The Plastic Duck Company

Last Cat.

2008-07-17T18:49:00.000-07:00

Fair thee well, Nawa.

Well, it's been a very fast year. I arrived in the August heat, which turned to the beautifully colourful Autumn, a fantastically cold winter, and a very welcome and gorgeous spring. I have learnt so much in these past twelve months.

Two months ago, I made the decision to move to a different part of Japan, to have a different experience and to learn more about Japanese culture. I will be moving to Hikone-Shi in Shiga-Ken at the end of the month, to teach English in an academy for children.

I will miss Nawa. I love the countryside, the houses, the mountain and the sea. I'll miss playing with the kids, and playing with the adults too. Working at the school has become a normal part of my life, and I am very happy to have spent a year here, among these honest, warm and smiling people.

I will miss you all, you fantastic people you.

Another message for Cat.

2008-07-03T20:38:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, I want to take these kids home with me. They're incredibly cute. I love to watch the differences between the groups, as the children get older.

In the first two grades, the kids are fearless and have no concept of embarrassment. When they change into their bright orange swimming costumes and matching caps, they'll happily run though the corridors, exulting in the feeling of running through the school wearing only a swimming costume, shouting, jumping, screaming, giggling. They keep all the adults that work here young. In grades three and four, the kids develop distinct personalities. They are more aware of the world around them and how their actions can affect others, though they're still happy to roll around on the floor and giggle. By five they begin to be a little shy, and act like older children until they begin having fun, at which point they forget about trying to be anything other than a child. By six they have become boys and girls, and have begun the separation that will last until adulthood. I can no longer entertain them by simply jumping about and being a token Gaijin, as I can with the grades below, it is with the sixth grade more than any other, that I wish I could speak Japanese well enough to communicate.

But, most days, I want to take all the kids home with me.

A message for Cat

2008-06-13T00:02:00.000-07:00

It's English time at Nawa primary school!

Nawa is very lucky to have a beautiful, newly built primary school, which is just entering its second year. The students here have regular English lessons from a native speaker and their home room teacher. The emphasis is on having fun while learning the building blocks of the language, which allows much faster learning at later levels.

I teach the alphabet, numbers, phonics, basic verbs and vocabulary through games and activities. My name is Chris Harper, and I am the current ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) in Nawa. I'm 27 years old, and I moved here from England in September 2007. I like the countryside very much, and often enjoy hiking around Daisen, or cycling even further.

Some of my favourite pastimes include cooking, reading, writing and Frisbee. At Nawa primary, I enjoy playing Frisbee and Oni with the children every day. I also love to make music, and will often bring instruments to school.

The Japanese culture is very different from the English, though also similar in many ways. I have never known any people talk about the weather more than the English before I came here. I think it must be the sheer abundance of it. The Japanese are at once very open, frank and easy-going, and also secretive and shy. They are very generous, and will routinely go out of their way to help, but can sometimes try to help a little too much, and can confuse well groomed, western-style individuality. Overall, I am having a wonderful experience here in Japan, and I think if I ever retun to my home country, it will be more of a shock than when I arrived here.

Some things about the spring....

2008-05-29T01:00:00.000-07:00

Some things about the spring....

So, it came.

After countless long nights, and many months of penetrating cold, shivering beneath blankets, reading in front of kerosene heaters, and breathing vapour between paper-thin, poorly insulated walls, and single paned glazing. After the snow, the ice, and the wind - thrusting its fiery hand into the freezing depths, like a hero rescuing a blue skinned child from an icy, watery death in Hollywood-land – the sun returned.

And everything changed.

Amidst the dripping icicles and snow drifts, life began to emerge quickly from the soil. Within weeks, brilliant injections of spiralling pink candy floss were appearing all over Japan. Cherry blossom (Sakura) season was upon us. For two sweet weeks, nestled inside the short Nihon spring, these clouds of delicate beauty explode into the warming air, bright fireworks everywhere the eye can see. People picnic beneath them, lovers love, arm in arm along the night paths strung with lanterns, the birds gather materials for their nests, and winter's people emerge from the long night, into a glorious morning. Hanami-Matsuri (Lit. Flower viewing festival) sees families, corporate groups, lovers and friends sitting on sheets beneath the floodlit blossoms, indulging in all kinds of food, music and alcohol. As the sun continues its meteoric rise into the sky, the temperature increases exponentially.

The sheets and parties are cleared away, and the Sakura blossoms fall in eddying whirlpools of incandescent pink petals, littering the streets, collecting in the corners and flowing in the rivers. Children shake the cherry branches, and dance, picture perfect in their innocence among the pink snow.

After a few more weeks of pleasantly warm weather, the islands begin to sweat and steam, the mountainous landscape throws up great clouds of moisture in sacrifice to the heat. Suddenly, almost overnight, the cicadas and crickets return. The evenings, which have for so long been quiet and windswept, become active soundscapes, accented by gentle, moist breezes. In the countryside, the sheer walls of sound generated by countless thousands of singing insects doppler around you as you travel through their midst. Now that the cicadas are back, the farmers clean out the many concrete channels that allow fresh mountain water to flow past the patchwork quilts of dormant rice fields.

They turn over and fertilize the soil, and then open the little wooden hatches to allow the water in, flooding each field in turn, and creating a world of mirrors. Everywhere you go, you can see the sky reflected on the ground by thousands of beautiful, shining squares. This next change complete, two other groups arrive on the scene to join in the chorus.

The Japanese Cranes are in their element, with the whole country covered in shallow ponds, teaming with food. They glide effortlessly on the thermal packed, humid air, wings curved like Gothic banisters, busying themselves only with eating and enjoying the most pleasant time of their year. The conditions created by the staple crop farming are also suitable for frogs, whose population explodes, like the cicadas, almost overnight. The chorus is a massive, ribbet filled orgy night after night, in all of the thousands of square kilometres of shallow, rich water. Walking down a street after dusk, with paddy fields either side, will result in the frogs in each successive field you pass suddenly falling into silence when they perceive you, and restarting their bickering as soon as you've passed, as lampposts do in eerie suspense movies.

In the daytimes, the farmers now start to plant the young rice crops. Doing this in a field flooded with twenty centimetres of water is achieved by using a rice planting machine, resembling a Victorian steam car – all spindly metal wheels and wooden seats. They have a tray at the back for the plants, and a mechanism that inserts them from the contraption into the giving soil in neat rows.

Once planted in such rows, the riclings begin to poke out of the surface of the water, and turn the field from mirrored sky to green. Because they're planted in such accurate intervals and straight lines, as you move past a field it will change before your eyes, from a mirror reflecting to the sky, to lush greenery - the plants polarising the water's surface. As Japan is so mountainous, many of the fields are created in tiered levels, it is not uncommon to drive down a road and view the paddy from a variety of heights as you pass.... the observers' eye starting from five or ten meters above, and finishing at or below the level of the water. The effect of this is somewhat like watching Luke Skywalker fly his X-wing across the surface of the Deathstar.

The summer now in full swing, the trees sigh in the breeze, and a cornucopia of ridiculous insects are out wandering around. Massive spiders spin huge webs, moths the size of my hand fly into the classroom, and bats scour the dusk air. The heat continues to rise, and as night-times begin to become a relief from the heat, people doze on their tattami (reed mats) floors, doors and windows are flung open to the fragment, song filled night air, and iced tea is drank. The insect-screens stay closed, preventing all but the most industrious little bastards access to our homes. Now, the month of June approaches, and with it, a month of heavy rain, misty mountains and more umbrellas per person that any other country in the world. As the torrents of rain crash down onto the roads, the warm water evaporates almost at once, creating a strange and mysterious world to drive through. For those people who played MarioCart, back in the long dead days of the Super Nintendo (also called the Super Famicon), the effect of driving after dark is something like Rainbow Road, which was the level in the game where players drove through the cosmos on a track made from glass......here, with the absence of street lighting, all of the high visibility fluorescents at the sides of the express way are reflected into infinity in the water on the road's surface, the result being one of flying a car above a valley of bright pillars.

A Misty and mysterious land I find myself in. The two words feel so related in these steamy valleys and cloud covered landscapes, that you'd think that they were related. But they aren't. Mysterious comes to us from the Greek word mysteria, meaning “secret rite or doctrine”, and mist from the old German word mikhstaz, and that from the Sanskrit word mih, meaning “cloud or mist”.

Hats off to the people behind the free Etymology dictionary..... such wonders the Internet brings us......

Thar's gold in them thar tepid waters boy!

2008-05-28T17:44:00.000-07:00

This morning, on the BBC website, I read an article named Trying to head off an Arctic gold rush.

Four or five large nations are posturing like apes around the waterhole that is the rapidly diminishing lump of ice we know as the North Pole. According to the Beeb, “The US Geological Survey estimates that the Arctic could contain 25% of the world's undiscovered oil and gas.” Hence all the fuss. Thar's gold in them thar tepid waters boy!

The countries, Russia, Canada, the US and Norway, are trying to make a claim on the “sovereignty” of the sea bed beneath the polar ice, on the basis of the UN Law of the Sea convention, which states that a country can claim rights on the seabed, providing the location is within 200 Nautical Miles (370Km) of its continental shelf.

It can't be just me that finds this entire concept ridiculous. Here we have these rich countries dividing the surface of the planet up like a Risk board, devising entirely arbitrary rules and regulations, not to decide if we should, but who gets to dig up the remaining oil and gas.

Russia recently used a submarine to plant a metal flag beneath the North pole, to illustrate the fact that her continental shelf extends all the way beneath the ice. The BBC quotes former Canadian foreign minister, Peter MacKay, who responded by saying:

“This is posturing. This is the true north strong and free [a line from the Canadian national anthem], and they're fooling themselves if they think dropping a flag on the ocean floor is going to change anything. There is no question over Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic... You can't go around the world these days dropping a flag somewhere. This isn't the 14th or 15th century.”

Can anyone enlighten me as to Canada's “sovereignty” here? Of course, the only reason any of this acne ridden chest beating is even occurring, is entirely due to the Arctic's rather sad and rapid demise. The mineral drilling is going to be so much easier as all the ice melts, and as we all know, it's melting because of a direct and proven correlation between human activities and the various gasses we are releasing into the poor old atmosphere.

Industrialised nations are like Heroin addicts, who know that they are destroying everything around them , but just keep plugging away regardless, feeling vaguely guilty for what they're doing.

Does anyone else feel a bit of MadMax in the air?

Letter to a cheap hotel in London

2008-03-21T01:03:00.000-07:00

Dear hotel Lilly,

I stayed at your hotel around six months ago, on the night of Tuesday the 22^nd of August, 2007.

What follows is a request. It is a personal one, and in no way involves money or business. It is preceded by a background story that explains the motives for that request.

If you feel that you don't have time, or simply don't want to read it, please skip the story and read the request at the end.

Many thanks,

Kurisu Niwatori.

The Story.

It was August, 2007. I'd been offered a job in Japan, and was due to depart in a matter of days. For the first time in years, I was staying with my parents in Sussex, and had been for about four weeks prior to my visit to the hotel.

Lou, a well-off friend of my father's had employed me for those weeks to work in his large garden, building climbing-frames, cleaning roofs and building flowerbeds. It was pleasant work, the August sun beating down on the empty garden every day, the owner was away on his honeymoon, having married a young Russian woman. I was to have free reign of the property, with access to the house. It was an enormous favour to my father, and a mark of Lou's generosity. He is a very kind man, who always reminds me of the Walrus from Alice in Wonderland. He always smiles and has intense pale blue eyes, framed within hundreds of smiling crinkles of brown flesh. The walrus theme is continued with the ample belly, a constant brown moustache and regular, guttural laughter.

There not being much space in my parents' house, combined with my lack of friends, having not lived there myself for many years, and no interest in the television, gave me little to do in the evenings. The house, equipped with a swimming pool and sauna became my evening retreat; swimming and reading under the stars. At first I was very cautious, although I had permission to use the pool, I was worried that the neighbours might think me a burglar, and contact the police. After a while though, I was more relaxed, I started making tea in the kitchen, and even began taking beer from the fridge, though I always replaced it. Three days before I was due to leave for Japan, having finished all the work in the garden, I went out for dinner with the only friend remaining in the town, my ex-girlfriend from ten years ago. Conversation was pleasant, and combined with food and wine, we soon hatched a plan to have a late night swim in the pool. This we did, picking up more wine along the way. A beautiful evening was had, swimming naked beneath the sky, the only light coming from the submarine lights, casting shimmering pattern on the surrounding trees. The problem began here. Inevitably, we got to rekindling our old passions. Unfortunately, due to the large amounts of wine we'd drank, and the knowledge that the family were out of the country, we made the decision to enter the house, climb the stairs and make love on the large, luxurious bed.

The next morning I was due to make an early trip to London to collect my Visa from the Japanese embassy. This hadn't occurred to my befuddled mind as the sunlight spilled onto our faces and we slowly stirred from our drunken slumber. Just as I began to form coherent thoughts, the terrible, terrible sound of a key in the front door and the latch being opened cut through the silent, fluffy dream like gunfire. Who ever was entering would know immediately that someone was in the house, as I'd deactivated the alarm. I leapt out of bed, my head spinning with the residual red wine, and dragged my trousers on. Approaching the bedroom door, I came face to face with the owner's daughter, whose face moved from concern, comprehension to full-blooded anger in seconds. She had just discovered her father's friend's son in her father's bed with a woman, whom she proceeded to hurl insults at. We were ejected in a rage, not before being subjected to phone calls both long distance to Russia, and short distance to my father. Having knocked on the door to retrieve my friend's handbag, we stumbled down the road in the midday sun. Unable to see clearly, my eyes damaged by the time spent in the chlorinated pool, I was struck with the gravity of my actions. That evening, I was to go to dinner with my family, the head of which, I had just angered and hurt more than he thought possible. By betraying his best friend's trust, I had betrayed my father.

In my still drunken, sleep deprived and disbelieving state, I followed a foolish course of action. I hurriedly returned to my parents' home, blindly packed a suitcase, called a taxi and headed to the train station. My flight was due to leave at 13.00 the following day, which meant a trip to Green Park to collect the Visa at 10.00, and a rush the Heathrow to arrive within the stringent three hour window imposed by BAA. Another stringent imposition was a weight limit on luggage. And here we come, finally, to the point.

That evening, my vision still blurred so that it was an effort to read, an emotional wreck, hungover, exhausted, and dismayed with my actions, I was faced with a problem. Heathrow levee a weight limit of 20KGs on international flights. In my stupor, I had easily packed more than that. I had to lose some weight from the luggage. In the small, single room, while I should have been bidding fair well to my family in an intimate restaurant somewhere, I rifled through my creased belongings through blurred tears. I made two piles, one to take and one to leave. I couldn't face talking, explaining myself to a member of the hotel staff, it was hard enough for me to book the room itself. Such was my emotional distress and shame.

The Request.

I took the pile I was to leave, and I put it in the easiest place. I put it in one of the draws in the room's dresser. They're never used in hotels, there only for aesthetics, only for show. Atop the pile, I placed a note, saying something like, Should you find these things, please dispose of them.

Ridiculous, I know. The memories of that night are scarce for me, it's more of the knowledge of events rather than full-blown memory, like a tale passed down through generations of fathers and sons. Six months later, having stopped drinking to excess, and having worked in rural Japan, I have been afforded much time to reflect. The reflection is, of course, not one of pride. I damaged the relationship with my family, and I damaged myself.

Never the less, one of the many realisations that have occurred in the intervening months, is that, amongst my discarded possessions, my shirts and books, possibly laying in that very draw for half a year, is my camera. It's not the best camera, but it is fairly good. Having been without it for six months, I'd sort of settled on viewing it as a fitting punishment for my behaviour. Japan is such a beautiful place, and I am being exposed to so many beautiful things, and I cannot photograph them, or afford a replacement camera.

