September 26, 2009

A quick glance through my iPod will alert anyone to my musical preferences: blues, classic rock, and heavy wood. To many it may seem restrictive, but I personally adore it because it sums up what I love about music: rawnity. Before you scratch your head and wonder if my Microsoft spell check has busted, let me say that rawnity is a term that I have just invented. It can be defined as follows:

raw-ni-ty

-noun

1) a state of perpetual rawness
2) being imbued with ideals, techniques, or practices that are unrefined and unpolished.

In other words, rawnity is when something (in this case, music) is unperfected, dirty, and, um...raw.....

Raw music is when the musicians have little to no training, little to no mainstream appeal (at first...I doubt that the Grateful Dead are considered `alternative` anymore), and are not genetically designed and processed in a Disney laboratory ten miles below Orlando, Florida.



Pictured above: Test subject #321334-A43

Of all the musicians who excel at rawnity, probably my favorites are the old school Delta bluesmen. Some of the most infamous and influential Delta bluesman are:



Robert Johnson (a.k.a. The Man Who Sold His Soul to the Devil For His Guitar Skills)...



Son House...



and Robert Wilkins

I have not even mentioned my two favorite Delta bluesmen, Howlin Wolf and John Lee Hooker. I can confidently say that since I have come here to Japan, I have listened to those two artists more than anything else on my iPod. Hooker`s `Hobo Blues` has basically become my anthem while I am abroad. You can listen to it at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYrVwGxlcFA&feature=channel_page

Yeah...I should probably figure out how to embed youtube videos....

Well, anyway...why do I love their music so much?

I love it because it is honest. The old delta bluesmen played their music almost everyday of their lives. They did not get paid by any big recording studio. They lived from gig to gig. Most of the early Delta bluesmen recorded material, but almost none of their records sold well. They sang with mouths decayed by tobacco and whiskey, played with fingers calloused over from work, and stared with eyes that could melt a hole in the wall even in eighty year old photographs. They played old guitars that were basically bits of wire nailed onto pieces of plywood. And yet, when they played they could create some of the sweetest music that man has ever conceived. I find more beauty in Robert Johnson`s `Crossroads` than anything ever written by Debussy or Schubert.

I am not the only one who thinks this way. The classic rock heroes of the sixties and seventies learned their chops from the old bluesmen. Eric Clapton got some of his first blisters trying to perfect Robert Johnson`s songs. So is it any wonder that I want to learn how to play the blues the way the masters used to almost eighty years ago?

One of the big problems that I have with modern music is that too many musicians try too hard to sound clean. One of the reasons that I stopped listening to modern rock music was because I got to the point that I could not even hear the guitar anymore. It all started to sound alike. What with twelve tracks for a song`s vocals alone, it is almost impossible to distinguish the instruments from each other. And do not even get me started on who seems to pass for `guitar experts` these days......



Urge to kill rising...............................................

Anyway, it just confounds me how musicians these days seem to insist on getting the `right` sound from the `right` instruments. It is almost considered a sin to appear onstage with a cheap guitar if you have made it onto the radio. Brands like Gibson and Fender have become sacred fetishes for musicians nowadays. And why? I`ll tell you why. The label. People are willing to shell out an extra thousand dollars for a guitar if it just says `Gibson` on it. Again I ask, why? When I was shopping for my electric guitar, I tried out some expensive name brand guitars. They were okay, but the best (and the one that I eventually bought) was a small dark-red Ibanez. Here is the kicker: It cost HALF of what the other guitars did and sounded TWICE as good!

I guess what I am trying to say is that usually the best instruments are the ones in the back rack that have gathered a fine layer of dust because they did not have a label. Sometimes, to get the best sound, the cheaper something is, the better it will be. Another example is the infamous guitar slide. I have purchased TWO guitar slides in the past, one glass and one metal. Neither of them gave me a very satisfying sound despite the fact that they carried heavy price tags at the music store. It is probably just as well. I do not think that factory made guitar slides should even be used. Guitar slides are commonly referred to as `bottleneck slides` for a reason: the first ones literally were the necks of bottles!! Other than empty bottles of whiskey, the first slide guitarists also used KNIVES for their music. Just for kicks, a few nights ago, I went into the dorm kitchen, grabbed a dirty, miso-covered cooking knife, and slid it on my guitar strings. The sound was angelic.

