One Week at Last

Dear friends,
It's been one week since I've been living in Japan. And it is exhilarating. So many things hav happened, but things seem to go slowly as time goes extremely fast in that land. This is a strange feeling I want to share with you. Japan is all and nothing like I expected it to be. But it's a great pleasure and honor to step day after day on this land. I took a lot of trains alone from Nagoya Chubu Kuko to Hirakata-shi on my first night here. Now I am commuting three times back and from my homestay family's house (let's call it home with great respect) since the Takeda's live in Neyagawa-shi, a small town of 200 000 people. But really, it incredibely does feel like a small town.

Well my friends, a lot of things happened within this long and silent lifespan spurred before our eyes? The distortion would seem incredible to us when compared. Some nights have been long and mornings heavy, some days splashing my surroundings with the glory of a new hope for tomorrow. Tomorrow is near and for a couple of months now my headset's been wandering somewhere, "hanging in the sky", between Montreal and Nagoya...

Everytime I look at an analog or digital clock Quebec time shows up immediately like a burn on my forehead. There used to be a time where I pleaded God to let me stop think of my mother; and now that we grow slightly closer her essence as my only muse fads away like honey sinking in a pot of plain yoghourt. I clearly haven't CREATED in the twelve months covering the last year. M said that there used to be school and "those things", and the beauty of college lies in the fact that college is "those things". What are those things that matter to me, I know not yet. Writing? Drawing? Don't try to make me list comics. They are far too great for me to even try to concieve. Maybe I can read them; well I've made some interesting discoveries here thanks to a professor.

There is a municipal library next to the vacant lot up the hill leading to my dorm. (They call it a Seminar House, and it is a merry blend of international students who cohabitate in a spacious and clean building stricter than any homestay family available. My roommate is a Canadian Wild Person, CWP.) Sometimes I walk up the hill and enter the brand new building next to the vacant lot; the most interesting thing to me is the children literature section. There are treasures of graphic and narrative experiemental works, ranging from ink stroke prodigies to watercolor minimalist fables. Maybe cartoonists and children literature illustrators/authors have things in common.

The lovely man on the picturs is a Fellow Citizen and Enjoyer of the Public Published Books Service. There are also baiku - scooters - in these parking lots. Very few cars if any have the priviledge of resting next to a public library in the neighbouhood. I don't know how car/library relationships are going in the rest of the Land of the Rising Sun.
Sleep well, and eat a wealthy breakfast.

les fruits

orangeclementine - mikan
okuradaikon ... tsukemono
kaki
nashi!
pomme geante,salade iceberg, concombre, carotte geante, banane,patate douce et ordinaire
oignons long, rond et tres mince
citron et limetomate bleme
ananas mangue
raisin muscat
MELON
il est difficile de trouver quoi que ce soit d'autre dans les marches ou supermarches

Danjiri matsuri

Bon ben aussi ben ecrire ca en francais, tse.

Il y a quelques semaines, le festival Danjiri a eu lieu au Sud-Est de Osaka, dans une petite ville de campagne. Ma marraine (speaking partner) a eu l'extreme gentillesse de m'y amener et de m'accueillir chez elle pour la nuit (c'est deux heures de train/marche/bus entre chez elle et chez moi). Le but des festivites semble etre centre sur la construction et le transport d'un char geant a travers les rues de la ville, chaque municipalite environnante presentant fierement sa propre delegation chaque annee. Certaines ecoles sont fermees pour les quelques trois jours du festival. D'autres gens prennent entierement conge pour cette seule occasion, et ce n'est meme pas durant une fin de semaine! Le char est tres haut, illumine de lanternes (electriques) traditionelles et a l'interieur... de jeunes garcons jouent une musique traditionelle rythmee avec des instruments de musique traditionnels. J'ai senti que ce festival etait tres traditionnel. Le char est tire avec de longues cordes par plusieurs personnes. Le jour, les hommes tirent tellemenr vite que parfois le char fonce dans un batiment. Aussi les hommes sautent parfois d'un char a l'autre. Durant l'heure du souper ils se reponsent pour la representation du soir, plus calme, avec femmes et enfants s'y joignant. Mais attention, c'est un festival traditionellement masculin. Les femmes ont recemment ete admises a parfois peut-etre tirer le char, puis parfois peut-etre s'asseoir a l'interieur. Je ne me souviens pas avoir vu de fille ou de femme jouer d'un instrument. Si une femme venait a grimper sur le toit du char, un grand accident se produirait. Mon enseignant de sociologie m'a raconte qu'une fois, une fille avait grimpe sur le toit, surement sans permission. Mais puisque le char n'etait pas en mouvement lorsqu'elle s'y trouva, tout le monde fut soulage d'avoir evite un grand cataclysme.

