Testu-jin

So in this installment of `Required Listening for Japanese Students` I decided to shake things up a bit. The damn kids always listen to their weiner-J Pop, or their weiner Dancehall-Reggae (it`s low-qual stuff), so for class yesterday I decided that I would teach them about good old straight up Heavy Metal Rock and Roll. And who better to do that with than Black Sabbath?

It was really funny.

First, I showed them a band picture (Ozzy looking really scary) and an album cover (Grim Reaper) and explained that Black Sabbath was a band that wrote songs about Evil Things and told them about the story of Ozzy biting the head off a dove on stage. My teacher was a little reluctant to translate that into Japanese but she did... `EHHHH?!` was the reaction.

Then, I showed them how to do the Ronnie-James Dio `Devil-Hand` Metal-Power symbol (for those of you who don`t know, make a fist and then extend your index and pinky fingers, and then pump said fist into the air as you are rocking out). The kids were actually good at this, seeing as how they love to make peace signs when posing for pictures.

After that, I taught them how to Head-Bang, by doing the Devil-Hand at the same time jerking and snapping your head back and forth while rocking out. They got a kick out of that one!

Anyway, I had the junior Metalheads in rocking position, and then I qued up Iron Man (Tetsu-jin in Japanese), and explained `Okay kids, as you are listening to this, imagine a big metal robot that kills people chasing you, okay?` My teacher looked at me and said `Um, I can`t translate that. It will scare them.` Oh well.

So finally, I cranked it up full volume and lit it rip. The kids had no idea what to make of it and I think I totally weirded them out. I was sure that I was weirding them out when I started playing air guitar/drums and running around the room doing the Angus Black double leg scissor kick, but man that shit gets me so ammmmped!

Anyway, I guess kids are changing these days. I used to listen to Def Leppard, Sabbath, Guns n Roses, Metallica, Zep, and all those great rock bands when I was a kid. I blame all the TV and Internet. No appreciation for good music!

Next installment - `Essential Japanese for Devil Worship.`

J Pop

... also known as Japanese Pop. Dominating the music scene like a tasteless behemoth, the Industry (capital "I" like how The Man is capitalized) churns out pre-fab music performed by pre-fab artists, which is then eagerly gobbled up by the consuming masses, which comprise a good majority of my student body.

In burning CDs for my students, I have a rule that they have to bring some music for me to listen to and tell me about it. Usually it's this J Pop stuff and I tune out after the kid is talking for about 15 seconds and start daydreaming. 99% of it is total crap, to tell the truth.

BUT... There is this one song that is SO DAMN CATCHY!! I heard it EVERYWHERE I went for and finally broke down and bothered to ask what it was. It turns out, it's the best selling single of 2005 and is called "Seishun Amigo" (Youthful Amigos). AND man, can you really snap your fingers to it.

You can see the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NOX3RrlIa8&search=Seishun

It's performed by Shuji and Akira, who are characters from a TV show. It turns out the whole damn song is a promo for their TV show! The real guys are these two dudes named Tomohisa Yamashita and Kamenashi Kazuya.

I know it's bad for my health, but I can't help. It's my J Pop guilty pleasure. Whooooooooooooooo!

Worst Kancho of My Life - part II

So I saw the super-kancho kid again today at Elementary school, and he tried to pull the same shit, but I was ready for him this time!

So the little f'er came sprinting at me, and I faked like I had no idea what was going on, hand raised, ready to receive his deadly 1-2 high-five/front-kancho combo. At the last minute, I moved into blocking position, repelled his blow, and grabbed the sonofabitch.

Side-note: In Japan, there are no school custodians, so the kids do all the cleaning after their lunch. For about 20 minutes, the kids all do various jobs around the school. It's pretty cool, the kids take a little more ownership of the school and don't trash it as much as we did our schools in America.

Anyway, I put the kid in a headlock and noticed that he was riding a broom, witch-style (which he was supposed to be cleaning with). So I grabbed the broom at the front and the back (kid in the middle) and gave it a 2 foot rocket-boost into the air!

