Memories by song

Everytime i sing this song, it reminds me of two friends: singing it for my Fumi Kasagi who's in NY now, and for Koji Koshikawa... I haven't talked to u in a while, but i hope ur well.

Cheers, enjoy the video～～!

thoughts back that press forward

These days I've been thinking about my teacher/program Mom Kasaoka-sensei... I'm sure taht she is... she is being kept very busy with this year's new students (^_^) I wonder what kind of group are at Waseda this year...? How many students are from SF State?
School must have JUST started huh... thinking about the beginnings make me go into flashback mode, haha..... funny, but at the end of my year abroad I felt like I was ready for it to be over, ready to move on and do something else, but now that I look back on the year's events, I wouldn't mind doing it over again, so long that i knew what I know now.

I still feel like it's kinda weird to be actually back here... at first, I was really bored to be just sitting around my parent's house, waiting for school to start, and then nearly in tears because after a month i forgot how fast-paced life in the city can be (>_<) but u know, I can't help comparing my new recent experiences of living on my own in SF to life back in Tokyo. I recently move out of my parent's house and into an apartment with some roommates, closer to SF State so that I don't have to commute to SF. Live on my own isn't always easy (specially when I have to worry about what's for dinner~! ahh, that was the biggest plus for living with my host mom Yumi-san, delicious dinners...) but for better or for worse, I'm really enjoying life here. I think it much easier to live and socialize in SF than in Tokyo. I don't know if that's because this is closer to home for me or whether it's a dynamic related to the cities themselves, but I feel like i can connect easier and deeper to the people I meet here.

of course, I can't be back here without missing familiar relationships... the friends I used to know have left for other places, and sometimes it can be hard to walk around a familiar place that i used to spend time with a certian person....... but as time passes, and I meet new people and can make good memories with new friends, it becomes easier.

This year won't just be a year of hanging out and parties and friends. I have to be very serious about studying because i'm almost done with my Japanese major and I'm beginning to work on a very difficult English major. So much reading to do~~~~~!!! (>_<) I'm beginning to think about what to after I graduate... should i look for work right away or do I want ot go to grad school? Where do i want to go? Japan, California? Somewhere else in the US? Or do I want to try something completely different and go to Europe? Do I have the money to go to grad school?

I can't make any decisions now, and maybe not for another year. But I want to use this year to find and consider all of my options. I want to make a better, more realistic and solid plan for myself. The thought of "just graduate and teach in Japan" doesn't satisfy me anymore. I'm on the search for something better.

How to sum-up a year in Japan? (Part 1)

Well, I've been meaning to write some sort of summary for a long time.... maybe 2 months, in fact. Often I find myself only writing when I really don't have time for it, when I should be doing other things (like right now I'm in my school's computer lab and I really should be finishing Japanese homework...). But I found this and I feel it does give a pretty actuate protrait of some the aspects of being at Waseda's SILS (School of International Liberal Studies). I just hope that I was less apathetic and more motivated that many that I had met there.

The list, taken from "You know you when to SILS if..."
-you speak a hybrid language. e.g. "i'm so fucking hungry dayo!!"
-although you technically go to school in nishi-waseda campus, you don't really go "inside" the campus that often.
-statistics is your worst enemy.
-you confuse people from other departments by using the word "sils" profusely in daily conversations.
-you often forget english is supposed to be a foreign language in japan.
-you think...no, you know 留学センターis stupid.
-you spent half your freshman year first semester in building 19's lounge.
-however, when you become older and cooler you tend to forget that you too used to spend time in 19's lounge.
-in open college classes you and your friends are the loudest... and coolest, in your opinion.
-you don't know half your friends' surnames.
-when stuck in a conversation with nothing to say, you ask people where they want to/are planning to/have gone to study abroad.
-you can't speak your mother tongue properly.
-your non-japanese friends speak better japanese than the japanese ones.
-you say hi to at least five people walking the slope between 19 and 22 for your next class.
- you meet most of your friends and professors at HUB in Takatanobaba.
- you feel cool and fab dressing up for Tanabatas and Halloween.
-you know that SILS office staff are useless.
-your decision on which course to take depends on the professors' english skills.
-you ask for chewing gum as if everyone has it everywhere.
-you wear weird clothing and freak out people in side the waseda gate, who all wear the same clothing.
-you wear scanty clothing and show lots of your skin (and fat).
-you think that bldg. 22 PC room is for sils students, therefore you feel pissed when other department people are dominating the place and there's no room for you to kill time on facebook.
- you have to think about 3 seconds and then reply when people asked, where did you come from?
- you lived in more than one country before.. and if you didn't, your friends think you should be in museum.
- your facebook wall has english and japlish eg. kyo wa tanoshikatta yo neeee. all over.
-you are out partying almost every friday.
- you said SILS all over and expect other people to understand what it stands for.

Japanese Politeness - Overstayed Farewell Party

Yesterday I went to my friend John's host family's host for a Farewell Party that they were holding from him. I remember from the first time he emailed me about it, I was really surprised that his family was willing to open their house up to complete strangers and invite us to have a party. In the US, this isn't something so surprising, but in Japan where one's private face is carefully concealed, people don't socialize in the ultra-private intimacy of each other's homes. I have only twice before been to a friends' house, once each, even though they were both living alone.

So being invited to another's house is a big deal, even more so because it was John's host mom who suggested that he invite some people over. He said he would never ask for anything like that and I wouldn't think of asking my host family either (though when I asked my host mom about it later, all she could do was say how surprised she was that I hadn't had a party. "ALLLLL the other previous students had had parties, but Claire doesn't have good friends in the CSU group and you weren't here for your birthday, so that's why." (-_-;)) Oh, and it's almost expected for you to bring some sort of gift to your host,like a bottle of wine or dessert, but I when I asked John about it, he said i didn't need to bother. But I regretted it later...

