Tidbits
We were donated a local delicacy recently - cod sperm. When boiled, it resembles coral - little concentric flowers with several rings, all connected into one larger whole. The taste is indescribable, in a horrid way. Never, ever again. I nearly gagged. But in the end, I managed to swallow, not spit. Ha.
----
Last night there was a farewell party for the eight hostelmates who are leaving at the end of the month. It's a bit sad - my two favourites are going, S, a crazy Japanese girl with a penchant for Gollum impressions, and Chris, a towering redhaired Canadian who believes in the Apocalyptic brand of Christianity to which I was subscribed as a teenager. Having been through that (the world didn't end as promised), I was able to talk with confidence about the New World Order (beware the UN), the implantable microchips which Revelation calls the Mark of the Beast (see www.verisign.org) and the imminent arrival of the Antichrist (he's got a website too: www.maitreya.org). I could even tackle the Bilderberg Group, the Council for Foreign Relations and the arcane meetings of the rich, famous and Henry Kissingers of this world at Bohemian Grove. But Chris did have some interesting footage of the 9/11 attacks; the collapse of the third building seems far too uniform to be caused by 'fire' and the official report acknowledges that there is much which is unexplained. The thing I love about the Looming Apocalypse is the way that conspiracy theorists crosspollinate their theories. So we have the Illuminati in conjunction with the Freemasons, who are secretly controlled by the Greys, the alien race represented at Area 51. People have wanted the world to end since it began; I think the appeal is partly the joy of secret knowledge, partly the appeal of a metanarrative, and partly because we vainly want to die together and not bitterly, bitterly alone as is the way with death.
That was a tangent and a half. So, the party was quite nice. Parties in Japan (well, my hostel) seem to begin and end largely with feasting, leaving Rowan and I looking a little silly and tipsy after downing two beers. But, the thing which shits me is this. I have come here to see if I can be part of another culture, another way of life and to what extent. But good conversations are dependent on, firstly, a shared language (the Japanese students are quite good at English), then shared experience (minimal) and finally, shared culture (small). I'm getting tired of talking about Australia and the differences and pretending we have a strong culture of our own. Give us time, dammit. The difficulty in real conversation was abundantly clear at the party - the Japanese students (largely female) chatted amongst themselves, while we gaijin (largely male) talked amongst ourselves about shared experiences - English teaching, Red Dwarf - and the tentative attempts to bridge the gap resulted in:
One (1) game of footjumping, a slightly physical game that requires feet and jumping and little communication. Result: laughter
Two (2) bursts of flirtation from S, the most outgoing Japanese girl. Again, however, they had to be physical, in a pinching-poking kinda way that conjures up my teenage years wonderfully well. Result: laughter
The definition of a friend for me is someone I can touch if I want to. I need to touch my friends. This, however, is not friendship, not really. I have to talk to someone to earn their friendship and earn their trust and, eventually, earn the right to touch. The culture gap looms wide - not because of innate 'difference' per se, but of innumerable small differences and a lack of commonalities. Living here, it amazes me that people talk of globalisation so smugly. Yes, people can trade with each other in English now and multinationals can fuck who they please, but that is business and not interpersonal relationships. True multiculturalism is a difficult, difficult ideal. Easy to fund, hard to achieve.
