Gakushuuhapyokai

I had the opportunity to attend Shikaoi Elementary School's school festival on Sunday. It is a mystery why I am so tired after just sitting there all day. Most grades did two songs and a short play. The grade one's play, a cautionary tale about wasting food, was very funny. The grade two's play, Peter Pan, was acted with extra genki vigor. The grade six play, shown below, was really good and epic in length. It included three intertwined2 stories all created by the students themselves. The play was helped by having a special drama teacher assigned to the class and the students did all the little things right. It was very polished. I think most of the plays had references to the traditional forms of Japanese theater in how they were presented. They are not as naturally performed as similar plays in Canada. I am very happy that the November Sumo Basho has began.

Icky School Lunch

Today's school lunch was alright, except for the rice. Tiny little fish with eyes and also umeboshi (sour plum) made it in. Normally I find school lunch portions - I eat the same amount of as my kids - perfect. But it's the rice that fills me up. I much prefer just plain white rice. Thus, with much harassment from my students, I set aside my rice today and became very hungry afterwards. I had to sneak back to the office later and find a snack. I also found at 7-11 a new freshly released tea product. Normally I stick with either two brands of green tea or oolong and between the three they can be found anywhere across Japan. For fall a special Mugicha product was released and I took the chance and tried it and it was pretty good. The store didn't have any today, they are probably onto the next round of new tea products, and I noticed the tea proclaiming "body health" to me. It was in Japanese and that is all I could read but I was intrigued. It must be good for you because it tastes pretty bad. But I think I will stick with it until the end of the bottle and count it as a vegtable for the day.

Salad for Lunch

I have some other pressing priorities today that are less interesting but I really feel like relaying to the whole world about how good the spinach salad I bought at 7-11 was for lunch. My schedule was changed at the last minute - or maybe is was changed before and no one told me - but it meant I would have to fend for myself. Like any good bachelor, there is scarcely any food in my house, and very untypically of any bachelor, I have lots of peanut butter. In Japan 7-11 is a savior for everyone, except previously me. There is only one 7-11 in Shikaoi. I stay away from instant ramen because I would much rather pay 800 yen and eat the real stuff. But there are many different foods offered at 7-11. I always hear people raving about it but I rarely have the opportunity to try. But now I am a believer. It will be an excellent place to take visitors out to when they come to Shikaoi. The food, the cash/fax/photo machine/photo copier by the front door, the robot behind the counter, etc.

A thing to say

I just wanted to say that I really love writing. I just rewrote a page of babbling, meandering text into one sentence. When you can do this it's a beautiful thing. I just really love the challenge of writing.

Tornados in Japan

Searching for subject matter it seems nature has provided me today's content. Connected to my post yesterday about the storm, north of Shikaoi a rare tornado touched down killing 9, injuring 21 and leaving several still missing. This makes it the worst tornado disaster in Japanese history. A lot of it was bad luck, all conditions were perfect to ensure maximal damage but there is no country I would rather be in for a mass disaster than Japan. There is a very high level of emergency preparedness because of the always present threat of the next big earthquake. The emergency reaction was swift and massive.

I had no idea that a tornado hit until later that afternoon and seeing the damage on TV made me wonder about the differences of tornados in Japan. Houses flattened, cars flipped over, cars twisted into scrap, a big mess. The biggest factor that contributes to complete carnage is that even rural areas - when compared to Alberta - have amazingly high population density. Many farms and small towns blanket the country side. The chances of a tornado hitting a populated center is very high. In a tragic turn, 6 of the deaths have been contributed to the same construction site where a meeting was being held in the second-story of a prefabricated building when the tornado hit and the structure collapsed.

The storms that create these conditions are not the same as Alberta. It had been raining since Monday and it is very late in the year for large swings in temperature to create instability. This storm system, also part of the one that came over Shikaoi, was caused by the moving of a low pressure system and occurred right along its front section. Tornados are so rare here because the natural geography (rugged mountainous terrain) is not condusive to high wind-speeds at ground level (the same goes for metropolitan areas). Still, this place lies nearer the coast which is flatter in some respects.

The results of the storm in Shikaoi were beautiful in a random, mathematical type way. With everything being wet, all the leaves became perfectly spread across my neighborhood. All the maple leaves were evenly spaced across roads, sidewalks, and yards. It created a mesmerizing unreal overlay on everything. I tried to get a picture but it was to dark. This morning, the sun came out and things had dried out and the leaves again continued to be blown around, now back on their way to some poor guy’s yard on the east side of town.

Raining

Just a quick post because I feel like working on some other writng today. At the moment it's very dark outside and raining hard, yet it is only 1 o'clock PM. The wind accompanying the storm, however, is a small blessing because hopefully it will blow all leaves out of my yard, saving me the hassle of raking. (My downwind neighbour loves me!) My classes were cancelled for today and so I spent my morning at a kindergarten.

New News

In this post I wanted to bring to the reader’s attention a variety of recent Japanese news stories.

My first comment actually relates to two completely separate stories from Honshu that taken together are as insightful as they are mystifying. Both stories, only one day apart, center on crazy men trying to stab random people. Disturbing, yes, but nothing like that happens in Shikaoi. The details are revealing. First, knife-wielding mad man #1 was disarmed and tackled by passerbyers with minimal casualties and held until the authorities arrived. Knife-wielding mad man #2, when confronted only by police, managed to seriously injure three officers before being taken into custody. Even taking into account differences between attackers and assuming knife-wielding mad man #1 happened unto a street populated with trained judo experts, it still points to a surprisingly deficient police response, especially considering the police had guns - real guns.

