So Flu season is officially underway.
Every year, without fail, the dreaded influenza attacks Japan with devastating effect.
It's particularly virulent here not because they have weak immune systems, nor due to random mutations making their viruses stronger than elsewhere, but (I assume) due to geography and society.
Population density is very high here, especially in Tokyo and the cities. If one person sneezes on a crowded train, can you hear the other passengers fall? The answer is yes, because the sneezer can't even raise his hands to cover his mouth, so full are the trains. This raises some obvious problems in terms of hygiene, and means that a single infected individual may make a great number of other peoples weeks worse. I assume this isn't a problem in the middle of Siberia, where you're more likely to see a meteorite than other human beings.
The other problem is the people. No one washes their hands. Ever. I've written about this a thousand times before, but it's worth repeating in case you find yourself here. Don't touch anything, and always bring hand soap/alcohol with you.
I am not exaggerating when I say that I've never seen someone wash their hands in Japan, and I have used public toilets. They consider rinsing fingertips under tepid water for three tenths of a second 'a thorough wash,' and go about their day as if they're not the reason everyone is always sick all the time.
My speculation on this is that a thousand years ago, when no one knew anything and a splinter could kill you, people ran their hands under water and gave up at that, because the whole thing was a futile attempt at keeping clean and what's the point. That tradition is still observed outside temples and shrines and whatnot, where literally hundreds of thousands of people will pick up, mess around with, and then drink from the same half a dozen spoon/ladle things. The water may come from a tap, but it can also be recycled, pumped around a closed loop and topped up with fresh water when it gets low.
Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
So water is clean, and touching water imbues the toucher with cleanliness, I suppose?
They all wear masks which is a horrible idea to try and stop getting ill (the masks, they do nothing), but is a great idea if you are actually sick and don't want to make anyone else ill. For whatever reason, they do not cover their mouths when they cough and sneeze, instead preferring to throw their hands back, find the nearest person and cough/sneeze as loud/hard in their victims face as possible. This is why masks are a great idea, because they can do that to their hearts content while limiting the risk to their victim. I doubt the masks do much in this instance, but it's got to be better than nothing, right? Right?
They absolutely learn about cells, viruses, bascteria and transmission in school, I've seen the books and posters telling the kids how to actually wash their hands and not cough in other peoples faces, but absolutely no one takes notice.
And the hospitals here don't have a bonkers death rate after surgery, so the doctors wash their hands.
As a nation, they know about the transmission of disease, but the grand total of shits given is zero.
In thinking about it, I suppose that's similar to our obsession with soccer. We are absolutely horrible at it, and we'll never be any good, but everyone gets their hopes up like a bunch of idiots and then get angry and start rioting when we lose.
As a nation, we know soccer is a lie and terrible for our national health, but everyone still gets angry.
Showing posts with label japan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label japan. Show all posts
Wednesday, 25 January 2017
Tuesday, 19 January 2016
How Big is Tokyo?
Check out this link:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/simoncrerar/tokyo-is-a-mega-city#.jal3XqZxko
It's a map showing Tokyo (I live in 'Funabashi,' if you're interested) showing the town relative to other places on Earth. It covers things like surface area, relative population density and so on, and gives you a visual representation of just how massive this place is.
Obviously, being English the overlay of Tokyo onto the map of England was the one that struck me most. Absolutely, utterly bonkers.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/simoncrerar/tokyo-is-a-mega-city#.jal3XqZxko
It's a map showing Tokyo (I live in 'Funabashi,' if you're interested) showing the town relative to other places on Earth. It covers things like surface area, relative population density and so on, and gives you a visual representation of just how massive this place is.
Obviously, being English the overlay of Tokyo onto the map of England was the one that struck me most. Absolutely, utterly bonkers.
Wednesday, 26 August 2015
Another Video
So I had a lot of video from the Roppongi festival (the one populated with rude people) so I made another thingamajig.
I came to the realisation a while ago that I need a good microphone, a tripod and more lenses, but I've also found out that I need another few people with cameras and tripods and whatnot, to take footage of their own so I can smoosh it all together into these fun little videos. One day when I'm a millionaire!
Anyway, enjoy!
I came to the realisation a while ago that I need a good microphone, a tripod and more lenses, but I've also found out that I need another few people with cameras and tripods and whatnot, to take footage of their own so I can smoosh it all together into these fun little videos. One day when I'm a millionaire!
Anyway, enjoy!
Sunday, 21 September 2014
A Bit of Rugby
As always I only have nominal control of the order in which these pictures are shown, so we'll be jumping from the beginning to the end and back again.
We (IBM) played Kurita (they produce super pure water for manufacturing purposes) at their ground in Ebina. It's about an hour and forty-five minutes from where I live now, so it wasn't the most pleasant of journeys. Luckily I met a couple of the guys as we headed down there, so I could just turn my brain off and follow them from train to train.
This picture is at the end of the day. The sky was fantastic, but we didn't feel much like appreciating it on account of the 40-18 loss we sustained. We were well within reach until the last ten or fifteen minutes when they put a try or two on us. As with other leagues around the world, if you're within seven of the opposition you get a bonus point. I assume the four try rule applies too, but don't quote me on that.
This is right at the beginning of the warmup. It's suddenly dropped a few degrees which is normal for this time of year, but knowing it doesn't stop it being any more of a surprise to the system. Up until last week I'd been seriously considering buying another aircon unit to supply the entire apartment with legionnaires. And cold air.
This guy comes to all our games. He waves the flag with much aplomb, and is quite vocal in his support. Last year IBM lost by 50 or more points to this team, so us being within a try to the last must be encouraging for the supporters as well as the staff.
I only included this one because I'm obviously being pulled off the ground finger first by a mysterious force, although you can't see the shock on my face at this happening.
We made some room down the right and our fullback put a ball through to chase. I got there first but it didn't bounce kindly as I bent down to pick it up.
Despite quite obviously NOT having a rugby ball in my possession, I got tackled. This isn't american football so that's rather illegal. Despite his best efforts I managed to chip it on further for our outside centre to dot down.
I just included this to prove that I can run.
I turned my ankle about 50 minutes into the match which fucking hurt. I can now walk on it fine, but I can't really perform any dynamic movements. It'll be okay in about two weeks (less if I do all the physio, eat well and all the rest of it) so no problem. If you promise to keep it a secret, I'll be available for the next game should the coaches choose to pick me.
The sky was actually several shades of red deeper than that; the photo doesn't quite do it justice.
All things considered we played alright. We lost, which is unfortunate, but we improved over the last match substantially and that's important for the long-term.
I played well. I knocked one ball on which was unfortunate, but that was right at the beginning and nerves were probably to blame.
I turned over one ball, didn't miss a tackle all game and made a couple of breaks. I didn't make much ground, probably only 25 metres total which frankly speaking isn't good enough, but they were clean metres with one of the breaks resulting in an out of the tackle offload which gained us another few metres.
When we were on our line due to a penalty, they played the ball quickly with our entire team having their backs turned huddled near the posts. I ran across to their centre who was over the line and falling down but I was too late. I hit him and stuck an arm in under him in order to dislodge the ball but he was absolutely going to score regardless of what I did.
Regardless I managed to hit the ball out of his hands and force a knock-on.
I saved an absolutely guaranteed try.
Exactly two people congratulated me by saying 'thank you,' in the most muted manner possible.
Sheesh.
Sunday, 7 September 2014
A Few More
These ones are a bit of a hodgepodge, but they were all taken within a week of each other.
This is a sculpture set outside the imperial palace in Tokyo. The part of the palace that is opened to the public during specific holidays (toff birthdays and whatnot) is exceptionally boring. It's the most dull plaza I've ever seen, quite deliberately so by the looks of things. Sometimes designers completely misunderstand the space within which they work and you end up with things like the gherkin (something I hate and love depending on any arbitrary measure, such as which way the wind is blowing). The designers of this place just seem to have given up trying to design anything at all, instead focussing on the gardens hidden behind vast walls and the building itself.
Fuck the plebs.
These lanterns were quite common but difficult to place in their surroundings due to their style. I can't tell whether these are a Japanese interpretation of a long-past European style, an original Japanese creation or something else entirely. I feel like they belong in an old German town or something.
Anyway I took a couple of pictures to show both the shape and the colour - both were rather interesting when place within the old grounds of the palace. Although, to be fair, if you walked into the place without knowing it was a centuries old place it's entirely possible to mistake it for something much newer; and much more European.
The colours in this picture are all messed up. The pink of the flower is as they were (at least on my non colour controlled screen) but the background green is luminous - decidedly unlike the leaves of the various lilies around Japan.
A man on a horse. It's either a very important man, or a very important horse. The outside shot is that it is, in face, a very important hat.
The shape of water is always fascinating when photographed. I haven't the time or patience to take pictures of droplets, so this will have to do. Water on a lily (I think it's actually lotus) leaf.
A very, very long time ago, I wrote a couple of blog posts showing pictures very similar to these. It's interesting to come back and take another look at something that I saw four, five or six years ago.
I doubt these pictures show much in the way of my improvement when taking photographs. There are only a finite number of vantage points by which you can view the castle, so I assume the pictures from before almost perfectly match up with these. I wouldn't be surprised if they were in black and white too.
