SPRING FEVER

If reports around school are any indicator, a heinous plague is about to befall the entirety of Japan.  DL was wrestling with a cold in early February, which prompted Yosh sensei to gleefully speculate that he might be suffering from kafunsho.  "What's that?" asked DL.  "It's an illness that you get in the spring," replied Yosh.  "Oh, you mean like allergies?"  "No.  This is much worse than allergies. This is a sickness where you get a headache, and your eyes itch, and your ears itch, and your nose is always wet."  Ah, I see.

Kafunsho, or hay fever, is triggered mainly by pollen from the hectares of cedar trees that were planted throughout Japan in the 1950s.  The wood was intended for rebuilding efforts following WWII; however, when it became clear that it was cheaper to import foreign lumber, the trees were left to proliferate, along with an allergy-stricken population.  On the bright side, hay fever has spawned a booming industry of antihistamines, inhalers, herbal teas, eye drops, nasal sprays, protective goggles, face masks, online pollen monitoring systems, etc. These remedies are but one slice of the pie of what I term the seasonal products of Japan.  In summer, there are racks of sweat towels, big hats, umbrellas, and sunscreen.  Starting in the fall and extending through winter, these goods are then replaced by hot patches for every conceivable part of the body, hot water bottles, electric blankets, kerosene stoves, layers of thermal underwear, protective face masks, and tissues.  (Just don't blow your nose in public, which can strike terror into those around you.)  However, it seems to me that at least two of the three sources discomfort (heat and cold) could be easily circumvented with...insulation!  Instead, the government is reportedly bent on tackling the harbinger of the third cause of seasonal discomfiture, pollen.  

Back in 2006, the Japanese Forestry Agency started formulating various strategies to deal with the growing pollen count.  One article I read from 2008 stated that the agency was looking to cull the cedar trees in certain areas and plant strains that produce less pollen.  A more recent piece states that trees are being logged in other areas, but new ones are not being planted, in the hopes that other arboreal types that produce less pollen will be given a chance to spread.  Still, these efforts are isolated and limited, leaving most of the country in a constant swirl of spores.  Oh, contraband Zyrtec, don't fail me now.

**Since posting this, another friend has warned me about Asian Dust, a phenomenon in which sand, pollutants and bacteria are blown over from Central Asia. Mon Dieu.  I'm thinking about being fitted for a Hazmat suit.  That Fukushima look is really in right now.  

BILL BAILEY, WON'T YOU PLEASE [GO] HOME?

About a month ago, The Economist audaciously published an account by a Canadian freelance journalist who had been detained at a Tokyo airport, and was then deported back to Canada against his will (he had previously lived in Tokyo for many years with his partner).  What made the story so remarkable was 1) that The Economist admitted flat-out that it could not verify his story, but were publishing it anyway, and 2) if even part of what he wrote was true, the effect was quite chilling. I won't go into the details here, but basically the journalist in question, Christopher Johnson, claims that he was abused and taken advantage of by the Japanese immigration system and an Asian airline, Asiana.     While he says he was never given an official reason for being stopped and sent back to Canada, he suspects it has to do with work he's done criticizing the Japanese government.  Having only been here 7 months, I can't really speak to the claims he makes about immigration.  However, there are several elements to the story that make me (and others more knowledgeable of Japanese culture than I) a bit skeptical, a sense that was exacerbated when Johnson started getting cagey about questions pertaining to his visa status.  From what I've read, it appears he allowed his visa to expire and wasn't as quick as he should have been to get it renewed.

Failing to adhere to rules and regulations (especially as a gaijin) is tantamount to shooting yourself in the foot in Japan, and there is little patience and understanding for people who don't comply.  One of the first things I was told to settle upon coming here was my re-entry visa.  Even if you have secured a visa from the Japanese government, you are expected to get a second permit that allows you to leave and then return to the country.  If you go abroad without the approved visa and then try to come back, the authorities will deny you entrance. So even if there was a family emergency in your home country, and you left suddenly and then came back, if you didn't have the appropriate papers, you'd be told to leave again.  Re-entry can be worked out, but it takes a lot of time and expense.  

