Miku Hastune

In something that could only come from Japan, they have an artificial performer: Miku Hastune. Her story begins with the creation of a program called Vocaloid, software that replicates a human voice for singing (taken from Japanese voice actress Fujita Saki). The first project went by rather unnoticed despite the impressiveness of the software. So when Vocaloid 2 was released it was done with a created character, Miku Hastune ("Miku" means "Future", Hatsu means "First" and Ne is "sound") was born with a handful of others and became instantly popular. So why does this software get mention (you can buy games on the PSP here in Japan with this program on it)? Well it would just be easier to show you:

Yes, Japan has a Holographic performers with a computer generated voice. If you have ever watched the Macross series you would know that this is not a new idea. In the distant future Japanese sci-fi introduced the idea of a performer that was not real. This however, is a reality, and something worth sharing. If you look closely in the video you can see the screen that is over the front of the stage that allows you to actually see the projection, but in my opinion this does not make it any less amazing. This is a performer created by technology and people love her. This could usher in a future where people with no talent for playing instruments or singing could write and perform hit songs. It opens the door for a new dimension in creative freedom. If you're interested in more of the history and information about Miku or Vocaloid you can check out the link here:
http://vocaloid.wikia.com/wiki/Hatsune_Miku
By the way, if you think she looks familiar you may be thinking of an old profile picture I had on facebook:

The girl on the right is dressed as Miku Hatsune.

The Japanese Psychology

In America I have lost track of the combination of Social Filters I have for various situations to fit in. I have one for school, for work, for talking with superiors, for hanging out with friends, for being around family, when I'm in a city where no one knows me, when I'm in a city where people do know me, the list just goes on and on. Why? Because different things are expected of me based on the situation, and I don't mean various social rituals, but I am expected to act a certain way at certain times. In Japan this is simplified into three categories for social filters: Tanin, Soto, and Uchi. These are, respectively, stranger, outsider, and insider. To a Tanin it doesn't matter how you act to an extent (group harmony must be maintained, so you can not be a jerk, but you have no obligations to do anything out of your way), they do not matter because you do not know them and they do not know you (this is why if you come to Japan you will see old ladies throwing elbows trying to get onto the bus first). To a Soto you have all your social filters on, you are polite and courteous all the time. Finally, to an Uchi you can be yourself, there is no need for any form of social filter. So how does one go from Tanin to Uchi? Obviously, once you are introduced you go from being a Tanin to a Soto, there is no way to never have met someone once you have. Once you become a Soto one enters the realm of the ritual of gift giving, and it is extensive. This is where it is interesting, because you still have a choice as to which gifts and occasions you participate in for each person, but your response to them never changes, you still maintain your social position. The relationship of gift giving creates obligation among the Japanese and a sense of belonging. Gift giving and receiving is a concept known at Zoutou, it is an exchange, there is an expectation of repayment. Oddly, this is the main reason the Japanese do not tip, because the person you are tipping does not want the obligation of repaying you for your kindness, it messes with the nature of the business relationship. At some point the feeling of obligation transitions as you move into the Uchi stage to more of a loyalty, gifts may or may not be given, and you can drop your social filters entirely. Obviously too, there is a way to fall from Uchi back into Soto. This is a level of thought in Japan that I have found appealing, I can either be completely social acceptable or I can be myself, because let's face it, no one fits in with everyone, we all do what we think needs to be done to keep the peace. But in Japan there are only two ways to act (I don't count Tanin because I don't have to care). This has been extremely helpful in understanding the mentality of people here and how I should behave. Plus, to me it is a drastic simplification to how things are back in the United States.

Shougaku

About a month ago I, along with several other classmates, went to a Shougaku (grade school) to play with children. I do not recall the last time I was spanked so much, which is apparently normal for Japanese culture (at least in children playing) because the children were never corrected for doing it. That bit of strangeness aside it was a really great time.
When we first arrived we were split up in pairs to different classes and given large cardboard signs to hang around our necks that showed our flag and had our names and the name of our country (On a side note, I don't know how it was with all my fellow classmates, but most of the kids just called me "America", it was easier than pronouncing my name). We left our shoes at the door and were given slipper to wear inside. At first the children were a little intimidated by me, though even a little so by Olly, a smaller girl from England (not the UK, not Britain, even though England is in the UK/Britain I've learned there is a difference and they don't like to be referred to as "British"), but there were some braver children who decided to befriend us early on. After the class was seated (I've never seen kids this age so well behaved) they sang us two songs in Japanese and we introduced ourselves and talked about where we were from. The teacher showed the children on a map where these places were relative to Japan.

