I have become a meme.
At least, I hope I have become a meme.
We can start there. Last week, Ozu High School won the prefectural soccer championship. Pretty easily. The game was four to zero. We all sat in the auditorium and watched it together, during the school day, as it was live streamed on YouTube. I told you that Ozu is good at soccer, and that their soccer team is like a small army. I now know that, if the students are to be trusted, which they are not, although when it comes to soccer they’re probably a reliable source of information, that the Ozu soccer team has over 170 members. 170. There are something like eight hundred kids at the school. So about one in five students at Ozu are on the soccer team. And that sounds about right. Some of these kids wake up at 4 am to make the trip to Ozu and be there on time for morning practice, which starts at 5:30, and don’t get home until 8 or 9. I have to respect their dedication, even if I think it is totally insane. I couldn’t do it. These kids work at least 10x harder than me. It is really like being in the army. I’ve never been in the army, I have no idea what’s it really like. I imagine it is to some degree what an Ozu soccer player experiences. But anyways, last week, I was in the school gym, as I often am, working out with the boys, which is a lot of fun, because they think that I am the strongest human that they’ve ever seen. At least they treat me like that. I am stronger than almost all of them, but it’s just because they’re tiny twinks. Compared to them, I am truly a muscle-bound freak. I was in the gym, and I asked them about the soccer tournament, because I knew that that last weekend all school sports had had their tournaments. This is a difference between Japan and the US, where almost all of the sports have their tournaments at the same time. Baseball, I think, may be an exception. So I knew that the soccer guys had played last weekend, and I asked, and they told me that they had a game tomorrow, during the day, and I could watch it on YouTube Live, on a channel called Green Card. I’ll put the link here so you guys can check it out. The next night, after work at Shoyo, I went home, gorged on my nightly soba, and then grabbed my laptop, sat on those steps in front of Nagata sensei’s apartment, hooked up to that sweet, sweet WiFi, and searched up Ozu’s semi-final game. That game was the semi-final, I forgot to say. This was the second time I had ever watched Ozu soccer. They’re a good team. They won that game, 4 to 1, one of the goals being an outside of the box upper-90 shot. Sexy stuff. I was impressed, and I thought, hey, I’ll leave a little comment. I don’t often comment on YouTube videos. I’ve actually maybe never commented on a YouTube video. By the time I get to any YouTube video, there are already about a thousand witty comments or memes, and there’s no need for me to add my far less witty comment to the noise. But on this video, the comment section was just a barren patch of white, and so I thought they deserved something. I just really had an urge to comment, then. So after thinking for about one and a half seconds, keeping it short and sweet, I wrote, 大津強いね！Ozu tsuyoi ne! Ozu is strong! I then closed the laptop, thought nothing of it, and returned to my apartment.
The next day, I wasn’t going to have class, but Atsuko sensei asked me if I would join her. When we walked into class together, I was deep in thought, I’m sure over something incredibly trivial, and paying little attention to anything. By the time I had reached the podium, to set some textbooks down, I realized that I had heard something, something that was meant for me to hear, when I walked in, and that was, 大津強いね！Several students had said this, when I walked in, at a volume slightly above conversational level – not shouting it at me, but loud enough for me to hear. And it took my brain a few seconds to realize, that’s what I had commented last night. Waking up from my trance, and saw seven or eight boys in their seats, looking directly at me, and I said, “大津強いね！” My comment made an impression on them. My YouTube profile is linked to my gmail, and so my YouTube username is my actual name, paired with a clear and unmistakeable picture of me, so it’s obvious that I was the commenter.
I thought that was a funny reaction, but it still didn’t sink in, the scope and reach of my comment, until later the next day. That day, Ozu was playing in the prefectural championship, and we all gathered in the gym to watch it on an enormous screen. In a normal year, we would have all gone to watch the game live, at the stadium, but this was not a normal year. Some of the teachers, the young bucks, had been designated cheerleaders, and were decked out in some electric blue Ozu swag, and I went over to them and said, “Hey, nice shirts.” They said, “Want one?” And so I walked with Dragonball Z sensei (he’s got spiky porcupine hair) to go get one, and as we were walking, he stopped and turned to me, and said, “YouTube.. Nice comment.” And now I thought – ok, spiky sensei knows about it, 1-5 knows about it.. how many people have seen this comment? So after the game, I sat down at my desk, pulled up the video, and saw that that video had 15,000 views (which blew my mind, I had no idea so many people were interested in high school soccer), and my comment had 7 likes, which is by far the most likes I’ve ever had on a YouTube comment, and my comment was still the only comment on this video. So any student, parent, teacher, whoever these 15,000 people are, whoever watched that video, would have seen their school ALT commenting, 大津強いね！And at 15,000, that could be the whole school. At least all of the soccer players would know about it. And the soccer players, especially, but the high school boys in general, really enjoy a good catchphrase. A good meme. They had already memed me with it that day when I walked into class. For my part, I’ve tried to help cement it as one. After the championship game, I pulled up the recording on YouTube, and again commented, 大津強いね! I think it stands a good chance of being adopted.
I say that the students really enjoy a good catchphrase, for this reason. The way that they first sounded off the 大津強いね！ in class, in unison and at a level just loud enough to catch my ear, took me back to a time early in my ALT career, a time where my days were filled with the words, “Hey guys.” Or, if the students were really in the mood for it, “Hey guys, we have a gift for you.”
