opinios

After nearly two and half years I thought I had all the different nuances for assimilating into Japanese society down pat by now (as much as is possible with my blond hair and big nose).

Apparently not.

Today at an elementary school things were going great guns. I was wowing the vice-principal with my much-evolved Japanese skills, impressing the homeroom teachers with my ability to draw an Aussie flag on the board, and putting the kids into fits of laughter as we did the "Hokey Pokey". It was one of those "I'm on a roll and being an English teacher in Japan rocks!" moments.

And then we said the goodbyes. The vice-principal escorted me to the reception area where one changes out of the school-provided slippers and back into one's shoes...

...and I realised I had been wearing my shoes inside the school the whole time.

DOH!

Me: Hey there man, long time no see.

Yahama BB550 4-string: Don't even think of touching me.

Me: What? Hey, calm down.

BB550: Don't tell me to calm down. You've completely ignored me for 6 months.

Me: Oh, that's not true. What about when Martine came over a couple of weeks ago and I showed you off?

BB550: Showed me off? You were too embarrassed to play me. You didn't even plug me in!

Me: Ok, I'm sorry about that. I was a little embarrassed that I might have forgotten that Phrugian scale we were working on...

BB550: It's Phrygian! You call yourself a musician?

Me: Not really.

BB550: I can't believe I got lumped with you. I got played more frequently by random strangers when I was on display in that shop in Ochanomizu than I do by you. Here I just sit inside a vinyl carry case in the corner of the room, collecting dust. At least I had other guitars to talk to in the shop. Mmm, that emerald Ebinez, she made some sweet groans when you slapped her the right way...

Me: Oh, don't be stupid. You're a frickin bass guitar. You can't talk.

BB550: I can't, can I? Well what is it we're doing now then, hmm?

Me: Oh shutup.

The other day I experienced a massive earthquake while I was at school. It measured 7 (the highest possible rating) on the Shindo scale. Luckily nobody was injured and nothing was broken.

This was mostly due to the fact that it all happened in the back of a truck.

Yes, the Shinjuku Ward Office sent their mobile earthquake simulator around to our school, and students and staff all lined up and had a go.

The quake-on-wheels was decked out in the back with a simulated kitchen (complete with gas stove and hot water system that lit up when turned "on"). The team visits different schools and companies in the area to educate people on how to react when mother nature decides to do some serious rearranging of the plates down in the basement (such as switching off the gas and protecting yourself from falling debris by hiding under a table).

It was surprisingly realistic. I climbed aboard with some of my students, and as soon as the truck started rocking on its wheels we quickly turned off the gas and dove under the table. Like the real thing, the upward jolts were soon followed by sideways ones. At one point the table, with me clutching one leg, was lifted up from the floor.

The kids weren't really taking it too seriously - some of the boys were goofing off by pretending to drink from the kettle, or by selfishly kicking their friends out from underneath the table.

I wonder if they learnt anything though. Tokyo is soooo overdue for a massive quake. And when it happens it will be disastrous. The density of people here, all crammed together in buildings, subways and apartments, makes me shudder.

It's only a matter of time.

Today I taught a small class of mentally handicapped kids for the first time (I don't know what the current politically correct term is). I've had the occasional hyperactive student in my classes before, but this was a separate group of just seven kids, all with their own unique challenge to deal with in life.

It was such a mixed bag and I was a bit apprehensive, but still confident in my ability to show them a good time with good old gaijin power. I was severely humbled.

A regular English class at elementary school is a walk in the park for me these days - I have taught so many of them that coming up with winning activities for any target language on the spot is a breeze. Filed away in the back of my brain is an extensive collection of games that get the kids talking, reciting, moving, shouting, dancing, running, whispering, singing and interviewing each other. Combined with my arsenal of flashcards and an inflatable ball, I am guaranteed to have them speaking English and enjoying themselves.

But today was obviously massively different. I realised very early on that most of my fail-safe games just wouldn't be applicable in this situation; putting these students on the spot to talk English could potentially result in all sorts of tantrums. Luckily I had a group of five diligent ladies - mothers, special ed teachers and the homeroom teacher - to help me out.

First there was the girl who broke down into tears the moment she entered the classroom. The poor thing had to be escorted away but 10 minutes later rejoined the class and ended up being the chirpiest of the lot.

Then there was the energizer bunny who tried to climb up me like I was Mount Fuji at every opportunity. Once we managed to get her to sit down she kept answering every question with "Udon". I think she knew half the answers (she blitzed the fruit card race) but was just more interested in letting everyone know how much she liked Udon, in as cheeky a manner as possible.

