Fun Fact: Not only is Mr. Roboto not the national anthem, but most Japanese people have never even heard of it!
So I got bored with just listing the place for a title, so I’m adding titles now. When I first started this blog, I considered doing clever titles, but thought it might be too difficult to keep it up every single time, so we’ll see what I do.
This week’s blog is brought to you by an apology to most of the adults reading this entry (that’s right, I’m doing this like Sesame Street). It’s not that there’s anything inappropriate or childish (at least not more than usual), but the exhibit I went to on Saturday was for Studio Ghibli movies, which you’ve likely never heard of (and then to a science museum). If you haven’t heard of either Totoro, Spirited Away, or Kiki’s Delivery Service (those seem to be the most well known ones in America), you’ll have no idea what I’m talking about. However, next week you’ll get a bonus since on Friday, instead of class, I’m going with one other girl in the class to an elementary school where I’ll sing, play games, and do origami with a bunch of second graders. It’s gonna be awesome if I can understand anything they say.
The longer I stay here, the more racist I can feel myself becoming. It’s a racism I never expected, though in retrospect makes sense because these people are terrible people. I’m of course talking about Americans. “But Curtis, you’re not actually Japanese, you’re white. Like super white. Like other than your dad and gingers, there aren’t many people as pale as you…” I get it, jeeze, that’s not my point. I’ve even talked to some people who agree. The reason I don’t count (as much) is because I’ve been told what is and isn’t acceptable. How to behave, what is polite, etc. Americans by nature are loud, usually obnoxious, and fatties. I even had to work on my volume when I first got here, but I made an effort. At one of the temples we were at last week, it was a thin hall that you walk down and look at. There was an English tour group going through made up of largely Americans. They grouped around and blocked the entire hallway so that the rest of the people couldn’t get through. I actually stood farther back to distance myself from them because I was embarrassed to be associated with these obnoxious people. As I stated before, I’ve always noticed it, but I just dealt with it. Here, it just doesn’t happen (except when the salarymen get too drunk). So when my little world of peace and foreignness is shattered by people who don’t know any better, I become more irritated than I normally would to the same situation. Most of you have heard me use the phrase “I hate people” at least once, but I realize now that it really isn’t all people, it’s just all the ones I’m normally surrounded by.
Again, I don’t think I’m “turning Japanese” (I’m not one of those people), but I’m becoming more and more used to the way things are done here. As I mentioned last week, I never really experienced any culture shock when first getting here, but it’s not just that. Other than when I’m trying to find a restaurant and am irritated by the lack of diversity (read: they don’t have something both Maki AND I will eat (she doesn’t like some of the few Japanese foods I do)), I feel much more calm overall. Maybe it’s because a large part of me views this as a giant vacation (in spite of having to study more now than I ever have my entire life), maybe it’s because I never experience most of my usual stress “triggers”, maybe I’m born with it, maybe it’s Maybelline. Regardless, there are times when I think of what it’ll be like when I go back to America: my job, school, everything, and I find myself thinking, “I don’t wanna go back.” I never for a second would have expected myself to have that thought before I came since I’m so attached to American food and TV (and my family), and I don’t think I could be here for that long, but still. I think it just fits my personality more (my actual personality (the one that surfaces more when I’m tired), not as much the more “hyper” one that I’ve adapted in recent years), other than the lack of sarcasm.
Friday was less eventful than usual. We had an exam, which we all know how much I love. It could’ve been worse (I later rewarded myself with a congratulatory Swiss Cake Roll (Ho-ho), which was good motivation during the test). It was less eventful than usual, mostly looking around at shops and stuff. For dinner we went to a Monkey Café (which was the same chain as the one Maki works at). In spite of my numerous suggestions, they do not actually have monkey waiters, and instead everything is just designed and decorated with monkeys (kind of disappointing). I was reminded that sometimes smoking inside of restaurants is still allowed, however when the smoke continuously blows in your face, grabbing the cigarette and shoving it down their throat is not…
Saturday
We took a 40 min. train then a bus to Lagunasia, which is normally like a small theme/water park. It was connected to a big mall, which was good since I may or may not have forgotten to pack extra shirts (hence my shirt changing between some pictures). They had a few pools with bumper boats, canoes, or for swimming. There was also a stage where they had various performances. The first I saw was of a Kamen Rider fighting the bad guys (think Power Rangers), then there were like 50 Japanese cheerleaders who were [REDACTED]. The reason we went to this park was because of the special Studio Ghibli exhibits that were there. The first thing we did there was Search for Baron (the cat from The Cat Returns and Whisper of the Heart). It was basically a scavenger hunt throughout the park where we were each given a different paper with four clues on it as to the locations of a lifesize cat statue in the park, near which was part of a word. The clues were only slightly beyond my comprehension, so Maki quickly translated them. After finding four clues for each of us (luckily I have super good eyesight), we had to combine them to get the “keyword”, which again was Japanese, so it took some time (especially since one of the words was a restaurant name and not a real word). Eventually we figured out the clues and found the Baron As a reward, we got a little bow tie key-chain with Baron on one side and Jiji on the other. There was a similar thing in a building where you went to different rooms and looked for the Makkurokurosuke (soot sprites) and marked down what color star-thing they were holding. Then we went to the main exhibit. This part will be much more detailed, so I’ll leave the option to skip it for those of you who haven’t seen any of the movies.
