Fairytale of Thailand

shimmer and rot at the same time

if japan is the land of duality, then Bangkok is a surreal mental and sensory assault on multiple fronts. sparkling--literally iridescent monuments stand on grassy medians guarded by christmas-lighted avenues where people sleep on smog-choked and littered streets, Mercedes Benz roll down the street past child beggars with missing limbs everywhere are tailors hunting you down to sample their wares with the prowess of a shark, taxi drivers harass and so desperately try to make a decent living, it seems swindling is the only way. everywhere, everywhere, the smell of fish sauce and soot particulate, spices and diesel, coconut and puke. shimmer and rot at the same time. pictures of the much-venerated King are everywhere. in his numerous photos in full military regalia, he looks more like a kindly grandfather presiding over a stamp collection than a kingdom, a country.

How To Meet The Locals
i found myself wandering the streets of Bangkok alone on the 2nd night, due to my travelling companion finding (ahem) alternative companionship at a bar. i headed for the night markets; a lack of daylight never seems to stop commerce in Bangkok. i strolled past the watches and t-shirts and handcrafted souvenir incense holders and candles and
"hello ma'am, where you from?" shit, you're gonna try to sell me a suit aren't you
"Canada," i lied.

I spent the next few hours chatting with the night market workers. not one of them tried to sell me anything, although a few were clearly (but not aggressively) trying to pick me up. when they asked, i told them i had a Japanese boyfriend--my 2nd blatant lie of the night. while disappointed, they seemed impressed that a farang (foreigner) would have an Asian boyfriend.

my new friend was ethnic Chinese, and we talked a bit about the condition of Chinese people in Southeast Asia. about past jobs. normal things. there was a lot of silence, which didn't seem to phase my friend at all. that's something i've always enjoyed about Asia; there's no need to make random mindless chat for the sake of filling a silence. the other Thais at the noodle stand didn't seem at all concerned that a farang was sitting with them, on their turf. they didn't treat me in any kind of special way at all, i was allowed to just Be while i waited for my travel buddy to finish what he was doing.

my new friend negotiated the taxi fare for me, easily a quarter of what i would've been charged on my own. i returned to the room to find a 3rd roommate.

"is it OK if he crashes here tonight?"
i yawned. "yeah sure. just uh, stay on your side, alright?"

i suppose that's another way to meet the locals.

and the boys of the NYPD Choir were singing Galway Bay

"this is where we spent Christmas Eve 2 years ago, and it was awesome," Luke said as we climbed the stairs to Gulliver's Irish Pub. there were maybe 5 other customers and a band playing early 90s soft rock favourites. "hm. it was a lot different 2 years ago," he remarked.

i hadn't really expected a trip down someone else's Memory Lane anyway. it seemed our best option was the pool table.

the table was occupied by Matt and Lenny, and Englishman and Irishman respectively. both of them were "legally, technically, on paper English teachers" in Bangkok. i didn't ask any questions.

after getting trounced at pool (or snooker, as they seemed to call it in Bangkok), Matt suggested that we all go see his buddy's indie band play at some hole-in-the-wall club.

it was already an etheral song to my ears.

The Standards, a local indie/punk outfit comprised of 3 Thais and 2 Brits played a pretty decent set. the lead singer was a classic showman and performed George Michael's "Last Christmas" song in a very Sex Pistols-esque fashion. normally i fucking hate that song, and they made me love it. THAT is talent, my friends.

as the lead singer took over DJ duties after the band's set ended, Luke and i approached him with a request--was it possible, just maybe, that they had the song "Fairy Tale of New York" by the Pogues? it seemed too much to hope for, but didn't hurt to ask. the singer/DJ beamed and assured us, "later."

the clock struck midnight. we counted down. and then, to our delight-- Fairy Tale of New York blared out into the night!
we drank and danced and hugged and took our pictures with drunken expatriate strangers, all bonded together in dulling the guilt of not being with our blood families on Christmas Eve.

Matt, a quintessentially garrulous expat remarked at one point, "you know Chris-" he's one of those people who uses your name a lot "you seem a bit serious and reserved" shit here we go with the whole you need to loosen up and be 'normal' spiel "but in a good way."
"well," i shrugged, "that's something i've always struggled with. sometimes i can fake it, but it just gets exhausting. plus i don't like being fake. people seem to think there's something weird about being 'quiet.'" i paused. "but i've accepted it as part of my personality" sort of "and others can just take it or leave it."
"take it." he said.

as the bells were ringing out for Christmas Day.....

Ko Samet

fuck, where is that bus. Fuck FUCK!! where is that bus?!!?

it arrived 30 minutes late.i had a passing wistfulness for the anal-retentivene punctuality of Japan, then chalked it up to cultural difference (at the time. i would later come to curse the day we booked with this infernal company).

the bungalows of Ko Samet, Bangkok's backyard, were adorned with Christmas lights, paper lanterns, coconut palms and slow-roasting farang tourists of every nationality on the beach. at night they sipped on Singha, Tiger and Chang Beer, while the wait staff simultaneously played soccer, flirted and still managed to stay attentive to their customers. at breakfast, they seemed quite hung-over.