Any foreign man, woman, or child working in the Japanese English education system will be familiar with this phrase. I now know that it is nationwide. In the beginning, this “hey guys” meant nothing to me. In my first classes, I noticed that at the start of class, and sometimes throughout class, when there was individual work or group time, I would hear this, and I could tell the students wanted me to hear this, this “Hey guys.” And at first I thought, maybe they were imitating me, because I did typically refer to the class as a whole as “guys” and when I want to get the attention of the whole class, I would sometimes say, “hey guys”, although I have since switched to “hey kiddos” being more gender neutral, more fun, and less likely to induce a “hey guys” in response. At first I thought it was because of this, but I don’t say hey guys all that often, and the students were saying it in every class, and in the hallways, whenever they ran into me, and it was just too frequent for them to be imitating me, I knew it had to come from something. I just didn’t know what. They would say it, and I knew they were looking from some reaction from me, but I don’t really internet, and so their meme fell short, and eventually, when they saw that Steven sensei doesn’t get the joke, they stopped using it. But sometime soon after I met Parker, which was now many months into being in Japan, he brought this up. He said to me, one day, “Do your students ever say, ‘Hey guys?'” And I said, “All the time.” And he said, “Do you know where that’s from?” And I said, “No.” And he said, “It’s from PornHub.” (Disclaimer: Parker is not a PornHub user.) And that was the day I found out that I was teaching a small army of PornHub fans. Apparently, at the beginning of videos, there is an ad, and the ad starts off with a woman, saying, “Hey guys, we have a gift for you.” That phrase has now since become a litmus test for seeing whether your ALT watches PornHub or not, although now that the meme has spread across the country, many ALTs know about it without having seen the ad. It’s a quick and effective way to try and elicit some kind of reaction from an ALT, and a cheap and easy way to get your lads to giggle. I’m sure it’s thrilling for them, to be sitting them, ALT walking into class, and thinking, “Ok, time to hit him with the ‘hey guys’, let’s see what he does!” I should not have been surprised that all this time my high school guys had been reciting the lines of a PornHub advertisement to me, but given how widespread it was, I didn’t think it’d be something that sinister. It really felt like every damn guy in the school had said it to me at one point or another. I thought it was just a line from a popular video game, like Fortnite or something. But, I still wasn’t too surprised. When it came to crass, I learned quickly with them. I could give a few examples of what I mean by that, involving trees, and hand gestures, and words that I would be ashamed to write here, but to keep this family friendly, I’ll hold off.
You may be thinking, Steven, are you trying to keep your blog family friendly? We’re already talking about PornHub. And I’m not really trying to keep it family friendly, but PornHub is something that will probably come up in your family. Everyone in your family, if they have any access to the internet, and any slight curiosity, must know about it. It’s 2021. PornHub is here and with us. And here’s the thing about PornHub, which is really what I think about when I think about all of my high schoolers being PornHub fiends, is that PornHub ranks quite highly on the list of companies that propagate pain and suffering. PornHub actually profits off of it. Pain and suffering is worked into the PornHub business model, along with straight up illegal activity. PornHub ruins lives. People have committed suicide because of PornHub. PornHub is a horrible company. PornHub is everything that is wrong with capitalism. If you’re interested, read Nickolas Kristoff’s New York Times PornHub pieces. While you could debate about whether free and easy access to porn is a good thing or not, there is no debate to be had over PornHub being one of the worst companies on this planet. So, of course, I’m not happy that all of my students are quoting PornHub advertisements, but I do get it. PornHub being the destroyer of lives that it is, the “Hey guys” thing, it’s funny. They are funny guys. And, they are high school guys. With phones. They’re still maturing young bucks, and they can’t be expected to know (although I would expect them to care) about the evils of PornHub. I did dabble with the idea of letting them know, choosing PornHub as the focus for my next edition of the school newspaper, The Ozu Times, and I even had a great title worked out for it. “Hey Guys, We Have A Problem.” In the small font below the main title: It’s PornHub. I thought that was clever. But I don’t think it was the move. That may have been quite an awkward paper for the homeroom teachers to hand out. It wouldn’t have survived the chain of approval anyway. All of my papers have to go through a rigorous approval process, passing up that long chain of command, from my supervisor, to the head of the English department, and the several head honchos of the school, all the way up to the principal. That would have been a fun conversation to have. Still, someone’s got to educate these kids, and if we ever talk about it again, I’ll let them know what I think. “PornHub, bad company. Very bad company. Black company.” Even those dinguses can understand that.
So that’s why I’d love it if 大津強いね！ could become a new catchphrase. It would be a much more wholesome one. It doesn’t have the edge, of the “hey guys”, or the nationwide recognition, or the appeal of being in English, so I don’t imagine it would last, but it’d be nice if it did, if I had inspired a quip to replace the dreaded “hey guys” with.
I now have a little collection of one offs I’d like to share with you. In lieu of any greater story.
