Hundreds of Miles from Home: February 2005

Nao-chan, the cutest little girl in Tai. AND she can throw a baseball just about as hard as me. She has also beaten me at tennis, making her the coolest little girl in Tai

Okaasan, Saeki-san, and Takuro gazing in awe and wonder at the slackline

Nao, Saeki-san, and Takuro

Why did I cut my hair? Ignorance! The slackline was crazy fun, though

Takuro attempting the slackline

This girl kills me. The world needs to stop and keep her at age 10 forever

My host mom and I rode bikes to the concert, she looked hilarious on this tiny tricycle looking contraption

Tomoya's music class

The accordion is a fine instrument

The horn section, the trombone player (Tomoya's friend) blew me away

Tomoya playing a mean bass on the right

The Slack is Back

It is such a terrible title I couldn't resist!

Today was finally warm and dry enough to set up a slackline in the park near my house. For the inquisitive, a slackline is a length of webbing strung between two trees on which you wan walk (think: circus). Usually it draws a crowd of onlookers back home, so you can imagine some weird foreign guy slacklining in the park would be a pretty big event in the sleepy neighborhood of Tai. I invited Amanda, the exchange student from Canada who recently moved to a nearby house as well as some of my neighbors. Everyone gave it a try and luckily no one fell right on their face! (Takuro came close, however)

But before this afternoon's slacking, my family took me to a famous Ramen and Soba restaurant in Okayama called Ichigen. It was not our original destination, which was another famous Ramen shop about halfway between Tamano and Okayama. But when we arrived, we found the Ramen shop reduced to rubble. No kidding, you could actually see the bricks and iron rebar from the demolished building. After recovering from the laughter we decided on the alternate restaurant.

After lunch I taught English at a juku to some junior high students who are taking the high school entrance exam next week. The high school entrace exam is big business because getting into a good high school usually means getting into a good college. Just one more way to add pressure on kids. Regardless, we had fun and teaching was awesome.

Yesterday was Tomoya's "Farewell Concert" at Uno Junior High School. He played the contrabass in a piece entitled "Romanian Folk Song" and the electric bass for a "Disney Super Mix." Surprisingly, school bands sound the same all over the world. I don't know what I was expecting. There was an accordion selection of "These Are a Few of My Favorite Things" which rocked (as hard as an accordion can rock).

Tomorrow I am going to city hall for an interview. They specifically told me to "come alone." I hope this isn't another one of the Mayor's crazy traps!

Silly Tamano Mayor, Trix are for Kids!

Walking back to school after Neil's house to retrieve my bicycle

The slushy bike road toward Tama

Snowy mountain with a streak of truck headlights

The moon and whispy clouds; powerline paint by numbers

Shoko, Jittan, and I at the train station (before the crying started)

Picking a song at karaoke. That little computer holds every karaoke song known to man

This is funny for a few reasons, mostly due to the large word "CLOAK" next to a pair of shoes

Neil, displaying some awesome neon-green bowlin' shoes

Bowling alleys look the same all over the world

The names would read, in Katakana, "The Baller-yo" (me), "Da Pin Pounder" (Neil), and "The Chinese Nemo" (Jittan)

That would be Buzz Lightyear and Ultraman

Those Were Some Big Flakes

Yesterday brought snow to Tamano like a madman. A true squall of a storm complete with the largest, Ritz cracker sized snowflakes I have ever seen. One flake on the tongue was enough to quench thirst for a whole afternoon! And just as fluffy as a cloud! Paul's Bunyan's ox was as big as a house!

But tall tales aside, these flakes were large. The storm began in the afternoon as a cold rain and ended with streets the consistency of a lemon slush puppy. I was scheduled to teach some high school kids English at the nearby juku but the snow scared everyone off the streets. Neil came to the evening's rescue by hosting a last minute game-night at his place featuring my favorite, Casino, and his, Yahtzee (which was played inside a frisbee, another passion of Neil's). John Davey came over for the evening and ended up letting me borrow some classic comedy videos (that means on a tape, for all you young whippersnappers) in payment for copying his dance hall reggae cd's.