So why have I mentioned all of this? I am sure my parents want to know how this has to do with my trip to Japan. Well, it goes like this...

On Wednesday, there was a national holiday in Japan. Do not ask me which one, not even my Japanese friends knew which one it was. Well anyway, we did not have classes that day, so I decided to go fishing with four other guys from my dorm. We went to a second hand store to buy fishing poles when I saw...Her.....

She was a beautiful old Legend acoustic with scratches on her body and chips on her head board. She had an old set of strings (at least I think they were) and made a truly heart-breaking sound when plucked. It was the guitar that I had been searching for ever since I first started to learn how to play the instrument. It sounded old enough to play the blues, and yet crisp enough to manage Bach. It was almost one of the best moments of my entire trip. I say almost because the actual moment that I will remember as one of the best of the entire trip was when I looked at the price tag and saw that it was marked for 3,000 yen.

That translates to $30.

Needless to say, only four fishing poles were purchased. Only four men went to the lake. And only four men returned to the dorm later that day, only to hear Howlin Wolf`s `Killing Floor` come echoing from the rooftop where a young musician deepened his relationship with his new love.

September 20, 2009

On the morning of September 20, 2009, on the second floor of a small administrative building located in Mitaka-shi, Tokyo, three men, one young, one middle aged, and one old, sat in a triangle and awkwardly shuffled through the pages of three small, black bibles. Skimming through line after line of tiny print, their search continued until all three of them had located the same text: The First Letter of John.

Clearing his throat, the young man offered a sincere, if somewhat stumbling, prayer, asking for blessings and offering thanksgivings for the Christian fellowship that the three of them were about to experience. The stumbling was not the result of being unprepared; the young man had attended church his entire life and had grown used to offering spontaneous prayers in front of large groups of people. No, the stumbling was the symptom of a fever of nerves. Not a fever, mind you, of the body, but a fever of the mind and spirit. The young man was about to lead his first bible study. But it was not any ordinary bible story. It was a bible study done in English led by an American transfer student for two native Japanese men. Needless to say, the thought of misrepresenting the gospel due to a communication breakdown weighed heavy on his mind. However the study went on as the young man looked down at a sheet of paper covered in scribbles written the night before that contained his talking points.

`One of the biggest problems facing modern Christians concerns taking passages from the Bible our of context. Verses that may have been directed to one person or for only one situation can be taken out of context and lead to drastic misinterpretations. Therefore, whenever you read the Bible, it is always important to understand the context in which it was written, such as who the author was, who the audience was, and why it was written in the first place. This is especially important for readers of the New Testament, since the majority of its books are letters or messages sent to individual people, groups, and churches during the early history of the Church. Today we are reading from the First Letter of John.`

From there the young man summarized the history of 1 John. He explained how it was not a letter, but a sermon sent to the Christian churches in Ephesus around 100-110 AD. He explained how it was written for two main reasons:

1) To warn against those who were spreading heterodox teachings such as the belief that Jesus never was a human, but just a spirit, and that he did not die for our sins.

2) To serve as a manual for how to live as Christians, how to identify other Christians, and how to protect oneself from false prophets and teachings.

The middle-aged man and the old man listened respectfully as he carefully laid out his lesson. They turned in their Bibles so they could read along with him, they waited patiently as he lost his place halfway through the lesson and scrambled to recover, and they asked him questions.

The middle-aged man, named Yuji, asked the young man about the concept of love.

`Should we love God the same way we love our families? Is it the same kind of love or a different one?`

The young man blinked, looked at his notes, looked back up, blinked again, and, with the aid of some linguistic gymnastics, tried to explain his view on the subject.

`Yes, and no. The love we feel for God is a fatherly love, but it is also a strong love that we reserve for Him alone.`

He then tried to explain that this was his view and not the official view of the Church. Yuji nodded, sat back in his chair, and crossed his legs. At this point the old man, Todeki, chimed in and said that Japanese and English both only have one word for love, but Greek has three. Each one applies to a different kind of love.

He then stopped talking and looked at the young man. Expecting some kind of a follow-up question, the young man stared at Todeki for about twenty seconds, laughed, and explained that he had no idea which one it was.

