Bonsai Blog

Ok, in this post I wanted to address a very odd…occurance I run into.  That would be Japanese people randomly talking to me, or striking up a conversation.  Wednesday, I was on my way home from school, and I skirted a lady walking a large dog, and all of a sudden she just says “Don’t worry, he doesn’t bite!”.  So of course, I’m just like “Ah, ok! *American-smile*”.  If it were America, I believe that would’ve ended the conversation.  I don’t see our country as so…outgoing to foriegners, even if you do speak their language.  This is Japan though, and in Japan if you see a foriegner…you either a) ignore them, b) avoid them, or c) start talking to them.

Now, I guess I wouldn’t have much of a story if she hadn’t been a c-sort of person.  She started off with “So…where are you from?” which is the line that tells you a Japanese person is going to talk to you for awhile.  Anyways, she just started talking to me ALL about her foriegn friends.  From Korea, Finland, China, US, I think a few other places too.  In Japan I believe there’s a ‘trophy’ feeling about getting friends from other countries, specifically non-Asian ones, probably an attempt to impress me with the global expansion of her social network.  She spoke English surprisingly well, and asked me some interesting questions on what I thought about Bush…and the war.  The conversation also went a little into religion, and apparently in Japan, the Iraq War is seen as a Christian vs Muslim thing.  She apparently believes in God and Jesus, but stopped going to church to do a little more research about ALL the religions, because the all claimed to be the only truth.  So yes, I got into somewhat of a philosphical discussion with a complete stranger.  That is life in Japan.

Most of the time I just get “Hello”s though.  Nothing as extensive as the above.  It’s always a bit surprising though, because people will say it at very random times, and you NEVER know who knows some English and who doesn’t.  Majority doesn’t, but there are those who look exactly the same as their uni-language counterparts.  High School students to people in their 70’s have spoken to me, so there’s a pretty wide age range.

However, you may be wondering about people who choose A or B.  Yes, it does feel a little akward being the only white person in most places.  I get A LOT of stares.  Seriously, I’ll turn around or something and at least one person will quickly shift their eyes so I couldn’t tell they were just examining the white person.  I don’t mind of course, I find it rather funny.  The United States is so international no one really cares that much about color [at least the people who are intelligent, the people that matter] so I don’t think you’d get the vice-versa reaction if a 100% Japanese person took a vacation to the US.  Today I did get an old guy who actually *did* avoid me, and that was kind of funny in its own right.  I was just browsing through the supermarket, alone, and this older man looked up, saw me, and totally did a 90 degree turn into the aisle at the last minute.  I’m also the last person Japanese people will sit next to on the train, usually I get a much bigger space around me than anyone else, unless the train is REALLY full.  Not that I mind breathing, it gets really crowded.

Ok, so second subject for today! 

I had to at least discuss Japanese guys for a moment.  From my experience at school and in Japan, Japanese guys are … more “girlish” than American guys I guess.  It’s not uncommon for them to be wearing a hairclip in the front, some popstar started it so it became a fad apparently.  The clothes here are also much tighter-fitting than America’s baggy style.

One of the most culture-ish shock things though, were guys and the bathroom.  In the US, girls go to the bathroom in groups, which is considered normal…and pretty much a mystery to males.  WE prefer the “No talking, just get in and get out” path, and I think talking is against unwritten rules.  HERE however, guys don’t go to the bathroom in groups less than two normally.  It’s like a social hub, and what I’d assume it is for girls in the US.  Yes, they fix their hair the mirrors too.  It’s just really really weird for me to see that.  Personally, I just wait outside the bathroom for my friends to finish.  I just find it a bit to awkward.  Talking…in a bathroom…it just seems to weird.

So yeah, it’s a bit different culture.  There is a lot more gender affiliation, at least that’s what I’d call it.  Guys stick together and Girls stick together.  Dating really isn’t a big thing in high school, and apparently starts more in University.  It’s very different than the US.

Hope you enjoyed it, I’ll update the Photo Gallery soon =]

Ok, so yesterday I went to Sakai, a large city next to KawachiNagano.  It’s famous for bikes and knives apparently.  So here’s a basic rundown of what I did:

Went to see a HUGE burial mound, one of the largest in the world.  Also got to see a view of Sakai from the 21st floor of the City Hall which was pretty amazing.  I went to a Museum after that that documented some of Sakai’s history.

Next was a Japanese garden which was pretty awesome.  Great scenery, but also I saw a praying mantis!  I have been waiting FOR-EVER to see one of those in real life!  I got to hold it ‘n stuff, and got two pictures before it flew off!  Very happy about that little incident.  Also fed the Koi in the pond, which was basically a feeding frenzy as they’d all group around people with food and the water was churning with fish!

