Having just returned to Japan, I found myself in the position of having a rather sparsely furnished apartment. When the Japanese rent you an apartment, you get exactly what it says on the label; an apartment, and that’s all.

Not only is furniture an optional extra, but so are all the other fixtures, like light fittings, towel rails, curtains, doors, windows, gravity etc. Essentially, my first week was spent in a rather grim apartment that had two tatami mat rooms, a sink (with no hot water tap), a stove, a shower (which had a hand held shower head with no means of affixing it to a wall), my suitcase and a whole lotta nothing else. As I lay on my futon watching the tublweeds drift past, I realised it was time to go shopping.

Now, in this situation, the uninitiated rentee would immediately make for the nearest home store to overload on expensive household items. I, however, am made of sterner (and stingier) stuff and was prepared to risk a trip into Don Quixote.

Don Quixote is a group of chain stores in Japan. Like an aging porn star, they are famous for being cheap, slightly shabby and full of improbable things.

The stores have pretty much everything you could ever need. However, they are laid out in a completely random way, to encourage people to look through the whole store rather than just go straight to the section they need.

I am at a loss to understand why you would anyway, when there is so much to see in the shop. It is one of the only shops in the world where you will see crotchless panties rub shoulders (metaphorically speaking) with children’s videos.

Don Quixote’s mascot is a ubiquitous blue penguin who appears scattered on various promotions throughout the store. His general demeanor seems to change a lot between the different products he is being forced to display.

Examples include… this (justifiably) terrified looking chap in Osaka…

this cute little love heart seducer…

this angry looking stuffed toy…

and this Picasso alien portrait.

Of course, here’s no point in having the best furnished apartment in the world if there is no one to share it with. This is where some inflatable companionship comes in handy.

The main problem with the store is that it’s so easy to get distracted. I mean, this is a store that offers a huge variety in even mudane things like tissues.

The choices ranged from some yuletide paper for poolside capers…

and 48 patterns of handerchief love!

Eventually the distractions gor the better of me and I returned home far from empty handed, but no better off in the furnishing stakes. Not only that, but now my Air idol keeps complaining about my lack of ammenities.

Stay Cynical.

Oh, and a quick update on last week’s story. I have just been informed that I need to go back to the immigration centre to pick up my new visa… on December 25th. Man, will I be decking the halls!

Ouch!

I’ve never had what would be referred to as one of the world’s great smiles. It certainly wouldn’t stand up to, to pick a name at random, say Jennifer Aniston. In fact, if I’m being totally honest with myself, it probably wouldn’t stack up to Austin Powers.

For starters, I have gaps between my teeth large enough to drive a light utility truck through. I also have four dead teeth; the legacy of an active, if somewhat brainless, youth. However, it has to be said, compared to some of the people in Japan, I have a million dollar smile.

Dentistry in Japan is not considered an exact science. Indeed, in some country areas, it is still possible to find dentist offices where patients are still anaesthetized with a rubber mallet.
Living in Japan, you often hear horror stories about other foreigners’ visits to the dentist. They usually run along the lines of, “I went in for some minor bridgework and left an hour later with two root canals, a chipped tooth and a missing kidney.”

The main advantage of visiting the dentist here, is that it is so cheap! So, if you do manage to find a good dentist, it is imperative that you keep him.

My dentist is a lovely man called Mr Tanaka. He speaks English and is quite charming and friendly. When a man has half his hand crammed in your mouth, it’s the little things like this that make a difference.

That being said, his assistant is a little weird. On my first visit, she came in to watch, citing that she had “never seen the inside of a gaijin’s mouth”. Another time she kept trying to lift up my shirt while I was lying on the dentist’s chair.

What can I say? I’m irresistible to Japanese dental assistants.

So, this visit was to have a wisdom tooth removed. For those of you who have managed to avoid this pleasant process, it involves 1 part dentistry and two parts excavation. The remaining 7 parts consist of excruciating pain. I had a different tooth taken out a little over a year ago, and it has taken me this long to recover. So it was with some trepidation that I approached the procedure again.