I got to John's train station relatively on time, exchanged quick introductions with John's 2 other friends Hannah and Tokano and we walked to his house. And WOW! what a house! It' a REALLY big house,western style, with a security gate and even a garden!!! They must be pretty loaded.... What kind of people does John live with?? I was expecting younger people of about late 40s to early 50s, but once we were ushered awkwardly in the door, John's host mom Satomi-san was more of an grandmotherly woman, who's aura (after a few minutes of conversation) just EXUDED traditional Japanese housewife, seemingly polite and respectful.

Takano had brought a cake for dessert, which they graciously accepted. I felt a twinge of guilt for not being a better guest(o_O) Oh well, they'll probably just blame it on the fact that I'm American anyways...

The party turned out to be a much more formal event than I would have thought, with fancy fish and German wine and beer. They sat us down at the table, laden with plates, chopsticks and many dishes. Then the interviews began.

"Where are you from? What is your major? What do you study at Waseda? How do you know John? Can you eat fish? Wow, how did you learn to use chopsticks so well? Do you live in a dorm? Why do you live with a host family? What is your host family like?" With all the questions that Satomi-san fired at me, I had the feeling that this party was not as much for John as it was an opportunity for his family to meet foreign students. She also keep talking about John right in front him, like "Well, John is always like this" and "He ALWAYS likes this". It seemed a bit awkward, but I tried my best to make it more of a conversation by asking my own questions.

As the evening wore on, the wine glass continued to be refilled. They even gave me a cup of sake and asked me a couple times to have beer. I was at least a bit buzzed, but John's 30 yr old host brother and wife were certainly outright drunk. And poor Takano, they just keep pushing beers into his hand saying "Don't be reserved! Please drink more!!" We took group photos and listen to John play the piano. Ah, I felt like a kid at my aunt's house...

So at about 11, John turns to me and asks me in English what time my last train is, and if I want to stay the night. It was raining like crazy and I thought since he was asking, that it was already OK with his host mom. But since no one else was staying, I thought it best to head back. Figuring the time of my last train from Shibuya was at 12:40, we thought to leave the house at 11:45.

At this point, no one in the family said ANYTHING about what time the last train was, nor did I think anything about if it was getting late for his host family. In fact, we were all really still just chilling, so I wasn't trying to "guess" or "feel" if Satomi-san wanted us to go, though she didn't give those hints either, since she just kept asking us if we wanted more wine or beer or cake.

When we were just about set to take our leave, Satomi-san ran up and asked us to sign a guestbook, which took a bit of time. Me, John, and Hannah set off to walk me to the station. It wasn't until I had already left the house and was on the street that I realized Takano wasn't with us... huh? John said that Takano realized that he had already missed his last train, and Satomi-san had reluctantly said "Well, i guess it be helped" and let him stay. So why don't you stay Claire? Well does your host mom mind? "Dunno, let me ask." I called my host mom, and she was cool with it.

But when he came back he had a very confused expression on his face, since she had been really reluctant, saying stuff like "Well, it's a little bit difficult, and she is a girl, so won't her host parents will worry about her she doesn't come back?" I felt instantly bad right then, like I was imposing on Satomi-san kindness. We were debating what to do as we walked to the station, only to find I had missed the last train by 1 minute... We walked to Hannah's host family house since it was close to see if I could stay there since a girl staying over wouldn't cause as much of a problem, but no one was away to ask permission from so that was a no go. Me and John ended up making out way back through the heavy rain back to his place. I waited on the porch, hearing him mom say "So how was it?" (more like "did she go home?") while he made his explanation that she didn't seem so happy to hear. But once again saying "Well it can't be helped!" I was let in.

But this time as I stepped in the door, I felt a certain change in her attitude. I was not the guest that had just left, more of a bothersome child to care for. I was nearly ordered to take off my wet clothes as John was ordered to fetch me something dry of his, just as soon as he wiped up the water that had dripped onto the floor from his soaking pants. Even after I changed, we sat around being interviewed as she waited for Takano to finish drinking another beer that she had put in his hands, even though he drank 4 cans of beer and a bottle of red wine. I really wished that she would just decide to go to bed and leave us 3 to casually chill for a bit, but she didn't show any inclination to leave us "unsupervised". Definitely in charge, she was the one that said, "Well I'm sure you're all tired so it's probably best to get to bed," sweeping us off to our separate rooms. She even woke us in the morning, making breakfast from last night's leftovers, even though I would have preferred to leave ASAP as to not impose any more on her, but to refuse a meal already prepared would seem ungrateful......

It was only once we left that we found out why she had been so reluctant to let us stay: Her eldest son was coming in the morning, and she needed us gone so she could prepare the next big feast and also so he wouldn't know that there had been a party he didn't know about. He lives a bit far away and had NOT been invited to the party the night before since he would have had to stay, which would have been a trouble for her, since she would have to care for him the whole next day.

Sheesh!! What kind of family does this to their kids?! What kind of person doesn't make it politely yet obviously clear when it's time to leave??

...a Japanese one.


I just wonder if I am at fault for not "knowing" when to go home, or she should have made it clear that she was going to be busy the next day and couldn't afford any overnight guests.

Krisy Kreme Krazy Japan!

2 hour wait for a Krisy Kreme... would you believe it?! It's possible here in Tokyo, where anything from America can become more popular, faster and consumerism has been elevated to the extreme. What's more unbelievable is that waiting in a line to buy donuts has become a dating activity, almost comparable to waiting in line together for rides at Disneyland (O_o) And not only are they waiting a hell of a lot longer, but they are willing to spend much more money on them too, since on average everyone was walking out of that shop carrying a box or two of 2 dozen donuts, which cost about $20 each. Krispy Kreme must really be making a killing here.....