The Japanese immigration system is difficult to maneuver, and few people are successful in garnering a long-term visa.  The website for the Immigration Bureau of Japan is less than encouraging.  Their mission statement (emphasis added) reads:

By connecting Japan and the world through proper immigration control services under the motto "Internationalization in compliance with the rules," making efforts for smoother cross-border human mobility, and deporting undesirable aliens for Japan, the Immigration Bureau, the Ministry of Justice makes contributions to sound development of the Japanese society.

Teachers contracted through organizations like mine have to jump through all sorts of hoops (fingerprinting, background checks, etc.), and receive a 5-year visa.  After the 5-year visa expires, we are expected to return to our home countries, though a few people do stay on and find other work in Japan.  Their new employer then negotiates another visa for them.  For those who don't have jobs and therefore can't get a work visa, staying in Japan is trickier.  Many boyfriends and girlfriends of fellow English teachers have come to live with their significant others in Japan under a 90-day tourist visa.  When that expires, they then make a quick trip to a nearby country (usually South Korea), before returning and restarting the clock on a new 90 days.  If you want to stay for the really long term, you have to pass a test, in Japanese, that is more an examination of a linguistic proficiency than civic understanding.  Very few (and sometimes no) people pass the test.  

It's therefore not surprising that there are so few foreigners here outside of tourists.  Indeed, the most welcoming period of "immigration" was at the beginning of the previous century, when the Japanese brought Koreans (and some Chinese) into the country to perform manual labor.  Today, Korea and China have the greatest number of emigrants residing in Japan, though numbers from the Philippines are rising as well (mostly nurses and healthcare workers, a boon for Japan's aging population).  Most immigrants take on positions involving the 3 ks: kitanai, kitsui and kiten (dirty, heavy and dangerous).  Japan is also having trouble navigating issues relating to the nikkei, or people of Japanese descent living abroad.  This applies in particular to Brazilians and Peruvians with Japanese blood, whose Japanese forebears moved to South America in search of work following the collapse of feudalism in the late 18th, early 19th century.  The Meiji government encouraged emigration to the Americas; however, they were less keen when descendants of these adventurers sought to return to Japan during the country's economic boom in the 1980s.  Though the nikkei have Japanese blood, they are not considered Japanese, and there is considerable debate over whether or not they have a claim to immigration status in Japan.

It will be interesting in the coming years to see how this struggle plays out.  As reluctant as the Japanese are to allow an influx of foreigners, they need to open their doors in order to grow their numbers, which are rapidly declining thanks to the aging population and the decreased birth rate.  Still, change is not an easy concept for this proud country, and if it comes, it will not be quick.    

------------------

And now for something a little lighter...

In one of the last meetings of the English club for the term, we decided to have an "all English day." No speaking Japanese!  We dusted off the Scrabble boards and broke up into teams.  As the game went on, the vowels became fewer, and the creation of words more difficult.  One of my students, U-chan, was struggling.  She rummaged through the little velvet bag, pulled out a "z," looked at it, and said, "Shit!"  

I was so proud.  

NAKED MAN FESTIVAL: WASSHOI, WASSHOI!

I love Japan.  I love it.  Despite its occasional frustrations, Japan is unparalleled in terms of adventure, challenges, and overall weirdness. And as in any good relationship, Japan is forever surprising me with new and strangely wonderful memories, few of which could be stranger than Hadaka Matsuri.  

Hadaka Matsuri (literally, "Naked Man Festival") takes place in select locations around Japan in January or February every year.  The gist of the event is this: thousands of men strip down to loincloths (fundoshi) and tabi (socks) and run around a Shinto shrine, trying to catch a couple of smelly sticks (shingi- they smell of incense) that are thrown by priests at the stroke of midnight.  Whoever catches the sticks will have good luck for a year.  In some cases the winners are given a lot of money, which is probably then invested in sutures and plastic surgery, as the winner is inevitably cut, bruised, crushed and trampled in the chaotic rush for the sticks.

I have over 500 photos from the evening, all of mostly naked men.  Let's just say that it's nice that Asian men are mostly hairless.

