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slashdot and holiday travels, dec. 14 - jan. 9, 2002
January 10, 2002 00:22
***********disclaimer***********
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this edition is dull, way too long, and pretty uneventful, as it just recounts my travels and different thoughts and actions during the holiday seasons. i won't be disappointed if nobody reads it. in fact, if you have gotten this far, you deserve a cookie. go eat one. i'm serious. i mean, if i have to talk about slashdot and resort to geek jokes, then you know things aren't that interesting right now...but eh, whatever, here we go. read when you have the time if at all, or delete if you don't.
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so the first time i read slashdot (/.) in jerod's room three or four years ago, i didn't like it. the online community thing took too much time to get into. it still does. however, two years ago, i decided that it was a good source for some interesting news to start off the day, mostly dealing with computers, science, linux, open source, and technology poo. i have kept up reading it while i've been in japan, ignoring the stupid comments. but now for some reason, i guess i'm bored, i've started to read through some of the comments. it really is hillarious. you have maybe 4000 dorks with nothing better to do than talk about how one techology is impossible and argue among themselves about how the previous critic was wrong, and this critic is right, etc, etc. ,
the reason i'm bringing this up is because i just got a nostalgic dose of geekness from slashdot that i've been missing since rose. there's this story today talking about how some new company came out with some 100:1 data compression scheme for random data, and everyone at slashdot is saying it's crap and impossible. i'm pretty skeptic myself. however, i'm reading through the lame comments, you know, the things marked 'funny' when they're completely retarded and only remotely funny when said in a geek voice followed by unnecessary snort laughs...(which actually makes a lot of the site very readable, the snort laughs...try it), and i come across some of the technical text of the crappy web page that everyone's talking about. so i read through and they mention a tricked out version of the pigeon hole principle which i had never heard of before. "that's not the pigeon hole principle! that's stupid!" i yell in my head...then i look at the next post, and it says something to the same effect, "that's not the pigeon hole principle, stupid! " so i read further, and someone says, "actually it is equivalent to the pigeon hole principle, just think about ...." and i say "oooh.......yeah, maybe you're right". but the first guy goes "you're wrong, and this is why ", and then a completely unrelated guy comes in and gives a huge dissertation on the whole subject of the pigeon hole principle and where it came from, "actually, when you... blah blah snort snort hehe". pretty soon there are over 100 posts (currently there are 880) of stupid comments and thoughtout ideas and researched histories...
and i think out loud, "what the in the HELL am i doing?!" i was actually getting into their argument! i couldn't believe myself, i'm following along, thinking of different things to say, pondering whether or not i should register so i could post a rebuttal...how friggin' stupid is this?! i've wasted at least forty minutes of the day wondering about pigeons and their holes and the arbitrary ridiculousness of it all. christ! i hit myself in the forehead in frustration gaining an amused look from my coworkers...apparently they think i'm working.
and with that, i bring you another weekly steve for the months of december and january. (yes i know they're not weekly, get over it. you'd hate it if they were. but since there are 12 months in a year, and there will most likely be more than 12 weekly steve's over the course of the year, then at least one month will have more than one weekly steve in it...)
*******jinguru berusu************
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the colonel's influence in this country really is impressive. kentucky fried chicken is, i believe, the most lucrative fast food chain in japan. they accomplished this by doing one simple thing...they lied! everyone knows that westerners celebrate christmas by taking off work, decorating a christmas tree, exchanging presents, and having a great big christmas dinner (or lunch or whatever). about a decade or two ago, the colonel decided to convince the japanese population that all americans ate special food on christmas. in particular, you guessed it, they ate nice, warm greasy friiiiiiied chicken! i generally don't make generalizations ... that's a joke ... but japan is on the whole a very homogoneous country. so when mrs. sato and mrs. yamada saw on tv all the foreigners smiling and eating finger lickin good chicken, they said あらまーand had to go out and get some. and when mrs. tanaka found out that mrs. yamada and mrs. sato both were having fried chicken for christmas eve dinner, then, well, she of course had to get some as well. she could make it herself, but that wouldn't be nearly as authentic as buying some of the colonel's ready made stash. so mrs. tanaka went to her local kentucky fried chicken store, or KFC (that's 'kay eff she', by the way) only to find people lined up for three blocks already waiting. so she vowed that next year she'd get reservations....