I have taken to walking a certain route through my neighborhood. There is a park not too far from my apartment complex, called Shouwaen. It’s named after the Shouwa era (昭和), which was, I believe, three eras ago. This era is the Reiwa (令和) era, the last was Heisei (平成), and then before that, Shouwa. Do you know about this? In Japan, depending on the establishment you’re working with, you may write the date as being, for example, the day I write this particular section of this particular blog post, 10日6月2021年, or, 10日6月令和3年. When I submit paperwork, the year is typically written as the year in the era, and not the, what is it called, the A.D. year. The first year in any era is the 元年 (gannen), basically meaning ‘beginning year’, which I am proud to say I was here for Reiwa’s. That was a fun year, because I got to write 元年 on everything. If I leave on the last year of Reiwa, then it would be a convenient way to convey to both the Japanese and anyone who is familiar with the Japanese eras, how long I had lived in Japan for, if they ever ask me, as I could just respond, “令和”. The park is called 昭和園, Shouwaen, and it’s a nice park. It sits up on a hill, and from the top of the hill, when there are breaks in the trees, you can look out over your dominion, that is Ozu valley, and see all the way to the farthest ranges to the south, which I was admiring the other day, and wondering just how many tens or hundreds of kilometers away they were. They’re so far off that if they didn’t have just a jagged ridgeline, you might think they were clouds. Just a soft blue hardly distinguishable from the sky itself. There’s just something special about mountains. I remember talking to a guy, in Tokyo, and we had a special affinity, both being readers, and wearing the exact same pair of glasses, his name was Patrick, and we were talking about what drew us to Japan, and I mentioned the mountains, and he said that he thought he couldn’t or wouldn’t want to live somewhere where there weren’t any mountains. I’m inclined to agree. And when it comes to mountains, Ozu has a particular appeal. There is just something awe inspiring about living in the shadow of the largest active volcano in Japan. And that reminds me of another conversation that I had recently. On my last day, if I had one final day left to live, I think I’d invite everyone I knew, or didn’t know, anybody at all who wanted to come to someone’s final day party, to an incredible display of debauchery on top of Mt. Aso. Inside of the cauldera, it’s quite flat, and spacious, grassy fields ringed with rock. And inside the cauldera, over in the back, on the north side, is the opening. There must be a scientific word for that. The mouth of the volcano. I would host an enormous party, with a stage, live bands, horse riding, fireworks, copious amounts of alcohol, amateur sumo wrestling, whatever, and then, at the end of the day, I’d give a speech, throw on some leather, hop on a motorcycle, and with music blaring, and fireworks blasting, and to the cheering of all, drive off a ramp into firey doom of Mt. Aso. It is the most thrilling way to die I can think of within 50 kilometers of me. But, in sharing this idea, this is how I learned that in the mouths of all volcanoes are not open pools of bubbling lava. I guess I thought that they were. Apparently a crust forms over the top. You may think that I’m stupid for not knowing that, but I didn’t. I imagined that they were all boiling, frothing basins of red hot lava, and I’m more than a little disappointed that they’re not. I think the distance from the edge of the mouth the crust is so far, though, that I’d still die from the impact, when I jumped off into it. So, it doesn’t totally ruin my plan, but I did imagine more of a burning, melting sensation, in my final moments, then just a sudden splat. For me, it’s more appealing to disintegrate, and leave no trace behind, then to be splattered everywhere. しょうがないね. But it would be thrilling nonetheless.
Going off of the volcanoes not all being pits of flame thing, I had another similar revelation this past week, and one that might be easily used to accuse me of being an idiot. Do you know where your stomach is? I’ve asked several people this question, recently, as I’ve been wondering if this is more or less common knowledge, and I’m the only one who didn’t know, or if there are people like me, who just thought they knew where it was, and were living a lie. Everyone that I’ve asked has known. That doesn’t necessarily mean that most people know. I could just be surrounded by some very smart people. I think what’s more likely is that somehow I’ve made it this far in life without managing to see any of the infinity of diagrams displaying the arrangement of the internal organs in the body, or if I had, I’m sure I had, I had entirely forgotten them, and come up with my own diagram, existing only in my head, and not in reality. The other day I saw one of these diagrams, and had to look at several, because I did not trust that single diagram, as it was so entirely different from my mental one, but they all seemed to show the same thing, that your stomach is about in the middle of your torso. That single fact has blown my mind every day for the past week. It still does. Your stomach is approximately between your belly button and nipples, and situated somewhat to the left. If you had asked me where the stomach was, before my awakening, I would have pointed to my belly button. I thought it was right about there. Because that’s where the sounds come from. The tummy-grumblings. Also, I thought that the lungs were maybe 3x larger than they actually are. I thought that I had just an incredible set of lungs. What really blew my mind, looking at one of those diagrams, was how massive your intenstines are. I really had no idea. I don’t even like thinking about how massive the intenstines are. And the fact that my stomach is nearly in my chest. Don’t even get me started on the kidneys. I should not bring up the fact that I was a biology major, now. But, in my defense, I never took anatomy, and have never been all that interested in anatomy. I did take a zoology course, and cut open a number of poor, formaldehyde-soaked dead things, for science, and I didn’t really enjoy any of that.
So that’s a one-off. You could maybe say that was a two-off. Let’s keep going.
Here, these are all related. I can give you several recent of examples of amusing miscommunications. We can go in order of recency, reverse chronological order, if you like. The most recent of these happened just last week. I spent most of the Ozu High School’s championship soccer game in conversation with Uramoto sensei, who I have brought up before. He is one of the two vice-principals at Ozu. This is a confusing thing. There are two 教頭先生 (kyoutou sensei) at Ozu. I have had many a conversation about what the roles of the three individuals that sit in a row in front of the main cluster of teachers desks, where the normies sit, are, and here they are. There is a 教頭先生 (kyoutou sensei)、a 副校長先生 (fukukouchou sensei), and then another guy (or girl). Isn’t this sad, that I still don’t know, all three roles, and I’m sure I’ve been told many times now. That third role is the head of the teaching staff, but I don’t have the official name of the title. Anyway, the difficulty is in how to say kyoutou sensei in English. Fukukouchou sensei is obviously vice principal. That was obvious, wasn’t it? Well, now, wait a minute. I was going to say that we also call the kyoutou sensei vice principal, and that’s the confusing thing, but now I’m looking at those kanji, in 教頭, 教 being teach, and 頭 being head, and, well.. That certainly seems to be head teacher, doesn’t it.
