What?

You don't get what you expect -- you get what you inspect.

I fought the law, and the law won

Good news out of Alaska, for once. As it turns out, nobody is above the law. Now if they could only make it stick on Cheney.

I'll tell you where you can put your plastic

So I should have definitely started bragging about this weeks ago but I've been busy with life. At any rate, my hometown of Westport CT has decided to spearhead the attack on the evil that is plastic bags, typically found in those loathsome earth-hating cesspits called check-out counters, and has become the first city on the eastern seaboard to ban their use within city limits. Next up... paper, watch your back. See the link.

Early September updates

So for my trip round-the-world and also to soothe my idle vanity I've decided to get some Kevin business cards produced for my soon-to-be adoring fans. I've posted four mock-ups below, two front and two back, and I'd be happy to hear your opinions. Real men put pink on their business cards.



In other random news, my friend Gia is in China and has reported that parts of my fledgling blog are censored in that country. You heard it here first: Kevin is officially subverting the Establishment and sticking it to the ChinaMan. Whoa, not the preferred nomenclature.

So I'll be home in a few short weeks, so mark your calendars if you want some face-to-face Kevin time. Maybe planning some occasion in NYC for 10/10; nothing official yet but I'll hammer something out soon.

I've added some back-dated entries from the archives of emails I've been reviewing.

New additions:
1) Working in Ghana 4/28/07
2) Unexpected Medical Expense 3/5/08
3) Gifu Ski Trip 3/7/08

Working in Ghana was never actually an email... well it was going to be but then I haplessly deleted it one terrible day in Ghana. I finally got around to re-writing it, but it is sadly sub-par compared with what was the original. Anyway, give it a try if you've got a soft spot for cynicism and an hour to kill.

Tattoo

So I thought that I’d kick off this blog with a tribute to/explanation of the title, “and yet and yet…”

“and yet and yet” is itself a reference to my favorite (only) tattoo, pictured below. The translation of the poem is

The world of dew

Is the world of dew (indeed),

And yet, and yet…

The haiku poem was written by Kobayashi Issa (1763 ~ 1828), one of the four master Japanese haiku poets. Kobayashi was born a peasant but later became Buddhist monk, husband, father, and of course poet. His life was marked by sharp vicissitudes, starting with the sudden loss of his mother when he was 3 years old, followed by his grandmother at age 14, and in later life his first three children and first wife. It was after all these hardships that he composed the above poem.

“The world of dew” is an allegory for Kobayashi’s Buddhist worldview. Water is a very apt metaphor for change as it constantly shifts shape, composure, and responsibility. In the Buddhist view, life is impermanent and so “the world of dew” is Kobayashi’s way summating this in as succinct a way as possible. Five syllables, to be exact. To make a long story short, from this worldview Buddhism derives its key tenets, most importantly that attachment to the impermanence of the world causes suffering and therefore detac

hment from all things worldly is necessary for enlightenment. As a monk, Kobayashi strived to achieve this his entire life.

The second line is a confirmation of the first line, with a twist. If you can imagine the “is” as an “equals” sign, Kobayashi has basically written that “Change equals change”. However, this carries an inherit paradox as two things in constant flux or impermanence cannot be said to be equivalent. The combination of these first two lines is in fact the true expression of Kobayashi’s faith because it is at once a confirmation of his belief’s and an admittance that maintaining such a view is in fact an attachment and thus contradictory. There are of course many more layers and explanations to these first two lines, but I would only butcher them and so I refer the curious reader to better religious scholars than myself.

The poem really comes alive in the last line, “and yet and yet”. After enduring misfortune after misfortune throughout his life, Kobayashi wonders what all his dedication to faith has really gotten him. As a scholar and academic, he understands intellectually that the lives of all those he lost were impermanent anyway and as a good monk he ought to remained detached from his emotions for them. And yet, as a son, husband, father and friend, how can he possibly deny his very real and visceral emotions for his loved ones? It would be tantamount to denying his

humanity.

The summation of his poem, therefore, is in effect Kobayashi’s tortured struggle, not to achieve Buddhist enlightenment, his purported life’s calling, but rather between his faith and his humanity, his intellect and his emotion, the corporeal and the ephemeral, etc.

