Simple Motherfuckers (Japanese Cops)

While I was at work today, some cops came around the house claiming they were making rounds and asking about “a Nikkei (= of JP ancestry) man, Justin Yoshida.”
Coincidence?
I think fucking not. They made my wife show her alien ID card and student ID. I hope she told them that she isn’t Peruvian, so to FUCK OFF, but I know better.
Those twats are LUCKY that I wasn’t home… You don’t come after all Nikkeis to check if they are really are or not, just because a case involving one is all over the news. Fucking idiots.

Utensils, and proper usage thereof

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I am extremely proud to announce that I ate an entire soboro donburi exclusively with chopsticks today. In its most basic form, this is a bowl of loose rice topped with scrambled eggs (flavored with a bit of dashi) and a bit of ground meat. It is a staple of cafeterias and bento shops everywhere, and I kind of consider it to be the Japanese equivalent of a sloppy joe – you eat it a lot when you’re a kid, then kind of forget about it, then when you rediscover it as an adult you realize how wonderful it is because of its simplicity and hey isn’t simplicity a good thing in itself and… I digress. The loose consistency of a soboro-don in our company cafeteria is such that almost everyone eats it with a spoon, since if you use chopsticks, you end up scooping it into your mouth anyway.
Of course, I automatically chose chopsticks, because well, let’s face it, there are certain standards to adhere to, no? If you start eating donburi with a spoon, pretty soon you’re sucking tofu with a straw because it’s easier, and eating shabu shabu with barbeque tongs because it’s faster. I ask you, what the fuck happened to tradition, heathen? A splintery pair of wooden sticks was good enough for your samurai/geisha/farmboy ancestors, and they’re good enough for you, too.
I have a certain complex about proper table manners and utensil usage because I look Japanese and therefore feel a deeper obligation than usual to have my shit together at the table. Reprazentin’ the gaijin set, ya know? Plus, people who can’t use chopsticks properly just look fucking retarded in public (since that’s the only place they ever use them, I guess), so I actually took the time to learn how to use them properly after I came to Japan (this saves me money on flyswatters ala the Miyagi Method, as well).
So now that you’re thinking about what a chopstick Nazi I am (I just realized “Chopstick Nazis” is the coolest synonym for “Yellow Axis” I’ve ever heard), I’d actually like to point to my good pal Molly, a blond, blue-eyed, card-carrying Gaijin-san, who, during our Tenri days, was famous for eating the university cafeteria’s curry rice with chopsticks. Now that’s HARDCORE. Curry fucking rice. That shit was pretty runny, too, if I remember correctly.
Anyway, the absolute antithesis of a Chopstick Nazi, without a doubt, was the head of the Japanese Studies Department where we studied. Besides being a generally unpleasant and stupid asshole (and I would love to say that to his face except that he’s now dead on top of being a stupid asshole – LOL!), Professor Uehara (nicknames: “Stumpy,” “Fuckhead,” and “Twat”), who I just positively adored, was a real – how to say? – banana. A Twinkie… You know, yellow on the outside with a creamy white filling… This guy, while on one hand exhibiting every feature of a dirty old Japanese man (including, uh, Japanese citizenship), was in such dire of need of proving to everyone that he was American at heart, that he ate soba noodles with a fork.
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The donburi I ate for lunch, incidentally, was delicious.

Compulsory Commentary on the Japanese Elections

Summary: Koizumi is the FUCKING MAN! ALL HAIL KOIZUMI! BANZAI!!! BANZAI!!!
It must be nice winning an election and watching the stock market rise like this. Plus, let’s face it, the Richard Gere look-alike thing was a fucking masterstroke. Interesting fact: Did you know that before the plastic surgery, Koizumi was a dead ringer for Pat Morita?
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Daniel-san, you must concentrate!
Unfortunately, Japanese politics are a prime example of “the more things change the more they stay the same.” For instance: Post office privatization. If you’re waiting to see how this is going to directly affect your life in Japan, tell me how it turns out a couple decades from now, okay? Seriously… People who are predicting the change in interest rates for savings accounts at this point in time ARE FUCKING DELUSIONAL OR HAVE A SERIOUSLY KICK-ASS CRYSTAL BALL +7 CHARISMA. Okay?
(Note from Editor: Compulsory “Japanese erection” joke deleted.)