The Nara delegation for Naked Man put forward 8 intrepid competitors, though that number would have been higher were women allowed to participate.  As spectators and members of the entourage, the rest of us pitched in by giving moral support and prepping our team for the grueling night ahead of them: having your nether regions wrapped in a loincloth by a stranger, running around in the cold, and being doused in freezing water as part of a purification ritual.  Our prep mainly consisted of passing around a bottle of Jameson to keep our champions comfortably buzzed (for warmth), and finding ingenious ways to conceal the large tattoos of two of our party.  Tattoos are a big no-no in Japan because they are associated with the yakuza (Japanese mob).  In an effort to exclude yakuza from public spaces and events, people with tattoos are prohibited from going to onsen, having massages...or taking part in Naked Man.  Of course, the yakuza find a way around this ban by covering up their tattoos with bandages and surgical tape.  You can spot them at Naked Man because of their black fundoshi (most everyone else is wearing white).  The loudspeakers declare that drinking is strictly prohibited, but that rule, like that of no tattoos, is quietly overlooked by most officials.  However, in order to minimize the number of injuries that arise from (or in part from) intoxication, the shrine changed the time they would drop the sticks from midnight to 10pm. 

Outside a wrapping tent

On the run, being sprayed with water

Runners and spectators arrive separately, as the runners need extra time to get wrapped up in their fundoshi by local volunteers, which apparently involves a cinching action that sounds quite painful.  We the spectators got to the shrine at around 7:30pm, and found that the party was already in full swing.  Legions of diapered men, old, young and middle-aged, were jogging around the streets to keep warm, through water-filled ponds that had been dug on the grounds, and up the steps of the shrine, shouting, "Wasshoi, wasshoi!"  After making the rounds a few times, I went to snag a spot in the spectators area that was appropriate for someone vertically challenged.  I was not disappointed, as I had a prime view of the main "stage" of the shrine, above which the priests throw out the shingi.  Standing on the stage with 10 Japanese men were 4 of our party, whose strategy was clearly the same as mine: get a good spot early.  

Running up the temple stairs

At 8:30pm, I checked the temperature.  It was -3 degrees Celsius (that's 27 degrees Fahrenheit).  By 9pm, the shrine was filling up quickly. The "stage" and its surrounding stairs were soon so crowded with jostling bodies that every 5-10 minutes you'd see whole sections of men tumbling down the stairs like dominoes.  You could hear the thumps from where we were standing, about 150m away.  After a few seconds, the dazed men would straggle up the stairs again, and try to push their way deeper into the crowd.  Fights and pushing are not uncommon, and are considered a part of strategy.  One of our runners told me incredulously afterwards, "There was this pervert standing next to me!  The dude kept pinching my butt and then reaching around and plucking my pubes! I tried to elbow him, but he just kept at it until [another ALT] reached around me and put his hand between the guy's hip and his, you know, front.  That finally stopped the guy, but it was SO WEIRD!"  Another ALT turned around and found a middle-aged Japanese man giving him a death stare.  The man then proceeded to start punching the ALT, which he made no move to fend off so as not to escalate the situation, until other Japanese runners quickly came over and dragged the pugilist away.  At one point, the police had to intervene and push their way through the crowds to rescue a man who had been injured in the scrum, a process that took about 10 minutes to complete.

Start the countdown

By 9:45pm, the crowds were so dense that you could see steam rising up from the bodies, as though it were a scene from Dante's Inferno.  The atmosphere became more and more frenzied until 10pm, when the sticks were dropped and the lights went out.  When they came back on a few moments later, the mass appeared to be boiling- steam was coming from everywhere as cold water was thrown down to keep the bodies from sticking together.  People were pushed and tackled, and some were trying to hurry off.  As one ALT said to me, "Once I realized I hadn't caught one of the sticks, I realized it was time to just put my hands in the air, and calmly try to walk away.  If you stuck around at that point, you were just looking for a fight."  Checking the temperature again, it was now -5 degrees Celsius (25 degrees Fahrenheit).  

Shrine exodus

The end was anticlimactic, like a poorly executed magic trick that gets built up and built up, but the illusion is so quick that you miss it.  Thankfully, there were no deaths this year, and other than a few bruises and abrasions, none of our lads were hurt in the scuffle.  They even made the paper the next day!  Still, as we made our way back to the buses, I couldn't help but think that the runners looked a little deflated and unwilling to let go of the evening, despite its trials.  They meandered their way down the street slightly hunched, no longer chanting or carousing, their still-bare butts peeking sadly from underneath their snugly zipped down jackets.  Naked Man was officially concluded.  Goodnight, moon.

