Three Weeks in Japan

Three Weeks in Japan and all I got was a sweater that says ‘How Many Vacant Hours Do-You Have! Pass-A Gentle Time (you should make moretime for your family)’

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0.o After a long three or four weeks (I actually seriously don’t know how many weeks have passed since the end of break. Its that bad…) of figuring out what responsibilities I’ll have this semester (ie – what clubs are meeting when, how many hours a day I can spend playing starcraft, etc), I’ve finally focused enough procrastination energy to write a little bit.
0.o Obviously, after spending three weeks on the other half of the world, you notice how different two cultures can be. Everyone knows that and for those of us who don’t… well… they probably don’t know what the internet is so we’re safe. Going to Japan prepared to face the strange unknowns of the Orient, I thought I’d be ready for anything. Ready for fish breakfasts, super-efficient mad-crowded trains, and waves of schoolgirls taking pictures of each other everywhere while always throwing up the v-for-victory slash peace fingers.
0.o Apparently, assuming just drives people into the deep scary maws of Sarlacc pit-esque bewilderment.
0.o (For those who don’t know a Sarlacc pit is that spiky vagina-looking thing in Star Wars that ate Boba Fett… bastard)
0.o On an excursion with one of my host sisters and her boyfriend, we decided to meet the other sister at her workplace – an American novelties store. If that’s the right adjective to explain it. Basically, imagine walking into a store and everywhere you turn the walls are covered in Sponge Bob’s smiling buck-tooth grin, slapped with the identical blue and white tornado of The Smurf’s, lined with boxes of Star Wars action figures, and somewhere off in the corner is shoved all the black Nightmare Before Christmas paraphernalia that would make any goth splooge themselves.
0.o But I was somehow okay with all of this. I mean, this is Japan – cute things are EVERYWHERE. Seriously. If they wanted to, they could make the hanging of Saddam Hussein the cutest thing since Bambi.
0.o But there was something that put me off.
0.o I looked around the store to see exactly what it was… but nothing jumped off the shelves and slapped me in the face with a jeering smile saying ‘buwahaha! Welcome to Japan, bitch!’ Probably because what set me off wasn’t on the shelves at all.
0.o “West Side Walk It Out. South Side Walk It Out. East Side Walk It Out. North Side Walk It Out. Now Hit Da Dance Floor. Now Bend Your Back Low. She Do It Wit No Hands. Now Stop Pop And Roll. Im Smokin Bubba Hoe. Now Ya'll In Trouble Hoe. I Like Da Way She Move. An Undercover Hoe”
0.o The sound rang against my ears and bounced on the inner walls of my dome-piece. It was the unmistakable one-two one-two of hardcore ghetto rap music.
0.o In a store selling Smurfs.
0.o The language barrier between Americans and Japanese strikes me as one of the most amazing things I’ve come across in my life. The mass amount of confusion about our culture that arises once it crosses the Pacific Ocean is just incredible. Young couples going out to KFC for a romantic turkey dinner for Christmas? McDonald’s with fish burgers? Store owners putting up statues of crucified Santa’s (I’ve only heard about this, but I believe that it went down in the long long ago)? They’ve got all of that. Nothing makes it over unscathed and in pure form. Everything is given a heavy Japanese twist.
0.o I mean, they don’t even speak English. (Just check out engrish.com if you don’t believe me).
0.o Japan, one of the worlds leading economies and reigning leader in robotology, is obviously at the forefront of first world society – yet the people don’t speak English. This came as a big revelation while I was in Japan as well. Its typically politically correct slash a little story-telling trick that if a character is in a land where the people don’t speak English, its safe to assume the land isn’t developed.
0.o Japan sure is a crazy place.

0.o Upon return to the United States of America, I was presented with a book entitled Haiku’s for Jews. Amongst the first two dozen pages appeared this poem:
“New at Oys ‘R’ Us! / Hypochondriac Barbie / has a gout attack.” -Haikus for Jews

0.o Teck it up!