Thai waiters and salespeople are like cats. cats can wake with a start from an absolutely stone-cold sleep and pounce into action. there's no need to "look busy" when there's no legitimate work to be done. or to create it where none exists. i think we could all learn something from them.

our 3 days in Samet were a languid blur of turquoise water, dust-fine sand, people touting sarongs, bananas, massages, barbecued crab and dive trips. every night there were guys playing with fire on the beach.

it was a show, but it wasn't the most tightly rehearsed show by any means. the resorts even brought in a few fire show guys from Krabi or Cambodia for the show. but unlike most other tourist-oriented performances i've seen, it didn't look contrived at all. there was a certain endearing quality to their lack of professionalism; they were just cute pyromaniacal guys in sarongs, playing with fire. genuinely having fun regardless of how many times they've done the show. nothing to complain about there....

but even paradise on earth can get a bit dull. on to Phuket.

Kafkaesque Bus Ride from Hell

the bus to Phuket was on time. a surreal start to what turned out to be one of the greatest tests of endurance and sanity in my entire life. a ride on a Highway to Hell of which even the great ACDC could not have conceived.

the bus looked nice enough from the outside, with Finding Nemo characters painted on the sides. waiting for it in the choking pollution of Bangkok reminded me that i'd had my fill of the "City of Angels." that is, until we drove through places in the city that i hadn't seen, the world beyond the palace and Khao San Road, and i realized that i hadn't seen shit in Bangkok.

an annoying kissy couple sat in front of me, the whole time making audible lip and tongue smacking sounds with their snogging. an equally annoying couple of British girls were across the aisle from me with their feet practically in my lap. a big group in the front found their conversation so stimulating that they had to enlighten the whole bus at 1 in the morning.

but that ride would come to seem like a transport paradise in a mere 12 hours.

3 or 4am: maybe an hour after i'd finally fallen asleep they dumped us off in the middle of fucking nowhere outside of Surrathani city for 3 hours. my companion's inexhaustible good humor was really starting to piss me off.

sometimes i wish i were more "fun." sanuk. tanoshii. whatever you want to call it. you know, the kind of irritatingly sunny type who'd whip out a guitar and lead everyone in a singing of Koom Ba Ya or some shit like that and make the best of things.

but that's also a good way to get smacked around. and it's comfy in my cynical spiderhole.

7am: finally, after about 4 hours they loaded about 10 of us on a truck and drove us to (what we were led to believe was) the Surrathani bus centre. "Orange bus please," the shifty-looking sharky guy told us. in our bleary state, we all did.

we would all come to regret that decision most egregiously.

the flower garland on the rearview mirror jerked and swayed with the jerky motions of the bus, every time the tires on one side allllmost seemed to leave the ground on a turn. an air vent, leaked out a rather pitiful stream of air from outside, cooling only in the fact that it was moving air. every 500 metres or so we'd stop at a bus stop, or for any random pedestrian who motioned for the bus to stop. from what i understand, it's illegal in Thailand for a bus driver not to stop at a designated bus stop.

10am on and on they piled. after the seats were taken, they crammed into the aisle. an angry German couple in front of us implored the driver to stop taking passengers in a tone of righteous tourist indignation mixed with plea for mercy. in English, now the international language of complaint.

11:30 at one point the driver popped in some saccharin Thai pop CD to entertain the bus. the singer's sweet voice and semi-traditional sounding instruments escalates my desire to hurt someone.

12:00 i think Grandma in the next aisle pissed her pants. at least i have Mario Puzo's "The Last Don" to entertain me. it's a Mafia novel. about killing people.

Fuck Knows What Time: flat tire. i get out of the bus to pee on the side of the road in the bushes. can't bring myself to do it.

no food. no water. no toilet break. how long have i been on this fucking bus? my ass hurts. my neck hurts. my soul hurts.

i died. i caught bird flu. or maybe a firecracker blew up near me. maybe it was a killer jellyfish or some undercooked crab or dengue fever. either way i died and i am in travel hell. or maybe this is the way you get there. this dirt road is the river Styx. i bet you could get to Hell in like 2 hours on the Shinkansen. the supernatural Powers could learn a lot from the Japanese, really.

my friend is swearing under his breath. for some reason his frustration, together with mine, brings me comfort.
Me: Luke?
Luke: yeah?
Me: i hate this god-forsaken country and i want to go back to Japan.
Luke: yeah i'm not a big fan right now.

Eternity: god i have to piss like a racehorse. i wonder if it's possible for piss to go backwards and recirculate in your body. that wouldn't feel too good.

i'm thirsty. and i don't have to piss anymore. that can't be good.

we will indeed be on this bus for all eternity. i've accepted it. you've accepted it. we all just need to accept. and i think i'm coming down with gout.

4pm: arrive in Phuket. use toilet at travel agency. get a posh-ish hotel in downtown Phuket. we fucking deserve it. i take a 20-minute shower.

