Kindergarten Cop-out

Kindergarten week is a time that comes but once a year. Everyone says that the kids are cute but I just don't see it. To me, playing with a room full of three year olds is the same as playing with a room full of dogs. No attention spans, wet noses, and massive homicidal temper tantrums. If you put a small child in a kindergarten/nursery school there are higher expectations for his/her/its behaviour. They may be expected to draw or write or sing but when you look closely it's obvious the teachers are forcing them to do everything or just doing it for them, because there's no chance of any of those three year olds doing anything by themselves. If they were left at home they would dribble, eat paste and smash toys together, and what's wrong with that? Still, I respect the women (and it is all women) who work at the nursery schools because they're basically babysitters who have to stop thirty babies from killing themselves and each other everyday. Whilst coming up with activities to make it look like kindergarten is more than a just holding facility, which it is.

Day One - Mercifully there are five other English teachers here so we can have a pow-wow in the staff-room. As usual everyone pretends the Japanese tea is good but I drink from my bottle of tap water instead, which I brought in anticipation of my mouth becoming dry due to anxiety and despair. The two of us that are teaching (dealing with?) the three years olds are told "If you speak to them in Japanese or English, they probably won't listen to either. They're only three." Which begs the question*, Why did I pass up all those chances at a quick and easy suicide?

Go into the classroom (pen?) to no reaction from the ten or so kids in there. Make a mouse out of play-dough, a boys smashes it. Make a butterfly out of play-dough, the same boy smashes it. Turn around and there's a really pale boy with dry skin and dead eyes and it's like looking into a mirror but he has so much snot under his nose that I actually feel physically sick. Grab a boy (not the snot boy) by the hands and let him walk up my body and he ends up upside down with his back to me and I'm still holding his hands and how can this possibly end well? If he flips over backward and I keep holding his hands I'm so sure that he will dislocate both his shoulders but I can't drop him either. I wrap my arms around him and lower him gently to the ground in a kind of mangled anti-climactic pile of human. Snot boy comes over with his hands raised toward me. No chance. Against any sense of logic or responsibility I let another boy climb up the same way and he steps right on my right testicle and it really really hurts, but I totally deserve it for the negative blog post I am already planning to write. Children's games, attention from the women, reading a picture book, anxiety descending.

Day Two - The plan is for me to dress as Santa while Sarah dresses as Santa Lady, we'll answer questions and give out presents and be merry. In the staff-room I ask for water, not tea, which I drink happily. We talk about starting businesses and going back to university and the future seems good but the conversation is cut short, it's time to put on our hats and take to the stage. This felt like a moment that summed up everything.

I give a pro-wrestling style promo about giving out presents "Right here, TONIGHT!" which I think is brilliant but it doesn't get a pop from the kids. Sarah laughs, sympathetically? About fifteen minutes in someone asks who our friends are, we list some children's characters like Mickey Mouse and Shrek but when I say "Doraemon" it pops the crowd huge. Next I say "Anpanman" and I try to remember "Rilakumma" but I can't and it stops the building momentum. Give out presents to everyone and shake hands - must remember to wash my hands later. The Santa beard covers my face which makes all this a lot easier. A professional looking photographer has been taking pictures of all this, where are the pictures going? No consent needed? We play outside for a while - in costume - and me and the kids chase each other around. I realise that I'm grateful for everything that has ever happened to me, that it's been another brilliant year, and that I'm being paid to do this so whatever I'll smile under the beard even though no-one can see it.

Mizuishi Mountain

Me and my buddy Peter went on a bike ride up a mountain called Mizuishi. It took two and a half hours. After about half an hour I started to think that maybe it was a bad idea. It wasn't easy, but it was really good fun. The weather wasn't great for our ride, it rained and it was foggy. Some of the pictures here are from another day when I went up the mountain by car, which took twenty minutes.

We pushed our bikes up this treacherous mountain path to avoid riding up more winding mountain roads. 

 

Every 15 metres the path was blocked by these huge scary spiders. We ducked under their webs or just destroyed them.

The end of the footpath. The steps led up to a temple...

 

 

I thought it was amazing that a temple was built half way up a mountain. There are a bunch of other buildings too. Old style houses and other small temple things that have names.

 

This is the best temple in Iwaki. It's one of the oldest, and the location is great.

