Happy in Hokkaido

Murphy-san's Law

Are you familiar with Murphy's Law? It's the commonly-held notion that if something can go wrong, it likely will.

In Japan, I feel there's a slightly different twist to this law: no matter when or where you are, there always seems to be someone or something else in your way, and they will be trying to access the same thing you are at the exact same time. It happens so often here that it's almost spooky! So I call this Murphy-san's Law. ("-san" is a Japanese suffix equal to "Mr." in English)

This is hard to describe in words, but over the last few months I've experienced this many, many times on a daily basis. The law applies to mundane, everyday stuff -like trying to walk down the street or enter a store- to more complex and seemingly random things. I can only speculate as to why this happens, but I've noticed that it does indeed it happen far more often here than it did in fast-paced, congested Washington D.C. In the States, people seem more adept at anticipating others' actions and reacting accordingly. But in Japan there are few instances where you get unfettered space and access to things. (Despite the fact that I live in the prefecture with the lowest population density in the country!)

Since I moved here, I've never had so many people "in my way" (for lack of a better expression) before. It's remarkable how a seemingly deserted location can all of a sudden fill with people/cars. And all those people/cars will just happen to queue up in front of you before you know it. For instance, how does a quiet suburban alley all of a sudden become gridlocked by four cars at 3AM? Seems like there's no rhyme or reason....

At first, this made me feel "compressed" and inconvenienced. It really got my ego going too. Even the most simple daily tasks, such as buying groceries, could become a pain in the ass. Crossing the street to the store (at a seemingly "off" hour like 1PM on a weekday) could be difficult due to drivers who never signal. Cars would come zooming down the street at the same time and would signal only just before turning into the store parking lot. In the meantime I'm standing on the curb, not knowing what the hell the drivers are doing until just before they do it. If they had signaled just a bit earlier I could have crossed the street before the other lane of traffic started approaching. So I just wait, and wait, and wait for a break in the traffic and then make a run for it...

After making it across the street, I have to be extremely careful not to get hit by cars in the grocery store parking lot. Japanese drivers seem mystified about parking lot traffic patterns, even if they've been to a store a zillion times before. So they weave in and out, trying to find the closest parking spot, drift, don't pay attention to pedestrians, etc. I think this is a reason why many grocery stores hire a parking attendant (dressed in a uniform complete with white gloves!) to direct traffic and people.

In the store, it can be just as crazy. If there are old ladies or housewives shopping, you better watch out: they will elbow you out of the way to get the best deal on carrots! And just when you've collected everything on your list and are ready to check out, from nowhere people will flood the check out lanes (some of which had no queue just 30 seconds ago!) and there will be a long line - at 1PM on a weekday, nonetheless!

Here's another example: During spring break a bunch of us did a road trip to southern Hokkaido. One of our goals was to drive all the way out to a remote cape east of Hakodate. At the cape there was supposed to be a nice seaside natural onsen (hot spring). But we turned onto the wrong road in this tiny fishing village that couldn't have more than about 100 inhabitants. The place had only a few little side streets, as the village was sandwiched between a rocky cliff and the sea. The narrow little road we turned on led down to a row of houses. We saw that it dead-ended, so we had to turn around and take another road.

But low and behold: There were two cars that also wanted to get out of this narrow little road at the exact same time as us. (They were pulling out of their garages). In a tiny village, on a rainy afternoon, in the middle of nowhere - what are the odds of that!? In Japan, the odds are very good indeed. And being anywhere at anytime in this country almost always equals being in the wrong place at the wrong time. At first it seems like you just can't escape it...

I could see that the drivers trying to exit their garages were pissed about their road being temporarily blocked by a bunch of gaijin (foreigners) in a car. All we could do was slowly and carefully back out of the narrow street and try to turn around further up the road. After we made it out, we waved to them as an apology. But they didn't seem to care...

Shit like this happens all the time in Japan. If you're walking down a side street, for instance, in a quiet residential area, out of nowhere there will appear a few people. And they will be on the same side of the sidewalk as you, especially if you're running late. When you approach them and try to maneuver so that you don't crash into the other person, what often happens is a "deer in headlights" reaction: They nearly stop, or stumble in the WRONG direction and make the situation WORSE! Then you have to counter-maneuver, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.

After a year of living here, I'm still mystified as to the Japanese inability to maneuver, walk, drive, etc. While they are masters at quickly spotting patterns, tiny details or an incorrect stroke in a kanji (Chinese) character, they are severely handicapped when it comes to walking in a straight line, getting out of the way, anticipating/reacting to another person's movements, and driving. This is why I think Japanese construction crews have at least one person dedicated to directing people around a work site. (In the U.S. they usually just put up a sign or orange cones and everyone follows the directions.) If these construction "directors" weren't there, I think Japanese people would literally fall into a hole or get killed!

