Haiku

This is my haiku
if you don't like it, Fuck You!
this is my haiku
-Unknown

An Old E-mail

Since I spent the day cleaning and have no energy to be creative, I've decided to post an old e-mail that I wrote when I first got to Japan:

Things are going ok, my Japanese is horrible, it's easier than I thought to not know
the language, and learning is going slowly. I got my car this weekend.
It's really strange driving on the left side of the road, with the steering
wheel on the wrong side of the car. Every time I put on my blinkers, the
windshield wipers go on. I drove a lot yesterday. I found a McDonald's, its
about 30 min. from my house. The speed limits here are ridiculously slow.
Driving in Kilometers isn't actually that bad, but what gets me is the
liters of gas, stupid metric. Gas here is uber expensive, about $1.25 a
liter.
Yesterday was really beautiful, so I went to the beach, which was
nice. There are a bunch of beaches here. I went to one facing the Pacific
The sand was really hot, I think I have marks on my feet from it. I waded
in the ocean a little, my pants got all wet. No one was allowed to swim on
this beach, or any beach facing the Pacific for that matter, I guess the
undertow's too great. You can swim on one beach in the bay. I went there
too. The beach was actually kind of crappy, no waves, and a lot of people.
They have these huge concrete jacks in piles along the coast. Paul says
that they are there to prevent erosion, but they actually cause it. I don't
know. They are pretty industrial in any case.


I got home at last, put on the AC, put laundry into the washer and
another into the dryer, put the fan on, plugged in my computer and turned on
the TV (never anything on in English, but I like to laugh at the crazy
commercials) well about 15 minutes later, I think when the fridge switched
on, and everything all of a sudden went black. How the hell could I have
blown a fuse? Where the hell is the fuse box? I knock on the land lord's
door..... nothing. I knock again....... nothing. I look around, and find
something that might pass as a fuse box, there's writing on it, but it's in
Japanese... perfect. I start throwing switches... nothing, occasionally I'd
get a spark of light, but then a switch would pull itself. Great... So I
try to call my supervisor. Dial the number.... a woman's voice answers
"Moshi Moshi" "Errrrrrrr" I elegantly responded "Kamaguchi-san" "Ahhhhh"
responded the voice, and there was a shuffling on the other end of the line.
"Moshi Moshi" said the voice of a seven year old boy.
"EERRrrrrrrrrr....... Kawaguchi-san" "Hai" "EEErrrrrrrr.... Heroshi
Kawaguchi" "Ahhhhhh!!!!!" scuffle scuffle scuffle "Moshi Moshi" said
the voice of my supervisor, who, by the way, doesn't really speak English.
"I think I blew a fuse" "uh?" "my electricity is out." "uh?" "lights
broken" "ah! I come over" He shows up about five minutes later. He looks
at the thing I was taking for the power box, throws a couple switches, reads
the words, throws a couple more switches, gets down off the chair and pulls
out his cell phone, calls someone, talks for about five minutes, turns to me
and say, "I call mechanic" "electrician?" "Ahh! hia" After twenty minutes of awkward silence between my supervisor and myself, the electrician comes in, throws a couple
switches, takes some of the paneling off throws some more switches, says
something in Japanese, and leaves. Kawaguchi-san tuned to me and said
"special part, he get" twenty minutes later, two other electricians showed
up, threw some switches, talked a little longer, then left, still no power.
Kawaguchi-san just turned to my and shook his head. So he and I sat in the
darkening room for the next hour. The AC was no longer working, so I
started dripping with sweat. After the first ten minutes I pulled out my
laptop (which is still giving me troubles) and I say "music.... errrr....
ongaku" "ongaki" he corrected "hia arigato" so I played him a bunch of
music, trying to figure out what he liked, it really turned into "have you
heard this song before" he knew Queen and Bon Jovi and the Beetles, and a
couple of the mamma's and the papa's song, he didn't seem to enjoy any of the
punk or hard rock I played for him. Finally I played luft balloons, and
tried to explain that luft was German for air. He turn to my and said"hia,
Luft swaza. " "yeah, German air force... do you like war movies?" "War
movies?" "movies" I pointed to the TV "war" I mined a army dude fighting
"hia...... I like" "really?" just then the doorbell rang (which is the
only electronic thing still working, and another set of electricians came
in, smelling vaguely of Cigarettes and sake. Pulling out a flashlight, (now
it was completely dark) they pulled out a replacement part, performed
surgery for the next twenty minutes, and finally the electricity come back
on. Thank God. I was a little more careful about my electricity
consumption from then on.
Well that's about it from Asia. Talk to you later.

