Sunday, September 30, 2012

The Blog VS Tokyo Orientation Part 2!!

Ok, so, to begin this next post, I have yet another update concerning the mysterious towel! At last, I believe, the mystery has finally been solved!

Steve Solomon, Japan scholar and illustrator of Professor Solomon's acclaimed book, Japan in a Nutshell, (which I consider to be far and away THE BEST introductory book on Japan out there, and which is available to be downloaded FOR FREE on their official website, professorsolomon.com) seems to have found the answer.



Steve believes that "Kosumopuropan" may mean "Cosmo Propane," which would actually make a lot of sense, seeing as how the towel came from a gas company. Granted, there is still the chance that "Kosumopuropan" could be nonsense. However, it is my firm conviction that if "Kosumopuropan" has any meaning at all, then in the words of Adam West Batman, "the only possible meaning must be..." Cosmo Propane!







Amazing deductive Bat-Reasoning, and superior Bat-Logic!! Thank you, Steve!! Your scholarly endeavors serve you well!



Now, getting back to the subject matter at hand, I realized that in my last post, I may have somewhat misportrayed the Japanese toilet, an error which I cannot let go uncorrected. I understood, belatedly, that my American audience now is probably under the impression that Japanese toilets are all super-intelligent robotic monsters from which there can be no escape. While this is true of a considerable portion of the Jpanese toilet population, I would like my friends back home to know that there are definitely some exceptions. For instance, when you open most of the stalls in the teacher's bathroom at my school, you will find yourself confronted with this:










This creation is what is known unto Westerners in Japan as the "Squatty Potty." 


Unfortunately, in public bathrooms, usually about eight out of every ten toilets is a Squatty Potty. The remaining two will be what is known somewhat inaccurately as "Western Toilets," a.k.a., the robotic monster Captain Kirk chairs of the future. 

I have always taken this as an excellent unintentional metaphor for the current state of Japanese culture today. With one foot blasting off a thousand years in the over-technologically-advanced future, and the other firmly grounded two thousand years in the past, Japan clings to ancient tradition and yet over-enthusiastically aspires towards a future where science, engineering, and technology will make a better world for everyone. This strange temporal dichotomy in their culture is excellently symbolized by the variety in their toilets. Whether you use your toilet like a samurai warrior, or like Captain Kirk and George Jetson, Japan leaves entirely up to you...!


Incidentally, here's a picture of what the "Western Toilet" in the teacher's bathroom looks like:




 There is a feature of a lot of Western toilets in Japan that I don't think I mentioned in my last post. As you may recall, I had previously said that I avoid pressing any of the buttons except the flush. For purposes of illustration, here is a picture of the Captain Kirk armrest of the teacher's bathroom toilet, just so you are aware of the options.



As you can see, the left most button means "stop," then there is a selection of two fanny-beam-buttons with different directional sprays of water, then the very comically illustrated "bidet" button that seems to be lifting the victim off the seat with its powerful jet-stream spray, and finally, the warm air "dryer" button. The light-up panel at the lower left is for adjusting the water pressure, and I don't know enough Japanese kanji symbols to be able to tell you what the lights at the right side mean.

Anyway, as I said, in my various encounters with these Japanese toilets, I have never pressed any buttons except for the flush...with one, and only one exception. 


Some toilets in Japan will have a strange little unmarked black button politely hidden somewhere on the wall. No fanny diagrams, no Japanese kanji symbols, nothing to hint at what this button is for.


When I first saw this, I was very curious, but wary of pressing it for fear that, knowing Japanese toilets, it might turn out to be an ejector seat or something. So I stared at it in confusion for several visits.

 

On one occasion, however, I decided to be bold. I would press the little unmarked black button, and find out once and for all!






And so, bracing myself, I pressed the button...




And, all of a sudden, there was a very loud, 15-second-long, toilet-flushing sound effect!



...But the toilet itself didn't actually flush.




Confused, I asked a Japanese friend what on earth this meant. She told me that it was a polite "white-noise" feature, so that, just in case you felt the need to make a rude sound, you could do so at your leisure without embarrassing yourself in front of the other people in the adjacent stalls. Since it was the bathroom, a toilet-flushing sound effect was the perfect ambient noise, and it conserves water by not flushing the actual toilet!

Oh, Japan. Always going the extra mile...