I've noticed an interesting little thing that the Japanese do to try and avoid "maneuver mishaps" at the office: they stick out their hand in front of them, palm facing to the left, sort of resembling knife or a "karate chop". The direction the fingertips point in means, "I intend to get through by going in THIS direction." As they make this hand signal, they slightly bend down, head bowed, and push their way through without trying to bump into anyone, saying, "Sumimasen, sumimasen" ("Excuse me, excuse me."). Teachers do this with me and each other every day in the teachers' room, as they scurry to and from their desks between class periods. It works fairly well because it indicates (visually) to everyone what the person's intended trajectory is. But nobody does this on the street or in public places for some odd reason...

Murphy-san's Law didn't just apply to me: I saw it happening to Japanese people on a daily basis. For example, the businessmen who visit the school I work at always seem to arrive at a bad time, such as at lunch time or when a particular teacher they'd like to speak with is teaching a class. Also people call the school almost every day during the morning meeting, even though that is a time when everyone (except the office secretary) is obviously not available. Japanese schools keep almost the same schedule nation-wide (plus or minus a few minutes), so I don't see why callers don't simply check the time before they ring the school...

I realize I'm ranting now; expressing egoic pain from past and trivial frustrations. When I first got to Japan, Murphy-san's incidents really annoyed me. It seemed like everyone had it out for me, and I felt delayed most of the time. I wondered, "Why are there so many stupid people here who can't walk or drive properly?" Adding fuel to the fire was the cultural insistence on being on time all the time. This certainly didn't help the situation any!

As time passed, though, I've come to terms with Murphy-san's Law and I've developed a lot more patience. Now I see through it as just something mind-created. So when these things happen, I don't say, "There's that damn Murphy-san's Law again!" Instead I just accept it as it is, and try not to put the blame on anyone or anything else: Nobody has it out for me. Nobody's making me late. It just is as it is. People naturally come and go - it's the natural ebb and flow of life. And if you happen to get entangled along the way, it just is an opportunity for you examine that person a little more closely (and them you). Hopefully you'll both learn something from the encounter.

For instance, I learned an important lesson from an unfortunate encounter last week. On the way to school (I ride my bike), I was coming down a hill, approaching the school. I was on the border of being late to work that day. (A big no-no in Japanese society.) At this particular time in the morning, students are walking to school, so there's often a bunch of them on the sidewalk, zig-zagging this way and that, chatting with friends, etc. (Like bees, they often walk in unpredictable patterns; never in a straight line it seems...) I pass them on my bike every day and often say "Good morning!" But this particular morning I was coming down the hill a little faster than usual, and there was one of my students in front of me, directly in my bike path!

I rang my bell and braked, but she did the "deer in headlights" thing and froze, then lurched left, further INTO my bike bath. Less than half a meter to my left was a major road with traffic coming directly at me, so I had nowhere to go. So I crashed into her, but luckily I was able to slow down before impact. At first it looked like she regained her balance and wouldn't fall over. But Japanese people (girls especially) can't walk very well and have poor balance, so she of course fell over and scraped her knee. Her elbow also banged against my handlebar.

After the incident I helped her get up and I apologized profusely to her. But she was only a first-year student (about 13 years old), so she hadn't yet learned very much English. The student was stunned and incapable of communicating with me, so I immediately walked her to the school nurse's office to make sure she was OK. The nurse said she was fne. There was only a small scrape on her knee, luckily.

Needless to say, I felt terrible about the whole incident. What made it even worse, however, was the bureaucratic system that popped up in response to the incident. It went like this:

1.) I apologized to the girl. 2.) My English teacher helped translate what the nurse was saying. 3.) The student's homeroom teacher was notified. 4.) The vice principal and principal were notified. 5.) The vice principal drove over to her parents' house and apologized in Japanese on my behalf. 6.) Meanwhile I apologized to the nurse, the vice principal, the principal and my boss. 7.) After my boss was notified, he had to confirm everything with my vice principal and me. 8.) I had to give a detailed account as to exactly how the accident happened. 9.) And then, a day later, all teachers at the school sent an apology letter to the student's parents.

You can imagine how much shame this generated. But I can deal with shame pretty well (as I have none! hehehe). But the part that really put me on pins and needles was the threat of being sued. I don't know if Japan's a very litigious society or not, but my boss said that there was a possibility that the parents could sue me, using a false claim to get rich quick. (For example, a week later, the student begins suffering from "headaches," etc.) Luckily this didn't happen and everything went OK. But it was a stressful few days!

The silver lining was that my vice principal, boss and an English teacher worked really hard to "protect" me from a lawsuit and comfort me. Because of this, I got to know each one of them better, and my opinions about them have definitely changed for the better. I realized they are quite sympathetic people, and I was grateful for their help resolving this matter. And on the way to school now, I slow down more and ring my bell a lot. This creates a little more time for me to greet each of my students as they walk to school so they can practice saying "Good morning!" to me.

The accident could have been avoided if only the student had moved right instead of left. But this is just wishful thinking at this point, because what's done is done. As the Buddha says, "... all the vast complexity of coordinating causes and effects exist within the mind and nowhere else." So I've come to terms with the accident and used it as a learning experience.

