Too much to write...Japanese keyboard so this will be short!

I got a job in Tokyo!!! But I haven't accepted yet...basically I will think it over in Thailand, then come back here and sign the contract if I accept. It will be traveling around to various pharmaceutical companies and helping top executives become more comfortable with their English through roleplays about the pharma industry. Interesting! But very demanding, and I'll have to live in a shoebox.

I have an interview for a job as a Pharmaceutical Instructor in Tokyo!

Send me some good vibes on the 30th!

Would write more, but I'm completely shattered. Goodbye speeches, packing, and enkais take such a huge emotional toll. I'm going to Fuji Rock next week, then Thailand for 12 days. I'm coming back to NC on August 15th. If I get that job, I might return to Japan after spending a few weeks at home.

Japan Rocks!

To commemorate my one-month of no blogging, may I present to you:
Erica's guide to the J-rock scene, Part 1

There's a lot of crap music out there, especially in Japan. Like in the US, Japanese "artists" are created by the record label, manufactured, and slapped with a barcode.

So my task was simple: find music in Japan that doesn't suck. Lucky enough, Suzie's cool DJ friends and Maakun (our guitarist) have helped me with this conundrum. Here is part one of a list that I hope will grow:

Number Girl
My favorite - they have been compared to Sonic Youth and the Pixies. Just watch this video to see how cool they are. Unfortunately, they disbanded a few years ago so I'll never get to see them!

Polysics
A few of my friends went to see this group perform in Nagasaki last month. They were raving about it...it's because of the orange jumpsuits. And robot girl!

くるり (Quruli)
This band has a funky, groovy sound and is very popular.

8otto
How often do you see the drummer of a band who is also the singer? We discovered 8otto last year at Summersonic, when Suzie bought a T-shirt from these guys. We found out later that they are amazing! I loved this video so much that I ordered the CD on the Internet the same day.

Love Psychedelico
Some JET friends discovered them - we listened to them the whole ride up to Hiroshima last year. The lyrics contain a blend of Japanese with some interesting tidbits of English - "Martin Luther King flies." Her voice reminds me of Sheryl Crow.

Cornelius
I loved him instantly when I heard he named himself after the character from Planet of the Apes. He's an experimental electronic artist kind of like Beck.

Shonen Knife
Very famous all girl band that's been around for a while. Nirvana raved about them and they influenced a score of female rock groups in the 90's. I like banana chips too!

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In other news...
Sorry for the long time with no update! May has so far been a blur - I went to a hippie festival for part of Golden Week, then it was Sports Day at school, and now my band is getting ready for our Battle of the Bands competition next week. I've also been updating my resume to prepare for the inevitable...but I don't want to talk about that now. I want to enjoy every last minute of my time here, because it is precious!

Adult Conversation Class

Every Tuesday, I go to the community center to talk with the five people in my town who like English. I really lucked out with this group because they love to talk, and they often help me. Today, Emiko told me how I can get rid of my old car, which kicked the bucket recently. Sometimes it would just stop working in the middle of an intersection, and I'd have to fiddle with the battery to start it up again. So Emiko asked a car shop in the area, and told me how to dispose of it. It's going to cost $100 to throw it away!

I can also discover interesting cultural tidbits from them. Today I learned that in Japan when a child loses a tooth, they either throw it on the roof or the ground. If it's an upper tooth, they throw it on the ground. If it's a lower tooth, they throw it on the roof. I told them about the Tooth Fairy.

The best thing is that I actually get paid to do this...it feels wrong somehow!

Our Third Gig

We played 8 songs Saturday night:
Fingerprints & Heartbeats (original, see video below - sorry for bad quality!)

I Turn My Camera On - Spoon
Song 2 - Blur
Gold Lion - Yeah Yeah Yeah's
7 Nation Army - White Stripes
Fugitives from Conventionality - original
Just What I Needed - The Cars (I totally screwed up on this one!)
Say It Ain't So - Weezer (by far, my favorite song to play)

It was our best gig by far! Also check out the pictures on my Flickr...just ignore my death-warmed-over look because we had no time to get ready!

We did a Revolution DJ night for the after-party,
Gasolina (remix) - Daddy Yankee Ft. Pitbull & N.O.R.E.
Do I Look Like a Slut? - Avenue D
North American Scum - LCD Soundsystem
Just Let Go - Fischerspooner
Romantic Rights (Jesper Dahlback Remix) - Death From Above 1979
Atlantis to Interzone - Klaxons

Second Set (the last one of the night...so a bit random)
Like a Lady - The Sounds
Suffragette City - David Bowie
Electricityscape - The Strokes
Bohemian Like You - The Dandy Warhols
Just Like Heaven - The Cure
The Killing Moon - Echo & the Bunnymen
(...I think!)


My DJ name is now GiMp!!

Space cadets can do tea ceremony, too

I've always had this foggy awareness that my short-term memory is not what it should be. When I was 4th grade, I got a very bad grade in Social Studies. I just couldn't remember to bring in a newspaper article every week, so my teacher gave me an "F." At the time, I didn't realize the importance of good grades. All I remember is being yelled at, and how awful it felt. These memory lapses have continued to haunt me in my adulthood, but thankfully never with serious consequences.