7pm: we find a Pizza Hut ripoff type restaraunt. it's clean. it's gorgeous. its pristine convenience makes me want to cry.

we devour our pizza like ex-convicts exonerated from Death Row. it's fucking ethereal. it gives me the worst case of the shits i am ever to get during my Thailand trip.

New Year in Patong

last year i spent the New Year falling asleep on my mom's couch with a bottle of Yellowtail in front of the Twilight Zone marathon on the SciFi channel. i vaguely remember cracking my eyes open for the ball drop, duly noting a meaningless change of calendar as i had 24 times before.

this year was spent in a Patong gay go-go bar.

as Luke had spent his day chatting up the staff of various clubs, we got invited to a barbecue at Hotel Spartacus. being the only straight woman at a Thai gay bar is a bit like being lactose intolerant at a cheese factory.
we went to a bar that L had promised a certain guy he'd go to. i found it a bit sad. granted i'm not a gay man, but the sight of guys in jockey-shorts with numbers attatched standing on stage, staring blankly, waiting for someone to come along and request their company didn't do a whole lot for me.
L's "friend" immediately rushed over and adhered himself to his side. an associate wandered over to keep me company.

i don't quite remember what his name was. he was every bit as charming with me as he'd be with any lecherous elderly foreign customer. we pored over my recently-acquired "Lonely Planet Phrasebooks: Southeast Asia" and he helped me with my dismal Thai pronunciation.

finally i asked him, "so you're actually gay, right?"
"yes, yes. i like boy." he emphatically nodded.
"yeah well... i'm a girl. you don't have to sit here and talk to me or anything, seriously...." he laughed and gave my knee a friendly slap as though i'd said the most ridiculous thing ever. "you my sisterrrr!!"
but things turned rather unbrotherly when we tried to leave. the bill arrived with a round of beer that the go-go boys had ordered and we were expected to pay for. we flatly refused, and i tried to give my "brother" a hug to show there were no hard feelings about it. all i got was a glare of bitter disappointment.

now for the record, a couple of guys who are into each other really doesn't upset me in the least (especially if they're hot). but outside i was surrounded with falsity, which in my mind came from the superficiality of the whole gay gogo scene, Thai culture shock and human nature itself.

"goddamn it...." my voice wavered with my eyesight, "i just want to talk to someone who won't try to sell me something, you know? it's here and in america and in japan, it's fucking everywhere... why can't anything just be real??" my friend tried to comfort my slightly depressive/tipsy/neurotic state, and i can't remember what he said anymore but i'm sure it was encouraging and supportive.

at some point i suppose the earth passed its median point in the orbit; there was no ball-drop or countdown no concept of time and firecrackers rang out like gunshots, fireworks detonated and paper fire luftballoons were launched up into the sky. people danced and hugged.

that was also the time when Don Clericuzio chose to show himself, his voice inside my head: "the world is what it is. and you are what you are."

i sat down on the ground in seiza, unable to process the staggering squalid beauty of a New Year, a new year in the sordid go-go district of schlocky Patong Beach.

a woman came by selling roses. i pointed to the half-dozen. "how much?" "100baht."

i took my time removing the plastic from their long, thorny stems. they were dark and velvety. Luke, followed by the next 5 strangers i saw, all got roses. no more questions asked.

the jungle

despite my brush with satori on the New Year, the glitz and overwhelm of Phuket left me feeling empty, aching for more and less at the same time.

after a 2-hour van ride, i found it at Chao Leung reservoir.

a 45-minute longboat ride is your passage to this remote paradise. our guide is genial in nature, but his amicability gives way to steely, stoic concentration when he skippers a longboat.

my accomodation is quite literally a rattan and plywood shack held together by rope, sitting on bamboo which floats upon the clear, warm water. there is no cell phone reception or running water, and electricity is run on a generator. all of this nestled in limestone rock formations that vault over the deep liquid emerald water.

i love everything about it.

and the really curious thing about it is that, in Bangkok (or any other city), this would be called a shanty town, urban squalor, poverty. here it's a sacred retreat from the outside world.

but the night is hell. hadean darkness. the creaking of the bamboo is magnified in the deathly stillness of the night. the movie The Evil Dead keeps springing to mind. somehow reading Isaac Asimov's novel "Nightfall," about the collapse of an alien civilization during their first period of darkness in millennia, does little to comfort me. i crept out of my shack and over to Luke's. the nightlights have been extinguished and there are no stars that night. no moon, just an almost tangible blackness that seems to stain your hands with ink.
"Luke...." i wished i could shout and whisper at the same time. "Luke?" this time a little louder.

fuck. everyone's asleep. everyone except for me... i'm the only conscious person for MILES. as a panic-induced pain set into my stomach and lower back, all i could do was ruminate on just how remote this place was, and how it would take at least 2 hours to get to the (probably) substandard Surrat Thani hospital from here.....

i don't know when sweet Somnus finally decided to show up, but he did. i think it was sometime after i'd realized that the wind that rocked the rafthouses was probably a wind of change, promise of better weather at dawn, of the coming sun.

i awoke to a painless back, sunlight and shorelines to be explored via kayak, limestone caves to climb into, and friendly (honest!) guides who made the most fantastic food i'd had on the entire trip.

breakfast--
me: hey, how'd you sleep?
Luke: fucking horrible. you?
me: same. i kept thinking about how much this place looks like the beginning of a zombie movie at night.
Luke: (*thinks for a second) no, zombies usually stick to big cities.
me: ..... yeah, you're probably right.