After two and a half hours we finally made it to the top. This was the view. We didn't really care about the weather though because it was a great ride.

Wild horse roaming around the woods.

The top of the mountain on a nice day. Minus bikes.

Picnic spot.

 

Man at Drug Store

A man at the register at the drug store was wearing a black t-shirt with the word "ALCOHOLIC" written on it. I went outside and there was a car, with its engine still running, parked crooked in a disabled parking spot next to the entrance. I waited and the man with the ALCOHOLIC t-shirt came out of the drug store and got in that car. I find it hard to believe that anyone can be in a such a rush that they have to leave their car running and park in a disabled space. Let alone a man wearing a t-shirt with the word "ALCOHOLIC" printed on it. I would have been more angry but I'd just bought two boxes of chocolate cereal so deep down I was very happy.

Gym

There is a French man at the gym. When he speaks to me it's really difficult to understand. He's actually Japanese, not French. Once he explained his life story to me and what I could pick up was that he was married to a French woman and he learned to speak French, but now he's divorced. He speaks English to me, but in a French accent so it's hard to understand. When I speak Japanese to him he pretends that he didn't hear me and keeps speaking English in a French accent. He asks me the same questions every single time I see him, Where's your girlfriend? Are you getting married? Are you living together? Kids? And even though my answers are always the same and the conversation leads nowhere, he still asks the same questions the next day. Then he says something that I can't understand and sometimes I'm not really sure if he's started speaking French. It's possible that he never had a French wife, maybe he had a Japanese wife and they lived in France together for fifteen years and his wife died. I'm not really sure but I don't care enough to clarify.

I was riding back home last night and I rode past someone else on a bike and heard them shout "Hey!" after they passed me. I stopped and looked back and the person had stopped their bike and was looking at me. I rode over to the person and it was the French man, with a fag in his hand. I was really worried that he was stinking drunk because he was slurring his speech and talking about beer, but I soon realised that he was just speaking in his normal French accent. I did a really good job of looking happy to see him, but it was downhill from there. He asked the same set of questions he always does and I gave the same answers. About fifteen times I said "Well, ok..." and tried to leave but he kept talking and I could feel the fake smile on my face sinking. Eventually I managed to break away, having understand nothing he said.

The principal at my violent school used to come to the gym a lot. We would see each other and give each other pep talks and talk about general stuff. Being gym buddies with the principal made me feel powerful. The principal doesn't come to the gym anymore. I ask him at school if he's going, and recently he says that he's too busy because of basketball practice. So even the principal has to do after school activities with the students and can't have his own life. How many other teachers have lost their hobbies because of unpaid after school sports practice? I wonder if there is a teacher who used to go fishing with his son a few times a week, but now has to tell his son that he's busy with other kids at school, everyday. Sad face.

The staff member at the front desk always greets you politely upon entry. My response is dependent on how attractive the staff member at the front desk is; a man gets no response, the cute tiny girl who is maybe 4 feet tall gets a smile and the girl with the round face and dimples gets a smile and a verbal response.

Upstairs, every time I look at this one male staff member he is always looking at me. Is it that he is always looking at me, or does he sense me looking at him and look back at me every time? Either way I don't want us to look at each other at all because his head is too big.

I went to a one hour yoga class. We finished at 7:58 and the instructor apologised and started rambling about some hippy philosophy. It's really bad to finish things early in Japan, even when everything has been done. The yoga class had finished, it was over, but the clock said the class hadn't finished so we couldn't finish. This happens in lessons at school too. Me and the other teacher will finish a good fun-packed class, and there will be one minute remaining on the clock. I suggest ending the class and saying goodbye, and this is met with a look of terror, sometimes coupled with a slow, silent shaking of the head. What to do in the remaining minute is discussed for a minute, the bell chimes, the teacher breathes a massive sigh of relief and we end the class. Why couldn't we just finish a minute early?!

Tokyo International Forum

Today has the kind of heat that makes you completely exhausted, the kind that makes you reach for your chopstick case instead of your pencil case when you need a pencil. I left my study book at my other school so I decided to recall the events of Saturday's Tokyo trip.

