Category: Chillin’

One of the primary reasons I stayed in Japan to work (instead of going back to the states) after graduating university was that I wanted to learn business Japanese. When I first came to this country, I was completely immersed in a Japanese environment, on my uncle’s church out in Asuka Mura. It’s in a very rural area. I saw other gaijin maybe once every couple weeks or so, usually they were visiting the ancient tombs for which the town is famous. So I went through some heavy culture shock and it was tough, but it helped prepare me for Japanese classes at Tenri University.
The Japanese studies program, which let you take mostly Japanese language classes/other assorted classes taught in English the first two years and then core classes in Japanese the last two years, allowed one to graduate with the equivalent of a BA (the program, in this format, no longer exists due to administration’s pandering to students from China – no need to learn kanji from scratch, you see). So I studied out of class, usually just hanging around my pal T and his friends. Later I studied with my then-girfriend (now-wife) Nam, which is a funny story in itself – a Thai national teaching an American Japanese by default since neither spoke the other’s native language – and later yet, by doing various part-time jobs. Bartending, construction, office work, city street work, sales work, ditch digging, cafeteria work, translation, teaching English, the long con, the short con, man-whoring at wholesale rates… ah, okay I think I’ve shared too much now but you get the picture. I learned a lot of my Japanese on the street, so to speak, and it turned something that I once considered near impossible into a reality. I was eventually very comfortable using a foreign language.
Since then, I’ve added to my language skills mainly by working here and plunging into as many new situations as possible, as well as by cultivating friendships with competent conversationalists (of whom, I am sorry to say, there is a general shortage of in this world, but especially in the serfdom of corporate Japan).
The point is, I kicked Japanese’s ass, I mean really, thoroughly thrashed the shit out of it. It occasionally gets back up and puts up its dukes, but I just hammer away at it until it’s sniveling like a little bitch in the corner again. I mean, in the world of language-boxing, I’m not the king or anything, but I am confident in my weight class…
Horrible analogy aside, I started writing this post because thinking about how I learned Japanese and how it made me feel in the early years has now got me thinking about Thai. Don’t get me wrong, I’m up to the challenge and love learning languages, but I keep thinking about the down sides recently. You know, when you first start learning a new language, the learning curve is so steep – because you know nothing! There are many milestones in your pregression. Learning how to buy something in a store. Struggling to remember basic shit like numbers, money, time of day. Reaching a level of proficiency where you can understand what people say, but not being able to properly reply. Reaching another level, where you can fool people into thinking you’re a native speaker just by using simple phrases, but being embarassed when you have to ask just what the fuck a certain word means.
The point is, mastering a language is very hard. I look forward to tackling the Thai language. In fact, I’ve already kind of started, practicing with my wife. But it is just so goddamn humbling learning a language from scratch. It’s kind of a pain in the ass.
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Someday, I hope my kids will thank me for making them learn three languages from the time they’re born.

When I was a kid I used to make miniature gladiator rings in my backyard by digging a ring in the hard-packed dirt and filling it with water, so the gladiators inside the ring could not escape. The gladiators, of course, were ants, because ants are just badass. I used to hold these fights between red ants and black ants, in a ratio of about 10:1 because the red ants were so much bigger and stronger. The black ants basically acted like a bunch of sissies until the red ants started tearing them apart – then the group mind thing would kick in, and the black ants would swarm the red ones all at once, throwing themselves on their much larger and aggressive attackers.
The red ants could bite the black ones in half when they could get a hold of them, but the black ones would ride on their backs, out of reach. Pretty soon there would be a stalemate because the red ants didn’t try to help each other out. Which is where the Beam of Death (via my trusty plastic magnifying glass) and Ring of Fire (lighter fluid in the “moat”) came into play. The creed of the Ring of Fire was of course that All Must Die. All Must Be Purified with Fire (spoken, you will note, like a true pyro).
Back then, the concept of karma was still pretty much unknown to me. But it still felt wrong, somehow. Not as wrong as watching my friends shoot songbirds off of telephone wires with BB guns. Nor as wrong as the time this guy I was walking to the bus stop with threw a big rock at a horse, hitting it square in the chest, and stating afterward, simply, “fucking horses,” but still – wrong on some inexplicable yet instinctive level…
It is interesting that I wrote this post with a completely different ending in mind, but fitting that it shall should end like this.

