Below are the 15 most recent journal entries recorded in travisinjapan's LiveJournal:

Tuesday, April 4th, 2006
10:37 pm	( ^o^)/ \(@@ \) Every peoples, Well, looks like my adventure in Japan, long anticipated and much enjoyed, is winding down. With two months left to go, things are just piling up, one after another. I couldn't post last week because of how busy I was, and my inner Magic Eight Ball--the Eight Ball that exists inside each and every one of us--is tell me "All Signs Point to Yes" in regards to the business increasing. The coming two weeks hold preperations for an oral report on Corruption; recieving my dear friend Kyle for a week-and-a-half trip to Japan; a fifteen page paper; an hour long oral report on the Counseling industry in Japan; a Tigers baseball game; a cherry blossom viewing party; continuation of translation of a Japanese RPG for presentation at this coming Project A-Kon anime convention; and a whole host of other things that have not as yet reared their ugly heads. Last weekend, though, I took a weekend and visited Hiroshima. I posted on my last visit to Hiroshima a while ago, but this time was a little different. I saw Ms. Yamaoka's talk again, but this time she was much more jovial, almost jolly. She compared her hair when she awoke from the atomic bomb blast to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's. Also, her presentation was much shorter--an hour, as opposed to two. She also didn't get up to point to the map, staying in her seat and pointing with a pen. She's very, very tired. She has throat cancer, and some sort of other cancer. She just turned 76 in March, and I very much doubt she'll live to see 76 and a half. I think it's one of the reasons she's in such a good mood--Ms. Yamaoka is ready to die. She's ready to rejoin her mother, who take care of her before the Bomb, and after, until twenty-six years ago. This was the main reason why I went. This time, I rented a video camera and taped her presentation. Except for my terrible clumsy self bumping into the camera and knocking it out of frame (how do you DO it, Justin?), I was able to record the entire thing. While my post is perhaps more complete, this video is probably the last time she'll be at the Hiroshima museum. I'd be happy to give anyone a copy of it. It's an important and powerful message, and I see it as my duty now not to let it die. I spent the whole time last time at the Peace Park and museum, so this time I decided to see some of Hiroshima's other sites. I walked down Peace Boulevard (平和の道), and had a conversation with an older lady who was walking home. On a whim, I walked into the nearby Hijiyama mountain (I think that's what it was called), and ended up tracing the rough path the survivors of the atomic bomb took after they were attacked. I was trying to get to the Hiroshima contemporary art museum, but it was closed. I also had the opportunity to visit Miyajima, which is almost too beautiful to describe. That, and because I'm tired, means I'll wrap this up. I will answer some questions you may have about my trip to Miyajima: 1) yes, I did walk on hot coals, 2) yes, I did get bit by a dear, and 3) no, I couldn't find any good seashells. I looked, believe me. What else...oh, Japanese school is back in session, which means there's now about, oh, twentry BAZILLION people on our campus now. It's impossible to get food in the cafeteria. I'm eating ramen'till they start skipping classes more often. This piece wasn't very imformative, but what can I say? I'll be home soon enough to tell you all about what's happening to me now. I love you all, and I can't wait to hear what's been happening to you this past year. Can't wait at all. Love, Travis PS--The subject line is a couple of guys. The one on the left just threw a ball in the air with incredible joie de vivre, and the one on the right is anxious about catching it. No, you can't see the ball. That's why it's ART! PPS--Let's all sing a song for our friend and loyal TravisinJapan reader, Tom Delay, during this difficult, soul searching time. Aaaaaaaaaaall together now: "Happy Traaaaaaaaaails...to you...un-til, we-meet, ag-aaaaaaaaaaaain..." (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 15th, 2006
11:14 am	Tests to the left of me, Quizes to the right of me, here I am stuck in the middle with you... All, Hello again! Updating has been tough recently, sorry about that. It's Midterm time over here at KGU, so I've been studying (relatively) non-stop, only taking breaks to hit the conbini and get snacks. Well, and play this computer game I just got. And a whole bunch of other stuff. Anyway, this isn't about that. I wanna tell you about my Sunday. Sunday, I went to church. It was a wonderful, nostalgic expereince--we filed in, full of hope, joy, and love for one another. It had been a tough week, you could FEEL how everyone really needed this. We sat in our seats, chanted and sang. Many people lifted their voices in prayer. There were tears. It ended with a final song, and we all went home, refreshed and happy. No one was unmoved. Wait. Did I say "church"? I meant "a baseball game". I think I mentioned the Hanshin Tigers in a previous post, but this was the first time I got to see them live, and I'll tell you it was one of the greatest baseball expereinces in my life, right up there with Spring Training with the Giants, or this one time Dad, Kailen and I went to a game where the Rangers came back in the bottom of the ninth inning to score four runs and win the game, thanks to the back-to-back action of a three run homer with TWO OUTS by Juan Gonzalez, and a walk off single shot by Will "The Thrill" Clark. Yeah, it was that good. But man, was I in for a surprise. We went Sunday, we being me, my friend Karla (American), her friend Noriko (Japanese), HER friend Ayako (Japanese), and our friend Ian (English, which worried me, because I hear they don't like baseball). The stadium is called Koshien, and is perhaps the most famous stadium in Japan, for two reasons: the first is because the Hanshin Tigers, the underdogs often described as the "Red Sox of Japanese Baseball" by Americans play there regularly; but the real reson for it's fame is the second--it's the location of the annual Al-Japan Inter-High School Championship. Fifty teams from all over Japan play a HUGE tournament there every year. More people watch it than watch the Japanese World Series (The J-League). For the kids who dream to play there, it's literally a sacred place--a shrine filled with the written prayers of aspiring players to play in the Championship is nearby, and if a team loses, they bring home the dirt as an omamori (protective charm). The place FEELS sacred too: as you approach it, it's blocked by a train line, which means that as you pass underneath, it explodes into view, covered in vines and red brick. Right there in the front is a plaque which states proudly that Babe Ruth played here (I got a picture, more on that later). Our little group followed the huge crowd adorned in black, white and yellow to the ticket carrol (tickets only costed about $15 [1700 yen] for bleacher seats. But this is a pre-season game, so maybe that's why), and found our seats. I was hunkered down for some serious babseball action, but then I realized we were in the CHEERING SECTION. Now, many of you have been to a ball game with me, so you know how I do it: I like to sit in the cheap seats, somewhere we I can get out and back without missing to much or stepping on too many people. I like to shout encouragement to our players, mock the opposing team, and question the calls of the ump from roughly three-hundred and fifty feet away. This is how I do, you know. I see it as my job. Well in the cheering section, you already got a job: cheering. I'm sure you've cheered at a sporting event, bt not like this. At most games, football, hockey, baseball, whatever, you do the wave maybe, and you stomp your feet to We Will Rock You. If it's a school event, you sing the school song, you Hook 'Em Horns, or whatever. I think at UNT we have a claw or something. Well the Japanese do it different: they have a cheering song for EVERY SINGLE PLAYER! Not only that, but there are about five "generic cheers" which has a blank space to insert a players name. Then you have situational cheers: when a new pitcher shows up, when an oppsosing player gets out, when a double play happens, when a pitcher gets replaced, when a run is scored, all that! And this isn't "ra ra, biff boom ba" either--these are songs that are about courage, inner strength, honor and duty. We needed a hymnal. Plus, we had thunder sticks which were used as percussion. Thunder Sticks (they call them something like "gan gans" in Japanese) are two plastic sticks that you bang together at games, but every song also had an intricate percussive arrangement using these things. And it NEVER stopped! We actually missed the whole first inning because we were watching the cheer leader trying to get into it, figuring they would stop when the batter was up, but they don't! They only stop when the ball is in the air or he strikes out. Oh, and they stop while the other team is up to bat, unless they get out or something else bad happens. At first, it was really annoying. You're trying to watch a ball game, not start a symphony. But eventually you get really into it, and your hands and voice work by themselves while you wait