I've not been in the best state of mind recently and I'm often feeling exhausted and irritated after work.  I'm sure the late nights watching the World Cup and the humid, sluggish days have not helped matters.  Still,  I've been doing a lot of thinking over the past few days after it became apparent that I've turned into a miserable git.  I'm not entirely sure why this is the case but an experience at my town hall two minutes ago has led me to diagnosis the culprit as Japan.  It's not so much the country's fault as it is with my long vanished patience with dealing with the people and the language barrier.  I find it increasingly difficult to communicate with my work and when I require their help it usually involves exceptionally difficult Japanese.  I have been trying to deal with the process of extending my visa for another year.  It means I need to get the following forms completed and processed before I drive to the city twice to get a stamp or two:

That probably looks more intimidating than it is to non-Japanese speakers but it's still bloody difficult.  The only parts I can remember myself are 証明書 for certificate and マニュアル for manual (most katakana is English already).  Luckily, some people on JET sent an email around to tell me the things I require so I don't have to try and translate lots of information on an immigration website.  However, I still had to find all the Japanese terms and write a letter to my boss telling him what I require.  Incidentally, the forms I can get at the town hall are probably the easiest part of the process.  The most excruciating part is trying to get a written contract and statement of earnings from my employers.  My Board of Education is so loose and lazy when it comes to the paperwork for my job.  In previous years I've had to print pages out of the JET handbook and demand that they give me a re-contracting form or some form of contract.  I have yet to receive a new one since April when the new year started.  I told my boss (I'm the only JET I know without some form of designated supervisor) that I actually need them to stay in the country when he started to Aaaaah and Hmmmm about the paperwork.

I have a free morning at work on Wednesday (which I usually use to update this) so I decided to take the plunge and get my forms from the town hall.  I always feel nervous before any situation in Japan where at least an intermediate grasp of the language is required.  I set off with my notes, pen, dictionary, signature stamp, foreigner card, pension book and some tax form.  I was pleased to see that the usual desk staff of Arsehole Akira and Miserable Minami weren't there.  Sadly, there was a woman of about one hundred rotations of the sun infront of me.  I didn't mind and sat down expecting to be held up for about forever as she argued about a fence or something.  As I was sitting there another woman came in and walked straight over to another part of the counter.  Another worker ran across the office in a series of welcoming greetings.  I was a bit pissed but I assumed she was expecting her or the other staff member didn't see me.  I waited patiently until either of the women finished their business and I would be next.  It just so happened that both of them concluded things at the exact same moment but both of them lingered at the desk shuffling paper.  I became concerned about the way things were going as the madness of this rural bureaucracy descended into chaos.  One of the staff members retreated from her position and went to process some piece of paper.  At this moment, a citizen strolled right into the town hall and took up half of the free available space at the desk.  Just as I was about to stand up and take the other position the new woman was told to come over to the other desk by the only remaining staff member.  This is when I started to get angry because I was so close to the desk that she had to squeeze past me.  I eyeballed the staff member who basically ignored my existence but she didn't even nearly make contact.  I decided then that I wasn't going to be polite about things so I stood at the available space at the counter.  It just so happens that the other staff member never returned in the remaining ten minutes I stood there.  Instead I stared at a massive office of about 25 people and hoped that one might come and help me.  During this time, another old woman from the street sat down in my old chair.  This made me feel awkward because I was wondering if I was not standing at a defunct and non-operational counter.  If I bottled it and sat down again, would she now take my place in the invisible queue of life?  I stood my ground and hoped that the rough sounding woman beside me finally sorted out her car details.  Things became worse when an elderly couple came in and took the two remaining seats facing the counter.  I was stuck on a lonely island of social awkwardness... that was a metaphor about my predicament although it is quite relevant to Japan as a whole.  Anyway, my exciting trip to the town hall concluded when the one remaining staff member confirmed her foreigner blindness by ignoring me completely and went straight to the queue of corpses on the seats.  I could and should have been more assertive but it was the last straw in relation to paperwork and interactions with Japanese people.  I could feel my brain rage as the last drops of patience evaporated from my bitter shell of a body.  I could have said something in Japanese or English but it would have been rude of me to do so.