I also wanted to comment on the results of a Japanese psychologist that researched the reactions of Japanese travelers to Paris. He looked through several years of data and tracked down reports of people who suffered complete mental break downs in Paris (or soon after their return). His research concluded that the tragic breakdowns occurred because the traveler’s expectation of a magical enchanting Paris did not match the strife-ridden, seedy modern Paris. This research opens an interesting window into Japanese culture.

Lastly, the big news this weekend - other than how beautiful it was - is about national high school curriculum scandal. Not very dramatic news, I know, but I thought I would mention it because I am in daily contact with the Japanese education system. Everyday the number of high schools that have neglected graduation requirements, in favor of focusing on university entrance exams, has climbed higher and higher (internet rumor has it it will be in the thousands). This topic deserves some background: Elementary and junior high is run at the town level (where as they are run provincially in Alberta) but high schools are run federally. University entrance exams are notoriously hard but Japanese universities themselves (besides the faculty of medicine) are often characterized as much easier then equivalent North American universities. At the individual high school level there is an extreme amount of pressure to teach to the exam. With little oversight, this has resulted curriculum deficiencies, varying in severity from school to school. As the books were opened and individual high schools’ curriculums audited, in worst case scenarios, some students found themselves missing half of their needed classroom time for specific subjects. This left many grade twelve students scrambling, wondering if they were going to graduate. As one might expect things are a bit chaotic and damage control has started; I think in the end most students in this situation will graduate.

Prime Minster Stephen Harper: Class Warrior?

I wanted to post my thoughts about the government’s income trust decision before the story moved on. What is an Income Trust? An Income Trust acts like a huge tax loophole by restructuring a firm’s assets.

The present storm over new Income Trust regulations implemented by the government reinforced several things for me. Cynically - and somewhat bashfully - I admit to viewing the government as nothing but the shadow of big business, believing nothing would get passed if it was not in some way positive for big business or at the very least neutral. After seeing the panicked markets I knew right away, without a doubt, this policy had an element of social justice. The evidence was the very sudden and dramatic crash of Canadian financial markets itself. It is an example of what happens when policy that promotes populism and equality is passed in a developed nation – especially when said policy focuses on financial fairness. Is it not strange that we have adopted (to choose a word that grossly oversimplifies an extensive historic background) an economic system that views the promotion of equality with such distain and exacts such harsh penalties? And that with the slightest attempt at fairness money rushes out of Canadian markets?

Let me outline how the business-friendly Conservative government came to this odd, counter-intuitive, Marxist-style decision. In contrast to comments made in Calgary’s oil patch – not known for their dramatic flare - that the sky is, indeed, falling, the development of the policy is exceedingly insightful because both groups have essentially the same background. Take for instance the people charged in corporations with searching for ways "to limit tax exposure," they are inevitably graduates in management and economics. Oddly enough, the same type of person, graduates in management and economics, are also voted into government as our representatives and appointed as government bureaucrats. Consequently, both groups are armed with same tools and I guarantee they would react similarly if roles were reversed. The government, no doubt, rationally wanted to limit the revenue hemorrhaging - as would any good business - that was occurring as Canada’s economy transformed into one wholly based on income trusts. It is the height of absurdity to suggest that firms were coming to Alberta because of Income Trusts. They come because of oil. We could made everything in Alberta left-handed and hobbit-sized and still they would come.

Say an accident happens on a job site and said individual needs to go to the hospital. It’s big businesses’ position that all costs should be paid by someone else. They believe it’s a “bad business environment” if they are in any small way responsible to pay a share of the hospital, the road the ambulance traveled on, the use of the 911 telephone system, etc. I'll leave it to the reader to total the amount of tax subsided resources corporate income trusts use on a daily basis. (I'm guessing it’s not small number.) It is morally reprehensible to use services without considering that perhaps one should share – share – the burden. While personally I would like to see stronger central government on some issues I am generally content to find common ground with my fellow citizens. And crushing, burdensome, medieval tax regimes do stagnate economic growth, and yet somehow everyone wants someone on the other end of the line when there's a fire to report. On this issue I really have no compassion for corporations trying to undermine tax equality and greatly look forward to seeing how Prime Minster Stephen Harper explains the complete contraction between his new measures and his earlier election promises.

Nashi

This week I received a Japanese Pear from a friend. I just had to take a picture because it was so big. As big as a cantaloupe! Japanese Nashi are in season now and this one made it all the way up to Tokachi from Honshu. It's partner was even bigger and was destined for another Shikaoi home, hopefully one where a whole family could eat it. Living in Japan has made me appreciate eating seasonal fruit and vegetables. I am not sure I will want to touch the stuff in the future after seeing all the care and expertise that goes into the produce here. It's even evident in the packing, like it's a fabriche egg. The things are just flawless when you receive them. And they are so flavorful and sweet. Eating in season is another great joy. And it's not a mystery to figure what is in season; the stores become full of them and the price drops. Now we are heading into mikan (Christmas orange) season. You can buy them all year (at over 100 Yen each) but they're really only good for five months a year (where the price drops to about 60 Yen each). The only necessary fruit in which Japan is deficient is bananas. They really don't appreciate a good banana here.