December 2006 Archives

I had thought about this post, then dismissed it for being overly sentimental. It's a new trend I'm trying out, you see, not making syrupy blog posts. Still, I found a sweet spot in the mobile-phone-reception-black-hole that is my school today and spoke to my family quickly before they became too focused on their Christmas luncheon. Between the crackling signal strength and the background noises of mastication, I managed to drag myself into a far-away-from-home self pity which I'm trying not to think about too much.

Christmas over here is mostly just another Valentines-eque couples day, though there is a fair bit of Christmas present shopping all round. It's a matter of luck if you can get a Nintendo Wii or DS at the moment (literally luck - being in the right place when a shipment comes in or by entering a store's lottery for the available stock) and the department stores have been insanely full. The convenience store where I buy my cigarettes nearly every day even gave me a box of Christmas doughnuts (those lovely ladies). The family rituals are fairly absent though. I managed to be invited to a family dinner last night and ate a fantastic spread (turkey and stuffing oh my!) and managed to greet Christmas day with a decent hangover. Still, I've been thinking about family and all the extra-curricular families I've managed to be a part of. I miss them alot, even though theyve been time limited due to leases and shit working conditions. But I'd like to let some of these people know I've never forgotten. It's funny how some bonds are formed and last, even though the structure dissolves. Isn't it sublimation where a solid skips the liquid state and goes straight to gas? Sorry, I'm prevaricating...

Any casual traveler has to suffer illiteracy in the face of a non-native culture. All our little guidebooks can serve us the basic phrases to come across as charmingly stupid and still find out where the toilet is. Fortunately, the linguistic empire of English means that in some font and/or mistranslation, lots of basic information loiters about for consumption by the Western traveler making use of their first world affluence. While the most amusing export of Japan is its giddy misapplication of English grammar in advertising, notices, captions, product branding and t-shirt designs, you can still accomplish basic shopping, navigate the trains and read high-voltage cautions in a timely fashion. Another blessing is the katakana writing system for foreign words, through which you might be able to convey a few English nouns to a local by sticking a vowel on the end of each word (observe: "a dog and a cat" becomes "a dogu ando a cato"). Still, fumbling with what scraps of English are about only takes one so far and usually with a sharp decline in dignity.

I've been slowly progressing with the language studies enough that I might be able to have a (very polite) conversation with a 3 year old if they weren't so terrified of my yellow hair. My students still get a giggle out of me trying to talk to them on the after school bus, but at least I can order them about in class in their own language. Bank and post office trips are a little less embarrassing and I cause fewer queues, which means I have fewer angry locals ready to injure me. Still, there are more than enough times when I am defeated. The most current example was last week, having contracted my own personal dose of this year's flavor of winter virus. It seems that this not so pleasant critter is on the brink of epidemia here, but I'll save my review of it for a medical journal or something.

Having spent all of the first day of my misery on the couch, I thought seeing a doctor might be a practical idea. The choices were to figure out a local G.P. or just head into the hospital, the latter seeming like the easiest idea through a fever. One taxi ride later and I swaying in front of the mini metropolis of the city hospital. I had assumed that being an institution that seems kind of essential for human health, it might be linguistically accessible, but oh no. I stumbled around for a bit, having no clue where I was meant to go. Frustration and swirling cognitive processes were unable to untangle the jumbles of kanji, and most people seemed happy enough to let me stumble about lost. In the end i just taxied back home, curled up once more and grabbed a teacher the next day to take me to a G.P. near the school. But really, if my appendix were on the brink of combusting, I might have been slightly frakked. I'll happily trade the endearingly non-sensical smoking manners ads for a few translations of where I'm meant to go to see about punctured arteries in a hospital. I've heard of good English speaking doctors in Kobe and people working their way around other medical institutions, but I7m not sure if I can contain any live threatening situations to a more major city. Even just a few hints that the reception is this way would be nice.

Anyways, I should cease my griping. I suffered, I recovered and for some reason the doctor I eventually saw decided to pump something (no idea what) into my arm intravenously and I got to explore some groggy Enlightenment while I was at it (story for another time). I think the most frustrating thing about the language experience is the times when you really do need to beg time and favours from the locals to get you though otherwise simple and mostly private moments. Frustrating, embarrassing and karmic debt enlargening. Anyways, rant over.

there is a memory i still
have no place to leave
of her, with an authority
made from: a door with
her name on it,
a desk and embossed papers
with her name on them
and a jury of books
who's function was
to look worn and
be silent.
gesturing to the waterfalls
the sparkling detonations still
on her shelves, "my husband,
he collects waterfalls" she suggested
and i first thought of a stranger
who took twinkling and made of it
white rivets to fasten something
otherwise uninterrupted
in photo frames
but i nodded to respect
her name and papers and books
and a stranger who's relief was
suspending a collapse
while i was beneath a waterfall
trying to push the river
back uphill - she smiled
while i imagined
sisyphus calling me an amateur.