So why is this painted on my back? Well I’m certainly no Buddhist, but then I don’t put much stock in any religion. I do, however, think

that Kobayashi’s struggle can be extrapolated and applied quite universally, whether or not it’s in a religious context. His is a beautiful concise way of describing those ineffable thoughts which come closest to constituting what might be called Kevin’s personal philosophy.

As for a quick note on the artistry, I gave the poem to Mo-chan, a friend of mine who is also a calligrapher extraordinaire, he drew up several samples and I picked my favorite one. For

anyone with some background in Japanese, I thought this rendition was the best visual representation of the spirit of the poem: look first at the つゆ, first written kanji and then in hiragana, a nice visual representation of change. The same can be said for 世, where the first kanji bends up and the second bends down, a literal visualization of the ups and downs of the world.

Summer Stories

Usually I like to wrap these updates around a single charming story, but recent times have produced no such grandiose occasions. To tell the truth, life has been running pretty smoothly. This email, therefore, is more a handful of short goings-on and the-other-days than anything else.

About a week ago I bought an illustrated textbook full of Japanese onomatopoeia and mimetic words. In my on-going efforts to shore up the weaker aspects of my Japanese knowledge, this part of the language actually represents a significant portion of what don’t know. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of these words that are available, though practical use could probably be limited to a couple hundred. Still, no small task.

You might be more aware of Japanese onomatopoeia than you think. Take these two examples: pikapika and chuchu. Pikapika (mimetic, actually) used to describe something bright or glaring, as in a star. In fact, this mimetic is used, among other things, in translating “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and in a famous children’s book describing the atomic blast in Hiroshima. Chuchu is onomatopoeia for a puckering sound, most often used as a kissy noise. Put these two together and you have Pikachu, the cute lightning based mascot for the ever popular Pokeman franchise.

New to me, however, is goron, used specifically to describe a “heavy rolling thud”. Yes, these words get to that level of specificity and that’s why they’re such a headache to study. Fortunately the depths of my dorkdom know no bounds, and in the course of writing this I have realized that goron is none other than the name of the famed mountain tribe creatures in The Legend of Zelda series. They are big and heavy and they roll. It makes perfect sense.

Since around April I’ve been working Mondays at a small private English school in Wakayama. It’s a couple extra hundred a month to help me sort out plane tickets and other necessities without hitting up the ATM. It’s run by this great local couple who can only be described as “far out”. Their place is a joint shop/classroom/café/restaurant that, as you can imagine, always has something going on. The guy’s name is Nishida and his wife I only know as “Mama”. Mama is, in fact, a very motherly figure and therefore, after some initial hesitation, I have no trouble addressing her as such. Together they have to be the most chilled out couple I’ve met in Japan.

Typically I’ve found that Japanese spouses live very compartmentalized existences, crossing paths only at breakfast and when bills need paying. I won’t digress into the often sad lives of the sarariman (salary man) or hausuwaifu (you get it), but when you spend too much time here you start to forget how cute old couples are supposed to be. I’m always happy to go to Nishida’s school because the congenial nature of the hosts is palpable and infectious.

The students here are a fun mix as well. From the frustrating knucklehead toddlers to crazy war veterans, there’s always at least one surprise in store per week. Take one old guy I was teaching recently. Kasamatsu-san is a great old guy. Always happy, always arriving with his obscure grammatical questions that don’t really matter too much but eat up plenty of time, and of course he can talk forever about his special interests like gardening and walking. Ask him the right question and you’d be set for a good long while. One time, however, he surprised when he started talking at great length about Green Peace. Now I do my best not to judge students, especially since I’m taking their money, but I just couldn’t resolve the image of this 71-year-old guy and an extreme environmental organization. Furthermore, he wasn’t making much sense. Whenever I attempted to be polite and ask him questions about his Green Peace involvement or stance on various issues he looked at me like I was a crazy person. I thought I was offending him by not being hip enough to his worldly concerns – of course he was concerned about polar ice caps, what a ridiculous thing to ask. So on and so forth. Well this went on for about 45 minutes when he finally decided he could best explain his involvement with pictures. Pictures! Great, I would like photographic evidence of this. He whipped out his keitai, shuffled through it for a bit and then proudly passed it over to me. I couldn’t make anything out and there was definitely no world-saving in the picture, so I gave it back with shrugged shoulders. “What is it, then?” I offered. “Green Peace, Green Peace, my garden!” he retorted with no small amount of exasperation and, I bet, disbelief at the overwhelming stupidity of your humble narrator.

