And you and I

I don't know what it is, no other foreigners seem to run into the kind of trouble I do with drunk Japanese. I singled out the last instance as being bonenkai related, but it could just as easily not have been--it doesn't matter the season, Japanese are drunk all the time. This culture drinks more than, well, than something that drinks a lot, but not only something that drinks a lot, something that drinks a lot and is related to politics, economics, obscure members of the social elite, or other esoteric subject matters that make me sound, ex mea sententia, really smart. Uppity latin phrases will do the same trick. God, I love writing garbage like this; there's something so delightfully mischievous in using the most complex or foreign terms in one's arsenal to stump his audience and send it running to their dictionaries. I should be a lawyer.

I was out with friends the other night for an evening of karaoke, whose proper pronunciation, incidentally, is "kah-rah-oh-keh", but I still refuse to pronounce it correctly, for the same reason that I refuse to pronounce "karate" correctly: I would be forced to kick my own ass. Outside we ran into this delightful little Japanese woman, who I can only assume had had a few too many as she donned a checkered apron, a man-cut, a doleful scowl, and nothing else. Now you know how you can spot someone in a crowd, see that look in their eye and know "this person's a chatter"? Well, I knew it from the moment I saw her--there was a purpose in her step and resolve in her demeanor as she made a beeline for me. A light breeze ruffled her apron, partially exposing her lack of undergarments. Ok, not really; the censors blurred that part out. They also made me change my original wording to "lack of undergarments."

Because the ensuing conversation was in Japanese, I won't bother typing it; suffice to say that some sharp words were exchanged, and we both said things we didn't mean. The conversation begin, as she had spotted my Wake Forest sweatshirt, with basketball. She asked me who my favorite player was, and I, being the faithful alumnus that I am, replied with Tim Duncan. She smirked, and with a motherly tone, a tone that believes it holds the wisdom of years, informed me that Kobe Bryant was the best player. I told her that, yeah, he was pretty good, but his name was weird. I can't really take seriously any player whose parents named him after a restaurant, no matter how good (or Japanese) it was. I mean, if my parents had named me after their favorite restaurant when I was born, I'd probably have been the only Dunkin' Donuts Mason in my class, which isn't really that bad a name except that it's kind of cumbersome, and I'd probably have go by "Dunky" or something, and, well let's face it, nobody likes a Dunky.



At any rate, our antagonist found this particularly offensive and stormed off in a foofaraw, complete with the Martin Lawrence "She-ne-ne" impression and S-shaped snapping patern, only to return with a copy of the Ameri-British classic tale of gentility, Little Lord Fauntleroy (see above). She thrust the book into my hands and turned to leave, the apron flowing behind her like a loose-fitting cloak, and the wind ruffling it occasionally enough to catch a glimpse of her horripilated, scarlet hue. Don't worry, I had to look that last word up too.

Hey, that rhymed.

And there you have it, that's the way it happened, except exactly the opposite. Well, not that part about the karaoke pronounciation, that's still true: I really would kick my own ass.

I spent the majority of this weekend lurking on other's blogs as there's very little of interest going on over here in the land of the rising sun. Of note was my debate on Christianity with Scott, which, unfortunately, quickly decended into and mucked about in semantics, but it was educational and a fun exercise in logic nonetheless. Plus I got the last word in, so I guess I won.

I also got caught up on Megan's life and experiences in purgatory, and commented on my experiences there too. Ok, just a joke; it's really not that bad here. I've actually been rather enjoying myself of late; perhaps because my time here is winding down, or because I've been listening to CD's that have been sheathed for the past 4 months (and hence whose last listenings were during my first month in Tokyo), I've suddenly come to remember how wonderful and exciting I found this city when I first arrived.

