Nothing But Words

Pitton Hebe Hebe, from the Japanese children’s show, Nihongo de Asobo View at Picasa Pitton Hebe Hebe, from the Japanese children's show, Nihongo de Asobo30-Nov-1970 08:00

Click the image to see a great song that was performed on the Japanese kids show Nihongo de Asobo (Let’s Have Fun with Japanese). I have to admit I actually looked forward to this show coming on when the boys would watch TV in the morning while Kai got ready for school. I couldn’t understand most of it, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying its great mix of Japanese kids’ songs, poetry, and theater. It actually provides a nice introduction to some aspects of Japanese culture (but this song is just for fun – as far as I can tell, anyway). Here’s a nice summary of the show:

The goal of the program is to get children to rediscover and enjoy the rich world of Japanese. Interesting words and phrases that people would want to read out loud are taken from things like Japanese classical performing arts, poems, novels, and historical phrases and introduced to kids through drama, cartoon, and song.

Here are a couple signs that definitely weren’t proofread by a native English speaker. I actually saw the “Hair Saloon” mistake a few times in various neighborhoods around Tokyo.

One of several “hair saloon” signs I’ve seen in Japan – this one is in Kawagoe View at Picasa One of several “hair saloon” signs I've seen in Japan – this one is in Kawagoe25-Mar-2007 16:56, Canon Canon PowerShot S230, 2.8, 5.40625mm, 0.017 sec

Spotted in Yaesu chikagai – the underground shopping mall at Tokyo station View at Picasa Spotted in Yaesu chikagai – the underground shopping mall at Tokyo station14-May-2007 19:12, Canon Canon PowerShot S230, 4.0, 10.8125mm, 0.02 sec

As promised, I’m going to keep blogging about Japan for a while, even though I’m back in the US now. I have a big backlog of things to write about. However, while Maria is still in Japan and I’m at home taking care of the boys and working, my posts for the next few weeks will probably be longer on pictures and shorter on words, as I don’t have a lot of time to write.

The many slides of Robot Park. That’s Maria in the blue jacket, with Eidan next to her. View at Picasa The many slides of Robot Park. That's Maria in the blue jacket, with Eidan next to her.07-Apr-2007 14:08, Canon Canon PowerShot S230, 2.8, 5.40625mm, 0.002 sec

Kai and Kento riding the robots at Robot Park View at Picasa Kai and Kento riding the robots at Robot Park07-Apr-2007 14:06, Canon Canon PowerShot S230, 2.8, 5.40625mm, 0.003 sec

Sakura Zaka Koen is a tiny gem of a park, tucked away on a small street a short walk from the mind-bogglingly massive 27 acre, $4 billion Roppongi Hills shopping and entertainment complex (you can see the exact location on this map). It’s a ridiculously small park, but packed with slides. It’s nice that some space was made for it, given that the area is home to some of the most expensive real estate in Tokyo.

The play structures at Japanese parks are typically old, rickety, and dangerous, which makes them a striking contrast to everything else in Japan. So Robot Park is unusual for a Tokyo playground in that everything is new, and it was designed with safety in mind: most of the ground is covered with a giant rubberized mat, and all the slides are contoured plastic. The only thing remotely dangerous is the long roller slide. These kinds of slides are common in Tokyo but rare in the US (the slide is covered with little rolling pins, so you need to be careful with little fingers and long hair).

The robot theme also gives it real charm. We visited for an hour or so with Maria’s friend Shiho and her son Kento. The boys loved it, as it provided a nice break from our strolling through Roppongi.

Robot totem pole at Robot Park View at Picasa Robot totem pole at Robot Park07-Apr-2007 14:07, Canon Canon PowerShot S230, 2.8, 5.40625mm, 0.002 sec

Kai and Eidan on the long slide at Robot Park View at Picasa Kai and Eidan on the long slide at Robot Park07-Apr-2007 14:46, Canon Canon PowerShot S230, 2.8, 5.40625mm, 0.005 sec

Well, that was awful.

I didn’t sleep on our flight back from Tokyo, and then I went almost 4 days with nothing more than a half dozen 30 minute – 90 minute naps.

It’s a 13 hour time difference between Tokyo and Philadelphia, so it’s a complete reversal of night and day. Eidan and Kai took the slow road to adjusting to the time change, and they each came at with different schedules. Eidan was sleeping the first half of the night, and then around 1 AM or so, he would decide he was done sleeping. It’s time to play, daddy! But Kai couldn’t fall asleep at all until about 2 AM. So at any given point I was up with at least one of them.

