One of the things about Japan is that everything is so ordered. The trains leave within seconds of the scheduled time, there is no garbage to be seen anywhere, and everybody is courteous, even when the trains are totally jam-packed. This is why it is all the more surprising when somebody breaks the social norms.

Yesterday something like this happened. I was walking along a well-travelled sidewalk in Osaka city, and some lady comes up to me and starts yelling in my face. Not the semi-bored selling-yelling that the store employees do trying to lure people into their shops, but a full-on angry “I hate your guts and I’m going to let you know it” kind of yelling. My reaction was stupefication. I stopped dead in my tracks and just stared at her. It was one of those Star Trek “does not compute. does not compute. illogical. illogical.” moments that is usually followed by the evil robot self-destructing and Kirk getting the green girl. Afterwards I started thinking about this. I think my reaction in Vancouver would have been different. In Vancouver we are all, on occasion, approached by crazy folks. When it does happen my reaction is the instant onset of a fight/flight thought process. I put on my “I don’t take kindly to this crap” demeanour in an attempt not to look like a victim candidate, and do an unconscious evaluation of the likelihood of either escaping or winning a fight should the necessity arise to choose between the two (no, I have never actually fought anybody). But here, in Osaka, that doesn’t happen. My reaction is instead more along the lines of: “…… wha?”

While on the topic, I had another weird random street encounter about a week ago. I was again walking along the sidewalk and this guy walking the other way stops right in front of me and throws down a huge bow. Not the standard everyday bow, but one of the 90 degree big-time serious bows. I stop, confused, and think “a-ha, somebody behind me.” Turn around, nobody there. Turn back, dude is still bowing. WTF. Pause. Options: 1. talk to him and try to figure out what he is doing. 2. run away. Chance of success at option 1 is very small, so I take option 2.

I will never find out what these people were doing. My best theory is that there is some guy wandering around Osaka who resembles me, and is in the habit of pissing off middle-aged women and earning the deep respect of middle-aged guys. I wouldn’t be surprised. After all, we do all look kind of the same.

Sunday was the Mikoshi festival. I woke up at 5:30, trudged over to the train, and went to Yamada to meet Kitamura-sensei. We headed over to the parking lot of his apartment building where we met the other residents who I would be Mikoshiing with. Up to the shrine we went, to pick up our own personal God-carrying vehicle. As I was heading up the stairs a yell erupted behind me and, turning around, I saw a huge crowd of Japanese guys running directly at me, shrieking wildly. I ran up the last few stairs and managed to dodge out of the way, allowing them to pass, seconds before presumably being murdered. Looking at the picture here you may notice something a bit odd, namely that the guys (this is them post running) aren’t wearing any pants. Nobody seemed to think this was at all odd except me, and I kept it to myself. It turns out that these guys are the “pro” level Mikoshi dudes, whereas my group was one of the amateur clubs. The main differences appears to be that we get to saunter casually over to shrine, and we get to wear pants.

So we collected our Mikoshi and pulled it back to the apartment for a bit of practice. The pulling is pretty easy, but carrying is tricky as you have to maneuver it up on your shoulders without tipping it and crushing anybody. It is especially important as there are a number of small boys mounted on top of the thing, and they are quite fragile (although a second set is brought along just in case). The practice went well, and we proceeded out into the neighbourhood, bringing Mikoshi cheer to various areas.

There were a number of stops where we would ritually carry the Mikoshi in a circle, ritually put it down, the boys would be ritually carried out, we would ritually spin it wildly in a circle, then the boys would ritually be put back in. All a very strictly defined process in that fantastic Japanese manner. It is probably worth mentioning that I think the carrying of the Mikoshi in general may be the ideal Japanese task. In the carrying process no individual can make anything happen independently. The thing is simply too heavy and the momentum too great. The group must come to a consensus and act in a coordinated manner in order for something to happen, and a poorly coordinated group will simply fail.

Now, you may notice something odd about the folks carrying the Mikoshi: they’re all dudes. It seems that carrying this thing is considered very manly, and it has never crossed anybody’s mind that a woman might want to carry it. Now, women can participate in the event, but they are relegated, along with the children and more effeminate men, to the less-cool Mikoshi-like things which trail behind the main Mikoshi.

We were finally done our rounds, and we retired to a meeting room (no girls allowed) to eat too little food and drink too much drink. People were at first a little reserved, but as always it only takes half a beer to crack the facade, and everybody is best friends, even if they don’t have a clue what the other person is saying. In the photo here you can see me right about at the point where I was trying to explain that no, actually Celine Dion is terrible, I’ve never read “Anne of Green Gables” so I really can’t comment, and Bryan Adams is acceptable in small doses (why can’t they have seen Trailer Park Boys or something Canadian and interesting?).

At this point things went downhill a little bit. Friendly samurai dude brought out some “Scotch,” which is in quotes because I have never seen a colourless, odorless (except alcohol) Scotch, let alone a single malt which is labelled simply as “Islay” without any distillery mentioned. So, it was terrible but it was a kind gift and I drank it so as not to offend him. Then Kitamura-sensei and I crashed in his apartment for a bit, and I stumbled to his bathroom and may have made a bit of a mess, I’m really not sure. At one point I remember waking up and seeing his 13 year old daughter looking at me lying on the floor. I wonder what she was thinking (stupid Canadian guy doesn’t know how to drink). It was 5 in the afternoon when I was roused to consciousness. I made it home and slept forever. The next day I made it through “East of Eden” in about 15 hours. It was good, and sad.

Oh, and to the weird guy with poofy hair: apparently you have a wife and a kid, but based on the frequency and intensity with which you were hugging me you may want to take a few moments to self-analyze and see if you may be better suited to a different lifestyle.

I’ve been in Japan now for a month, and have done a pretty poor job of writing about it. So here we go with a mish-mash of updates.

One of the first things I learned about Osaka is that it is quite large. My first weekend I decided to walk across it. Well, I wouldn’t have tried if my map had had a scale. It turns out that my little planned stroll was about 10km in distance. That might not be so bad, except I was constantly getting turned around. So, I ended up wandering aimlessly. Not so bad, actually, as I discovered some interesting things, including what are certainly the best Dance Dance Revolutionaries I have ever seen.

I was a bit better prepared for my next outing. I went to Osaka Castle with a Taiwanese guy who lives in the same building as me. The displays in the castle were good at educating me about Japan’s extremely bloody history, but as an actual living historical record the building was a bit lacking. If I were able to give a piece of belated advice to the Japanese warlords of centuries past it would be as follows: building defensive fortifications (i.e. castles) out of wood and paper is not such a good idea. Yeah, the most recent castle (of many) built on the the site is from 1931. Aside from the castle itself there was a very cool monument with a plaque saying something like “Here in 1572 the holy monk Kitayama hung his robe upon a pine branch, praying that his order might flourish.” (all paraphrased). I thought that was very cool, and they even had the stump of the pine tree in question. When I hit the big time maybe somebody will install a plaque where I hang up my coat.

A bit about my lab now. All the people are extremely friendly and welcoming. I think I’ve been assimilated successfully, at least to the point where I can interject with the odd “majide!?” in a conversation and get a chuckle from those involved. They threw me a nice welcome party, with an unusual assortment of foods and an odd contraption (pictured) that spins noodles around a little whirlpool, and the other night we had a barbecue and drank beer in the parking lot. Last weekend was a bit notable as my boss took me out and fed me some awesome yakitori, a fair amount of beer, and chicken sashimi. Chicken sashimi is an odd thing. If you are curious, raw chicken liver is squishy, whereas raw chicken stomach is a bit crunchy.

Next weekend I will be helping carry a float in a Mikoshi festival parade. I’ve read that every year a few people get killed in these things (presumably crushed during the float combats), but my understanding is that our local version of the festival is relatively peaceful. We will see.

• The Japanese are fanatical about recycling, yet everything is over packaged. Is it really necessary to individually wrap every cookie in a bag of cookies?
• All the food is good. It doesn’t matter where you go, it’s all good. And it’s cheap, too.
• Combination toaster/microwave = great idea.
• Combination washer/dryer = great idea.
• Some soap in the bathrooms would be nice.
• Guys, could we forget about the whole footwear obsession thing? I mean, shoes for outside, slippers for inside, and other slippers for the bathroom?
• Architectural style of the train stations: labyrinthine.
• Talking on your phone in a confined public space (e.g. on the train) is just not done. How civilized!
• Thank God there’s at least one country that hasn’t been over-run by tourists.
• Please stop cracking your knuckles.
• There’s an apparently infinite supply of free umbrellas.
• 3 alphabets is 2 alphabets too many.