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May Term Blogs

Matt's Blog

About Matt
Major(s): Writing
Hometown: Clarion

5/24/06
Well, we're all back in Waverly, or wherever our final destination is. Graduation is this weekend, and I'm working to get my stuff boxed up and my room moved out, but, anyway, I thought I'd add one final blog entry here about the end of the Japan May Term 2006.

There's not much to say about Hiroshima that hasn't already been said - it was the recipient of the first atomic bomb to be used for its intended purpose, resulting in 80,000 some deaths to be followed by 60,000 more in the months that followed, from injuries, the loss of the city's infrastructure, and lingering radiation (according to Wikipedia). It's pretty nasty stuff, needless to say. Japan's attitude towards WWII has been controversial; though the country did try to conquer Asia, it, well... also got the crap bombed out of it. And the radiation still lingers today. (Of course, Germany also got bombed, but that's a whole different trip)

Thinking about it there, my biggest issue with the bombing is that it wasn't done just to end the war - if the US honestly was 'altrusitic' about it, believed that Japan wouldn't surrended without something so jarring, well... I still can't write in good conscience it would have been justified. But as history stands, the Soviet troops were poised to roll into Japan by land, and our bombing was, as I understand it, not just to end the war but also to send a message to the USSR about who would be running the show come the brave new world to follow. And they noticed. They noticed so much that they built 7,000 nuclear weapons of their own, and we built another 7,000 to match. So remember, Hiroshima wasn't just another step towards the end of the second world war; it was also the Cold War's innaugural ball. And at least WWII was about serious issues; the Cold War seems, in retrospect, to have been a bit immature in its attitude, making it all the more disturbing that for decades what stopped us all from being blown up was the knowledge that if we launched our nukes, there would be a few thousand more launched right back at us (and vice versa).

That night I went out to get a look at the city at night; it seems like a pleasant enough place, certainly rebuilt, and its a shame for the city that its identity will always be heavily defined by the bombing. I walked a bit down the main street, until suddenly the rain came and I had to run back to the hotel, already soaked."Typhoon", a guy outside said, simply, to the girls ran back to the hotel under the same circumstances.

But, moving on, Osaka has a much lighter feel than Tokyo; relaxed, more like Kyoto, but also
much more sprawling, with more skyscrapers, which up at night. As we arrived on Saturday night, several bands were playing rock music on the overpass. It was comfortable there; if I were to, say, try to get a job teaching in English in Japan post-graduation, I might try to land in Osaka. The city has a reputation for openness that I was aware of before coming; having spent only a few days there, its tough to tell what perceptions are honest and what are simply expectations self-fulfilled.

Our main purpose in town was to catch the Hanshin Tigers game, which we did. It was a sold out crowd, a good 95% of whose members appeared to be chearing for the home team. The opposing team, the Buffalos, had their own pep band in the back of the stadium, relegated to a small spot in the shade darkened as if by the sheer force of enthusiasm directed in support of the Tigers.

The following day, the day we left, I saw Osaka Castle by myself. The Castle itself has been rebuilt enough that it doesn't necessary carry history in the same way as the others we visited, but the museaum now inside the main building had a magnificent view of the city from the 7th or 8th floor, and enough opportunity to view swords and samurai armor, which had heretofore been absent from the trip.

So, that's the trip in brief - I'm still a bit jet lagged, and should probably take a nap. Or read. Or start packing up my stuff.

Thanks for reading, as always.

5/18/06
Kyoto was one of the only major cities that didn`t get all bombed to hell during World War II; its ironic that we`re visiting it, then, just before Hiroshima, which, of course, received the first of two atomic bombs the US dropped on the country. The city`s post-WWII renovations - such as the massive Kyoto Station, an architectural marvel I know best as `that place where Gamera and Iris fight each other at the end of Gamera 3` - were thus the result of a much more natural push of progress than a total post-cataclysmic revision. The city has moved on, but skyscrapers are a bit lower than Tokyo, and the city`s atmosphere is a good deal more relaxed. People cross the street if the light is red, but no cars are coming. We`re staying on the massive 4th street - walk either direction, and its a lot of shopping; the commerce district we are in is layed out in massive blocks, decidedly straight and horizontal, while side streets are much more low-key. Still, we are shocked at how early many of the stores close; though people are walking on the streets while into the night, by early evening shops start to lock up and roll down their doors.