But I’m happy to report that for the past two nights they’ve both been going to bed on time and sleeping reasonably well until morning. So I’ve managed to make a dent in my sleep deficit and I’m mostly functional again. Tomorrow they’re both off to school (Kai’s school also provides daycare, and Eidan is old enough to go now) and I’m off to work. I’ll just be part-time until Maria’s back in a few weeks.

On several occasions this week I was laughing at myself – being sleep deprived is like being drunk, in that your reasoning abilities are totally shot, and trying to string together words coherently in a conversation requires a lot of concentration. You don’t slur your words like a drunk though – instead you tend to choose the wrong words, or just leave words out. When I took the boys grocery shopping, I kept saying “sumimasen” to people (Japanese for “excuse me”) as I navigated the aisles, and I kept telling Kai to stop leaning on the stroller, when I meant to say cart.

Another difference is that you don’t lose your motor skills when you’re sleep deprived, which is good, because in the middle of all this I bought a new car. We sold our cars before we left for Tokyo, so I had nothing here to drive. Maria and I had already settled on exactly what we wanted, so fortunately I didn’t have to think through any of that. It’s a Toyota Prius. While we were in Tokyo I was blissfully unaware of gas prices here, but seeing them at over $3 a gallon has reaffirmed our choice of the Prius (it’s rated at 60 miles/gallon). The Prius’ are selling like hotcakes right now, so there wasn’t much opportunity to haggle over the price, but that’s just as well, as I don’t think I was up for it anyway…

I also want to mention the first things I noticed coming back to the States. After being away so long, I was curious to see what would jump out at me. On arriving in Chicago, I was taken aback by all the fat people! One thing I’ll say for the Japanese is that they’re in a lot better shape than we are. And on arriving in Philadelphia, I was startled at how dirty everything was. Tokyo is an amazingly clean city, and it was easy to get used to that. Kai proved to be a better American than me though – the first thing he noticed was the American flag.

Well, this is it. Yesterday Kai and I had a farewell ramen lunch with Fred and his kids. Then we met up with Maria and Eidan for one last hurrah in Akihabara (we bought gifts for friends in the states, and a pair of web cams, so the boys can see Maria while we’re apart) and Ueno Park. Today we’re re-arranging the furniture in the apartment, back to it’s original configuration. Then we’re headed to Kawasaki for the afternoon – I want to see if can get myself a pair of those glittery gold tabi that you can see in my last post!

On Friday we sent the luggage ahead to the airport, via takkyubin, so I don’t have to wrestle with both bags and boys while on the way to the airport. Then tomorrow, Maria is off the Vietnam, and the boys and are I off to Philadelphia! It’s 14 hours to Chicago, then 2 hours to Philly.

Right now I can’t fully describe how I’m feeling about all this. For now I’ll say that it’s been an exhausting, wonderful, fascinating, sleep-deprived, frustrating, sometimes depressing, really amazing roller coaster ride. Essentially, it’s been five months of life in overdrive, in a foreign language, with a lot of cool things to see and do, and in a tiny apartment with a small boy who never took to sleeping through the night.

I have a big backlog of things to write about. So my blog will still have a Japan focus for another month or two.

I’ll try to write a short post after we arrive in Philly, to let you know whether or not I survived the trip

Why? Why else – check out the clothes. You can wear puffy pants and glittery gold shoes like a rock star every day for work:

View at Picasa Japanse Tobi (construction) workers. Photo from www.pingmag.jp

View at Picasa Japanse Tobi (construction) workers. Photo from www.pingmag.jp

Like many other parts of Tokyo, our neighborhood near Shinagawa station is having a construction boom, so we see tobi (construction) workers all the time. Of course, their clothes aren’t quite as spiffy as those in the catalog photos above, but they’re not too far off. In the winter, when I was walking Kai to kindergarten at the same time every morning, we’d pass this burly guy on his way to work, and he always wore a hot pink tobi outfit.

My favorite part of the outfits are the tabi (toe-shoes). Looking like slippers, they are a far cry from American-style construction shoes. With their relatively thin soles, they also tell you something about Japanese construction sites – they’re tidy enough that you don’t have to worry about something like a stray nail poking your foot.