-Dan

The strangest thing I’ve eaten so far,

Now since coming to Japan, I’ve been able to sample a wide variety of food, much of which I didn’t even know was edible. Among these foods are: various sorts of raw fish, bamboo sapling, whole, unshelled shrimp (with legs and head still attached), various previously unknown plant-life that doesn’t exist in the US, octopus (complete with the little suction cup thingies)(only good when it’s fresh), squid, tiny inch-long dried fish mixed with peanuts (not bad, but a little unnerving), and quail eggs (actually quite popular here, good in misso soup). However, up until tonight the strangest the strangest thing that I’ve eaten was raw horse meat (not really very good. Not so good cooked either. I prefer cow meat).

However, tonight I’ve stepped up the level of strangeness. There’s a Japanese family in town that sometimes invites Jenn (the other ALT in my town) and me over for dinner. Today they were celebrating Boy’s Day. On Boys Day you put up these fish shaped tube flags…. Sock flags I guess, they are pretty cool.

This family had a couple of huge fish flags, probably about 12 feet long. So the kids and I ran around with these huge flags for a while, good fun. After this, it was dinner time. Dinner consisted of this egg/bacon/rice dish that was pretty good, and fish, which was delicious. There where two huge fish, each about two feet long. They were presented whole on the serving plate, with head, fins, gills, and skin still attached. This, while a little strange did not really surprise me too much, though the fish staring at me kind freaked me out, and the fish teeth were scary too. It wasn’t too bad since Jenn, bless her heart, turned the fish so that it was facing away from us. To serve this fish, the mother simple took some chopsticks, peeled off the skin and dished out the fish meat, which tasted wonderful. The next thing that happened really took me off guard. The four year old child said something in Japanese to his mother and pointed to the fish head. I, of course, sympathized with the child, because I didn’t like the fish staring at me either. The mother then took her chopsticks and plucked out the fish’s eye….. and put it on the child’s plate. The child then happily picked up the eyeball…. and ate it. This made me a little queasy, but I adverted my eyes and I was okay. The family then informed me that the child loves fish eyes, while they dipped their chopsticks into the eye-socket to fish out extra eyeball meat.

Toward the end of the dinner, the topic of the fish eyes came up again. The mother kindly offered to let me have the other fish eye. After quelling my initial disgust, I made myself except (hey I’m always up to trying new things). She plucked out the other eye and put it on my plate. Then she told me to spit out the pit once I ate all the meat. “The pit!” I exclaimed. So after an internal struggle, the mother again pulled out extra meat from the eye-socket and ate it, reassuring me that it was perfectly safe. So I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and stuck the eyeball into my mouth….. it was really really good! It tasted a little like the sweet underbelly of a lobster. Now if it weren’t for the fact that I had an eyeball in my mouth, I would have really enjoyed it. I spat out the eyeball pit and felt instantly queasy with the thought of what I had just eaten. But, truth be told, if it weren’t for my cultural prejudices, I think the eyeball might be my favorite part of the fish.

So if Japanese is such a technological marvel, why do I still have to sh^t in hole in the ground?

Disclaimer: The following entry is about toilets and is probably inappropriate for all ages and all situations.

So yeah, seriously, in this place, if I bought a low end cell phone, I’d not only be able to organize my life, download annoyingly catchy ring-tones, surf the web, order pizza (though I don’t like Japanese pizza, too much mayonnaise), I’d also be able to film a full length motion picture, edit and publish it. Also, most new cars come with voice activated GSP units which double as a radio interface, TV, DVD player and Tivo. So, if this place is so nag dern advanced, why don’t they do something about there toilets!
For those of you who aren’t familiar with this aspect of Japanese life, let me fill you in. In Japan there are two types of toilets: the Japanese “squat” toilets, and the “western” style toilets.
The Japanese style toilets are quite interesting. It seems that before the advent of plumbing, to do your business you would simple squat over a hole in the ground. Now apparently old habits die hard, and the Japanese didn’t want to abandon the age old art of carefully balancing yourself over a hole, and skillfully aiming to try and get the majority of your waste into the hole or, at the very least, not get it on your legs or feet. So, while they totally embraced the idea of plumbing (thank god) they put their own twist on the toilet. So ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Japanese squat toilet!