Our tour of Kyoto began with the Gion district, one of five in Kyoto specializing in geisha. `Geisha` - lierally `arts person` are, as our guide Peter Mcintosh described them, as like a cross between a flight attendant and a prima donna ballerina. They come to parties to help you relax, and are rather highly skilled at their arts. They are not prostitutes, just to clarify, and the `arts` they practice are not sexual, just to get that out of the way (as Im sure every article ever written in the west on geisha has
done).

Girls may become geisha today at the age of 15, after finishing the mandatory school years. They then apprentice for 5-6 years, and by then, they`re geisha. Of the 60 or so girls that apply to become geisha yearly, Mcintosh estimates that half are rejected. By the end of the first year or two, only 15 remain, the other 15 having not shown enough skill to continue. By the end of the apprenticeship, only 5 or 6 will remain.

`There are perks to being a geisha,` said Mcintosh (and I appologize for not getting his words quite right; consider this a close paraphrase) `expensive parties, clothes, people pay to hang out with you, you get to hang out with the rich and famous. But too many people today want to be geisha for all the wrong reasons - the ones I just listed. The right reason would be `I get to have my own business by 21` - but what 15-year-old thinks like that?`

Mcintosh himself is an interesting guy. Originally a soccer player from Nova Scotia, he decided to travel a bit before pursuing his master`s degree; he stopped in Japan and never left. That was a dozen years ago. Now he`s married to a former geisha, and gives tours around Gion, where he knows a lot of area people and appears to be quite the area fixture; he has a great repoire with the neighborhood adults and kids. He`s a funny guy, and if you want an excellent tour, look him up.

I asked him is `Memoirs of a Geisha` has incresed his business much; he said it hasn`t with the tours, but it has in his dealing with the media. Like others I`ve talked to here, he thought the book was OK but didn`t care so much for the movie. We did see plenty of sites referenced in the book/movie, though, but I`d hate to list them as actual sites identified only by their roles in a ficitonal work.

Other places of note and visit include:

- Niji jo (second street castle): where the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603-1863) began and ended. Very well perserved from the era, with lots of big rooms, lots of tatami mats, and a `nightingale floor` built with loose nails to make it `sing` to alert the guards/shogun if someone was walking across the floor to, say, assassinate him or more likey getting up to use the bathroom.

- San ju san gen do - The Temple, literally, of a 1,000 bodhisatvas. 1,000 statues of the Buddhist goddess of mercy - known here in Japan as Kannon, originally in India as the masculine Avalokiteshvara, and in China as Guanyin - all carved and unique, not to mention a giant one in the center and some 28 guardian diety statues. They stretch across the room in rows - 10 rows of 100 each. Smells strongly of incense. Built by 70 artisans across a
century, and originally commissioned by the emperor (or another high ranking official) in the hopes of curing a persistant headache. This is, in short, perhaps the most impressive religious monument I`ve ever seen.

- Todai ji - The world`s second-biggest Buddha, housed in the world`s largest wooden structure.

- Fushimi Inari Shrine - Shinto shrine to business and foxes, the supposed `temple of 1,000tori gates`, which is a slight understatement: there are, in fact, closer to 10,000 tori gates on the temple grounds, stretching up a mountainside that takes about 2 hours to get up. We only got to spend about a half hour here, and cross through the gates to the first stop; looks like I`ll have to save this really for whenever I return to Japan. You can see pictures online, or on the cover of the `Memoirs of a Geisha` DVD (yep, its that place).

And, there were of course other places, but the ones above look the best in writing. So long and thanks for reading, as always, and whoever back in Clarion is reading this, be aware that I ordered the movie `The Return of Captain Invincible` and you all will be subjected to it upon my return.

5/16/06
I`m currently in Kyoto, after spending several days in the Hakone and Takayama areas. Hakone is on the edge of Japans mountains, near Mt. Fuji. Fuji is unforunately a shy mountain, so we didn`t see it through the clouds, but there`s enough other stuff of interest in the area that bah, who needs Fuji? The town itself is a resort, with many well-maintained hedges, and for some reason a museam devoted to Antoine de Saint-Exuprey's Le Petit Prince.

