Santa Likes Seiza

Ho ho ho! Japanese people tend to pray to their ancient harvest deities throughout spring and fall as well as New Year's, but there is no real doubt to the chief of Christmas: a pudgy white elf who loves to spoil children. Perhaps Mr. Claus is so popular because he fits all their best stereotypes of foreigners and gives generously while asking nothing.

Possessing one precious commodity (snowy skin) and one nice bonus (adequate conversational Japanese) as I do, it was no big stretch to say yes to an offer I recently got to play the jolly boss from the North Pole for a childcare center. The staff there had a fun idea: have Santa enter with an English "Merry Christmas!" and have the kids practice a few lines of English, then ask the fat man if he can speak Japanese and carry on from there in the language most familiar to the kiddos.

So we did just that. The bag has wrapped presents of candy for each boy and girl; the only two catches were that I offered a male present to someone of the female sex with a particularly short haircut and that there were too many gifts for the boys, leaving the staff to fix the imbalance as I left.






One fun little thing was practicing culturally proper sitting posture (see "Content..." from August, 5th paragraph) while in costume. They also offered green tea, as is customary when serving any visitor to an institution, and I plan on recommending that my toy workshop be retrofitted with tatami flooring once the blue-collar elves get their act together after New Year's.


This is my last post for 2007, a.k.a. Heisei year 19--the Japanese system assigns dates by emperor's rule. Please have a good holiday season and I look forward to seeing you, the Lord willing, at some point in the coming year.

Like Water

This is a depressing post, so please choose the time when you read it wisely. I'd hate to ruin your day through my carelessness.

I was ambling through one of the temples in my Kyoto Sunday morning stroll. Photography was permitted in all areas of the place except for one altar hut, which had an idol of a Buddha surrounded by stuffed animals--Pooh, Mickey and Pikachu crowded in on the stony guy as if trying to cheer him up with a big group hug.

This seemed intriguing, but I couldn't quite make out the meaning of the explanatory plaque, which ended with the characters for "[cold] H2O" and "child." So I asked one of the people staffing the place, and learned that the hut was built in memory of aborted babies. They were given that two-character euphemism because they came out like...well...right. And I could only shudder inside.

I think this issue has become so clouded over with rhetoric and ideology in America that both sides forget the very real human emotions and situations underlying the whole debate. For the record, though, I will say that I do not believe in justifying abortion access on the basis of forced-pregnancy cases, as this seems like the same kind of minority logic that would paint all would-be immigrants as illegal migrant workers.

And now a moment of silence for the hurting mothers with the memories they retain. Please fill it as you think best.

Guitar Grandstanding

Just attended a high school talent show this afternoon; my local host family's eldest daughter was playing a crunchy indie-rock rhythm guitar for two of the eight groups on the program. So naturally I am reflecting on what makes rock music, well, rocking. After all, the genre survived some bashing from one or two horrible singers and a drummer who dragged the beat so bad I had to resist the urge to go up & swap him out.

If it's true that a chain is defined by its weakest link (not always, though) then this entertaining block of time should help evaluate what makes the form strong. It certainly isn't lyrics, for when they weren't mumbled beneath the beat they were absolutely incomprehensible--ever heard "Smoke on the Water" from Japanese vocal chords? What kept my ears tuned in were the driving riffs [short melodies played in unison between guitar & bass to the rhythm of pounding drums]. Yes, it's a very old observation, but isn't 'original music criticism' an oxymoron? Writing about any art form can only strive to point others to the much better creativity within the work itself.

Now don't get me wrong; I'm not saying that Deep Purple forever define rock as a genre and that poetic lyrics are dead. My comments should only be taken to mean that when you overcook songs through continual download exposure and then strain them through a language barrier and a so-so school PA system a certain karate-chop strength remains. Let's see Josh Groban try copping that vibe one of these days...no, wait. The result would probably make me long for today's wince-worthy "Teen Spirit" cover.

Pushed Around

You're in a small American farming town at night, cruising down the main drag, when all of a sudden you have to pull over. The locals appear to be rioting! They're partying in a wild abandon, completely shattering all your stereotypes about staid country folk, and what's more, they are dragging you and a bunch of other onlookers into the whole craze!

If you add hordes of tourists and switch pagan influences for nominally Christian ones, you can start to appreciate the harvest-shindig-meets-Mardi-Gras events the Japanese simply call "festivals." This one in Chichibu was only a convenient 1.75 hours from my Tokyo suburb and of the "float" type. And said floats aren't by any means the Rose Parade or slopped-together high school Homecoming carts but vehicles with decades or even centuries of history behind their ornate, gilded front.

The pictures didn't turn out too well, but here's kind of what it looked like: crowded streets with teams of headscarved youth pulling the gigantic vessels along with ropes (OK, only those right next to the floats were actually exerting much effort).







