Neighbourhood tour - part 1....

Japan is full of stuff that's cute, quirky, or just plain weird, so I thought it might be nice to show you a little of what's near where I live in Nagoya. One of the main places that's fun to wander down is Osu Kannon Arcade- this is basically a covered market full of Japanese cuisine, Engrish covered clothes, and shonky looking toys from China and other dubious Far Eastern origins.

This is it from the outside - I went awandering in the day this time, but at night it's lit up with neon like almost every other building in Japan. If you squint, you can see a Big Issue salesman on the left - I don't know why, but I was surprised to see that here.



This is the inside of Osu Kannon - this is a fairly quite day, so not too many people bustling about. What you can't tell from the picture is the noise of the place - pretty much every stall has people yelling "irrashimasae" to passersby which is "welcome" in Japanese. With that vowel in the last syllable, you can really drag it out, which they do until it almost becomes unintelligible - "irrashimasaaweeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEAaaaeeeeeEEEEE!". Also, you look on the right, you can see a Pikachu suit that's for sale.

Have you ever eaten octopus balls? Stop sniggering at the back - bits of octopus tentacle in batter - takoyaki - are tasty Japanese treat which you can get at this stall.
The guy running it was awesome, singing welcome to people and some other stuff I couldn't understand, probably about how ace his balls were. So I took his photo:

This is what takoyaki looks like btw

Further into the marketplace, there's this rather nice shrine. Or temple - there is a distinction, but I'm buggered if I can remember what it is. The main shriney bit of it is behind, but I wanted to take a photo of this to show you the white bits of paper tied to the washing lines - these are wishes that people have made when they've prayed to the deity that inhabits that shrine. The Japanese are more superstitious than religious, so it's kind of like crossing your fingers or touching wood for us.

I had to quickly include this poor sod, dressed as Japanese here Ultraman. He's advertising a pachinko parlour and had to just stand there waving his forlorn flag back and forth. I was boiling hot that day in shorts and a t-shirt so I don't know how he felt in that fetching body suit.


This is a shop on the outskirts of Osu Cannon and it is geek central - so as you can imagine I felt quite at home there.

It's about 5 floors of comics and various paraphernalia, but it's actually a very frustrating place for me as a foreigner because every bloody thing's in Japanese. Gah - all those lovely comics and I can't read any of them. This shop also follows the general Japanese comic shop rule of making little distinction in the organisation of comic genres - the upshot of which is you can be browsing some fairly tame stuff and suddenly find yourself looking into the pair of bare school girl breasts on the same shelf. Zoinks.

A few floors up in this shop, there's this section:
This is the cosplay section which, if you don't know, is a contraction of costume play. You can hire and buy various outfits here from famous manga and anime series. I haven't seen anyone wearing this on the street so I assume they either only wear them in private, or there's some kind of club you can go to.

Here's another pretty shrine in the middle of the shopping arcade:
If you don't know how these work: inside the main wooden hut is usually some kind of object which is endowed with a kami - a kind of deity or god - which you can pray to to ask for something. You throw in 5 yen as an offering, clap your hands twice (or in this case, pull that bellrope) to "wake" the kami, then put your hands together and pray. Some of the famous shrines have supposedly ancient and powerful items which only the head priests are allowed to see - one of which is Atsuta-Jingu. There's a link to some pictures of that on the right.

While we're on shrines, there's yet ANOTHER in another part of the arcade - the area's not really that big, so three shrines is somewhat excessive in my opinion. And this one is a biggy:

Most of it is off limits unless you're a priest though. There's some nice incense burners outside at the top which some people were congregating around. Although temples and shrines in Japan are sacrosanct, they don't have quite the holy gravitas that churches have in England - people waiting outside were chatting away and smoking cigarettes, there's no impetus to keep your head bowed or worry about being smited (smitten?). It's a pretty nice peaceful atmosphere, even for a heathen foreigner like me.

Finally, I thought it was worth showing this shop off:



it has a rather comical name as you can see. But - interesting fact - did you know that there is a famous chain of outlets in England with the SAME name, but in Japanese? Answer in the next blog entry....

Late night karaoke....

Saturday was Thom - a fellow ECC teacher - 's Birthday, so he organised a night of cavorting and carousing in the main social area of Nagoya, Sakae. After dinner, we went to a rather posh looking bar for some drinks - I ended up sitting opposite a Japanese girl who didn't speak any English, so I thought it might be a good opportunity to practice my Japanese. Aaah, hubris.....my skills were in fact stretched to breaking point, as although I can order food and sort out train tickets without getting too stressed, my conversational abilities are next to nothing. So after asking her if she was studying English at the moment (she understood that at least), it kind of ground to a halt. She could only stay for half an hour though so the seat opposite me was soon empty. This meant I could see the group of people on the next table, some of whom were foreigners (i.e. Westerners) and some of whom were Japanese.
Now, there's kind of an unwritten rule that when you see other Westerners in Japan, you don't acknowledge them. Certainly, the temptation is to give a little nod or say "hi" (or in your first week, to throw your arms around them and sob "thank god, someone that I can speak to!! Where are some toilets that I can sit on instead of squat over for the love of god?!?!"). but we don't - we're strangers after all so it'd be a bit weird. Wouldn't it?