for the next pitch. I actually got a bit too into it--when the ground crew came out, I started singing "GROUND CREW (bang bang) GROUND CREW (bang bang)" and I got a lot of stares. No room for a solo, I guess. As for the game itself, they were playing the Tokyo Giants--if the Tigers are the Sox, the Giants are the Yanks. Their tiny cheering section was dwarfed by ours. The game started off well, with an RBI in the second inning. It stayed 1-0 'till the seventh, where we scored a three run homer thanks to Hamanaka ("Hamanaaaaaaaka [bang bang bang} Hamanaaaaaaaaka [bang bang bang] Hamana-ka Go go GOOOO[bang]"), and a single shot in the eighth. The Giants made a meager showing in the top of the ninth with a two run home run, but the final score was 5-2 Tigers. Hello, Win column! So, a couple other things that were different before I wrap this up: When Japanese pitchers change (and they seem to never leave them in for more than three innings), they drive them out in a golf-cart that looks like a baseball, the purpose of which I can only conclude is to make him look ridiculous; there are no hot dogs at the park, but they have noodles and tea. And of course beer. But I don't drink unless the team is doing really bad; And at the seventh inning stretch, instead of singing (in fact, this is one of the ONLY times they don't), they release a huge bunch of baloons, which looks amazing. Okay, before I go: I have pictures, lots of them, but putting them here is a real pain. I'm looking for a method to put them where you can see them. I'm thinking about using my Yahoo account to host them, and just posting a link. Would that work with everyone? Well, that's that. I hope everyone is doing well. You can always send me an e-mail (katakana-b@ezweb.ne.jp), but only if you really love me :). Tune in next time when I talk about other stuff including: going to church in Japan, the Osaka Sumo tournament, and interviews with Japanese mental Health workers. Among other things. Boy, how the time flies. Can't wait to see everyone else again. Buh bye, Travis Current Mood: Ecstatic about Sumo Current Music: Sakuranbon, by Otsuka Ai (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, March 3rd, 2006
1:20 pm	(^ ^;) Hisashiburi... Everyone, Okay, it's been...two weeks now, I guess. I'm sorry I left such a bad note last month. I was in a very bad place, mentally, spiritually, and socially. I know I've worried everyone, and I'm very, very sorry for that. I hope you'll all forgive me some day. Because of problems I've been having over here (which I don't want plastered on the internet; if you want details, e-mail me: Osakadream@aol.com, or, katakana-b@ezweb.ne.jp), I have become very wrapped up in myself. I've been very anxious about my relationships. I have had a ard time sleeping, and I feel like I've lost some of who I am. I'm taking steps to rectifying the situation. I've spent some time under the bell jar, and it's finally starting to lift--I can already feel myself thinking clearer, feeling more confident. There's been an ache in the pit of my stomach, and for the first time in a couple of days, it's gone away. I've cut myself off from people who I love, have come to love and am in the process of learning to love, and the people who love me, because I thought it was expected of me. I now see there is no virtue in isolating myself from anyone, or letting who I am and who my relations are be defined by others. I'm feeling like me again. Japan is still fun though. In the past two weeks, the only thing of note I've done is go to the city of Uji, one of the most beautiful places in Japan--I have pictures, you'll be able to judge for yourself, once I put them on my Yahoo! account. This weekend, i'm hanging out with my friends, and going to see the city of Ise, home to two of the most important shrines in all of Japan...which is all I really know about them at the moment. I'll learn more and get back to you. Well, that's all for now. Let me say this though: to all the people who I have neglected, you have never been far from my thoughts. It's because of my own cowardice and aversion to pain that I have not spoken to you or mailed you. Please don't think it's because I have lost any love for you. I have been weak for a while now, but I can feel my strength returning. I will try and remain strong, until I can see you again. With all my love, Travis (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 15th, 2006
11:55 pm	STUB! Sorry everyone. This weekend and week was a little overshadowed by a bout I had with crippling depression brought on by some kind of strange hormonal fluctuation. That's my assumption, anyway. Please don't worry about me--I'm much better now, and I'll have a better post very soon. I'm doing lots of fun and exciting things, and I'll share. Pictures are coming soon as well! Love, Travis (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 5th, 2006
9:41 pm	Now with Pics (soon...)! Nasty surprise for me: you have to pay for a LIvejournal account that let's you insert pictures from something besides another webspace. I'm pretty sure Stacy will let me use hers, but 'till I can ask her, it's retro-style post for me. So I've been in Japan about, oh two weeks now (give or take). So far things are going okay. The first week was spent doing a whole lot of nothing, except for getting reaquainted with the city, and letting my skin get shot all to hell. I dunno what it is, but as soon as I step into Japan, I break out faster then an inmate at the Big Rock Candy Mountain Jail. I think it's the humidity (it certainly isn't the heat). Yeah, it's cold here in Osaka. In fact, it's snowed a couple of times--not enough to stick, but enough to be lovely as you're walking through it. There's few feelings as good as sitting ou on a snowy day and drinking hot green tea. Speaking of which, now that I'm in the dorm instead of my host family (how sweet it is!) I have to cook for myself. But since all the UNT students are in Sem4, we've decided that, instead, we'll have dinner together each night. Mostly that means those with expereince (mainly Jeremy) cook, while the rest of us stir, slice, and whatever else. My main job is to make tea, which of course I enjoy, but I'm looking forward to Sunday. Sundays are experimental night, where anyone can cook as long as they have a recipe. I've claimed this Sunday, and with the power of my Kihonteki Ryoori Hon (My basics cookbook), I'm gonna make something fine. I'm thinking kara-age, or Japanese chicken nuggets. Tune in for the result. We've also had a week of classes, and so far, not to shabby. I had a HUGE problem at registration (a series of unfortunate events) which culminated in me having to take two classes taught by the same professor to get my major. This goes against my grain--it makes me feel like a disciple, when I really want to get a broad view of my subjects. Anyway, here's my schedule: SPOKEN JAPANESE with Professor Miyaucchi. Miyauchi sensei seems like a good guy, and the class is going to be fun. Basically, instead of endless memorization of sentence patterns and grammar rules, each day he gives us a situation (or two, or twenty five), and we have to act as we normally would. The other day, we played "Meeting your host family", which meant we had to speak in a polite tone, and then we did "Meeting a Japanese friend", so we had to sepak in a more casual tone. Like I said, fun and educational. However, he also insists we memorize thousands of vocabulary words--we have two quizzes next week. Another thing he makes us do is a "Helper of the Day" program, whereby every day (and we meet everyday) a student comes to the front of the class, says good morning, describes the weather, announces the day's events (such as quizzes and homework). Then we have to give a 2-3 minute speech about whatever. The first person comes up on Monday, and that person is...if you guessed me, you would be very correct! But eh, I'm ready; no stage fright and a good measure of Japanese knowledge, and I'm good to go. JAPANESE READING AND WRITING is Professor Tajima. Tajima sensei enjoys drinking, traveling, and the ritual humiliation of her students. We found this out when our bouncy, energetic teacher announced we'd be playing a Japanese reading review game. It was a fun game, I have to admit (and I rocked at it, but we had a couple of real weak players, which turned out to be disasterous, keep reading), but halfway through, Tajima sensei announced "By the way, the losing team will play a 'batsu' (penalty) game! Do your best!" This sort of flabergasted me. We all had to play wierd little games in school, I'm sure, but usually, the winning team recieves some sort fo award--bonus points on the next test, candy, or new cars (Baylor basketball team only). Not so in Japan. Instead, the losers have to humiliate themselves by playing a game like, for example, shiri moji, or Backside Writitng. It's difficult to describe, and don't expect to see a picture ever, but it works this way: stand up, and using your bottom, you write your name in the air, forcing you to do a wierd wiggling dance. That day, I learned something important about Japanese culture: in Japan, you are not rewarded for success, you are punished for failure. I also decided that, if she tries to make me do that, I'm going to lie and say my name is Reginald Bartholowel Oswald-Scamper Fernandowitz of the Majestic