Like A Snow Day...Except With Typhoons Instead of Snow

I’m writing this at 2:30 PM on weekday. Do you know why?

Typhoon Day!! Classes are cancelled!

And justifiably so. I usually have no respect for the weather, but this typhoon definitely has my attention, and Chaba is not to be fucked with. I’m not sure Japan uses any sort of scale, but for those of you from the U.S. Chaba is the equivalent of a category 4 Hurricane.

Look at her (him?), it definitely warrants respect:



Like anything else, the anticipation is better than the act itself, and the anticipation surrounding a typhoon has the same sort of magic as the anticipation surrounding a possible snow day. Maybe it’s even better than a snow day because the anticipation for a typhoon can be dragged out for days as it spins and meanders across the ocean.

I, like most others, was hoping for the typhoon’s fury on Friday, thereby creating a 3 day weekend, but when I woke up to what sounded like my hood over the stove being annoyingly and non-rhythmically hammered on, I knew the day had arrived.

I was immediately wide awake as a million typhoon-related thoughts and plans raced through my mind, severely complicated by the fact that I don’t have a cell phone. First was, ‘OK, is this bad enough for them to cancel school (Yes)?’ then, ‘OK how do I make sure it’s cancelled before I just don’t show up?’ This was a little complicated due to the lack of cell phone, so I decided it was safest if I just got ready and went to work.

I had no idea what I was up against. It took exactly 2 and a half seconds for my umbrella to not only be turned inside out, but completely destroyed. So I wasn’t fucking around when I went to catch a cab. Having arrived at school I was shocked when I was told that there would be classes, as the ‘Official’ warning from the Prefecture had not been given. So Japanese. So I got through one class and 5 minutes into another when it became ‘Official’.

A major typhoon doesn’t just spring up out of nowhere, I’m pretty sure we all had plenty of warning, why not save everyone the trouble and cancel school before it begins, as we all know damn well when the typhoon will be making landfall? Because this is Japan and that wouldn’t be the ‘Right’ way to do it. That’s why.

So I was driven home by a teacher, and while I won’t say I was scared, it was one of maybe two times I’ve been nervous while in a car. Just because the wind was incredible and driving down tree-lined streets seemed like we were begging for a ‘Final Destination’ type ending to our lives.

By the time we got to my apartment it was an honest struggle to not fall over because of the wind.

Then I discovered I conveniently have nothing to eat. So I’ve spent the time cleaning and waiting for the wind to die down to levels where the odds of getting impaled by flying objects are less than 95%.

Pop Culture Tuesdays XV

I don’t particularly care for subject of this week’s post, but to do a series on Japanese Pop Culture and not mention them would be a serious oversight. Possibly bordering on the criminal.

I’m talking about the subject of every Otaku’s Saturday-night masturbation sessions…

AKB48!

They’re kitschy and tacky to be sure, but they also annoy the everliving shit out of me, and I just can’t like them.

Or maybe I don’t like them because they so shamelessly whore themselves for their target audience. Yet, because I’m human and have the capacity to hold contradictory feelings at the same time, I also respect the fact that they are so transparently devoted to attracting and keeping their fan base.

First some background information, then let’s take a look at what I’m talking about (All information is lifted from Wikipedia, because I know next to nothing, and want to know nothing, about this group.).

So AKB48 stands for Akihabara (the Tokyo Otaku district where their theatre, and fan base, are located) and the 48 stands for the 48 members of the group. The group is divided into three teams (A, K, and B…clever!) of girl-nextdoorsy Japanese women (though ‘girls’ is probably more accurate than women, as most are even younger than me). In their theatre they have their show everyday of the week and several times on the weekend.

If the shows are anything like the music videos it’s pretty much all about creating incredible amounts of sexual tension while faking innocence and pretending nothing’s going on. With some shitty, Disney-esque song playing at the same time.

Actually, that’s a pretty accurate description. AKB48: Like “High School Musical” but with lots of fanservice and thinly veiled sexuality!

Let’s have a look!





It’s so not my thing, but they’ve got their shtick down so well I can completely see how some people could find this hot, and are totally on the edge of their seats shouting at the computer “Kiss! Do it!!” (I admit the girl in the Sexy Cat Costume playing with the chandelier got me as close as I’ll get to liking this.).

But what’s with the one with short hair?? I guess it’s for the guys who are into that, but seriously, short hair on Japanese women is only for female members of the Diet.

And you totally know that after their 19th show on Saturday they’re herded back into their 48 stackable, pet-shop-style kennels and given dinner with those water bottles that hang on the sides of the cage.

It's Not You, It's Me

My dear,

While it is certainly true that things go infinitely more smoothly with you, that doesn’t nearly make up for your serious flaws. And while it’s also true that I’ve seriously almost walked out of the room because of how difficult my new lover can be, these instances are the minority and this would never be enough for me to dread seeing them like I dread seeing you.

While I can hear all the experienced (jaded) lovers in the world telling me in unison “Yeah, it’s easy to say that, you’ve been with your exciting lover for a grand total of 3 months, you’re young and idealistic, and you know this is not permanent. Try doing it for 30 years and see how it wears on you.”

Maybe that’s a valid point. I’ll never know.

What I do know is that you are cold and lifeless, you have no personality (or are too well-behaved/conditioned to show it), your friends are oblivious and have seriously misplaced priorities, and every meeting with you is generally predictable and unstimulating. I’m generally disinterested and detached when I’m with you, because there’s no room for anything else; it seems completely inappropriate to have a personality or joke around when no one else is doing it.

