Right, you lot are in for a bit of a treat, so long as I can find the time you'll be getting a big fat blog update and a new Video covering what's happened in the last month too, including such interesting things as work, more Takahama trips and frightful Halloween parties. I'm working on both at the moment. That's all from me for now, I always seem to have so many bloody things to do, I can never finish everything, days, weeks and months are just disappearing.
The video and blog update should land by Friday at the latest, if I'm feeling uber productive (and suffer from a sudden bout of insomnia) you might even get by tomorrow night, but don't get yer hopes up, I've got an English lesson to teach that night.
Tuesday, 30 October 2007
Tuesday, 16 October 2007
"Health is the most important thing in life, you can't buy it with money"
This saying was really put to the test this week. Without a doubt the last weekend was one of the most dramatic since we arrived. It started off normally enough, I decided to have another get together at my place, seeing as the last one was so much fun. People started arriving, music started playing, food started making it's way around and drinks were flowing- quite a cheerful, friendly atmosphere in general. One of my good friends was noticeably absent, he was out with Dr Takahama seeing a play at Nishio castle, planning to join up with us later. Around 20:30 we got a phonecall from Takahama saying that the play had finished, and he was going to get some food, while my friend went his own way to mine by bicycle. We agreed times, and food... The journey from Nishio Castle to my apartment should take about 10 minutes. After half an hour there was still no sign of my good friend or Dr Takahama. Then, quite suddenly around 21:00 I got a phonecall from Takahama, the first thing I heard was sirens.
Takahama told me my friend had been hit by a car and thrown off his bike, he also said he was with him in the ambulance, and needed the contact numbers of the family he was staying with, as my friend was not in a fit state to communicate much of anything. Quite shocked at what I was hearing, I told him I would do it as soon as possible. I immediately started going through my contacts and got him as many numbers as he could possibly need. I phoned him back and gave him the details, he thanked me then hung up. And that was the last we heard for several hours. I had the uneviable job of informing all of the partygoers at my place that my friend would not be coming... That was quite a difficult thing to do, but I was most worried about my friend.
Let's say the fallout from this incident has been huge, Let's just say I appreciate now, more than ever, the free-at-point-of-use healthcare service we are blessed to have in the UK, let's just say that I would never want to be left with the predicament of gambling my health on an insurance policy. And so this relatively small incident has caused me to think very carefully on some famous old sayings, Maybe you can't buy health with money, but out here, it certainly does help.
On top of that both my fellow gappers have health complaints, one is suffering from a terrible ache in his mouth, but it doesn't seem to be toothache, while the other is suffering repeated problems with his contact lenses, which have been semi blinding him in his left eye. On top of that has suffered broken glasses. So with all this disaster going on around me everywhere, I wonder when it'll strike me? Touch wood everyone will come through all right, and hopefully I won't end up being the next casualty. And I will always by health insurance whenever I travel for the rest of my life. That's a promise, the alternative doesn't bear thinking about.
Well although this all sound very depressing, thing are actually progressing quite well, I'm still really enjoying the challenges which each new day is throwing up, and at some point this year I might actually get to Nagoya. Hope everyone reading this is healthy and well.
Takahama told me my friend had been hit by a car and thrown off his bike, he also said he was with him in the ambulance, and needed the contact numbers of the family he was staying with, as my friend was not in a fit state to communicate much of anything. Quite shocked at what I was hearing, I told him I would do it as soon as possible. I immediately started going through my contacts and got him as many numbers as he could possibly need. I phoned him back and gave him the details, he thanked me then hung up. And that was the last we heard for several hours. I had the uneviable job of informing all of the partygoers at my place that my friend would not be coming... That was quite a difficult thing to do, but I was most worried about my friend.
Let's say the fallout from this incident has been huge, Let's just say I appreciate now, more than ever, the free-at-point-of-use healthcare service we are blessed to have in the UK, let's just say that I would never want to be left with the predicament of gambling my health on an insurance policy. And so this relatively small incident has caused me to think very carefully on some famous old sayings, Maybe you can't buy health with money, but out here, it certainly does help.