Anyway, that was the journey to Himeji and the surrounding gardens (and one or two other places I'm sure). I think next up might be Kyoto, but I'll have to trawl the archives to find out.
Wednesday, 27 August 2014
Nagasaki
So I'd vowed to check out both Nagasaki and Hiroshima during my stay in Japan. This Summer I managed to finish my pilgrimage - heading to Nagasaki by train.
It's a long, long way from Tokyo to Nagasaki. It took the best part of 9 hours on bullet and express trains meaning it's probably in the order of a thousand kilometres between the two cities. Japan may only have the inhabitable land space of the U.K. but it's almost as long as america is tall.
I took a fair number of pictures during the trip, but truth be told very few were up to scratch. Whenever I go outside with my camera I set myself some challenges; this time it was to take as few pictures as possible, to try and get a 'keeper,' on the first attempt at each subject. I didn't always stick to this plan, but it turned out to be quite thought provoking. For the first time ever I have an album where each picture tends to be entirely different from the last and this is something of a novelty for me. As always, it was my intention to walk away from a days shoot with one single picture that, when looked at in 60 years time, will remind me of the day and fill me with pride at having taken it. It's always been my intention to have enough quality pictures to one day fill a book, and taking the slow and steady approach is about the only way I can think of achieving this goal.
You can judge whether I've succeeded in that aim.
I'll start off with the tackiest picture imaginable. Aside from the scene in Schindlers list that has become infamous, black and white with a single source of colour rarely affects people in the way the creator intends. Maybe they've become so common that no one cares anymore. Maybe, like the tilted angle photograph of the 90's, it's a fashion that was never going to live beyond the inaugural years of photoshop.
So this was an interesting picture to edit. At first I darkened both the sky and the trees somewhat - the intention was to highlight the woman (due to the angle of the picture, mostly ignoring the child she is carrying) at the expense of everything else. It looked okay, but it lacked any kind of interest beyond the statue. The sky was interesting enough (see: had clouds) that I felt the light (sky)/dark (trees)/light (statue) scheme worked to the point of acceptability. Making her stand out without distorting the entire picture was the challenge, and I don't really know if I've succeeded in that endeavour.
With a portrait format the focus shifts away from encompassing the setting to settle on the figure. I found the woman a much more interesting subject (literally everyone else was taking pictures of the child with the woman as an incidental point of focus) than the child. It is her saving the child, but it is her generation, her peers that caused the child suffering in the first place.
At this point it is worth pointing out that the artist intended the woman to represent some kind of peaceful deity. Knowing god and or gods are a lie, I see her as the embodiment of peaceful thoughts or actions within humanity. She is not a child, so doesn't hold the innocence of the child and as such, is as culpable as the rest of us for the actions of our equals. The somber look on her face isn't so much sadness at the loss of that child, or the actions of that time - it's the inescapable truth that humanity is destined to continue doing this over and over again.
As such, I find her expression much more revealing than the body of the child is saddening.
This is the last pillar standing at the church in Nagasaki. Much like the dome in Hiroshima it stands as a monument to the devastation of war and much like the dome in Hiroshima, it stands as a symbol of hope.
This guy is symbolic of peace versus war. One of his arms represents war, the other peace. When I heard which was which, I couldn't reconcile the idea of why each one was as it was, so I could never commit to memory which arm symbolised what.
This is probably my favourite picture. You could absolutely miss the pidgeon sitting on her arm, but the expression in the statue alone makes it worthwhile. Much like the ruminations about the woman above, I couldn't decide how to edit this picture in post. In the end I went much the same route, but this time trying to get the viewer to look at her face as much as possible before looking at the other details in the picture.
To be honest I don't think any of these are worthy of more than a couple of seconds of perusal but you never know. Everyone has different tastes after all.
I'll hopefully be adding a number of blog posts in the coming days with (fingers crossed) a lot of pictures to accompany.
If you haven't already seen the videos of the festival and my thirty second montage of Japan this Summer, check out the posts prior to this one.
It's a long, long way from Tokyo to Nagasaki. It took the best part of 9 hours on bullet and express trains meaning it's probably in the order of a thousand kilometres between the two cities. Japan may only have the inhabitable land space of the U.K. but it's almost as long as america is tall.
I took a fair number of pictures during the trip, but truth be told very few were up to scratch. Whenever I go outside with my camera I set myself some challenges; this time it was to take as few pictures as possible, to try and get a 'keeper,' on the first attempt at each subject. I didn't always stick to this plan, but it turned out to be quite thought provoking. For the first time ever I have an album where each picture tends to be entirely different from the last and this is something of a novelty for me. As always, it was my intention to walk away from a days shoot with one single picture that, when looked at in 60 years time, will remind me of the day and fill me with pride at having taken it. It's always been my intention to have enough quality pictures to one day fill a book, and taking the slow and steady approach is about the only way I can think of achieving this goal.
You can judge whether I've succeeded in that aim.
I'll start off with the tackiest picture imaginable. Aside from the scene in Schindlers list that has become infamous, black and white with a single source of colour rarely affects people in the way the creator intends. Maybe they've become so common that no one cares anymore. Maybe, like the tilted angle photograph of the 90's, it's a fashion that was never going to live beyond the inaugural years of photoshop.
So this was an interesting picture to edit. At first I darkened both the sky and the trees somewhat - the intention was to highlight the woman (due to the angle of the picture, mostly ignoring the child she is carrying) at the expense of everything else. It looked okay, but it lacked any kind of interest beyond the statue. The sky was interesting enough (see: had clouds) that I felt the light (sky)/dark (trees)/light (statue) scheme worked to the point of acceptability. Making her stand out without distorting the entire picture was the challenge, and I don't really know if I've succeeded in that endeavour.
With a portrait format the focus shifts away from encompassing the setting to settle on the figure. I found the woman a much more interesting subject (literally everyone else was taking pictures of the child with the woman as an incidental point of focus) than the child. It is her saving the child, but it is her generation, her peers that caused the child suffering in the first place.
At this point it is worth pointing out that the artist intended the woman to represent some kind of peaceful deity. Knowing god and or gods are a lie, I see her as the embodiment of peaceful thoughts or actions within humanity. She is not a child, so doesn't hold the innocence of the child and as such, is as culpable as the rest of us for the actions of our equals. The somber look on her face isn't so much sadness at the loss of that child, or the actions of that time - it's the inescapable truth that humanity is destined to continue doing this over and over again.
As such, I find her expression much more revealing than the body of the child is saddening.
This is the last pillar standing at the church in Nagasaki. Much like the dome in Hiroshima it stands as a monument to the devastation of war and much like the dome in Hiroshima, it stands as a symbol of hope.
This guy is symbolic of peace versus war. One of his arms represents war, the other peace. When I heard which was which, I couldn't reconcile the idea of why each one was as it was, so I could never commit to memory which arm symbolised what.
This is probably my favourite picture. You could absolutely miss the pidgeon sitting on her arm, but the expression in the statue alone makes it worthwhile. Much like the ruminations about the woman above, I couldn't decide how to edit this picture in post. In the end I went much the same route, but this time trying to get the viewer to look at her face as much as possible before looking at the other details in the picture.
To be honest I don't think any of these are worthy of more than a couple of seconds of perusal but you never know. Everyone has different tastes after all.
I'll hopefully be adding a number of blog posts in the coming days with (fingers crossed) a lot of pictures to accompany.
If you haven't already seen the videos of the festival and my thirty second montage of Japan this Summer, check out the posts prior to this one.
Tuesday, 26 August 2014
My Summer, 30 Seconds
Just a quick video of some of my exploits these past few weeks. An awful lot of travelling around Japan was done by me, my mum and Aunt. I managed to capture a few videos which I've thrown together in this 30 second video.
Enjoy!
(P.S. a more substantial post including some of the pictures I've taken will go up sometime this week. I've started writing but it's nearly midnight so this will have to suffice for today.)
Enjoy!
(P.S. a more substantial post including some of the pictures I've taken will go up sometime this week. I've started writing but it's nearly midnight so this will have to suffice for today.)
Thursday, 3 July 2014
O.A.P - A.O.K
Japan has the largest number of pensioners (in terms of percentage of population) anywhere in the world. What's most impressive isn't their collective age, or the age for which most people live, but the fact they remain mobile and independent for so much of that time.
Today I came across a quartet walking down some platform stairs. Walking in two pairs, they were blocking the only way onto the platform bar an escalator heading upwards (we were all heading down). I met them as they were just beginning their descent, with a full two minutes before the train was scheduled to depart. Unfortunately they took an extremely long time - so long that I said 'excuse me,' a couple of times (politely) to no acknowledgement. After a minute we were roughly ten steps down which meant we were obviously not going to make the train, so I turned around and headed upstairs, passing a dozen or so people on the way up.
My intention was to run down the escalator. Which I did. As I got about halfway down most of Japan decided to head in the opposite direction. As both sides of the moving escalator were now full, I gave up and went back to the top.
The conductor waited about fifteen seconds past the departure time (if you know of Japanese timekeeping and their trains, this is equivalent to holding a head of state in customs - it just isn't done) before it became obvious they weren't going to make it. That was the last train departing from that platform for a while so the only option was to go back up and get to the next platform over. Some time ago everyone else had realised what was happening and left, so I was once again behind them and I couldn't help but laugh. It wasn't hearty, just a quiet chuckle; upon hearing this they all turned and started asking each other (while still standing on the stairs) why the foreigner was laughing. Upon hearing this I laughed even harder and trudged back upstairs.