Tokyo Itself is A Lost Connection

I was on my way to school Monday, when I received a message from my teacher that all classes at Waseda had been suddenly canceled until May 29th because of the recent measles outbreaks in Tokyo. My first thought was to run the travel agency and see if there were any flights available to exotic places that other students had gone to over spring break but I hadn't gotten a chance to yet. Rather than travel alone, I found 2 friends who were willing to spend the money to go. Since most cheap tour packages that include flight and hotel were booked, we decided to go from June 1-4 to Bali (^___^) According to my aunt, it's a honeymoon destination, so I'm really looking forward to it.

The only thing is, in the mean time what's to do?? I feel like I've toured too much of Tokyo and Japan already.... and it's getting wayyyy to hot to sit at home... So I was looking for apartments in SF for next semester on craigslist. I was doing that today too, but eventually got bored and started looking at other parts of craigslist, when I found this post under Tokyo>>Lost Connections:

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"The City of Tokyo is itself a Missed Connection...

This is the conclusion I've roughly arrived at after spending what I thought was a sufficient amount of time there. But it wasn't enough time. Or more precisely, different rules seemed to apply to time. There were apparitions of faces in endless crowds. So many faces, but none that lit up in recognition just for me. Who knew me, or even wanted to know me.

It hit me one night on the Hibiya line. Last train. A man and a woman who had no connection other than a shared train seat. They had both fallen asleep and their heads and shoulders were leaning in toward each other with a kind of unconscious intimacy. Could it be that they had found in sleep what we could not in waking? But Borges had already spoken about that, hadn't he?: "...Que mientras dormimos aquí, estamos despiertos en otro lado y que así cada hombre es dos hombres." ("While we sleep here, we are awake elsewhere, and thus every man is two men.")

What's more, an advertisement above them read, in strangely happy red lettering, "Decide who you love best by November 31st." I stared at that sign for a long time. Like it was some oracle, some talisman, some harbinger of an alternate future. Why this arbitrary deadline? But I decided that sign was written just for me and so I wanted to comply with its order. But I couldn't. Or wouldn't. In any case, I didn't. And in this way, I lost you.

Do you remember the night we sat up smoking on your balcony, looking at the clouds moving in over the city, tracking the blinking lights and the trains snaking through the punctutated darkness toward who-knows-where? We decided the city had grown up enough to take care of itself. That if we all died tomorrow most of what we saw--the neon, the factories, the trains, the great modern pyramids of office building architecture--would go on. They do not need us. They might have at some point in the past, but no longer.

I have a letter from you from long ago. I saved it because it contains the most beautiful and most heart-rending line anyone has ever written to me. You wrote, "The time we spent together was wonderful, and I felt very close to you for a moment."

I missed you. I lost you forever to this city."

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wow, i so know how this person feels...i have always said that Tokyo is the Lonely City of Lost Souls, but this person explained so eloquently. I meet so many people everyday, but I feel like I lost my connection to them too quickly, or it never has any real chance to form... Even now as I have been sitting around my house or gone out somewhere by myself, I don't feel that strong connection to many of the people I know here in Tokyo.

...a few months after I came here, I felt like I lost my "light", the 明るさ of my personality... I don't know if I ever got it back, but I know I've been able to fight the against the darkness that threaten to swallow me.

who ever you are, I hope you can recover what this City has taken from you...

I want my Social Butterfly wings back....

Hey yah (^_^) sorry for the prolonged blog silence. My reasons, well 1. I was travelling 2. I was busy travelling and 3. I was out experiencing life so that I would have something to write about.

see, great reasons (^_^)

so this isn't really the blog i wanted to post to tell what's been happening, but I'll do. It's actually a letter to friend Gene-chan so that's why there are a lot of "you"s. Enjoy~! (@^_^@)

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but yah after I left Cali for Japan and my mom came with me, I was taking her everywhere and didn't have much a chance to sit down and type. Oh and I was a blithering idiot and lost my cell phone on a train the day before we were leaving Tokyo to go to Kyoto (>.<) not only did I have to pay like $70 to get a new one, I lost all my contacts, my pictures, and some rare-ish anime keitai straps ( DOUBLE >..<) It was like winter's unforgiving hand was trying to put the choke-hold on spring and yelling "I'm not gone yet, dammit!!"
hehe....

but yah, Kyoto was really beautiful.... it's kind of what you expected Japan to be. maybe most people visit only Tokyo and Kyoto and they come away with the impression that all of Japan is like that.... but anyways, I don't know if you remember going to Kyoto, but my favorite was Kiyomizu dera. (google it) It's a really HUGE temple that is built on a hillside and offers great views of Kyoto. all the sakura were in bloom when i went too, so it was really special.

well, school started last week (so i've had a total of 2 weeks of school now.... weird huh? Cali's schools are almost done and I just started!) and it took all that time to get my damn schedule figured out. I had to go sit in on a lot of classes to find out which ones were crap and which were worth it. A lot of the japanese teachers have such strong accents or unnatural ways of speaking you may as well be taking thier class in Japanese (-_-;) But i decided to take Applied Lingustics(of english), Women Writers in Japanese literature (in English translation. oh, and my teacher's Gaye. no, no joke, her name is Gaye Rowley) and a slew of Japanese classes. I didn't work really hard at my japanese last semester so i want to try better this time around.

but even as i'm just getting started here, i'm painfully aware of how little time I have left, like 4 months. wow, that 2 month spring vacation went REALLY fast... I have to start thinking about going back now too.... apartments, class reg back at SFSU, and any last minute travel arrangements (I may go to Hokkaido right after school finishes on July 26th and before i have to go back on the first week of August)............................
i just was wondering..... i wonder this is too early to be leaving? I went home to recover and re-center myself, but I wonder if that has let to my eyes becoming stuck in that direction rather than the present life I have now...?
also I have a lot of stuff i want to complete like searching online for an event to cosplay my Menos Grande costume, writing my blog, begin writing the book based on my Life in Japan ...
but..........

i'm too hooked on playing Zelda: Twlight Princess. I'm not kidding you , even me sitting down at my computer and commiting myself to replying to you has taken serious amount of effort!! i find myself coming home from school and turn in my Wii thinking i'll only play 1 hour but somehow that 1 hour turns into 4! and then a go to bed at 1am or 2 and wake up at maybe 9 then next morning to work on some homework before classes and again I find myself thinking "i wonder if i can get this done if i'll have time to play...."