On top of that both my fellow gappers have health complaints, one is suffering from a terrible ache in his mouth, but it doesn't seem to be toothache, while the other is suffering repeated problems with his contact lenses, which have been semi blinding him in his left eye. On top of that has suffered broken glasses. So with all this disaster going on around me everywhere, I wonder when it'll strike me? Touch wood everyone will come through all right, and hopefully I won't end up being the next casualty. And I will always by health insurance whenever I travel for the rest of my life. That's a promise, the alternative doesn't bear thinking about.
Well although this all sound very depressing, thing are actually progressing quite well, I'm still really enjoying the challenges which each new day is throwing up, and at some point this year I might actually get to Nagoya. Hope everyone reading this is healthy and well.
Wednesday, 10 October 2007
Work, glorious work!
Ah work, it really is what I'll spend most of my time doing here, so I might as well enjoy it while I can. Not that I've ever hated the work here.... I've always enjoyed the stuff I do, even though some of it really is quite hard, mentally as well as physically. I didn't sign up for a picnic! This is a big thing for anyone who is thinking of going travelling like this, yes it's fun, yes it's life changing, but god is it frigging hard work, unless you happen to be super rich and you can afford to make it a year long holiday. But despite the fact I'm working the hardest I ever have (maybe even harder than A-Levels, if that's even possible) I rarely feel tired. I have no idea why that is.
In case you were wondering what we did last weekend, we went to the harvest festival with Dr Takahama, completely different to a harvest festival in the UK. In the video you can probably see the floats, they are quite impressive. But what's more impressive is that most of those floats were built in the 1860's! They've been incredibly well cared for. The festival was basically a massive street party stretching from one end of town to the other, lots of delicous food and people all dressed up, the evening ended with a fantastic firework display which really blew me away, although the video doesn't really capture the greatness of it.
Well the commitments are only going to mount up as I've decided to start giving English lessons on Wednesday evenings too. Which for some reason doesn't really scare me, I'm actually just looking forward to it. Most of the people there will be relatively good speakers already, and so I'll be able to do some fun stuff, rather than just sitting there going over the basics of a roman alphabet (to be honest, I'm not really qualified to do that). I'm thinking of picking up some things I used to use in my German classes not so long ago at College, and putting them to use here. Fun games like word tennis, crossword, and maybe I'll get to talk about fun stuff like English idioms (sayings like "It rained cats and dogs" phrases with no literal translation) There were some really funny german ones I learnt too. I hope that they enjoy it. A lot of my fellow gappers have asked me wy I'm doing, especially as I don't think I'm getting any rewards. But to be honest that's not the reason I'm doing it. The main reason I'm doing it is to meet new people and they can meet me, and we can talk for a few hours and hopefully I'll learn some more Japanese too! すごい！（Translation:"sugoi!" meaning "cool!" or "wow!") Maybe I could make some flash cards too, they were useful when learning stuff for exams.
Anyway some interesting things have happened this week, the most interesting was earlier today (thursday) I was working in the ward common area and I heard a scream of surprise from one of the nurses, I turned around and saw one of the patients a middle aged man, with his trousers down around his ankles, urinating in the middle of the floor, in the middle of the room, in front of everyone, and most amusingly in front of a new prospective resident. Unfortunately when he finished his "business" he started doing other "business" grinning at the nurses. Unsure of how to react to this extremely odd behaviour I just looked at one of the other nurses and mumbled "why?" in Japanese. After that was a flurry of tissues, and the offending patient/resisdent quickly disapeared, and I haven't seen him since. Strangely enough this didn't really bother me too much, as a lot of strange stuff happens around the Roken. Like the old lady on 3F who calls out in her sleep, quite loudly and violently, to "Okah-san" which I recently realised is the Japanese word for Mother.
