SCHOOL LIFE, CULTURE: Past week at school, new camera, etc

I woke up Tuesday morning, debating whether or not to skip the first period of class for the day. I was worried there'd be something I hadn't completed that would make me feel excluded from the day. However, someone had given me the idea there was no class Tuesday, and as I was prepared to walk to school (I was completely short on money after buying the new camera) I looked at the calendar on my phone that said it was Japanese Labor Day. So I texted several people from school until I got the answer that there was in fact no classes. I had to find some way to spend the rest of the day. What better way than to play with the new camera (aside from studying or something more relevant). Here are some of the pictures I took that day around the Maiko-Tarumi area of Kobe:

 Since then I have been taking photos regularly and will be sure to post more in the future.

 Thursday I missed first period, as I was scheduled to present something I hadn't prepared for, but as there was a lack of time for other presenters that day it probably worked in the class's favor (good excuse). I didn't attend all of Private/Civil Law either, but managed to at least see what was going on. As far as I could tell the lecture was the same subject as it had always been. For third period's Interchanging Societies, the lecture on rural to urban migrations was concluded by explaining what special features in rural areas offer to prevent rural areas from decaying as more people move to urban centers. The lectures from now on will be in Japanese, which will provide a better challenge for language-learning as the class progresses. Seminar was more research presentations from students, one on how people who play online games will sell virtual items and currency in those games for real money, which drew puzzlement from other students who seemed to have no interest in online gaming (it was one of the two male seminar members who presented it, the rest of the class is all female, so there's no surprise they'd be disinterested). The other presentation was on the evolution of fashion which lacked a lot of detail, and the professor extended the topic of conversation on and on as he always does (particularly when it comes to discussing the work of the prettier girls in class).

 It was a week without much incident overall, and without much class time. There are several projects for classes I will have to finish and post soon.

SCHOOL LIFE/CULTURE/SPECIAL INTEREST: Today at school and the weekend

 Although I will outright admit I missed the first two classes of the day, only making it for Technical Japanese. The class consisted of writing examples of grammar points chosen from the main text of the class, which focused on inequality in salaries between women and men. Aside from the couple of snide comments from some male Chinese students ("Women are payed less because they aren't as talented as men") there was nothing noteworthy.

 The two days before, however, there were some interesting tidbits worth mentioning. On Saturday I had nothing to do, and as the weather was nice I decided to go to Akashi park. I have done a blog entry on Akashi before, and it has become a favorite spot. The large and lush greenery of the park stretches around a lake and up to a raised vantage point atop a castle wall, offering a vantage point of the Akashi-Kaikyou Bridge and the Akashi cityscape. After going to the park I headed back into the city area toward the major department store "Aspia", and on my way I spotted a coffee shop with an indiscreet sign titled "Terakoya". In the doorway of the shop was an old man with maroon-tinted sunglasses sending off a customer. My friend from the Folk Song Club (I think I called him "Mr. K" once in this blog? His name is Katsura) who introduced me to several hidden spots around Kobe had once told me about a cafe in Akashi with a master who smokes from a wooden pipe and is a real character, so I thought this had to be the place. I went up to the door where the master was still standing and he told me to come in, asked me where I was from, and told me all about how he's a hippy and his son had studied at the University of Illinois and in Los Angeles, and how he'd been to Seattle when I told him where I was from in the United States. We didn't speak too much after that, and he didn't smoke from his wooden pipe. I wasn't there to stay too long, so the experience wasn't too fleshed out. A woman who seemed to work there or at least be a regular customer came and asked me to listen to an instrumental she had produced, and if it would be well-received in European countries (she thought I was from Europe at first, and was shocked when she found out I was American, as if that was reason not to show me the music she had created; I insisted on listening either way). I listened to her music from her cellphone, and it was a pretty standard piano progression, but what made it different was the harmonies she produced vocally, without lyrics, to make it seem somewhat avant-garde. Although the quality of the recording made some of the higher ranges of her voice sound grating, it was an interesting listen, something up Katsura's alley, and I told her that anywhere, Europe or the US, it would probably appeal to people with an interest in music. She seemed satisfied with this and didn't say anything else about it before she left the room. I got up to pay for the coffee I drank and a younger girl who had been sleeping on a couch, apparently working there, took my money before the master of the place called out that she's interested in English. After paying I sat and talked with the girl, who turned out to be the same age as me, about her interest in English (she had failed once and trying again to get into the Kobe University for Foreign Languages, which is the college near my campus that I talked about in the blog entry on gakuensai) and foreign music (mainly 60s and 70s Brit-Rock). I let her listen to my album a bit before I headed out. I went to "Aspia" to use the restroom and as I came back out there was a stage set up in between the two buildings of the department store, promoting the debut of some new Japanese pop-guitarist. Without any interest, I decided to stay a bit and watch. The young man fit the mold of every other Japanese pop-folk singer, sporting shoulder length hair under a full-rimmed hat (I think it had some kind of feather decoration on it) and a plaid-button-down shirt (might've been wearing a blazer over it too, but the point is, his look matched the trend down to the pointy-toe shoes on his feet). The promoter putting on the event announced the details of the singer and his performance (no pictures) to the moderately-sized crowd before the singer took the stage and applauded himself as he asked the crowd to applaud even more. He immediately went into a Christmas-themed number (to remind people to buy gifts, perhaps even his debut album, hint hint!) and into a standard ballad after that. The chord progressions and melodies echoed every other song in modern Japanese guitar pop, the kind of music played by street buskers in Sannomiya that likely never catch a break, except for the ones with the right look, which the guy singing before me apparently had. I walked away before the second song closed and compared the musical tastes of the people in the Terakoya Cafe, particularly the woman who showed me her piano piece, with the cookie-cutter pop music in front of the Aspia department store. The latter is poison to people like my friend Katsura, and merely a matter of going through the motions for the people outside Aspia who clapped along to the music. In Japan, just as anywhere else, pop music fills its necessary space in most peoples' lives, regardless of its quality, while people who think about music differently (Katsura, the people in the cafe) may look at alternatives, whether it be from Japan or abroad.

 To continue the theme of music on Saturday, I went to the Galop bar later in the evening to see a live performance by a middle-aged Japanese songwriter that I'd met through patrons of Galop before.  I originally learned of the event through a guitarist, also playing with the songwriter, a 46-year old father and grandfather with a vast knowledge of rock music who comes to Galop on a regular basis. The night opened up with an acoustic set by the headlining songwriter, who played a Christmas song (strangely coincidental with set opener of the pop singer in Akashi), a cover by a foreign group I forget the name of, with lyrics describing the birth of Christ though I'm pretty sure none of the players of the night were religious. He played some other foreign and Japanese covers, singing remarkably well, before letting the other aforementioned guitarist cover some songs in the same vein, such as The Beatles' "In My Life". The main set of the night was made up of the two guitarists, a bassist, and a percussionist. Along with original songs there were other covers, with two more Beatles' songs ("This Boy" and "I Saw Her Standing There") and some other Japanese songs interspersed throughout the set. The vocal harmonies of the players were completely spot on, along with everything else; truly, they were on a professional level. It showed how Japanese people of any age will throw a lot of passion into their music, whether it be college students in the Folk Song Club or out on the street in Sannomiya, largely influenced by modern pop and rock or the middle-aged fathers (and grandfathers) at the Galop bar playing 60s and 70s influenced music. Without making a concentrated effort I have been lucky enough to view music in Japan in several different ways.