I probably should have written this letter before, but somehow, I couldn't. Now, the draws in the rooms in your hotel are never used, so, there is a chance, a small chance, that the things I abandoned there are still exactly where I left them. I would dearly love to have my camera once again, and there was probably a few good books in there too.

I am very sorry for leaving my things in your draw. If you have it in your hearts to return them, I have a friend in London who is willing to come and collect them in person.

Thanks for reading this,

Kind regards,

Kurisu Niwatori.

Some things about a positive frame of mind.

2008-03-12T06:09:00.000-07:00

Greetings and salutations, as a certain spider once said.

Well, it's been a little while since I last wrote a round robin Email like this one, and having recently re-read some of the stuff I've posted in the last few months, I feel moved to apologise a little. I think I have an innate ability to write in great detail about negative things, and often skim over some of the thousands of positive things in a flourish to render the opposite. Damn. Perhaps my parents were too good to me, perhaps I'm just too English, perhaps I'm a loser. Regardless, I shall attempt to get through this particular rant without any negativity whatsoever. (A little bit perhaps, just to keep things moving, Yin and Yang, Darth and Obiwan, Pepsi and Coke etc.)

I've decided to attribute many of my previous attitudes to what I am coming to perceive as a great big, smelly dose of culture shock. A shock so invasive that it pushed well past my concious senses, and burrowed deep into my mind. I honesty didn't think that I'd suffer from culture shock, and I don't think I've suffered from what I thought culture shock was.
I had always defined it as a sort of home-sickness that was generated by not being able to eat chips, have a pint in a beer garden, or watch the bum cracks of builders as they toil over cups of tea and cigarettes. Though I have obviously pined for such situations (I do love builders' bums), I haven't suffered as a direct result.

I'm now able to make a better definition of what I think Culture Shock is:
It's the complete and continued absence of all the things you didn't know you'd need or miss. Living in the midst of a culture that you cannot comprehend or understand, surrounded by signs you cannot read and swimming in speech you cannot decipher. A place where you're constantly afraid of offending someone or something, and where you are simply unable to learn at a reasonable pace with feedback, because there is none. The culture is not one that feeds back, and even if pressed, the compatible language around you lacks the complexity to communicate any complex ideas. Unable to communicate on any meaningful level with the natives, you'll find yourself, quite naturally, seeking social interaction with people who share your own tongue. They'll quite probably not be from your country of origin, and, the chances are, the only thing you'll share in common is that language.

Reduced to a state of slight helplessness, you're unable to complete simple tasks like telephoning the gas board, explaining the problems with the car to the mechanic, requesting food in a restaurant, or explaining anything to anyone apart from those other foreigners who you might not get on that well with anyway. Day in and day out, what starts as an adventure, a challenge, a character building, perspective stretching learning experience, ends up infiltrating your sleep and depressing you. Many strange dreams of being chased by strange neon signs of Asian typography haunt the small hours. Daily communication with colleagues if often reduced to mime, and the possibility of misunderstanding and paranoia is increased ten-fold on both sides. At the same time, of course, you'll be enjoying yourself.

That is what I think culture shock means. It's a condition of insulation and uncomprehending solitude. When faced with such adversity, I think it's only natural for humans to find a few things to have a bit of a moan about. Regardless, that culture shock (or, at least the first wave of it) has passed. I begin to understand some of the things being said to me, I can read some signs and order some food. I've staved of my hunger for builders' bums, and replaced it and many other wants with local product (for example, watching the Japanese women who follow a fashion of wearing heeled shoes that are two sizes too big, (they look rather like the home alone children of a high-powered business woman who've been at her wardrobe) and which therefore have to be carefully dragged across the ground, is more entertaining than watching builders). Friends have been made, and fears of offence have been assailed. I still miss bread and whisky though.
While I still can't understand so many things about this culture, having spoken to some people back at home, I realise that I have learnt an awful amount about it too. I expect that I probably shan't be aware of just how much that is until I leave.

The Japanese do surely love the idea of the festival. They absorb things like Christmas, Halloween, Valentine's day (girls give to boys), White day (March 14th, boys give to girls), from other cultures, and they have a huge amount of their own, which have been passed down between families of inane, festival loving Japanese for centuries. Some are national, and others are local. The very small town in which I live had its annual "Cow Festival" in December. It's a very simple affair; the roads are all closed down, and farmers from miles around bring their cows to town to show them off. I didn't see any beanstalks. There is drinking and eating, and a few barbecues to finish the event. Charming, though sad for those cows that don't return.
One of the national festivals is known as "Setsubun", and celebrates the coming of spring and the start of the Japanese lunar calendar. There are various festivities that occur around this day. By far the most obscure to me, is the tradition of eating un-cut sushi (maki) rolls, while facing in a certain compass direction. (When Sushi is prepared, it's made in great big rolls, and then cut into small pieces.) I was first made aware of this by various old Japanese women, who insisted on miming the act of devouring a long, sausage like object, which they would hold with both hands. Terrifying. It's with the same set of ladies that I had amusing conversations about the (then) upcoming U.S elections. Many Japanese, of course, are unable to pronounce the letter "L", instead making blissfully unaware yet loaded statements like, "I am very interested in American erections." Priceless.

Anyway, the main tradition of Setsubun is to drive all the evil spirits and bad luck out of your house, and tempt loads of good luck in. This is achieved with the ritual of mamemaki, which literally means bean scattering. Yes, from any convenience store in the country you can buy your long rice sausage, a packet of soybeans and an Oni mask. You then throw all the shutters, windows and doors of your house open to the chilly February the Third air, and get one lucky member of the family to wear the demon mask, while another (usually the man or head of the house), launches beans at the devil, chasing it out of the front door shouting, "Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!", which means something like, "Demons out! Good luck in!"

It's at times like this when I think there is so much that the west could learn from cultures like this. It is an outmoded tradition, and I'd be impressed to ever actually meet a person who believed that the actions alone actually achieved their overt goal, but that's not the point. The point is to bring the family together, and to focus their minds on the coming year, the change of the seasons and the possibility of good luck. It's about renewal and rebirth, and sharing an experience.... it's also about getting the shutters and doors of the house open to let some clean air in there. Due to the lack of insulation, central heating or double glazing, coupled with a very varied climate, the seasons here are very much in your face and inescapable. Modern life really leaves us as strangers to things like the seasons, simple rituals like this underline the change, and allow a family to hang out and chuck beans at each other.

In the first Emails I was sending out, I labelled the Japanese as being a "deeply unhappy consumer culture," and I also said something like, "they sacrifice their individuality for social unity," among other, rather scathing comments. While there are aspects of their society I do not like (as, no doubt, with any other society or thing), I can now see that what I first took to be a lack of individuality, a tendency to be robotic sheep, was partly a different norm of social interaction. The Japanese are not really extroverts, and their culture is one of extreme politeness and conformity..... until they know you. Once you are friends, many things change, not in the least the language style used, but also the kinds of things that are said and shared. Of course, getting to that stage may well take a while, especially for a Gaijin.

This can be seen as an admirable quality. They are unwilling to be extroverted, or trumpet their opinions, simply because they may offend a stranger. Instead, they wait. Once they are comfortable that you'll not get offended, or they're drunk, they'll cut loose. An unfortunate side effect of this is that it's very easy for people to become closed of from the world, and just float through life being polite and being been polite to. It is very easy to become lonely here.
Of course, that said, who could possibly make mention of a lack of individuality when confronted with the monster that is the Hadaka Matsuri, or"Naked Festival"? It's the same as Sesubun. While they are pursuing and following an old tradition, as a group, it's being in the group that is the function of the event. It's bringing people together and bonding them, which surely is one of the mainstays of society. Who wants to be a big fat individual and spend all their time alone anyway? Especially without clothes in the chill February air.......

The Naked Man festival harks back to an ancient Shinto purification ritual, and has similar brothers (and sisters?) all over Japan. However, with around ten thousand participants and many more observers, the festival in Saidaiji, Okayama, is probably the biggest. The basic premise? Well, there's a great big square temple, raised up on a stone base, about ten foot-thick steps high. Inside the temple is a priest, and in the priest's hand, is a stick. The stick is called the Shingi, and is terribly important (and probably incredibly phallic). What else is there? Well, there are around ten thousand men, who are grouped into teams of various numbers and inclinations. There are barrels of Sake in their bellies, and ten thousand Fundoshi up their bottoms.

Fundoshi are, essentially, twelve foot long bandages, with which a very talented man will wrap around your naked waist, wedge up your bottom, and then safely lever your crown jewels deeply into your scrotum. Included in the deal are thousands of police officers and ambulance crews, and tens of thousands of spectators, vendors, hawkers, ravers and reporters, all milling around the temple, snowflakes in the cold, cold depths of the winter's evening.

The men get psyched up in their various changing places, before marching out in Sake clad droves, chanting "Washoi! Washoi! Washoi!", (Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful!). They march through the streets with their bottoms out, they pass around the shrine, with police and well-wishers on either side, through cleansing dousings of ice-cold water, round and round the course they go, arm in arm, getting wilder, louder visibly steaming with each circuit, as their groups heat the night which hovers around freezing, Washoi! Washoi! Washoi!. The men vary in size and shape, some looking cold, others drunk, some with the torsos of warriors, others with the frames of small boys. Occasionally serious looking men who wouldn't look out of place on a battle field stride past sporting black Fundoshi, we are unreliably informed by each other that these are the Yakuza. This continues for hours approaching midnight, at which point there are literally ten-thousand almost naked, psyched up, steaming drunk men milling around inside the base of the huge shrine Washoi! Washoi! Washoi! A few minutes before midnight, most of the lights from within the temple are cut, and the naked men clamour and clamber toward the centre, some topping down the stone steps, some being dragged out, trampled and unconscious by uniformed men with sticks. At the stoke of twelve, the priest throws the Shingi from high in the rafters, and the race is on. There are no rules, but the idea is to get the Shingi, and put it in a pot filled with earth. If you can do this, the gods will smile on your team for the year to come. Needless to say, there are various accidents in the race to be the lucky winners, last year one man was trampled to death.

At times I can see so many good things about the way things are done in Japan. People are loaded with a deep respect for many things and for each other. This is achieved largely through a consensus society. People here like rules, and values and ethics are drummed into every person for most of their life. This could be considered a bad thing, but, at no point in such a large gathering of people am I ever threatened, crowded, worried for my wallet, or pushed. Crime is incredibly low here, and health is taken seriously. People are always polite. People will always try and make a place for you within their group. There is a sense of belonging, even if it sometimes comes at the expense of free expression.

A few weeks ago I went drinking with some friends, and we ended up in a late night restaurant. It was the kind where all the tables are locked away in secluded booths, inside which your group sits and eats. There is an area at the front of this building (and most Japanese buildings) where new arrivals remove their shoes, recent departees (not a word, but should be) put on their shoes and pay, and the live lobsters are displayed in their glass box. (Yes, most Japanese buildings have live lobsters in the entrance lobby.) There was also a man who was quite possibly the drunkest mobile person I have ever laid eyes on. He was so drunk that he didn't seem to know where he was, who he was, or what we were. He kept pawing at people like an absent minded, milk-filled baby might paw at a breast, and was constantly leaning against the doorman and dribbling slurred Japanese onto the poor fellow's shoulder. Each time this happened the doorman simply pushed him gently back into the centre of the room, with a barley perceptible grimace. The drunkard would then proceed to rotate and stumble around the lobsters, touching people and mumbling, as if he was a moth at the bottom of a large fish tank, with a lobotomy (not far from the truth no doubt), until he eventually reached long suffering doorman again, and warbled some more warbling into the dude's lapels. This went on while four of us split a bill, paid separately, put on shoes, poked him a little for fun, and eventually departed. When we were outside, he pawed at the window, like a puppy in a gas chamber.

The level of self control, respect and discipline shown by the doorman was huge. In almost any other place, that bleary-eyed voyager would have been removed from the restaurant with varying levels of violence and indifference, and deposited in a situation or container outside fitting that violence or indifference. The doorman obviously is of the mind that; Just because he's being a drunk ass doesn't mean he is any less entitled to respect. Which is precisly the reverse of what his opposite number in the west would be thinking. I think there are many aspects like this that the west could do with emulating.

At the same time, I feel sorry for many people. The kids go to school seven days a week, (Weekends are "club days", where they become incredibly good at sports through belligerent repetition.) it is rare to see kids of school age not wearing uniform. Their parents will work up to sixty hours plus a week. I've stayed late at work, sometimes as late as 7pm, and many other members of staff never look ready to leave. They've always been there for a while when I arrive in the mornings too. No one seems to question this. I'm working on the theory that they live there.

As far as religion goes, I think Japan is mostly secular. The country is recorded as being "Buddhist," and most people will tell you that they are, but I don't think that they really practice as such. When do they have time? Their belief, their dogma, seems to have evolved into the hard work and dedication in which they spend their lives. It's almost admirable at times too. My friend Mark has recently posted an interesting article about a book called Cosmic Trigger on his blog. Amongst other things, Robert Anton Wilson talks about how people seem to loose the ability to think in straight lines when they are embroiled in some form of belief system, be it religion, tradition or political ideals. It's interesting.

Not that I'm trying to suggest that the west is somehow superior to Japan, with our short(er) working hours and slapdash violence. Far from it. Regrettably, many of the young here are beginning, like young people everywhere, to idolise things about other cultures that they feel theirs doesn't possess. Which is a shame, because in this case, many young people in Japan are emulating and embracing Big Macs, Coke, Avril Lavagne, French Connection and Guchi. Doh.
If you pull into a petrol station here, an attendant will walk up to the window and ask you what you need. If you've left your headlights on, even just the parking lights, they will always reach in and switch them off, saying, "lights!" as if they're doing you a favour, and that the battery would have become flat in the intervening three minutes it takes to fill the tank. When I first got here, I thought that this was insane. Now, I think it's charming. Many Japanese cars do have battery troubles, they're often smaller than AAs and they're running in lawnmower engines.

The attendants do this, because, somewhere down the line, it was decided that it was the thing to be done. Japan is a place where the rules are obeyed, a place where traditions and rituals are followed unquestioningly, on the surface at least. It is easy to skate across that surface and live in a state of stasis, glancing occasionally at the weeds below. To get beneath it is challenging.
I am starting to see logic in many things that seemed patently absurd when I first arrived, and I am starting to appreciate the sense and beauty of many other things that I didn't really consider before. The removal of shoes at the front door, for example, undoubtedly keeps the house very clean, but also has many subconscious benefits. It creates a boundary for the home, it gives the body a small ritual to perform in order to cross that boundary. By performing the simple ritual, you are reaffirming something you already know, and making it stronger in your mind. You are crossing a boaundary, and entering a different world. We are still simple creatures, and I think, as we continue into this century ritual may once again become more important in our lives, as many of them are ceasing to have much meaning asides from the pursuit of material.

Hanami Matsuri is the next festival I'm looking forward to. It literally means "Flower viewing festival," and isn't so much a single festival as a time of year. The famous cherry blossoms are out in April, and, for only a few weeks, they light up the landscape, freshly delivered from the long, cold winter. Families picnic in the parks all over the country to observe the beauty together. This togetherness is a little two sided, as the families spend masses of time apart, serving the pursuit of gain, their companies, educational institutions etc. Does that make the time they do spend together more valuable?

I have no idea.

Hostess with the mostess

2008-02-01T15:07:00.000-08:00

Last night I met a Japanese Hostess bar owner that decided to adopt my girlfriend upon her arrival in the city. Ishikura owns a single room, bedsit sized bar named "Gran Canaria," situated on the third floor of a high rise, conveniently close to the city train station. There are numerous examples of these bars throughout Japanese cities, and getting to them usually involves elevators, corridors, staircases, squinting at various signs, and bumping into various tottering businessmen.