Despite this, there are some absolutely lovelly residents, including Mie-san who I mentioned before. Now as well as calling out my name everytime she sees me, she also raises her hand expecting a high five, which is quite fun! Another old lady on 3F always asks me to sit next to her while she watches TV, and talks to me, much of which unfortunately I can't understand. Although she often wants to know more about where I'm from. She's funny because she seems in a very good state of health compared to the rest of them on that floor, and often seems to make jokes about the other residents, especially those with no teeth, Pulling faces and the like. They really are interesting chracters, and it feels really great to be helping out, in all aspects of my work, from delivering xrays, to feeding old people who can't feed themselves. That surprisingly is actually one of the most satisfying aspects of the work with the elderly.
Another scare I had on that floor is with Kazuo-san, an elderly man who is blind, and just says "Yes" to everything. Whatever you ask him the reply will be "HAI!" (yes) Sometimes he just goes crazy, and will call out "HAI!" every few seconds seemingly to himself. Around lunchtime, I was trying to give him his coffee, but found him to be asleep, I left him for a while but an hour later he was still hunched over in his seat completly silent and not moving. I tried shaking him to wake him, no response. I looked to the doctor for help and he told me to yell his name in his ear, as he was a bit deaf too. So I yelled "KAZUO-SAN!!" at top volume, right in his ear, quite startling the poor Mie-san, sat next to him. Still, no response. I felt his neck, it was cold, I fumbled for a pulse, and couldn't find it. Now extremely worried, I ran over to the Doctor's station gesturing towards Kazuo-san and waving my arms. The dotor ran over with a pulse monitor, and other equipment, looking really worried. He put his ear to Kazuo-san's mouth to check for breathing... and was nearly blown backwards of his feet from the loudest "HAI!" I've ever heard. Amazingly Kazuo-san had suddenly woking seemingly without any provocation, despite me shaking him quite hard, and yelling in his ear. Fortunately the doctor saw the funny side.
The only other vaguely embaressing thing happened in my first week, in the Xray room. I was a little bored as I hadn't had any patients through for a while. I noticed that the technician was getting out some ice cubes to put in the green tea (which is always served cold this time of year). Anxious to help out, I offered to break the ice cubes out of the ice cubes maker thing. I was pulling on it, and suddenly there was a very loud crack. I'd stretched the plastic too far and it had split in half firing Ice cubes all around the room at dangerous speed. The other technicians dived for cover all over the place, and a pinging noise like bullets, as the ice cubes ricoched off the various bits of (expensive looking) equipment. Afterwards there was a short, uncomfortable, pause, and then an enormous guffaw from the X-ray technician. Fortunately they all found it very funny too. And the X-ray technician's a great bloke, and does a mean Kareoke I've heard....
Among the bad things that happened this week, my phone battery went flat overnight and I was 45 mins late for work on wednesday, which is REALLY REALL REALLY bad, it's infinetly worse than it ever it could be at home. They will never forget it, and although not much was said, I knew I had broken the status quo. I was told quietly by one of staff who speaks english, that if I had been Japanese, I would definately be in the line for sacking. It's that bad to be late just once. Of course they make exceptions for foreigners. But I will make sure it never happens again because that felt so awful. Apart from that one incident relationships with my co-workers have been excellent and I've been told by a few that I am a "perfect man" meaning that I am a perfectionist. Although I don't think of myself like that. Either way I worked an extra 45 mins that evening to make up for it.