The next task of today is to phone a language school and berate them.  They specialise in teaching English since... it's rural Japan.  There are only a few people in Kochi who want to study Japanese and they are spread out.  However, I heard this one school has personal Japanese lessons.  Since I have not been taught one hour of the language in the 3 years and I have nobody to talk to, I decided to spend a fair bit and attend a few hours a week.  The problem is that the company don't want to respond to my nice emails, even those that I wrote in Japanese.  I asked them last week if I could come this morning to set up some lessons.  They haven't replied to that or another I sent on Monday.  This is another fine example of my patience and effort vanishing into the humid skies.  I am actively trying to study Japanese.  To do so I need to drive a two round trip to attend the school.  The lessons will probably cost me £15 an hour... or about £75 a week.  I am taking time off work to learn the language of the country I live in.  The main reason I am doing this is because I have no friends or colleagues to comfortably converse with.  I sent an email in Japanese about studying Japanese to a language school and they won't reply.  I'm close to giving up altogether and developing a case of Tourette's Syndrome where I spend my days shouting swear words in English at everyone I come across.  Trying to be Japanese about things is a failure.  It's time I start foreigner smashing my way through life.

I thought I would take advantage of the old bile I felt this morning.  I've been meaning to write about this ever since I saw the woman above in my school office.  I can't explain the irritating anger I felt when I stared at her face every morning.  Look at how absurd she looks.  It's like a 6 year old girl threatening to beat up her teddy bear for not playing nicely.  I have trouble translating the direct meaning of this poster but I think it's some fire safety advice.  I'm guessing that it says that until a fire is extinguished you should keep an eye on the origin of the fire and move away slowly.  Basically, I have no idea.  My bad Japanese isn't the important point here though; I'll get onto it in a minute.  Here is another picture that I took at my nearest store:

The two posters above are of a similar meaning but they are not the only examples I have seen of a lobotomised Japanese girl being exploited in such a manner.  I feel sorry for them.  Look how confused and vacant they look.  It's a possibility that they put a stupid looking girl on the posters to draw attention to the safety advice.  Perhaps it's suggesting to the general population that you should be on your guard because you might need to save some stupid lassie from a fire.  There is also the argument that they're using an attractive young lady because they're easy on the eye.  Indeed, there is no need to put Takeshi the fireman on the poster as it is the strong, alpha males who need to take on these important messages of safety.  I'd say these women are considered attractive in the "girl next door" sort of appeal.  Personally, I think they look exceptionally plain and boring.

It certainly appears to be the case (as in the rest of the world) that young women are used to sell things.  However, the way they are portrayed or expected to act in Japan really makes me annoyed.  If you look at the women in the posters you can see they have similar traits.  Firstly, they need to look young, cute and vulnerable.  The last factor is something that is greatly more apparent in Japan than anywhere else.  When these women are on television playing (overly impressed) second fiddle to an alpha male host they need to act dumb-founded and amazed at everything.  In television dramas the women are constantly type cast as weak and innocent young kittens who need to find comfort in a man (preferably one who grunts his way through chewing the scenery).  However, by far the most annoying thing is the repeated occurrence of the sickly sweet cuteness that oozes out of them.  Look at their stupid, pouting faces.  They're always trying to pull these faces that make them look like a cross between an anime character and Hello Kitty.  It's very popular to pull poses in photographs that make their hands resemble paws or something.  The most annoying thing in the posters above is the pose.  The weak fist clench goes hand in hand with the bastardised English word of fight.  In Japanese, it becomes faaiitooo and is an awful attempt to translate ganbatte.  This basically means to try your best, to persist towards the goal, keep going in the face of adversity and to protect the emperor with all your might from the barbarians.  It can get quite annoying to hear the constant choir of screams at a sports day but it is quite good verb to use.  However, some bastard decided that the English equivalent was 'fight'.  This means that you get Japanese people telling you to ganbatte... before trying their luck at English... waving their arm in your face and saying fffaaaiiiitttoo.  I really wish nobody ever does it to me ever again.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't in an absolutely livid mood this morning.  Indeed, I probably wouldn't have found the energy to update my blog today if the rage of injustice was not pulsating throughout my body.  I'm trying to forge a connection to make an informative entry rather than just ranting irrationally.  I recently booked flights to Australia for my summer holiday.  The reason I had to book these so far in advance was because Japan has conditioned me to organise myself to death.  If you don't conform to this then you suffer the pain of things being fully booked or tripling in price.  The reason for this is because August (and Golden Week) are the only times when ALL Japanese people decide to travel abroad.  As I am a teacher, it means all my holiday opportunities are in sync with everyone else in the country.  Therefore, I quickly established that I should book some tickets on a budget airline before things got messy.  A return ticket from Osaka to the Gold Coast was about 80000 yen (£600) which is expensive in one light and exceptionally cheap in the other.  I'm skint and trying to save money but the biggest bonus of JET is being able to travel to all these places so far from Scotland so I like to take advantage.  It's usually a case of making the most of the available holidays and selecting a country to visit before you're really sure what you intend to do there.