One boy was super clingy; if he didn't have his arms wrapped around one of the adult carers for even a split second, he would also burst into uncontrollable sobs. Another seemed to not hear the sounds going on around him for most of the lesson, but was definitely not deaf as he had great pronunciation when repeating words after me at the beginning. One girl stopped playing the karuta card slap game and buried her head in her hands for the rest of the lesson.

And then came the streaker.

Yes, a strapping young lad interrupted me while I was introducing colours to the class by prancing into the room stark naked, save for a towel around his shoulders. He was also quickly ushered away and returned later on, fully clothed.

When I ran out of games, the homeroom teacher came to the rescue with a CD of English songs. Music, the universal language, is what really brought the class alive.

Everyone had a good old dance to The ABC Song, London Bridge Is Falling Down, and the not so politically correct but infinitely catchy Ten Little Indians. It was a hoot. Energizer bunny was bouncing off the walls and spun round and round till her face glowed with a smile from ear to ear. And the clingy boy had left his carer and was now clinging to me.

I don't know who was more reluctant to let go when the bell rang.

I actually drew this old man from life.

When we were in Nagasaki a couple of weeks back, I spotted him shuffling along in the marketplace. I only happened to notice he was moving because I was so amazed by the squillions of lines on his face and the several layers of traditional clothing, and ended up staring at him long enough to realise he wasn't standing still.

I hurried ahead of him, propped myself against some milk crates on the cold concrete and began to sketch. But after a few minutes a truck backed up and wanted to park where I was sitting (some motorists can be so inconsiderate!) He was getting pretty close to me by this stage so I didn't mind upping and hurrying down the street to hide behind a takoyaki stall to finish the job.

I'd like to think that I was reasonably discrete so that he didn't notice me the whole time. But old people in Japan are often a helluva lot sharper than they look.

Maybe he didn't mind. I'd like to think so.

I was going to clean up the image to get rid of the ring bindings from my notebook, but decided I liked the effect.

By the way: Happy Birthday Mum!!

From The Australian...

World oil prices have surged to a post-Iraq-war high, pumped up by a huge gas refinery blast in Algeria, an icy US winter and low crude oil stockpiles.

New York's light sweet crude contract for delivery in February leapt $US1.13 to $US36.20 a barrel on its last day of trade. The March contract rose US87c to $US34.87.

Brent North Sea crude oil for March delivery gained US66c to $US31.23.

At least 27 people were killed and 72 injured when a huge explosion, apparently caused by a defective boiler, ripped through a liquefied natural gas plant near the eastern Algerian port of Skikda, Health Minister Mourad Redjimi said in Algiers.

I had to pop into the enormous Seibu department store tonight on the way home to pick up a few things, and as always, was distracted by the pet section.

Seibu Loft have the cutest, most adorable collection of puppies, kittens, rabbits and a whole menagerie of big-eyed newly born animals to take home under one arm with your cleaning detergent and your sofa cover. They attract crowds of curious shoppers who are drawn in by just how damn cute the little things are, all cooing 'kawa-iiiiii!'

The only problem is, they are kept on display in tiny boxes with perspex windows, barely big enough for the little tackers to stand up in. The store clearly figures that the animals' cuteness is not a big enough selling tactic, and preys on customer pity for them being cooped up as well.

Tonight however I was lucky enough to see a chihuahua get its revenge for being confined in one of these claustrophobic compartments.

The 8 week old white puppy brought a few politely muffled chuckles to the onlookers when it braced itself and laid a huge cable in its tray. What the punters weren't expecting though, was for the little rascal to turn around and start licking its fecal masterpiece. Yup, he was licking it right up. And he appeared to be enjoying it, because he soon started chowing down on the fresh sausage.

The store assistant was oblivious to the whole thing, despite all the shocked laughter and masses of people trying to keep from dry reaching. I just had to say something (plus, here was my first opportunity to use the word "unchi" (poo-poo) in a conversation!)

I discretely mentioned that her chihuahua was currently munching on its own ka-ka, and she frantically raced backdoors to unlock the cage and prevent little our little Turd Taster from getting to the second course.

Of course, as soon as the door was unlocked, Crap Chomper started going frantic, barking and trying to escape. This was clearly his ploy all along - a last effort bid to be set free. But the assistant held him at bay, and removed the plastic tray to give it a good clean.

At which point the dear little thing proceeded to pee all over the carpet that the tray had been protecting...

When I questioned him on the potential for such an ambitious project to impede on his ability to have a life, Daryl Campbell of 30mins.org responded as follows:

"I would think I'm probably more active than a lot of people, I have a young family and I love the out doors, my current obsession is power-kiting, I also go surfing which is fuckin' cold in Ireland. I see 30mins as a very important project which I will continue for a least a whole year. Once that year is up I have various ideas about where I want to take it.

