Strange happenings and general occurences

Strange things happen here on a regular basis – I just share the highlights. This instance was downright astounding. So generally speaking every month we are supposed to have a floor meting. A bit lame but w/e. Turns out a central aim of this floor meeting is to do a quiz. What quiz? Perhaps something to encourage some political knowledge to compensate for the fact the is no civil society here? Maybe some general knowledge quiz to inject some worldly knowledge into the general discourse?

Alas instead the 15 – 20min quiz was a garbage quiz. Making sure we know where to place different items. There appears to be no logic behind the placement of the rubbish. some Plastic is burned. Other plastic products are not. It got to the point the questions spoke of specific products like a Pringles Tube.  But honestly my natural tendency to question the way people do things here has weakened as it seems like I’m just collecting questions with no hope of getting answers.

For example – attitudes to sex and the reality of life here are two very different things. On the one hand conversations, humour and the such seem to be indicative of an opinion that sex is not for the public sphere. On the other hand the sex Hotels (there is a graveyard themed one), schoolgirl uniformed prostitutes being normal and a groping problem on trains so bad they implemented separate train carriages for each sex to inhabit if they so choose, wouldn’t this indicate of a much more liberal experimental mindset on the matter? Weird sods.

Actually “weird sods” has become a sentence I have resorted to quite a bit here. Along with “MERICA!” which is vital for expressing my feelings regarding some of the things I hear from my American friends. Most disturbing of all is that 3 out of 3 asked report that leaving home for them was when they left their state to the state from which the would fly to Japan from – not when they left the country. They seem to see the other states inhabitants as foreigners – creepy.

began classes. Surprisingly the subject I was most looking forward to on Law, media and society I dropped due to the unsatisfactory nature of the performance of my lecturer, to put things politely. On the other hand I am now happily enjoying two business subject – a politics and economics student. I walk around amongst the business students feeling like a spy and lolling at all the things I’m learning about how businesses operate that many economists seem ignorant of.

Got my meat – kangaroo meat. The full glory of this will hit me later on when I eat it. Unfortunately I buy food with my eyes so I didn’t have room for it in my fridge so I had to invade the fridge of my little Brazilian friend. On this topic I may or may not be permanently shaping the way the Japanese people’s opinions of Australian eating habits. By the time I leave too many of the shy little Asians will be walking the earth with the false Idea an Australian eats mostly Potatoes, semi raw meat , kangaroo meat and raisins in average day.

been enjoying my archery although looking at Australian regulation it seems my dream of killing a kangaroo with a bow and arrow is much more complicated then I first envisaged – cross that bridge when I reach it.

found a live crab in the supermarket. I will upload a video of this and of my strange experience with the garbage quiz after I post this.  Also it turns out that its perfectly normal for study time to be midnight in Japan.

Japan is the only country where the fish is raw and the towels cooked the Japanese/Brazilian minority saying goes.  I agree – a baffled razi thought after receiving a warm towel in a restaurant where he sat on the floor on a pillow with his legs in a hole under the floor. Its also a country where daily life and organisation is one differently. On a daily basis I interact with the potential gains of intergovernmental cooperation on the local/ menial levels. It sure would be nice to know how the Japanese get their buses to always be on time right down to the minute.

last point I leave to the personal realm. It appears there is a 6 out of 6 consensus amongst my peers that I am “too facts oriented”. Naturally were someone to label me as “facts oriented” I would be flattered – but “too facts oriented” suggests there is a level of facts orientation that is excessive. This is clearly absurd. As such I will ignore this mass delusion and continue life.

p.s I generally don’t give relationship advice on mass but bumped into this graph in my Organizational Behaviour business class on the workers choices when in a workplace he is not happy with. Apparently a large proportion of unhappy workers simply remain loyal for extended periods of time instead of being more active on the matter. This was certainly not what my lecturer thought was in everyone’s (employer and employee’s) best interest. Make of it what you will for your private lives.

	destructive	constructive
active	exit	Voice concern
passive	neglect	loyal

last day before classes start.

First day of classes tomorrow. My classes for my first quarter (semester is split into 2 quarters in which different subjects are taken each quarter.)  are :
Law, media and society
business ethics
Organisational Behaviour

and second quarter I got another 4^th estate related subject. Just preemptively bow down now before the king of the 4^th estate.

burned my hand taking a pot back to my room after checking if a pot works on our stove.  It does. Spent the next while petting a frozen dead chicken.

Speaking of helpful dead flesh – ordered my kangaroo. 500g of tail and almost 2kg of rump – mmmmmmm

continued the great Australian tradition of telling foreigners about dropbears and wolfspiders. Either I’m very good at lying or these Japanese people are very gullible because I made up some insane things and they bought it all. so if you meet any Japanese people who ask you about the sawed off shotguns we walk around with for self protection and the 3 meter long trees in the suburbs where dropbears attack people thinking there are food and sometimes break their shoulders and collar bones – maybe its my doing. (told them its a ruse later)

had a quite hysterical moment when my Japanese floor-mates who are studying Korean were mocking the language in-front of me.  On group talking gibberish mocking another gibberish language in gibberish.  In other news Korean pop (called K pop here) is really poplar here.