As I am not allowed to own a credit card in Japan because I'm a foreigner; I had to use my home account to pay for the tickets for Naomi and I.  My bank account here has a Tom and Jerry picture on the card so I can't use them and my home bank keeps forgetting I live in Japan and blocked my card.  However, I managed to overcome these minor details and emptied my home account of my abysmal savings.  Everything was going well with these plans until Monday morning when the pain in my wisdom tooth forced me to visit my first dentist in Japan.  The problem I faced was the fact I had literally (I use this word with its proper meaning) no money in the entire world.  My account here was drained at the weekend because I bought lots of tequila, beers and wine for watching the World Cup.  Naomi has nothing as well and had to borrow money off me to pay for flights to Tokyo for a JET conference.  I don't get paid until next Monday and I had less than the minimum withdrawal amount for my foreign card (£80 is usually the minimum and I only had £50).  Therefore, I was almost considering driving to Aki to sell my Xbox games... in order to pay for the bloody dentist.  I couldn't believe I found myself in such a position but I managed to figure out that if you turn on the Japanese language at the foreign ATM then it lets you withdraw anything you want.  In the end ,I managed to scrape about 6000 yen together and hoped that my dentist trip would not exceed it.  JET has a great health insurance so I only had to pay 30% of the bill but I was still nervous I'd have to explain I had no money to pay them.  

My experience with the dentist was a blog post in itself but I'll try and cut it short because I actually need to go and teach soon.  There are about three or four dental surgeries exceptionally close to my house.  It's all the more interesting when each one is serving a town of about 3000 people.  It tends to be the case in rural Japan that things like clinics, barbers and opticians are abundant.  The majority tend to be exceptionally old and provide a service to... the old.  However, occasionally there will be one in a building that wasn't built in the early 70s.  I managed to find a new dentist in the town of Yasuda which is next to mine.  I have no complaints and instead have nothing but praise for the staff, ease of appointment, slow and easy explanations, ease of follow up appointment and generally excellent customer service.  This is in contrast to the dreary and dismal NHS dentist I went to in Scotland, where it is impossible to get an appointment and the staff look and sound like they should be working in a bar.  I even got an X-ray of my jaw and they showed me it on a television screen as they explained it.  My wisdom tooth had an infection or something and I needed it cleaned and was given some antibiotics.  It's alright now and I'm going back later today for a talk about my initial check-up.  I surprised myself by how good (adequate) my command of the Japanese language was that day.  I just wanted to book an appointment but the nice lady decided to ask me a variety of questions about insurance details and the like.  When I got there I was handed an A4 sheet of paper covered in questions.  Now... baring in mind I would need to concentrate when filling in a similar form in English... it was difficult.  I managed to do the majority of them but had to be talked through some of the others.  I think I managed to fool them into thinking I was quite good.  This always backfires though as they'll just assume I know what they're saying and I'll end up getting a wisdom tooth pulled out without an anesthetic.

My initial rage has subsided although the waves of my discontent are still occasionally lapping against the shore of my rationality.  I am angry this morning because I need to change the dates of my holiday.  Naomi has become a prefectural advisor which means she's in charge of helping people and organising conferences in the city.  She specifically asked the dates of the August conference for new people before we booked our holiday.  She was told that it was on the 12th and 13th.  Therefore, we booked out holiday for the 17th August to September 1st.  I thought we would need that much time to see the basics of the east coast and was quite happy with the dates as it gave us a day off before work starts again.  Anyway, I got an email from her this morning that said that the conference had now been pushed back to the following week.  She has to attend it so it means we now have five days cut off our two week holiday.  To make matters worse it is now going to cost more money to change these dates.  Furthermore... I have no money in my account at the moment so I won't be able to pay this additional amount and it may now sell out or increase  in price (as Saturday 21st already has).  Indeed, all this is based on the hope that this budget airline will let us change the dates as they tend to be quite strict on such issues.  Personally, I am angry because I'm paying +£600 for about 10 days in Australia.  I'm angry because it is my last, big holiday on JET and I probably won't be able to afford anything like it in the future.  I'm livid because we actually planned ahead and checked the dates so this would not happen.  Instead, whatever arsehole decided to change the dates is being entirely non-Japanese.  I can't ever fathom established dates for a Japanese conference for Japanese people in the holiday season would ever be changed.  We are basically being punished for conforming and being Japanese.  Indeed, all that seems to have been offered by those in charge is a "sorry!".  Well, I personally think that it is entirely unacceptable and unprofessional to pull such a move.  I don't care if I sound irrational.  I promise to write something better after the dentist today.