I watched as they passed the elevator and started walking down the other set of stairs. Luckily they were substantially wider so despite their going in a line (instead of in pairs) they couldn't quite block it off.
There's no real point to this story - it just made me laugh.
Today I came across a quartet walking down some platform stairs. Walking in two pairs, they were blocking the only way onto the platform bar an escalator heading upwards (we were all heading down). I met them as they were just beginning their descent, with a full two minutes before the train was scheduled to depart. Unfortunately they took an extremely long time - so long that I said 'excuse me,' a couple of times (politely) to no acknowledgement. After a minute we were roughly ten steps down which meant we were obviously not going to make the train, so I turned around and headed upstairs, passing a dozen or so people on the way up.
My intention was to run down the escalator. Which I did. As I got about halfway down most of Japan decided to head in the opposite direction. As both sides of the moving escalator were now full, I gave up and went back to the top.
The conductor waited about fifteen seconds past the departure time (if you know of Japanese timekeeping and their trains, this is equivalent to holding a head of state in customs - it just isn't done) before it became obvious they weren't going to make it. That was the last train departing from that platform for a while so the only option was to go back up and get to the next platform over. Some time ago everyone else had realised what was happening and left, so I was once again behind them and I couldn't help but laugh. It wasn't hearty, just a quiet chuckle; upon hearing this they all turned and started asking each other (while still standing on the stairs) why the foreigner was laughing. Upon hearing this I laughed even harder and trudged back upstairs.
I watched as they passed the elevator and started walking down the other set of stairs. Luckily they were substantially wider so despite their going in a line (instead of in pairs) they couldn't quite block it off.
There's no real point to this story - it just made me laugh.
Sunday, 20 May 2012
I Smell Like Cheese
So one of the many stereotypes surrounding any number of nationalities, is that of smell.
Indians smell like curry, the French smell like Garlic, Koreans smell like Kimchi, Japanese smell like fish, English smell like dairy products, americans smell like obesity.
I am conforming to stereotypes right now; for some reason I smell like cheese. I had a shower last night, and as it's not bollock-melting (yet) I'm not sweating either. I honestly don't know why I smell so awful, but the second I get home, it's another shower and clothes washing.
Anyway, of the news. I played for Tokyo Gaijin yesterday, against Waseda Old Boys. Waseda are a university here in Japan, their old boys aren't old, but simply ex-students. They're all really young, in fact. If we won, we'd go through to the semi-final. If they won, they'd go through. An important factor to remember is that they are all Japanese, and we are primarily foreigners.
In any other country, exiles are treated with respect. London Welsh, London Irish and a host of others were influential enough to be part of the top tier divisions. Even if none of the teams have any affiliation with their original nationalities now, they did at some point and yet they still succeeded.
In Japan, if a Japanese team loses to a foreigner team, it's ritual suicide time. Therefore, the referee was once again horrendous. He did his best to ensure the Japanese team went through. Boy, he did his best. The penalty count would have been roughly 20 to the locals, 7 to us. I obviously don't know the exact count, but in all honesty I'm probably being kind to the referee. I think a ratio of 1:4 is more likely.
The quality of refereeing in Japan is appalling. Racism rocks!
Anyway, I had a howling first 20 minutes. The kind of first quarter that makes managers take people off the pitch. I turned over a couple of balls, I dropped two high kicks, I broke their line only to pass into touch. It was the kind of nightmare start no one wants.
I was very much the barometer for the team, because we gave away penalty after penalty. We let in a try and a number of goal kicks. We were basically two tries down after 20 minutes. If the referee weren't a racist prick, we'd probably be down a handful of points. As it was, we were down a bucketful. It was like mandara all over again; a racist referee deliberately giving the home team a massive advantage, so that the locals didn't have to commit hari-kari.
After the 20 minutes mark, things started looking up. They put a couple of kicks in behind us, but they ran dead. I got the ball a few times and made a few breaks. They all fizzled into nothing, but I was making ground. Our scrum annihilated theirs. To the point where it was wheeling before their scrum half had put the ball in. He delayed as long as possible, the referee let it go of course. It was 90 degrees before the ball was in, but the ref let them play on. Our scrum was perfect, yet we had 3 penalties against us for being foreigners. Their scrum kept popping up under the pressure, their number 8 wasn't bound once. Their flankers were on our side of the scrum when we rolled through them. Not a single penalty against them. Unbelievable. I hope someone at the JRFU is reading this, because it's not good enough.
You, person from the JRFU, why is the national team so bad? Could one of the (admittedly many) factors be the awful refereeing? I think the fact that no referee has ever seen a game of rugby before, certainly doesn't help. I'm not asking for professional level refereeing; I'm just asking for some semblance of sanity. Or maybe read a book about refereeing.
Oh, and stop being racist.
That last bit might be difficult for Japanese referees, I admit.
Anyway; I made a few line breaks in the first half, and we went over to give some form of parity at half time. We were still behind, but the fact we'd scored made a massive difference. The team started playing with ball in hand, and we threatened every time we put a few phases together. We kept knocking on, and making stupid handling errors in the first half, but the second half was much improved.
I managed to smash a guy.
I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but Japanese love to cheat. They love the dirty shots. I was on the floor getting up, in full view of the referee who was looking at me, when one of the opposition kicked me in the nads. It was deliberate, it was in full view of the referee who was looking at me and the guy who did it; and he shrugged. He fucking shrugged. That referee is a piece of shit. Fuck him. Cunt. Unsurprisingly he didn't get any cheers at the end of the match, and he didn't walk through the tunnel. Typically the referee will get some kind of plaudit at the end of the game, even if he did terribly. For him not to get anything is indicative of how loathed he was. He's an asshole. Fuck that guy. I wonder if he would like to be kicked in the balls and have no repercussion for the other player? That boggled my mind, and my testicles.
Anyway, of the cheating. A player kicked the ball through, in the act of kicking I hit him. Before he'd actually kicked the ball, or I'd actually touched him, he was shouting with his arms raised (you have to imagine the comedy of dropping the ball to kick it, and immediately raising your arms, it's really difficult to do) that I'd impeded his progress. The whole event was so farcical as to render it impossible for the referee to yellow card me, but it was surely on his mind. I winded the cheating piece of crap, so the moral is that if someone is about to hit you with their shoulder, don't raise your arms thereby exposing your rib cage. Twat.
I managed to stop a couple of players who broke through the line. I didn't miss a tackle all game; it seems to be something of a standby that when I have a poor attacking game, I am relatively solid in defence. I pulverised a guy who made it through the line, he stayed down for a while. I dearly hope it was the guy who kicked me in the gonads in front of the referee, or even better it was somehow the referee, but I doubt it was.
We scored, and from the kickoff one of our locks put me through a gap. It was glorious. With all the mistakes I'd made up until that point, it was great to finally be making yards. I want a yards gained count, like they do in the professional leagues. Anyway, I left a guy face down in the dust after stepping him just like Jason Robinson does in this clip (20 secs). It felt great.
I got smashed a few times, my left knee now hurts just like my right knee does (they dive at your knees in order to dislocate or break knees/legs, I told you they were dirty cunts) and all I can hope is that it's not ligaments.
The same lock put me over the try line, I beat one guy on the outside, had a couple tackling me as I fell over the line. It was only a couple of metres, and I probably should have passed, but I got over anyway.
In the end it was a comfortable 30 odd points to 12 or so; but that referee. What a colossal dickhead.
I'm still recovering from the flu, and I used up all my energy in that game. I fought to get back into it, from a horrible start. I made a lot of mistakes, and I pushed and pushed to get something to happen. It's probably why I made so many mistakes. But by the end, everything was happening naturally for both me and the team, and we were deserved winners. We should have won by 50, but the locals enlisted the help of bent officials so what can you do.
Next week is the semi-finals, and I hope to have fully passed the flu's and diseases. I'll hit the gym starting tomorrow to get my energy levels back up; swimming and whatnot will help. Unfortunately I've knackered my finger, so weights will be a chore. What must be done, must be done - I guess.
On the way there, and on the way back, I recorded video of the train journey. On this camera an hour and fifteen minutes of video is 32 gigs, and after encoding the video (adding a song and changing the codec) it came to 8 gigs. I uploaded it to youtube, and you can see one of the most relaxing videos in the world, right here. I went on the (really expensive) penis shaped bullet train (pictures to come) on the way back, because I was shattered and needed to be home A.S.A.P
That is all!
Indians smell like curry, the French smell like Garlic, Koreans smell like Kimchi, Japanese smell like fish, English smell like dairy products, americans smell like obesity.
I am conforming to stereotypes right now; for some reason I smell like cheese. I had a shower last night, and as it's not bollock-melting (yet) I'm not sweating either. I honestly don't know why I smell so awful, but the second I get home, it's another shower and clothes washing.
Anyway, of the news. I played for Tokyo Gaijin yesterday, against Waseda Old Boys. Waseda are a university here in Japan, their old boys aren't old, but simply ex-students. They're all really young, in fact. If we won, we'd go through to the semi-final. If they won, they'd go through. An important factor to remember is that they are all Japanese, and we are primarily foreigners.
