Author: Jonathan

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Yes, all is fine

Of course, like California, Japan is very seismically active. There was indeed a 6.9 or 7.1 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan that definitely shook things up. Strangely, Tokyo felt it more than Nagoya although the epicenter was closer to Nagoya. I’ll have to check the fault lines.

I’m fine, Tomo is fine, and I’ve heard no reports of damage. I reported on it in Facebook, and Twitter, so now it seems my blog. Short of telephoning everyone I know or sending out a large email, I’ve done the best I can to communicate my status.

I remember one week in Mito in 2004 where we had the Niigata earthquake, a typhoon, and a volcano eruption in Gunma. Japan holds many surprises.

7.1 Earthquake, 9 August 2009, 7:56 pm JST

7.1 Earthquake, 9 August 2009, 7:56 pm JST

7.1 Earthquake, 9 August 2009, 7:56 pm JST

7.1 Earthquake, 9 August 2009, 7:56 pm JST

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And so the typhoon season begins

This year’s typhoon season seemed to be starting a little late. But now it seems we will get our first glancing blow of a tropical storm. Until Storm 10W (Ten), no storm had taken the turn up the coast of Japan. This looks like the first of the season. It doesn’t look like it will get to typhoon status, but it looks like we could get some pretty heavy rain. As always, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center provides good information, as does the JMA.

Here’s a picture of the path from the JTWC of Storm 10W (Ten).
The JWTC prediction for 10W

All day today it looked like rain was right around the corner. Certainly western Japan is getting dumped on, but the wind seems to be moving the precipitation around Nagoya.
Current conditions

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The hate buses

This morning I was awakened by blaring loudspeakers. The hate buses were out again. This is pretty typical on the weekend – getting woken up by loudspeakers spewing hate. I’m able to go back to sleep though. What’s amazing though is that I am on the 6th floor, face a side street, have my windows closed, yet the speakers on the buses on the main thoroughfare are so loud that I am able to hear them.

My urban Starbucks locationAs I was doing my homework at my lokale (my local Starbucks), the buses appeared on the street again, turning from on of the main streets to another mains treet. My local Starbucks is on the corner of Sakuradori and Otsudori and those are two of the main streets in Nagoya. Today was amazing, though. All the variety of hate buses that I have seen were able to congregate and make a hate parade. It reminds me of the time I was teargassed in Zurich when the anarchists appeared to unite for the day (isn’t that contradictory?) to protest the right wing candidate Blocher, which also resulted in a counter-demonstration from a more liberal party. I walked into a cloud of teargas as I was exiting the train station, much to my surprise.

Military flag of JapanI understand enough Japanese to know that the buses are not blaring words of acceptance and tolerance. There are lots of references in the rhetoric to foreigners and the buses fly the military flag of Japan. The hate buses bother me, and I can’t imagine that something similar being tolerated in the US and in Europe. Then again, in general I am part of the majority in the US and probably less sensitive there. And certainly in the US, we’ve had plenty of demonstrations expressing opinions of inequality and intolerance (read about California’s Proposition 8).

I always feel targeted when I am out walking and the hate buses roll by. I try to make eye contact with the people in the buses, I’m not sure why. I will not be intimidated by their volume. I pay taxes, I pay rent, I purchase products from their stores, I travel on their trains, and I don’t take a penny from their companies. I wonder what they will think as the Japanese population continues to decrease and their relevance is diminished? Probably that is OK – I think the whole idea is about isolation anyway.

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Getting my pipes cleaned

I am getting all my drainpipes cleaned tomorrow between 8:30 am and 10:00 pm. As a result, I decided I HAD to clean them before they were actually cleaned. You can’t have your drainpipes looking bad before they are cleaned, can you? Drains in Japan are a lot different design than my California drains. It seems all the really icky stuff is quite accessible with just a few removals. Ick. Tonight’s cleaning was pretty gross. This cleaning is dictated by the apartment management company. I have no idea if this is normal Japanese service for apartments or not. I hope it doesn’t smell afterwards.

In other news …

As I sit in my home office, typing this, I am listen to JOSEPH HAYDEN Six Sonatas and an Adagio performed by Byron Schenkman, piano. A shout out to Byron. He was a childhood classmate of mine. I think it is great that he has been successful in his career of choice. I have a piece written by him for trumpet that I forced him to write when we were in 9th grade. I’ve kept it all these years.

Rainy season in Nagoya has been declared to be over as of Tuesday, I think. Apparently rainy season was 17 or 18 days longer than usual. Now it is the really hot and humid time, although strangely I feel this summer is a little cooler than last year. We’ll see after this weekend. Of course now typhoon season starts, and typhoon 9W, Morakot, is heading towards Taiwan. Another is forming off of Saipan. We’ll see how that develops.

I got to play tennis last weekend with some work colleagues for the first time in about one and a half years. I thought I played fine, considering. However, I did not get invited back to play this weekend. That’s a bummer. I’ll say it was just an oversight. By the way, do you find the ambiguity in the term oversight a bit confusing?

oversight
noun
1 an unintentional failure to notice or do something : he said his failure to pay for the tickets was an oversight | was the mistake due to oversight?
2 the action of overseeing something : effective oversight of the financial reporting process.

I know I am behind in picture posts. That is a goal this weekend. But I also have a Saturday morning telecon, so I cannot promise how motivated I will be after that.

That’s all for now.

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David Sedaris’ take on Japan

I’ve been a big David Sedaris fan for a long time. I think I have read every one of his 6 books, and dream that the observations I make in this blog could be as amusing as his take on things. I’m not as quirky, I don’t have OCD, I have never done drugs, and I haven’t quit drinking, and I never smoked, so maybe I have less to write about. Still, occasionally, I hope people are similarly amused.

I’ve been reading When You Are Engulfed in Flames at a snail’s pace. I’m not sure why, but this book didn’t hold on to me like all the previous books. Maybe because I’ve read most of his books while traveling, many times internationally, where you are in serious lock-down for 8 to 15 hours. It is easy to get through a collection of essays then.

In his latest book, the essay Smoking Section is about his attempt, apparently successful, to quit smoking. He decided that quitting smoking had to take place along with a major change, so he moved to Tokyo for three months to do so. In the essay are his musings on Tokyo, and life in Japan in general. His observations are quite consistent with the gaijin in Japan experience. It is somehow reassuring to see the same observations from a man whose job is to record and write about what he sees.

If you don’t know who David Sedaris is, here is a printable bio from his agency. Photo captured from here.

David Sedaris ~ NPR Humorist and Best-selling Author of Me Talk Pretty One Day and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

David SedarisWith sardonic wit and incisive social critiques, David Sedaris has become one of America’s pre-eminent humor writers. The great skill with which he slices through cultural euphemisms and political correctness proves that Sedaris is a master of satire and one of the most observant writers addressing the human condition today.

David Sedaris is the author Barrel Fever and Holidays on Ice, as well as collections of personal essays, Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and When You Are Engulfed in Flames, each of which became a bestseller. There are a total of seven million copies of his books in print and they have been translated into 25 languages. He was the editor of Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules: An Anthology of Outstanding Stories. Sedaris’s pieces appear regularly in The New Yorker and have twice been included in “The Best American Essays.” He and his sister, Amy Sedaris, have collaborated under the name “The Talent Family” and have written half-a-dozen plays which have been produced at La Mama, Lincoln Center, and The Drama Department in New York City. These plays include Stump the Host, Stitches, One Woman Shoe, which received an Obie Award, Incident at Cobbler’s Knob, and The Book of Liz, which was published in book form by Dramatists Play Service. David Sedaris’s original radio pieces can often be heard on This American Life, distributed nationally by Public Radio International and produced by WBEZ. David Sedaris has been nominated for three Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word and Best Comedy Album.

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