Mukade roughly translates as 'spawn of the devil'.

I was cleaning my dishes on Saturday morning before I started to make breakfast.  I stuck on some music and whistled away to myself as the lovely rays of sunshine illuminated my kitchen.  I had almost finished and all that was left was a chopping board at the bottom of the pile.  As I lifted it I saw something long and black.  For some reason... my first assumption was that there was a fat worm in my sink.  As I tried to process this my rational mind caught up with me as I saw numerous flickers of red as it moved within an inch of my hand.  I always anticipated that I would scream or faint whenever I encountered one of these sickening creatures.  However, the sudden change from a relaxing weekend morning to possible death had shocked me to my core.  Instead of screaming, my body recoiled backwards in horror as all the air emitted from my lungs left me with nothing more than a silent wail of pure fear.  Without uttering a sound I went in search of the insect spray.  I hadn't been forced to use it since about last September or October.  As I returned to the sink my nerves were calmed by the realisation that the little bastard was stuck.  Still, there was still an element of fear present as it ran around the edge of the sink like a bullet train from hell.  I must have sprayed it for about a solid minute or two.  Not since the trenches of the Great War has so much chemical warfare been witnessed.  It eventually succumbed to a slow, twitching death after a valiant effort to battle on.  As it slowly left this beautiful world alone from its evil menace, the body and legs began to curl up.  This left the corpse looking a lot less threatening and more like a caterpillar getting ready for their cocoon.  Don't be fooled by the picture above as they look like this when they are on the go.

In Japan, the poisonous centipede is called a mukade.  It's usually written in katakana these days but the kanji is 百足 which means one hundred and legs; the same meaning as the English/Latin.  Their bite is not lethal but it is apparently painful and the area swells up quite a lot.  A student in my class got bit on the leg the other day and had to go to hospital for an injection.  I've heard that it's quite hard to kill them by hitting them with something as it takes a few attempts and then can retaliate in the process.  Also, if they are cut in half then they can run about and chase after you like zombies.  Japanese people say the best method to obliterate them is to boil them alive with a fresh brew of green tea.  Personally, I can't understand how anyone would have  the nerves or time to do that.  I'm afraid we are all human and the natural instinct for all of us is to  go "Arrrgggh kill it kiiiilllll it".  Another tale told to me by Japanese housewives is that the mukade hunt together in pairs so even after you kill one you are still living in a nightmare.

It certainly appears to be the season for all things bug related as another incident later on Saturday evening  proved.  I went to get some more beer out the fridge when a cockroach jumped out from the handle.  For the second time in a day my fingers barely missed contact with such filth.  I won't even mention the episode in the toilet the other night.  I hate summer in Japan.

I wrote a post about three months ago talking about the absurd life expectancy of the Japanese Prime Minister.  It is with great sorrow that I report to you today that my favourite onion-man has stepped down from office.  The reason for Hatoyama's resignation was because he failed to live up to a campaign promise to get the Americans to move their military base in Okinawa.  That is the main reason but his coalition government has been deeply unpopular in recent months.  I must say that I'm surprised because he won a landmark election and had a 70% approval rating only eight months ago.  Far be it from me to call the Japanese population fickle in regards to politics... but the number of resignations and near constant low approval ratings is just ridiculous.  Who knows what the problem is.  Are the politics of Japan really just run by old men hiding in the smoke filled corridors of parliament?  Are the population so apathetic that they need this constant scapegoat and booster shot to appease the slowly emerging reality of their democratic system?  Who knows.  Personally, I think the campaign pledge was absolutely insane.  From what I've read... there was never any proper plan to put into the practice and the Americans were never approached to get feelers.  Understandably, the Americans did not exactly like this move and have snubbed Hatoyama and the Japanese government in recent months.  It's another matter to argue about the legitimacy of the American bases but surely you'd need to confront the manner with a great deal of respect... especially since America has been Japan's best buddy for a number of decades.  Incidentally, there are a few Japanese  people who (a bit stupidly) like the bases because they're terrified of China and North Korea but the majority want to get rid of them.

Anyway, I went off on another tangent of saturated assumptions so I'll end this brief political update with a funny picture.  And to link this with the overall post... here's a young, (possibly) homosexual version of Winston Churchill.

