Coooolboarders!

As for the last Sunday, I finally could go snowboard. Sometimes I had the feeling that every exchange student here have skiied or snowboarded already except me. So, I went with most of the Himeji Gang to Tokura.

I decided to snowboard, as most of the group... and only two had even tried it before (and one of them chose skis instead). I think it's possible to imagine the situation. Everybody asking the only person with experience and a snowboard how to do things...

Actually I could get the basics quickly. Could stand up and slide in the first attempt, manuever in the second and put/remove the snowboard locks quickly in the third... But I still don't know for sure how to break.

That's when we were practicing in a small slope just to get the hang of it... After getting up the lift my inability to break really showed itself. As I couldn't break, or even slow down (I got how to do that a little at the end, but even so I couldn't do it at will) I often rushed down at high speed just to fall meters ahead. And when you fall at a high speed, it's the most funny, right? Rolling some meters... spinning in the air... At least the snow was soft and I could go somewhat further without falling in the last tries.

We learned after that the place isn't very nice to begginers in snowboarding, so most of the group decided to ski next time. I'm still with snowboard, but don't know if I'll be able to go again so soon...

It was also Steff's birthday, so the group also had a dinner in celebration afterwards.

Ah, and as I was afraid of breaking my camera (well justified if I remember my falls back there), I didn't take any pictures, putting the camera safe in the locker. But others did, and I'll put some of their pictures here when I get them.

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Added on Feb 1st

I got some pics, so the album is up now for those who'd like to see it. Enjoy.

Styles, dreams and culture shock

Styles

I was so focused on my backlog that I forgot to write about last week. So, two Sundays ago (Jan 22nd), I went to a different aikido dojo, invited by one of the instructors who I met at the Tiger pub through Silvia.

It was interesting. Like when I watched the budo in Kyoto, I had the impression that the same moves are used in a different way. Plus some that seem unique to each. I surely don't have experience enough to tell if there's something really unique, but I felt that the approach is different. For those familiar with video games, it would be something like Ryu and Ken from the game "Street Fighter" (especially after the "SF Zero". It's possible to tell that by the way the training is held. Seems that one focus more on the "ki" (energy) and reaction moves while the other practices more reflex and counter moves and "randori" (fight simulation). Even so, I won't antecipate any conclusions since I've trained only once at the other dojo, and don't know much even about the university club style.

Changing the subject, after that and eating in a all-you-can-eat restaurant (rare in Japan) with some members of the dojo (nice people, and an interesting mix between Japanese and foreigners), there was Rezaur's house warming party... after losing some time looking for his new house.


Dream

New year... some TV shows change. From my previous post about it, the "Oniyome Nikki" is not broadcasted anymore. Recently I found a substitute: "Journey to the West" (that's the "official" translation of the title 西遊記). It's some sort of adaptation of the legend of Son Goku (forget Dragon Ball). Funny and entertaining enough.

So, in this week's episode they found some kind of temple where dreams come true. Then, after sleeping one night they all found their dreams coming true and didn't want to leave the place anymore. All except Goku who couldn't sleep (because he had dozed all day before reaching the place. He occasionaly learns that there's some kind of creature, artifact or whatever (didn't get this part right) who makes dreams true, but also eats them.

Trying to convince his friends, Goku is confronted with the "head priest" of the temple who says that it would be cruel not letting them enjoy their dreams coming true, having to deal with the harsh reality again, using a paraplegic as example. And anyway,they would refuse to leave since nothing is stronger than a dream. (I might be mistaken about details.) Goku replies saying that there is something stronger than dreams, the future. It allows us to go even beyond our dreams for something better. And a dream that keeps people from going on is bad.

I won't spoil it any longer. That's the interesting part. Take whatever conclusions you'd like about it. I've took mine.


Culture Shock

I was, for a change, reading Claus's blog when I found a post about culture shock. But the topic was more about the shock when living with people whom you don't have a "common reference" with.

Thinking that way, that's the origin of the culture shock itself. We usually think of it as being something that happens only when in a different country with a different culture, though, as he said, we feel the shock most when it comes to small things in the background of the people around us. And we don't even need to go too far for that. Different groups (like skaters and akiba-bei), or even different generations usually don't mix very well (Stereotyping... sorry for that. For the sake of examples only.) One of the reasons is because they lack common "experiences" to talk about. By experience I mean anything from preferences, background etc..

Some examples of my own. Hanging around with other Electric Engineering students in Brazil, we always had subjects to talk about: the news, soccer championship, some teacher/test... plus, as we shared the engineering background there were jokes and comments that only engineering students would understand. And I can't understand the pharmacy ones when my sister talks to her friends, so I sometimes don't have much to talk about when with them (one or other likes animes like me, so then we have something to talk about).