Tout le monde buvait et on a recu des canettes de bieres. J'ai vu deux gaijin saouls se joindre a la parade, aucun probleme, tout le monde se marrait bien. Les filles qui se joignaient au danjiri avaient les cheveux coiffes 'danjiri hair' pour l'occasion, le style rapellait les tresses serres que les haitiennes ont tout le tour de la tete. C'est cinquante man yen et c'est pour une occasion de trois ou quatre jour. C'est fantastique ce que les gens sont prets a faire pour leurs traditions! J'ai adore ce festival. Merci beaucoup, Ayako. :D

O kome.

Here is a rice field in the middle of a two hundred thousand people city. But really having lived in a two hundred thousad city myself in my own country, the japanese city really feels small. The train stations are very busy places kind of fun to hang out on weekday nights. It's always full of Pachinko parlors, which are full of people. Yesterday I ate local specialties cooked in front of me on a gril installed in or on a pick up truck. Looked kind of crappy but it's Japan and I am a hundred percent sure I won't catch syphilis or typhoid fever from it, unlike... hum, developing countries. I also tried tiny mochi balls on a stick dipped in caramelized soy sauce. That means it's supposed to be sweet. I got worried about my teeth yesterday and I bought a 60YEN toothbrush and FINALLY found some decent, roll dental floss. It is unpopular here. But they don't eat steak, sweets or fibered fruit/veggies like some do in other parts of the world. They seem to have a variety of sticky food though. We really are stupid, eating unlimited amounts of candy or sweetened prepared food, then wondering why we become fat and get cavities all over the place.
From this rice field emerges the national OKOME (venerable raw rice?). I love rice and what treasures have the japanese come up with it! Assorted donburi, exquisite paper, tender and subtle and beautiful mochi... I love mochi and the azuki paste. Whenever I have to choose a flavor (for ice cream or juice or whatever) I try to choose mattcha and/or azuki. The other very popular flavors are melon, pineapple, mango, nashi (delicious big round juicy japanese pear/apple), mattcha, vanilla and chocolate. I would have expected crazy flavors like we see in america, like blue cherry/starfruit or cranberry/passion fruit. Very conservative flavors to my spoiled eye and tongue. Okay whatever.

Well those comments are pejorative. I live in Kansai. Maybe it is different in other areas of Japan. Actually I should stop calling 'it', the place where I live, 'Japan', but actually 'Kansai'. Similarly, Texas is very different from Vermont, isn't it. Same for New-Brunswick and Yukon. (That's in Canada fyi. Oh today I was told by a Stater that Canadian food was just like American food. Yeah right.)

The Cityscapes

Of everyday life.
Sometimes I wished I understood this earlier. That is it rude to take real pictures or real people doing real things. But somehow, it just violates their intimact, doesn't it. When I was in Bolivia, we just took pictures of landscapes because it was different. When the bus stopped, we just go out and lined-up to photograph the sunset. There was no sunset actually, it just sounds nice. But we were like, 14 or so, without artistic sensitivity. Maybe 'the daily' is not what real artistic sensitivity means, but that's what I feel right now. I also like the pretentious and the abstract. I find it hilariously delectable and just WORTH it. As of now I found myself frustrated in being uable to capture as much essence as I wished of the Japanese because of social norms. Of course I wouldn't like either being photographed by a tourist as I am putting on my shoes, for example.
So now that I got a digital camera, quite handier than the disposable camera on many aspects, I take many many pictures of 'the daily'. Up to now I have been taking an average of ten a day, which is way too little for my expectations. I should even be taking a pictures of my hands on this keyboard because it is so real and very representative of 'the daily', but I don't have extra arms. I really like this picture. I took it on the way home. And at home I could have taken the same picture at a different angle from my balcony. Ordinary boys hanging out on a surprisingly rare open space because it's hot, there's no school and nothing to do in this residential town. In a few days, which is actually a few days ago, they will (have been) wearing school uniforms.

Local Matsuri

Here is a way to witness my crappy photo skills. Although landscape photos are the best and most effective, I prefer to take real life pictures, and hunt the queerness in people and places. Those pictures were taken on ym first weekend spent in Japan, and my first days spent with my host family. I was scared, broke, spaced out, jet lagged, disoriented. They were nice enough to take me to this local matsuri and lend me a very beautiful yukata (summer kimono) with assorted geta painful but interesting to my mountain hiking feet. We ate common festival food (cheap okonomiyaki wrapped around chopsticks, cheap very quickly made takoyaki, huge sausages on chopsticks, kaki gouri (like shaved ice, I chose calpis flavor), yakisoba and the such. At night there were small fireworks (actually very kakkoii hana bi). That was my first weekend in Japan.

Speaking Partner and Buddies!

Today is a wonderful day. Got back in touch with my former japanese buddies at university, and also with my brand new native speaking partner! It so happens that within the next three weeks a car, then two planes, then five trains, two buses and a taxi (perhaps) will take me to a great university in Japan called Kansai Gaidai! Maybe these pre-departure entries could use a couple of beautiful canadian photos to entertain our wonderful readers.