We’ve all been trying to figure out how to save the dying newspaper industry, trying to get people to care more and realize that papers are still relevant, but newspapers haven’t done perhaps the most important thing: a sexy ad campaign to air during the Olympics! Take a look at this ad for Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun. With a circulation of more than 14 million for its Japanese edition alone, Yomiuri has one of the largest circulations of any newspaper in the world. But this ad, showing Hiro, the lead singer for the Japanese band Exile flexing and wearing a tight wife beater, shows that this newspaper is f***ing serious.
The text in the ad is as follows:
What is real?
Is the thinking passionate?
Does it have the strength to move hearts?
REAL STRENGTH
Yomiuri Shimbun
So, if you want to sell papers, get a hot pop star, have him show off his sexy muscles and BOOM! You’ve got yourself a successful business. Industry saved.
Yes it’s controversial. Yes it’s against everything I’ve ever been taught, but when it’s there in the supermarket staring me in the face, I can’t resist the call. I wanted to try whale meat. I’ve wanted to try it ever since 1999 when the Makah were granted permission to hunt a single gray whale and eat it. And boy did I get flak for it. From my friends to my boyfriend I got loads of “I can’t believe you’re going to eat that.” Well what do you want me to do? Return the hunk of whale meat to the wild? No, it went into my belly (and my boyfriend’s too even though he claimed he’d never want to try it.)
The first problem I had with the whale meat was “how do you cook it?” Luckily, the World Council of Whalers has a Web site complete with recipes. And while Japan by no means relies on whaling for “cultural, nutritional and economic sustenance” it has been a part of Japanese culture for hundreds of years. Though, I found it interesting that although whale is no longer hunted “commercially” I was still able to purchase it at my local grocer. Someone’s making a profit on this meat and I don’t think it’s a scientist.
Long story short I cooked the meat and ate it. It was OK. It tasted kind of like steak, but was a lot more tender. I would prefer beef to this any day because beef comes with a lot less stigma and ire.
So after I make a big New Years resolution to be better about updating my blog regularly I don’t write in it for about a month. I’m sorry. Let me say it wasn’t my fault. There’s been a lot of darkness in my life and last month I had another bombshell dropped on me. I’d talk more about it on here, but it’s a family matter and there are other people in my family who might not appreciate a lot of soul-bearing and my thoughts on personal issues. And I’m going to respect their wishes.
I will say that dealing with these issues while in a foreign country is not easy, though. You’re far away and it’s easy to close yourself off to everyone. Sadly, I’ve done that too much over here and I feel now like people never got a chance to know me. They just know this girl who’s quiet and lost in her own thoughts. I’m trying hard not to fall into that trap again. I’m trying to reach out to people this time instead, but it’s hard because people don’t always reach back. But I’ll survive, I always do. In the end that’s what I excel at. I’m not going to let other people’s stupid decisions get me down anymore. I’m going to make my own path out here and not fall into a pit of self pity again.
It was a great day to be a firefighter in Kanazawa. Well at least for the hundreds of firefighters who got up early to show off their acrobatics and (mostly) rock hard glutes to their adoring public as a part of their Dezome-shiki (New Year festival).
James and I got up early, braved the miserable weather and made it to the train station (ON TIME for once) and went down to Kanazawa to watch the firefighters strut their stuff. And strut they did, out in wonderful traditional underwear, which is a fancy way of saying “male thong.” If that weren’t exciting enough, they then sprayed each other with water from their fire hoses. How can they stand to be in such cold weather getting sprayed with icy cold water? “They’re all drunk,” explained the female firefighter standing guard near my group as we snapped pictures from the sidelines. Ahh their ancient secret has been revealed.
It wasn’t all booty, though. First they showed off their acrobatics in the fire ladder, doing different kinds of splits and handstands. It was fun to see, but if I ever get trapped in a burning building because my would-be rescuer decided he needed to show off his Superman pose on top of the ladder first, my ghost is coming back to haunt him.
Click to see pictures. Be warned, there is gratuitous male-thong wearing. Not for people who are offended by male derriere.
Well it’s been an interesting year, and an interesting time to talk about all the things going on in my life, some good some bad. I could have used this blog to do something wonderful and revolutionary, instead I got a terrible case of the lazies and the homesicks and couldn’t be bothered to write in it. And for that I’m sorry. Well let’s review what happened to me in 2009 and my hopes and dreams for 2010.
What I did in 2009
Survived the recession and managed to stay gainfully employed at a job that I actually liked.
Had two of the worst months of my life and went through two really really shitty times.
Realized that I’m terrible at keeping in touch with people and that I need to get better at it.
Moved to Japan to start a new job and …
Wonder almost every day if every Japanese person in town hates me.
Think on the days when I don’t wonder that that every Japanese person in town loves me.
wonder how watching TV can be considered a hobby, but not going to question the system too much.
realized that kids aged 12-15 are tools no matter what country you’re in.
realized that kids aged 5-7 are adorable no matter what country you’re in, but Japan increases the adorableness by making them all dress the same.
lost 8 kg (you do the math into pounds, I’m all metric now)
So with all that out of the way here are my goals for 2010:
Try to get over my crippling shyness at work and talk to more teachers and (jr. high) students.
If that doesn’t work, bribe the students with toys and candy (and the teachers with baked goods and booze).
Get more involved with the other English teachers in the prefecture.
Go out and explore more.
Be better about keeping in touch with people by …
writing in the blog more.
getting people’s AIM/Yahoo Mesenger/Google Talk/Skype names (I have Adium now, so I use these all at once).
actually mailing the care packages I’ve made.
taking advantage of my Skype phone (I have a U.S. number on my Facebook page you can use to contact me in Japan).
send e-mails.
