Pedestrian Rage

I'm taking a little break from my tonsil adventures to revisit an old topic I covered in my Four Biggest Aggravations of Japan. There has since been some rearranging and I decided my number four ranked aggravation has shot up to number one: "Nobody Pays Attention While Walking". Actually it shot way past one. Putting it on a list of aggravations is like putting Jack Nicholson from The Shining on a list of people with a case of the Mondays.

I'm a pretty happy guy. My emotions stay level and I never lose my temper. Yet whenever I'm outside and walking in Japan I am constantly angry. And not just a little T.O.ed, I'm talking a barely contained simmering rage. Why is this? NOBODY PAYS ATTENTION WHILE WALKING. Actually, that's not fair. I can't make such a broad sweeping generalization about a society. I'll be generous and say half the people don't pay attention while walking. Meaning 50% of the population are pedestrian inept, sidewalk novices, incompetent at strolling, and jerks. In video game terms, they have poor path-finding.

The other day I was making my weekly trek to Tsutaya to rent some DVDs. As usual, people weren't paying attention, but that's OK. When I see someone down the block walking towards me on one side of the sidewalk while they are engrossed in a novel, I always move to the other side. I don't mind getting out of the way of people with everything being equal. But there are some times when I refuse to move out of someone's way. One of those times is when a precedent has been set:

Diagram 1

As you can see in diagram 1, me and the Green Guy are simply walking down the block like two normal human beings about to pass each other. Jerk Salaryman isn't aligned with either of us, but that's OK. He can keep walking straight and we'll still be able to pass without trouble, though a bit close, or he could take a step over and fall in line with Green Guy thereby making this problem free. Green Guy passes me which set the precedent. Everyone now should walk on their left!

Diagram 2

I've been here long enough to know better than to assume people will simply use their senses to take in information, process that information, and decide on what logical action to take. So I looked at Jerk Salaryman to see what he would do. We briefly made eye contact at which point he ignored the precedent and did not take the only two options available. In diagram 2 you can see instead he fell in line with me and began to look absolutely anywhere except straight ahead. He exaggeratedly examined signs, looked straight up at the sky, straight down at his shoes, and in general made a big show of how he was not paying attention.

This is unacceptable.

Similar things happen every time I'm out walking but this time, for once I am sure, was absolutely on purpose. I refused to move over and continued to look right at him as he pretended to not notice that I existed. As we were about to collide he finally relented, looked at me, and stepped out of the way. I glared at him. And that was it. But that wasn't it! I was still angry! Angrier than I had been in a long time. And it was mostly from confusion. WHY DO THAT? Why purposely walk at someone, pretend to not pay attention, and try to get them to move out of your way? Why does this sort of thing happen so often? I replayed that brief couple of seconds in my head as I walked, this time grabbing him, shaking him, and demanding an answer. Why do you and your ilk do this?! I must know what thought process can end with trying to make simply walking down the sidewalk difficult!

Even if I had imagined the part in the beginning where we made eye contact and he really was oblivious to my existence, he still inexplicably moved to one side of the sidewalk without first checking if anyone was there. At best he deserves to go to foot-traffic court and lose his walker's license for such a grievous moving violation.

The most frustrating part about all of this is there is nothing I can do about it. I can't adapt now and purposely not pay attention. I'd feel like a jerk if I was always playing chicken to see who could pay attention the least. Also, not watching where you're going seems awfully dangerous.

Anyway, am I alone in getting angry about this? When I'm out walking I feel like the last bastion of sanity on the sidewalk but they say crazy people think everyone else is crazy so... maybe I am! Maybe people see me and say, "look at that maniac, using his eyes in order to avoid obstacles. What a loon!"

Please comment on my sanity below.

(I like turtles.)

A Complete Partial Guide to Being Vegetarian in Japan

Hello readers and readresses. My name is Dylan Southard. I’m originally from Spokane, Washington (if you’ve never been there or even heard of it, feel confident that you are part of a vast majority of people, with the power to crush us Spokanites with but a wave of your collective hand) and originally moved to Japan in 2004 to teach English as part of the JET Program. I am currently a graduate student at Osaka University and vocalist for the band 異邦の客 [Ihounokyaku] or “Strangers in a Strange Land” (plug: www.ihounokyaku.com).

Adapting to daily life in a new country can be a trying process. Even the most trifling endeavor is potentially rife with slip-ups and misunderstandings, like a mini-car packed full of giant humiliation-inducing clowns. This is especially true if one has peculiar non-negotiable dietary restrictions, such as vegetarianism or space madness. Being subject to the former, I found that becoming acclimated to gastronomic life in Japan (a country that has fewer vegetarians than it has species of animal on an average restaurant menu) was a challenge, to say the least. Most of what I learned I discovered through trial (attempting to decipher lists of ingredients, explaining to people my situation, etc.) and error (the inevitable result of most of my early trials). Thus, I’ve decided to compile a not-nearly comprehensive guide for those herbivores who are currently struggling with this problem, or who have made plans to do so in the future.