I’ve mentioned the ‘Golden Week’ holidays every year I’ve been here but nevertheless… there are a collection of public holidays in Japan at the start of May.  They don’t actually add up to a week and are usually spaced out in an infuriating manner.  For example, the Thursday of the first week will be a holiday and Monday-Wednesday in the following week will be as well BUT a lot of people still need to work on the Friday.  So… it isn’t a week’s holiday unless you’re a cheeky English teacher who books that day off in advance.  The interesting thing about this period is it is one of the few times where Japanese people feel able to go on a holiday.  I’ve read (and witnessed) workers only taking off about half of their holiday days because they’re all stupid.  I don’t know why they don’t collectively agree to take them all so nobody can feel guilty about taking a break.  Anyway, this period means that Japan is covered in Japanese people who creep out of their neon illuminated offices and venture outside into the fresh air.  Therefore, every hotel in Japan is packed and the flights out of the country triple in price.  I’m a little bit skint and tired of making my way to Kansai Airport… so Naomi and I went on a road trip in the direction of west.  We ventured to the island of Kyushu (九 nine and 州 provinces/state) which is one of the four main islands of Japan.  We set off a day early to avoid the traffic and the journey took us across our island before we got on a ferry for a few hours and arrived in a land that initially looked exactly the same.  We managed to take in the whole of north Kyushu in about six days.  I’m impressed we did that much as our holiday routine usually revolves around waking up at lunch and drinking at breakfast.

I'm a bit rushed for time this week so I think I'll just upload some pictures and comment on them instead of writing a massive post.  I think our trip to Kyushu was easily the best holiday I've had in Japan.  I'm glad we decided not to waste money on a  flight to Hong Kong or Taiwan as we had originally thought about doing . Although Kyushu (and especially Nagasaki prefecture) was obviously still Japan... it was the first I've visited somewhere  here that felt a bit different.  I've been to all the "international" cities here and haven't found anything different to any other city on the mainland.  However, the scenery and architecture of Nagasaki deluded me on occasions to thinking we were actually driving along a Spanish or Italian coastline.  Of course... this was aided with the fantastic week of weather that luckily appeared after an exceptionally wet April.  However, the most outstanding scenery came a few days before when we visited Japan's largest, active volcano in Kumamoto prefecture.  I'll explain more in the pictures below but the view was glorious.  The first few days were definitely the best as we avoided the initial crowds and managed to book a few nights in really nice and comfortable hostels.  Another thing I noticed was that the people in Kyushu were exceptionally friendly.  The people in Shikoku are similar in that they are laid back and interested in you but the difference was that they were a bit more internationalised in Nagasaki and the like so they talked in an almost normal manner with you.  Alright... I'll upload some pictures and see how many memories appear in the old brain box.

There are three wonders of nature in this picture.  The first is grass in Japan.  The second is cows in Japan.  The third is the caldera.  I didn't know what one was so I'll explain for you.  Mount Aso was a massive volcano about 100,000 years ago and an eruption apparently covered half of the island.  A caldera is the result of the volcano collpasing on top of its magma chamber.  Therefore, the mountains around the edge were actually part of the volcano.  There is almost a perfect circle stretching 27km across this area and the town and volcano are in the middle of the perfect scenery.

We drove up to the tourist friendly crater.  We were lucky as the volcano was quite active thatr day. There was green water in the crater that was bubbling away nicely.  There was a lovely aroma of eggs in the air and my shoes started to melt a little bit.  I got glue all over my bloody socks.

There were plenty of shelters at the top.  We were messing about in them because it reminded me of a WW2 bunker or something.  It's interesting to think of people actually needing to use them one day since you know... it's a massive, active volcano.

I have nothing interesting to write here I'm afraid.  I uploaded too many pictures and it broke this blog entry a number of times.  I'll use the deleted ones for other posts.  This one managed to survive.  I look sexy though.

I was really witty and tagged Naomi on facebook with this.  There's no bad translation to mock so I'll teach what volcano is in Japanese.  火山 reads as kazan and the two basic kanji mean fire and mountain.

I locked the keys in the car because I'm a fool.  I've only started locking my doors because I leave my iPhone in it sometimes.  I don't know why I do it because Japanese people won't steal anything... especially in a volcano car park.  Anyway, Naomi got a coat hanger off a lady and I managed to lift the lock up through a small gap in the door.  It was either that or a broken window for the rest of the trip.

Another piece of lovely scenery just down the road from the crater.  We nearly got a helicopter ride over the area but we were trying to be sensible with the ¥ens for once.  They had horse rides there too.  A delicacy in Kyushu is raw horse meat.

Naomi and I had a heated argument once because she didn't know what the cover of the Volvic water bottle lookd like.  Well, it looks like this even though it's a different mountain.  This one is called Komezuka and translates as 'rice mound'. On a sidenote... I noticed that the bottled water I sometimes buy comes from this area.


