Baby talk

My sister had a baby last spring, whom we showered with the multifarious delights of Japanese baby swag. (For Christmas, we gave him a pair of bullet train socks). And Jackie's gonna raise that child right, so we knew that despite the fact that he likes to hang up on me by trying to eat the phone, Davy would not fail to find a way to convey his most courteous thanks. Those thanks have come in the form of Japanese language lessons. Unorthodox, yes, especially seeing as Davy does not speak English yet, let alone Japanese. But he is endlessly popular at Japanese class, where our teacher always asks to see new pictures of him.

Before winter break, we were learning the sentence structure "can/cannot." In Japanese, "able to" is "kotogadekimasu," and "unable" is "kotogadekimasen." This comes at the very end of the sentence: "Watashi wa [I] oyogu [to swim] kotogadekimasu," for instance, is "I can swim." (Unless it's not, because it's late and verbs are confusing. But it's very close.)

I had the following exchange with my teacher to practice this. Please not that there is no "V" in Japanese, nor an "a" pronounced as in "day", just the "a" as "la" so "Davy" is transliterated as デイビー, "Daibii", or "Day-ee-bee." "Chan" is a suffix used for junior, younger, or close people. I am "Nana-chan" to a lot of our Japanese female coworkers.

Me, to teacher: "Daibii-chan wa nana ka getsu desu. Aru... aru... aruku..." (Little Davy is seven months old. Davy wa.. walk...)
Teacher: "Ah. Daibii-chan wa arukukotogadekimasen." (Ah. "Little Davy cannot walk?")
Me: Iie, arukukotogadekimasu. (No, "Can walk.")
Teacher: [perplexed Japanese noise]

Which is how most of us react to the shenanigans of a walking knee-high infant.

Here is the picture of that same conversation in our review session from last week. It introduces the second possible means of conveying ability. Rather than doing an infinitive plus an added verb (aruku- to walk - plus -kotogadekimasu, to be able to = arukukotogadekimasu), one could also just conjugate the verb in an alternate form: "arukemasu." This form is called the potential form.

Davy is full of potential.

We also relied heavily on Davy to teach us causational sentence structure:

These pictures are a bit out of order - this is the second time Davy's name has ever been written in Japanese. The first time was the same sentence, but when I got up to take a picture, our teacher erased his name because she thought her handwriting wasn't pretty enough. Is there a "baby's almost firsts" book?

Not workin' for ya? Allow me to translate. I can only say about six things, but I'll be darned if I don't show them off.

First, the sentence: "デイビーとあって、しあわせです," or the alternate ending "でした"
"Daibii to atte, shiawase desu/deshita."
"Davy with met, happy am/was."
"Because I met Davy, I am/was happy."
("Meet" in Japanese has the connotation "to get together to spend time with" as well as the English "to be introduced to" or "to rendezvous." So this refers to my Christmas vacation with Davy: because I got to see him, I was/am happy.)

Underneath the word "feeling," you can see an alternate ending to this sentence:
デイビーとあって、かぜをひきました。
Daibii to atte, kaze o hikimashita.
Davy with met, cold (object) caught.
Because I met Davy, I caught a cold.

True story.

A model foreigner

You all mostly know Justin and me as madcap international jet-setting educators or, if you're one of his siblings, you're convinced that we're secret CIA operatives. Ha ha! Good joke there, Pat and Andy. Pay no attention to that van outside your window.

What you don't know is that we are also international models. For real. As of last Saturday, both Justin and I have been paid to be models, Justin in Scotland for the University of Edinburgh prospectus (remember that?), and me here in Fukuoka. Coincidentally, we were also both cast through incredibly stringent selection processes: Justin was the only male to respond to the Edinburgh want ad, and I was the only person to respond to the local art class request, full stop.