Todeki then mentioned how the concept of `love` in a Western sense had only been recently introduced to Japan about two hundred or so years ago. The young man asked what term they used before that. Todeki struggled for a minute and said, `Jihi.`

An avid kanji enthusiast, the young man excitedly asked for him to write it out so he could learn it. What followed was a heart-warming spectacle as Yuji and Todeki leaned over a sheet of paper and argued as to how the kanji was properly written. The debate led to laughter, the laughter to friendship, and the friendship to fellowship.

After the study had ended, the three men lingered for a bit, sipped paper cups of hot (black) coffee, and talked. Todeki pulled out a journal and explained that he is currently reading Victor Hugo`s `Les Miserables.` He talked about how he cried when he first read it in English and how he now spends his days in the library trying to read it in French. Opening the journal he showed how he had written the text down in French and compared it to the English translation. The young man quipped that he had only seen the musical on Broadway. Yuji mentioned how it was actually performed on campus last year.

The conversation continued until 10:30 when they threw the paper cups away, shook each others hands, and walked to church for Sunday services. The young man sighed in relief that he had survived his first lesson. As he walked to church, he wondered if he had done a good job. Happy that it was over, yet anxious for next week`s lesson, the young man settled down into the church pews, stuck a translator in his right ear canal, and joined in with the congregation for the opening lines of `For the Beauty of the Earth.`

September 19, 2009

Well....My computer still is not fixed.....
I am not sure I can sufficiently express my combination of anger and frustration....

So, I will let these pictures summarize it.







Whew, well, now that I have that out of the way, time to blog.

Yesterday, as I sprinted to class after waking up late, I discovered much to my dismay that my flip flops do not have much traction. After greeting my classmates with an impromptu performance of `Gaijin on Ice,` I settled down and realized that I had made quite a spectacle of myself. But this feeling is nothing new to me. After a few weeks of living in Japan, I still feel somewhat out of place.

Unlike my dormmate Jin who is Chinese, I cannot blend in with Japanese people. I can keep quiet, follow the rules, and be polite, but I will always be an outsider because of my race. This is of course completely opposed to my previous experiences abroad in Belgium, England, and Canada. I am reminded in particular of when I was visiting La Grand Place in Brussels (or Bruxelles, depending on how pretentious you want to seem) and I walked into a chocolate shop. Since it was in one of Europe`s biggest tourist traps, there were employees there offering free samples of chocolate. One of them walked up to me and politely asked me in French if I would like some chocolate. At least in hindsight I think that is what she said, because I promptly stared at her as people who are suddenly confronted with a foreign language are wont to do. She paused, stared at my quizzical look, blinked, and then asked again in perfect English.

`A-ha!` I thought, `They think I am one of them! Now I can do whatever I want!`



Gleeful with this knowledge, I then proceeded to do what anyone in my situation would do....Walk around the city with my hands in my pockets and my mouth shut.

Well, I have no such luck here in Japan. But, contrary to what is commonly believed, the Japanese do not freak out at the sight of a gaijin riding their subways, walking in their parks, or eating at their restaurants. I guess that it is because there are so many foreigners in Tokyo now. I am curious to see if the same holds true when I tour the countryside...

Of course, I want to do anything that I can to not draw unwanted attention to myself. But that can be difficult at times considering that I do not always remember all of the ground rules of Japanese society. For example, last Thursday, I had to drop off my instant dinner at my room and then go to class. The entire maneuver should have lasted only thirty seconds. Unfortunately, due to an uncooperative refrigerator door, it lasted for much longer. The whole ordeal was frenzied enough to attract the attention of my roommate, Hiroshi, who looked at me, looked at my feet, and literally screamed. I had forgotten to take off my SHOES!!



Sigh....

Well, I will get it eventually.....

This is Nate in Mitaka signing off as just another gaijin.

PS: I know that I have not mentioned anything about my dorm, roommate, classes, or dormmates yet in any detail. I am waiting for my computer to get fixed so that I can upload pictures of them.

September 11, 2009

Well folks, it has been a while since my last update, but I am back online at an ICU library computer to continue the record of my exploits in Japan. My laptop has passed on to the great beyond.



The hard drive needs to be replaced.　Fortunately, Dell is going to send a tech support man out to install a new one...in about a week...

Oh well, at least my insurance covers it.......

Anyway, now on to the meat of the blog. I guess that since this is my first entry in a while, I will take part in one of the great pleasures associated with college life: making sweeping philosophical statements concerning the human condition.

Mmmmmmmmm...