Bear Running Over White Stones of the Dry River Bed tribe of Cherokee Indians. By the time I'm done with that, I'll have my plane ticket home. Now for my english classes: PEACE, CONFLICT and DEMOCRATIZATION is a political science class leb by Dr. Scott. Dr. Scott is a very learned man, and a self-professed elite. He is also a name-dropper like no other, and whenever Jeremy hears his name he says something violent. But the man has an exstensive and impressive set of credentials, not to mention being an excellent lecturer and a great teacher. He has a lot of contacts and connections, so we go on a lot of field trips. He's the professor who took us to Hiroshima to see Ms. Yamaoka the atomic bomb survivor (I'm going again this semester; I want it burned into my brain), and we may get to go to an actual APEC conference. Anyway, Peace Conflict and Democratization looks at the peace movements and democracy success and failures of Asia. We don't look so much at war, because it's assumed we've already got a lot of that education of history. I'm mostly interested in this class so I can look at current conflicts and work out TRANSCEND solutions for them (TRANSCEND is a revolutionary organization which seeks to train conflict mediators around the world to think in compassionate and creative ways. I was very impressed by what the foun der of TRANSCEND, Dr. Galtung, had to say. Next time I see you, ask me to explain it. Or run a search on Project TRANSCEND in any good search engine). Finally, and most interestingly, there's PROBLEMS IN MODERN JAPANESE HISTORY AND POLITICS, also led by Dr. Scott. This isn't a class at all really, but a special seminar course, in which we select a topic of interest to us and research it. The field is wide open: students have done hostess bars, the porn industry (all women, by the way), Kamikaze museums and Peace Memorials, the Gym Industry, real estate, and in one notorious instance, Japanese Gangsters (they came to school too. What a day that was, I'm told). Then we teach a class on it. The only restriction is you have to have the financial resources to research it, meaning it has to be fairly local. I was invited to this course last semester, and I thought about it all break. Originally, I was thinking about the Japanese legal system...but then i realized I don't know anything about any legal system, so I'd have a lot of preliminary research to do on legal theory, other judiciary systems, stuff like that. All very interesting, but I have less than fifteen weeks, and all the courts are in Tokyo, which is an a hundred and sixty dollar round trip train ticket. So instead, I thought about my background, what I was rather familiar with from the get-go, and a topic came up pretty quickly: so I'll be researching Mental Health Treatment in Japan. My mother is a therapist, a social worker and a former Child Protective Services agent, a play therapist and a hypno therapist; my father is an administrator in the Special Education division(?) of the FWISD, working with delinquent students, and a research psychology student in college; and my step-father is a former Air Force psychologist, currently in private practice (and doing well, in case you were wondering). The dinner conversation I heard alone growing up could get me into Psych grad school, so I'm going to use that background for research in Japan. I intend to check out psychology offices of course, but also college psychology departments, insurance companies, homeless shelters, school counselors, centers for teaching basic skills, mental hospitals, advocacy groups, and similar places. I hope to get a look in to Japan, which is an extremely neurotic culture, and one in which there are actually very few modes of care for the mentally ill. I'll mostly be focusing on treatment and handling of such people, including popular theraputic methods, commonly prescribed pharamceuticals, support groups, mainstreaming, and the general perception the mentally ill have of themselves, treatment, and treatment professionals. Dr. Scott thought it was a great idea, so I hope I can do it justice. So as you can see, I'm very excited about the coming semester. I hope it'll fly right by, because I miss everyone very terribly. I can't wait to see eveyone again. Hopefully you'll be able to see me soon, once I get thes epictures working. I love you! Feel free to E-mail me. Also, if you'd like my address, lemme know, and I'll e-mail it to you. Take care, Travis (Comment on this)
Monday, January 23rd, 2006
10:26 am	It's snowing in Osaka! Osu! Hello again, everyone and everybody! Welcome to Part 2 of Travis' trip to Japan. In this week's episode, Travis relates his very first couple of days back... The airplane flight over was completely stress free. Usually, I feel a sense of impending doom--not to worry anybody, but I'm always vaguely sure that I'm gonna die every time I get on a plane. I'm not scared of planes, but yeah, I can never be sure. Maybe it's because I had a really good break, and a good time last semester, so I felt like I had less to lose this time around. Hm...my first post has come off kind of morbid. I'll move right along. I had ice cream with my friend Tony in the Kansai concourse (after breezing through Japanese customs--I'm kind of surprised actually, but I guess it's because they don't have as much pressure to avoid racial profiling, so they only search the bags of people wearing turbans. Just a guess), and then made my way to my hotel, in Taishi, Osaka. Taishi is as close as I've seen in Japan to a slum. There ARE slums in Japan, which like most places house the people who do the lowest, most demeaning sorts of jobs (in the case of Japan: prostitution, butchers, leatherworkers, and other jobs that work with the blood, skin and hide of dead animals...except for prostitutes), and they're mostly toward the center of the city, which this place wasn't. But this city was dirtier, trashier, and smellier than any place I've been to in Japan. It's the only place I felt unsafe, but that's because I was wheeling my noisy luggage with me. There were also a lot of homeless people, and while I'm at it, lemme tell you about the homeless population in Japan: One thing that tends to surprise foreigners in Japan is the amount of "luxury" the homeless live in; they tend to have things like hot-plates, electric blanktes, rice cookers, even TVs and little refridgerators on the street with them. At the train station I was at, I saw one homeless guy sitting at a DESK, reading a stack of books. The reason for this is because, as you've heard, living in Japan is exspensive...but that's not really true. Things like bread, fish, appliances and entertainment--all the stuff you need to live--is actually pretty cheap, if you're careful. What's REALLY a money burner though is property taxes, rent, and security deposits on houses and apartments. So essentially, land is exspensive, but stuff is cheap. Even picking cans off the street or fishing coins out of the grates you can get enough to eat and drink on. But you're never going to pay the exhorbant amounts of money needed to get even the cheapest apartment. Also, as you may have noticed above, many homeless people can read and write. Unlike in the US, where the homeless population is mostly the absolutely dirt poor, the young and the metally ill, in Japan (again, because of the prohibitive cost of home ownership or rent), the homeless are mostly composed of those men and women who've been laid off by the Japanese economic bubble bursting in 1990. They tend to be educated, even college educated, literate and skilled. The mentally ill don't usually make it to the street because, if you have a child who's born with serious behavioral problems either A) you lock them up in your house and make sure they're clothed and fed 'till they die, or B) they run off and join the Yakuza. You only end up on the street if you've been living on your own and are too ashamed to tell your family (it works both ways--the young homeless don't want to tell their parents, the aged don't want to tell their kids). Anyway, back to me: My hotel was called the Taiyo Business Hotel. A Business Hotel in America means "Breakfast at 4:30 and free pornography on channel 99", but in Japan, it means a 5 X 8 room with a futon (a sleeping-bag sort of bed), a TV with four channels, and a midnight curfew. I think it's what they call a "coffin hotel", but maybe not. Although I had two nights there, the next day I moved into my dorm room at Seminar House 4 in Hirakata City. Coming back to Hirakata, I tried to analyze exactly what I was feeling--I expected to either have a "I'm coming home" sort of feeling, or a "I wanna go home to America" feeling, but what I felt was sort of in-between; kind of sad about leaving everyone I love, but happy about being back among others I love. I used to say "home is where I lay my head", but I think I've grown up a bit since then, and now it's "home is where the people I love are". I've unpacked, and now I'm just relaxing in my room (well, not now--the internet isn't hooked up, so I'm in the Computer Lab). We walked around the town yesterday, showing around a new guy (Antonio, from Spain, my buddy Chad's roomie. He's very cool, I hope I get to see more of him as time goes by), stretching out out Japanese muscles and so forth. But mostly I've been enjoying being in the dorm--having a heater, taking a shower in the morning, going out at 8:00 to get breakfast, getting a soda from the machine at 12:00, that sort fo thing (well, bottled tea, actually--gotta take care of my teeth. Thanks, Dr. Oakes!) Jeremy is my roommate now--I mentioned him once in my live journal last year, and a bunch during my break. We seem to get along okay (if two days is enough to make it scientific fact), and I feel really good about this semester. Well, I think that's good enough. I'll be posting more often this semester, once a week at least (with pictures, once I get my camera going). I can also e-mail people if they'd prefer (both my mother and father made me sign "One e-mail a week" contracts before I left). Before I finish up, let me thank everyone for an absolutely wonderful visit home! I feel refresehd and energized, nothing at all like the nervousness and homesickness that plagued me last year. And even with a bright semester ahead of me, free of time and travel restrictions not of my own making, I still look forward to the day I can come home for good. I love you all! Talk to you soon, Travis Current Mood: content Current Music: The tickety-tack of other keyboards (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 1st, 2005
