Yongfook is a web producer and usability consultant based in Tokyo

It is my supervisor’s birthday today and because I am an eternal suck-up, I made a cake. The inevitable crap outcome of this cake was assisted by two factors - I have never made a cake before, and didn’t know what the hell I was buying (Is this flour or sugar? Is this icing or mayonnaise? Is this an egg or something Japanese that is egg-shaped?). It turned out ok and nobody has died yet, so I presume either that it was edible, or the Japanese stomach is very strong. I also made him a mixed CD (yes I realise that we aren’t 12yrs old and that he isn’t my first girlfriend) of some English/American music. He now likes Del Amitri, Queen and Jimmy Eat World.

Also today I met the village chief. I know this has connotations of some guy in a feather hat and a skull necklace, but it was just a regular man in a suit. I think by ‘chief’ they mean ‘mayor’ but I could be wrong. Anyway, the meeting was probably the most awkward situation I have been in so far - of many to come, no doubt. Myself and two others from the Board of Education sat down in the chiefs room. He then proceeded to babble on at me in Japanese, occasionally pausing to look at me, obviously to offer me time to reciprocate to the question he just asked. Often my retort would be a blank stare or just a repetition of the last word he said (a valuable technique - basically results in you agreeing with what he says. Could backfire though, eg. Do you kill children? Yes, I kill, I kill). Once in a blue moon however, I was actually able to understand what he said and responded in crap Japanese eg “Surrey is under London. 20 minutes. I play Kendo. Where is Kendo dojo? Soccer is fun. I have Beckham hair.”.

When I was about 16 I had a half Japanese girlfriend. Although at the time I was very much in love, I also used the relationship as a flimsy pretext to study Japanese, reasoning that “If my girlfriend is half Japanese, its not weird for me to study Japanese, right?”. Debatable. Anyway, I managed to get through to reading the kana’s, basic grammar, use of prepositions and some verb forms etc. So far in my Japan experience I have been continually thinking to myself “Thank Christ I studied the basics all that time ago. Thank Tapdancing Jesus.”. As such, in situations like with the village chief, I have a tiny tiny buffer with which I have some capacity to decipher what is being said. The buffer gets filled up quickly though, and by the time I have figured out what he said, he is 5 sentences ahead. Ah well, ganbarimasu. After that, being able to smoke in the office became a true virtue.

Tonight, for my supervisors birthday, we went to a place that serves ‘zaru soba’ (chilled soba noodles, which you dip into a soya-based sauce). This is one of the nice qualities of Japanese people - you mention something in passing which results in actions on their part above and beyond what would be expected in the UK. Hence, me saying “Tonight I will make gyu-don” resulted in my supervisor coming round later with a packet of gyu-don sauce, and “I like to eat zaru-soba” results in us going to eat zaru-soba. The place we went to has a special on at the moment, as it is summer (zaru soba season, I guess) - 1000 yen for all you can eat. The record is 12 plates - which is frickloads. I managed 5 plates, of which after the 4th, I was verging on puking up a big noodley mess. After eating, we went to an onsen - a Japanese hot spring. This was an interesting experience - and one that is very typically Japanese. I suppose the English equivalent of an onsen is a spa, but an onsen is more connected with nature - the water is volcanic spring water and is (not in all onsen) naturally warm, due to volcanic, er, heat. Before you get in the water, you must wash yourself thoroughly - to the Japanese, for a person to get straight into a bath / onsen without showering first is utter madness. The UK equivalent would be akin to wiping your arse with your face. It makes sense to me though, I never really saw the appeal of going ‘unclean’ into a bath, soaking in your own diluted dirt for half an hour. You sit in an onsen (and indeed, walk around the onsen) in the nude. Getting naked infront of your colleagues / friends is the first cultural hurdle to overcome for the gaijin man at an onsen. You are given a (very small) towel, which you can use to hide your masculinity, but really, its size belies that purpose. Onsens nowadays have separate male/female sections, which I am yet to decide is either a blessing or a dirty dirty curse.

Yesterday I was bored so I drove to the big Jusco about 15 mins away to have a look see. It is the nearest ‘department store’ style shop to me, and sells everything from groceries and toys to clothes and electronics - it even has an arcade and a Mcdonalds. I came extremely close to buying a Gamecube. Very close. My conscience kicked in at the last second though and said “Jon, you don’t need it right now. Don’t spend the money that you brought to Japan and are supposed to be living on. Wait until you get paid. Put it back on the shelf. Good boy. No no, put it back on the shelf”. So begrudgingly I put it back on the shelf. My vexation at the strength of my own willpower was furthered by the fact that Super Mario Sunshine is already out to buy in Japan (the UK will have to wait until Christmas) and this quite possibly will be The Best Game Ever. That is, until the new Zelda game comes out next year.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 5th, 2002 at 1:13 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.