In any other country, exiles are treated with respect. London Welsh, London Irish and a host of others were influential enough to be part of the top tier divisions. Even if none of the teams have any affiliation with their original nationalities now, they did at some point and yet they still succeeded.
In Japan, if a Japanese team loses to a foreigner team, it's ritual suicide time. Therefore, the referee was once again horrendous. He did his best to ensure the Japanese team went through. Boy, he did his best. The penalty count would have been roughly 20 to the locals, 7 to us. I obviously don't know the exact count, but in all honesty I'm probably being kind to the referee. I think a ratio of 1:4 is more likely.
The quality of refereeing in Japan is appalling. Racism rocks!
Anyway, I had a howling first 20 minutes. The kind of first quarter that makes managers take people off the pitch. I turned over a couple of balls, I dropped two high kicks, I broke their line only to pass into touch. It was the kind of nightmare start no one wants.
I was very much the barometer for the team, because we gave away penalty after penalty. We let in a try and a number of goal kicks. We were basically two tries down after 20 minutes. If the referee weren't a racist prick, we'd probably be down a handful of points. As it was, we were down a bucketful. It was like mandara all over again; a racist referee deliberately giving the home team a massive advantage, so that the locals didn't have to commit hari-kari.
After the 20 minutes mark, things started looking up. They put a couple of kicks in behind us, but they ran dead. I got the ball a few times and made a few breaks. They all fizzled into nothing, but I was making ground. Our scrum annihilated theirs. To the point where it was wheeling before their scrum half had put the ball in. He delayed as long as possible, the referee let it go of course. It was 90 degrees before the ball was in, but the ref let them play on. Our scrum was perfect, yet we had 3 penalties against us for being foreigners. Their scrum kept popping up under the pressure, their number 8 wasn't bound once. Their flankers were on our side of the scrum when we rolled through them. Not a single penalty against them. Unbelievable. I hope someone at the JRFU is reading this, because it's not good enough.
You, person from the JRFU, why is the national team so bad? Could one of the (admittedly many) factors be the awful refereeing? I think the fact that no referee has ever seen a game of rugby before, certainly doesn't help. I'm not asking for professional level refereeing; I'm just asking for some semblance of sanity. Or maybe read a book about refereeing.
Oh, and stop being racist.
That last bit might be difficult for Japanese referees, I admit.
Anyway; I made a few line breaks in the first half, and we went over to give some form of parity at half time. We were still behind, but the fact we'd scored made a massive difference. The team started playing with ball in hand, and we threatened every time we put a few phases together. We kept knocking on, and making stupid handling errors in the first half, but the second half was much improved.
I managed to smash a guy.
I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but Japanese love to cheat. They love the dirty shots. I was on the floor getting up, in full view of the referee who was looking at me, when one of the opposition kicked me in the nads. It was deliberate, it was in full view of the referee who was looking at me and the guy who did it; and he shrugged. He fucking shrugged. That referee is a piece of shit. Fuck him. Cunt. Unsurprisingly he didn't get any cheers at the end of the match, and he didn't walk through the tunnel. Typically the referee will get some kind of plaudit at the end of the game, even if he did terribly. For him not to get anything is indicative of how loathed he was. He's an asshole. Fuck that guy. I wonder if he would like to be kicked in the balls and have no repercussion for the other player? That boggled my mind, and my testicles.
Anyway, of the cheating. A player kicked the ball through, in the act of kicking I hit him. Before he'd actually kicked the ball, or I'd actually touched him, he was shouting with his arms raised (you have to imagine the comedy of dropping the ball to kick it, and immediately raising your arms, it's really difficult to do) that I'd impeded his progress. The whole event was so farcical as to render it impossible for the referee to yellow card me, but it was surely on his mind. I winded the cheating piece of crap, so the moral is that if someone is about to hit you with their shoulder, don't raise your arms thereby exposing your rib cage. Twat.
I managed to stop a couple of players who broke through the line. I didn't miss a tackle all game; it seems to be something of a standby that when I have a poor attacking game, I am relatively solid in defence. I pulverised a guy who made it through the line, he stayed down for a while. I dearly hope it was the guy who kicked me in the gonads in front of the referee, or even better it was somehow the referee, but I doubt it was.
We scored, and from the kickoff one of our locks put me through a gap. It was glorious. With all the mistakes I'd made up until that point, it was great to finally be making yards. I want a yards gained count, like they do in the professional leagues. Anyway, I left a guy face down in the dust after stepping him just like Jason Robinson does in this clip (20 secs). It felt great.
I got smashed a few times, my left knee now hurts just like my right knee does (they dive at your knees in order to dislocate or break knees/legs, I told you they were dirty cunts) and all I can hope is that it's not ligaments.
The same lock put me over the try line, I beat one guy on the outside, had a couple tackling me as I fell over the line. It was only a couple of metres, and I probably should have passed, but I got over anyway.
In the end it was a comfortable 30 odd points to 12 or so; but that referee. What a colossal dickhead.
I'm still recovering from the flu, and I used up all my energy in that game. I fought to get back into it, from a horrible start. I made a lot of mistakes, and I pushed and pushed to get something to happen. It's probably why I made so many mistakes. But by the end, everything was happening naturally for both me and the team, and we were deserved winners. We should have won by 50, but the locals enlisted the help of bent officials so what can you do.
Next week is the semi-finals, and I hope to have fully passed the flu's and diseases. I'll hit the gym starting tomorrow to get my energy levels back up; swimming and whatnot will help. Unfortunately I've knackered my finger, so weights will be a chore. What must be done, must be done - I guess.
On the way there, and on the way back, I recorded video of the train journey. On this camera an hour and fifteen minutes of video is 32 gigs, and after encoding the video (adding a song and changing the codec) it came to 8 gigs. I uploaded it to youtube, and you can see one of the most relaxing videos in the world, right here. I went on the (really expensive) penis shaped bullet train (pictures to come) on the way back, because I was shattered and needed to be home A.S.A.P
That is all!
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
The Art of Selfishness
This article from the BBC pointed towards something unintended. The tradition in all Asian countries, has been for the subsequent members of family to provide for their elders. They don't have pensions, banking interest rates are measured in fractions of a percent, and general wealth has been hard to come by.
Japan has bucked this trend recently, with its' declining population and relative wealth, they do the western thing of providing for themselves with pensions, savings and occasional part-time work.
Watch the article and you'll see that china is still some way behind in this respect. The guy speaking ends his part by saying 'it will be difficult for him [the lone male child] to provide for the six of us.'
Now, when you are so selfish as to expect the child to provide for six people, without even considering the child in question, something must be inherently wrong. In fact, expectation is the wrong feeling. It's not really expected that he will do this; he will do it. It transcends expectation because there is an element of doubt related to expectation. It's a certainty in the mind of this man. When you elevate selfishness to the realm of certainty without reprisal, you have created an art form. Truly.
Poor kid.
Then again, the 'little emporer,' syndrome they talk about lives true and well within all of china.
Having met and spoken with a ton of the wealthiest 'little emporers,' in university, I can honestly say they can be obnoxious. This is not to say people with brothers and sisters can't be foul, obviously this is not the case - I just feel that this particular breed of chinese (dedicated to pouring their entire being into the new generation) has created a number of monsters. Just look at me as a prime example of the western equivalent (a term I'm now coining 'little king.') and become afraid. There is only one of me, but there are billions of them.
Time to get out of here before they all grow up and move abroad!
In other news: UK terror threat level has been downgraded from 'kiss your ass goodbye,' to 'rip your own eyeballs out, it'll be easier for you when they come and start shooting children.'
If you have any fears over your safety in the UK, just watch James Bond - he is badass.
Also, grow up.
One last thing about the terror warnings - they only ever raise them to the highest level after an attack has occurred, rendering all the 'I urge civilians to be cautious and alert,' bullshit moot, as we should have been alert prior to the bombing. Not after. Not exactly rocket scientist material heading government anti-terror units these days. That in itself is more a cause for concern than any fictitious terrorists.
On an unrelated note, I just visited a class for lunch (every day I have to eat lunch with a class. This is probably why I've lost weight. I just want to eat lunch quietly without seeing filthy children vomiting and spitting food at each other and flinging poo around like monkeys. It's disgusting.) and saw a kid eat his meal like a gannet. An otherwise impressive feat, it was somewhat disturbing for me to realise that all the kids were eating like that. It must be a fad or something. Literally no chewing occurred.
Then again, contrary to popular belief, Japanese people do not possess table manners. Sure, they kneel down and bow, say prayers of thank you (more on the prayers at a later date) before and after meals, and keenly observe proper chopstick etiquette - but once those formalities are overcome, it's all hands to the troughs. To see grown men, holding their chopsticks perfectly, dive head first into their bowls of food without using their hands is quite something. They can go through whole meals without actually using their perfected chopstick techniques, instead preferring the animalistic approach. Once they have finished troughing, they observe the etiquette laden formality of life once again.
Their children are umpteen times more disgusting to watch eating.
This is of course not to disparage all Japanese people. I find the women eat in a way that isn't fear-inducing, and some men are tolerable.
This is also coming from the only human being on the planet who feels that meal times are much better alone than shared with another, however, so my views may well be biased on this front.