Power Outages, Jenga and Kittens

i think if human society collapsed and aliens came to excavate the earth, they'd think Bob Marley is some kind of deity. he's everywhere, all over the world.

a sort of tourist paradise has grown up around the Khao Sok park headquarters. it's wall to wall rasta bars, massage places, restaraunts and forest hotels.

we fumble through the dark to the Funky Monkey Bar, as the generators have all blown out. the staff is sitting around smoking. "how long until the power comes back on?" we ask the boy in the hammock, a white kitten asleep on his chest. he yawns. "don't know, 3 hour maybe?" his friend grins and holds up a Singha. "nothing to do but drink!"
and the workers here seem to lead such ethereally simple lives, lives that foreign tourists secretly envy and spend a lot of money to experience for even a short time. i can't help but wonder how the feel about that. do they want to leave? are they envious? do they thank their lucky stars that they aren't a part of the rat race that is Western culture?

i don't know the answer to those questions. the bar workers and i just played Jenga, pet kittens and played guitar for hours on end together.

Surrat Thani, revisited

after the experience with the bus, Surrat Thani was one of the last places on this earth that i ever wanted to go back to. but, we ended up there for a day waiting for passage to Bangkok and Japan.

beyond the bogus "bus terminal," there are little restaraunts, net cafes, schools, temples, mosques. it's a city. people live here. it's not a tourist construction, and i enjoyed the reality of it for the day, feeling as though i was finally experiencing the real Thailand beyond Patong and Khao San.

we were grossly overcharged at a restaraunt, but i didn't care. the guy needed to feed his family. his daughter took great pains to write English messages on the blackboard at the end of the restaraunt, great messages, that she felt the need to wipe away before anyone could see.

The Thai government bus is FANTASTIC. honest, punctual, cheap, and they provide food and water. that ride, from Surrat Thani to Bangkok, redeemed every horrible thought i'd had on that other bus.

All in All

i had been aching for a sort of intense spiritual experience for the months leading up to this trip. at the time, i sort of tacitly accepted that this wasn't it... or was it? perhaps Zen didn't come to me in the face of a giant Golden Buddha, but in the paper lanterns on New Year, in Don Clericuzio and Asimov, in caves and jungles and kayaks and elephants, in dirty local buses and dingy hotel rooms, in pizza joints and lemongrass. shimmer and rot at the same time.

1st floor

i knew the new place was on the first floor of the same building as the old one, but which door? the other side of any of these doors concealed elderly salarymen swilling back shochu, or university students getting drunk on cocktails they couldn't afford-- but regardless of the bodies that contained them, it would be the questioning, frozen eyes staring back at me, telling me i don't belong.

unless i got lucky and chose the correct door....

i took a deep breath and pushed the red door. "Snatch" was playing on the TV in its new red niche, with the same sticker instructing all patrons to "Enjoy Yourself." the red bar, red chairs and trimmings with the kelly green Heineken light gave the bar an odd Christmaslike glow. Hacky and Noriko, already 3 sheets to the wind (in Hacky's case it was more like 4 or 5) bade me an enthusiastic hello. Tsugie poured me a beer.

yeah, I'd chosen the right door.

while it's definitely not the same place I'd made panda nesting doll towers, foraged friendships, tuned guitars, passed out, learned lewd Japanese slang, watched bizarre films and sang along to the Pogues so many times before and once had an intense conversation that lasted until sunlight filtered dust through the window--i could definitely get used to this place.

it's nice, having a little pocket of the red-light district of a dirty old town. and it's nice knowing everyone wants that, from San Fran to Bangkok and Aberdeen to Cape Town, Melbourne to Vancouver, and Buffalo to Oita.

quixotica

Donki Hote (i'm pretty sure it's a nihonglified version of Don Quixote as in the Man of la Mancha) is the most ranom store on the planet. you can find porn and fake Gucci bags right alongside the electronics which are next to the toiletries and porn adjacent to the winter hats and halloween costumes in any season in close proximity to the alcohol, snack foods and porn. it's a technicolor dream house of consumerism and no taste, and an unmitigated hell in a hangover.

did i mention they have porn?

but anyway, it's a sad state of affairs when... the "cool" thing to do in Oita on a Friday night is to dress like a tart and prance around inside Donki Hote. or if you're a guy, to hang out by the bike racks with cheap scooters while (actually not) watching the tartily dressed girls walk in and out of the store.

i need to start drinking on Friday nights again. preferably not in the Donki Hote parking lot.

