Festivals, Funhouses, and Literature, oh my!

GREETINGS, MINIONS!

Or... faithful readers. As you like it.

It's been a busy whatever it's been. This blog entry covers thrice topics!

First of all was the weekend's school festival. I think it's a cool tradition that most schools here seem to put on a festival every year (I've seen it in anime, and now I've lived it! XP ) where the different clubs and organizations raise money by offering goods and services--usually food related.

The net result of all that being that I ate. A LOT.

Remember how I said I hate Japanese food? Well, that apparently excludes festival foods, which is a different thing entirely.

It was actually quite funny... and annoying... how dedicated the students were to selling you their foodstuffs. After class was over (the Japanese students got the day off, but did we? Noooo, of course not) I headed back to my bike to ride back to the dorm for my camera. On the way back, I got accosted by no less than ten Japanese students blocking my path to try to sell me junk food. And the only word I understood of any of it was "DO YOU LIKE PUMPKIN?"

When I finally managed to escape and come back, I was in a much better mood, because I wanted what they were selling.

ALL OF IT.

I ended up eating a strange omlette dish, yakisoba, yakitori, and pretty much every dessert they were selling. It was ALL freaking tasty. I did get a little annoyed--and yet amused--at one point when I tried to buy some cotton candy. I got in line and waited, but when I got to the front, some Japanese students that were also working at the festival waltzed up and asked for some.
There was obviously a glitch in the communication between the girl taking the orders and the girl making the cotton candy, because she swirled it up, and tried to hand it to me--only to have the other girl tap her and tell her to give it to one of the Japanese students. So she swirled up another one, tried to give it to me, and the process was repeated.

Finally, on the third try, I actually got some.

It was delicious.

Nothing in the festival, however, was quite as good as the tempura ice-- or fried ice cream, as you may know it. It was the only booth at the festival with an honest to go crowd around it, and for good reason.

I also stopped by my speaking partner Miku's club's set-up: Cafe Parvarati. Pay 100 yen, and get all the instant coffee and tea you can drink--as well as a show, if you come at the right time. Which I did.

Since it's a choir group, obviously, it was musical. Care for a sample?
(speaking partner on far left)
I thought it was pretty good, myself. And it was amusing that they sung so many western-style songs. But, western culture dominates, wherever you go, I guess.

I also met Miku's mother there. She didn't speak English, but we managed to engage in some basic conversation in Japanese. I was rather proud of that.

Throughout the festival, I saw many interesting photo ops. Such as an American flag waving Santa being beaten up by a power ranger and spider man.

What message is this trying to send?
Later, tried to get a photo of spidey, but he just hid behind Buddha and shot web at me.


Then there was the awesome job they did on the steps, this bold statement, and this unconventional weapon.

All in all, quite an experience.

But it pales on comparison with...

ROUND ONE.

Yesterday, I was just making a snack in the kitchen, minding my own business, when my unit-mates come in and start going on about this "Round One" place they were going to. They invited me along, and I asked what it was. "It's this awesome place with games, and bowling, and stuff."
"Sure, why not," I answered. I figured I needed to get out more, and this sounded like a good opportunity to spend time with some people who's idea of a good time isn't just getting plastered.

So, not too much later, we set out into the cold.

We started walking.

And we walked.

And we walked.

Eventually we saw a sign that said "Round One! Two Kilometers!"

Oh, you've got to be kidding me.

Regardless, it was all worth it. Every minute of it.

Round One was unlike anything I have ever seen in America.

You pay 2,000 Yen to get in (1800 for us, since we got a student discount) and from then on, everything in the entire four story complex is free for your use.

Now, just what was in the complex, you ask?

Everything.

No, really. They had EVERYTHING.

The first place we stopped was the HUGE arcade. It had pretty much every game you could think of. Arcade Mario Cart (complete with vs. mode), a multitude of rail shooters, such as every time crisis and a rip off of time crisis, and... just... well, everything.