After that we went to a Bicycle Museum, which was actually much more interesting than I thought it would be.  At that point it was 2:00PM and we still hadn’t had lunch.  So we ate at this fancy hotel Cafe place, I had a very good pork patty thing.

Now that we were full…it was time to visit some Temples and the land that belonged to the first “Tea Ceremony Master” of Japan.  It was…interesting to see, and I enjoyed t.

Then we got to go to Osaka bay, and it was really beautiful!  The sun was setting and the ocean had small waves, and it was really really great!  Definitely a sight to remember.

So yeah, yesterday was a very fun day.  Today was just regular school, as usual.

Oh, and dinner yesterday was different, as it was a fancy restaurant with private rooms.  In the middle of the table was a large bowl on a giant hot plate of sorts, and the udon was cooked right in front of you.  Mary would squeam at this [maybe all the girls!] but there were live shrimp and we put them in and they got boiled alive.   Definitely delicious though.

I’m REALLY looking forward to Thursday, as a game comes out that I’ve been looking forward to since MAY!  Then Saturday I’m going to Domino’s with Yudai…’cause that’s my favorite Pizza place in the US and I hope it’s just as good here.  First time doing stuff with friends outside of school, so that’ll be pretty cool.

I’m going to go to sleep now.  I’m tired…pictures up tomorrow! Lots of ‘em!

Yes, I can hardly believe.  Today marks the one-month anniversary that I stepped into a plane bound for Michigan, leaving my family and friends to adventure into a country that spoke in a foriegn tongue and promised a different experience than my life in the US.  Was it worth it?  To me, it seems silly to even ask that question, because it was totally and completely, but of course you all don’t get to view my thoughts.  So I had to write that down.  I don’t regret joining the Rotary Exchange Program *at all*.  Everyday I learn more Japanese, get to wake up in Japan, go to a Japanese High School, meet new people…it’s all so worth it.  Ok, my little ode to being here a month is over.  I’m just very happy to be here, and thank God that he gave me a chance to be here.

Ok, so a bit of US-related news.  You all should be familiar with the new film “Jesus Camp” by now, and if you aren’t, Google it.  I find this very very interesting.  Half because I was interested in the subject of Pentacostal worship in the first place, but also just the film itself and the footage they have there.  Do I think they went overboard?  A little, but not by much.  I think during the ’70s and the whole “Freedom” theme with the Hippies, it pushed the US wildly Liberal as compared with the generations that led up to that.  Is the pendulum finally swinging back to a much more Conservative era for us?  I certainly wouldn’t mind more support in my home country, it’s getting to be too many people with empty words and no conviction or faith in my opinion.  Churches have become too afraid to do anything for fear of sparking political controversy, such as this film and Camp have been getting.  It’s about time someone riled up the youngsters for God though, honestly.  Let’s get some things right with kids.  As long as they’re not suicide bombers, it’ll probably been good for our society if they hold onto their moral beliefs.

I’m very interested in your comments, so send me an email to read about your thoughts on the film if you’re bored, can’t say I can reply, but I really want other people’s input on it, or thoughts on my thoughts.  Click the “Email” link at the top…or use paul.php -at- gmail.com, but replace ” -at- ” with @.  Just spam-guarding.
Ok, so next political World Event: Thailand Coup.  Some of you may not know that the same day I arrived at the airport for the Makis to pick up, that very morning their son had gone to Thailand through Rotary for his year abroad.  I am praying for Masafumi…I know if Japan had something similar, I’d be scared to death.  So basically send his prayers out for him in Thailand.  THANK GOD that his was a bloodless Coup AND that this new military values the input of students and actively encourage them to give them ideas.  It makes me think that this may be good for Thailand if they can set up a Democracy like they said they would.

Yes, I keep up on the news a lot here.

So, anything else to add on here?  Not really.  Finishing my PHP/MySQL book as fast as I can for my coming project.  Also going to buy that webcam next month hopefully so I can get a nice “Video Blog” up to outline my stay in Japan and record daily events and stuff.

Oh, I suppose I’ll mention some funny swearing stuff in Japan.  My little brother [12] says the “s” word a lot, which I find hilarious.  It doesn’t mean much here, as you can say the Japanese equivelent [kuso] and not get in trouble at all.  They don’t take foul language as seriously as we do, and I’d say we weight it too much.  My Japanese teacher was telling me all the swear words his foriegner friend had taught him, and the best was probably “Get the ‘f’ out of the way!”.   You won’t realize how funny it is until you  hear Japanese pronunciations, and the fact that they absolutely don’t care about saying it.  One of my friends said the ‘f’ word on the train the other day and no one even flinched.  I was like “Ah! What are you doing!?” and stuff, and she’s just like “What? No one knows what it means!”.  Foiled by logic.  It’s just a … weird experience to hear that.