Now whenever I approach someone from behind on my bike, I slow down and ring the bell a bunch of times until they move into the proper location and look at me. So far I've had no accidents, and it's taught me to be more patient when riding my bike. Whereas I was very hostile and anxious while riding my bike last week (e.g. "Get out of my way! I gotta get to work people! MOOOOOOVE!"), I'm now much more calm about things like traffic, pedestrians, etc. It's still something I'm working on, but unfortunate incidents, like the one between me and the student last week, help me grow as a person - even if they involve suffering. After all suffering is the ultimate teacher!

The Number 6

I've never had a problem with the Arabic numeral 6 ... until today! I recently changed to a new base school, and when that happens I have to fill out some paperwork and so forth.

One of the things I had to fill out is a contact information sheet, where I have to list my address and telephone number. To make a good first impression, I wrote out my address in kanji (Japanese characters). My kanji isn't the greatest in the world, but I took my time making it as legible as possible.

When I gave the form to the vice principal, he looked it over and didn't have any problems reading my kanji. But he and another teacher in the office couldn't read my number 6! They were confused as to whether it was a 6 or a 4.

At first I just thought the vice principal might be dyslexic or had bad eyesight. But when a younger teacher - an art teacher who teaches calligraphy nonetheless -  came up and asked the same question, I was kind of taken aback.

I know for a fact that my handwriting (especially numerals) isn't atrocious. Here's an example of how I make my 6's and 4's:

They look totally different from each other! I don't see how the two could be confused!

So when the art teacher asked me if it was a 6 or a 4, I asked him to show me how Japanese people write 6's. Here is what he game me:

To me, his Japanese 6 looks almost exactly like my 6! (In fact, his looks more like an upside-down 9.) Where the hell is he getting confused?

From what I can gather, the only difference might be the smaller curl I make when I complete the 6. The Japanese don't do this, but they do make their 4's really sloppy. I guess if I went to an extreme with that little curl and pulled it way down and to the right, it might somewhat, distantly, resemble a Japanese 4....

Then it dawned on me: I totally forgot how anal the Japanese are when it comes to writing. From a young age they are taught stroke order to make sure their kanji turns out legible. Anything that deviates from the standard becomes unintelligible. (Kind of like Japanese society as a whole...) This extends to writing foreign scripts too. So when my 6 had a smaller curl at the bottom, it was outside the standard and therefore became unreadable.

Maybe it's just nervous energy from switching to a new school, but I wanted to shake these two people and say, "Stop and think about things for just one second. My 6 isn't' really that different from yours! You can see a striking similarity! Why can't you see that and understand that?!?"

So I think from now on I am going to write the number 6 in kanji, which looks like this: 六 It may take longer, but at least I'll be "within the standard" and nobody will have to think outside the box for an instant...

That Clip-Clip-Clipping is Driving Nails Into My Skull!!!

I don't have many pet peeves, thankfully, but one of them is clipping your fingernails or (worse yet) toenails when other people are nearby. I don't know why I feel it's rude and gross, but I just do.

Yet in Japan, it's completely appropriate for teachers to do this (along with gargling) in the teachers' room. But blowing your nose is considered gross here... go figure!

Unlike in the US, Japanese teachers don't have their own classrooms so they move around from classroom to classroom. This means each teacher has a "base" desk in the teachers' room, and therefore desks and people are crammed close together in this room. It's also an open-office layout, so you can see everyone from every vantage point in the room. Here's a photo to illustrate:

After I first got here, I noticed the gym teacher clipping her nails at her desk, with splinters of nail flying every which way. I thought it was an isolated case and that she was just gross.

But then many other teachers have since whipped out nail clippers and have done it too! It now happens about every other day, and the clip-clip-clipping sound pierces by ears and drives me up the wall, especially if the person doing it is near me. Yuck!!!

The other day an annoying, loud teacher behind me started clipping, so I had to get up and leave the room for a few minutes. I had to doge flying nail debris on the way out. Before coming back into the room, I listened outside the door to see if he had finished. There's something about the "clip-clip" sound metal blades make as they slice through a nail that I can hear from a mile away. ewww!

Maybe nail clipping in confined areas is normal here because Japanese teachers work very long hours and practically live here. Hence it's all right to do certain personal hygiene and grooming habits in front of colleagues. In the US I know people do this as well, but it's not as socially embraced as it is here. Still, when I hear the clippers going, it drives nails into my skull!

Move It, Pigeon Foot!

"Out of the way! I got a train to catch! Move to the side of the stairs, or just walk NORMALLY, dammit!"

The above is something I say in my head almost every day during my one hour commute to and from school each day. (Luckily this commute will become much shorter when I move to my base school November 1.)

Presently, I have to deal with slow people walking up and down crowded steps to train platforms at three different stations, each way, each day. The subway (designed in the 1970s) is well-used, but I don't think they built the platforms wide enough to handle today's crowds, especially at Sapporo Station. It's becoming very frustrating for me because people here don't know how to walk, especially the 20-something girls with their shopping bags, J-Pop hair, "pigeon feet" and high-heeled shoes.