P.s I just read a ten minute long back and forth internet flame war, arguing which is better: Western music or Eastern music. Not to put too fine a point on matters, while every country has patriots, Korea and Japan have attracted the anti-patriot. The 'weaboo,' is a common internet species, who think they're Japanese or Korean (the 'or Korean,' part is still yet to be added to the definition, but it's not long before it happens) despite being 14th generation English, French, German, Dutch or American - and never having left their parents' metaphorical or literal basement.
As such, the defence for the East-Asian music went thusly (to paraphrase): Western music is shit.
The rebuttal was: Japanese and Korean music is equally shit, except there is no variation that allows for the occasional breakthrough artist, or that caters for individual tastes.
The rebuttal is entirely correct. The only music in Japan is pop music. It's so generic, people have created computer programs that produce music indistinguishable from 'real,' music. I recently told the rugby guys that I like a Japanese rock band called 'maximum the hormone,' (another example of why Japan really needs to start taking English language teaching seriously) and they said, 'that's a bit weird.' They also advised me against telling any women that I like them, in case they thought I was weird too.
They're genuinely awesome, but they're not pop - in essence the reason why the West is better isn't the overall quality of music, (huge swathes of stuff produced in the West is dire, let's be honest) it's the fact that there is no music catering to differing tastes. If you don't like whiny, nasal pop, you're SOL (something out of luck) in Japan.
Unless you have the internet.
The internet beats the wheel as the best invention ever.
Using the above statement, begin a new flamewar at your own behest.
Japan has bucked this trend recently, with its' declining population and relative wealth, they do the western thing of providing for themselves with pensions, savings and occasional part-time work.
Watch the article and you'll see that china is still some way behind in this respect. The guy speaking ends his part by saying 'it will be difficult for him [the lone male child] to provide for the six of us.'
Now, when you are so selfish as to expect the child to provide for six people, without even considering the child in question, something must be inherently wrong. In fact, expectation is the wrong feeling. It's not really expected that he will do this; he will do it. It transcends expectation because there is an element of doubt related to expectation. It's a certainty in the mind of this man. When you elevate selfishness to the realm of certainty without reprisal, you have created an art form. Truly.
Poor kid.
Then again, the 'little emporer,' syndrome they talk about lives true and well within all of china.
Having met and spoken with a ton of the wealthiest 'little emporers,' in university, I can honestly say they can be obnoxious. This is not to say people with brothers and sisters can't be foul, obviously this is not the case - I just feel that this particular breed of chinese (dedicated to pouring their entire being into the new generation) has created a number of monsters. Just look at me as a prime example of the western equivalent (a term I'm now coining 'little king.') and become afraid. There is only one of me, but there are billions of them.
Time to get out of here before they all grow up and move abroad!
In other news: UK terror threat level has been downgraded from 'kiss your ass goodbye,' to 'rip your own eyeballs out, it'll be easier for you when they come and start shooting children.'
If you have any fears over your safety in the UK, just watch James Bond - he is badass.
Also, grow up.
One last thing about the terror warnings - they only ever raise them to the highest level after an attack has occurred, rendering all the 'I urge civilians to be cautious and alert,' bullshit moot, as we should have been alert prior to the bombing. Not after. Not exactly rocket scientist material heading government anti-terror units these days. That in itself is more a cause for concern than any fictitious terrorists.
On an unrelated note, I just visited a class for lunch (every day I have to eat lunch with a class. This is probably why I've lost weight. I just want to eat lunch quietly without seeing filthy children vomiting and spitting food at each other and flinging poo around like monkeys. It's disgusting.) and saw a kid eat his meal like a gannet. An otherwise impressive feat, it was somewhat disturbing for me to realise that all the kids were eating like that. It must be a fad or something. Literally no chewing occurred.
Then again, contrary to popular belief, Japanese people do not possess table manners. Sure, they kneel down and bow, say prayers of thank you (more on the prayers at a later date) before and after meals, and keenly observe proper chopstick etiquette - but once those formalities are overcome, it's all hands to the troughs. To see grown men, holding their chopsticks perfectly, dive head first into their bowls of food without using their hands is quite something. They can go through whole meals without actually using their perfected chopstick techniques, instead preferring the animalistic approach. Once they have finished troughing, they observe the etiquette laden formality of life once again.
Their children are umpteen times more disgusting to watch eating.
This is of course not to disparage all Japanese people. I find the women eat in a way that isn't fear-inducing, and some men are tolerable.
This is also coming from the only human being on the planet who feels that meal times are much better alone than shared with another, however, so my views may well be biased on this front.
P.s I just read a ten minute long back and forth internet flame war, arguing which is better: Western music or Eastern music. Not to put too fine a point on matters, while every country has patriots, Korea and Japan have attracted the anti-patriot. The 'weaboo,' is a common internet species, who think they're Japanese or Korean (the 'or Korean,' part is still yet to be added to the definition, but it's not long before it happens) despite being 14th generation English, French, German, Dutch or American - and never having left their parents' metaphorical or literal basement.
As such, the defence for the East-Asian music went thusly (to paraphrase): Western music is shit.
The rebuttal was: Japanese and Korean music is equally shit, except there is no variation that allows for the occasional breakthrough artist, or that caters for individual tastes.
The rebuttal is entirely correct. The only music in Japan is pop music. It's so generic, people have created computer programs that produce music indistinguishable from 'real,' music. I recently told the rugby guys that I like a Japanese rock band called 'maximum the hormone,' (another example of why Japan really needs to start taking English language teaching seriously) and they said, 'that's a bit weird.' They also advised me against telling any women that I like them, in case they thought I was weird too.
They're genuinely awesome, but they're not pop - in essence the reason why the West is better isn't the overall quality of music, (huge swathes of stuff produced in the West is dire, let's be honest) it's the fact that there is no music catering to differing tastes. If you don't like whiny, nasal pop, you're SOL (something out of luck) in Japan.
Unless you have the internet.
The internet beats the wheel as the best invention ever.
Using the above statement, begin a new flamewar at your own behest.
Thursday, 26 May 2011
Paranoia
So in the end I wasn't fired. It seems to me (the little I understood) that the teacher was merely pointing out the ludicrous situation, where a child identified as being handicapped, should still be in the classroom. Even a stupid monkey idiot foreigner with an IQ like a potato can see she needs to go into a specialist school. Something along those lines was said, I'm sure.
That may be an imperfect translation (of course no translation is ever perfect).
I'll try my best label all the delinquent students, in the hope that they're whisked away before my eyes.
Just be thankful this isn't china, where this kind of shit happens.
That may be an imperfect translation (of course no translation is ever perfect).
I'll try my best label all the delinquent students, in the hope that they're whisked away before my eyes.
Just be thankful this isn't china, where this kind of shit happens.
Sunday, 8 May 2011
Of Japanese Education, and Other Things
So I though I'd pretend to do some work today, and scan some stuff into the computer. Of course it was a ruse, nothing constructive was being accomplished, I was merely scanning in some pages to illustrate a point I'm about to make.
Previously, with ridiculous textbooks, I've felt uncomfortable freely using examples in case someone sues me for defamation or libel or something; the textbooks we use are common across Japan however, and I'm sure an entire nation could care less about one man blogging about them. Therefore, without further ado: The problems of language teaching in Japan; part two.
Previously, with ridiculous textbooks, I've felt uncomfortable freely using examples in case someone sues me for defamation or libel or something; the textbooks we use are common across Japan however, and I'm sure an entire nation could care less about one man blogging about them. Therefore, without further ado: The problems of language teaching in Japan; part two.
So you'll have to forgive the horrible expressions, crappy cartoons and generally poor layout. They've modelled this after a Japanese comic book (they're massively popular here) and it was made in 2000. That aside, what you may immediately notice is that everything has the Japanese pronunciation written next to it. This is the best page I could find in the whole book, that is to say, this page has the least transliteration. Most pages have more, with detailed descriptions in Japanese for everything.
For the average student who could care less about English, I'm not necessarily against the idea. The point being that these students will never speak with an Englishman, or Australian, or american ever again. Leaving school means leaving English interaction. Essentially, English is a means of testing. Including the Japanese pronunciations would, at first, appear fine.
However, Japanese has fewer sounds than English, and all their sounds are accompanied with vowels. Think about this for a moment. There is no 'm.' It has to be accompanied with a vowel. 'M,' becomes one of, 'ma, me, mi, mu or mo.' That means when learning the letters of the alphabet, no one can initially pronounce the consonants correctly. This would be fine if the students learnt English in isolation, something along the lines of 'this is how it is, if you don't initially learn English along with Japanese sounds, you'll be fine.' Of course they don't. I just had a lesson - teaching the kids English sounds, where the Japanese teacher was approximating the sounds into Japanese. Some of the sounds were reaching three katakana letters in length, just for a single syllable/sound! Incredibly stupid.
The particularly annoying thing was the insistence of the teacher and student to pronounce everything incorrectly, after I had just corrected them. Learning 'm,' instead of 'mu,' took a solid minute, only for the teacher to write up 'mu,' in Japanese on the board, and all the kids to immediately embed 'mu,' in their brains - and there it will stay. Incorrect for all eternity.
On a side note, the chair I'm currently sitting in, while scanning these pictures looks like this starship. Geek, right?