I see it like this, people sit in front of a TV and boil their brains every evening for longer than it takes me to do this illustration. The west is being brainwashed into thinking in certain ways, the media cannot be trusted and governments have lost it big-style. I cannot sit around and watch this going on, as an artist I want to draw attention to things which happen under our noses. I just hope people will use my work to look a bit deeper into the issues. I come from a culture rooted in hatred and violence (Belfast, N.Ireland) when you see your community suffering so much conflict, You feel it, you can start to understand what it must be like for a family living in the West Bank or Iraq etc. When I think of this it is no problem to allocate an hour or two of my time each day for this project."

Check out Daryl's fantastic and topical Photoshop illustrations at www.30mins.org.

Something that I always knew, but never really thought about until it came up in one of my lessons today, is the fact that the number to dial for the police in Japan is different from the one to call for an ambulance or the fire brigade.

I wonder if that says anything about the level of importance that is placed on these services?

That's right, the number to call in an emergency - for example, your house is on fire or you have been lobotomised by the samurai sword of an intruder - is 119.

But if you need the police - those helpful purveyors of street directions - then the number to call is 110.

It does kinda make sense though if you think about it: 110 is the approximate number of questions you are likely to be asked by the police if you report a crime, as happened when I reported Kim's bike as stolen a year or so ago.

And 119 is just the American emergency number 911, but backwards.

Like so many other things in this country...

Being on holidays is so under-rated. No, really. I know you're thinking "yeah, it's great, isn't it?" But you don't understand. It is soooo good. And just how good it is really hits home when you have to go back to work.

It's not actually work that really bothers me. I happen to like teaching and like the teachers and students I work with. But it's the whole stress thing that comes with it.

It starts before you even leave the front door. Before you even wake up. You can't just sleep until you've had your fill, and then lazily arise to address whatever needs doing (usually eating breakfast). Oh no, you have to set an alarm to wake you up earlier than your body feels is natural, to deprive it of its full quota of rest.

And then breakfast is never as good. There just isn't time to fry up a bacon, eggs and mushroom extravaganza. A bit of a toast, a cup of tea and you're out the door.

The stress comes out of the corners it's been hiding while you were on vacation. It seeps out from between your joints and weighs down heavily on your shoulders, slowly tightening them. It lets loose inside your mind and starts frantically running around, shouting out all the different things that you need to do.

Previously your to-do list probably didn't extend beyond reminding yourself to duck out and buy a paper.

If you got round to it.

Being back at work means work takes priority over most of your day, a big leap from when you had the day all to yourself. All that spare time, that you time, meant that your mind was relaxed and you had time for reading, writing, drawing and meddling in whatever hobby has your current attention.

Like my latest obsession with building web sites, for example.

When I was on holidays, I was able to sit for hours and tinker and tweak and tweak and break and fix and learn and refresh the page and marvel at what is possible.

Being on holidays meant I could sit and pull my hair out in frustration at why borders look different in different browsers, and trawl the web aimlessly for someone who had experienced a similar problem. I could hammer away until 3, 4, 5 in the morning, screaming profanities at my laptop, threatening to hurl it from the balcony, and wondering what was ever wrong with the original table-based design in the first place. I wouldn't even eat at my designated meal times, I could just soldier on into the night with a double espresso because I didn't have to get up at any particular time the next day. I didn't need to go outside to lap up the beautiful weather, as I had all this free time to devote to sitting in front of the screen.

Yeah, having to go to work really sucks, as it requires me to get a full night's sleep and eat decent meals in order to be healthy, awake and alert for the people who rely on me.

Hmmm. Maybe being back at work aint all that bad after all...

Drawing cartoons is always a good avenue for those jokes that just aren't funny when told out loud. But I have settled upon this character with big ears and a big nose, and his girlfriend who I like giving wavy hair using the thick and thin of the pen's tip, so at the moment anything goes. Perhaps someone can help me think of a name for either of them?

I drew this on one of the nights in a ryokan while we were on the road. One of the nights that we weren't playing Waterworks.

Huh? I hear you ask.

That's right, we have discovered a new card game. Remember when you were young, before Commodore 64s and Gameboys and Playstations, when card games used to be THE only way to kill time? You would sit down and play for hours and hours with mum, dad, grandma, grandpa, the neighbours, anyone who you could convince to join in. During Christmas and Easter holidays when your family would migrate half the continent you would break them out in the back seat of the car with your brother, and when you got to your destination you would play them with your cousins until the early hours of the morning.

You know the ones - Uno. Rage. Luck Plus. O'no 99. And if you only had a regular deck of cards handy, Snap. Cheat (aka Pig's Arse). Old Maid. You would just never tire of them.

Well, Kim and I have stumbled upon an absolute gem. I don't think it was ever released in Australia but we were introduced to it by a Japanese friend of ours. And it's called Waterworks, the Leaky Pipe Game. Apparently it dates back as far as 1972 in the US.