My nervousness was hardly abated when after ten minutes of cutting and prying, my dentist commented, “You have a hard bone.” Now, this could be construed as quite a compliment, were it whispered by; say a 20 something model, bent on a bit of extra-curricular shenanigans.

However, when it is uttered by a 40 something man intent on ripping said bone from your skull, it somehow loses the intimacy. When he later announces that the root of your tooth is shaped like a screw, you know you’re in for an unpleasant afternoon.

Anyway, the upshot is, that after 1 ½ hours of pain and torment, I have had half a tooth removed and I still have to go back in 2 weeks time to finish the job. Meanwhile, I’ve got a massive hole in my gums that rice keeps getting stuck in.

Oh, and I seem to have misplaced my kidney.

Wish me luck and stay Cynical,

The Cynical Traveller

Part 2 – The buildings and the “food” (A.K.A. Prisoner Cell Block H)

Last week I subjected you to the many subtle complexities of the Japanese text book and the joy that can be derived from teaching it.

Now, my reader(s) may deduce from this that I don’t particularly enjoy my job; far from it. How could any person fail to be inspired by working in such an architecturally inspiring edifice as a Japanese Junior High school?

Take my Junior High school, which is obviously inspired by the art deco constructions of William Van Allen;

whereas my elementary school is more influenced by the baroque designs of Filippo Brunelleschi;

and my old high school is almost Byzantine in its complexity.

Things improve little when you actually move inside the building. Take for example, the staffroom.

Now here is my desk, which I’m sure you’ll agree, is one that any self respecting bachelor would be proud of. The draws are full of expired candy and 3 week old bread. The filing system is woefully inadequate, bordering on non-existent. In fact, the whole design had been derived to enable me to do the least amount of work in any given time frame.

Unfortunately, when I changed schools I was forced to leave my business card collection behind. This is rather a shame because after two years it was standing at around 30cm high. 90% of the cards were from the same travel agent (“it’s okay mate, I know your phone number by now”).

However, there’s a rather conspicuous absence from my desk, which singles it out as belonging to the foreigner: the absence of cuteness. A quick glance around the staff room reveals the following:

• The woman on my left has a giant plastic frog on her desk, which is covered in stickers of a pigeon playing tennis.

• The 48 year old man on my right has a group of photos of his dog dressed up in bows and ribbons.

• The hard-arse PE teacher directly across from me has a Mickey Mouse coffee mug.

• The woman behind me has a mobile phone dressed up as a mouse.

• The man next to her has a 6 inch Winnie the Pooh that walks and shoots laser beams from its eyes (not really, but damn that would be cool).

Of course, no school day would be complete without the gastronomic delights of kyushoku; the school lunch. Generally kyushoku resembles the stuff that I have to empty from my sink after cleaning 2 weeks worth of dishes.

Let’s run through a typical week’s menu:

Monday – Rice, a “hamburger” that even mad cows would reject as unfit for human consumption.

Tuesday – Rice, a tofu / mince combination that looks like vomit but doesn’t taste quite as nice, a frozen plum that could be used as an offensive weapon in a pinch.

Wednesday – I’ll let this one speak for its self (only because I have no idea what to call it, and indeed, no wish to recall it).

Thursday – Rice, some kind of mixed vegetable stew (I only recognised one of the vegetables, I’m pretty sure the others were concocted in some mad scientist’s lab)

Friday – Curried rice (ooh, curry flavour. Viva variety!), a frozen mandarin, the leftovers from a liposuction biohazard bag.

The amazing thing is that the kids actually seem to enjoy the school lunches! We had a vote on whether to continue with school lunches and something like 90% of the students said “yes”. I can only attribute this to some kind of gastro intestinal self flagellation.

However, as I write this, Summer holidays are about to begin. So, I’ll be waving goodbye to Japan, and saying hello to Thailand and Peru. Sure, the water may not be drinkable in these countries, but I’m sure if they had a choice the locals wouldn’t vote for it to continue that way.

Stay cynical,

The Cynical Traveller

Part 1 – The Textbook (A.K.A. Yuki in the first grade)

Believe it or not, my life isn’t just one big travel romp. Unfortunately, in between destinations, I am occasionally forced to do what could generously be described as “work”.