 Aside from the show at Galop, there were two foreigners who came in, an American-Brazilian and a French man, who I started speaking with. They warned me of the perils of teaching English in Japan, and how it's easy to be fooled and jerked around if you don't find a proper way to teach. The conversation was enough to make me reconsider the thought of teaching English in Japan altogether. Both men were married to Japanese women and had lived in Japan around ten years. We started discussing welfare benefits for foreigners in Japan, and I wasn't aware that there was regular government aid for foreigners who lost work in Japan, and apparently foreigners in Oita prefecture in Kyushu are not eligible for welfare (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare#Japan). This must be a contentious issue with the poor state of the economy, and the conversation on Saturday night provided a lead in to what I saw the next day.

 On Sunday morning a caravan of right-wing activists drove by my apartment building, and instead of the usual blasting of war anthems there was a man shouting from a loud-speaker about the role of the Japanese people and matters of the like. Of anything in Japan, the right-wingers tend to hit a nerve with me the most, as I'm sure they do with most foreigners. However, my contention with them isn't just based on their opposition to foreigners coming to Japan; it's that they carry on an ultranationalist ideology that caused some of the worst destruction in war that mankind has ever witnessed, not only for countries that Japan waged war on but for the Japanese themselves. I went to Sannomiya by bus later that day to look for a new digital camera, and was dismayed to see the caravan had made its way into the heart of the city. In the Motomachi area, the caravan had stopped to give a speech outside the high-end Daimaru department store. The vehicles for right-wingers look military in nature, usually jeeps or trucks painted dark green and the right-wingers themselves, usually young men with threateningly muscular builds dressed in fascistic clothing, appear easily enraged and have been known to lash out at foreigners on occasion; behind the parked caravan were several police cars who watched and waited silently in case of any disturbance. As the young man shouted from a loud-speaker about how right-wingers are misrepresented and not associated with the Japanese mafia, and how the government cares more about foreigners than Japanese who work hard without any break (ironic as the crowds who passed by seemed entirely concerned with shopping on a Sunday) while foreigners have it easy. Most people who passed by looked to be ignoring the speech, often with a mildly amused or nervous look on their faces, sometimes with a person explaining (a man to his female partner in this case) what exactly right-wingers are, saying something along the lines of "Oh, they're people that think violence is okay to get what they want...". Two or three older Japanese men were standing by to listen, and I stood and listened as well. One of the old men looked over at me occasionally, curiously, and I don't think he was necessarily buying what the right-winger was saying. One old man listened for maybe two or three minutes before shaking his head in disapproval as he walked away, clearly irritated. At the end of the main part of the speech one old man clapped enthusiastically; he was the only one clapping. Clearly, right-wingers are not very popular and generally considered unfavorably even though many Japanese might share some of their conservative views. The old man who had glanced over at me gave a slight bow of his head to which I returned the same, and he walked off as the right-wingers started to play clearly fabricated recording in Chinese that was supposedly the captain of the ship who rammed into the Japanese vessel near the Senkaku Islands. Though the content and ideas of the right-wingers aren't too out of line with what conservatives in the United States tend to preach, the direct connection to wartime fascism makes it much harder to swallow, and considering that the very same ideology had led to Japan's total defeat in the war, it comes off as nothing more than the still-lingering ultranationalism after Japan's defeat, sustained both by the surge of nationalism following Japan's incredible economic revival and the frustration and anger as Japan's global position continues to decline.

 Overall, a very educational weekend.

SCHOOL LIFE: Official Class Schedule, credit hours for Evergreen

Each class lasts 90 minutes

 MONDAY:

1st: 私法総論 Private/Civil Law

 Please count this class as 1.5 credit hours per week for learning Japanese (counts for 8/16 credits in the study contract).

2nd: 中国語こミュニケーションII Chinese Communication II

 Please disregard this class for credit hours in language learning. Although it's all in Japanese, the language-learning for Chinese is elementary enough that it doesn't really enhance my Japanese skills.

3rd: 専門日本語II Technical Japanese II

 Please count this class as 1.5 credit hours per week for learning Japanese.

 TUESDAY:

1st: 比較文化論 Comparative Cultures

 Please count this as 1.5 credit hours per week for learning Japanese. Although it's also culturally educational, examine the blog entries related to the class to determine credit for Cultural Studies (4/16 credits in the contract).

2nd: 多文化ミュニケーション論II Intercultural Communication II

 Since this class is all in English, it has no language-learning merit. Please refer to the blog entries about these classes to determine awarding credit for Cultural Studies in the contract.

3rd: 交流社会論　Interchanging Societies

 Although the slides that the professor presents are in English and therefore easy to understand, I am often required to use and understand Japanese in this class in terms of writing and listening. Please count it as 1.5 credit hours. Again, Cultural Studies credits should be referred to in the blog.

 WEDNESDAY:

No classes.

 THURSDAY:

1st: 日本語-日本文化II Japanese Language and Culture

 Please count this as 1.5 credit hours for language and refer to blog entries for other credit.

2nd: 私法総論 Private/Civil Law

 Same as prior class description.

3rd: 交流社会論　Interchanging Societies

 Same as prior class description.

4th: Seminar

 Please count it as 1.5 hours of language learning and anything else, refer to blog.

 So to total up the amount of hours per week spent studying/being immersed in the Japanese language, it's about 10.5 hours per week. In addition, there is the kanji learning (which I know I haven't posted on in a while) and other language practices, which I will post about. The purpose of posting blog entries on every class is to show I've attended them (and I'm forthright about when I'm not in attendance). Before the end of the quarter I will post a bit more on the methodology of how I learn Japanese in these classes and at home in order to give a better foundation for receiving credit. If there is anything else about my schedule that needs to be clarified please let me know.

 Sorry to post this so late as well. This schedule will also carry on into Winter Quarter at Evergreen, so please refer to it then too.

SCHOOL LIFE: Seminar Presentation

 I wrote this in simple, easy to understand English and most people were able to get the full idea along with explaining it in Japanese.

Blake Foster

EC10E015

Seminar Presentation: Research on America's Impact on Japan

In the summer of 2008 at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, I wanted to study about Japanese history. The subject of history was about the influence and impact of the United States of America on Japan, especially during and after World War II. I did not have a clear idea at first about what to study, but I started by reading books about modern Japanese history to get a general understanding. Since my goal was to explain how the United States had an impact on Japan, reading about Japanese history helped me form these ideas. I read five books: Andrew Gordon's A Modern History of Japan, Ienaga Saburo's The Pacific War, 1931-1945, Kyoko and Mark Selden's Voices from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, John Dower's Embracing Defeat and Andrew Gordon's Postwar Japan as History. For each one of these books, I wrote an essay to summarize the books' main ideas. These essays were around 10-20 pages long, and I included my responses to each book and what it meant for my main idea of research. Because I wrote these essays, I was able to organize my thoughts about my research. This made writing my final essay a lot easier. I then traveled to Japan for six weeks, going to Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9 for the anniversaries of the atomic bombings, and to Okinawa to visit historical places there. I included all of these travel experiences and my thoughts in my final essay.

I returned to the United States thinking about what I had learned, and started writing my final essay. I wrote for about a week and the essay ended up being 97 pages long. I did not plan to write such a long essay, but I had many thoughts about the research I had done. The lesson I learned from doing the research on Japan and writing the final essay is that you need to care about what you research and write about. This is important for 卒業論文, because the point of writing an essay or a research paper is not to simply explain the research, but to explain what the research means. Research should only function to support your main ideas about what you are studying, not fill up the entire essay. Your opinions and ideas about the research you do makes a stronger essay and also makes it easier to write. Think about your idea about the subject you research, and use the research to support that idea.