I’m in Akihabara and the sole purpose for being here is to sell some old crap. It takes me an hour to find a place that will accept my crap, but 40 minutes of that hour is spent ogling breasts; sometimes plastic, sometimes human, occasionally both. A man is talking to one of the maid café girls in the street and she seems into it but the guy has no front teeth so I guess she’s just doing her job. She says, “I’ll be waiting for you” as he beams a toothless grin, I hope her body parts won’t appear in coin lockers around Tokyo next week.

Walk past a massive AKB48 poster that covers an entire building and think about the inevitable collapse of modern society. Walk past an AKB48 book that has them in lingerie on the cover and think about AKB48 probably holding modern society together. At least AKB48 (and every other product in all of Akihabara and every manga shop in Japan) gives people somewhere to release their high school girl fantasies. If every model and every manga character had to be over 18 or not dressed as a schoolgirl, Japanese society and its economy would collapse.

Eventually I find somewhere to sell my stuff and the guy says it will take 90 minutes to tally up so I take a long toilet break in McDonalds, which is not related to the AKB48 lingerie book that I didn’t buy. Go to Kanda to find my capsule hotel and make a mental note of it, planning to return later drunk. Put my large rucksack that is making me sweat in a coin locker at the station, the lockers smell of rotting flesh but I ignore it. Flashback to finding a dog’s skull in my garden as a child.

Back in Akihabara the guys still haven’t priced my junk. I’m pretty content to look around the 6-story geek shop for another five, ten, fifty minutes. It’s said that if you buy one Rei Ayanami figure from every toyshop in Akihabara, they will merge to form a real human Rei Ayanami who will be yours for one night. Everyone is aware of this and it’s quite possible, but everyone would rather have a bunch of sexy inanimate figures for life than the real thing for one night.

My trip to Kagurazaka is not good. Lonely Planet's Tokyo book told me there is a street that has an old school feel – it doesn’t. The book said there are interesting back alleys – there aren’t. This place is the same as any smaller street in Ueno but with less pachinko. I go into a shop for handicrafts or something. It’s an act of desperation to find something of interest. I poke at the little jellyfish fridge magnet with moving stingers, and at the turtle with moving flippers, and at the sea-horse with a moving tail, and decide it’s time to leave Kagurazaka. Tokyo. Japan. Earth.

In the lingering summer heat all the aimless wondering takes its toll. I’m completely exhausted by the time I get to the Tokyo International Forum. There is nothing at the Tokyo International Forum so I leave.

The Sony Building in Ginza is more promising. There are some pretty gadgets and lots of new girls to fiddle with. I play with a massive HD video camera and through it I see an okay looking female staff member, I zoom in on her until I realise the image is being displayed on a 50 inch TV behind me so I calmly put down the camera and slowly walk away.

Up on the sixth floor they have international models with English menus. I talk to a female staff member in English about a range of Sony Cybershot cameras that I am legitimately interested in. As the conversation becomes more technical the vast gaping chasm of loneliness that was opening up before me all day dissolves.
“These two were made in Japan, that one was made in China.” She says, making too much eye contact.
“Well, we don’t like China do we?” I joke, easing into the conversation.
“Actually I’m from China." Anxiety descending. Anxiety descending.
“I’m sure the Chinese one is just as good.” Pause. “Maybe even better!”
Fighting the awkwardness, we continue the camera talk for what seems like an eternity.
“England uses PAL? You should’ve come to China, we use PAL too.”
“If only I’d known. Looks like it was a mistake coming here.” The girl listens politely, not aware of the magnitude of this admission. “I’ve wasted my life.”
She obviously wants me to buy something or leave, so I leave.

American Club House Sandwich and orange juice in a café near the Sony Building. It’s a really good sandwich. The orange juice glass contains mostly ice. I drink the orange juice with a straw in less than a second and ignore the vegetable side dish then leave almost forgetting to pay, not knowing where or who I am.

Graham emails me asking what’s happening tonight. I decided back at the McDonalds toilet that I was too depressed and tired to go out on the piss and sleep in Tokyo, but I didn’t email Graham then because I was hoping that this day would turn itself around. But how would the day turn itself around? Surely it was up to me all along to make the most of today. A change of attitude could’ve led down an interesting alley in Kagurazaka, into a new shop in Akiba or a better café in Ginza. But there was definitely nothing at the Tokyo International Forum.