The tobi clothes are actually much more practical than they might seem at first:

On their wrists they wear a broad and firm wristband called Tekou. This is used not only to wipe off sweat, but also to protect your wrist’s vulnerable arteries when cutting things and to prevent the sleeves from getting into your way when moving around. On their feet they wear Tabi, the Japanese “toe-shoes”. There are all kind of different Tabi-shoes! Unlike the ones you wear with Kimonos, these Tabi-shoes have a rubber sole. Wearing Tabi makes it easy to sense the ground condition for construction workers. In addition to this, they dry easily and are very light. These days, there are even safety Tabi-shoes: with steel toe caps!

Now let’s get to the Tobi trousers: this shape is just amazing! (In fact many Japanese people identify Tobi workers by these special trousers.)

There are various theories why the lower part under the knee is pumped up like a balloon. The main reason, however, seems to be a simple one: the baggy pants make it easy to move, easy to bend, stretch and stride…

Right below the pumped up part, the trousers become narrow again in order to tighten up your calves. Why? Pressing the calves encourages blood circulation and helps you to work longer and to stand for hours without your feet swelling up.

This is the third of four posts profiling the places we visited during Japan’s “Golden Week” in Spring 2007. The first is Yakushima, the second is Tanegashima, ,and the fourth is Kagoshima City. We also had a couple of misadventures on the trip which I wrote about here and here.

ふきあげ はま すな の さいてん

The Great Khan’s Palace at Kambalu, at the Fukiage Beach Sand Festival View at Picasa The Great Khan's Palace at Kambalu, at the Fukiage Beach Sand Festival03-May-2007 12:23, SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.004 sec, ISO 100

After taking the ferry back to Kyushu from Tanegashima, we finished our Golden Week vacation with two days in Kagoshima City. This post is about our half-day trip from Kagoshima to Minami-Satsuma for their 20th annual Sand Festival (that link is for the official site, which is in Japanese, but if you click around you can see some more pictures, including some cool nighttime shots). After the wonderful time we had at the Sapporo Snow Festival in February, this seemed like the perfect contrast.

View at Picasa Sandy – the Fukiage Beach Sand Festival's Mascot

It was an hour long ride on a packed bus from Kagoshima, which made Kai miserable (Eidan surprisingly handled it just fine). The bus turned out to be the best option though, as there was a huge traffic back-up as we approached the site of the festival, and the driver was savvy enough to take us down some dusty farm roads to get around all the cars. What surprised me however, was that we didn’t end up at Fukiage beach, or any beach at all. The festival instead was in a big lot surrounded by farmland, with no coast in sight. They must have hauled in many truckloads of sand. We asked one of the staff and he said the beach was about a kilometer and a half away. Adjacent to the lot was a large building with a stage, concession stands, etc. I imagine they held it there instead of the beach to take advantage of the amenities. Personally though, I think it would’ve been more fun to have a sand festival on the beach!

The sculptures were amazing. The theme this year was exploration, and the sculptures were grouped by continent: Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. Fortunately, Kai perked up once we got some lunch in him, and Eidan napped in his stroller (which was preferable to having to spend all our time trying to keep him from stomping on the sculptures). There were two stages with live bands, and a flower show as well, so there was plenty to see for a few hours.

View at Picasa Tibet's Potala Palace03-May-2007 12:25, SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.004 sec, ISO 100	View at Picasa Saint Mark's Basilica03-May-2007 12:08, Canon Canon PowerShot S230, 7.1, 5.40625mm, 0.006 sec	View at Picasa The far end of the Saint Mark's Basilica sculpture03-May-2007 12:12, Canon Canon PowerShot S230, 7.1, 5.40625mm, 0.003 sec
View at Picasa One of the Buddhas of Bamyan, before it was damaged03-May-2007 12:28, Canon Canon PowerShot S230, 7.1, 5.40625mm, 0.003 sec	View at Picasa A Buddha of Bamyan, after it was de-faced but before being blown up by the Taliban03-May-2007 12:31, Canon Canon PowerShot S230, 7.1, 5.40625mm, 0.003 sec	View at Picasa Explorers in Africa03-May-2007 12:14, SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.003 sec, ISO 100
View at Picasa Underwater scene of a shipwreck03-May-2007 12:19, SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.004 sec, ISO 100	View at Picasa Native Americans03-May-2007 12:27, Canon Canon PowerShot S230, 9.0, 9.28125mm, 0.005 sec

Kai in the biggest tire at the park View at Picasa Kai in the biggest tire at the park16-May-2007 15:25, Canon Canon PowerShot S230, 2.8, 5.40625mm, 0.004 sec