And since we paid to come IN, we didn't have to pay for ANY of the games. We played as much as we wanted, for as LONG as we wanted.

It was bliss.

Me and Michael, my roomie, hung out for most of the time, blasting through the rail shooters. (Despite our rocky start, we've become pretty good friends. I found out he complains about EVERYTHING--not just me.) One of the ones we played, the time crisis rip-off, was extremely amusing. It was sort of innovative-- you had a charge shot that only used one bullet, and could target multiple enemies, so that you could almost clear the screen in one shot if you pulled it off right.

But the most remarkable thing about it was the characters. They were beyond bizarre. The main characters were strange--P1 was a blond guy in a rubbery looking sweater and pants--completely in red, of course. P2 was a female covered completely in blue rubber, except for eye holes.
And the bosses were invariably nearly-naked women.

Except for one guy, who was transparent, and you could see his "bionic skeleton."

I felt it was an instant classic.

There was also a skating rink, which I didn't use because I didn't know my size. A kick-boxing simluator, a mechanical bull, karaoke, and so many other things I can't even name.

And that was all on one floor.

So, we eventually headed up a floor, to spo-cha, whatever that means. It was a huge open-air sports extravaganza.

They had mini golf, archery, soccer, volleyball, batting practice, badminton, and again, pretty much everything you can imagine. I'm not a big sports fan, but even I had fun. Managed to hit a few balls, completely miss the target in archery, etc, etc.

After that, I was starting to feel a bit tuckered out, so I stopped for a brief American Snack.


Then I continued exploring the building. Inside, there were more sportsy activities, only they were solo-style, made for practicing. For instance, there was the basketball game, an indoor fishing pond where you can catch live fish, a tennis machine, and a ping-pong machine.
And, as before, many other things that I can't even name or remember.

And check this: They had an in-house manga library.
No joke. And just around the corner was the "relaxation area," a large auditorium type room full of massage chairs.
Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to work them.

In any case, three hours went by in a flash, and our time was up.

We had probably only done about 20 percent of the activities available.

WHY hadn't I been coming here EVERY WEEKEND?

We all put our jackets back on, and started on the long walk back home, feeling tired but exceedingly content. None of us could stop talking about how awesome the place had been.

The whole experience left me a bit wired, so I stayed up until the wee hours and felt like crap the next day. Hooray!

And now, here's something you probably weren't aware of:

It's National Novel Writing Month!
And yours truly, being the lovable idiot that you know him to be, has decided to sign up.

It's gonna be about zombies! : D

The Bumbling Gaitaku

"The strangest thing happened to me today."
"Oh?"
"Yes, I saw this Gaijin Otaku."
"Eh? A Gaijin Otaku?"
"Yeah. He was a Gaijin, but dressed like an Otaku."
"That's pretty strange."
"Mm. But that's not the weird part."
"Oh?"
"No. See, while he was walking down the stairs, he suddenly tripped and fell down them. It looked like he twisted his ankle, too."
"Ouch! That must have hurt."
"That's what I thought, but when he fell, he just started laughing and got back up!"
"Eh? Was he okay?"
"I asked him. He said yes, laughed again, and walked out with a big grin on his face."
"Gaijin are weird."
"Yeah..."

This inevitable conversation has been brought to you by the Bumbling Gaitaku (Gaijin Otaku).

It's only fair that I give the Japanese something to talk about while I'm here. After all, they give me PLENTY to talk about, most of it rather surreal.
For instance, this scene took place in an Anime Art Gallery. Where you can buy paintings of your favorite Evangelion character for a few thousand dollars a pop. That's dollars, folks. Not yen.

This was all part of yet another trip into Den Den Town. Lemme just break it up into a series of surreal moments.

Surreal Moment #1: Finding a six story store called "Super Kids Land" that had a floor of extremely realistic gun replicas and air pistols and two floors of risque anime figures.

Surreal Moment #2: Anime on LAZERDISC. [x] [x]

Surreal Moment #3: Finding Loony Tunes and Disney characters that look like they're ready to kick my ass.