The Porco Rosso section was a bit smaller, and mainly featured him sitting down reading at the beach with a recreation of his plane next to him, occasionally showing the scene of him taking off on a big see-through screen that normally covered the plane. The final area was Kiki. The first scene is Kiki and Tombo flying on their respective vehicles. Some of the dioramas include the letter she writes to her parents, and a scene of her mom’s greenhouse. After that is the storefront for the bakery she worked at with her and Jiji at the counter. It had another scene that you could pose in with one broomstick and one rope (from the hot air balloon), buuuut no pictures. Finally was an area where you could take pictures, which was the propellerbike scene. Then as you’re walking out, they have the posters for every Ghibli movie, as well as dates, actors, and synopses (and some were signed by Miyazaki himself!).Afterwards, we went on a few roller coasters and had lunch at some café where I had udon. It breaks my usual rule about eating noodles larger than spaghetti, but I can get used to it (especially when I have Coke as a chaser (yes, I need chasers for food)). Before leaving, we stopped at the gift shop. It was like a souvenir paradise (for people who love Ghibli movies). After getting birthday presents and souvenirs for everyone, it ended up being one of my more expensive weekends. For my own protection, I won’t say the amount (though I’m getting a lot of it back) (and technically my mom can just see the credit card statement, but oh well) (if you put two parenthetic remarks next to each other, do you need a space? Are you allowed to do that?), but it was definitely worth it. Once we had done everything, we left the park area and went on a giant Ferris wheel. About halfway up, I realized that my fear of heights returned about two years ago. I’m fine as long as I’m just sitting there, but when I stand up (which I did to take better pictures), I get vivid feelings of some… unpleasant dreams combined with that roller coaster sensation. Either way, the view was awesome. You could see a giant lake and (as usual) some mountains in the distance. Most of Japan is how Austria was; no matter where you are, there are tons of hills and mountains in the skyline.
Sunday
For the first time in weeks, I was able to sleep in (though not as much as I would’ve liked). We headed to the planetarium/science museum, which was right down the street (by pure coincidence… I mean clever planning). We got tickets for a show that would be later that day (the earlier ones were sold out) and went to eat at a kuroneko (black cat) café. Luckily, like the monkey café, there were no actual cats around. They just cut a shape of a cat in the seaweed strip and decorated many of the deserts with cats, as well as decorated the entire place with cats (Tom and Jerry was even playing on one of the TV’s). By this point, my feelings towards plain white rice have risen from disdain to tolerance. We went back to the museum to check out all the exhibits before the planetarium show. It was like a mix of the Curious Kids Museum and the Field Museum in Chicago. Unfortunately, every exhibit was in Japanese, so I was left with my (luckily broad) knowledge of what was going on, and Maki’s attempts at explaining science (her enthusiasm, interest, and knowledge of most science rival my mom’s). I tried explaining many of the exhibits to her, but again, she didn’t care. It then became a game for me to try and make her interested in at least some of the things. She didn’t like when I told her that the shape of a snowflake is math, though she was interested in some of it. Each floor was different and included magnetic experiments, waves (the sound kind), a two-story twister, electronic stuff, dinosaurs, water stuff, and some optical illusions. Are you still there? Wake up! There was also a lot of hands-on stuff. For instance, there was a satellite dish-looking thing that you could talk into on one side of the room, and on the other side, there was an identical dish that would pick up the sound so you could hear it clearly. What I didn’t realize until later was that right in the middle (where people were lining up for a hamster-wheel thing) was actually the best place to hear the stuff (you couldn’t hear it closer to the dishes). This was of course after I sang Maki the chorus from Take On Me and did my best impression of Godzilla. Oh well, I usually think that I can get away with most things because they’ll just think, “stupid American/white boy.” After we had seen everything else, we went to the planetarium show which was, again, all Japanese. I’d listen in for a while, then get tired of translating and tune out, then listen some more. Based on what I remember from my astronomy class (and a little from Latin when he talked about some gods), I was able to understand a lot of things when I heard the English name being used (or their version of the English name). After the show, I had Maki fill in the gaps, so it was actually pretty interesting. Although the dude had a super quiet and relaxing voice, which caused at least one guy to start snoring loudly nearby. After returning to Hikone, I went with some people to a nearby festival. Unfortunately we got there towards the end, so we only saw two performances and then the awards ceremony. You can see most of the last performance here.
Be sure to check out the pictures in the “Gamagori” section. I try putting them in chronological order, but on Flickr it’s reversed, so hopefully it doesn’t make it too difficult.
Next week: I hang out with people more my age maturity and go to Osaka! Will I eat okonomiyaki (probably not, but we’ll see)? Will I learn fun new things from the kids? Are there still TV shows that ask questions like this for the cliffhangers? Find out next time on The Gaijin Chronicles! Dah dahh dadahhh da dahh duuhhh. (Maybe one day I’ll think of an actual tune, but probably not (or I will but won’t remember it by the time I write this)).
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