We drove and got another ferry over to Nagasaki prefecture.  We arrived at about 3pm but managed to cover the main tourists spots faster than an implosion of a plutonium core.  Nagasaki is only the third city in Japan that I've seen with an old tram network.  The other two were Hiroshima and.... Kochi.  It somehow seemed okay to pose with the peace statue in the background.  This was not the case in Hiroshima where hordes of Japanese smile with the dome in the background whilst everyone else stands around looking sorrowful and awkward.


The Peace Park in Nagasaki has a wide collection of donated monuments from various countries.  My favourite part was the communist mound composing of the U.S.S.R, the German Democratic Republic and Czechoslovakia.  Incidentally, every single one in the whole park was a mother protecting her child.  Some were dead and some were just about to die.  Every single one.  


The bomb detonated about 500 metres above the black marker on the mound.  The church spire in the background was originally in the hills close to the area.  My guess is that they moved it down to here because they needed to compete with the far superior dome that Hiroshima has.


Nagasaki was the original foreign port in Japan when the Portuguese and Dutch first arrived in the 16th century.  The former's attempt at converting Japanese people to Christianity was initially successful but pissed the rulers off so much that they were banished and helped lead to Japanese isolation (apart from Dutch traders in Nagasaki) for two centuries.  Christianity in Japan and Nagasaki managed to survive this somehow... and therefore lead to the great number of churches still present in the city.

 
This was the view of the area from a platform at the top.  There are actually 208 (or 206) islands but  I agree that the name isn't as catchy.  I took this picture through my 1000 yen sunglasses because I'm an artistic genius.  One of them looks like a shark and two look like submarines.

Our journey began to face a few stumbling blocks in terms of reserving places to stay and running out of places to visit.  We drove to the north-west of Kyushu to see a pretty rubbish castle at Hirado or something.  We didn't really eat anything until we arrived in Fukuoka a few hours later.  Then we didn't really do much there despite it being the biggest city on the island.  We did see a monkey though.  Anyway, we saw a small sign for a waterfall earlier in the day and it proved to be the highlight.


I was woken up in Fukuoka by these taxi drivers.  They were shouting and bowing non-stop.  They would switch positions and each of them would become the leader.  They did this for over an hour.  I have no idea.

The last visit of our journey was the port town of Beppu.  It is quite famous in Japan for onsens, gambling and the sex industry.  It is a very popular spot for Golden Week and it was absolutely mobbed.  This is a famous geyser that goes off every twenty minutes.  Japanese people came swarming in... took a picture and then buggered off again in a second.  I was knackered from driving so we were the last to leave.

The smoke in this picture is actually steam from the ground./onsens.  We found it impossible to find an onsen that wasn't fully booked.  We eventually found one down a tiny road that was run by an old couple.  It was the cheapest and most authentic one I've seen.  In the end we decided that Beppu was too busy and we changed our ferry time to late that evening.  I drove back to Kochi throughout the night after downing a few red bulls to keep me awake.  The sun began to rise in the last stretch of road on Shikoku and the mountains/sky looked like the background of this blog.  The highway down to Kochi is pretty much a straight tunnel so I sang David Bowie songs to myself for about an hour or two to keep me awake.  It was great.

That's about it for my Kyushu trip.  I'd recommend a similar trip to anyone who currently lives in Japan.  It was quite a slow and dull affair to upload all those bloody pictures.  Also, it's hard for me to be inspired to write about positive stuff.  Still, I had a great holiday with Naomi and it reignited a feeling in me that I really enjoy living in Japan and that I want to see a lot more of it before I leave.

It appears I haven't posted on my blog for a solid two weeks.  I'm sorry to all those dedicated readers who  (never bother their arse to comment) clicked on the bookmark only to have seen the same picture of a cup of tea.  The reason for my lack of posts was due to a week long holiday, an illness/hangover combo and an addiction to the British election coverage.  I feel like I've lost a bit of my edge for writing long rants so I thought I'd make a simple post with some pictures.  It's interesting if you haven't seen them but other foreigners tend to photograph these a lot so it's not the most original thing I've ever posted.  So here they are... Japan's "smoking manners" posters.

I've seen a number of these posters on ashtrays around train stations and the like.  I took these three  pictures at Tano train station but I was upset because my favourite one wasn't there.  It suggested that a "lit cigarette is at the same height as a child's face".  I'm not entirely sure what that one was suggesting really... always look out for children when you light up or you'll reduce their eyes to smouldering craters?  The other highlights included the declaration that smoke should have the same social stigma as farts.  The saddest tale went to the young boy who went to the beach in search of shells but only found cigarette butts.  The latter was accompanied with a sad looking child with a bucket and spade of course.  Indeed, they all continued the trend of only using English for the labels at the bottom of the poster.. BEACH, SHELLS, BUTTS!  Very dramatic altogether.

