Taboo!

~In my ongoing quest to bring American culture and language to the locals, I continually find myself playing "Taboo". No, not the card game (although I have played that in some of my classes); I'm talking about cultural taboos that shock the locals. I've actually been fortunate enough to avoid anything major thus far, but it does happen every so often.

After a long week filled with screaming, sick children coughing in my face, apathetic middle-schoolers, and parental inquiries, I found myself with a small assignment: to write the names of my students who were absent this week. Dutifully, I opened my attendance book, grabbed a piece of paper and the nearest pen, and began to write. I was about halfway though the list when a horrified coworker stopped me.

Why? I made the mistake of writing the names in red ink, which is a big no-no. Like many East Asian cultures, red ink is used only for the names of dead people (and for monetary deficits, of course). Writing the name of a living person in red is essentially cursing them to death. Happy Halloween, students!

<-- Curiously, this taboo only affects writing. It does not affect the ink stamps called "hanko" that are carried by everyone as a quick way of signing official documents. Everyone uses red ink pads for those, such as the one in my hanko case on the left.


^ Above is a closeup of my hanko. The top-to-bottom katakana reads ダ ス ト (da-su-to) , which is close enough to my surname for government work.

^ The idea of killing someone by writing their name is found in a wildly popular Japanese series called "Death Note", first written as a weekly comic, then as live-action television, and then an animated series. One of my older students was raving about it, so I watched the subtitled first episode.

The story follows a high-school student who finds a magical notebook called the "Death Note" that was dropped by the Grim Reaper ("note" means notebook in Japanese, so the title translates as "Death Notebook"). If a person's name is written in the notebook while their face is visualized, the person dies.

The student uses his new power to make what he believes is a better world by killing off criminals. But remember, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Drama aside, I think the best part is the invisible Grim Reaper that follows the student around, eating all the food and asking irritating moral questions.

^ Speaking of red, Murasaki Momoko is still doing well. It's getting cold here in Nagaoka, so I'll have to move her inside soon. ~Oyasumi!

I'm Sorry Dave, I'm Afraid I Can't Do That

~Reality has once again caught up with science-fiction: those ever-crazy Japanese have created a bionic power suit! Developed by scientists at Tsukuba University, the suit is called "HAL-5", which stands for "Hybrid Assistive Limb". It works by detecting muscle movements from hundreds of sensors, and translating them into robotic movements that greatly increase the strength of the user.

HAL-5 was built to assist disabled people and help workers carry heavy loads. Of course, the applications extend outward from there. It won't be long, I think, before we have commandos running around in Power Armor suits, or "Bionic Sports" where players are decked out with the latest robot exoskeletons to perform superhuman feats of strength (The Super Super Bowl?).

The power suit was used by Seiji Uchida, a Japanese man paralyzed in a car accident in 1983, to help him climb a mountain in Switzerland. Just think of how many people's lives could be aided by this kind of device. Naturally, as generations of humans get used to bionic enhancement, our own muscles will atrophy away until we're giant brains, but who cares? We'll be giant brains with power suits!

^ Picking up a full-grown adult is no problem for someone armed with HAL-5. Of course, the above picture is not that far from something like this:

^ Your obligatory Aliens reference. We now return to your regularly scheduled blog.

The true genius of HAL-5 is that, like the Power Loader above, it does not require any special knowledge to use. You just put it on, and it senses and amplifies your own movements. The user does not need to manipulate any controls except their own body. You know you want a bionic strength-enhancing exoskeleton! There's a little something to put on your Christmas list...

~Oyasumi.

Serve the Hive

~Among the many textbooks I use at work is a storybook for young children called "Anna's Rocket". The story involves a girl named Anna (oddly enough), who draws a picture of a rocket which somehow becomes real and takes her on all sorts of scientifically-improbable adventures. The idea is that students are supposed to listen to the accompanying CD, memorize a single page, and write down the page in class.

Today, while one of my students was writing the passage, I actually took the time to read the text...and couldn't stop laughing:

^ Why, you might be asking yourself, did David find this so funny? If you're in my age group, the answer is obvious, but for everyone else, let me make it plain for you:

^ Serve the Hive, Feel the Groove! That's right, it's the Zerg, one of the three playable races is the hit strategy game StarCraft. Now, when do we get StarCraft 2?