"DO YOU BELIEVE IN FOREVER LOVE?"

-Written by one of my students on her Valentine's Day card.  

And now we come to my least favorite holiday of the year, Valentine's Day, a day to make single people feel sad and alone, and people in relationships feel the stress of having to make a suitably romantic and memorable gesture.  The one upside is that it is socially acceptable to eat obscene amounts of chocolate, and no one blinks at the grocery store when you're seen buying a basket full of Mars products.  Little do they know that I have no intention of sharing this bounty.  

Of course Japan would eagerly adopt a holiday devoted to pink, red, romance, pageantry, hearts and candies.  The cute things that sicken even the least jaded of us delight this populace.  Valentine's Day is a KAWAII (Cute) EXPLOSION!!!  But because this is Japan, they've added their own ritualistic spin.  February 14th is Valentine's Day, and women present chocolates (bought or homemade) to men: fathers, brothers, coworkers, boyfriends, husbands, etc.  Giving homemade chocolate is a big deal, because it signifies that the recipient is your "only love."  Indeed, chocolate is divided into two camps: courtesy chocolate vs. chocolate of love.  But the fun doesn't stop there!  On March 14th is White Day, when men reciprocate by giving gifts to all the women who presented them with chocolate. Their gifts can be chocolate, flowers, jewelry, and other tokens.  The rule of thumb is that the men's gifts should be roughly 3x the value of whatever the women bestowed upon them. 

Korea also celebrates "Black Day" on April 14th, where boys and girls who received no gifts on either Valentine's or White Day get together and eat noodles with black bean sauce.  Now that's a party I can get behind.

My Valentine's haul this year- 98% of it made by hand by my students.  It won't last until morning.

FROM THE CLASSROOM

My second years are working on a commercial or advertisement for a product of their choosing.  "Madam Donut" features a collection of leopard print, tofu, and collagen donuts.  Thinking this was a mistranslation by an electronic dictionary, I asked what they thought "collagen" meant.  "You know, it makes you young and beautiful."  When I argued that collagen can't be ingested, they blinked and replied, "It's a magic donut."  

MR. SANDMAN

Last weekend I went to sunakake matsuri, a small, local sand throwing festival.  Ten rounds of sand throwing take place; the ritual supposedly has something to do with fertility. Village volunteers dress in protective gear ("They look like Klansmen," said our Kiwi compatriot), and then use long, narrow shovels to scoop up sand and fling it into the crowd.  The crowd, meanwhile, busily flings handfuls of sand at the volunteers with the shovels  ("This is rather cathartic," said the Kiwi.).   The gamut and ingenuity of people's protective great was something to behold: rain suits, ponchos, hats, plastic bags worn over the head, galloshes, swim goggles, chemistry goggles, face masks, ski masks...Below are some photos.      

Sand Storm

In the line of fire

Direct hit

Ready, aim...

Pikacchu!

TGIF!!

-Greeting every Friday from one of my Japanese co-teachers; no clue how she picked up this fantastic bit of slang 

Being a teacher is surreal, if for no other reason than that expressed by a friend who is about to move to Korea to teach: "Ahhhh who would LET ME teach their kids?!?!" Being "on the inside" of the faculty lounge provokes a mix of emotions, as though watching a soap opera unfold. Near fist fights, snipes, gripes, bizarre eccentricities...all these things and more take place. One day I walked in to find the 27 year-old kendo teacher massaging the shoulders of the 60 year-old Japanese history teacher. It resembled the time former president Bush attempted to rub the shoulders of German Chancellor Merkel at a G8 convention, except that the Japanese history teacher didn't object the way the chancellor did.

From www.businesspundit.com 

 Fellow ALT DL recounted to me the strange tics of the sensei who sits next to him:

"So you know A-sensei, right? OK, well he has this habit of saying yosh (let's go) all the time. So he'll sit down with his lunch and say, 'Yosh,' or he'll be getting ready for class, and then he'll sigh and say 'Yosh.' Anyway, the other day I was in one of the stalls in the men's room, and I hear someone come in, and as the door shuts, all I hear is 'YOSH!'"

