Two posts in one day! Madness.

 

After the madness that was July, I was looking forward to August, and the start of the holidays. I had been nurturing plans for what I was going to be doing during the break – including trips to Hong Kong and Taiwan, at which time I would be able to see some friends who would be in the areas, including an old Uni friend who I haven’t seen for about 6 or 7 years, and some of the students from here who were spending some time with extended Asian family before going home. All of which have been scrapped due to funds. Awesome.

 

But as August rolled around, the first thing on the agenda, August 1, was the concert! I managed to find one more guitarist for the second band, meaning my duties were reduced to bass/backup vocals in one, and vocals in the other. The international band I have managed to ignore long enough that nothing came of it yet. Yay.

 

The concert was great! It was a long day, with rehearsals scheduled in from 9am on the day (not much compared to the 7am bookings we had in studios in the week prior), and the final band finished up about 11pm. Throughout the day, I saw lots of people I’m starting to get to know exhibit their skills and style up on stage, and somehow got to know them a bit better. It’s a real bonding experience, spending time with people, getting to know them, watching them go up on stage and perform, then congratulating them when they come down, before going up there yourself to perform, and coming down to be congratulated by the same people you were just praising. Though my Japanese is still not to the extent of being able to communicate with the people around me to the level that I want to, having a medium of music as a common interest shot the relationships straight up. Just watching people play, and getting caught up in the energy and emotion they put into it, or catching people yourself in something you perform, helps to solidify the way you interact with each other. Further solidification was ensured through a drinking event held afterwards, right through till the first trains started around 6 the next morning.

 

And with so many people involved, it never got boring. It definitely got long, and I had to take a break for some breathing space at one point, but it was definitely a great experience. The whole thing was recorded, and when I get a copy of the DVD,s (it’s a LOOONG recording), I’ll try and put something up on here, but for now, here’s some photos.

 

The day after returning exhausted from all that, was a three-day camp with a different circle. The circle bills itself as an “international exchange group”, but there’s really very little of that going on. It’s mostly just a bunch of people who enjoy hanging out together – mostly Japanese. Most people can’t even speak English to anything approaching a competent level, which I would (perhaps arrogantly?) consider a pretty basic foundation of someone truly interested in international exchange.

 

Regardless of what their purpose is, they’re still a good bunch of friendly people who I enjoy spending time with (some of them anyway. Some seem straight-up disinterested with any foreigners at all, which really makes me wonder what they’re doing there). We went out to a lodge in the mountains and did campfires, drinking, tests of courage, hobo cooking, sleeping haphazardly in random fashion on the floor, and all the other good things associated with camps. This was probably ACTUALLY the last time I’ll see the Japanese people who are leaving. There was only one foreigner there besides me – the rest have already left.

 

I got back from there on about the 5^th. Since then has been the wait. The wait for that scholarship money. Things have gotten pretty bad, and I’ve actually had to borrow money from a friend, but I’m battling through. On the upside, I know very few people left in the area to spend time (and money) with. Even the people who are still remaining in Tokyo have largely headed overseas for summer trips. Meaning I can while away the days in my own boring way.

 

You know what’s bad about being bored, and having no money? Everything. Especially in the summer in Japan. Stepping outside of the airconditioned area is horrible enough, you’re sure as hell not walking anywhere. Which means travel is dependent on taking the train – which costs. In fact, even staying in that airconditioned room costs money – especially when you’re working on a prepaid system for power – meaning it’s gotta be turned off as much as possible. Going out for dinner or lunch, shopping for clothes or anything, or even going to get a coffee in your favourite local café are out of the question.

 

I think I’ve mentioned it before, but the people living in my dorm are largely the antisocial Asian types. They might be perfectly social among themselves, but for some reason they don’t seem to have any interest in associating with people outside of their language group. Whether it’s out of laziness from having to communicate in a foreign language, uncomfortableness about dealing with someone from another culture, or straight-up dislike, I don’t know. But I can say that the Thais, Vietnamese, Koreans and Chinese gangs seem to be having a pretty good time when I see them – a good time which is almost always put on temporary hiatus when I enter the area as everyone watches me, largely ignores my greetings, and waits for me to leave.

 

So, what have I been doing? I went to an all-night party on the beach with a few people from one of the circles – it cost me only the train fare there, and then shortly after the last train of the night stopped running, a typhoon hit. The rest of the night was spent under the eaves of the local 100-yen store, trying to avoid the wind-lashed whips of rain flying in. I’ve also lived through two earthquakes in the last 3 days. I don’t know for sure, but I wonder if all this means the end of the world? If so, it’s a pretty anticlimactic time to go out.

 

Speaking of anticlimactic, how about that Endless Eight ending. One other thing I’ve been having plenty of time to do is download movies and Japanese animation and watch that. I could watch it on TV (the animation at least), but this way I get English subtitles, which makes the whole thing seem less like study (which I should probably be doing more of, actually, but…)

 

I knocked off the latest Jigoku Shojo series, which was, as usual, awesome, and have been bearing through the Endless Eight saga of the new Haruhi Suzumiya series, the conclusion of which I am happy to say I saw today. I would feel pissed off at the ridiculous way it was resolved, and all the time I invested in it, if I could fool myself into thinking I had had anything better to do.

 

I’ve also started afresh my hunt for the perfect apartment. I found a couple of places – one out near Gyaru Uni again, which seemed nice and big. The price was also right, but the back door opened literally onto the train tracks. There was a brick in the way to stop it being opened, but when I forced it open (are you supposed to do that when you’re just checking a place out?), I got one hell of a shock. Thank God a train wasn’t passing. Considering the fact I’m still getting woken up regularly by the pain in the ass Columbian in the room next to me who yells at his computer every morning between 5-7am, I don’t think trains are what I need. The second place I saw was a hop, skip and a jump from Uni, cheap, and not too shabby. However, it was kinda small, has no washing machine (coin laundry?), and the barely-alive landlady living right next door.

 

I’ve been meaning to update this for the last few days, but just somehow haven’t got around to it. Now I have, I’ll try (again) to keep it updated more regularly, since the further I fall behind, the harder it is to catch up!

 

Now, I have to go. I haven’t eaten today, and it’s time for toast.

久しぶり～～

Hey guys, well, here’s another long-awaited entry. Though I was busy for a while after that last entry, I’m not really sure why I haven’t written on here sooner. Maybe the relative lack of feedback is a bit of a motivation-killer… having to log in to do so is a real pain, maybe I can start looking for a new place to blog. At any rate, more comments would probably encourage me to write more! [Editor’s hint: leave more comments] And, in case you’re wondering, yes, I am my own editor.

 

So, I’m glad July is over. July was a nightmare of stress and trying to run around getting things done, get things learnt, and have a ridiculous number of “final” events with so many people – the exchange students who were going home, and the Japanese people who were getting ready to go overseas for their exchange. It was a fun time, but an expensive time, and I was glad I had the scholarship money coming in to cover me.

