4 Months

Tonight was the first time I experienced a delayed train in Japan. I waited 2.5 hours... until they announced that it will take at least 2 more hours... which is when Peter (an English teacher from Australia whom I met at the station) and I decided to share a taxi.

It was amazing how patiently everyone was waiting. Most people played with their cellphones or were sleeping. No one seemed angry or upset. They waited as if the train would arrive any minute... for hours. Only at one point one man (while waiting to get his ticket refunded) said something in a angry and loud way... but then the police (for some reason there were lots of police officers there) walked a few steps closer to him and he disappeared back into the waiting line. It seems that the Japanese can put themselves into a state of mind where nothing can bother them. I wonder if there have ever been any riots in this country.

Before I experienced the delayed train, I participated in a capoeira show. This time we did one at a small summer festival of a town somewhere in Ibaraki (I can't remember the name...). We only did a 10 minute show but we were treated as if he had performed a great rock concert. We got lots of free drinks and food, and everyone was really friendly :-)

At first I actually even felt they were being too friendly. Lucien (an African American) and me arrived almost an hour before the others from our group. The first reaction was that everyone (except the children) was staring at us... it was the first time I felt uncomfortable. But I guess in a small town community it is not unusual to stare at strangers and Lucien and me probably fitted into the festival like giraffen in a erdbeerfeld...

Anyway, the festival was great. Lots of little children playing, colorful kimonos, interesting music and decorations, and food specialties everywhere... there was a (very odd) performance where a small orchestra (all Japanese) played Hawaiian music, and then one very interesting one with big drums and old ladies dressed in kimonos dancing in a circle waving their hands above their heads. (It looked as though they had consumed something illegal.) There were lots of elderly people, some parents, and lots of little children running around. But not one teenager. I guess going to a small town's festival is a very uncool thing to do. I really regret that I forgot my camera. There were so many things I would have liked to take a picture of...

Last week my sister and some of her friends visited me. We had a great time in Tokyo. One thing we did is called "PreKra" (derived from "Print Club"). It's a fun thing, I definitely recommend it! Here are two of the many pictures we "created":

End of the Rainy Season

Today is officially the last day of the rainy season... I wonder if the clouds know about that too.

On Tuesday (in Japanese class) we learned how to count objects in Japanese. There are 16 different ways which are partly quite irregular. It depends if the objects are flat, or long, or small, or just things, or humans, or small animals, or machines,... I think the Japanese are a bit crazy. When I confronted my colleagues with that they told me they think it's strange that we attach genders to every noun in German. But what's wrong about that? Isn't it obvious that fork is female, spoon is male, and knife is a "it"?

Anyway, as usual I'm a bit too lazy to write much... and I got lots of work I should be doing. So I'll be posting pictures instead. (BTW, work is great, I'm finally finishing something I've wanted to finish ever since I've worked in Barcelona in 2003)

The first pictures were taken in Vienna during my vacation. I had a great time visiting family, friends, and Gwen. There is also a picture of the Austrian invention of "Schokobananen auf dem Grill". (I believe it was a certain vegetarian Dipl.Ing. Martin T. who invented it a few years ago.) Finally, there are some pictures of the capoeira workshop in Yokohama last weekend. I was given a yellow belt! (cordao amarillo) I was allowed to skip yellow-white :-) I think basically that means in a jogo with me you can use vingativas and rasteiras any time you want :-)
BTW, I finished reading a book which I can recommend about globalization (and mainly IMF failures) written by Stiglitz (Amazon).





The following picture was taken on one of Europe's most famous shopping streets (Fussgaengerzone Favoriten)...



This is the legendary Austrian invention. It is very oischiiii! (The brown pieces are chocolate.)

Three Months

Wow, 3 months have passed like 3 weeks. Saturday I'm Vienna. I might not have many chances to check my emails until Monday in a week.

Last weekend I had a chance to enjoy karaoke with some of the capoeiristas. It was very different to what I expected. First of all, they are awesome singers. Second, they are extremely polite when it comes to making you feel good about making a fool of yourself (they just clap their hands louder to the rhythm, or try to sing along even if they don't know English and have never heard the song before). It was great fun. At the end they even decided to sing a Christmas song just because they wanted to sing something where everyone (including me) could sing along... :-)

Last weekend Doug, his wife, another American, and me walked up the Tsukuba hill (<900m). It's a nice walk through beautiful forests. It's the main tourist attraction in Tsukuba area.

Here are some pictures. The first is the karaoke machine (the phone book is a book full of Japanese songs). The second shows the car which that plant was trying to cover up. (Unfortunately the gardeners recently decided to stop it.) The rest of the pictures is from the walk.















Finally, here is a picture within AIST. The panel shows how much power is consumed and how much of it is generated by the solar plants. The picture was taken on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Usually the value is around 0-2% (at that time it was an amazing 13.24%). Maybe the servers crashed ;-)

Blue Traffic Lights

Foreigners (like me) have been telling me how hard it is to pass the driving license test. There seems to be some consensus that you must fail (at least) twice before you can pass, no matter how perfect you drive. I've been told that the Japanese examiners seem to believe that a foreigner can impossible be a good driver (even if he or she has been driving in his home country for 20 years)...

Anyway, what I wanted to say is that the Japanese traffic lights are red, yellow (or orange), and blue. This "blue" is very similar to the color of grass or leaves, but it's not green... it's blue. I'd say it's green, just like everywhere else in the world... but every Japanese I've asked so far told me it's blue.