Stick to the plan

So I got to school on Wednesday and I was told that no taxi was coming for me. Today I will stay at the base school and not go to Tamagawa my visit school. No explanation given. I figure it's because today is the sports festival practice at Tamagawa and there are no classes. However, I do have a class scheduled today, after the sports practice which only goes until lunch time. I tell the vice principal this, along with the more obvious fact that it's raining and therefore the sports practice won't even be happening today. Today will be a normal lesson day instead (this was also true of the base school, the place we were standing having the converstion, so I was obviously right). Shouldn't I go to Tamagawa and do lessons rather than sit here and do nothing? Before the vice principal's ears start bleeding from trying to make a decision, he calls the board of education who tell him to stick to the plan. This is despite the fact that we have spare taxi tickets on hand, presumably to deal with these unexpected situations (we taxi to the visit schools using dated, pre-paid tickets from the government).

If only he or the BOE could have made a snap decision to change the plan and send me to Tamagawa, I would have had four classes. Also worth noting is that I was sick on Monday and Tuesday, so this day would have been an opportunity to go in and make up for lost time, but that new piece of information never came into the equation. Even though it was the plan to keep me at the base school, the English teachers there had no idea I would be there, and so did not plan lessons for me. One teacher did invite me to two lessons, apologising for the short notice, but I was more than happy to go.

This event, although miniscule, seems symptomatic of what I have been reading recently about the way Japanese companies are run. There is no ability whatsoever to adapt to new situations and make quick decisions; all decisions are thrown up the heirarchy and the bosses don't want to change anything. Did it matter that I had said I have lessons scheduled after the sports practice, or that I pointed out the blatantly obvious fact that rain would cancel said practice? No. In my mind it was totally clear that I should go to Tamagawa and I said that, but the BOE, unaware of the situation on the ground told us to stick to the plan. I don't know much the vice principal is to blame in this, probably not at all as he seemed as confused as me. But, when I take this up with the BOE supervisor they probably won't have a decent explanation either.

When I got to Tamagawa on Thursday... they were doing the sports festival practice! So I had the day of standing around anyway, but the plan was for me to be there on Thursday and I was so it didn't matter.

Oh Golly Gosh!

I read Sam's blog and I was reminded of a conversation we had at work about political correctness in Japan and England. In Britain it's popular to say that "political correctness has gone mad" because of the uproar over potentially slightly offensive remarks by famous people or members of the royal family dressing like Hitler. But in Japan there is no concept of political correctness at all. I was watching TV last year and there was a mature female singer performing, her backing singers where Japanese men in full golliwog outfits, basically blackface. Now, the history of minstrel show, black-face and the golliwog is something everyone knows about in the west, and the use of blackface now is limited to comedy shows and movies where it is done in a very self-conscious way. This still draws offence from some people, who angrily tell people to "read the history of blackface". But the use of blackface today (Robert Downey Jr.'s character in Tropic Thunder, for example) is informed by it's history and the stupidity of blackface is always the joke. But over on prime-time Japanese TV, it was just guys in blackface, with no self-consciousness or cultural context, and certainly no offended viewers.

Well, which is more desirable? The use of black-face being rightfully viewed in the context of it's dark (get it?) history, even when it's used for humour, or the use of blackface in 2009 as though it's still the 1850s. The western mind-set might lead to a radio DJ getting in trouble for using a racial stereotype to do a comedy bit, or, on city council promotional materials the number of black and Asian people being obsessively balanced, but there's no straight up blackface on TV.

Political correctness is really just an attempt to find a common code of behaviour for everyone to adopt in a changing society. When new people and cultures arrive, and as it becomes more and more okay to being a raving homosexual, the society has adapt in order to survive. In "Gone With The Wind", one of the greatest films of all time, Rhett Butler, the hero, says "darkie" for the entire movie and it was totally accepted in 1939. In modern times, Ron Atkinson resigns immediately for saying n*gger on TV and his career is dead. The media frenzy surrounding that event was maybe over the top (there was even a TV documentary called "What Ron Said" analysing the aftermath) but few would question that the status quo now is not to say n*gger or darkie. The constant back and forth between what terms are acceptable for ethnic groups is tiring but it's necessary if people in Britain are to approach a new appropriate terminology.