 

Only, I didn’t. To receive my scholarship every month, I must sign up for it by midday of a certain day of that month. The day changes each month, just to keep us in our toes. However, in July, I ended up signing up at about 1pm, meaning I missed the deadline. I was told that my payment would be slightly delayed, and I was OK with that – what, a day or so? – until I found out that it would actually be two weeks. Which means that even now, I still don’t have it.

 

Tokyo was recently rated the most expensive city in the world to live in, according to some study, and I’m not surprised. Sometimes I stop and think back to how much my nonchalant daily spending would equate to back home, and it always gives me a bit of a shock. This country has way more money than it knows what to do with, but that’s material for another entry (assuming I haven’t already done it – I can’t remember right now). But one thing’s for sure – if you suddenly find yourself without money that you were counting on for a couple of weeks, life gets tricky!

 

Even so, normally, I would have been able to make my previous month’s earnings stretch. However, last month was special. I’ve been thinking about moving ever since I arrived in this dormitory – in fact, I still haven’t unpacked. Visitors to my room are always kinda surprised to see the room lined with cardboard boxes, and an open suitcase on the floor, out of which I am living. I’m a very lazy person, and if I am going to be moving soon anyway, I see no point in unpacking while I’m here. I had a few criteria for my new place:

• Close to school (since I spend all day there anyway, it’s a hassle to travel for an hour each way just to sleep. Also, being able to go home at lunchtime or whatever would be great)
• Not excessively expensive (pretty much a hopeless hope, but still, I can at least avoid the places that cost 1,00,000 yen and up – which are plentiful)
• Living with other people (time spent at home, especially in the evenings, can be pretty damn boring if you live in a tiny one-room apartment on your own. Japanese people make it a rule not to get to know their neighbours, and always having to go to a coffee shop or something if you want to meet people gets expensive. So for casual hanging-out, flatmates are by far the best option)
• A local bar/something cool
• A decent-sized room (my previous place was so tiny I could pretty much stretch out my arms and hit both walls. Japanese people are pretty diminutive, but these places are small even for them. But I guess since most people spend all day at the office or on a train, it doesn’t really bother them too much. But particularly, in that room, I wanted a double bed, and a space to do some artwork)

Ah…. How I miss a double bed. These tiny little feet-hang-off-the-end, narrow-as-anything, have-someone-stay-over-and-end-up-hating-them things are horrible. I remember when I was a student back in Dunedin, and had a double bed… nice winter days lounging around in piles of blankets…

 

Well, anyway, since I’m going to be here for a couple of years, I thought those were reasonable requests. And then I found a place, not too far from school (but still requiring a couple of stops on a train), living with other people (though older than me), big (plenty of room for a double-bed and a desk), and with a private rooftop with a great view over Shinjuku.  Also, as an added bonus, it was right close to another University, which from what I could tell from watching the students come and go, could only be described as Gyaru Uni… to anyone who doesn’t know what Gyaru is, I’ll probably get around to it in another post… just know that it definitely gave the place added appeal for a healthy young man. The rent was more than I wanted (over half of my monthly income), but I figured I could work around it. I signed up, and paid the deposit – 100,000 yen – cancelled my current rent contract, and was ready to move in at the start of August. This was a short while before I was due to sign up for my scholarship, so I figured I could bear to be poor as anything for a few weeks in preparation. I was just happy to finally be moving into a place that would make it feel like I was finally actually starting in Tokyo!

 

Then, I didn’t get my scholarship. I couldn’t even afford to pay the first month’s rent on my new place. I suddenly had a few hundred dollars to live in the most expensive city in the world, with no food, no place to live, and final exams. After a lot of soul-searching, I decided to cancel the moving-in plans after all, and go back to asking for my old room back at the dormitory (with rent less than half of what the new place was). Except by this point, I couldn’t even pay the rent for that. However, they listened to my situation and took me back, while bailing on the rent for my new place meant that my deposit was forfeit.

 

I spent most of the rest of the month in my room eating toast, and practicing for the upcoming concert while also finishing up my final reports for classes. Just to help matters, the forces of the Universe decided to disapparate my folder for Oral Communication, meaning that my entire survey and subsequent report and presentation for that class had to be recreated from scratch with less than a week to deadline. Also, for one Writing Communication class, I had to write an opinion piece on any topic, so I ended up writing a slightly-modified Japanese version of the “Lemmings” post I made a month or so ago. Was surprisingly well-received!

 

Then, exams finished, the students’ farewell parties blossomed (of which I went to less than I would have liked, thank you no-money), then most people left, and July finally came to sudden end. I sat in my room alone and in the dark with the power payment lacking, and breathed a sigh of relief.

I’ve done nothing this weekend :)

It’s a rare thing for me, and I’m glad I did it. On Thursday night I went out for a friend’s birthday, riding a boat through Tokyo Harbour wearing yukata and having a party, which was great, but I was home by a reasonable hour. Friday night I did nothing, and tonight (Saturday), I also intend to do nothing. This way I get to save money, get some rest, slow the increase of my inflating stomach, and catch up on homework.

Or at least, I should be able to. Turns out the amount of time I’ve spent on homework so far can’t have exceeded 20 minutes. I spent all day in my room yesterday, but instead of homework (which I kept sort of glancing at thoughtfully), I spent most of my time sleeping, practicing bass (also very necessary), reading, or playing around on the computer.

Which meant, largely, playing around on Facebook. Today I got another Friend Request. “**** wants to be your friend! We need to confirm you actually know ****”. I didn’t know ****. And this isn’t the first time. I constantly get these irritating messages from people who want to be my Friend. Currently 14 requests (and 5 Friend “suggestions” – even worse than people who try to artificially “Friend” me are those who do it on the behalf of people whom aren’t even interested in doing it themselves) are waiting my approval. I don’t know who any of these people are.

The thing with Facebook is that it’s kinda personal. Your friends (real ones) will put up photos of you from the weekend for all of your Friends (Facebook ones) to see. People will make comments on your wall (which all Friends can see) about delicate life situations. Your birthday, where you live, all this information is there – some people also put their relationship status and who it is with. Which is something I don’t get. If you need to advertise your relationship with Mr. B to people over Facebook instead of in real life, then perhaps these people aren’t people who are really close enough to care. Not only that, when they break up, they have to change the status on their page, which sends a message to all Friends saying “XX is now single”, with a little picture of a broken heart.

If you are only connected to your friends, then it can be a helpful quick way of catching up with what people are doing, especially if they are scattered around the globe. But some people confuse friends with Friends. Some of the people I get requests from, I look at their page and see they have numbers like 2,000 Friends. Nobody has that many friends. Why could people be so keen to share themselves with the world that they look up and connect their lives with people they have no idea who they are? I’m all about meeting new people, but this isn’t the way to do it.

I have realised who today’s **** is. She is someone in the same club (circle) as me at Uni. However, I have never spoken a single word to her. I have happened to see her in passing a couple of times, but have never been close to talking to her. Until just now, I didn’t even know her name. Obviously, she’s found me through some mutual Friend, and decided she wants to be my Friend too, although she should know full well that we aren’t friends. She may be a lovely girl, but what does she hope to achieve my adding me on here, when she won’t even speak to me in real life?