The Japanese work ethic really is a strong as reported. People think nothing of sacrificing their entire evenings for their company, A Japanese friend of mine often works from 8:30 till 20:30 and later. and she's not an executive or anything, just a graduate trainee, like what I'll be in a few years. The other interesting thing in Japan is, that the weekend doesn't really exist. Almost every job encourages it's workers to take two days off a week, but the can be any time. As a result my japanese friend will sometimes have saturday and tuesday off, or some other strange combination. A lot of people do this, it's pretty much a norm. Which is why Japanese companies seem to be able to maintain such amazing flexibility. And probably why they're succesful worldwide. It's also probably the reason that Japan has resisted de-industrialisation so well. Almost everything is still "made in Japan" On my way to work, I cycle past tea factories, welders, Motor supply factories, metal specialists, everything. They're always working when I cycle to work in the morning at 08:15 and they're always still at work when I cycle home at sixish. And they're always working at the weekend. Without fail. There's no concept of a "sabbath" day in this country unlike at home where religous tradition affects business on a sunday, the Japanese lack of christian roots means the whole idea of a "non-work day" just doesn't exist. It's kind of like what I always thought work would be like before I started working back home. It's really appalling thinking of some of the attitudes to working I've seen at home, compared to this. They didn't seem to be so bad back then, but compared to these guys... Even people doing really horrible jobs like cleaning, always seem to be cheerful. And you know what? It rubs off on you, because everyone else is working hard, you want to work harder to please them, and to not feel left out, or lazy. I will never take another British person seriously when they tell us we work the longest hours in Europe, these guys really work hard. Although I wonder if this is the reason why so many Japanese are quite shy and keep to themselves. The social scene is somewhat supressed, it's still great though. I do miss the UK's party scene and atmosphere.
In case you were wondering what we did last weekend, we went to the harvest festival with Dr Takahama, completely different to a harvest festival in the UK. In the video you can probably see the floats, they are quite impressive. But what's more impressive is that most of those floats were built in the 1860's! They've been incredibly well cared for. The festival was basically a massive street party stretching from one end of town to the other, lots of delicous food and people all dressed up, the evening ended with a fantastic firework display which really blew me away, although the video doesn't really capture the greatness of it.
Well the commitments are only going to mount up as I've decided to start giving English lessons on Wednesday evenings too. Which for some reason doesn't really scare me, I'm actually just looking forward to it. Most of the people there will be relatively good speakers already, and so I'll be able to do some fun stuff, rather than just sitting there going over the basics of a roman alphabet (to be honest, I'm not really qualified to do that). I'm thinking of picking up some things I used to use in my German classes not so long ago at College, and putting them to use here. Fun games like word tennis, crossword, and maybe I'll get to talk about fun stuff like English idioms (sayings like "It rained cats and dogs" phrases with no literal translation) There were some really funny german ones I learnt too. I hope that they enjoy it. A lot of my fellow gappers have asked me wy I'm doing, especially as I don't think I'm getting any rewards. But to be honest that's not the reason I'm doing it. The main reason I'm doing it is to meet new people and they can meet me, and we can talk for a few hours and hopefully I'll learn some more Japanese too! すごい！（Translation:"sugoi!" meaning "cool!" or "wow!") Maybe I could make some flash cards too, they were useful when learning stuff for exams.
Anyway some interesting things have happened this week, the most interesting was earlier today (thursday) I was working in the ward common area and I heard a scream of surprise from one of the nurses, I turned around and saw one of the patients a middle aged man, with his trousers down around his ankles, urinating in the middle of the floor, in the middle of the room, in front of everyone, and most amusingly in front of a new prospective resident. Unfortunately when he finished his "business" he started doing other "business" grinning at the nurses. Unsure of how to react to this extremely odd behaviour I just looked at one of the other nurses and mumbled "why?" in Japanese. After that was a flurry of tissues, and the offending patient/resisdent quickly disapeared, and I haven't seen him since. Strangely enough this didn't really bother me too much, as a lot of strange stuff happens around the Roken. Like the old lady on 3F who calls out in her sleep, quite loudly and violently, to "Okah-san" which I recently realised is the Japanese word for Mother.
Despite this, there are some absolutely lovelly residents, including Mie-san who I mentioned before. Now as well as calling out my name everytime she sees me, she also raises her hand expecting a high five, which is quite fun! Another old lady on 3F always asks me to sit next to her while she watches TV, and talks to me, much of which unfortunately I can't understand. Although she often wants to know more about where I'm from. She's funny because she seems in a very good state of health compared to the rest of them on that floor, and often seems to make jokes about the other residents, especially those with no teeth, Pulling faces and the like. They really are interesting chracters, and it feels really great to be helping out, in all aspects of my work, from delivering xrays, to feeding old people who can't feed themselves. That surprisingly is actually one of the most satisfying aspects of the work with the elderly.