Surreal Moment #4: This. Do I really need to say anything?
(Holy crap, I just noticed there's a glass of water in there in case she gets thirsty.)

Surreal Moment #5: This sign.

Surreal Moment #6: Seeing a Japanese business man in a suit and tie carefully pick up and scrutinize, from every angle, a box containing figures of pre-pubescent girls with removable skirts.

Surreal Moment #7: Seeing a Japanese person walk through the otaku district wearing a Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt.


And last but not least: Surreal Moment #8: The best thing I've ever ever seen, done, or eaten.

That's it for now. More news as it develops.

--TIM

Mama, I'm coming home.

Hey, guys. Sorry for the long silence. I was actually on a rockin trip last weekend, but just haven't had the time/energy to write about it... I'll see if I can get it in THIS weekend. XD You can check my photobucket for pictures.

But, hey. On to the main subject of this post.

I'm coming home.


No, not right now. I'm gonna finish out this semester, of course. But I'm not staying for the second.

Now, don't get me wrong. It's been fun. It'll continue to be fun for the last half of this semester, or so I presume. But really, I think that's enough.

I've been here. I've seen the sights, I've bought the plastic junk, I've ridden the trains, and completely failed to interact with the locals. And I think after another half-semester of this, it's time to pack it up and head back to where I belong.

Because that's what this trip has made me realize. I don't belong here. I guess a little piece of me thought I did. Every anime fan has that nagging voice that tells them that Japan is the greatest place in the world, and that all their problems will be solved if they go live there.

But it's all bunk.

I never realized it, but I had a good thing going for me back home. I had a family. Great friends, both in my hometown and at college. D&D, Kung Fu, and all the anime I could watch. And all the little things that you take for granted.

I wasn't stared at in public. I could go places without feeling completely awkward and unable to communicate. The people around me spoke English. The food was varied, tasty, and... recognizable. (I REALLY don't like Japanese food.) I could read the signs, I knew where to buy what, what section it would be in, and what it would look like. I could drive myself wherever I wanted to go, instead of being crammed into a train like a sardine, with NO handholds so that every time the train lurches I almost tumble into the people around me.

I thought, maybe, in Japan, I would meet more people like me. But I took for granted that I already KNEW people like me back home. And forgot that no matter what kind of Japanese person I found, we wouldn't be able to communicate, our cultures would be completely different, and I'd always be looked at as a Gaijin. And I also failed to realize that the international students here would be just like students anywhere else.

I got annoyed with Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and America in general, quite a lot. The people there were loud, I thought. They lived to drink and party. Well, it's no different here. Whether they're international or Japanese, most people here seem to be no less annoying than the people I left back home. I guess college students are college students, wherever you go, and drinking here seems to be even more popular, since the age is lowered, it's not taboo at all, and it's available everywhere--including the vending machine about two minutes from the dorm.

I'm not saying I made a mistake. It's been fun. I love seeing the sights, and cruising the Otaku district. And I've met some cool people, both gaijin and Japanese.

But now that I think of it, it was never my idea to stay a year in the first place. I only wanted to do a semester, but the woman in charge of the international programs convinced me to do a year.

Well, I think I had the right idea to begin with.

It's been great. But after all's said and done, I think that Japan is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live here. And one semester is a plenty long visit, if you ask me.

TIM Goes to Hollywood

So, picture this. You're in Japan, and you have a three day weekend--the third one of this semester, and the second one you're not sick for. What should you do? Go see temples in Kyoto? Maybe go check out Osaka Castle?

Heck no. You go to USJ--Universal Studios Japan.

It's just like every other Universal Studios. It's got the same rides, from the same movies. The same overpriced merchandise. But it's in Japan, and it's filled with Japanese people. So why not.

I actually had to plan ahead for this. You see, the school has this running thing called the "Experience Japan Program." The way it works is that a bunch of Japanese students get together and plan some kind of event, and they take a certain amount of Americans with them. You have to sign up for it.