Anyway, a few of the Japanese guys looked round, chatted amongst themselves, and then two of them bounded over and launched themselves facefirst into a big friendly conversation with me and Jacqui (another ECC teacher who was next to me). I was a bit taken aback initially - the guy's face who was talking to me lit up as he gabbled English a mile a minute; I was half expecting him to whip out a pamphlet and ask if I'd considered letting Jesus into my life.
Turns out they were social event organisers for people who didn't know anyone in Nagoya - Japanese and foreigners - so they took my number and said they'd give me a call if they have one again. Watch this space....
Afterwards, we went to karaoke which was awesome fun, although I was banned from playing with the tambourine just because some people developed chronic tinnitus last time we went. *sulk* I don't think Thom will mind me saying that by the end of the night he was out of his tree and ranting about philosophy and how great Japan is to anyone in his vicinity (including random Japanese people and his own reflection a couple of times).

When you're in the karaoke booth, you order your drinks by picking up a little intercom/phone, and it was a timely reminder of the fact I've been in Japan for a while now that not only did I not mind speaking to the waiters, but that I could understand when they said they were out of certain drinks and apologise when some of the guys changed their mind about what they wanted. Time was when we'd all draw straws to make the dreaded order, bellow "FOUR. BEERS. PLEASE!!!" in English down the phone, and then sit back with fingers crossed to see what we ended up with (one time - ordered:four beers and a whiskey and soda. Received:one glass of plum wine. Baffling). I mean yes, we didn't get the coke that I asked for, but still it was nice to see that all the time I've been spending bent over textbooks mumbling "everyone should just bloody speak bloody English" hasn't been for nothing.

Anyway, karaoke was great fun, but we rather over-enthusiastically stayed till 4:30am which means I got home at 5am. And then got up at half 9 for work. Thank the great monkey god for Starbucks and his bounteous mocha frappuncinos which got me through Sunday lessons. Lo, they were good.

The sub-shift....

At least once a week, all ECC teachers have to work as emergency substitutes, covering anyone who's ill or on holiday that day. If no-one's away, you do what's called a base shift, where you go to your base-school and act as the office monkey doing whatever admin they need doing. The standard thing to do is stuff tissues with flyers - if you don't know, the standard Japanese advertising practice is to give out little packets of tissues (about the size of a cassette tape) with a flyer whatever you're hawking in. It's always good to have one about your person, because a fair few of the toilets here don't have toilet paper. Nothing quite like the sweet sweet irony of grumpily waving your hand "no" at half a dozen people handing out tissues and then finding yourself 15 minutes later wondering how absorbent your Starbucks receipt is. Anyway, to keep things interesting, you can also pile up the packets of tissues into different shaped towers and stacks. I'm sure you're already getting a picture of how fun this type of day is, but just to further enlighten you here's a detailed breakdown:

1530 - Arrive at school bright eyed and ready to go, full of baseless and wholly misguided optimism about the tissue sculptures that exist in potentia and what magnificent edifices you'll construct that day.

1535 - Begin stuffing flyers into tissues. Realise that actually, there's not much you can do with them except stack them, or place them next to each other. Enthusiasm runs down a notch.

1600 - Try and combat rising tide of boredom by engaging in conversation with Japanese staff. Achieve moderate success - although very friendly, they are also very busy and often break off mid chat to answer the phone or deal with customers at the front desk. Decide to focus all energies on construction of a wonderful tissue palace.

1630 - First tissue sculpture finished. It is crap. Enthusiasm takes a major slump. Decide to go for toilet break to raise spirits.

1645 - Stuff some more tissues. Consciousness begins to dim and extremities become numb. A second tower takes shape, but it's half hearted at best.

1647 - Despite several hours passing, a look at my watch indicates that only two minutes have gone by. First feelings of anger manifest.

1830 - Utterly bewildered in a sea of effusive Japanese as the efficient ECC machine hits full tilt and staff run around dealing with phone calls, shouting "welcome!!" at students coming in, and generally being very busy. No-one wants to talk to me about the hilarious poo sculptures I saw no matter how loudly I yell. Toilet breaks become a tired necessity rather than the thrilling excursion they once were.

1900 - Sanity is restored when given two lessons to teach of 40 minutes each. Teach the hell out of buying a train ticket, and terrify students with wide eyed zealotry about how trains are late all the time in England. Try and run over by as much as I can, but eventually have to unlock classroom door and allow my weeping charges to leave.

2020 - With only an hour to go, suddenly all energy is restored and shift becomes a joyous and happy time. Stacks of flyer-stuffed tissues are wracked up at a rate of knots. Questions regarding English grammar from Japanese staff are answered fervently and - it's fairly certain - incorrectly. Smiles all round from the sub-teacher!!

2045 - Still forty-five minutes to go!? Bollocks.

