Japanese Observances – The Continue Saga

Curry Crazy
Am I in Japan or am I in India? When I walk down certain aisles of the grocery stores I have to wonder. Curry in a can. Curry in solid bricks. Curry with rice. Curry with pork. Curry with chicken. Curry in silver bags. Hell, even Pikachu is pimping curry out here. Yes, Japan is Curry Crazy, as if the entire country has David Lister Syndrome without the lager. Pronounce pretty much the same way only spelt kare, it is said that the Japanese consume curry two or three times a week making it the Canadian equivalent of moose meat and the American equivalent of a Big Mac. Ziiing! The popular way to eat curry, a lot less spicy then what you get in Indian joints back home, is on rice. This is one of the few dishes here that you are not expected to eat with chopsticks. Loving spicy food and instruments that serve as more logical means of getting said spicy food into my mouth, I have to say I love my Japanese curry. Curry crawled out of the ocean and first settled on somebody’s plate during the Meiji era (1869-1913). Any Japanese curry haters out there can blame the British for the infestation. They prodded the stuff in after Sakoku ended along with Elton John and crappy Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals. It was first most welcomed by the military but soon all were caught up in the early 1900s curry craze. While the Americans were doing the Charleston the Japanese were feasting on curry. Kids are the ones who go most ga-ga over the stuff as a lot of the curry products at the grocery store are geared towards them. One of my classroom welcome questions to my kids is: “What food do you like?” If not ice cream, I usually get curry. They could actually combine as I have seen curry ice cream. Seen, mind you, not tasted. That stuff looks terrible. There is a local chain here called CoCo’s that I frequent whenever I find one. Their fried chicken curry is pretty darn tasty. Imagine my disappointment on my first visit when a clown didn’t bring my food to me. It did say CoCo’s, right? I have tried cooking this stuff myself and unless it is already in liquid form I don’t recommend it. The curry bars are atrocious once they finally melt after 8 hours of being in the pan. These things would be great for practical jokes on you folks back home, though. Go ahead, taste it, Japanese chocolate is excellent. Sigh. Why do I give away my dastardly plots? This is why I could never take over the world.

Let Me Go On Like Umbrellas In The Sun
It was either the Violent Femmes gag or somehow tying things into Cory Hart’s Sunglasses at Night. I failed at the latter. The former is your consolation prize. The umbrella, in Japan it’s not just for rain or Bat Man super villains anymore. When the sun is blazing out pop the umbrellas. This is actually a pretty good idea and I wonder why it hasn’t caught on in the Western World outside of vintage photographs of the Southern States. Well, fiddle-de-de. I appreciated the ingenuity of the Japanese until I was in a crowd of umbrellas one afternoon. As these weapons become unshelled I wanted to scream: Hey careful with those things. You’ll put somebody’s eye out, Ralphie! Umbrella dodging ranks right up there with bike avoidance when it comes to super powers you must possess to live in Japan. This explained all the umbrella stands outside of stores and restaurants a little better as I had been thinking that it surly couldn’t rain that much here to merit such consistent additions to places of business. Of course, this is the country that has added those Little Debbie Snack Cakes and Twinkies on the streets of even the smallest of towns. People tend to not mess around with umbrella style much here. Usually it is just a standard white. Somebody should put adds on these things. Sunscreen companies must loath these umbrellas. Personally, a lot of the people I see here are as pale as Data and could use a good tan. Lower the umbrellas and accept the good warm rays of the sun, I say. Revolt against popular umbrella shielding.

Small Dogs Or Large Hamsters? You Decide
The small dogs here crack me up because everybody here that owns one can instantly be compared to an elderly, Western woman. Why? Because people who own small dogs dress them up. This is the bane on the existence of all small dogs. Their curse, if you will. “Oh Christ, Larry, she didn’t put the pink sweater on you again, did she?” Poor little guys in their dog shoes and hats. Due to the petite nature of the bodily framework of the Japanese most dogs here are very compact and can fit inside a small coin purse. These are tiny buggers and, as my good friend Jay was once so fond of saying, I think “That’s not a dog. That’s a rat with a hippie wig.” You see these dressed up pooches being carted about like luggage in their little doggie outfits and as they pass they look up at you with the most depressed gazes. If these dogs had access to a gun they’d off themselves. Not much dog walking going on here. Lots of dog carrying. The animal is more like a fashion accessory, a bracelet or nipple clamps. The cats get exiled to shrines and the dogs get pink knit sweaters. PETA would have a field day in this country. Well, at least the Japanese don’t eat their pets. At least I don’t believe so. What a minute! I did find that pink sweater sleeve in my noodle dish this afternoon. AHHH!!! AHHHH!!!! AHHH!!!!