which is exactly what people do today. i walked into the kfc in my little town in early december for the first time since i've been here, craving a bit of grease and cholesterol, and i noticed on the wall there was a large poster full of names and empty slots....reservations by the bucket for some of the colonel's special christmas fried chicken. now it is accepted as fact. everyone eats fried chicken on christmas eve and the colonel smiles, fat and happy. riiiiight....yeah, well just for the record, not all japanese people eat kfc for christmas eve. i know a lot of people who have never heard about it or done it (sachiko's family, for one, does not partake in it).
anyway, there's another strange characteristic of christmas in japan that i can't seem to find any history of....and that is the infamous christmas cake. this seems to be an elusive tradition. i ask my japanese friends, 'why do you eat christmas cake on christmas?', and they say, 'because it's christmas, duh...'. and i say, 'oh.', unsatisfied. they give me obligatory surprise when i tell them there is no such thing as christmas cake in the states, but i don't think it matters. christmas cake is here to stay, along with the little plastic holly leaf or christmas tree decorations on the top of it, and the pizza delivery boys dressed up in santa suits on their delivery mopeds; and the romantic aspect of the whole thing, the couples getting together for candle light dinners, the giving of romantic presents, the 30% of the women riding the last train home boarding with bouquets of flowers; and same christmas carols done in the following styles: standard, country, big band, brass, metal, and or polka from december 1st up to, but usually not including, december 25th, and the performance of beethoven's ninth symphony somewhere in the country, the chicks in the hot santa jackets and mini skirts promoting something or another, and yes...the eating of kfc on christmas eve. i decided that it's just a different holiday, and that's that... but it's still damn funny.
incidentally, i did some research into the history of some christmas traditions and found out that in france they had a christmas cake decorated to look like a log. it was called "buche de noel", meaining "christmas log cake"...haha. it came from the scandanavian tradition that caught on huge in france in the twelfth century of bringing a huge log or tree into the house to burn throughout the christmas season. they laid it down on its side and slowly fed it through the fire. this, incidentally, is probably where the tradition of the christmas tree came from, for sometime down the way the women started decorating the tree before it was burned. i guess people liked the decorations better than the hastle of buring a big tree...let alone the fire hazard. nowhere, however, was there mention of the christmas cake as is now practiced in japan. once again, i think it is the japanese way of turning things foreign into things japanese.
**********oh the holidays***********
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so yeah, the whole christmas thing was fun, but unfortunately i spent most of my time working. the 24th isn't even a recognized holiday. the 23rd, however, is the current emporer's birthday, so that is, of course, a national holiday. this year, the 23rd fell on a sunday, and when that happens, the next monday is automatically a national holiday, because national holidays aren't very meaningful if you can't waste the day at home instead of at work. anyway, this year i had christmas off, so i spent it with sachiko's family, we had a nice dinner (no fried chicken but we did have a christmas cake), and a cute little under-five-bucks gift exchange. i brought a pineapple...
anyway, the 25th was spent working and the next week was lame and boring until.....tim decided to come to japan! yep. tim came with his japanese friend and stayed at her place. we went out to tokyo, saw a museum, listened to a street jazz band in the cold, drank beer and stuff. he was a trooper. he put up with all my boring stories and blabbermouthing because i couldn't stop talking. i couldn't help it...when he showed up i realized how long it has been since i had talked seriously in english...i have no foreign friends in saitama, and i only see my other foreign english speaking friends once every other month...so tim got the brunt of a lot of stuff that never makes it's way into a weekly steve. thanks tim. ha. ah well, we went to an onsen (hot spring) out in the boonies, and that was fun. as soon as we got naked and inside, me a short skinny white guy with comparatively noticeable chest hair, and tim a tall skinny white guy with big head hair, this crazy japanese guy with horrible breath comes and slaps me on the shoulder and sits down beside us (we were waiting for one of the washing places to open up since it was so crowded.) "hey!!!!", he bounces, "from USA?" he says, though it didn't sound like a question. after getting the affirmative, he bellows "yeah! made in USA! i love USA!". i say, 'oh'. he continues to talk and talk and breath on me for a while, all of this being very amusing to tim. it amused me too, i guess, but i had to smell the breath... anyway, we finally escaped to the washing seats and then soaked in the tub, the sauna, outside, and i made tim dump cold water on himself because i said it felt good. he tried it doubtfully once and hated it. maybe he was embarrassed of the shrinkage inherent with the act, or maybe the fact that it was winter and we were sitting outside naked...either way, he didn't do it again.