Another scare I had on that floor is with Kazuo-san, an elderly man who is blind, and just says "Yes" to everything. Whatever you ask him the reply will be "HAI!" (yes) Sometimes he just goes crazy, and will call out "HAI!" every few seconds seemingly to himself. Around lunchtime, I was trying to give him his coffee, but found him to be asleep, I left him for a while but an hour later he was still hunched over in his seat completly silent and not moving. I tried shaking him to wake him, no response. I looked to the doctor for help and he told me to yell his name in his ear, as he was a bit deaf too. So I yelled "KAZUO-SAN!!" at top volume, right in his ear, quite startling the poor Mie-san, sat next to him. Still, no response. I felt his neck, it was cold, I fumbled for a pulse, and couldn't find it. Now extremely worried, I ran over to the Doctor's station gesturing towards Kazuo-san and waving my arms. The dotor ran over with a pulse monitor, and other equipment, looking really worried. He put his ear to Kazuo-san's mouth to check for breathing... and was nearly blown backwards of his feet from the loudest "HAI!" I've ever heard. Amazingly Kazuo-san had suddenly woking seemingly without any provocation, despite me shaking him quite hard, and yelling in his ear. Fortunately the doctor saw the funny side.
The only other vaguely embaressing thing happened in my first week, in the Xray room. I was a little bored as I hadn't had any patients through for a while. I noticed that the technician was getting out some ice cubes to put in the green tea (which is always served cold this time of year). Anxious to help out, I offered to break the ice cubes out of the ice cubes maker thing. I was pulling on it, and suddenly there was a very loud crack. I'd stretched the plastic too far and it had split in half firing Ice cubes all around the room at dangerous speed. The other technicians dived for cover all over the place, and a pinging noise like bullets, as the ice cubes ricoched off the various bits of (expensive looking) equipment. Afterwards there was a short, uncomfortable, pause, and then an enormous guffaw from the X-ray technician. Fortunately they all found it very funny too. And the X-ray technician's a great bloke, and does a mean Kareoke I've heard....
Among the bad things that happened this week, my phone battery went flat overnight and I was 45 mins late for work on wednesday, which is REALLY REALL REALLY bad, it's infinetly worse than it ever it could be at home. They will never forget it, and although not much was said, I knew I had broken the status quo. I was told quietly by one of staff who speaks english, that if I had been Japanese, I would definately be in the line for sacking. It's that bad to be late just once. Of course they make exceptions for foreigners. But I will make sure it never happens again because that felt so awful. Apart from that one incident relationships with my co-workers have been excellent and I've been told by a few that I am a "perfect man" meaning that I am a perfectionist. Although I don't think of myself like that. Either way I worked an extra 45 mins that evening to make up for it.
The Japanese work ethic really is a strong as reported. People think nothing of sacrificing their entire evenings for their company, A Japanese friend of mine often works from 8:30 till 20:30 and later. and she's not an executive or anything, just a graduate trainee, like what I'll be in a few years. The other interesting thing in Japan is, that the weekend doesn't really exist. Almost every job encourages it's workers to take two days off a week, but the can be any time. As a result my japanese friend will sometimes have saturday and tuesday off, or some other strange combination. A lot of people do this, it's pretty much a norm. Which is why Japanese companies seem to be able to maintain such amazing flexibility. And probably why they're succesful worldwide. It's also probably the reason that Japan has resisted de-industrialisation so well. Almost everything is still "made in Japan" On my way to work, I cycle past tea factories, welders, Motor supply factories, metal specialists, everything. They're always working when I cycle to work in the morning at 08:15 and they're always still at work when I cycle home at sixish. And they're always working at the weekend. Without fail. There's no concept of a "sabbath" day in this country unlike at home where religous tradition affects business on a sunday, the Japanese lack of christian roots means the whole idea of a "non-work day" just doesn't exist. It's kind of like what I always thought work would be like before I started working back home. It's really appalling thinking of some of the attitudes to working I've seen at home, compared to this. They didn't seem to be so bad back then, but compared to these guys... Even people doing really horrible jobs like cleaning, always seem to be cheerful. And you know what? It rubs off on you, because everyone else is working hard, you want to work harder to please them, and to not feel left out, or lazy. I will never take another British person seriously when they tell us we work the longest hours in Europe, these guys really work hard. Although I wonder if this is the reason why so many Japanese are quite shy and keep to themselves. The social scene is somewhat supressed, it's still great though. I do miss the UK's party scene and atmosphere.
