The Gaijin Experience

Japan is a mythical place of many wonders –

golden temples, cute kimono outfits, kaiten zushi (what one finds at Kurama’s), tall buildings, disturbingly quiet metro rides, strange game shows, and even stranger costumes. The contrast of old and new, and how well the two blend in society, makes the Japanese experience quite unique. One of the greatest ironies of China is how everyone boasts about how old the civilization is, yet are quick to turn their faces and applaud the next skyscraper being built on demolished grounds of old residential neighborhoods. Just look at the Beijing hutong – a cultural artifact th

at is being destroyed to make room for shops and traffic. To be fair, China has a large population clustered in cities. But you have to wonder how a place like Tokyo where 30 million people around it can manage to find spaces to preserve (or at least rebuild) places otherwise not associated with modernity.

I was quite excited to have Tomoko (my favorite Waseda Tar Heel) as our tour guide in Tokyo. We spent a whole day going around the touristy parts of Tokyo (of course). Seeing as how jet lag was going to kick in anyways, we left early in the morning to head out to Tsukiji, a humongous fish market where I devoured a delicious breakfast don (I had a maguro don). The Tsukiji fish market is a maze where we got lost many times walking through aisles of fish and other seafood. I must have smelled terrible leaving that place.

No trip to Tokyo is complete without a visit to the (some sources say overrated) Tokyo Tower, a red-color version of the Eiffel Tower. For a modest fee, we ascended to an observation level that we were able to see most of the urban sprawl – the city was simply too endles

s to see anything but buildings and more buildings. Since it was slightly smoggy outside that day, I was disappointed in not able to see Mt. Fuji. Unfortunately there wasn’t time to visit the other observation decks at Roppongi Hills and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. A night view would’ve been even more spectacular.

We then wandered off to a strange mix of places (in no particular order) – Harajuku, where on burning summer days you can still find people frequenting costume shops that sold outfits probably as thick as a polar bear’s skin; Meiji Jingu, an expansive park and ceremonial hall where the Meiji Emperor is enshrined; Ueno, where way too many slot machine gambling centers operate; Odaiba, an artificial island terraced with above-ground shopping mall and the newly built Gundam statue (to promote eco-friendliness… what better way than a Gundam?); Shinjuku, famous for its three-point intersection and pedestrian mobs; Yasukuni Jinja

, none other than the shrine built in memorial of the war dead since the Meiji times and the place that Chinese and Korean politicians get infuriated at when Japanese leaders pay respects to the WWII kamikaze pilots and “war criminals” (the museum was quite right-wing, though I had expected a lot worse); and Asakusa, where Tokyo’s oldest temple, Senso-ji, resides at the end of a huge line of shopping stalls. The Tokyo metro system is an attraction all to itself as well, as it was extremely confusing navigating through the network that is horribly inefficient and run by about a dozen different operators – the metro really needs to be integrated because I’m sure residents don’t like changing hopping train stations to catch trains operated by different companies who charge unequal fares.

Feeling adventurous, Alicia and I took a sleeper bus trip to Kyoto, a fantastic city with a small town feel. Coming here, I began to sense why Harry Truman unauthorized the atomic bombing of the ancient capital. It contains some of Japan’s best historical monuments – or at least honest-effort replicas of them, and destruction of Kyoto would have surely turned the entire nation against all settlements for peace. We started off at the Ryoan-ji, a temple complex that contains Japan’s iconic rock garden. Unfortunately the rock garden was in the midst of renovation, so I didn’t feel a sense of tranquility that Zen monks felt for centuries coming here for pilgrimage.

The Kinkaku-ji and Ginkaku-ji are sister temples, respectively the Temples of the Golden Pavilion and the Silver Pavilion. The Ginkaku-ji was under construction as well… however, I had heard that it wasn’t as nice as the Kinkaku-ji since much of the “silver” was replaced by stainless steel siding. Although disappointed to be turned away from seeing “silver,” we were able to glimpse the gold-adorned Kinkaku-ji. In the 1950s a mentally ill and suicidal monk burned down the sides of the Kinkaku-ji. The fire succumbed the statue of the third Ashikaga shogun Yoshimitsu as well. The golden sides seen today are replicas. We went to see another temple complex, the Nanzen-ji. While incomparable to the Kinkau-ji or Ryoan-ji in fame, Nanzen-ji represented a tamper-free temple complex. It is still active today and intended to be a center of worship, not a visitor’s paradise, although visitors come regularly to explore this Zen temple and catch some of the worship services conducted (not open to visitors).

Ginkaku-ji and Nanzen-ji are the end points of a trail which connects the two, dubbed the tetsugaku no michi, or Philosopher’s Walk. The Walk is flanked by traditional style mise shops (selling modern items) and a calm and soothing river. In springtime the Walk is a place where residents can visit its blooming cherry blossom trees, and in summertime it’s a perfect retreat against the scorching sun under the tree shades. It was supposedly on the Walk that Kyoto professor Nishida Kitaro developed his Kyoto school of philosophy. Since then it has developed into quite a sensation among real estate fanatics. (Seriously, who wouldn’t want a home with a willow-adorned stream in their front yard and a few temples in their back?)

The other two places that we visited in Kyoto were nice reminders of the Tokugawa era. Nijo-jo is a huge castle complex that was used by the Tokugawa shoguns to maintain order in Kyoto and the surrounding regions of central Japan.