anyway, we got out and ate ice cream while listening to the old guys sing enka. oh, this is funny. enka (演歌) basically means performance songs, and are usually these real emotional heartfelt slow or bouncy songs that all the old people sing and listen to here. i like to try some at karaoke because it makes everyone laugh, but enka is serious! these guys and girls take their singing seriously, as was evident at this onsen. apparently this was the place to be if you were over 50. everyone comes in the morning, takes a nice long bath in the onsen, sits in the sauna, gets clean and feels good. they get out, sit in the massage chair, drink tea and beer and sit in the performance room. there is a stage, two microphones, large speakers, and a karaoke machine with two tvs displaying the heartfelt lyrics to everyone. they even had an announcer. apparantly the singers would sign up in advance, spend all week before practicing their songs, getting everything just right, the vibrato here, the dynamics there....waiting for their chance to perform at the bath the next weekend. after each song, the announcer would say something like: "and that was mr. sato, next is mr. iwata who will be singing ....". i was really impressed. the songs were so much better done then the ones i usually hear from the drunken salarymen at the snack bars. these guys were serious. so yeah, back to my story...
as we were eating our ice cream, i tried to hide from the stinky USA guy that accosted us in the bath, but he eventually found his way over to us. this time, however, he sat closer to tim than me, so that was good. he really was a nice old man, he told me that americans were great, and that he loved the americano ("i talk spanish too", he confessed on more than one occasion). he also said that americans had no souls, that everything we say is 'bip service' . japanese people, however, always say what they mean, i thought, remembering my countless experiences with the distinction between honne (what they really think) and tatemae (what they want people to think they think). he was an eccentric old guy with some warped philosophy, but he was damn funny. bellowing this or that in spanish, or english, neither or which sounded like spanish or english, and spitting stuff all over the place and saying "sexcuse me" because he thought it was funny. after we had enough for longer than we wanted, we decided to go and he said he'd give us a ride to the station. we laughed and hesitantly accepted, pending, of course, the guy remembered where he parked his car. we walked behind him as he zigzagged around, finally finding a dark blue stationwagon type thing. it sorta smelled bad and was really dirty, but the station was only 3 minutes away. as he drove we found out he was from tokyo, about 3 or 4 hours away by car...like i said, it was the place to be for people over 50...
******ghengis sean*******
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after a fun day of climbing, i then hung out at sachiko's place for new year's day. this is a fun time where everyone sits around and watches tv, eats おせち料理 (osechi ryouri), and other traditional japanese new years food. we did that for two days and then we headed off for hokkaido, the northern most island in japan, known for it's beautiful scenery and delicious cuisine. my friend sean, my big, loquacious american buddy from tsukuba (who happens to be on this list, hi sean!) was gracious enough to let us stay in his (huuuuuge!) house. ok, it's not that huuuuge, but compared to my closet of a place, it's huuuuuuge. it is definitely too big for one person to live in, he's got like two extra rooms that he uses simply to dry his laundry and throw several boxes in. it's a disgrace...
anyway, the entire island is covered in snow at this time, and it is mainly made up of mountains (volcanic and not), farms (volcanic and not) and lots of fields and cows. it was breathtaking. the roads were wide and straight, the sky huge and blue, and not too many unnecessary electric and phone lines littering the landscape. we spent the days driving around, hiking through the snow, listening to the quiet, watching sean pee his name into the snow, feeding swans, and talking of philosphy and foreign policy. sean is a brilliant guy...though this is easily forgotten when he is singing "1,000,000 bottles of beer on the wall" in a cramped car, his booming voice laced with vibrato.
sean is famous. his village is a small place, and he is the english teacher. this is a big job. this means that he knows every single kid in the town, and therefore, every single parent. this also means that he has to speak in a big, clear, slow english teacher voice everytime he sees someone. "Hello! How Are You Today!?" he also teaches at several different schools, so no matter where he goes, there is always someone who knows him. this is also partly due to the fact that sean will carry on a conversation with anyone, even the loud goose that lives across his street. [for those of you who might be curious, sean is the vie-eena sausage guy from the old "pocket steve" video, first released as "steve goes to japan".]