I quite like the posters because they are faintly amusing on their own but the English lines read rather strangely.  There are no major spelling or grammar mistakes but they don't have a very natural flow to them.  However, I've seen enough bad direct translations that I assume they've given a fairly decent attempt to get the points across.  In the end though the humour for a native English speak arises from this translation and thus leads to the numerous websites and blogs about it.  The thing I wonder about is why they translated them as there are so few foreigners here.  My only guess is that English was used because it is still viewed as sexy and cool when it comes to companies and adverts.

The interesting thing about this campaign is that none of the posters feature a message that suggests that you should give up smoking.  There is nothing that mentions how they are slowly eating away and destroying your insides.  Instead, it's all very light hearted suggestions that you shouldn't litter and that you should be careful about your second hand smoke.  Indeed, this is about as far as it goes for criticism of smoking in Japan.  Indeed, even this campaign is only aimed at shaming Japanese people who don't keep up an expected etiquette.  The idea of smoking being the problem is never brought into question and instead it is the individual who is blamed for their lack of responsibility.  A main reason (or you know... obvious reason) for this would be that they were commissioned by Japan Tobacco.  They are one of the largest tobacco companies in the world and own some foreign brands such as Camel and Benson and Hedges.  In Japan, some of their popular brands are called Peace and Hope.   By far the most surprising fact about them is that the Japanese Ministry of Finance owns a majority of shares in the company.  Indeed, until 1985 the tobacco industry in Japan was run by a state monopoly.  It's therefore no surprise to find that smoking is quite popular in Japan and there is a direct contrast with the recent implementation of smoking bans in other western countries.  I have therefore found myself living with the familiar smells of post-drinking smoke on my clothes after a few years of only smelling body odour in boozing establishments.

Urgh.  I'll be honest with you.  I was just going to post those pictures so I could do a quick blog post and then run away.  That's easier said than done though as I always start to expand these posts to encompass everything including the bloody history of the Japanese tobacco industry.  The basic point is that almost every middle-aged salaryman in Japan is a smoker.  Japan has one of the highest rates of smokers in the developed world and I believe it is the only one to have seen an increase.  I believe they have recently added warning labels on the packets but the same level of awareness is not visible as it is in other countries.  Even countries like Thailand sell packets with pictures of throat cancer and lung disease and it even put me off buying some cigars on holiday. I'm not really an anti-smoker myself and I don't like it when a government starts punishing people with an addiction by raising taxes on cigarettes to "help people quit".  However, the price of cigarettes in this country is exceptionally cheap compared to back home.  There is a standardised price of about 300 yen which is £2 or the equivalent of two bottles of coke out the vending machine.  Indeed, until recently anyone could buy a packet from a vending machine on the street.  Personally, I feel the degree of "coolness" that is attributed to smoking here is akin to the post-war world of America.  For example, I've seen comic books and anime with the main characters smoking, billboards with a seductive woman smoking and selling furniture and pretty much every generic Japanese actor smokes in the midst of his romanticised anguish.  I'm not exactly outraged myself but I'm just explaining how the attitude towards smoking in Japan hasn't changed in decades.  It's especially surprising that the tobacco companies have been state run and the price of a packet has hardly risen.  It's almost like they're trying to kill off their aging population so they won't have the pension crisis that everyone has feared.

I forgot to mention that Japanese cigarettes are also pretty weak.  A lot of Japanese women appear to smoke but they usually nurture a pack of peach flavoured lites for a week.  Indeed, the men appear to chain smoke during the day but I've witnessed many have a few puffs before throwing it in the ash tray (the adverts above are obsessed with people stubbing them out it seems).  That's not to say they aren't addicted but I often wonder how much of it is some sort of strange, Japanese... conformity.  It's almost like an adult version of Big Dave peer pressuring his mates into smoking behind the big sheds with him.  Also, I'm not saying this is the only reason as I reckon that cigarettes actually provide an important relief for stressed Japanese workers.  They do work themselves into the ground the poor buggers (even if they're just pretending to work hard sometimes) and I get the impression the bitter, black coffee and smoking break keeps them from snapping and killing everyone in their workplace.  Japanese stress:  Keeping the tobacco companies in business since the bubble burst.

