Because somebody somewhere probably demanded it...
= or =
I think, of anyone who has ever been in a foreign country, I have just about the most boring collection of photos ever. There's no pictures of pristine waterfalls. No pictures of ancient wooden temples older than time. No photos of bustling marketplaces full of lively crowds. And no (or at least very few) of me vomiting up my last couple beers along with my dinner and most of my lunch in some exotic gutter on the street. No, tain't none o' that. What we have instead, however, is lots of photos of me with some doofy smile plastered on my face; perhaps flanked by people who are of little consequence other than serving as context to said doofy smile. Well. Anyway. If you want doofy smiles, this is the place to be. Now let's get on with it before I shoot myself.
Good God, these photos are literally like 5,000 years old. Well, not really. I hate when people misuse the word "literally". I mean, you guys do realize that if you say "literally", then whatever you are describing actually, truly did happen pretty much exactly as you just said it, right? SO STOP USING IT WHEN SOMETHING DIDN'T ACTUALLY LITERALLY HAPPEN. Anyway, yes, the photos; which are literally, uh, 4 months old:
Anyway, these were taken in January, I think, during some soba-making class or somesuch nonsense in the neighboring town of Usuda, home of Paolo-sensei, and a few thousand miscellaneous yellow people, I guess. It was supposed to be all about having young people in the area learn how to make soba noodles, but since we all uniformly sucked at it it ended up being creaky old Japanese women actually making it while the rest of us stood there and tried to feign in interest in the culture. Well, we also did eat it later, and I dunno about you, but a free meal never fails to make MY day.
Oh yeah, this is supposed to be a photo article. Well, here I am, captured at the very height of the yellow shirt/green pants fashion trend, which I'm sure you all remember as being all the rage in certain parts of the world; such as on whatever particular tile of the floor I happened to be standing at the moment. Also feel free to add this photo to your picto-graphic timeline tracking the weed-like development of my awful-ass hair. No, not awful ass-hair. Awful-ass...shut up. Anyway, you will also no doubt note neighborhood chums Mark and Keiko trying desperately to look half as awesome as me.
Of course, before we were kicked off soba-duty, we did each take our shots. Here's a couple photos of people I know failing with variable degrees of misery:
Now as much as I rag on my friends' soba-makin' skills, I was clearly the worst of the bunch since when I was attempting to slice the dough into soba-style thin noodles, the old woman supervising me made some wisecrack about it looking more like udon-style thick noodles. Ha ha! I buried her in a very shallow grave. "Udon", indeed.
If I had better photoshop skills, there would be a "The Soyanos" logo written in the style of "The Sopranos" right about here. But I don't, so you'll just have to make do with your imagination. Pop-culture puns! Envision the hilarity!
The Soyanos are a nice family that live about a 5-minute drive from my apartment. I sit next to Mr. Soyano in the Board of Education, and fairly often he invites me to his house to have dinner with his family; and, almost invariably, spend the night in the guest room. Yeah, it doesn't make much sense for me to stay given the ridiculously short distance between our houses, but whatever. It's nice, I think. Almost ridiculously hospitable, but nice.
Well, on one particular occasion I was invited because the 15 year-old SON of all people was cooking dinner. Now, I don't know if you know much about Japanese people, but one won't often find grown men doing much cooking other than as part of some hilarious reality TV show, much less the teenage son. However, when I got there, there was young, quiet Takashi, decked out in an apron and everything, slaving away at a hot wok. I guess this just goes to show you not all stereotypes are true. If only the Mexican portion of my audience could overcome their illiteracy long enough to soak in the wisdom of that sentence.
Anyway, turns out the son was cooking to prepare for the trip to Canada he would be making with his class soon. He was going to stay with a host family and cook for them to show some of his gratitude. And, in his mother's words, "We wanted some Western taste buds to test out his cooking on." Well. I'm going to refrain from wondering if there was an ulterior motive every other time I was invited too. Bring on the grub!