As we all know, meat does not always make its presence known. Sure, often times it comes in the form of a 4lb T-bone steak or in a can labeled “SPAM”. However, it can just as easily be a silent enemy, lurking in the broth of your favorite restaurant’s veggie noodle soup or hiding behind monosythiumdioxatenfraven in an ingredient list the size of a novella. This little inconvenience is compounded by the fact that some 70% of Japanese food contains pork extract. Now, depending on how strict a vegetarian you are, this can pose quite a problem, especially if your speaking and reading abilities don’t quite measure up to your firm ethical resolve. Taking this into account, it is time to lay out one of the grim hard realities of living in a foreign country. You will probably eat meat. At one point or another you are going to unintentionally ingest something that once bore legs, eyes, wings and, quite likely, tentacles. In order to minimize this sort of unpleasant experience, here are some tips to keep you from going omnivore when the going gets rough.

1) Understand what the Japanese mean by the word “meat”.

Being the good vegetarian you are, I’m going to assume you have, regardless of your Japanese ability, probably learned the word for meat (niku). This word is quite useful when referring to slabs of mammal flesh, but notsomuch when it comes to our fine-feathered friends or those scaly sea goers. Often you must specify chickens and other birds (tori), fish (sakana), and shellfish (kai) as being apocryphal to the cannon of foods that make up your shopping list, as well. It is also important to keep in mind that these words often exclude certain meaty products based on how they were prepared. Upon arriving in Japan, my coworkers were shocked to discover that my being a vegetarian also meant that I also couldn’t eat foods containing meat extract. Just remember, Japan is a country with next to no vegetarians, so be specific. As a side note, be ready to explain your reasons for being vegetarian, as you will most likely be doing it a lot. Because there are so few veggies in Japan, people tend ask a lot of questions. This may seem like you’re being challenged at first, but I’ve found that most people are just curious or want to be accommodating.

2) Learn to ask.

If you are living in Japan and expect to enjoy the companionship and absence of crippling suicidal loneliness that come with having a social life, you will end up eating out A LOT. In almost any restaurant it is imperative that you ask before you order! Assumptions made in this department can lead to either and empty stomach or an empty wallet. I kid you not; you may order a single sprig of parsley, only to have it reach your table slathered in bacon grease and lodged into the center of a pork chop. I hyperbolate here only slightly, and only to make the point that no matter how vegetarian something may seem on the menu, ask anyways. In Japanese, it’s as simple as:

“(whatever food) wa niku ga haiteimasu ka?”

Remember; ask about meat extract, as well! Just replace the word niku with niku ekisu. (See section above for other things that are often not considered to be meat).

3) Learn some basic kanji

Grocery shopping in a foreign country (especially one with an unfamiliar writing system) can be a daunting task for anyone, let alone for someone with a specific diet. In regards to what you eat, learning a few important kanji can mean the difference between a crisp juicy apple and a bag full of pig anuses (kudos to anyone who catches the UCB reference). Here are a few of the most important ones:

原材料名 (genzairyoumei)—ingredients

牛 (ushi/gyuu)— cow

豚 (buta)— pig

鳥 (tori)—bird (note: usually any kanji that contains this radical [e.g. 鶏／鳩] is a type of bird.)

魚 (sakana)—fish (see note about bird)

チキン (chikin)ーchicken

ビーフ (biifu)ーbeef

ポーク(po-ku)ーpork

肉 (niku)—meat

エキス (ekisu)ーextract

豚の肛門 (buta no koumon)—pig anuses

There you have it. This is by no means the definitive guide to vegetarianism in the Land of the Rising Sun; but I hope, a good start. I’ve also included a couple other resources below. Gambatte!

Tengu Natural foods

http://www.alishan.jp/shop/nfoscomm/catalog/

What can I say? They’re awesome. Great service, excellent selection, and 100% vegetarian (a lot of vegan stuff as well).

A Guide to Being (and Remaining) Vegetarian in Japan

Available through Hyogo Ajet (http://ajet.net/lang/en/ajet-publications/#veg). I got this book from a very dear friend as a Christmas present, and it’s been invaluable. Tips, Recipes, you name it. Good stuff.