A few bus rides from our guest house and a cable car up a moutainside, however, leads to the mouth of a dormant volcano. Taking the cable car over, there are various mining operations in the base cultivating some stuff (sorry, I don`t know much about what one does in a volcano mouth) from the cracks that still ooze gaseous sulfur. The sulfur rises as steam in many places, and has stained rocks in others - the pit looks like what Id imagine Jupiter`s moon Io might if it could be colonized, or as Dr Boss described it, `like Isengard after Saruman`. The cable car offered an amazing view of the place which we were lucky to get on our first trip over; when we returned the second day it was raining and cloudy so much that all we could see was mist in all directions.

Past the mouth, we hiked up a bit to another wad of sulfur-oozing cracks, where we ate duck eggs dyed black from the element. According to legend, eating one of the eggs grants seven extra years of life. I don`t know if those our seven good years, or if they get tacked on at the end after you`ve gone all senile. The egg itself is a regular egg, and was only the second most bizarre thing I`d eaten that day, after the wasabi ice cream I had at the base of mountain.

Further beyond the sulfur is Lake Ashi, which we cruised around in a pirate ship. I don`t know what pirate ships were doing on Lake Ashi - actually, I do. Tourism. Its called tourism - the reason we`re here, the reason we have a cable car over the sulfur pits, the reason why we get to see the forests. But hey, would you rather cruise around a mountain lake on some plain, ordinary dinghy, or a PIRATE SHIP? I know what I`d pick.

Back at our guest house, in the evenings I took a soak in the sulfur hot springs outside. The second night it was still raining, giving the water just the right temperature. That night I also had a chance to talk to some Japanese tourists from Nara; they asked about American movies and said `Dude Where`s My Car?` was among their favorites - hey, I find it amusing. When I
asked what Japanese movies were good, the first one they mentioned was `The
Last Samurai`, a choice that was ironic on a number of levels. Aside from movies, though, they were curious about America, and I passed on my best description of what American cuisine is - hamburgers, pizza, cups of soda meters in height. We had to cut our conversation short, however, as the guesthouse`s living room closed up at 11:00, as would our one in Takayama.

Closer to Japan`s west cost than its east coast, Takayama is a beautiful train ride through the misty mountains and dammed rivers north of Nagoya to a relatively small town with a kind of Ft. Dodge-ish feel to it. The streets there are narrow and the sidewalks are paved over the gutters. In the outlying areas, and in one area in the middle of town, rice paddies are currently flooded. Mountains and hills surround the town, with snow caps in the distance.

The inn we stayed at was in the traditional style, with tatami mat floors, futons for beds, and rice paper windows. Our group was divided on how comfortable we found the futons; I myself slept the best I have all trip.The meal the inn served us our first night there was our best one as yet, including many mountain vegetables and mushrooms, eggplant topped with cheese, sushi, mizo soup, and various other dishes I feel unable to accurately convey across this space. Meals are to be eaten, not read about.

All through the train rides back through the mountains, I see trees, and mist, and power lines strung along the hillsides. The dams have dried some riverbeds, leaving exposed interesting and jagged rock formations.

Is this the countryside? They call it the countryside, but I can`t really compare it to either China`s or America`s. Kyoto is amazing, and very different from Tokyo, but I`ll write about it in
a day or two.

5/11/06
We arrived shortly after Golden Week, and though the cherry blossoms are gone, the trees are green and thick, like at the Meiji Shinto Shrine in town.The Meiji Shrine ensrhines the soul of the emperor of the same name, as well as that of his wife, who presided over a modernizing Japan in the late 1800s. Today, it is one of the most peaceful spots in Tokyo. The shrine was originally home to some 365 species of plants donated from across Asia - though, according to our guide, only about 250 of them survived the climate. Regardless, looking at the gardens and hillsides here, I`m struck by how unique the trees are. Each one looks its own plant, and even in the right corners their smell is overpowering. If I had been born Japanese, I might have been a botanist.

Near the center of the shrine, prayers can be written on wood tablets, which are then burnt at a ceremony at the end of the year. Since the Meiji Shrine is a popular one, there were prayers offered by travellers many languages from Japanese to Chinese to English to Russian to Korean, ranging in content from hope for a grandparent`s health to wishes for better sports performance.

