Transit Rules MATTER

Tags

bicycling

With all the bike riding in Japan, it’s inevitable that eventually, you WILL have a bike accident.  It may be minor, but it will happen. Today, I helped a child learn that disobeying transit rules is not a good idea. Hopefully.

I’ll admit, back in the States, before I had the accident that made me a cyborg (read: required I get pins in my ankle), I was pretty reckless on my bicycle.  I always went as fast as possible, I counted on people to get out of my way if I rang my little bell, and I didn’t avoid paths that required dexterous maneuvering.  Granted, my accident had absolutely nothing to do with any of these things, but still, from then on, in my mind, bike + not being 110% cautious = sound of bones being crushed.  Sometimes when I ride with others I wonder if they think I’m being anal for always transiting on the proper side of the street (meaning, with traffic rather than against it) even if it means having to recross a street, but I really, really would enjoy keeping the rest of my body intact.  You can follow the rules and things will still pop up on you, so it’s better to at least follow the traffic rules.

So there I am, transiting all proper on the left side of the street.  Had just taken a curve, was braking because the train was passing up ahead.  There were cars to my right.  I ride up alongside a bus and suddenly, little kid on a bike, 2 o’clock! He was going pretty fast too, doubtless trying to cross the street in a hurry before the traffic started moving again.  I think I slammed on my brakes, but either way, it was too close: I broadsided the kid, we both went down, me on top.  Luckily, nothing happened to either of us or our bikes.  But good lord the kid gave me a scare!  All I could think of as I scrambled to get up was “did I crush this kid? Is he bleeding?  Did he break anything? If he’s seriously hurt, will I get the blame even though it was clearly the kid’s fault for dashing out from between cars?” With all those thoughts, all I did was ask him if he was alright, if his bike was okay, and was he sure.  He hastily answered “daijoubu desu” (“I’m alright”) to all questions, picked up his bike, and rode away.  Later I wished I had told him, “this is why you need to follow traffic rules.”  I hope he learned the lesson anyway.

I’d rear-ended some high schoolers a few months ago, in a slightly different situation, but again, it was due to the kids being reckless.  Two boys were riding side-by-side (violation #1) very, very slowly in front of me.  So I look behind me, see that there’s no cars nor bicyclists coming, and speed up to overtake them.  Suddenly, the boys decide to cross the street: no hand signals, not even a backwards glance.  Violation #2.  I knew if I slammed my brakes it’d end badly for me given how much speed I’d picked up, so I braked firmly but gradually.  Still caught one boy’s rear wheel.  That time, neither of us went down, thankfully.  We just “sumimasen”ed and kept going.  When I got home I found a plastic cap, probably from the pin holding the rear wheel to the gearbox from the kid’s bike, wedged into the spokes of my front wheel.  I had a mind to be like the cantankerous people that call my school to complain about how my kids ride their bikes and call those boys’ school. ^o^; I didn’t, because I knew nothing would be gained by it.  I’m convinced that when it comes to transiting, most people simply cannot learn but through the hard way.  I can only hope that the hard way doesn’t need to involve great bodily injury to shake one up.

In happier news, I registered to join GACKT’s official fanclub! ^_^;

Farewell & Welcoming Party

As I wrote in this post, in April many teachers, and even vice principals and principals, find themselves moved to a different school for the new academic year. Because of this, there are 送迎会 (“sougekai”) meaning “Farewell and Welcome Party.” Tonight was the one for the English Department. Of the teachers who’d been transferred to other schools, only one came.  But to my surprise, our previous kyoutou also came!  I was surprised to find he’d been moved once I returned from my trip to the States, and just as surprised the day he popped up at school.  With the unexpectedness of it all, I didn’t even stand to bow and say farewell properly, so I was glad to have the chance now.

The food was good. There was 飲み放題、or all-you-can-drink, but there were only 2 non-alcoholic beverages: oolong tea and mango juice.  I had some tea, then wanted something different, but not mango juice.  Not because I don’t like it, but I don’t particularly like juice during meals.  So I asked a teacher if one of the items on the drink menu, white peach something or other, was strong.  She said it wasn’t.  She said she was surprised by the fact that I don’t drink because she was under the impression that people from Latin America liked to drink.  I thought that was pretty funny.  Really, I think that with Hispanic people it’s more of a macho thing.  A manly man drinks! is the idea.  That’s the impression that I have anyway, so it struck me as funny that that teacher had the idea “Latin Americans are big drinkers.”

