Every Situation is Different.

Depicting the life of a JET accurately is sometimes a struggle. It’s hard to get across the absurdity of life here when it’s actually mixed in with so much mundanity. It’s also difficult to make it funny, because a lot of it is not actually that funny. Many blogs you read (or at least would read if you were as bored at work as I often am) are just one- or two-line entries every day. This is because after a while ‘normal’ life is just plain boring; you run out of things to say. Although some of the best blogs are written by people in strange and foreign situations – ahem – after a while even the ridiculous becomes boring. The bizarre becomes commonplace. Things that used to thrill merely ‘are’.

Witness this conversation last week (lifted from Brad's blog - American Expat):

Yesterday there was this festival uptown in which each neighborhood of a certain city built a huge wooden float, and then they rammed them into each other all night to booming bass drum accompaniment [...] There were cataclysmic crashes of paper lantern covered, fifteen foot tall, floats happening one after the other right in front of me, and this is the conversation I remember having with Geoff:

"What are they hitting each other with, those floats?"
"I think they have battering rams attached to them. They hit each others battering rams."
"Oh. Cool."
"Yep."
...
"Can you imagine if one of your nuts was taped to that
battering ram?"
"Ooh, yikes. That would probably hurt."
"No kidding, right?"
"Yeah. Geez."
"That's funny. It's a-...what a funny thought that is."
"No kidding. Sure is."
...
"So how have you been?"
"Good. Pretty good. I think I elbowed a guy in the eye coming over here. Little guy. Japanese guy."
"Oh no. When did that happen?"
"Coming over here."
"Right. What did he do?"
"Nothing. Just kept on walking."
"Huh.”
...
"I think I'm going to go get a coke. Do you want a coke? I'm gonna go get a coke”
"I'm ok. Thanks though."

Crazy festival madness, booths selling everything from squid to airgun ak47s, and this is the level of discourse. I swear, it’s like everyone’s been doped.

-------

To combat this fatigue this post will report on last weekend’s activities. It will be reportage and nothing else. Hemingway always said (a personal friend) that less was more. Perhaps you can grasp the absurd which is eluding me.

Friday
Went to an onsen in the evening for only the third time in Japan. An onsen is a series of baths and pools in a garden filled with scalding hot water and naked men. The idea is that an hour spent slowly boiling yourself is relaxing, and for Japanese men this is an essential need. To start off I sat, with Brad and his supervisor Obata, in a deep picturesque pool, complete with waterfall, soaking up the heat. After ten minutes we moved onto the One-Incher. This is a very shallow pool that covers less than half of your body when you lie down in it, the rest is exposed to the chill night air. It’s a highly relaxing experience (once you can get over the fact that your flopping your bits everywhere). After the One-Incher came what Brad described as the ‘Barcalounger,’ only made of granite. This is more comfortable than it sounds. With your arms on the arms of the lounger the water and bubbles support the weight of your body. Floating without drowning if you like.
After ten minutes in the loungers followed what was promised to be the highlight of the evening. Imagine a deep scalding pool with tiled seats along the walls that you sit in. These are electrified. Electric chairs if you will. The current actually only passes through your hips and arse area, and indeed the ‘boys’. I made sure with Obata before sitting down that this wasn’t going to actually sterilise me. In answering he leant over a little too quickly and the electricity caused his back to spasm and to almost smack his face on the tiled arm of the chair. I got out.
Half an hour in 80-degree water will make you dizzy, so it is recommended to cool down – in an ice bath. If you don't actually move in the ice-bath you can be fooled into thinking you’re warm. Until some git splashes you. After the ice bath we moved on to a sauna so hot that you can only stay in there for a few minutes at a time. Finally we finished and headed over to the plastic stools to wash off at sinks.
I was so relaxed biking home that I almost crashed. I was like a Salvador Dali clock.

Saturday
Robin and I signed up a few weeks back to help out at the Fushiki Kite Festival. For two hours work supervising children flying kites in the glorious sunshine we going to be paid 3,000 yen (about fifteen pounds) and given lunch. A fun Saturday morning, but paid. Of course when we woke at 8am it was raining in Toyama, and Fushiki, and indeed the entire ken. We were previously told that in this eventuality the whole thing would be moved into hall where we would just play games with the kids. All round a win-win.
We ‘phoned the organiser on the way to ask where the hall was. He told us that there was no hall, because the festival was still going ahead outside. In the rain. This is Japan. When we got there two JETs were assigned to each group of children and shown into several large, but still sodden, canopied areas where we would play with the students. I don't teach elementary so I don’t really know any games. Unfortunately neither did my partner, a JET called Augie. So like all good JETs we bluffed it. However, the kids soon caught on that we were clueless and started teaching us games. After half an hour the organisers came to their senses and bussed the kids home, leaving us envelopes of money, goody bags of kite festival souvenirs, and a free lunch. All in all an easy Saturday morning.

That afternoon I was to meet Max and Emily for a beer before meeting up with everyone else to go to a roof-party being held by some JETs in Takaoka, Toyama’s second city. We went to an izakaya (restaurant bar) in the main station, where they serve gigantic beers.