Japanese class is also going really well, especially now that I have Japanese 4 out of 5 school days.  I’m definitely picking up the language, I’m guessing by the middle of November I can have a really good handle on the daily conversations if I work hard.

Time to sleep, very tired, good night everyone! [Actually it's good morning for you all, but, have a good Wednesday as I sleep into Thursday!]

Today I had no school, as they made up for Bunkasei school-day on Saturday, and yesterday [Monday] was a holiday…so we had Sun/Mon/Tues as our weekend basically.  It was nice.

Yesterday I got to go to the Zoo, which was awesome, there were quite a few interesting animals there!  I got to see the Giraffes gallop around and there were several alligators and a *giant* sea turtle that I found really interesting.  Tomorrow I’ll upload the pictures into my PhotoAlbum for you guys to see, I took a lot…but mostly of the animals.  It was Haruko [host mother], Yoshinori [little host brother], and myself.  So hot though!  At the end we got ice cream, and I don’t think it’s ever tasted better.  It’s fall here, and supposed to be getting cooler, but that really hasn’t happened yet.

Not everything’s great though, my older host brother, Yoshimitsu, left for University as his summer break ended, and I may not get to see him again.  I really liked having an older brother ‘n stuff, so it’s really kinda sad for me.  Luckily he took me to Den Den Town on Sunday before he left Monday.  That was fun.  Den Den Town is basically the geeky place of Osaka, with tons of anime/manga/electronics/adult shops.  I saw like 12 white people, adults, and they were looking at figurines and anime and stuff.  That’s what happens when you get too obsessed with Japan unfortunately.  We also stopped some other places, most notably an Arcade and played some games together.

In other news, online actually, I won a “Post of the Week” award at Nintendo’s official forums for my review of the DS Headset, which was actually kind of cool.

But…the whole reason I wanted to write this post right now has not been mentioned.  You may not be aware, but the site “YouTube” has caught on like wildfire in Japan.  I have an account of course, I’m working on some compilation videos fo my trip to Japan and eventually a video blog when I get a webcam [it's on my to-do list].  Japan doesn’t have a site of their own for homemade video sharing though, one that’s actually in Japanese.  So what am I to do?  Build one of course!  I’m going to finish reading my PHP/MySQL book and start getting a layout up.  Hopefully I can get my best friend, Yudai, who is very good at English, to help me with my little project for the lnaguage part.  So I will be taking on the massive task of making a comparable site to YouTube in Japanese.  Right now I’ve put myself on a 6-month timeframe to get the book read, HTML-PHP frontend and MySQL backend up.  I’m also doing my homework on Japanese copyright laws, and the laws to keep in mind when the users are Japanese, but the site is hosted in the US.  International things can get sticky.

I think it’s my best idea yet, since Japan doesn’t really have a comparable site and YouTube was recently estimated to be worth in the millions, and was actually founded by only 3 men who all used to work at PayPal, one of those “garage” stories that turns into something massive.  And if I could create a Japanese site that’s more user-friendly and actually geared towards Japan, well, that’d be awesome.  Of course, I’m not out to make a copy of YouTube, that’d be stupid.  I want to make something better.

And that about wraps it up.

First off, I’ve update the Photo Gallery now, so check it out if you’re interested!  Only 7, but there should be more coming soon.

So far not an extreme amount of stuff has happened since my last update.  I know it’s been awhile from my last update, but school is now pretty normal and there have been a lot of preporations for the Bunkasai [spelled wrong] Festival.

Basically the school festival is for a reason unknown to me, but each class works on an activity or food to sell to their school mates and guests that come.  There are tickets that we use during the festival that are worth 20 yen each.  I bought 20 tickets.

My class did a “maze”, which was really just the classroom divided into four sections with large makeshift walls.  There was the first room, where people would wait in line to enter, the “Yen Drop” which was set up with two fish tanks and you had to drop a 1 yen coin into a bowl or cup to get a stamp on your sheet [the room was also completely decked out with balloons, the next room was an "Anime Quiz" in which we'd play a clip from an anime's opening theme and people would guess what it's from.  That room was all decorated with anime posters and stuff.  The last room is where you got a little snack, from a variety that we had bought.  Because my class is so awesome we made it free.

Some other classes did a homemade Horror movie, foods from India, Korea, US, and more, and then there were different activities set up in the classrooms.  I tried Korean food I think, which wasn't too bad, and I also got two water Yo-Yo's.  Otherwise I really liked helping in my own class's Maze.  I learned how to say "Chotto mate [or matte]” which means “Just a moment”.  Very useful.