It's an interesting sight. The Hostesses pour the drinks, laugh at the jokes, and sing karaoke songs with...... The Salarymen, who proceed to get incredibly drunk, have a little cry because of their crushing 60 hour work weeks, have a fantastic time, spend all their money, sing their hearts out, and then stumble off home to (presumably) lose their remaining amount of consciousness next to their sleeping wives. I have heard that Japanese business men are married twice, once to the company and once to their wives. Apparently, men come first in Japan, and women, sometimes not at all.....

I've read that the more recent generations are starting to shun the karaoke experience, preferring instead the allures of neon-clad nightclubs, or living rooms that you can rent by the hour, to watch movies, listen to music, and generally entertain the friends you can't bring home in. You can and order drinks and food from the telephone on the wall, and the place is usually open twenty-four hours a day. However, for the middle aged folk, there's nothing they like better than singing at high volumes while descending into alcoholic stupor, apart from golf.

The ladies are beautifully turned out in kimono, complete with black netting for their exposed arms, painted faces, exposed necks, lacy brassieres, and for Ishikura, a silk leopardprint dress. She is the mistress of this domain, and she limps behind the bar on her bad leg, a gnarled captain behind her weathered bridge. Her daughters flutter from one table to another, forwards and backwards, attentive hummingbirds in and out of the bar, their movements always purposeful, smooth and economical. Most of the men here are regulars, and have their own personal bottles of whiskey, which the women skillfully encourage them to drink more of, maintaining all the important eye contact, touching the upper arms, and allowing them to undress them with bloodshot, hungry, but harmless eyes. They are professionals, they do this every night. You can see that they're used to working with one another, and that they are completely aware of themselves and their business. They signal one another with deft flicks of the wrist or neck to attend to a different customer, to go and fetch more supplies, to move the karaoke selection console....... smoothly, graciously, flirtatiously facilitating the mens' slow slide off the bar-stools, and into a gradual state of 'Yoparai!', which seems to translate roughly as "pissed!", or perhaps, "fucked!"

A few of the older men have clearly been in the game for a long time. They resist the charms of the hovering sirens somewhat, drinking at their leisure, eating soup, and actually having sensible conversations. One such gentleman, with distinguished grey streaks in his hair, wears an unruffled black suit with a black tie. He treats us to an excellent and throaty performance of a popular song, which he renders to Spanish guitar in husky, forty-a-day-Japanese. I begin imagining that he is a Yakuza boss, taking a few hours off from running the underworld. My reverie is jarringly interrupted by the bleary-eyed sucsessor to the microphone, who, like most, warbles his love song off key, hangs onto his giggling friends for dear life, and stares into the deep, dark, memorizing eyes of a smiling hostess, who sings the female harmony.

As usual, I sang a Beatles' song. Well, you have to really.

Some things about trains.....

2008-01-27T22:26:00.000-08:00

Some of the most incredible journeys can be made in many countries, simply by boarding a train. I often wonder how travelling by train was in the past, when there were no aeroplanes, Internets or vending machines, and the minutes surrounding the departing vessels were thronging with well-wishers, goods-people, assassins, tradespeople, street hawkers, secret agents, beggars, travellers... a cross-section of the entire populace. The locomotive used to breathe life into towns, filling them with trade and making them a node to the buzzing hive, dripping with honey.

Trains are still my personal favourite, and a fine way to see the insides of a culture. You'll meet all kinds on board, and see all kinds from the windows. You'll be exposed to the language and the cuisine, and if it's a long trip, you'll be exposed to sleeping habits, shocking pyjamas and alcoholics.

Japan is famous for the “Shinkansen”, or Bullet train. In the heyday it was ultra-fast and ultra-modern, linking the big cities with ease, comfort, and high speed plastic-wrapping. These days it's not really that different from most modern long distance trains. The French TGV, for example, is substantially faster.

What I like to wrap my mind around is what it was in the past. The Shinkansen was an incredible achievement. While other countries were able to simply upgrade their existing railways when new technology turned up, enabling bigger, faster trains, Japan could not. The country is 80% mountainous, and experiences frequent earthquakes. In the 1930's, the rail network comprised of many small lines that struggled around, over and up and down the landscape. To travel even relatively small distances meant a long journey time. This is true today of both local roads and local train lines. The landscape, though very beautiful, misty and cinematographic, is a right pain in the arse when it comes to actually getting anywhere. I sometimes think that the Japanese are so good at designing things for precisely this reason.

Originally planned in the 30's, the Shinkansen's 120mph trains were to link up with Korea (via a tunnel), China, and the Trans-Siberian railway. All of these plans were scrapped because of World War Two, and the plan didn't see the light of day until the 60s. However, even then, the Japanese built a railway whose trains were travelling at a whopping 135mph, and which, instead of going around and over the landscape, just burrowed straight through, or bridged right across it. Awesome.

Waiting at the station, you'll see big queues of people forming from about fifteen minutes before the trains arrival. The points where the doors will open are marked upon the floor.... it all seems to mild so organised and mannered until you visit Tokyo, where grandmothers and umbrella wielding children alike join together in the human crush the defies manners, queues, or compassion.

On all trains I've ever boarded, there has been a shelf above the seats for the storage of luggage. I think it would be safe to assert a universal constant that such a shelf will be present on all but the most primitive (or advanced) of trains. The difference between the British trains I am used to, and the Japanese ones I am learning about, is the plastic. In my experience, there has always been a solid sheet of plastic creating the shelf, being supported by metallic brackets. It is often transparent so that you can see your luggage, but it is, however, there. On the Shinkansen, the shelf is made from three or four metal bars that run parallel to the wall with a gap of about an inch between each one, connected every two meters or so with a bracket. There is no plastic shelf......

So it was, flustered and late, that I entered a busy train carriage, located one of the last free seats, and threw my umbrella up on to the shelf. The umbrella rolled through the air, and would have landed neatly on the plastic, were it there. The plastic deciding not to exist, the umbrella passed neatly between the two central bars, its hooked handle deftly catching a bracket, causing it to pitch, and rotate through ninety degrees. From my perspective, the tip of the brolly drew a beautiful quarter-circle, beginning at the underside of the shelf, and describing a curve, kissing the top of the unfortunate salaryman beneath it's open newspaper, and continuing down the spine of the broadsheet, eventually, inevitably, pulling away to dangle directly between the man's eyes. My exclamation of “Oh, shit!”, did nothing to dispel the man's obvious displeasure, neither did my sitting down on the only available seat next to him.

As I wrote above, the local lines in Japan still have to work their way around much of the landscape. As they don't travel too slowly these days, it means banking around scalextric-set corners in long, complicated wiggles, like combat aircraft trying to evade a particularly persistent heat-seeking missile. The floor changes angles at such irregular and unpredictable intervals that it could be personified as a well-toned ski instructor on his passage through the hills and valleys. I haven't managed to walk to the toilet in one of these trains without falling on someone yet. The people always look really affronted, as if I've fallen onto their lap on purpose. Local people do it too, though not much.

I haven't seen the inspectors fall yet. they wear immaculate uniforms, which include white gloves and a peaked cap. They walk into the carriage and loudly, courteously introduce themselves, before taking a bow at the front. They then commence ticket inspection. I suspect that they are fitted with some form of anti-gravity device, or possibly they breathe helium before every carriage, though their voices appear normal.

Attempting to walk the length of a moving train is something I always enjoy. Viewing little snippets of peoples' temporarily compartmentalised lives between the seats is interesting. Some read, others listen to music. There are young couples touching each other, old couples ignoring each other, people gazing out the window, sleeping and dribbling on each other, people getting drunk, people eating, people talking, people watching films on laptops, writing spreadsheets or letters, people with children and all that they entail, people wishing they could smoke, that the person whining nearby would shut up, fat people squeezing their unfortunate neighbour up against the armrest, and, most confusingly for me, people who just sit there, waiting for the train to arrive at its destination.

In England, the Harry Potter books were marketed with two covers, one for the children, and another for commuters who were embarrassed about the book they were reading, and preferred it to at least look like a work of highbrow art. In Japan this problem is neatly sidestepped; when you buy a book, the shop will put a little brown paper dust cover over it, so that noone knows what you are reading, and you can't get embarrassed. It also means you can't see what other people are reading, which I like to do, especially if it's a paperback and you can read the blurb.

The Japanese are often touted as being one of the healthiest races, and in many respects they are, though, far from perfect, they enjoy their poisons like everyone else. I sometimes think that they are healthy through tradition, the same reason that this country is incredibly safe. The culture itself rises up, and reminds its citizens what was drummed into them in their youths, and what will be subsequently driven home to their children. Eat well, Exercise, Respect - don't mug, Work hard, and so on. Regardless of this, they do love to smoke. The Japanese smoke almost as much as the Spanish, and so, on trains there are smoking carriages. Being propelled down a train, trying to keep my footing on the constantly pitching floor, I was amused to see the differences between the smokers and the non-smokers. The families were of course non-smoking (seeing unbearably cute Japanese toddlers chugging on SevenStar cigarettes would have been a little too much), though the major dividing line is alcohol and career choice. The smoking carriage seethes with wispy grey tendrils, which reveal a multitude of drunken salarymen on their homeward journey. Some have shoes off, others have ties loosened. The vast majority have bought “One cup Sake”, which, as its name suggests, one cup of Sake. These resemble small pots of jam, or the food-colouring-drink-that-costs-ten-pence-and-has-a-foil-lid that

you used to be able to buy in England. The contents resembles “Sake” insomuch as, it has alcohol content. The same could, of course, be said for mouthwash or surgical spirit. Most of the salarymen are asleep by the time they arrive at their destination, and a few don't get to the door in time, witnessing which reminds me vividly of Michael Douglas in “Falling Down”.

In the station find all the usual restaurants and shops, ticket gates and departure boards, with some unquestionably Japanese elements. For one thing, each and every area, shop, corner, toilet, vending machine or telephone has its very own theme tune. The music ranges from low-grade Musik, frilly classical, wretched rock, pointless pop, tasteless techno, aimless ambient and so on. There are drinks machines with motion sensors, which blast out Rachmaninov when some poor soul penetrates their perimeter. There seems to be no consensus on a soundtrack to the place in general, nor an understanding of the ramifications of such senseless noise pollution and cross-contamination on an innocent European psyche, not to mention the skull that contains it. Doubtless, the stresses caused by all the different sound waves congregating upon it, oscillating it until the eye sockets wobble must be detrimental......

This same phenomenon can be seen all over Japan, which suggests that it's a cultural indifference to noise pollution. In the supermarkets, at the dairy-section, you can watch a shelf mounted Milk advertisement, which features a man dressed in a cow jump-suit, wearing cool, white plastic glasses, and surrounded by a troupe of seven year old girls wearing matching, mid-riff exposing strappy tops, who dance like women twelve years their senior, that work in seedy nightspots. Less than two meters behind the bemused observer of this can be found a table bearing fish, beneath which is a small CD-player, which loudly declares in rapid, aggressive Japanese the benifits and advantages of eating the wares upon the table. Moving through most shopping spaces is, to say the least, a jarring and entertaining assault on the aural senses. At least the deaf in this country must enjoy such a daily odysey.

Outside every train station that I have been to so far, there is always, without fail, a bingbong. I don't know how else to describe it. It's the kind of noise that you might hear on opening the door of a corner shop.... “Biiiinng, Boooong.” For no readily apparent reason, this noise persistently loiters at the entrances all across Japan, binging and bonging quite pointlessly. I counted the seconds when drunk and contemplative outside the local station one evening. The bingbong comes once every twenty-seven seconds. Perhaps it's the sound of a train arriving on time somewhere, perhaps all the trains in Japan are constantly arriving somewhere, at intervals of twenty-seven seconds, and this noise allows us to rest assured that the process is continuing. After four months of living here, I wouldn't be surprised to hear this at all.

Some things about Okinawa.

2008-01-12T05:33:00.000-08:00

Okinawa! 1400Km south of Japan, the home of Karate, The Boom, and Awamori. The place where Uma Thurman went to get that Hatori Hanzo sword of hers, and the place where I spent Christmas. The crossover between December and January is the coldest part of the Okinawan calender and everybody is wearing jumpers. We recieved a number of odd looks for being tourists, as bikini clad teeny boppers might in Febrauary at Brighton beach.

During that fantastic time that we all refer loosely to as "World war two", Okinawa was leveled (as was much of Japan, even if you ignore the obvious two spots), and was used as major U.S. base. The military presence has remained, and has been a huge sore point of political distress ever since. Though the government has agreed to move some of the US hardware away from the islands, they are, strangely enough, having trouble finding a home for it anywhere else in the country. The military presence has supposedly diminished greatly in recent years, but upon visiting the capital city Naha, you'll discover cars cruising around playing HipHop, muscle-bound soldiers with buzz-cuts, far too many neon lit "BBQ Steak restaurants" and a dirty great big military base that straddles the centre of the island, and must be circumnavigated in order to travel north or south.

Near the end of the war, the emperor ordered the Okinawan people to commit mass-suicide, declaring that if they did not they would suffer greatly at the hands of the American troops. Over four thousand followed this command, and this and various other facts were glossed over, and actually omitted from Japanese history text books until political pressure groups convinced the government to admit the truth fairly recently.

All of the historical sites that illustrate the deep running and fascinating Okinawan culture bear the legend "reconstruction" on their pamphlets.

After a rather dishevelled and ever-so-slightly-morning-flight-that-was-fuelled-with-beer arrival, taking a moment to play on the massage chairs that give you an almost religious experience (That is, a trinity of sensation; attending the dentist, taking ketamine and stretching your spine across an infinitely curved barrel) we slept, rented scooters and ate some Okinawan food in a charming wood-paneled-basement restaurant that was neatly installed beneath the plethora of neon, Americanised tack that is the main drag.

After consuming a flask of Awamori (Okinawan Sake) my actions at the end of the meal seemed logical....intuitive. There were two people running the show here, the burly, somehow massive seeming matronly lady owner, and her husband, who had the appearance of the Master (KungPow?) from KillBill2, or any 70s Kungfoo you care to watch (a huge, wizened white beard, and very crinkly eyes). After the delicious meal, when we asked for the bill, the matronly owner of the bar simply stated that we needed to finish our greens. These "greens" consisted of a side plate of pickled "vegetables"..... the identity of which I'm still not quite sure. The Japanese are very fond of pickling things, and most meals are accompanied by such dishes. They tend to taste a bit wrong...... like a pickled onion that's been at the bottom of the vegetable draw for too long. You can taste them before they enter your mouth. In this situation, when issued what appeared to be a command, I did the only thing I could, fully believing for some reason that if we did not dispose of the offending greens, we wouldn't leave........ I waited untiｌ she had her back turned, and watching her, deftly slipped the offending pickles into our shopping bag. There were two downfalls with this plan. Firstly, I had not checked on the location of the assistant, who was, predictably, behind me and watching, and secondly, the bag into which the green stuff went contained tomorrow's breakfast, and the apples, chocolate, bread and bag subsequently stank of the stuff for the rest of the evening.

Japan sells more umbrellas than any other country in the world....... at least so I'm told. This is an entirely dubious claim, and I have no way of backing it up... but it does sound good. There are, certainly, an awful lot of the things here. It's often very rainy or very sunny (in keeping with the climate you see). Umbrellas are more common than rice paddies and bicycles, and to a certain extent, you can always just pick one up from somewhere...... a little like lighters doing the rounds of people who smoke. It is very rare to buy an umbrella..... they are considered public property, you just go out and wake up next to one the following morning (so to speak). They sleep in skips, doorways and drains. They overflow from people's cupboards and the entrance lobbys of businesses. There are dead ones littering the streets, and if you really can't find a free one, they only cost fifty pence. If it's raining, the Japanese will cycle with an open umbrella. Like highly skilled gazelles, I have often watched Japanese ladies, in ridiculously revealing and insubstantial dresses, wearing heels, successfully mount and ride off on bicycles in torrential rain, safely beneath the cover of their umbrellas. I might make mention that they do this on the pavment, which produces predictable results in a city. Do they text on their mobiles while riding in the rain beneath the umbrellas? I shall endeavor to capture it on film.