This is the type of toilet you will find in most public and many private bathrooms. You may be wondering about the shoes. Well, as you all know, the Japanese change there shoes when the come inside. Well, it doesn’t stop there. The Japanese will actually change their shoes when they enter the toilet room. While this surprised me at first, striking me as both ridiculous and ultra-sanitary to an unhealthy extreme, when I realized that the aim of the Japanese people is no better than mine; wearing different shoes began to make a whole lot more sense.
Occasionally one may get lucky and come across a “western” style toilet. I am lucky enough to have one in my apartment. Now, one thing I have learned about Japan is that it is a culture of extremes. So for a toilet, you either get the Spartan squat toilet, or you get immersed in ultimate luxury with a “western” style toilet.

That’s right these toilets come equipped with fully heated seats, a built in bidet and feminine hygiene spay, fully adjustable water pressure and temperature, and a built in fan, with adjustable temperatures, for drying after you wash. Now when I first got here and saw one of these in my hotel, I wasn’t too surprised, I mean, it was a nice hotel! But when I moved into my apartment and found one there also, I got to say I was impressed. I was not so impressed, however, when I got to school and there were only Japanese style toilets. It is really cold when you have to use those things in the winter! You thing a cold seat is bad? Try having a nice breeze blowing at you as you carefully perch yourself over your target hole. It’s not fun, let me tell you.
Ok, enough about toilets! Next time I swear, my post will be completely unrelated to asses or their functions. Sorry about the theme of late.

Whaaaaa!!! 

F&cking Kanchos!

It happened again, today. You think I would be use to it by now, but man alive, it still pisses me off. I am, of course, referring to the time honored Japanese tradition of the Kancho. Now for those of you unfamiliar with Kanchos, I’m about to shatter (or greatly reinforce) your conception of Japanese society. First it should be explained that instead of disciplining children in here, the Japanese prefer to ignore the misbehavior. I guess if you don't acknowledge its existence, it's not a problem. So if a Japanese adult sees a kancho occur, they won't scold a child, they will just ignore him. Worse still I've seen teachers joke with the students about Kanchos, which, of course reinforces the idea that this is acceptable behavior, and as far as I can tell, though it may be considered immature, it isn't actually considered inappropriate, especially if a child chooses a visiting foreigner (i.e. me) as there target.
So you can call me intolerant and bigoted towards other cultures, and you might be right. Now I try to keep an open mind about things, but I just can't bring myself to tolerate kanchos as an acceptable part of society, especially when I’m the victim of one.
Now for those of you who don't know about Kanchos, let me fill you in. Kancho literally translates into enema. I wish I could say that the name was misleading.
To properly perform a kancho, you first need to take your hands and fold them together, leaving the index and middle fingers extended, so it looks like you are pretending to hold a gun. Next you need to find a target, preferably a foreigner about twice your height and 5 times your weight, and who doesn't speak a word of your native language. Now when your target’s back is turned, insert your extended fingers into his butt crack, preferably with a sharp jabbing motion. However, as long as your fingers end up in his ass you have done your job. Please see the illustration below:

Now for further fun, when your target turns on you with the rage of God in his face, quickly perform the jabbing motion again, but this time aim for his junk. Repeat this until either the target retreats in disgusted terror, or you lose consciousness due the excessive beating which you may receive.
Now for some reason, some of the kids find it hilarious to evoke rage in there giant of a target. So this of course leads to very unpleasant situations, especially since my Japanese is about on par with that or the neighborhood Golden Retriever. So they get to see a big white guy yelling at them incoherently.What fun!
This is my life in Japan. I’m glad to say that by the time the kids reach 4^th grade, they have mostly outgrown (or think better of) kanchoing a giant foreigner, though they continue to do it to each other into high school.
Now there is a gender gap in this practice. It is mostly little boys who enjoy doing this. This, for good or ill, has made me favor the female student, since I feel that my personal space is safer in there company. Right now, I never want to have a son, those little ass-poking boys. Maybe my mind will change once I get back to America where kids just swear and hit you. I could deal with that a lot more easily.