This place is also the ultimate 24hour society. Almost everything is open all the time. Convienience shops never close, retailers never close, Roken never closes, net cafe's never close. But the trains stop at 23:30?!?! What the hell?! The buses in South Wonston ran later than that, and here I'm in the middle of a metropolitan district. Well at least they're always on time!
All the best
Monday, 8 October 2007
Video compilation is up (finally!)
It's taken me two weeks to get around to doing it but I finally finished the video compilation I was working on, suitably titled: "My first month in Japan". It's viewable on my youtube channel, which of course is http://www.youtube.com/dryan5
I'll probably make a blog update later on describing what's happened the last few days
I'll probably make a blog update later on describing what's happened the last few days
Monday, 1 October 2007
Dr Takahama, and hippies
Hi everyone, sorry about the lack of updates.... busy week of work, and then one of "those" weekends, A lot to talk about.... and really hard to believe I've been here a month now....
Most significantly I feel really settled now, I don't feel odd cycling the streets anymore I still don't feel like a local, but I no longer really feel like a tourist, which is big step. I'm certainly getting the hang of many Japanisms. One of the things that really threw me here this week, was hand gestures. Sounds simple enough, but in reality all the hand signals have different meanings and they are all really heavily used, unlike at home, where the only really common gesture I can think of is flipping the bird. There's the peace sign which is REALLY popular here, just like in the stereotype, it's often used in photos or amongst close friends. It doesn't seem have any negative stigma at all, where at home it's a bit naff really. Then there's the "right" or "ok" sign (make a circle with your thumb and finger) which means "I understand" or "agree". There's the "wrong" sign (take two fingers from each hand and cross them) meaning "no" or "I don't understand" There's "follow me" (put your finger on your nose while talking) which I didn't get at first, and preceded to wander off, when people wanted me to follow them!!!! Then finally there "thank you" or "I'm sorry" (take your right hand with your thumb facing towards your face and bring your hand up to your head and kind of shake your hand) I'll make you a video so you can see what I mean... I'll put it on the youtube channel, as always. Along with that video compilation I've been promising to make myself for ages.
Well anyway last week, the inevitable happened. We were invited out by Dr.Takahama.
We were understandably quite anxious about this. The previous gappers left a book full of thoughts, and musings on life here in Nishio. One of the largest sections was talking about this Dr. Takahama, and to avoid him like the black plague, but didn't really elaborate why... From talking to people the general impression we got, was that he is quite a senior doctor at the hospital and has a real thing for foreigners, and that he's a bit eccentric.
He offered to take us out for a river boat cruise one evening, and a meal, all expenses paid. We accepted of course, out of politeness and curiosity. When we first met him he seemed to be a really nice bloke, everything seemed very normal. We got to the river got onto the boat, it was dark, and there was quite an atmosphere (I've included pictures and videos) a really beautiful traditional Japanese river boat, never really had a meal quite like it! Especially as the boat sailed up and down the river too. Although you can't really tell in the video.
Well anyway things with Takahama seemed pretty normal up to the point when he, completely out of the blue very randomly told us that he could teach us "The Japanese word for tits". Naturally we were all a bit taken aback by this random outburst and there was a few seconds uncomfortable silence until Taba (a good guy our age we met from Hawaii) rescued the conversation by stating "Yeah, in hawaiien its the same word as pregnancy" (whether this is true or not, or he just came up with it to stop the awkward silence I'm not sure) The rest of the evening was great and Takahama had some really interesting stories to tell, and was really excited about his recent trip to china. But every now and again, he'd come up with something really weird, like "hahahaha look at the name of that shop! It's Hard Off, that's really close word to Hard On, hahahaha" But he was an incredible generous man and very kind to take us out for what must have been a very expensive evening. (and he's offered to do it again two weekends from now). His heart's in the right place, but a little bit of an oddball, and I mean that in the nicest way!
