Kinky Kinki Sunday Part 1

We arose early to the dim and cloud of Sunday morning. Our bus to Osaka was at 7.30, which is an hour earlier than I have to get to school on work days. After witnessing a dog sexually assaulting a cat while its owner looked on, we headed off to the station and jumped on the bus.

Our trip's primary purpose was to fulfil a wish I'd been carrying around for over a year and had all but given up on until Miss Wildricefield, who sits beside me at Tokusho, sent me an email last Tuesday. The wish was to see a show by one of Japan's famous all-female Takarazuka troupes, and this teacher had some going spare. The show was Romeo and Juliet, and if you've ever wondered what that might look like without the men, then do so no longer:

The one on the left is Romeo, in case you were wondering. The smaller picture at the bottom right is Tybalt.

The production in question was a Japanese translation of a 2001 French musical called Roméo et Juliette: de la Haine à l'Amour. I'd never heard of it before, not being up on my contemporary French theatre. In a sense the performance promised two firsts; my first exposure to this musical, and my first chance to see grown ladies dressed as boys dance around and sing.

When we queued up at the Umeda Arts Theatre to get our tickets, we noticed a large posse of young to middle-aged women wearing green and white striped scarves. Leaving Emily in line (we were told only the person with the exchange pass should stand in line, as they were running out of space), I wandered off to the side where the side door was, and found all the girls with their scarves lined up beside the road in an orderly fashion. A short while later, one of the actresses showed up and was politely applauded by the crowd, and some took photographs. There was no stampede for autographs or physical contact. It was all very orderly and proper. Later, Emily told me about the wikipedia article on Takarazuka, which describes this kind of thing in the "Fan Clubs" section. It's always satisfying when you witness a textbook social phenomenon, especially when you didn't go looking for it.

Anyways, we grabbed some choco cro (Saint Marc Cafe...great chocolate croissants) as a kind of brunch before the performance. I grabbed a program, which is full of nice shiny pictures of ladies dressed as boys, and we took our seats. Eventually, this appeared:

A little later, there was some VO narration, then characters representing "The Poet" and "Death" started dancing around, and the story began. The production was very impressive. Pieces of set representing various streets would revolve around the stage to reveal Juliet's balcony or Friar Lawrence's chapel. The two families' colour-coded costumes - Montagues in blue, Capulets in Red - were stunning, and made the big group dance numbers all the more dazzling. The female stars, as you would expect, were adept at conveying masculinity, or at least what passes for masculinity in the realm of Japanese popular entertainment. It wasn't difficult at all to suspend disbelief over the characters' genders, even though the only physical difference between the male and female parts was that the men were the only ones wearing trousers.

Despite my great respect for the production as a whole, for me it was the music that let the show down. I was optimistic at the outset after the first song, "Verona" (English version here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVylzWbJlZs) but with the exception of a few other group numbers, I was disappointed at the repetitive whiney tone of the musical numbers. It seemed that every character had to have his or her own solo, whether their own actions impacted greatly on the plot or not. Most of the time it seemed that they were just singing about how they felt about what was going on with everyone else. It would have made as much sense if I'd gone up on stage and started singing about how I didn't have enough leg room and that I wanted to stretch my legs. A lot of the time I just wanted some dialogue to break the monotony, but all too often there was only one line between songs, or none at all. Seriously, this musical has more songs in one act than most English musicals do in the whole show.

I did say there were a few songs that I did enjoy, so I thought I'd make mention of them so I don't come across as a negative nancy. The scene of the Ball where Romeo meets Juliet had good music that was a mix of modern and traditional that everyone danced to while Juliet tried to escape Paris, and the Montagues evaded Paris. Perhaps the best song, however, was "Kings of the World", sung by the Montagues in the first act. Here is the original French version:




More Sunday action to come.

Sayonara Senoritas

Saturday was the official Tokushima JET Sayonara party, held around some cabins by the river in the mountains of Kamiyama. It had been threatening to rain all day, but the weather didn't get any worse than a bit of cloud cover. We paddled in the river and fought over seating around the barbecue to cook the food that we'd brought. It was strange because while I got the impression that the people who were staying were sad about those leaving, I didn't feel sad because it still hasn't fully sunk in that I'm going. I know it as a fact, I even worry about it as a state of affairs in the future, but I have yet to feel the reality of it.

Though I was at the party for five hours, it seemed like no time at all. I might have stayed the night, as many of the others did, but Emily and I had big Sunday plans, around which the next post will revolve.

Thumbless Ramen

Some nights, and especially in the summer, a man sets up a ramen stall by the river beside my apartment building. In my three long years here I had never been to this place; partly because I have a habit of not taking advantage of things nearby, and partly because I never really crave ramen. It is, after all, oily soup with noodles and highly suspect meat.