“So Geoff, how’s it going?” Max asked as I sat down. I told him of my morning adventure.
“The Japanese, man, they’re crazy.”
“What you get up to last night?” Emily asked
“Umm, er, can’t really remember actually. Probably watched TV, relaxed y’know, school, knackered.” We all pulled on our huge beers.
“Wow” exclaimed max, “check out that orchid next to the escalator, a cymbidian orchid. What a place to have an orchid. I’ll bet it’s real as well.”
“No way is that real! Any money that’s not real – this is Japan, nothing is real.”
“Any money?” Emily asked, incredulously, “You’ll bet ‘any money’? Do you have ‘any’ amount of money? I bet you don’t have ‘any money.’”
“Oh yeah? How much will you bet? ... Anyway, so I went to this onsen last night, it was sooo relaxing I was like a Salvador Dali clock on the way ho-“
“Who did you go with?” asked Emily.
“Brad and his supervisor Obata. That Obata is a cool guy, young too”
“Geoff? Er, gay? You went to an onsen with two men? Naked. With two men?”
“It’s not gay.”
“That’s way gay dude,” joined in Max.
“Geoff, you just said you couldn’t remember what you did last night. There’s no need to cover it up. If it’s something you feel you need to lie about…”
“What? No, it’s just I was so relaxed I totally forgot – I was like a clock, like-
“A cock? Gay, Geoff. Gay.”
“No, no, a clock. A Salvador Dali clock, y’know, droopy, er … I, so. How come you know so much about orchids Max...?”

We arrived at Laura’s flat at around 5 o’clock. I brought store-bought kimchi and a bottle of red wine, and Robin some home-baked cupcakes. Soon enough everyone moved to the roof where we rocked out to Beck, ate cheese, bread, kimchi, guacamole, and drank immense amounts of beer, wine, and chu-hi until it began to get dark. At around 7 o’clock word got around that the landlady had arrived and was not pleased. Those of us on the roof quickly packed up and snuck off to the shops for a bit. Those still downstairs in Nick’s flat hid while the landlady berated Nick. From what I heard after this is what was said, in Japanese.

“You are not allowed on the roof. It is forbidden to have a party with your friends”
“But the construction workers, who don’t even live here, are always having parties up there, and they never get in trouble.”
“But you are not Japanese”
“What?”
“What are your friends’ names? And their schools? I will ‘phone their schools”
“What? What do you mean ‘I am not Japanese? And what has that got to do with-”
“I will ask neighbours…”

And off she went to ask the neighbours - who have never met any of the thirty of us - who we were and where we worked. Meanwhile we wandered around the block, having bought beer from a nearby conbini. A phone call told us that the landlady was not leaving, so we glumly decided to go finish our beers in a park, and decide what to do from there. Soon enough a few more JETs turned up at the park. Then some more. Then some with guitars. The party was in full swing when, an hour later, an Australian JET turned up with a barbecue and assorted meats. We drank, ate, and sang into the small hours until disturbed by the police – who put in requests for songs from one of the guitarists. Who knew Japanese policemen were so obsessed with The Carpenters? The rest of the JETs at this point started tidying up (although we are drunken rabble-rousers we are considerate. And can be deported on a whim). As we were all strolling towards the train station somebody suggested karaoke. Half the group went off, while Robin and I went to Sara and Mike’s place for some beers and The Simpsons. When you go to a JETs place the first place everyone looks is the book, CD, and DVD collection. It’s mostly open-house borrowing between JETs. I bagged a stack of jazz, and ‘Catcher In The Rye.’

Sunday
Woke up feeling terrible. Sara and Mike made some breakfast and we tried to decide what we would do for the rest of the day. Sara gently reminded me that today was the five-hour rehearsal day for the charity show. I politely suggested what she could do with that. “Now Geoff, we can’t do that, I am one of the directors.” Oh right. Darn.

As the rehearsal venue was on the way back to Toyama, Robin and I caught a train together. While walking through the carriages looking for a booth we came across Sharon, a JET who was at the party but disappeared at some point (possibly for karaoke, possibly not. JETs are like that). I got off at my stop, said goodbye to Robin and headed for the rehearsal. As I was a little early I walked across the park that surrounds the Kureha Arts Creation Centre and sat under a concrete pagoda to practice some lines. As I’m sat there an old Japanese lady arrives on her bike and sits opposite me.
“Konnichiwa” I say.
“Konnichiwa, yoroshiku onegaishimasu. Daijobou desu ka?” She replies as she gets her lunch stuff out.
“Dozo, kudasai. It’s fine really,” I say, looking back at my script. This is the single most successful conversation I’ve had with a Japanese stranger.

I try not to think that at this moment, in glorious sunshine, other JETs are in Takaoka playing a game of cricket that I initially suggested and have been looking forward to for weeks. Rain had postponed it the previous two weekends and this weekend – the weekend of my five-hour rehersal – was the first sunny one of the spring. The old lady finishes her lunch a little later and as she goes to leave she totters over to me and gives me a handful of sweets.

Five hours later Brad and I emerge desperate for a half bottle of nice Chianti each at the Italian place in town. The other cast members head off for a curry. Unfortunately we arrive too early for opening and wander around the station for a bit. A little later we go back to the ‘Fiorentina.’ It is resolutely shut.

“Maybe he’s behind the blind, preparing to open?” I venture. We both press our ears to the roller door, willing to hear activity inside.
“Nope, nothing. Beer?”
“Nah, the good beer place is closed on a Sunday. Think I’ll just head home.”
“Yeah, alright. Me too. I can’t believe it’s 7 o’clock on a Sunday and I’m sober”
“Feels weird doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. Weird.”