4:33 pm	Almost home Another infrequent entry, this one as boring as the last It's test time over here, so I won't be making another post until the eighth of December, when all my tests are over. I need the time to study and review. I haven't been doing well recently--althought I think it's because of this charm I got at a shrine that's supposed to help in passing tests. You know, if I'm going to imperil my soul by placing my faith in hethen idols, I think I'd at least like to get something out fo it. Anyway, my first semester is almost up. I'll be home in two weeks, or therebouts. The fact is, I just got really, really unlucky in a lot of ways. I'm fixing all that next semester, so I'll at least have access to a computer for more than a few hours a week. I miss everyone! I can't wait to see you all! Buh bye, Travis (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 15th, 2005
11:17 am	What can I say? This week is HORRIBLY busy! We just got done with the "textbook" in our Japanese class, which means we're now moving into undiscovered country--a lesson plan created entirely by the teachers. We have a lot more vocabulary and chinese characters to learn now, and that means more homework. What's more, I have to write a one page paper in Japanese on "a thing I like". It's one page, double spaced, twelve point font. You think that's not much. You have to understand, Japanese uses pictograph characters for words, meaning a word this lone ("imigaarimasen") can become this long ("iga"), so by the time I've written a page, I've actually typed about three pages. So yeah, it's a good amount of work. Plus, my day is totally shot because I'm going to a workshop on conflict resolution that is SIX HOURS LONG! This is my free day too :(. Ah well, I'm looking forward to it--the guy who does it is an internationally renowned NGO organizer, and is the father of peace studies. I think his name is Galtung. Ah well, I'll learn it today. He's also a bit of a snob (he doesn't like talking to undergrads), but that doesn't surprise me. He's friends with my Pacific Rivalry professor, who is the BIGGEST narcissist I have ever met. Anyway, just thought I'd give you a heads up. Take care everyone! Love, Travis (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 4th, 2005
9:22 am	Hiroshima [It's been about a week since I've been to Hiroshima--sorry I wasn't able to post right away. However, these comments were written the night I got back, while it was all still fresh in my mind. It's a little long, so apologies for that.] *** So… Hiroshima. Where to begin? I guess I’d like to start by clearing up some possible misconceptions about me and why I’m in Japan. First of all, contrary to what some of you may think, I don’t want to be Japanese, and I never had. I find Japan fascinating, as I find all of Asia fascinating. I think Japan is clean, friendly, efficient, and beautiful. America has a lot it can learn from Japan. But I never wanted to come to Japan to be Japanese. I wanted to come to Japan and be an American. What’s more, contrary to what many of your probably think, I also don’t hate America. I think America has made many, many avoidable mistakes, misused its power, fostered a political and social culture which has led to much suffering within and outside of her borders. I think America could do well with some humility, some restraint, come compassion, but I don’t HATE America, by any means. Quite the opposite—I love my country, and I want to be a part of the solution to our problems. I think America is crashing, but I want to help catch people as they fall. One of my dreams is to work with immigrants, bringing people into the US so they can enjoy the fruits of Liberty planted by our Forefathers. I don’t hate America at all. That understood, I want to say: Every American should go to Hiroshima. But not for the reason you think. About Hiroshima itself: today, Hiroshima is a modern city of about 1.3 million people. It has to be modern—no building in Hiroshima is over sixty years old. The people are normal, and friendly (we got lost, and one guy took us directly to the Peace Park). Actually, I thought this city was nicer than most Japanese cities because the streets are actually wide enough to drive on. There was no “Aura of Death”, or some such…although it was very eerie to stand on Aioi Bridge, the T-shaped bridge that was the actual target of the Enola Gay bombing. We didn’t have much time to tool around Hiroshima that morning, because the main reason we were there was to meet and hear a talk by Ms. Michiko Yamaoka. Ms. Yamaoka is a hibakusha—an Atomic Bomb Survivor. Sometimes, female hibakusha are called “Hiroshima Maidens”, because after the bomb, no one would marry them, even if they didn’t come out horribly disfigured, burned, or sick. Michiko Yamaoka was fifteen at the time. She was what was called a “mobilized student”—during the war, labor shortages were filled by taking middle- and high-school students out of class and putting them to work. Ms. Yamaoka was working as a telephone operator nearby. Most mobilized students worked at part of “Demolition Construction”, a program ordered by the military government to destroy and clear away buildings near important military structures, to protect them from fire in case of bombing. This seemed silly to many people of Hiroshima; Hiroshima, even by this late stage in the war, had never been bombed, and many people felt the city was blessed somehow. In fact, The Yamaokas (which consisted of Michiko, her mother and her brother) were housing four other relatives who had come from the countryside to find safety and food. On the morning of August 6th, Ms. Yamaoka left her home for work. He tells it this way: “I said goodbye to my mother, and walked to the switching station where I worked. The weather was very nice—the sky was blue and there were no clouds. I heard a plane overhead, and I looked up. It was bright, so I made a shade with my hand. Then I saw a bright flash—it was like the flash of a camera—and I saw the most beautiful lights. I thought a bomb had exploded over my head, so I said ‘Goodbye mother. I’m sorry’, silently, in my head. Then I blacked out.” The bomb dropped by the Enola Gay exploded about five hundred meters in the air, about three hundred meters south of its intended target, the Aioi Bridge. A single atom in about twenty kilograms of atomic material split, producing an explosion more powerful than anything used up until this point. At the center of the explosion the temperature rose to over a million degrees Celsius, and the ground temperature hit nearly 4,000 C (iron melts at a little over 1,500 C). At six hundred meters clay roof tiles melted. At two thousand meters, the clothing of anyone standing outside burst into flames. The shockwave compressed the air to many times the Earth’s atmosphere, destroying all but the largest ferro-concrete buildings. The destruction was equal to roughly seventeen hundred tons of TNT (compare that to modern A-bombs, equal to about 15,000 tons of TNT). The area that composed Hiroshima proper became known as the Scorched Plain, as it was completely leveled by the blast. Winds up to four hundred miles and hour kicked up radioactive soot and dust, carrying it into the air and into Hiroshimas seven rivers. Ms. Yamaoka survived, roughly a kilometer from the epicenter. How she survived, she’s not sure, but there are theories now. The Atom Bomb kills three ways: heat, blast and radiation. Ms. Yamaoka was walking by a thick stone wall when the bomb hit, which absorbed the blast. Deaths of people “In shadow” (under light cover, like the wall) by heat was fairly low, but even so, Ms. Yamaoka suffered severe third degree burns over a large portion of her body. As for radiation, no stone wall can stop that. To this day, Ms Yamaoka lives in fear of what the radiation may be doing to her body. She has cancer now, and no one is sure if it’s because of the Bomb. The only other person to survive from Ms. Yamaoka’s family was her mother; everyone else, her uncle, aunt, cousins and brother perished in the high temperature fires that raged trough the city after the initial blast. Her mother went looking for her, and found her buried under a pile of rubble, unable to extract herself. Ms. Yamaoka tells it this way: “I woke up under a pile of rubble. I could move my legs, but I couldn’t pull myself from under the pile. All around me I could hear voices, people saying ‘Somebody help me.’, ‘It’s hot! It’s hot!’ ‘Water, please!’. Then, I heard my mother’s voice: ‘Michiko, Michiko!’. She found me, and she helped me from under the rocks. She said ‘Run to the mountain [Mt. Futaba], so I did. The city was like hell. People were everywhere, burned and dying. I saw many people drink from the river and die soon after, so I decided I would not drink from the water until I saw my mother again. When I arrived at the mountain, there were many people already there. I saw my friend, and when I called to her, she said, ‘Who are you?’, and I told her I was Michiko Yamaoka. She said, ‘You look like a monster.’ And because she was hot and frightened, she jumped into the river. The radiation killed her fast. One of the things I regret is that I could not stop her from jumping into the river.” Ms. Yamaoka received treatment at the mountain, but it didn’t amount to much; all the had to put on the burns was deep-frying oil, and they soon ran out of that. Maggots and other insects nested in her wounds, and she was in agony for days. But she survived. Michiko, a young girl in the bloom of youth, was transformed—the heat of the blast, in addition to burning her badly, has fused her cheek to her shoulder, and melted all her fingers together. The skin on her arms had sloughed off, and her facial features looked as though they were sliding off, floating in putty (this is not someone else’s description, this is mine—I saw a picture of her. It was worse than any movie monster you’ve ever seen). She lived this way for ten years. Michiko was raised by her mother, who also survived, with much less injury. They lived together until Michiko’s mother died in 1980. The day she was cremated, amongst the ashes they found a roughly one centimeter cube of molten glass. It was apparently lodged in her arm joint. When Ms. Yamaoka discovered that her mother had been living for years, taking care of her badly scarred child, with a piece of glass cutting her from the inside without ever saying anything, she decided she would speak out as a hibakusha, making sure her experience would not become “a thing of the past”. During this time (before or after her mother’s death, I’m not sure; this is all from memory), Ms. Yamaoka became the beneficiary of a special program in the United States to help survivors; Ms. Yamaoka was one of nine women who were brought over to have reconstructive surgery performed to remove the damage of burn and radiation. After roughly twenty seven operations, today Ms. Yamaoka can mover her hands freely, tilt her head, and really looks like an attractive seventy-five year old (now that I think about it, she wasn’t osteoperotic like so many of the elderly women in this country. Huh.) But the healing was deeper than the body for Ms. Yamaoka. People told her “Don’t go to America! They hate us! They’ll kill you!” The image of the people who dropped the Bomb was that of a nation of demons who gleefully built hells all over the world. Moreover, Ms. Yamaoka hated the Americans for what they had done to her—In Japanese, the word used for “hate” is kirai, which can mean “I hate you,” or “I hate carrots,” or whatever. The word Ms. Yamaoka used, however, was “nikumu”, for which there isn’t really an English equivalent. It’s a very strong, almost never used word, and carries a poisonous connotation—and had no intention to forgive them. When she went however, she stayed in the home of a family of Quakers (this whole program was a Christian project—a fact for which I am very thankful and proud), and there, for the first time, she heard an American say, “I’m sorry.” More people apologized for the American government for dropping the bomb, and she decided, after that, that she would “Not hate the enemy, but hate the war.” What can I say about Ms. Yamaoka? I can say without exaggeration, that there is not a person more like Jesus on this Earth today. Ms. Yamaoka cannot eat certain foods, as they react in strange ways because of her radiation poisoning. When we wanted to take pictures, we were told very sternly to turn off the flash, because it reminds her of the Bomb blast. Every time Ms. Yamaoka tells the story—the river choked with corpses, the black rain, the maggots that ate people, the fire, the starvation, the death of thousands-- she relives it. Every single time. For twenty years she’s been doing this, and she cried in front of us. Ms. Yamaoka’s suffering never ends, but she’s alive. She makes jokes, and has hope for the future. Ms. Yamaoka has every right to live on the pity and sympathy of a whole world, and instead she braves each day for the sake of a world where there are no nuclear weapons. There’s a lot of talk about the Spirit of Hiroshima. Most people will say the Spirit of Hiroshima is “Look what War can do. Stop it now.” “It hurts even to remember” is something A-Bomb survivors say to each other. But looking at Hiroshima, and looking at Ms. Yamaoka, I would say the Spirit of Hiroshima is “The next day, there was rice in Hiroshima.” The capacity for human cruelty is swifter, but now I see never as powerful, as the capacity for human perseverance and compassion. Just as there will always be killers there will always be healers. Every American—every person in the world—should go to Hiroshima, not so they can feel the sorrow and the guilt, but so they can feel the Grace! The city has risen from the ashes, the people have returned, the sun has risen again. That which was dead has been born again anew, and the world will never be as it once was. I’m not going to tie it all together with a contrived metaphor. I’m just going to say it outright: a damn bomb blew up Hiroshima completely, and it’s BACK! The most powerful weapon on Earth completely destroyed thousands of homes and lives, but they’re STILL THERE! Never will anyone convince me from here on that there is anything that can’t be accomplished by people. Mission to Pluto? Bet they’ll do it. Eradication of AIDS in Africa? Not if we don’t work at it, but I don’t see why not. Cure for cancer? Get on that. Destruction of all nuclear weapons everywhere? I can tell you for certain there’s at least one foreign exchange student who’d working towards it as of today. It’ll happen eventually. There’s never a reason to give up hope. Ever. That’s the Spirit of Hiroshima. God bless us all. Travis (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2005
9:38 am	Well...crackers I wrote a post about my trip to Hiroshima on my computer at home, but for two days straight now, things have gone wrong with the disk. I'll do my best to update tomorrow, even though it's a holiday. In the meantime, hope everyone had a Happy Halloween! Or Reformation Day, if that's your bag! Get a Turkey for Thanksgiving, and try to forget the economy-boosting, debt-catapulting season of Christmas! See ya, Travis (Comment on this)
Friday, October 28th, 2005
11:05 am	Of Tigers and Sox I really wanted to get a post in before tomorrow's trip to Hiroshima. Besides, a lot has happened this week. Last Saturday I went to the Kyoto Jidai Matsurui (The Ages Festival). It's a huge fashion show parade, with each part of representing a different time period. It was really cool! It wasn't just like, "And here is a representation of fashion during the period dating between 713 and snoooooore". It was "Tokugawa Ieyasu triumphantlly rides to meet the Emperor," or, "A Genmei War period general taking his troops into battle." It was awesome. However, we were on a bridge over a river, so it was also so...very...cold. We got there and hour early and played Go on the street (that was hilarious--the sight of foreigners playing a Japanese board game--even poorly--really turned heads. We even drew a crowd of people who just stood around and talked about how we were playing Go. Wierd), and by the time we left we were numb (the whole thing was about an hour). Fortunately, the crush of bodies then trying to move down the narrow sidewalk had a warming effect. It's all good. By far the most fun thing I did this week though was a Japanese Language Class trip to an elementary school called Yamashita. Two Japanese classes were invited to have lunch, talk and play games with a couple of third-garde classes. It was a blast. We arrived in about two hundred taxis, and were led into a little classroom. We sat in chairs, and soon, the students came in and lined up (the Japanese are very good at that). They had a big shouting "OHAYOU GOZAIMASU!" (Good morning), and a short (shouted) intro about the day. Then, one by one, the foreign students stood up and introduced themselves with name, country, major and hobby. The the kids were allowed to ask questions about whatever. The questions were interesting. They asked three questions about animals (favoriet, most famous, most rare in our respective countries), questions about favoriet games, who was famous, favorite movies, stuff like that. It was cute, because if we had an answer they agreed with (like when I said "kare" was my favoriet food, and my buddy Adam said "Fianl Fantasy" was his favorite video game), all the kids who agreed would start