I made plans to eat dinner with a friend on friday and i almost wanted to cancel so that i could go home and play Zelda because my host dad had been using the TV every night this week.

i must be addicted (@_@) just put some z's instead of @ symbols and that makes a good emotocon of my current condition.............

Anyways, even of my ranting for now... It's time to play more Zelda! I swear, i will finish this game if it's not the last thing i do!

Cheers~!
Claire

Okinawa Pictures

This is really late, but I thought i'd post some pictures of my trip to Okinawa.


This is a souviener shop in Naha, Okinawa's main city. It's along this road called Kokusai Dori (International street) that packed with these shops. You can tell that the main business in Okinawa is tourism...



"Yes, I am the Queen and this is my Castle..."

...yah right, i wish (U_U)
anyway, this is Shiri Castle, the main castle of three in Okinawa. This is where the last king of the Ryukyu Kingdom (the name of Okinawa when it was an independent country before it was conquered and annexed by mainland Japan) resided, ruled his subjects, and where ceremonies are still preformed today.


It's... soo.... BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!! I can't believe how beautiful the ocean was, the sand, the sky, everything.... if this is heaven, i'm going to die wearing a swimsuit (^_^)

Guessing Meaning

I got up this morning and was putting on my contacts, and one-by-one the other members of my host family were slowly rising too. I said good morning to them as they went upstairs to the kitchen (the bedrooms in my house are on the 1st floor and the kitchen and family room are on the second). As usual, I was wondering what my host mom Yumi-san was thinking to do about breakfast.

I'm not used to someone always making breakfast for me. My own mother will occasionally ask what I want to do about breakfast (if I wake up the same time she does on weekends) but usually I make if for myself if I'm hungry.

My host mom seem to have different thoughts upon the subject but it's not always clear what she intends or what she wants to do, because she doesn't always explain in a way that is clear to me. When I have class in the morning, sometimes she would make it for me but often food that I would prefer to eat for lunch, not breakfast... (i like sweet foods in the early morning). Or by the time I finished eating, I would be late. But after a while she said that she is sometimes busy in the mornings so she would buy cereal or toast for me to make for myself. "Alright, fine for me," I thought. "At least I don't have to worry about inconveniencing her by having her worry if she needs to make breakfast for me or not. On weekends, I'd wake up, grab something to eat or make tea, and get on skype to talk to mom or my boyfriend.

So this morning, after my usual morning wake-up routine (comb hair, contacts, wash face), I thought that maybe today too, I would make it for myself. I turned on the computer to check my email and mixi first, when I heard the sound of the vacuum cleaner. "Oh shit, if I go up stairs now, they're gonna make me clean!!" was my first thought (I have a horrible adversity to household chores.) So I waited until it seemed safe to go up. But as I began to make myself a bowl of cereal, my host mom exclaimed "Oh! I thought I would make you pancakes and we would make them together! Hitoshi-san (my host father) and I were waiting for you but when you didn't come up, we started cleaning." I appologized and said I hadn't realized that and I would put the cereal back in the box. But she went on to complain that I was the one who said I wanted to learn to cook and we should cook together, but I ALWAYS only come home for dinner when it's already cooked or I'm in my room until it's done; I don't help her make it. It is the Japanese way, she said, to know when to inhale and exhale in harmony with others. In other words, you have to unconsciously know another's wants and expectations. I had thought that she enjoys making the food by herself and when she wants help she will ask for it. But it seems that she feels that she doesn't need to express herself more than once. "I've told you before, haven't I?!" she said.

She did go on to make pancakes (for me and her, I thought) and okonomiyaki (she said it was for her husband and father, since they don't like pancakes). But when she asked me if I'd eat some, and I tried it and said it was good (I always too, as a compliment) she remarked, "Well, great! Now I don't have to make you pancakes in the morning!" Oh, you were only making them for my sake? "Yes, I was."

...?

I've been of two minds recently, thinking of how lucky I was that I could be so independent and go out when I wanted to and return when I wanted to, but at the same time wishing I that they felt more like my family. Yumi-san had said before at the beginning of the year to not hesitate to eat with my friends (or so I thought) because it is important to make good friends and spend more time with them then at home. So I guessed that I wasn't to rely on them to much companionship. But with this recent complain that "Oh, all the previous girl host students ALWAYS came back early and immediately came upstairs to help me cook!" I' m guess that she wants to have me an obedient daughter who helps her mom and always unconsciously knows when her mom needs help.

It's hard for me to define our relationship, because I don't really feel like her daughter nor do I feel like her equal in a friendship. Sometimes I've felt like a boarder, wondering if it's ok to drink any of the milk or use this or that. When I don't understand what she wants and I ask, I sometimes get this look from her like "You didn't KNOW already??!?" I am aware that it's a Japanese custom to not express opinions to often to avoid selfishness, but when you don't communication your feelings it's very hard to understand each other sometimes.

At least know that I'm beginning to establish myself here and I can feel some of the warming comfort of friendship, I think I can afford the time to involve myself more with my family and understand Yumi-san. She may not be my type of person, but for the sake of familiar harmony, I'm willing to try.

A quick update

Hello, I'm sorry I haven't posted in a long while, I just didn't feel like sitting for a long amount of to type this blog, since I've already spent too much time planning my mom's trip to Japan.

Yes, that's right my mom is coming to Japan. The adventures (and likely some misadventures) are sure to be a story to tell.