In Japan, many of the girls have tiny feet that point inwards. Because of this, they tend to walk like pigeons, wobbling back and forth as they try to navigate steps, escalators, and just plain walking down the street. Adding to this, they wear huge high-heeled shoes. There are hordes of these pigeon-footed girls on my commute to work, and they're always in the way. When you're trying to catch a train to work, the last thing you need is some dopey, dumb chick who can't walk blocking your way to the platform. There are times I just want to scream out loud (in English): "Move it, Pigeon Foot!"

There's more to this than just my Western impatience, however. I have a theory (as does Electra, one of the other Sapporo JETs) that these girls walk like pigeons to try and attract men - especially foreign ones. This "dance" supposedly conveys a message like: "Look at me! I'm so helpless and frail. Take me!" Whenever one of these pigeon girls spot me or any other foreigner, for instance, they tend to over-emphasize their gait. Often times their shopping bags spread wider, blocking the way. The pigeon walking becomes more pronounced. And they deliberately slow down and/or try to brush up against you. I dunno, but I'm guessing it gives them some kind of mild thrill to piss people off like this...

I suppose this routine is done to "attract my attention" and be "sexy." But the only attention it attracts from me is frustration and anger. Plus I'm gay, so I don't really give a shit about how "sexy" a girl's trying to portray herself. I just want to get to work without the pigeon antics please!

Pigeon foot walking is just the beginning of my commute frustrations, though. Old ladies and men also block the stairs constantly, and they get huffy if you accidentally brush by them. Yet they ram through crowds to get a seat or block doors on subway trains. Moreover, when they walk up or down steps, one would expect them to be walking near the sides where the handrails are, in case they'd fall or need a rest. But no! They walk down the middle of the steps, which is where the faster and more able-bodied are supposed to tread.

It's gotten to the point that I just don't care anymore about crowd courtesy. I'm a gaijin (foreigner), which automatically makes me weird and rude in the eyes of the Japanese. So I've decided to embrace this and take the mentality of a New Yorker: "Move it buster, or you're gonna get hit!"

Sorry, but I just can't be a perfect creature of international understanding, outreach and harmony all the time. I got a job to do here, and I have to get to work on time (which is hugely important here in Japan.) Save the pigeon antics for someone who gives a shit!

Maybe a solution to this problem is to scatter birdseed and/or Metamucil on the stairs to get the pigeon-footed and elderly out of the way. That should stop 'em in their tracks!

A Tsunami of Paper

So Japan's this place of awesome, futuristic electronics, where everything so convenient because of technology. After all, the country exports some of the finest consumer electronics, and there's stuff here that US consumers won't be able to buy for at least another year.

This suggests that Japan is moving towards a "paper-less society", right?

WRONG!

I couldn't believe it, but this country is soooooo paper-based it's ridiculous. People here love paper, and they aren't headed towards a "paperless society" anytime soon. (In this regard, I definitely feel the US is way ahead of Japan.)

Let me give you an example: A guy from the electric company reads my meter every month, and he leaves a slip of paper listing how much electricity I used during the month and exactly what my bill will be when it arrives in the mail the following week. Then I get a paper bill in the mail from the electric company, which includes a fold-out perforated strip that is necessary for the payment process. (The amount on this bill is identical to the meter-reader's slip. So why the need to double-up?)

I take this bill with the perforated strip to a convenience store, and they carefully tear off the strip, and stamp different parts of this strip about four times. Then the slip is ripped apart into smaller slips, which are filed in special bins behind the counter.

These little slips are sent from the store (probably using a paper envelope) to the electric company as proof of my payment. To top it off, I get a flyer listing energy saving tips in the mail from the power company. (How much energy and trees could they have saved by NOT requiring so much paperwork?) Then the whole process starts over again the next month. (Ditto for the gas and water companies too!)

Granted, some bills you can have directly withdrawn from a bank account, but others you have to go through this silly paper-based payment process. But even when you do get bills directly withdrawn, the utilities STILL send you paperwork in the mail, notifying you of how much and when they'll deduct from your account.

Oh, by the way, if you forget that perforated strip when you show up at the convenience store to pay a bill (but have all the other paperwork in oder) you're shit out of luck. Because the worker behind the counter has no paperwork to stamp, shuffle and file, you can't pay the bill, even if your account number is listed on other paperwork you brought along. They have to have their damn papers to do anything around here!

In Japan, you have to collect and save all kinds of little papers as you go about your day. When I get on the JR train in the morning, for instance, I have to go to a machine and use a plastic card pre-loaded with money to buy a - you guessed it - PAPER ticket to ride the train.

Unlike the subway, which reads a plastic, reusable card pre-loaded with money, turnstiles at train stations only accept these tiny paper tickets (which are so easy to lose when you're in a rush, BTW). When I get off the train, I stick this little paper ticket into the exit turnstile and it "eats" it. Or, alternatively, a lady collects them by hand and then does God Knows What with them later. (She probably counts them, sorts them, and sends them back to JR headquarters!)