Now, last month, there was a trip to USJ. The Japanese students had agreed to take about five American students. I went to check out the possible trips, and that one sounded good. So I looked at the sign-up sheet.

It clearly stated that only five people would be taken. There was a line after the five people mark on the sign-up sheet.

So what do people do? After five people sign up, they go right past the line and fill up the ENTIRE DANG PAGE. And then they flip it on the back, and draw more lines, and put their names there.

I have no idea what happened with that trip. I can only assume that the first five people went, and they sent emails to everyone else that said "Hey, you stupid Gaijin. You can't come, and you can't read, either."

But they did the same trip again this month, except with only four people. And better yet, it was during the halloween season, so the whole park would be done up for it.

Well, the day after that trip was announced, I went down to the CIE office and signed up. I was the fourth-AKA last-person to sign up. I noticed this time they put X's through all the other lines. I'll bet some more people still signed up, anyway.

Anyway, come Sunday, the day was finally here. I was psyched. I decided to travel light, only taking my camera with me. You can find all the photos in my photobucket album.

Since I've learned not to trust the bus system, I decided to get an early start. Now, since we were meeting at 9:30, and I don't have any classes before 10:00, that meant that I was getting up earlier than early. I think it was around 7:30, actually. Yeah, I hear you. Boo-hoo, 7:30. Well, it's early for me.

Anyway, when I woke up, I felt like puking, but I usually feel that way when I get up early, so I didn't let it distract me. I got cleaned up and headed for the bus station. Checked the schedule. I had about 20 minutes till the next bus. Bought some grape Fanta. I was thinking, man. I'll be there in plenty of time.

That's about when I remembered that I didn't write down the name of the place we were meeting.

I looked at my watch. I looked at the schedule.

I looked at my grape fanta.

Stashed the fanta on top of the vending machine, and made a mad dash back to the dorm. I had ten minutes to get there, find out where we're meeting, and get back and get on the bus.

I generally make it a policy of mine that I don't run anywhere. It takes me a long time to get tired from walking, but I get winded in about ten seconds from running. It just doesn't seem worth it.

I ran today. I was looking FORWARDS to this, dangit. I wasn't gonna let a little detail like not knowing where I was going get in the way of it.

I ended up making it with about two minutes to spare, which I spent decided whether or not to drink the Fanta, despite the fact that someone might have put a cigarette out in it.

I did.

The bus actually didn't hit any traffic for once, and I showed up half an hour early.

Since I had skipped breakfast, I took the opportunity to try to scrounge up some food at the convenience store we were supposed to meet at. I ended up settling on a peanut butter sandwich, the only instance of peanut butter I had seen thus far in Japan. Not that it tasted like peanut butter, mind you. It wasn't thick and oily and salty... it was... fluffy. And sweet.

But, whatever. It did the job.

Eventually, we all met up. All told, we were me, two Belgium guys, and five good-looking Japanese girls that didn't speak a lick of English.

Oh, yeah. This was going to be a good day.

Hah! Take THAT Universe!

Thought you could ruin me, huh? Well, screw you AND your gay porn. I borrowed a needle and thread from The Monk, AKA Andrew, our resident Zen-ologist, and managed to patch my juggling ball up as best I could.

It ain't pretty, but hopefully it will hold together until I can get a new one.

Life is Juggle.

--TIM

Alright, settle down class. Now, today we're going to be talking about Gay Porn.

Okay, guys. Thus far, I've tried to keep this blog relatively family friendly. I don't know how well I've succeeded, but dangit, I've tried.

But there's no way to sugarcoat what this entry is about. There's gonna be adult content, and probably some strong language. So if you're under 18, or just don't want any part of all this, then go away NOW. There'll be a new entry soon about an awesome trip I took, that you'll enjoy way more than this. But I just gotta get this off my chest.

Gone? Good. I wish I was.

I don't think I've talked too much about my classes so far. I'm taking four: Two of them are Japanese language classes, one of them is about Everday Life and Culture in Japan, and the other is about Japanese pop culture.