So basically there is no hope for these kids to ever learn English - they will forever learn Japlish.
To be fair, I can't think of a single teacher I've met who pretends that they teach English. They all realise the errors, flaws, mistakes, misconceptions and lies perpetrated by their education system. Afterall, the teachers I work with have been through the system themselves, and have studied English to a level most of these kids won't. I would be surprised if a single student in this school went on to study English at university. There must be four hundred and fifty kids in this school.
So ultimately I have to illustrate my frustrations with another page. I decided I wouldn't pick a page meant for students, as these things are always full of holes. Instead, how about some spiel aimed at the teachers themselves, in English. To preface this, it was obviously written by a fluent speaker, and isn't a typical, crazed translation likening life to falling cherry blossoms, and the transience of youth to a flowing river.
Ok so blogspot won't upload the picture. Maybe I'll try at home.
To be continued.
Update:
This is the page I tried to upload earlier.
Check out the heading 'Human Education.'
Perhaps I was wrong about the wishy-washy Japanese style of writing; it can be, and is translated directly into English.
'English language teaching should contribute to character building and world peace.'
What the.
The words flow like rivers among an ocean of rocky precipices, deftly dodging... Ok I can't keep this up. This nonsense has no place in an English language teaching manual, especially one designed for a syllabus whereby the sole aim is to get kids through tests.
And they still haven't taught the kids how to run properly, but now they're making them jump the hurdles. Literally. They're running up to the hurdles, stopping, jumping over them, and carrying on.
Ever wondered why you've never seen a single Japanese sprinter/hurdler/sportsman/athelete? (Except for sumo, where the native Japanese competitors are beaten by south pacific islanders all the time anyway.)
Update:
Check out the heading 'Human Education.'
Perhaps I was wrong about the wishy-washy Japanese style of writing; it can be, and is translated directly into English.
'English language teaching should contribute to character building and world peace.'
What the.
The words flow like rivers among an ocean of rocky precipices, deftly dodging... Ok I can't keep this up. This nonsense has no place in an English language teaching manual, especially one designed for a syllabus whereby the sole aim is to get kids through tests.
And they still haven't taught the kids how to run properly, but now they're making them jump the hurdles. Literally. They're running up to the hurdles, stopping, jumping over them, and carrying on.
Ever wondered why you've never seen a single Japanese sprinter/hurdler/sportsman/athelete? (Except for sumo, where the native Japanese competitors are beaten by south pacific islanders all the time anyway.)
Monday, 11 April 2011
On Earthquakes and Crapping of Pants
So I was previously asked whether the Japanese care about earthquakes; and if they do, what happens? Well today we had a medium sized quake, while I was in the school gym playing table tennis.
I didn't feel most of it, if I'm honest. Being the insensitive person I am, I wondered why on earth everyone was diving under the tables. It ramped up towards the end, and being on the second floor balcony of the gym, it really started rattling and rolling.
Everyone was screaming initially, it seemed to be more of a warning call (like meerkats sensing a lion) than through fear though, as the boys were joining in while shouting something. The girls reached pitches previously unbeknownst to man. One girl was crying by the end of it, the rest were playing table tennis within five seconds of the quake ending. A general chorus of 'are you okay?' went around, which was answered in two seconds, and everyone carried on.
What amazed me was the speed of their collective reflexes. The kids were under those tables before I even realised the place was shaking. All the teachers were standing around looking annoyed, they didn't dive. There seemed to be an air of annoyance at being stopped from working, and that's about it. The kids are perfectly trained, as are the adults in their own way. I think anyone over the age of sixteen realises that if a ten tonne girder is falling, a table won't stop it.
So I cycled to the gym after that excitement, and quickly got a puncture. The return journey was a dog, if I'm honest. It took an hour and twenty minutes (a fast ride takes 20) and I had to pick up dinner on the way back. I also found out that I've lost five kilogrammes. Five. I didn't have five to lose in the first place. Where did I lose five kilos? I was pretty annoyed at that. And at getting a puncture. And my boss sending me a message to see if I was okay, only to not bother replying when I told her that I had a puncture. Separate personal and private lives, I suppose.
Then I came home to all my stuff being on the floor. Luckily no more glasses broke (primarily because I have no more to break).
If you want to get an idea of just how frequent our tremors are (I'm going to establish a new form of differentiation between a tremor and a quake - tremors are sub richter 5, quakes anything above that. Sam has spoken, let it be known to the OED.) check this out. It's a world map/log of the tremors/earthquakes that occur. They're all in Japan, and the first page is filled with tremors just from today.
I didn't feel most of it, if I'm honest. Being the insensitive person I am, I wondered why on earth everyone was diving under the tables. It ramped up towards the end, and being on the second floor balcony of the gym, it really started rattling and rolling.
Everyone was screaming initially, it seemed to be more of a warning call (like meerkats sensing a lion) than through fear though, as the boys were joining in while shouting something. The girls reached pitches previously unbeknownst to man. One girl was crying by the end of it, the rest were playing table tennis within five seconds of the quake ending. A general chorus of 'are you okay?' went around, which was answered in two seconds, and everyone carried on.
What amazed me was the speed of their collective reflexes. The kids were under those tables before I even realised the place was shaking. All the teachers were standing around looking annoyed, they didn't dive. There seemed to be an air of annoyance at being stopped from working, and that's about it. The kids are perfectly trained, as are the adults in their own way. I think anyone over the age of sixteen realises that if a ten tonne girder is falling, a table won't stop it.
So I cycled to the gym after that excitement, and quickly got a puncture. The return journey was a dog, if I'm honest. It took an hour and twenty minutes (a fast ride takes 20) and I had to pick up dinner on the way back. I also found out that I've lost five kilogrammes. Five. I didn't have five to lose in the first place. Where did I lose five kilos? I was pretty annoyed at that. And at getting a puncture. And my boss sending me a message to see if I was okay, only to not bother replying when I told her that I had a puncture. Separate personal and private lives, I suppose.
Then I came home to all my stuff being on the floor. Luckily no more glasses broke (primarily because I have no more to break).
If you want to get an idea of just how frequent our tremors are (I'm going to establish a new form of differentiation between a tremor and a quake - tremors are sub richter 5, quakes anything above that. Sam has spoken, let it be known to the OED.) check this out. It's a world map/log of the tremors/earthquakes that occur. They're all in Japan, and the first page is filled with tremors just from today.
Friday, 8 April 2011
Entrance Ceremony
So the entrance ceremony was today. Needless to say, it was long and efficient. Patience is a virtue in all matters here, it seems.
Firstly, I sat with all the new teachers for roughly an hour, while the school head teacher, mayor (or some such city official) the deputy head, the head of each of the departments and some specially selected kids gave speeches. Individually they weren't long; but collectively they were taxing. Before each person spoke we had to bow, and after each person spoke we had to bow. This includes standing up and sitting down each time. Tiring.
Then the new teachers were ushered onto the stage to bow in front of the students. We were introduced individually, mine being a particularly drawn out affair. I don't know why, he said something about me being English and from London. That aside, it was relatively mundane. This happened an hour into the ceremony.
We then sat down in our original positions (I don't know how long for) and waited. After that, there was a ton of sitting around and waiting in the teachers room. I was tasked with literally no work, so I busied myself with my university application, and asking those around for help finding local university libraries. From a personal perspective, it was extremely productive. From an education prospective, it was not.
I hope this trend continues, because I will be able to do monumental amounts of work here, if I'm tasked with the same workload as today.
In radioactive news; we had a magnitude 7.0 earthquake some 200km offshore yesterday. No tsunami's that I know of. A tsunami, for those are wondering, is caused by tectonic activity. A tidal wave is caused by lunar or solar interaction with the ocean.
The quake lasted for around a minute all told. It built up slowly (a trend I've noticed with the earthquakes here) and lasted for a long time. Long enough to smash one of my glasses and force me out of bed to lay my computer and TV flat - you suddenly find out what your priorities are when something like this occurs.
Another interesting fact - before I came here I assumed earthquakes were quick events that happened over a period of seconds. It turns out that the big earthquake a few weeks ago lasted for three minutes. In the same way, it built up from minor shaking to become a massive earthquake. The sixth biggest in recorded history. That's huge.
The reactors are all being scrapped after they've been secured. It appears that only one of the reactors is causing the headaches you can read about in the newspapers; the others are either secure or posing little risk. The one that's leaking everywhere, however, is burning holes wherever it touches. Workers are being paid about 700 pounds a day to solve all the problems. Of course, those workers will be dead in ten years, so, frankly, I think 700 pounds is too little. The company in charge is taking advantage of the Japanese 'it's my fault, so I will kill myself to rectify the problem,' mentality. On the one hand it's a crying shame that these people are sacrificing themselves for this; on the other it's amazing they would willingly choose to do so. I don't know many people that would be willing to wade up to their knees in radioactive water to fix a leaking pipe.
The world can't run on oil forever, and using solar, wind or wave energy is, frankly, delusional. Therefore, I guess the Japanese will have to build their power stations on top of bouncy castles or some such earthquake-proof device.