Sweet, sweet human condition.....

Anyhow, the topic of the day is:　Globalization!!



Warning, globalization may not be as peaceful as depicted above.

Globalization has always been a somewhat detached subject for me as an American. Usually, I am the globalizer, and not the globalizie...er...globalized....

Whatever...

Anyway, upon arrival in Japan, a brand new perspective of globalization became apparent. It first started when I first arrived in Japan with Saumya and Megan. We arrived a day before the national elections, and so we were awash in campaign fliers and stump speeches. The next day, one of the biggest peaceful political power shifts in modern history occurred. The 自由民主党, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which had been in power since 1955, had been defeated by the 民主党, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). The DPJ gained control of a staggering 308 of 480 available parliamentary seats.



And despite all of this, not once did I hear anybody mention the election, the candidates, or even historical gravity of the situation. The few times that I did get a Japanese person to talk politics, they would just nod their head and talk about.....

Wait. I want to see if you can guess who they talked about.



Seriously, he was on the news, in the papers, and even the President of ICU quoted him in his Matriculation Ceremony Speech. I do not think that my friends were being polite to me when they talked about Obama when I wanted to talk politics, I think that they honestly were indifferent about their own government.

Anyway, the adventure continued after I checked in to 2nd Men`s Dormitory. It has students from Japan, China, Korea, America, Europe, the Caribbean, and Africa. In short, it puts Ursinus`s claim for an international student body to shame.

Anyway, things kept getting stranger when I discovered that my roommate Hiroshi, was an avid Star Wars fan. We talked about the movies for a while, but we soon had to go our separate ways for our various orientations.

One of the things that Mizenko-sensei told me before I left for Japan was that I needed to join a club in order to get the full Japanese experience. Well, wanting to be a good sport, I went to the club orientation where I was treated to two very unusual displays. First, the Musical Club performed the song One Short Day from the musical Wicked.



No matter how hard I tried to be open minded, my inner demons could not help laughing when I heard about the `dress sarons and ribraries.` However, it is worth remembering that the people involved in the musical did so because they honestly loved and cared about the material. So, despite all of the `emerard cities` they deserve great praise for their performance.

The second strange show was the World Music Club who played a jazz number from Count Basie. I was amazed at how good they were.　The strangest moment was when a short Korean girl timidly approached the microphone for a saxophone solo. Without moving so much as an eyelid, she unleashed one of the most aggressive solos that I have ever heard. I was so impressed that I immediately left and inquired as to how I could join.

More on that in a later post.

My final testimony concerns probably the most startling moment that I have experienced while in Japan. After about a week in Japan, my fingers began to get itchy. They did not itch for scratching. No, they itched for playing. They itched for a guitar.


The barbed wire strings are for professionals ONLY!

Well, I managed to borrow a guitar from Joey Stockermans. I felt a little like playing some blues, so I began to pluck out the opening to Leadbelly`s "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" It is an old blues song from the early 20th Century. It is such an old and obscure song that I did not expect anybody to recognize it. And yet, lo and behold, as I was walking through the hallway, my friend Julien, from BELGIUM no less, bursts out of his room and starts singing the lyrics in English.

After the initial shock, my fingers quickly regained their senses and played the rest of the song as Julien sang the rest of the lyrics. After we finished and bowed to the onlookers who had gathered while we played, I turned to Julien and breathlessly asked him how he knew that song. He shrugged and replied, "I sang it at my school last year. It was cool that you knew how to play the blues version."

I quickly replied, "You mean the correct version, right?"

With a toothy grin, he quipped with a delightful accent, "But of course."

Maybe it is presumptuous to declare that globalization is okay. I am not familiar with the plight of the disenfranchised farmer or unemployed worker, but as a regular college student, I feel that it is a positive force. It can bridge cultural gaps, help people of different nations find common ground, and even lead to impromptu duets between two people who are both strangers in a strange land.

This is Nate in Mitaka signing off as just another gaijin.

September 5, 2009

I have noticed a disturbing trend among most other travelogues or blogs written by tourists or travelers (yes, there IS a difference between a tourist and a traveler).　The disturbing trend is that while they are enthusiastic about what they love, i.e. omg the food iz amazing!1!11!!!!!!, they are usually silent about the negative aspects of the culture that they are exploring.