Till then, there have been a lot things going on which i plan to write of later, but I'll tell you for now that I'm leaving to go to Okinawa for 4 days. Yay, beach!!!

Now, off to pack and sleep for a couple hours ^_^ You can look forward to beautiful Okinawa pictures~!

Lazy....

Hello~Happy New Years! It's been a while hasn't it? I was traveling over Christmas break and when I got back, somehow didn't get around to writing about it yet... and I think of doing it now but.... somehow, I have this really strong desire to forget the world for a few more days, and just play lots of video games. Or make some cosplay project. Or sleep. I should study or in someway do SOMETHING to make an effort towards improving my Japanese skill... does reading Japanese-language manga count? ^_^
I just wonder if I was always so lazy or if since coming here I'm wasting more time... I've to spend my Monday, Wednesday and Sunday mornings on Skype talking to my boyfriend and sometimes my mom... THAT's not a waste of time, but now that it's Wednesday again and I get up early deciding not to sleep my time away and- after breakfast, I'm back in the bed for another hour.
What should I be doing?? What do I need to do? If I only could make up my mind, I would do that. I don't want to waste this precious time that I had dreamed about, prepared for, and spent so much money on.

...............what to do, what to do, what to do, what to do...........................................

A Japanese Christmas

I love Christmas. Since my birthday is two days after christmas, it's always felt like the christmas celebrations include my birthday too. But here in Japan, Christmas has a different feel... more Japanese think of Santa-san and dating than Jesus at Christmas.

Christmas for me is not presents or going out with your girlfriend... For me it's about gifts from the heart.

So...

To all my Dear friends,my gift from my heart to all of you; On this day, you are not alone, because I'm thinking of you. Wherever you are, I wish you all the best, today and everyday with bright hopes and bright dreams for the future ^_^

Merry Christmas everyone.

Love,
Claire

♪Hey, hey, my Boyfriend is Back♪

There may be many more interesting things that I have experienced in this last weekend, for example going to a drinking party with the Shoujo Manga club or taking an Aikido test with the rest of my Aikido club and only nearly passing to the next level (5, or go-kyu).... I could even talk about the conversation I had with my host mom, as she told me that I tell my opinion so straightly to them, it shocks them (for example, my host sister wanted a Sony camera because it looked cute, but I advised her against it, since they break really easy).....

But...

The only thing I can think of now is....

Only 15 more hours until I can be with my boyfriend again~~~!!!!

Kochan, I pray for your safe travels... what else more can I say but--- See you in Narita. ^_^

Dual Fantasy: Maids and Otaku

Hmm, this blog title would make a good game name... anyway, I haven't seriously written much in the last month, and i need to make up for it. K, Here we go!

So about two weeks or so ago, I had a really bad cold and I had been stuck in the house most of the day. The weather was bad as the cold, but when I was given a chance to meet a friend from online for the first time, I was curious enough that I couldn't pass it up. His name is Sasaki and he had found me in Mixi (Japanese MySpace) in April, occasionally messaging me since then. At first I thought he was interested in me as a woman, but I think now he just likes America friends who know Japan. He had been studying abroad in America for 3 years, living in Boston and Alabama I think. Well, having never lived in Tokyo or even lived in Japan for a while, he emailed me and asked if I would meet him to show him Tokyo.

Me, a foreigner, showing a native Japanese his country. (O_o)

So I agreed to meet him in Ueno since that was close to his house. Alright, that's fine , I thought, Ueno is plenty touristy. However when I met him, he said that he had never been to Akihabara (Electric Town, home to all things electronic and nerdy), and could we please, please go to Akihabara??? Alright fine, sure, why not... for some reason when Japanese people find out I like Anime, they all want to go with me to Akihabara... So we walked from Ueno to Akihabara (about 15 mins)... he was looking around and "ooo"ing and "aaah"ing more than any other foreign tourist I'd ever seen... maybe because he'd been living in America's boonies? Anyway though when we got to Akihabara, he said, "Hey you've been to a maid cafe before, right? Maybe since you know about them, you could take me to one!!"

If you don't know, a maid cafe is where girls of varying degrees of beauty dress up in maid outfits or otherwise and greet customers with the phrase "Welcome master!", serving food and fetish to mostly male clientèle. Some cafes simply serve food and maybe make small talk with the customers, while others offer massages, hand feeding, and more... I've been to the more normal maid cafes (Pinoforia and @home Cafe) twice before this with girl friends interested in what exactly attracted men to this.

So... I'm going to spend my saturday night with a guy I know from online at a fetish cafe in geek paradise.

...Strange, but better than staying home!

I really didn't want to take him to the cafe lest my reputation of being knowledge about such cafes grow anymore, but Sasaki was so persistent, I eventually agree to simply show him where the best one, @home, was so that he could go there again later with a friend or something. But once we were in the lobby, it was apparent that merely taking a quick look around would not be enough for him. He paid my 300yen ($2.50) entrance fee and we waited a while for a table to be free.

While we were waiting, I glanced around the room to gather what kinds of people frequent this type of place... a group of giggly girls, some boys already old enough to start going the way of the geek, men who still dress like they are young boys... never shy to gain information, I turned to a guy next to me and asked him why he came to this cafe over other ones. He told me it was because the maids here were the cutest and kindest and they really seemed to care about the customers. Hmm, ok, thanks.

After waiting a while, we enter the cafe... it has a very Japanese atmosphere, with low lighting, Japanese koto music, and the maids wearing kimomo and hakama. There is a large, square, raised platform that serves as a "bar" from which the maids serve and entertain. We sit at the "bar", next to an otaku looking guy wearing thick glasses and playing a Nintendo DS. Eventually me and my friend get into a conversation with this guy... he working for a computer company, lives alone, and comes to this cafe often because the maids are easy to talk to. Indeed, he seems very "at home" in this cafe, knowing the names of all the maids, even referring to them with the endearing title "-chan".