The Loteria card “El borracho” really doesn’t help. ^o^;;;

The really fun part was the 二次会 (nijikai) meaning after-party. Sometimes the nijikai is another restaurant, or an izakaya, but finally, for the first time since I’ve been here, it was karaoke! I can’t sing very well (and should apologize to GACKT every time I butcher one of his songs) but I love doing it! It gets me pumped up and hyper!

One of the teachers asked me to sing the first song, and she just said, “Madonna? ‘La Isla Bonita?’  ‘Papa Don’t Preach?'”  I was already internally LOLing at the suggestion of opening the karaoke session with Madonna, but…those songs…^o^; So I said “La Isla Bonita” was fine (I do like that song).  So it began.  Some teachers picked some songs in English.  They seemed amused by the fact that I didn’t know Billy Joel’s “Honesty.” Then another teacher picked Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven” and said there were parts she might not remember, so could I help out?  I know the song, but besides the “Would you ~ if I saw you in heaven” parts I didn’t really remember the melody and was winging it. >o< Usually I can catch the rhythm in songs pretty quickly, but since the music on karaoke versions is usually slightly different from the original, if the percussion is changed it throws me off.

I could tell the teachers were singing old songs, so I wondered if they’d be bored during my second song, GACKT’s “dears,” which was neither old enough nor famous enough for them to know it.  The other song I wanted to sing was GACKT’s cover of the original Gundam theme song, 「哀戦士」(“ai senshi”), but since that song says things like “the color of blood is strewn all over the earth” and “the men who go to die” I wasn’t sure if it was an appropriate song to sing. ^o^ But when then the one teacher picked “Tears in Heaven,” and all the teachers were commenting on how Clapton wrote it for his dead son, I figured songs about death weren’t necessarily bad.  But when another teacher sang the theme of Galaxy Express 999, I figured it would be okay to sing an anime theme song, plus figured they would all know it, which indeed, they did. Well, as I was singing they were saying 「かっこいい！」(“kakkoii,” meaning “cool”) so I think they probably had never heard GACKT’s version of it, which is waaaaaay faster than the original.

The teachers also seemed amused to know that I liked GACKT and had been a fan since before coming to Japan.  I joked that I wanted to marry him, and kyoutou said, “Oh, so that’s why you came here.”  LOL  Though I think other teachers may have thought I was serious though.  ^_^;;;

Well, I’ll end this post with a song that one of the teachers sang that I liked, 「天城越え」”amagi goe.”  There were some others that I liked, but I can’t remember their titles nor bits of lyrics now. ^_^; Anyway, enjoy!

Potpourri! The Past Week and a Half

School Stuff

After Golden Week, there was lots of work.  English play was running way over time in rehearsals, so I stayed late one day to rewrite the whole script.  I shaved 2 pages off by using simpler words and cutting out unnecessary dialogue.  I don’t know if it was enough to get the beast under one hour, since English Course decided to suspend practice for the two weeks prior to midterms.  I also got to pretend to be a recording engineer!  There were some songs that had over 30 seconds of just singing, which is a problem because the kids, although they do speak their lines, do not sing themselves. Thirty seconds of watching someone lip-synch poorly is unbearable.  It seemed they were considering cutting out the whole song just because of that, so I offered to edit those 30 seconds out on the computer (I used GarageBand).  I think I did it pretty well!  Of course, there’s a slight hiccup, but I did several cuts to try to get the best possible edit.  But between taking the songs out entirely, or have the kids flopping about on stage interminably waiting for their cue, I think the small hiccup is better.

Other than that, that same English Course also had a two-page essay in English due, and that was a lot of work.  But I’m glad that many of them realized that if they turn their papers in early, they give themselves time to rewrite them and thus get a better grade on the final submission.  There were still a couple of knuckleheads who turned in stuff straight copy & pasted from Wikipedia, even after we gave their rough drafts back to them in their hands and said to them, “you did not write this, do it over.” At this point it’s obvious those kids care nothing about their future; they’ll only learn the hard way that they can’t move forward in life just by breathing.  But for the most part, coming down hard on that class ultimately made them better, no matter how severe their angry faces got.  I wonder if they realize it?

Concert Tickets を GET!