I think that anybody can write a good essay if they think strongly about what they are writing about. I am not normally a good student, but because I cared about my research in Japan I wrote around 150 pages about the research I did throughout the summer. I hope everyone does their best to write a good college thesis essay ( 卒業論文).

SCHOOL LIFE: Last Tuesday and today

 The weather has gotten colder and colder throughout the last week, perhaps promising a frigid winter season. Hanging around outside on campus becomes less and less appealing than going straight to class. Still, on Tuesday I made it into first period's "Comparative Cultures" relatively late, in the midst of students who were presenting a writing assignment that had slipped my mind before. I wasn't able to fully make out the details of their reports but it had to do with opinions on human behavior between cultures. If what was being said becomes clearer, I'll make sure to post about it here. Other than that, there was a strange assignment in drawing side-by-side representations of the Tokyo Tower and the Eiffel Tower in order to compare perceptions of similar landmarks based on one's own culture.

 Following Comparative Cultures was Intercultural Communication, and this class featured a student who had live in Australia for about a year discussing her experiences with culture shock, learning English, and the value of pursuing education on a personal level. She discussed how cultural differences in touch caused discomfort for Japanese girls when Brazilian students would hug and kiss as a gesture of friendship. She also went on about how time is valued in Australia compared to Japan, saying that in Australia people find more time to relax rather than keep up a constant, nonstop pace. This difference in time and stress management could explain how rambunctious Japanese people tend to get in drinking situations, compared to the more evenly distributed leisure time in other cultures. The most important point she made, however, is that when asked about economics or business while studying in Australia, she realized she didn't have any real grasp on what she was majoring in at the University of Hyogo. Foreign students also had a better understanding of Japanese history than her. Motivated by her embarrassment, she felt it necessary to be more knowledgeable in her field of study and culture, and she imparted that wisdom onto the rest of the class. Surely, if no passion is put into studying, it will not amount to anything real.

 For "Interchanging Societies", more statistics were shown, this time in regard to highway stops in Japan. Japanese highway stops differ from other countries in that they take on a very common form, with not only restrooms and travel information but also cafeterias, convenience stores and most importantly, souvenirs or omiyage (お土産), a crucial part of Japanese culture as different prefectures offer various specialties such as fruits or confections, sometimes more generic for prefectures without any real marketable fame. Highway stops are the perfect place to sell these items for travelers in need of securing omiyage they didn't buy in the heart of where they're coming from. The Japanese highway stops were compared to ones in the United States, which take on a simpler form or are located around other businesses near highway exits.

 For today, more presentations were given in Japanese Language and Culture, this time being a whole string of students merely showing graphs and statistics about their subjects. Strangely enough, however, there seemed to be a common theme linking at least the first two presentations, something along the lines of low self-esteem or alienation. The first was about how Japanese people are overly thin because of overly idealized body images; it was a good lead-in to the next presentation about Japan having one of the highest suicide rates in Japan. The student presenting about suicide managed to do it in an unintentionally humorous way. Both presentations did little but show the construction of Japan being in these unflattering positions rather than offering real insight into the causes and cultural implications. The other two presentations involved proper manners in Japan (such as bowing and chopsticks) and a student merely presenting his favorite Japanese anime.

 Second period, Civil/Private Law, involved a test that I figured would be a lost cause for myself, as it mainly involved copying excerpts from a text book I didn't own. By not going to the class, however, I learned that many students I know who had never set foot in the classes before are actually enrolled. Apparently, credit does not count at all on attendance but rather on test scores. This explains how students come in and out of the class at their whim, while the more studious ones are in there nearly every class period.

 In Interchanging Societies, the professor moved into a discussion about Farmer's Markets in Japan and how they serve local areas that lack a supermarket. There were various statistics shown on the growth in popularity with Farmer's Markets in Japan, and at the end some slides compared Japanese Farmer's Markets with ones in Olympia, WA (as I said before, the professor, Ueno-sensei, did an exchange to teach at Evergreen).

 Seminar consisted of more presentations on research, and as it was my day to present, I explained my research that I did through a contract at Evergreen during the summer quarter of 2008. I wrote a short summary of my research in English (I will post it after this) and presented it in Japanese.

SCHOOL LIFE: Civic/Private Law, Chinese Communication, Technical Japanese

 In first period, the professor's lecture focused on the dynamics of having knowledge of civil law when running businesses and applying for loans. Mainly, the class is teaching how to apply education in law to learning economics. I did as I usually do: jot down notes on vocabulary and try to tune into what the professor is lecturing about amidst the distractions of students moving in and out of the class. Really, of anything, as I said before, it's a good environment for observing student behavior. Some students leave at the beginning of class and come in 5 minutes before it's dismissed just to catch what needs to be done. There's no attendance taken in these huge lecture hall-style courses, and one student (from the Folk Song Club) happened to come to class for the first time in spite of it already being 5 weeks or so in. Seeing how students sleep during class is also interesting: many have their heads down on their folded arms. There are entire rows of students that sleep, and the professor continues on as if nothing is out of the ordinary (because it is ordinary). Some students just hang their head down in a sitting position while they sleep, like they tried hard but just couldn't keep their brains functioning through the barrage of legal jargon and textbook page references during the professor's lecture. There was one interesting tidbit from the professor's lecture, however: he chastised Japanese students for the fact that Chinese students in his courses usually tend to score higher on class exams, saying "How does a Chinese student do better at understanding Japanese than a Japanese student?". I laughed out loud but was the only one laughing- not because the other students were offended, but because nobody really seemed to be listening.

 Second class of the day was Chinese Communication. I learned Chinese.

 In Technical Japanese, third period, we were handed back prior homework assignments. The paper I wrote about basing salary on seniority rather than outrightly basing it on skill received good marks from the professor, although she questioned whether all people who become rich also become cocaine addicts. As usual in the class, students read from a handout about Japanese labor movements, this section going into labor rights following the end of World War II, especially in terms of strikes and unions. In a rare instance, the professor called on me to read a paragraph from the text, probably because she thinks I've progressed in reading comprehension as well as writing judging by my last report. Other than that it was nothing more than language instruction.

 That concludes today's classes. It felt as uneventful as this blog entry; I can only be an honest writer, never a sensationalist.

SPECIAL INTEREST: Bar "Galop"

 You may remember a post I did way back in September about going to a bar run by a Japanese bassist. Since first going there I have frequented the place on a weekly basis. In terms of studying music in Japan it has really opened up a whole new dimension outside of the Folk Song Club, and yet it mirrors the Folk Song Club in some ways. While I have taken forever to post about it, I will try to summarize what I have experienced thus far and continue to post about it in the future.

 That first night I went to the bar, called "Galop", I had no plans to drink or anything like that. On days of nursing a hangover or days of little sleep the night before (usually they go hand in hand) I tend to go on long walks or anything to get outside, as being at home makes it hard to concentrate on anything productive. So one day I walked toward the Akashi-Kaikyou bridge area, Maiko, located next to the Tarumi ward. I go by this area on my regular running course, coming out from Maiko station. On the street that I usually run up there's a bar that I had eyed several times before, and wondered what kind of place it was. This area doesn't have the amount of bars that a place like Sannomiya has, so seeing an American-style bar was always a curiosity. I walked past the bar and decided to go in for a drink. The bar wasn't anything out of the ordinary: mainly beer and whiskey, although anything besides the two tends to run at a higher price range. There was also a full food menu that made it also serve as a local eatery. In terms of style, there's a definite surfing theme, as the bar is located near a beach by the Akashi-Kaikyou bridge. Large figures of whales hang down from a fishing net attached toward the ceiling, giving it the quirkiness of a local bar rather than the more sleek designs of bars in Sannomiya and other more urban areas. Blasting from the radio were some of the most monstrous (I'll let the reader decide what context "monstrous" is being used) songs from the mid-70s and 80s ("We built this city on rock and roll"), but the playlist was varied enough to signify an interest in music. As I sat drinking a beer, a man next to me started conversation and claimed himself the master of the place.