While my friend continues to chat this otaku-guy up, I overhear a maid's conversation with another customer and she speaks English. I interrupt my friend and he helps me to get her over so I can talk to her. I ask her why she works this kind of job and she tells me that she like cosplay and has always wanted to work in Akihabara, so this is a good job for her. So I ask her if she thinks that she is helping her customers to gain confidence to speak to girls outside the cafe or if she is inhibiting them by wrapping themselves in fantasy. This she couldn't really answer this question, so she said she thought she was helping them, maybe.

(My friend kept apologizing for my rather straight-forward questions, saying "Oh please excuse her, my friend is drunk...")

So I asked her, "What would happen if you met one of your customers outside of work, like at the train station as you were going home?" She replied "I would try to ignore them and not let them see me. Even if they did talk to me, I would just reply quickly and go."

I said, "Don't you care about your customer's feelings?"

"No, not like that," she said. "It's just a job."

-----------------------------------------------

I thought about this a lot, I think it plays into Japanese society's "role" structure. In Japanese society, you are much less an individual as you are a member of a group and the role you play in that group defines you. Obviously, this is very limiting, so a way to briefly break out of the confinement is to change roles and live a fantasy. The otaku-guy lives the fantasy of being master of the maids and the maids get to play dress-up. But when fantasy time is over, they slip back into their normal roles, just as nothing ever happened.....

My friend Ryosuke says "I think it's kind of romantic though, 'cause it seems like both people are enjoying the maid cafe from their own perspective and both are living as normal people outside that cafe. I don't think most of those maids talk to those "otaku-types" but those two people can talk, communicate, and enjoy themselves together at the cafe. It's ok to live out what is not real as long as they know it's not real, because people sometimes need to escape from reality especially for most of Japanese in Tokyo, since it's a cold and heartless city in the world's most stressful society."

I think i want to keep investigating this "role-playing" in Japanese society... I also wonder what is the difference between living in Tokyo and living in a smaller city....

The journey continues... and I'm enjoying the ride ^_^

(P.S. 7 days, see you at Narita Kochan~)

I'm not dead yet

Looking back the last two weeks feel like a whirlwind.... somehow when I was living them, they felt normal but if I try to remember what's been happening, I just feel like it's a blur of places and faces.... places like school, around Takadanobaba, Shibuya with friends who I barely know their names and faces that all look alike.

I actually have to look at my camera's pictures to remember what I've been up too...

So what have I been doing? Went to Nikko to see waterfalls and autumn leaves (but most were already brown and dead...except for the one in this picture) on Nov 2., hung out with random friends for lunch, met a friend knew from Mixi and hung out in Akihabara and when to a maid cafe, been sick, when to school, skipped Aikido club for a day and hung out with friends after classes and watched a japanese movie 手紙　(Tegami, or Letter) and when to dinner afterwards, was late to school one morning and was rushing so was riding my bike fast and turned a corner badly and fell of my bike and skinned my arm (could have been worse), hung out with other girls from CSU and found out that they gossip about each other sooo much, traveled about 1 hour from Shinjuku to go to Mt. Takao to see beautiful autumn leaves (there was some there this time), offically found out that I can go to Okayama for New Years!!!, watched videos of the new Legend of Zelda game and decide I REALLY REALLY want to play it, hung out with a friend from her birthday and got too drunk and was sick all on this Monday, and hung out with friends for dinner yesterday and ate this really fishy-fish that I tasted for hours afterwards. (>.<)

*Whew*

And one day I try to call my mom and she emails me that she's in Tahoe. I couldn't tell you how much want to escape this whirlwind life for a bit and relax with her in Tahoe too...

People ask me if I'm doing alright because I look really tired (I sleep but I don't feel like I'm resting much.... I still have bags under my eyes, what my friend calls "Panda Eyes") and I just say "Well, I'm not dead yet, so the worst hasn't happened." It kinda reminds me of the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I think that even if my arms and legs were chopped off, I'd still be the one to keep screaming "It is merely a flesh wound! I can still fight!!! Come at me, you pussy!!!" I wanna keep fighting to keep my head above the water so I don't drown.

I think that if I was back in Cali now, this would be whirlwind time too; My friends back at DVC are hooking up right and left with people I never would have expected, I just found out some shocking news about my older brother, school would be hella busy......

Maybe this is just the feeling that many people get around this time of year, the "Holiday Season". So that's me in the picture... just looking around and wondering what the hell is going on. Once again, I'm being swept along with the river of live with barely a paddle to steer my course...

There are some stories of the last two weeks I want to tell (specially about Akiba with the Mixi friend) but I'll have to save it for another time... Today is Thankgiving (Happy Thanksgiving!!!) or Labor Gratitude Day in Japan (Happy Labor Gratitude Day!) so our CSU group is having a group buffet dinner at the army base ^_^ Let's eat lots and lots of steak!!! STEAK!!!!! Oh and on Saturday I intend to go to Nintendo World to try out Legend of Zelda and Sunday is a L'arc~en~Ceil concert.

Busy, busy, busy...

But I'm still alive and breathing so it's alright. Even if I'm not always the happiest, I live to survive to the time when I can be happy.

Cheers, and Happy Thanksgiving ^_^ I wish you all enough.

First Cold and Worst Meal

Well I was wondering when the generally warm weather would finally begin to feel like Fall ..... Friday it was sunny and warm enough that one guy I know wore shorts, flip flops, and a T-shirt like a true Californian ^_^ Saturday I didn't just rain, it poured and today the sharp cold wind was enough to cut through my jeans and hooded sweatshirt and make me wish for a warmer coat....