20% fault

the saga of my car accident continues. today i went to the police station to finalize everything, and the same officer pretty much said the same shit to me that he did a week ago. including this little gem: roughly translated, it's along the lines of "you have to take care at intersections and slow down, and you shouldn't have assumed that the other driver was going to stop at the stop sign."

assume that someone would stop at a stop sign? how utterly daft of me! imagine that!

i mean we got a DOG!

this morning i woke up to some rustling outside my screen door. i ignored it for a while until it got really annoying and disconcerting. i looked outside and… there was a poodle with a little doggy jacket on sniffing around on my porch, eating my spearmint plant.

now, this wouldn’t seem so odd except… i live on the 5th floor of a (theoretically) no-pets-allowed apartment building.

turns out my neighbor’s girlfriend was over visiting last night, and brought her little dog. unfortunately, there are very few Japanese books that include the phrases “Excuse me, do you have a dog? he’s on my veranda eating my plants. please remove him. no, i won’t tell the landlord, but if the dog scratches up my screen you’re paying for it.”

so i’m totally getting a cat. yeah.

understanding in a car crash

pardon the uber-emo title.

but as you may have guessed, yes. i got in a car crash. luckily i'm alright apart from some minor whiplash, which i got some neck pain patches for. the doctor for some reason felt the need to tell me not to ship them outside of Japan. heh, don't worry; these are mine, biatch! they're awesome!

i may be learning to find the good things in bad things that happen. after being in the hospital and seeing how insane it is there, i'm willing to cut certain individuals in/out of my life some slack.

i'm alive.

and so is the woman who ran a stop sign this morning, thereby causing a collision which, according to the Beppu city police, was only 20% my fault.

and even more surprisingly, even though i was a bit rattled and near-pukey for about 2 hours afterwards—no panic attacks today.

i feel as though i turned 25 and the universe said “well, i’m afraid you’ve exhausted your lifetime quota for Worrying About Stupid Shit. you have no choice but to be calm and unable to take anything seriously for the rest of your life.”

cool.

CatMan

so last Sunday i was walking out of A-Price when i saw the cutest kitten ever wearing a collar and secured to a shopping cart, apparently waiting for his or her owner to finish shopping. i stopped to pet it and baby talk to it for a while, as onlookers probably were thinking i was nuts.

cut to today, as i was coming out of the train station and i saw the same cat sitting on a middle-aged man's back.... while the man was riding a bicycle. the kitten didn't look completely comfortable with the situation, but still not as freaked out about it as you'd expect.

riding a bike with a kitten on your back. i just love random acts of eccentricity.

saishou wa gu, jankenpon

the Chinese Zen master Joshu said, "a clay Buddha cannot cross water; a bronze Buddha cannot get through a furnace; a wooden Buddha cannot get through fire."

i think this is the underlying principle of jankenpon, a game routinely played in and probably invented in Japan. you might know it as "Rock, Paper, Scissors." the rules are simple. paper beats rock. rock beats scissors. scissors beats paper.

kids janken for who takes the first turn in a game of Go Fish, grown adults janken for the prize at Sushi Meijin on Sunday nights at precisely 8:00 (this is a spectacle i highly recommend). they janken for money; hell, there's even "strip janken" with an elaborate set of rules. if you and someone else are vying for a subway seat (or overly politely offering it to the other), the obvious solution: Janken.

Janken is the settler of disputes, the decider of who is worthy. no argument is too high-stakes or too petty for the gods of the rock, paper and scissors. in fact, i've seriously wondered why Emperor Hirohito didn't just challenge Harry Truman to a game of Janken. humanity could do well to recognize the simple fact that there is no ultimate weapon in the janken game of life, and to think otherwise will only bring about certain destruction.

and even though some smartass might violate that sacred law and come up with a Volcano, or nuclear bomb, or even the middle finger, everyone knows that there is no almighty win-all. all you have is your hand muscles, your gut instincts and the endless cycle of jankenpon. it's the ultimate equalizer.

50 Word Fiction: Volume 1

lightning strikes in the distance, a consolation prize to the promised typhoon. a poor substitute for the electricity that never came. weathermen are never right. what a bogus science, or perhaps modern alchemy? i'll go outside with a lightning rod and bring the storm to me. Thor incarnate, I am.

congruence?

not that it really matters whether my job matches what i studied or anything, but i do get shit about it sometimes. a lot of people wonder why i'm teaching English if i have an environmental degree. i've always had the freaky feeling that, in my major, you either live a life of poverty handcuffed to a redwood or you become a pointy-headed academic who hides in a library all day. my route was going to be the pointy-headed one.

and it could be still. but what i got into, what really struck a chord with me, was what i learned about how environmental problems are just a product of greater social ills and the System. cut to Thursday night, at a class dinnner with my Toshiba students. they all told me how much they like my class and how much fun they have there. i know how stressed out they are, and how hard they work. it made me think, "wow.... i'm giving these people refuge." it's not just some distractor from what i studied; it has EVERYTHING to do with what i studied. maybe this really is something i can do with my life.

awesome.

summer holidays and christmas cake routine

i hate the summer. at least in Japan, i do. it's a weird thing to say for someone who comes from a place that's covered with snow for 5 months out of the year. but in Kyushu it's as if the life force drains out of me along with the sweat, and any cleansing cold showers i take are useless, as the grit and dirt of melancholy stick to my body and refuse to evapourate into the sticky mass of the air, because it can't take any more.