2130 - Shift ends. Clock out, walk to the station with the other teachers, discussing day and expounding how - all things considered - it wasn't that bad........

And that, is a subshift. Also, July is hawaiian shirt day, so I have to get some in to wear. You can bet they'll be some pictures of that.....

Delightful sculpture...

I went for a meal last night a Japanese friend of mine who works as the director of one of the schools - she suggested going to a Spanish restaurant that she knows as there was "something interesting to see there". Well, my mind was alive with possibilities - would it be something run-of-the-mill like a set of antique castanets? Or some eccentric Mediterranean-Asian fusion cuisine: sushi covered in sangria? It turned out to be these small sculptures - check out the front view:



If you look closely, you might be able to see the detail that makes this more than just a quaint oddity - here's the back view:

Yes, they're having a poo! In fact, the one second into the picture looks like he's been eating a little too much fibre - he'll end up in A&E if he keeps that up. Anyway, not quite what I was expecting but certainly interesting and it made me laugh.


While I'm messing about with photos, this is where I work on Sunday. It's in a swanky shopping mall in the city centre called La Chic (all trace of a French pronunciation is removed when Japanese people say it - "Lashick"). This is the entrance:



and here's the inside where the staff beaver away arranging lessons and such. Also pictured is nice friendly staff person Mia - that's not her real name, it's a nickname she uses because her Japanese name is tricky to pronounce for gaijin (I don't know what is it, she just told me it's difficult). This is pretty common, although it's still odd to have a Japanese guy introduce himself as Barry.


Not the most exciting photos, but more interesting ones are to come!

Look out!!

Japanese people have a terrible sense of spatial awareness. There, I've said it. Political correctness be damned - they do not looked where they're bloody going. I'm not exactly a small guy, but the number of times I've been walking behind someone and just as I've moved to overtake them they've swerved into my lane.....well, it's a lot. Perhaps the most infuriating is on the train - Japanese folk don't seem to filter down into the carriages, they just get on and stand in the entrance. It seems to be accepted that if you want to get past someone, you just gently push in a way that would get you a sharp dig in the ribs back in Blighty. Which is fair enough, but there should be signs or something for us gaijin. Actually, the other day I got on and the guy on front of stopped RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE DOOR so I couldn't even get on. So I shoved his rucksack out of the way and pushed past him, grumpy style. He lost his balance a bit, but that's what you get for existing at 9am on a Saturday - I'm not a morning person.

My classes were good today - I had one very young kid who has the class to himself first, and normally he's very energetic especially if we get to do stuff about animals. But today he seemed a little out of sorts and uncooperative. I don't think there's many things more humiliating in life than yelling out "wave your arms" and gooning about like a prize plonker while a 2 year old looks pityingly at you. He actually threw a proper temper tantrum at one point and was inexplicably shouting "rain!" in Japanese - I later found out that the word for rain "ame" is the same as the word for "candy" or "sweets". Me and his Mum managed to talk him down and get him to do some stuff but most of the lesson was spent cheering him up. I found out afterwards that before coming to class...he'd had diarrhea!! So, I'm torn between feeling sympathy for the little guy and thinking maybe some kind of warning label was in order.
Second class was really fun - the kids are really bright and cheerful so teaching them is lots of fun. There is a small classroom management issue though that two of them vie for the top spot, and if either of them lose a game they get proper stroppy. I tried making it so in the end "everyone's a winner yay!" but then they all just look witheringly at me, so now I just fix it so they win one each. We'd tried to play snap today actually which you think would be simple to explain, but they could not get that you turn over the top card of your pile blind and have to shout snap if it's the same as the card face up - everytime I turned over my card they just hunted through their decks for the same card, threw it on top and shouted snap. And everytime I tried to explain to one of them "no, look, turn this card over...." the other three would hunt through their decks for the same card, throw it on top, and shout snap.　　So I abandoned that fairly rapidly.

I think it's also worth mentioning that my private lesson student - who's a really nice guy - told me during our discussion that he wouldn't be happy if his daughter wanted to marry a foreigner. Um....you know I'm a foreigner right? He doesn't actually have a daughter anyway so it's all hypotheticals.

First post! First post!

Inspired by fellow teacher and Antipodean ambassador Thom Morgan, I decided that it might be fun to do a blog rather than fill up people's inboxes with emails that might not be that interesting. That way, people that want to know what I'm up to can check in every now and again and see the updates, and those that don't can just push me into a tiny box in their consciousness and forget about me. The bastards.

That said - seeing as this is in the public domain I may have to tone down some of my tales, particular those that relate to my students. To pluck an entirely fictitious example from the air - say I had a young charge who seemed to display an unhealthy fascination with certain orifices about my person and in placing his fingers in them. Well, I probably couldn't mention him too much. If such a child existed of course. Hmm. So you'll probably get some emails from time to time too.

I'm going to try and sort out some photos for this page too so you can see a bit of where I work and also of Nagoya which has lots of strange/cute/cool Japanese type stuff to gawk at.