Each float was unique, but all had lanterns and riders perched on them at various points.





The whole spectacle was obviously exciting, but another key reason for coming was for the carnival-esque atmosphere, highlighted by seemingly endless rows of food stalls. This man here is preparing "octopus bake," dough balls with a small chunk of tentacle at the center and topped with generous helpings of parsley & Worchestershire-like sauce. Very tasty! Note also the cute little mollusk on his sign; adorable logos are prevalent over here to the point of market exhaustion--and by that I mean to say that even train safety alerts sometimes employ the Hello Kitty character!

Anyways, it was a good time for all because no one got lost and the mountain air wasn't as cold as expected (an unexpected benefit of global warming--though it doesn't justify this phenomenon). Guess even this notoriously hardworking culture needs some officially sanctioned party time.

That Losing Feeling

I hope you don't know it well--that gut reaction of "Oh crap, I know I just left it [keys, jacket, wallet] back here; where did it go?" I've had more than a few pangs of this brain-overriding emotion here, but cultural norms have made most of them irrelevant. You see, it's very difficult to lose something here.

Gloves? Dropped one in a crowded street during a festival [will post pictures soon]; it was left to the side waiting for me. Bike? I've left my keys in the lock for hours--on accident, of course--and come back to find it untouched. Passport? An airport staffer ran it out to me when I left it on the counter in my rush to enter Tokyo!

This isn't to say that theft is absent here, or that it's the world's safest country. However, I've been extremely blessed so far. It's also clear that leaving anything in my buttery fingers is dangerous!

It's just my opinion, but I think the Creator of all things and Father of us all has given this Spiritually dark country this ray of common grace in their culture. Jesus said: "But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." (Matthew 5:44-45)

And while we're about that work of holy imitation, maybe we should take the scarf that guy dropped and set it at eye level on the fence. After all, he might be an absent-minded type who will come back for it later.

In Quiet Temples

Kyoto is renowned for being the epicenter of traditional Japanese culture, with over 1200 years of history. I figured, then, that 24 hours would suffice.

I must not be very Japanese yet, because irony is rarely thought of as funny over here (though regardless of country my all-too-cryptic humor rarely hits home). In any case, I arrived at the one-day option by necessity rather than choice; I had only the weekend, and the first half was already booked for writing with new friends also participating in National Novel Writing Month. Here's how my two-day, night-bus (combining travel and accommodation) itinerary came out:

Friday: Made the bus stop five minutes before departure. Paused to let my heart start beating normally again, griped into my diary about the intrusive ads scattered all over Tokyo and then enjoyed the provided slippers (hooked just above the foot rest in front of me) on a pre-sleep bathroom run.

Saturday: Kicked off the bus at 6 AM, an hour from my destination and 4 hours from the agreed-upon rendezvous time. Read and prayed for a while in a cafe, then noticed this little station shop I hope to patronize the next time I'm in the Kansai region (it's a branch of Cafe Du Monde, which I've visited twice in its home city).

Met the other writers--all English teachers from America--and enjoyed a leisurely stroll around the Buddhist temple where Murasaki Shikibu [pen name of the world's first novelist] is said to have begun work on the renowned melodrama Genji Monogatari. We boosted our word counts over a cheap spaghetti meal and I then crashed in the cheapest place possible: a rent-your-own-cubicle Internet cafe.


Sunday: Woke up just in time to avoid extra charges. Rented a nice bike and tooled over to the western area of Arashiyama, where I spent restful time visiting three temples, all of which had gorgeous fall foliage and one of which was connected to another famous work of literature: Heike Monogatari, in several ways Japan's Iliad although it was written in the Middle Ages. It was fulfilling both due to literary-geek dream realization and the abundance of silence, not really attainable in Tokyo. I can see why country people are renowned for loathing living conditions in that metropolis.

Spent the rest of the day visiting two summer-program friends and biking around the Gion district, famous for geisha entertainment. Had a split second of pure poetry: on "Flower-Viewing Street" I saw a kimono-clad, sandal-shod woman with white makeup and a bright-lipsticked smile ushering a business-suited Japanese man across an intersection. She was definitely either a high-level maiko [apprentice geisha] or master, as no one else would accompany an obviously important customer. No room for pictures, but that only underlines the ephemeral spirit of much Japanese art.

Monday: Woke up with my back complaining from the third night sleeping in a chair. Took longer than usual in the shower to make up for skipping the two previous days. Unpacked presents for dorm friends (social obligation over here, usually in packaged-cookie form) and uploaded photographs. Flipped idly through my country guidebook in search of the next adventure.