Thus far, the pop culture class has been my favorite. The everyday life class is pretty dry and involves a lot of "theory." And the language classes are, well. Language classes.

So the pop culture has been the best by far.

Why am I bringing this up now? Well, like the title of this post states, today we're talking about gay porn.

Now, generally, I feel the same way about gay porn that I feel about homosexuality in general: I don't really care, as long as I don't get any on me.

Well, I got a big huge faceful today.

And where did I come in contact with this? Why, where else but my culture class.


Yeah. You putting all the pieces together, chumly?

Quite frankly, I've always suspected that my teacher was a little Light in the Loafers. But this pretty much cinched it.

Technically, the syllabus says that today's lecture was about Dōjinshi and yaoi.

Now, Dōjinshi is pretty interesting stuff. They're amateur comics, and there really isn't anything like them in the states. This is because in Japan, the copyright laws are hardly ever enforced, so fans can get away with making almost professional grade comics about existing characters and sell them for cash money, as long as they don't make too much of a profit.

Sure, a lot of Dōjinshi are pornographic. I guess that's only natural. After all, that's what's gonna sell, right? The hardcore stuff that real publishers won't touch.

And it just so happens that a lot of these "adult" Dōjinshi are, in fact, Yaoi. Don't recognize that word?

Good.

Were you expecting a blue link? You're not getting one. And for god's sake, don't type it into a search engine.

Yaoi is, in a nutshell, a pornographic manga about two male characters, oftentimes lifted straight from a legit manga, who fall in love and do the horizontal monster mash together.

Yeah, real appealing, right? It doesn't even matter if said characters are, in the work they're lifted from, completely straight, married with children, violent homophobes, etc. Because one of the rules of Yaoi is that EVERYONE is gay in Yaoi.

We had a reading about this that I had to do last night. Yeah. 35 pages about gay porn. I tell you, that's how I like to spend my evenings.

Technically, six pages were about other things. But the vast majority was all about yaoi.

Despite this, it wasn't THAT bad. I actually read it, partially out of a sense of duty towards my class, but also because it wasn't about the medium itself, but about the psychology behind it.

Because this stuff isn't produced or targeted at gay men. It's made by and sold to women and girls. They freaking eat it up here. Why? Well, that's what the reading was trying to figure out. Because it really doesn't make any sense. There are hardly any women in these things, and if they do exist, they're usually evil, or annoying, or just there to cause jealousy and strife. They're hated characters. And apparently, the pretty boys in the yaoi hate women in general.

So why do women eat this stuff up? Good question. Go read 35 pages about it, and then maybe you'll figure it out, even though I haven't.

So, yeah. That wasn't so bad. How did it not cross my mind that after doing the readings, of course we were going to have a CLASS about it? I should have known as soon as my lunch rang up as 444, the unluckiest number in Japanese culture, that things were about to go downhill.

So, it might not have been so bad if we had stuck to the culture aspect. The only problem is that lately, the prof is doing this thing where he lets a group of classmembers lead the discussion.

And today was about Yaoi. Dear god, if that's not a recipie for disaster, I don't know what is.

So they start by passing the stuff OUT to the class. In fact, the prof has some issues of his own that he passes out. Every gets at least one copy of this stuff. I didn't take one, so eventually one of the girls doing the discussion comes and forces one on me that she says doesn't have any sex in it.

So while all the girls and the one gay guy are all giggling and exclaiming over this stuff, and the guys are sitting around awkwardly, one of the discussion leaders leaves to fetch a video cable, so she can show us her powerpoint presentation on the subject. What was on this powerpoint?

I have no idea, and god willing, I'll never find out. They couldn't get it to work.

So we skipped right to the next part: the prof pulled out a DVD that he had bought on the internet, that was a fansubbed copy of a "shounen-ai" piece. "shounen-ai" is Japanese for "Boy Love." It's basically yaoi, with the explicit bits taken out.

Put that in a nutshell, and our professor showed us a tape of tame, animated, gay porn.