shouting and raising their hands. One they asked was "What's your favorite Holdiay in your country", and I said "Easter, because for Christians, it's the most important holiday there is." I guess this wasn't very informative, but the rest of the group immediately set about explaining about the Easter Bunny, choclate eggs, and things like that. I didn't say anything else, but I was kind of peeved they felt they had to "apologize" for me. After that, we got to ask the kids questions, which was equally cute (I asked, "Who likes Natto?", because this is a question Japanese usually ask foreigners; Natto is a disgusting fermented bean concoction that you eat with rice, and looks like a dog came along and did his business right on your nice white rice. All they kids raisedf their hands and laughed though. Like I said, adorable). After the question and answer session, the kids left and came back in their gym clothes (something happened between those tow periods, but I'll get to that later), and we played a huge game of "Jan Ken Po" (Rock-paper-scissors), and an Ultra Man game (anyone remeber Ultra Man?), which was great fun, but I lost every time. After that, we were led into the gym, and the kids did a big dance called "Cartoon Heroes", which was actually really well coreographed (these sorts of dances are very popular for school festivals and Sports Days). And then we played dodgeball. Before you get the image of me smacking down a poor, crying child with a medicine ball and laughing, you should know that the wy we played was we handed the ball to the kids as soon as we caught it, or we threw it at each other.) Finally, we had lucnh, which was okay, but the Japense don't really do pre-made lunches--students bring their own. We ate in a classroom, and did our best to talk to the kids over the noise. I entertained the kids with my inability to open my milk, and my ability to juggle. Finally, it was time to leave and we piled into the taxis and went home to sleep it off. It was a ton of fun, but the best part was, naturally, unplanned and unscripted: while the kids were changing into their gym clothes, we had some free time to just wnader around. Me and four other guys wandered outside, and found a bunch of kids playing soccer. They stopped their game to come and talk to us, and asked us to play. After a brief consternation about who would be on which team, my friend Kevin said "Nihonjin tai Gaijin!" (Japanese versus Foreigners). The kinds loved it, and so it was fibe tall college students versus about ten Japanese elementary school students. We lost of course--the kids were uncannily good, passing and making formations and such, while we just kind of ran around. It was great. One time, I got in front of a girl (who I think was in soccer club), and she did her vey best to fake me out, but just ended up kicking the ball right into my gut. Didn't hurt, and I sent it streaking up the field. She apologized profusely, but we had a high five and shared a moment. So it was great. I was in a pretty good mood all week until (dun dun dun), the Hanshin Tigers lost the Japana Series, 4 games to 0, against the Lotte Mariners. It was TERRIBLE! The Hanshin Tigers are like the Red Sox in America: much beloved, considered cursed. They haven't won a Japan Series since 1984, despite a great fan base and great coaches. There's a story behind that--the Sox had the curse of the Big Bambino, the Tigers have the Curse of the Colenel. See, the last time the Tigers won the series (which was in 1984. Paying attention?), a couple of people stole a statue of the Kentucky Fried Chicken mascot and tossed it into this river (forgot the name). The Tigers haven't won since, so people decided the god within the Colenel statue must have been angered. Every year, people jump into the river trying to appease the god they insulted so the Tigers can win again (it's a big event; a lot of foreign students went, and you can tell who they are, because they invariably allow themselves to be tossed into the air, fail to be catched, and break both their feet. Most of them are still in casts, and for a while it looked like a wheelchair basketball league around here). When I heard this story, I had to wonder: a god inside the statue? I'm willing to accept the existence of what the Japanese call "gods", basically spirits of nature and great people, as part of God's plan I can't fathom yet (my friend Jeremy swears they exist--ever since he got a charm for passing tests from a shrine, he hasn't failed one yet). But gods are supposed to be from awe-inspiring natural formations and the spririts of superior men and women. So I got to thinking: they toss this thing in, and every year to appease it's "god" they throw themselves into the same river as apology, but it hasn't worked yet right. Hate to be the first non-shintoist to think of this one, but maybe you pissed off a RIVER spirit who doesn't like garbage being chucked into it. Hey, my favorite hobbies revolve around dice and baseball--I know all about the winning streak. This sore loss has, however, been ofset by the White Sox winning the series in four games! I know, Astros lost, poor Houston and Texas, but really, I always liked the Sox better, and besides, I've been to Cellular One field. I always take a team I've seen flesh-and-blood over one I've only seen on TV. This post got kind of random, so I think I'll finish it up. Take care of yourselves, everyone! I'm going to Hiroshima tomorrow to hear a Atromic Bomb survivor speak, and I'll post about that whenver I can. 'Till then! Love, Travis (Comment on this)
Saturday, October 22nd, 2005
9:18 am	Apply Blog to infected area I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. It's been two weeks, going on three. I've been getting some e-mails, and I'm really, really sorry, but it's all been totally honest. Following is a long explination of why I haven't posted. If you're NOT INTERESTED (and I wouldn't blame you), I'll mark the beginning of the "what I'm doing in Japan" part of the post with a "***", so you can skip right down. The week before last and this week have been completely taken up with Midterm Exams and papers. I've studied harder than I've ever studied before, and let me tell you, the classes here are HARD. I know, you're thinking, "Travis, how long does it take for you to type 'I'm not dead' into your browser each morning." If that's what you want me to do, I'll oblidge, but even a message that brief would tax my schedule. The computers n here are really slow. The fact of the matter is, I need to do really well at this school. Stacy and I (and I'm sorry if this is a shock to anyone, but we're making long term plans) had a long talk about our future, what we wanna do with our lives and such, and we've decided that I'm going to drop the Librarian idea, at least for a while, and try to get into the Foreign Service. The application process is horrendous, and the test is worse, and before I can even do that, I need to make sure my grades are competitive. I have about a 3.6 GPA right now, and well, that ain't gonna cut it. I gotta work it out, get good grades, get some A's to raise me average. So when I say "I did poorly on my test, I need to study more next time," that means I made a B (I actually made a B- on one test. I was dumbfounded). So as you can see, I'm under a lot of stress here, and I need every moment I can finangle. Actually, that isn't entirely true; I spend a lot of time hanging out with my new friends. By a lot of time, I mean "the three or four hours I have before I have to go home". Everyone who reads this thing is very, very dear to me, but I'm sorry, you're not here right now. And I refuse to be one of those guys who spends every minute they're not in class, eating, sleeping or on the toilet sitting at a computer, writing long messages to their friends and families about how much they hate this place because they have no friends. I'm sorry, it's preactical--I get lonely, and it's nice to go out and have someone to eat with or throw a friesbee around with. Next semester will be better--I'll be back on my normal schedule of staying up late into the night doing e-mail and IM and stuff. But as is now, that just isn't possible. My bottom line is: please, cut me some slack. There are days where I'm just barely holding it together, academically and socially, and those are they days I least want to post on. I'm doing my very best. *** On with the show. A couple weeks ago I went to Nara, which is the first capital of what is considered to be the Empire of Japan. Before that, there were a bunch of little capitals inhabited by the prehistoric Yamato Sun Worshiping family (the thing is, death is very bad in the Japanese religion, so every time an Emperor died, they had to tear down the castle and go build a new one). Nara is one of the oldest cities in Japan, and it was breathtakingly beautiful, especially with the misty gray skies and fog there was that day. We didn't get a chance to see a whole lot, because it was crowded and we kept getting bogged down. We did get to see Todaiji Temple, the largest wooden building in the world, and the site of one of the most important events in world Buddhism, the creation of the Daibutsu (the Big Buddha). It is a big Buddha, the largest in the world, almost two stories tall. Specifically it's an image of the Viracoana Buddha ("The Buddhe who's head shines with Ten Thousand beams of light", a refence to his incredible Enlightenment. It was commissioned by Emperor Kommu in the late 700s, and Buddhists came from all over the world too see an old Indian monk paint the pupils of the eyes, the symbolic "awakening" of this incredible symbol. You ever heard the phrase "Even the most stalwart atheist would stand if the Pope walked in"? It's the same with Todaiji--you can't go there and not feel something spiritual. I choose to believe that something is God, and you may disagree, but simply geing there, feeling the ancinet power of the place, I couldn't help but say a long prayer in thanks for all the good in the world (and there's a lot of good along with the bad. Like, according to the Japan Times article, wars today are almost fifty percent less deadly than in the past. A bitter victory, but a victory nontheless). One thing we did see is what Nara is probably most well known for in Japan: the dear. In Nara (and I don't know why and I forgot to ask), dear ("shika" in Japanese) are messengers of the gods, or perhaps one specific one. Harming, and especially killing and eating a dear, is an extremely distatseful idea to the Japanese (remember this is I ever bring my buddies over). As such, there are large herds of dear that just wander around the streets and parks of Kyoto, looking for people who will give the food. The only thing more fun then petting and feeding the dear though, is watching other people feed the dear; if the dear thing you have food, they will follow you around for DAYS, nipping at your hands, getting in you pockets, and basically acting like spoiled children. One child was being chased by dear because she had a little plastic wrapper in her hand--she kept calling out for her parents to save her, but they just thought it was hilarious. Jeremy and I felt sorry for her though (I mean, this girl was like five--all the dear were taller than her), so Jeremy stepped between the dear and her and they all backed off. Poor Jeremy--he's a nice guy, but the dear wouldn't go near him, he's just so tall. We finally foubd a dear who had a "lay in the shade" instinct stronger than it's "big things will eat me" instinct, so we got a good picture of Jeremy. Jeremy, Becy and I also went to the Urasenke International Tea Aacdemy to take part in an abbreviated, informal tea ceremony, and to tour the tea ceremony museum, which had a special display on ancient insence holders. Yup, an hour of looking at insence holders. But it was actually a lot of fun, just too see how OLD stuff can be! There were inscence holders that were twenty times as old as my country. It's heady stuff. Speaking of Tea Ceremony, it's kind of grown on me--if I have enough money, I intend to get a basic tea set so I can perform Rakubon for people (Rakubon was invented by the thirteenth Sen Tea Master. It's the simplest of ceremonies, and can be performed even without the benefit of a fully equipped tea room, so I can do it at home). I drink a LOT of tea now--hot tea for breakfast, warm tea during class, cold tea during dinner, and Oolong tea during karaoke (I still enjoy a good melon soda with lunch, though). Mm, tea sounds good right now. I'm gonna get some soon as I'm done here. Other than that, it's just been study, study, study, play with friends. And then study. I'm off to Kyoto today for the Jidai Matsuri (the Ages Festival), which is a big parade of fashions from the Early heian Period (794-1192), to the Meiji Restoration (1863. I think if you don't know that date, they deport you). And I am currently...late, so send me e-mails! I miss you all very much! I'll update more regularly, I promise! Jah love, Travis (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 4th, 2005
1:53 pm	Big three, big three! Been a while since my last post. Ah well, shikata nai na? (Can't be helped) Fact is, I only have about fourteen hours of computer time a week, assuming I have no homework and no tests to study for...it's a hard knock life (knock, knock) for me. Thanks to everyone who sent me e-mails and such. I'm glad your thinking about me, God knows I've been thinking about you. Make no mistake, I'm having a glorious time, but yeah, I miss everyone, a whole lot. I'm not homesick in the sense I miss Texas--quite frankly I like being able to walk around at night without fear of being randomly killed or robbed, I like how polite everyone is, all that stuff--but I miss Stacy, and my parents, and brother and sisters, and all my buddies. Oh yeah--and I really, really, REALLY miss D&D. Karaoke, reading manga, playing Go, all well and good...but I'd rather be slinging dice. Anyway, on with the show: this weekend was study-catch up time, at least on Saturday; I studied all day, took a long nap, ate, hung out with my host family. Sunday though, was very very busy--we had a neighborhood Undou Kai, a Sports Day, where all the neghborhoods get together and compete in various (and generally wierd) athletic competitions. The kids did your basic stuff: hundred meter dash, relay race, etc. But we adults had the fun races--like mine for example, which was called a Fune Rou (balloon race). I and a female partner (a nice older lady) had to hold hands and run to a basket containing a pair of gloves and a baloon. I had to put the gloves on while running to the next station, where I had to blow up the balloon, place it on a bench, and she had to sit on it and pop it. After that, we grabbed one of the blown pieces, and ran the NEXT stage in this mad dash, where we put on a newspaper yoke, wrapped our arms around each other's waist, and ran toward the finsih line. Mind you, I had to figure out the rules of this incredibly complex race by watching a couple other people do it, and I STILL didn't know we had to bring one of the blown pieces (I figured it was on the honor system whether we popped it or not). Also, they decided to pair me with the shortest person in out neighborhood, which meant I had to duck-walk with the yoke on. And that is why we came in dead last. I alos played a much less complicated game where we had to toss an enormous ball over our heads. We came in fourth on that one, netting our community one point for the whole day (I think my area is a retirement community or something--I was the youngest guy by about forty years). It was still incredibly fun, though. As consolations prizes, I won a box of tissues, a role of paper towels, and a bottle of soy sauce. Made for a very interesting meal later (just kidding). Also at the Undou Kai, my host father took first place in the 60-and-up Fish Catching Race, and my hot mother's traditional dance troupe gave a demonstration. I met some people, practiced my Japanese, and had a great time. Afterwards, i got a call from Tony (another UNT student here), asking if I wanted to meet his buddies for dinner. I asked my host family if it was okay, and of course it was, until I told them I wouldn't be back for dinner. I got to go anyway, but my host mother made it very clear that I should be studying instead of playing with my friends. Yeesh! Hanging with Tony, Jeremy (yet another UNT student, and fast becoming one of my best friends), and Tony's Speaking Partner Yuuko and her pal Midori was a lot of fun. We went out to eat in an area called Nanba, which is adjacent to Amemura (an abbreviation of Amerika Mura, or "America Village"--yes, boys and girls, America Town. The Mecca of popular music and Japanese youth culture in Osaka). Nice little place, we sat and talked, mix of Japanese and English. It was very educational--every time I opened my mouth, they cracked up. Thing is, unlike most host families, my host family prefers that I speak polite, as opposed to casual Japanese at home. As a result, my Japanese is a tad more formal than most, and this was just hilarious to them. Nevermind the fact that, because of all his female friends and the fact that he likes romance manga Jeremy speaks like a girl, I say "sou desu ka", and I'm hilarious. Well, i'm getting better. After dinner (which lasted about two and a half hours--the Japanese know how to do sobre mesa), we walked around Nanba and checked out the wierdness. Nanba's a wierd place--a maze of nerd stores and sex shops. We stopped in a Mister Donut's for dessert, and by then it was tie to go home. Actually it was way past time to go home--I missed my train, and then found out my bus had stopped running. I hopped a different bus and took a longer route, but I ended up being am hour late. of course, I called them at ten 'till my deadline, but I still felt really bad. Well, I have to run--thanks for reading! As always, if you have questions or comments, please send me an e-mail or post a comment here, and I'll get back to you as fast as I can. Oh yeah, Leland, thanks for your comment (I wasn't entirely sure how to reply, and you havn't updated your LJ in a long time it seems, so I'm answering you here. Hope that's okay). I should be fine for a place to stay when I get back--I hope to come back for Christmas, I'm keeping the money for it aside. If you want to come here though...I can hook you up somewhere cheap to stay. Well, that's about it. I love you all! Oh yeah, last thing...I went a LOT of places before I started this thing, and it would take a month to backtrack the whole way and relive it. So instead, I'm going to list all the places I've been up to now. If you want to know more, e-mail me, and I'll include it in my next post. Happy to oblidge! Here we go: Kyoto, Osaka Castle, Himeiji castle, The Tokyo Video Game Expo, The Tomb of the Forty-Seven Ronin, Ueno Park, Ueno Park Art Museum, Den Den Town (Osaka electronics district), and Kiyomizu Shrine. That's it. Everyone, take care of yourselves! Hoope to see you soon! Jah love, Travis (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 27th, 2005