Best personal souvenir: free 8x11" posters from a Kyoto temple when I asked where I could buy the lovely one hanging by the ticket window
Best food: soba topped with mackerel at a 300-year old restaurant Sunday evening
Best sign on the trip: One that promoted litter cleanup by inventing the phrase "Beautification Enforcement Area."

Law's Long Arm

So it finally happened last week: I was biking down a residential street, minding my own business, when I got pulled over by the police. Sure, they were riding bicycles just like me and didn't command me to move over, but I understood. In their eyes, I probably had little business cycling around there on what looked like a pilfered machine.

I'd heard stories about foreigners getting sidelined out of what appeared to be ethnic profiling reasons, but here I was not 50 meters from my destination (a local orphanage where I've been volunteering) and the talk had become reality. One of the two coppers asked for my ID; the other one remained silent throughout and was thus probably a subordinate. Thankfully, I had my well-stocked wallet on me and was able to provide the card he asked to see; otherwise my day would have quickly become a lot longer.

They seemed impressed when I mentioned that I was a foreign exchange student and pointed out the corresponding International House decals on my bike. The dominant officer still radioed my machine's specs in, but I was then let off the hook and free to complete my trip on a vehicle that on second thought looks crappy enough to have been swiped out of desperation. It wasn't a big deal in the long-term scheme of things and I'm thankful for greater contact with the reality of power and old cultural mindsets here...yet I am not quite as carefree as I once was when errands take me off-campus. Perhaps this is part of the reason why minority groups in the States, particularly within inner cities, often seem weary: they are tired of fending off other's unverbalized but blatant suspicion.

Ghosts in the Material World

Cultural differences are obvious even in children's TV shows. A lot of the programming for kids, based on what I've seen orphans here watching, is centered on an American "edu-tainment" model and the rest is cartoonish. However, even in those not explicitly tied to Japanese tradition, things of the past often pop up.

One of my dormmates channels surfs every morning over toast so that he can hear easy-to-understand Japanese and get one step closer to immersion. In the program he was watching today, an employee of a company is continually oversleeping and causes the rest of his co-workers, like one big extended family (to be touched on in a coming post) to gossip about why. They eventually decided that something special had happened, perhaps a new baby, so they came over with presents only to be greeted at the door by the ghost of one of his ancestors!

In Japanese fairy tales, ghosts malevolent and benign play a large role, as I imagine they do in other countries once centered on ancestor worship. Even today grave-visiting ceremonies are taken very seriously, though I have my doubts as to how many people under 30 actually believe anything spiritual goes on there. Anyways, the ghost on the show sits down and eats with the company crowd, despite increasingly giving away his presence by inadvertently flying and letting slip lines like "Well, food isn't necessary for me." There's thankfully no laugh track, but the intent is clearly humorous.

These and other experiences have caused me to reflect a little on spectres and other wraiths, and the unoriginal conclusion thus far is that any discussion of ghosts--either side of the Pacific--centers, spoken or not, on death or the fear of it. Perhaps becoming one ourselves, passing through the grave only to find a Sisyphean half-life back on earth, would be the worst fate of all. This stands in stark contrast to the words of my hero Jesus, Who despite coming from heaven to willingly die for us all speaks only of His eternal life, which His passing allowed us to gain in Him. Indeed, we who believe in and trust our all to Christ are confident in His promise that He has conquered death for us so we need never fear it! True, some delight in expounding upon His agonies, but to be Biblical such thoughts must always circle back to the "life to the full" (John 10:10) He offers to us in Himself even here & now.

All that to say: you can keep the remote, my couch-potato friend. I'd rather look at the rising sun and think of Him Who rose than dwell on nighttime myths couched in electronic form. That future is much brighter than the long arm of the endlessly rehashed past.

Fall Foliage

Sorry for the month-long absence; blog-writing attempts were completely hijacked by National Novel Writing Month participation and various other endeavors, but I now can focus on showing off my surroundings again.

So here are a few shots of the ephemeral beauty that surrounds me, proving that for 30 days or so my place is prettier than Cal.

This is the view from the station, and it's heartening to see that the true natural beauty of Japan can outshine the drab-
ness of 'modern' designs. Unfortunately the two tallest trees are already clad in Christmas lighting (barely visible as threads) and it looks like human plans will win the upper hand all too soon.

Here's the campus--I am so thankful for the clear weather today.







Now the explosion of gingko color that I saw when I turned around:

I will indulge myself with one last shot that I hope you all enjoy, taken right from the top of the back-door dorm stairs that I use everyday.

When shooting these in the style of the typical Japanese tourist, I realized that never-
changing pictures are somewhat contrary to the spirit of passing beauty they attempt to capture. Perhaps too philosophical a dilemma, but it does encourage me to enjoy the real thing while I can in God's artistic timing.