A while back, after finding out where I live, one of my tattoo men told me that the ramen place near my apartment was supposed to be pretty good. However, he added gingerly, it was said that the man would often have his thumb submerged in the soup when he handed it over. This in a country that is particularly anal about sanitation, especially when it comes to food, would surely be unthinkable, even from a street vendor.

Anyway, at some point I mentioned this to fellow Tokushima City-ite Mario, who is somewhat of a ramen connoisseur, and we agreed to go at some point. This was probably two months ago at least. Finally, last week, realising that neither of us have much time left here, I suggested we try to go on Friday, if he was open for business.

Mario contacted me from work at around 6 - his clocking-off time, to ask if the man had shown up yet. He had not. Mario thus decided to first go home and change. After doing so, at around 6.30, he contacted me again. I checked the street from my balcony and could see that his van was there, but he was not yet open for business. Mario came over a little later and I played games badly on his iphone until the trademark 中華そば (Chinese soba noodles) lantern was illuminated, then we headed outside.

Here's the van.

We each ordered a small regular ramen (no extra meat) and waited in anticipation of thumb action.

Disappointingly, no thumbs were forthcoming. When the man brought us our ramen in little styrofoam bowls, his thumbs were at a safe distance above the soup line.

Most ramen tastes more or less the same to me, but it met with Mario's approval, so it must have been above average. This is what Mario's approval looks like:

 The ramen itself was Tokushima ramen, which Mario reliably informs me is a mix of traditional ramen bases pork bone and soy sauce.

My finely-honed aversion to seafood is bad enough that when the aonori (seaweed) disintegrated, I couldn't finish the soup for the taste of it. I should have extracted it at the start and thrown it in the river.

Farewell parties 1 and 2

On Tuesday, we had the farewell/welcome party for the English department at Tokusho, but since the part-time teacher who left this year didn't come, and nor did her replacement, I was the only one coming or going. We had a classy multi-course meal (in my case fish-free) at Kaikatei, a restaurant that seems to specialise in European cuisine. It was mostly fine, until everyone started ignoring me and chatting away in Japanese, which I largely ignored, being in a beer-induced dreamlike state. At one point, however, the conversation turned to my successor, and the concern that how could she possibly ride a bike to Kagikou half an hour two times a week. I mean, she's a girl! Never mind that I've been having to do this for a year and a half now. Never mind that there are students that cycle further than that every day.

Really I'm just bitter because when Higashi, which was 5 minutes from my apartment, closed down, I suddenly had a much longer journey to school on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and I wanted the board of education to get me a new apartment. They refused. Fail.

Anyways, the best part of the evening was not having to pay the customary excessive party fee, I suppose since the thing was held partly in my honour. Hooray for that.

On Wednesday, I had a farewell party with my Japanese teacher and her other ALT students - T-rex, Sarah and Emma. The Fourth was absent. We went to Paparina, the Italian place between my teacher's house and Kagikou. Afterwards we went back to her place and chatted and ate cookies and took pictures. She wanted us to write letters to ourselves, which she'll send off in a year along with a note from her. Sarah and Rex wrote theirs then and there, but I wasn't in the mood and so I'm planning on going back next week and dealing with it then.

Incidentally, here's my teacher's dog, Nonchan:

She's a year old toy poodle who likes eating plastic and still isn't house trained. Just before we left she peed on the carpet after eating large volumes of watermelon rinds.

After saying a probably final farewell to Sarah, I headed home.

Now, the 7th of July in Japan is a festival of sorts called Tanabata. I never see much hooplah about it here in Tokushima, but it's traditional to write wishes on pieces of paper, hang them on bamboo branches, then sometimes to light them on fire. I'd never done it before so I wanted to do it on this, my last chance while an ALT in Japan. The problem was that after the party, it was about 10 o'clock, and I didn't know where to find any bamboo. I couldn't find any on my bike ride back home, and was about to give up when Emily, who I'd called earlier, told me there was bamboo in this little garden/grove area near my apartment. I wrote a wish on a piece of manilla envelope and took it downstairs.

The problem was that though in my head I could readily believe there was bamboo in the grove, I couldn't actually find any. At least, nothing that my brain recognised as bamboo. It didn't help matters that there was no lighting in the immediate vicinity. I had my camera, however and tried taking flash pictures to locate bamboo. Like this:

Anyway, time was running short, since if I was going to light the thing, I had to do it at midnight, which was fast approaching. I more or less gave up and hung the wish from the most convenient branch of whatever this is in the picture. Then I used an Ingrid's International lighter to set it on fire.

I don't know if you've ever lit a manilla envelope before, but unlike regular white paper, it doesn't smolder slowly and go out at the slightest breeze. It sizzles like magnesium and instantly erupts into a large flame. I panicked, since I didn't want to become known as the ALT who burned down a garden. I blew on the flame, but they were so strong that they just went brighter. I didn't know what else to do, so I just kept blowing, and eventually, just as the last bit of paper burned away, the fire went out. Crisis averted.

After all that, I just hope the wish comes true now.