So that was all yesterday, and really awesome.  I had been getting home from school at around 6:30 or occasionally 7 because of working on it and/or Japanese class.  So now back to getting home at 4:30.

A few other things that happened were me trying to get into the Kendo Club, which will hopefully work out fine.  Also I have Judo at this school, which I think is pretty cool.  AND I have a lot of friends.  Now that I had to introduce myself at the assmebly, I’ll get people that just say “Poru” and start talking to me.  At least they know my name!

Also, I’ll get random people on the street talking to me, which usually really surprises me.  It’s happened more than once, where an English speaking Japanese person will just be like “Hi” and start asking me where I’m from and stuff.  I think it really has to do with how few foriegners there are there.  Literally, it’s odd if I see a white person outside of school.  It’s basically more Japanese than Cannon Falls is white [My town needs more diversity I think].

So overall, awesome time, and right now I’ve got to go shower so I can go sightseeing in Osaka with my older host brother!  That’s how I’ll be spending my Sunday.  Miss everyone!  Stay safe for me!

- Paul

Ok, so sorry that I haven’t updated in forever…very busy here!  Very fun!  I’ve divided this into sections so you can follow it easier!

Arrival/Plane-  This took a LONG time.  Both flights were very boring.  MN to MI isn’t really memorable, just a run-of-the-mill flight with me reading and playing my DS.  Detroit airport was pretty big, but Danny and I found the gate and waited ‘n stuff.  I was glad I wasn’t flying alone!  It’s always good to have a friend to confer with.  Flying to Osaka was, as you could *probably* image a 14 hour flight being, very boring.  My laptop had no room to fit between the seats with the other stuff, so that was one form of entertainment gone.  DS was VERY helpful.  Watched a few movies on the plane, tried to sleep and did for a nice chunk of it….uneventful.  It was AMAZING seeing the ocean before I saw Japan, as I could see huge oriental ships sailing around, my first real view of the culture.  Airport was HOT with no air conditioning, and one of my bags was lost.   It was recovered about 4 days later, which was a huge relief as many of my electronic chargers were in there, along with most of my clothes.  But everything’s good now!  My Rotary Club/Host Family was waiting for me right outside customs with a big Banner that said “Welcome to Japan Paul Franz”!  I was like “wow”.  heh, but that night is a blur since I was dead tired.  Had some Japanese food for dinner at the airport which was…interesting and rather spicy, not too bad.

Host Family-  I like my host family A LOT, and I think God really blessed me.  I fit in really well, get along with my siblings, and they’re not way strict but not unattentive…it’s awesome.  Perfect.  They also always stock my favorite ice cream treat here and Diet Coke after they found out it was my favorite drink.  High speed wireless internet from my room, yeah, life is good here!

School- I’ve successfully completed a week of school here!  I *do* have friends, everyone’s really nice!  Lots of people say “Hi” and “Bye” when I’m coming to/leaving school, so I feel special =)  I don’t like the actual school part much, as I can’t understand much of anything in the classroom.  Math, Biology, English, and PE are the best classes for me to at least semi-know what’s going in the first two and understand the latter two.  Teachers usually don’t give me anything and hand hand-outs to the person behind me in the row, so I really haven’t gotten any homework yet.  Not complaining there.  It is really hard to sit through a class for 50 minutes and have nothing to do…so it’s not really that great.  But friends make it fun =)

Places- I got to go to ExpoLand Amusement park which was very fun!  Two best roller coasters I’ve ever been on there!  One was the “inverted” type and one was the kind where you actually are buckled in standing, pretty extreme.  I’ve also gotten to go to Osaka Castle, very historic and fun and also the Osaka Historical Museum.  Both were really cool to go to, and taught me a lot about Japan and Osaka’s history.  Mt. Maya was Sunday’s adventure, hiking like 57 km or something took a VERY long time and it was VERY hot and I was VERY tired.  But the nature was amazing.  Right out of National Geographic honestly.

Troubles-  The only trouble I have right now is my swim uniform, which is basically really small spandex underwear.  It’s ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE!  I dun’t want to wear it…but coming up on Friday…ahhhh.  Everyone else wears one, so when I finally have to wear it, I won’t stick out in my “American” swim shorts.  The boys here are also anorexic, which makes me, a “normal guy” stand out horribly.  I have a BMI of 22, which isn’t bad.  Guys here are only a few inches shorter than me and average weight is 110lbs.  They’re skinnier than the girls in my opinion.  There goes eating for the next month…heh.

Anyways, I’m having a GREAT TIME HERE and sorry I didn’t update sooner!  I miss my family and friends, but am not homesick, and fit in here great =]

~Paul