Also, in Japan I met people, especially during the first months, whom I started talking to, but couldn't really get closer because there was no subject to talk about that would be interesting to both. Sometimes I even wanted to talk... And then comes the problem: about what? Now I got some friends with things in common. We undestand each other better and have things to talk about. And that's about it.

Hmmm... This post is a little confusing, I think... For those who want to check Claus's post about it, it's here.


Weather

An extra topic. Today is a cloudy day in Himeji, and it rained during the night. In my hometown in Brazil, this usually means today will be colder than usual...

What happens is quite the opposite.

Here during winter I'm not sure why the rain rises the temperature e little bit. It's not so cold today as it was yesterday, or the day before that. And last time it rained, was the first time this year the temperatures reached more than 14 degrees Celsius, I guess.

On the other hand, during summer, the rain is refreshing all right, but later it rises humidity and it seems even hotter...

通し矢 - Toshiya

For those who can understand Portuguese, I mentioned before some kind of archery contest in Kyoto that I wanted to see. Well, that's the Toshiya at Sanjusangendo Temple (January 15th, 2006), where I went with Fabio, Jon, Rezaur and Silvia.

From this website, many archers, including young people who celebrated becoming adults on this year's Coming of Age Day, shot arrows as a pledge to improve their skills. Young women wearing colorful furisode kimono also participated in the contest and fired arrows one after another. The pointed arrows cut through the cold air like a sharp knife.

The contest has its origins in the Edo period (1600-1867) when samurai warriors competed by shooting arrows down the 120-meter long, narrow hall. The contest, organized by the Kyoto Prefecture Archery Federation and the temple, is held each year in conjunction with the Coming of Age Day.

So, lined up in single file at the shooting range set up on the west side of the hall, they each shot two arrows at targets (50 to 100 centimeters in diameter) 60 meters away. "They" are the thousands of participants (lined up around 10 at a time).

Actually they don't hit the target often, but even so the event is worth seeing (although crowded as expected). Seems like after they shoot, they recieve some kind of certificate... I couldn't take a good picture of that paper.

After that, the Brazilians decided to see some other spots in Kyoto.

• Nanzenji: This place has a central role in the Japanese History of Zen-Buddhism since 1386, when it's control was passed to the Gozan ("Five Great Zen Temples") of Kyoto. Nanzenji was first built as an imperial villa in 1264, and became a temple in 1291. Its main building, the Seiryo-den, is famous for a beautiful rock garden and sliding doors (fusuma), which are decorated by paintings of the Kano School. The temple's large entrance gate, completed in 1628, is called Sanmon. Several subtemples and a water aqueduct, which is part of the Lake Biwa Canal dating from 1890, can be found in the vicinity of Nanzenji's main buildings.

• Path (or Walk) of Philosophy (Tetsugaku no michi) : It is a pleasant path besides a canal that connects Ginkakuji with the vicinity of Nanzenji. As there're plenty of small temples, restaurants and especially cherry trees, many couples enjoy the romantic beauty of the place during spring. The name comes after a Kyoto University Philosophy teacher, Nishida Kitaro (1870 - 1945).

Kite Festival

Still about backlog, this post is about the National Kite Flying Festival in Himeji (January 8th, 2006).

Kite-flying is a traditional new year pastime of Japanese children. Although it may not be as popular as it used to be, there're still people who cultivate the "tradition". So, in this event kite-flying lovers gather in Himeji, flying various hand-made kites, from the very simple to complex ones, including some with special shapes or with a large surface area.

I went to this event (held at the Himeji Horse Racetrack) with Silvia, Steff and Greg. And since we were there, the two latter decided to buy some simple kites there to test their flying ability... I also tried a little. So, the conclusion is that Greg is good at it (somebody had a nice childhood) and the rest of us can do fairly well... if the wind helps.

A simple event, at which families can have some fun flying their kites if clumsy gaijin don't disturb them... XD The variety of kites was impressive. Of course we had the simpler ones, but there were others with very different shapes and sizes. "Many kites in a row", "big kite", "shaped like a bird", "Doraemon kite" and so on...

Kobe Luminarie

Trying to get rid of my backlog, the next topic is the Kobe Luminaire (December 22nd, 2005).

The Kobe Luminaire is an art of lights designed for the requiem of victims of the Great Hanshin Awaji Earthquake and the hope for reconstruction. So, it's not for Christmas as some may think, although it's held around the same time of the year (mid-end December).