When I came to Japan, I had a list of things I wanted to try: calligraphy, ikebana, karate, taiko, origami. Tea ceremony appeared nowhere on that list, so when the local teacher approached me and asked me to learn, I was reluctant: it's my worst nightmare, having to remember a detailed series of actions. I often went begrudgingly, performed the tasks that I perceived to be mechanical without thinking and always messing up, and was relieved when it was over.

A year and a half later, it finally clicked.

Tea ceremony is not mechanical at all. It is about comfort, beauty and simplicity. The way the tea bowl is held, carefully wiped, and heated is all meant to make your guests feel comfortable and special. Where I once performed the tasks to get them over with, I now go out of my way to make my movements fluid and beautiful. I think my tea teacher noticed...she doesn't speak a word of English but we somehow understand each other.

Japan, you are modifying my brain...for the better.

South Korea and the DMZ

The most beautiful thing in the world is looking at my phone and seeing that little envelope indicating an email.

Yeah, it's sad, but when you live in the middle of nowhere, you tend to rely on gadgets to communicate with people. Especially when your friends are spread out over miles of green dotted islands and peninsulas and glass paddy fields. Before moving to Japan, I hardly ever used a cell phone, but here it is a necessity.

Not only can I communicate with people on my cell phone, but I have access to all kinds of information. Japanese people are amazed by how much information I can gather for them on the Internet...I was an information designer before coming here; it's my tool and trade. I crave to know about the world and the people in it.

That is why I find North Korea so intriguing. A government that keeps its citizens from having cell phones, traveling outside the country, talking to foreigners, and basically suppressing any information from the outside. I want to see it for myself, but being an American, I'm not allowed in the country. (FYI - only Americans and South Koreans cannot enter North Korea...I know a British guy who went)

So I went as close to North Korea as I could get: the DMZ (Demilitarization Zone - the heavily fortified border between the two Koreas).

Korea is a fascinating country, and at the core of its philosophy is the ying-yang. Basically, everything has an opposite: man and woman. Good and evil. Life and death. The two opposites complete the whole and cannot exist without each other. The two Koreas emphasize this concept, for many Koreans told me they are "one people." Their division is one of the most tragic things to occur in the 20th century, and you can feel their pain to this day.

During the tour, many patterns emerged, the most distinct being the South Korean dream of reunification. The freedom bridge was built by the founder of Hyundai in 2000. He was born in North Korea, and wanted to reach out somehow so this bridge was built:



At the end of the bridge is a wall where the relatives of North Koreans can put messages:



South Korea has spent billions to assist the North Korean people. One of the things they did was open a factory employing North Korean workers on the North Korean side. This is the highway that goes to the factory:



But the North Korean government doesn't want their people to know that they are being aided by the South, so any vehicles going to the North have to have their license plates hidden. Here is where they do it:



Here is Dorasan station, it connects Seoul to Pyeongyang and will eventually run someday:



So what has North Korea done?



North Korea dug many tunnels, but only 4 have been discovered. The tunnels are a violation of the cease-fire agreement of 1953. Technically, North and South Korea are still at war, because no peace treaty was ever signed. I visited the 3rd tunnel, which was discovered in 1978. The workers could dig about 1 meter a day, which was done by exploding dynamite and then removing the pieces. It is over 1600 meters long, and dug by workers who were starving. They smeared black on the inside of the tunnel to look like a coal mine, but since the material they were drilling was granite, that argument doesn't really fly.

Obviously, I only have a Southern perspective. Since they won't let me into the North, that's all I get. Here is the closest I will ever get to North Korea (Dorasan Observatory):



You have to stand behind a yellow photo line, so it is hard to get an actual photo of North Korea. From the overlook, you can see the factory, as well as the two flags of North and South Korea. The North Korean flagpole is the tallest in the world...it is so tall that when it rains, they have to take the flag down or it will collapse under the weight.

Like its flagpole, North Korea is about to collapse under its own weight: the South wants to reunite, but the North won't do it unless the South takes the anti-communism clause out of their constitution. After talking with many South Koreans, that will never happen because they hate communism. I left the DMZ feeling fortunate and even more fascinated by the North. Who are the people on the other side of that 4 km military line and what do they know about the world?

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On the flip side, the yang of the ying-yang, back on the southern side, we went to a cell phone art exhibition.



If there's one adjective to describe Seoul, it's "spicy." Not only the food is spicy, but the people are too. If you get in their way, they push you. They will tell you exactly what they think. For a country so close to Japan, it's amazing how different the culture is.

Suzie and I were sitting in a restaurant having a few drinks, when a young guy asked us if we wouldn't mind speaking English with him and his mates. We were bored and obliged, and ended up having a great time. All of them had lived abroad, so their English was really good and they were really easy to talk with. Turns out that they are university students, but some of them already did their mandatory 2-year military service so they were a little older. We ended up drinking soju (Korean spirits) with them until the wee hours of the morning, eating ice cream on the street, and the next day Sammy (they all had Western names they were using) showed us around his university, then took us to dinner and paid for it.

Is another trip to Seoul in my future? I really hope so!