But my hands are tied. If I don’t add her as a Friend, but continue to add people in the same group who I actually know, and who know her, it will look like I’m purposefully singling her out as “not my friend”. And then I’ll be the bad guy. But you know what? She’s not my friend. That’s not necessarily as evil a thing as people instinctively take it to be.

But, I added her, and now I can rest assured that every time someone “tags” me in a picture, she will know about it. Every time I make a comment to a mutual friend, she will know. Every time someone makes a comment to me (even people she doesn’t know), she will know. And chances are, we will never speak to each other as long as we live.

I think I'm gonna make a real effort of trying to update this more often. In order for it to give me a better reflection of my time here when I look back over it once I've left, I might try doing a few smaller posts, more often. Let's see how that goes.

In keeping with my apparent love of biting off more than I can chew, I today find myself in three bands.

When I first arrived here, I decided I really wanted to get to know as many people as I could, and hastily joined three "circles" - basically clubs. One thing I've always liked about the school system here, and I've mentioned it before, is the club system. The kids are always involved in clubs, and absolutely love them. It's a great bonding experience for them, and when they leave the education system, they all have an additional skill/hobby to take with them.

So when I entered Uni here, I got a little trigger-happy, and joined a music club, with the intention of being in a band; a tennis club, with the intention of learning tennis; and an international club, with the intention of meeting people - maybe even some who could speak the same language.

The music club quickly arranged and held a concert without me knowing. Suddenly everyone was in bands, ready to perform, and I was not. I was annoyed, and determined to get in on it next time. While waiting, I brought up the topic with a couple of people in the international circle (which is a bit of a misnomer - it must be about 90% Japanese people, and hardly any of them can speak a second language) during one of our frequent drinking sessions. I've found that I spend most time with the international circle, due to the fact that in the tennis club, I can't play tennis; and in the music club I'm not in a band. In the international circle, there IS no skill. You just sort of be there. And that, I can do.

So, in my possibly slightly-miffed, possibly slightly-drunk state, I brought up the idea of starting a band within the international circle. And the guys loved it. I went home and passed out, and when I next saw them, we were discussing what songs we could play and where we could find a drummer. In the meantime, the music club finished their concert (called a "live" in that awesome English that isn't-quite), and started preparing for the next one, which meant new bands. Not really knowing anyone, I simply put my ideas out there about what I wanted to play, spoke to one guy who seems to pretty much be a living, walking guitar, got no real answer from him, then jumped into the first group that actually invited me - as a bassist. Now, I've never played bass. But I'm sure I can work it out. After all, it's like a guitar, but with two less strings. Right??

Soon after, the walking guitar got back in touch with me and said he wanted to do the group with me, with me being on vocals and guitar. Both that band and the bass band will perform in less than a month. No songs have been decided, I've never performed in a group - let alone on stage - before, and I don't even know where I'm gonna find a bass to start practicing. The international band is picking up speed as well - one of the guys brought his guitar to school today.

I've been playing around with guitars for a few years now, but always alone, and always without much motivation other than enjoying the sound, and the occasional diamond-studded groupie fantasies that quickly get blown away with that first chord. Practice always seems to take second seat to... pretty much anything else I have going at the time. Things which involve other people, as I am at heart a pretty social guy. Combining the music and the social aspect into one thing - the band - is something I've always wanted to do, but it's just never happened. And now it has - three at once.

But, my main problem is this - my memory. I can pick up a guitar, look at the music, and after not-too-long, play something which sounds passable enough to be recognised as the original. But, after learn that song, and then put that guitar down, those finger positions fade from my memory so fast I begin to think I might have a pedantically specific form of Alzheimer's. Learning a second song is almost a sure-fire way of pushing the last threads of that first right back out. Also, while I enjoy karaoke, I've never been too keen on singing while playing. My voice is... not as beautiful as it could be, and unlike karaoke, when the only background music is what I'm creating myself, it's all a very embarrassing spectacle.

But, I'm in now. And no turning back. The day of the concert next month was changed from a cheaper day to one which was more expensive for everyone, just to allow me to attend. I sure can't disappoint now!

And now, on a slightly different note, here's an ad for a beverage:

Man, I am the worst blog updater ever. Sorry about that. Especially since I came to Tokyo, I barely spend any time at home! I always seem to be out and about somewhere, spending all my money and wasting a lot of time. Because the biggest difference between life in Kyoto and life in Tokyo, is that Tokyo is a hell of a lot bigger.

That might seem obvious, but to a guy from li’l ol’ New Zealand, it really takes a while to appreciate just how big this place is. And how big is it? Really big. I went to a popular shopping district the other day, there was a queue waiting for entrance to a shop with a waiting time of about 30 minutes. Just to enter. One indication of how big this place is might be the fact that my main form of transportation has become the train. In New Zealand it was the foot, the bicycle, or the car. In Sydney I moved up to the bus, now that I lived somewhere with a population big enough to support one. It was a big day for me. Kyoto brought my first real taste of travel-by-train, but even then it was mainly for inter-city trips to Osaka and the like. Most intra-city travel was still achieved by the humble bicycle. And now I’m in Tokyo, the train has finally come to dominate my transport lifestyle.

Everywhere in Tokyo is pretty far from everywhere else, the distances exaggerated even further by the hordes of human flesh you have to push aside just to get down the street. Because not only is Tokyo big (I’m sure other cities are bigger), but it is crowded. Insanely crowded. I got off a train at Harajuku the other day, took me about 20 minutes to exit the station. Trying to get from A to B down the street, especially in the looming heat of pre-summer, is unspeakably unpleasant. So, we have the air-conditioned, friendly train system.

This shows the lines operating in and around the city proper. Easy, yeah? Pretty much anywhere you need to go, you can get there via train. Or rather, by changing trains several times at various stops. Going somewhere for the first time is like one of those movies where the bad guy keeps ringing the good guy’s cellphone and telling him to change lines suddenly at some random station in order to get to the hostage before the bomb goes off. And feeling like a hero when you rush around the station is a better feeling than feeling like some foreigner who is just lost in a maddening maze of tracks.

Considering all the trains, and the frequency (often within 3-4 minutes of each other), you would think travel would be pleasant. But sadly, this is rarely the case. Japanese people seem to be raised on the belief that the train which is about to leave is, in fact, the only train this hour, and they are damned if they’re gonna miss it. This particularly applies to changing trains, and leads to one of the major things which has pissed me off since I arrived here.

The Japanese are generally a very polite people. But all that goes out the window at the train station. It’s seriously a jungle out there, and only the fittest will survive. My regular daily trip to the Uni usually goes something along these lines:

My train pulls into the station near my dorm. I wait to board at a position a few cars from the front. This position is no accident; I have chosen it strategically through much trial and error. When this train pulls into Shibuya, its final stop, the front car will be the car closest to the ticket gates, and therefore the closest to either more trains, or the beauty of the exit. However, this fact has not escaped the attention of my fellow travellers. As the front few cars roll by me, I am privy (through the window) to a grotesque mash of clothing and flesh, people pushed so far up against each other that some people are distorted in quite unnatural ways. Schoolchildren have their faces mashed into salarymen’s backs (or their briefcases), little old ladies are swallowed up entirely and never seen again. Pressed hard against the windows themselves, or even more so, the glass doors, faces are twisted into nasty wracks of discomfort, necks almost at snapping point. Hats are dislodged from heads and sitting aimlessly above the herd. It seems improbable that people are even breathing, but breathing they are – the evidence is in the smeared condensation running down the inside of the windows and into passengers’ splayed eyeballs.