A Great Place to Visit #2

"Joe, what was it like to come to Japan for the first time?" Excellent question, Internet. There's hope for you yet. Let's take a trip back in time to the spring of my youth, 2003. My sister had flown west to work in the east. Well, 'work' is a strong word. She was also a part of the same shady Japanese government sponsored English teaching program that I am now. Coincidently so is the mysterious Paul, the man who hosts my blog ramblings. While I was in high school I took a little 11 hour flight to visit my sister over Christmas and spend two weeks in the mythical land of Japan. It's difficult to explain what it's like to go to a different country for the first time. I mean, an actual foreign country. I've been to Canada before, which was just a car ride away and everyone there speaks English. Also I've been to French-Canada, which was just a car ride away and everyone speaks French (and English). Now in Japan, no one speaks English. Well, some people do, but they are completely random. Head concierge at swanky international business hotel? No English. Drunk salaryman peeing in traffic? English whiz (ha!). Also this was the first time in my life I couldn't read any signs. The first time in my white, middle-class existence that I was not the target of every ad. Toothpaste or hemorrhoid cream? A mystery with a terrible ending.

I arrived in Tokyo and since it was only going to be for 2 nights my parents splurged and we stayed in the nicest hotel's cheapest rooms. The rooms themselves were great except it was like looking at a western hotel room through the wrong end of binoculars. The most interesting part to me was that the (tiny) beds didn't have the usual space between the side of the bed and the wall. Next to the bed was just wall. So a cross section would reveal bed, wall, then bathroom, which held the most confusing toilet I had seen so far in my 17 years. Every toilet in Japan is designed to government regulated standards which require everyone pass an IQ test before operating. No two flush the same way. Levers, buttons, switches, pulleys, infra-red motion sensors, voice activated command code required (one of those is a lie and it isn't the one you think). The flush is always in a different place as well, which tends to play out like Where's Waldo. Could it be attached to the toilet? Next to the toilet seat? Above the sink? Beside the red and white striped umbrella on the crowded beach?

After enjoying Tokyo and my first trip to a Japanese Denny's, which involved a lot of ordering by pointing to pictures in the menu and eating onion rings that were made of squid and not onion, we headed to my sister's town in inaka-land. Inaka is any place that you haven't heard of. So Tokyo, Kobe, Kyoto: not inaka. Saijou, Takatsuki, Sasayama: inaka. Only mountains, rice fields, and vending machines as far as the eye can see, which is to the closest mountain. As flashy as Tokyo is (imagine New York's Times Square if it spread like electric cancer), the best part of the trip was my sister's little town on the island of Shikoku. Did you read my parenthesis about Times Square? This was the inverse of that. At night it was as black and as terrifying as a giant Japanese crow. Actually I found the lack of street lights charming in a way that could easily lead to you carelessly breaking your ankle. The ambient light level wasn't what put this town on the map, though. That would be its water. Apparently people come from miles and/or kilometers around just to fill up big plastic jugs with fresh inaka water from the fountains throughout the town. They say it works like the Fountain of Youth, whereby drinking it you will look and feel younger. I think it's more likely that it's popular because it works like a Fountain of Free Water, whereby drinking it your are out zero yen. So this town's thing was water, but every town in Japan has its on unique thing going for it. Compared to the others, the water thing is actually neat, in my humble and correct opinion. After all, if we took away your water (and your Coke Zero and your near-beer) you would most likely die an arid death. Though possibly less necessary to life, other towns' source of fame ranges from the substantially more impressive: lighting a mountain on fire; to the inarguably less so: one of the town's train conductors is a cat and he wears a hat. I'll give you 100(!) yen if you can guess which gets more media coverage.

To wrap up the last highlight of the trip, I hung out with some of my sister's students who were about my age. This led to a fun day of me embarrassing my countrymen by getting destroyed in a western sport (bowling), getting confused while they tried to poorly explain the concept of puri-kura to me by calling it "tiny pictures" when in reality they are "tiny photographs" (ha! silly Japanese students!), and me throughly enjoying them piecing together things I said in English to use as insults against each other. Such as the harsh, "your HEART is DIRTY." Lastly they introduced me to my now favorite store on earth, Daiso. There you can buy anything for less than the price of a candy bar (even candy bars!). I got a cool beanie I wore 6 years later when I went snowboarding in Nagano. See, it came full-circle, or something.

So that was my first trip to Japan in its entirety. Actually I'm leaving out the trip to Kyoto, the center of Japan's cultural and spiritual heritage, but whatever. Here is where I get to the point of this article: Japan is a Great Place to Visit. I guess it's the same point as my last article, but this one differs in that I'm not saying it cynically. Japan is a Great Place to Visit. It's so different, so inaccessible, so intriguing. When you look down from a tiny hotel room in Tokyo and see a place that does such a good job of dazzling your eyes, you have to wonder what's going on back where you can't see. The glitz and the rice fields, the crows and the drunken salarymen. All that's on top. Many Japanese people believe, especially the lingering elderly generation, that a foreigner could never understand the true Japan. But, hell, maybe they're right. I mean, is your home town famous for a train driving cat? Yes? How about free water?