I don’t want to write about that anymore. Let’s move on.
This is my blog. I don’t have to do that to myself.
I was having a nice conversation with Uramoto sensei. He is an incredibly nice man. I wrote before, I’m sure, that he was one of my favorites at Ozu. This man works about eighty hours a week. Seventy to eighty hours a week. They cut down on cleaning time at Ozu, and now only clean twice a week. But, there’s still trash to be collected in the teacher’s room. So who collects the trash? Yes yes, our man Uramoto. He shows up at around 7, and leaves at nine or ten, each night, and he commutes at least an hour every day. That’s not the only reason he’s working so late. That’s just an example, one of the many. I actually have no idea what he does, but he is always doing something. The BBC recently posted an article about overwork, overwork being the working of 55 hours or more a week, being a greater cause of death than malaria. More people die from overwork than malaria. I didn’t mention this report to Uramoto sensei, when he’s telling me all of this, because I don’t want to stress him out anymore, because I’m sure that would be stressful, to be stressed from working too much, and to then be stressed about your stress, because it’s killing you. But, I’m worried about that man. If anyone dies from overwork, and I don’t want anyone to, of course, but if anyone does, I’d really rather it not be Uramoto sensei. I would like him to enjoy a nice, relaxing, fulfilling retirement, with fingerpainting, long walks on the beach, and bottomless mimosas. I spent most of that game, not watching the game, but rather talking to Uramoto sensei, who was entertaining me with stories of his family trip to see the giant hanging fish (we had both been there on the same day, it turns out) and of eighty-hour work weeks. It came around that I started asking him about 熊本弁 (Kumamoto ben), which I like to ask the older teachers about, because they know some good ben. Ben being dialect. In Japan, there are strong regional dialects, and although they are weakening with the younger generations, I think you can still tell where someone is from based on how they speak, in the vocabulary and grammar that they use, and perhaps in the intonation as well. There is a great video on this, that I watched the other day, of a guy speaking in all 47 prefectures’ dialects, with the standard Japanese (which is, Tokyo Japanese?) captioned below, and I couldn’t understand any of it, including the Kumamoto ben. So, that partially inspired me to ask Uramoto sensei. This is one reason why it is nearly impossible to understand older people here. Another reason, applying specifically to the men, is that they move their mouths so little, and have such deep voices, and speak so quickly, that to the inexperienced ear, their language is not Japanese, but some kind of ancient, tonal grunting. I don’t want to call them cavemen. It’s not that bad. But it might help you understand what I mean. Over time, their speech has just gradually devolved into being the most effecient, with the least amount of effort, required. The higher your rank, in the Japanese world, the shorter your sentences can be, and once you’ve reached the top, you hardly have to speak at all. At least, you’ll never have to form a complete sentence again. I’m getting at the Kumamoto ben, because I asked Uramoto sensei, if he could teach me any, and he did. That day, as it has been recently, was a scorcher, and Uramoto sensei taught me the proper Kumamotoan way to say, “It’s hot.” And there are two ways. One, is a general change that you can make to any adjective, by just dropping the i at the end, and adding a ka, and drawing it out. So, if I say, atsui, which is, it’s hot, I would say, atsuka—–. Or, for samui, it’s cold, samuka—-. Then, there is the real Kumamoto version, which may be an entirely new word, and not an alteration of existing ones, which is, nu-ka—. Only real Kumamotoans know this. He told me. The real ben speakers. After the game was over, (Ozu won 4-0, I think I missed every goal), equipped with my new ben, I mosied back to the classroom, and came over to my desk, and saw Kusuyama sensei in her seat next to mine. As I pulled back my seat, to sit in it, I said to Kusuyama sensei, who is from Kumamoto, I should add, “Phew! Yu-ka—ne—-!” She turns to me, “Yu-ka—?” She was suprised to hear my Kumamoto ben, I was sure. I repeated, “Kyou wa (today), yu-ka—-ne!” She’s not surprised. She’s confused. She’s repeating to herself, “Yuka? Yuka?” And now I’m confused, and give an uncertain, “Yu-ka?” I’m now wondering if either Uramoto sensei taught me something so esoteric that even the average real Kumamotoan doesn’t know it, or I’ve got something wrong, when Kusuyama sensei’s eyes light up, and she says, “Oh, Nu-ka-ne!” And I reply, “Yes, yes! Nu-ka!” And she starts laughing. She says, “Ah, nu-kane. Kumamoto ben, hai, hai. I thought you were trying to say your butt hurt from sitting in the gym. Yuka means floor, ne.” And then I realized that I had just come over to her, and been saying, “Floor! Today, floor!”