All the snow melted by morning, which was surprising yet excellent because no unsightly-cinders-and-dirty-snow residue was left to catch the eye.

This week also saw the return of Jittan to China. Jittan, who studied Business Japanese at a college in Okayama, had been in Japan for about 10 months and was one of my first friends in Japan. Shoko and I took the early morning train to Okayama, where I treated her to breakfast at Starbucks (of course it's everywhere), then we met Jittan at the train station. Tears were shed on the Shinkansen platform as she waved from the window of her bullet train. And so departs another great person I've met in Japan.

In the category of future plans, I will be traveling to Tokyo with Rahul March 10-13th (!!). If anyone has any requests (I have received a few for certain cd's) for any sort of Tokyo merchandise, you can contact me at BenPleaseBuyMe@SomeStuff.com or by sending me an e-mail to a real account.

Today was technically my last day of High School as a first year student at Tamano. My class will be taking finals over the weekend and part of next week which I have opted not to attend, but I am on the edge of my seat about Graduation and "Meet the New Teachers" Day which will be held sometime in March. First day of class as a second year student will be April 7th. I remain unaware of how the students will be divded between the two classes of 40 in the "International Course." Perhaps everyone will stick with their own class, or there might be a mix and match (hopefully the former, because I just started to feel confident with everyone's name, yet meeting new people is always fun). Either way, it's a little strange being a good bit older than most everyone in my class, but now that I can think of a decent comeback to "you have very long nosehair" school has become a much better place.

Included are some pictures of Jittan's last day in Tamano (bowling and karaoke, with dinner at Jacasse) as well as some shots from around town.

General Information...

For the curious or forgetful, my address is currently:

Benjamin Gleitzman
3-18-39 Tai
Tamano, Okayama 7060001
JAPAN

Colorful balloons stuck to the side of the exhibit wall

The balloon man, providing an "Andy Warhol" like atmosphere to the balloon room

Projecting fluffy clouds

Human anatomy and bananas

A string of thoughts

Balloon Rooms of the World

Today, because of next week's school tests, I got a chance to sleep in and enjoy Bernie's morning radio show. It airs at 10-midnight back home which makes it the perfect morning radio program on Japanese time. However, I usually don't get a chance to tune in because of Wednesday's Japanese school in the city.

A little after noon I exited my house in Tai with a big smile on my face, mostly because the sun was shining and I couldn't see my breath on the air. I noted two children playing on a see-saw in the park, one clearly out-weighing the other.

The bus ride to Okayama city was pleasant, and I opened the window a crack for some fresh air (the bus heaters are always going full blast). The man occupying the seat across from me fell asleep in a funny position, awaking with a start when the bus came to a halt at a railway crossing.

Japanese school went smoothly, and Kimura-san resisted the urge to put anything over her head. Following class, Cori, Janna, and I went to a local bookshop which was sponsoring an English book drive; cardboard crates full of all sorts of treasures. I found a hardcover copy of "Tattoos of the 1950s" wedged next to a copy of Kurt Cobain's diary placed next to Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities." I resisted the urge to buy all three and settled for a book by a Japanese author and James Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist at a Young Age."

Cori and Janna had to catch the train home so I wandered the evening streets of Okayama in search of excitement. I found an art gallery featuring collaborations between children and adults, which struck me as an obvious yet rarely employed artistic technique (so says I, the artistic village idiot). I struck up a conversation with the curator who had constructed a sort of human skeletal and muscular sculpture in the center of the room, plastered with entries from children's diaries written on everything from paper to plastic bananas. In the back room of the gallery I found the most unexpected display, a room full of multicolored balloons with digital projectors beaming clouds onto the white brick walls. About 6 or 7 people were rubbing the balloons all over their bodies and sticking them to the wall. Occasionally a balloon would pop, making the whole room jump.