Irashaimas Is Not How The Japanese Sound When They Sneeze
If you plan on coming down to my current neck of the planet…wait, not a neck…Japan is more like a breast…mountainous and beautiful. Take two. If you plan on coming down to my breast of the planet and you go into, well, pretty much anywhere you will here the word “Irashaimas”. Please do not make the same mistake that I did and reply “gesundheit” (ah, what haven’t the Germans given us!). Irashaimas means, as you may have already have guessed, welcome. You will be hard pressed to find yourself welcomed so boisterously in Western locals but in Japan you step one two into a place of business and somebody will be hurling this word at you as thought it were three sticks of dynamite taped to a javelin. It is not just a soft or even a normal tone of voice welcome either. This is a near shout. Takes you by surprise sometimes. In most places the welcome will be echoed by all who are working or, if they are good, they all hit you with it in unison. It’s actually very charming and extremely polite to have an entire cooking and serving staff greet you when you come in for a bite. I always return the greeting with a large smile and small bow after the gesundheit incident. This is so common place that if I walk into a place and am not greeted in this fashion I feel a lack of professionalism in the staff or maybe they think that I don’t know what the word means so why say it. Mostly, I feel left out. Where’s my irashaimas? I’m a lonely, Western man in a strange land. This irashaimas is the closest thing I have to conversations with people not on the other end of a monitor. Please, 7-11 clerk, don’t take that away from me again or I just might have to take my flipping through your adult magazine rack with not intention to purchase business elsewhere.

Trees By Edward
Strolling around a Japanese neighborhood is a magical experience…for those of you that are fans of the Burton’s Edward Scissorhands. The trees here, oh the lovely trees are so perfectly groomed. They are trimmed better then those small dogs. Trimmed better then Tom Selleck's moustache during his Magnum days. Trimmed better than Jenna Jameson’s (daughter safe …daughter safe…daughter safe….) nostril hair. (shrug, yeah, that works) I have never seen anybody out pruning these trees, though. Do they do this under the cover of night? Do the trees just sprout out looking all Burton’esq and marvelously cut? Now these trees are not as exciting as those found in the film. No sir. Though they are trimmed perfectly they are, shape-wise, mighty bland. Strictly circles here. No deviation. No dinosaurs or sumo wrestlers. Hell, I’d even be happy with a trapezoid! Still, these trees are like no other I have seen outside of movie land. I came here thinking all the trees wold be tiny midget plants I’d have to watch out not to crush them like ants on the sidewalk. No, I can do better then that. Like Danny DeVito on the sidewalk. I was looking for bonsai and found sculpted unknowns bigger then a house. Stereotypical misconception strikes again. That and the Karate Kid Part III lied to me. I was thinking those bonsai trees would be everywhere. Thanks Miyagi. Next time, Johnny, sweep the leg! The trees look extra spooky at night on black backdrop as the circular shapes stand out. Some have resembled large people…you now, circular ones. Might make for a good horror story. Well pruned trees attack Tokyo. Godzilla enjoys a day off to play table tennis with Gamera.