...Speaking of the extra mile, in the Tokyo hotel bathrooms, if you happened to be the lucky guest who first used the toilet at the beginning of the day, this is how you would find the toilet paper:

  



 
Neatly folded into a triangle, apparently just to signify that this was the first time that this particular roll was being used.

They also had some pretty considerate contrivances for the women's bathroom, like this:








A little high-chair to put the baby in while you're...um...busy calling Scotty in the Engine Room! ...Or making white-noise sound effects...



 Anyway, back to Tokyo orientation!!

Tokyo orientation was full of a lot of speeches and workshops of varying levels of interest and usefulness. The keynote speech, and most of the speeches given by Japanese government ministers were very interesting and often actually rather funny. Other speeches and workshops were not always so successful, however, and by the end of each day we were all pretty much done with it all and ready to have some fun!!


...So, as I had hinted in my last post, at the end of each day of orientation I struck out into the night with a friend to boldly go forth and explore the streets of Tokyo...!








...But I didn't take any pictures of it at night, so you're just going to have to suffer with this day scene I shot during a lunch break!!





Tokyo is a strange and interesting city. It's kind of like a weird, parallel universe version of New York from the year 3,000. With gigantic weird buildings that light up in strange ways, quirky little sidestreets so narrow you can barely walk down them single-file, alleyways jam-packed with steamy little unairconditioned restaurants with big buckets of gigantic dismembered fish heads (ironically meant as a form of advertisement), and numerous strange and fascinating surprises, Tokyo is like a fictional city in a video game fantasy world. 

Speaking of video games, Tokyo, like other cities in Japan, is known for its multi-floor arcades, known to the Japanese as "Game Centers," in which literally hundreds of different kinds of games can be found. 

It was to one such place that my friend Kate and I would venture each night after orientation. 


On the way, we saw some pretty interesting things. Like this guy...!



 In Tokyo, cops wear glow-in-the-dark reflective gear that is actually studded with real light bulbs that flash like they're at a rave-club. They also carry these big rave-party light-saber glow-sticks to direct traffic. I'm not sure if they wear this super flashy illumined light-up gear to be more visible to traffic or to pedestrians, but either way, it certainly made it easy to spot a cop and ask him for a picture! 

(Wouldn't it be awesome if we had light-up cops in America...?! 
Oh MAN, man...!!!)

Anyway, on our nightly pilgrimage to the Tokyo game center, we would often pass crazy signs. Like this...!




The city of Tokyo politely reminds you at all times not to be an elephant, please.

(...And, if you absolutely must be an elephant, please don't be a littering elephant. That's were we draw the line.)



The game center itself was a typical one for a Japanese city. I believe this particular one was five floors (I've been to one in Kyoto that had as many as nine floors...!), all lain out in a typical (though not universal) pattern, as follows.

(Top) 5th Floor -- "Prikura" glamour photo booths where you and your friends can be bombarded with so much front-lighting that your nose disappears, making everyone look really attractive no matter how bad your skin is! 

4th Floor -- Psudo-Gambling Floor, where all the games that are kind of like gambling (except not, because gambling is illegal in Japan) are kept. So, you can win fake coins or tokens or Pachinko balls or whatever to trade for prizes, which you can then take to a back-alley and trade for money, because that's not technically winning money, and so it's all ok.

3rd Floor -- Music Game Floor, the floor that popularized games like DDR, Guitar Hero, Taiko Drum Master, and other such insanities.

2nd Floor -- The Awesome Game Floor, where you can play every kind of fighting game imaginable, from Street Fighter to Gundam to Pokémon, among many other, very awesome things.

Floor 1: The Claw Machine Floor -- This is my favorite floor.

Claw machines in Japan are known as "UFO Catchers," and are distinct from their American counterparts in several ways. For one thing, they are not rigged and do not cheat. They are legitimately very challenging, but all of them are theoretically winnable, depending on the type of claw and the shape and weight of the prize, etc. Also, a lot of the prizes they have are these toys that are so adorable, they totally break the Cuteness Barrier. 


Behold...!

The Adorable Pink Pirate Llama...!!!