After the art exhibit I thanked the curator (he gave me some cookies, also unexpected yet appreciated) and set off down the street to the station. I was stopped by loud hip-hop music drifting from a second story window of what I discovered to be the "Hip-Hop Dance School of Okayama." I walked up a corner flight of stairs with the full intention of finding a window to grab a peek of japanese guys spinning on their heads or crip-walking. I instead opened the door to about 15 girls performing a crazy hip-hop "fist pump" in unison if front of a massive wall-sized mirror. Some stopped their fist pumping and turned to see who had invaded the amateur hip-hop dance class. Others continued the pumping. I just stared with what was probably on open mouth, amazed at what I had found. I watched for a minute then politely excused myself, making a mental note to return some time in the future when I didn't feel quite so outnumbered.

After the dance class I crossed to street into a store called, "Bimbo." It was full of crazy chairs, pillows, and other amazing apartment accessories. I bought my host mother a small bobble-head daschund (her passion) and some japanese looking accessories for myself.

I ate dinner on the second floor of a bread shop looking out on the street, silhouetted by the brightly lit Symphony Hall. While waxing poetic over a potato and ham sandwich I scribbled this on a paper bag from the book store before striking up a conversation with two women and a man sitting in the corner of the shop discussing the man's purchase of a new digital camera:

"Some would say that an enjoyable life is an expedition into the unseen; the winking glint of sun from the corner of a glass; the striking resemblance between the man on the stairs and the late composer Chopin; the way cardboard never bends exactly where you want it to, silently expressing it's resistance to change..."

After dinner I caught the bus back home, drifting in and out of sleep. I gave my host mother her gift (she couldn't stop laughing, a good sign) and crossed the park to Saeki-san's house for a guitar lesson. Jirou-sensei dumbfounded me with his guitar skill, which I attempted (and failed) to duplicate. I was offered some dinner and had an English conversation with the family in exchange for the lesson and the food. At one point, Saeki-san said "I am grandmother," instead of "I am glamorous" which resulted in uncontrolled laughing. I said goodbye, quite full, then ran into the night. To my house.

By any standard, a great day.

We Don't Need No Education

English class would be one of the better blocks of time during my day, usually because I have a decent understanding of what is going on. Today, in the middle of a particularly boring dissertation on the difference between which, whom, and who, Izawa (who sits in the back corner) said, "There are so many English words, I bet I could just write down some letters and Ben could understand it." He proceeded to write down these words on a large sheet of paper, occasionally holding it up for me to see on the other side of the room:

"Stocaraty"
"Whayach"
"Tachy" -which is a prefex, two points for effort
"Morgast"
"Weracy"
"Carban"
"Sative" - which I later discovered is actually a word
"Acray"
"Hamna"

and my personal favorite,
"Bacxaro," who could very well be the next batman villain.

I was surprised how close he came to actual English words. I bet I could easily get away with slipping "weracy" into some english conversation. "The crowd was struck with a deep feeling of morgast."

So congratulations Izawa, you are a fake-English master

The young man with fishing pole

This whole dance was fantastic

Using two fans as props

As the Old Man

With the Nihon Buyou sensei

A little boy yelling? A short man with a moustache? Who knows?

Tightening my buns and thighs

Michiko's house

Party at the Yellow Hat!

Michiko and Janna with the thighmaster-type machine

This is the scariest chef I have ever seen

Yes, it's Madonna

At the Okonomiyaki restaurant

Janna with "Jamaica" hat

With the awesome "lumberjack-et"

Cori, on the board

Janna, reminding me of a dinosaur for some reason

Not the Alps, but a great view nonetheless

My mother would describe this hair as "terrible"

Out Of Town

Last weekend, I received an invite from Janna's friend Michiko to stay in the town of Tsuyama. The Tsuyama rotary members also offered to take Cori, Janna, and I skiing at Ombara. How could I refuse?