It's interesting to note that the reactors themselves were initially unharmed, it's only the cooling systems that failed. Once a reactor is started, the cooling systems keep the temperatures at nominal levels - it's an ongoing reaction that lasts as long as the fuel does. Once it's started, it doesn't stop. There are emergency backups, but it would seem to me that the actual nuclear reactor technology is safer than people would imagine. They've just got to invent a way of supercooling the reaction much faster than they were able to this time around.
Also, these reactors are forty years old. I wonder how a reactor today differs?
P.S My water is not radioactive.
Firstly, I sat with all the new teachers for roughly an hour, while the school head teacher, mayor (or some such city official) the deputy head, the head of each of the departments and some specially selected kids gave speeches. Individually they weren't long; but collectively they were taxing. Before each person spoke we had to bow, and after each person spoke we had to bow. This includes standing up and sitting down each time. Tiring.
Then the new teachers were ushered onto the stage to bow in front of the students. We were introduced individually, mine being a particularly drawn out affair. I don't know why, he said something about me being English and from London. That aside, it was relatively mundane. This happened an hour into the ceremony.
We then sat down in our original positions (I don't know how long for) and waited. After that, there was a ton of sitting around and waiting in the teachers room. I was tasked with literally no work, so I busied myself with my university application, and asking those around for help finding local university libraries. From a personal perspective, it was extremely productive. From an education prospective, it was not.
I hope this trend continues, because I will be able to do monumental amounts of work here, if I'm tasked with the same workload as today.
In radioactive news; we had a magnitude 7.0 earthquake some 200km offshore yesterday. No tsunami's that I know of. A tsunami, for those are wondering, is caused by tectonic activity. A tidal wave is caused by lunar or solar interaction with the ocean.
The quake lasted for around a minute all told. It built up slowly (a trend I've noticed with the earthquakes here) and lasted for a long time. Long enough to smash one of my glasses and force me out of bed to lay my computer and TV flat - you suddenly find out what your priorities are when something like this occurs.
Another interesting fact - before I came here I assumed earthquakes were quick events that happened over a period of seconds. It turns out that the big earthquake a few weeks ago lasted for three minutes. In the same way, it built up from minor shaking to become a massive earthquake. The sixth biggest in recorded history. That's huge.
The reactors are all being scrapped after they've been secured. It appears that only one of the reactors is causing the headaches you can read about in the newspapers; the others are either secure or posing little risk. The one that's leaking everywhere, however, is burning holes wherever it touches. Workers are being paid about 700 pounds a day to solve all the problems. Of course, those workers will be dead in ten years, so, frankly, I think 700 pounds is too little. The company in charge is taking advantage of the Japanese 'it's my fault, so I will kill myself to rectify the problem,' mentality. On the one hand it's a crying shame that these people are sacrificing themselves for this; on the other it's amazing they would willingly choose to do so. I don't know many people that would be willing to wade up to their knees in radioactive water to fix a leaking pipe.
The world can't run on oil forever, and using solar, wind or wave energy is, frankly, delusional. Therefore, I guess the Japanese will have to build their power stations on top of bouncy castles or some such earthquake-proof device.
It's interesting to note that the reactors themselves were initially unharmed, it's only the cooling systems that failed. Once a reactor is started, the cooling systems keep the temperatures at nominal levels - it's an ongoing reaction that lasts as long as the fuel does. Once it's started, it doesn't stop. There are emergency backups, but it would seem to me that the actual nuclear reactor technology is safer than people would imagine. They've just got to invent a way of supercooling the reaction much faster than they were able to this time around.
Also, these reactors are forty years old. I wonder how a reactor today differs?
P.S My water is not radioactive.
Monday, 4 April 2011
The Junior High School
I met the Junior High School head teacher today at one of the schools I'll be teaching at. It's a middle-sized school with four or five hundred students - all of whom attend after school clubs of some kind. It turns out that these clubs are primarily sporting, but run the gamut through to traditional Japanese particulars, such as the tea ceremony.
Tomorrow I'm picking up my immigration card thing, i.e a visa (hopefully). I've a decision to make: should it be a multiple entry (6,000 yen) a single re-entry (3,000 yen) or no leaving permitted. I'm probably going to choose the single re-entry, in case there's a chance to go somewhere.
It's pretty damned cold here right now. The Japanese don't believe in insulation, so you have to heat the room constantly. If you turn the heater off, it becomes cold immediately. This will (I assume) lead to enormous heating bills. I am, therefore, wearing a dozen layers instead of turning the heating on. I'm one stop short of a woolly hat.
There's no gym here (that I've found yet) so I'm extremely worried about what I'm going to do for fitness. There's a gym half an hour by train (the trains are worryingly intermittent at the moment, due to the earthquakes) but it ends up being an all-day affair just to get there if I use the trains. Instead, I'll use the new bike they furnished me with (an old granny bike, with a basket on the front and everything) and cycle. I think it will end up being about 45 minutes each way, but the benefit is that I won't have to spend half an hour on the treadmill each time I visit, which will cut the gym-time down significantly.
All my boxes arrived from Korea in one piece - except the computer. The CPU cooler fell off, twice. Don't use stock Intel coolers on I7 2600k cpu's, they're rubbish. I'm not convinced it actually on properly now, but short of putting a hole through the motherboard, it's as fastened as it will ever be.
The shortages of fruit juices and milks is mostly alleviated. There are still a few bare patches in the aisles, but I expect those to be filled within the next week or so. We're still having earthquakes every day, usually a few. There's been one day without any. Most are tame, with a couple of shakers thrown in for good measure.
Someone requested more pictures, so here's the first hit when you type 'iwafune,' (the tiny town where I live) into google.
Tomorrow I'm picking up my immigration card thing, i.e a visa (hopefully). I've a decision to make: should it be a multiple entry (6,000 yen) a single re-entry (3,000 yen) or no leaving permitted. I'm probably going to choose the single re-entry, in case there's a chance to go somewhere.
It's pretty damned cold here right now. The Japanese don't believe in insulation, so you have to heat the room constantly. If you turn the heater off, it becomes cold immediately. This will (I assume) lead to enormous heating bills. I am, therefore, wearing a dozen layers instead of turning the heating on. I'm one stop short of a woolly hat.
There's no gym here (that I've found yet) so I'm extremely worried about what I'm going to do for fitness. There's a gym half an hour by train (the trains are worryingly intermittent at the moment, due to the earthquakes) but it ends up being an all-day affair just to get there if I use the trains. Instead, I'll use the new bike they furnished me with (an old granny bike, with a basket on the front and everything) and cycle. I think it will end up being about 45 minutes each way, but the benefit is that I won't have to spend half an hour on the treadmill each time I visit, which will cut the gym-time down significantly.
All my boxes arrived from Korea in one piece - except the computer. The CPU cooler fell off, twice. Don't use stock Intel coolers on I7 2600k cpu's, they're rubbish. I'm not convinced it actually on properly now, but short of putting a hole through the motherboard, it's as fastened as it will ever be.
The shortages of fruit juices and milks is mostly alleviated. There are still a few bare patches in the aisles, but I expect those to be filled within the next week or so. We're still having earthquakes every day, usually a few. There's been one day without any. Most are tame, with a couple of shakers thrown in for good measure.
Someone requested more pictures, so here's the first hit when you type 'iwafune,' (the tiny town where I live) into google.
This isn't actually where I live, it's a different iwafune (in Kyoto.) It looks nice though.
My iwafune looks nothing like this.
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
I Just Broke my Baby Laptop!
So I just dropped my baby laptop. I was placing it on the kitchen side so I could watch TV while I made dinner. Obviously, I didn't place it upon firm enough footings, and it came to a calamitous conclusion.
The screen is cracked, with no hope of repair or recovery on that front. Luckily, I had the cable to attach it to my flatscreen (which also survived the aeroplane hold, amazingly) handy, and simply plugged it in. When it landed, all power was cut immediately, so I feared some vital part of the computer had been broken. I've not had any linux BSOD equivalents yet, and it's been running for an hour, so I think it's safe to assume that the hardware has remained mostly intact.
Asus make sturdy EeeeeePc's. I accidentally tested this one to destruction. If you're interested in finding out what will crack your laptop screen; a six foot drop onto the corner of the machine, hitting linoleum flooring will do it.
Also, as a general tip to everyone who watches TV on their laptops while making dinner - don't put it on your fridge.
I met the government type who's in charge of ensuring the language teachers in school don't step out of line (I think he has an acronym based title, but that's essentially his job description.) He seemed nice enough; but at no stage did he stop smiling, which has me worried. People who seem too nice usually are.
Also, one of the other foreign teachers living in the area (there are only two of us within half an hour of here, which is fine by me) walked into my room uninvited a couple of days ago. I had never met him before, and there he was, standing in my house. The funny thing is, he didn't apologise for walking in without knocking, he just explained that it was a mistake. He then proceeded to apologise half an hour later, as he was leaving, not for walking in uninvited, but for leaving earlier than I might otherwise have liked. Curtesy dictated that I not shout out, 'piss off,' after thirty seconds (he's a terrible bore, with an obnoxious manner) but it definitely crossed my mind to.
In terms of location, I'm very near to Ashikaga, and somewhere else that I've now proceeded to forget about. I'll be teaching in two elementary schools and one junior high school (they follow the american system here) which will be an interesting mix.
I don't have any extra fingers or toes yet.