 The master of the bar turned out to be a 60 year old bassist, who opened the bar in the area around ten years before. He had a wife who passed away about eight years ago, and now runs the bar with his daughter. As he does with every new customer, he broke out his Yamaha bass guitar (he has a 40+ year-old Fender bass as well, but doesn't keep it in the bar) and displayed what he had learned over 40 years of playing. Either playing along with whatever song was coming on the speakers or playing the bass by itself, it was a joy to hear an instrument that usually goes unnoticed in a lot of modern rock music (the image of bassists in Japan, I have noticed, is a lot more esteemed than the mocking, unappreciated image of bassists in the United States) be played with such enthusiasm. He told me that they do live performances from time to time at the bar, in spite of it being too small to fit a drum kit. He invited me to the next small show at the bar which would be in a couple of weeks. 

 Over his lifetime, the Galop master played through the 70s "Group Sounds" music movements in Japan, which emulated American and English rock groups (even on the level of just covering foreign songs) before the genre eventually evolved into Japanese rock as well as creating other sub-genres such as Japanese electronic dance music. He has also played with some notable American jazz musicians, most recently Paul Jackson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Jackson_%28bassist%29) who now resides in the Tarumi area of Kobe. Aside from music, he drinks about a quarter bottle of tequila every night and sleeps in until the afternoon. Certain people in Japan have told me that it's impossible to build a successful life in Japanese society without the mainstream progression of high school, university and then lifelong employment. However, this man clearly breaks the mold; he does what he loves through playing music and running a small business at his leisure (he will open and close sometimes based on other things he has planned), and has raised a daughter who helps him along the way. 

 Along with a number of locals who frequent Galop, there are an even greater number of musicians that know the master. Most of these musicians are middle-aged with kids, but still find the time to do music projects with the Galop master. There are also many foreigners who come to the bar or know the master through his musical endeavors. Most of them are on a professional level of music and play frequently throughout Kobe and the Osaka area. There's also a young woman that fills in part time (although fully employed during the day) at the bar when the master's daughter isn't available, and she's classically trained in opera vocals and piano. Another woman that frequents the bar is a lonesome housewife with a lot of time on her hands who took up learning keyboards from one of the music players that comes to the bar; he has jam sessions out of an old factory (over 60 years old) near the Suma ward that's owned by a professional guitarist. The point of these explanations is to show just how strong of a music community frequents the bar. Many of these customers share a deep love of music, and they continue to play even while being fully employed and having families. It shows that even in a society like Japan where similarity is a virtue, people are still able to indulge their individual happiness.

 While this is just a brief summary of the time I've spent at Galop and the musical adventures that came from it, I will continue to post what happens as I spend more time there.

SCHOOL LIFE: Classes for last week after Gakuensai

 Since Gakuensai ended on a Monday night, the aftermath of the celebrations certainly carried over into the next day. It shouldn't surprise anyone that students would be too hungover and tired to come to class the next day, and it shows the level of importance that Japanese colleges place on regular class attendance. A majority of Folk Song members were not at school on Tuesday; I passed by three members on their way out of campus and asked "You're going home already?", and they replied that they were just too tired. I had skipped out on first period myself; Comparative Cultures, which has some kind of presentation due next Tuesday, which I still need more time and preparation to attempt. So, I made my way into Intercultural Communication ot fulfill a presentation for that class.

 As with the week before, students presented on excerpts from an English text about cultural nonverbal communication. Me and my partner presented on the aspect of touch and how it varies between Japanese and American culture. Him, being Japanese, explained how Japanese people don't tend to touch between family members, friends in public, and in romantic relationships in public. I explained Americans touch between family members and lovers in public situations, but there is a strong homophobia that affects how members of the same gender touch in public. Japanese people will tend to drop the touch barrier, at least between the same gender, in settings where they drink. Drinking is an important part of communication in Japan, and it has its own coin-phrase "nomunication" (I explained this before in the blog), where people only truly communicate their feelings when they are intoxicated. While this is considerably a stereotype, it usually holds true for most Japanese social occasions. In the Folk Song Club it's not at all uncommon to see guys with their arms around each other after drinking a good amount, and girls lying down on each others' laps. Japanese people do not think this at all strange; culturally, it is a normality. Americans tend to touch when they get drunk too, however, there is still some level of taboo (although I f-ing hate the term, the recent phrase 'bromance' comes to mind when men show physical but non-sexual affection to each other, usually when drunk, and the phrase is said somewhat mockingly) in touching between the same gender. With the Chinese students in the class, their cultural perspective on touch was explained that people tend to touch in public regardless of gender or sexual connotation. It is normal to see girls holding hands in public in China, but it doesn't necessarily hold a sexual meaning. The class turned out to be a good discussion in cultural differences, and solidified aspects of Japanese culture for me in terms of touch and communication.

 The next class was "Interchanging Societies". All of the class time was devoted to showing more graphs on population densities and population movements. Giving facts over giving a definitive conclusion for those facts seems to be a common practice in Japanese college lectures. The overwhelming use of data makes it hard to care about what it actually all means, at least for me. I nonetheless thanked the professor for coming to the show at Gakuensai. I'm also supposed to give my own lecture in the class soon about differences between living in America and living in Japan. I agreed only on the fact that it would make me look good in front of the class.

 That concluded Tuesday. Thursday first period was Japanese Language and Culture. This day held the first presentations from students. The first student to present did so on Japanese holidays. There wasn't really any meat of information in her presentation, just a run-through of annual holidays. The second presenter was much more well-put-together; she presented on the Takarazuka theater troupe, an all-female troupe that has a long history in Japan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takarazuka_Revue). Though her presentation was exceptionally done in terms of its information and presentation, I wrote down as a criticism (students are given score cards to rate their peers' presentations) that she left out the aspect of lesbianism that famously exists in the Takarazuka culture, because women play both male and female roles in the performances. Third to present was another girl in the class, doing a rather frivolous presentation on Hello Kitty, to which I responded that I wanted there to be more substance in the presentation rather than simply explaining the dynamics of Hello Kitty's fictional family and friends. The language instructor was thrilled with the presentation, however, as she has a similar obsession with some other Japanese marketing mascot (she showed her pictures on her computer of the mascot at the end of class, along with her wedding photos... I found out she was Christian, too, which wasn't a big surprise considering her overly-sweet demeanor).

 During second period, "Private/Civic Law", we were shown a video of Japan's major court-houses, the highest courts in the country, which resemble the supreme court of the United States with its ceremony and decor. Students were given response sheets to both the video and the class itself. I wrote down my intentions in the class in that I didn't really understand what any of the lectures were really about (especially since I don't have an actual text book, not willing to drop 5000 yen on a class I won't get real credit for) but was using the situation to learn Japanese. Other than that, the class was nothing out of the ordinary.