But before the trip, I experienced the Japanese traditional dance form of 日本舞踊 (Nihon Buyou). A teacher of the dance lives near Kawai-san's house, so I spent the morning with the teacher (Nakahara-sensei) and her student who was on vacation from her college in Osaka. Nihon Buyou is classified as any form of Japanese dance, but can most often be seen in both Kabuki and Noh plays. The dance is accompanied by the shamisen (a three stringed japanese guitar), and can usually be discerned from western dance by its small, shuffling movements (in contrast with ballet's leaps, yet strangely similar to hip-hop's two step).

The girl who performed the dance had studied since the age of 3, but she said that not many Japanese enjoy studying the dance form because of its slow pace and slightly antiquated style. I thought it was amazing. She performed one dance which lasted about 15 minutes and was broken into three discernable sections. First, she depicted a young man with very powerful movements using a fishing pole and fan as props. The next stage involved the aging of the man, personified by looking inside of a box (during the real play, a mask would be applied from the box). In the final stage the man was blind, yet still carried his fishing pole. By the end of the show I was completely floored by the skill and precision of the dance. I attempted some of the intricate fan movements but could barely keep myself from tossing the would-be weapon across the room.

After some tea I said goodbye to Nakahara-sensei and her student, and set off on a 3 hour bus and train ride from Tamano to Tsuyama. Janna and her host mother picked me up at the station and drove us to Michiko's house on the edge of the city.

Michiko, who studied English in London, was once a model. She now works with her husband selling avant-guard style houses in Japan. As expected, her house was much different than the traditional Japanese dwelling. And just to make my father jealous, they also live right next to a golf course.

Michiko took Janna and I (Cori couldn't come until the following day) to Karaoke with two of her friends. One was very quiet, and didn't say much when he first introduced himself. However, he ended up only singing loud, screaming songs with crazy half-japanese half-janglish lyrics (I can only remember a song with the chorus "Come on...SHAKE HIP SHAKE HIP!"). Michiko, on the other hand, sang Madonna. As first I thought it was going to be funny, but Michiko had a really great Madonna voice. She even got up and made Janna and I dance with her. After karaoke, we went to a small late night okonomiyaki (japanese pizza) restaurant bustling with japanese. Tsuyama's okonomiyaki is more of the Hiroshima style (thin like a pancake and folded like an omelet), while in Tamano the okonomiyaki is Kansai style (thick and "meaty"). You might ask yourself "What difference does that make?" Truthfully, both styles are delicious, and perhaps I was especially hungry after the strain of Karaoke, but the Tsuyama okonomiyaki was first rate.

That night Janna, Michiko, and I watched two movies, a rare occurrence for me. The first, Casshern, was shot entirely with a "digital backlot" (green screen) with all backgrounds added in post production (another example would be Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow). Anime fans, rejoice, because lens flares and matrix style moves abound. This movie started to give me a seizure around the middle when I not only couldn't understand what was going on (even with english subtitles) but the camera was cut every 5 seconds to highten the neverending tension. The ending of this movie would be described at "crazy," "nonsensical," or "stupid." It gets points for looking beautiful, however. The second movie, "Sekai no Chushin de, Ai wo Sakebu," or Sekai Chu (pronounced to rhyme with Pokemon's Pikachu) for short, is a love story that was inspired from a book and made into a movie as well as a TV drama. It's english title is "Crying Out Love, In the Center of the World," and most everyone in japan has either seen or has heard of Sekai Chu. I thought it was good, especially because of the cameo appearance of the Aboriginal guy from Crocodile Dundee (totally unexpected).

The next day, I thanked Mickiko profusely for letting me stay at her house and left with Hikasa-san, Janna, and Cori to Ombara Ski Resort. Cori and I snowboarded with Janna on skis. Although there was a large crowd of people, the weather was perfect and the lift lines moved quickly. That evening we ate my favorite, Kaiten Zushi (a type of serve-yourself sushi that moves along on a massive conveyor belt) before I caught a train and a bus back to Tamano.

Phew!