But it's not that kind of cold that I dislike...... I got sick (*_*) After yelling and selling Takoyaki for Niji no Kai last week Sunday, I completely lost my voice and could only manage to croak out a few words that sounded like a toad with rocks in his throat... the worst was coughing so bad that I woke my host mom up a couple of times and couldn't sleep much for 3 nights .... Saturday's rain really matched my mood (U.U)............

I was feeling better today to hang out with my friends for a while. I joined this Waseda Illumination project to decorate some buildings and trees at Waseda for winter (not Christmas, because there are Muslims here to and it wouldn't be considerate (T.T) and I thought Japan didn't care about religion stuff....) Anyways we went shopping in Tokyo fabric district Nippori (i know where to buy fabric for cosplay now! ^^) but it took such a long time for everyone in our group of 8 people to agree on what material and color to use for the decorations, like 3 hours.... I like the group's leader, but she's too kind to make a firm, fast decision so that everything ends up taking way too long to decide (U_U)....... sheesh, Japanese group decision making......

Well I came home because it was cold and I didn't have anywhere to be but my host mom wasn't back yet from her business trip, so I was forced to fend for myself for dinner...... rather than feel like I was stealing supplies from the kitchen, looking clueless shopping in the store, or even touching the precious kitchen of my host mom's great hobby of cooking with my germ stained hands, I headed out to eat. Unfortunately, I don't live near a big station, so restaurants are not easy to find (and I've never looked for one in my area much....). After riding my bike around the area close to my small station Shin-maruko, I decided on udon soup at this shop with pictures of edible looking food in the window and names I could read.

I walk in and it's completely empty... is this usual for a Sunday night at 8:30? dunno... so I sit down and order the "Yama-kage" thinking it's noodles, egg, and maybe meat. What I get is a giant bowl with tons of noodles and an egg that was raw until it was halfway cooked by the heat of the broth.... yes, it's edible but barely....

And then I realize just what this brown broth with frothy egg and green onion looks like - the dirty water after cleaning my kitchen floor, frothy with soap bubbles and pieces of food from the floor...

........ugh.....

At 735yen ($5) I've eaten SOOOO much better for cheaper, specially close to school......

Well, it proves wrong what a friend told me, that there is no such thing as a really bad meal in Japan......... while mine wasn't BAD, it certianly was on it's way there........ I should have just asked them what was in the soup instead of just guessing...........

WasedaSai & Bennie K...

...was so awesome!

http://picasaweb.google.com/HikaruClaire/WasedaSai (Photo gallery)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4697624056208570249&hl=en (Concert clip)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6142357766902043559&hl=en


Bennie K's concert was so much fun! though they started late, it was certianly one of the best concerts I've ever been too ^_^ they are just so full of energy! Yuki in white is so cute and sweet, while cool、sexy bombshell Chika kicks ass with her awesome rapping! They did thier own hip-hoppin' version of "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" and came out for one more song when everyong shouted "Encore!!!"

I was surprised that there weren't so many people there, for such a famous band.... also, there was mostly Japanese too, not many international students or foriegners... oh and I was so tall, i could see easily ^_^

thank you, thank you Rod for letting me burn your CDs and introducing me to the カンペキDuo of Yuki and Chika!



what did i do, other than Bennie K..........



I hung out with my friend Orie, eating delicious festival food (yakisoba, fried bananas) , watching male cheerleaders the Waseda Breakerz (just imagine high school cheerleaders, but all guys... they even smile too much too...) , and talking to the Manga club about joining thier club......


so, Tomorrow～～～

I'm going to wear my yukata and help out at the International club Niji no Kai (Rainbow Club) Takoyaki booth!

...Yes Kodai, i'm making Takoyaki for the Gay Club :-P



Oh, Masaki, there is a club called GLOW (Gay and Lesbians of Waseda) I don't know what they are about, but if i have time tomorrow, i'll check it out ^_^


Well, see yah later~~~

Goodnight and good morning (depending on what time zone your in ^_^)

Halloween is always strange....

I met this guy as he was passing out flyers for an "American Style" Halloween party at Christian Youth Center in Mitaka. I struck up a conversation with him as to what he was doing here in Japan with the Christian organization... so of course we start talking about religion in Japan and I tell him my own complicated fusion of religious beliefs that include my Catholic upbringing, my Lutheran liberalism, my Aikido and Tai Chi ki philosophies, the Matrix, and the Force from Star Wars.

And then I realize........

I'm telling this to a 6'6" guy named Kermit ("Like the frog", he says), dressed in a panda suit.....

Life is strange...... so I took a picture ^_^ Isn't he adorable with my Chibi-Panda?

Clubbin', Sokeisen, some Halloween

As I settle into this life, I am calming the travel demon I was posessed with that would not let me sit still, ever quietly urging to keep moving...... Thus, I blame the demon for not posting in the last week :-P

I think that if I was back in California, this past week would have busier, with me readying a great Halloween costume. I think that no how old I get, I will never lose my Halloween spirit ^_^

Though I had been told that no one in Japan celebrates Halloween, I saw some signs on it; in flower shops selling Jack 'o lantern pumkins (different from the sweet, hard variety found in most supermarkets) and some guys wearing witches hats and capes and giving out candy at Takadanoba station near Waseda.

I had my own crazy Halloween times... I went clubbing all night and then when to Waseda vs. Keio baseball game!!! A friend Bob wanted as many people as possible to get together and go to the supposedly famous Ageha Club in Shinkiba (the middle of almost nowhere). It certianly did seem to be hoppin' for thier was a LONG line of people waitin' to get in, many in costume for the club's Halloween party. However, what Bob forgot to mention was that they would be very strict about IDs and age restrictions. While me and my friend Kaoru were getting lockers, a bunch of the guys in our group galloped ahead and got in before us, no bothering to wait and make sure we could get in too. So when me and Kaoru finally got to the entrance only to find that they wouldn't let Kaoru in (she's still 19), we called them and they only response they had was "well, i dunno what to tell yah, sorry." Oh, and by then the last train for home had already left.

idiot men.....