The word “get” is currently enjoying quite a bit of popularity in Japanese advertising.  ^o^

Anyway, I have secured tickets to see…GACKT! Who else? ^O^  I will be going with a friend to the July 2nd show at Zepp Fukuoka.  If it’s so good that I feel I need to experience more live GACKT in my life, I will probably join the official fanclub! LOL  I haven’t done so yet for several reasons, one of them being that every now and then GACKT says things that really tick me off.  That’s the hazard of following someone too closely: they inevitably fall from the pedestal. ^_^;

EDIT (June 2nd): Awww hell, who am I kidding?  I’ve been a fan of this man for 7 years.  I registered for his fanclub last week, and today I bought tickets to the July 1st show. ^_^;;; I’m going with a different friend than for the July 2nd show. >o< I want to say ありがとう to my 先生 because I can use the Loppi machines by myself to get concert tickets! Oh yeah, that whole Knowing Japanese Generally Makes Living in Japan Easier thing is also good. XDD

*Charging Fangirl Squeal: 17%*

Golden Week 2010

It’s time for midterms, which only means one thing: Senior High School ALTs on JET across Japan are either bored out of their minds, or playing Farmville (read: bored out of their minds while clicking their mouse).  ^o^;

Anyway, I’ve got the time and internet connection to get this blog up to speed!  So let’s get to it, shall we?

Golden Week: Day 1 (Saturday, May 1st)

In September 2009, we had Silver Week, but it doesn’t happen every year.  Golden Week, however, does. It is composed of three national holidays back to back, creating a 5 day break with Saturday and Sunday early in May.  There’s also Shouwa Day just two days before the Saturday of Golden Week, so someone who took Friday off could make a 7 day combo.  Many people travel during this time, so transportation becomes ludicrously expensive.

I didn’t go outside of Fukuoka.  Instead, I hung out with some friends from that Northern Land, Kitakyuushuu, and some of their friends.  First, we went to Dazaifu Tenmanguu, of course.  (I should be an official spokesperson for that shrine! ^o^;)  There’s a garden on a pond there, but not everything was in bloom.  That doesn’t matter when you’re going for good compositions in photographs though.

Ain't it purdy?

Here’s the full version of the header photo:

What would Tachiagare Nippon think if they knew a foreigner took this photo?

I really couldn’t help myself. XDDD Oh, politics…

After that, we hopped on a train for Tenjin, which is downtown Fukuoka City.  After the 30 minute ride on the futsuu (regular train making all stops), we went to the top of the ACROS Building by climbing about 5 minutes worth of stairs, as the observation deck apparently can’t be accessed via elevator.

Refreshing

*Suck it in, suck it in! Model the Moustache!*

“Moustache” is the brand of the bag I’m carrying.  ^o^;

After that, we walked over to Hakata to go to the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum.  Apparently, two years ago, there was an exhibit called 「妖の園」(read as “ayakashi no sono,” meaning something like “Ghosts’ Garden”) at the Prefectural Art Museum, but during Golden Week only, it was brought back at the Asian Art Museum.  The works were really interesting.  I especially liked the work of Miyamoto Gennai (宮本源内 – I’m not 100% sure that’s how his name is read, but writing that gets me the right kanji, so…), which was detailed pen & ink manga, and SHiNPEi a.k.a. Peco, who does street fashion illustrations.  I like how he combines a meaty anime style with street fashion.  To put it more bluntly, his work is kinda ghetto. Which makes me feel at home. ^o^;

Lastly, we went to a Hawaiian bar.  We got there around 5, but they don’t start serving food till 6, so we just slowly sipped our drinks till it was time.  Now, I could’ve sworn that Japanese people didn’t start eating until everyone had their food, but I guess not.  For whatever reason, after everyone had gotten their dish, it took another 15 or 20 minutes for my dish (shrimp gratin) to come out, and the waiters were looking at us funny, presumably because no one was eating.  I started to worry that they’d forgotten my order, because again, I was thinking that it was practice in Japan as in the States to wait till everyone had their food to begin eating, so I didn’t understand why the waiters were confused. I asked the waitress after 10 minutes had passed since the last dish was brought out, and she said they were making it.  Fortunately, it was delicious.

Day 2

Less photogenic was Day 2, when I got my new HDTV.  ^o^ I really enjoy watching broadcast TV in HD, but I bought an HDTV because I’d been told that hooking a PlayStation 3 to a CRT made games look like total garbage.  Which wasn’t true in the case of the Aiwa that I had.

Ah, I haven’t explained on this blog.  When I went to buy a PS3 and HDTV, the TV I wanted wasn’t in stock, so I had to wait two weeks for the store to get it in.  In the meantime, I went ahead and connected the PS3 to the good-ol’ CRT so I could finally play Final Fantasy XIII.  I couldn’t see all the details in the game on the CRT, but the difference between that and the HD isn’t that big.  To be blunt, I think many people are riding the HD hype train and “seeing” a larger difference then what’s actually there. And yes, I did connect the two with an HDMI cable rather than AV wires.  Though it’s also possible that people bashing CRTs just have really crappy ones.

