Sep
27
Sports Festival
Filed Under Newspost
Let’s lose weight and make friends!
One of the most anticipated events at least on the organization’s side since the beginning of the semester had been the Sports Festival. It was close to being canceled at the last moment due to rain but fortunately the cumulonimbus clouds spared us for one day and only returned when everything was over. All the students taking part in the festival were divided into 4 groups of different color (Red, Yellow, Black and Pink), and each student received a colored wristband to differentiate him/herself from hostile factions. Our Red team eventually finished 2nd, but the doping test results aren’t ready yet. It was obvious someone had been taking horse steroids.
Joking aside, the event included a short 8-man relay, arm wrestling and some typically Japanese SportsFes events each one more bizarre than the last: Borrow-and-run, Doki-doki-race, 6-legged 7-man race and Typhoon Shock. We had had two meetings prior to the actual event to discuss how the different competitions should unfold but in vain; most of the stuff had to be re-explained on the spot regardless.
Lasse attacks, Red team prevails ©Tariq Lacy
Running ~ Serious business ©Tariq Lacy
Visa and "The Stare" ©Tariq Lacy
Unlike the weather the day before and every day since that specific Saturday, sun was shining throughout the SportsFes. The sun, that sneaky bastard, took quite many people by surprise as there was an unhealthy red glow on several competitors’ faces and necks once the day was over. Needless to say, it was a great event to attend and it had been damn long since I had run at top speed anywhere. Running was very enjoyable especially after securing our team’s victory in the first relay race. My legs are still sore, though. The remainder of the competitions was much less serious, except for the arm wrestling tournament which Visa singlehandedly took care of by turning Super Sayajin and using his basilisk gaze to turn opponents to stone. Despite our best efforts, the Black team claimed first placed and their captain walked away with a trophy stuffed with two Hello Kitty plushies. It made me cry inside.
Nattô-kun
And now for something completely different. Nattô, along with umeboshi, is arguedly the traditionally Japanese food that foreigners won’t be able to stand. Naturally, this meant I had to prove otherwise. I was finally able to find some of that explicitly weird stuff in the supermarket as asking a clerk about its location was prohibited by my brain. After hearing the warnings of those co-gaijin who either had tasted it and hated it with a passion, but also of those who hadn’t had the heart to touch the whole condiment, I was even more determined to get it down my throat and like it.
The small box came with just a handful of nattô beans and a small bag of soy sauce and an even smaller bag of Dijon mustard (nani?). Traditionally, nattô is eaten on top of rice at breakfast, but since I didn’t have rice available and was too lazy to go get some, I just mixed all the soy and mustard into the nattô and ate it raw. The smell was not too intense, and the taste was basically just salty. I can’t really say I like it, but it’s definitely edible. Next up, umeboshi.
-Antti
Sep
23
Through the Night
Filed Under Newspost
Happiness Joy!
Tuesday was a national holiday because of the autumnal equinox. That is the premise. The consequence is that we decided to go clubbing in Kyoto. In fact, it had already been decided two weeks earlier at Travis’ birthday party so I had no possibility but to comply. The interesting thing about going clubbing here is that it has to take all night. There are no clubs in Hirakata, so the closest options available are downtown Osaka and Kyoto. The last trains leave at around midnight so in order to get properly wasted and conquer the dance floor, the only option is to party until sunrise and take one of the first trains back home. That is not my idea, it’s common practice here.
Anyhow, we went to Kyoto at around 11 pm, took a few group photos at the station, the last of which with a random walking-by salaryman and his wife, before heading to Sam & Dave’s, a local nightclub that is apparently the place to go in Osaka. After having heard a lot of excited comments about nomihôdai clubs that cost around ¥4000 a night I was a bit disappointed in the price range of S&D’s. I have to admit, though, that the night was very enjoyable and the total expenses did not rise to unexpected heights as I hadn’t expected. The previous sentence makes perfect sense. Shut up.