Super-broom-kancho!! Man I think his eyes almost popped out of his head. Ah, sweet sweet revenge...

Soy Sauce

So one of the things that my town is famous for is The "Higashi Maru (Western Circle)" Soy Sauce factory. They make some potent ass soy sauce - I ride by the factory every morning and if the wind is just right it's so strong it can almost knock you off your bike.

On Tuesday, a couple of dudes came in from the Soy Sauce factory to give a demostration on how soy sauce was made:

"This is the soy sauce that Godzilla uses on his sushi."

Soy here's how soy sauce is made:


- Water
- Big Beans, called "Daizu"
- Weed, called "Weed"
- Salt
- Ferment for 6 months
- Serve and enjoy with your favorite fish-flavored cuisine

It was cool because my kids taught me all kinds of new word during the lesson, like how to say "this looks like diahrrea," and "this smells like diahrrea," and "poisonous mushroom" in Japanese.

Worst Kancho of My Life

So this week I'm doing a teaching marathon at Elementary school - three days in a row, which is nearly Herculean, since just doing one day usually wrecks me. Since I rotate around 3 different schools, I get to each about once a month, so it make the kids super hyper and they get AMPED when they have a "maikeru sensei" spotting.

Typically, this means they run up to me and want to high five, and that's what I thought was going to happen yesterday when I saw this one kid, Yosuke. The little fucker spotted me from about 30 feet away, and ran full speed towards me with his hand in the air, as if he was going for a mega-high-five. I was in a good mood and so I let my defenses down (I usually walk around school with one hand over my junk and one hand over my butt), and while his high-five hand is distracting me, he hits me good and square in the nuts, dead-center bullseye.

Immediately my eyes started watering and I started seeing stars. Man it sucked!

A funny thing happened on the way home...

A couple of months ago, I was riding the train home from Osaka. I had been there all day and had to book it to make the last "rapid express" train of the night, which I caught with seconds to spare.

The train was packed butts to balls with Japanese "salarymen" (suit types), fresh from their after work binge drinking sessions.

*Japanese salarymen/women work from wicked early until fuckin' late, and usually once a week they go out for dinner/drinks with their co-workers, and get super trashed.

Usually the last train is packed, and on the trains Japanese people (usually polite and demure) turn from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. This goes doubly for the denizens of Osaka, who are busy "salt of the earth" types. I've been cut you off plenty of times by obaa-chan (grandma) with a well placed elbow to the midsection. The image of Japanese sardines should be conjured up here (see previous post - how to Tempura Fry Sardines).



So there I was, swaying to and fro in a sea of stanky cigarette and booze breath. The place reeked. Just as I was trying to tune out, there was a gurgling sound behind me, glug glug glug. I turned around just in time to see this salarywoman burp up a little bit of purple puke and catch it in her hand. Whew, close one lady! Too much red wine at the enkai, methinks. Then, to my astonishment (picture this happening in slow motion), she covers her mouth to stifle the mass exodus of purple used-to-be-sushi-rice-seaweed-godknowswhat-mixture. Have you ever put your thumb over the end of a garden hose? You know how when you do that, it increases the pressure of the water and the distance of the stream?

This is what happened to the lady.

Luckily, I was to her left, and avoided most of the carnage... and unluckily for the people standing in front of her. This was like watching the Japanese Train version of The Exorcist! Hoooooaaaaaaahh! This one poor guy, his entire suit changed color from grey to purple-chunk in an instant. About three people were completely doused before the shower ran dry. Gross!

Then funniest thing happened - nobody did a thing! Nobody starting screaming, "Ew gross" and the people who got doused didn't say a word. AND, nobody helped out the woman at all (I gave her tissues, and a plastic bag). It was so strange, everybody acted as if nothing happened. This other guy, who had it all down his back and backpack rode the train for another 40 minutes, just standing there as is. I know that in the US, if this had happened you would have a whole train car screaming bloody murder. Weird huh?