The Cars of Hell roll past, and come to stop at the end of the platform, where the greatest concentration of new passengers is waiting to board. As the train comes to a stop, all the waiting passengers shuffle forward to meet the door, so eager to get on board that they don’t even allow room for anyone wanting to disembark to do so. The doors open, and the current passengers are spewed out onto the concrete, like a zit popping on the face of the train. There is a period of sway and shuffle as some of the current passengers attempt to fight their way out, and then they emerge, shirts untucked, hair ruffled, sweat everywhere, their briefcase raised above their head in triumph, gasping, their eyes wild. They quickly escape before they can be sucked back in by the now-even-greater horde trying to force its way back into the hole. There is no talking, just a constant push, push, push, people looking angrily and in discomfort at those pushing them, then continuing to do the very same thing to those in front. They can’t quite manage it themselves, however (fragile wee things), so the attendants come along in their nice sparkling jackets, suits and hats, don their white gloves, and hurl themselves against the crowd.

Eventually the people scrabbling against the concrete find steel, they clutch at it and pull themselves in. The attendants continue to push, sweat trickling out from beneath their shiny little hat. Somewhere, a rib cracks. The doors attempt to close. They shut on someone’s face. Reopen. The attendant gives the offending face a good shove, holds it there while the doors close again, this time on the attendant’s wrist. He withdraws his hand, pushes in a few more straggling pieces of clothing or fingers, and steps back, content.

As much as I would enjoy shaving about 7 seconds off my walk to the gates once this train reaches Shibuya station, that’s not the price I’m willing to pay. Hence I have boarded a few cars down, where while the seats are all taken, and many people are standing, there is still plenty of precious “me” space. I can even listen to music, can even pull out a book and have a read, should I so fancy.

The train trundles down the line, repeating the same farce a few times until it gets to the final stop, Shibuya. It’s time to get off, and it’s time for stage 2. I’m standing by the doors as we approach the station. When we stop, the doors in front of me will open, and everyone will get off. This is the last stop. That is common sense. However, as we are approaching the final stop, someone bumps my back. And again. I am pushed forward. I stumble forward a step and hit the door. But my assailant is in my back, I can’t step back. In fact, I am getting pressed into the door with ever increasing force. What’s happening? That’s right. Just as people were so keen to get on this train, now, they are equally keen to get off. In fact, it seems they must be the first off. We haven’t even stopped yet, and yet the passengers in the train are pushing towards the closed door. Pushing, pushing. I’m still not sure what this is supposed to achieve. Do the pushers want to be the first in front of the door when it opens, in order to be the first to leave? And so are they all trying to shoulder everyone else aside to force their way to the front? If so, that is so incredibly devoid of any social manner that I don’t really know what to say. Or, have they decided that the best way to achieve this pole position is to try to simply push their own body matter straight through any obstacles in their way? Because I can tell you, that doesn’t work. No matter how hard you push into my back, you won’t come out the other side. And yet they continue to do so. Feet are scraping against the steel floor as the salarymen try to advance, like a toy robot that has run into a wall, but his little feet just keep going. The train has not even stopped yet. There is nowhere to go. This is one mystery that I quite honestly have not yet solved.

The train stops, the crush gets harder, the doors explode open. The little walkway outside is instantly submerged in a flood of suits, glasses and combovers. People rush, push, scuffle their way towards the gates and out. However, these people I understand. Once the doors are open, you might as well get out of there as soon as possible. The people I don’t understand are those who stay on the train. To explain these people let me briefly describe the layout of the platform.

This is the last stop, so the train pulls into a little slot cut into the main concrete/tiled platform, surrounded on three sides. The main part of the platform, the side where people are waiting to board, is on the left. To avoid congestion, when the train pulls in, the doors which open are those on the right. These open onto a tiled strip of platform which runs down the side of the train, and then across the front of the train to join the main platform and the exits (which are in front of the train). This is the route the majority of people go when the train pulls in. However, there are always some people who stay on the train, and start playing the pushing-game against the left-hand side doors. Which remain shut for a significant amount of time after the others have opened. The idea, and it’s a good one, is that considering the berserker frenzy which fills the new boarders to an empty train, as they trample each other underfoot in their race to get a seat, it’s best to evacuate the disembarkers first. Thus, the right-hand doors open, everyone leaves, some time passes, then the left-hand doors open. However, there are always those people who, no-matter-what, want to leave by the left-hand doors. Why?

Because they’re closer to the gates. The mentality of these people drives me insane. All things being equal, if you had the choice through which doors to go from the train to the gates, the left-hand side doors would win, albeit by a small margin, as the right-hand-side strip adds a few seconds to the trip. But all things are not equal. The left-hand side doors do not open. These people think themselves so clever as they outwit the masses by taking the route which saves them approximately 3 seconds. But by doing so, they not only have to fight against the tide of new incomers flooding onto the supposedly-empty train, they also have to wait about 10 seconds to take it. These people make no sense. The ones with the smug smiles waiting by the left-hand side door in the front car would have already been through the gates if they had taken the right-hand side exit! Such blatant displays of arrogant stupidity really get me going.

Speaking of which. I’m not done yet. Let us return to the surge of people who have now exited the trains and headed through the gates. Those who are leaving the trains here are free, and I gaze wistfully after them. However, I am not leaving the trains, simply changing them. I have to keep my guard up through the gauntlet which constitutes the main area between lines, as everyone hurtles past at top speed, briefcases flying wildly, high heels clacking away like mad, panic on every face. Running, everybody needs to catch that next train as if their life depends on it. The one 3 minutes after it will be too late! Senior citizen outing groups are bowled to the ground by branch managers, and then hurdled by their staff in hot pursuit. People scream through the station as fast as their little legs will take them – until they reach a staircase.

Staircases inevitably have escalators attached. A staircase of any decent size will generally have a one- or two-man wide escalator gently trundling up the side. And this is where panic takes a break. Nobody takes the stairs. NOBODY. Considering the pure mass of bodies attempting to pile onto the escalator, a bottleneck results. People wait at the foot (or the top) of the stairs, waiting to get on. A crowd develops. More and more people come running to the spot, see everyone waiting at the escalator, join the group. I arrive at my own pace. The line waiting for the escalator stretches back 50 metres. The adjoining staircase is deserted. I walk past the panting queue, climb the staircase at a pace faster that the escalator is ascending, and continue on my way. Japanese people glare at me from the foot of the escalator, powerless as they wait impatiently. Those coming off the top of the escalator find themselves back on level ground and start their sprint anew.

I find my new train and go through it all again.