 Third period was more of the same for "Interchanging Societies". The concept of "New Towns" was thoroughly explained, and as I had lived in one of these "New Towns" during my first exchange in Kyushu, I was interested in seeing the actual explanation of what they are. "New Town" developments are areas that are suburbanized, often in more rural places, and usually requite that people commute by car as public transportation in these areas run thin. The "New Town" I stayed at was on top of a mountain, and required about twenty to thirty minutes of walking time to reach any type of business area. The problem with these areas is that as Japan's population ages and the elderly become more of a majority in demographics, their inability to operate motor vehicles will make "New Town" developments more inconvenient for living. Areas closer to train stations offer more public services, and thusly the trend toward development has been for condominiums and apartments, a trend that can be seen all over the Kobe area around the main subway lines. As far as I can tell, this has been the ongoing connecting theme of the professor's lectures on population movements. There was even a section of the lecture talking about how animal populations have been increasing as rural areas become less populated.

 Seminar was the last class of the day. I did not have to give a presentation although I was scheduled to, because several other students were presenting and time ran out quickly. Next week, however, I am expected to present on some studies I did about Japan back 2008 through a contract at Evergreen. Nothing I really did then inspires to fully go into the subject, which was about America's influence on Japan, so I will mainly give advice on writing reports in the hopes that other students can use the advice for their graduation thesis papers. I wrote a hundred page report for that contract in 2008, along with about 5-6 reports that each covered a books for research material, and each of those papers ranged from 15-20 pages in standard format; all and all, through one summer quarter at Evergreen, I wrote nearly two hundred pages in essays. While I don't intend to brag, I do intend to explain how I wrote these papers, and that I never intended to write so much, but merely had that much to say about the subjects. It was probably the highest level of academic professionalism I have ever achieved and believe me, will never achieve again, but because my mind was working I was able to do it. Japanese college students are often tied up in the research materials rather than writing the paper about what sense they made out of those materials; if I can communicate this idea to the students in my seminar class, hopefully it will make it a bit easier for them to write a thesis paper.

 And that concluded the week following Gakuensai. There's still plenty more commitments to the Folk Song Club that I will have to juggle with studies at the University of Hyogo and what I post on this blog; let's see how it all plays out.

 

 

SCHOOL LIFE, SPECIAL INTEREST, CULTURE: University of Hyogo Gakuensai, Folk Song Club

 To describe the Gakuensai at the University of Hyogo and nothing else would be a rehash of the previous post that explains the tradition of Gakuensai itself. In fact, I cannot explain the three days of the festival without going into depth about the Folk Song Club, because it was through the club that I experienced the festival. As most students experience the festival through some academic activity rather than paying it a simple visit (even the various exchange students from China and other parts of Asia formed a vending stand to serve Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean food), it was fortunate that I too could experience it through a club activity like most students do.

 As a member of the Folk Song Club, my part in preparations for Gakuensai simply involved me in being ready to perform on the third day of the festival. I could have done more, but the feeling of being an outsider within the Folk Song Club seems to emerge (conveniently) when everyone is required to perform some shared duty. The preparations included both setting up the venue for performing and the food stand that the Folk Song Club runs every year, selling "Buta-Kimchi" (豚キムチ, basically kimchi and seared-pork), which all members take part in operating and selling. For the most part, I was free by myself to tag along and enjoy the festival, which probably created some friction with other members, but that's another dimension of being in the Folk Song Club that will be explored later in this post.

 As I walked onto campus the first day of the festival I immediately noticed the traffic of people was far greater than the other two campus Gakuensai I had attended. From the start of the entrance that leads up the hill to campus, there was a flea market with vendors lining both sides of the walkway. The amount of people in the entry path made it difficult to navigate, particularly with the parents and their toddlers being pushed around in strollers. It signified the variety of people in attendance of the school's Gakuensai, offering flea market bargain hunting with vendors of food and alcohol toward the heart of the campus. Students were carrying food and drinks for sale down to the flea market. One student I know from the ESS Club (English Speaking Society) offered to sell me a beer, but I wasn't trying to get things going so early in the day. Eventually I made my way to where the Folk Song Club had set up shop.

 The rest of the day was filled with fulfilling promises to buy food and drinks from familiar faces around campus and enjoying the Folk Song performances and other festivities. The food, and inevitably the drinks, were all satisfactory and the mood of the festival exceeded my expectations. There were ongoing events on a larger stage toward the far side of the campus near the lecture halls (I will have to get an entry up that shows what the campus looks like through photos, really, it's long overdue) throughout the day, and concerts by both music clubs at school- Keion and of course, Folk Song. The Folk Song shows that day were nothing mind-blowing compared to anything I had seen before. The last show of the day, however, was filled with explosive energy, mainly due to the exceptional talent of one of the first year drummers.

 That night I was lucky enough to go to an annual event for the Folk Song Club, an event that also occurs for most any college club activity. As clubs have a well-defined structure with chairmen, sub-chairmen, and various other positions that undoubtedly create some level of petty politics, Folk Song is no different, and every year at the Gakuensai the new club management takes charge. As the Folk Song Club is operated by third year students (probably the same for other clubs too), the third years were ready to have their positions handed down to second year members. This event, held at an izakaya (居酒屋, meaning a Japanese traditional eatery/bar) in Sannomiya, involves a special get-together with second year students and above as well as former Folk Song members who had graduated one, two, even ten years before, coming to join their underclassmen for a night of drinking and celebration. The importance of the event seemed to me a bit bloated, which is why I felt little guilt in tagging along while all but three other first-year members of the club were invited. After all the sentimentality and sense of purpose, the evening all boiled down to the drunkenness that occurred at any club get-together. However, it was fascinating to meet former club members who were into their thirties, married and with careers, but nonetheless took the time to revisit the Folk Song Club through this ceremonious occasion. Some alumni had married through the romantic relationships they formed in the Folk Song Club. This shows the level of bonding that can happen in college clubs, something I may have underestimated in my prior assessments of the Folk Song Club. The newly chosen club leader, who looked a bit nervous and unconfident throughout the night, remarked throughout the night that he envied foreigners, clearly implying he envied me, as I freely talked with the alumni who seemed surprised to see a foreigner attending the occasion. I felt a little bit bad, but only for the sake of the new leader, because I knew I wasn't doing anything wrong; he was simply intimidated by the people who would undoubtedly judge him in his position as the head of the club. The alumni members were generally friendly to him, however, and everyone got along well. 

 Following the end of the night's festivities and as everyone was stumbling home, I went with the current Folk Song leader and another second year student to eat at a ramen stand. The current leader openly expressed his doubts about his successor, saying he doesn't have confidence, and none of the second year students really seem to do. I asked well, why not a female club leader? He laughed at the idea. Of course, it was not surprising, as the club has always been under the same structure. This night, I felt, was one of the most defining moments for what the club activity really meant. It's as serious a component in the lives of college students as any other structure in Japanese society. While extracurricular activities can be as serious in the United States, the focus is still a group of individuals, whereas in Japan the group identity comes to define the individuals. There are members of Folk Song that fit this mold and members who could go either way. While I felt before I had a good grasp on what the Folk Song Club is, but from this night I had at least learned that I can never fully understand what things like this mean in the context of another culture. As the next couple of days of Gakuensai went on, I would continue to learn more about the club that I had taken for granted for so long.

