Shout it out loud (in Japanese!!)

When I first came to Japan many moons ago, I couldn't speak a word of Japanese to save my life, let alone tell you that I like big butts and I cannot lie...



Somehow along the way I picked up a word here or there and ploughed on through conversation after conversation, mistake after mistake. I've never properly studied the language but in my trade as an English teacher I don't have to be fluent. But I know enough to get by and I figured if my parents picked up English the same way (and has served them well, 28 years and counting) then who am I to be a disciple of another school of learning?

The last month has somehow found me argue and plead for important matters: matters concerning myself, my heart and professional training. I usually let my lawyer do the arguing and pleading for me so I was not prepared to do so much arguing and pleading in just a month. It would've been nice to have my lawyer on hand but since I had to confront matters 5 different times in a month I guess I saved a bit of money.

Though even if my lawyer was on hand, I doubt he would've done much with the language barrier: I can tell you why...how...whether...actually I can't tell you much about anything in Japanese. I usually do that when I'm drunk and that's when the words flow. But somehow I found myself having to speak my mind and heart.

Coherently.

Convincingly.

And in Japanese.

Fancy that.

I dunno whether I achieved what I wanted but I did my bit and that's all I could do. The one clear good thing to come out of this is that when push comes to shove I can string a bit of Japanese together to hopefully change something I truly believe in rather than, say, hide behind my lawyer who's sick of dealing with me. Damn that man.

And for the record: 僕は大きいお尻が好き、嘘はつないよ．


Music In My Head: Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - Everybody's On the Run

Level upping AKB48

First the girls of AKB48, Japan's most popular girl group, run around in their underwear:



Then they run around selling underwear - (un)fortunately not their own:



And then one of their former members runs around and does porn:



Sex sells and it's hard to take that out of the pop music that you're trying to sell especially when you have a tonne of cute and young girls prancing on stage to an even larger number of dudes who love nothing better than sexy cute and young girls. As a dude myself I can see where they are coming from.

One wonders how far the line will go with sex and music mixing together. In Hong Kong though it seems that sex IS already the next level up for AKB48.

So...that 2011 ey?

For good or bad 2011 was a year that I'll never forget: there were the earthquakes, turning 30 and hanging out with friends that never seemed quite enough.

Through it all one thing I missed all year was the blogging. Even before the blip in blog posts in 2011 I always knew that one day I'd lose interest and cast it aside like an unwanted toy. Apparently that's due to my blood type personality (B) so that's how I am. Still, I've been writing away at this blog for over six years now and even for me that's hard to simply cast aside. But with mundanity slowly creeping in by the day the blog seems kinda redundant.

I've noticed that my Facebook statuses have taken the place of blogging. Who whuddathunk it that a few simple sentences would suffice my need to let the world know about what I think? Clearly a few simple sentences cannot properly convey the complexities that is yours truly.

So that was my 2011. Here's to more complex and brain wracking blog posts in 2012.

Music In My Head: Ash - A Life Less Ordinary

ATBE: Perspective

Mrs Au-Yeung: Remember to take your medication after you eat.

Me: I'm taking it now.

Mrs Au-Yeung: What?! You know taking medication on an empty stomach is bad for you.

Me: Uh...I lived through one of the worst earthquakes in recorded history. I don't think taking medication on an empty stomach is going to be a problem.

Or anything else for that matter...

Music In My Head: Kasabian - Days are Forgotten

Say hello to good times

I,
I always believed in futures.
I hope for better in November.

"Futures" by Jimmy Eat World.

Welcome Novemeber, my favourite month of the year.

November is an awesome time of year. I think this fascination for Novemeber stems from the 6 Novembers that I had during university, where I would slave away on assignments and exams. However, with the end of the school year in sight, the cool late night breezes making the cram sessions enjoyable. And with the weather and the hem lines (ahem) going up in tandem, Novemeber always holds a special place in my heart.

Since this will be my fourth cold November, I should stop banging on about how I'm not sure whether a cold November will take away from the joy of the month that originally stemmed from its warm change. All I can provide is anecdotal evidence and current evidence on hand suggests that a cold November, as compared to a warm one, does not inhibit the fun and the joys that is available during those 30 days.

We all love sequels so this year brings the sister coming to Japan again. Last year's installment did not bring upon (much) destruction and mayhem as was expected and therefore can be qualified a success. As such, this year's installment is bigger (and better?) with the highly touted appearance of Mrs Au-Yeung. What mayhem and destruction will these 2 bring to my Japanese neck of the woods?



There's also the small matter of another wedding in Hong Kong. With this being the second wedding in a row that's to be held round November (the actual date is December 2nd but who's counting these things?) I guess I'm not the only person to think that November is an apt time to enjoy life. And after a particularly rough last couple of months, enjoying life is something that's much required and wanted.

Music In My Head: Noel Gallagher - If I Had a Gun

Broken Heart

It's been a while.

The hit list

Of late, I've been reading "Hit Man" by Lawerence Block - how I got to reading it is another blog post in itself, that is if I don't get too lazy to write it. Originally written as separate stories, in its collected form "Hit Man" reads like an episodic account of a hit man taking out his targets. There is no fuss to it: the main character just goes about bumping off targets one by one and life goes on.