moving on to the last thing worth talking about...sachiko and i went to this really old onsen stuck up in the mountains in the middle of nowhere in hokkaido. sean drove us up there through the winding snowy roads to our final destination. when we arrived, however, it definitely was not what we expected. there was an old, shabby, run down wooden building next to the parking lot, and a large concrete building with faded pink paint looking down at us from further up the hill. "this is the famous traditional onsen?", i thought...we made our way up to the entrance, and went to the room. the room wasn't bad, standard size with tatami mats, a small tv, and a coffee table. we asked for our dinner at 6 and then we went to go jump in the onsen...however, at this time, we realized that the onsen was konyoku (混浴) , which means mixed bathing. no separate male and female baths. "woohoo!", i thought...not because of that, but because this was how all the old baths were in japan. there aren't many remaining in the country now, and you really have to look for them. i love culture! sachiko was a bit hesitant at first, so we split up, her going to a small bath that was only for women (though it was dark and scary so she didn't get in), and me going to the stone bath and the 露天風呂 (rotenburo) outside.
ok, once inside the baths you realized that this was definitely a famous, traditional onsen. the buildings and appearance from the outside definitely didn't portray that, but the baths were excellent. first off, i went into the rock bath, which was basically built into a cave of sorts, the naturally hot water pumped from volcanic springs underground fell down the rocky walls into a large dark pool. there were stalagtite looking things coming down the wall and mist covering the entire room. there was one guy sitting in the pool. there are no shower places to wash like are at most modern onsen, and it's standard etiquite that you wash your body before getting into the pool. plus, it's not good just to jump into 50°C water straight from standing dry in a 2°C cave. so while kneeling or squatting on the stone ground, you pour the hot water on you with the small buckets provided. this feels great when the air is cold. then you start washing your body and rinse yourself off by repeatedly dowsing yourself with buckets of hot onsen water. that done, you're free to get in the pool. the water was dark and hot and, had i been able to see it in the day, had a green color with strange dirt and rock particles from the wall floating in it. it has a sort of slimey texture when you rub the water between your fingers which is supposed to mean it has a lot of nutrients in it...
when i got out, my skin was silky smooth, and i felt refreshed. then i went to the roten buro outside. the snow was everywhere, ice as well, but the hot volcanic water melted everything within a foot of the bath. this bath was made out of a humongous 3 meter diamater tree trunk. the old tree stump was sawed of flat and hollowed out, down about a meter. they even carved in seats around the side of the tub, and a hole near the top for the water to drain through. nestled in between snowy hills on the edge of the hotel, this was definitely my favorite pool. someone made a cute little snowman next to it. the water then ran down to the next pool which was a bit cooler and not so scalding. i made idle chat with the japanese guy about how there weren't many onsens like this left in japan...
i got out and it was dinner time. this was definitely surprising. at 6 on the dot a little guy comes running in, moves the coffee table out of the middle of the room and begins bringing in these old traditional little food tables called ozen fill to the brim with dinner. there were four tables for each of us, and one table for the rice, tea, and other stuff. it was delectable. we had two fishies, japanese beef in a butter cream sauce, mugi gohan (rice with some of the husk still on, very healthy), tenpura, hot seafood stew, sashimi, salad, vegetables, and this really weird congeally type of green and white stuff... anyway, the service was awesome and we ate till we couldn't. then it was back to the baths! this time we went together so she wouldn't be so scared, sat outside in the freezing winter air, snow all around us, soaking in the hot wooden tub, as the water in my hair froze to a nice crisp. the sky was a perfect clear black and the stars bright and many. and as i stood naked in the snow, i watched the steam rise off my warm body and dissipate into the cold, dark night. i loved it...until i noticed some rather prominant shrinkage...come back, come back, i'm sorry! look... here, i'm back in the water...see?
see you next week?
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weekly steve, volume one, issue #
copy gold leader 2001-2002
this has not been proofread extensively. maybe once.
it is purely subjective. it uses commas and parantheses
with abandon. it is not professional. it is too long.
it does not need to be copywrited.
the author accepts no responsibility for loss of intelligence after
reading of it. the author is too far away to be hit so he is
not scared.
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