Ah, what a nice family. Kid's not a bad cook, neither! It's too bad the little girl is scared to death of me. I have that effect on children, it seems.
Ah, curling; the sport of kings! I'm sorry, did I say kings? I meant huge, giant, tools. Curling came into being when two really bad archaelogists found a broom and a rock in the dirt and decided they must go together somehow. The fact that it became an Olympic sport is an obscene perversion of reality. Really, if you find yourself playing curling it is a clear admission that you are sincerely horrible at everything else.
Anyhoo, here's some leftover pics from when I served as translator for the 2002 International Curling Competition. I may think curling is the stupidest thing ever, but I'm still putting that on my resume.
In regards to that last one, if I may be a stereotypical guy for a second -- okay, it doesn't really come across in that photo but GOOD LORD the European teams were good-lookin'. I mean Christ; if their CURLING teams look that good the people who play actual sports must be goddesses walking the earth.
Uh, moving right along...
This is here for no other reason than to show I am awesome at darts.
Ah, the special school, my secret retarded sanctuary. I love this goddamn school. I have never ever EVER had a bad day at this school; the students are all happy as hell and the teachers are just some of the most energetic people I've ever met. Believe me when I say I far prefer "special" students to normal ones. Special students are never assholes. Whereas I fully believe little kids are progressively becoming more and more little shits worldwide, special needs students don't even understand the CONCEPT of trying to act cool. I was talking with one of the seniors right before graduation, and asked what she planned on doing now. She responded: "Well, my major was cleaning, so I'm probably going to work for a cleaning company" and looked happy as a clam about it.
"I majored in cleaning."
Gods. I found this response both profoundly heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time.
Kids these days, yours truly much of the time, think they just deserve all the excesses they could ever imagine without having done shit to deserve it. Moreover they have been trained to think that if they do not get a high-paying position in some faceless company or some amazing, romantic dream job, or god forbid become a doctor or lawyer, then they have failed completely in their professional lives. Then, there's this special needs girl, who has ever so slight of a learning disability, honestly, truly grateful that someone has taught her how to clean well enough so she can make a living. Whatever disabilities they were born with I look at my retarded students as human beings in the purest form. Sometimes I think their only real handicap is an inability to absorb the more bullshit lessons of society. You can tell them not to do something because people will laugh, or not to be too interested in something because that makes them uncool, but they won't listen, or just plain won't understand. Either way, it won't make much sense to them. Sometimes that don't seem like too bad of a deal to me.
Yeah, some of them actively drool on me. But somehow, I'm much more comfortable being in a room full of six or seven autistic kids than I am with my usual 20-some regular students. Actually, I guess that's not too much of a mystery -- autistic kids can't really speak, so the language barrier ceases being the usual constant source of stress it always is.
I would go here every day if I could.
Uh, oh yeah, aren't I supposed to put PHOTOS here? Here we go!
Perhaps one of my most memorable experiences at the special school was when a little kid came up to me after lunch, handed me a tiny white toothbrush, and stood waiting in front of me with his mouth open as wide as he could manage. Of course it seems obvious right now, but at the time I believe my reaction was more along the lines of "What the shit do you want me to do with this?" I paint myself as some kind of patron saint of retarded kids but the awful truth is I still have my hangups about them. Fact of the matter is, if I was a regular teacher at that school, I would probably feel somewhat different about them. Mostly because, well, I'd have to help them use the bathroom and stuff. Yes, that sounds horrible. But I swear it has nothing to do with their disabilities. I just try to avoid actively watching ANYONE shit, retarded or not, as much as possible. Furthermore, I don't care WHAT my babysitter had to do for me when I was little but Galvin don't wipe up for NOBODY, you know what I mean?