Just because I'm feeling evil today, here's an extremely disturbing image that I stumbled across in the dark, festering pits of the Internet:

^ I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure...that RONALD DIES!

~Oyasumi!

Sports Festival

~In an ongoing effort to expand my cultural horizons, I participated in a sports festival today organized by the Nagaoka International Center. The festival included traditional Japanese sports and activities, and was conveniently placed at an elementary school only a few minutes from my apartment.

^ Upon arrival, I was issued with my nametag (participants had to sign up for the festival in advance). Astute readers may notice a slight "error" in the name, but I assure you it was intentional.

^ I was then issued a yellow vest and headband (yes, that's yours truly in the picture above). There were about a hundred participants, divided into "Team Aoi" (Blue team) and "Team Kiiro" (Yellow Team). At first, I thought we were being segregated again, but such was not the case, as both foreigners and Japanese were on both teams.

The teams were further subdivided by jersey color: yellow, red, orange, and pink (for children). So, I was on the yellow team, in the yellow group. Easy to remember.

^ There were people from many different countries at the festival. Aside from the usual gaggle of Brazilians, I met Germans, Chinese, Indians, and even one guy from Venezuela.

I was surprised that the festival included more than just sports. When I arrived, I was also given a small booklet on earthquake preparedness, which was laboriously explained by one of the staff members while everyone listened. The events included a lot more talking and speeches than an American sporting event; everyone standing and listening seemed to be as important as actually starting the games. I must admit that it was a bit tedious.

The activities we did were not "sports" per se (no Sumo wrestling or Judo, to my vague disappointment!), but rather were activities Japanese students play at school sport days. Here's a video of the first event:


^ There was a Japanese name for this activity, but I didn't quite catch it! It consisted of two teams throwing small beanbags into baskets high off the ground for about 20 seconds (the blue team had their own basket to the right). When time was up, the number of bags was counted one-by-one...which took far longer than the game itself!

Some important words for Japanese sports are "ganbatte!" (good luck!) and "hiyaku!" (hurry up!). As you may hear in the videos, the crowd yelled these words incessantly when the activities were going on.


^ Next was an unusual relay race. It involved placing a ping-pong ball in a soup ladle and running to the next person on your team...without losing the ball! Hilarity ensued as the balls flew all over the place, prompting mad scrambles by desperate teammates! It was a lot of fun.


^ The next activity was one of the most bizarre: runners had to grab a dangling cookie with their teeth, then run to the end of the line with the cookie in their mouth. Afterwards, said cookie was promptly devoured. Here's an action shot that's probably the best picture I took today:

^ Looks fun, doesn't it? But this was no laughing matter--those Japanese are hard-core about these games! In particular, the child participants were shocking in their intensity to grab the cookie with their teeth. On the other hand, maybe they were just hungry.

The next event was a classic tug of war:

^ The funny part about this event was that team captains fussed so much about where people should stand along the rope line to optimize our leverage. But when the first tug-of-war began, the event coordinator unwisely fired the cap gun to start the game while standing on the rope. As the Blue and Yellow teams grabbed the rope, the coordinator was flung into the air and on his back. Fortunately no damage was done and we all got a good laugh out of it.

The final sport took some big balls to play:


^ To summarize, two people grab the giant, air-filled ball and throw it to their teammates, who roll/push it down the line to the end. The people at the end take the ball and run back to the front, placing it back on its stand. The first team to get the ball back on the stand wins!

Once the physical sports were finished, everyone walked over to a nearby building for the final event:

^ An all-out, no-holds-bared pachinco deathmatch!

Ok, so I made that last one up.

^In the end, my yellow team emerged victorious! To be honest, I didn't even know they were keeping score. The end of the sporting events involved excessively long speeches by each member of the staff while the participants squatted in the sun. It was like watching the Academy Awards, without the jokes.

After the sports festival, everyone left the school for a nearby park, where the staff had set up a barbecue for our enjoyment. Aside from hot dogs, there were some Japanese foods, such as this:

^ Yaki-soba, which are fried noodles with meat. It was oiishi (delicious!). As you can see, it went fast.

~So ends another Cultural Event(tm) in the chronicles of David Does Japan! Remember, the Japanglish contest is still open. Oyasumi!