i will be 25 in less than 2 months. i promised myself i wouldn't get depressed about it; in fact the thought hadn't even occurred to me until now. but 25. i should be ... you know, established or something. established as what, that's a damn good question that i don't even begin to know the answer to. yeah, i'm an english teacher and i'm employed and don't even live in the same country as my parents let alone the same house but.... for some reason it's not enough for anyone. i thought it was enough for me, but maybe i was wrong. maybe i'm not strong enough not to succumb to all that crap. all that buying a house and picking out bridesmaid dresses and getting stock options with your giant fortune 500 company employer the hybrid vehicle to show how responsible you are the cheerful abandonment of the sheer unabashed cheeky cockiness of your university days when you were going to change the fucking world and look good doing it.....

choose life.....

a festival atmosphere

i'd made it as far as the elevator door tonight when i realized how little i wanted to be in the sweatbox that is my apartment. likewise, i didn't want to wander Ekimae street alone, but still i turned around and wandered off into the night.

something about these summer nights -- the air so thick with sea-salty, subtropical moisture it feels like you can grab a sticky handful of it, the faint smell of sulfur exhaled from the mountains, the sound of firecrackers in the distance-- brings me back to my first days in Beppu when i'd wander the streets and sit by the beach by myself. watching the moon glitter off the surface of Beppuwan as the oil slick churned underneath.

tonight, Ekimae-dori was awash with girls in colorful yukata, the breakdancers in front of Tokiwa, crappy reggae covers emanating from the sports bar that i despise (but every foreigner here seems to love), mothers and children attempting to catch fish from plastic kiddie pools, guys screaming solicitations to buy whatever edible item they're selling, and charcoal grill smoke rising up from the stalls on both sides of the street. i walked on the sidewalk instead of going between; thought it would make me less visible. ghostlike.

the isolation. the alienation. feeling invisible and yet painfully aware that everyone must be wondering, "who is this weirdo and why doesn't she have any friends?"feeling like there's no one i can really talk to in any language. knowing that, while i'm acquainted with a ridiculous number of people, i actually have very few friends.

then i'd remember that it was exactly the same way back home. "home." whatever that means.

has my situation really changed all that much in 2 years? i mean, suppose the few people i'm really tight with suddenly ran into visa troubles or started receiving Yakuza death threats or something had to leave the country--i'd be in exactly the same place as before.

there are those here who said they'd take care of me if i were to stay a long time.... but i'm reluctant to count on that. nothing is permanent here.

or maybe i'm just bored in my sweatbox apartment on a Friday night and ruminating.

house plants

my friend left the country today, back to the life that awaits her in Tennessee. she’s not the sort of person i probably would have befriended if not for being foreigners in an absurd country, but i’m very happy that we did.

she had a rather large collection of house plants, most of which she’s entrusted to me.

normally this time of year is when i start mourning the people i’m losing. but you know what, life's too short for that. i am sad to lose her, but grateful for our brief friendship. and for the greenery and fresh oxygen in my apartment.

pervy kids make my job amusingly worthwhile......

for some reason i was dreading my 4 straight hours of kids' classes today. that's the norm for Mondays, but today i just really... REALLY didn't want to do it.

but it was actually pretty good--all it takes is a new game sometimes. and when we were playing Hangman (a horrible game on so many levels in my opinion, but it kills time and the kids like it), one of my kids kept yelling "H! H!" to guess the letter.

which isn't that funny when one has little to no knowledge of dirty Japanese. but i do. the English letter "H" is a homonym for "eichi," which essentially means "fuck" or "pervert" or something to that effect. this brought on a barrage of giggles from the 11-year old kids in the class. and, since i'm much like a 12 year old myself, i started laughing too.

it all further confirms my belief that the secret to effectively molding young, moldy minds, lies in telling lots of dick and fart jokes.

power lines

after about 2 weeks of shitting bricks over whether i'd be able to get a visa extension permit on such short notice, i finally went to the Immigration office today with my coworker and all the documents i needed. Kaori and i waited outside the drab grey door for the final 5 minutes of the officers' lunch break. despite the fact that most white-collar slaves here routinely shove seaweed and chemical-wrapped rice down their throats while checking e-mail and answering phone calls, one does NOT, under any circumstances, fuck with the lunch break of Japanese government workers. at precisely 1:00pm, the portly man in the blue suit with his shiny gold "Immigration" badge on his left pocket opened the tall grey door and said "hai, dozo."

the flourescent lights flicked on and the other portly man in the blue suit processed the papers of a 35-ish guy who, from what i could tell by glancing at his passport, was Chinese. from what Portly Government Stooge #1 could tell, all of my papers are in order. the government of Japan does indeed think there is a place for me in their fine country.

