Korea

We booked a bus tour to the DMZ. Any of my uni friends reading this would grimace at this thought, but such is the way with the DMZ; you cannot get in to the world's largest minefield without an escort. Before I left my 11-year-old nephew sent me an email:

"woah, NK or SK? (north Korea or south Korea) chances are if your goin to NK youll get taken down by anti air! while your visiting the DMZ (yes i know all about that!) can you take some pictures of the tanks and AA vehicles? and any other military things you see? thx!"

He's my nephew so I am contractually obliged to say that he is cool, but that IS cool. I also had a healthy obsession with guns and the military when I was 11. Unfortunately I was not able to oblige the little chap as everything worth photographing was prohibited.

A little history. After several hundred years of sporadic Japanese invasion and occupation the two Koreas were created in 1945 after the occupying Japanese surrendered to the Americans. Much like in Germany, Russia moved into one part (in this case the north) while the US controlled the other (the South) where each set up their own provisional governments in the bitterly divided country. After the Korean war of 1950-53, which the allies came very close to losing several times, a cease-fire was agreed and the border set at the 38th parallel. Technically the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (the north - always a give away there - putting in the 'democratic' bit), is still at war with the People's Republic of Korea (the south). In the actually democratic south the demilitarised zone is now a tourist attraction.

We were taken out of the city and to the DMZ, barely 50km from the border. While on the way to the DMZ the helpful guide informed us that we would be seeing one of three tunnels that North Korea had dug into South Korea. The "Communist North Koreans" had planned to dig these "infiltration tunnels" all the way to city hall in Seoul and have a bit of the old surprise attack. She referred to the North Koreans either as "the Communist" or "the starving" North Koreans. This tunnel was alarming, she said, as these three are only some of many many others that they don't know about. After a little while it occurred to me, they weren't "only 45 km away" as out guide exclaimed, but actually 45 km away. They only got 10km, and that apparently took them 15 years. At that rate, she hurriedly told us, they would have taken another twenty years to get to Seoul. Isn't it possible, I asked her, that with the myriad tunnels still undiscovered could it be that at this very moment a tiny, starving, North Korean communist is waiting to thrust his spade through the surface and invade the centre of Seoul? (And get run over by the 602 bus picking up tourists to take to the DMZ?)

But no, of course not. That would be mad.

I wonder how those tunnels, and indeed the DMZ, is portrayed in the North. "Tunnels? What? No, there are no tunnels. DMZ? What is this DMZ you speak of? South Korea? What's wrong with you? Guards...!"


Seriously Geoffrey, here?





Peace Out at the DMZ


It's Over There!


Chilling With The Grunts


Wall of Lost Ones


Robin Planning The Old 'Suprise Attack'


There Must Be Some Way Out Of Here, Said the Joker To The Thief


Last train to Pyongyang

Random Ffotos

Sliiiide

The whole being-hit-by-a-car thing is turning into more of an inconvenience that I would have at first imagined. After a day of strange clicking noises coming from my knee and a total inability to bend my leg I went to see a chap behind Toyama station. A doctor that is, that's where his surgery is.

He prodded around a bit and suggested some X-rays and an MRI scan, all done within minutes of my arrival. The MRI part was my favourite. If only all things medical could be done with MRI; with the soft monotone thrubbing and dull beating noises I was soon drifting in and out of a very pleasant semi-consciousness. I wonder if they do them for the bedroom? I was told that the whole thing would take about half an hour, so before I was overtaken by the soothing noises I thought I'd do well to practice some of my lines for my part in the JET charity show.

"Hennatoko-te? Shiranai no? Ouji-sama no asobi nakama da yo. Haado Gei da yo ne---!" I tried first. "Koko wa Nippon de ichiban ookii shiro desu. Ichiban chiisai toyray, demo nana jou mo aroon desu yo!" I went on. Of course, I didn't get it totally right. After a bit I notice that the hot young nurses the other side of the dividing glass were looking at me strangely. I then realised what they were hearing, I imagine their conversation went something like this:

"What's that the tall handsome foreigner is saying?"
"Uh, something about being Hard Gay. Hang on, oh yes. He can't let Hard Gay into the biggest palace in Japan, which has a toilet 70 tatami mats big"
"Really? Handsome, strong, and witty he might be, but man - foreigners are strange..."