I had recently participated in the odd cardboard washing and drying ritual, without even thinking about it. The power of Social institutions…

joined the Kyudo club (archery). This is one of the many many clubs that exist on campus. participation is all clubs is 100% free and involves, in many cases, uniforms, drums, swords ect…
Nobody I have asked appears to know where the money is coming from. they almost appeared confused that i care I’ll add it to the long list of things I need to find out before I leave.

Kyudo is 6 hours a week – I’m way too excited for everyone’s safety .about gaining this skill.

I am not dealing with the lack of civil society here. People just do not speak about worldly matters here. Joke is i should have expected this because I actually read about this; Japan is one of the few cases of a functioning democracy with a very weak civil society. (more like bloody invisible)

An amazing civilization that burns mountains

Official entrance ceremony to APU. Apparently I was meant to dress in my traditional national dress. Even if I knew about it I wouldn’t what to bring  (crocks, shorts and a bush hat?)

Several super lame speeches – everyone ignoring the tiny oriental tree sitting  next to them on a table as they speak.
Then The FLAGS showed up. Taking the stage with matching red jackets and speaking passionately and with big smiles about the glories of joining them. Their “family” as the called it will apparently make sure i am not lonely, grant me friends, help me with University procedure and rush me to hospital if i hurt my ankle while dancing in the city. Honestly i don’t have the words to explain how creepy and cult-like they were. And if i did you wouldn’t believe me. I will attempt get a video of the ceremony – for this and for the highly skilled Korean, Japanese, Indonesian and Chinese dances that followed it. 

BTW. The locals burned a mountain…  (will upload proof after I post this up.) it appears to have something to do with a festival of sorts. Nobody could really tell me why they do it. But it was pretty. This country is so so very strange. i don’t even have time to recover from one cultural shock before another arrives

For example. Every day at 9:50 a message goes off telling non-residents to leave the uni. This message was going off even during the study break when hardly anyone was here. Every. Day.
But they are efficient. We had health checkups. So efficient. From one station to the next in perfect precision and in record time.

on the way back i saw what i thought was a dinosaur themed theme park. it was later explained to me it is a “Hotel”. they exist all across japan in different themes and the idea is that you go there with your partner and fuck in a different atmosphere. dinosaur themed, underwater themed ect.  creepy creepy sods

Found alcohol sold in milk cartons. Vending machines with cigarettes and alcohol. Bananas coated in chocolate. A shop (in the middle of a normal shopping centre) that sells socks. All the socks were finger socks. One day i will find an explanation, perhaps, to why an Asian country had such a large proportion of its adds consisting of white people.

turns out anime is mainstream Japan. One piece, Dragon Ball and Pokémon are strong themes in the arcade in the local mall and more generally.

Had my food aggress upon me. See after the small black octopus wasn’t so bad i tried the large pink one and the clams. Both were quite not to my taste but the clams has a bloody thing inside them. I don’t know how the little eight legged crab like creature survived being frozen but i find myself in an almost endless state of shock and surprise here.

considering how this entire university is host to only 5700 students the library facilities are downright phenomenal. Certainly surpasses the services at my uni (where we have over 22,000 students) .

i was treated to a show by the Japanese government. Fireworks exist in every country essentially but here it was something truly special. A very large crowd sitting in silence along a beach as 2 or 3 ships fire fireworks into the air in coordination with the songs playing on speakers. In addition over 50 coordinators walking around creating easy paths of access to the seating and after the show getting the street ready for the influx of pedestrians by stopping traffic. The whole thing was done with such curtsy, order and atmospheric wonder that i was most certainly impressed by this different way of doing things. It reminded me of an idea I had a while back of using federal coercion and the internet to force global sharing of ideas, solutions, tactics and problems between local governments around the world.

Last point is about the beauty of trust economies. buses here are quite expensive. certainly at-least twice the cost of Australian bus rides. and still payment for the ride is done at the end of the ride as one gets off the bus. the front doors are for exiting and the back doors are for entering. tickets can be purchased in many places but if you lack one money suffices. the white gloved driver has no part in the process. the tickets are placed in a machine (i will attempt to photograph this) that swallows them into the bus. the magic here is that there is literally nothing to stoping me from saving meself some money and not putting anything in the machine. imagine how much more efficient transportation would be if the level of societal trust enabled people got on at the back and exit from the front… 

p.s correction – rubbish can be taken down everyday but only in the designated 30 min with the room number visible on it.