This adorable toy llama is the prize treasure of my Tokyo Orientation. I was determined to win one of them--but the machine they were in, while appearing deceptively easy, was really quite difficult. Conveniently, at any time, you can ask one of the wandering game center attendants to open the machine case and re-position the prizes if you want to try to win a particular one. Sometimes they're really nice and will try to make it easy for you by putting the prize you want really close to the edge so all you have to do is nudge it a little and it's yours!

I was SO INCREDIBLY PSYCHED when I won this pink pirate llama. Her name is Miku. She was the individual one that I had wanted most, by far the cutest one in the incomparable sea of cuteness laid out in the "UFO Catcher" machine before me. And it wasn't an easy win, either; but I was incredibly lucky and had a pretty sound strategy. 

She was close to the edge, but in an awkward position, and the claw, of course, was very weak in its grab (although they do grab more strongly every few times on a cycling basis). The elongated shape of the llamas was wrong for the narrow scoop-shape of the claw, so for two tries, I managed to lift and position her towards the edge. 

On the third try, however, I had a brilliant idea. Instead of trying to lift her, I would think outside of the box. Positioning the claw directly above the part of her body that was slightly overhanging the edge, I let it drop, causing its weight and motion to knock her down before it even began its grab...! YES!!! In only three tries, and for the equivalent of only three U.S. dollars...Miku was mine!!



 Because of these UFO Catcher games, it's actually a very popular fashion statement in Japan for girls and adult women alike to wear toys like those won at game centers on purses, backpacks, and handbags. In fact, lots of new handbags in department stores come with little mediocre toys hanging from their straps, for you to keep if you can't win a better one, or replace if you can! 


Which, naturally, led to...this!



Not since I was seven years old have I been able to unselfconsciously take a favorite toy out into the world with me, wherever I go. As Miku seems to have proven, I have apparently secretly always wanted to ever since.

Thanks again, Japan...!!!


Yours Truly,
 

Friday, August 31, 2012

The Blog VS Tokyo Orientation: Part 1

So, as a kind of epilogue/addendum to the last post, I have since received more information about the mysterious towel. I asked one of the Japanese English Teachers at my school, and she said it was an omiyage "welcome present" from the gas company, sent to me as a sort of thank-you for choosing to use them as my gas company, even though I'm pretty sure there isn't actually a choice, as there is no other gas company around here within about a twenty-mile radius. 

Also, it turns out that "Kosumopuropan" is complete nonsense. It was a word the company apparently made up because they thought it looked cool and sounded foreign, and hoped maybe people would think it was English! Well, in a way, they almost kind of succeeded...! In a way...

Anyway! Now that we're back on track, I have decided to begin from the beginning, and make this post all about the three-day Tokyo orientation we received at the very beginning of the JET Program, practically immediately upon arriving in Japan.

After landing at the airport and getting on our respective buses, we were transported to a big, fancy hotel in Tokyo. It had lots of pretty chandeliers. Like this!



...And this...!





...And this...!



 


When we arrived at the hotel, there were two sets of elevators, one set of express elevators for floors 30 and higher, and another set for floors 2-29. Since almost all of us were on floors below thirty, there were a great many of us waiting for the non-express elevators, all carrying luggage. This was annoying, so I decided to Legend of Zelda myself into a more convenient solution. I got on the express elevators, overshot my floor, rode to floor 30, then caught a "local" elevator on its way down, thus preempting the crowd and avoiding the long line, which I had been at the back of, and getting to the room ultimately a whole lot faster. May the Way of the Hero Lead to the Hotel Room...!




Speaking of the hotel room, after we slept and got over the jet-lag (yes, yes, insert your "JET Program jet-lag" joke here...!), the next morning I took pictures of the view from outside our room window...!

Here's a picture of the building across the street: 




If you look carefully, you can see our hotel building reflected in its windows!

Just to give you an idea of how gigantic the city of Tokyo really is, I want you to look carefully at the next couple of pictures. If you look to the horizon, you will see that the city literally goes on for as far as the eye can see.











...And in all directions.






...And just in case you were curious, here's a view of the street below. Note the vehicles driving on the left side of the road, and the Japanese writing on the driveway in front of the other building...!






So, after our first (amazingly delicious) hotel breakfast, we were all asked to arrive in formal business attire at a certain assembly room in the hotel. When you approached it, this is what you saw:






"Oh man, man!" I thought, "I'm in one of THESE movies...!!!"