So it was, on the first day of our "sub-tropical island trip" we staggered home through torrential rain beneath a succession of small and invariably broken umbrellas. We almost managed to crash a private party that contained food, but considering our drunken gaijin status (not to mention lack of friends or Japanese ability) we were politely, if forcefully asked to leave, making do instead with a Lawson's evening special.

The following day being Christmas Eve, we boarded the "Queen Zamimi", bound for the island of... Zamimi. On arriving on our (slightly soggy) island paradise we met some insolent French people, and were then assured by the lady at the tourism office that there was no way she could rent us a tent, on account of the large storm bearing down upon the island. In fact, all the remaining boats had been canceled in anticipation of the weather, and she suggested we find a hotel. Upon insistence that we couldn't afford to eat and pay the (rather expensive) hotel rates (Lisa deserves an Oscar for that one), the lovely lady not only gave in, but drove us to the campsite. She did this because the campsite was closed for the off-season..... only the foolhardy actually visiting at this time of year, and only the insane wishing to camp. Tent pitched just behind mangroves on the (incredibly picturesque) beach, we set about renting bicycles and getting drunk. As the sun set, the first drops of rain began to fall.... and within half an hour the tent was being battered about by what was essentially a typhoon, with us inside lit by the solitary bulb of a bicycle torch, eating Satsumas, playing Go, and drinking.

Incidentally, the Japanese for Satsuma is Mikan, and the Japanese for Sweet potato is Satsuma-kira. The Japanese find it amusing that we call the fruit "Satsuma", which is actually a place in the southern region of Japan, and also the name given to an orange coloured pottery tradition, brought to Europe from Japan by the Dutch....... The fruits originated in China, and were then introduced from the Satsuma region of Japan to America.

Go is a very popular board game in Asia that also originates from China. It enjoys a similar popularity and general understanding in the East as Chess does in the West. Wikipedia has the following to say on the subject:

"The game emphasizes the importance of balance on multiple levels and has internal tensions. To secure an area of the board, it is good to play moves close together; but to cover the largest area, one needs to spread out, perhaps leaving weaknesses that can be exploited. Playing too low (close to the edge) secures insufficient territory and influence; yet playing too high (far from the edge) allows the opponent to invade. Many people find Go attractive for its reflection of the conflicting demands of real life.
It has been claimed that Go is the most complex game in the world because of its vast number of variations in individual games.[70] Its large board and lack of restrictions allow great scope in strategy and expression of players' individuality. Decisions in one part of the board may be influenced by an apparently unrelated situation in a distant part of the board. Plays made early in the game can shape the nature of conflict a hundred moves later.
The game complexity of Go is such that describing even elementary strategy fills many introductory books. In fact, numerical estimates show that the number of possible games of Go far exceeds the number of atoms in the known universe.
As far as drinking goes, it has been practiced by almost every culture I've ever come into contact with, even if it's forbidden.
So, we survived the night. At times it felt that there was simply so much rain and wind, that we must have slid into the the nearby ocean and carried away on the waves. I was forced to go outside several times and reattach the ropes to the ground.... the rain was heavy and thick enough to drench me each time, and between us we only possesed one small, threadbare, pink towel, that the car salesman had given me with the car I bought from him (presumably for wiping the windows), four months and many thousands of Kilometers before. "

I awoke a few hours later to a headache, a full bladder, and what I took to be sunlight. I walked out of the tent into a wet and silver world, lit by a huge full moon. The storm had taken it's leave. As I contemplated it while relieving myself on the beach, I decided it was probably one of the most beautiful scenes I had ever seen..... A curving coastline of silver sand, bordered on one side with sighing silver trees, another with gently lapping silver ripples that led away to different gradations of a silver sky. Distant spits and spurs of silver landmass could be seen on the silver horizon, and the whole view was capped with one of the clearest views of the milky way I've ever known.

The following day was a hot Christmas day, and we sat on the coral beach, made sandcastles, snorkeled, and hung out with a stockbroker from Quebec, a lovely lady named Debbie, her Oceanographer friend, and her ten year old son named Nico. Nico is an interesting young man. At the age of ten, he is still young enough to ask questions such as "What's a condom?", and, "Do you think we could kill those birds from here if we had rocket launchers?" and yet he can also speak Gaelic, and is learning Japanese. His widowed mother is working her way around the world, with Spain being the next probable port of call, via the Peace Boat. Being home educated, and also placed in "immersion" schools, he is learning languages and cultural perspective at a phenomenal rate. How quickly will ideas that have taken years to form in my head form in his? How many different international notches will he have on his bedpost by the age of eighteen? Confident, attractive and well mannered - multilingual and tanned, he'll be a popular one for certain. He will also have a comparatively thorough understanding of the world, and a very interesting youth.

Christmas dinner was eaten in the company of these fine people, and consisted of Soba noodles, Tofu and Sake. The unbearably cute six year old daughter of the restaurateur declared me to be "Santa-san", and proceeded to join Nico in his attempt to bounce plastic balls on the drunken adults' heads until we gave into our aching bodies, and treked home.

New years eve was spent on a different island, with a different people. Upon arrival on Kume island, we discovered a "rasta" shop. The place was plastered with Jamaican colours, sported posters of Mr. Marley, Reggae music and various head-shop-ware. The proprietors were very friendly, and after I showed them my harmonica, invited us to their party at the nearby bar. This bar turned out to be in a similar vein to the shop, as did all the people it contained.

The Japanese do love to run themed events and sell themed goods. Be it Simpsons theme doughnuts in Mr Donut, Hello Kitty aeroplanes (that's no joke), English pubs or Rastafarian bars. The young people in this country are, like all young people, trying to find a place of their own, and not surf on the coat tails of what has gone before. Many of them take the "Rasta" thing quite far. The locals on Kume island have their Rasta shop, and their Rasta bar. They listen to reggae music, and wear reggae clothes. They have dreadlocks, shake hands instead of bowing, and probably smoke blunts (though the penalties for being caught in possession of cannabis here are something like 3 - 5 years in prison and a large fine. So it's very difficult to actually find people smoking, and if you are exposed to it, they trust you as a friend.) In the bar you can sit and drink, surrounded by Jamaican flags, hand painted Rastafarians skanking on the floor, pictures of Bob and his friends, and a group of Japanese people that don't really look Japanese. It's very surreal.....this might be a little harsh though, as the lovely locals proceeded to put on a show for everyone that featured traditional Okinawan music (the star of the show being the Sanshin), remixed with a keyboard and a pair of Djembes.

The New year in Japan is a fairly big deal. It's the major winter holiday, lasting for about a week, and featuring heavily: family visits, temple visits, resolution and contemplation. People make braids of rice plants, pinned with green leaves and orange fruits that bear a striking resemblance to the western Christmas wreath. Of course, Christmas only arrived in Europe at the insistence of the Christians, and with much blood spilt. Before Christianity, Europeans enjoyed a very similar tradition of feasting and celebrating the changing seasons, the wreaths and braids both of course representing hopes for a good plentiful new year.

Around the time of Halloween, the Japanese celebrate the winter solstice (shortest day). They leave gifts of food at the shrines, and honour the ancestors. Not so long ago, our culture did similar things. Halloween of course meaning "All Hallows Eve" and "All Saints day", which were installed by the Catholics over "Samain", the traditional Celtic solstice celebration, where it was believed that the spirits walked the Earth, and that we should leave gifts of food to help them home. What was left of the festival was taken from Ireland to the U.S. and now the rememnants even wash up on these distant shores, with JacoLanterns, ghost outfits and skulls at the front of convinience stores and supermarkets.

The days for the week all over the world are the same, and they are based on the same bodies in the sky. The names simply differ depending on cultural history. In Europe, most were named after Greek (and, subsequently, Roman) gods: (Sun's day, Moon's day, Mars' day, Mercury (Odin's) day , Jupiter (Thor's) day, Venus (Freya's) day, and Saturn's day.)

In Japanese, the days translate like this: Sun day, Moon day, Fire planet day, Water planet day, Wood planet day, Gold/metal planet day and Earth planet day.

So, cultural themes and differences aside, everyone at the party had a very, very good time. The night spent on the beach, we watched the sun rise before retreating to the local resort hotel, where we repeatedly walked in, sat down, and partook of their free Internet access, free coffee and drinks, and even free golf! Lisa theorises that they allowed our scruffy, smell bodies to persist in abusing their facilities (obviously only for guests) either because we were white, or they just didn't want to be rude. Regardless, their free caffeine fueled our progress to the airport, and to Tokyo.

Incredible signs found in Tokyo train station.......

2008-01-11T08:14:00.001-08:00

"Any masterpiece just becomes noise disturbance when emanating from earphones...."

Some things about Tokyo

2008-01-09T23:18:00.000-08:00

After the peace and tranquillity of Okinawa, we boarded a plane to take us into the heart of one of the most densely populated places on Earth.

When I was much younger, I used to spend many a happy hour playing SimCity. If you aren't familiar with it, it's a computer game, and of course, the object of the game is to build and manage a city. I always used to love playing it, but wondered why the designers had drawn the graphics to make the city look so... drab, and uniform, like it was made from grey sticklebrix. The game was, of course, designed in Japan, and as our plane flew low on its approach to Narita airport, a saw an image I hadn't seen for about fifteen years, namely, a cityscape just like the ones I used to design in that game. Not that any city is particularly attractive, but this one is impressively grey, and continues as far as the eye can see, complete with smoking power stations and an incredibly busy sea port, that gives it a feel of the ugly brother of one of the cities rendered in the StarWars films, with countless little craft zipping this way and that across the bay.

Tokyo has been well noted for not being a beautiful city, but making up for this with its possession of everything else, its vibrant life force and its abundant culture. Just walking through the place is incredible enough. It feels as though an architect from the early sixties was asked to produce a scale model of a city of tomorrow, complete with concrete flyovers and monorails, and that we were actually shrunk at the airport security station, and allowed to ride the metro into that model. This is an acceptable theory, as it'd mean all that Japanese people wouldn't have to worry themselves with helping hapless gaijins navigate their city and it's train system. That said though, it doesn't really hold water, because there are a great deal of Japanese people wondering around inside the model (and helping hapless gajins navigate it.) A ridiculous quantity of them actually, and I'm told that we visited at a quite time (the Japanese new year holiday runs from the 1^st to the 7^th of January, and many people leave the cities.)

Our first day of wondering saw us swept up into one of those strange quasi-religious-Shinto/Buddhist-traditional madnesses that is Hatsumoude: the first temple visit of the year. People go to a temple to 'pray' for well being and good fortune for the coming twelve months. The bigger the temple, the more likely you'll get those things, and we happened to be near one of the biggest ones in Tokyo. So far, every Japanese person I've spoken to about this doesn't mention the traditional aspect, but rather, they use language like “we must visit the shrine”....... and they do.

To actually reach the temple is to become a part of a very slow and well mannered stampede. Shop keepers fling their doors open wide for kilometres in each direction as a veritable tide of humanity powers past their goods. People sell beer, dead animals in various stages of being cooked on sticks, good luck charms, water, bags, clothes, souveneers and flags. On the final approach to the temple, the crowd slows almost to a standstill and flows like a backed up river around the buildings and down the side streets, surrounding the temple as if it were a giant sandcastle.

Temple visited (well almost, we never got inside, but drank beer on the street and watched the policemen instead) and good fortune assured, we headed into the centre of the mess to ascend the 240 meter monster that is the Mori tower. While not actually that big compared with the biggest buildings in the world, it is easily tall enough to house a glass observation deck and the MORI art museum in the top. It's a very interesting view indeed, though one that comes at a cost, and an even bigger cost should you wish to consume caffeinated beverages as you gaze out at the shimmering sea of lights that is Tokyo by night. Ascending and descending in the lift makes your ears pop, and unfortunately, the cafe was playing the Spicegirls.

There were all kinds of crazy (and actually many dull) things happening in the art gallery at the very top. I still enjoy watching people walk up to “Modern Art” exhibits and seriously consider them, looking from all the different angles and thinking about the meaning..... I'm sure that I do it too. Sometimes such actions are entirely valid, but at others, they are not.

“'What do you call this piece!?

It's so simple, so refined and yet so special and utilitarian........'

'That's the light switch, sir.'”

Douglas Adams, HitchHikers

“Challenging the five senses is Naohiro Ukawa’s “A Series of Interpreted Catharsis Episode 1: Hurricane Katrina 2005.8.24.” Participants must change into a protective white bodysuit and enter
a clear plastic chamber that whirls with real money powered by winds like Hurricane Katrina’s. Ukawa’s journey from being a nightclub VJ and music video artist to concentrating on natural disasters is as surreal as his installation.”

http://www.metropolis.co.jp/tokyo/711/art.asp

Now we actually took part in this one. We signed our lives away by agreeing to not steal the cash and to consent to our images being recorded by the four internal cameras and used in who knows what. We donned the white bodysuits and boots, and we danced around inside with all the spiralling cash, all the while being able to look out of the window at the back of the compartment and see the city spreading out. There was a crowd of people watching us from the other side of the compartment, we were a part of exhibit, and so we just had to put on a good show. When the fans were killed after about five minutes, we both dropped to the floor as if we had been supported by the wind. Lots of fun.

On a different day, in a different gallery space, we discovered a different piece. In the MOT exhibition “Space for your future” There was a telephone box that featured one way mirrors and a pair of headphones, which meant that when inside, you can only see yourself, but the people outside can see you, lit up in a glass box. The headphones played thumping house music, and the artists showed a video of the piece in action at night time, with lots of different “night time people” using the booth, and dancing like loons inside it.

We managed to find a very comprehensive used English book store in Tokyo, while Lisa browsed the shelves I chatted with the owner who had been working there for over fourteen years. I recounted the nightmarish journey we'd just undertaken, looking for a rather nice sounding Thai restaurant described in the Lonley Planet guide book.

Finding things in Japanese cities can be quite challenging. Firstly, they tend to be big and busy, secondly all of the landmarks are generally signed in Kanji, and thirdly, only the very biggest streets have names. After being brought up on maps with road names on them (really, my family couldn't afford proper food), I find it amazing that the Japanese system works. I'm sure it does, though I'm unsure of how. The address tends to contain a postcode (city and district), an area, a building name and a number.

I think people who live in the area are just supposed to know, and strangers who are seeking an address are supposed to ask. When trying to find guest houses in a city, it is always common sense to visit the website and get a map. Not so here. Visiting the website will invariably get you a set of directions written in translated English. They tend to sound like this:

“From the station, walk for five minutes. When you reach Lawson, turn left. Walk until you see a small cat. You should be near a green car, so hold your breath and take twenty paces backwards, turn at the petrol station and then you'll see us on the hill.”

(Note: for those who aren't aware, Lawson is the ubiquitous, all permeating, 24/7/365 “Convieniwa” that occupies vaguely the same space in Japan as 24 hour garages do in Europe. In Lawson there is always more flurecent light than strictly necessary, there are always people wearing hats who will serve you. You can always buy the same goods, which consist of, but are not limited to: Magazines (porn, manga, cars) and newspapers, ice creams, batteries, stockings and condoms, a selection of instant noodles, basic toiletries, a selection of heated dumplings, biscuits, tobacco, sushi, beer, sake and soft drinks, multifarious lumps of dough labelled as “bread”, lunch boxes filled with meat and rice, chocolate and mobile phone accessories. Lawson is always open, always has a toilet, and is always within ten minutes of your present location (walking the city, driving in the country), as far as I'm aware, there is no place Japanese that doesn't contain one.)

Whenever there is a map, it is limited by the lack of solid reference points (E.G. Road names), instead the (often badly and inaccurately drawn) maps are covered with a smattering of vague reference points such as restaurants, taxi ranks, convenience stores etc. Finding the thing you're looking for is never a certainty, indeed it's a veritable odyssey through an organic and ever-changing cityscape.

