I'm set set

Every meal in Japan is healthy, except breakfast. At least so far. I haven't really figured out what Japanese people eat for breakfast yet, so I've basically been eating what I feel like. (I haven't moved in with my host family yet.) At about 9:30 I went to the supermarket and picked up bread with strawberry jam stuffed inside, bread with a solid layer of honey in the middle, and really iced bread that looked like a half-hearted cinnamon roll without the cinnamon. I only ate the first and the third and it just gave me a sugar high. You'll have to excuse me for that.

One thing I've wanted to get down since last morning is this thought. I may be able to immerse myself in the culture and the environment by living with a Japanese family, but I can never really know what it's like to be 日本人(nihonjin = Japanese). If I could somehow switch bodies (or souls, or however you see this) with a Japanese person for a day... wait, this seems familiar. Ah, yes. Let me recall a game called Shenmue for the Sega Dreamcast.

Back when I played it, I thought this was the best game ever. In fact, going back and playing it now, it's quite boring. The game was a commercial failure because it focused more on recreating a real-life environment than on having fun gameplay. It was rather epic: I have a copy of a Guinness Book of World Records book from some years ago that said that Shenmue was the most expensive game of all time. It's probable that the game no longer holds the record, but there's a reason the series was never finished. A sequel, Shenmue II, was released for Japanese and European Dreamcast and American XBox consoles, and wasn't much successful either, although they put more action into that game.

What was the plot? It's the year 1986. You're an 18-year-old Japanese dude well-trained in the martial arts by your father, who is killed in an epic showdown with another martial-arts expert from China whose name you know to be "Lan Di." You see him die in the dojo that's part of your house, and you try but can do nothing to save him. Why did he die? What were Lan Di and his accompanying mob looking for? That's what you set out to find. This is a fighting game where you spend most of your time walking or running around, asking people for info as to what the hell's going on. (There was a preview disc of this game released in Japan that showed off the fact that you can maintain a leisurely pace walking around, just taking in the beautiful environments of the game and not really hurrying. This didn't work because nobody wants to walk around slowly during a game, and especially not in Japan when time is of the essence. Or perhaps the creator of the game thought this would be appealing specifically because everything's so rushed in Japan. Well, it didn't really work.)

But one thing this game offers you that no other game does is the ability to walk around in a nihonjin's shoes. The environments, while graphically out of date, are extremely realistic when compared to actual day-to-day surroundings in Japan. At home, you have a curfew and you force yourself to follow it; the game makes you go to bed by 11 PM. (People don't break rules here. They just don't.) As soon as you buy a drink at the vending machine, you drink it there and you throw it away. (It's looked down upon in society to drink in public anywhere apart from the place you bought the drink.) Slot machines and pachinko are popular as all hell, and it's not evident why. You take off your shoes immediately after entering the house, and then you step up and into the house. Even the stepping up part is a short cutscene.

You see, all these things are there, and although I will be experiencing all of these while I'm at the homestay, there is certainly one thing that will not be the same, and that's the fact that I'm not Japanese. For sure, the communication will not be smooth at first. It's not just that, however. In Japan, when you're a foreigner, you're always a foreigner, at least as far as strangers and society in general is concerned. The question is, how much does this change on a person-to-person basis? One thing I'm very excited about is forming friendships with Japanese people here. It sounds shallow on the surface, but there's more to it than you'd think. One thing I've never done is become friends with someone across a whole other language. And I'm probably (hopefully!) going to be speaking more in Japanese than in my native language! That's crazy! That's really cool! And I've been running around doing a lot of things to prepare for my time here at school, so I haven't really had time to settle down and become friends with people yet. I'm really excited about what can happen over the next few months, not about classes, but about the interactions I have with people when I'm here. Eventually I'll learn what role I can play as a foreigner in this society, yes, but I'm more excited about the roles I can play as a friend here. And being a friend itself is not a role to play. It's being a friend. That's what's so exciting about this brief stay in Japan.