Contradictorily to my opening paragraph, this last point is entirely of my own curiousity.  When I started studying Japanese I would drive along in my car and attempt to read shop signs and the like for practice.  I noticed that convenient stores would have the kanji for alcohol (酒) and a sign for tobacco.  The latter did not have a kanji so I expected it to be written in katakana (タバコ) as that is the alphabet used for foreign loan words.  However, the signs are written in hiragana （たばこ）which is used for Japanese words without kanji (amongst other things as grammar etc).  Therefore, I asked a lot of Japanese people why this was the case but it was apparently the first time they had noticed.  I think they just assumed that tobacco comes from Japan along with pasta, curry, televisions and cars.  So, why is tobacco written in hiragana?  I wrote that previous line to boost my search results.  The answer is that katakana was not used for foreign words until Japan opened up to the West in the middle of the 19th century. The words kept their pronunciation but were given an appropriate kanji.  Such an example is tempura (天ぷら) which is fried prawns that were introduced by the Portuguese.  However, the kanji for tobacco fell into disuse and because the word was so common in the Japanese language it maintained the use of hiragana instead of katakana.

Here is a link to the full collection of the smoking manner posters.  Enjoy.

The little bastard.  I woke up this morning at 6:30am to hear my town siren rattling out some sort of warning.  I was still half asleep and couldn't understand what was being said.  The Japanese started to morph into whatever it sounded similar to in English.  My initial analysis revealed that there had been a disaster in Italy and that I should be careful.  I assumed that this was in reference to a massive tsunami heading my way... from... the Mediterranean Sea.  This moment of rational thinking was replaced with a fear that a volcano had erupted and that the sun was about to be blacked out forever.  Then I heard the sound of the rain lashing against my window and I realised it was another warning about the floodgates in the mountain being opened.

I briefly enjoyed the relaxing smugness of knowing that I had another hour in bed.  Yet, this was soon replaced with the agonising realisation that I was awake for the day. I decided to get up and watch some football highlights from the weekend.  I made some breakfast and sat down on my lovely sofa.  As usual, I let my cup of tea cool down too much and ended up having to make a fresh cup.  I had a few initial gulps of my new brew and started to pack my bag for the day.  I returned to finish off my essential mug of the Queen's finest to find this devil's spawn attempting the breastroke.  One was not pleased.

Mosquitoes in Japan are one of the most frustrating things that I have to endure during the warmer months.  However, my problems with them are not confined to their bacteria ridden, love bites of hell.  The first problem arises when you try to use mosquito in a Japanese sentence.  The kanji for it is this: 蚊.  That is useful if you remember it and are using it to read or write.  The reading for it is ka which just so happens to be one of the most common syllables in the Japanese language.  It's almost impossible to refer to it unless you know the full sentence perfectly or you resort to pointing at the red lumps all over you.  The second irk I have is with a possible solution to this problem.  The popular use of English has recently elevated the dreaded mosquito to a common loan word.  However, it is pronounced rather differently.  There is nothing wrong with this and many words are altered to fit easier into the mouths of the poor, tongue tied Japanese.  For example, bus becomes ba-su.  Shopping becomes sho-peen-gu.  Beer becomes bee-ru.  I altered them a tad to help you read them correctly yourself.  You get the general idea though.  

A lot of English words have to adapt in order to work.  It's hard to tell the difference sometimes unless something obvious like the last letter becomes another syllable.  My name (Craig) should end with a strong ig sound but in Japanese it becomes gu.  The majority of English words end in this horrific extra consonant/vowel marriage because there is no other way to deal with it as the Japanese language is set in stone and incapable of divorce  That is until... you get a word like mosquito.  A word that ends with to and is actually pronounced exactly the same.  For some unknown and ridiculous reason they say MOSKEET.  I can't help but stand there shouting in my head for them to say to whilst they continue babble on about the mosukit mosukit.  I just can't believe it happens.  I have been left perplexed on other occasions when the words tomato and Toronto have appeared in a previously, innocent conversation.  The latter appeared in a second grade class after words like cat and what had been taught as caTOE and whaTOE.  "Let's all go to Toront and feedo tomat to thato cato."  I don't get it at all.

In conclusion, mosquitoes annoy me in many ways.  The ones in Japan are very fat and slow so there is a certain degree of joy in killing them like Mr. Miyagi.  Indeed, they actually share many characteristics with Japanese people.  That being that they cunningly hide until darkness and then stab you when you're asleep in your foxhole... oh wait.  Nevertheless, their existence can't be ignored and it is now time to spend thousands of yen on sprays for my little mushroom protector.  They cost a fortune but it is worth it not to hear those little gobshites smashing off my ear drum every night.  Sadly... it doesn't protect my morning tea.  I now know what Vietnam must have felt like.