However, baited by the proverbial Thai curry on a string, we marched ever forward, enquiring with various locals, comparing distances and theories on what this building looked like, and how tall it might be. We persisted in this task as the sun set until, after reaching desperation and asking in several restaurants that appeared to be where our restaurant should be, we discovered that it had closed, and that the building had changed its name.

The man in the bookshop laughed at this story, and simply said, “Welcome to Tokyo”. I asked him if he wanted to trade our Lonley Planet for something a bit more useful, a nice fiction we could read when we're lost for example. “It's a problem that we always have with these cards”, he said, gesturing toward a pile of business cards (still very much in fashion in Japan). The cards each have some contact details, and a map (badly drawn to an inaccurate scale of course) to assist would be customers in finding the street access elevator and ascending out of the chaos to gladly buy the somewhat expensive, but definitely English books. Apparently their smattering of local reference points actually change within the life cycle of bulk ordered stationary. This city is not just a machine, but an stewing, bubbling one.

The following evening we set out once again, boldly marching through Shinjuku (the nightlife area, thousands of twenty levelled buildings filled with clubs, hostess bars, massage places, love hotels, cafes, fast food restaurants and offices). We were armed with the knowledge of a cool sounding Electro act . We had a map, we had the Jazz, and we had the desire. This time, we were going to find the place, and it was definitely there........... The gig was in a place called “The O nest”, which was a small venue, on the seventh floor, above it's Daddy club (O west) and opposite the Mummy club (O East). After passing a few false starts, many surly individuals and strange alleyways, we came to O East. A large, sprawling building, that appeared to have a conviniwa installed on the ground floor. The place was crawling with young goth types, who sprawled outside said conviniwa drinking beer, immersed in the vague sounds of angsty heavy metal. (It might have been them that gave the entire building its 'sprawling' impression, I'm not sure.)Unable to find anything that resembled “Onest”, Lisa settled upon an elevator door set into the side of the building. There were only two floors available on the controls, and the interior of the lift had the look of a goods entrance, scuffed and oversized. Regardless of these misgivings, we ascended to the second floor, content that at the very least, there must be something up there. The lift came to a juddering halt, and garish and acidic heavy metal assaulted us from behind. Realising that there were two sets of doors in this lift, and that the set behind us had just opened, we spun around, to be confronted by a rather large and haggard doppleganger of Lemmy (the singer from Motorhead).

He wore a look of Viking surprise, and a huge grey handlebar moustache that mixed with a Gandalf-style mop of silver hair over his bulky leather biker jacket. Cigarette smoke wreathed itself around him, and the whole scene was lit by a bank of television monitors mounted in the incredibly small room behind him. This Slavic rocker was obviously in charge of the god-awful band being piped up to these screens from somewhere below.

After a few moments of surprise had gone by, and we had come to terms with the reality that this lift had indeed deposited us in a broom closet somewhere in the 1970's I found voice, and managed to shout “O Nest?” His leathery faced changed from bemusement to an understanding smile. Taking a pull on his cigarette, he began to speak in broken English, and with some sort of crazy Nordic accent described the location of the lift we did want.. the one that would transport us upwards, out of the mess of clangy metal to the O Nest, where people wore silk scarfs and trilbies, and not leather and torn denim.

Stuff like that really does happen.......

So we made it, we saw some funky Electro stuff (a Canadian act named I'm robot and proud), we drank ShoCho, which is a very popular Japanese drink similar to Whisky, but brewed from sweet potatoes and hops. After the event, and the long queue for the lift (something I just can't get used to) we found ourselves ejected into the tarnished neon wonderland that is Shibuya. We wondered between the highrises, aiming for the train station, stopping for coffee, and walking across that famous scene that's in Baraka and on TV, the multidirectional crossing on which the crowds eclipse the entire road when the lights change (kind of Tokyo's Piccadilly Circus).

The city never sleeps. There are 24 hour restaurants, bars and shops. The only thing that does seem to close (at midnight) is the damned train system. I have no idea why, but as we join the thronging crowd filtering into the station, it was because we were going to board the last trains. After midnight, you just have to keep drinking, as there's no way back home until 5am. Of course, you can take a taxi, but the distances involved combined with the price (50p for 290 Meters in the daytime) will discourage all but those who could probably afford an airlift instead.

The options available to those who decide to stay out past the trains are of course many. If you should get tired of drinking and partying, you can retire to a more sedate Hostess bar, in which attractive women (or men) will attentively sit and laugh at your jokes, pour your beer and fleece you with the mysterious and unspoken possibility of sex. These are popular with married business men who have a lot of free capital to waste. The hostesses themselves are said to keep pace with the drinking, and will often make themselves sick so as to not process the insane quantities of spirits they're throwing down their long, slender gullets. Although they make a lot of money, it certainly comes at a cost. Apparently you can always pay for a more intimate setting than the bar (and the clothes). Like any big city, the oldest profession is easy to find, and often lit in neon......... but if that doesn't take your fancy either, how about a love hotel?

An interesting concept, which flourishes in this country, where privacy is not readily provided by living at home. The apartments are very small, and the walls tend to be quite thin, also, it is common for people to live with their parents until they have married (much less so in cities of course). All this gives rise to the love hotel, in which you can rent a room that contains all the necessary..... (the necessary becoming more exciting, motorised and velvet clad as the price goes up.) The general concept is the “Rest”. A “Rest” in one of these only slight seedy places,(that are usually done up to look like a medieval castle or neon soaked spaceship) will cost a fairly small amount of money, and can last for one hour and upwards. A handy way to fill those dark hours before the trains get going again, and an indiscriminate, peerless place, where you aren't going to be seen or recognised. Perfect for a society where appearances are everything.

So, you aren't so morally depraved enough to go to a Hostess bar, you don't want to sleep with a prosti....... erm, get a massage, you don't fancy making love on a rotating velvet bed that has been sprung more times than Felicity Kendal's perm-curls, and you can't possible stay in a nightclub for any longer... what else is there to do? Well, you could have a seat in “Freshness Burger”, you could go and hang around in Lawson, or of course, there's always a Manga / Internet cafe.

There is currently a breed of Japanese who purportedly live in these places. The 24 cafes are a brilliant idea, and are almost as common as Lawson. The basic premise is simple.

Find yourself a space in an office building somewhere and rent it.
Insert about 100 computers, and surround them with partitions. Assign each partition a number, and give most of them single birth facilities (such as a chair, a light, a coat peg and a desk), and add double or luxury birth to others (sofas, televisions etc.).
Now surround the space with shelves containing comic books and DVDs, chuck a couple of pool tables and maybe a darts board in there.
Place a free coffee and tea area with some sofas liberally scattered around, some showers and a toilet.
Have a few side rooms that are decked out as living rooms for rent by those with more money or group members.
If you're feeling racy, add a service that delivers food to the cubicles.
Add a front desk, complete with a youngish and sour individual whose job is to rent out the services and cubicles to the obscure cross-section of people who wander in off the street at all hours. Rentals from 15 minutes to over 9 hour deals.

And that's what you get. For around 1000 Yen (5 pounds) you can live in your little cubicle for about six hours. You can sleep, watch films, surf the internet...... what ever you like. As the coffee is free, you can drink enough to make your eyes explode from your head. These places are really odd, because you can never see who is inside the cubicles, it's much like prowling around a public changing room at the swimming pools, only occasionally seeing another (probable) human venturing forth from the safe anonymity of their allotted space. There is such a concentration of probably like-minded humans in one small place, and they're segregated to the point that they're barley aware of each other, and are instead sending their minds of to far-flung places using the computers........or dozing in an alcohol induced stupor.

Anyway, I digress. None of this mattered to us as we were carried along in the drunken rabble toward the gaping maw of Shibuya station. We had a destination in our slightly addled minds.

If you're talking Japanese culture, then you're bound to talk about the Onsen. Onsens, Spas or Hot springs / baths, are an age old tradition (that has parallels all across the world, in both human society and the animal kingdom..... that's twice I'm thinking of Baraka today!) As Japan is essentially a bunch of volcanic eruptions, it has many areas of geo-thermal activity. The upshot of this is, of course, that there are many places where hot, clean water bubbles up from deep beneath the ground. And so, for most of Japan's history, people have been bathing in these waters. The Onsen is a great and very relaxing experience. You turn up, weary from your travels and many battles. You take all your dirty clothes and weapons off, and hand them to someone to clean. Then you give yourself a nice scrub so as not to sully the public waters. Once this is achieved you deposit yourself in the public, and very segregated baths (Homosexuals get a field day, but the Heterosexuals don't get anything. As for the Bisexuals, well, they always get something.), which vary from around forty degrees and up to a scolding forty five. There you proceed to relax, and perhaps partake of some light conversation, food and beer etc. If you're a gaijin, you'll have your bits stared at, but as the men and women of Japan tend to be of much smaller frames than us foreign folk, it isn't as intimidating as you'd think.

And that was where we were going. Tired, drunk, running on little sleep and far too many museums, subways, aeroplanes and newyear'seves, we were going to one of Tokyo's biggest (and of course, 24 hour) Onsens. Hoorah!

The Ooedo Onsen is not too far from the central part of Tokyo, and is a border line theme park. It attracts many tourists, but I'd say it's worth it. Although the baths themselves are segregated, there is a huge central area which is not. It's a theme Onsen, and the place is done up as an Edo period pleasure village, which were somewhat prominent back then before all of this silly international capitalism. If you've ever seen “Spirited Away” you'll have an idea of what this is like. Although it's a little expensive, it is a lot of fun. You arrive, you pay, you choose your Yukatta (dressing gown) and then you say goodbye to those of the opposite sex, and go to get changed. When you pay, you're given a key, that key opens a locker in the changing room, and also has a bar-code on it, that allows you to pay for goods and services once you're transported back in time StarTrek style to feudal Japan. After depositing everything in the locker, taking care to wrap bandages around any tattoos you might have. (tattoos are associated with the Yakuza (mafia) and as such, are forbidden in the Onsen. Should you be seen, you'll be chucked out, or killed.)

Wondering around the village in your Yukatta is fun. You can now meet up with your opposite sex friends, and begin to indulge in beer, food, games (shurrikains, bows and arrows, grabby–grabby–grabby–you've won!...awwwwwww- I-dropped-it-machines), massage (actual massage), relaxation therapy and so on. If you're rich you can hire private rooms upstairs (again, in hourly increments). Outside, you can tread a long, winding, heated foot bath river, whose bed is made of many upturned stones to stretch the feet, and stimulate the energy points there. The river gets hotter as you make your walk around it's steaming course, stopping at intimate little benches to talk beneath tastefully lit trees in the night. At the end of the course is a low building that contains a pool filled with “Healing Fish”. You sit in the heated space for twenty minutes, and watch these little dudes eat all the impurities and callouses from your soul. Apparently they do this through your feet..... I don't understand how, and besides, the cost of that particular treatment was a little to high for our barcodes.

The baths themselves do not cost extra of course, and we spent many happy hours moving around their expansive innards. There are a great many places to sit, baths of differing temperature, some with mineral content, others with soapy stuff, jacuzzi jets (Lisa emerged from these looking particularly wide-eyed) or, my favourite, outside. You can sit in the bath looking at the (somewhat dim stars) until you feel you're about to pass out, and then haul yourself out and lye around on the wooden platforms, steaming like a freshly boiled haggis. Amazing. It's small wonder that the Japanese live long. It's very pleasant to watch the fathers bringing their young children to the baths, people relaxing and talking, and anything else....... you get so relaxed you can just stare at the wall. Once we had eaten (barcode, bleep!) and drank (barcode, bleep!) our fill, indulged in half an hour of Shiatsu (barcode, bleep!) and eaten ice cream for Astronauts (barcode, bleep!) it was time to sleep in the public restroom, before rising for one more bath.

What a fantastic way to start the morning! The slightly less fantastic part is when you finally emerge from the depths of time-travel, and the nice young man at the desk uses your now familiar barcode to calculate the bill. ........

2008-01-07T02:43:00.000-08:00

Seasons Greetings!

Email, it really is a fantastical development in our lifetimes. Although hand written letters still have that certain something, I suspect it'll be like L.Ps, which also had that certain something, but just can't compete with the Ipod.

On the subject of Ipods, I had an amusing experience with my "Kocho Sensei", that is, Head Teacher. These teachers are at the top of their profession, they have a large office and a leather sofa, where as all the other teachers have a small desk in the (often chilly) staff room.

My Kocho sensei agreed (admittedly when out at a drinking party) to drive me to Lisa's city to see the Taishya there. (A famous shrine). On the allotted day we boarded his very nice car, that kind of resembles a space craft after driving around in my lawnmower-cum-gokart, and joined the elevated toll-road (another luxury that I can't afford) to sweep majestically above the various traffic snares, fields and ranges of rural Japan for an hour to Izumo. I came prepared, I brought my Ipod, complete with the clever little gizmo I have, which transmits the music from the Ipod on radio frequencies, meaning that you can tune any normal radio into your own music. I played him The Beatles (of course) and a host of other music. My Japanese is still rubbish, and his English isn't very good, but at one golden moment he gestured toward the Ipod and simply said, "What is this?" He went on to ask if it had a cassette tape inside it, which I found thoroughly amusing.

The longer I work within my schools, there more I begin to see the different characters that exist within them. I've never known people that work for such long periods of time, it really is strange. Whenever I tell people that I'm taking a two week holiday over Christmas, they gasp, and say things like "I envy you" and, "that's amazing!" I was speaking to one of my private classes about the summer festivals in England, and they asked me how long people might take holidays for in the summer there. I explained that I don't really work in the summer, and prefer instead to work at the festivals, but that, a normal worker might take a fortnight off in the summer, and perhaps a week or two in the winter. This revelation was met with more gasps, as was the incredible truth that people on the lower end of the wage line, tend to work around eight hours a day.

We have a "Kyoto Sensei", who occupies the position below the "Kocho". He's a very small man, who always wears a grey suit that matches his sweeping grey side parting. He reminds me of a small mammal, perhaps a Meercat, though instead of perpetually standing on his cute little grey hindlegs, looking for predators, this one repeatedly practices his Golf swing. As his five foot frame scurries around the office, he sucks his teeth, placing the tongue over the front four, and then sucking it back, creating a sweet squeaky sound..... the sort of sound that baby alligators might make, when they hatch from theur eggs in a big mound of rotting leaves. Kyoto Sensei casts my mind back to the days of Rolland Rat. And it continues. Iemoto Sensei is very friendly, he's the teacher of the disabled children. He reminds me of a young boy, who's skived off of school for a day, and is spending his time by wearing his Dad's suits he's taken from the wardrobe. He's small and timid, yet open and always grinning, his laugh resembles a child's impression of a high calibre gun as the aircraft holding it straifs the girls near the bike sheds..... His eyes bulge as though he's been sucking on a high pressure hose, and he walks like he's an incredibly camp hairdresser from the eighties, this is re-enforced by his small frame and slightly over sized suits.

The fun continues with other characters. There is Yoroi Sensei, who might as well be in the army. He exudes testosterone and straight backed non-nonsense masculinity. He's a lovely guy, always at the heart of any joke, and laughing mightily, but I can't help but picture him wearing combat equipment, warpaint and gripping a twelve inch hunting knife between his teeth. I'm sure that's what he'd prefer to be doing with his time. Adachi Sensei teaches English to the remedial class. He's one of the teachers I get on with particularly well. He's tall for a Japaenese person (probably around six feet) and he has a strange posture, rather like that of a large ape, shuffling himself through the world stomach first, arms hanging at his sides and bottom jutting out behind at an odd angle. His face has a constant droop, much like that whining "droopy dog" from the (Disney?) cartoons, and is topped with a glistening black Beatles bowl cut. Nice chap mind.