For those of you who haven’t managed to guess, I am an English teacher. Basically, 90% of native English speakers living in Japan are English teachers and the other 10% are ex-English teachers.

And what a fantastic job it is; intellectually stimulating and rewarding.

To give you some example of the subtlety and nuance involved in teaching English in Japan, take this example from the first year “Sunshine” text book.

Fortunately those 4 years of university are not going to waste.

Yuki is the main character who appears throughout the “Sunshine” textbooks. We follow her life, dreams, hopes and aspirations through her “Sunshine” world.

So, when Yuki says, “This is a pen”, obviously we must read deeper into her meaning and see the metaphorical allegories hidden within the subtext.

Others characters in the “Sunshine” first grade book include:

LISA
A blonde, Canadian girl, living in Japan, Lisa isn’t the brightest of cookies. For example, despite the fact that she lives in Japan and goes to a Japanese school, she still finds it necessary to engage in the following conversation…

As well as an unhealthy obsession with China, Lisa also displays a lamentable knowledge of geography and recognisable landmarks.

LI
Li is a Chinese devil, cunningly disguised as a small boy. Of course the Chinese don’t have the great fashion sense of the Japanese, and so Li is unflatteringly dressed throughout in a brown or blue cardigan and purple slacks. For some reason, he also has no eyeballs to speak of, just a pair of raised arches.

However, the writers have failed to realize the full potential of Li’s ethnicity. Where are the examples of Li working in a Japanese car factory for a pittance, protesting outside Yasakuni shrine or being berated as a thief and drug addict by Tokyo Governor, Ishihara?

ANDY
Andy is the, quite frankly, alarming looking token black man. There does not exist a picture of Andy without eyebrows furrowed, exuding menace. Look at the results when he tries to buy a train ticket.

MR BROWN

Mr Brown is an American Assistant English teacher. He basically has the same job as me, although he seems to enjoy it a lot more (indeed, perhaps a bit too much).

It’s with the introduction of Mr Brown that the textbook becomes rather invidious. You see, Mr Brown appears to have landed the perfect school, full of perfect students, when we all know in reality this school doesn’t exist.

Let’s compare this scene from Mr Brown’s school….

…with an alternative scene from a real school.

And that picture, ladies and gentlemen, pretty much sums up what teaching English in Japan is all about.

Well, that and the phrase “I’m fine, thank you. And you?”

Next week, we’ll have a look at the modern architectural marvel that is: the Japanese Junior High School.

Until then, stay cynical.

The Cynical Traveller

Hostess bars are a uniquely Japanese thing, that I managed to avoid for 3 ½ years. Then, one weekend I got drunk with two Japanese friends and one insisted that we go. Bear in mind, that this is a friend who has had a steady girlfriend (who is quite attractive) for 4 years.

Now, before this visit, I always had an image of hostess bars as some kind of dodgy strip-club.

Something classy and understated like this…

I was expecting this…

The reality is far different, far more civilized and far less interesting.

You are actually paying money to talk to a woman! That’s it.

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t roughly 50% of the population women? And we’re not talking a dirty conversation here. No, it’s light chatter.

“The weather is very bad today”

“So, how ‘bout those Hiroshima Carp”

… but I got this

I’m certainly not a wildly handsome guy, but I’ve never had to pay a woman to talk to me before. I’ve almost always at least gotten a “Get lost creep!” for free.

Indeed, being an English teacher in Japan, I can get women to pay me for a conversation and I get to speak in English. The whole concept in reverse just isn’t that enticing.

Of course, what you are really paying for is the chance to flirt with a young lady. It’s just like all that annoying small talk you’re forced to make in bars, but without the possibility of actually getting anywhere with the girl.

So, there we are talking inanities and my friend leans over and says that I’m supposed to buy her a drink.

Now, I’m familiar with the concept of buying a drink for women. Usually it is in the vain attempt to get them drunk enough to look at me without flinching. But hang on; wasn’t I already paying this girl just to talk to me? But rules is rules; and so I stumped up for an $8 mineral water at the club’s wonderfully competitive prices.

Talent in Pub Angel Kiss? Nix!