I spent the day today in Kobe, hanging out with D___. I think he's rapidly becoming my sensei, in a Karate Kid kinda way. He looked a little surprised to see me - I think he forgot I was coming that day - and confessed to not having much work for me to do and then confessed to being depressed, of having taken too many projects on. To me, it seemed that his depression was more than that - the depression of a silver haired man with rheumy eyes and wide knowledge with more projects than time left. I did a bit of work updating a style guide (they listed Australian English alongside UK English and American English - we've made it. I tracked down the Macquarie Dictionary foreword, which proudly claims the same title of our own special brand of English, which "fifty years ago was just seen as an unfortunate deviation from English", I think it runs). Most of the time, we just talked. He is one of the most learned people I've ever met. I still don't know his history and I don't dare ask. His history here is an open book; his history in England and Australia is largely a mystery. I keep finding out tantalising tidbits - amazingly, he worked on the Ord River irrigation scheme in northern Western Australia - but nothing solid, nothing to explain this massive store of knowledge. Today, he told me about the flight of the Ugandan Asians. (British people always call Indians and Pakistanis 'Asian' - I think for them, Asia stops at Afghanistan. Weird. We, on the other hand, have no fear of former British colonies and instead lump the disparate peoples of Southeast Asia and Northern Asia into one scary 'Asia'). The Ugandan 'Asians' (Indians and Pakistanis) fled Idi Amin's purges - they were too successful as business people - and many settled in England, where they prospered again. Then we talked about Korean history (it was a colony of Japan from 1910-45; they were used as labor in Japan and treated badly; resentment lingers, even though Korean pop culture is very popular here) and Taiwanese history (also a colony, although treated much better). From there, we talked multiculturalism and the phenomenon of class lift, where a new migration wave often lifts the previous class system up a notch, as the newcomers occupy the worst position, with exceptions such as black Americans, who were bypassed by every single newcomer group and left at the bottom. He tells me he runs a WWOOF farm at his house in the hills; that he runs a charity in Bangladesh and is starting a butterfly park in Hong Kong, and still, he has such humility. He tells me of the Japanese attitude to nature, characterised by a desire to conquer it, manage it, order it. Apparently, only one or two rivers in Japan do not have concrete beds. There is little 'nature' as we understand it here - 'national parks' are often indistinguishable from the usual rural mix of farming villages and forest. I wonder if perhaps this Industrial Revolution-era desire to progress by defeating the power of nature is made more complex by the predictable unpredictability of quakes and typhoons, so the Japanese seek to control heavily what they can in light of that which they cannot.
----
Rice production here is heavily subsidised (unsurprisingly, it's one of the sticking points in a possible East Asian FTA) because it's so fundamental to the Japanese culture. This explains how there can be rice paddies in Osakan suburbs (I'm beginning to think sub-urban is a misnomer here; they are very much still urban). But Japan hasn't been able to support itself foodwise for a while now; its food comes from everywhere, although its fishing fleets still loot the seas. I was thinking about this, and it made me think that globalisation is like a trust game. If part of the nature of globalisation is the specialisation of production, so that a few countries specialise in bananas, then this requires the kind of trust that we individuals have in our society - that the farmers will farm, that the police will police, that the pharmacists will continue to pharm (sorry). It needs that casual trust that other people are doing work that you can draw on. Perhaps the glossy-eyed globalisation advocates are right - the opposite of isolation and self-sufficiency is interdependence, European Union style, so that war can be reduced and confined.
---
It hit me a little while ago - things are not foreign to me anymore. I can differentiate Japanese faces (I used to be hopeless at non-white faces) and now it is the whites who seem strange. My hostel is my home; Hirakata is my city, and I am largely comfortable with the idea of living here. I think I noticed it when I realised that I didn't need to look to see when my stop was; I knew. I don't need to notice the shops anymore because the wonder and terror has gone, replaced by comfort. This means, of course, that I need to go further afield to get my weekly hit of tourist wow.
---
Now that I have a job, I have a purpose here. The city has meaning now that I do.
---
It snowed yesterday and today, little flurries swirling in. I've never been snowed on in a city before - quite magical. Why is it that snow only descends in 'flurries'?
---
I'm trying to remember the names of the 30-odd horde of childlings. The old tactic of blurring half-remembered names into one doesn't work here - too many Hinas and Ninas, Kumikos and Tamikos.
---
Oh - one final burst of sickening devotion. Toddlers aren't mean to be able to understand causality, like animals (if you throw a ball of string into a room where a cat is, it will chase it without looking where it came from). On Friday, Moeko came up to me with a large lego block and a serious look on her face. I had a block as well, and hid it behind my back and said where is it Moeko? where? and her face grew puzzled and then I made it reappear and puzzled moved to delighted. I did the trick a few more times and then she wanted a go (this is where it gets sickeningly cute). So she looks at her block and then at me, toddles behind me, stuffs it up the back of my tshirt and then toddles round the front and shows me her empty hands. Where is it, she asks with her eyes, where? I have absolutely no idea. She toddles behind me, retrieves the block and comes back, rather pleased with herself. So. Damn. Cute.