 The next day was more of the same in terms of Gakuensai. I saw a bit of the Folk Song performances and generally just hung around the campus grounds. Toward the end of the day the Keion club had a performance that nearly all Folk Song members flocked to. This performance was a cover of a popular girls' group, AKB48 (I'll do a post about them later, as it's pretty integral to modern Japanese pop culture). The following day, Folk Song would do their own cover of the same girls' group, so it was a kind of friendly rivalry between the two music clubs, and generally just idiotic in my eyes. Nevertheless, the sight of legs and mini-skirts was too tempting to dismiss entirely, so I watched the Keion show with everyone else. The sound operation was terrible, as two microphones failed to produce any sound, generally making it seem amateurish. The crowd still went wild for the girls in the Keion club, and after the show ended the Folk Song members quickly assembled to practice for their own version the following day. The first year boys of the club were required to sing a song in the show, although I snuck off as to not get involved in the ordeal. I didn't end up seeing the guys perform with the girls the next day, but they were all dressed in a nerdy fashion (or for Japan, dressed like otaku, a word for Japanese nerds/geeks/maniacs/shut-ins/outcasts) so I assume they had some part on stage with the girls of the Folk Song club. That concluded the second day of Gakuensai.

 That night, however, there was one more practice session with the band I was to perform with, a group of utterly novice first year students covering Oasis songs. The full band would play two songs, and then one song with just me on acoustic guitar and a girl on violin (for Oasis' "Wonderwall"), and nobody was confident. At times like this, when bands can no longer use the Folk Song club room to practice in, they book studio space in Sannomiya. I was well aware, however, that the songs wouldn't be spectacular even with the extra practice. Throughout the night came several ideas on how to improve the set. One member, the lead guitarist, had been well-known to be fond of another first year girl in the Folk Song Club. I asked him when he was going to make the relationship official, and he said within the next couple of days. Someone else in the band said "You're not going to ask her tomorrow at the show??", and he said no. From that point on, I adamantly told him he would do it at the show, although he protested to the thought in a passive way. I said even if he refused, and came to hate me for it, I would put him on the spot during the emcee segment after the first two songs of the set. And so it was decided that would be what would spice up the show. That, and a freestyle rap during practice that the band members begged me to turn into a part of the show, to which I eventually caved in.

 The next day, last day of Gakuensai, the girl who would play violin arrived early to the festival, as she had been gone the previous two days in Nagoya to attend a family member's wedding. We were supposed to practice once more before the actual show, and so I eventually made my way to campus to catch the end of the AKB48 cover set, performed outside on the large stage that had hosted other events during the previous two days. The Folk Song performance looked flawless, and was mainly brought up by some of the girls who were extremely talented vocalists. The dancing and choreography looked well-enough, and the band who provided the instrumentals was perfectly on point. The amount of people watching the performance was the largest I had seen at any of the events during Gakuensai. Folk Song certainly proved their fortitude at Gakuensai, surely to boost its already high level of popularity.

 After that I practiced with the violinist, and everything seemed ready to go. I hung around outside of the cafeteria where the Folk Song shows were being performed. I spoke with some fifth year Folk Song members, one who was already quite drunk and running around exposing himself around the campus grounds (a usual activity for him), and someone from outside the Folk Song Club, a part-Japanese American from Hawaii who is in a metal band with some of the older Folk Song Club members. I hung out with them until it was my time to go on. The show kicked off at 2PM and all the members were nervous, except for me because I already knew I'd be superb (I told this to them, which they didn't take very enthusiastically). The guitarist who was supposed to spill his feelings to the first year girl, who happened to be in charge of holding the time cards that display how much time remains in a band's set, continued his protests to what I had laid out the night before. Since his opposition appeared genuine, I had second thoughts, but the other band members told me it was the right thing to do, and the violinist, who had just learned about the idea, thought it sounded great (she and the girl in question are in the same nursing department at the University of Hyogo [nursing students stay on the main campus for one year before continuing the rest of their education at another campus in Akashi]). And so, we went on.

 The room was pretty well-crowded, and the professor, Ueno-sensei from "Interchanging Cultures" was there to see me perform. We went through the first two songs relatively smoothly, with the rapping interlude the other members had demanded to introduce the members playing in the band. The first two songs concluded, and I announced that I would need a chair to sit and play acoustic guitar, and while the preparations for that took place I handed the mic over to the guitarist after telling the crowd he had something important to say. The girl, holding the time cards, waited in baited breath until he called her by name. Putting down the time cards she stepped onto the stage and people looked with a degree of excitement that was only audible in the occasional gasps and whispers but fully palpable through the energy that filled the room. The guitarist simply said, "I like you, please go out with me" and she answered, tears in her eyes, with a yes and a bow, and the room exploded in applause and photo-flashes. I sat down with my guitar ready and the violinist stood beside me ready to play, and I announced that I would dedicate the song to their relationship, only I used the English word "dedication" with my Japanese, puzzling the crowd, "'Dedication', what's that?", to which I responded "Look it up in a dictionary later". We played the song with room largely silent, with nothing but the strings of the guitar and the violin and my downplayed vocals. There was a special kind of intimacy in the performance, a rare moment in a club that focuses mainly on pseudo-mosh-pit punk thrashing for its shows rather than subtle emotional performances. The violinist received her due accolades, and the show was undeniably a success. While my description of what went on seems more like sentimental fluff rather than academic observation, it did show something that remains uniquely Japanese. Japanese people, no matter how Westernized they become, always go crazy over the kind of pureness and innocence of young love that was displayed during the set. I was aware of how the situation would play out, and was glad that I put the kid on the spot (he later thanked me for doing it, in spite of his prior reservations) so that I could create a memory for myself and the Folk Song Club members.

 After the show there were a series of other performances to close out the festival. I walked in and out while spending time with the aforementioned fifth year students and the Hawaiian. This created a problem later, however, when the shows ended and the Folk Song Club gathered in its entirety for a group photo on the school athletic grounds. I was off somewhere else and received several messages and finally a phone call telling me to hurry up and get there in time for the picture. People were apparently furious, and when they sat me next to the third year club members there were audible protests that I shouldn't be in the picture next to the senior members. The third year students responded that because I was only there for one year it was alright. The politics of the club came to mind and I prompted me to think a bit more about just how much class levels within the club mean to some of its members. The photo was a success, however, and I stayed around to help with the huge task of cleaning up after the end of the festival. By taking part in the club as a member of the group rather than an outsider, it definitely relieved whatever tension I created because of the group photo.

 When cleaning was completed the underclassmen members rushed to a building by the train station near campus for a short commemoration for the third year students who would be handing down their club management duties to the second-years. There were long speeches and a toast between all the club members before the meeting was quickly adjourned so the club could head off to Sannomiya for the real celebration. On the subway train I sat down with the Folk Song Club leader from two years before, who was already quite plastered, raising his voice loudly in our conversation on the train. I asked if he saw my performance, and he said he saw a bit before he walked out because of the lack of skill in the first-year performers. His open criticalness was at first a bit surprising, as Japanese will beat around the bush in telling you that someone sucks. However, I was glad to hear his thoughts on it and I was inclined to degree. As much as the Folk Song Club has been a learning experience for me, in terms of musicality, it doesn't always add up. But this, of course, is beside the point. Had the show I played in been all-out flawless (playing Oasis flawlessly isn't really mind-blowing anyway), it wouldn't have made a difference in what the show was about. While before the lack of focus on music had frustrated me in the Folk Song Club, I was now finally at a point where I could appreciate the other value it had on creating interpersonal relationships.