Tokyo Blues

So according to the Lonely Planet there is absolutely nothing to do in Tokyo except to go see a couple gardens/temples/shrines, eat at a few restaurants, stay at overpriced hotels, go shopping, and, of course, go to the red light district. (stupid lonely planet) No wait, I was wrong, you can also go to Tokyo Disney (Which is apparently exactly the same as Disney Land in California.) So knowing that there is nothing else to do in Tokyo, I can safely say that my family and I will have a horrible time on our three day jaunt. Luckily I have other resources besides the Lonely Planet.... though it's a big pain gathering all this loose information. It seems that I spend more time planning for a trip than I actually do on the trip, and the planning is worthless, I always end up doing something completely different when I get there.
Why do I travel? Such a pain. I mean I always come back with good stories but man alive... what a pain.
The problem with traveling in Japan is everything is so nag dern expensive! I'm traveling during Golden week and they hike the prices because of the holidays. (jerks) Another problem is that I'm traveling on Golden week when everyone and their second cousin Ellis is traveling. So yeah, it'll be great!
Not to get down on this trip, or Japan, or traveling, I mean I enjoy getting wedged into a seat about the size of a milk crate for hours on end, who doesn't! And don't even get me started on Airlines! I'm not taking a plane this trip though, thank God!
So yeah I haven't really writing anything interesting yet, but, I'm working on it. Soon my web page will kick ass, until then.....
On a closing note here is a pic of me teaching the Japanese children. See I'm not full of shit, I am actually in Japan!

I'm a teacher! 

Learning this stuff

So yeah, it turns out there is a lot of cool stuff you can do with this website. It also turns out that you need to know a little bit about HTML to do it, which of course, I don't. So I was pretty excited when I got my counter working. See it? It's really small at the bottom on the page, and it doesn't work half the time, but still, Cata!!! (I did it!) (I think) I also managed to get a couple links on the side of the page, over there ----------------------------->
Now I'm working on getting these emotioncons (or whatever they're called) to work. Ok, here is a cat [img]http://www.techhelpers.net/e4u/animal/002.gif[/img] did it work?
So I was just told that I should proof read my posts, apparently I can't type.

Ok it appears my first attempt at the emocon failed.

lets try..... [image]http://www.techhelpers.net/e4u/animal/002.gif[/image] hmmm no dice huh?

how about.....

Ah now if I only know what I did!

lets see, here is a really cool pic I found once on the web, I wish I could remember the site. However, this is just an experiment to see if I can get the pic to show.

I'm getting the hang of this! Ok I got that image from http://www.bkmstudios.com/ in case you were dieing to know. Man this eto is sure taking a lot of my time. Maybe once I figure it out, it won't take so long.
Well ok, until next time. "

cool pic 

Welcome to my eto

So I emerge from my seclution in Japan to conform to the rest of society and get my own blog (such an ugly word... there really should be a better name for it)
From now on I shall call my blogs, and blogs in general as.... hum lets see PBP (personal bitching pages) nah..... PRotPIBSO (personal rants of the poorly informed but strongly opinionated) too long.... SHIT (Second Hand Internet Trolling) nah, that's no where near as clever as I had hoped it would be.... prehaps I should stay away from acronyms and just make up a word.... hmmm.... I know "Eto"! (eh-toe) Eto, for those of you who don't know, it is the Japanese version of "uh" or "um", a Japanese word-fill. This makes sense to me since blogs... errr etos.... are the things that people read or write in between the more important moments of there life. It is simply something to fill in the empty space. So, welcome to my eto! What gives me the right to change the English language you ask? It's my page I can do what I want!
So yeah Japan's and interesting place, way too interesting for a first entry, but here is a picture of me taken next to the mascot for Tokyo Tower..... Actually I can't seem to upload my picture, so THERE! hmmm.... hold on....
Try this link!
maybe it worked.... someone let me know. My Eto account is schornsteiner@yahoo.com
Ok, onward to destiny!