---
We were donated a local delicacy recently - cod sperm. When boiled, it resembles coral - little concentric flowers with several rings, all connected into one larger whole. The taste is indescribable, in a horrid way. Never, ever again. I nearly gagged. But in the end, I managed to swallow, not spit. Ha.
----
Last night there was a farewell party for the eight hostelmates who are leaving at the end of the month. It's a bit sad - my two favourites are going, S, a crazy Japanese girl with a penchant for Gollum impressions, and Chris, a towering redhaired Canadian who believes in the Apocalyptic brand of Christianity to which I was subscribed as a teenager. Having been through that (the world didn't end as promised), I was able to talk with confidence about the New World Order (beware the UN), the implantable microchips which Revelation calls the Mark of the Beast (see www.verisign.org) and the imminent arrival of the Antichrist (he's got a website too: www.maitreya.org). I could even tackle the Bilderberg Group, the Council for Foreign Relations and the arcane meetings of the rich, famous and Henry Kissingers of this world at Bohemian Grove. But Chris did have some interesting footage of the 9/11 attacks; the collapse of the third building seems far too uniform to be caused by 'fire' and the official report acknowledges that there is much which is unexplained. The thing I love about the Looming Apocalypse is the way that conspiracy theorists crosspollinate their theories. So we have the Illuminati in conjunction with the Freemasons, who are secretly controlled by the Greys, the alien race represented at Area 51. People have wanted the world to end since it began; I think the appeal is partly the joy of secret knowledge, partly the appeal of a metanarrative, and partly because we vainly want to die together and not bitterly, bitterly alone as is the way with death.
That was a tangent and a half. So, the party was quite nice. Parties in Japan (well, my hostel) seem to begin and end largely with feasting, leaving Rowan and I looking a little silly and tipsy after downing two beers. But, the thing which shits me is this. I have come here to see if I can be part of another culture, another way of life and to what extent. But good conversations are dependent on, firstly, a shared language (the Japanese students are quite good at English), then shared experience (minimal) and finally, shared culture (small). I'm getting tired of talking about Australia and the differences and pretending we have a strong culture of our own. Give us time, dammit. The difficulty in real conversation was abundantly clear at the party - the Japanese students (largely female) chatted amongst themselves, while we gaijin (largely male) talked amongst ourselves about shared experiences - English teaching, Red Dwarf - and the tentative attempts to bridge the gap resulted in:
One (1) game of footjumping, a slightly physical game that requires feet and jumping and little communication. Result: laughter
Two (2) bursts of flirtation from S, the most outgoing Japanese girl. Again, however, they had to be physical, in a pinching-poking kinda way that conjures up my teenage years wonderfully well. Result: laughter
The definition of a friend for me is someone I can touch if I want to. I need to touch my friends. This, however, is not friendship, not really. I have to talk to someone to earn their friendship and earn their trust and, eventually, earn the right to touch. The culture gap looms wide - not because of innate 'difference' per se, but of innumerable small differences and a lack of commonalities. Living here, it amazes me that people talk of globalisation so smugly. Yes, people can trade with each other in English now and multinationals can fuck who they please, but that is business and not interpersonal relationships. True multiculturalism is a difficult, difficult ideal. Easy to fund, hard to achieve.