Another recent and entertaining miscommunication. I was walking my walk through the neighborhood, returning, when, as I turned the corner at an intersection, I ran into two of my students (or, they seemed to act like my students. At least they seemed to know me, although I couldn’t tell that I’d ever seen their faces.) They said hi, and told me they we’re going to the grocery store. And I said, you know, that’s great, and have fun. And I specifically said the words, “Have fun!” And our conversation was going along smoothly, until I uttered these words. At that, the lead boy, on his bike, stumbled. He looked at me uncertainly. “iPhone?” He replied. I tried again. “Have fun!” He said. “iPhone.” I repeated once again. “Have fun!” He said to me, reaching for his pocket, “持っています.” Motteimasu. (I’ve got one.) He then turns to his friend behind him for help. His friend is just as confused. “Headphones?” He ventures. They look to me again. And I can’t just keep repeating “Have fun!” at them, as much as I’d like to, as I’ve already carried it on long enough, and if they haven’t gotten it now, the chances are extremely low that they will get it, and so I said, “楽しんでください!” Tanoshinde kudasai. Have a nice time. And they said, “Ah! Thank you!” As I was walking back to my apartment, I practiced saying “have fun” and “iPhone” with Japanese pronunciation, and they are similar. I get why they thought that. But, wouldn’t it be hilarious if I was really just standing there, at the end of our conversation, and repeating, “iPhone! iPhone!” That’s as ridiculous as me sitting down next to Kusuyama sensei and going, “Floor! Floor!” iPhone is just a standard American goodbye. We are that proud of them. It’s a way to remind each other of our innovative and enterprising spirit.
Here’s another recent one. These happen often, weekly at least. This was a few weeks ago. I was in the office kitchen. Just two days ago I asked 森田先生 (Morita sensei, Forest Field) what you call this room, because I’d been wondering about it. She didn’t know either. I keep thinking there is a specific name for this kind of room. Is it a staff room? Is it a break room? Is it just a kitchen? Kitchen doesn’t quite feel right. It’s weird to me to say that you have a kitchen in the middle of your office. And no one really cooks there anyways. The most cooking that happens is heating up water for instant ramen. That’s all. So calling it a kitchen is really a stretch, although you could cook there if you wanted to. They have the equipment for it. I should really cook a nice meal in there on one of my lunch breaks. I do get fifty minutes. That’s more than enough time to cook something nice up. I think I would just be in everyone’s way if I did that. I would get an incredible amount of attention, as every teacher who popped in there to get their lunch, or drink, or make coffee, or microwave something, would see me sauteeing some onions in a pan, and ask me, as they shove me aside to open up the fridge door, or squeeze behind me to get at the microwave, what, are you actually cooking something? I could bring an apron and a chef’s hat. They would all get a big kick out of that. This is starting to sound like a really great idea. A few weeks ago, I guess we’re going with kitchen, in this office kitchen, I was in it, and I ran into Yokogawa sensei (Sideways River, 横川) (it’s a small kitchen, it’s unavoidable that we run into each other) (anyone who enters the kitchen with you must be at the minimum greeted, no matter how unwilling the two parties. It’s just the standard etiquette of such a small room. On few occasions I have said nothing and it’s quite awkward. When two and only two humans find themselves together in such close proximity, you really have to make the choice to speak or not, because there’s no way that either of you could pretend at that point that you didn’t notice each other, or were thinking about something else. It’s not a great room for misanthropes, or the socially inept.) I struck up a conversation with Yokogawa sensei, and at one point, unprompted, she said to me, “Today, chili.” Now, this is harder to convey, because I have to type that word, with one kind of spelling, and then you’ll know what she was saying, based on the spelling, but there are two words that she could have been saying, right. Chili, and chilly. Seeing as we were in the kitchen, and I had just finished asking another sensei what they had brought for lunch, and she was herself standing in front of me with lunch in hand, I thought she must be talking about her lunch, and I was shook, because I’ve never heard any Japanese person mention chili up to this point, and I had really almost entirely forgotten about chili, and so the fact that Yokogawa sensei was having chili for lunch, not only that she had made chili, but brought it in for lunch, which was so outside of the standard range of answers when you ask a Japanese high school teacher what they brought for lunch was, that it I shook me, and I said, “What, really? Chili? You made chili? I didn’t know that anyone in Japan ate chili!” And she says, “No, no. Today, it’s cold. The weather is chilly.”
I have more. Here’s the last one, of the recents. I was talking with Ryoka, my Japanese friend in Malaysia, known as “Malaysia girl” to many, about whatever we talk about, and for some reason I mentioned Jeff Bezos. I think I was quizzing her on famous Americans. She may have said that she didn’t know that many. I threw Jeff Bezos out there, and she said, “べーぞ？(Behzo?) Yeah, I know べーぞ。べーぞ pizza, ne!” She thought I was saying basil. And then I thought about two things, which is, one, a Jeff Bezos pizza, and two, a Jeff Bezos, except his name is instead Jeff Basil. What would be on a Jeff Bezos pizza? What set of ingredients suggest world domination? Or maybe each pizza just has a nice full headshot of Jeff Basil posted on the underside of the box lid. It could just be Jeff’s favorite kind of pizza. These are all good suggestions. I should ask her about Elon Musk.