You can watch TV on your cell phone here, but you can't buy a train ticket or pay your bills electronically. What kind of a "futuristic society" is this? Oh, and I forgot one of the BIGGEST paper-based hassles here: cash!

ATMs actually have hours in Japan. They open at 9AM and close after 9PM in some cases. And then they charge about US$1 if you use them outside of regular bank hours, which are horribly inconvenient and last typically from 9:30AM-4PM. (People WORK, dammit, and they have lives!) You can always use an ATM to get cash at a 24 hour convenience store, but those ATMs have heftier fees, and they don't accept every kind of bank card.

Again, the point is that you have to have PAPER to buy stuff here, as there are comparatively few vendors that take debit cards or credit cards. If you need to buy something unexpectedly and it's after banking hours, you have to pay a fee or wait. (I really don't get the whole cash-and-carry system, except maybe for the fact that it's totally safe here to carry around the equivalent of US$1,000 in your wallet.)  But ATM hours? Come on! ATMS ARE FUCKING MACHINES! They don't need coffee breaks, and they don't need to work an eight-hour day. They should be open 24/7!

I guess this rant is about me missing my electronic banking and payment world back home. I almost never carried cash, and I did most of my banking and bill-paying electronically. But here I'm drowning in a tsunami of small paper slips, and it just doesn't make sense to me. Why do I have to stamp a paper with my personal seal? Why do the convenience store clerks have to tear apart so many little papers and stamp them four times? Why can't I pay for my groceries with a debit card? And why do so many trees have to die?

I swear, if the Japanese could make a robot out of paper, they would. And its function would probably be to sort papers.

Domo arigato Mr. Roboto!

Ainu Rights

Here's an issue I've long been interested in, even before visiting Japan for the first time in 2005: Ainu rights. Check out this article from the Japan Times Online.

It deals with so many things that are issues up here in Hokkaido. I thought it's pretty interesting that the liberal courts here in Sapporo recognized them as an indigenous people, and that Japan may play this chip to get Russia to return four islands off the northeast coast of Hokkaido. Also, I think I met Mr. Tadashi when I popped my head into the Ainu Cultural Center here in Sapporo two months ago.

Here's the full article:

Saturday, Oct. 13, 2007

GOVERNMENT NOT PERSUADED

Ainu hope U.N. move aids indigenous status quest

By KEIJI HIRANO

Kyodo News

For Tadashi Kato, the U.N. General Assembly adoption of a declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples around the world after more than 20 years of debate was long-awaited good news.

 

Tadashi Kato, chief of the Ainu Association of Hokkaido, speaks during a recent meeting with a Diet lawmaker in Tokyo. Kato is lobbying for state recognition of the Ainu as an indigenous people. KYODO PHOTO

"The declaration will enable us, the Ainu, to restore our way of life and our culture," said the 68-year-old chief of the Ainu Association of Hokkaido, in expectation that the declaration will help boost his campaign to promote public awareness of Ainu and improve their living and educational standards.

The nonbinding declaration adopted Sept. 13 outlines the collective and individual rights of an estimated 370 million indigenous people, including the right to be free from discrimination, the right to self-determination, and the right to maintain their own political, legal, economic, social and cultural institutions, while retaining the ability to participate in the same institutions in their respective states.

Based on the declaration, Kato envisions that the Ainu, as the indigenous people of Hokkaido, will be allowed to use national and prefectural forests there on a priority basis for their traditional ceremonies and hunting.

He also expects the government to set up a special support framework for the Ainu to boost their education, which is key to improving their living standards.

The problem, however, is that the government, which voted in favor of the declaration, refuses to give the Ainu indigenous status, with then Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura telling reporters after the vote, "Japan has not yet concluded that the Ainu are an indigenous people partly because an international consensus has not been reached over the definition of 'indigenous people.' "

"We are not seeking the return of our land or independence from Japan," the leader of the largest Ainu group said. "We hope the government will apologize for depriving us of our land, culture and language by recognizing us as indigenous people."

Under the government's assimilation policies and a lack of consideration for their ethnicity, the Ainu have led underprivileged lives.

According to research conducted by Hokkaido last year, about 23,800 Ainu are estimated to live in the prefecture, of whom 3.83 percent are on welfare, compared with 2.46 percent of other residents of Hokkaido.

The advancement rates for Ainu in high schools stands at 93.5 percent and in colleges 17.4 percent, compared with 98.3 percent and 38.5 percent for other residents, the survey showed.

Around a third of Ainu people have experienced discrimination personally or against other members of their ethnic group, according to the research.

While serving for 18 years as a counselor at the request of the Hokkaido town of Shiraoi, Kato met many Ainu who had given up trying for higher education due mainly to financial difficulties. "I could only recommend that they acquire life skills other than those based on academic performance," he said.

Encouraged by his own bitter experience and the U.N. declaration, Kato now flies frequently from Hokkaido to Tokyo to lobby for state recognition of the Ainu as an indigenous people.

Although a law to preserve Ainu culture was enacted in 1997, Kato noted it does not provide direct support for their lives.