I try not to think about the ridiculousness of the whole situation here, but seriously, it’s insane. It’s insane. There is no need to cram onto a train that hard. There is no need to push to get off. There is certainly no need to wait for your “shortcut” to open. There is no need to run like that. Or if you really are in a rush, there is no need to wait at the foot of the escalator. So why do they do all these things? The same reason a lot of things happen around here. Because everyone else does. Doing something that draws attention to yourself, doing something which is not what everyone else is doing, is bad. Or if it’s not bad, it’s at least “not the way we do things”. Why not? Because no one else does. There really doesn’t seem to be any other reason that that.

Taking the trains is necessary to get around here, but I am sure it adds a lot of stress to peoples’ lives. People are already stressed enough as it is, what with all the karoshi – “death from overwork” – and all that. It can’t help that even getting to work in the first place and back is such an ordeal.

Maybe that is part of the reason why when people decide to kill themselves in Japan (as they so often do), a popular method of doing so is death by train. This is a message I see several times a day on the in-train information service.

The “accident”? It’s code for something everyone knows – someone jumped in front of a train. Must be a messy way to go, and must be fairly traumatic for those around – especially, I’d imagine, the driver.

But you know what’s more important? The inconvenience caused to other passengers by the delay. This delay comes at a price, and though I’ve heard several different quotes from several sources, they all come up pretty crazily high. Who pays? That’s right, the bereaved.

Well, finally after a whole lot of hassle and running around, I am officially a student – 2 weeks after I started taking classes. My Visa status has finally been changed over, and now I am eligible to start receiving the scholarship. Thank God. Of course, it doesn’t look very cool. The main problem with getting my visa in the first place was that I applied for it in Osaka, but now live in Tokyo. That kind of relentlessly crazy behaviour is something the Japanese offices aren’t used to dealing with, despite the fact I told them about it well in advance, so it’s meant a whole lot of humming and hahhing, and now that I have the new visa, it’s actually just a rubber stamp in my passport with a note scribbled below it saying, “The real one’s in Osaka, and by God, there’s no way we can print off a new one in such a short time frame as three weeks, so just trust us”. Looking forward to putting that to use next time I attempt to enter the country.

So yeah, I’ve been at school now for about two weeks. Which has been mostly spent trying to find my feet and sign all the mountains of paperwork and forms necessary for every aspect of Japanese life (I already did it in Kyoto of course, but after doing something as reckless as moving house, I have to go through it all again).

One thing that really confused me even before I arrived, was exactly what I would be doing once I arrived. I applied and was accepted to be a “research student”, and was told to arrive at University at a certain date for my initial orientation. I turned up, expecting to get some kind of guidance on, you know, what I would be doing at Uni, but instead it was basically 4 hours of people talking about Japanese customs and filling out forms. After it finished, I still had no idea what I was supposed to be doing on a day-by-day basis. After a few more days of going between various buildings and official-looking-but-confused people, I came to the realisation that there are no expectations of me.

As a research student, I don’t actually graduate with any qualifications. And the flipside of that, is that there’s nothing I really have to do. Officially, I think I have to present a written thesis at the end of about two years. And that’s about it. From day to day, week to week, I’m on my own! What the hell are they paying me for? Well, since they are paying, and since I’m here, I decided to use the opportunity to advance my education anyway. I signed up for one more law class, and a bunch of Japanese language classes to try and get myself to the point where I can actually understand what’s going on in the two law classes – which is going to be a way off. I was a bit worried about taking and failing the classes, but when the vast majority of the marks come from simple attendance, I think I’m gonna be OK. Japanese University is really not the same as overseas.

In order to use the school gym and pool, I needed to pass a medical examination. I turned up for it, signed up, and received my little urine sample tube, called “Pee Pole”. I had to fill that tube before the examination could start, so I ran to do that then joined the long long queue of people standing waiting for their examinations. I found it pretty hilarious to think that the hundreds of people standing around in line were all holding onto little tubes of their own urine.

I went through tons of little checks, including height, weight, eye strength, X-rays, and the urine test, which was tested for sugar, protein, and “occult blood”. I don’t know what that is, but I was quite relieved to find that I only had the normal level. I didn’t quite understand why all those were necessary to simply be allowed to use the facilities, but I’m getting used to the Japanese love of categorising and filing away everything they can possibly think of. At the schools I taught at, all the kids had to go through these tests every year, under the pretence of “charting growth”. I don’t really see why that was necessary, or what purpose it could possibly serve, especially when one the tests included things like “sitting height” – not to be confused with actual height, it’s the height from your ass to the top of your head, when you are sitting down.

With the classes and random medical tests out of the way, the remaining facet of Uni life is socialising. I decided to try and tackle that through joining a “circle” – a club. It’s been one of my favourite aspects of school life that I’ve seen, where every student is a member of circle, who spend so much time together they all begin to look alike… oh. Well, students are always best friends with the other members of their circle, so I decided that joining one would be a surefire way to social victory. Since I am more interested in learning the Japanese way of life and language, than imparting my own, I skirted the “international exchange” circles, and tried to go straight for real ones. I have toyed with tennis on and off over the years, so figured a tennis circle would be the way to go. But when I tried to join them, things weren’t so easy. One group declined me because they had “full members”. One group declined me because I was not an undergraduate first year (which really annoyed me. These groups are supposed to be built on the basis of making friends, and to that extent they fiercely protect their own – to the point of being overly elitist. People who transfer into the Uni during their second year, or who, like me, enter at the postgrad level, have a really hard time in such a rigid structure, which defeats the very purpose they purport to stand for). One group simply failed to exist.

I ended up finding another group purely by chance, so went and joined them for an only-in-Asia sober karaoke session, where I was called on to sing in English, and was even more glad than usual that nobody could understand the language. God, do I always sound that bad? Not as bad as one of the other guys, who decided to sing a highly emotional song in Japanese, penned by a woman. I don’t say things like this lightly, but it’s quite probably the single worst performance I’ve ever heard, made even worse by the fact that he was really pouring his heart into it. I was absolutely struggling to hold back the laughs.

In between everything, I’ve also been trying to hang out with the random people I’ve met, including one group of musicians (in a music circle), and going out drinking!

Sorry this entry is in serious need of editing, but I haven’t been sleeping very well since I got here, and I’m too tired to go back over this. My bed is too small for me and I can’t stretch out my legs. I woke up a few nights ago with a cramp! I’ve dragged it out from the wall now, so I can hang my feet off the end. Awesome.

To make up for it, here’s a picture of a second-hand-clothes-store employee doing a headstand in the middle of the road.

Well, I got off the Vientiane-Bangkok-Osaka-Tokyo flight after my trip through Vietnam and Laos, and made my way to the University in order to take the initial orientation and test for the start of my next couple of years as a postgrad student in Japan!

It was a strange feeling passing through Osaka airport - over the last few years, after a trip, coming back in there has had the "homecoming" feel to it. I've been back in a place I recognise, and understand, and know friends and my own little comfort hole are just a short while away. This time, however, I came back in after my trip, and had to suspend that feeling as I waited for my connection to Tokyo. It was quite a sad feeling, waiting there, getting ready to leave again, not being able to message friends for a catch-up coffee or anything, then leaving it behind (for all intents and purposes, for good), to depart to a totally unfamiliar place.