In this same conversation, Ryoka told me a story. This is the story of the baby’s ぐー。(Gu.) I told her that that’s the sound that babies make, in English. The sound of an English speaking baby. Goo goo gaa gaa. The sound of a Japanese speaking baby: ngyaa ngyaa. んぎゃーんぎゃー. I would now like to hear baby sounds in all languages. The story of the baby’s ぐー is this. And you have to write it with that little ー. If you don’t, it’s quite confusing for the Japanese. They won’t know what you’re talking about.ぐー means rock, and it also means fist, and is used in rock paper scissors (グーとパ、別れましょう！) I think that’s what they say, although I’m now wondering why they say that, because they’re saying, rock and paper, let’s pick one, and why would you ever pick rock in such a situation, unless you are a true rock man, or you would like to lose. I’ll have to ask about this. (Here’s the answer: This is used for dividing teams. And that makes sense, because 別れる means divide up, and there are only two options. 説明 (setsume, explanation) courtesy of Mr. Parker Junior.) But, anyways, グー is fist. Babies are born with closed hands, I guess, with closed fists, and in each fist, they are holding something. In one hand, they hold the name of the person who will be the most important to them in their lives. The name of the person who will have the greatest influence on their life. The person you marry, for example. Or Shia LeBouf, if you’ve been particularly struck by his “Just Do It!” video. In the other hand, they hold the name of the Pokémon that will lead them to become the next greatest Pokémon master. Ash, or, Satoshi (Japanese name) for example, was obviously holding the name Pikachu. I’m just kidding about this. In the other hand, they hold their dream. Their future dream. Their greatest achievement. So it could actually be the name of the Pokémon that will guide them to absolute victory. I think that’s right, that they hold their dream. I was tickled by the idea of all Japanese people being born with the name of a spirit Pokémon in their hands that I may have forgotten how the legend really goes. This is a Japanese legend (is this kind of thing a legend?), and I thought it was interesting. People spend their lives then trying to catch what they let go of when they were first born. Just a few days ago, while I was on the phone, I caught a mosquito one-handed, and I was so startled that I may have just caught a mosquito one-handed, pretty nonchalantly, like you might reach out to pick your watch up off your desk, that the first thing I did, before even giving my hand a squeeze or anything, was just open my hand back up, to confirm that I really had caught it, and as I watched it fly up and out of my hand, upon opening, I knew that not only had I just caught a mosquito one-handed, but I had also just let it go. And this was in my apartment, where I am now sleeping in a tent, on some nights, to protect myself, although it has recently gotten so hot, that inside of that tent I am being cooked alive, and now have to make the difficult choice, every night, of either falling asleep in an uncomfortable pool of sweat, or while slapping myself in the face and head every five, ten, fifteen minutes, until finally becoming so fatigued that mosquitoes are allowed to drink even the blood of my face freely. I think they are learning, though, that if they just fly down to my feet, my legs, even my arms, they can have a free meal, and avoid all potential danger. This is a long story, the story between the mosquitoes and I. But why I say this is because, if I do end up catching my dream, however I end up catching it, I hope I don’t do what I did with the mosquito, and find myself so startled that I caught it, that I open up hand to see if I did, and end up letting it go. Maybe it’s better that I didn’t kill that mosquito.
The above is a recording of Malaysia Girl imitating a Japanese baby. I thought you’d like to have the audio. Actually, you kind of need it. I really have no idea how you read ngyaa ngyaa to yourself. I read it the way I hear the baby voice, but I already know what the sound is, and now you do too. You can compare this to the sound you thought the baby was making, when you read that ngyaa ngyaa. Were you close? This is the sound of a Japanese baby. I’m really proud of including this audio file, by the way. This is a major milestone in this blog’s history. A groundbreaking post.
You know what, here is the American version. This is me. It’s not fair that my American readers get the Japanese baby, and my Japanese don’t get the American. This is the sound of the American baby. The first audio files uploaded to this blog are twenty year olds making baby sounds. That’s the kind of blog we’re running here, I guess.
We’re doing good, here. I think I’ve told you a lot of good things. We’ve made some baby sounds. There are only two more things I think I’d like to tell you before we wrap this post up.
I am changing the name of my blog. $30 is the price that I have to pay for being an uncreative and unoriginal monkey. I came up with the name for this blog, ManInJapan, using about the same amount of time and energy it takes to sneeze, and am being punished for it. I can’t stand searching ManInJapan and seeing tens, hundreds, of other ManInJapan accounts, and being reminded that I am one of them, one of this horde of incredibly uncreative and unoriginal men, who realized that yes they are a man, and that the words man and Japan sound nice together, and they are in fact a man in Japan, and so man in Japan is obviously a great name, except for the fact that basically any man in Japan can put this together, and then only the ones who are not totally uncreative or unoriginal realize that everyone else will use this too, and then opt for something better, that takes a little more than a single second to come up with. ManInJapan was the first name I really thought of, and while it does have a great ring to it, I see my options as being only this: either I continue to exist among this horde of ManInJapan accounts, and achieve ultimate dominance, establishing myself as THE true ManInJapan, or I simply change my name, to something that is just slightly more specific to me, and distinguishes me in some way from the ManInJapan army. The second option is just easier, and I also can’t really stand being ManInJapan anymore, and so I’m going to change the name to hakuchoumusuko. 白鳥息子. This is, 白鳥, being swan, hakuchou, white bird, and musuko, 息子, being son. This is my last name. We can argue about how much more creative this is or isn’t. I think it’s still more creative than ManInJapan. It’s also personal. And, this is one of the most reliable jokes in my self-introduction lesson, which has now become a half standup comedy routine, as something about it just really gets the Japanese, me converting my name to Japanese, the way that I convert theirs to English. I’m lucky enough to be one of the very few who can do this with their last names. Yet more evidence that my relationship with Japan is a fated one. I say it like this, in class. “And my last name is Swanson.” And some of them will say, Swanson. And I’ll say, “Do you know what a swan is?” At higher levels, hakuchou is said immediately. At lower levels, it might take a few tries. At the lowest levels, only silence, and then if someone gets it, they are immediately recognized by the class as being the new representative English guru. Then I say, “How about son?” And at the higher levels, musuko is usually said. At the lower levels, taiyou is said first, which is sun, and then my Japanese sensei sidekick will say, no, not that one. At the lowest levels, again, silence, and if anyone does know it, English guru. Then, once they know what we’re talking about, the punchline. “So, my name is Steven Hakuchoumusuko.” And cue big laughs. The first time I ever told this joke, it was entirely spontaneous, as these all are, it popped out after probably the twenty or thirtieth self-intro lesson, and it got big laughs, and even a compliment by one of the senseis after the lesson. “I liked your hakuchou musuko joke.” And I thought, “Was that a joke?” So I knew that was a keeper. I think the evolution of my self-intro lesson parallels the evolution of an organism, or really, the evolution of anything at all. Evolution doesn’t change. The process of evolution. Evolution itself is obviously quite dynamic. I try it over and over, making small alterations, spontaneous mutations, and if they are effective (get laughs) they stay, and if they aren’t, they don’t, and over time, my lesson is improved. Actually, my first self-intro lesson was just a pathetic mess, compared to what we have today, but it took, what, some 70+ runs to get the point where it will reliably entertain the average high school aged Kumamotoan. I’ve heard that some standup comedians have a no phone policy when they perform at weekly clubs, when they’re trying out new material, because they’re taking risks, and they don’t know if something will bomb or not, and they don’t want it getting out and bombing on the world stage, the internet. What we see in their final performances, their tours, their TV specials, are the products of a long period of tempering. My self-intro lesson has gone through the same process. I’m glad there are no recordings of my first run throughs.