The room, in fact, was quite large. I don't know if the photo captures it, but there were easily over a thousand people there.









And the light fixtures were all fancy chandeliers!



 


We were given speeches and presentations by several important heads of Japanese governmental ministries, like the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations (CLAIR), The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT). I believe it is the head of MEXT pictured giving a speech below.





His speech was particularly great. I love that MEXT, one of the main ministries of the Japanese government, deals with "culture" and "sports" in the same breath as "education," "science," and "technology."

Japanese culture is different. So different, I think, that a lot of Americans have difficulty believing that a lot of it is real at first. This is a nation where aesthetics, athletics, and the arts are taken with legitimate seriousness. You simply don't hear about art and music programs being cut in Japanese schools. The arts are valued here on a level that lacks comparison with the U.S., so much so that they have a main governmental ministry whose very name makes explicit reference to the idea that arts, culture, and sports go hand-in-hand with a serious, well-rounded education.

Another interesting tidbit about Japanese culture and law. It is extremely idealistic: 




...Yeah. That's an actual Japanese LAW. 



...Kind of a different culture, right...?


And even if you can't literally "enforce" such a law as that, the fact that it is being encouraged at all by a body as large and important as the national government does make a difference in how these people meet the world. It is actually an incredibly encouraging thing. And you see the benefits of this rather widespread positive attitude all around you, everywhere, pretty much every day. A positive attitude is kind of a general "given" in Japanese culture and daily life. Your average "man on the street" is surprisingly kind, generous, and helpful. It is rather as though everything that everyone does is done with some amount of thought towards improving our current world.




...Which brings me to the toilets.



I don't know if you know about this, but Japanese toilets are INSANE. They are most certainly a misguided attempt towards creating a more perfect world. This is the Mad Scientist's contribution to Japan: The Automated Robo-Toilet...!













You've probably heard of the idea, through science fiction most likely, that one day technology will "go too far" and take over the world.  










Right? 

...And yet, in real life, you've probably never really felt like this was actually going to happen any time soon.

WELL...! Japanese toilets are absolute proof that technology has gone too far. They look innocent enough at a glance...



...But then...!




...You realize it's a MONSTER!!!! Laser eye-beams that flip the seat up when you enter the room! Weight sensors built into the base to know when to flush after you stand up! Seats hardwired to be adjustable to the degree Centigrade, giving you a warm toilet seat in winter and a cool one in summer! And that's not to mention the far more sinister features contained within the Captain Kirk-style arm-rest button panel:






...Those aren't for calling Scotty down in the Engine Room, people...




What one might not understand from the Japanese writing is made clear by the tiny little pictures of cartoon fannies being sprayed with various directional-beams of water. Needless to say, I tend to avoid these buttons, and don't typically press anything but the flush.



Anyway, that, plus some teaching workshops too boring to mention in a blog, was what the first couple days of Tokyo Orientation were like! Stay tuned for the next post, in which I discuss nightly Adventures into the streets of Tokyo, Glow-in-the-Dark policemen, game center arcades, adorable pink pirate llamas, unintentionally funny English, and MORE...!!

Your Source For Absurdity,
 


Saturday, August 25, 2012

The Blog VS Japan!!!

So! As many of you may already know, I am currently in Japan as an Assistant Language Teacher in the JET (Japan Exchange Teaching) Program! (For those of you who didn't know, I realize the news is a little abrupt...! Sorry!) I've been here for almost a month now, just enough time to go through two rounds of orientations, move in to my (AWESOME!) apartment, get settled, and FINALLY establish an Internet connection (hence the delay in making a new post over the last month)!

So, since there's a lot to get caught up on, I will eventually back-track and make some posts about the Tokyo and Prefectural orientations, moving in, crazy shopping, seeing the local castle (yes, you read that right, "local castle,") and whatever other random and hilarious Japanese Adventures I've had in the past month. 

But for now, since this is the first post I will make in Japan, I would like to ring it in with a bizarre anecdote that happened to me the other day. It is just the sort of confusing, humorously nonsensical thing that happens to you on a daily basis once you move to Japan. It goes like this: 

For a very long time (almost two weeks!) I have been expecting something in the mail from home. And, for a very long time, absolutely nothing came. And then one day, I got some mail! But it wasn't from home. In fact, it was very clearly Japanese. And it came in a highly unusual package.