Taking a break from all that nothing

Yesterday, having no classes (ever again) and little to do except work on my scrapbook, I took a leisurely lunch trip to fancy restaurant Pacific Harbor with Emily. You can get a multi-course lunch set for just 1000 yen. It includes a salad (which I don't eat, but appreciate that a lot of other people do), soup, one of two possible main dishes, and a drink. If you pay an extra 300 then you can choose two desserts from a tray of delights.

I got these two. The one on the left is (western) tea-flavoured jelly on milk pudding, topped with gold flakes. The other is a chocolate gateau with cream an almonds.

Good lunch times plus skipping the tedium of uneventful school is WIN.

Bizarro World

Last night, I went to tai chi for the first time in two weeks, having missed it due to rafting and then getting ready for Ingrid's birthday. After the tai chi class was finished, I talked to teacher, Season Woods, who's Chinese and likes chatting with me and testing a few English phrases on me. He asked me how I was, and I said I was a little sad. He knew I was leaving so he said he understood. We talked a little longer, and then out of the blue he hugged me close with one arm. I was taken aback and didn't know what to do. I'm at least a full head taller than him, so I felt oversized and didn't know where to put my hands. But I appreciated the sentiment and it made me feel sadder in a way I hadn't expected to. My eyes watered up again. We were soon interrupted by one of the other staff members at the gym, whose attention was caught by the elephant-in-the-room style PDA. He asked what was going on, and I told him that Season Woods was feeling lonely because I was leaving in a month. Then Woods went over to talk to another guy who was working out, and I spoke to the staff guy about going home and ending my gym contract.

The feeling of sadness didn't go away, though, and as I tried to get to sleep last night I had to stop myself from thinking about it because it was too much. I suppose I see Woods as a friend I wont have the chance to have. If I'd been around longer, or started going to his classes sooner, I'm sure we would have started meeting up outside of class and becoming friends. Now there's not really time for that. I think that's why I got so depressed over it.

Then again, this is just one more case of me getting teary over saying goodbye to something here. I have the horrible feeling I'll be spending my last month here with all the emotional stability of a pregnant schizophrenic. On speed. I suppose I expected to be sad about saying goodbye to my friends, my teachers, my job. But it's more than that. I'm saying goodbye to a whole life. A life I've carved out and lived for three years. So many things have changed in that time, but I've always been here, living a familiar existence. A happy existence. And I'm leaving it all behind. When I leave, the whole colour and flavour of my life is going to change. I don't know what it's going to take to come to terms with that. I might be back here on the next flight from the reverse culture shock.


In lighter news, I got rid of a heap of crap in the form of clothing at a Stuff Swap organised by other ALTs today. I took the chance, with Emily, to go to the Starbucks that opened by the station last month, the first Starbucks to appear in Tokushima. The place is so popular that we had to line up for about ten minutes to get served. It was so bustling and alive that I felt like I could have been in an actual major city. A major city anywhere in the world. I've never been at any cafe or restaurant in Tokushima that seemed so busy. Maybe in a few months everyone will remember where they are and it'll die down.

I got a Tokushima mug and Emily got a tumbler. I kind of wanted the tumbler, but I objected to it on the grounds that the only thing unique about it was a piece of paper rolled up inside. At least my mug's Tokushima design was glazed on.

This is the way the classes end

Not with a bang but a whimper.

I had my last class yesterday. It was pretty much a regular class, except the JTE told the students it was my last one right at the end, and, after finding out I could write kanji last week, they wanted to hear me speak Japanese. I said a short goodbye-and-thank-you after which they applauded, and after the bell rang some of the girls demanded to take pictures with me. It was nice to feel appreciated in a class that was good, but with whom I didn't feel a strong connection due to there being no class clowns or particularly talkative students.

Also, last night I finally booked a flight home. I had a sort of messed-up situation where I thought I was expected to wait for the board of education's decision about giving me the money for the flight I'd previously investigated. As it turned out, because of how long their decision was going to take, I was supposed to book the thing before the price changed. I didn't realise I could book it without paying for the whole thing, and even if I had, it didn't seem to make sense to pay a deposit (which I assume I could lose) for something I don't know if I'm going to be reimbursed for. What with having to pay the massive resident's tax bill I got last month, I don't have enough money in Japan to pay for a flight.

Anyway, after being told I was supposed to have booked already, I got a bit panicked and went back to the travel agent, who told me the price had already gone up, so I was screwed on that front. My only option was to try to get a cheaper one online. It was too late to ask for more money from the BOE. After looking online and considering a few options, I decided in the end to go for an Air China flight, which is a little cheaper than my original plan, but is a little tricky because I have to change twice - once in Beijing and once in London, and because it's so early in the morning that it's not possible for me to get the the airport two hours before take-off. I just hope an hour and forty minutes will be enough time to get through check-in, security and customs. I would get a hotel, but the only one that seems available at the airport is mega-expensive.

Anyway, the date is now set, so all I have to do now is pack.