So since then, I've been wracking my brain on why nobody did a thing. Here's a few of my thoughts:

- Maybe some Japanese people are super polite and don't want to make the woman feel like even more of a dipshit by making a big deal of it.
- Maybe some Japanese people get too embarassed (shared embarassment?) and it's stops them from helping somebody in distress.
- Or maybe some Japanese people don't want to stand out by making a stink of it, or help somebody if nobody else is doing it.

Anyway, I'm still thinking things over, but it was an interesting experience.

Funny thing is, this Japanese guy Masa, who has an awesome website (http://masamania.com/) took photographs of the very same thing happening. I highly encourage you to check out his site, it's got some very interesting (and funny) ruminations about Japanese life.

credit to: http://masamania.com/

Well, I certainly learned my lesson on that one - whatever you do, don't ride the last train home!

Su-No-Bo-Do (Snowboarding) Japanese Style!!

This last weekend was spent up in northern Hyogo (my "prefecture" - like a State (ie. California), in the US), in an area called "Tajima" at Hachi-Kogen Mountain (http://www.hachi-hachikita.co.jp/), having a forkin' awesome time people-watching the crazy Japanese skiiers and snowboarders, carving up fresh powder tree runs, and eating more crab than you can shake a claw at.

My first trip to the ski resort was two weeks previous, where I had taken a 5 hour bus-commute to arrive at 100% humidity (read: pouring rain) conditions that majorly sucked, and ultimately gave me the flu for three days (hey, I'm at the mountain, I gotta ride it, right?!). This time proved to be MUCH much better.

The trip was part of a big JET Ski weekend, so about 70 of us English teachers rented out a slopeside lodge and made a big weekend out of it. Day One was spent riding around cutting up the trees and dive-bombing Larries in a snowstorm, and then eating two dinners back to back (first was Pizza and Ramen, second was Crab Nabe - Japanese Hot Pot).

(Zainabu and I are about to wrassle for who gets the big claw. Look this HUGE plate of crabs! Between 5 people, we ate the entire thing... and 3 orders of fried chicken, a huge plate of veggies and tofu, and a big cauldron of hot-pot soup. DANG!)

(Here's a shocker - I ate way too much and am about to pass out... again. Nikster get this crab away from me!!)

After being subjected to some of the worst kareoke known to man (a bunch of old Japanese dudes crashed our hotel room and started belting songs out on the kareoke machine), I got a few hours rest, ready to take on the blue bird (super sunny and nice) Day Two. The morning was spent teaching Nikster and our friend Zainabu how to snowboard, and the afternoon chasing down the last runs of the day (our buddy John videotaped on his "follow cam" - I'll try to post the videos later, they are wicked funny).

(It's a Japanese Larry Convention!)

Japanese people love to do things in groups. Usually when they travel, it's through a travel agency that books a package tour - this was probably a "Learn how to Ski" tour group - I saw several of them on the hill this weekend, same clothes, same skis, an army of accidents just waiting to happen. It was really funny to see all of them stretching out in unison in the morning, and then going through the same exact motions when learning to ski. Snowboarding in the US is all about individuality - different art on your deck, the way you dress, the style that you ride, and here in Japan they are building a uniform army of skiiers. Cracks me up.

(PS - "Larry" is a Michelle Mikulic-ism for a lame-ass on the slopes that either 1) is sitting around and gets in your way, 2) rides out of control and gets in your way, 3) falls off the lift and makes it stop, thus getting in the way of your riding, 4) a yard-sale skiier, or 5) anybody who clogs up the lanes and somehow impedes your day.)

(Who let the skateboarder on the mountain?! (photo by Markane)

(Nikster says: "Skiing is for pussies!!")

(My Japanese riding crew: Yuka "Ninja Style" Aoki, and Markane "Ground Tricks is Where It's At" Sipraseuth)

(It's your boy - last one on the hill, closing out the mountain, riding off into the sunset...)

Can't wait for the next trip!! God I miss the free Tahoe lift tickets in SF. Mikulic and Bort you guys had better be appreciating it! Peace and think snow, - SHU.