But first, a little pro-bono modeling. An incredibly talented G9 student created the following birthday manga for me:

It was so good that at first, I didn't even realize that it wasn't a notepad that came with a professionally-drawn cartoon already on it. Also, I look a bit cartoony, so at first glance I didn't realize it was me. Cartoony-ness runs in the family. My sister was once criticized in art class for a self-portrait which looked "a bit too much like a cartoon character," when of course it actually just looked like my sister.

Anyway, I love the picture, and so I asked the student if she would be willing to make one for Justin. His birthday occurred over the holiday, so she teamed up with a classmate to make a digital picture for him which is pretty much the cutest freaking thing I've ever seen. I have to get up and go squeeze him every time I look at it.

Not just adorable, but also extremely accurate.

Then two weekends ago, Justin and I went to Takatori Kominkan, a community center about twenty minutes from our house which offers free Japanese lessons conversation practice with volunteers on Saturday mornings. We can only go sporadically because of things like Saturday standardized tests and the occasional road trip. Still, it's nice to get some practice in.

Language lessons for foreigners are not the only activities at the Kominkan. They have local classes on everything from music to art. You know, like portrait drawing. With models. Live models. And sometimes they want new models, of foreign extraction. And sometimes they look for these models by advertising during the free foreigner Japanese sessions.

My tutor gave me the hard sell. Finally I caved and agreed to do it, mostly on the grounds that weird blog posts ain't gonna write themselves. After securing my consent, my tutor sat back, deeply pleased with himself, and chuckled. "Take a picture!" he said gleefully. "Unless, of course, you are naked!"

Ha ha! What a funny joke! I hope!  Our "in" at the Kominkan is a student's parent, who speaks excellent English. Just to be on the safe side, I asked her what I should wear. "Normal clothes are fine," she said, and did not add, "because you will be taking them off." Which I felt she would have done, under other circumstances.

I arrived Saturday armed with basically no knowledge of what lay in store, but with the firm intention of keeping my clothes on, which actually I think is a pretty good rule of thumb in life. There were about 30 students there, perhaps - it was hard to count since I had to look at the same spot while posing - and most people were over 60. There was a little platform for me to sit on, which was quickly topped with a chair. This relieved me, as the platform, with its cushion, conjured up mental associations with being drawn like one of your French girls.

When I solicited, via bad pantomime, input as to how I should pose, there was a near unanimous desire for a crossed leg. When I jokingly hooked my left arm over the chair in a "heyyyyyyy" kind of way, it was loudly acclaimed. I thought maybe they typically work with Japanese models, who might find a long pose with a crossed leg to be uncomfortable and awkward, like most of us Westerners have trouble with kneeling and floor sits. And the arm hook is definitely a Western thing, possibly even American. I have never seen an Asian female do it.

So here's the final pose, kindly photographed by a student during one of my breaks:

The purple slippers were my Christmas present from Justin's grandma. They are very warm. The English parent friend made certain to explain in Japanese that I have very cold feet.

My schedule was 20 minutes in a pose, break, 20 minutes, break, 20 minutes, break, and 20 minutes, break. Things went faster than I thought they would, but they do that when you have nearly memorized the scripts of entire musicals so you can perform the whole thing in your head. And if that gets boring, you can always replay the German musicals and then attempt to write rhyming English translations of the lyrics. What do you mean, that's boring too? You people have no sense of fun.

I had thought I would do different poses because my sister tried boost my confidence by telling me many stories of her nude drawing class back during her art major days, and the punchline of one story was that she had discreetly seated herself to avoid seeing personal areas while sketching the only male model of the semester, when suddenly he shifted into a new pose and flashed everything, and she got so embarrassed that she started to pass out and had to leave the room. At least, I think she was trying to boost my confidence. She might also have been messing with my head. She does that. Anyway, none of this is relevant, except that it led me to expect that I would be moving. It turned out, however, that wanted the same pose the whole time, so they could do more detailed pictures. It was surprisingly easy, except that I had to keep flexing my toe so my foot wouldn't go to sleep, and I got a bruise on the underside of my left arm from the chair back.

And afterwards, a few of the students put their pictures up for me to see! Take a look - some of them are really talented!

My coworkers think this is the most accurate. I think it's amazing!

This one is cool because the student who took pictures for me happened to capture the exact same angle as the artist, so you can really see it side-by-side. It's also cool because it was incredibly hard to hold a smile for 20 minutes straight, and I'm deeply pleased somebody drew a close up and used it.

One student was really quick and did multiple pictures in ink with watercolor. The pen-and-ink part, I think, really looks like me (he even got the detail of how I was holding my hand), and the color is wildly creative and so energetic.

What's even cooler is that he GAVE this one to me! How cool is that? I'm going to buy a frame for it out of the loot of my lucrative modeling paycheck. And since I'm not naked, I can even hang it up!

In Which Dan & Kath Make New Friends

After two and a half years, Nana and I are almost able to hold a simple conversation in Japanese. This came in handy during my parents' visit: we could order food, direct taxis, find train platforms, and read bus schedules with at least a modicum of confidence. These modest abilities were especially useful on a particular night in the middle of our trip, when we found ourselves at a business hotel near the Nagasaki airport, exhausted and in need of something to eat.

First, some background. The Nagasaki airport, as it turns out, is actually nowhere near Nagasaki. This appears to be common in Japan: many smaller domestic airports are meant to serve a whole prefecture, not just the prefecture's eponymous city. They're frequently located in the middle of the prefecture, which is more often than not also the middle of nowhere.

Nagasaki Airport is an hour's train ride away from Nagasaki city, in the town of Omura, "known" for its chickens, pearls, and bricks. To make matters worse, our hotel was in a particularly sleepy neighborhood, which threw a wrench into our dinner plans. We had planned on stumbling around until we found a sign, any sign, that said "ramen" or "udon" - standard procedure for obtaining sustenance in an unfamiliar Japanese town - but the area around our hotel was nothing but apartments and convenience stores as far as the eye could see.

Luckily, a quick iPhone search showed a "shokudo" behind the hotel, a couple blocks off the main road.

Now, "shokudo" is one of those words that covers such a wide range of phenomena as to be functionally useless. It's usually translated as "cafeteria." But it can also refer to a kind of cheap, homey restaurant with a catholic menu of Japanese stand-bys, or to more up-market eateries offering high-class down-home cooking. When I went to the lobby to ask about this particular shokudo, the younger and scruffier of the two men on duty was effusive in his praise, while the older and more genteel front desk manager had apparently never heard of the place. In any case, both of them seemed reasonably certain that the place should be open at least until eight.

I checked the clock on the wall. Seven-thirty. Time for decisive leadership. I rallied the troops and we ventured off into the night.

From the first step, though, things felt strange. We were clearly walking into a residential neighborhood, which in Japan after dark means there was no sign of life for blocks. The restaurant itself was similarly lifeless: we walked right past at least twice, thinking it was just another house. In fact, it pretty much was another house: a large first-floor great room with a closed-off kitchen in the corner and what seemed to be a set of apartments above. What's more, the place was deserted. The door was open and the lights were on in the kitchen, but half the dining area had already been plunged into darkness.

A more sensible traveller, in a more typical country, would have doubled back to the convenience store, picked up something unspeakable, and called it a night. But in Japan, lingering unease is less often a sign of impending disaster than a prelude to zany good times.

To make an already long story short: this would turn out to be the latter.

After taking our orders, the lone young woman on duty, no doubt puzzled at the sudden appearance of four gaijin in her restaurant only thirty minutes from closing, struck up a conversation, pleasantly surprised each time she found our Japanese was up to the task.

The conversation started out fairly normally. "We're from America." "Oh, no, we only speak a little Japanese." "Yes, we saw (insert local landmark here." "Yes, we can use chopsticks." "My parents are visiting - we live in Japan." "We teach at Fukuoka International School."

That's when things started to get strange.

OWNER: Fukuoka International School? In Momochi?
US: Yes!
OWNER: Do you live nearby?
US: Yes, we live in Muromi, just across the river.
OWNER: My husband was born in Momochi! He grew up in Muromi!
US: Hontou desu ka?!? (That's Japanese for, roughly and much more coarsely, "No f'n way!" To give some context for our Pittsburgh readers, this is a bit like if we'd met someone who was born in Mt. Lebanon and grew up in Sunset Hills.)
OWNER: Yes. We met in Fukuoka, then moved down here when we got married. This is my hometown. Hold on, let me call him down so he can meet you.

Thus began the slow process by which this young woman summoned, one by one, every relative in walking distance to come meet the foreigners who had stumbled into her cafe. The husband, naturally, cut right to the chase:

HUSBAND: Do you know the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks?
US: Yes - but they lost today! (The Hawks, defending Japanese champs, had only hours before been eliminated from the playoffs.) Zannen desu ne! (That's a phrase every language seems to have but English - somewhere between "I'm sorry" and "That sucks.") My dad is a huge baseball fan. We really wanted him to see a game, but there wasn't one in Fukuoka.
HUSBAND: Hold on - I have some extra jerseys. A present for your parents to take back to America.

Somewhere around here the situation escalated quickly. Our food arrived - delicious, and we were ravenously hungry. And a cousin or brother in law - not sure about the words for either. Nana and I each fell into separate conversations, translating for Dan and Kath as we went. All around, a noisy, cheerful hospitality.

Then, as we started to eat, a sleepy toddler appeared from the kitchen, obviously just roused from bed.

Of course, Dan's night had just been made. He immediately perked up with his own questions, which I rushed to translate - though it quickly became apparent that, like many young Japanese people, our hosts could understand more English than they could speak. We quickly covered all the most important bases: while the kid was too young to have started playing baseball, he already loved soccer, but alas he was not left-handed.

Around this time the scene started to settle down a bit. We tucked into our dinners, chatting idly, watching the scramble over, under, and around the empty tables. Occasionally, the kid stopped to stare at one of our beards, then refused our invitations to touch them.

Then, without warning, all glorious hell broke loose. The owner had at some point slipped upstairs again, returning with an infant of about eight months (I think). At which point my father - I'm sorry, Dan, but there's no other word for it - squealed with delight. Seriously: squealed.

Of course, before long, the cameras came out. Thus the four of us found ourselves immortalized in the lore of one young Omura family. I give you: Baby's first gaijin.

PaPio Ice Skating in Fukuoka, plus Nana Drinks Weird Stuff For Your Entertainment: Azuki Latte

Our co-worker Brooke had a birthday recently and organized a skating party to celebrate. I'd actually been to PaPio two years ago for a Student Council activity, but I wasn't paying close attention to how to get there, so I hadn't been back since. I'm so glad Brooke rediscovered it, because we had a such a good time that I wonder if there's more skating in our future. The price is reasonable - 1600 yen ($16) for unlimited time, including (lousy but good enough for me) rental skates. The downside is that the ice is gouged and snowy, and on a Sunday afternoon it's like skiing in Korea: you spend more time dodging people than you do actually engaging in the sport. (Side note: I had totally forgotten about that random group of Korean children who imprinted on me and decided to follow me all over the ski resort. The human brain can only hold so much weirdness). 

Speaking of weirdness:

So graceful.

And more weirdness! It's an unstated law of urban Japan that you shall never be further than two minutes from a vending machine. You just take it for granted that if you're walking around and thirsty, a vending machine is just around the corner. Doesn't even matter which corner. They're outside the bottom floors of apartment buildings. They're in parking lots. Even temples have them. Blue buttons indicate cold beverages, while red buttons indicate hot, which might include cans of coffee or hot bottled teas.

PaPio had the standard vending machines, and also ones which make hot beverages by the cup, the sort of machines you see in the US at gas stations or in highway rest stops. I love decaf coffee, but they don't really do that here. I've never seen decaf coffee even at a coffee shop (including Western chains like Starbucks). Therefore my default drink is hot chocolate, which the PaPio vending machine offered. But then I read this button:

I bought this because I knew that "Azuki" (あずき) is Japanese for "red bean," and that therefore the drink was a) something I hadn't tried before and b) not caffeinated. Sometimes I'm so excited to have learned a bit of Japanese that I get overconfident. Yes, I understood that this beverage would have red bean flavor and milk in it, but that's like understanding that the 2-14 Kansas City Chiefs roster features 5 Pro Bowlers. You're not technically wrong, but you're massively missing the point.

Pictured: the wages of hubris

The smell of the Azuki Latte was really terrible, so much so that it took me maybe five minutes to work up the nerve to take a sip. Red beans have a dry, sour sort of smell. It's still in red bean ice cream as the rough-textured taste which underlines the milk and sugar. I tried really hard to convince myself that this latte would taste like melted red bean ice cream, which I actually kind of like.

Unfortunately, no. If you've had the aforementioned rest-stop hot chocolate, you know there's a strong chemical aftertaste, probably caused by the massive quantities of preservatives needed to keep a machine drink from giving you botulism. I drink it anyway because the sweet chocolate front taste overwhelms it enough. Not so with the Azuki Latte. It was like drinking a shot made of expired soy milk with a chaser of liquid laundry detergent. Never again.

Finding English books in Fukuoka, and The Scream

My recent Facebook status, thanks to our Christmas shopping binge, was "Expat joy: a fully restocked English language library." Justin and I went absolutely mad at Half-Price Books, our favorite Midwestern chain in which most books are half cover price, and the clearance section sometimes has blessed blessed $1 bargains (or if you're super lucky, 50 cents, for series romance or vintage sci-fi and mysteries). We had to check an extra bag to get everything back within the weight limit, but fortunately you're still allowed 2 free bags per passenger on trans-Pacifics. Unpacking our haul was bliss.

You have no idea how much books mean to you until your access to them is limited. There are stores in Fukuoka with quite strong English-language selection, at least of recent and award-winning books. Our favorite is Junkudo in Tenjin. But I've probably only bought four books there, because they're so expensive. English mass-market paperbacks are around 1200 yen, or $12 - so even with US book prices climbing, you pay about 150%. I can get three books in the US for the same price, as long as I'm willing to schlep.

I can also get English books at the Fukuoka City Public Library, which I've written about before. They have remarkable English nonfiction (especially on Japanese topics) and solid fiction and even children's book selections.

Still, I'm a pretty voracious reader, as in sometimes two or three books in a weekend alone. At Junkudo prices, that's a habit costing me over $200 a month. It's hard to keep stocked. I've become a big fan of young adult books, which our school library has many of, and which our librarian is really good at ordering on my behalf. Shipments come in once every few months, and it is nerd party time when they do!

In what appears to be a non-sequitur but is actually a brilliant segue, our elementary art teacher is very creative. She had the students paint backdrops from famous artworks, and then photograph themselves into the picture. The pictures of the 3rd grade boy as the Mona Lisa are pretty righteous.

I chose to be photographed in Edvard Munch's The Scream. Then I had to explain why I was screaming. 

Wouldn't you?

Language Laughs

This is the drink I bought at the convenience store yesterday. It literally translates to "Cacao Experience Smile Cocoa."

I did, in fact, experience a smile.

We also learned an awesome new phrase at Japanese class: 一夜漬け, "ichiyazuke" = "one-night pickles." Pickles have to be made long in advance, so they can marinate effectively in the vinegar. But if you get lazy and forget about your vegetables, throwing them into a jar to pickle at the last minute, then they turn out really, really bad. It is quite similar, in fact, to what happens when you don't study for an exam until the night before. So "one-night pickles" is Japanese slang for "last-minute cramming." Awesome!

Home for the Holidays

After three thankfully uneventful flights, Nana and I have arrived at Chez Goff. Total travel time: about 20 hours door to door. One of our shortest transpacific trips yet!

We'll be pretty busy with friends and family, so don't be surprised if you don't hear much from us in the next few days.