It was soft and floppy, and seemed to lack any sign that such a thing could legally be sent through the mail in this or any country. And yet, there it was. It seemed as though the outer package was nothing more than an unusually shaped plastic bag. It confused me so much I photographed it again.





There! That's much better.




So, having gotten through that stage of the confusion, I proceeded to open it.




Inside the plastic-bag-mail-package was nothing but a towel.
 
 




There was no note. No piece of paper. No explanation of what any of this meant. Simply...a towel. 





And the towel spoke for itself.







Now, I know a little Japanese, and can sound out the phonetic kana syllables, but I don't know enough kanji to read the more complicated Japanese characters. So to me, this towel says, "Blah-blah, tsu ba me, blah-blah (blah)." Not very informative. Luckily, on the other side, there was more.







"Oh, good!" I thought at first glance, "This is all in katakana! I can read this!" You see, katakana is the writing system the Japanese use to approximate the pronunciation of foreign words, and most often these words turn out to be in English. (For instance, if you can sound out the characters, "Intaneto" = Internet, "chyokoreto" = chocolate, "MakuDonarudo" = McDonald's, etc.) So, confidently, I began to read this katakana.


It says, "Kosumopuropan". 


...


Let me read that again.



"Kosumopuropan..."




...Yep. That's definitely what it says. 




"...Cosmopolitan?" No, it can't be. Then it would at least have a "T" sound in it. Maybe it's "Cosmo...puro...pan..."




...Yeah. That, um, that's totally it. 'Cause that makes a lot of sense.




"Kosumopuropan..." 






...I have no idea what this means.








...Oh, well...









...Thanks, Japan!!!








Wednesday, May 9, 2012

JAWS!


The JAWS ride at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida was always my favorite thing in the park. It's an awesome, exciting, and extremely fun romp through what alleges to be the actual town of Amity, where the JAWS movie (assumed to be a real, historical event in the world of this ride) was filmed. The ride rounds the corner, and all of a sudden you see the mangled wreckage of "the boat ahead of you" sinking from a shark attack, and from there on out it's a fiesta of truly terrifying and hilariously fun giant shark heads popping out of the water at high speeds, splashing and scaring the bejezus out of you. I was really upset to hear that it was closed this past January, but there are two very important things that help  soften the blow.

First of all, the original Universal Studios Tour in Hollywood, California, where the very concept for the theme park originated, still has a part with a boat tour around the set of JAWS that of course becomes a thrill ride of awesome gigantic robotic shark terror. That's one.

But the other, much more real reason why I am able to cope with the terrible loss of the Orlando JAWS ride is the fact that, in a faraway land that is like a strange parallel dimension of our own world, the JAWS ride lives on. I speak, of course, of Japan. 

You see, the JAWS ride at Universal Studios in Osaka, Japan is something of an unintentional parody of the American JAWS ride. This is because, in America, the actor who drives the boat is usually a young, masculine American guy in a short-sleeved muscle-man T-shirt. You know, somebody who you could reasonably see fighting JAWS because they look badass. 

























...Well, in Japan, the JAWS ride is piloted by a tiny little Japanese woman in a pillbox hat, white gloves, and a formal women's sailor suit.


























So, when we round the corner and get to the part where the shark attacks begin, it goes something like this:



































































And that is how a sweet little Japanese woman killed JAWS. I will never forget this moment. It was probably the most abrupt character transformation I have ever seen in my life. It was the year 2005, at the JAWS ride in Osaka Japan, and I think I laughed so hard I cried. It is for this reason that I kind of hold the Japanese JAWS ride as a secretly higher favorite than the American version. 

And so, whether the JAWS ride in Orlando, Florida is gone forever or not, I know that the Japanese JAWS ride lives on to this day, both in reality and in my ridiculous JAWS-loving heart!

Friday, April 27, 2012

THE BLOG!!!

Ok. So, I have a confession to make. Every time I hear the word "blog," this is what I think of:


Like the word itself, the creature known as a "blog" is something of a cross between a bog and The Blob.


Do you see it? That's what this thing is! There's no avoiding it. For years, every time the word "blog" has been mentioned, I have pictured this creature. And I always will. It is simply what they look like. So, everyone, this is it. This is my blog. I hope you enjoy!