The children too exhibit distinct personalities. There are many of the same variety that I went to school with. (With the exception that there aren't any fat kids (though there is, of course, one exception) on account of the diet still being reasonably healthy..... McDonald's does begin to grip the country though.) In 1C, there's the kid who's smaller and less intelligent than the others, an so makes up for it by shaving his head, fucking around, and generally punching people and disrupting the class. He'll end up working in Mr Donut (The ubiquitous Doughnut and Coffee chain that purports to sell "The world's best coffee"). There's the incredibly tall kid (who actually looks the spit of Christopher Wilkinson from East Grinstead, 1993), there's the dappy ones, and the clever ones. There's a few advanced ones who exude confidence, and are unaccountably free of achne and timidness, and attract similar members of the opposite sex (they're all in 3C.... suspicious. I think they're all on drugs!).

All in all, though there is bullying and other related problems, the school life here in rural Japan is very pleasant. People are friendly, and they mostly obey the rules. I have to drive to get to work, as the school is remote. When sitting at traffic lights, I often marvel at the level of obedience exhibited by the people here. From the main road, you can sit in your car waiting, and watch people sitting on their bikes, also waiting. They wait to cross one of the side roads on the pavement (only adventurous souls cycle on the road here). They wait, looking expectantly up at the red signal. They do not cross the road unless the signal is green. In rush hour traffic, or in the evenings. I've watched people wait for nearly two minutes, and within those minutes, not a single car has turned down the street. It borders on the unbelievable. I regularly attract gasps of shock from people, as I cross (empty) roads on a red light, or even, shock horror! Cross the road where there isn't a marked crossing.... These gaijins, they're trouble I tell you.

Of course, I' sure that all of this is completely turned up on it's head once you leave the rural areas. And such I am. A visit to Okinawa begins tomorrow evening, followed swiftly by a whistlestop tour of the capital. From what I hear, in such places all the niceties of the Japanese evaporate, and people jay walk, stab each other and everything else that we hold so dear........
A very merry Christmas, and an incredibly happy new year to one and all,
All my love,
Chris.

More things Japanese

2007-12-18T21:26:00.000-08:00

I was almost late for work today. Scary.

I woke, realising that my alarm had stopped going off long ago, and that I was starting to get some really good sleeping done, a sure sign that my allotted six hours had been spent.

It was 08.16. This meant I had exactly 14 minutes until I absolutely had to be at work (in Japan it's considered standard to be at work well before you're supposed to start, one should rarely be on time, and never be late - it simply isn't done..... I'm not sure of the consequences.) I tore myself out of bed, threw on the (only slightly in need of ironing) suit, ran past all the delicious food in the kitchen, grabbing a banana and a bread roll, and drove at slightly reckless speeds down the country roads to get to school on time. These speeds weren't particularly reckless (on account of the 600cc engine in my car) However I was tying necktie and eating breakfast at the same time, having only been conscious for a matter of minutes.....and I've always been too short to do that steering-with-your-knees thing.

So, this is going to be another group Email about Japan, as many of the lovely people I mailed the last one to requested another, and as yet, I 've only received three blank Emails with UNSUBSCRIBE written in the title field, so I'm, assuming it's okay to Email you.

I've now been in the country for approaching three months, and I'm becoming acclimatised. I still don't understand the ATMs, which persist in catching me out. It's interesting, as I'm from pretty much the first generation of people who don't remember a world without the "Hole in the Wall", without the ability to get cash from a machine, almost anywhere, 24 7. I still involuntarily try not to withdraw more money than I need that day, even though I know I might not get to another ATM. In Japan, they've had ATM's for years..... only, they...... "close" at around 8pm on weekdays, even earlier (12pm) on Saturdays, and they aren't even open on a Sunday! It has been suggested that this is a ploy to prevent drinking binges...... I suspect this. There are now numerous times I have forgotten that I can't get money on a Sunday, and not been able to get home.

The Japanese school system interests me greatly. Education should give students the ability to ask questions, to learn independently, to understand the world around them and their society, and to function as a member of that society. If schooling systems are indicative of the society to which they belong, then the Japanese one is a prime example. It seems to be a combination of socially engineered compliance, mixed in with a reasonably rigorous curriculum. The days are long, even from primary school there are activities to keep the students after lessons. By the time they reach Junior High (11-14) the average school day is about 9-10 hours. Each class is comprised of around 25 – 30 students, who all have their own small desk. These desks can be moved very quickly to form pre-assigned groups for discussions or work. This is actually a pretty impressive sight, and it reminds me of the "Borg" from the StarTrek films. The typical school day comprises of six lessons, one lunch, "Cleaning time", and after school activities. The schools here do not hire professional cleaners, instead every member of the school cleans for fifteen minutes a day. This is a much better system than in the west. Not only does the school save oodles of cash, but it creates a group of students who actually, habitually clean up after themselves. It also lessens the "Us and them" divide between staff and students. After so many years of this system nationwide, littering is right up there with murder and rape on the list of "Things you really shouldn't do in Japan".

The countryside really is beautiful. The Kanji (Chinese characters) for Autumn literally means "Flaming trees"....... and the world has been aflame for the last month or so. The rises and drops in temperature from day and night here are fairly sharp, and I'm told (I think) that this causes the cells in the leaves of the trees to break and release their sugars very rapidly, resulting in a quick, but bright Autumn. The multifarious and insipid telegraph pylons that I slammed and berated in my previous Email have ceased to bother me, and I now find them quite pretty in a weird sort of geometrical kind of look-how-that-aberration-is-framing-the-sunset kid of way. The city that, at first glance was busy, dirty and incredibly ugly has become, quiet, clean and ordered. It's weird. I'm starting to suspect that the government is putting something in the water.

My colleagues and coworkers are all very pleasant people, they take their jobs seriously, and though I arrive at eight in the morning and leave as late as seven in the evening, I rarely see them arriving or leaving. I'm becoming convinced that either they actually live here, or I'm hanging around a desolate and empty factory somewhere, and that I've lost my marbles, and that none of this is real.

One of the biggest problems I have is my lack of free time, to be me, and not to be part of the school. The times in between work are often enough only to eat and wash and sleep. Many of the people I work with have children..... my supervisor, the head of the English department has a young baby, and one on the way. I wonder when these people sleep. They all eat large amounts of food... this has been commented upon by other gaijin that I know. I attended an open day at an elementary school last week as a guest. I ate lunch with the children. The childrens' portions were the same size as mine, and were eaten twice as fast as I ate (and didn't finish) mine. Incredible....... these kids were about nine or ten years old. The diet is carbohydrates and protein. Meat and rice. There is very little in the way of vegetables.......and there is no such thing as brown bread....ahhhh, how I miss bread that has actually been baked, rather than shaped into squares and packaged as "bread" instead of "dough".

I live in a block of six apartments out in the middle of nowhere, not to far from the school. There are strange people living there with me. In Japan, certainly rural Japan ,the norm is for people to stay at home until they get married.... or just bring their new spouse to the family home. This means that there are relatively few houses for rent...... at least, that's how it is on the surface. People are also often unwilling to rent property to a foreigner. Things are no doubt different in the bigger cities. In the block of six, only three apartments are occupied. There is a strange woman next door with a laugh like Rosanne Arnold. She comes home every day at around 8pm, and proceeds to laugh at intervals of roughly twenty minutes. I can never hear any evidence of a television or radio, and the walls aren't that thick. I think she's a dopefiend........The other occupant lives in the farthest apartment from mine. He has a drumkit, and practices most days for about half an hour in the most incredible fashion. When it began, I assumed that I was about to enter into a world of pain and suffering, just like in that recent spate of Jap horror....The Hole, The Grudge etc. That's how terrible and unearthly the noise was. Upon investigation it was this dude hitting drums so fantastically out of time and rhythm that he might have been communicating with other worlds........

Traditional shops are on the decline. The Japanese people are in love with consumerist dream-parks where you can buy everything, anything, watch a movie, go bowling and then have a McDonalds for pudding. There is a massive chain of super-department stores named "Jusco" that really have most things under one roof (our local Jusco actually has a brothel near the ground floor toilets, just behind the supermarket.) This is the place that all the kids at school will talk about, and many go there to hang out, and marvel at the horrid parade of early 70s fashion that is currently in vogue here....... lots of terrible writing across tight materials.....garish colours....blauuurgh. There is the infamous "Mr. Donut". Great social hub that it is.......it's actually not too bad. They proclaim in large, orange letters, in English, that they have "The best coffee in the world", slightly dubious claim I feel, though for 300Yen, they sell bottomless Coffee (which might not be the best, but isn't the worst either) and a sugary doughnut. People proceed to sit there for hours until caffeine pours from their eyeballs, and then go and shop for hats, or rice cookers, or whatever.

Japan's landmass is about twice that of the UK, though 80% in mountainous, and therefore not suitable for houses. The population is roughly double that of the UK (120,000,000), this means that the houses are generally small, and many people live in apartments. There are also lots of jobs for people to do that we don't have..... I sometimes wonder if this is to keep employment levels up. If you drive into a petrol station, there will be one person to fill the tank, another to wipe your windows (for free....) and sometimes a third to take the money from you, and offer you tobacco. These guys (and girls) must be hardened to the cold nights. I can't speak for other countries, though in the UK, when the powers that be decide to dig up the road for whatever reason, they will invariably place some automatic signals at either end to direct the traffic. They might also place a few warning signs to get the motorists to slow down first, and not plow into their JCBs. Not so in Japan.

On the approach to roadworks, you'll normally see a man (or woman) standing by the road, holding a flag. Then another. Eventually you'll get to the roadworks, where there'll be someone directing the traffic with two flags (red for stop white for go). Assuming the road runs in two directions, that's already six people. There are normally a few standing by the works themselves "wiggling" their flag to say "Here be danger!". So, perhaps eight or ten people. Now, this may be incredibly dull. I'm on the other side of the planet, and I'm writing to you about roadworkers....... though that's only the introduction. When the sun sets, this whole scenario becomes amazing. Roadworkers don their nighttime outfits. White helmets, blue overalls tucked into thick black rubber boots. A semi translucent pvc waterproof covers their entire body, and over that they wear a bandoleer of flashing LEDs. They hold large wands, or lightsabers, of red or blue LEDs. In short, they look like one of the guys that comes up to the house to fetch E.T. at the end of the movie. The rest of the scene: The street lighting is generally pretty low in this part of the country, so the workers place loads of little LED wands everywhere.... these range in colour and size, some turn in the wind caused by the traffic, others flash or pulse. There are no mains or halogen lights.......apart from one kind. There is usually a large vehicle, something like a small steamroller, that has a gigantic white balloon atop, which is lit with either Hallogen or gas, and throws huge amounts of bright light over everything.

So, as you approach roadworks at night, you'll see people from seventies Scifi movies waving flags...... you'll reach the worksite, which resembles an excavation for radioactive alien artifacts. You'll be signaled to stop by a scientist holding two lightsabers up in an "X" shape. Eventually, you'll be waved through the site (the "X" it manipulated similarly to the dudes who launch fighter jets from aircraft carriers) where you'll pass all sorts of magic and mystery (and occasionally, roadworks), you'll pass people who's job is to shake a lightstick at you so you don't run their friends over, or drive to fast across the new road (We have signs that say "Warning, Ramp). It has to be seen to be believed!!!

One final odd thing on road works........ if you're there on a Sunday, you often see that the people who wave the flags that say "Warning, roadworks" a few hundred meters from the site, have been replaced with LED screens that play looped animations of..... people dressed the same, waving a flag........ odd.

This is a fascinating country...... something I still haven't gotten used to is people running after me. Usually this means you're going to get shouted at, or complained to, or charged. Here, people are bringing you a map of the trail you're about to follow, carrying the small tip you left in a sealed plastic bag, because you "forgot" your change. My ladyfriend cycled her bike on a fast road out in the countryside, and noticed the paper map fall from her back pocket, but didn't stop because of the danger. A little while later a couple pulled over and returned the map. Hotels will post a sock if you forget it. In this part of Japan (not the cities) people leave their cars running and go into shops.

Many people seem to be deferential Buddhists..... though quite which branch they follow is a little confusing. There are shrines all over the place, that appear to be a combination of Shinto (ancestors, ghosts, honor, mysticism and superstition) and Buddhism.....though quite where or how it works, I have yet to understand. Many people say prayers, clap hands.... and yet all are happy to work excessive amounts of hours for relatively little. Japan has one of the worlds most powerful economies, but its people have a GDP of somewhere around 30^th..... more oddities.

Effluence and Affluence

2007-12-18T21:11:00.000-08:00

Mobile Phones, SUVs and Apathy to blame for Plague, Death and Destruction?

“Our economic model is not so different in the cold light of day to that of the Third Reich - which knew it could only expand by grabbing what it needed from its neighbours. Genocide followed. Now there is a case to answer that genocide is once again an apt description of how we are pursuing business as usual, wilfully ignoring the consequences for the poorest people in the world.”^¹

Collin Challen, MP

In our society, it sometimes seems that products magically appear on shelves, and then magically disappear when they are thrown in the bin. Clean water and power are readily available, and few consumers seek any more knowledge of the origins of things that they take for granted. Why should they?

Since Leo Strauss, it has been understood that consumers must be sold an idea, a dream and an image, rather than just a functional product – otherwise, why would they want it? Who is ultimately responsible when these dreams and ideas pushed by marketers become the ingrained expectations of entire societies? Who picks up the tab for the ramifications?

Although there are self-regulating watchdogs, such as the Advertising Standards Agency, marketers seem intent on promising the stars, but delivering so many pieces of poorly made plastic. Slogans transmit ideas of transcendental advancement, sexual prowess, happy families, open and unpolluted roads, and a seemingly endless list of glossy, Hollywood style life-scapes that are often unattainable, impossible, and ethically, morally, environmentally and scientifically unviable.

When did we become so desensitised to obvious non-senses? I saw a billboard recently that advertised a credit card, the slogan purporting that you could “Spend while you save at the same time.”^² CIS insurance is one of many companies that are jumping on the Carbon offsetting band wagon. If you buy their car insurance, they claim that they will “Offset 20% of your carbon emissions”^³ How do they propose to do such a thing?

On the CIS website we find the following claims:

[If you buy our ‘environmentally friendly’ insurance…]

we'll offset 20% of your car's CO₂ emissions* by investing in projects like reforestation, renewable energy sources and third world education schemes
10% discount available for cars in tax band A - those that emit less than 100g of CO₂ per kilometre
eco-friendly repair network - our appointed repairers recycle materials like used oil and old bumpers.

*Based on an average passenger car with average annual mileage.

Recycling oil and bumpers is a legal requirement, and discounting cars with lower emissions is unlikely to be an incentive for consumers to purchase those cars. Third world education schemes may be philanthropic, but hardly alleviate carbon emissions. Renewable energy sources are a viable alternative power source, but not in a world where the incentives to contribute toward their research, is a further dependency on fossil fuels. Investment in them does not make the product ‘Good for the environment.’^⁴

As for reforestation, the CIS, like many other companies, are paying a consultancy firm such as the Carbon Neutral Company, to purchase ‘carbon sequestration’ rights on existing trees, or to assist in the planting of new ones. The CNC was re-branded from its original form, Future Forests, amidst a storm of bad publicity for exactly this process. Carbon sequestration rights are similar to buying land on the Moon, you are paying to possess the carbon storing ability of a tree, nothing more.

The science behind this process is entirely dubious^⁵, and is the reason that the ASA recently rapped Scottish Power on the knuckles for its advertising of a similar scheme^⁶, citing article 3.2^⁷ (Division of informed opinion) of the ‘CAP’ code^⁸, which all advertising bodies in the UK must follow.

This is hopefully setting a precedent, and although most ‘green’ companies are now moving toward investment in renewable energy production instead of tree plantations^⁹, the science is still questionable, because of the incredibly complex variables present in an eco system. It may be interesting to note that the ASA still has no jurisdiction over advertisements on the Internet.