It was the most surreal thing I've ever experienced. Here we were sitting in class, watching this cartoon about boys who love boys. Some people say that anime is not realistic, but if that's true, then this crap was completely disconnected from any sense of reality. All the characters are tall skinny males. They're ALL gay. It's not even a question. If two of them run into eachother, there's never any uncertainty, they just automatically start lusting after one another's bods.

Like I said, there was the bit appearances of women, but their only job is to hang all over the dominant pretty boy and make the girly pretty boy feel jealous.

And here's the kicker. The title of this thing was something like "papa kiss me in the dark."
Well, it was about a gay love thing going on between this guy who's JUST STARTING HIS FIRST YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL and a person who appears to be his FATHER, although there appears to be maybe a two-year age difference between them.

Just... there are no words. It was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. Every time two characters meet, they end up in eachother's arms. They don't talk like human beings. Two guys meet for the first time, and one of them acts like a little girl, and the other one talks about him being cute. It breaks all rules of normal human behavior.

Like I said, there was no explicit sex. But oh, the sex was there. You never saw anything below the belt, if you know what I mean, but oh, it was fucking there in every other possible sense.

And then, after that, the class was over.

That was it. We showed up to class and the only thing we accomplished was to look at gay porn. And to quote the professor "We'll be continuing this Friday."

WHAT THE FUCK. What in God's name was the point of all that?

And while I was writing this, one of my juggling balls split a seam, and so now I can't even do that, which is always good for putting me into a really level zen state.

What a day this has been.

Screw it. I'm gonna go find some violent video games to play.

This is TIM, signing out.

I suggest the fried pork cutlet with a side of not killing me, please.

Hi, internet. Remember that whole post about me getting on that guy's hit-list?

Well, I decided there was only one way to deal with the problem.

I had lunch with him.


This was not something I planned on, but it wasn't an accident either. I was navigating the crowded lunch room, looking for an empty table, when I saw a friend of mine, instead. I moved over to sit near him, but it was a little crowded at that part of the table. However, there was a large empty space a few seats down.

And in that space was Alexander-san.

So I plopped right down, and said "Howdy, Alexander-san."

"You know, I still haven't seen that movie," he replied.

"Eh?"

"V for Vendetta," and he points at me.

I look down and realize that I am, thankfully, wearing my V for Vendetta shirt.

"Oh, yeah." I say. "It's really good. You should check it out," I say.

"Did they give you two pork cutlets with your food?!"

"Um..." I poke at my food. "Maybe... one and a half?"

"Huh. But yeah, I never understood about that movie why they chose Guy Fawkes. He was this crazy, fricking pro-catholic terrorist who wanted Catholicism to take over the government and kill all the protestants."

He seemed angry about this.

I came to find out during the course of our lunch that he seems angry about pretty much everything.

He was angry about V for Vendetta. He was angry about filmmaking. V for Vendetta led to politics, and he seemed to be angry at the left wing, and the right wing. He was angry at fascism, and the people that worry about fascism. He wasn't, however, angry at weapons, which he vaguely alluded to as "Our defense against fascism." He also mentioned that he thought that the government should be overthrown, possibly through force, every 20 years. He also angrily stated that in every 50-100 year period, two things are constant: The world gets better, and people become convinced that it's getting worse.

He was angry at the middle east. He was angry at religion. He was angry at religion for being the cause of turmoil in the middle east. He vaguely alluded to more stuff about just what we might do to solve that little problem.

He wasn't angry at Freedom, however. But he seemed to get angry at the idea that freedom means different things to different people.

He was angry, in fact, about pretty much everything we talked about.

"I'll try to check out that move," he said as I left.

"It's a good one," I assured him.

I will admit, I left that lunch table more scared of him than when I sat down. And I got progressively more uncomfortable the longer I talked with him. Not coincidentally, I also started eating faster and faster the longer I was there.

But I feel reassured. Because the one thing he didn't seem to be angry at, in particular, was me.