Now that we’re on jokes, we can tie this last thing in perfectly. Parker recently told a good joke, when we were out planting rice a few weekends ago, as we do. Well, as he does. Once in awhile. You don’t have to plant rice all that frequently. Just a few times a year. We were planting some rice, and having some nice conversations, with our new friends, Tomomi san, and Tsuki san, and Osajima san, and Parker, at one point, asked Tomomi san, “What’s your favorite soda?” Tomomi san is quite a bubbly person. Really, she’s just a like a soda. It seems that her natural response to any interaction is laughter. When we first rendezvoused, in a Family Mart parking lot, made our introductions and had a short conversation, and were heading off to go to the scene of the action, I remember that Tomomi san was laughing, still laughing, as she opened her car door and sat down in the driver’s seat. She was still so tickled. It also struck me that she seemed to think her thoughts out loud, and I say all this just to give you a sense of why and how she responded to Parker’s question, “What’s your favorite soda?” with a lengthy, vocal, internal debate over whether she liked soda at all, and what constitutes as soda, and out of those, what she did like, which all culminated with her saying, “In America, I had a strawberry drink. I think it was strawberry.” And Parker says, “Fanta?” And she says no. “Strawberry..” They’re standing, and here, I’m kneeling, taking a rest, staring down into the deep chocolate mud of the rice paddy, listening, and I also thought it must be Fanta, and so if it’s not Fanta, well, it could be Cherry Coke, which has a similar fruity taste, right, and it’s a good one, at one point was one of my favorite sodas, and so I say, “Cherry Coke?” And she says, “So so so!” (Yes yes, that one!) This all took at least thirty seconds, and some several back and forth exchange, and you can tell throughout all of it, that Parker really just wanted Tomomi san to say a soda, any soda. He says to her, again, now that we’ve found our answer, “So what’s your favorite soda?” And Tomomi san says, “Cherry Coke.” And Parker says, “Souda.” そうだ。Do you get it? Is any joke funny if you have to explain it? Not really. That might be why this joke is failing so hard on the student circuit. But I’ll explain it. It is more apparent to Japanese speakers, or it should be. そうだ (souda) can mean, “Is that so?” Or “That’s so.” depending on your intonation. So, you know, you ask what their favorite soda is, or favorite anything is, just ask any question, and souda is a common and acceptable response. Except in this situation, you know, it’s also soda, and that’s what we’re talking about, so you’re responding with the same word.. yeah, you get it now, you must. Is that funny? I think that it’s funny. I like it a lot. I’ve liked it so much, that I taken it into the classroom. Every class I have, we start off by just saying hi. I try to warm them up a bit, give them a little pre-lesson entertainment, if I can, just check the pulse of the class, give them a little energy if they need it. It’s a good time to try and make them laugh. If you can secure a laugh right at the beginning, that’s big. I had found major success with a joke, recently, this joke, “What is Michael Jackson’s favorite color?” Everybody knows Michael Jackson. I give them a few seconds, to float their random guesses, and potential explanations, before hitting them with the punchline, “Ao!” Said like Michael Jackson in a Michael Jackson song. You can imagine it, right. This is funny because that sound, ao, あお、is blue, in Japanese. It’s a good joke. It kills. And this has been hard for me to nail, this Michael Jackson Ao! sound. Sometimes the sound that comes out of me is just so strange. And sometimes my voice cracks. It’s also hard for me to get the volume right. I don’t want to scream it at the kids, but you need a certain amount of vocal energy to make a sound like that. Following up that joke, this past week, I’ve been trying the soda joke. Already, this joke has a problem, in that most students don’t know what soda is. So, they look at each other, saying, “Soda? Soda?” Someone might know. They will come to a general understanding, and my sensei sidekick or I will explain, and already the joke is losing steam, and answers will start to trickle out, but it’s all uncoordinated, and the students may not be listening at all, now, when I start trying to reply, “Souda.” to them. It’s impossible for me to tell whether they understand the joke or not, as well, when I reply, “Souda.” because they almost never laugh. When it has all gone off perfectly, and I’ve asked the question, and a student has understood, and has given me an appropriate answer, and at an appropriate volume, that the class is aware of what’s happening, and I can then reply, “souda.” even when all conditions are met, this joke has failed. It brings at most, feeble chuckles, or some grins. Nothing at all like the success I was having with the Michael Jackson joke. It’s not the reception I was expecting. On the second day of my telling of this joke, of me running it through the circuit, I was at Ozu, and it was my third class of the day. I said, to the class, again, “Can I ask you guys a question?” They say, yes. Some students don’t know what that question in itself means. Usually they do. I only need one student’s permission to go ahead with it. I say, “What’s your favorite soda?” This class, again, needs to know what soda is. Some students start talking to each other about it. Some students are looking at me in complete silence. Some students are thinking. Very few students mumble answers. No one speaks confidently enough for me to reply to so that the class will catch the joke. I ask one student in the