but making damned sure not to overeat and eating cheaply. My morning bacon roll or whatever and a box of apple juice is about 200 yen. For the evening, I have spaghetti. It’s like 125 yen for a kg of spaghetti, and I only need about an eighth of that to make a meal. :D

I am indebted to Nacilik; he gave me 200 dollars before I left Japan so I could buy him some manga. Without it, I would be in trouble. m(_ _)m I find myself having to borrow from his cash, since it turns out that my scholarship gets disbursed at month’s end. That’s good to know. I found out because I was like, hey… I need to pay my rent somehow. Fortunately for me, my landlord is willing to take my rent at the end of the month, along with next month’s rent. >.> I’ll be poor again for another month, but then it’ll be smooth sailing.

This is three puzzles with a mixed set of clues. Harder than the ones I tackled, but gives you a look at the magazine. (Photo taken by Nemo's great uncle.)

I’ve bought myself a Japanese crossword magazine. I suck at Japanese crosswords. I need a kanji dictionary just to read the clues. Thankfully, all the answers are written in katakana. Not all of the puzzles in the book are traditional crosswords, though; some are the kind of puzzle where you have a word list and a blank grid and have to figure out how to place the words. Those I can do. I would like to get better at this for two reasons: one is mastery of the language. The only answer I’ve gotten so far (I haven’t bothered with the kanji dictionary ^^’) is Cairo, being the capital of Egypt. However, all throughout the magazine there is talk of “presents” which somehow relates to the completion of the puzzles. Among the presents are a DS and a PSP, as well as various spiffy-looking household goods, so… I need to get that translated as well.

I have done a lot more exploring. There are ramen shops all over the place. I’ve found or been shown a furniture store, two more karaoke places, two “recycle shops” (used stuff stores), a sushi bar, a big book store (which is likely where I’ll find the manga Nacilik wants, as well as the stuff I want), two kimono shops, a large clothing store, a couple of more places to buy food, several convenience stores (they’re more everywhere you want to be than Visa around here), and some other stuff I’ll probably remember next time I need to think about them. Woot! Good stuff.

This picture was taken much later in my stay. This super-fancy equipment was used for more advanced tea ceremony forms. (Photo added to post on August 10, 2010.)

I’ve also joined the Sadou (Japanese tea ceremony) club. Sadou is awesome, on many levels. It’s very relaxing, for one. It’s all about hospitality and getting good at it. The constant presence of boiling water makes the place warm, too. It’s also interesting to watch (and perform — I’ve learned the basics) the exact movements required. It’s got an all-around meditative air to it. And I’ll tell you what: real, honest-to-goodness Japanese green tea is so much better than the kind of “green tea” that you can buy in American stores that I can’t believe I ever liked the latter. The foods that go with the tea ceremony are also traditional, and complement the taste of the tea so well I don’t think I can give it words. Glory! I wonder if I can get tea ceremony equipment in America. This is already something I’m interested in continuing after I go home.

Yeah. So.

Realizations of the Period

1) I don’t read kanji as well as I thought I did — though thankfully, part of that is rust.
2) Japanese sounds really cool with a heavy Russian accent, even if it is a bit more interesting to understand.
3) I can get to a lot of places when I walk for an hour. It’s an odd feeling.
4) I’ve been asked by multiple people what sort of sports I like. The only good answer I have for them? Curling. I really must take that up when I get back.
5) True green tea is the bomb-diggity.

August 10, 2010 Edit: I can get sadou equipment, even here in Alaska, thanks to web sites such as eBay. I still don’t read kanji as well as I’d like, though that’s improving as I read more Japanese so that they’re in context. I still haven’t taken up curling. :(

Getting to lots of places with an hour’s walk felt weird because everything’s so spread out in Alaska — right now I can walk for an hour and end up in a shopping district, but when I go back to Fairbanks, an hour’s walk from campus will get me a couple of restaurants and possibly some railroad tracks. In Kushiro, an hour’s walk was an adventure no matter which way I went.