I could get in but not wanting to ditch my friend (unlike some guys...), we hopped on the free bus ride to Shibuya the club provided for shuddling those who couldn't enter, hoping to find more to do than train station, club, 7-11 Shinkiba. I was surprised that for a free ride, I got to cross Odaiba's Rainbow Bridge (usually $15, one way) and get a great view of Tokyo Tower. I'm really glad I didn't ditch my friend.



We did go clubbing that night, but at some place in Shibuya. It was fun but felt SOOO much like a high school dance. except with a bar and EVERYONE smoking... also, none of the giggly, idiot-headed, overly tanned Shibuya girls knew how to shake thier asses... to bad Kodai doesn't like to dance, I'd love to clubbing together with him sometime, but definately at a nicer place than that one.



However, my night didn't stop there... after crazy dancing all night/morn, I crashed at a cafe under Shibuya station, caught about an hour of sleep, and was off again to the Sokeisen (Waseda vs. arch-rival Keio University)! But this is no mere baseball game.... this is a sports event that puts every other American version to shame. Male students in black uniforms run around the stands encouraging everyone to keep cheering, no matter how hoarse their own throats are getting. Everyone stands up when thier team is up to bat. In the name of good sportsmanship, the cheer squad of each team preforms some cheers on the opposing teams side. Everyone singing togething in one voice, "Ganbare, ganbare, WASEDA! WASEDA, WASEDA, WASEDA!!!" I used to hate baseball for being too long and slow, but this could make anyone love the sport. I want to see how a soccer game is here in Japan...

I survived my 48 weekend~ Waseda won against Keio! But I think I'm still catching up on sleep... (for some reason I seem to wake up in the middle of the night a lot from dreams... I don't remember what about.)

What else is up? I finished reading Piers Anthony's "With a Tangeled Skien". I wanted another book to read.... I joined the Aikido club and my legs still hurt O.O well, I wanted it tough... I'm in the Waseda Illumination project to decorate part of Waseda in Christmas time and the commitee picked my design ^_^ Hopefully it will get final approval.

Today was a day off school, but I didn't want to do much than talk to Kodai... I kinda wanted to go somewhere, so I took a bike ride along the Tamagawa River for an hour... that was nice, the road is flat and the weather is still pretty warm, despite it being November...

Oh also Waseda's culture festival is this weekend~! So many things are happening, like concerts, club presentations, I'm helping out at a Takoyaki stand, it should be interesting ^_^

all life is not an adventure; sometimes it's just "meh". I wh

Testing, testing....

Some things frustrate me enough to make me reconsider whether living in Japan and raising a family here is a the best idea. One of such things would be Japan's test taking system and rote-memorization education system.

In Japan, it seems like your life is a test; in order to move on in life, you must past a test. A test to get you from elementary school to a good junior high, which is supposed to prepare you for the test to get into a good high school, to prepare you for the test to get into a good college, which is supposed to guide you into a good company, which takes fresh grads with no experience, trains them, and gives them lifetime employment (though this is changing); but this is if you can pass the company test that is part of the entrance interview.

In order to do well on the test, after regular classes are over for the day, almost all students attend extra "cram-school" which specialize in certian subjects like English, mathimatics, and natural sciences, studying 4 or more hours.

According to Wikipedia, "the aim of a cram school is to impart as much information to its students as possible in the shortest period of time. The goal is to enable the students to "parrot," that is, to unthinkingly repeat, information that is deemed necessary for particular examinations. Cram schools are sometimes criticized, as indeed are the education systems in the countries in which they are prevalent, for the lack of training their students receive in critical thinking and analysis." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cram_school)

If you don't pass the University entrance exams the first time around, you either give up and go straight into the working world, or you become a ronin, spending another year studying for the next entrance exams, sometimes 18 hrs a day. And what is college life? Friends, Nomikai, part-time job, Nomikai, maybe study a little, Nomikai, Nomikai, Nomikai~~!

Was there a point in going to school in the first place??? Ryosuke, I salute your courage to buck the system when you were young. All my international student friends, please make good your opportunity for more choices in life.

You may learn good test taking skills, but this method sure doesn't breed broad, free-thinking minds.

Students in Japan never learn writing skills in English; they focus on grammer points (even then, I see so many funny mistakes, I wonder if they really ever learned anything...). I am very interested to know what people learn in other subjects in school... But as far as I can tell, Speech classes or a Critical Thinking class would never be a undergraduate general eduction requirement. (I will look into what those are at Waseda too...) If the companies take care of new employee training, how does your University and school education train you for your future?

I'm trying to think back to my high school days to remember what I learned... I remembered challenging my math teacher that learning sine and cosine was NOT essential to my dream future job of being an art teacher (that dream is a little different now...). But I know I learned a whole lot of how to write; thesis development, organization, quotation, ect. I may not be to easily sit down with a list of new words and just memorize meanings like a human dictionary (**Rraah! Polly wants a cracker! Rraah!**), but I can argue my point (thank you Debate: Politics and Govn't class).

Every student I've talked to about the test taking system agrees they dislike it, but don't know how to change it. Social change is slow in Japan, and when you've had one political party in control for 50 years, that doesn't speed things up either. Then again, Japanese culture stresses not upseting the status quo or open expression of opinion and the educational system doesn't strive to inspire free thought.

When ever I'd imagined "Japanese-ness" I'd thought of fierce samurai spirit or graceful beauty or cutting edge technology. Until maybe this year, wanted to feel like I wanted to"belong" to Japan, that it was better than America; it carried an exotic allure.

It's still alluring, but not quite as exotic.

So, a question to answer in the future: What does it mean to be Japanese? What are the positive and negitive aspects? What have those of 2nd, 3rd, or 4th generation missed out on?

These are some of the issues that I reflect upon, as I consider my long-term possiblities of life here in Japan.