DL managed to escape the men's room unseen before dissolving into laughter, but just barely. Keeping a straight face (or even one of comprehension) can be a challenge. One day I was conferring with DL about our lesson plan for the upcoming week, when Pop Up sensei appeared to talk to us about his daily ablutions. [I call him Pop Up sensei because he pops up at the most unlikely moments.] He detailed how he washes his body and hair every night, and then washes his clothes from the day. Neither of us were quite sure how to respond to this recital except to smile and nod. Eventually, Pop Up bowed and went back to his desk.

Sometimes we become unwillingly embroiled in various dramas. Of all the teachers I work with, my best partnership is with Nice sensei. He teaches me about Japanese culture and customs, leaves little gifts (like fruit) on my desk occasionally, and is just a really pleasant and helpful person.　He is equally friendly and demonstrative towards DL, though they don't teach together. One day, on my way to class with Hut sensei, another co-teacher, he asked me, "What do you and Nice sensei talk about? You are always laughing with him when you come back to the staff room after class." Uncomfortable, I made some response about how Nice sensei likes to tell humorous stories about his time studying abroad in the UK, which make me laugh. Thinking the matter was settled, I was surprised when Hut sensei asked me the same question again on our way to our second lesson of the day. Several weeks later, I went bowling with a group of teachers, and then to dinner afterwards. At dinner, one of the other young teachers was teasing me by asking if I have a boyfriend. Before I could say anything, Hut sensei interjected, "Oh, her boyfriend is Nice sensei. They are always laughing together." This absolutely floored me. Not only did it rankle that he would make a comment like that in front of our coworkers (including the principal!), it was a cheap shot at Nice sensei, who was not present (and is also married). Coming from a guy who is known to patronize hostess bars (where men pay to talk- and more- to pretty women), and is at times inappropriate with the female students, this was pretty galling. But instead of demanding a duel, I coldly changed the subject.

TO BOLDLY GO...

This March, a group of students from my high school will travel to Shaker Heights, OH to live for two weeks as Americans do. As experts on all things American, DL and I have been asked to meet with the "American delegation" once a week, to give them tips and answer any questions they may have. The questions, if I may say, have been marvelous.

1. How often should I bathe?
(Answer: At least once a day would be nice.)

2. How can I clean my clothes?
(Answer: Your host mother will either wash them for you or show you how to wash them. We explained to them that Americans wash and then dry their clothes. When we described to them what a dryer was, they oohed and aahed as though we had just unveiled a new iPhone.)

3. Are people fat?
(Answer: Yes. Just kidding, some people are fat, but other people are skinny.)

4. What should I say to the immigration people at the airport?
(Answer: Umm...just be polite and tell them you're in the United States on an exchange program. They're not going to think you're terrorists.)

5. How big of a bag can I take on the plane?
(Answer: See airport guidelines.)

6. What kinds of bags do students carry at school?
(Answer: Maybe students still carry backpacks?)

We've also covered gestures that are interpreted differently in the US and Japan, money, tipping, refills, the difference between American sizes for drinks and Japanese sizes, shaking hands (no limp fish!), and greetings and goodbyes. More interesting is what these students are being encouraged to learn from their Japanese teachers. Yosh sensei wanted us to drill into the students that they needed to help their host families with chores. "They are not guests," he said, "In Japan, we do not let guests help with these matters, and children are not required to help with house work until they are much older." A teacher a little younger than I added, "That's true! I didn't help with house work until I was 20!"

The teacher who heads the project told me he instructed them to watch some movies over winter vacation. I asked the students which movies he had recommended. "Die Hard" was the prompt response. Her review? "It was...exciting!" Yippee ki yay. With visions of morbidly obese white people and John McLane in their heads, I can't wait to hear their thoughts after the trip.

ONI WA SOTO, FUKU WA UCHI- DEMONS, OUT! LUCK, IN!