After introductions we were all given these cardboard circles with fruits on them to wear, Apple, Banana, Grape, and Melon and were seated in a circle. The children were taught what these were in English (grape and apple are the only ones that are different words). Then we chanted a phrase in Japanese that basically boiled down to "Which fruit do you pick" and fruits were called out and the people with those fruits had to jump up and find a new seat. We later found out that you could call out "Zenbu" (all) to make everyone get up.
After playing for ten minutes or so the cut outs were collected and the children were allowed to ask us how to say certain words in English. One child asked about a word that neither Olly or I knew, "Azarashi". So I pulled out my phone, which all the children found amazing, and looked up the word, it's a seal, as in the animal. What was amusing was that they seemed rather impressed that most of the words they asked Olly and I about were the same in English and English. They did, however, key into the difference in pronunciation in a few words (like "evening", Olly slurs her's a little more than I do). the only word that was truly different though is that in England a type of sweatshirt is called a "jumper". I was also asked how to say "Decade" as in Kamen Rider Decade, many of the boys were excited to discover I watch Kamen Rider, which is part of Super Hero Time on Sunday mornings along with Super Sentai.
Afterward we were turned lose to play with the kids indoors briefly before going outside to play. Many of my classmates were dragged into a game that was a lot like Red Light Green Light, except that when someone tagged the person everyone ran the opposite direction, I'm not really sure why, none of us figured it out. I was lead around by one boy that had adopted me and talked into trying to ride tricycles briefly, I was amazed I was able to do as well as I did, and it did amuse the children quite a bit. I met many kids and did my best to learn their names, it was hard to understand their Japanese though. Someone later explained that just like children in America speak broken English when they are small Japanese children speak broken Japanese, so when I realized how hard it was for me to understand a child's English I realized why it was near impossible for me to understand much that any of the children said.
Finally it was time to go, none of us wanted to leave (and most of us agreed that the day could only go downhill from here), but we had to get back for class and the children had their own lessons. They gave us a gift for coming, some snacks and a juice box, all of which were delicious, and the children escorted us as far as the gate giving us "fives" as one of the other guys had taught them. And after some masterful stalling on our part we finally had to get back into the Taxis and go back to Gaidai.
It was interesting to see, children really are the same in any culture, the way they play might vary, but they all do the same things. Without culture or language we would just be a single people, and you can take that as good or bad.
I do apologize for not having pictures, but it's hard to take photos when you're wrapped up in playing, and, even if I had time to take them they would be on my defunct hard drive right now. (the one shown was added later, apparently someone at the school took it and gave it to us)

My Life

As it is a balmy 8C in my room right now (I will admit it at this point, I am cold. I actually buy things that are supposed to be refrigerated and just leave them in my room if I know they will be consumed in the next 48 hours) I thought I would start my Christmas break with an update. I've been meaning to talk about an average day in Japan for sometime, and while I wait for my photos to be recovered from my old hard drive this seems like a good time. Before I get to that though here is a photo of me giving an introduction speech in Japanese in front of about one-third to half of our school:

I wrote the speech, it was about 1/3 of a page, I did not know when I wrote it though that I was going to have to memorize it so I was a little more ambitious with my vocabulary and sentence structure. It went well though, I memorized the whole thing the day before and was able to recite it from memory the next day with only a single omission. I accidentally said, "I came from California in September" instead of "I came to Japan from California in September". However, this is not really an error in speaking because the listener already knows where I am so it was fine, though everyone had a written copy of my speech so anyone following along would have noticed I skipped the "Nihon ni" part of my speech, of course I may have actually said it and just been too nervous to remember, those first four or five sentences just kind of rolled off my tongue rather quickly. In the end though I was congratulated and given a gift certificate for 1000 yen to a book store. I'm not sure where this store is yet, but there is a bar code on the gift card so I'll be able to find it. That does remind me, bar codes are very useful here in Japan. You see them on products all the time, but not the kind that are scanned for purchase. They look like this:

Japanese cellphones have an application that can read these codes from the camera and take you to the website that is encoded within it. I've even seen them on movie and concert posters, making it easy to go to the website, if you're interested, to get more information. The best part is, unlike the US, you don't have to remember the URL, just take a picture with the app and it does the rest.