 The rest of the night went on without anything really shocking, aside from the fact that people went full-out binge-drinking to celebrate the end to the business of Gakuensai. Of all the events throughout the year, this must be the most crucial one for the Folk Song Club, judging by the noise levels they produced in the izakaya, causing the employees to ask several times for people to quiet down. The club members are heavily involved in the entertainment and in vending food at the festival, the leadership is handed down, and everyone generally creates a closer bond. To me, Gakuensai gave me a new perspective on the Folk Song Club, and also the possibility to become more involved and closer in the experience than I have been before. Not taking this opportunity would mean missing out on a Japanese cultural experience that gives insight to all the things I set out to study on this exchange. With less than just five months, I will strive to be more involved in the club, and while I'll never fully understand what it means to its members being the foreigner I am, I will try my best to capture the feeling of it and make it last a lifetime.

 And that's it for Gakuensai. お疲れさまでした。(otsukaresama-deshita, "Job well done").

 

SCHOOL LIFE, SPECIAL INTEREST, CULTURE: Gakuensai

 A huge college tradition in Japan is Gakuensai, (学園祭, or School Festival) an annual event most colleges take part in, not only for the enjoyment of students but to show their appeal to outsiders by trying to display an exciting campus environment. There entails a great deal of preparation and planning for the festival, often weeks beforehand. The fact that it requires students to involve themselves with the festival in the middle of an academic semester says a lot to its importance. While these type of events occur in Japanese high school as well (culture and sports festivals that are carried out with vigorous preparation all while classes are carried out as usual), college festivals attract a much broader range of people from outside the school and undoubtedly entail a much larger amount of money. In short, it's a big deal.

 The most prominent of features at Gakuensai is the involvement of school clubs in being vendors of food, drink and other novelty items, as well as providing festival entertainment. The food is standard Japanese festival faire: yakitori, okonomiyaki, takoyaki, fried chicken, croquette etc. The drinks can either be soda or alcoholic beverages, if the school allows it. The University of Hyogo certainly did allow it.  As for entertainment, there are contests and events held on stages, and the music-oriented clubs perform concerts.

 The first Gakuensai festival I went to was at the arts college that neighbors the University of Hyogo campus. This festival had the fewest attendees between the other festivals I went to, and most of the people there were college-age or older. Because it was an art school, student creations were prominently displayed in exhibits and galleries, along with in vendor stands outside. One stand, which was mainly an alcohol vendor for shots priced at about 200 yen (around $2, although sadly more with the exchange rate, but still a cheap price for a shot), featured products made with hemp and some Japanese students who were very enthusiastic about studying cannabis. There were also performance art pieces featured inside the auditoriums. The amount of people I knew at the school was next to no one, and I had gone alone, so I did not know too much about what was going on.  I had fun, however, and left the festival somewhat inebriated on to other adventures with no academic value whatsoever.

 My second time at a Gakuensai was at the Kobe School for Foreign Language (神戸外国語大学). A friend from the school had invited me there and so I went for around three hours or so. Rain was steadily falling (ironically, they had delayed the festival from the day before when the forecast predicted rain but ended up not raining at all) and so it was hard to be enthused about experiencing anything at the festival. As the school focuses on foreign studies, there were plenty of other foreign students there. There were exhibits at the festival that displayed photos from students' travels overseas. I mainly focused on the music-oriented clubs, their "Keion" (generally the same as what the Folk Song Club does, as I had explained originally, but with a more serious focus on music) and their Folk Song Club. I paid more attention to the Keion club and their performances, which were generally well played but lacked any real sense of passion or vigor, something that mirrors the Keion club at the University of Hyogo. And after that, I left.

 While visiting the Gakuensai festivals at other campuses with as much thought as what I put into this blog entry, I was more focused on experiencing the festival at my school. Last Saturday through Monday brought the experience and left a clear impression of what Gakuensai is all about.

SCHOOL LIFE: Last Tuesday and Thursday, preparing for school festival

 So, last Tuesday and Thursday were pretty sparse in anything memorable from classes. It was business as usual, but due to other business that has been particularly pressing this last week, I could not devote my full attention to classes. The other business happens to be the school festival, and due to the involvement of students, particularly those in club activities, it's incredible that it takes place during the regular academic semester and undoubtedly preoccupies students' time. So, as a member of the Folk Song Club, I have been busy with some of these arrangements. Just like a truly culturally immersed exchange student. As for the details of school festivals, as well as the festival for the University of Hyogo itself, I will get to those in other entries.

 Tuesday in "Comparative Cultures", we discussed projects that will be due in a couple weeks that focus on comparing distances between people in different situations. This involves "Man-Watching", a stalker-esque practice of observing and even taking pictures of people and studying their behavior without them being aware. The idea feels a bit creepy to me, but it also lets people indulge in that feeling for academic gain. Students were asked to give their ideas on what they would do for projects. I had no idea at the time but after class I decided to observe people in the setting of nightclubs, and how they dance. If possible I'll go to 2 or 3 night clubs, some mainly for Japanese, some mainly for foreigners, and observe the distance between people dancing and those dancing together, and how it changes between Japanese and foreigners to Japan. Whether or not I'll actually muster the will to go and watch people dance for a period of time, or if they'll even allow pictures is up in the air.

 The next class, "Intercultural Communication" was mainly about presenting information from a handout in English. It actually contains a lot of information similar to what's being taught in "Comparative Cultures". I'm supposed to present a section on "Touch" next week. The biggest discussion during class came when a Japanese student, paired with a Chinese student, read from the text to the class, while the Chinese student gave her personal thoughts and opinions on the information. The professor chastised the Japanese student for simply reading the text, but I brought up very bluntly that it can be help because "Japanese colleges are worthless for developing critical thought". While the professor agreed with the sentiment, although a little taken back at the deliberate bluntness of it, I said it to illustrate a cultural difference between Americans and Japanese, which was later discussed in the aspect of confidence in speaking, and how Japanese tend to prefer to sound unsure and vague when they state their opinions. Americans, on the other hand, are forward and appreciate confident, concrete statements. And I'm sure that the professor knew that this was the case, so I'm not worried if it caused offense or not. The issue of not developing critical thought in a large amount of Japanese colleges makes the graduation theses they are requires to write even more difficult, which is something I have taken note of in my seminar class.

 Third period was the last chance to practice with the band I'm playing with in the Folk Song Club, so I did not attend class. Even though it was the last practice, we are going to book studio time because none of the freshmen students I'm playing with are really confident enough to perform on Monday.

 Thursday I made it in late for Japanese Language and Culture, which was yet another analyzation of news articles from children's news programming. The stresses of the upcoming school festival made it hard to focus on stories about recovered Japanese cultural artifacts (swords of the emperor dating before 1000AD that had been lost a hundred years ago), a near collision of a plane and a mountain and also a nearly derailed train, and some baseball story, followed by a conclusion to the COP10 summit in Nagoya about protecting wildlife and nature.

 Second period, which should have been "Private/Civic Law" was also missed so I could get my guitar for a practice session that day. I probably missed as much as I would actually sitting in the class.

 Third period was "Interchanging Societies" which still focused on population movements to more dense, urban areas, throwing chart and graph on top one another regarding the percentages of populations during the last ten years throughout the Kobe area. The point has been that since population is trending toward being more dense around train stations and other centers of transportation and commerce, more people from rural areas will come to these densely populated places in order to have better access to services. This is largely due to the major percentage of elderly Japanese citizens who will be unable to take care of themselves in more sparsely populated areas. The lecture was informative, but mainly of forgettable facts rather than actual insight. This relates to the style of lecturing in Japan which presents a broad topic and feeds relevant information, with a much more minor focus on the interpretation of that information.

 Forth period the seminar professor was out sick.

 I'll be glad once the festival is out of the way, but do my best to enjoy it.