Blackouts are scheduled every few days, but never seem to happen. Apparently the citizens are well-behaved, and turn off unnecessary lighting and electronics when they're not in use. This is fine by me of course, as it means there's more electricity for me to use. Muahahahaha.
Everyone smiles in the shops, and people randomly say hello on the streets. It's nice; if a little cold.
The screen is cracked, with no hope of repair or recovery on that front. Luckily, I had the cable to attach it to my flatscreen (which also survived the aeroplane hold, amazingly) handy, and simply plugged it in. When it landed, all power was cut immediately, so I feared some vital part of the computer had been broken. I've not had any linux BSOD equivalents yet, and it's been running for an hour, so I think it's safe to assume that the hardware has remained mostly intact.
Asus make sturdy EeeeeePc's. I accidentally tested this one to destruction. If you're interested in finding out what will crack your laptop screen; a six foot drop onto the corner of the machine, hitting linoleum flooring will do it.
Also, as a general tip to everyone who watches TV on their laptops while making dinner - don't put it on your fridge.
I met the government type who's in charge of ensuring the language teachers in school don't step out of line (I think he has an acronym based title, but that's essentially his job description.) He seemed nice enough; but at no stage did he stop smiling, which has me worried. People who seem too nice usually are.
Also, one of the other foreign teachers living in the area (there are only two of us within half an hour of here, which is fine by me) walked into my room uninvited a couple of days ago. I had never met him before, and there he was, standing in my house. The funny thing is, he didn't apologise for walking in without knocking, he just explained that it was a mistake. He then proceeded to apologise half an hour later, as he was leaving, not for walking in uninvited, but for leaving earlier than I might otherwise have liked. Curtesy dictated that I not shout out, 'piss off,' after thirty seconds (he's a terrible bore, with an obnoxious manner) but it definitely crossed my mind to.
In terms of location, I'm very near to Ashikaga, and somewhere else that I've now proceeded to forget about. I'll be teaching in two elementary schools and one junior high school (they follow the american system here) which will be an interesting mix.
I don't have any extra fingers or toes yet.
Blackouts are scheduled every few days, but never seem to happen. Apparently the citizens are well-behaved, and turn off unnecessary lighting and electronics when they're not in use. This is fine by me of course, as it means there's more electricity for me to use. Muahahahaha.
Everyone smiles in the shops, and people randomly say hello on the streets. It's nice; if a little cold.
Saturday, 26 March 2011
Not Been In Japan Five Minutes
So I arrived in Japan around midday. It's pretty much as I remember it, but somewhat greener (literally and metaphorically) due to my time in Korea.
And now there's been an earth tremor. I'm not calling it an earthquake, because by my guess, it was only around a 2 or 3 on the richter scale. Seismic activity after a major earthquake is common, so I expected there to be some more tremors; not quite this quickly though, I must admit.
The last day on Geoje was good. I had to get up at ridiculous AM in order to.
Hold that thought, there's another tremor. Blimey, two in two minutes. This one is only a 1 on the richter scale if that.
So I got up really early, having packed and sent all my belongings (essentially) yesterday (Friday) in boxes marked fragile. In the last attempt at annoying me, the guy who stuck fragile stickers over what he knew to be my computer, proceeded to throw it across the room onto the pile of other fragile items, right in front of me.
The flight was average, the bus journey here was long, but I slept most of the way. Come to think of it, I slept pretty much the whole time in the airport, on the plane and on the bus. Quite good, considering.
In answer to a prior question, I'm nowhere near Kyoto, I'm an hour and a half away from the middle of Tokyo, so an hour away from Tokyo proper I assume.
I'll trickle updates along, as I find out more about my situation tomorrow.
P.S Does anyone know how to get skype running on Slitaz?
P.P.S I'm fine, stop worrying.
P.P.P.S This is the way Korea ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper.
*Update* Three tremours in five minutes. A new world record?
And now there's been an earth tremor. I'm not calling it an earthquake, because by my guess, it was only around a 2 or 3 on the richter scale. Seismic activity after a major earthquake is common, so I expected there to be some more tremors; not quite this quickly though, I must admit.
The last day on Geoje was good. I had to get up at ridiculous AM in order to.
Hold that thought, there's another tremor. Blimey, two in two minutes. This one is only a 1 on the richter scale if that.
So I got up really early, having packed and sent all my belongings (essentially) yesterday (Friday) in boxes marked fragile. In the last attempt at annoying me, the guy who stuck fragile stickers over what he knew to be my computer, proceeded to throw it across the room onto the pile of other fragile items, right in front of me.
The flight was average, the bus journey here was long, but I slept most of the way. Come to think of it, I slept pretty much the whole time in the airport, on the plane and on the bus. Quite good, considering.
In answer to a prior question, I'm nowhere near Kyoto, I'm an hour and a half away from the middle of Tokyo, so an hour away from Tokyo proper I assume.
I'll trickle updates along, as I find out more about my situation tomorrow.
P.S Does anyone know how to get skype running on Slitaz?
P.P.S I'm fine, stop worrying.
P.P.P.S This is the way Korea ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper.
*Update* Three tremours in five minutes. A new world record?
Thursday, 24 March 2011
Japan Here I Come
I'm (hopefully) leaving for Japan on Saturday. The flight leaves at 10 ish, and I arrive in Japan around 1 ish. Obviously, it doesn't take three hours to fly from Korea to Japan, so I've made a miscalculation somewhere. I'll rectify that later.
I absolutely cannot wait. I'm fearing the transport company will hold me in Korea for some reason, citing a nonsense problem with my passport or something. It's stupid to get my hopes up at this stage, because tons can still go wrong.
Two boxes are packed, and I'm shipping them off tomorrow. That might sound excessive, but they're pretty small. I'm recycling ones that were sent to me filled with chocolate. I've a third (my computer) that I'm in the process of packing, so I'll write e-mails and whatnot at work tomorrow, and (hopefully) see everyone on the other side.
Ciao for now.
I absolutely cannot wait. I'm fearing the transport company will hold me in Korea for some reason, citing a nonsense problem with my passport or something. It's stupid to get my hopes up at this stage, because tons can still go wrong.
Two boxes are packed, and I'm shipping them off tomorrow. That might sound excessive, but they're pretty small. I'm recycling ones that were sent to me filled with chocolate. I've a third (my computer) that I'm in the process of packing, so I'll write e-mails and whatnot at work tomorrow, and (hopefully) see everyone on the other side.
Ciao for now.
Friday, 18 February 2011
Robots
As I'm hopefully heading away from this frightful country, and towards that which own(s) (ed) it, I thought I would check out the latest robotics. Robots and Japan are synonymous after all.
It turns out there's been no real advancement in robotics, beyond what seemed to have been achieved by 2005/06. I would imagine it's in part due to the perceived devastation of the financial crisis (life goes on, let's be honest).
For once the BBC article sums it up nicely. People don't want a weird looking semi-human looking thing helping them. (Check out the picture of the man in a suit holding the woman, who would want that thing helping them?)
The alternative is what I would have expected to be the natural evolution of robotics anyway; building robots for every day purposes, and integrating as many functions into them as possible. Just like a mobile phone. Some time down the line (let's not get into wild date predictions) this hybrid toaster/nail clipper/hair cutter will sprout something resembling arms, and upon reaching mark V will grow fingers. Surely it would make more sense to build a machine from the core purpose, adding extra features, than try to build a fully realised robot and have it attempt to fit a purpose at a later date.
That's just how I always imagined it would be. (I think the Japanese watched too many robot films, like I robot)
In reply to the comment left on my previous page: all those things have happened to me. Whether I provoked the people who did them in a way unbeknownst to me (I've lived 20+ years with only a couple of those bad things happening to me, prior to living here) or not, they happened. Should I judge this country on fairy tales and fluffy dream-like examples of what might have been, or what I have experienced? I understand that the corollary of optimism is ignorance, but after a year of drudgery, I can no longer see the fabled Korea set forth in TV dramas and movies.
It turns out there's been no real advancement in robotics, beyond what seemed to have been achieved by 2005/06. I would imagine it's in part due to the perceived devastation of the financial crisis (life goes on, let's be honest).
For once the BBC article sums it up nicely. People don't want a weird looking semi-human looking thing helping them. (Check out the picture of the man in a suit holding the woman, who would want that thing helping them?)
The alternative is what I would have expected to be the natural evolution of robotics anyway; building robots for every day purposes, and integrating as many functions into them as possible. Just like a mobile phone. Some time down the line (let's not get into wild date predictions) this hybrid toaster/nail clipper/hair cutter will sprout something resembling arms, and upon reaching mark V will grow fingers. Surely it would make more sense to build a machine from the core purpose, adding extra features, than try to build a fully realised robot and have it attempt to fit a purpose at a later date.
That's just how I always imagined it would be. (I think the Japanese watched too many robot films, like I robot)
In reply to the comment left on my previous page: all those things have happened to me. Whether I provoked the people who did them in a way unbeknownst to me (I've lived 20+ years with only a couple of those bad things happening to me, prior to living here) or not, they happened. Should I judge this country on fairy tales and fluffy dream-like examples of what might have been, or what I have experienced? I understand that the corollary of optimism is ignorance, but after a year of drudgery, I can no longer see the fabled Korea set forth in TV dramas and movies.
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