the Chinese national left with his materials while i filled out my own papers. then the Portly Government Stooges Numbers One and Two commenced the paranoia-inducing comments about my former company, in loud Japanese of course. now.... of course i didn't get everything they were saying, but my Japanese (and knowledge of human interaction for that matter) is good enough to know when people are shit-talking. and they definitely were. Kaori and i glanced at each other. she glanced disapprovingly at PGS#1&2 . i shot them a look that said "i understand everything you cunts are saying," which wasn't entirely true but they didnt' need to know that. eventually they shut up. (Kaori eventually told me they were making fun of the Chinese man who was in line next to me. a rather cunt-y thing to do while on lunch break behind the door that no one must enter between the hours of 12 and 1, let alone while on duty and in the presence of the people they were meant to be taking care of. cunt-y indeed.)

once i was finished writing, Kaori and i sat down on the chairs in the waiting area next to a young Filippina woman was playing with her child. the little girl immediately took to Kaori's bright smile, kind face, and 5-months pregnant belly.
"nansei desuka?" Kaori whispered. the little girl grinned and held up 3 fingers to indicate her age.
"usotsuki!" the young mother retorted. the girl looked down sheepishly and held up 2 fingers, caught in her innocent lie. Kaori's infectious laugh rang through the dour palace of bureaucracy.

later, as we were driving back to work with that precious stamp in my passport, i gazed through the power lines that ensnared the view of the fog of the sky intermingling with the white volcanic vapour of the earth and i thought to myself, "this place would be pretty fucking breathtaking if it weren't for all the damn power lines."

tune out

so i was in a coffee shop today trying to study some Japanese when a few foreigners came in. i pretended to be too engrossed in my studies to be friendly and social with them.... it's not that i hate other foreigners (what the hell is that phenomenon anyway? it's got to be some form of Stockholm Syndrome or something), it's just that i don't want to make that same awkward, stupid conversation that you're always forced to make (are you a student? what program are you with? where are you from? how long have you been here? how's your Japanese? you think you're SO fucking special in the words of Thom Yorke, don't you). so i avoid any kind of random foreigner contact at all costs. nothing personal.

but anyway the girl talking.... she had one of those voices that just carries, and i'm sure her conversation was immensely fascinating to the person she was talking to, but i just wanted her to shut the fuck up as soon as possible. while i'm doing my damndest to understand the language that's usually going on around me, i still have the luxury of tuning it out when i want to hear things but don't feel like listening. but the sound of random English is like an aural train wreck. particularly when the word "like" is spoken about 3 times per sentence.

i wonder if i sound that stupid when i'm talking. probably.

My 5 Minutes as God

4/29

today i just watched a butterfly take what may well have been its first flight. it was in a sewage gutter, it had black wings that shone an almost iridescent blue, and it looked like the most delicate black paper fan. as i watched it struggle to unstick its feet from the concrete and fight the wind that flattened its wings to the ground, i wanted so badly to pick it up and throw it into the wind. but i knew that, A. i might crush its delicate body. and more importantly, B. if it got to the air by some other force beside itself, it may not have the strength to stay airborne, and the impact when it finally hit the ground again would liquefy it.

so i watched it fight and struggle for however long i did. no doubt the old ladies at the fruit market down the street were wondering why this hen na gaijin was staring into a sewage ditch. i stayed there also to guard agains the cars on that narrow street; they would swerve for a human (however eccentric) but not for an invisible black paper fan on the ground.

and finally-- liftoff!! i gasped as the black paper fan with its blue iridescent wings floated up and down but steadily higher until she perched safely in a cedar tree, no doubt exhausted.

as i walked away, i wondered why people need presence of some personified God in their lives when there is so much divinity in the world in itself.

the Bored on the Train diaries

i started a new job in February. it took me to many out-of the way locales that kind of require a car.... which i didn't have for 2 months. to avert the boredom and loneliness of waiting for and riding on public transit, i bought a little notebook and wrote in a very roundabout stream-of-consciousness sort of way. this is an account of what i wrote.

i like to sit across from people on the train who try to look at everything individually as it all goes flying by, knowing full well it's an exercise in futility. i like watching them because their eyes twitch and they look like they're about to have a seizure, or their brains are reacting to their own recent discovery of the nature of the universe.

it's also really funny to go into a big department store and watch girls tug their boyfriends around by the elbow like pets. granted i am a girl, but i could never figure out why they do that. exercising power, perhaps?

it's weird how i feel this need to do EVERYTHING right now--like get working on my novella again, get the new job up and running smoothly, AND alleviate the boredom that has hit me recently (how can i be bored when i don't even have time to stop and look at shit?) nope, can't stick to one thing. gotta do everything. precisely why i get nothing done, ever.



Weirdest Metal Show Ever

only in Japan can one attend a metal show entitled "New Wave Heavy Metal" which is actually quite old-school, and see everyone actually sitting on their asses while the leather-trenchcoat clad lead singer is all.... into it and doesn't seem to care that the audience is absolutely LIFELESS. after 2 pints of Guiness i really can no longer express the weirdness into words. there were lots of people there with no business being there at all, just like me. random.

St Patrick's Day

fuck, it's St. Patrick's Day and everyone's flaking out on me. ost important festival of the year, and once again--i want to do something and no one else wants to. shit. oh well, Selector it is. probably alone.