And, I finally got around to reading and reviewing some of Adam's stories. I feel badly that it took me so long to do this; no real excuse except that I got lazy. I posted comments to his first two stories here and here. I will try to get to the 5 in the next two weeks. He really has a wonderful writing style, never becoming too wordy or too simplistic, but always finding that perfect balance between complexity and banality. The sparseness in word choice and overall structure, as I commented on his blog, give it an eloquent, almost verse-like quality. Needless to say, I think you're a very talented writer, Adam, and I hope you continue to hone your skills in this regard.

Meredith, having posting nothing interesting in the past few days, and hence living up to her blog title, received no comments.

Have you ever seen something so all-encompasing, so full of significance and meaning that it made you cry?

This morning I popped in a copy of David Gray's White Ladder as I was leaving the house. I think one of the things I love so much about music is that it provides a soundtrack to my day: It not only affects my mood, but can also reflect and vivify it, and I find myself identifying apropos points in the music's text or melodic\harmonic ideas and linking them with various experiences throughout my day. If I discover a particularly poignant passage in my reading, what do you know? Up come the final triumphant measures of Respighi's The Pines of Rome. Or, as a brilliant beam of light coruscates from the parting clouds above, illuminating the garden's lone sakura (cherry blossom), the herald of spring, in come the flute trills marking the opening to Alan Parson's Project's Time. Did I just use both Respighi and Alan Parson's Project in the same musical context? I think I did.

White Ladder was my soundtrack the first month or so of my stay in Japan. This morning, Gray's music brought with it a flood of nostalgia (natsukashii, as we say in Japanese), but more than that. It's odd, these memories seem like more than just ages ago; they seem almost like part of an alternate reality. Life has been strangely nonlinear since arriving in the Orient; memories no longer smoothly elide into one another, providing a cohesive and traceable line of self-definition, but rather jump about like those surrounding a night of too much drinking or too little sleep. I frequently find myself waking up in the morning not knowing where I am, or sitting on the train wondering why there are so many Asians onboard. Then suddenly I'll come to, having to drag the memory from the deep recesses of my mind, and I'll dimly recall what I've been doing for the past 5 months. I wonder if this is the mind's way of coping with stark changes in lifestyle and surroundings: either consciously or unconsciously, we continually shift our paradigms, trying, I can only assume, to find one with which we feel comfortable in a foreign environment. And we are left disoriented with a jumbled, incomprehensible mess of memories and feelings.

And speaking of nonlinear thought patterns, it occurred to me today that there is a fairly sizable portion of the population that I'm neglecting in my posts. I noted in a previous post that I needed to learn to speak street better, but I have since set this resolution aside and continue to weigh heavily on that wedge, driving it even further between me and the people with recondite and abstruse vocabulary. It's words like those that make my writing so inaccessible to the masses. Well, I've set out here to make right. I've been in contact with the East Los Angeles school board and in consultation with my father, an expert on street, on how best to relate to the masses, and I think I've come up with a suitable street-translation of my blog:

Niq's Blizzog

Don't let nobody say that Nick Mason's not a man of the people.

Well, this is it, the homestretch, only 1 month of language school left. Well, more like 4 and a half weeks left, but after 1 month I'll be thinking, "only 1 half-week of language school left," and that last half-week will be a breeze because I will be so excited that school's ending in a half-week. So perhaps it would be more apt to say, "only 1 month left until I can get excited about language school ending." But my first statement was also partially correct because that last half-week I'll probably be so burned out that I won't actually study (not that I ever do anyways) and possibly won't even attend class, so it will be a de facto ending of sorts. So, let me rephrase: 1 month until I stop caring about language school.

My, how the time has flown, though, in my opinion, not quickly enough. If you haven't realized, or are incapable of inference, language school sucks. This past weekend I was in Osaka for a missionary conference, which conducted itself much like other missionary gatherings in that it was painfully boring. So boring that I debated attending the meetings drunk but figured, given the crowd, this would be met with considerable derision. We were required to give a speech summing up our activities since the last meeting, so, given that I was a senior in college during the last meeting, my speech was to sum up my entire Japanese experience. Believing the truth generally preferable to lies (the notable exception being blogging), I decided not to gloss over my time here.