As we're busy with other events, Silvia and I could only go to the Luminaire on the last day. This year exceptionally it was decided that the Luminaire would end before Xmas, and more than that, before the 23rd holiday (Emperor's birthday... Xmas is not a holiday in Japan). The information I've heard was that's because the people gathered to see the Luminaire disturb the customers of the shops nearby... Strange. I thought it would increase the number of customers. On the other hand, we didn't buy anything ourselves... The group gathered to see the event was Rezaur, K (just respecting the Japanese online privacy stuff...) and Fabio (who joined later).

Some queues since it was the last day, but not that bad. And not much snow around... since it was the same day when it snowed hard in Himeji (The pic of this post is from that day), I wonder if they cleaned it or if it didn't snowed so much in Kobe...

About the thing itself, it is beautiful. Interesting is that the lights are from figures, not random lights as it's usual in many Xmas decorations. One in a park resembles some kind of house and you can see it all from above from an observatory in the Kobe City Hall. Well worth a visit. Again, it's the kind of thing that can't be described, so it's better to look at the album.

After that a dinner and losing the time to catch the last bus to Shosha. I thought about a taxi, but gave up in the end and went with Silvia by foot. At least chatting on the way made the more-than-one-hour walking less tiring...

Round 269!

Sorry for being away. Guess some people were complaining already... hehe...

Anyway, that was because last week, besides ordinary studies, I had a composition about life of an exchange student to write (in Japanese...), so I was pretty busy until the middle of the week. After that, I decided do relieve the stress enjoying life a little... then I also forgot to post...

The event that marked the shift was with some people from the aikido club on Thursday. Once again, ramen restaurant followed by games. This time we played The King of Fighters 2003... Although I like the system of this game rather than the striker system (KOF 99 to 2001), it's still not the one I like most (that's KOF 97/98). Even so, that's a chance for revenge after being smashed last time when we played the most recent Gundam game.

I don't know why the matches became so interesting that when we noticed it was already morning... and we weren't tired! So, after playing all night, we decided to check out how much we played...

269 matches!! I can't remember playing so much in a row ever... Ok, I didn't play all of them. And as players changed, it's impossible to estimete the number of victories each one had, but I think saying that I played at least 75% of them, winning at least 80% of those is a good estimation...

I said that we weren't tired, but thinking about it that was not entirely true... As the matches went on, for example, we used lots of combos in the beginning, but, as it was getting harder to think later (because we were lacking sleep, I suppose), things got technically poorer as the hours passed...

お大事に

One kind of "greeting" we usually learn in Japanese schools is saying "odaijini" to someone who is sick meaning "get better soon", "take care of yourself" or something like.

As I still have that cold (and I should classify it as flu from now... can't be just a cold anymore), I was expecting to hear that pretty often while talking to my Japanese friends. Surprisingly, so far I can't remember hearing this even once. They surely say something, but not that one. Things like "Hope you can heal that cold soon" or "you gotta sleep early" I heard a lot. The last one is interesting to show the indirectiveness the language have. Translated like that, sometimes one may understand that literally and find no meaning, or a bad meaning in that. But the intention is something like "you should rest". Interesting...

Another thing, since we're at this topic. Unlike Brazil or most western cultures I know, in Japan there's not a "polite reply" when people sneeze or cough (Tava procurando a palavra pra "espirrar"...) like "saúde" (Portuguese) or "Bless you" (English)... They simply ignore it. I thought it was strange at the first time until I remembered something that was said to me about Japanese ignore it because they think it'd be unpolite to show one's sneeze or cough was noticed... I guess it was something like that. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Coming of Age Day

Today is a holiday in Japan. It's the "seijin no hi", or Coming of Age day. On this day 20 year olds attend "seijinshiki" (Coming of Age ceremony).

Clothing is "semi-Japanese formal clothing" (I really can't think on other way to define it) - women wearing kimonos, men with either kimonos or suits, and as a Japanese defined, on this day they "listen to a speech from some important people and party together". Each city has some different events (not obligatory), some I saw on TV were a show at Tokyo Disneyland, some shows performed by 20 year olds, rising a big kite and swimming and writing "shodo" (under a 6 degrees Celsius temperature...). Although 18 is the age of some "adult" things, like driver's license, only when 20 Japanese are considered "full adults". The legal right to drink and smoke comes at that age (I said legal)... so the party may include some drinking.

The holiday and ceremony started in 1946 as a way to give hope to the youngsters after the World War II.

Ok, so I saw more people wearing kimonos today than during New Year (I thought more Japanese would go that way to shrines on January 1st). But sorry, no pictures. I was attending a New Year Meeting ("shinnenkai") with some people from the university aikido club at the dojo of the sensei who also teaches at the uni on Saturdays (the other practices are held by a senpai).