back, then, after this initial confusion phase has passed, and we are all on the same page, that I’m asking them about soda, and what their favorite soda is, and they’ve had time to think of an answer, I ask one guy in the back, my man Nakamura kun, who I know can give me a straight answer, I ask him, “What’s your favorite soda?” He says, “No soda.” He’s a soccer player. I think, dammit Nakamura kun. I’ve wasted enough time at this point, it’s probably already been five minutes, and I’m supposed to be doing some kind of lesson, with a plan and purpose and everything. I turn to the front, looking down at the girls right in front of me. I recognize a girl (don’t flame me, I don’t know her name, I’m sorry, but we’re good friends, I swear) who I’m good friends with, have had many a conversation with, told many a joke to, pulled many a weed with, during cleaning time, and who is not a shy girl, thinking she is another surefire, and I ask her, “What’s your favorite soda?” And suddenly, this girl freezes up. You would think she just stepped out on the stage of Japan’s Got Talent and was asked to perform something. She’s looking straight down, embarrassed. She will not be giving me the name of any soda. I cross the room. I’m desperate now. Soccer player in the front, he’s an outspoken guy, he will give me an answer. I ask, for the sixth or seventh time now, “What’s your favorite soda?” He thinks for a second. “Mmm, water.” God dammit. I almost threw my hands up in the air. I think I did, actually. I look at a guy in the center of the room now. Someone has to answer this question. We’ve come too far to let it go. He is another soccer player. We’ve worked out together in the gym. We’re bros. He has to answer this question. I look at him, with a look that says, “Just say a soda, kid. Please. Just say the name of any soda.” And he says, “Ramune.” And that is the name of a soda. And finally, I get to do it. We can do the joke. And I say, just to confirm it with everyone, that his answer was an acceptable one, that it was a soda, “Your favorite soda is ramune?” And he says, “Yes.” And I say, “Souda.” This is the big moment. How hard did the joke fail? I look around. There are a few snickers. Some realization of the joke. One or two smiles. Most students seemed to have resigned themselves to the antics and are waiting to be told when it’s time for the real lesson. Ramune boy lets out a small laugh. Compared with previous classes, this class loved it. I let out a massive sigh. I’m just glad to have gotten it out, at this point, and we could move on. But, I had to let them know, I thought they deserved a little more of an explanation, about what I had just put them through. I said, you know guys, I’ve told this joke three times today. And in the first two classes, not a single person laughed. And of course, that made them laugh. A surefire way to get a class to laugh at your joke is to tell them about how other classes didn’t laugh at the joke. I will do this often when I have a joke that fails. In this way, even if your joke is an utter dud, you are still guaranteed to get a laugh. In failure, it succeeds. They could tell I was frustrated with the failings of this joke, and one student offered his reasoning for it, saying, sympathetically, “難しい.” Muzukashii. It’s a difficult joke.
I told this joke again, completing the circuit, this Friday, at Shoyo, with Kaneto sensei’s first year class. Kaneto sensei is a new teacher I work with. He’s a fun guy. Likes soccer, and drinking beer. He’s a graduate student at Kumamoto University. We get along well. I told the joke to the first years, was met with again, what could be described as a lukewarm reception at best, and Kaneto sensei, in wrapping this up, says to the class, “American joke.” And this is a funny thing. When I tell a joke, and the joke fails, my Japanese friends will often respond with, “Ah, American joke, ne.” What I think this is, even if the joke isn’t American, as in this joke, the favorite soda joke, because you know, this is not an American joke at all, this is totally a Japanese joke, because no American who doesn’t speak Japanese would get the joke, I think it is their way of trying to make the joke teller feel better. If I can conjecture to capture what they mean to express by saying this, “American joke,” they’re trying to say, “This joke is not funny to me, or us, Japanese. But we’re not saying it’s not funny. It probably does great with the American crowd. Just not with us.” I appreciate that, even though none of the jokes I tell them are really American jokes, and in truth they’re just bad jokes. But they’re giving me an out. Yet another example of how the Japanese are a very courteous people.
Blog post end. That’s it for this collection of one offs. It’s 27 degrees Celcius here, 蒸し暑い (mushiatsui) as hell, (humid), and I can’t sit here and sweat any longer. When I sit, my legs get so incredibly sweaty. This is the season where I spend every day at work wishing I could wear shorts at work. I tried to tell them once, that I’d like to wear shorts, (the head honchos) but I accidentally used the word for pants (I was a different Japanese speaker then) and they must have come away from that thinking, well, Steven really enjoys wearing pants, and it’s interesting that he’s asking us about wearing pants, because he is wearing pants at this very moment. He is just an interesting guy.
Final quote. I don’t know where it came from. I think it was from Emerson’s Essays. I also don’t know who Zoraster is, but he’s got a cool name. But I like it. And in these times, we could all use an extra dose of perseverance, I think.
“‘To the persevering mortal,’ said Zoraster, ‘the blessed Immortals are swift.'”
Jya mata ne! じゃまたね！
HAKUMUSU 
This is so great!! I loved the audio!!