Reconnect with old friends.
Well that’s it for me. I promise to start updating this ol’ girl again and mayve even finish the redesign sometime this year. Happy 2010 everyone!
A compilation of some of the random quips from my kids. (Conversations in italics were in Japanese.)
Male Student: Which boy is your type?
(One of the first questions I was asked when I started @ the junior high.)
4th Grade Girl: Her arms are soft! Like a bunny! (The children learn about arm hair. And I don’t think my arms are AS soft as a bunny’s.)
Me: I’m from America.
1st grader: You’re wrong! You’re from Germany!
(I’m getting schooled on my mother country by a first grader.
Me: Why is Santa green?
6th grader: Because he’s a frog.
(Ahhh, such sound logic)
3rd grader: Melanie-sensei! Melanie-sensei! Today we learned that “sensei” means “teacher,” so do we call you “Teacher Melanie” or “Melanie-teacher”?
(I don’t want to correct him because he’s so enthusiastic about it)
Well. The week has come and gone and that’s not saying much since I only had to work two days. Yeah, that’s right, last weekend I had a five-day weekend thanks to a couple lucky breaks and an awesome Japanese law. Silver Week is the merging of two holidays: Respect for the Aged Day on the third Monday of September and the Autumnal Equinox on September 23. According to Japanese law, if two national holidays are two days apart from each other, then the day in between them also becomes a holiday resulting in Monday through Wednesday of work off. Sorry for the delay in the photos, but I’ve been a lazy bum since this was one of those “busy” vacations. It all started when Alli and I hopped a bus to Kyoto and made our way to Osaka and Lake Biwa – the largest lake in Japan. But don’t take my word for it. Here are a few pictures you can judge for yourself: (more…)
The late fall brings out 運動会 season for all the school-aged kids in Japan. For those who don’t know 運動会 is a Sports Festival (Field Day for those lucky enough to grow up in the Kent School District) held every year in the fall. I’ve been to two already this year with the third and final one coming up on the 26th. For those who have had a Field Day in America, you still aren’t quite prepared for what’s in store for a Japanese Sports Festival.
In America, Field Day is one day a year. We play Tug-of-War, Cat and Mouse, Water Relay, have a couple races and then go home. It’s manned by teachers and parent volunteers all trying in vain to not let the children run amok (especially with the water games). It’s just one day, it come and goes and no one keeps score (a couple kids get ribbons for racing).
In Japan, the Sports Festival takes weeks of preparation. Teams are arranged, flags are made, cheers are learned. And there’s the practicing. They take time out of the school day to practice lining up, speeches, cheers and the more dangerous games so they won’t get hurt. Whereas the American mentality tends to go: This game is dangerous so let’s not play it, the Japanese mentality is: This game is dangerous so let’s practice.
I’ve heard cries from fellow (foreign) teachers about how much time is taken out of the school day to practice for the Sports Festival. Time that the kids should be spending in a classroom learning. I say that learning is in the eye of the beholder. Yes, the kids aren’t learning anything they’re going to be tested on later in life. No one’s going to ask them to recall the Red Team cheer or the pom-pom dance they learned in first grade. But they’re outside getting exercise, developing hand-eye coordination and learning to work together as a team. But most of all they’re learning responsibility.
The ones who prepare the school grounds, make the tracks, clean the school, and set up and take down structures aren’t parent volunteers or a gaggle of janitors, but the kids themselves. The kids carry the equipment out into the field, MC the Festival and handle everything but the starting gun (though they get to in junior high). The kids are learning that if they want to have a fun day and want everything to go smoothly that they need to work for it and that to get the best results possible it takes practice.
In the past couple weeks I’ve seen Japanese 9 year olds with more responsibility than American high schoolers get at school. And it’s sad. We don’t think to pick up after ourselves, or that the events that we go to took valuable man-hours to set up and take down. But maybe we can’t even handle that little bit of responsibility.
Hello everyone sorry for the delay. I am in Japan and have been since July 26. Unfortunately Japan loves beaureaucracy so it took me just more than a month to get internet at my apartment. So here we are and I am ready to blog again. First here’s what’s going on with me. Life in Japan is great, I’ll occaisionally update here with pictures from the land of the rising sun. I started school last week and have been going around to my three schools in my town – one junior high and two elementary schools. I am living in a very small apartment at the very north end of the city and am considered the last stop before the Noto (which I will talk about later).
My schools are a lot of fun. All the teachers are nice, but really busy so it’s hard to get to know them because they’re always in a rush to do things. So far there hasn’t been any great culture shock yet, I do get homesick whenever I cook or go shopping, though. I am not a fan of the Japanese supermarket. Mostly I’m not a fan of how expensive everything is over here ($1.50 for an apple). I don’t know how to cook a lot of Japanese food, but cooking the food I know how to cook is too expensive to do on a regular basis.
I need to cut this short before I get distracted, but I’ll end on this note: Shiso Pepsi tastes like drinking Pepsi after brushing your teeth. What is Shiso Pepsi. I can only explain through photo:
Tastes as good as it looks. I recommend only if you want to know what sadness tastes like.
I know it’s been a few days but I’ve been busy. (OK not really busy, but I’ve been stressed. Really stressed.) This Fourth was the best yet – especially since I got to sleep through drunk people shooting off fireworks. I spent the first half of the day riding on a float in the Johnson parade. It was quite fun and I have some pictures below: (more…)