"As a way to make up for the economic gap between the Ainu and other citizens, we need, as a first step, to seek state recognition as an indigenous people," Kato said while on a trip to Tokyo for meetings with bipartisan lawmakers.

Although the government recognizes the Ainu as an "ethnic minority" and not an indigenous people, the Sapporo District Court recognized their indigenous status in a 1997 ruling on the government's expropriation of land plots for a dam project.

The court determined that the expropriation was illegal because the government had failed to take into consideration the culture of the Ainu as an indigenous minority, but it rejected the demand of the Ainu plaintiffs, who had sought the nullification of the seizure of their land, on grounds that the dam had been completed.

Hideaki Uemura, professor of human and social studies at Keisen University, said the Ainu will be considered an interested party, for example, in talks over large-scale development projects in Hokkaido or in territorial talks between Tokyo and Moscow over four Russia-held islands off Hokkaido, if they are recognized as an indigenous people.

The Ainu claim indigenous rights to all of the Kuril islands, including the four disputed islands, and are urging Tokyo and Moscow to take their legal status and rights in the islands into consideration in bilateral negotiations.

"State recognition will increase the amount of administrative work in various fields, but we need to reverse our way of thinking in order to guarantee their fundamental rights," Uemura said. "For example, public servants tolerated the increase in their work when women's suffrage was approved."

"The government's stance on human rights is called into question when the international community has to keep a close watch on how Japan deals with the Ainu," added Uemura, who is also president of the Citizens' Diplomatic Center for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Following the U.N. adoption of the declaration, seven international nongovernmental organizations, including Amnesty International, urged all states to "work in good faith to implement in their domestic law and practice this vitally important and long overdue human rights instrument."

They also called in their joint statement on all states "to seize the historic opportunity presented by adoption of the declaration to enter into a new relationship with indigenous peoples based on a principled commitment to the protection of human rights."

Kato now expects the government to allow the Ainu to perform a traditional ceremony in front of the leaders of the Group of Eight major economies when they meet at a lake-resort in Hokkaido next year, in order to pray for the success of the summit.

"I hope to declare our existence to the world leaders when they visit our indigenous land," Kato said. "And it will be a good opportunity for the Japanese government to introduce us as an indigenous people to them."

 

No Shame in Hard Work

So I'm sitting here this morning in the teachers' room, and the janitor empties the trash and dry mops the floor every morning during the teachers' meeting. He's a really nice guy and, unlike in America, the staff don't look down upon him simply because he's a janitor. We all say hello to him and he hangs out with the teachers as a member of the group.

In America, people who clean toilets, serve fast food, or perform some other kind of routine service are generally regarded as low class "simpletons" who "didn't bother to go to college" or "do something" with their lives. Moreover, these workers tend to be cheap labor Latino immigrants who work for next to nothing. This supposedly keeps prices low for the middle and upper classes and "keeps America competitive."

Here in Japan they don't have a Mexican or Canadian border. And there are no "boat people" from North Korea or elsewhere. So JAPANESE PEOPLE actually perform cleaning tasks, etc., and they're PAID A LIVING WAGE to do so! (see also: Canada, most of Western Europe and Scandinavia.) Imagine that, America!  Imagine white people cleaning toilets and mopping floors. (It used to be that way in until the 1960s).

The thing that really strikes me is the social price Americans pay for cheap, imported labor. Cheap labor means a wage race to the bottom, and nobody is very well off, except for those who consume the services or goods made by cheap labor. (I'll spare you the Marx vs. Adam Smith argument for now, but suffice to say there's a cultural card being played here too, big time.)

In the USA, you have classes of people who look down upon those who perform "mundane" service jobs. For instance, being a janitor isn't a very glamorous job title, and people (sometimes subtlety, sometimes not so subtlety) treat janitors and others differently simply because of what they do for a living. (read a real life janitor story here)

Now, not all Americans are mean towards janitors, but I'm starting to realize just how much our economic and social systems are rigged. The rigging manifests itself directly and indirectly. For example, people don't often say hello to janitors in the morning, or to feel powerful they'll order them around. Indirectly, it's unlikely a US employer would hire someone with janitorial experience for a desk job position, even if that person's looking to change their career path. They often remain stuck with a job stigma that's hard to wipe from their record. Their only hope is that the next generation will "make it" and help them out when they get old.

Through the lens of Japan, I'm finding out how much the US system is stacked against certain people and job titles. It's being done to supposedly maintain the economic status quo and keep prices low. (Example: "Always Low Prices. Always" = Walmart's slogan) In Japan, people just work harder and longer hours, and they don't design, build or do anything half-assed.

At my school, our janitor is greeted each morning, and there's not much of a social stigma attached to his job title. The Japanese mentality is "there's no shame in hard work." And I'm also struck by the fact that the Japanese actually pay janitors and fast food people a LIVING WAGE. This is probably because there's no cheap labor pool here to dip into, and the labor supply is more fixed and is socially-conscious.