So, what is the average day like for me here in Japan? I get up at 6:30am and begin waking up slowly as I look over facebook and do a little reading. At 7am I am heading downstairs to use the bathroom and to grab a few things to bring upstairs for breakfast. I place them on the small square table and turn on the 13" TV to watch NHK, I only understand about half of what is going on unless Okaasan explains it to me. I don't follow much of anything in the morning to begin with, and it's even harder when it's in a foreign language. Breakfast is almost always a piece of Texas toast cut diagonally and a fried egg with Canadian bacon and a side dish of fruit (banana plus anything else in season) along with a glass of milk and a cup of roasted rice tea. I like the chocolate spread here, it doesn't even pretend to be healthy like Nutella back in the States, having chocolate on my toast is great, or blueberry, strawberry, pineapple, or sweet peanut butter. I finish breakfast quickly and continue to watch NHK until about 7:40 when I leave and go comb my hair, brush my teeth and get dressed.
I leave the house a little after 8 being sure to announce Ittekimasu (I'm going and will come back) before I leave, even if no one else is home to respond with Itterasshai (please go and return). I head down the hill passing by a Sensei at the local grade school and we greet each other with a bow (more of a nod of the head really) and Ohayou Gozaimasu (good morning). I continue down the hill and may greet a few school children or a local lady with a little shop on the way down. Once I'm in out of Sakamoto Machi (the neighborhood I live in) I generally do not speak to anyone else and vice-versa, people do not seem to greet each other unless they are acquainted. I proceed down the side walk saying on which ever side is moving my direction, though not even all the Japanese follow this convention, I've found it's mostly the elderly that everyone works around here.
I reach the bus stop and stand there for a few minutes until I see the bus with the kanji for Nagasaki Gaikokugo Daigaku (Lit. Nagasaki Foreign Language College). I make a guess as to where the door will be when it stops and move toward it, the door slides open and I quickly step on tapping my smart card on the reader (and logging into the system) as the door closes behind me and I take a seat and we are moving again within seconds. I sit up straight in my seat and stay quiet just to fit in better and maybe be a little less foreign than being a 6'2" American makes me. Some times on buses and trains I will watch other Japanese to determine what the appropriate behavior is, though I do this less and less the longer I've been here when I'm in familiar situations. After about a 20 minute ride and several stops to pick up more students we arrive at the school. I get off, thanking the driver and tapping my smart card on the reader having the cost of my fare deducted from the total on the card (this is also how you do it on the street car).
I go into the school's lounge and hang out with friends for about 20 minutes until my first class starts. I learn about some aspect of Japan, Literature, Culture, Society, Business, History. After an hour and a half I get out and go to my next class... which is usually Japanese. I spend the next hour and half learning Japanese in Japanese. If I don't understand a sentence structure or word it is explained in Japanese and/or with pictures. After Japanese is lunch, if I am done for the day I hang out with friends for about an hour before taking the school bus (which is free) back down to Sumi Yoshi where I will take a street car to one of the malls and get something for lunch like Takoyaki, Okonomiyaki, or a bowl with meat and rice, the names of which vary with the type of meat and the style in which it is prepared. I will either then return home, hiking back up my very steep hill where I will do homework and watch TV until dinner, or will go shopping and/or exploring until dinner, which is at 6pm at Suisha (my family's restaurant). Usually, if it is raining that automatically eliminates exploration as an activity choice.
If I have another class I will get food in the cafeteria, it's great food compared to America, but compared to shops in Japan it is still lacking (it is cafeteria food after all, and mass produced never tastes as good as custom made). After lunch I will have one last class, generally a martial arts class (Kendo or Aikido) or some form of customary Japanese art like Ikebana (flower arranging) or tea ceremony. By this point going home is pointless and I will just stay and hang out with friends until the 6:10 bus that I can take down to Hamaguichi (my bus stop at the bottom of the hill).
Dinner is always amazing. Okaasan can cook, and I am treated to a variety of Japanese foods every night at dinner with the occasional seasonal specialty. The meals always have a main dish, soup, vegetables and rice. Though at times the main dish is the soup or contains the vegetables, but each dish is arranged in it's proper place (something we were taught after the second week). The main dish goes in the middle, the rice on the left, the soup on the right and the vegetables in the upper right. If there is another dish of some kind it is placed in the upper left.
After dinner I return home, hiking up that hill, it is really hard if the day has been a long one, and even worse if I've done a lot of shopping and my bag is heavy. Here are the rough coordinates of where I live if you want to see on Google Earth:
Lat 32°46'10.89"N
Long 129°52'17.08"E
That large field with a pool is the grade school I live next to.
My University is here:
Lat 32°48'50.94"N
Long 129°50'30.06"E
If you compare you'll see that I actually live pretty centrally in Nagasaki and that the college is on the northern end. And just for fun, here is where Suisha is located:
Lat 32°46'7.49"N
Long 129°51'55.52"E
That aside after I return home I usually check out things online, facebook, comic strips, weather, news, etc, and then take a shower do my homework and watch some anime before going to bed. When I go out with friends it is usually on a Friday night or Saturday. Sunday is largely reserved (whenever possible) as my do nothing day, where I stay at home all day and relax. This requires some planning as I need to buy lunch the day before so I have food. But since my family's restaurant is closed it is a good rest for me to not have to walk down and back up the hill again. And thus my life is such on days when I'm not out having an adventure of some kind. A year ago I never would have believed I'd be living in Japan, and certainly would not have believed I would find days like today typical. Well I hope you found this informative and that the locations on Google Earth helped to make up for the lack of photos, I will try in the future to identify other places I go, like Cocowalk (mall). Have a Merry Christmas!