Arriving in Tokyo Haneda airport had none of the same familiar feel to it, which is probably not surprising considering it was my first time there. I negotiatied the trains and subways with relative ease, but finding my new dormitory was another story. The map I had been given was a total mess, and it took a long time, and the help of three locals, to find it.

After going through Uni in NZ, and seeing the kinds of quarters the Asian students have over there (and getting annoyed about them driving up the general price of flats when the rest of us could only afford the ever-increasing price of holey shoeboxes), I had kind of high expectations for a dormitory on their home turf. However, I was bitterly disappointed. The place is quite old, and smaller than even my previous place in Kyoto. The mattress smells funny, and the single bed is too short. The curtains are held together with a bulldog clip. The place clearly hasn't been given much of a clean since the last tenant, made extra clear by the old calendar still hanging up, still showing August 2008. I picked up a bit of a stomach bug in my last day or two in Laos, and it's still much colder in Japan, so I had a quick rest before my test and turned on the aircon. My throat felt all lumpy before long, and a quick look at the the aircon unit revealed that the inside of the louvres were covered in mold.

Leaving the room, I looked around for some of the other foreigners in my dorm that I could talk to. Living in a foreigner dorm, I assumed that there would at least be people around I could relate to. However, I forgot that the "foreigner" demographic in Japan is largely made up of neighbouring Eastern countries - China, Taiwan, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam... many of whom can't speak English, and who have only a smattering of Japanese.

I pulled the tattered map out of my pocket and headed off to the Uni for the test. The trains and stations were bursting at the seams with hundreds of people, none looking happy, all hurrying off to their own little unimportant obligations. People were bumping and shouldering all around, always without a backwards glance. I had none of the incredulous looks of oh-my-god-its-a-foreigner that I had become used to around Kyoto, and although I think I'm going to end up liking that, it was still a bit of a shock.

I got to the orientation, and struggled to stay awake through hours of droning about registering bank accounts, registering alien details, being careful in earthquakes, and tons of other things I already know about, being an old hat in Japan. Following that was the test. And I think I did suprisingly well. I managed to clear my head and focus for an hour, and put in a decent effort.

Following the test, there were a couple of other housekeeping things to take care of. Considering I was the only one there who had arrived from within Japan, I had a few special problems that needed to be taken care of, regarding Visas and the like. So I stuck around for a bit while everyone else left.

I had entertained fantasies about starting life at Japanese Uni much the same as doing so in NZ Uni. Arriving, going to a central area, meeting a ton of other people in a similar situation, becoming friends, going through it all together, having a great time. But this first day brought me crashing back to reality. I'm not the same as anyone else. For one, this is Postgraduate school. Everyone has their own personal things they are following, and everyone's classes are different. Most other students seem to be from other exotic countries, and they are forming groups on their own. I have yet to meet another NZer. Or even, dare I say it, Australian. After discussing my Visa problems to no real result, I left the test room alone and headed back out to the main campus. The sun was setting and the wind was blowing. The campus itself was a swirling mass of students, most dressed quite sensibly, hurrying from classroom to classroom to library to research area, in groups or alone. Everyone had a place to be, and everyone knew how to get there, except me. I'm still clueless about what classes I'm meant to be taking, who I'm meant to be seeing, or anything of the sort.

I checked my phone, saw I had no messages, and at a loss, plunged through the crowd and started the hour or so trek back to the dorm. On the way, I passed a karaoke place and considered going in and singing some lonely heartbreak songs to myself, purely for the reason that the humour of the situation would give me something to smile about.

***************

And that's how my entry would have gone, had I written it on my first night here, as I had intended to. However, after arriving back through the flickering hallway lights to my dirty little room, sheer exhaustion (and the mysterious aircon disease) hit me, and I fell into a restless sleep.

The next couple of days have consisted of getting up, going to Uni, trudging around, filling in forms, visiting offices, filling in forms, eating, buying train tickets, taking train ride after train ride, filling in forms, and filling in forms. And while it's been exhausting, I have been speaking to people.

My supervisor (at least, I think he is) is a great guy. I got a message to go meet him at a certain room, thinking he was going to give me advice on my course, but it ended up being a class. However, it was a small class, and he was incredibly welcoming. He asked me if I could speak Japanese (clearly prepared to entertain the possibility that I couldn't), and kept stopping from time to time in his talk to rephrase certain points for me in English (since, to be honest, I could hardly understand a word of all the legal Japanese he was spouting). After the class, the other 8 or 9 students in the class encouraged me, gave me their emails, and told me to get in touch with them if I had any problems. The professor himself took me with him to the Registry and helped walk me through my course outline.

I have also struck up conversations with a few other people at various times, either while eating, or asking directions, or whatever. People have generally been extremely nice and helpful, and already in the three days I have been here, I have been to one birthday party, and met a different group of people for a lunch.

After my first day here, I was feeling completely overwhelmed. I've become used to taking on big challenges and forcing my way through them, but this time I really felt like I had finally bitten off more than I could chew. No friends, no direction, a poxy little room and a course which was not only in a language I brutally realised I couldn't understand, but also in a system I couldn't understand, came together into one entirely unenjoyable mess. However, I've stuck at it, tried to talk to people at every possible opportunity, and I'm beginning to see a possibility of scrabbling myself out of the pit and onto some kind of solid ground. Here's hoping!

About a hundred years ago, I applied to the Monbukagakusho (the Ministry of Education) in Japan for a scholarship in order to do postgrad study here in Japan. I filled out forms, wrote essays, flew back to NZ for interviews, sat tests. And then waited about a year while the Japanese government sat around watching Noh, eating fish and refusing to contact me.

Finally, last month, I got word that I had been accepted! As of the start of April, I will be a research student in Waseda University in Tokyo. That’s awesome. But the good news was somewhat tempered by the fact that they gave me NO information. With only a month to go, I had to somehow get myself into the University. And they were not helpful. They did not contact me, they contacted me through the Japanese Embassy in New Zealand. Which means that everything took longer than it should, and I don’t know if there was miscommunication somewhere along the line in the game of Japanese whispers, but answers I needed never seemed to come to me.

I was told that I had to get my Visa changed to a student Visa. I asked how. They didn’t know. They told me to check their own website. I did. The English version of the website opened with the following phrase:

“By connecting Japan and the world through proper immigration control services under the motto "Internationalization in compliance with the rules," making efforts for smoother cross-border human mobility, and deporting undesirable aliens for Japan, the Immigration Bureau, the Ministry of Justice makes contributions to sound development of the Japanese society.”

Below that is a picture of a surly looking officer begrudgingly handing over a passport to an incoming foreigner. At no point on the site does it ever say anything along the lines of “Welcome to Japan”. It said I needed two things: a letter from the University saying I had been accepted, and a letter from the government saying they would be paying the costs necessary.

I emailed the Embassy-Government, and the University, asking for the documents. The University later emailed me back, saying that they would send me the necessary documents. The Embassy told me that the Government makes it policy not to issue such letters. Despite the fact that their own damn website insisted on it. The Embassy agreed to write me one in their stead.

I asked everybody about more information about the course I would be doing. What day did it start? Where was the campus? How would I go about enrolling in papers, or anything like that? It’s all well and good to say, “you’re in”, but I kinda need a little more information here.

The Government told me nothing, except that they expected me to attend a pre-departure orientation in New Zealand to prepare for departure to Japan. I managed to convince them that since I was already living in Japan, that was neither reasonable nor necessary. It took some work. The University, after several backs-and-forths, told me that I needed to be there for a test and orientation on April 6.

Since I had heard nothing for so long, I had booked flights to Vietnam and Laos, to come back to Japan in the first week of April. I did not know if I would be going to Uni or not, but since classes generally start mid-April, I figured I would be safe either way. Turns out I arrive back in the country (in Osaka) the same day as the test. I voiced my irritation at the late notice for the test, and got a sucks-for-you reply. I asked the travel agent if I could put my flight back a day. They said it would be possible, for an additional 30,000 yen. That’s a bit crazy, but I had no choice, so I said yes, please. A week later, I had no reply. I asked again. A few days later, I asked again. This time, I got a reply. The price which was available a week or so ago was no longer available. If I wanted to come back a day early, it was gonna be an extra 60,000 yen. I can’t afford that. Why couldn’t you get back to me sooner. Sorry, just saw your email. Too bad for you.

I searched, and found a flight direct from the airline, which leaves Osaka shortly after I arrive, and lands in Tokyo a few hours before the test. So my current plan is to fly back from Laos after backpacking for two weeks, land in Osaka, go through immigration, get back on a plane and fly to Tokyo, get off, find my way to an unfamiliar place in a giant, unfamiliar city (complete with backpack and sweat), and sit the test. Perfect conditions. Then I can worry about finding where I can get a shower and sleep for the night.

In amongst all this, my employer (Interac) emailed me to tell me that I had to get out of my flat the day after my contract finished. What’s that all about? Turns out that since Japan, as a rule, won’t rent to foreigners, we need guarantors, and Interac took that role for me when I signed up. However, it also means that Interac signed a host of clauses that I never saw. The official contract, unbeknownst to me, is between Interac and the real estate agent. I’m just the guy who happens to be living there and paying all the rent and bills. And Interac have made the contract so that I have to be out the day after my working contract with them ends. Oh, and also, I need to give two months’ notice if I’m gonna move out, or else I’m going to have to keep paying the rent for those two months, even if I’m not living there. Even though I can’t live there past that date anyway, even if I pay the rent. They told me this about two weeks before the day I have to be out. And seeing as they pay my salary two months in arrears, that’s all very nice for them, isn’t it.

So, while trying to organise where I’m going for the two days between my contract ending and leaving for Vietnam, and what I’m doing with all my stuff, the letters from the University and the Embassy arrived. I took off to the Immigration Bureau to change my Visa status. I took a day off work, waited in line, filled out my forms, and was asked for the letters. I handed them over. They asked me for the letters. I said I had already given them to them. They said no, these were not the right letters. The Embassy one is OK, but where is your University acceptance letter? I pointed to it. The man looked confused. Yes, this says that you are entering the University, and yes it’s signed by the University, but this isn’t the right letter we need. It’s on the wrong paper.

Surely that’s not important? And surely, when the University is asked for a letter of acceptance in order to get a Student Visa, if there is a special type of paper needed for such a request, the University should know to use said paper? Apparently not. This letter is unacceptable. Go back and try again. I refuse to go back and try again. This is ridiculous. I enter University in two weeks. I need my Visa. The man is actually incredibly obliging for a Japanese office worker, goes away and, I think, rings the University directly. The kind of not-in-the-guidebook behaviour which you don’t see here. He came back and said that they would accept my letter. They had told the Embassy that the change of status would take about a week. They told me that it would take one to three months. I have two weeks. Why didn’t I apply earlier? I only got word that I was even going to University, let alone gathered all the necessary documents, a month ago. And how the hell is three months for a Visa status change justified anyway? They already have all the necessary information, their own bloody government is the one who authorised this is the first place, I’m already living here, what more is there to do than simply change the part labelled “status” on the computer from “Instructor” to “Student”? But then again, these guys took a year to even accept me in the first place.

I leave for Vietnam this Sunday. I have to be out of the apartment Friday. It’s Monday night. I’m trying to pack, but I have accumulated so much rubbish over the last couple of years that it’s mindblowing. Things are slowly starting to come together, but I hope it all gets sorted by the time I need to leave! Before I came to Japan, I had bought into the image that this was an efficient country. But I can assure you, as can anyone who has lived here for any amount of time, that nothing could be further from the truth. This is easily, by far and away, the most disorganised and inefficient place I have ever seen.

I’ve had goodbye parties all over the show, from friends, teachers, students, and girls. It’s been nice, and makes me feel like my time here has been pretty worthwhile. I think I have made a lot of connections with people that hopefully I can build on over the next few years. Unfortunately, most of the people I got on well with have left Kyoto throughout the time I’ve been here, either going back to their home countries, other countries, or other parts of Japan. But now, it’s my time to leave, too. I’m going to leave sleepy old Kyoto with its sunny Kamogawa, and enter Insanity Central further up north. They even talk different. Less subtle shades of brown to complement the olde-style feel of the city (even McDonald’s is banned from using red in their signage), more 10-storey tall flashing neon signs. Less hunched over old ladies leaning on their shopping trolleys for support, more teenagers dressed as anime characters. Less musicians calmly practicing guitar or saxophone on the banks of the Kamogawa, more stuff that’s barely passable as music being screamed from some androgynous being in Harajuku.

Kyoto’s been nice, calm, pleasant and interesting, if just a touch boring after a while. Tokyo’s going to be a whole other bowl of rice.

Assuming I get there.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned how a comic by the name of "Jojo's Bizarre Adventure" had had publication suspended, pending a redraw of certain apparently "offensive" scenes. It was off the market for about a year, and now the new versions have been released, which hopefully are non-offensive enough not to draw further wrath from the ever-tolerant Islam.

According to their webpage, not all volumes have been edited, only volumes 17, 20 and 27 of the original release set, corresponding to volumes 10, 13 and 17 of the Bunko version. Out of interest I picked up volume 17 of the Bunko set to see what had been changed, and since I haven't seen it anywhere else on the net, I'll help out those who came here via search engine by showing a quick look at what's been changed.

I didn't bother to re-read all the writing, but since I don't remember reading anything even remotely related to Islam, I assume it hasn't been changed. Only the pictures have. For the most part, the changes are pretty small. Here are the changes I noticed:

Page 43 has two of our heroes escaping over the rooftops of Cairo. The building which they are using to escape, and the tall prominent building in the background are changed. The background bulding becomes some kind of completely incongruous steel beam framework, a tower which we will see again later (or another which looks very similar to it). Also worth noting is that the clouds and the characters themselves have also been redrawn.

I will put the rest of the changes together into one frame - click on an individual image to enlarge it.

The next modified image is on p47, where the tower they are swinging from is once again changed. It seems that the whole image itself has been redrawn, as closely to the original as possible, as it seems slightly different. Again, it's noticeable in the clouds.

On p54, both the tower being destroyed and the tower in the background are changed to buildings which look slightly less holy. We get another one of those metal frameworks.

The main image on p55 seems to have been entirely redrawn, including the two towers and a vast reworking of the entire cityscape below. Dio's clothes and Kakyoin's pose have also slightly changed.

Pages 59, 60 and 61 bring us more of the same. However, the original books were drawn about 15 years ago. Over time, the author's drawing style has changed, and here it is pretty clear, especially looking at the image of Dio in the foreground. The new style is much more crisp and stylised. The bat by the clocktower is also gone, and Kakyoin's face has been replaced with a cross.

Page 85 just has the top part of the tower replaced.

The changes seem to be pretty minor. However, aside from the moral idea of having to rewrite your work to assuage a few whiners, there are a few other problems. First, the fact that the author's drawing style has changed

over time. Obviously, he has tried to replicate the images pretty closely, but they are also quite different. When one of the new images is placed in a book sandwiched between two of the older pages, the difference becomes even more pronounced. There's also continuity. For example, note the lack of Clockside Bat in pages 59-61. For what reason this young man was ommitted, I don't know. But what I do know is that he makes a sudden comeback in the un-edited page 62.

Also, the tower that cross-faced Kakyoin is standing on is changed from the

more normal stone variety to the slightly less unexpected iron construction factory style. However, when he is knocked off it a few pages later, it appears to revert to its former stone self.

To a casual reader, I'd say that alot of these changes would largely go unnoticed. To that extent, the changes aren't a big deal. But, to the fans, these changes are fairly obvious and jarring. And when a series has 100 volumes and counting, surely it's a fair bet to say the fanbase is what's keeping it going? One thing this series really has going for it is the artwork. And to have had some of it altered for such an unnecessary reason is just plain annoying.

Japan can have a pretty frigid winter, tending to be at its coldest around February. That is when the Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival) is held, up in Hokkaido. Giant statues are made out of snow and ice and left on the roads around the city for a couple of weeks. So it seemed like a perfect time for Japan to also hold one of their strangest events of the year – the Hadaka Matsuri, or Naked Man Festival.

 

I joined a group of foreigners who headed down to check it out. Due to its outlandish nature, it’s one of the festivals which have become quite popular with the foreign population. One of those “only in Japan” things. There are several of these throughout Japan, but we went to the one in Saidai-ji, Okayama.

 

The main event takes place at around 11pm, but participants are welcome to change into their outfits at any point during the day. On our arrival, we saw many men walking around dressed only in “fundoshi”, a type of bandage that is wrapped around the waist and between the legs to look similar to a cloth nappy. As they walked between the crowds who were dressed for the weather in jackets, scarfs, hats and gloves, the only way to keep warm was the time-honoured method of getting good and drunk.

 

Personally, we decided to do it the other way around, and got good and drunk well before changing. At about 10pm, it was time to get naked. I went into one of the bare canvas tents dotted about the place reserved for the purpose, and got my kit off. Then it was a matter of standing around in the cold, naked, holding my rolled fundoshi, waiting in line for one of the professional fundoshi putter-onners to do his thing. Since it’s only a strip of cloth, and you don’t want it falling off during the night’s revelry, it pays to have it on good and tight. This requires a strength which means you are unable to do it yourself. So I stood, naked in the cold, waiting until it was my turn. I eventually got to the front of the queue, where a tired old man grunted at me and held out his hand. I gave him the fundoshi, then underwent the strange experience of having an old Japanese man tailor a nappy for me, complete with the final stages of folding it between the legs, and yanking it tight from behind with a force that was enough to lift me off the ground, just a little.

 

With bandage rammed into places that felt totally unnatural, I was ready to emerge from the tent and mix with the crowd. There were so many naked men around by this stage that being one of them didn’t feel all that weird (I also have become somewhat used to the feeling thanks to the public open naked communal baths which are so common here). Feeling nicely toasted with cheap sake, we bounded about the crowds, joining the communal chant of “Wasshoi! Wasshoi!”, and holding each other for dear warmth.

 

The official run started, and with arms on shoulders, we joined the ranks of people entering the temple complex. A run around the perimeter, followed by splashing through a waist-deep pool of holy water (plenty enough to soak the fundoshi), then off for a quick pray to the temple deity, and into the wall-less temple itself. This was the gathering point, and as the hour wore on, more and more wet, cold, naked men poured into the temple. The ultimate goal of the night was to be one of the receivers of two “shingi”, which would be dropped from the ceiling by an official into the centre of the crowd. The receiver of the shingi, or basically “lucky stick”, would have good luck for the following year (and a tidy tangible, financial reward).

 

The surging crowd of naked men became bigger and bigger, and tighter and tighter, swaying violently from side to side as everyone tried to get into the centre (and as drunken larrikins tried to push the crowd about just for fun). Men with their bodies covered in bandages (to hide tattoos), and black fundoshi as opposed to the white of everyone else, were easily recognisable as yakuza (Japanese mafia) members. They were also joining the melee. Everyone had their arms raised directly above their own head, as putting them off to the side would more likely than not result in them being snapped clean off. The reason for having the fundoshi rammed so dearly into the recesses of my anus became clear. Despite the cold, the sheer volume of body heat, combined with the alcohol, was making people sweat profusely.  The crowd would sometimes take a sudden surge to the side, meaning a desperate attempt to stay on your feet, and avoid the steps on all sides leading up to the temple itself. Announcements were regularly made at approximately four-minute intervals to make way for the ambulance teams who came in, led by a giant stick, to take out incapacitated individuals to the hearty cheers of the crowd. Apparently someone died two years ago.

 

After bearing out the battle for some twenty minutes, and being separated from my friends, I decided I didn’t want my lucky stick that badly, and made my way out of the fray. I found my friends waiting for me outside, and we watched from the bottom of the steps as the mass at the top swayed and surged for the next 30 minutes, being punctuated with spills down the side and frequent ambulance teams. My toes froze off. Inside the temple, the heat had gotten to the point where the wall of steam rising from the men was all that was visible. With the light shining on it, it was simply a white wall that was completely impenetrable to the human eye.

 

Then, midnight struck. The lights were turned off and the sticks dropped. Frantic, frantic scurrying commenced, as well no end of fighting, unseen from the outside due to the wall of steam and the lack of lights. All we could see was the people unlucky enough to be on the edge tumbling down the steps in greater numbers. Eventually someone must have escaped from the horde with the sticks amongst all the confusion, and delivered them to the officials, as the contest was officially declared over. The crowd started to thin, and people limped away.

 

Suddenly, with the adrenaline and the mass of body heat gone, everyone, myself included, realised just how cold it was to stand outside naked in winter, and hobbled off to become once again embraced in the warmth of civilised clothing.