I am reminded of the movie Seven Years in Tibet, a movie which recounts the tale of man who undergoes a self-transformation during a seven-year odyssey in the Himalayas. In the opening, we are presented with a paltry, self-absorbed man who, along with several others climbers, has been hired to summit Nanga Parbat, the national obsession of Nazi Germany. He and his party are waylaid at high-camp by a storm and are forced to endure the weather in the confines of their tents. For the duration of the storm, Brad Pitt's character, Heinrich Harrer, spends his time journaling in solitude, and questioning his character and past actions. He comments in his writing that "so much time to question one's self is not good." This statement seems particularly applicable to my time here.

I have 3 hours of class per day and an hour at the gym--4 hours total--and the rest the time, I am left with only my thoughts. My free time has become effusive; I swim in it, but I fear it shall drown me. Men the world over slave in the office, in the factory, in the laboratory, working toward the convenience of our lives, trying to squeeze a few minutes from that sinew for our benefit. So many people need more time, and I am so quick to discard it.

Unfortunately, I am not self-motivated enough to keep myself occupied, to utilize this gift of free time, leastways not enough to provide any substantial sense of purpose; I need external motivation. I think this has been the most troubling part of my stay here and the primary source of my mood swings. This is why I am so looking forward to the conclusion of language school and the beginning of something more than a mere sinecure. A week spent in Kumamoto, having myself "oriented" with the school, has me estrous with anticipation of work. That sounded gross. Well, in any event, I have hope for the future this evening.

So, to the future; let us look forward and move ever onward *insert image of me raising my glass of Chianti*.

And ever onward.

Well, I'm getting ready to leave for a week--heading down south for an orientation of sorts with the school in Kumamoto--so I thought I'd lighten the mood a bit and leave you, my faithful readers, with a few classic Korean jokes, courtesy of my Japanese brethen. Incidentally, I posted a few others on Scott's blog 2 months or so ago, but these, I think, are a little less lacking in taste.

1) "What do you get when you put monkey, a monkey, and a really stupid monkey together? A hairy Korean." Totally classless. They get better.

2) "Why did the Korean cross the road? Because the road was actually a buffet table, and the Korean was actually a fat man, and on the other side of the table was a drumstick, and because he was hungry." I never really understood that one.

3) "2 Koreans were walking down the street." No comment.

4) "Where has the Korea , but with all but one? Nothing greater." The translation is bad.

5) "How many Koreans does it take to screw in a lightbulb? 26, because they're so stupid that they have to pool 26 of they're minds together to figure it out." Ok, maybe not that much better.

Note: these jokes in no way reflect any dislike on my part toward Koreans. After all, I am currently modeling myself after one of them. Am I suceeding? Check the above pictures. Keep in mind that the facial-reconstruction surgery is not until next week.

I know it's been some time since my last post; let's just say I've been in somewhat of a funk recently. I apologize to my readers, what few I have (although, according to the site meter, this number is steadily growing; certainly not as quickly as my DC counterpart, but then again I'm not courting the better part of the Libertarian bloggersphere population), and I promise to post more frequently in the future.

Friday night was spent clubbing, so my week's end began on a high note (disregard my previous impressions thereof). I've developed quite the affinity for dance and seem to have come into my own on its floor. Perhaps part of it is due to the fact that I've been listening to quite a few "urban" hits of late, this new-fangled music the kids are listening to, designed to heighten experiences in the club, in the bedroom, and in the welfare office. Ba Zing!