Apart from that exciting trip with Dr Takahama I've discovered that the hippy culture that I observed at Doujin Bar a few weeks ago, goes a lot further than that. It's like a whole hidden world beneath "mainstream" Japanese society. The people I've met (and I'm not going into too much detail, as I would imagine some of them probably wouldn't want to be named) are really incredible, intriguing people. One person we've visited a few times, lives in an old coffee shop. The shop closed years ago, but you go inside his "house" and the first thing you see is an enormous rusty old icecream machine and cash register, mixed in with semi modern fridge, which acts as the kitchen, behind the old shop counter. Bits of old machinery and other equipment are scattered everywhere. A really amazing place. I wouldn't mind staying a few nights, but I probably wouldn't want to live there. There's so much more to this than there first appears.
At work I spent my first week on Roken 3F. The high security area for dementia patients. Even though at first the situation was a bit intimidating, and at times horrifying. (old ladies screaming in their sleep, a man who just says "Yes" to himself all day, old ladies screaming in terror because they don't understand that the staff members are trying to give them medicine, A woman who's face bone structure has collapsed, and just spits food in your face when you try and feed her etc) quite quickly I started looking past that, and seeing them for all their own little personalities and habits, and most importantly as human beings. It's still hard to really appreciate who these people really are with my limited Japanese, and I really want to know more about them. One of my favourites is a 98 year old women named Ai-san. She looks incredidbly spritely for a women of her age, and my favourite thing about her, is that whenever she sees me, she incredibly cheerfully calls out to everyone in a sing song voice, at quite a volume "DAVIDO-SAN DESU! DAVIDO-SAN DESU!!!!!" (It's Mr David, It's Mr David!!!!) This made all the staff laugh quite hard, and I found it quite touching, and enthusiatically returned the greeting, which she seemed to love. Unfortunately as she has senile dementia this little activity repeats itself about every 10 minutes, for the whole day. But the good thing is, if you don't return the greeting once or twice, she won't remember. The weird thing is, she never forgets who I am, she just seems to forget she's seen me.
There are so many things I could mention, but I should leave it there, as it's getting late and I have another exciting day in the X-ray room tomorrow.
PS I'm not being sarcastic either, I love working in there!!
Most significantly I feel really settled now, I don't feel odd cycling the streets anymore I still don't feel like a local, but I no longer really feel like a tourist, which is big step. I'm certainly getting the hang of many Japanisms. One of the things that really threw me here this week, was hand gestures. Sounds simple enough, but in reality all the hand signals have different meanings and they are all really heavily used, unlike at home, where the only really common gesture I can think of is flipping the bird. There's the peace sign which is REALLY popular here, just like in the stereotype, it's often used in photos or amongst close friends. It doesn't seem have any negative stigma at all, where at home it's a bit naff really. Then there's the "right" or "ok" sign (make a circle with your thumb and finger) which means "I understand" or "agree". There's the "wrong" sign (take two fingers from each hand and cross them) meaning "no" or "I don't understand" There's "follow me" (put your finger on your nose while talking) which I didn't get at first, and preceded to wander off, when people wanted me to follow them!!!! Then finally there "thank you" or "I'm sorry" (take your right hand with your thumb facing towards your face and bring your hand up to your head and kind of shake your hand) I'll make you a video so you can see what I mean... I'll put it on the youtube channel, as always. Along with that video compilation I've been promising to make myself for ages.
Well anyway last week, the inevitable happened. We were invited out by Dr.Takahama.
We were understandably quite anxious about this. The previous gappers left a book full of thoughts, and musings on life here in Nishio. One of the largest sections was talking about this Dr. Takahama, and to avoid him like the black plague, but didn't really elaborate why... From talking to people the general impression we got, was that he is quite a senior doctor at the hospital and has a real thing for foreigners, and that he's a bit eccentric.