The basic premise of the Carbon Trading market, is that, by estimating a baseline carbon value for various activities or lifestyles (for example, the average use of a car for a year), consultancy firms can successfully quantify how much carbon a person’s activities are producing, and then ‘Offset’ it, by planting trees, giving energy saving light bulbs to third world communities, or a number of other schemes that aim to reduce global carbon levels. The upshot of which, is that busy westerners can now continue to live their unsustainable lives guilt free, providing they pay someone to ‘clear up’ after them.

To say that there is a division of scientific opinion on this subject is an understatement. Carbon can be split into two categories: Active and Fossilised. Simply put, active carbon is freely moving between living organisms, the atmosphere and the land. Fossilised carbon originates from the same cycle. It rejoins the active Carbon pool when burnt. Hence the problem. We are adding carbon that has previously left the cycle to the pool at a phenomenal rate, while the existing ‘active’ carbon has nowhere to go. The level of Carbon in the atmosphere increases, and so to does the global temperature.

‘Even if the idea of planting trees as a means of offsetting emissions were to be taken seriously… it would require about 10,000 km2 of new plantations each year to absorb the UK's annual emissions, an area roughly the size of Devon and Cornwall, and these new forests would need to be maintained indefinitely.’^¹⁰ Writes Kevin Smith, of the Carbon Trade Watch.

Trees do not ‘lock’ carbon away. They may absorb carbon from the pool while they live over a century or more, but they will release it again when they inevitably die. The carbon they ‘sequester’ remains in the Active pool. Trees have recently been identified as the producers of almost one third of the global release of Methane^¹¹ (a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2), and also is very hard to imagine or predict, let alone guarantee what will happen to a large area of land over the course of the trees’ lifespan. The land itself is often cleared of whatever indigenous populations it contained, before homogenous plantations are installed, which corrupt the soil and destroy the ecosystem.

This brings us onto land rights. In many countries such as Uganda, Karnataka (India), and Brazil, indigenous people have been moved from their land because our carbon sins are being atoned for in huge, homogeneric plantations. These are essentially cash crops. And like cash crops, none of the profit goes to the people that live nearby, and with out diversity, soil erosion and desertification logically follow.

In Mount Elgon national park, Uganda, over fifty people have been killed, and thousands evicted by the Uganda Wildlife Authority, due to a dispute over indigenous land rights. A Dutch consultancy named FACE (Forests Absorbing Carbon Emissions), has bought deeds to the land that families have lived upon for four generations.^¹²

The western lifestyle is unsustainable. This is a scientific fact, ‘we have a global problem that will require a global solution’ commented Sir David King at a GreenPeace Business lecture in 2004,^¹³ and one that is fast becoming apparent. The InterGovermental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released a report in February 2007 written by more than 600 climate scientists from 40 countries. The report states that ‘Warming of the climate system is unequivocal’ and that they have ‘High confidence’ (i.e. 90% certainty) that human activities have caused this massive climate shift ‘as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level’.^¹⁴

There are some that believe that what we need to do is not bite the bullet, and change the way our society operates, not to stop the emissions and not to redistribute the wealth that was so unfairly stockpiled during the years of colonialism, but instead to alter the way we spend our money, to keep consuming through the environmental and humanitarian barriers, and out the other side.

In May 2006 the legendary rock star, Bono, guest edited the Independent newspaper. It was known as the ‘Red’ edition, and was to be the launch pad for his new line of charity: ‘Product Red’. ‘It’s a good way for a sinner to become a saint’, commented Sheila Roche, director of communications at Red, ‘- to spend money, but feel good about it.’^¹⁵

By buying iconic items that are daubed ‘Red’, the consumer can sit back, safe in the knowledge that their £130 Ipod, £75 Armani sunglasses and £100 Converse trainers are safely on their ‘Red’ American Express card, and are contributing a percentage towards the Fight against Aids in Africa. ‘We need to meet you where you are’, writes Bono in his editorial, ‘as you shop, as you phone, as you lead your busy, businessy lives.’^¹⁶

Through advertising, it is seen as acceptable for Gisele Bunchen, the world’s highest paid supermodel, to be stood arm in arm with Kese Ole Parsapet, a Massai Warrior, with the slogan ‘My Card, My Life’^¹⁷, enforcing the idea that spending on an American Express credit card somehow alleviates inequality and poverty. ‘There will be those that think that RED is the worst idea they've ever heard’, Bono continues, ‘…a reaction to big business that is not wholly unjustified.’

How would consumers react, I wonder, if on the packaging for every ‘Product Red’ Ipod or Motorola mobile phone, was a detailed history of its components. How many consumers, confident in the fact that their new purchase has assisted those poor people in Africa blighted by Aids and hunger, are aware of Coltan?

Columbium (also known as Niobium) and Tantalum are two metal ores that normally occur together, and are commonly referred to as Coltan. This is an extremely valuable resource, and according to the UN, 80% of the world’s reserves are to be found in the eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.^¹⁸

When refined, Tantalum, unlike most metals, remains stable even at high temperatures, and is the magic ingredient in many circuitry applications, specifically miniature capacitors. Due to these properties, it is a critical material, found in almost all complex and small electrical devices, such as mobile telephones, Playstations, Ipods, weapons guidance systems, GPS gadgets and so on. The United States is totally dependent on it^¹⁹ , as are most industrialised nations.

In short, it is the thirst of such nations for consumer electronics and advanced computer systems, that fuel the demand that makes it such a valuable resource.

The civil war that has been raging in the DMC for almost ten years has had many combatants, drawing in armies and insurgents from Rwanda, Uganda and other surrounding countries. It has had many victims, as many as five million Congolese have died needlessly since 1998.^²⁰

‘In the year after Uganda invaded the DRC, Ugandan coltan production went up 2,800% lending support to the theory that Uganda is profiting from the DRC’s coltan’^²¹ concludes a damning report by Amy Costanzo, ‘An estimated 40% of some of these forces are made up of child soldiers’^²², adds Amnesty.

Much of this fighting has been driven not by political or religious beliefs, but for mineral resources and wealth. ‘The importing companies and their facilitators are aware of the real origin of coltan.’ Comments the Report of Experts for the United Nations^²³, ‘all parties to this complex conflict have been implicated in gross and systematic abuses’, report Ganesun and Vines.^²⁴

The insurgents are able to sustain their campaigns by selling coltan and other minerals back to the west.

This massive war has unarguably plunged the country and its citizens into massive disarray and injustice. ‘Sexual assaults on women and children have reached epidemic proportions; 25,000 reported cases of rape occurred in eastern DRC in 2005.”^²⁵ Highlights UNICEF’s Martin Bell.

What CIS, RED and various other mass market playing firms seem to be suggesting is that it’s okay to continue with our ‘busy, businessy’ lives. Colonialism may no longer be enforced by strength of arms, but it is still arguably present in corporate power, trade agreements, and a culturally distilled belief that we can continue to live our lives in a way that clearly devastates others elsewhere. AIDS could easily be relieved if the large pharmaceutical companies that hold the drugs patents, were to release them.

It is the same ridiculous wish to continue, ‘business as usual’, that prevents us from seriously tackling such massive issues, and it is exactly this kind of repeated, intrinsic denial by ideology that anything wrong, that is continually broadcast by our media.

In the special ‘Red’ article of the Independent, Charlie Dunstone, CEO of the Carphone warehouse is quoted, rather ironically, as saying, ‘if you can find a way to link these terrible circumstances in Africa with this product it could be a really powerful combination.’^²⁶

Unfortunately, the people that market ‘Red’ are trying to link their products as a way of preventing the ‘terrible circumstances’, rather than publicising that they contribute to them. The body of evidence to support this claim is huge and undeniably compelling. While their intentions may well be benevolent, it is fast becoming apparent that they aren’t really going to make much of a difference, and with yet another ‘record’ heat wave forecast for this summer, isn’t it high time that we started trying to do something new?

1 Independent, 28^th march 2006

http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article354051.ece

2^Natwest ^{new years advertising 2007}

3^{www.cis.co.uk}

4^{CIS television add, available at: http://www.ecoinsurance.co.uk/}

5^{http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1972648,00.html Planting trees to save planet is pointless, say ecologists. Alok Jha Friday December 15, 2006}

6^{http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=12114&channel=0#}

7^{3.2 If there is a significant division of informed opinion about any claims made in a marketing communication they should not be portrayed as generally agreed.}

8 Committee of Advertising Practice. Code available at http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/codes/cap_code/

9 Carbon Neutral myth, Pg 17

10 Carbon Neutral Myth, Pg 22

11 Nature magazine June 2006

12 The Carbon Neutral Myth. Pg 32.

13 http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/climate/greenpeace-business-lecture-on-global-warming

14 Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, IPCC, Page 5

15 New Internationalist November 2006 Pg 16. Punk Rock Capitalism? Jess Worth

16^{Phone unites rival telecom operators in battle against aids, By Martin Hickman, Independent, 16th May 2006}

^{http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article485048.ece}

17^{New Internationalist, November 2006,}p^g16. Punk Rock Capitalism? Jess Worth.

18^{www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/monuc/drc.pdf}

19^{“The United States is completely dependent on foreign supplies of tantalum. Accordingly, the Minerals Yearbook published by the U.S. Geological Survey,}

^{as well as the Department of Defense’s Strategic and Critical Materials Report to the Congress, both list tantalum as a “critical” mineral.” SAIS review Winter-Spring 2002, 114}

20 http://www.friendsofthecongo.org/congomatters/index.php

21 The Eastern Lowland Gorilla: Saving the Victims of Coltan, Amy Costanzo Page 14

22 http://amnesty.org.uk/actions_details.asp?ActionID=209

23 UN condemns continuing exploitation of resources in DRC. http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2003/sc7925.doc.htm

24 Engine of War: Resources, Greed, and the Predatory State, Arvind Ganesan and Alex Vines

25 Child Alert: Democratic Republic of the Congo Martin Bell, UNICEF.

26^{(RED) phone unites rival telecom operators in battle against Aids By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent Published: 16 May 2006 quoted http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article485048.ece}

The Funeral

2007-12-18T20:48:00.000-08:00

The funeral.

Anyone who didn’t know the purpose of our congregation would have probably guessed we were there for a wedding, rather than a funeral. The sun was still fairly high in the late afternoon, making the thick autumnal trees glow amber and gold. All of the guests, myself included, had received a copy of the invitation, hand written by the man we had come to honour; the man who was now dead.

Howard Zarry, always extravagant in life, and now also in death, it seemed. The invitation had stipulated, that under no circumstances would any of the guests wear black, or traditional mourning clothes. It went on, at some length, to talk about brightly coloured and low-cut dresses for the ladies, and lemon yellow tailcoats and top hats for the men. It included footnotes to the affect that, should anyone want to wear the clothes intended for the other sex, they were positively encouraged. Everybody was required to carry a large cut sunflower, supplied.

I stood beneath one of the many sighing Ash trees, talking quietly with a few associates from one or another of Howard’s many lives I had simply never met. The conversation was interesting enough, but I couldn’t help but marvel at the party - and it was clearly going to turn into a party - that old Zarry had somehow put together from beyond his own grave.

Stiff lipped waiters strutted through the crowd, serious peacocks bearing silver trays, conveying tequila shots and neat slices of lemon. Their fluffy pink booties were a very nice, subtle touch. A lot of time and thought had gone into the site; a beautiful clearing in the middle of the Westernburt Arboretum. The ground was already lightly covered with the falling leaves, and becoming more so in the steady, lilting snowstorm of ochre hues. At either end of the clearing was a large, gaily painted marquee; The south tent was a five star restaurant, complete with well spoken, rigid waiters, and the north acted as a lounge and big-top, with circus performances and live musicians. Dotted in between these two were many and various assorted small structures, containing soft cushions, refreshments, and in some, cabaret.

On the western rise, a small gantry lay by the perimeter tree line, just below the reddening sky, the amplified skiffle band struck up with a rendition of Summertime, accompanied by a string octet. They all wore white linen suits.

I extracted myself from the discussion, and made my way back down into the clearing, depositing my empty glass on a passing tray. I noticed a few people carrying lanterns to hang in the trees, evidently this event was designed to drag the party goers along in its wake. Fi Zarry, stood in the centre of it all, alone, in front of her late husband’s memorial. Her stance was beautiful and sad at the same time; Her long shining white hair and crimson skirts rippled in the gusts of leaves. Her hair had always been that shocking white, as long as I’d known her. We stood together and regarded the memorial. It was, very simply, a large rocket, bigger than some of the trees, and styled after the science fiction of the early 20^th century, lots of fins and sweeping, racing lines. It bore the legend ‘Zarry 1’, its fenced off launch area was littered with flowers and colourful gifts that people had brought with them. I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘He always used to talk about flying through space in one of these’, I tried to swallow my tears.

I felt Fi’s hand on my shoulder then, and looked down into her torrents of mascara, framed by waving white hair, and a solemn expression that I had never seen before. She smiled, ‘He always did love a good party, and this is the best I’ve ever known him to throw.’

I took a theatrical glance around the beginnings of the party, the lanterns in the trees, the sun setting behind them, throwing a golden light over the guests, eleven-like in their gay evening dress, and spritley in their tread. I turned to Fi, ‘Did you set this up?’

She bit her lower lip, and I wanted to hold her. ‘I found out the same way you did’, she put a bemused hand to her upturned cheek, little finger by her sharp nose, ‘a handwritten invitation, in the post, the morning he…’. I took over. ‘But if How organised this party alone, I mean, he’d need to… To arrange something like this, on such a scale, you’d need to know when you’re going to….’, we both turned to look at the sleek, almost phallic missile that contained what was left of our lifelong friend. I was sure it winked at me. ‘Lift off?’

As I said this, four halogen floodlights clicked into life around the rocket, like a mini-Huston. Fi took my arm, ‘Come on old friend, let’s go and get ourselves a proper drink, we’ll need something to toast the launch with.’ She led me through the crowds of laughter and cavorting, tequila and drumming, shouting and dancing, and I found myself, not for the first time, marvelling at this woman’s strength, resolve, and sheer determination to seem effortlessly cool in the face of such turmoil.

We walked together toward the setting sun, boiling pink and gorgeous behind the Poplars marking the perimeter. The numerous small structures were beginning to light up, paper lanterns on a Japanese river, floating all across the clearing. Fi led me toward a small, pale-glowing blue teepee, with a bar made from crates placed just inside the door, lit with fairy lights and candles. A small Spanish man played beautifully complex classical guitar on a stool just outside. ‘Two special coffees please’, she instructed the barman, ‘strong.’ Our eyes met, she wrinkled the corners of hers with a half smile, in a way that she hadn’t for years.

Cheers began to rise around us, and light leapt up around her face; a bright halo of colours. I gasped with surprise and wonder. We both walked out from the bar, turning and spinning to the flamenco music, laughing at the wash of colour spreading out across the party. The lanterns had only been a garnish, this was the main course. Countless thousands of many coloured fairy lights, neon, flashing and others, were hidden in the trees and structures all around us. The entire perimeter was lit, as was every other structure and tree within it. It was another-worldly paradise, a gigantic fantasy-forest pinball machine, and we were in the midst of the festive joy, among all of the friends we had ever known.

The linen clad skiffle band and string octet were joined by a brass quartet, and they all began a fast tempo version of Elvis’ Blue suede shoes. There were whoops and cat-calls, the party visibly moved up a few notches. I grinned, Fi smiled and shook her head, tears running down her cheeks. She seemed small and fragile, strong and beautiful all at once. I was at a loss for words, and instead just took her into my arms and held her, her cheek still fitted snugly against my collar bone. ‘I’ll miss him, Fi, but, y’know, I’m sure we’ll meet again, one day.’ She backed away from me, an unfamiliar half smile on her lips. Before I could react, the launch site suddenly erupted in all its neon glory, complete with sequenced green lights drawing the eye from the perimeter of the launch pad to just beneath the rocket, and a huge projection of a green digital stop watch, counting down from its current time of fourteen minutes. I laughed again, and shook my head in wonder.