That's in England, but what about Japan? Well, there's hardly even a debate is there? There are hardly any black people to worry about, so the society doesn't need to make any changes to it's code of behaviour at all. And it's media can go on presenting ancient stereotypes because the reality of blacks and Indians in the society isn't something that people have to deal with. Stereotypes are broken by actual experience, befriend a homosexual, a Muslim, or a Chinese girl and stereotypes quickly fade away. But if the train you're on is full of only Japanese then how can you question stereotypes? And why worry about making TV shows, or designing Pokemon characters based on stereotypes when there are no blacks around to make it wrong? Wait, is it wrong? Is it even wrong when the society is so homogeneous that no-one is around to be offended by golliwogs on TV? If everyone in Japan is ignorant of the history of blackface (they are) then no-one will squirm with discomfort and shame when they see it. Ignorance is bliss, yeah?

To conclude I'll defer to Stewart Lee:

Week

Monday

Looking at Mr. Endo and think for the first time, "Is that a wig?"

Despite having 8 hours sleep last I still couldn't get up this morning and I'm still tired now.

It takes the students a shocking amount of time to decide their favourite food, singer and movie, and write down their own birthday. Some of the girls seem on the verge of tears.

New laptops and printers are installed in the staff-room. I now have two printers on "my" desk.

Tuesday

Three identical lessons which are/is boring. Read, read and wait for repetition, read something else. One kid talks while I read so I give him a stone cold stare and the class falls into a devastating silence. Help three students in each class with the writing because that's all there is time for. Many students write nothing, not even their own names. "Do you know your own name?"

Wednesday

I want to poo but the toilet is way too cold. Some idiot always leaves a window wide open despite the fact there's a functioning extractor fan in there. It feels like an open air toilet. I think the poo will hold position but there's still two hours of work to go.

Thursday

Watch 24. Watch Monday Night Raw. Watch myself crying in the mirror not sure if I'm faking it or not.

Friday

It's graduation and I'm wearing a suit and sitting behind the vice principal which feels important but I don't know any of the students in the third grade except one and I'm worried that I can be seen on the projected live video feed because I just scratched myself.

The most moving part of the ceremony was when the handicapped kids got their papers and looked absolutely terrified the entire time. They botched the timing of the bow but no-one cared. Everyone should've realised something important about life at this point but no-one did, including me.

It's over and I'm hungry but I'm worried the sushi will be bad. It's okay. The male teachers sit around the extra helpings box and raid it. The women wash the dishes afterwards. Somewhere a baby cries.

The third graders are waiting to leave and I find the one girl I actually know so I can say good-bye. She doesn't seem interested in talking which upsets me because she said we were friends. Flashback to my high school days and now I'm depressed. Hang around the students so it doesn't look like I only came down to talk to one girl, which I did. Say congratulations to some boys but they respond "No, we're next year." This makes me look totally insincere, which I am. Take some pictures with students, mostly (all?) girls and leave.

Bayonetted

It's pretty amazing that I didn't write a single blog for all of 2009. I genuinely intended to write on this regularly and have it as a personal record of Japan. I think that's what my pictures on Facebook have become. So much has happened since I last wrote here... and none of it will be discussed now.