That's all for this entry. So savor it! And continue enjoying Paul's near daily updates.

A Great Place to Visit #1

My good friend Paul has kindly offered me the position of Minority Opinion Writer under contract on his popular web-log, Just Another Day in Japan. As for the contract, he didn't know but I mumbled my terms while we shook hands, a legally binding oral-contract in any country. Sadly except Japan I learned later ("The Legal Consciousness of Contract in Japan" Kawashima – <-- actual source cited). So here I am, no richer, drinking coffee, writing an article on a napkin with a stolen acquired ballpoint pen, about Japan, in Japan.

I have spent a good amount of time with these people, not unlike Grizzly Man with the Alaskan murder-bears. I don't mean that in a demeaning way, and as obvious as it may seem that I'm comparing Japanese people to bears, my intention is quite different. My point is that no matter how much time Timothy Treadwell spent in Alaska he was never accepted by the bears. Actually, if you don't know who that guy is you should probably fire up your Google right now and read his wiki or something because I'm going to keep going with this. He spent years there living far away from his friends and family while slowly growing closer and closer to the bears. Closer and closer to joining the bear “in group”. He spent so much time there he began to feel like a part of their bear community and even a part of their bear families. Many foreigners who come to Japan feel the same way. Then they get mauled. The difference here is that foreigners in Japan don't get heart-wrenching documentaries made about them. Also, they aren't so much 'mauled', as they are told by a Japanese person that I can't appreciate good coffee because in Japan “Amerikan” coffee = mild blend, for some incomprehensible reason. God damn bears.

Now let's get into the head of the collective Japanese. First, imagine a world where everything is the opposite of Grizzly Man. Actually, imagine the world of Rupert Bear (Google that wiki, homes!). I imagined living in Japan would be like that. Here I am, an anthropomorphic bear living with my various anthropomorphic friends and I'm going to move to the world of people. In my Rupert Bear world, not only would I be completely accepted, nobody would even comment on how I'm a bear, that I can do things such as speak people language, eat people food and use proper utensils. Sadly real life is very un-Rupert Bear. Imagine Rupert Bear moved into your neighborhood. Would you stare at him? Hell yeah you would! Your new neighbor's a bear! Would you be surprised when he said hello in English? You kidding me? It'd blow your mind! How about when he eats beef stroganoff with a knife and fork? You'd be all like, “Holy crap! That bear is eating beef stroganoff AND can somehow work a knife and fork with his giant, meaty paws!” Welcome to Japan, gaijin. Where everything you do creates wonder.

“But Joe!” You say, “YOU live there! It can't be all bad!” First off, I was getting to that so don't interrupt. Second, yes, it's not all bad. In fact, it can be quite awesome (no open bottle law? Yes please). True, nobody wants to sit next to a bear on the train, but because of this, bears definitely can get away with some stuff. Not enough money for a train ticket? Walk on through! Guy won't stop a bear! If he does stop you, speak some bear language at him. How long do you think he'll try to communicate with a bear before he feels silly and let's you lumber away? Now, you may think that this would just help perpetuate the myth that bears can't speak and act like normal people. You are correct, my cub. Honestly, I try to act like a functioning member of society 24x7. If only for the dream that one day I'll be able to drink my coffee without criticism. Still, I won't blame you if you pull this stuff. The difference here is that I do live here. You don't (well, most likely). And if you are somewhere across the sea there is still hope for you. Here is where I get to the point of this article: Japan is a Great Place to Visit. The country is clean, beautiful, and the food is awesome. Most importantly the people are ridiculously nice to guests. It's when you make the transition from 'guest' to 'guest who stays too long' that life gets tricky. If you've toyed with the idea of moving to Japan and want to know what you should do, I'm not going to make that decision for you. What I will do is give you a sample of my adventures in Japan through metaphor and witty rhetoric. If you decided to join me on this rock island, at least let me prepare you for what you won't see on your animes and read in your mangas, you otaku. So keep coming back and reading Paul's excellent blog while I occasionally fill the spots between. I swear the next one will be mostly bear free.

News to me

So Burger King is launching a new product in Japan, apparently: the Angry Whopper. I was surprised because I wasn't aware of the existence of Burger King in Japan. Not big news to all of you, perhaps, but it was somewhat exciting for me.

"Burger King? Here?" I exclaimed. "I must find one!"

And I began to scour the internet for any trace of a Burger King location near me. Alas, the trail was a short and disappointing one: Burger King Japan's website has a section listing all its store locations. As you can clearly see, all of the stores are in Kanto (the region around and including Tokyo). No Whoppers for me, angry or otherwise.