A few days ago, a professor here was filling us in about alien status in Japan, and he showed us his alien card, which he had had for 34 years. Thirty-four years!! I know that I learned in 6th grade English class that (as far as integers go) you're only supposed to use numerals for the numbers that are of three digits of larger when you're writing, but come on, 34 years. That's a long time to be in a country and to only be considered an alien. He's a "permanent resident." How tough is that? If he doesn't have his card on him, he could possibly be deported. Ouch. I have to keep my passport on me at all times. I do wonder whether Japanese residents have to have a national ID card. That sort of thing ("REAL ID") is happening in the United States, with the federal government forcing states to accept this ID thing or face funding cuts or something. Hopefully the Japanese don't have to put up with this nonsense we're having over in my country. I'm okay with having to walk around with an ID if it's not my own country. But in my own country, which, by the way, calls itself the "land of the free," it's ridiculous that I have to walk around with a card to constantly prove where I belong. And I have to pay for that card?

Home, stay.

I am quite tired tonight. I've been all over the place this week, including walking all over Kyoto today (actually, it was just in a section that surrounded a temple area), and I'm ready to go to bed. I won't remind myself of the time, because I really want to continue with my habit of sleeping this early. It's prevented me from going out at night and drinking, and stuff, but I'm never in the mood for it when the day is so exhausting, and satisfying.

Yesterday I went for a run in the morning but had to come back early because I was too dehydrated, and then I figured out I didn't have time to both go for a run and walk to campus on time, so I decided to run to campus with my bookbag and my iPod shuffle that's finally starting to see some use. There's something really awesome about listening to the 日本文化-inspired (Japanese-culture-inspired) Kanye West while strolling to a 7-Eleven to get breakfast before anything happens on campus. Mmm, I want my daily パン (bread) with strawberry jam (jelly?) in it. Yum, yum. And it's cheap, too. It's about 150円 (I can't find the other yen symbol), or about $1.50, though I have no idea what the exchange rate is now.

I'm also starting to get back into the habit of doing stomach crunches, for which I use the couches in the Seminar House. I'm going to eventually have to use the gym for those, because I'm not going to be living in the Seminar House for long. I move in with my homestay family on Sunday, and I basically can't wait. Immersion, here I come. Plus, I don't have to make or pay for my own dinners, and the homestay was quite a decent price considering what I'm going to be able to get from it. My homestay mother is a piano teacher. Awesome! And just when I realized that we weren't going to be having a piano at our university.

The place I'm studying at now is called 関西外国語大学, or Kansai Gaikokugo Daigaku, or, as they call themselves whenever they print the name in English, Kansai Gaidai University. The "University" part is repetitive, because "Gaidai" is just a shortening of the two last words in the Japanese name, which translates to "Kansai University of Foreign Languages." It took me forever to realize this, over the course of multiple trips to the bathroom where 関西外国語大学 was written on the slippers. Basically, until then, I was calling it "Kansai Gaidai Daigaku" (Kansai University of Foreign Languages University) when I spoke with Japanese people. Oops.

In any case, that's why I probably won't find a piano here. However, on the other hand, we do have a couple of gyms available for international student use: the one that doesn't have treadmills (unless they're in the "student club building" adjacent), and the one near my dorm that doesn't have a pool (not that the other one does) that I haven't visited yet. I should explain the difference between the words "club" and "circle" in Japanese. The former means serious business; for instance, "Baseball Club" means "Baseball Team." The latter means what "club" means here. I'm hoping there's a "frisbee circle" and I heard that some dude with long (black?) hair and a beard in this Seminar House is interested in getting some frisbee started. Until then, I have to remember to walk around town and campus with my frisbee in hand and my cool look on my face. Yeaaah, ladies... except more like guys...

Well, I hear school has already started at Tufts. Guess what? I start Monday. Yeeah! It's so great to have orientation again; it's like being a freshman one more time. And then I have another orientation when I get to France. Until Monday, wait, no, TUESDAY, I'm free. Actually, I might sit in on a class on Monday, but it's upper level, so, no. I'm taking an introductory economics class and a sociology class, the latter of which should be especially interesting. I'm going to try to use both as social science credits. Yes, I should've taken one arts course here so I could get one of the two credits out of the way, but ehh, it doesn't matter. I can get that done in France. Unfortunately, if the sociology class ends up being intolerable, that won't make me very happy about taking another sociology course, which I've been intending to do when I get back to Tufts. Whatever. I guess I should take one of the--er, the only literature course just in case I decide I want to complete the Japanese major. I also have the option to stay another semester in Japan, which would save a lot of money and be a lot of fun, and really be great for learning. Apparently, spending another semester means getting infinitely better at the language. Unfortunately, I'd have to apply by October 18th if I want to do that, and, la France m'attend. But if I start to really love the homestay, I don't know... once you love something, it's pretty hard to break apart from it.

When I was at the temple in Kyoto today, there was one section where you would take something like a metal version of a measuring cup with an extended handle, this long metal rod with a cup at the end of it, and you'd drink from one of three streams of water falling from a stone roof overhead. You took the metal rod from an "ultraviolet cleaning device," or whatever it was, which was so effective that you couldn't look into the box because of the rays, and you returned it there afterwards. Sam, one of the two guys I was with, said that he knew the middle stream signified romance, and he didn't know what the other two meant. Well, I was going to go for the other two, but a father and his two kids went for the one to the left, and a middle-aged woman was in the process of filling her cup with the stream to the right, so I had no choice. I drank from the fountain of romance.

What a perfect day.

THE (obscure shape) STORE

So, today, I went shopping.

Walk twenty-five minutes towards Makino Station, winding your way through narrow roads, crosswalks where no one jaywalks, bewaring silent bicycles, humming mopeds and cars hardly audible compared to those in the US; then, you'll come across a charming line of shops, like a Japanese dessert shop and the "boutique se rappeler." Yes. I checked out some of the t-shirts, but found none novel enough for me to keep them, and went over to the bowling-arcade-pachinko place, which was perhaps as big and strange as the Sexodrome in Paris, just in a different way. They had EVERY modern Bemani game (Guitar Freaks, Drummania, Beatmania, Pop'n Music) except DDR. Shame.

I returned to Kansai Gaidai for the welcoming ceremony, initially scheduled for 3:00. Guess what time they changed it to right before the ceremony. 2:30. They changed it at like 2:08 PM, too. Thanks! Well, I got there right on time (3:00 on the dot) and that's when they started. No idea why they decided to call everyone to go over early when it takes 30 minutes to walk to campus from where the international students are housed and they didn't start then anyway.

The ceremony was epic; I felt like I was staring at a cross-section of the Japanese congress. There were about 74 people sitting in two groups of three rows facing towards the audience, all neatly dressed in suits and ties, listening to the speeches that ensued. It was worth it for Eriko's awesome speech at the end and the incredible all-you-can-eat-for-free dinner that followed the ceremony. I feel like I solidified a couple of friendships, too. There was supposed to be karaoke afterwards, but I couldn't find it for the life of me. Why???

Things in Japan are generally pretty confusing. T'was especially true today when I was on four hours of sleep and I was sloppy with speaking Japanese all over the place. I love it when I say "yes" to something and the thing completely opposite of what I expect to happen just happens. And I still don't understand how people think over here.

Let's take the (OBSCURE SHAPE) store. Yes, that's the name of the store, in the title. I have no clue on earth how you're supposed to pronounce the name of the store. It's seriously like an ellipse diced in two at a 35-degree angle from the vertical axis, and then the two parts separated but with something added back to one of the parts. What? When you go into the store, you are greeted with interesting deals, such as 5% OFF! on something that costs 1200 yen (about 12 dollars). There was also a SALE on shampoo, with the added comment, "FOR YOU WHO KNOW TRUE VALUES." Yes. I wanted to take pictures, but again, I was in the middle of a store without a bunch of rowdy gaikokujin. I'd probably look like a spy or a really scary foreigner. I'm going to find people to take pictures of these things with.

I love Japan. Japan loves me, too. I hope.
Alex

Of course

Yesterday I drew the number 293. It's a prime number ("I argue that this is trivial" - Professor Fulton Gonzalez; and yes, the solution he was talking about was indeed trivial, but it didn't seem like it to the untrained eye at ALL, especially after 70 minutes of straight nonstop lecture) and I wanted to have a chance to draw again. Apparently my dad has pro-gambling genes, so he made sure he never gambled. I will have to do the same.

Yesterday, I wasn't gambling though. I was drawing the registration number for my courses. 293 is solidly in the lower half of the numbers, so I will be registering an hour and 15 minutes later than I could've, which is good, because I haven't picked my courses yet. It being true that I've taken exclusively math, French, and Japanese courses at Tufts (with the exception of a half-credit computer science course), I really have no preference on what I take here, as long as I get into the right level of Japanese language courses. I'll probably take the introductory economics course (if it doesn't fill up before I get there) and one of the sociology courses. I'll have to pick the one that's less popular, because I don't really want to have to go back and change my registration tomorrow. You're supposed to come with your form ready, so you have no chance to know which courses have filled up by the time you got there.

My roommate has 17. Oh, if only I could trade numbers with him; I would have my differential equations professor's favorite number. (At like 9 AM in the morning I would be the only one laughing at his ridiculously awesome example of "17" being a constant of motion that did not satisfy some weird equation thing. He would use the number whenever he could.) Another prime number.

Yesterday, also, I didn't sleep well. I won't go into why. It has something to do with the color blue, though.

In Japan, I have seen the katakana コース used for the word "course." This would mean that the question "What courses are you taking?" would most directly translate, for a Japanese person, to "What course are you taking?". Of course, rarely is there a distinction in Japanese between plural and singular, so maybe I'm wrong. But the latter question is more interesting. What course am I taking? Should my class choice really be as random as the lottery number choice was? Of course not. I went to the faculty introduction session and basically found which professors I really, really liked, and I think I'm going to pick based on what I saw. Except I don't fully remember which of the non-Japanese professors (most professors weren't Japanese) I liked. Hmm, maybe I trust randomness more than I thought. What's the likelihood that choosing my "course" here badly would do me harm? Not much, really, as long as I don't choose upper level.

And how random is it that I'm here? I dunno, but I like it...
Alex

Laptops, GIVE ME FOOD

Let this be a warning for anyone who intends to use his laptop in Japan: if you have a three-prong plug, you're really screwed. Luckily, my dad has a three-prong to two-prong converter that should be getting sent over here soon enough before I have to get my laptop registered, but, uh, these converters are discontinued in the US so it's basically impossible to get them. That's unless EBay works some miracles, of course.

I'm tired and need more exercise. Some people can't believe that, probably, because we've been walking EVERYWHERE as it takes 25 minutes to get to campus and 20 minutes to walk to a supermarket. But the fact is, I need to give my sinuses and immune system a jolt, because they keep causing problems around my ears and my throat, an unenjoyable treat. Wait, what? Can I make up oxymorons? Anyway, I have a gym nearby that I don't really have time to get to or use. I'm not going to leave my bag in a locker unattended (they have locks but, to quote one of the dudes there that I asked, "nobody use."), with all my money in it (Japan is afraid of foreigners' credit cards and debit cards, which they should be I guess). So I guess, as far as today goes, I have to wait. I haven't found a DDR machine yet either.

I got a Facebook, but I don't want to waste my camera's batteries by uploading pictures. I want to put them on my laptop, because I'm running out of space on the camera, but, well, the laptop is of course a problem and I'd still be wasting my batteries. Ah, I guess I'm just lazy.

And I'm hungry. My God, they never serve you enough food here. Even at an all-you-can-eat last night they took too long to put out new food for it to be sufficient to last until today. So, to sum this all up, I'm feeling less healthy although what I'm eating is certainly a much more healthy diet.

But Japan still rocks my socks.

