Geisha, Interrupted

I should not be blogging!

I should be studying!  I am taking a ridiculously difficult Japanese proficiency test come December 2nd, in hopes that such a qualification will eventually land me some higher paying translation work.

And if I keep playing internet instead of studying obscure kanji during my free time, there is no way I will pass.

So even though the Japanese authorities began fingerprinting foreigners yesterday, even though this country has just resumed the hunting of humpback whales, and even though my personal life is currently as insane as it's ever been, I have GOT to give this compulsive blogging a rest for a little while.

And see if my life doesn't end as my hit count falls.

See you in December.

Instant Care

Check out the care package I got in the mail today!  It appears that I'm not too old (yet) to be receiving an instant, nonperishable, quasi-Thanksgiving dinner from my mom in America, via priority mail. 

Perhaps because the English lettering on all these food packages actually makes sense, or more likely because I actually like my family now, a bizarre feeling has been surfacing in my gut lately. Can all this instant food actually be making me feel homesick for America??  But I never get homesick!  How embarrassing.  Don't tell anyone, OK?

Do I Look Dead In This Light?

Let's play quiz. 

If you had to guess, you'd say that the below picture is of:

a) Jade and I, having drowned in our own cynicism and apathy at long last.

b) Jade and I, passed out in a pool of blueish black ink.

c) Jade and I, sleeping on each other while listening to an acquaintance sing and play the guitar inside of a dimly lit Shinto shrine.

Yeah, it's C.  And the music was even stranger than the lighting, if you can believe it.

Today was odd.

Japan's First (And Last) Thanksgiving

Here we have a particularly telling piece of Japanese history, via the Japan Times article Ainu Pride towers amid ongoing woes.  (The Ainu refers to Japan's largely unrecognized aboriginal population; the remaining natives live mainly in the north, and are characterized by their thick hair and white skin.)

In 1669, the Ainu leader Shakushain, who rose up and united the Ainu in rebellion against Japanese invaders, was called on to observe a truce, and invited to a banquet in his honor. The Matsumae clan, who had established a foothold on the island then called Ezo, now Hokkaido, by building a castle in 1601, had been cheating and robbing the Ainu in their lucrative trade for dried kelp and salmon, and the skins of deer, bear and sea otter. This and other gross injustices spurred the otherwise peaceful Ainu, the original inhabitants of Hokkaido, to pick up their swords, spears and hunting bows to fight the powerful Japanese feudal clan.

Even though members of the Matsumae clan by this time carried firearms, the Ainu knew their country and were fighting a guerrilla war that was proving very costly to the Japanese. Consequently, orders came from the Shogun to quickly subdue this rebellion and take over the resource-rich northern island. Not being able to defeat Shakushain, who was the first Ainu leader to gather the scattered tribes together, the Matsumae leaders called for a truce and laid on a great banquet — then they murdered him with poison.

In a hopelessly cynical sort of way, this banquet almost reminds me of the first American Thanksgiving, which took place some 40 years earlier on the other side of the globe. 

It all rings eerily familiar to learn that in the aftermath of the "feast," the Ainu was driven further and further off of their land by the Japanese expansion of the 17th century, during which time the natives were nearly wiped out by foreign diseases and a series of turf wars.

Yet unlike the Americans, who go on to celebrate their 'friendship' with the 'Indians' despite the bloody battles and eventual genocide that soon followed the First Thanksgiving, some Japanese will do everything in their power to negate the notion that a thriving aboriginal population ever existed on their territories at all.

In a way, this sums up the essential difference between the two cultures.

Can You Hear The Potatoes Singing. . .

from a few miles away??  If so, then you live in Japan.

Once the heat of the summer subsides, the sounds of the singing sweet potato trucks hit the streets of Tokyo.  When these traveling vendors begin to blare their "yakiimo (roasted sweet potato) song," this signifies the change in seasons even moreso than the autumnal equinox itself.  The equinox, after all, doesn't have a megaphone.

Below is my neighborhood sweet potato vendor, waving to me yesterday morning outside of my apartment, a few moments before I purchased a roasted sweet potato.

The typical gaijin in Japan goes through three general stages of culture shock with respect to the 'singing potato phenomenon.'  At first, this potato truck is the funniest thing you've ever seen in your life and you can't stop talking about how delightfully bizarre it all is.  You even sing the yakiimo song in random intervals on the Karaoke mike, which your friends find hilarious.

But just as quickly, the excitement can turn into rage. At this stage, you realize that the yakiimo song it not so much melodic as it is a blaring chant that would be considered noise pollution almost anywhere else in the world.  If these potato trucks were to ever grace the streets of your home city, people would throw rocks at them or worse.  Personally, I wanted to throw large blunt objects at the trucks for waking me up during my long afternoon naps (I was working nights by that stage, after all). The Japanese, on the other hand, are rather patient people.  I have to give them that.

Then, finally, there comes the third and final phase: potato acceptance.  For me, this is to admit that roasted sweet potatoes taste quite good (although it is arguable whether this merits a megaphone), and to acknowledge that, should I choose to stay out all night and sleep during the afternoons in Autumn, a singing potato truck is likely to punish me for it. 

Cloud or Volcano?

I took this picture a couple of hours ago:

The arrow points to what is likely the silhouette of Mt. Fuji looking over Tokyo's skyline.  Either that, or it is a clever cloud that is shaped remarkably like Mt. Fuji looking over Tokyo's skyline.  Take your pick.

