Well, I did my presentation to "Global Egg" on Australia yesterday. I had put together a power point presentation complete with photos, that talked about Australia's history, geography, climate, people, food, animals etc. I was faced with a small sea of blank faces. Quite disconcerting! I tried to inject some humour, and one or two of them got it! Their English just wasn't really good enough to understand, but at least the pictures got some good "oohs and aahs".
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They had a surprise in store for me at the start, they had some priests from Haguro-san (Mt Haguro) nearby, which has many temples on top of it. They were all dressed up in their outfits and came in blowing their big shell horns. Photo attached! Apparently they were collecting donations from the International Centre we were at, and leaving paper blessings in return. So, you have to buy your blessings these days!!
Afterwards we went for lunch at my favourite sushi restaurant in town, which I had suggested. Most of them had never been to it, and they were amazed that I had only been here 5 months, and they for many years or a lifetime, and didn't know it!! We are talking about a society that seem to eat out alot too. I wish I could speak more Japanese, some of these women seem really interesting.
One is a bit older, she is an artist, with a gallery. She knew a bit about Aboriginal art. She brought along a catalogue of a big art exhibition in Paris, in which one of her paintings features. She has been there, and learns French. Another was a writer, another an illustrator, and another a literature teacher who obviously knows alot about history of literature in Japan at least. She is a funny one. I had made a list for myself when I first met them, of their names, with a short description so I could remember them.
Her description was bad driver! That is because the first time I was meeting them, she was driving in front of me to the centre. We both stopped to make a right hand turn, I was behind her. There was a car waiting to turn out of the sidestreet, but no one coming from opposite direction, meaning the coast was clear for her to turn. She didn't. She waited, ....and waited... until a car was coming from the opposite direction, and then...decided to turn in front of this car!!!!!!!!!!! Oh dear.
Then yesterday at lunch she told me a funny story! She went to the garage to get her winter tyres put on. The man looked at her car, and said, "umm....you've already got them on"!!!!!!!!!!! She had had them on all summer!!! As a consequence, they were worn out, and she had to buy new ones, not a cheap exercise!!! I thought, "that'd be right"!!
There are two driving schools here, one should be fined for false advertising, it is called "Safety drive and good manners", and the other is called "shoko" (read shocking!) driving school. The drivers here are generally appalling. They have a few infuriating, not to say, dangerous habits. One interesting manoeuvre they like to pull is, when turning right at an intersection with lights, the right hand turners will take off when the lights go green, and turn right in front of the oncoming traffic rather than waiting for all the oncoming traffic to pass and get out of the way. This habit has probably developed because people are slow to respond to green' lights here. So, when in Rome....... I thought I'd try out this manoeuvre myself. I chose to do it however with a truck facing me, and a truck that was turning left, not coming straight at me! It accelerated much faster than is normal here, and I found myself in an embarrassing situation! This was made more embarrassing when they happened to be turning into the same shopping centre car park as me, and I had to face them as I got out of the car. In any other country, I 'd have been afraid my car would be vandalised when I returned, but not Japan! Another dangerous, rude and infuriating habit they have is to indicate at the VERY last minute, virtually AS they are turning. This is accompanied by last minute braking (they are usually going pretty slowly, so can get away with this), and therefore there is NO warning that the car in front of you is about to turn. On top of this, they slow to a maximum speed of 5kmh to turn a corner, and do this whilst still fairly and squarely on the road in front of you, in your way, necessitating sudden forceful braking, and much cursing, from the car behind, ( $%%&**$%%$. They are full of contradictions, and this is not just with their driving either. Sometimes they are ridiculously hesitant and cautious, and then other times they are dangerously pushy. They tend to just turn out of side streets into a main street of heavy traffic, when there is no gap to turn into, forcing someone to brake suddenly to let them in. Then, they are just as likely to turn off again 20 meters down the road, and put you through the aforementioned "turning trauma"! I have had a few adrenalin rushes in these situations, when someone nearly wipes