Tobacco, banking, decency

I hope my Tufts University water bottle is safe. I left it in the fridge, and if anyone took it I'd be pissed, though perplexed. (You couldn't really take it out in public without the chance that the person you stole it from went ahead and saw you.) I left it there to, um, dry off, because I figured that as the water would evaporate there'd be no problem with bacteria thanks to the refrigerator. See, I ended up wasting about half a Nalgene of store-bought spring water because I left it inside the freezer overnight. Then I tried to put tap water in it, and the tap water tasted like tobacco. Gross. So I cleaned it out and put it back in the freezer.

Boring. Next story. I went to the university at about 9:30 with a group of people I'd met, got there about 10:00 (yes, it takes that long to get there from university housing) and took the Japanese language placement test, which happened to mirror the order in which things showed up in my textbook exactly. They use the same textbooks. It was great, except for listening which was like hell.

Dull. A third try. Well, let's see. I went to the gym briefly but realized I had no time, and then the "Banking Session," in which a bunch of us tried to set up bank accounts with a Japanese bank. Let me tell you, and let this be a warning to Tufts students who go to Japan: setting up a bank account in Japan is ridiculously hard. And, if you'll excuse a third or a fourth "let," let me quote the person who introduced the banking session: "Welcome to the Banking Session. This is the most frustrating, irritating, and--interesting time" and I can't remember the rest. This being the last thing I would expect a Japanese person to say when presenting something, I thought it was quite hilarious.

Insipid, but not for you, the reader. What happened? Well, we had to write with "NO ERRORS"-- and what is an error? Well, you had to write your name and your address exactly as it showed up on the passport. This was not limited to whether a comma was in the name or not. This included whether the middle tip of your M stretched down to the bottom of the legs, whether the I had horizontal lines at the top, and so on. You couldn't even "over-write," e.g. write over a mark if you made a mistake in the direction the mark was initially going. NO MISTAKES. You had to write a signature two times, and it had to be the same both times. Eek. I invented a new signature for this purpose, about 1/20 the size of that on my passport, and that was acceptable. What a disaster. If you were jittery, there was no way you could've done this. Some people didn't finish at all and had to go home with penmanship homework (e.g. basically had to copy things perfectly at home and wait for the next banking session). Anyway...

Yeah. Later I took a tour of Makino Station, which was so-so until the restaurant, which had great food and awesome conversations. Definitely won't forget that soon.

And I'm spent.
Alex

Welcome to Japan, y'all.

Hmm, I'm tired. I thought I got eight hours of sleep last night, but I can't be fully sure. Either way, perhaps I needed more.

I woke up at 5:30 AM today, because I went to sleep at around 9:30 PM last night. I was tired! I wouldn't call myself jet-lagged, as much as exhausted from the flight, the travel from the airport, the walking around the city, and the summer. Yes, the summer. This summer I left no stone unturned; I did everything under the sun, while always under the sun. Nothing was better than the summer sun. I lived and breathed by the summer sun, and I still live under it here-- Japan (日本) is humid and scorching hot, temperatures probably close to 100°F with no forgiveness by way of sunscreen, yet. And I am still yet to adapt to it, but I want more. The gate was closed when I woke up, but now that more people are waking up they might open it. Either way, I'm stuck here until okasan opens the gate and lets us go out into the free world.

The free world? Relative to the US, is Japan a free country? As far as I can see now, it's probably freer for us foreigners than for the Japanese themselves, who follow a wild set of cultural rules so complicated that they don't expect foreigners to really understand them or abide by them. Or is it so complicated? Either way, what constitutes freedom in this country? I wonder what the answer to that is.

Hmm, do they have the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEAN Act too, or something like it? (Yes, it's actually called the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act. So absurd. I really wonder how long it took them to write that horrible bill, and how long it took them to come up with the words that would make that acronym possible.)

I'm getting tired of blogging, so I'll cut this post off here. Today, I have some sort of Language Lab orientation, as well as a campus tour to go to and a LOT of Japanese to review. In particular, I will have to practice writing. Well, maybe I'll leave something up for the Japanese people I've met to see, and we'll see how well it reads to them. Nah, too embarrassing for me to try to get that to happen.

さよなら。
Alex