Anyway, by this stage we’ve got quite the conversation happening in my broken Japanese.

“I have lived in Japan for four years”

“No, I don’t like nattou”

“So, what’s your take on Nietzches’ philosophical assertion that ‘convictions are more enemy to the truth than lies’”?

“Yes, I can use chopsticks”

“Really? You’re 17 eh?”

I’m starting to relax and think that at least this girl will be able to buy a new Louis Vuitton handbag thanks to me. But then, what happens? She leaves to talk to someone else and a different girl comes to talk to me. And I have to go over the same inanities with a completely different person. Oh, and buy her a drink as well.

Ladies, you haven’t been forgotten. Let the G boys rock your world!

So far, I’ve shelled out about 6000 yen and I’ve effectively had an hour of “Let’s speak basic Japanese” lessons.

Then the manager comes over and tells us that if we want to stay, we have to pay for another hour. Let me tell you, there was no way that was happening.

And so it was back out into the cold night air, a poorer man and yet no wiser.

Stay cynical,

The Cynical Traveller

(This story contains a lot of pictures – Apologies in advance to any dial up users, but really you should get out of the dark ages!)

Nowadays Japanese arcades are more than sugar high teenagers, epilectically dancing on DDR machines. While the shooting and driving games of home still appear, I have decided to highlight some of the more original machines.

WINNING PRIZES

The most popular games on display are the ubiquitous “skill testers”, or as they are know in Japan, “UFO catcher”. Just why they are called this is anyone’s guess as the prizes are very rarely UFOs, and indeed, very rarely caught.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of these machines, they are full of prizes that are generally worth less than it costs to play the game. The operator moves a claw around with a joystick and then presses a button. The claw descends and tries to grasp a prize.

Of course, the claws in these machines have about the same grasping strength as Kermit the Frog.

Now at home, the prizes are usually a fluffy toy, and indeed these do appear in Japan, albeit in a slightly scarier fashion.

But those clever Japanese don’t just stop at toys. Oh, no. How about trying to win a girlie DVD?

Or for those of you into animation, you can win a “Neon Genesis” character. But not just some boring battle armour figurine.

They are available in:

Sexy nurse

Peadophile’s wet dream

And knocked up housefrau

WINNING MONEY

The concept of this machine is simple. Insert a token and if you’re lucky it pushes a load of other tokens out. However, as simple as the concept is, the design is something else!

I swear to god, this thing looks like it’s escaped from a Stephen King Novel. I believe it was designed to discourage young children from gambling. Most of the children were far too scared to go near the thing, and some burst into tears when looking at it.

The machine periodically blurted something out in distorted Japanese. Although my Japanese is pretty bad, I’m sure it translated into something like, “I’m coming for your soul”.

WINNING RESPECT

For the more cereberal of you, why not try the imaginatively titled “Quiz Magic Academy II”? Yes, this machine asks you a series of questions and lets you pick from multiple choice answers or true (O) false (X). It’s just like “Who wants to be a millionaire?”, but without all that pesky “winning money” stuff to distract you.

“Spending all day in a Game Centre is likely to get me a girlfriend”
True or False?

CARD GAMES

This is the new fad in Japanese gaming centres. The player buys some cards from a shop. Each card has different abilities. They then place the cards on the machine, which reads them and they can use them to play the game.

The wonderful thing about this idea is that the company that makes the game gets your money twice.

In this first example, the cards make up units of an army. You can move them around the table to fight a strategic battle.

Or, how about a game of soccer, where the cards represent the different players on your team?

However, as this site is called “The Cynical Traveller”, you certainly won’t find me admitting that I actually thought this was a pretty cool idea.

OLD GAMES

There is also a huge market for old style games in Japan. You’ll see many machines that haven’t been manufactured since the late 1980s being played by guys who haven’t had a date since the late 1980s.

I mean come on, my Commodore 64 had better graphics than this.

AND LASTLY…

And finally, for my readers over 40 who may be intimidated by all this, here’s a picture of “Pong”.

Stay Cynical,

The Cynical Traveller

NEXT WEEK: The Cynical Traveller goes to… Harajuku