Sometimes I just get stuck writing when I’m writing something. I really hate when that happens. I start twiddling and tweaking, and in the end I’m just sick of the whole goddamn thing. I’m not one to tear up manuscripts and throw hissy fits, but ya know… Sometimes I just feel like repopulating the earth with dyspepsic dyspeptic otters so I won’t be compelled to comment to anyone, about anything, and WHAT THE HELL IS THIS INFERNAL ITCHING IN MY HEAD?
Monday, Monday, la-la la la-la…

I know I have one pal in Japan who understands The Cure.
I know I have two friends in France who understand The Cure.
I know I have have one friend in Costa Rica who understands The Cure.
I have too many friends in the states who understand The Cure.
And I thought of them all tonight as I posted this:
A Forest (Fuck Robert Palmer Version)

Taro, you need this.

I dreamt of speaking with an Indian chief over a campfire. Unfortunately, it was not an Indian fire, but a “white man’s fire,” and it drew our enemies in closer and closer with its absurd largeness. They were taking potshots at us. Hurriedly, the chief passed onto me a buffalo horn and said simply, “you will know what to do with it.”
Then he started singing:
Hayayayayigh
See my arrows fly
Hayayayayigh
Over and over and over. An arrow pierced his heart, and he passed into the next world, content. I was left holding the buffalo horn.
//
The thing is, I know this song from my childhood, but I can’t remember what it’s from. Why so many vivid dreams lately? (That’s not a complaint, I just want to know why.)

Sunday, in the early morning hours, I had a dream so very real that I woke up in a cold sweat.
I was riding on the Shinkansen from Los Angeles to Mexico (the first sign that this was a dream, which I realized even as I was having it) with my family. The other people on the train were mostly migrant workers, returning to their homes from a hard day in the fields. A few of them played cards on the floor, taking swigs from warm cans of Tecate and a dirty bottle of mezcal. They were kind of loud and obnoxious as drunken card-playing migrant workers on trains tend to be, but I really didn’t notice them at first.
I was speaking to my mom when my brother Adam suddenly stood up and started singing “Me So Horny” like a lounge singer (this part of the dream was clearly influenced by the Richard Cheese album I discovered recently) and leering at the senorita (muy bonita) sitting next to him:
Sittin’ at home with my dick on hard
So I got the black book for a freak to call
Picked up the telephone, then dialed the 7 digits
Said, “Yo, this Addy, baby! Are you down with it?”
I arrived at her house, knocked on the door
Not having no idea of what the night had in store
I’m like a dog in heat, a freak without warning
I have an appetite for sex, ’cause me so horny
I was horrified and shouted at him to shut up while eyeing the card players, who were just starting to notice to my brother’s impromptu serenade:
Girls always ask me why I fuck so much
I say “What’s wrong, baby doll, with a quick nut?”
‘Cause you’re the one, and you shouldn’t be mad
I won’t tell your mama if you don’t tell your dad
I know he’ll be disgusted when he sees your pussy busted
Won’t your mama be so mad if she knew I got that ass?
I’m a freak in heat, a dog without warning
My appetite is sex, ’cause me so horny
By now, the poker hombres had pulled out knives and were yelling at him. “Hey Ese, we gonna cut your worm off and put it in our mezcal!”
I jumped into their midst, swinging, but my punches in dreams never seem to connect and they swarmed over me. My last act, before fading out, was to scream “You can’t hurt him… He has HOT PANTS!”
Cue waking up in a cold sweat.
I called Adam later that day. He said he was at Osaka castle with some friends, so although I told him about how he had been singing 2 Live Crew on a train to Mexico in my dream, my heart wasn’t into telling him that his worm had probably been harvested and consumed with a slice of lime.
Also, I was still very much befuddled by the meaning of the dream and especially the concept of HOT PANTS. I have no idea what they are.
So I kept this all bottled up inside until Monday night, when I set out to create a dish to commemorate the dream and partially actualize its existence. There was a pot of leftover Tom Yum Goong soup stock left on the stove, so that’s what I started with.
Recipe for AWAJI ISLAND HOT PANTS SOUP
1. Add the following into a pot of day-old Tom Yum Goong stock:
Fresh-picked button tomatoes, halved
Chicken broth
Chicken meat cut into strips
Daikon, cut into paper thin rounds
Tofu from overpriced & snobby Kyoto store, whole
Onion, sliced
Fresh habanero pepper from the garden, sliced
Dash of bourbon, for lack of mezcal
2. Season to taste with black pepper, white pepper, and Sriracha hot sauce
3. Top with diced green onions, fresh coriander, and slice of lime
//
So how was it?
Pretty damn good. Also, pretty damn spicy. Eat a couple big bowls of this and the secret of HOT PANTS will be revealed to you, too!

