Not About an Earthquake

There are moments when life throws you a bone, and gives you something you can write about easily without much thought or foreplanning.  But there is no better way to confirm your willpower, or your existence, than to throw that bone defiantly back in life’s face.  I will not be a lemming.  There is no way I will write about the earthquake that happened on Saturday morning.  I refuse to tell you that is was a 7-something earthquake down in Miyagi-ken and shook all the way up beyond my house.

I certainly won’t tell you that I had just gotten up, was lying on my couch and, for the first few seconds, thought it was just a large truck driving down the street.  You’ll never know how many seconds it took me to realize that there’s no way a truck could be that long and to head for the nearest support beams in my house to hide under.  You’ll totally be in the dark about how I had a revelation about how old that house is, panicked and headed for the huge driveway outside my house, where my car was dancing back and forth, entirely on its own.  Power lines, too.  There’s no way on earth you’ll hear about how the ground felt like it was going to open up and swallow me whole or perhaps a giant earth-burrowing worm monster was going to take me for breakfast.

No.  I’m not that cheap, and I certainly don’t need to look that hard for something to blog about.  Maybe someday, when I really reak of desperation– then I’ll tell you all you need to know about the Miyagi-Iwate earthquake of 2008.

一発芸人 – The Pinnacle of Japanese Comedic Achievement

Japanese are a funny people.  It’s funny when someone who smokes four packs a day valiantly defends natto by claiming it’s “healthy.”  It’s funny how the shyest most stoic person in the office can suddenly turn into a jovial English-spouting volcano after two tea cups worth of Asahi.  It’s even kind of funny getting the Clinton/Obama question ten times a day (or from now on it will be the Obama/McCain question) from folks who never discuss politics with each other, even when the street is clamoring with obnoxious vans spewing Japanese politician names from loudspeakers to the point where they drown out the cicadas.

But more funny than the Japanese is the stuff the Japanese find funny.  A foreign visitor couldn’t be blamed if, on their first visit to Japan they only saw Japanese comedy and, judging by that, claimed the Japanese were underevolved.  Japanese comedy is heavily balanced in favor of puns, strange body movements, and people slapping each other in the face.  Every comedian, it seems, is limited to one trick in their arsenal of laughs.  Hence the name 一発芸人, a one-shot talent.

Scarily enough, these one-trick ponies are also demons in disguise.  A select few of them even have enough evil power to possess the bodies of Japanese students.  It’s scary– and the Japanese comedians that tend to possess students tend to be the most evil.  Look at some of the big names over the last three years and it’s horrifying:

Razor Ramon Hard Gay (a.k.a. HG)

Came into fashion shortly after I arrived.  As the name suggests, HG was a guy who showed up on TV in tight black leather and acted gay.  Or at least gay in the Japanese comedic mindset, which requires shooting your arms into the air and yelling “Foooo” really loud.  If that doesn’t paint a clear picture, just picture a bunch of teenagers trying to replicate this ad nauseam.  At the height of popularity, HG appropriately had a cover of the single YMCA by the Village People.  Honestly.  HG’s star eventually fell, and gave way to Taka and Toshi.

Taka and Toshi

Their gag, as would be expected, was a string of word plays combined with the skinny one smacking the fat one on top of his head.  Their signature line, 欧米か。 (Are you a Westerner?) was a calling cry to all Japanese kids to hit any foreigner they meet on the head.  A marvelous way to communicate the subtlety of Japanese culture, don’t you think?

… and then came the Anti-Christ.

Kojima Yoshio

A near-naked man shouting crazy absurdities while punching the floor.  For some reason his crazy-man act took flame faster than a misbalanced kanto lantern.  Within a month, every sentient being aged 3-18 was mimicing this crazy lunatic and his disturbing body motions and facial expressions.  Thank heaven they had the self-decency to keep their pants on.

Fujisaki Market

No star rose faster, or fell faster than these two.  Their gag was simple enough– to dance around in exercise uniforms and engage in short sketches that ended with lots of shouting of “Rai-rai-rai-rai… etc.”  The end of each sketch called for more dancing.  Their short is testament to the fact that, even if you’re only funny for five seconds, you too can achieve your full fifteen minutes of fame on Japanese TV.

Edo Harumi

This is the only person I’ve ever seen who made English gerunds the focal point of her comedy.  A gerund, for the unaware, is the ‘-ing’ form of a verb.  Every punchline of hers centers around some katakana cognate of an English gerund, and ending the final syllable with “guuuuuuuuuuuuu!” (read: the Katakana mutiliation of the word “good.”)  At least, it can be argued, Edo Harumi contributed something to the English education of the Japanese people– even if only showing the evils that spawn from katakana can produce.

Oh, and she wasn’t hitting anyone on the head or pretending to be gay.  +10 points for that.

And, the current flavor of the month is….

Sekai no Nabeyatsu

Whose only negative point is that he’s not funny.  Not that that matters.  His gag is to count numbers, and act like an idiot whenever he hits a multiple of three.  And… um… okay, that’s it.  That’s all he does.  Sadly, he doesn’t even have a picture on google images yet.  But, give it a week.  Maybe by then he’ll have his own CD.

Perhaps The Count from Sesame Street can do backing.

The End Game

 

2 Months and 5 days….

and that will be the end of this chapter of my life.  The light at the end of this long tunnel is clearly visible now, and it’s only going to grow in brightness, a blinding distraction to the now and the present.  It’s hard to believe that, when I first came here I swore myself to two years, one year if the winter was horrible.  After surviving the worst winter to hit Tohoku in 80 years, I’m still here.  I can’t help but wonder why.  Why didn’t I pack up and leave after that horrible winter?  Why didn’t I pack up when my self-pronounced deadline came around?

The truth is I don’t have to think about it long, though.  Futatsui has a home quality to it.  Something comfortably familiar amongst the foreign, something irreplacably friendly.  Futatsui is a place I know I will miss, but I know it is a place I can’t stay.  I can’t stay because there’s really nothing left to take from this experience.  It’s waiting for another person.  But it is an experience I will always carry with me, that few people will understand.  And by few, I mean exactly six.  But even the six foreign people who have lived in this town will inevitably see it differently.  It’s very telling, though, that out of the six other ALTs of Futatsui, I have met four of them in person, and know plenty about the other two.  Futatsui brought these folks back– back to the middle of nowhere in redneck Japan, back just to say hello and see familiar folks.

I met Walker, of course, shortly after arriving in town.  As my predecessor he was on his way out.

I met Geoff and Matt in Masahiro’s bar– at different times, mind you.  Matt had a wife and kid with him.  Geoff was a law student, who had lived in Futatsui, and had roots in Ohio.

And finally I met Simon, not one hour after returning from Mongolia, when he rang my doorbell.  It was a shame I was so tired, as I would liked to have been more sociable.

That’s the charm of Futatsui and, while no one else may understand it, it’s that experience that I’m bringing home, and I already know it.  I’m standing at the finish line and just waiting for the race to be over.

So, now what?

What’s left when you’ve already experienced everything you can?  Sadly, there’s still plenty.

This Sunday I have a taiko performance– performing an 8-minute long forearm throbber of a piece with the Futatsui taiko folk.

Sometime in the next two months I have a final table tennis tournament.

And then there’s gaijin sumo– last year my beautiful figure adorned the Yomiuri Shinbun Newspaper.  This year I can shoot for no less than Yokozuna.

And then there’s a swarm of good-bye parties, good-bye ceremonies, and closure.

And the tunnel will disappear and I’ll be in the sky on my way home, ready to enter a three-year long tunnel marked ‘Law School.’

2 months and 5 days.

Yes, the end game has begun.