me out from the side.The problem with being a gaijen (foreigner) in this small town, is that I am totally conspicuous, and I can't afford to blast my horn and curse at them, as they will probably end up being Jaspar's best friend's mother, and she will recognise me! So, I have to be Japanese, and store up my frustrations inside!The "Just in Time" indication has another infuriating aspect, deeming the "good manners" part of the driving school name ludicrous. When waiting to turn into a street, or out of our driveways, we wait if we see a car coming, as you do. Inevitably the car suddenly disappears off the radar, down a side street itself, without warning, so we could have actually turned way earlier ourselves. Adrian and I are so jack of this, that now we just go, even if we see a car coming. That is what they would do often, so ....The speed limits are ludicrously low, 30 and 40 in most streets around town. However, sometimes one is still stuck behind a car going slower than that. I sit in my car wondering, "what the hell is going on that car". Well, now I know. The other day I was driven by someone else. The car itself made me very nervous, tiny tiny, with a bit of aluminium between me and the trucks, and low to the ground. From a standing start we turned a corner, and were into 3rd gear as we were STILL turning the corner. Now this was not because we had accelerated wildly, we were doing the requisite 5 to 10kmh at the time, the car shuddering away!! Not where you want to be when someone is bearing down on you and fast acceleration is required to escape an accident. That brings us to the ambulances here, have I mentioned them? They turn corners "as if there was a glass of boiling water on the dashboard", as Adrian put it. On the straights they might get up to a frightening 30kmh. "Look, there goes another ambulance, RACING to the rescue......not", Adrian said the other day! It would be funny if it wasn't life threatening.
We had real snow last weekend, and still there are some patches lying around here and there. It was so much prettier here with snow covering everything up!!!! They are amazing, they are wrapping up all the bushes, and building timber platforms above all the hedges, to protect all the plants from the weight of the snow. These plants wrapped up will look like little monsters dotted around the place when the snow covers them. This is to prevent them just splaying apart. All the trees have permanent tripod bamboo sticks, just like a teepee support, to help take the weight of the snow. Our trees have that, but we aren;'t doing anything to the hedge.
Jaspar's soccer class organised a tournament a few weeks ago, kindergardens formed teams to compete against each other. It was fun, well I enjoyed it even if Jaspar didn't ! I have discovered that I might have the genes of a dangerous sport parent though! I caught myself just in time, when the ball came to the edge of the court, it was my natural instinct to boot it. I was hoarse afterwards!! We think Jaspar has gone off soccer, as he has been hurt a few times. That means I definitely don't have to worry about him wanting to play Aussie rules!
We have a xmas party to go to this weekend, and on Christmas day we are having lunch at a famous restaurant, which uses all local produce, Italian cuisine, famous all over Japan!! We were lucky to get in. We are going with Doug and Miho and their girls. (Scottish guy, Japanese wife). Looking forward to that. An Austrian colleague of Dougie's is also coming. Snow is forecast the night before, hope it is a white Christmas.
In Japan there is no such thing as a wife having a different surname to her husband. My passport is still in my maiden name, so, therefore, is my alien card. That made things difficult with bank accounts and ATM cards. They were prepared to give me a credit card, but not an ATM card. There has been all sorts of palava over the many months we've been here, trying to sort this out. A month or so ago, Adrian had to spend hours at the bank again with the everpatient translator, trying to arrange an ATM card for me with another bank. Finally it arrived. Guess what it said? Robin (Robyn) Jiyun (Jane) Koteyu (Cottew). I was floored. I have had many mispellings before, but this blitzed them all. Unbelievable, especially as it was attached to a piece of paper on which my name was correctly spelt! The brand of the card was "Bright one", NOT!!!! This spelling is actually a direct translation from one of their syllaberies. They don't have the ability to write individual letters or sounds, only consonants combined with vowels, so ka, ke, ki, ko, or ku for instance, not just k. I can see how it happened, but it is still moronic given that they had the correct spelling. It is interesting, even if you write down your name for them, this is useless information for them if they want to write it in Japanese. They have to know how it "sounds" to be able to work out how to write it in Japanese.
Well, that's all for now folks, Merry Christmas.