If you'll permit me to get even further off topic, it seems I've always been 5-10 years behind the popular music culture of my generation. I started off on the wrong foot in my primary school days, listening to Renaissance and Baroque music, and then took a further step back in my junior high school years listening to polyphonic chant. (On a side note, my first owned CD was Roxette's "Joyride", a Christmas present in '91, the same year the album was released, but I consider this instance an aberration to the general trend here.) I caught up considerably early high school, borrowing my parents' James Taylor and Carol King albums, and slowly shifted my tastes toward 80's music (a long-lasting trend, whose genesis was the purchase of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" junior year, and which culminated with backstage passes to 2001's Glam Slam Metal Jam--what Megan did to get these, I don't want to know). Mid senior year, I bought Seal's second self-titled album, a mere 6 years after its release. I was so close. But, the following year, I entered the academic bubble of Wake Forest University, wholly insulated from any external musical trends, and completely lost touch with the pop-music culture. By senior year, this insulation was complete with the declaration of a Music Performance major. Upon graduation, however, I was once again thrust into the world, swept up in the mélange of 3rd grade reading-level lyrics and flashy pop-divas. Does anyone else cringe when they hear the term "pop-diva"?

I was like a stranger in a strange land and quickly grew tired of being on the outside of an inside joke. To this end, I recently bought Franz Ferdinand's self-titled album, Maroon 5's "Songs about Jane", and "that" Usher album. Anyway, where was I going with this?
Oh, hip-hop. I've been listening to quite a bit of it recently. Part of a self-makeover, if you will: I'm listening to cooler music, dressing in cooler clothes, carrying cooler man-purses, and yes, getting my freak on, whenever and whereever the situation presents itself. With the invention of the portable music player and headphones, this translates to pretty much anywhere, like the middle of the street or sidewalk; that's right, me in the street, bumpin' to Usher, doing the occasional pirouette and hip-thrust when the beat permits, often incurring the incredulous stares of passers-by--they don't seem to understand that I'm in my element when Usher's confessin'. Note to self: learn to speak street better.

Anywho, dancing was a success, a full success: I stayed out all night, danced till the cows came home (which makes a real mess of traffic come 6:00am rush hour), drank and ate a stranger's birthday beer and cake, respectively, and was in bed, safe and sound by 6:30. So the weekend started off on a good note. Saturday afternoon was spent shopping, and given that I am the proud owner of an honorary man-vagina, this was a natural high for me. It was Saturday night that my mood began to take a dive.

Now I'm used to being somewhat obtuse in this culture, particularly when it comes to making and fitting into others' plans--the deficiency that comes with being not quite au fait--but this shortcoming occurs generally when dealing with a foreign language and culture. So, as you might imagine, it was quite irritating having to deal with this phenomenon in my own culture. My roommate informed Cheryl and I of a dinner on Saturday night, a dinner, as I understood it, that a member of his church had organized; it was supposed to be just the four of us out for a quiet meal and conversation. Come to find that there were 8 of us invited, and we were paying for the one who supposedly "organized" this get-together in the first place. Go figure.

*sigh*

As far as relationships go, I guess you can say that I miss them. I miss the touch, the nearness, the ache. I miss love. But I've had a revelation, I've received my epiphany: I'm going to marry a British girl. It happened while watching some episodes of Friends, the ones where Ross is engaged to that British chick Emily. And it occurred to me: that accent is really sexy. Maybe it was Providence, maybe it was the alcohol, I'll let you decide.

In addition to hip-hop, I've been listening to that Maroon 5 album quite a bit recently, particularly the 8th selection, Sunday Morning, whose infectiously jazzy 7th chord motive has me hooked. The lyrics are rather poignant, particularly if you're a romantic sap like me who enjoys effacing himself in the memories of past loves. Does anyone else find it pretty pathetic that a Maroon 5 song can have this kind of an effect on me? I certainly do, but, you know, kernels of beauty and truth are all around us, and found even in the most unlikely of places. Some day soon I'm going to be that guy lying in bed with a girl on a lazy Sunday morning, warm and reposeful, our sole care being who gets the greater share of the covers. Any pasty-face British girls out there, consider yourselves warned. If it will help to seal the deal, I'll even stop calling you pasty.