How to make a dull week go by quickly and, Graduation.

How do you make a dull week go by quickly? You only work for two days of it! I've been feeling rather sick and crap this week, so on Tuesday and today I went home from school halfway through the day. Add that to a public holiday on the Wednesday, and you've sort of got a two-day work week. I'd rather be at school and not ill, but on days without classes, why should I sit at my desk feeling horrible?
Rather than elaborate on details of snot and coughing, let's move on to graduation. Graduation! Yay! Thankfully, having been through the same thing last year, I was well aware of how sombre, stiff, and just plain boring Japanese graduation ceremonies were.
Some observations from this year's ceremony:
1. Fit in better this year through the suits-and-cheap-white-sneakers combo.
2. Far less tears than last year.
3. Blanked out during the speeches and made mental lists of songs to do at karaoke.
4. One boy gave me a rose. Charming!
5. The boss of the Okayama-shi BOE totally has a Hitler moustache.
After the ceremony, the graduates held a party for themselves, their parents, and their teachers. Last year I wasn't invited, and left school at the end of the day highly suspicious of the party decorations in the table tennis hall. This year, one of the mothers actually invited me in. That little gathering was Japan in a nutshell, for better or worse. I was seated at a table, all on my own. Worse still, it was a table surrounded by the other tables, all full of happy students and mothers. I filled my plate with the mini-sandwiches on the table, and waited for someone to take pity on me. Someone did, and I was invited to one of the mothers' tables. Someone asked me if I had eaten lunch, and I said I thought these sandwiches were lunch. It was then I noticed that everyone else had neat little sushi-bentos (There wasn't one for me since I wasn't officially invited, I suppose). Six or seven mothers suddenly looked nervous and muttered to each other, then they each took one piece of sushi off their trays and gave them to me, which was very kind. Then, inevitably, I was complimented on my chopstick abilities. And then my Japanese ability. And then they showered me with tea and sweets.
Japan in a nutshell, I tell you.

Some kids on graduation day:

The universally-adored maths teacher, flanked by a mob of fans. The boys on either side of him are brothers, by the way.
Me with Yasuomi, Naoto and Ryuichi. All funny, silly boys, and all half-decent English students. Ryuichi gave me a rose! (every graduate had one rose to give to someone - that was the only one I got)
Daishi and Makoto. Daishi was the star student of the school, and always the one to make speeches when required. Makoto, not so much.
Three of the best students in the school: Chiharu, Shoko, and Arisa. Shoko's mum is a high school English teacher, and she was one of the only students who actually held conversations with me.

Video of the week! Another one!

You get two this week, 'cause I like you. This was recommended by Brian.
Knights of Cydonia by Muse. It's about what you'd expect from the opening sound effects of horses and lasers, with lots of added cheese.

Video of the week!

Good Song by Blur.
A Tragedy in Pen Drawing. With squirrels!

Nothing out of the ordinary, then.

This morning, I saw the former boss of the Takebe BOE (now retired) standing in the car park of the town Culture Centre, yelling "ohayo gozaimasu" at all who passed by through a megaphone. He saw me and called out, "Mistaa Robaht, good morningu!"
I have no idea what's happening around me.

Meanwhile, yesterday's elementary school day was grand. First, the year 3/4 class gave me a "thank you" book they'd made for me (their teacher was very impressed that I could actually read it... this is the woman who asked me "do you know any Japanese words? For example, "arigato"?). Then, at the end of the day, the year 6s (all three of them) held a party in their classroom for the teachers. They made fruit-filled crepes and sweet potato chips, and we played Uno and Shiritori. It was grand.

macaca fuscata

Last Saturday, after an epic karaoke session the night before, Richard, Barbie, Jess and I headed out from Tamano to explore the massive island of Shodoshima. Shodoshima has a fairly large population, and is best known for its olive industry, resulting in the predictable omiyage stores of olive chocolate and olive-wearing Kitty-chans.
After much initial confusion, we hopped on a bus towards a beautiful gorge and cable car. We had to change buses along the way, with enough time between buses to squeeze in lunch. Barbie asked the second bus driver about transport from the top of the cable car, and he was kind enough to phone ahead and arrange a taxi to drive us from the cable car to the monkey park, our key destination for the day, and back to the harbour.
After a short, steep bus ride, we arrived at the gorge. The cable car ride to the top was great fun, and the view was spectacular. At the top, we found a dirty concrete cage housing a single macaque. It was one of the saddest things I've ever seen, and if that's not torture, I don't know what is.
We met our taxi and took a scenic drive to the monkey park. The park is home to a massive troop of wild macaques (encouraged to stick around by offerings of food and ample play equipment) and a "monkeys of the world" exhibit. The "monkeys of the world" turned out to be one olive baboon, two ring-tailed lemurs, and two crab-eating macaques, housed in bare, dirty cages, as expected. There were also a couple of caged Japanese macaques (clearly diseased, mentally ill, or something) and a three-legged deer. A pretty sad sight, though it was interesting to see my first olive baboon.
The wild macaques were, for me, a spectacular experience. There were at least two hundred of them, hanging out around a few large, terraced areas with an impressive array of play equipment. It was absolutely wonderful to watch them play and interact, to exchange glances with them (one doesn't stare at a monkey), and to listen to their incessant chatter (I had no idea they had such expressive voices). A rather sad and touching moment happened when a sad, skinny old lady, who had lost most of her hair to (I assume) fleas, scratching and old age, stood up next to Richard and I, looked into my eyes, and extended a hand towards us. Unfortunately we didn't have anything to give her. And yes, I'm still talking about a monkey.
The opportunity to observe a huge community like this was awesome, though the park itself was rather sad and declining. Monkeys really are fascinating, especially macaques and baboons, which are the smartest and most social of all. It's a rather cliched observation to make, but it's a true one: they really are so alike us humans. Everything they do has its reflection in our own behaviour.


Some of my favourite observations of monkey society (not all shown among Japanese macaques, but if other monkeys do it, why shouldn't they?):

- Monkeys can recognise individual voices. They also know whose infant is whose in their troop. So, if a baby cries, monkeys will look towards its mother to see how she responds, and may alert her if she doesn't notice her baby's cries.






- Low-ranking males sometimes like to babysit, and will even kidnap babies for brief periods. They know that no-one can hit you if you're holding a baby, so babysitting is a way for males to defend themselves from other males. If a babysitting male does cause trouble, however, the higher-ranking males may just wait for him to put the baby down before beating him up. Monkeys take note of everything that happens around them, they remember, and they will wait for the best opportunity to retaliate.













- Don't smile at a monkey. Smiling reveals the teeth, making it an aggressive display: "if you piss me off, I will bite you with these." A few male monkeys with broken or missing teeth have been known to avoid yawning in front of others so as not to show their toothlessness. Some scientists consider this as evidence of self-awareness (because it requires the monkeys to have some understanding of how others see them), a quality once thought to be unique to humans.







- Monkeys groom each other as a way of social bonding. However, if they can't groom for whatever reason (maybe their hands are busy), they chat instead - just like we do.
- Lastly, I just noticed that macaques have very pale eyelids. Monkeys do a lot of gesturing with their eyes, so making these signals stand out makes sense.

It's pretty neat to be sharing a country with another primate, with their own communities, full of planning, scheming, play, joy, grief and sadness.
They may not be quite as advanced as our own (no karaoke.... yet), but they're still pretty damn cool.

Welcome Home, indeed.

A dog shat on my doormat today. I appreciate any opportunity to use the word "shat" in a sentence.
That is all.

Another Reason I Love Takebe

Somehow, I left my back door open today. Not open in the sense of unlocked, but open in the sense of swinging open in the afternoon breeze, for the whole day whilst I was at work. My computer, camera and ipod were still present and untouched. This is why I love Takebe. Unless, of course, you happen to be a bike or an umbrella, in which case, finders keepers!

Video of the week!

Boy From School by Hot Chip: watch as a huge artwork is created around the band, using everything from dirt to jelly. Anyone ever sea Art Attack? With that guy who would make giant pictures of budgies out of bird seed? It's like that.