His garden? What the hell does that have to do with Green Peace? Nothing, it turns out, because he’d been talking to me about green peas for 45 minutes and I hadn’t a clue. If that misunderstanding wasn’t bad enough, his green peas weren’t even green peas, they were green beans, or string beans. I tried to explain the difference and then lectured him at great length about the need for correct intonation. All in good fun, of course. He’s a cheerful old guy. I don’t think he’s ever heard of Green Peace and he probably enjoys the occasional whale bacon.

Lastly, a belated “Happy Fourth of July” to all the Americans out there. You’ll be proud to know that even way out here in Japan the expats are celebrating in proper form. On Friday my coworker, John the Michiganian, came over and we got drunk on Budweiser, the King of Beers. Then we shot bottle rockets off the roof of my building, that is until one veered wildly off course and exploded next to my neighbor’s window, at which point we high-tailed it back to my apartment to finish the beers.

The next night we doubled up and had a large BBQ with some more expats and Japanese friends. More beer and fireworks in American-like abundance and at the pinnacle of the celebrations there was an impromptu amateur karaoke to Don Mclean’s American Pie. We dutifully downed bourbon with each refrain. Then some things happened and I’m shaky on the details but it was fun.

Today was a day of recovery – American style, of course. That meant sitting around in my underwear with the curtains drawn, the AC cranked, drinking lots of fluids and playing GTA IV for several hours. USA, all the way.

Gifu Ski Trip

Ski Trip March 2008

I hadn’t been planning to fit a ski trip into my Japanese travels. I was, to say the least, ill-prepared. I am, however, still a son of the family White and cannot pass up a good deal, whatever the obstacles to reason.

When I was thus presented with one such deal I was weak in the knees with happiness and anticipation. Sian, a friend of a co-worker who lived in Gifu near the mountains, had arranged an elaborate web of tours and coupons to get whoever could go to a nice little mountain for a few days. Coincidentally, I was already on my way to Nagoya for a business meeting and thus got a large majority of the transportation costs subsidized for me. Nothing like riding the Shink for free.

Good fortune was the mark of this trip. I had no gear and had to slap together whatever I could from friends and acquaintances. Everything came together at the last minute, but it did indeed come together. I left Monday morning for the two-day meeting. Tuesday afternoon I met Mark and Tanya at Nagoya station and then we proceeded over to Sian’s house in Gifu.

Sian herself was an interesting character. Her parents had moved to Japan when she was a kid and so she’d had seven years of Japanese schooling and the enviable fluency it entailed. Now she’s a graduate student at a Japanese university in linguistics and also an associate professor in English there. That means she’s got discounted tuition and four months of paid vacation a year. Word.

So we crashed at her house haphazardly strewn across scavenged futons from her aging Japanese attic. I don’t think those futons had seen the light of day since the Berlin Wall came down but they still served their primary purpose without giving me scabies.

We were up and out at 5:30 the next day: we had to get back to Nagoya station to catch our tour bus. Upon arrival at the bus terminal I took stock of the multitudes of Japanese boarder bunnies getting onto my bus. I found out that it was ladies’ day at one mountain so all these girls got passes for free. Some guys get all the luck. Not me, though, because it turned out not to be the mountain we were heading toward. No luck on the seating arrangements, either, as my bus buddy was Egami-san, the aged but chipper grandpa from Aichi-ken. It wasn’t a total loss, though, because he hooked me up with some ski rental coupons to ease the burden on my wallet. He also gave Mark a bag of Oreos. Unlock the magic.

We finally arrived at the mountain around 11:00, shucked our stuff and got a-skiing. The conditions were good but I was still a tinge disappointed. It was all very similar to New England skiing conditions, which anyone who has skied New England will tell you is not a great compliment. The mountain was well groomed but the snow was katchi katchi: Japanese mimetic for a pebbly feeling. No great leaps into boundless powder, just hard edges and quick legs to dodge ice patches. And not altogether unpleasant: as Mark was fond of saying, we were built for speed, not for comfort. We spent nearly the whole first day streaking down the mountain at break neck speed, just for the sheer exhilaration of it. Having not been on the slopes for near 2 years, I was happier than a bug in a rug.

The weather was perfect. Sun shining and Spring temperatures. That was a nice departure from New England. Although we were tired from Day One, we were re-energized by the arrival of the second half of our party the morning of Day Two. Sian arrived by car with some Japanese friends, and the ever-entertaining Dustin (an old comrade from my time in Tokai-West) arrived by bus an hour later… drunk and without sleep from his all-nighter the hours previous. Classic. He was genki as anyone, however, revived by the hair of the dog that bit him. Now in full gaijin force, we resumed our dominance of the slopes.

I do believe we were the only foreigners there and enjoyed the minor celebrity that entails. We also stayed for a few days so we were quite known to mountain staff, famously or infamously. For my own part I was quite impressed by the Japanese mountain-goers. You may recall last summer I went to the mountains in Nagano and was awed by the fashion sophistication girls (and guys) could maintain in such a desolate place. The change of the season hadn’t changed a thing. The difficulties of skiing and snow boarding were no excuse not to look good. Indeed, judging by the skill on most of the mountain, the primary purpose of being there wasn’t for snow anyway.

I do have this to say though: apparently skiing isn’t cool anymore (or at least doesn’t lend itself to looking cool), not in the young Japanese psyche. 90% of the mountain were boarders, most of them mediocre. The few skiers present were all good, and none under 40 years old except us foreigners and a few children. Ah well, kids these days, ain’t nothing you can do about them.

Not that I’m complaining. A done-up Japanese girl is a nice thing to see. Skiing off the lift, one is typically annoyed to see the backs of forty heads of forty boarders clogging up the immediate vicinity… that is, annoyed until you ski around to the front a take better stock of the situation. I suppose if you can’t do something so well you can at least look really good not doing it.

How better to end a long day on the slopes than with a long hot bath. We were staying in dorms above the lodge and had free access to the sentou. We could literally walk inside, dump our stuff in our lockers, grab the necessary hygiene products, and roll right over to the bath house area. No more than 10 minutes from slopes to suds. Pure heaven. On Day 2 we were lounging in there when some Japanese guys came and brought with them the best idea ever: beer. Typically drinking is restricted to the locker room (where it is in fact encouraged) but I suppose out in the boondocks of Gifu the status quo doesn’t apply. Mark quickly lost the ensuing round of nose-goes and thus volunteered himself to get round one. Round one turned into round two, three, and four rather quickly, and then we had to get out because the heat was making us dizzy and the girls were getting impatient.

Food at the mountain was incredible for a ski lodge. For 1000 yen a meal (about $10) you got a mound of rice, miso soup, side salad and the entrée of your choice. And all the tea you could drink. I’m afraid to ask what $10 would get me in Vermont. Breakfast, an all-you-can-eat buffet, was included in the modest price of the bed. Incredible. Needless to say, I didn’t go hungry for living on the cheap.

The Day 2 ski conditions had started to slog and slush by the end of it. Day 3 wasn’t looking so hot and there was even talk of chilling out and skipping it. Dustin and I, at least, were more than happy to chill in the bath house for a couple more hours. Any thought of bowing out early, however, was extinguished when I looked out the window the next morning: 15-20 cm of freshly fallen powder, no more than an elevator-ride away. The best presents really don’t come in boxes.

More excited than a toddler on Christmas, I woke up everyone else and danced my way to breakfast. I was first in line at the ski rental shop and first on the lift up with Dustin that morning. With gleeful smiles we carved the day’s first strokes into the mountain. Truly magical.

Being from New England, once again, I’m not so used to such conditions and it actually took me a while to adjust. Sharp turns had to be replaced by smooth curves, and it took me more than a few white-outs to work out the kinks. By an hour in, though, I was cruising just fine and the real fun began.

Dustin and I managed to find any and every patch of untouched snow. Moreover, we restrict ourselves to caution in assuming it’d be below us: at one point I watched Dustin launch over the edge of a precipice without a second thought. I hoped for the best and followed in kind, landing with a happily muffled thud into a deep snow bank. The exhilaration was short lived as the ensuing moguls forced immediate attention to my leg-work, but it was delightful nonetheless.

By the end of the day we had tapped about as much of the fresh snow as we could. Then I got cocky. There were three man-made jumps near the bottom of the base slope, and the third was big enough to be fun but small enough not to kill Kevin. Mark was also itching to get some air, we decided to take it on a few runs and, cameras in hand, see how cool we could look.

Just a short FYI, man-made jumps typically slope up, flatten out, slope down, and then flatten out again to the trail. The idea is to get past the first plateau and land on the down slope so as to save the shock from you knees. Well the first few runs went fine as I tested the water. Everything seemed to be in order. Not as if I’m some high-flying crazy tricked out fool but I’ve got my one relatively decent daffy that I’m happy with. Then from the lift I had to see some other skier to some snappy little edge grab and so I said to myself: “yea, I can do that.”

Famous last words. Tanya had the camera trained on me as I hit the up slope full tilt. It was the last run of my day, and in my mind I imagined I needed to get as high as possible to pull it off successfully, so there I was trying to grab my skies without giving much thought to anything else. Then I hit the ground. I’d managed to go over the first plateau, past the down slope, and land flat again on the trail. I didn’t tank immediately, but the landing slammed my feet into the front of my boots and all my toes screamed in pain, which caused me to wobbled slightly towards the side of the slope and then toppled over.

And my day was over. Mark saddled up and happily told how awesome it looked. Great, I said, but I’m out. Just to be sure I stood up to get back to the lodge and sure enough it hurt too much to make left turns, so I hobbled down on one ski to the lodge. Ditched my skies and ripped my right boot off and shoved the offending toe right into the snow. Remember my last hospital visit? Middle right toe finds itself purple after night’s festivities. Now the right big toe was similarly bruised an unhappy lavender. At least they matched.

Japanese people around the lodge got a good kick out of my performance. While I was taking a load off on the bench, this Japanese guy in a bright blue and pink jumpsuit rolls up to me and shakes my hand warmly.

“Kevin, dude, I just saw you go down. Man, that was awesome!”
“Oh, um, thanks. Hey, do I know you?”
“Yea, its me, Keitaro, from the onsen last night.”
Yea, that’s right, we had made friends with those happy beer drinking guys. I wonder why I didn’t remember him.
“Oh yea, that’s right! Keitaro, dude, sorry I didn’t recognize you with all those clothes on. You enjoying today as much as I am?”

Turns out he was. I could see now that he was a boarder, but I didn’t hold that against him. His posse came over and we had some beers and talked about how soft and white the snow was. They were some great home boys and typical of the nice people you can meet for no particular reason in this country. I wished them luck with the afternoon and bowed out to get my stuff ready for the bus back.

And that, in addition to the video already up on youtube, is a short list of the ski trip hi-lights. For those of you wondering why you didn’t see my epic spill on that video, its because Tanya hit the power button instead of the shoot button. Alas, my injury was all for naught. Perhaps its better that way…

Unexpected Medical Expense

Last Sunday I woke up with my toe throbbing. I thought I had slept on it funny until a I finally got out of bed, put my foot down, and yelped in pain.

Vague memories of the previous night led me to believe that my newly discovered injury may have been consequence of impaired judgment. I’m not typically a violent person, but I definitely participated in an impromptu wrestling match wherein I managed to kick the wall with considerable force. The wall was quite obstinate, as walls are known to be. By some miracle of agility I managed to mangle my middle right toe and only the middle right toe. At the moment of impact, overwhelmed by adrenaline and a sense of my own prowess, I managed to avoid a rational assessment of my injury. Only upon waking up some twelve hours later did I consider my treatment options.

The tried and true ice-on-bruise method was tempting but underwhelming: I was quite sure, given my pain and the color of my toe, something beyond a home-remedy was called for.

My boss Tsukasa, angel that she is, offered to take me to the emergency room after I insisted she take me to the emergency room. I was not aware, until that moment, most hospitals are not open on Sundays. I repeat: most Japanese hospitals are not open on Sundays. The only option available, I was told, was the extra expensive “special circumstances emergency room.”

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but any time you find yourself in the emergency room is a special circumstance in my book. Moreover, whether I caught my middle toe in a bear trap on Wednesday or Sunday makes no difference to the bear trap or my toe – the pain is excruciating and requires attention whatever the calendar date. Lastly, considering the circumstances of my injury, I could imagine that I was not the only person to suffer injuries on Saturday night that require treatment on Sunday. In fact, I would venture to postulate that the Saturday-night-to-Sunday-morning is prime hospital-going time and this “take Sunday off” nonsense is nothing more than a cheap veil on the drunk tax the Japanese government has imposed on simple freedom-loving beer-drinking ex-patriots like myself. Actually it was whiskey but the point is the same: since when is closing hospitals on Sunday okay?

So anyway I was informed by Tsukasa that the only alternative was a smaller out of the way hospital that worked Sundays but only 9-5. It was already 3 so I said we ought to get a move on.

She had a good laugh at my expense when I hobbled out to the car. She had another one when I had to hobble to and from the ATM en route so I could actually pay for this little joy ride. We got to the hospital and evidently the entire staff was eagerly awaiting their gaijin visitor. Probably the most excitement the Sunday afternoon shift had seen in a while. The orderly who’d drawn the short straw had me sign in with barely veiled amusement. Her friends in the back looked on curiously. You’d think that hobbling in-patients are not all that uncommon in a hospital. I wondered exactly how much of the circumstances surrounding my injury Tsukasa had chosen to share with them.

The hospital itself was very un-hospital in that it seemed slapped together like a carnival maze. The reception had some benches thrown around with no perceivable coordination. There were some stunted staircases to half-floors and even a ramp to nowhere. The elevator lurched – totally cliché until you’re actually an injured person in a lurching elevator. Anyway the whole feng shui of the place was off and I’d just as soon be done with it.

I finally got to the x-ray room and Tsukasa commented on the stench of stale cigarettes. The x-ray technician sauntered out of the back reeking of cigarettes and chuckling in throaty emphysema incomprehensible Japanese and sputtered a laugh at my toe. Like seriously, what the hell was everyone finding so funny about my purple toe. I mean, besides the obvious. At any rate the guy asked Tsukasa to step out of the room and then laid a lead blanket about the size of a paper towel across my groin. Very comforting. He then returned to his den slamming the 6-inch steel door behind him. Extremely comforting. Click click and 10 minutes until the film developed. We chilled out to some Bread’s Greatest Hits back in the waiting room until the nurse beckoned us into the doctor’s office.

Dr. Exasperated was examining my x-rays when we came in. Our conversation went as follows.

Doc: So what exactly happened?

Me: Not sure, exactly.

Doc: I’m sorry?

Me: Well… my friends and I were rough-housing, I may have kicked a wall by accident. However, I might also have tanked on my bike riding home. It’s hard to say.

Doc: Looks quizzically from me to Tsukasa, then back to me. Well, young man, Japan is full of walls, so I advise that you proceed more cautiously in the future. Your toe is fine, just put some ice on it. Good day.

Smart ass. I was sure we would have been great friends under different circumstances.

Better safe than sorry, right? Tsukasa didn’t seem to think so, because she apologized all the way out of the hospital. Maybe I’m crazy, but I didn’t feel much remorse for people performing the services they are paid for. That is to say, of course I was very thankful for the services rendered, but just because I erred on the side of caution, you’d think that I’d at least get a “Well it’s a good thing you checked with us anyway” or whatever. My bank knows I pay enough for the insurance anyway. I guess I’ll just chalk up penitence for inaccurate amateur diagnoses next to Sunday sabbaticals for the healthcare industry on my list of things that make no sense in Japan.

So my toe is fine now, still a little swollen, but not enough to keep me from skiing last week. Skiing in Japan, of course, was an adventure unto itself and I’ll hopefully get a chance to fill you in greater detail sometime soon.