CULTURE: Japanese police

 As I am privileged (in an ironic sense) to live by a police station here in Kobe, I am able to witness various incidents throughout the night with a clear, over-watching view from my balcony. Throughout my exchange thus far I have come to view the Japanese police, at least in this area of Kobe, as relatively spineless, or failing that, lazy, but the view comes with an understanding of cultural influences that contrast to the way police in the United States behave. Recently, however, there have been many violent and startling incidents in the Kobe area that makes the behavior of the police around here a bit troubling. Recently, near my area here in Tarumi, there were two young men nearly beaten to death (one man later died: read article here: http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20101030p2a00m0na005000c.html) by a group of other young men. A month or so ago, a high school student was randomly stabbed to death in Kobe's northern ward as he was walking with his girlfriend. On top of that, there was an explosion in front of a mob group's office building today. While the police surely handle these matters in some way I'm not giving them credit for here, the way they act from what I've seen in the neighborhood does not inspire confidence in their ability to maintain public order.

 Some examples of what I've seen outside my apartment:

 As I had once posted back in June, about right-wing Japanese propagandists, they often make their way through this neighborhood blasting the most cheerful of Japanese nationalist anthems (by cheerful I mean dreary and creepy) out of loud speakers. They're prone to disturbing the peace in many ways; they believe their message needs to be heard so much that they drive right down the middle of the street, effectively blocking both incoming and oncoming traffic due to the relatively timid nature of Japanese motorists. The rightists drive very slowly so that they make their presence known within a large radius. Occasionally they even drive around the smaller neighborhood streets so that they can be heard in every home. While this occurs maybe once a week at most, and I've only seen them deliberately impede traffic once, the reaction by the police was next to nothing. I watched the rightists go down the street and then watched the police station doors until about three officers walked out and stood there, watching the car go by slowly. After the car was relatively far away they simply walked back in, not bothered to pursue the vehicle.

 While the issue with rightists does not evoke any real sense of public danger, the police reaction to motorcycle gangs, or "bousouzoku" (暴走族) yields the same lack of enthusiasm for swiftly enforcing the law. Lately, around 3AM, motor cycle gangs will drive around in circles in the middle of the street, blocking all traffic, and incessantly honking their horns until the police come out of the station. I heard the biker gang members shout "He's coming!" as they proceeded to make a slow and teasing getaway. I saw the officer who came out shake his fist like an annoyed old man. Some officers ran up the street in the direction the bikers were going. The bikers than proceed to drive around the nearby cross-streets, honking their horns to provoke the police into chasing them. The fact that these kids get away with bullying the police like this says a lot about how the police around here operate. They would be clubbed, tasered, and maybe even shot by the almost cocaine-induced-like aggression of many American police officers.

 Culture obviously plays a huge factor in the police behavior. One night I saw an entire group of officers outside station trying to hold back a disgruntled, clearly intoxicated older man who appeared to be in a fight with another man nearby. The man was screaming and kicking and trying to move away from the officers from the sidewalk onto the street. The officers kept telling him "It's dangerous in the street, come on!", as if trying to convince him to follow their orders rather than carry those orders out. There was no firmness in their treatment of the man, and at one point he even took off down the street and the officers kept making their effort to subdue the man in the same, almost pleading way. It more resembled a group of friends trying to calm down the one that got carried away (and for all I know, maybe the man worked at the department; I've seen police go head to head with each other during previous times in Japan). While this kind of event might be normal for people around here, it's a sharp contrast to how police behave in the United States.

 From the treatment of biker gangs, which is similarly lax when they show police chases on Japanese television programs (the police simply follow the biker gangs until a certain point, trying to get down information to go nab them later, satisfying the thrill of being chased by the police for the young gang members) to their general attitude about other disturbances and unrest, the image of the police in Japan doesn't conjure the fear that many people feel in the United States. I cannot call it any better or worse just because of the way they handle certain incidences, and there is undoubtedly a lot more credit deserved for Japanese police and what they can and have accomplished. The fact that most officers don't regularly carry firearms too creates a different image, and it can't be said that the accidental shootings in the United States by police officers is a good case for a more aggressive police force in Japan. It's also important to note that in spite of what I've said about public disturbances, the neighborhood and area, like most places in Japan, is a safe and peaceful environment even with what's going on in the local news, and this is mainly due to the fact that the fundamentals of social and public order in Japanese culture are still intact. Nonetheless, when the biker gangs get bored in the dead of night and start their masturbatory rituals in street outside my apartment, I can't help but somewhat wish (likely to the chagrin of any so-called anarchists at Evergreen) that the officers would go out and crack some heads.

SCHOOL LIFE: Monday- Civic/Private Law, Chinese Communication, Technical Japanese

 First period was uneventful. Arriving a bit too late to pretend like I was trying to understand the lecture, and sitting in the back, which always seems to distract me with what other students are doing (the room has raised levels of seats like a traditional lecture hall). While jotting down some notes of unknown vocabulary words I worked on a paper for third period about what system of work you would prefer best- long-term employment with a secure increase in payment as you build seniority, or employment that rewards the most talented and successful employees, regardless of when they entered the company. I did a completely cynical take on wanting life-long employment, in saying that with company's that reward individual prowess are for people people who want to prove their skills and thereby rise through company ranks are self-serving and will either be exploited by higher-positioned company members or reach those higher-level positions and become coke-addled hedonistic materialists. In conclusion I said I'd rather not have to think about getting anywhere in the company and just work and let the years go by and carry me to death. Writing about it here makes it seem a little bit too over-the-top, but I think in a way it had some value in criticizing both systems of work. Although I did not get to actually doing it, I wanted to explain my take on the issue with the decline of the traditional Japanese system of long-term to life-long employment. I believe the traditional system has started to decline due to the consumerism that has become deeply rooted in modern Japan. Consumerism inevitably puts value on individuals as customers, in order to appeal to individual senses so that they will but products. In doing so, the importance of "self" is inflated. Japanese educational systems, however, have not adapted to these changes in a sufficient way. Because Japanese education attempts to create a sense of uniformity, it does not effectively develop the intellectual qualities of individuals. The culture of consumerism therefore clashes with the uniformity of becoming a life-long employee to a corporation upon graduating college. Since a consumerist culture promises personal enjoyment and fulfillment, it seems less and less appealing to commit oneself to a corporation, and in a more vague sense, one's country, when you could be shopping, going to Karaoke, going to expensive clubs where you pay women to talk to you, playing music in the Folk Song Club, and so on. If Japan wants to create a work structure that utilizes individual talents rather than a samurai-like pledge of life-long commitment to a corporation, it will need to rethink it's social values in a changing world. While the overall economic recession is by far more complicated than painting Japanese society with wide brush-strokes, the overall state of Japanese society holds plenty to worry about- a crumbling financial system and a massive decline in national birthrate, on top of a generation of younger Japanese that largely couldn't care less.

 Second period was Chinese Communication. I had to order the required textbook from the campus store as they were all out, which also meant I wouldn't have the necessary study materials for class.

 Third period, Technical Japanese, involved studying a worksheet about job outsourcing and its merits and demerits. Many of the Chinese students favored outsourcing, which I suppose makes sense, as China became wealthy off of countries like the United States relying on cheap labor in China to manufacture products and largely depleting domestic labor; I guess in the current climate it's inherent that I as an American view outsourcing negatively, while the Chinese might not have a feeling of victimization from it. None of this has to do with Japanese culture, of course, and other than standard reading practice there wasn't anything else noteworthy for the class aside from what I discussed at the beginning of this post with my essay.