Okay, so brushing someone's teeth for them is a far cry from handling Cleanup in Aisle 2, but still. Only under very specific circumstances do I want my fingers in someone else's mouth. However, I quickly got over my immature little hygenic hangups in the same way I deal with many things in this country: submerging myself in the absurd novelty of it. Look at me brushin' up a storm here, and tell me I don't look like I'm downright enjoying myself. Also you will note the cosmetic dangers in using far too much conditioner in one's hair (Awful Hair Rating: -3 Mullet).
Well, to finish off this section here's a nice little photo I took with the class that day:
Ain't that a sweet picture? Actually the minute I saw it it struck me that it looks like the last scene in the opening credits of some awful, awful sitcom; either from the early 80s or broadcast on UPN, or both. Anyway, to help you picture it I fixed it up like so:
And no, "growing pains" is not meant as any sort of tasteless pun given what kind of school it is, asshole. But come on, tell me you can't imagine some vapid TV exec pitching the idea to his superiors. Or is that just me being cynical again?
As you may know, I spent my New Year's in Kobe and as such, thought I may as well put up a few photos, even though I didn't take very many. Well then, let's get right to it then.
I went down to Kobe with my homey Mike, pictured here apparently trying to rip off a beer vending machine. That's his old friend Kathy on the left, an all-around cool girl who let us stay with her and cooked us like half our meals to boot. Just to get you in the Kobe mood, here's a random picture of Kathy's neighborhood that I took:
Enthralling, yes? But something's missing that I can't quite put my finger on...
...oh yes, that's right. What this boring photo of a generic street really needs is my big honkin' logo on it. Y'know, just in case someone tries to steal it because lord knows photos like these are oh so very interesting and I'd to have anyone steal my intellectual property:
Right, now that I'm done making underhanded jabs at other blogs, let's move on. During this trip, I only actually managed to see one temple, pictured here. I don't remember the name; but let's face it, once you've seen one temple you've pretty much seen them all. Anyway, I suppose more accurately, that's the front gate of it, and since it was around the New Year's holiday lots of vendors set up shop in front of it, just like a little festival. They sold the typical fare -- yakisoba, deep-fried chicken, okonomiyaki, and octopus balls (that being bits of octopus in balls of batter, not what you're probably thinking). Oh, and of course, pornographic calendars and disturbingly realistic air guns. Because y'know, nothing says spiritual purity like porno and firearms. Jesus Christ; I never thought I'd say this but sometimes I think this country could really benefit from some overly stringent Christian morals.
Right, so then inside the temple. This here be where the religious folk toss in coins, for good luck or granted wishes or whatnot. Hell if I know. All I know is the thing is practically the size of an Olympic swimming pool and yet somehow despite standing five feet away I still managed to completely miss it when tossing my 5-yen piece. Incidentally, I wished for my life to stop sucking, but seeing as I airballed it I guess I can count on that not happening anytime soon.
Speaking of wishes, these things. See, fork over some cash and you can get a piece of wood to hang up, on which you write your wish. As you can see, quite a few people have unfulfilled desires in Japan. I've never done it, but I do get a great kick out of reading each other's wishes. Mostly it's people wishing to pass college entrance exams, but occasionally you find some from apparently extremely vapid folk. My favorite one that I've ever seen read, and I quote, "I want to be a famous pop star like Britney Spears; also I want a mini-disc player." Again, see? Some overbearing Christian values are in order.
Couple of random photos inside the temple: first a random little girl with a funny mask on her head, and another shot of the actual temple. You'll notice the presence of strangers in that second one. That's because it's one of my secret pointless pleasures to take photos of strangers who are already posing for other people's photos. I'm not sure why, I just get a kick out of it.
Final photo: I noted that Kobe has the famed women-only cars on its trains. Why, you ask? Why, to help curb the chronic groping epidemic that characterizes Japanese trains during rush-hour. Incidentally, it should also be noted that since last year, all cellular phones that come equipped with digital cameras have been made to make a loud clicking noise whenever taking a photo to discourage people from taking pictures up women's skirts on crowded trains. Again, what is needed here? Say it with me: stringest Christian morals.