There, people from children to elderly performed some enbu... Seeing kids together at a dojo reminded me of my judo dojo in Brazil... (reading this and some of my previous posts makes me wonder if I have a kids and girls in kimono crush...) After that a nice lunch and lots of chat...

This post is a little vague... maybe because I'm trying to study for a test I have tomorrow at the same time I'm writing... Guess I should resume studying. Before that just a final note: one girl mentioned that those kimonos don't protect enough against cold... So I'm wondering if some Japanese women are insensible to low temperatures. At night with the temperature around 2 degrees Celsius and some girls still wearing those clothes...

Honey

So I'm staying at home for a whole Saturday with so many things I want and/or should do... The reason? I woke up with an annoying cold today... I was already foreseeing that as I wrote in my last post, but by a mysterious reason it stroke quite hard today. Sore throat, coughs, runny nose and headache. Fortunately, one day resting and taking remedies makes me feel better. Only the two former symptoms persist and I don't feel so lazy now. Think that I'll be able to go to some kind of kite festival that will be held in Himeji tomorrow.

But I realized one thing during this day off. Thinking about the medicines I'm taking here and those I usually take in Brazil, I missed one... honey.

Might be only me, but I don't remember seeing honey for sell here... syrups all right, but can't remember about honey. Other thing are bees. I used to be kinda bothered by bees near soda places and stuff, but can't remind seeing a single one in Japan, even during spring.

I may be wrong, of course, but have anyone seen honey or bees around? (I'd discard import shops in this case...)

Other perspectives

Before anything else, happy new year to you!

Ok, I have to write about what happened for the time I was unable to post. Xmas and New Year will be postponed for a future post as I want to include the pictures.

But for this period I could see a little of the living of other "foreigner categories" in Japan. I'm as a exchange student and have friends here who are language teachers or specialized workers (such as engineers), so I can hear about those perspectives. Some known people also came as tourists (and I also experienced some of that myself during my trips, although it's not exactly the same thing).

So, one of the different ones was the dekassegui perspective when I spent the last days of 2005 with some relatives. For those who doesn't know, dekassegui is the name given to Japanese descents (nikkeis) who go back to Japan to work and earn money. That flux started during the Japanese economic bubble and even now it attracts nikkeis in Brazil and other countries. They're usually manual labor doing hard manual work that Japanese doesn't have much interest in doing, especially in factories. Very briefly, that's it.

So I went to Okazaki meet my cousin and his family, meeting other relatives during a visit to Toyokawa and reveillon dinner. Some of them I haven't seen for years and now, looking to them with families and kids, made me feel old... There're lots of Brazilians working as dekasseguis in that area, to the point I almost didn't speak, listen or read Japanese. Brazilian restaurants, markets, community... there's little need for Japanese language. That may be a good and a bad thing, actually...

Anyway, it was nice being in a familiar ambient for a change (which reminds me... I haven't tried homestay yet). In case they read this entry, "thanks for everything and sorry for the trouble".

The second was during this week. I was "recruited" as a interpreter to some Brazilian high school students during a trip to Hiroshima. They were spending some days with some kind of (Himeji) sister cities homestay program, so the new perspective was staying for a short period with a host family. It's cheaper than for tourists and you have good chances to experience Japanese culture and everyday life (although I'm living in Japan, guess my life is different than of ordinary Japanese), but you also lose mobility. Of course, I only listened to their experiences, so it's some kind of second-hand experiences.

The highlight was something I couldn't do during my first trip to Hiroshima (already backlogged as part of the "Reminiscences" series): talk to a hibakusha, or survivor of the atom-bombing. The Peace Memorial Hall is something that already move you, but listening and talking to someone who really lived that hell is even more powerful... As one student mentioned later, that makes us feel really small, as the sufferings we've moaned about during our lives was nothing compared to what that person is suffering (yep. Present continuous because those scars - social, psychological and physical - are unlikely to be fully healed).

Just a note. I was there as an interpreter, but I really didn't do much. The Brazilian group could communicate in English, so could the chaperone and the hibakusha, and the hall had explanations in Portuguese and English... Wonder why they called me... I can't complain since it was a free trip and had the opportunity to meet that hibakusha.

Last, guess my invencibility will be broken. I was getting proud of getting no cold or related diseases in Japan (and without taking any medicine). On 4th was Vinny's birthday party at Roxy Club (I wonder if I can call it a night club...). The party was pretty neat, but the fool here decided to go back home without wearing my hat and scarf so they wouldn't smell cigar smoke. Now the symptoms are starting to appear. All I can do is take some medicine and hope it's not too late. I don't want to use those "surgeon-looking" masks (I don't see many young people with them even when they get a cold, but anyway...).