I have always tried to be different from the mainstream, as can be seen by my extensive collection of French New Wave films, Frank Zappa cds, and my insistence that Final Fantasy Nine is the best RPG ever made. So, I am going to write about a negative aspect of Japanese culture today.

But first, the setting.

Ladies and gentleman, I am somewhat discouraged to tell you that for the past three days I have been sick. Yes, sick. Sick with the dreaded SNAKE FLU!!!!!

Now, before my mother freaks out and catches the next plane to Tokyo, let me offer the following assurances:

1) I am fine
2) No, I do not need a doctor
3) No Dad, I will not be using the return trip ticket to come home
4) Yes, I will survive

Now, onto the question of the day, what is snake flu? Well, let me explain...

As many people now, Japan is home to a wide variety of exotic wildlife. On the ICU campus alone, there are raccoons, bats, cicadas, and gangs of cats. But there is another animal living on campus, the dreaded GARDEN SNAKE.

Well, on Wednesday or Thursday, I cannot remember which, I found a garden snake taking a siesta on our bikes. Oh yes, I forgot to mention, we all went bike shopping on Tuesday....

Wait, where was I? Oh yeah, snakes. Well, we found a snake on the bikes. An avid lover of all things reptilian, I captured the little bugger. Well, my new friend did not take very kindly to being in captivity, so it gave me a horrific bite. And by horrific I mean comical. Seriously, it felt like getting gummed by ninety year old chihuahua. Well, it did not phase me, but I did not appreciate my new friends poking it and aggravating it. So, I let it slither free in bushy meridian in the middle of one of ICU`s many sidewalks.

About 20 minutes later, my arm that had been bitten began to grow get sore. It only lasted about five minutes, but since I got sick the next day for no other apparent reason, I am going to to blame the snake for my illness and declare it snake flu.

Anyway, the following morn I awoke to sore joints, a nasty cough, and a tightening feeling in my upper back that was similar to the sensation one gets after lifting weights for a long time. I managed to get through the day before almost collapsing in my dorm. Following this, I witnessed a curious cultural phenomenon.

It has been said from many sources that Japan is a culture of contradictions: that a nation so obsessed with peace and harmony created one of the worlds most recognized warrior cultures, that such a repressive society can create some of the worlds most shocking and bizarre entertainment, and that a people so concerned with preserving their own cultural heritage can have such a pronouned love affair with foreign media and customs. Well, I have discovered another interesting contradiction：when someone is sick, they do everything they can to help you get better, but they do so while trying to stay the hell away from you.

I do not mean that as an insult or a critique on Japanese society. Indeed, the purpose of this blog is simply to provide a place where I can store my observations on Japanese society. When it comes to being sick, the Japanese face a curious catch-22. They do not want to get sick, so they cannot be around sick people. However, they know that if they leave a sick person alone, they might get worse and even get other people sick. Please understand, while this may seem callous, it is not some kind of judgement on the Japanese people. They want sick people to get better, but they want to do so without getting sick themselves.

For example, when I almost collapsed in my dorm, several of my dormmates helped me upstairs to get to bed. They gave me some medicine and a big jug of water and a glass to drink it with. I oblidged, then tried to hand it back. They stepped back, waved their hands, and said to keep it. I then slept for twenty four hours. No joke, I literally went to sleep on Thursday night and woke up on Friday night. It was not a constant sleep. I drifted in and out of consciousness the whole time. I noticed that my roommate Hiroshi did not sleep in our room that night. In fact, the night I woke up, I saw him for the first time ever wearing a mask as he came into the room, grabbed a few things, and quickly left. Afterwards, when I tried to talk to people, they would kindly oblidge, but not before placing a piece of paper in front of their faces if they did not have a mask. They were eager to offer advice on how to get better (including one curious suggestion to wipe off my neck sweat because if I left it there it would make me worse) but they would not come close to me while they did so.

It was later that I learned from our dorm president Joe Stockerman (who happened to be from Canada) as he kindly brought me some instant yakisoba to eat in bed that last semester they had a swine flu scare in the dorm.

So, there was the reason behind the caution. But a part of me wonders, how would they have acted if there had not been a swine flu scare last semester? I should not judge because I do not know all of the circumstances surrounding my dormmates actions. All that I can say is that they were incredibly kind, helpful, and concerned, even if it was from a safe distance.

This is Nate in Mitaka, signing off as just another gaijin.