The club closed at 5 am (take that Finland!) and we slowly wandered back to the station to catch the first train home. I got the feeling that each and every one of us was sleeping during the whole ride, but I’m an unreliable witness for I had already pass… fallen asleep myself by that point. I made it back home just before the Seminar house gates opened at around 7 and went to sleep soon thereafter. The whole night, including pre-party Real Gold and train tickets cost something around ¥8000 (no, you lazy asses, I won’t convert the currency into euro, or anything else for that matter), which is my budget for 4 days.
Gaijin Smash
For the sake of cultural knowledge and also for future reference, I will now explain the concept of gaijin smash. Loosely, it could be described as any circumstance that is affected positively or negatively based mainly on the fact that one of the parties involved is a gaijin. I am against the idea that a gaijin smash should always be intentional or produce a negative reaction on the Japanese side. Several such descriptions can be found here. Gaijin smashes happen relatively often, be it on purpose or not, but they can also be used heavily to one’s advantage in certain situations.
A relatively harmless gaijin smash occurred this week when we went to buy speakers with Henrik late in the night at a local electronics store. We had already bought everything and were wandering around the store aimlessly and looking for other would-be-useful electronics to buy. What we did not realize was that a) there was nobody else left in the store because b) it had been closed for 10 minutes and c) the whole place was already locked from the inside. Instead of informing us in any way, the store personnel just let us wander around trying to avoid us, while one person was constantly waiting at the exit in order to open the door and help us get out when we would finally decide to leave. This was not common Japanese courtesy. They were using their perfectly calibrated gaijin-dar to see where we are and avoid disrupting our chain of thought so they would not be forced into a communication situation. Had we been Japanese it would not have gone that smoothly.
-Antti
Sep
21
Open Canvas
Filed Under Newspost
Setting the stage
After an eventful Saturday, Sunday was very different, yet very interesting. The Kansai Gaidai organized an Open Campus Day, during which high school students from the area could come to the university to learn more about university studies and studying abroad. This was done through presentations as well as direct communication with local students who had been abroad and foreign students who were at KGU currently, namely, us. Because Lazy-Lasse never made it to the booth, the Finnish representation percentage was 75% which was probably the highest of all the countries involved. The Swedes didn’t even have a booth.
We had been promised lunch but it unfortunately constituted of Japanese triangle sandwiches. This is very peculiar to Japan, as the Japanese seem to have an innate ability to take white bread that tastes like nothing, fill it with ham, cheese and condiments and manage to make the end product taste even more like nothing. It’s like a blackhole of flavor. I think I left part of my tongue in there. That specific characteristic left aside, it also meant that I had to survive around 6 hours on two triangle sandwiches. Meh.
Hajime!
While we had been preparing from 10:30, finally, around noon, high school students started pouring in. As usual, communicating in English was very hard and communicating in Japanese even harder, but most of the time we were lucky enough to have an internationally oriented local student help us get our message through. Also, the particular message conveyed by giving Japanese teenagers Sisu-pastilles was far more negative than I thought. I guess the reaction was comparable to a standard gaijin eating nattô. It did not go down.
Throughout the afternoon, our booth was visited by dozens of people, most of which were interested in either studying in Finland or simply traveling there. We were well prepared for the task with slide shows of typical Finnish scenery and other things meaningful (Moomins). The toughest challenge was when I had to try to explain to an English-illiterate family (mom and kids) why the Finnish school system is the best in the world. I had a Chinaman’s chance in hell to succeed at that specific task. Trying my very best, I was able to produce some Japanese words, but whether they formed the sentences my mind was hoping for is for future generations to decide.
As a whole, the day was both educational and fun. I was able to handle some basic chatting in Japanese and look up words I wanted to use on my computer so I might have actually learned something. Watching the faces people made while trying out Sisu also made my day. On a more official note, according to the Center of International Education, the day was, and I quote: “Great success!”
-Antti
Sep
20
Kyoto, 3rd Encounter
Filed Under Newspost
I haven’t written any entries lately is mainly because I have been too busy not writing them. Makes perfect sense.
The forecast typhoon eventually did not hit Osaka hard enough for classes to be canceled and I had to finish everything I had worked for on Friday. Eventually, I passed the re-placement exam in a breeze and found myself in the level 3 Japanese class with Komura-sensei. Now I finally don’t have to worry about changing classes anymore, everything is definite.