Photolog of a Shameless Rubberneck

In my past life, back when I was Japanese, I sometimes think that I must have died in a fire.  Needless to say, there have been countless opportunities for such a fiery death in Tokyo over the past century alone. 

I suspect as much because, until I was about 10 years old, I was absolutely petrified of flames. And the grown-ups could not pinpoint any particular reason for my oversensitivity, saving the possibility that I overheard too many horrible newscasts related to accidental fires as a child.  And it wasn't just fire that set me off, it was anything that signified it: the sound of sirens made me run and hold my ears, and I cried during the fire drills at school when we had to stand outside in lines.

This seems pretty funny to me in retrospect, if only because five or so years later, upon entering high school, there was a brief period before the drugs, alcohol and eating disorders during which I dealt with my problems by setting things on fire.  During that time, I couldn't wait for my parents to leave the house so that I could sit in my room and burn things.  My 'Beavis' phase lasted until the night I almost set my house on fire.  Then, upon the realization that I couldn't control this substance after all, I lost interest.

Fast forward ten years, and my first instinct upon witnessing a burning building  in Hamamatsucho last Friday, was to take out my camera.  What can I say, snapping pictures provides me with the terrific illusion that I may have some form of control over my environment.

These pictures are not particularly good, as I was just passing by on the way to work and couldn't get close to the scene, but that is not really the point.  If you are interested in better pictures, click here.

Thankfully, nobody was seriously hurt in this incident.

Also, pictures of people taking pictures:

Who knows, I may not be the only control freak around here.

Laments of the Recklessly Honest

My feelings in regards to the release of my upcoming memoir can be best described in the form of the following knock knock joke.

Book: knock knock...

Me: who's there?

Book: Your book!  Remember me??

Me: (screams) Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!  Aah!  Aaah!  AAAAAaaaaaaaah!

Admittedly, this is not a very funny joke.  In the flesh, I am a very private person.  My writing style, however, is deeply personal and recklessly honest.  It is more of a sick joke, really.

The majority of my hostessing memoir was written over a year ago.  Though I got sober in the time between completing the first and second drafts of the manuscript, I allowed myself to describe my experiences so honestly because I was sure that I could just "skip town" if things got too uncomfortable upon the book's release.

Running away, after all, was largely how I dealt with my problems.  Having left America in the dust long ago, I figured that I could always leave Tokyo if my book got too prolific.  There were lots of cities left in the world where I hadn't yet fucked up my life.

When cutting and running is a way of life, it becomes pretty easy not to care who you piss off or hurt along the way.  I did try not to implicate anyone who didn't need to be involved in my misadventures, and I had to make various efforts to disguise identities lest I get sued.  The one person whom I absolutely didn't care if I hurt by making her exploits embarrassingly public, however, was me. 

Yet in the past ten months, I have begun laying the bricks of a stable existence.  It has been amazing, if unfamiliar, and for what might be the first time in my life, I can't just "run away" if anything goes wrong.  I don't want to run away.  I am scared as hell, mind you, but I am here to stay.

Dude, Whatever Works. . .

That is all.

We're # 91 !

So as not to accuse myself of "Japan bashing," I've decided to outline some statistically positive aspects of Japanese society before dedicating the remainder of this post to Japan's abominable ranking in a recent global survey on gender equality.

That is to say, Japan has the highest  life expectancy in the world, among the lowest incidences of obesity, and can boast one of the lowest crime rates on the globe.  The nation also has one of the top 10 health care systems.

So at the very least, the Japanese live long and healthy lives of gender oppression.  And they are not too fat, although most Japanese women I know would still say that they are. . .

Japan slips lower in gender equality rankings

TOKYO -- Japan has fallen further down the global rankings of equality between women and men, with long working hours and stubborn gender stereotypes seen as to blame.

Despite being the world's second-largest economy, Japan is well known for its "glass ceiling" for female workers, its male-dominated boardrooms and its long working hours which make it hard for women to balance a job and a family.

Japan ranked 91st out of 128 countries in the World Economic Forum's 2007 global gender gap ranking released Thursday, the worst of the Group of Eight major industrialized powers and down sharply from 80th the previous year.

Sweden came top in gender equality followed by other Nordic countries, while Pakistan, Chad and Yemen were at the bottom.

The Philippines fared best out of Asian nations in sixth place.

Japan ranked 94th in terms of political empowerment, with females accounting for only nine percent of lawmakers.

It came 97th in economic participation and opportunity, mainly due to low scores in wage equality and female career progression.

"What makes the most difference between Japan and other industrialized countries is the long working hours," said Aki Fukoin, head of a nongovernmental parents association.

"In the Japanese corporate culture, employees are expected to work until very late at night without consideration to a family life."

Satoko Watanabe, a politician in rural Kagawa prefecture in western Japan, said gender equality efforts have met a backlash in recent years.

Some local politicians now openly stress "need to rebuild Japan's tradition of males having jobs and female doing housekeeping chores,'" she said.

"We have to change the society's mindset first. I'm very worried about the backlash," she said.

The government admitted in a report in June that Japanese women only have a minimal presence in politics and business because much of society believes women should stay at home to support their husbands.

"There still remains a strong illusion that politics is a men's world so the number of women who want to run for elections is limited," said Mizuho Fukushima, leader of the Social Democratic Party, a small opposition party.

"Then there are the long working hours also in the parliament. For me it's hard to juggle childcare and political activities," she said.