Happy Setsubun! February 3rd marks the day before the start of spring.  Given that February 2nd was the coldest day of the year at -1 degrees Celsius, spring still seems a long way off, particularly when I woke up this morning and the inside temperature registered 3 degrees Celsius, and the frozen pipes would not emit water.  [This article really captures the angst of winter.] Otherwise, setsubun is a great holiday.  Families put holly over their doors to ward off evil spirits, and someone (usually the father) puts on a demon mask, and runs around as the rest of the family throws roasted soybeans, yelling, "Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi!"- "Demons, out!  Luck, in!"  One teacher told me that even though her children have moved out, her husband still makes her chase him around, throwing soybeans at him.  At dinnertime everyone sits down to eat the soybeans (one for each year of their life) and maki (sushi rolls).  You're supposed to eat the roll while face a certain cardinal direction, although according to one Japanese person, this is a recent tradition "thought up by the people who make sushi.  Like candy on Valentine's Day."

From www.backpackers-miyajima.com

I'LL SLEEP WHEN I'M DEAD

As the adage goes, "Americans live to work, Europeans work to live."  The former is true of the Japanese as well, to the point where it seems that for some people, work is interrupted only by death. Yes, this is really a thing here. The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare acknowledges the problem (and even tracks the statistics of it), and several studies focusing on causes, etc. have been commissioned.  This phenomenon is so common that the Japanese have coined a term for it: karoshi, which literally means "death from overwork."  The official cause of death is usually something cardiovascular-related, and the age of death can be as young as 29.

Many factors contribute to karoshi: stress, long hours, lack of sleep, poor nutrition, etc. Some people believe that the biggest contributing factor is tanshinhoni, wherein salarymen (a generic term to describe men who work for a base salary at big corporations) are transferred to another corporate branch, leaving their families behind so as not to uproot them.   Employees can be transferred as often as every 2-3 years, and refusal is not an option if they want to retain their jobs. The relocated men are jokingly referred to as "business bachelors," but the distance takes its toll on the families.  It's particularly difficult for women who live away from their extended families and are thus denied that support system.  Instead, many women are left virtual single mothers, raising multiple children.  There are repercussions for the children, too, some less serious than others.  One JET told me that when she would allow students to choose stickers as a reward in class, many of the boys surprised her by picking the most effeminate option.  When I asked why, she said, "Because their mothers raise them.  A lot of times that's why they wear their hair longer or wear less masculine clothing- their mothers dress them." 

Karoshi occurs in other countries as well, some of which are in Asia. NPR's "This American Life" did a podcast on this topic last month, and the topic was subsequently picked up by The New York Times.  The story was about Foxconn, a factory in Shenzhen, China that manufactures products for Apple.  An Apple devotee went to the factory as a sort of pilgrimage (think Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), only to find out how bleak the conditions were.  Many people were known to have died after several days of consecutive shifts, and the factory had to install nets across the buildings after workers started killing themselves by jumping off the roofs (in Japanese, overwork suicide is known as karojisatsu).   Some people, such as one journalist at the venerated Wall Street Journal, defend places like Foxconn as testimony to the imperfections of free markets.  Regardless of where you stand on the issue, I think it begs some important questions about the nature of Asia's future, particularly in light of the euro crisis.  If Asia rises to become the next economic powerhouse, what will that world look like?

If Asia does ascend to such lofty heights, I doubt Japan will play a significant role.  Plagued by a rapidly aging population, a need to import most everything, and still reeling from the Asian financial crisis of the 90s, the country already has a lot on its plate.  Moreover, I think the overly bureaucratic and incredibly conservative business ethos of Japan will hurt it.  Its rigid adherence to hierarchy, the prioritization of the collective over the individual, and the overriding importance of consensus will hold back Japan and make it unable to compete with more dynamic economic systems.  

And on that note, I'm going to have a drink after a long week.  You know, for health reasons.  No karoshi for this girl.    

AND SO AS NOT TO END ON A STODGY NOTE...

This happened this week: 

While discussing the meaning of "get on the subway" with my first years, one girl raised her hand and said, "Like the sandwich?" This is the same girl who played the word "double" in Scrabble last week. When asked by her partner how she knew that word, she replied, "Oh, you know- cheeseburgers."

and then...

  

One of my second years, prodding my nose with her finger, said that she liked my "tall" nose, and wished I would give her some of mine so that hers wouldn't be so small.  Later, as I was helping her and her friends with an English project, she said, "You speak very good English."  "Thanks," I replied, "I practice a lot."