Chasing downstream
Saturday was one of the most anticipated days in a while, mostly because I was hoping for our rafting trip to get canceled due to the typhoon threat so I could spend the 6200¥ it took from my pocket on other things. What a waste it would have been if my wishes had come true. Rafting, much unlike Doritos, was an intense experience. Since I hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in several days thanks to the horrendous amount of schoolwork, it required considerable effort for me to get out of the bed at 5:30 and head to Kyoto with a bunch of other people I was not acquainted with.
The principle of organized river rafting is quite simple: navigating down a whitewater river and enjoying the scenery with a group of friends while the guide works his ass off trying to prevent us from getting killed. What made the trip even more unique was the surrounding scenery. The entire 5-kilometer-long track was surrounded by massive forest-covered hills in every direction. The interesting thing about all of this is that since nobody had a waterproof camera, we have no pictures from the actual rafting. I can, however, assure everyone that it was this awesome: <———-> (not to scale)
Monkey Boy & co.
The company organizing the rafting provided us with all the equipment and basic information needed to safely spend the morning in the raft. When all the preparations were made, we moved on to the riverbank and initialized a 2-hour ride downstream. The river itself would probably be classified as level 3 whitewater, and as such, it wasn’t too dangerous even for a raftful of stupid gaijins. Besides sitting and paddling while enjoying the surroundings, we also stopped the raft a few times, went swimming, turned the raft upside- down and even had the opportunity to jump from a small cliff ledge into the river. All of this combined to be one of the most exciting days I have experienced here so far. And when I say day, I mean the morning, because there was much more to Kyoto that day than just rafting.
Mount of Sky Dragon
Having recovered from the rafting, everyone was starving so we headed to our next destination, the Tenryu-ji, and went to eat in a restaurant right in front of it. Bad idea. Tourist area is synonym for rip-off, and that fact alone suddenly turns soba noodles into some goddamn luxury meal that costs twice the price it would cost anywhere else on the map. Also, it barely saved me from starvation and I was still hungry afterwards.
Moving on to more positive topics, the Tenryu-ji (translated as temple of the Heavenly Dragon or Sky Dragon) was a sight. There had to be a reason why the place is part of the UNESCO world heritage and that reason is very clear to me now. Samples from what the temple, and especially its enthralling garden, looked like can be found on the recently added link on the right sidebar. (good luck finding it.)
I’m out.
-Antti
Sep
18
Viva la motivation!
Yesterday I began climbing towards the higher echelons of Japanese erudition. Although I haven’t really studied all the subjects in my current speaking class beforehand, they somehow felt simple enough to be easily learned independently. Thus, after scoring a surprising perfect score on the review test (which only allowed me to stay in my current class) I went to ask my sensei if it would be possible for me to move to the higher level. She agreed to let me observe the level 3 class this week and retake the replacement test on Friday.
What all this means is that I have three extra hours of Japanese this week in addition to other lectures, the written Japanese review test, a handful of vocabulary quizzes and tons of homework. Hell, I have not been this busy since military service, and that was a way different busy because I did not need to think.
It seems that the dozens of anime series I have watched during these past five years have not all been in vain.
It’s not much of a cheese shop, is it?
Since the kitchen opened, I have definitely been putting it to good use. Unfortunately, one of my favorite ingredients in every day cooking and especially eating, cheese, is a rare luxury around these parts of the world. I have tried to find different kinds of cheese in several supermarkets but the dialogue with the local excuse for a cheese counter has always gone something like this:
– Cheese?
– Why of course, here’s Cheddar-Emmental in a 90gr box.
– Camembert?
– One brand.
– Parmesan?
– Grated. One small bag costs half your soul, though.
– Mozzarella?
– Neverheard.
– Goat Cheese? Feta?
– Fuck off!
– What’s that, butter? Get me some damn cheese!
– …
Just in case anyone got confused, the cheese counter is, in fact, unable to speak, but I have learned telepathic skills during my short stay here and that has allowed me to communicate with inanimate objects. I particularly enjoy talking to doorways. And elevators.
In case you were expecting a relevant update, I apologize. However, I prefer to write incoherent blog entries instead of studying for replacement tests.
-Antti
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