1:17 pm	Okay, so where was I? Oh yeah, my host family. Before that, I guess I should mention a bit about where I live: specifically, I live in Kadomashi (Kadoma City), in Osaka Japan (I go to school in Hirakata City). Osaka is the second largest city in Japan, as well as the second most expensive to live in the world...but that's mostly rent and utilities. I'm living pretty cheap, eating in the cafeteria and keeping my budget tight. Osaka is in the Kansai prefecture of Japan, and is the country's financial and banking center. Kansai prefecture is known for two things: it's baseball team (The Hanshin Tigers) and its quirky dialect, Kansai-ben. I'm picking up a bit of Kansai-ben. If you're ever in the Kansai area, be sure to use a little--it impresses the hell out of the locals. Anyway, Kadoma City is a small place about an hour and half away from my school, requiring a bus, two trains and a twenty minute walk to get there. This is a bit of a problem, but I'll talk about that in just a moment. My host family is the Hamanakas. I have a host father named Hideo, and a host mother named Masako. That's it. No brothers or sisters or pets or anything like that. Just the three of us. Both are in their early seventies, and retired. Not your usual host-family. First off, let me say that I like them very much; they're both very nice and considerate, they're interesting to talk to, and they know just enough English between the two of them to help me when I get stuck. On the other hand...they're also a bit strict. Strict enough anyway that most other people are surprised anyhow. For example, we eat dinner at 7:00 in the evening, and I'm supposed to help. That means, ideally, I should get home by about 6:30. My travel time is about an hour and a half, so I have to leave by almost 4:30 if I want to get home by my curfew. Most of my friends eat dinner around ten, and live a lot closer, so they can stay, hang out, things like that, while I have to rush home. This has made making and keeping friends a bit difficult. I have a lot of restrictions on me too, like, I'm allowed to sleep in on weekends (normally we eat breakfast at 7:00 AM), but I have to let them know the night before, and I'm not allowed to sleep in past 9:00. Everyone should be able to understand how this is a problem except for my DAD, Mr. Up-Before-God. I'm having a great time, like I said. But...I'll be staying in the dorms next semester, just so I can stay out later and maybe travel a bit more, without making anyone nervous. Most nights with my host family, between the end of dinner at about eight and baths at 10, we sit around the table, and I study and they watch the news and we talk. On weekends, if I don't want to spend the whole day studying, I find somewhere to go. Occassionally, there will be some sort of an event at our house, like a couple weeks ago the Hamanaka family had a get-together to have lunch and exchange photos from their last family reunion in Switzerland (Uncle Genji brought this very expensive wine that tasted like turpentine until you'd had a few glasses. Never thought my first honest drunk would be at a sentigenerian party), and once we went to visit my host mother's old university in nearby Nara for her college reunion (and listened to a two hour architecture in Japanese, of which I understood exactly two words--"cieling" and "wall"), but usually, my host mother or father has some sort of meeting with the local PTA or in Hirakata City, where they work as volunteer parole officers sometimes (never heard of such a thing). Mondays, I study Tea Ceremony with my host mother. Tea Ceremony is one of her listed hobbies along with Japanese Traditional Dance (she goes to a class on Thursdays I think). My host mother is an internationally famous and respected Tea Master, and you should be impressed because Tea Ceremony is HARD. Tea Ceremony (in Japanese, "Sadou") is the Japanese art of preparing tea in a complex and highly stratified ritual of cleaning and inspecting the tools, serving the candies, pouring and mixing the tea, and finally cleaning it all again. I've been doing it for about four weeks now, and I'm finally getting the hang of it, besides having no talent or inclination for Tea Ceremony. Good thing too--I'm scheduled to perform a tea cermeony at the end of next month. So far, I can barely--barely--clean the tea tools without passing out from nervous exhaustion, so wish me luck. Okay, more later. This journal thing is exhausting! Jah love, e'ebody (1 Comment |Comment on this)
9:22 am	The first LJ post ever Well, hooray! I've finally done it--broke down and put up a blog thing with the rest of my generation. Go me! I suppose I'll start a WebCam and an Amazon.com wishlist too. Now you guys can see what kind of Emo I'm listening to, and read my "rants" about how I'm against war and racism. Okay, as we all know, the REAL reason I've started this LiveJournal is so I don't have to spam your e-mail everyday with how my curry tasted or whether I saw a train molestation or not (yup, I have). This way you can check up on me, ask me questions and let me know how you're doing at your own liesure. So where to begin...it has been about month, huh? Well, why don't I just not start anywhere, and give you a general impression of how things are going. Things are going great! I had a tiny, tiny bit of culture shock my very first day, or rather my very first night (for the first week, I lived in the dorms, while I waited for my host-family assignment), but the next morning after walking to the KyuKyu (the 99 yen grocery store, the only reason many students on this campus eat more than once a week) for some shampoo and conditioner, I flet world's better. I've had very little trouble adjusting to life in Japan--I've been studying this country for so long, not just the social rules, but the reasons for those social rules, it all just came sort of naturally. In fact, I had a bit of anti-culture shock--my Japanese professor gave me the impression that no matter what, every Japanese person I met would be pissed at me all the time, and I would never know. I've only recently gotten over my phobia of Japanese people, and realized there's not a whole lot of difference betweent us--Japanese are a bit more formal, maybe, but not to the extent I was warned. Of course, I'm in college, and college is the one time in a Japanese person's life where the rules of the game get relaxed. After that, you keep your head down (literally--bowing is really important, and I've only just learned how to do it) and do what you're told. My first week was pretty cool, but very busy--there was a ton of paperwork to do, the most strenuous being Banking. I screwed up my banking application three times before I got it right, but it was worth it--I get a 700 yen a day food stipend, all payed in a lump sum, which is about eight hundred dollars. Not bad. In addition, there was the basic "Look, you're not in America, you can't just drink wherever the hell you want" sort of orientation, along with Earthquake orientation and class orientation. I spent most of the week getting acquainted with the campus (which is really, REALLY nice), meeting people, things like that. I also met my Speaking Partner that week: Tashiro Daiichiro, aka Daichan. A speaking partner is basically an assigned Japanese friend; we're supposed to hang out, do stuff together, and practice our Japanese and English. Daichan is a really great guy--he's learning English and Chinese, and wants to either work with or start an NGO for the purpose of making aducation available to the poorer areas of the world. He's an idealist like me, and he's also a geek, like me, so we get along just fine. Meeting Daichan was Sunday my first week, orientation was the rest of the time, and Saturday, we went to Kyoto, former capital of Japan (like, way way back, maybe until about four hundred years ago), and one fo the most beautiful places in the whole country. Kyoto is what most people think of when they think of "Ancient Japan" ; Geishas and old temples and stuff like that. We went to one of the oldest temples there, Kiyomori Jinja, very famous for the waters that pour out of it, which are supposed to heal sickess and bring long life. It was especially fun because we went as a group of four Japanese students and four foreign students (ryuugakusei). We walked around all day, talking (as best we could--or Japanese wasn't nearly as good as it is now), having a great time. In addition to the temple (which was just about the only thing we could do that day it was so huge), we went out to eat, and then went to a pikura parlor. A pikura is like a photobooth, only about a thousand times more complex. After you take the picture (or ten, like us, all eight of us...sheesh), you can add borders and effects, even draw on it with a light pen. I was impressed. We all exchanged e-mails and headed home. The next day, I met my host family. I'll tell that story when I get out of class. Ja! (Comment on this)