Computerless in Japan

As some may remember I promised some updates last weekend, and I was fully prepared to do so, and then my computer's hard drive started to die. So I spent a week in Japan with my smart phone being my only connection to the outside world. Parts for repair are hard to come by in Japan. The Japanese mentality is not to keep old things running, when they become a problem they are replaced, which might not have been a bad idea considering I can buy a new lap top here for around $450. Still, once I figured out what I needed to fix I was able to order parts from the US and have them shipped express. Surprisingly my new hard drive arrived in less than 48 hours after ordering it. Installation is also much easier than it use to be, and so my whole system was up and running again in around 2 hours. This week is the final week before winter break, and is exceptionally busy, so I plan to provide the updates you have all been patiently waiting for next weekend when I will be completely free. This week I have a Japanese test, a Japanese vocabulary competition I'm speaking in, and I will be playing Santa at a school on Thursday. I have so many interesting experiences to share (and a few pictures, that I may or may not be able to recover from my hard drive here in Japan), but it will have to wait until next weekend, just consider it a Christmas present.

My busy life

Obviously I haven't had time to give people updates of my life lately, but my life goes on I assure you. I recently started my Traditional Japanese Arts classes and Martial Arts classes. Despite each of these sections being a single unit they now occupy another 6 hours of my school week. I also got to go help out at a Kindergarten two weeks ago, and am going back on the 22nd to be Santa Claus. I have started a job teaching conversational English to a Japanese man who runs a pharmacy, Nakashima-san, he is very kind and pays me very well. I also joined the Volleyball Club and meet with them once a week (it would be twice, but the other day they meet I work). This Saturday I am helping high school student prepare for an English vocabulary tournament that will be on Sunday. However, I should still have time to finally sit down and write about some of my adventures over the last two weeks. Truth be told though, with the extra hours spend in class I have less time for adventures, and the on/off fashion of raining here further complicates going out, not that I am complaining about the rain, it was hard at first dealing with it, what with not having a car, but like all things I have gotten use to the Japanese way of dealing with it, and barring a torrential downpour it is barely an inconvenience.