My new lover is full of personality, quirks, and life. Everything about them is much more genuine and sincere. New Lover’s friends are much less inhibited, way more down to earth, and, in short, everything is much more real.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not Romanticizing New Lover (well, maybe a little). There are definitely serious flaws, and there is also a quite a bit of sadness, but this only adds to the ‘realness’, and honestly, makes the whole experience much more grounded, healthy, and satisfying. And despite the fact that there are often some communication difficulties, I feel like the interactions are much more fulfilling than anything I could ever have with you.

And for all of New Lover’s flaws, I’ve yet to be bored with them. I can’t stand to be bored, and I’m not only bored with your conversations and friends, but I’m bored with you. Bored with the atmosphere, and bored with your lack of enthusiasm and life.

I want to connect with you, but it’s not happening; you just won’t let me.

My dear, Academic School, as you may have suspected by now, I’m breaking up with you. I’ve found someone better. Someone with a personality. Someone who doesn’t bore me to tears. Yes, my new lover Technical High School can be difficult at times, but I prefer difficulty over total lifelessness. Though we have to continue to see each other, let’s keep up the façade, purely for the sake of professionalism, OK?


Sayonara,

Yours Truly


P.S. You left a pair of shoes and your toothbrush here. If you want to pick them up, they’ll be with the doorman.

Pop Culture Tuesdays XIV

Oh man, where to begin with this one?

This video is such a crash course in Japanese culture and Japanese/Foreigner relations.

Seriously, there are some really profound things going on in this video. Really. I promise. I’m not just posting it for the drag.

For the typical Westerner, one might watch this video and go, “Oh those tacky and crazy Japanese, does their self-degradation-for-a-cheap-laugh know no bounds?”

Yet, this video is making fun exactly of that uniformed Westerner.

First, in case you missed it, the singers are in drag. The group is supposed to be a mother and her two daughters from Nevada who are trying to make it big as a singing group (as a side adventure, they’re also looking for their long-lost father). Just the costumes are telling; in this family unit from America you have the slutty Mom with a giant chest and huge ass, the daughter with blonde hair, and the other daughter with the Afro (and it’s interesting that the one character with distinctly African-American features is also portrayed as the most masculine). Because, you know, that’s American.

So they come to Japan and the song is basically about how they make total asses of themselves (and by obvious extrapolation, is meant to portray all Westerners) and put themselves permanently on the outside of Japanese culture.

The video strikes me as a great primer on the essential Japanese phenomenon of Honne/Tatemae (You're a big kid, you can Wikipedia it on your own if you need to.)

Although I like the video, and I definitely think it’s clever, as a foreigner in Japan it obviously makes me a little uneasy and possibly paranoid. I watch this video knowing full well that Japanese watch it and have a good laugh at the ignorant Westerner’s expense, agreeing among themselves that “It’s so true!”.

Yet, it may also be that the video is a parody of Japanese cultural phenomenon as well. I don’t know, it could probably be argued either way.

There’s definitely a lot of good-natured fun, and it is really smart, but it seems that there’s something also a little passive-aggressive and more critical right below the good natured fun…

It’s so Japanese!

A Tale of Two Schools (Part Two)

(This is a continuation of the last post, so you might want to read it to get a fuller picture. Or don’t; each also works on its own. Consider this a stand-alone-sequel post.)

For whatever reason, my supervisor (at the high academic high school) is fascinated by the wealth gap in America. He also likes to claim, much to my visible and vocal disgust (or at least as visible/vocal as one can get to a superior in Japan), that Japan does not have such a wealth gap.

I would like him to explain my technical high school to me then. Tell me about the high school literally in the shadow of a raised six lane highway and deafening recycling plant. Explain the school full of students who have been written off, a school where even the ones who know about, want, and can achieve something better are denied because of circumstances they didn’t ask to be born into.

Admittedly, not every student at this school looks up at me with giant deer-like eyes that silently wonder what they did to get so fucked by the world. Most are blissfully ignorant and don’t know or care about anything better.

But for the ones, like the student from the last post, who are willing to work for something better but are so concretely denied by a wealth gap that allegedly ‘doesn’t exist’, it is unbearably sad.

So many of the kids are so visibly poor I don’t even want to imagine their lives outside of school. And then there’s the ones who try so desperately to hide it but can’t. You know, the kids who have that one gaudy, highly visible designer thing that they cling to like it keeps them alive. It’s usually a Louis Vuitton wallet that’s always in plain sight, but it just doesn’t fit with the rest of their appearance. These kids are saddest because they clearly know where they stand in society, and need to buy these things they so clearly can’t afford as a sort of public denial of their poverty.

It would be so easy for me if the kids were fundamentally bad kids, then I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about them and wouldn’t have so many complex feelings for them. But they’re not, and it’s so painful when I see kids whose goddamn shoes are barely being held together, kids who are clearly going through things I could never imagine, somehow still give effort in totally irrelevant English class or become visibly frustrated when they want to tell me about something, but just can’t break the communication barrier.

So, to those like my oblivious assclown of a supervisor who claim the wealth gap is virtually non-existent in Japan, I encourage you to walk with me from the high school to the bus stop. Walk from the school, next to the recycling plant, walk down the street lined with factories that reek of paint, past the homeless guy under the highway, and stand with me as I and the students who legitimately want a future but are denied one wait for the bus.

Then tell me there is no wealth gap in Japan.

(Sorry for the somewhat heavy posts, but sometimes it's important to remember that life is real, and not just made of shiny pretty-boys in eye shadow or tacky commecials.)