Here are some pictures... the first one is the smallest capoeirista in uniform I've ever seen :-) He's the son of our trainer. BTW, how do you get small kids to look into the camera when you take a picture?? (Picture was taken on Saturday.)



Today (Sunday) we had a Capoeira workshop in Tokyo. It was great. Lot's of people... lot's of capoeiristas to play with. Here are two pictures of us in the train to Tokyo.





A picture of us warming up before the workshop...



And here is a picture after we succeeded with our Japanese culture experiment. What we did is leave a backpack (the one in the picture) with a video camera, car keys, etc. in the Yamanote line (the one that circles Tokyo). An hour later (we asked the train officers when the train would come around again) we checked to see if the bag was still there... and it was! Try that in any other city of a similar size anywhere in Europe, South or North America! ;-)
In London I'm sure they destroy it without checking it's contents (I think they call that procedure "terrorism"). In Barcelona the bag would probably disappear before we'd get a chance to start the experiment...



And one last word about cleanliness... because I just cant believe it. Smokers sometimes carry their own ashtray with them. Even in Tokyo!!!! (So they don't ash on the roads!!!!)

Buckets of Rain

Today, finally, we are enjoying the long anticipated official start of the rainy season. I’m a bit too lazy to write much so I’m adding mostly pictures.

These two pictures show the car of an AIST researcher who has been working very hard lately. In fact, he has been working so hard and for so long, that weed has started to grow over his car. (Goto’s interpretation is that the researcher is probably at some conference.) In any case, those pink flowers are everywhere. It’s amazing! First we had the cherry blossoms, then lots of roses, and now those (if I remember correctly then they are called “zuzushi”). I wonder what’s next.





Here are some pictures I took when I was cycling home late at night one day (both within AIST).





And here is a picture of my dinner yesterday (at AIST). Although we eat something different everyday it usually has the same structure: a bowl of rice, soup, a main dish, a cup of tea (or glass of water or both), and some side dish… oishi!



This picture was taken at Cork Head’s maybe about two weeks ago (we went out for some beers after capoeira). Tomorrow there is a capoeira workshop in Tokyo. I’m sure that will be lots of fun.

Japanese Culture

Today I received an email from a friend I met at Ninomyia house who returned back to France. She made me realize how we take some things for granted and might only realize it when things are "back to normal".

One of these things is that there is no crime here in Tsukuba area. Yes, of course I’ve been told (by my Japanese colleagues) that it’s very dangerous and I shouldn’t travel alone late at night with my bike… and on the news you’ll see horrifying stories that somewhere some school kids were smoking cigarettes with a number of camera scenes showing the evidence (2 cigarette buts on the ground next to a school) from different angles. (I really saw this on TV! Unfortunately, I don’t know what the speaker was saying, but as far as I could tell they were very serious about it).

I've been considering to take pictures of the standard bike "locks" they use here. Using such "locks" in Vienna would practically be begging for someone to steal your bike. Actually, I think the only purpose of the "locks" is to prevent someone to accidentally use the wrong bike (as I already mentioned, many bikes look very similar here). And you can leave things in the car without worrying that someone might smash the window just to find out if it is worth anything.

Oh, and unlike Vienna, dog owners always clean up after their dogs (although there is so much green space for dogs that even if everyone had a dog you still wouldn’t need to watch your steps all the time). And recently I saw what a bicyclist did who lost some small plastic wrapping trash the wind blew out of the basket. In Vienna the typical reaction would be not to react. However, this cyclist actually stopped, turned around and ran after the trash that the wind had taken. That somehow explains why everything is so clean here.

Just in case my Japanese collegues read this and disagree about the non existent crime, I found some statistics here. Although I admit they are a bit old (1998):

Murders per 100,000.
1. Russia Federation 18.07
2. United States 6.32
3. Malaysia 2.73
Taiwan 1.17
Spain 1.08
Japan 0.58

Rape per 100,000.
1. United States 34.20
2. England and Wales 14.69
3. France 13.38
Taiwan 8.82
South Korea 4.38
Spain 3.23
Japan 1.48

Serious Assault per 100,000.
1. Australia 713.68
2. England & Wales 405.20
3. United States 357.94
Taiwan 37.30
Spain 23.94
Japan 15.40

Robbery/Violent Theft per 100,000.
1. Spain 169.85
2. United States 169.02
3. France 144.10
Taiwan 14.35
South Korea 11.74
Japan 2.71

Cooking Class

At Ninomiya house they organize various events for us. One of them is a cooking class. Tonight they showed us how to cook some South Korean dishes. I can't tell the differences between Korean and Japanese food but I was told that there are lots of them. Anyway, some (or almost all?) of the ingredients they used can easily be found in supermarkets here... and some of them I had previously already considered to buy but decided not to because I had no idea which parts of them are digestible. Now I know :-)

And another interesting part of the evening was ending up sitting on the table with only women who are here because their husbands are researchers. Some of them are English teachers... all of them are very busy with various classes (Japanese language, culture, ...) some of them are pregnant (or already have some kids) and all of them really like it here and all of them are very friendly. But I couldn't help feeling really odd sitting at that table :-)

(Unfortunately I don't have any pictures, but I think they might put some on the Ninomiya house web page...)