It is a simple concept where players have to construct a pipeline of a certain length before connecting your tap end to let the water flow. But it can become quite complicated as other players meddle with your masterpiece, adding leaky pipe sections, T-sections, faulty valves and curved connectors to force your pipe to point away from the direction you want it to. Of course you can use your wrench to fix the leak, but use it sparingly as you only have two! It is both ingenious and addictive.

On our travels we picked ourselves up a pack from Toys R'Us in Fukuoka City. Of course, the rules are all in Japanese so we are not 100% sure of whether we are playing it absolutely correctly or not. We had to modify our rules a few times ("Ok, this is bullshit. I say we limit the number of T-sections you can put on someone's pipeline to three at a time, you're killing me here!") But basically we have it worked out and we are both hooked.

Who could have thought that plumbing could be so much fun??

Just got back from a week travelling around western Honshu and the island of Kyushu. Kim's 468 emails beat my 265, but of course 90% of it was spam and there were only a handful of actual messages waiting for me in the inbox. We had a fantastic trip despite Kim dislocating her knee (we think). I'm sure she will document the journey (with photos) much better than I could, so check 35 Degrees for an update soon. My new year's resolution is to write more. Well, to post more often. Whether that is a cartoon or some writing has yet to be seen, but plenty of people have emailed me to tell me that it just isn't good enough, dammit.

I'm sure this is the new year's resolution for many a half-arsed blogger out there. I do have an excuse, though - it is a pain in the arse for me to update the site the way it is organized. I have to run a couple of scripts and then transfer over a bunch of different files. So before it happens I have to do some more reorganising around here. 35 Degrees is now happily running (semi) smoothly on Movable Type, and now that I have a better idea of how to use it I'll move this site over to it as well. With a substantial visual rearranging at the same time of course.

The other reason I sometimes don't write much is because I am aware that I crap on a lot. I have my finger in a bunch of different pies, and I make the mistake of sometimes trying too hard to anticipate my readers' backgrounds. This is just something I have to get over. Not everyone will understand or relate to every post I make, but that's their problem, not mine. But if you want to read my drivel, I am happy to produce it. So this year there will be a lot more. I'm not saying it won't all be crap, but there will be a lot more of it.

Anyway, I actually am quite excited about the little web-based projects I have planned for this year. One of them is a very optimistic Japanese character learning site which I have all planned out (including the database schema which I have scrawled out over three different bits of A4 paper) and it will showcase some cartoons I have come up with that supplement the learning.

I also have a few other random cartoons that I have jotted down lately. I definitely got inspired to draw cartoons again after living with my cousin Nick, who churns out quality comic strips like there is no tomorrow and is on the verge of actually getting paid for it. There were quite a few nights at our shitty rundown rented house in Preston where we would set up in the study with our pencils and paper and frantically jot down messy ideas that would then find their way into comic strips. We would bounce ideas off each other and crack each other up with who could come up with the worst joke in the form of a cartoon.

This latest cartoon however is no joke.

It was inspired by our visits to the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during our travels. I had no idea of the number of nuclear tests that are still being conducted by the countries that currently possess nuclear warheads (primarily the USA, Russia and France). The US have the nerve to piously decree that North Korea is not allowed to have any nukes when they are running so many tests (I think 19 since the Clinton administration resumed testing). Honestly, one visit to the A-bomb museums at either of the cities who have been bombed is enough to make you vehemently against these weapons. Video footage of a black charred baby's corpse is the one thing that sits in my mind the most. Complications and cancer from radioactive poisoning 10, 20, 30 years after the bomb was another reason to scratch my head and why nuclear states should reconsider using them. Ever.

If only the world leaders were made to walk through these memorials and museums in Japan to see the impact that they had on the lives of ordinary people (70% of the 150,000 people injured or killed in Nagasaki were women, children or elderly), we might be able to one day hope for some kind of notion of world peace. Yes there is a context in which the bombs were dropped, but putting Japan's aggression into perspective doesn't make me empathise that it was necessary to drop them though. It makes me angry.

Happy New Year!

Hope you all enjoyed your new year celebrations and didn't have too big a headache the next day. Kim and I are off to Kyushu for 9 days which will be just fantastic. We haven't been any further west of Japan than Kyoto before, and I am going to make it my mission to bathe in a different onsen on every day of our trip (Kyushu is onsen country after all).

When I get back I'll have to have a crack at moving opinios over to Movable Type, seeing as the 35 Degrees overhaul came out so well.

In the mean time you should all go and read my cousin's excellent site, the Nick Souter Weekly, which he has been updating every Monday with different cartoons and photos as well as some very thought-provoking writing.

Ittekimasu!