Not having cats around makes me do weird things, such as give names to electronics. Meet 東芝紀政 (Toushiba Norimasa). ^_^;;;;

Day 3

Finally armed with something capable of playing Blu-Rays and an HDTV, I cycled on down to Tsutaya and finally bought…Advent Children Complete! *fangirl squeal*

Dynamic duo, Reno and Rude, whoever don't like it it's that man's problem. ^o^ (That's what Fabolous MEANT to say.)

Oh oh, how many more pop culture references can I make in one blog post?!

Days 4 & 5

The rest of my Week That Sparkles Like Edward Cullen’s Skin in the Sunlight was spent playing FFXIII, doing laundry,  rearranging my closets, and drawing. Oh yes, and sleeping till the sane time to get up–no earlier than 11AM. Getting up before that is nothing short of an atrocity. ^o^

Then, it was back to work!

Got to See the Hawks Win!

Tags

baseball, Japanese major league baseball, SoftBank Hawks

Well, it was a while ago.  Two weeks ago, to be exact. ^o^;

I go to a Japanese class every week.  It’s not terribly serious; it’s taught by volunteers and only costs 1000 yen (about 10 USD) a month.  Every third Wednesday though, the volunteer center it’s held at is closed, so we go elsewhere and do stuff.  We’ve done stuff like go to a pottery place to make our own chawan and hashioki (tea/rice bowl and chopstick rests), go to a restaurant to learn the correct, “beautiful” way of eating, etc.  The last event was to a SoftBank Hawks game.  This time, like the first game I’d gone to, was against the Rakuten Eagles.  Unlike that time, fortunately, the Hawks won! A royal 16-4 butt-kicking.  The crowd really moriagatta’ed (盛り上がる, “moriagaru,” in this case means to swell/surge with enthusiasm.)

There were several home runs this time.  When there’s a homer, an inflated Harry the Hawk (one of the team’s mascots) holding a Coca-Cola bottle would pop up in front of one of the big screens.

I feel more awake just looking at that!

Weeee!

So, since this was a winning game, there were a few different things.  During the 7th inning stretch, since the Hawks were in the lead, most people bought long balloons.  You inflate the balloon, but don’t tie it closed.  When the time comes, everyone sings a song, and lets go of the balloons at the end of it.  Now, I could’ve sworn people in Rakuten’s cheering section did the same thing, so I guess it’s just that this only gets done if the home team is winning but the visitors still get to let go of their balloons.

In the picture at right, you can also see a poster with Otou-san, the mascot of the team sponsor SoftBank.  He’s saying, 「今年はやらんといかんばい！」(“kotoshi wa yaran to ikan bai!”) which is Hakata dialect for “This year we HAVE to win! [lit., “do it”]” In Hakata dialect, the negative is formed by using the negative stem + ん、so, for example, わからない becomes わからん, 知らない becomes 知らん, etc. (Those are the examples that came to mind because it’s what I hear my students say most in Hakata dialect. ^_^;) The ばい seems to be a sentence final particle like the よ used for emphasis.

The other different thing is that winning games are celebrated with fireworks.  This day, it was raining, so they had to do it with the dome closed.  It was still nice.  After that, there was the singing of what I could only assume was the Hawks anthem.  It’s got flowery language, no surprise, but it sounds a bit militaristic, so…it’s kind of funny actually, especially to see a bunch of people singing it so seriously.  I looked it up later, and found that the title is 「いざゆけ若鷹軍団」, “Izayuke Wakataka Gundan,” which translates roughly to “Now Go, Young Hawks Corps!” ^_^’  You can hear the song here and read the lyrics  here. (Japanese only–I don’t have time right now to see if the one English translation I found is accurate, it seems good but I only glanced at it.)　EDIT: Here’s a disco version! >o<

Mm, I think that’s pretty much it.  Well, I’ve ended up actually really liking doing the ouen (cheering). ^o^  I can’t tell what everyone’s saying all the time, since each player has their own special cheer, but when it’s the simple “ganbare, [player’s name]!” I can join in, or at least, since I can read the players’ names up on the screen, I can go “… … … … … [player’s name]!!!” I think that even if I were invited to go to “better” seats, i.e., behind home plate, I’d still want to sit in the cheap seats because that’s the cheering section!