The Bravest People In Japan
It is not the police that are the bravest people in Japan. Nope. Not the fire fighters, the people who sit in the front row at sumo contests or even us teachers who throw our asses out into possible Kancho territory day in a day out. I have said it before: the bravest people in Japan are girls between the ages of eight and thirteen. Everybody else here pretty much ignores me, some actually make it a point to. They glance, notice I am different in appearance then them, and then quickly look away. Young girls are quite the opposite. You have already read about my encounter with the autograph hounds in the cemetery but there have been many smaller instances where these girls will simply offer a loud “hello” as I pass by, big smiles when I return it, giggling as though I were some celebrity. Yesterday, on the train, I caught two such young girls actually sketching my picture in their notebooks, pointing in my direction and obviously chatting about me. Oh, if I only knew the language. One looked as though she were going to stand up and walk over but my stop thankfully came and I hurried off the train before I could be ambushed. I wasn’t in the mode. Is this how the celebs feel when they are pestered by the media? That night was not the norm, however, and I am usually quite happy to make conversation with these girls. Only for a short time, though. I don’t want people to think of me as a lecherous foreigner. I’ll save my lechery for the cute Starbucks girl in Nara who won’t say anything to me outside of her job criteria. In a country where I would love to have some female companionship the only girls that are willing to talk with me are girls that are too young to ride this ride. Japan, why do you mock me so? They are usually pretty polite about their greetings to us English type and comparisons to paparazzi are not very solid ones. I was followed once, though, back in training, by two girls with a stick that glowed in the dark. That experience was Lynchian weird. This usually does not happen in big cities like Nara or Kyoto as they see a good deal of foreign types every day but in the small towns where I teach I can be somewhat of a rare commodity. Why do you lose this bravery, girls, when you get to an age I am interested in? Is there some sort of gene that switches off in later years? Inquiring minds want to know.

Train Head Pinball Wizard
Ever since I go there I’ve played the train head ball
From Kyoto down to Nara, I must have played them all
The dodging and avoiding, the hoping they don’t fall
This small town Canadian kid sure plays some good head ball

Train Head Pinball, a game of my own design, can be played at all hours of the day but is usually best in the later hours. The rules are simple: Sit next to any Japanese person that looks particularly exhausted. Await the closing of the train doors. You are now in the game. Most Japanese commute via train. It really seems like cars are a lot less prominent on the road here. Trains are the way to go, especially in the small cities I teach in. Train rides are quite soothing and relaxing when you are able to sit down and do so. Combine this with the tiredness usually felt after the work day and you now have a slew of people who treat train seats like comfortable beds. It is as though they release some sort of sleeping gas into the train car, like the Joker did once on that old Batman episode…or was that a Bond film? Anyway, people nod off left and right and if you happen to be sitting next to one of these sleepers you can play Train Head Pinball and become a wizard like me. Basically, avoidance is key. As the train rolls down the track the inertia pulls the sleeping beauties in a certain direction. Most times it is mine. If you are not paying attention you could very well be knocked unconscious by one of these swaying heads. Shifting slightly in your seat in the opposite direction helps but usually you have no room to do so. You are left with having to rely on your reflexes. Watch out of the corner of an eye, don’t gaze at the sleeper. This could prove to be embarrassing should the sleep open an eye. It also makes you look perverse if the sleeper is a girl in a revealing skimpy outfit. Gentle nudging is the key here, folks. If the head drifts too closely into your personal space a slight nudge can keep it at bay for perhaps the entire remainder of your train ride. You must nudge gently, though. A forceful push could send a head into a head and your domino effect how has injured several people. Mastering Train Head Pinball takes much practice. Now, the question is often posed to me: What do you do if you are caught between two sleepers. Easy. You stand up at the perfect moment so that they comedically smack heads thus canceling each other out. You are exonerated of all wrong doing here. You were simply thinking of your own welfare. Of course, you can have fun with this game. Should you be sitting next to an attractive sleeper you want to introduce yourself to let their head rest nicely on your shoulder. When they awake explain how you simply wanted to ensure they had a sound sleep and could not bring yourself to waking them. Best to avoid the possibly mace spray here, folks. Be ready. Be alert. Train Head Pinball can be a dangerous game but if played correctly it is a fine way to pass the time during your commutes. Be forewarned: if you drift off into dreamland on a train you are now a Head Pinball and no longer a player. Whatever you do don’t fall asleep. If you drift off you were warned. You could very well find yourself in the folds of some fat woman’s stomach gasping for air as the salty sweat from her body floods over like a disgusting waterfall and with every motion of the train you slide deeper into the flab, trapped in the obesity juices until all you will ever know is darkness. Drink lots of coffee, pump heavy metal music into your eyes and use large broom handles to prop yourself up and you will be just fine. Game on!