In the past month my life has been of a similar nature: no I have not become a full time killer even though I'm sure it pays better and I don't have to take so much crap from kids. No, my life of late has consisted of farewelling friends in a manner seeming if I had a list with names to go through.

Over the course of being a part of the JET Programme I've been lucky to meet a lot of people from all parts of the world. I've been even blessed that these kind folks have put up with me and become wonderful friends of mine. This is one of the main attractions of the JET Programme: the opportunity to meet people from so many different countries. What no one tells you though is that one day you'll have to say goodbye to all these wonderful folks as they head back to where they came from. I guess that's the pros and cons which everything is bound to have.

So I found myself spending most of my summer saying goodbye to people. I dunno which is harder: being the one who says goodbye and stays behind or saying goodbye and hoping that all loose ends got tied up. Regardless of which, I witnessed people doing the farewell and did the farewelling myself and it's never a good thing for me. It's such a physically and emotionally draining experience that you wonder why you cared about people to begin with. But what are your options? Go through life protecting yourself by not caring about anybody?

Some went home to faraway places. Others went not so far. One thing that was shared between all was the fact that I never said "Let's keep in touch". I hate that line. I was asked to go out all night once in a previous life of mine and I said "I'll see" and I got called out for it. It seems "I'll see" basically means "No". I studied semantics and pragmatics and I guess there's some reasoning behind how "I'll see" means "No". In the same way, saying "let's keep in touch" just means it won't ever happen. I've been fortunate that all those dear to me have felt like no time has past whenever I've met up with them after X amount of time. It shouldn't require actual conscious effort to keep in touch. It just happens.

Nor do I need or do that "How are you?" or "So what's been happening?" business, over and over and over again. I trust that the friendships I have gained are strong enough that the lack of superficial chitchat will make things remain fine. In all honesty I'm not sure how many of these fine folks I'll see again: really, I may have seen some of these people for the last time, just as if I was they were really the targets of a hit. We live in the global village, of instant communication and all that jazz but really, we still don't get to see our loved ones as often as we want. And that still sucks. But whenever that happens, it will be worth the wait whenever we meet next.

All this farewelling peaked when I found myself wandering between Shinagawa and Shinbanba. It was nice to be walking in the early hours of the morning in a part of Tokyo that I knew nothing about except that a lot of fancy cars bear Shinagawa number plates. It also taught me to properly check the distances between train stations. But it was nice to be discovering Tokyo just like I did when I first arrived in Japan. Except that now I don't have to carry around my electronic dictionary, my phrase book and map(s) and instead, I have some memories of some mighty fine folk to add colour to an already colourful Japan.

Music In My Head: Guillemots - Train to Brazil

Strange news from another star

It does feel like I've been living on another star with July being filled with farewells, a wedding, good news from people about plot developments in their own personal dramas...

...It's been a strange July, one which peaked with me spending the night on a suspiciously unsanitised hospital floor whilst I waited for the drip in a grown man in adult nappies to finish.

The other side of 30

This was me turning 30 the other day.

Was turning 30 meant to be a big deal? I dunno. But I think it became a big deal when I found out my friend got a Louis Vutton duffel bag from his wife when he turned 30 last year. My sister wasn't having any of that: "I'm not your wife!". It was worth a try, I guess. With the bar set I decided to spend the whole month celebrating my birthday: or more accurately, counting down the weekends I had left in my 20s.

I'm not sad about leaving my 20s. I'm just confused about how I'm supposed to feel: all I know about life is from the world of sports and in the world of sports you're on the wrong side of 30 when you turn...um 30. The pace that you've built your career around starts to desert you. The injuries that were a stranger start to become a long term companion. You're included in trade deals because teams are seeking salary cap relief. You go to play for an inferior league for one final fat pay check (with your other choice being bounced around from team to team as you continue to play beyond your used by date or being a pay as you play deal because who really trusts 30+ year olds. Sure there have been examples of players still doing it well post 30s: Ryan Giggs, Steve Nash, Andre Agassi. But these are clearly the exception to the majority that consists of legends like The Original Ronaldo, Shaq and Pete Sampras amongst others. And really, we know the former group are/were involved in some dark magic that has helped their careers past 30. I'm not up for that: that shit can turn real.

I'm not sure how all that will translate to my life given that I've never had pace nor do I mind being a backup player in a team. We shall see. Though if there is anything else that I know from sport is that class never leaves you regardless of the fastest you can manage is a hobble down the sidelines when you once left the chasing defenders for dead. It's a reassuring thought.

Though not as reassuring as having a Louis Vutton duffel bag by your side.



29
28
27
26
25

Music In My Head: Asobi Sekusu - Lions and Tigers

I really didn't buy these

It's great to get birthday presents.

It's even better when they're from a 5 year old who got their dad to buy the present (And bonus points for the present not being an infectious disease).

What tops it all off though is that the present are photos of the 5 year old's beloved AKB48 and which said 5 year old thought you should have. I'm not sure if the 5 year old in question got photos herself but if she didn't it's a very generous present: to forgo something you want so you can give it to someone else.



And bonus points for one of the photos being of Takahashi Minami, one of the AKB$8 girls that you don't mind. Ahem.