Some people argue that living wages inflate the prices of all things. This is true to an extent, but over time prices and wages correct and equalize, which is exactly how free markets are supposed to work. Yes, Japan's a little more expensive overall than the US (depending on your point of view), but I'm doing just fine here living off a teacher's salary. Some things are cheaper here, while others are more expensive, but it all evens out in the end. 

The US essentially has an "open border" economic policy, meaning there's almost no turning back to the way things used to be. To remain competitive, the US has to keep importing cheap labor from its neighbors. As long as cheap labor continues to flood into the country, social rifts will continue to widen and classes will feel even more divided.

Japan has a less-pointed socioeconomic divide. Take for instance a recent survey, which found that 89.7 percent of Japan's population considers themselves middle class. Of that 89.7 percent, 9.7 percent consider themselves upper-middle class, 53.8 percent said middle-middle class and 26.2 said percent lower-middle class. Meanwhile just 0.9 percent identified themselves as upper class and 7.2 percent said they are in the lower class.

According to sociologists William Thompson and Joseph Hickey, the US spread is more like: 30+ percent lower/working class, 48 percent middle class, and 5 percent upper class. (Not to mention the myriad of other class types out there, such as "The Working Poor," "The Destitute," and the "Super Rich.") This figure has only widened over the last few decades, in lock step with illegal immigration and other uniquely American economic factors.

I can't help but wonder if this rift be a result of US (illegal) immigration policy? Or is just that our society is more classicist and divisive in general?(A myth propagated for many years was that America is supposedly a "classless" society. But that's obviously bullshit.)

I don't have the answer, but it's refreshing to know that in some places in the world, like Japan, hard work is still rewarded and respected, no matter what the job may entail. And I'm also realizing that illegal immigration isn't a prescription for economic vitality and strength. 

What really matters is how you treat and pay people for the hard work they do. Because I believe that a good deed, a good wage, or just plain old good manners will eventually come back to you tenfold.

A Few Realizations

I read (or rather heard on my iPod) something very insightful today. I know this sounds out of the blue and deep, but it made me think about Japanese society and how well-ordered it is.

For proper context, here's an awesome excerpt from the book Choke by Chuck Palahniuk:

"People have been working so many years to make the world a safe, organized place. Nobody realized how boring it would become. With a whole world property-lined, and speed-limited and zoned, and taxed and regulated. With everyone tested and registered and addressed, and recorded. Nobody had left much room for adventure, except maybe the kind you could buy: on a roller-coaster, at a movie.

But still it would always be that kind of faux excitement. You know the dinosaurs aren't going to eat the kids. The test audiences have outvoted any chance of even a minor faux disaster. And because there's no possibility of real disaster, real risk, we're left with no real chance for salvation, real elation. Real excitement, joy, discovery, invention.

The laws that keep us safe, these same laws condemn us to boredom. Without access to true chaos, we'll never have true peace. Unless everything can get worse, it won't get better.

'The only frontier you have left is the world of intangibles. Everything else is sewn up too tight; caged inside too many laws.' By intangibles, she meant the Internet, movies, music, stories, art, rumors, computer programs. Anything that isn't real. Virtual reality, make believe stuff, the culture.

The unreal is more powerful than the real, because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because it's only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last.

Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on.

'And if you can change the way people think,' she said, 'the way they see themselves, the way they see the world, if you can do that you can change the way people live their lives. And that's the only lasting thing you can create.'" Besides, at some point your memories, thoughts and adventures will be the only things you'll have left."

If you've ever been to Japan before, then you know that everything's in order as much as possible. Trash is meticulously separated. Trains run on time. (except for when people throw themselves in front of these trains everyday to end their boring lives. But the thing that upsets people most about these incidents is that the person disrupted train schedules for everybody that day.)

In many ways, Japan is a safe "bubble" where people live out their lives peacefully. Many Japanese haven't travelled abroad before, and when they do, they go in groups or buy some all-inclusive "safe" tourist package at some resort in Thailand. (sound familiar, suburban America?)

I see elements of the bubble everyday in the schools here too. Girls start hyperventilating in class for seemingly no medical reason, which sets off a chain reaction among the weaker-minded girls in the classroom. This happened to me today at lunch, as one girl flipped out and caused a psycho-somatic chain reaction among one of the girls at my lunch table. There was no real threat to cause this. For example, I highly doubt the girl had to worry about getting shot on the way home from school, or where her next meal would come from.

All I had to do to calm down the girl sitting next to me was to speak English to her, and she totally forgot about her "affliction".

With some exceptions, the Japanese like their adventure (and even nature) controlled. In Daisetsuzan National Park, for instance, many of the mountains have man-made concrete retaining walls. Trails are blazed pretty wide, and you can tell that mankind has left its mark on the forests, trails, and practically everywhere else in the park. There are no wild forests like in America or Canada, and it's hard to get a true sense of adventure or find virgin forests.

There are also so many laws and rules that are designed to keep people safe and subdued. But what this ends up doing over a lifetime is breeding people who are sometimes bored out of their minds because there's no adventure. Just lots of work and long hours. And breaking the rules here just sucks, so being a rebel doesn't really have much point either: Everybody knows that everyone else will just end up conforming anyway. It's an inevitable process...