Further out from the city is Kamakura, also known for its temples and shrines. The most ineteresting of which was the Tokeiji Temple, known for granting refuge to women back in the day; if a woman could make it up the temple's steps, she would be granted a divorce from her husband and freedom from the Temple after a period`s stay. Much less busy than the more well-known temples and shrines - which are throned with groups upon groups of school children during the day, all in uniforms - the temple was extraordinarily peaceful, especially at the graveyard in the back for the temple`s patrons; fresh flowers were in many holders and the grave markers were covered in green moss, and the trees stand tall and straight over the straight vertical hillside that marks the area`s far back wall.

At night, however, Tokyo is quite the opposite of natural green, with neon lighting half the buildings in the right districts, such as Shinjuku. The air is still fresh in the city, and it maintins a quiet order in its energy. The mass of people on the streets doesn`t mass of people on the streets doesn`t let up during any waking hours; at night, however, the school kids are replaced by more uniquely dressed young adults. The black-suited businessmen are a constant throughout all hours. A night on the town will cost you, though - in the district of Roppongi, known for its bars and clubs, a mixed drink costs about $8 US, while a standard, run-of-the-mill beer can be $10. Though there were many gai jin in the streets advertising to other gai jin to come into the clubs and presumably add to the atmosphere, it appeared most people out enjoying themselves were Japanese.

Other evening entertainment choices in Tokyo could include a sumo match, either on TV or at the@local sumo arena, where we went Tuesday. It`s exciting, and hey, the anouncer even acknowledged the girls in our group after the match was over, thanking `all the pretty foreigners` for coming out to watch the matches.

I should also plug International Christian University, with which Wartburg has a program - if you`re looking to spend a year abroad, I can`t think of a more beautiful campus in which to a year abroad, I can`t think of a more beautiful campus at which to do it, and the academics seem quite well regarded, too. ICU follows the American liberal arts school model, which is not too common in Japan. Ask GMCS for more info.

But if you want to really enjoy Tokyo, forget about the west for a bit. Just head to the temples in the day, or Shinjuku or Shibuya at night, and take a deep breath and look around.

There`s a lot more I had hoped to write here, but there may be time for that later. For now, I`m off to sleep, and to Hakone (near Mt. Fuji) in the morning.

5/10/06
Tokyo might be called the orderly metroplis. Despite having 12 million residents and countless visitors crammed into about 2,000 square kilometers, the city seems to mold to its people rather than overflow with them. People walk down the streets purposefully but uniquely, each occupying his or her own cube of space. Walking against the flow feels like a game of Frogger, with everyone else knowing their direction, and us not yet having figured out the rules of the sidewalk. Even in rush hour at the station, thorugh which 3 million people people pass a day, the mass of people rush with order, and calmly cram into the subway and train cars with determined, nonchalant abandon.

Horns rarely honk, and in the streets this morning I hear only the indifferent sounds of cars moving. Rarely do they honk. In the lobby of the Kadoya Business Hotel, gai jin - mostly old and business men - talk confusedly with the clerks as serene string music plays over the speakers. I suppose Tokyo could also be called the quiet metropolis. The pachinko parlors are complete sensory overload, as the sounds of thousands of pinballs being launched vertically (as it appears) drown out everything, but everywhere else, Tokyo is alive with the paradoxes of advance and order.

People wait to cross the street. A single lane street with nobody coming, tucked in between the grey buildings, and people stand on the corner and wait for the green light. They wait what must be more than a minute, standing there. If this were China, we`d be dashing across the street and waiting at the median for a few seconds` worth of space to complete the dash. But this isn`t China, and after only a few days its apparent that at this point, comparing the two seems more futile then productive, lest I create Japan in my head than actually experience it.

4/10/06
The best thing about going to Wartburg is that there are so many programs that let you leave it, which I’ve been doing since last May now at regular intervals. I was in Berlin last spring for the 60th anniversary of Germany’s WWII surrender; last fall, I was in Kunming, which happened to be a major base of American operations during the war, for the anniversary of Japan’s. So much of this past year has been seeing the legacy of the 20th century – especially WWII, and the paths different countries took after its end – and now, it’s on to Japan, to see some more.

This May will be, for me, a vacation with a lot to absorb: some history, some people, a culture in a state of change (always exciting), anime, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Mt. Fuji, perhaps a bit of sake, perhaps a lot of sake, potential Godzilla sightings (which may or may not be sake-induced) – so much to learn and observe, and hey, there’s an afternoon at some hot springs on the itinerary, too. I’ll probably enjoy that more than you’ll enjoy hearing about it, but hey, you will hear about it, and isn’t that what counts?