He offered to take us out for a river boat cruise one evening, and a meal, all expenses paid. We accepted of course, out of politeness and curiosity. When we first met him he seemed to be a really nice bloke, everything seemed very normal. We got to the river got onto the boat, it was dark, and there was quite an atmosphere (I've included pictures and videos) a really beautiful traditional Japanese river boat, never really had a meal quite like it! Especially as the boat sailed up and down the river too. Although you can't really tell in the video.
Well anyway things with Takahama seemed pretty normal up to the point when he, completely out of the blue very randomly told us that he could teach us "The Japanese word for tits". Naturally we were all a bit taken aback by this random outburst and there was a few seconds uncomfortable silence until Taba (a good guy our age we met from Hawaii) rescued the conversation by stating "Yeah, in hawaiien its the same word as pregnancy" (whether this is true or not, or he just came up with it to stop the awkward silence I'm not sure) The rest of the evening was great and Takahama had some really interesting stories to tell, and was really excited about his recent trip to china. But every now and again, he'd come up with something really weird, like "hahahaha look at the name of that shop! It's Hard Off, that's really close word to Hard On, hahahaha" But he was an incredible generous man and very kind to take us out for what must have been a very expensive evening. (and he's offered to do it again two weekends from now). His heart's in the right place, but a little bit of an oddball, and I mean that in the nicest way!
Apart from that exciting trip with Dr Takahama I've discovered that the hippy culture that I observed at Doujin Bar a few weeks ago, goes a lot further than that. It's like a whole hidden world beneath "mainstream" Japanese society. The people I've met (and I'm not going into too much detail, as I would imagine some of them probably wouldn't want to be named) are really incredible, intriguing people. One person we've visited a few times, lives in an old coffee shop. The shop closed years ago, but you go inside his "house" and the first thing you see is an enormous rusty old icecream machine and cash register, mixed in with semi modern fridge, which acts as the kitchen, behind the old shop counter. Bits of old machinery and other equipment are scattered everywhere. A really amazing place. I wouldn't mind staying a few nights, but I probably wouldn't want to live there. There's so much more to this than there first appears.
At work I spent my first week on Roken 3F. The high security area for dementia patients. Even though at first the situation was a bit intimidating, and at times horrifying. (old ladies screaming in their sleep, a man who just says "Yes" to himself all day, old ladies screaming in terror because they don't understand that the staff members are trying to give them medicine, A woman who's face bone structure has collapsed, and just spits food in your face when you try and feed her etc) quite quickly I started looking past that, and seeing them for all their own little personalities and habits, and most importantly as human beings. It's still hard to really appreciate who these people really are with my limited Japanese, and I really want to know more about them. One of my favourites is a 98 year old women named Ai-san. She looks incredidbly spritely for a women of her age, and my favourite thing about her, is that whenever she sees me, she incredibly cheerfully calls out to everyone in a sing song voice, at quite a volume "DAVIDO-SAN DESU! DAVIDO-SAN DESU!!!!!" (It's Mr David, It's Mr David!!!!) This made all the staff laugh quite hard, and I found it quite touching, and enthusiatically returned the greeting, which she seemed to love. Unfortunately as she has senile dementia this little activity repeats itself about every 10 minutes, for the whole day. But the good thing is, if you don't return the greeting once or twice, she won't remember. The weird thing is, she never forgets who I am, she just seems to forget she's seen me.
There are so many things I could mention, but I should leave it there, as it's getting late and I have another exciting day in the X-ray room tomorrow.
PS I'm not being sarcastic either, I love working in there!!
Pictures from the last few days
Nishio Castle at night
Oddly named drinks
View from the 5th floor of Roken-Shisetsu (Hospital)
Another view from the 5th floor
The riverboat cruise ship-thing
Dinner on the boat, mmmm
The whole party (we don't know these people)
Views from the boat
More views from the boat
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