This week seems to be List Week for some reason. This one’s from Osaka Bill:
1. Your houseplants are alive, and you can’t smoke any of them.
2. Having sex in a twin bed is out of the question.
3. You keep more food than beer in the fridge.
4. 6:00 AM is when you get up, not when you go to bed.
5. You hear your favorite song in an elevator.
6. You watch the Weather Channel.
7. Your friends marry and divorce instead of “hook up” and “break up.”
8. You go from 130 days of vacation time to 14.
9. Jeans and a sweater no longer qualify as “dressed up.”
10. You’re the one calling the police because those %&@# kids next door won’t turn down the stereo.
11. Older relatives feel comfortable telling sex jokes around you.
12. You don’t know what time Taco Bell closes anymore.
13. Your car insurance goes down and your car payments go up.
14. You feed your dog Science Diet instead of McDonald’s leftovers.
15. Sleeping on the couch makes your back hurt.
16. You take naps.
17. Dinner and a movie is the whole date instead of the beginning of one.
18. Eating a basket of chicken wings at 3 AM would severely upset, rather than settle, your stomach.
19. You go to the drug store for ibuprofen and antacid, not condoms and pregnancy tests.
20. A $4.00 bottle of wine is no longer “pretty good stuff.”
21. You actually eat breakfast food at breakfast time.
22. “I just can’t drink the way I used to” replaces “I’m never going to drink that much again.”
23. 90% of the time you spend in front of a computer is for real work.
24. You drink at home to save money before going to a bar.
25. When you find out your friend is pregnant you congratulate them instead of asking “Oh S*$# what the hell happened?”
Bonus:
26: You read this entire list looking desperately for one sign that doesn’t apply to you and can’t find one to save your sorry old butt. Then you forward it to a bunch of old pals & friends ’cause you know they’ll enjoy it & do the same.

Originally by Dave Barry, I believe, but mailed to me from a friend in Singapore. Universal truths are indeed universal:
1. Never under any circumstances take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be “meetings.”
3. There is a very fine line between “hobby,” and, “mental illness.”
4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours.
5. And when God, who created the entire universe with all of its glories, decides to deliver a message to humanity, He WILL NOT use, as His messenger, a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle.
6. You should not confuse your career with your life.
7. No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.
8. When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that individual is crazy.
9. Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.
10. Never lick a steak knife.
11. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she’s pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.
12. The most powerful force in the universe is gossip.
13. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.
14. Take out the fortune before you eat the cookie.
15. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.
16. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.
17. The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests is to annoy people who are not in them.
18. A person who is nice to you, but is rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.
19. Your friends love you anyway.
20. Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that amateurs built the Ark. Professionals built the Titanic.

…has been postponed for the time being in lieu of:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!
Celebrations started early this year, and I have one last party to get to before the night is over. I’ve completely recovered from the heatstroke/food poisoning/mid-life crisis barfing thing the other day, so thanks to all those who wrote.
Nam performed Thai dance at the Awaji Westin today, perhaps for the last time, and I took around 500 photos with my new DSLR, so I’ll be posting about that soon.
Until then,
Justin Yoshida I
King of Awaji Island and Benefactor of Surrounding Territories