We returned to our coffees, and sat on pallets listening to the Spanish guitar. Our silences always had been very long and comfortable. A neon lit parade followed a large cycle-powered sound system, playing salsa music, snaking and meandering in the general direction of the rocket site. I grinned at the many lemon tailcoats and dresses, the parade of sunflowers held aloft, punctuating the dancing, bright in the gloaming. Carefully positioned all around us must have been UV bulbs that caused the yellow to be particularly bright, my clothes were shimmering like everyone else’s. Fi’s were not, however, she remained un-luminous save for her belt, necklace and headdress, clearly, she had known about this scheme in advance.

She looked serious for a moment, started to say something, faltered, and simply said ‘Shall we make our way over to the launch site?’ I nodded, ‘I imagine that rocket is packed to bursting with explosives of all sorts’, gazing toward the miniature Cape Canaveral. ‘Oh, I don’t know’ she replied, ‘I’m sure the payload, like everything else this evening, will surprise us.’ I looked questioningly toward her, but that seemed to be her last comment on the subject. She wore a wistful stare that I knew well. I went to the bar and ordered two more coffees, but received two ‘Rocket ships’, complete with fruit, straws, and sparklers. I tried to argue with the barman, but he simply shook his head, licked his lips with a green tongue, and winked with his strange silver eye. He tapped a small envelope clipped to one of the glasses. I opened it.

Hi roomy. As you must no doubt be aware, I’m already off on the next great adventure. The only real regret I have ever had during my time here, is getting between you and Fiona. Affairs of the heart are always difficult and complex, and even we don’t understand them yet.

I heartily take my hat off to you for your diligent, long, and honourable friendship. Perhaps you are destined to be with each other. Perhaps you are not. Perhaps I have just been here too long.

What ever you do, take care of her, and allow her to take care of you .

Goodbye old friend. Your old friend, How.

The Spanish music exploded into a climax of complex, melodious trills, and stopped. The sparklers went out with a wet fizz. The barman was gone. I blinked and looked back down at the card, it was still between my fingers. Something about this entire affair was definitely unusual. The countdown in the distance showed a time of nine minutes. Fi was silhouetted by the fire, in thought deep in its depths. I put the card in my pocket, shook my head, took the drinks and walked up to her. ‘Fi?…..Fi?’, she looked up, surprised. ‘The music’, she said, ‘it’s stopped.’ ‘I think’, I smiled, and nodded to the rocket, ‘everyone has gone to see old How off.’ She smiled, coming back fully from her reverie. ‘Come, I know a place we can get a very good view.’

She led me around the outskirts of the crowd, whistling and singing, glowing and jumping, tailcoats, dresses, and two waving Chinese dragons. A multitude of party goers, all congregated around a central point, the late, great, Howard Zarry. We passed a samba band in full swing beneath a sparkling pear tree, people danced barefoot beneath its eaves, whooping and screaming, all mournful noises or thoughts seemingly obliterated by the unavoidable party.

The massive digital readout was joined by a screen on the other side of the neon rocket… A white square beneath the stars, surrounded by a garden of kaleidoscopic colours. Our host appeared before us as we continued our skirting of the crowd, heading now for a large, low Oak, with paper lanterns in its eaves. Howard’s image made a theatrical tap-tapping noise on a microphone. ‘Ladies and gentleman! boys and girls of all ages!’, rang out his voice, ‘preachers, vicars, sinners and painters, musicians, bankers, bums and builders, friends, lovers, countrymen and women, please, lend me your ears one last time.’ It wasn’t a question, it was more of a statement of intent, as always.

A great roaring cheer rolled up to the rocket from the surging crowds around it. The music stopped, the skiffle band came to a clattering halt and only the Samba band continued unaware in the background. ‘Will someone please turn off those confounded drummers? I’m trying to make my final farewell here!’ Another cheer, and peels of laughter, ourselves included. He had gone to ridiculous lengths for a show, as always. The samba band also ceased, and a blanket of expectant silence descended around the unlikely congregation.

‘Thanks’, smiled How. The camera panned back a little on the screen, to reveal his upper torso, as well as the room he was in. It was a mock set similar to a 1930’s Science fiction rocket ship, all flashing lights and dials and buttons. How himself was wearing a very tight silver jumpsuit, and had an equally silver helmet casually sat on his lap. Laughter rippled through the crowd, a group of Irish mourners to our left broke into song.

‘Some of you lovely people I have only know a little while, and some I have know for a great many years, but all of you, every single one of you, has made my time here worthwhile. I have lived a very happy life, here on Earth, and no matter what anyone has ever said to me, I know that the thing that made it happy, was the people I knew. Humans are hard-wired to cooperate, and to help, and to love each other, and it is from this and this alone that we derive happiness. With out all of you lovely, lovely people, none of this’, he looked slowly from left to right, ‘would be possible. I can heartily guarantee it.’

‘I wish thee all a fond farewell. I think, all that remains to be said, is this: The bars have been stocked to last a group twice the size of the one I invited for three days. The forest around you has many, many small structures, beds, hammocks and shelters. Entertainment for the week is laid on, and I have personally sent communications to your managers, fathers, wives, mothers, partners etcetera, explaining the circumstances of your absence, and also inviting them to come and enjoy the festivities. There is no excuse.’

He glanced theatrically at his wrist. ‘So, I can see that time is ticking away’, and gestured toward the digital display, still counting down on the other side of the rocket ship, ‘and, much as I’d love to stay and witness all of my favourite people in one place at the same time, I regret that I have pressing engagements elsewhere. As ever, in such ridiculous circumstances, I’d like to finish on a song.’

The band started up again, playing We’ll Meet Again, as the clock continued its relentless countdown to zero. The crowd joined How in his song, swaying from side to side, holding hands, and openly crying. I thought about this amazing man, and the shadow he cast, the shadow that he was about to leave forever. I thought about the note he’d had his silver eyed barman give me.

‘But I know we’ll meet again, some sunnnnnny dayyyyyyy’ finished How. ‘Thank you Earth, and goodnight!’ He held his hand up to the camera in a Vulcan salute, beaming, ‘Live long, and prosper.’

‘Ten, nine, eight, seven…’ The crowd joined in the counting, fireworks began to detonate in the air above us, a precursor to the finale. On the screen, Howard placed the silver helmet upon his head, and lay his hand on a flashing red button, the camera zoomed in to frame his face behind the helmet’s visor, and hand atop the button. Fi took my hand in hers. I held my drink aloft, in tribute to my friend.

‘……two…..one……blast-off.’

Howard winked, and pressed the button. The screens vanished, the rocket ship pulsed in neon splendour, and a great red and orange light ignited beneath it, the ground shook a little as the firework lifted off, rattling the gantry, but surprisingly not loosing its light. I marvelled at the majestic rise, laughing that How had somehow powered the rocket’s lights from within.

The main part of the rocket now ignited, and it began its meteoric rise to its sad and inevitable conclusion, people screamed, whistled and cheered, necks craned, and then the unthinkable happened. The flames went out, the rocket stopped.

A gasp. A massive, unanimous gasp. The rocket hung in the air at about three hundred meters, neon lights still lit, but no flames or explosions to be seen. I waited for the impending fall of the craft, but it did not come.

What did come was a slow glow, it began as red, but rapidly became green, then blue, and finally a dazzling white. As one, the crowd gasped in awe at the spectacle, How’s unmistakable laugh was played through the public address system, and the crowd began to join in, cheering.

With a thunderous roar, a huge waterfall of sparkling light spewed out from the base of the shining craft above us, a spiralling, shimmering snowstorm falling down among us. With a rising tone, a great beam of blue light shot from the tip of the rocket into the sky, a huge doughnut of flashing colours expanded from the ship as the tone reached the limits of my hearing, and suddenly, the ship shot along the beam, reducing in size until it became nothing but a shooting star, a moving point of light amidst a giant barrage of explosions, whizzing rockets and crackling splendour.

The music started back up again, this time with thumping bass and a Latin flavour. The party continued in full swing.

I looked at Fi for the first time in nearly two minutes, gasping and unsure of the spectacle I’d just witnessed. ‘We did have very special view from here, perhaps the best in the house’, she winked, smiled, and took my hand. ‘Let’s dance.’

2007-11-11T00:21:00.000-08:00

I went to watch a football match today, the local side in the final of the regional cup.....something like our fourth division I think. It rained for most of the match, with accompanying bouts of lightning, thunder and rainbows to make everything terribly dramatic. I, like most people, tried to shelter from the elements beneath a Japanese umbrella. These are much like normal umbrellas, only smaller.... this means that unless the rain is coming straight down, and you are standing straight up, bits of you get wet.

The winter is coming really fast here in Nihon....... the leaves are blustering around everywhere, and the temperature is plummeting. I felt my first pang of homesickness today........ I was due to take a Japanese lesson at 10 in the morning.....a blustery Sunday. I was all jumpered up and ready to go,　got there and it had been cancelled. So... I had some writing to do, the leaves were blowing in the drizzle.......Sunday morning.......I'd already had breakfast and coffee.......where to go............there is no such thing as a pub. Oh, how I wanted a pub. With a fire, and stale beer, and an old guy talking gibberish....people that have been up all night, locals, young and old.....the click of pool balls and glasses, the low murmur of voices....stale smoke.

Instead I went and sat in Mr Donut. Not exactly the same, but for 300￥ (1.5 pounds) you get a doughnut and bottomless coffee.....so I got wired instead of having my half an ale. The writing was still accomplished, but no doubt the outcome was radically different.

2007-11-10T23:17:00.000-08:00

Old friends.

It rose....

Tar dark against the silver night
A slumbering giant's knee
Scraping watercolour clouds
from a sky, acrylic bright.
It watched...
Or rather, It witnessed
Filling the void between the valley and the heavens
As she sat...
Feet dangling over the balcony
Young and uncertain
shod in the moonlight
The quiet was, overpowering
Incandescing with her heartbeat so
She could hear the mountain breathing, as a lover might
Peaceful
deep, and
close.

"What must you have seen, on so many nights such as this?
What is my purpose,
My place?"
She wept to the summit, wreathed in grey smoke and mists
The mountain said nothing
Dark in its wisdom
Remaining huge, reassuring
The horizon its loom
Tangled in sweeping strands of gunmetal
Smiling gently
Spinning clouds for the moon
Riding there.

She turned then to where
The giants who painted the world silver
had cleaned their brushes in the stars
"And you", she whispered, "What do you think about?
Talk about?
After so many months
After travelling so far?
Do you remember yesterday?
Can you see tomorrow?"
Her questioning gaze was met
With a kindly smile, content not to know
A weather beaten fisherman mending his nets.

They calmed her, these old friends
Clouds tumbled across the silent sky
And she swung her feet to their rhythm
And she knew without thinking that the tears she was crying were of relief
that her worries were leaving in legions
Her recalling or forgetting
Her pleasure or pain
Were being stroked gently up and away
By the artist's brush
Wet with the rain.

First Impressions

2007-10-18T23:34:00.000-07:00

The land of Japan is one of various misnomers. The technology is the most striking. After the big crash in the 90s, the government here froze the stock markets to protect it's mollycoddled institutions. The result was little or no innovation in the home market. The technology here isn't any more advanced than Europe. The Bullet trains are fast, but the French TGV is faster. The roads are poor, and travelling by car takes more than twice the time for the equivalent distance in Europe. There are express routes, though they are expensive to use, and generally only have one lane, reducing the speed to that of the slowest vehicle. There is no such thing as Internet banking, or wireless Internet. Everything must be paid for in cash (though cards are beginning to make appearances in western style malls), and the craziest thing is....... the ATM's all close in the evening.

I still haven't worked out why...... the A standing for Automatic?

Almost all of the petrol stations close in the evening. This, combined with the ATMs mean that Gaigins often find themselves stranded in odd places late at night, with no money and no fuel.

Outside of the big cities, this country is still in the early 90s.

At the same time as being a beautiful, polite and pleasant culture, it is one of stagnation, social engineering and a large, obedient, punctual, deeply unhappy consumer society, who have ravaged their natural landscape with concrete and pylons as far as the eye can see.

The penalties for possession of drugs here are severe, and yet alcohol is positively encouraged and trumpeted throughout the media, and worked into the social engine with 'Enkais' - drinking parties where people can get wasted (and they do) with their corporate co-workers, and entirely fail to notice that anything is wrong with working 50-60 hours week.

It's interesting to note that, although Japan is an inherently beautiful country, it has been made incredibly ugly by human activity. There is no planning procedure, for example, to control the aesthetics of urban construction. Functionality is the only consideration, and the cities are a hodgepodge patchwork nightmare of concrete reminiscent of the tower blocks of 60's Britain. There isn't much space here (almost 80% of the landmass is mountainous) so it is almost impossible to remove one's self from the concrete dream. The coastlines consist of mile after mile of gigantic sticklebricks of concrete that interlock to prevent erosion, but also capture discarded polystyrene and empty bottles, and the eyes of beauty seeking beach visitors.

The Japanese themselves do not appear to perceive this, and are quite happy with their lot. I wonder if it is due to the mass reconstruction that must have taken place after the war.....it's simply normal..... Since 1945 almost all of the rich cultural heritage of Japan has been restricted to the knowledge of only scholars, normal people instead becoming addicted and embraced by the warm and insipid message of the west. The kids flock to McDonalds, KFC etc. (Of course, this is no different to any other developed nation). The vacuum cleaner that is Nihon sucks in hundreds of foreign words each year to brand brands that are 'foreign' and 'exotic'. And yet, amongst all of this westernisation and 'Internationalisation' (That's actually a word in my contract), the people somehow reserve something inherently Japanese. They are proud of their culture, they eat with chopsticks, they always act with respect and dignity. They play 'Janken' (Rock Paper Scissors) from an early age, to decide everything from who sits in the front seat, life support quandaries, to high level government problems.

My overall impression so far is that the Japanese has sacrificed much of their individuality in favour of social unity. In this regard, the people are very 'innocent' and 'childlike'. All that is beginning to change, and perhaps some of the people are waking up from the consumerist dream, though it will be a long road before any real social change occurs.

Don't get me wrong, I love it here, it's a fascinating place..... I'm sure I have much to learn about all the things that are happening beneath the surface. These are just first impressions. They are also limited to what I've heard and read, and seen in my own corner of the country (Tottori, in the North West of the main island).

On a much lighter note (as the previous rant was.... well, a bit of a rant), the Japanese love Coffee with a passion. They still teach 'morality' at school. The schools, although preparing the kids for a life of corporate slavery, are friendly and open, with strong relationships between the teachers and students, and a sense of unity that our own system lacks. The condom sizes begin at 100mm. The toilets are an alarming combination of water, electricity and plastic. Gambling is huge (though it's called Pachinko, and it's NOT gambling). It's safe to wander around cities drunk without fear of anything (within reason - this excludes Tokyo etc.) The people are very kind. The Japanese cannot drive, never trust a Japanese behind the wheel. The sunsets are awesome (old meaning of the word). I live beneath a mountain, and in the Winter, it's the biggest snowboarding venue in western Japan. There is no insulation, double glazing or central heating. There is beauty everywhere, you just need to omit the concrete and the pylons.

The Plastic Duck Company

Last Cat.

Another message for Cat.

A message for Cat

Some things about the spring....

Thar's gold in them thar tepid waters boy!

Letter to a cheap hotel in London

Some things about a positive frame of mind.

Hostess with the mostess

Some things about trains.....

Some things about Okinawa.

Incredible signs found in Tokyo train station.......

Some things about Tokyo

More things Japanese

Effluence and Affluence

16 Phone unites rival telecom operators in battle against aids, By Martin Hickman, Independent, 16th May 2006

26 (RED) phone unites rival telecom operators in battle against Aids By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent Published: 16 May 2006 quoted http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article485048.ece

The Funeral

First Impressions

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26^{(RED) phone unites rival telecom operators in battle against Aids By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent Published: 16 May 2006 quoted http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article485048.ece}