Sunday, April 19, 2009

Spring is in the Air!!

Hey All! So I’ve been super lazy these past few weeks, and I am terribly sorry!
But the good news is I have plenty to tell you! (I will be making two or three posts over the next week, I hope. Mostly with stories of my life, and not too much interesting cultural observations...sorry!)

So, my second semester at Waseda started two weeks ago! Yay for new classes! Here’s the lineup:

-Japanese 4a
-Culture in Conflict (What is culture, what is the individual, etc.)
-Japanese Economy and Industry (Really boring, I hope it will get better)
-Cultural Interactions of Art between the East and the West (or something along those lines. Call also be called ‘Comparative Art History’. We’ve only had lectures concerning ‘auspicious motifs’ of Japanese Art, but we should be moving onto the movement of art and artistic influence along the Silk Road)

My first two weeks of school were nothing to complain about. In general my classes will be easy, but there are those pesky tests that are worth 40% of the grade (That’s right, one test worth 40%), and papers worth 30%. The grading system here is so skewed (but it got me all A’s last semester!). I was really looking forward to my Japanese Economy class, because I’ve never taken a class like that. After the first four classes, I realized why I never take that sort of class: it’s a bit boring to me. But I have to persevere, and I just hope to learn some new, interesting things about Japan. As for my Art History class…the teacher is a bit crazy. We have to get ‘participation points’ by answering random questions, and when we answer we get a slip of paper to write our name on (which is turned in for points). However, there are easily more than 50 people in the class, so it’s a bit crazy from time-to-time.

I planned my schedule so that I would have Friday's off, again! I'm super excited, and I plan on using this to go to Minakami for a long weekend! Yay!

But...I was sad that Spring Break ended, because it meant saying goodbye to complete freedom and relaxation. Now I have to go back to balancing school, homework (which I end up rarely doing), school club, friends and me time. It’s a bit hectic, but it’s life!





Spring in Japan is a magical time. It’s the time of hanami, or flower watching. The traditional thing to do during hanami (which was late May for us in Tokyo) is to go to a park, set up a picnic blanket or tarp, and watch the flowers of the sakura trees, while eating and drinking with friends. That’s right, another excuse to drink (in public, no less!).

The [aristocratic] Japanese have always had an extra special love of nature. It’s probably because they had nothing better to occupy their time with, being that they had no job other than being filthy rich (sounds good to me). Getting together to write haikus was a popular past-time, and fit into the other past-time of nature-viewing.


Without flowing wine
How to enjoy lovely
Cherry blossoms?
Anonymous [poem i found online^__^]

I got to share this love of sakura and nature with the a school circle I am not a member of called ‘niji no kai’ (Which means Rainbow club, there is no relation to GLBT rainbow) . It’s a BIG ‘international circle', meaning they have lots of exchange students and Japanese students who want to speak English. The problem with this club is that it is extremely clique-y, so I had a hard time meeting anyone. I met a few people, but those who I had known from previous meetings barely gave me the time of the day. In the end, I left early to walk around the part and people watch. There was a martial arts club doing their practice and also some kids playing soccer. Both were really fun to watch, but I only have a picture of the martial art's club.



Last weekend, I went to Waseda Donuts' (my circle! yay!) hanami. However, at this point the flowers were falling, or gone, from the tree’s so it was less about the trees and more about having fun. I brought my friend Rachel, and boy did we have fun! We played Frisbee, catch, baseball, jump rope along with sitting, chatting, eating and drinking. There were a few other circles around, the most interesting being the one closest to us. There were always two or three guys dancing to Japanese Pop music (doing similar dances to female Japanese pop stars, no less…). When they finished their dances, Rachel and I would clap, which would encourage them to dance more. However, Rachel and I got bored with them quickly, so they fizzled out soon. There was also a male glee club in the park, and they kept singing Waseda’s alma mater. It was a very relaxing atmosphere, and if I had sat still for long enough, I would have fallen asleep!