Asbestos

Check out this article in the Guardian: Japan’s asbestos time bomb
This is a HUGE problem on my island. Before they built the longest, tallest, and most expensive suspension bridge in the world between Awaji Island and Kobe, the only way to cross was by ferry. Hundreds of ferry boats operated by several companies made the trip between the island and the mainland (mainly Kobe and Osaka) every day. Of course, the bridge eventually killed this industry, and predictably, left thousands of locals without jobs.
My company employs several of those ex-ferry workers. In fact, the guy who sits right next to me is one of them, and he is talking about going in for tests not covered by our yearly physical because his wife is worried sick. You see, his job on the ferry often consisted of tying down stuff with lines, and the ropes they used were apparently partially made of thickly braided asbestos strands. They used the same type of ropes right up until the ferry company went out of business…. There’s not much you can say to someone after they tell you something like that, is there?
Well, I gave him an apple I picked up in the cafeteria today and told him that in the states, we say it “keeps the doctor away.”
The poor bastard grinned at me, then ate the whole thing, core and seeds and all. He is just living day-to-day and hoping for the best, I guess.
What the fuck else can he do?

Matsuda Yusaku

I totally scored an out-of-print DVD box set of the entire Tantei Monogatari (Detective Story) series on Yahoo Auctions last night! This was a very famous TV series in Japan and is virtually unknown overseas; the same goes for the star of the show, Yusaku Matsuda (best known overseas as the character Sato in the movie Black Rain).
He was the shit back in those days, and his popularity hasn’t waned a bit over the years. I take pride in being his greatest gaijin fan – only a real fan would consider a 300 dollar DVD box set a real bargain, figuring, you know, that it’s an investment.

The Golden Three

These long, dreary trips out to factories way out in the country – I will not miss them.
When you leave the concrete landscapes of urban sprawl and start seeing more trees than cars, you know you have left the embrace of modern Japan. Strange things start occuring to you in the sweltering heat of an uncontrolled climate, as the lush green of summer passes by.
Perhaps the majority of Japanese will die never having peed in the woods.
Most have never camped outside for free, or without being in close proximity of the car they came in.
Surely, none would know how to wage a guerilla war from the forest and fire an M-60 one-handed like John Rambo.
Like I said, the heat gets to you. But the reason I will not miss these trips out to factories in the sticks is not really the locales persay, it’s the people who work in them. You see, it’s my own private theory that for the vast majority of Japanese people, happiness can be directly calculated from the concentration of convenience stores, train stations, and pachinko parlors in their proximity. Remove just one of these factors from the equation, and you are tempting fate.
It’s like the triangle theory of efficient kitchen design – you want the sink, the stove, and the refrigerator positioned equidistantly.
Anyway, factories are usually located out in the boonies, and the ones I visit are no exception. The workers live close by in dorms or cheap apartments (that they jokingly refer to as “log mansions”), and you can tell there is a serious lack of the Golden Three, as mentioned above, because everyone looks seriously brain dead, and zombified, and honestly, just plain uninterested in living much longer.
In Japan, it is very hard working with brain dead zombies who have lost the will to live in the sweltering heat of pre-summer.
That is all.

My Ainu Roots

A while back, somebody explaining my family ancestry told me that I’m part Ainu. Which is funny, because when I first met my fiance’s dad, he said I looked part Ainu, and I thought he was crazy (I may have Russian sailor blood in me, as evidenced by the occasional rogue bright orange hair on my face, but Ainu?). It turns out that he was right (actually no real surprise since he taught anthropology at Mahasarakham University for a few decades – as usual, I turned out to be the dumbass).
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I like how the Wikipedia entry states that men eat with chopsticks, and women eat with wooden spoons. Do Ainu women usually choose the “soup” entree instead of the “salad” (as opposed to their counterparts in most other areas of the world)? And how the hell do any of them dig into, say, roasted wolf shanks, or a boiled badger steak?
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I’m not religious, but I find animism to be really cool sometimes, especially among the all the current day bullshit caused by religious intolerance. Give me a fire-worshipping, wine-sipping, animal-head-sacrificing pagan any goddamn day.
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Can the person who orginally told me I’m Ainu please stand up? I can’t remember who it was, but it was almost definitely my mom.