matsuri and stuff

Well its been another good amount of time since my last blog so its time to write some more. Since last thing the first thing that was really big was I went to Ebisu Matsuri on Sunday. It was incredibly crowded something like 700,000 people went on the busiest day. I took some interesting pictures but I was more interested in the side booths then the actual temple. All sorts of different foods and carnival esq games. I kept thinking about trying one of the lottery type ones because they have a box for a wii and ps3 so its like you “could” win them but since its $3 a try and the boxes look REALLY old so its probably impossible to actually win them.

Monday I went to the 20 year old celebration with my friends. There were tons of really pretty kimonos, and everyone was so dressed up. My friends said its kind of like the Japanese prom, the way everyone gets all fancy. I wasn't planning on going in because it seemed like they were taking tickets but after my friends left I ran into the missionaries and they were going in and it seemed like it was all right. The ceremony was kind of boring but it was one of those once in a life time things you have to do just because.

The rest of the week went by pretty event less I think. It seems like I'm going to have a really easy semester despite having 3 non language classes. Cinema is taught by possibly the single most laid back (lazy) teacher in the history of the world so we just have to turn in 4 short papers about the movies we watched. Religion is a pretty boring class because we just fill in the blanks in class for the most part but last time he showed some pictures of stuff which made things more interesting. But for that class all we have is mid term final and one paper. Education might be the only class that is close to being a “real” class because we have a paper that requires 5 sources but the thing with this class is it just talks about the Japanese stereotypes. Not like how they are bad but talking about them as if they are true.

I have to take a little detour to rant about this for a bit. In Japanese studies there is a thing called nihonjin ron, or basicly an argument or debate about Japanese people. This is characterized by setting Japan up as a very unique culture and how it is infinitely different from the West. The problem is that this idea is maintained by both Westerners and Japanese people. For example many times I have heard, Japan has four seasons Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn. But its like thats the same as everywhere in the entire world. And in the education class we watched a video about Japan and it talked about the Japanese way of eating and it showed people in kimonos sitting Japanese style on tatami mats eating off the floor, but the reality is that no one in Japan does that. And in the book for education class, which by the way quoted a source from 40 years ago, talks in such strong absolutes that all Japanese people think in this specific way, its all just really annoying. Another example is Akira Kurosawa was really thought to not make movies for Japanese audiences simply because his movies won awards internationally. Because if Westerners like something then its not Japanese.

On Saturday I took Emily and Julienne to Den Den Town because they wanted to find non pornographic dojinshin, let me tell that is no easy task. Hentai is so big here its really scarry, which I think I'll just leave it at that. I'm trying not to spend too much money or atleast refrain from buying anime goods because I've ran out of room here and if I really want to display everything back home, I'm out of room there too so its a no go. Also like I really need to get working on my Gundam models. I haven't been doing too much because I've been trying to read more manga in my free time (which I found a series I really like and I'm on book 5 now) and also I want to spray paint some of them but I need a day that is not too cold, not raining, not windy and I'm home during day light so its been a no go lately. I got a few that are metalic coating and I just started the last of them and I have really mixed reactions about them. One model had the model specifically built for the metalic coating (ie there is no regular version) so on the runners they are in a way that you can snap it off with out cutting into the coated part. The others however have regular models so no matter what you do you have a black spot where the frame was. And I tried painting it over with a color that wouldn't stand out too much and it instantly ate the coating so any mistake and its ruined. But the other hand is that the metallic looks so cool so its a trade off.

Ok so here I want to rant about the konan program a bit, so bear with me. I know I'm in Japan and its an incredibly opportunity and I'm doing all that I can to take advantage of it and experience as much as I can, but when I decided I wanted to study abroad I was looking forward to two things, the first is to make a lot of Japanese friends and the second is to become really good at Japanese. Pretty much exactly in the middle of the program, I feel both of those things are not going to happen. Starting off its just so hard to make Japanese friends. The start of which, and really the only part I can blame the program for, is that we are completely separated from the Japanese students. Apparently other programs, granted not all of them, have the ryugakusei take normal Japanese classes but offer a small prep class beforehand so the students know what to expect this would be really tough but you would actually be a student at that college not just someone doing a program that takes place inside that college. Add in the fact that the Japanese students will soon be gone for two months as their calendar is completely different and it just feels impossible. However it isn't impossible to “meet” people but rather making friends is a whole different story. Many times when I try to hang out with someone I always get some excuse, so much so that it makes me not want to even try. Even if they are legitimate I think a friend should be someone who hangs out atleast once every 3 weeks, espically for students. And the bout about becoming good at Japanese is really all dependent on making friends. Japan is a country that is very easy to get by without ever having to speak Japanese. All of the signs are in English, enough people study it that you could find a clerk that speaks it, and EVERYONE assumes you don't know Japanese at all so they try and avoid you. There is a guy at church who came here about a year ago with his wife as an English teacher and he wanted to get to the point where he could translate but he doesn't have any Japanese friends and ended up just speaking English with his wife and now feels his Japanese is worse then before. So point is Japan is a country that doesn't try to assimilate foreigners , like America is, so a good foreign exchange program should take that into consideration.

Oh yeah and I'm thinking about going with some of the ryugakusei to Korea sometime before I head home. I bet Melissa would be pretty jealous.