The number of times I hurt myself last night after banging my leg on something was ridiculous. I limped into the kitchen and hit my foot on the door, jumped back to avoid hitting the door again, causing more pain and hitting my head on the doorframe. Repeat x3 in different rooms. It's amazing what a desperate happy singing to yourself can do when you hurt yourself - "Happy place tra la la going to my happy place la la la laaaa..."

Thankfully the crutch the doctor provided was not necessary today as my leg seems not to hurt quite so much, which is a good thing as I'm going to South Korea tonight. It was however handy to take the crutch into work (have to go back to Doc's tonight) to guilt my totally unsympathetic supervisor. After I got to the police station the other night and realised how long it might take I 'phoned Robin. She in turn phoned my supervisor to let her know - just in case I needed some Japanese help or something, things that supervisors are for - and get her to phone me. "It is alright" she said "they have interpreter at police, he is alright." Robin had to persuade her to call me. It now seems I will have to go back to the police station as the 20,000 yen is not going to cover my medical bills AND my bike - my supervisor's response? "You should go back." Helpful. Thanks.


Gosh. That last paragraph wasn't at all humourous was it?

Toyama Driver

While bicycling in Japan you have to have not only foresight, but long-and-round-the-corner-sight.

Barely a day goes by when Robin and I don’t narrowly avoid death due to idiot Toyama Drivers who do not stop to look before pulling out of lanes into the main road. If Toyama Driver doesn’t zoom out, oblivious to the pedestrian traffic, he’ll slowly pull out but without actually turning his head to see if there are any pedestrians coming the other way. Why? Because pedestrians do not concern Toyama Driver. We mere bipedals are of no consequence. Toyama Driver only cares about getting onto the road so he can join his Toyama Driver chums at the traffic lights. By the time he has pulled out, oblivious, I am stood above his window yelling at him. But he still doesn’t turn around. I am waiting for the day when I can safely throw myself across the car bonnet with a concealed blood pack and vomit blood on his windscreen and scare the crap out of Toyama Driver.

Yesterday started as a great day. I had a day off school, which I had booked to recover from the hangover of my birthday the previous day. I also had a rugby game to watch (Wales vs. Italy), and a massive bottle of beer to get through courtesy of Flipped Lyd. Needless to say by 4 o’clock I had music on full blast and was dancing round the flat in my undies. It was in this mood that I left to meet Brad for dinner before two excruciating hours of rehearsal in the evening. I was in great spirits - until I got hit by a car at a pedestrian crossing. Was the light green? No. Was Toyama Driver looking? Of course not. My bike went horizontal, and I hit the tarmac in a way that soft fleshy bodies really shouldn’t.

As I lay on the floor, stunned by the stupidity of Toyama Driver, a form of some sort emerged near my head. “Wa gkjjskj ieieiweoowmmkd” said the form, which turned slowly into Toyama Driver. “Jafhwadnanoski dodjafan skalaslkd” he said again. “Chotto matte old boy...errr...quite some pain actually...oooh....leg” I gasped as I pulled myself up his bonnet. As I was orienting myself – there’s the floor, there’s the sky, there’s a strange blurring at the edge of my vision – he scarpered, like the rat Toyama Driver is. I stared, in a wincing half-stand, as he drove away, and then limped to the side of the road to inspect my bike and myself. As I looked over the wreckage a kindly Japanese girl came up to me to ask how I was and started to scribble something furiously on a pad, “Number. You report,” she said as she handed me the man’s license plate number.

Oh. Oh Toyama Driver!

With the written details of the event from a Japanese friend of Bryans (thank you Bryan) Brad and I went to the local cop shop. I thought it would be a simple form-filling exercise and off I toddle while they look into it. however, being Japanese they wanted to go to the Central Station to make a full report. Suddenly I saw the entire evening stretching ahead of me. After limping under escort with my bike I was sat down while a friendly young copper with excellent English skills grilled me. Soon enough they summoned the offender to the station. Phoned him – shouted, told him to get the hell down the nick. In the UK we would fill out a form and the police would go visit him the next day, after their tea and biscuits, maybe the next day, or next week; depending on what's on the telly. In Japan it is immediate. Get the hell down here now matey. And along he came.

Toyama Driver was a shrivelled looking old man who shuffled in with his strapping son and bowed profusely to me.
“Is this the man?” the fuzz asked.
“Well, maybe, you see I was on the floor at the time officer”
“Lets go see the car.”

Five rozzers escorted us to the offending vehicle, the bumper of which I remembered only too well. They matched up the scratches to my bike and started taking photos of Old Toyama Driver pointing at various offending items. Point at car, SNAP. Point at the bike, SNAP. Point at wincing foreign man, SNAP. Then we went back inside. The same five policemen crowded around and made the Old Toyama Driver fill out numerous forms, took his licence and papers away to draw big red marks all over them, and gave them back. The friendly copper explained to me that the old man had been given some points on his licence, and judging by the stern looks and yelling, quite a telling off.
“How much was your bike?” the policeman asked me. 10,000 yen I replied, maybe.
“He will give you 20,000 this is okay, you get a new bike and maybe have a meal?”

(Damn, should have said 20,000)

How could I refuse? After the scolding he got from the sergeant I just wanted doddery Old Toyama Driver sent on his way. Shake the foreigner’s hand they told him. And he did, more bowing. Do you want to go to the hospital they asked, do I have to? Do you want to? Not really. OK then. And that was that. All settled.

J-Police: Could You? They can.

Thoughtcrime

This is some graffiti I found on the train this morning, scratched into the metal of the window frame. It made me a little depressed.



Here's a closer look



Somebody spent a lot of time scratching this very accurate and delicate picture. What was the message behind this melancholic act of defiance? Was this person lonely? Certainly they were sad. Were they drunk? I'd normally say that was a cert, but as you can see there was no small amount of concentration involved in this most polite of vandalisms. I can only conclude that it is only too Japanese.

A friend of mine was telling me the other day about some of the third graders in his school who came back a day or so after graduation to say hello to their teachers and generally check in. As soon as they'd been set free they had rebelled against the rules that had kept them in line for the last three years by changing their clothes and dyeing their hair. Unfortunately, they only swapped one conformity for another - they all wore exactly the same punk clothes and dyed their hair exactly the same colour as every other high-school graduate in Japan.

"Rule four: I don't want to catch anyone not drinking in their rooms after lights out."

Another week, another enkai, another headache.

The weekend started, as it normally does here, with a raging hang over. The cause this time was the school enkai - the one where everybody goes. And because it's everybody, and the Principal, it was held in the ballroom of the poshest hotel in Toyama. After we finished sweeping out the remaining straw and droppings (b-boomtsssshh thankyou thankyou) we were sat at down and served appetisers and drinks by silver service waiters. Luckily I was randomly selected to sit between the librarian and Takeguchi-sensei, both Englishers. It began with very formal speeches by the Vice Principals and Principal, but soon descended into screeching laughs, beer, crying, more beer, and a rousing rendition of the school song. Which I managed to hum.

After recordings of various students talking about their time at Kureha were played over the PA the third grade teachers got up in turn to give short speeches about their graduating classes, to Lifetime Channel-esque backing music. It was highly orchestrated, touching, and very Japanese.

Beer, it seems, serves a fourth purpose - as champagne. After the speeches - and between courses of unspeakable shellfish and molluscy looking dishes - all the ladies stood and began to mingle with bottles of beer to refill all the men's flute glasses. Soon the chaps joined in and before I knew it forty drunken Japanese teachers were staggering around with bottles and glasses spilling beer here and there forcing me to gulp an inch of beer every minute so that it could be refilled by the next teacher. Of course I got wasted. Again.

More food and drink followed but in a smaller, cosier, side room which "you must pay 1000 yen more to come in." And what a party - in the course of two hours I drank two bottles of hot sake and uncountable glasses of beer and became best friends with the carpenter and the janitor. At some point the hard-as-nails P.E. teacher who had blubbed so much at graduation also came over and the three of them grilled me about the differences between Japanese and British beer and whiskey. They were much surprised to hear I like Yebisu, and much satisfied to hear I detest happoshu (nasty tasting pretend beer). They also reacted with near pain and tears to hear I was not staying an extra year - this from two men I have only ever seen through a classroom window working in the gardens, and from the other who only seems to notice me in school when he has to walk around me to the coffee maker.

Finally the janitor made horns with his fingers and said he had to go home, "Wakarimasu? Wifu? You wifu?" Thankfully Brad called at that point to demand why I wasn't the Jazz Bar enjoying fine martinis. I made my excuses to the principals - which involved more topping off and drinking of beers, and escaped.

And back to waking up with a raging hangover and pounding headache. As I opened my eyes Robin turned to me and said, "Hello beery boy, what time did - MY GOD! What's happened to your tooth!?"

Which is never something you want to hear when you're so hung over you can’t see.

Somewhere between leaving the Jazz Bar and waking up the cap on my chipped front tooth had fallen out and now I look like a pirate.

I'm going on the wagon. But not for my birthday of course. Or the long awaited "Pub Quiz Night." Beach cocktails in Thailand. Oh, and the "Spring Formal." After JET. After JET I'm going on the wagon.

For a bit.

Come friendly bombs and fall on Toyama

A friend of mine recently pointed out that it seems, from reading this blog, that I'm not having fun. Of course, I am; this is a wild and crazy experience which I wouldn't exchange for (almost) anything. It's just that it's easier, and more satisfying, to point out the wierd and annoying aspects of Japan - and make fun of them.

For example.

Toyama seems to have a bad reputation with foreigners. In fact it seems to have one with Japanese too - many have never heard of the home of the world's largest zip manufacturer (YKK), and if they have they pretend not to. I think I have worked out why this is, with foreigners at least: it's not the weather, which is generally atrocious, and it's not the scenery - which varies from depressing industrial wasteland to scrub to glorious mountain ranges to concrete monstrosities - but the people. And the reason I think it's the people is that the only people who talk to us outside of school are the drunk, or, the special. People. Toyama, as I have definitley already mentioned, has more than it's fair share of them.

Today on my way to school The Jumper was, as usual, jumping around all over the place. On my way home from school I sat in the little train station with the same three disabled chaps I do every day. As I got on the train I said my now customary hello to a very cheery special dude who everyday says hello and gets a kick out of me nodding and saying hello back. And I, of course, ride the special bus every thursday.

Now, take this chap who pulled up next to me at the lights on my way home from the station:

"Hello" he said,
"Well, hello to you"
"Hoonanoonanoo. Humanuhum godoo gudoo mumble mumble"
"Ah, well, yes. But I'm afraid I dont quite understand you"
"Yes yes thank you humberoo nana doo change the rifle korea china ryfu hunan minnypasses"
"Hmm. Still not getting it I'm afriad"
"Hunn hun minny passes changeru ryfu"
"Change of life did you say? Menopause?"
"Yes yes korea pepsi changer ryfu"
"Okay..."
"Hunun boomarunoo shibiba nommoramo"
"Ah, I see where you're going with this, but I'm afraid I don't entirely - oh look the light's changed, byeee"

After he said hello I recognised him from many a night out in 'town'. I'd always thought he was a raving drunk, but in the light of day riding a bike he seemed rather sober. But a little disturbed.

Of course, I'm a mere first-year. Given long enough I'll meet lots of lovely japanese people (and indeed I already have), but in the day to day grind the company seems, well, a little worrying.

"We've made as much ground as an asthmatic ant with a heavy load of shopping."

I have just discovered the limit of the leeway that my boss will give me. Generally teachers here either wear a tracksuit or a suit to school. I however seem to be allowed to wear shirtsleeves, or just a tie, or even just a sports-coat/jumper combination. Today, however, my limit was reached. The following conversation will also give you an insight into the Japanese mentality. Translations in italics.

"Hayashi-sensei, why are all the chaps wearing suits and ties today - even the PE teacher?"
why, yet again, do I arrive at school and see everybody dressed up again, and why did nobody tell me, again?

"Ah Geoff-san. Today is entrance exams. We look our best, make a good, ah, a good..."

"...impression?"

"yes, a good impression on new students"

"I see, maybe it would be good to know when we have to dress up, so that I could also dress smartly"
I'm getting a bit pissed-off that nobody tells me anything around here, whats wrong with you people?

"You do not have to dress up. Maybe you are in here? "
You are not involved - it doesn't really matter. But dont go wandering around okay?


A little later...


"Geoff-san, ne, you are a young man!" What the hell are you doing?

"Well, you know, I try..." What now? Um, best make like I dont know...

"You have short sleeves, and arms!" You're wearing a t-shirt

"Oh, yes, well, it's pretty warm in here today" Damn, I bloody knew it!

"Ah, maybe, maybe it is warm...." Not really, look at me, I am wearing three layers. Do you see me stripping off?

"No t-shirt then eh? Not good?" Seriously?

"...hehehehehe" wanders off... yes, put your sweater back on you scruffbag

Survival of the Nanni Nanni Redux

Student, when asked about school uniforms:

"I think that personality is important, but I think that cooperation is more important than personality"