I spent the day today in Kobe, hanging out with D___. I think he's rapidly becoming my sensei, in a Karate Kid kinda way. He looked a little surprised to see me - I think he forgot I was coming that day - and confessed to not having much work for me to do and then confessed to being depressed, of having taken too many projects on. To me, it seemed that his depression was more than that - the depression of a silver haired man with rheumy eyes and wide knowledge with more projects than time left. I did a bit of work updating a style guide (they listed Australian English alongside UK English and American English - we've made it. I tracked down the Macquarie Dictionary foreword, which proudly claims the same title of our own special brand of English, which "fifty years ago was just seen as an unfortunate deviation from English", I think it runs). Most of the time, we just talked. He is one of the most learned people I've ever met. I still don't know his history and I don't dare ask. His history here is an open book; his history in England and Australia is largely a mystery. I keep finding out tantalising tidbits - amazingly, he worked on the Ord River irrigation scheme in northern Western Australia - but nothing solid, nothing to explain this massive store of knowledge. Today, he told me about the flight of the Ugandan Asians. (British people always call Indians and Pakistanis 'Asian' - I think for them, Asia stops at Afghanistan. Weird. We, on the other hand, have no fear of former British colonies and instead lump the disparate peoples of Southeast Asia and Northern Asia into one scary 'Asia'). The Ugandan 'Asians' (Indians and Pakistanis) fled Idi Amin's purges - they were too successful as business people - and many settled in England, where they prospered again. Then we talked about Korean history (it was a colony of Japan from 1910-45; they were used as labor in Japan and treated badly; resentment lingers, even though Korean pop culture is very popular here) and Taiwanese history (also a colony, although treated much better). From there, we talked multiculturalism and the phenomenon of class lift, where a new migration wave often lifts the previous class system up a notch, as the newcomers occupy the worst position, with exceptions such as black Americans, who were bypassed by every single newcomer group and left at the bottom. He tells me he runs a WWOOF farm at his house in the hills; that he runs a charity in Bangladesh and is starting a butterfly park in Hong Kong, and still, he has such humility. He tells me of the Japanese attitude to nature, characterised by a desire to conquer it, manage it, order it. Apparently, only one or two rivers in Japan do not have concrete beds. There is little 'nature' as we understand it here - 'national parks' are often indistinguishable from the usual rural mix of farming villages and forest. I wonder if perhaps this Industrial Revolution-era desire to progress by defeating the power of nature is made more complex by the predictable unpredictability of quakes and typhoons, so the Japanese seek to control heavily what they can in light of that which they cannot.
----
Rice production here is heavily subsidised (unsurprisingly, it's one of the sticking points in a possible East Asian FTA) because it's so fundamental to the Japanese culture. This explains how there can be rice paddies in Osakan suburbs (I'm beginning to think sub-urban is a misnomer here; they are very much still urban). But Japan hasn't been able to support itself foodwise for a while now; its food comes from everywhere, although its fishing fleets still loot the seas. I was thinking about this, and it made me think that globalisation is like a trust game. If part of the nature of globalisation is the specialisation of production, so that a few countries specialise in bananas, then this requires the kind of trust that we individuals have in our society - that the farmers will farm, that the police will police, that the pharmacists will continue to pharm (sorry). It needs that casual trust that other people are doing work that you can draw on. Perhaps the glossy-eyed globalisation advocates are right - the opposite of isolation and self-sufficiency is interdependence, European Union style, so that war can be reduced and confined.
---
It hit me a little while ago - things are not foreign to me anymore. I can differentiate Japanese faces (I used to be hopeless at non-white faces) and now it is the whites who seem strange. My hostel is my home; Hirakata is my city, and I am largely comfortable with the idea of living here. I think I noticed it when I realised that I didn't need to look to see when my stop was; I knew. I don't need to notice the shops anymore because the wonder and terror has gone, replaced by comfort. This means, of course, that I need to go further afield to get my weekly hit of tourist wow.
---
Now that I have a job, I have a purpose here. The city has meaning now that I do.
---
It snowed yesterday and today, little flurries swirling in. I've never been snowed on in a city before - quite magical. Why is it that snow only descends in 'flurries'?
---
I'm trying to remember the names of the 30-odd horde of childlings. The old tactic of blurring half-remembered names into one doesn't work here - too many Hinas and Ninas, Kumikos and Tamikos.
---
Oh - one final burst of sickening devotion. Toddlers aren't mean to be able to understand causality, like animals (if you throw a ball of string into a room where a cat is, it will chase it without looking where it came from). On Friday, Moeko came up to me with a large lego block and a serious look on her face. I had a block as well, and hid it behind my back and said where is it Moeko? where? and her face grew puzzled and then I made it reappear and puzzled moved to delighted. I did the trick a few more times and then she wanted a go (this is where it gets sickeningly cute). So she looks at her block and then at me, toddles behind me, stuffs it up the back of my tshirt and then toddles round the front and shows me her empty hands. Where is it, she asks with her eyes, where? I have absolutely no idea. She toddles behind me, retrieves the block and comes back, rather pleased with herself. So. Damn. Cute.
---
posted by Doug @ 3/13/2005 01:41:00 pm
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