All the designs were clever – floors creaked to warn of intruders, rooms were logically placed so that guests were treated according to their ranks, and a garden complex was built that probably rivaled even the imperial household’s property to show who really was in charge of the government. Our last stop, Gion, is now a busy shopping street that for more than 400 years had been the commercial and cultural center of Kyoto – and also featured way too much in Japanese films. As expected, things were overpriced, undoubtedly intended to engulf the wallets of gaijin.

That about wraps up my Japan travels in short. I was quite sad to leave just as my Japanese communication was greatly improving. I really enjoyed seeing the contrasts between Tokyo and Kyoto, though I wished I had seen more crazy things. I guess Youtube will have plenty of those.

Last week in summary…

すみません！五十分の便です！

I’m going to fast forward to my last day in Japan. It’s out of order, but nonetheless a thrilling experience.

On Sunday afternoon, 5:15 PM, I found myself trying to accomplish the impossible. I just got off the train and entered Narita airport, where the 5:50 plane to Singapore had essentially boarded everyone else – except for stragglers like Alicia and me. Narita is impossibly difficult to navigate because everyone is queued up everywhere. So with little more than 30 minutes before the flight, I had to 1) check-in, 2) go through security, 3) traverse the immigration lines (which were swamped), and 4) run for dear life.

Now, 30 minutes normally wouldn’t be too bad if a few shortcuts were taken. The boarding gates close 15 minutes prior to departure, which would mean a 15-minute leeway. Besides, it’s possible to convince people in front of you that you’re desperate to catch your flight. So, steps 2 and 3 would’ve been much easier to get by, if it wasn’t for being held up at step 1. Here’s where the interesting events started. I really wish I had a video camera with me since it would’ve made such a fantastic short film/Youtube video.

The trouble started when at the United Airlines counter the staff refused to let us board because we were late (when in fact there was ample time left until departure) and it would’ve been a hassle to get our luggage aboard. So, the attendant told us to wait until the next day. So we waited around wasting a good 10 minutes until UA finally decided to check us in. We were already cutting it so close that 10 minutes could’ve made a huge difference between getting on board or not. But fortunately we got checked it.

The next step involved running a whole lot… through security, immigration, terminals, more terminals, yet more terminals, etc. No one had time to really verify our information nor charge us for overweight luggage… basically, we were told just to run. Oh, there were UA representatives running with us. One of them guided us to the destination. Along the way, she screamed a lot of commands like “Passport!” and “Ticket!” What we did while running with lots of loose papers in our hands was hand her our documents and she reviewed our papers while running. And when a certain destination was reached, another runner came to relay. Since I was carrying money, passport, and my computer in one hand while my bags were in the other, I’m surprised that nothing was lost in the process. I’m also incredibly impressed that under that much pressure I was still able to communicate using my gaijin Japanese skills.

By the time we arrived at our gate (we had probably already delayed the flight by quite a bit), the staff decided to slow down the process even further by giving me a security check of everything in my backpack and duffel bag. My backpack was a complete mess at this point, and I had to dig through a lot of papers. My duffel bag was a complete wreck – shoes, clothes, etc. everywhere.

At least in the end everything went alright. I’m not sure how I many to accomplish something like this. I also for sure ticked off a lot of people at the airport – the UA staff, the immigration officers, and all those people in lines whom I cut.

So that’s my half hour at Narita in a nutshell. I’ll write about what I actually did in Japan in my next post.

The start of... summer vacation??

It feels ridiculous that it's July 28 and my summer vacation has barely started. To be accurate, it started about 12 hours ago. That's when I finally finished taking the DAT at the Prometric Test Center, and after clicking the "End" button, I was finally free. I did slightly better than I expected, and it was comforting receiving the score immediately after testing. The remaining afternoon and evening was spent playing Axis and Allies with my brother - which turned out to be a hilarious 6-hour long back-and-forth sequence of Japanese attempting to invade Washington, DC. Meanwhile I was trying to forget that in a week my semester at Singapore starts.

This summer was an overwhelming learning experience. The most basic thing I learned is that I am never going to overload my summer again. Taking lecture and lab courses + doing research (into human vivisection among other less interesting matters) + studying for the DAT meant that I had a busier time than probably both of my previous semesters combined. Summer classes take up the majority of the time, but research doesn't alleviate the mind when the anatomy details come back and haunt me with gruesome descriptions of humans getting cut up alive. Of course, there were those dreams. I'll share two.

1. I'm in some high school hallway except it is mostly empty save a random girl, me, and two very hungry velociraptors. I got eaten twice.
2. Al Qaeda has caused a majority of passenger airplanes to lose power midair and crash. The catch? One of those planes has a nuke aboard. I was standing in an opening in a forest along with a huge crowd of other hysterical people watching as yet another plane hurled toward the ground, hoping that the last thing we see won't be a mushroom cloud. The last thing in the dream was me getting rescued by military Apache helicopters, and from there on the dream didn't make sense.

So my short 1-week long "vacation" will be in the majority spent in that awkward altered physical state known as jet lag. The rest of my waking moments will involve touring around Japan frantically for 5 days while using my gaijin language skills. I hope I run into some hilarious sidewalk personalities. And then I'm off to Singapore, arriving there on the midnight before semester begins. Yay.