This is a review for the Playstation 3 game "Bayonetta" that I wrote while I was wasted and put on a forum.
Opinions follow.
Summary
Simultaneous simplicity and depth in the combat system combine with sufficient enemy variety and game-play twists to make a very enjoyable game-play experience. This is undermined by a disastrous story which lacks a decent plot and interesting characters. Cut-scenes are embarrassingly over the top - slapstick comedy and farcical action apparently passing for "style". Load times drag down the overall presentation and quality of the product.
Actual Review
The game-play (as you'll know if you've read anything about Bayonetta) follows the same model as games like Devil May Cry and God of War. You walk into a room, some monsters show up, you kill them, and walk to the next room. The variety of enemies is good, some requiring different strategies to defeat, which stops things getting too repetitive. I really liked the combat system. You can keep things simple and stick to easy combos, or you can remember the longer more complex combos, which require pausing for a specific amount of time between button presses. It's very smooth and responsive, I liked it more than Devil May Cry 4 (even though I only played the demo, it was too hard). The obligatory massive boss fights are here, which to my surprise where pretty fun. They give you time to get in there and beat the crap out of the boss rather than make you dodge cheap attacks over and over again while you grind your teeth down to nothing. Naked climax attacks are fun, but don't worry - all the naughty bits are covered by swirling hair.
It's not all walking around and fighting though, there is a sequence in which you ride a motorbike down a seemingly endless motorway. This is fun, even though the animations for the bike are a bit basic and the controls seem slack because the bike moves so ridiculously fast. The change of pace is good and it's always nice to blow up cars and jump over collapsing bridges. Another similar sequence has you controlling a massive missile flying across the sea, you shoot guys and fire missiles which is very nice but again the thing doesn't seem very polished.
The word on this game is that it has "style". This is true. But there is a difference between "style" and throwing a bunch of ideas together without any apparent unifying theme or stylistic ideal. One minute I'm hanging out with some fowl mouthed American people driving around and swearing being hip, then I'm walking around a medieval European town with nice Cathedrals, then I'm wondering around in a floating dreamy nonsense place, then I'm back in the modern world jumping around skyscrapers. I had no idea where I was supposed to be at any point in the game. Even though there's a little animation between chapters showing you move around a map, I still had no clue. Is this game a modern-day gothic comedy or a biblical epic? There's so much stuff happening at the same time with no transitions or consistent idea, notion, or concept that I totally lost interest in what Bayonetta was doing. It just became a bunch of totally random locations that could all have been pulled from totally different games. What is the design ethos here? What ties all this stuff together? Nothing. Bayonetta looks decent enough, and the individual parts of the game are nice, but it doesn't come together into one coherent package.
And that's saying nothing about what actually happens in these locations. Bayonetta has the dumbest cut-scenes I have ever seen. If this is what passes for stylish in Japanese games then something is very wrong. All the humour in this game is based on people falling over, things falling on or near people, and female body parts. I challenge you to play this game and find a gag that does not involve one of these things. It's not funny, not even in an ironic way. This is the absolute most basic level of slapstick comedy and I was embarrassed to be watching it. When the movies aren't trying to be funny they force to watch endless sequences with Bayonetta fighting a million guys in fantastically over-the-top battles that had me thinking "Why am I not killing those guys myself? Why am I watching a terrible video of fights I should be enjoying?" Each of these clips features at least one slo-motion shot of Bayonetta's buttocks, and you can almost hear the director saying "phwooar"and touching himself. Again, embarrassing. Bayonetta surfing through lava on someone's corpse through lava sounds cool yeah? Not after you've been watching Bayonetta fly around pointlessly for five hours talking about nothing.
The story is a total disaster - Bayonetta has amnesia, kills some angels, eventually meets the last boss who explains everything, then Bayonetta goes home. That's it. Each chapter Bayonetta meets a massive monster and says "Tell me something", the monster says "Cryptic nonsense cryptic nonsense lalala" then you kill the monster. If you're going to have such a bad story with no good characters or any story development, why even bother? Why make people suffer through these agonising cut-scenes in which nothing of any value or interest is said? I'm not kidding. The last boss explains the entire back-story and the main story in one massive boring speech at the end of the game, you can skip everything else.
Loading... Loading... Loading... is something I'm seeing too much. If the developers knew there was going to be this much loading, couldn't they have had the decency to use a naked picture of Bayonetta as the loading screen instead of the word "Loading"?

• To start each chapter you get a massive load, albeit one with a useful practice room
• The pause needs a load
• The weapons and items menu (select button) need a load, then a separate load for each tab, weapons, info etc.
• The less than ten second clip of a Bayonetta doll moving from one location to another on a map has its own loading time, which is as long as the animation itself.
• Picking up an item will bring up an image of it, this image has to be loaded. You look at the picture for less time than the load
• The chapter select screen needs to loaded after the doll-on-the-map clip despite the fact its really just text and a picture.
• The item and weapon shop needs takes as much time to load as an entire level of the game
• There is loading mid-game. For example a train slides toward you from behind by surprise, but not before the game stops to load this "surprise" event.
• The load screens have load screens.

All this drags down the overall experience. Not enough to make me hate the game, I'm still going to play through the chapters again and improve my score while I'm still sane. However the quality of the product is affected, the level of the professionalism and polish isn't as high as something like Uncharted 2. Maybe there were budget issues, but I expect more for 7000yen