windchill and old men goosebumps

"samui...samui...saaamui."* all day, from the moment i left for work until i got back. it really wasnt that cold just a little reminder that tomorrow is december (the weather`s been really mild over here; if it werent for the red-orange leaves everywhere youd think it was late may). everyone else was walking all fast and running back into their buildings but i loved it; it reminded me of boston and how much im looking forward to the winter. if i had a pair of mittens with me plus a little snowfall it wouldve been perfect.

`family guy`, `ichiro from the back`, and suzuki-san were on the train/bus today. they always make commuting more enjoyable especially when you really really dont want to get on the bus and then equally dread getting off. i named ichiro, complete stranger, after the famous japanese baseball player in the u.s. (he plays for seattle, all over the news this fall for breaking homerun records). he`s gorgeous and so naturally does alot of japanese tv commercials. unfortunately my ichiro only looks like the real ichiro from the back and i have to squint a little and imagine the rest.

family guy, works at my company, really does bear a striking resemblance, head to toe, front and back, to the main character of the cartoon. i know it sounds crazy since one is obviously white and the other japanese, but i swear everytime i see him i can hardly keep from laughing not at him but at the few episodes of family guy i remember seeing.

suzuki-san works in the same labs so i see him almost everyday. he is the most adorable, funny middle-aged man ive ever met. and he has these great hazel eyes that make him look even younger and playful. and, i wont deny it, his butt is probably better than mine. i also wont deny that my department leader reminds me of my thing for peter jennings. yes 60-something suave, charming peter. honestly a couple of times when jennings took the night off i didnt know what was going on in the world; the news just wasnt as interesting with tom whatever his name is.

*it took me a while to find the " symbol...it`s still a little weird that i have a japanese keyboard.

just to clear up

any confusion/bitterness from `shibuya party`:

i) i LOVE japan. i`d stay for a few more years if i could experience it with family and friends from back home. (housing really is ridiculous though)

ii) that alum was actually very nice, helpful even. and, except for the girlfriend situation of course, since when is trying to be liked a crime? i just made the mistake of immediately comparing him to other men ive known. and maybe i was a little disappointed because of the dearth of good black men, especially as leaders and mentors and fathers so we can have more good black men, and you cant do much mentoring when you dont even plan on returning to the country. almost as bad as the black middle class who get up, get out, and rarely look back other than to say `look i did it why cant you?`

except in this case after dealing with the long embedded racism in the u.s., japan really is like paradise. sometimes i do feel like i`m baldwin`s stranger in the village, but it`s mostly admiration and praise and genuine interest. strangers love to start conversations with me and always want to make sure im having the best experience in japan as possible (whether im in the supermarket, waiting for the train, or confused in akihabara). and theyre very impressed that i took time to learn some of the language and culture. no one`s ever associated my successes/failures with my skin color: here im western, im american (at hitachi im their wonderful MIT grad ;), and being black just makes me even more interesting, not less. so i cant blame him for not wanting to leave im just disappointed.

but anyway, if i dont head up north for snowboarding (imagine me on a snowboard!) and traditional winter festivals, ill probably end up going down to where else but kyushuu :) with him and a few other mit people next month and i`m sure we`ll have a blast.

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2 more updates:

i found some really great christmas decorations for really cheap including a 2 foot tall beautifully decorated artificial tree, wreath, and grass reindeers etc. with my holiday cards (i love them! thanks!!) im all set.

yatta! (i did it!) i finally rode that bike. it took me a while to find it amongst the 50 others because i hadnt seen it since i locked it away 2 months ago but then i remembered its funny-looking kick stand. and then more importantly i remembered how to ride it ;)

rainy day

i didnt have time to see the weather forecast this morning and decided to just peek out the window. it was really cloudy, gray, and gloomy so naturally i grabbed an umbrella and a sweatshirt. the weather forecasters in japan must have a pretty impressive record; no one else had an umbrella. i swear i must have been the only one in hitachi who thought gray clouds=good chance of showers. and as i was dragging my big umbrella around after work and still no rain i kinda wanted it to atleast drizzle a bit just so i could feel justified and not look like a confused foreigner who misunderstood the weather forecast.

fyi fullproof ways to tell the weather in japan: lots of people on the trains and buses=rainy morning, futons hanging out on the balcony of every apartment building and house=nice sunny day.

`dating` in japan and the shibuya party

call me a romantic if you want but in the back of my mind i was thinking my minibreak in tokyo tuesday had real hook-up potential; someone that would give me a reason to extend my currently very brief trips to the city; maybe even a hey-let`s-spend-christmas-in-kyushuu-together dream guy.

rewind a little: on sunday night i went out with one of my `boyfriends` from last summer. it was fun...stopping at one of the beaches just around sunset, driving thru the little towns up north (it`s really beautiful on the coast and the weather`s still nice too), dinner at this really great restaurant, and despite the occassional language difficulties a surprisingly good conversation. but i just saw it as a nice little reunion with a friend that lives not too far away, not a date. Yes he picked me up and paid for everything but to me it was just another guy friend to hang out with. maybe too many guy friends. afterwards i decided i seriously needed to expand my support network to include girls and if at all possible, foreigners.

and so i went to the mit intern/alum party thing in shibuya. there were about 40 of us at this really nice lounge spot in trendy, young, crowded, times-square-on speed, shibuya. just trying to cross the street is an adventure. getting to tokyo was another adventure that i wont go into except to say that on holidays my little train line doesnt run between 8 and 10am and i found myself walking for 35 minutes to get to the jr line and i ended up very, fashionably, late.

i knew a lot of the interns already from japanese classes and last summer, and had even made some tentative travel plans with some of them by email. one of the young black alums made a big deal about trying to impress me and just came off really weak and corny, for lack of a better word. even worse he came to the event with his girlfriend who understandably was not so thrilled by his interest in me. the crowd seemed to love him though, especially when he did a duet with another alum (she`s been pursuing a singing career in japan for the past 4 years and sings at these clubs regularly). i have to admit it was a very entertaining rendition of the jackson 5`s ill be there. i also realized why he`s been in japan 4 and a half years now and has no immediate plans of returning to the u.s.: here in japan he`s `cool`, `funny`, smart, well-off (really nice IT job w/ a really great apartment that the alums sometimes host events in), not hard on the eyes...he`s living it up in tokyo but maybe he wouldnt be such a star back home.

anyway i did catch up w/ old friends and did some networking w/ alum who were eager to help me get jobs at their companies, but then on the way home realized how much i really dont want to work in japan full-time. i need to live closer to my family, i dont want to be the newest city attraction anymore, the cost of living sucks, housing is ridiculously overpriced and undersized, i dont ever want to become a`work zombie salaryman,` and i obviously need a larger dating pool unless i can get my christmas in kyushuu guy imported.

other random thoughts/follow-ups: i promised to go bike riding along the coast saturday (wish me luck). there`s a really interesting cultural exchange club for foreigners i discovered at last weekend`s festival-plan to check it out next week. there havent been any major earthquakes in a while, and i havent been to the yamaya since itunes.

the holiday season

So while trying to survive this week`s safe-ride style bus drivers and writing pages about how badly i miss western food, ive been forced to think alot about spending the holidays in japan. the christmas decorations have come much earlier here because no one`s celebrating thanksgiving. it looks the same as christmas in america for the most part...theyre even building a huge christmas tree in front of the civic center (i was there for an international cultural festival saturday; it was dissappointing that i was the only non-asian person at the event but it was still a lot of fun...there was even live music), maybe even a north pole and santa for the kids.

but i cant help wishing i were going to boston and nyc next week with my favorite cute coworker who was all excited about practicing his english on me and asking me a zillion question about tourist sites-i didnt mind at all :) he`s going to the MRS conference next week in boston and then another conference in d.c. via ny where he plans to stop at some famous jazz clubs. i love traditions and family and all the holiday cheer and drama and food and snow. plus i`ve only missed thanksgiving once, and ive always been home for christmas. plus i absolutely love broadway shows during the holiday season, and ive seen the nutcracker in philly or boston pretty much every year for the past 8 years now. but ive been trying to convince myself that celebrating the holiday season in japan is a once in a lifetime experience and i shouldnt be searching for cheap flights home...i mean how many westerners can say that they celebrated the new year in tokyo clubs (14 hrs early too!) and prayed at shinto shrines and buddhist temples and then visited the emperor in his palace on new year`s day? and who could forget the new christmas cake tradition? but im still tempted to give up all that for my family`s traditional 7ft+ tall christmas tree shopping and candied yams and going to church with the `chreasters`. there`s no comparison; even a trip to hokkaido and beijing would be a distant second.

as much as i love family traditions though, i love traveling and new adventures just as much so im preparing for the holidays in japan. to add some western touches, im buying an artificial christmas tree for my apartment and im on the lookout for things like eggnog and candy canes. i plan on spending the new years in tokyo with the mit tokyo group to do all those traditional things mentioned above and christmas with hitachi people unless i can find a not too expensive trip to kyushuu, hokkaido or beijing/shanghai, especially if it includes a ship ride. we have a 4-day weekend for christmas and then 3 work days (personal holidays?) and then another 6 days off to bring in the new year, so i could spend chrismas on the beaches of a kyushuu island or skiing up in hokkaido and then head back to tokyo for new years eve. hmmm...except for the missed turkey dinner, maybe it wont be so bad afterall.

general life in japan

lots of stuff i forgot to mention...

-post office banking

the only atms that will accept my visa bank card...unfortunately they arent 24 hours though. almost all post offices are closed on the weekends and during the week are only open until 5:30. there are lots of regular banks in japan but some people still keep money in these government post offices.

-the ritual of shopping in japan

as soon as you step foot inside any shop of any kind atleast 1 if not all the store workers will greet you, throughout the store in fact, and when you reach the register the cashier will say welcome, good morning/afternoon/evening, you must be tired etc etc give you chopsticks, spoons, ice for your frozen goods, and then everyone will thank you, bow, and tell you to come back again etc. ive never seen such amazingly clean and orderly stores before. fruits/vegetables are usually pre-wrapped and priced so no weighing. you bag your own stuff unless it`s a small amount and so you never have to wait in line very long. even better there are lots of 100¥ shops sometimes 2 or 3 floors of pretty much anything you can think of.

-public transportation

there are no flat rates. train fare is based on how far you`re going and which lines you ride. you pay fare using a big map (most likely written in chinese characters unless youre in a very large station) showing a price for each stop based on the station youre currently located in. if you get off at a different stop that costs a different price you cant leave the station until you get a new ticket using a fare adjustment machine. the lowest fare is always 160¥ (just about 1.60 at the current exchange rate) and usually you pay this if youre only going 1 or 2 stops away. i ride this old local train line 5 stops (15 min) and then take a 10-15 min. bus ride to the research lab. if the company hadnt bought me a bus and train pass i would have to pay around $10.50 per day to get to/from work. even if i walked to the closet JR (national railway) train station i would only save $3. the bus is also based on where you get on and where you get off. you pick up a ticket when you board and there`s a display showing the prices based on the next stop and the number shown on your ticket. you pay when you get off.

cabs can only be caught at designated cab stations i.e. in front of train stations, hotels, big tourist spots. all are the same price, look exactly the same, and the base fare is a little more than $6, you get exact change back and no tipping. you never tip on anything in japan (not even at the hilton :), and displayed prices always incl ude taxes.

so traveling in japan is really expensive but everything is extremely punctual, clean, organized, and high tech (i.e. ads in tokyo trains are displayed digitally w/ video and audio). you can of course buy all kinds of discounted train and bus passes and save a lot of time and money. on a slightly different note some of the gas stations have gas inside the roof of the station and pumps hang down from the ceiling saving a lot of space.

-hitachi research lab`s fire department competition

the company has it`s own fire department and every year late 20-30somethings train for a month for this special fire station competition btw 6 squads. several men in my department were involved and so i watched some of it a few weeks ago. it reminded me of a military exercise (not that ive seen any in person) and although it was all very serious and im sure a great physical feat, i dont know if it`s because of the huge differences in cultures but it was very hard for me not to laugh. it was truly one of those once in a lifetime experiences.


-2 adult-sized santas in a hair salon front window...i saw them yesterday. the japanese practice shinto and buddhism; a very very small percentage are christian. christmas like other western-borrowed things is commercial with no religious significance at all just like it`s celebrated by most americans. speaking of holidays ive already had 2 days off here. on columbus day i commemorated the olympics in tokyo and last wednesday it was the dance of the white heron. there are lots of japanese holidays and one of the bonuses of working here is that companies have winter, spring, and summer vacations just like the students. it`s great. i also have 13 personal days i can use whenever i want. on the 23rd there`s another national holiday and the mit japan alum association is renting out a trendy lounge restaurant in shibuya, definitely going...thinking about taking off for thanksgiving it`s also my sister`s bday not that i can celebrate either but for the sake of tradition.


-my japanese fans

i discovered last week that i have hairstyle fans at work and on the train (the japanese think im very cute and trendy :). i had planned on cutting my hair at the end of the summer but i got pneumonia and then i decided going to a foreign country with a new, much harder to do hairdo was not such a great idea. and now my hair has grown a lot faster than usual and i actually keep it nice-looking most days of the week. is it possible that my hair is better behaved in japan than in philly? could be the pantene pro-v but more likely the differences in humidity. in any case, compliments sound 10 times better in a foreign language.

my brother the terrorist

my brother and his fiancee applied for passports just before their wedding and now it appears as if my brother is a victim of racial profiling.

so a lot of my family doesnt fit the typical black look whatever that means (maybe a little more racial mixing and more recently so than most black americans) and he was sporting a beard in his passport photo which didnt help matters. and so when they sent his wife her passport they sent my brother a huge packet asking for all this background information (school and health records and maiden names of mom and grandparents and their social security numbers etc) on him and his immediate family, that includes me. i guess his picture (when they showed pictures of america`s most wanted arabians after 9/11 i couldnt help noticing that a couple of them looked like they could belong to my family) combined with the fact that he attended an aviation tech school in philly a couple of years ago, created some suspicion from the government. and of course he is gathering all the requested information because if he doesnt then who knows what this military government will do. they still havent returned his passport application including his birth certificate. some family members are jokingly calling him saudi but it`s hardly a laughing matter especially since stuff like this is happening more often than you think. he already faces discrimination being a young, urban, black man in america and now this.

i understand why there are so many people fed up with the u.s. and after bush`s reelection a lot more people thinking about becoming expats. atleast for my sake the japanese still love all things american otherwise id seriously think about claiming a different country when strangers ask where im from.

tokyo weekend and misc.

spent this past weekend in tokyo...primary goal was to purchase a laptop-ibm or gateway-and second to experience za-zen buddhism and if time see what communion would be like at tokyo baptist church (meanwhile still fasting for ramadan :)...

i missed the za-zen session because i spent 3 hours in akihabara, the electric town of tokyo where everything is usually atleast 30% off and there are duty-free shops and overseas models, (just watching it all will make you dizzy, tired, and/or lost) going from store to store comparing prices and models and trying all the software out and asking a zillion questions about hardware/voltage differences in japan vs. america going to some stores 2-3 times etc etc ended up buying an apple (my first apple product ever). for a really good price too, surprisingly. couldnt get duty-free because im an alien in japan not a temporary visitor.

it`s so different the second time around. on sunday i didnt try to do a thousand tourist things like i normally would have. i let tokyo come to me. i relaxed. had a japanese breakfast, stopped by 2 temples early in the morning before the crowds arrived, did a little shopping for my apartment, people-watched in ueno and then caught an early afternoon train back home. tokyo`s amazing but i honestly missed my peaceful little city with only 2 main roads, with stars not blinding city lights and skyscrapers. falling asleep to the sound of the ocean instead of trying to block out the sounds of mototcycles, ambulances, and merchants shouting at tourists from restaurants and pubs.

it`s funny...occassionally ill be doing something very basic like grocery shopping and suddenly it would dawn on me that i`m grocery shopping in japan...i live in japan...i have 3 personal phone numbers and 2 .jp email addresses...i have train and bus passes for the year...strangers speak to me in japanese...i go to work and hear and speak only japanese...the train conductors know me. sometimes i dream partly in japanese. my support network in japan is all male. there was no day light saving time (now 14hrs ahead) and no trick or treating. there will be no thanksgiving and very little snow if any--the average temp is still 70+ on most days---i couldnt help laughing when i saw a japanese reporter in boston on election day sporting a puffy with fur. im definitely not a tourist but not quite a citizen either and ill never blend in, but yet i feel very comfortable as one of hitachi`s newest residents. it`s growing on me and now that Bush is president again im not in any rush to hurry home.

but i still miss stuff about home.

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last summer my boss would tease me about my japanese `boyfriends`. there were 2 guys in particular, from a different department, that paid a lot of attention to me and would escort me to/from work, help me shop for stuff, help me plan my weekend excursions, invite me to social functions etc etc they still email me and one of them lives in hitachi now too. i guess it is nice to have so many guy friends around my age with cars, taking me out, helping me run various errands and learn about japanese culture but i miss hanging out with americans. so far havent found any in hitachi...maybe theyre hiding out in the middle of the city somewhere that i havent explored yet because i still havent ridden that bike. in akihabara there were mostly european and african tourists; didnt go to the big foreigner spots though. there`s a decent mit group spread around japan but mostly in the kansai area (far far away from me) and a few in the tokyo area (2 hr train ride). missing cheerios and subway too.
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read 5 new books in the last 2 weeks (2 amazon shipments 2 days a part)...highly recommended: life of pi, the da vinci code, and although very short, a favorite child and adult classic, le petit prince (i read it in french back in grade school, bought the english translation this time). `on the road` was okay...there`s nothing in the beginning to grab your attention but later there were some brillantly simple passages or sometimes just a single sentence in an entire chapter that caught me off-guard and made me continue reading. also left me wondering why the rest of the book failed to follow example. i tried to justify its flaws by deciding that that was one of the author`s points: his writing style would also parallel one of the books overall themes, but the book is still mediocre in comparison to the ones mentioned above. in fact im thinking about reading life of pi again next week...currently reading a collection of a.i. essays and god and golem again.