So that leaves one cool place for the human mind to hang out here in Japan: culture, art, manga, writing, music, etc. The Japanese take these intangibles very seriously, and it shows. It's also one of the reasons why you see women dressed in kimono riding the subway, and why the tea ceremony is still done here. It's all about passing down ideas and traditions from a long time ago, and is less about big apartments and lots of material things.

Still, I'm reminded of one thing I really value in American culture: our sense of adventure and vitality. American's don't live in a very safe, or even clean country compared with Japan. There is chaos, and there are many Americans who live in ghettos and have to watch their backs and their kids' backs. We have homeless on the streets. And there is a huge disparity between rich and poor.

But take most Americans and plop them into a difficult situation, chances are they'll fight their way out or find a way to make things better. This is because we're bred to embrace, rather than shy away from adventure. It's hard to put this into words (and there are many examples of the opposite and how our nation's mentality about this is changing), but if you're an American who's been to Japan or Singapore before, you'll probably understand what I mean.

In contrast, the Japanese mentality is to give up or exit the situation by any means possible and return to "the group". I'm not going to get into the whole "maybe this is a result of the post-war period", but suffice to say that people really do get lost in the herd here.

What the Japanese need to start asking themselves now is whether or not their myriad of rules and cultural regulations do more harm than good over a person's life span. Why else do you think suicide rates are higher here? And why do they work such long, hard hours? Could it be that there's nothing else to do, or that it keeps people out of trouble?

In Japan I've been asked by students what my greatest fear is. My answer is always the same: "I'm afraid of living a boring life." This is something I hope they'll pick up on and seriously think about. The Japanese are not cogs in a giant social machine, because individuality is alive and well here. But they need to realize and embrace a sense of adventure and understand when enough rules and regulations are enough. Americans would do well to heed this advice too, before it's too late and our spirit for adventure, experimentation and hard work slips away from us.

The Tea Lady Speaks!

On the way home on the train today I realized something: Outside of really basic English in the classroom, I don't speak English with anyone for the majority (if not all) of my work day.

Now I know this might seem trite to rural JETs because they're often very "kanji-ed" in at their towns and schools. They really have it much harder than I do because they can't just walk over to the next building and have a conversation with another fluent English speaker.

Anyway, I realized that the only real sentences I spoke in English today were:

"Hello. How are you?"  "I'm fine, thanks. And you?" "What time do you go to school?" "I get up at 5:45AM"

Outside of this, I read aloud the months of the year and some numbers.

So when the kind, sweet tea lady came over to my desk around 3:30 today to speak with me, I was thrilled! She and I spoke once before, and her English is good, but she speaks very slowly and thinks about every word before she says it. Despite this, I was just so happy to have some one to speak with in English, even if it wasn't fluent English.

She asked me about my weekend, told me what she did, and then we talked about plans for next weekend. This simple banter just made my day, and I can already tell her English is improving. And when she does speak a few sentences in Japanese to me, she's the type of person I can actually UNDERSTAND! :-)

I hope tea lady and I will keep this up while I'm at Shinoro Jr. High.

Here are some song lyric's that I just happen to be listening to as I write this post at fit this situation. They come from the song "Confusion" by Electric Light Orchestra:

Everywhere the sun is shining.
All around the world it's shining.
But cold winds blow across your mind.
Confusion: it's such a terrible shame.
Confusion: you don't know what you're sayin'.
You've lost your love and you just can't carry on.
You feel there's no-one there for you to lean on.

Lunchtime!

Food and eating is a big, big deal here in Japan, especially in schools. Teachers and students often eat together, and old-school lunch ladies cook up huge vats of food for the students and teachers. Unfortunately for me, the lunches often include meat, so I cannot eat them. This upsets the "wa" slightly, so it becomes a big spectacle when I bring my own lunch and eat it alongside the students. I do not bring extravagant foods for lunch, yet the kids oooo and ahhh over my simple soba noodles because it's something different from what they're all eating.

I have to admit, I don't enjoy eating lunch with the students because of the hyperactivity surrounding my "differentness". Also they sit me in front of everyone, like some object to gawk at. And most of the kids either don't have the English ability/confidence to speak with me, or they're too busy shoving food down their throats during the short 20 minutes they're allotted for lunch. So I kinda feel at a loss.

Eating lunch with the students has taught me a lot about Japanese society, however. The whole group mentality (where everyone helps out, waits until all have been served, and cleans up together) is VERY apparent in the lunch ritual. I would not have understood this so quickly if I had elected to eat lunch by myself in the teachers room. (also school uniforms add to this, as nobody looks richer or poorer in school.)

My second day of lunch went better than the first, partly because I just embraced and flaunted the fact that I'm different and don't eat the same food as the students do. But getting them to speak English was still like pulling teeth. So I've got to come up with a better lunchtime eating/teaching strategy...

Here are some photos of lunch time: