The Cats of Moji

The Kanmon Bridge from Retrotown. The far side you see there is Honshu and Yamaguchi Prefecture. Next, me posing with a banana man!

Maia and I wanted to have another crack at visiting historic Moji "Retrotown" when it wasn't raining cats and dogs and finally got our chance Saturday. We had a bit of a secondary motive for visiting though and that is to find cats. Well, one cat, specifically. When we visited before we found a single kitten near the docks hiding from the downpour under floatation rings, styrofoam bits and random plastic detritus and were determined to feed it. Maia's more an Elanor Abernathy (the "Crazy Cat Woman" from The Simpsons) about cats while I'm just your average schmuck who likes to pet soft things (maybe like a meth or ecstasy addict), but combined we couldn't find anywhere selling cat food that day, so she came back alone the next day after work to feed the little guy.


Got a bit nostalgic for my dear departed BC when this very sociable black cat showed up, but she would not look at the camera no matter how much I rubbed his chin! Then, Maia plays with a very cracked-out white cat. That thing just attacked everything!

Well, this time we didn't end up finding him, but we did find a lot more--and some fantastic eateries to boot. Moji is definitely on our list of hot places now.


Moji Station, replica of old Termini Station in Rome and last stop in Kyushu. All aboard.

--Matt

A Proper Trip to Kyoto

So it's that time of year again when Kusu's second-year students set off on a four-day excursion to some destination in Japan under the pretenses of "education", but which end up more or less as semi-supervised vacations. In certain cases, like Kitayamada JHS, there's really no way to veil the reality if it being a vacation since the kids get to go to freakin' sunny, warm Okinawa, but with most of the rest it's off to frigid Kyoto. I went last year with Kusu JHS and had a godawful time, however there were about eighty students to herd around that time so its low score on the fun-o-meter was understandable. This year I was invited again to go with Hiju JHS, one of my mountain schools with a grand total of three second-years, so I warily accepted. For the most part it was a good decision.


Two pics of Kiyomizudera, easily Kyoto's most impressive single temple.

Now I probably said much of what I'm going to rant about in the following paragraph last year, but I can't be bothered to check, however the core of it is this: I have never had any desire to visit Kyoto. To Japanese and Japanophiles alike Kyoto is some kind of pilgrimage destination, some place you "just have to go if you ever visit Japan". Oh, bullshit. It's a city-sized tourist trap, quite possibly the biggest in Japan. All the temples are way better in photos than in reality, which may be a given, but you'd expect at least a single moment of grandeur to sweep over you at some point and yet it doesn't. In fact, the famed Ryoanji Garden was disappointing enough to leave me a tad bitter that I'd paid 800 J-bucks to get in. And I feel sorry for young inhabitants of the city as it lacks that intangible core of vibrancy that makes life in the city so much fun. So I say to you, dear reader, if you want to see magnificent Japanese architecture and really be wowed then I suggest Nara.


Fun with nighttime photography! Wheeeeeeee! Next, Gion's main thoroughfare. Had I turned around you'd have seen the geiko standing directly behind me.

On the plus side I did get some fantastic shots of dark cobblestone alleyways and the fall colors were really at their peak over on the Arashiyama side of town.


You couldn't tell it from this picture of Arashiyama, but man was this place packed. Perhaps it was the fall colors because it was certainly the most mobbed destination we hit up that day.

And because I know it's going through your head, yes, I went to the Gion District and yes, I did see two geiko (they're not called "geisha" here). I didn't take a pic of or with them as they're absolutely beset upon by tourists whenever they stick their necks outside their private establishments to welcome a client in or see one out. Anytime there's an opportunity to reverse the boorish foreign tourist stereotype you can bet I'll be there.


See? You want impressive, go to Nara! The hall of the Nara Daibutsu, the largest wooden building in the world.

But despite my above gripes, yes, I did have a much, much better time than last year. I tell you, take the horrible mass of urchins of Kusu JHS (not all of them, certainly, but it only takes a few to really spoil things) out of the equation and things come up roses. Yuki, Asuka and Hiro from Hiju JHS are three of the smartest kids in town and there is a very short list of students I could concieve of as better companions to Kyoto. Sure, they don't speak English well (read: not at all), but they give it their best and when that fails they're not afraid to shove mystery foods in their mouths on a dare for our entertainment. That's the spirit!

--Matt

High Road, Low Road

Just a real quick update to put out there to cover travels of the past couple weeks before I head out for the duration of this one (more about that later). First up is a bit of a quirky destination that came to Maia and I by way of one of her high school students when prodded about any interesting places they might know around Kitakyushu. Technically speaking, Inunaki Pass isn't is outside the city limits and closer to Fukuoka City than Kitakyushu, but it's not the pass's, uh, proximity to any metropolitan area that makes it interesting--it's the "fact" that Inunaki Pass is...HAUNTED!


The approach to the pass's tunnel is half overgrown with vines and other detritus. Scraped the car paint more than once. Getting onto and over the barrier that blocks the tunnel is ridiculously simple.

The pass's supposed haunting is a fairly well-documented phenomenon, with a short list of the ghosts inhabiting it and some background info to be found here. The newer pass tunnel has been open for some time and serves and a busy thoroughfare between Kitakyushu and Dazaifu. Can't say we saw any of the ghosts ("a woman in a white one-piece at the telephone box", fifth entry down on the bullet indexed list of ghosts at the top of the first linked page), but I did certainly feel the spirit of Robert Stack in me, yearning to understand the secret history of these man made Morlock tunnels.

Next, a trip up The Cupboard of the Gods! Let me explain. One geographic feature dominates the Kitakyushu skyline--Mt. Sarakura. Dividing the built-up metropolitan area of Kitakyushu from the sparsely populated karst plateaus to the south, Mt. Sarakura is a pretty awesome sight to have your city's back to. It's just that name is so damn ridiculous. You see, the kanji for "Sarakura" literally mean "dish storage". Dish Storage Mountain. I'm not making this up.


It's no monorail, but...wait, it's better--it's a funicular! Next, hazy in the late afternoon from all the water vapor collected after a shower, the pic here is of downtown Kitakyushu, the Kaimon Straight in the distance and the southern tip of Honshu, main island of the Japanese archipelago.

Being of infinite wisdom, and just a bit hungry, we decided to stop for lunch first and emerged from the restaurant just in time for a rainstorm. The one day we had to travel up the mountain...just lovely. We hit it anyways as a futile, symbolic gesture of shaking our fists at the heavens and paid a rather modest fee (comparatively) to ride the funicular to the top. As I get with my temporary obsessions, I literally spent hours studying funiculars of the world before stepping onto Mt. Sarakura's vehicle, and was more interested in the cable movements and passing track than the view. You really can't take me anywhere without a geek-out.


Welcome to Cafe 3po, home of the meticulously handcrafted cup of coffee and a man undoubtedly with horrendous back problems from sitting in a VW bus all day. By the way, '3' in Japanese is pronounced "san", so the name is "Sanpo" Cafe, not our favorite effeminate protocol droid.

Finally, a major breakthrough in the continuing journey of coffee exploration in Japan! Thanks to Fukuoka Class magazine we have discovered a small, but tasty network of roving coffee trucks that ply the mean streets of Fukuoka Prefecture and sampled two of them on Sunday. What's great is that these two are conveniently located in what Maia and I have decided is hands down the most awesome neighborhood in Fukuoka and, by extension, Kyushu. Yakuin (which basically means "pharmacy") boasts a strategic location adjacent to the always fabulous Tenjin district, at least one each Thai, Indian and Korean restaurant, a delicious bakery, cozy-looking bars and, as if to top it all off, the best bike shop I've found in Kyushu so far. Liked it so much I became a member.

--Matt

Top Gear Came to SF?!

Damn it!

Damn it! Damn it! Damn it, I wasn't in town to catch them! The greatest show out of the UK since Peep Show came to SF and I'm in Japan...

*sigh*

--Matt

Please Refrain From Lobbing Fruit in the Bath

We had a three-day weekend a couple weeks back and that, coupled with the ridiculous Kusu-gun English Festival that I had to MC on Sunday, meant that Maia was coming down to Kusu for the weekend instead of my usual heading up there. Always an excellent occasion to kick around the local Kusu/Kokonoe/Hita area having lots of fun and get good and nostalgic. This particular weekend we left the area and headed over to the eastern coast of Oita Prefecture to visit our friend Lisa and view (in my opinion) the single most gorgeous festival in all Kyushu, but I'm getting ahead of myself.


You can't see them here, but there were oh so many bees here. And me without my bee suit...

Saturday we decided to head into Amagase, that plucky little onsen town nestled right between Kusu and Hita proper, which I discovered is more than the sum of its riverside onsen bits. No, we got away from all that and climbed the canyon walls into the highland plateaus above the river to end up at Amagase Flower Park, a delightful little flower preserve whose specialty is the Cosmos...whatever that is. Seems rather cut and dry--pretty pretty flowers, nice smells and epic vistas--but this flower park had a couple tricks up its sleeves: two rabbit pens that were microcosms of Japanese society (one pen contained several identical white rabbits with one aggressive leader that chased and attacked one scarred and haggard looking rabbit, while the other pen, located well away from the first, contained three multi-colored social rabbits); and a monkey show. I had no idea that monkeys could be trained to walk on three-meter-tall stilts. Go figure.


Lyle Lanley approves. (No, I'm never going to be tired of saying that.)

After that we headed just over the border of the prefecture into Kumamoto to the hot springs resort town of Tsuetate Onsen. There are several choices here, all very interesting and flashy, but the most flashy and the one that I'd been wanting to visit since I first laid eyes on it over a year ago is a place perched on a rather steep hillside that can almost be called a cliff. Overlooking a rushing river the...uh, I didn't actually get the name of that hot springs we went to, but this place was freakin' amazing. First, the parking area is a good 30 meters above the actual onsen itself and there is a switchbacking pathway down, but more importantly there is also a motherflippin' monorail to get down also! Already dazzled by the monorail the operators of this place just had to drop some cocaine in my already quite happy fruit smoothie when we discovered that our onsen had whole yuzu fruits floating in it! Whoa! In addition to coming out smelling citrus fresh you can chuck fruit at people in the bath. Nothing says fun like a nice Nolan Ryan pitch of sour/sweet fruit in the eye!


Maia: "I'll never be satisfied taking a bath ever again with anything less than fruit floating in it."

Sunday, after the Lovecraftian horror that is the annual English Festival for JHS students, we fled east to Tsukumi first to meet up with Lisa and then went via train to Usuki for the decidedly less horrible annual bamboo festival. I've ranted about it before and I really have nothing more to say other than there is nothing like it on that side of the pond that I can remotely draw a parallel to. You have to see it to believe it.


They got creative with what they did with the unused cuttings from bamboo lamps this year, turning them into chains hanging off this shrine foundation's wall. Well played.

--Matt

Bang, Zoom, Straight to the Moon!

Can there be any better way to escape the troubles of the work week than with the good ol' modern day bread and circuses of a theme park? Heck no, says I! Which is why Maia and I packed up the RV with a few industrial-sized cans of baked beans, a box of the finest, cheapest Mexican cigars and an armful of old woolen blankets (not the small pox kind) and headed to Space World!

Actually we just hopped on a train for about fifteen minutes and walked up to the front gates since it's located in the Higashi Yahata neighborhood of Kitakyushu, a handful of stops from Maia's place. I'm not sure how anybody can cruise by this place--and you must if you take the train from Kokura to Fukuoka and vice versa--and not be absolutely tantalized by the UFO-themed log ride, the roller coaster that wraps around a 1-to-1 scale model of the Space Shuttle Discovery and the "Space Eye" ferris wheel, the 17th tallest in the world. Being filled with such childish glee and lofty expectations we were a bit bemused when we got to the ticket machine and there was virtually nobody around. Mind you it is late-October, but it wasn't windy or cold that day. Heck, it got hot enough for the two of us to break a sweat and strip layers, yet nobody was around. Could the mighty and impressive Space World have already succumbed to the condition that doctors from the Hollywood Upstairs Medical College professionally refer to as East Asian Theme Park Degenerative Syndrome?


OMG, the future is here, today, with this astounding Space Bird House! What fantabulous dreams will tomorrow bring? Only time, and Space World, can tell us.

Mind you the park did open in 1990 and the rides are, well, getting on their age, but I would have thought Japan's renewed interest in The Final Frontier thanks to the success of their H-IIA rockets would have signaled a renaissance for the park. Whatever, the two of us were there on our continuing mission to seek out new kitsch and new ridiculousness--to boldly go and wallow waist-deep in the insanity of Japanese theme parks and extract a unique pleasure from it all that only our twisted minds can comprehend. And I guess to ride some roller coasters and stuff.

First stop was the Zaturn ride, a combination roller coaster/drop tower ride that was freaking awesome...if you could ever get off the ground. The thing is just a long track with a vertical u-shaped tower at the end that you are steam catapulted towards, launched up and twisted so as one's orientation is upright for the trip down. Like I said, awesome, but it takes about three minutes per launch, maybe a bit more since they don't allow anything--and I mean anything to be in one's pockets or on one's face. Glasses, hats, pocket change, etc. are all no-nos. By the end of the fifteen second ride Maia and I were blind and had fantastic hair. That was sarcasm there, did you catch that? Right, actually we looked like crap. There's also the pointless drama aspect of the ride that slows the process down, which is to say that before they find it in their infinite grace to launch everyone we had to do a yell or put our hands in the air or get pumped or something. Lame people, just lame. Push the button and put us on our way, there are others waiting in line.


Oh my, this race has my glands all aflutter!

That drama theme was continued at our next stop, the Venus GP coaster--before launch we had to fill an energy meter for no apparent reason. We did this coaster twice and both times didn't yell loud enough to fill the meter past 75%, so I guess we could have had 25% more speed and more fun if only we'd have put our hearts into it. Oh well, we have only ourselves to blame. This coaster is cool though because it has a wicked loop and wraps itself around the Space Shuttle mock-up.


"First they took me in their ship, then they probulated me, then they removed my neck, Agent Chartreuse. I count myself lucky though--Norman doesn't even have a head anymore and as for Craig and Hortenz back there, well, they've been turned into what look to be characters from early Russian cinema."

So by 2PM we'd hit the park's two main operational coasters, but there was a third one that looked, frankly, astonishing despite not being open. It's called the Titan V and it was a sort of cross between a steel coaster and an old wooden one in that it was made of metal, but relied only on drops and rises for exhilaration. I've always dug that kind of thing, I think because of my mother's insistence on riding the Big Dipper every time we headed to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, and I felt cheated it was closed down. The track was incredibly long, running the length of one entire side of the park then taking a right turn onto another side, forming an overall L-shape. It was incredibly tall and had a superbly steep initial drop as well, the steepest and tallest in the world when it was built in the mid-90s according to sources. Apparently there were two incidents in the past ten years, however, and the ride was closed for examination. Nobody even died in those incidents it seems. Looking over the amount of injuries and deaths at Great America...well, let's just say that if that park ran on Japanese standards the place would have closed in the 80s.

Near Titan V was a sort of kiddy land play area thing that was pretty cut and dry and dull...except for the giant pair of silver space tits growing out of the Earth. You heard me--space tits. I guess it was a kind of moon walk thing, but they had two inflated mounds of silver fabric many meters wide popping up out of the ground with kids jumping all over them. The sight was disturbing and perfectly explains so many woes in Kitakyushu's youth.

And what trip to any theme park would be complete without the obligatory trip through the haunted house ride? Jesus H. Christ, do they really have these things at theme parks still? Well, it was a haunted spaceship to be perfectly accurate and dear lord did the line take forever to get through--about thirty minutes to get ten meters. The English section of the warning sign was quite amusing, ultimately ending in a threat of park expulsion if we broke any of the above rules. I don't think I've ever seen such strong language from a Japanese person, let alone a corporation. Kudos for growing a sack, even if it is expressed through crude English and situated on a well-intentioned, but lame attraction. Well, there was a cool false mirror thing where an actor wearing a skull mask and "scary" jumpsuit clutching chains did a little jig for us. That was pretty cool. Oh, and I got some interior decorating ideas from in there, though that doesn't fall under the "spine-tingling terror" category methinks.

Well, I think I got my system flushed of any theme park hijinks for a good long time, though the desire to feel the cuteness power (or perhaps misery) of Harmonyland in Hiji, Oita has been simmering for some time. I mean, who doesn't want to spend an expensive day in the presence of walking, talking, giant-headed animal-themed characters that started out as stationary mascots? Who I ask you, WHO?!

--Matt, Romantic Yet Powerful

Something in the Air --or-- The Kids Are Not Alright

(This post may contain language that is inappropriate for minors. Viewer discretion is advised.)

It's fair to say at this point that things have gone beyond "boys will be boys" around these parts and the discipline situation at Kusu and Mori JHS, the two largest schools in town, has gone straight to hell. For the past couple weeks teachers and parents have been in meetings at school concerning the issue lasting from early evening to near midnight, with Sunday--yes, SUNDAY!--and Monday breaking the midnight barrier. Mercifully I'm excluded from these meetings, but I still have to deal with the little shits at school that sparked this BS. Besides, if I were at those meetings I'd bring a 2x4, pliers and a cinder block or two...and I'd use them.

Oh lawdy...where to begin.

I may have mentioned it in a previous entry (or not) that Kusu has somewhat-recently had to open a special school just for students from elementary to junior high that don't come to regular school. It's called Wakakusa Gakuen and is based out of a small vacant elementary school that closed some years back. Its roll sheet is growing steadily week by week.

Who are the students of Wakakusa? They were originally the students with mild social disorders that prevented them from functioning normally at a regular school. For example, the first student I met from Wakakusa was an agoraphobic shogi savant fascinated by the Rube Goldberg machines from the Japanese educational show "Pythagoras Switch". But recently the school's seats have been increasingly filled by the bullied, the picked-on, the class scapegoats. Nobody seems to be doing a goddamn thing about it and it's pissing me off like you wouldn't believe.

It would be prudent to list some of the situations in recent memory that have got my blood boiling:

--Ate lunch in 3rd year, class 1 at Mori and noticed seven students absent. "Is everyone sick?" I asked Ms. Inoue. "No," she responded, "it's like this every day. Those are the students who don't come to school anymore." Seven student in ONE CLASS?! Un-fucking-believable. Seven students deprived of their education and a normal school life. Seven students that can never go back and get it again. Seven victims.

--Kusu JHS, 1st year, all classes, the students don't answer questions and just stare blankly at me or their desks when asked the simplest things. They're basically under orders. Three ringleaders are the only ones who talk and usually with flippant answers. Those ringleaders, and friends of them, move about the classroom with impunity and sometimes leave the room to wander the hallways too, always giving some shallow excuse seconds before walking out of the door.

--In the hallways at both schools kids are getting physically harassed by bullies in front of the eyes of watchful teachers. Yes, we're watching them do it, but here's the catch: the bullied kid never accepts help and is actually smiling while the other kids pick on him. Why? He would get harassed even more severely were he to say anything to the teachers. Sick and twisted.

--On Saturday and Sunday at the Marukyo supermarket parking lot two brothers from Mori, 1st and 3rd-year students, jumped a 2nd-year classmate that they'd been picking on for the semester and wrecked his bike. They broke his wrist or finger or something. Naturally he told his parents who told the school who told the other kids' parents. I don't think those boys' parents did a damn thing to punish them though because they were strutting around the same supermarket today after school. Well, to further degrade the 2nd-year boy the two brothers ordered all the students in school not to talk to that kid yesterday. Imagine you're at school at that age and everyone treats you like a ghost, like you've just never existed. Imagine that. The boy was bawling. His parents are contemplating a lawsuit against the other boys.

--3rd year, class 2 at Mori, acting on orders from the ringleader students that class wouldn't answer questions or address Ms. Inoue or I during class. Everyone in class had their heads down looking at their desks while we try to do warm-up exercises and generally talk to brick walls like asses, cowed by the two jackasses smiling and staring straight at me. I lost it and chewed out everyone for this pathetic display. This more than any other event made me realize I'm not of the right mindset for teaching little cretins like this. My hands were shaking in rage and I almost acted on the urge to overturn the teacher's pedestal just to vent. If I ever meet these boys in a dark alley...

I'd like to say something simple like "the teachers have lost control of their classrooms" and just squarely lay the blame on them, but it's much more complicated than that. I don't know what percentage of the pie chart each would be, but the culprits for this--and many other woes in this country--are twisted Japanese educational laws, Japanese customs, parenting/the modern Japanese family unit, the teachers and, finally, the kids themselves.

Japanese educational statutes declare that all children must be given a free education from elementary through JHS. The Japanese consider this a basic "human right", which sounds all great and fuzzy, but when that term gets bandied about the way it does here, trust me, it loses all meaning. If you want to be technical, these are human rights. I am not violating a student's human rights if I want to pull their asses aside to chew them out for running down the hall to talk to their friends during class, or if I stop them bullying another kid in the halls. Or am I? In Japan I am according to my colleagues. If a kid is to be disciplined it must be in complete secrecy so that their peers never find out. No pulling out of class, no suspensions or expulsions, no conspicuous detentions or extra homework. Mostly just no punishment. At all. You see, to punish is to humiliate and rob a student of pride, which is a violation of human rights.

But we run into a bit of a paradox here when this farcical take on human rights is applied to the bullied. The victims here are being bullied in public view, their dignity is being stripped away while others look on. No secret that so-and-so is being bullied, no siree. The victims here don't even feel safe coming to school anymore and they flee to Wakakusa or just stay home. Doesn't that take away their HUMAN RIGHT to a free, normal education? So by this logic it's OK for a student to be humiliated and beaten at school, but it's not OK to conspicuously punish the wrongdoers. It's OK for students to be psychologically run out of school on a rail, but it's not OK to stop the wrongdoers from coming to school.

What insane version of "human rights" is this?!

Parents here are something else too. I see parents hitting their kids and telling them to shut up in public from time to time. Due to the declining birthrate in Japan and all the problems associated with that there's a big push from the government for "birth-giving machines" to start pumping them out. Yes, that's what the health minister called women last year. Hell, there's even a new cabinet-level minister in charge of the declining birthrate, Mrs. Yuko Obuchi. My point here is that people are having kids here without thinking what it really is to have kids, they find they're not ready and they treat the kids like crap. Either that or they overcompensate and never say 'no' to the kids, showing them no boundaries. I don't know...I'm not a parent, but these things just seem logical to me: don't have a kid until you're sure you can give them the time and attention they need and deserve to become good human beings.

With the teachers, I feel they're like the overcompensating parent spoiling the kids and never saying 'no'. There are mostly no boundaries in the classroom thanks to Japanese law, but if a kid is reading a comic in class or throwing something the teacher does have the right to confiscate it. But they don't. They want to be friends or they don't want the responsibility and hassle that comes with telling a student 'no more'. Well, tough shit teachers, you're committing a dereliction of duty if you let a tiny handful of students completely ruin the classroom education of ten times as many other kids, so you better sack the fuck up and take that comic, toss those eraser projectiles out the window and stop letting the little urchins go for, like, ten bathroom breaks.

And then there's the kids themselves. I'm a believer in nurture over nature when it comes to this kind of behavior, so I don't know how much I can blame the kids knowing what I do about their ridiculous home lives, the laws of their nation, their parents and all the other toxic things that made them what they are today. But really, at what age does one gain common sense, a moral center and the wisdom to see that failing every subject can't possibly lead to a spot on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous? And of course there's the majority of kids who stand by and watch their friends, people they've known since elementary school or even beyond, get bullied to the breaking point. Kids who sit in silence and don't respond to teachers, afraid their actions will bring hell raining on their heads. There are so few shining stars in this pitch black void anymore I'm really not caring about my job anymore at those two schools except to talk to the kids who want to learn more individually. They usually come in secret between classes or meet in the library after school. Places away from the eyes and ears of the class ringleaders.

Ugh, there's more yet to tell. Can you believe this is the condensed version? I left out some of the finer, more subtle points in the interest of space and not exploding my mind. Time for bed...

--Matt