The first picture is Ryo, Takero and Rachel. When I first saw Takero, I noticed he looked a little under the weather, so I asked him what was wrong. The answer: he was drunk. Apparently, this was not his first hanami of the day (at this point in the day it was only 3!), he had started drinking around lunch time. The second picture is Rin holding the jump-rope, two little girls, me then Sacchan. The little girls wanted to play jump rope, but they had no one to play with, so their grandfather asked me to play with them, so they held the rope while I jumped. Soon enough most of Wasedo was jumping, and we all took turns holding the rope. It was super fun! haha...

When I come back to Kansas, Indiana or wherever in the US, I hope to bring this tradition of hanami with me. Sure, it's the same as a picnic...or is it? Spending time outside with friends, eating, drinking and playing...what's better than that?

Friday, April 3, 2009

Hey Look at ME!

Quick Post!



I did puri-cura with my friend Cory and his friend Hiromi (now my friend, too! ^__^)
As you can see, Romi (Hiromi) is wearing a Pikachu 'kigurumi' and I'm wearing a Rerakuma 'Kigurumi'.
We are super cool!

Cory and I hope to take these costumes to Harajuku (or anywhere, really) and have a 'high five' contest. I'm going to wear sunglasses and a face-mask on that day.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

April Fool's Day!

Happy April Fool's Day! Want to know what I did today? I passed out fliers for the club I'm in (the Waseda Donuts) at Waseda's main campus. It was CRAZY! Today was the entrance ceremony, so all [most of?] the Freshmen of Waseda's various schools were at Okuma Auditorium at some point.

Let me give you a quick run down:
I arrive at 10 am, meet my club-mates at the Student Meeting Hall
We walk to the main campus and immediately are slowed by the vast amounts of bodies that are present.
Sacchan and I take an UNDERGROUND path to bypass campus (and the already huge crowd of 2nd and 3rd years who want to promote their clubs)

((At this point we start handing our fliers to ANYONE in a suit carrying a bag. They are Freshmen 99% of the time (there was one time I tried to give 2nd years our info...they didn't take it). Freshmen were walking around with arms full of papers, and people just kept throwing more on top! It was crazy [fun].))

Pass out fliers until 11, then meet back with everyone to get more.
I go with Hide (sort of pronounced Hee-day) to copy 200 more fliers
Go to the auditorium and start throwing fliers into as many Freshman's 'open' arms and bags saying 'international club, please take' in Japanese
Get Lunch, chill out until 1ish
Pass out more fliers until 3:30ish, when Ne-chan and I finish
Go home.
Pass out.

this is a picture where it's not so crowded...

The sports clubs were a lot more insistent than other clubs. Often you would see soccer or baseball men throwing their arms around some poor frosh saying "you interested?". I managed to walk into a group of Freshmen boys at one point (more like I was half-pushed) and said "Let's speak English!" and gave them the our paper...They proceeded to say "Donuts?!" and I just smiled. There were a few "I'm not interested" every now and then but mostly the Freshmen just took everything that was handed to them. That way you can just make it through the crowd. If you refuse something, often the person handing it to you will stick to your side/front until you take their flyer. It's a pretty amazing sight. You always knew when a Frosh was walking your way when a big crowd of people shouting "onegaishimasu" started moving towards you.

At the end of the day we had passed out around 400 fliers (Hide said it was around 500, but I'm not sure about that. Who knows, we may get one, two new members?).
Crazy stuff...
-----
I ate some yummy panda snacks yesterday. Here's photographic evidence of it's Japanese-ness



"Sakusaku Panda" I think that means crunchy panda? They ARE crunchy :)
Biscuit on one side, cute chocolaty face on the other!

Here's their comic. I've taken the liberty of translating it into non-engrish English to the best of my ability. Not 100%, but the idea is the same
(EDIT start at the upper RIGHT frame, move down, then upper left, then down)
1-Ah! Rain!
2-My biscuit is getting wet (okay, that just sounds weird no matter how i try and translate it, sorry!).
3. Hurry!
4. The 'Saku-Pandas', to be safe from rain, have built underground passages.