(note: this actually turned out to be quite a lovely night. ;) )

I ALWAYS miss the goddamn train. always.

I miss Vics. she was the Dean Moriarty to my Sal Paradise, my partner in crime. i need a partner in crime, preferably a girl, to get into random hijinx with. boys are good for shenanigans, but not so much the hijinx.
i want to get 2 cats, and name one of them Hijinx and the other one Shenanigans.

3/21 Equinox

i just went to my kindergarten to find that there is no school and i could have just stayed in bed. somehow i'm not extraordinarily pissed by this. maybe it's that element of pleasant surprise, like waking up on the day of a Buffalo snowstorm to find that school has been cancelled, and feeling that sweet release that only a snow day can bring. fuck orgasms, fuck booze and weed, that snow day surprise is the best feeling in the world.

today's the day of the Equinox, when supposedly you can balance an egg on its head and the weather will magically change to spring and people will pull out their blue tarpaulin, some with Rikka Bear of Doraemon, and pour sake down their throats under the delicate sakura. in Buffalo, the Equinox meant nothing, winter would potentially last another 2 months if it felt like it. St Patrick's Day was the beginning of the end, nothing more.

but anyway i say all this because, while it may be the celestial first day of spring, the air is still so wintry and clear. you can't see the mountains in the spring and summer haze, but today both Beppu Bay that draws from the Pacific and the snow on Mt Tsurumi (an active volcano) is clearly visible. always the unanswerable question, mountains or sea? mountains isolate, but the sea can be a gateway. it was for hundreds of years here. that's why Oita has more connection to Shikoku over the sea than Fukuoka over the mountains.

i'm rambling. definitely rambling. when is the train coming?

3/22 I am certifiably insane.

today (last night? this morning?) marked the 2nd time this week i've taken the early train back to Beppu from Oita after an all-night bender. maybe that intention thing is true--i was feeling bored and in a social rut, i broke out of my Lost and Heroes at Luke's comfort zone and ROCKED OUT last night. and, it turns out that, yes, i will dance with Abandon, that dashing fellow that he is, if given the right crowd and the right music. 6 tequila and tonics don't hurt either.
and...... i'm feeling the dopamine rush of a crush on someone who is leaving the prefecture next week. sigh.... at least he's only going to Kitakyushu. but still.....

3/29

it's always funny to see Japanese tourists in Beppu. it makes me contemplate which one of us is the outsider and which of us is the one at home, in their element.

4/2 the "i am a shit teacher" worries are hitting again. ugh. oh well. can't make everyone happy.

the air isn't clear anymore. and i miss him.

4/6 Driver's Test

taking the driver's test again. just another step in the process. life is a process. "the process," Mr Reichard was fond of saying. he was a fantastic music teacher. i wonder if he's still alive.
life is a process with only one possible result, regardless of what happens along the way. kind of renders the quest for results completely meaningless. it's a concept you hear about constantly, but it's hard to drill into your head.

3:00pm I PASSED!!!!!! Holy shit almighty i fucking passed!!!!!!!

now that was a weird Zen ego-death experience. i surrendered all desire to pass the test; i was just driving a car. it was me, the car and the imaginary people on the road. yosh. yosh. yosh. i think i might have to write a 2nd movement to my "Fuck You Driving Center" song. thanking them for the Zen Ego Death Experience.

4/23 Kids

they drove me seriously nuts today. but at the same time, i kinda feel bad for them. my class is just another thing their parents force them to do and, I have to cater to the parents' wants and wishes for their kids to "get ahead." to be the best. dog eat dog.

i wish i could just play and get them excited about English, learning, about life. instead of just becoming mindless drones who have had all wonder, love of learning and discovery systematically and purposefully beaten out of them.
i can remember being that age. even though i was a "good student," i resented teachers for forcing their "knowledge" down my throat. i don't want to be that person.

and why is it so damn important for these kids to be better than everyone, to get the edge? why isn't it good enough for them to just be children, and for people to just be?

J-Pop i don't hate

Japanese pop culture can be a wasteland to Japanophiles and expat syndromites alike. everything is very sugar-coated, but the same can just as easily be said about US pop culture. at least this one is new and foreign and sugar coated to me.

but man, j-pop really grates on my ass sometimes. the only pop i have more contempt for is the US brand of it. yeah, i'm an indie snob to the core. get used to it.

ohh but Japanese indie... *drool. it's even better than euro or American indie. it's as if... once you find the good in Japan (in the music landscape and overall i mean), you appreciate that so much more. i am practically obsessed with stuff like Melt Banana, Guitar Wolf, Fullrangecaution, Mono, and Cornelius (the Tokyo DJ i've stumbled upon today that prompted this entry). that seems to be the essence of Japan to foreigners, the endless mandala search--sifting through unburied power lines and big boxes to find a splendid shrine, or having one's ear canals assaulted by saccharin pop daily and then finding a band that is so distinctly itself that the old and familiar things from home pale in comparison. getting your hands dirty and finding gold.