Kai took this picture of me on the tire dinosaur View at Picasa Kai took this picture of me on the tire dinosaur16-May-2007 15:36, Canon Canon PowerShot S230, 7.1, 5.40625mm, 0.003 sec

View at Picasa Tire Park, near Kamata Station, Tokyo16-May-2007 15:09, Canon Canon PowerShot S230, 7.1, 5.40625mm, 0.003 sec

View at Picasa More of Tire Park16-May-2007 15:29, Canon Canon PowerShot S230, 4.0, 10.8125mm, 0.003 sec

View at Picasa Kai on a pile of tires at the bottom of one of the big slides. Kids ride the tires down the slide.16-May-2007 15:07, Canon Canon PowerShot S230, 7.1, 5.40625mm, 0.006 sec

View at Picasa Eidan was more interested in playing in the sand than the tires16-May-2007 15:37, Canon Canon PowerShot S230, 2.8, 5.40625mm, 0.003 sec

Wednesdays are short days for Kai at school, so I usually try to plan an outing for the boys on Wednesday afternoons. Last week I took them to Tire Park:

This playground, covered completely with sand, is filled with big tires in every combination: dinosaurs reaching to the sky, tire “monsters,” regular and tire swings, bridges, slides, climbing equipment, and loose tires lying everywhere for free play.

The moment we arrived, Kai was off like a shot. He went straight for the giant cement slide, where the kids grab loose tires from the pile at the bottom, go up the stairs on the side, and then slide down on their chosen tires. Eidan was a bit more hesitant, as the multitude of kids running all around was probably a bit overwhelming for him at first. He eventually relaxed and enjoyed himself, but was much more interested in playing in the sand than with the tires.

What makes parks like this in Japan such fun is that they’re so dangerous. You can look at each play area and climbing structure and imagine a dozen different ways bones could be broken. You don’t see places like this in the US (not for the past few decades anyway). But take away America’s lawsuit happy culture, and add in parents who take responsibility for their kids, and then parks like this become plausible. My feet managed to find toeholds on the stacked tires that made up the park’s giant dinosaur, and I climbed about 20ft off the ground; Kai ventured about half as high.

After about 90 minutes of running around like a monkey and climbing on everything, Kai suddenly stopped and coolly declared, “I’m bored, let’s go home.” By then I was also finding it increasingly difficult to keep Eidan away from other kids’ sand toys, so we went to McDonald’s for dinner (the boys’ favorite). Then I took them home to start getting them cleaned up and ready for bed. Mission accomplished.

The Tokyo Families article provides clear directions:

Train: From Shinagawa station, take the Keihin Tohuko line to Kamata station. Take the west exit and then turn left, walking through Tokyu Plaza. Keeping to the left, follow alongside the tracks and walk straight for 10-15 minutes. Just past the driving school, the park is on your right. NOTE: Bring a stroller for younger kids, as the walk back to the station afterwards might be too much for them. Some side street parking is also available.

I recommend taking a cab from Kamata station to the park. Even if you don’t speak Japanese, all you have to say to the driver is “Tiya koen kudasai” (tire park please). It’s easy to find taxis at the station, but you’re not likely to find one to take you back from the park, so you’ll almost definitely be walking back. This way the kids only have to walk one way.

For the past few days this story has dominated the news here in Tokyo:

Japanese police have nabbed a former gangster, ending a more than 24-hour standoff during which the man shot a policeman dead after wounding his own son, daughter and another police officer and holing up in his suburban house.

This would be a big story anywhere, but is even more so here, where gun-related violence is rare. All day yesterday most of the TV stations here placed a box on the top corner of the screen, showing a live feed of the standoff. Over the past several weeks, sensationalistic gun violence in Japan seems to be up:

The stand-off comes a month after a gangster shot a fellow mobster in a Tokyo suburb and hid in an apartment before shooting himself, and another gangster shot dead the mayor of Nagasaki, shocking a country where gun control is tough and shootings rare.

I think what really matters is the point mentioned in the last paragraph of the article:

Gun-related crimes are rare in Japan and on the decline. The number of shootings fell to a record-low 53 last year, with most involving members of organized crime. Of those, 36 were thought to have involved gangsters. Only two resulted in deaths.

The population of the US is about 2.3 times the population of Japan. As a starting point for comparing the two countries, let’s adjust Japan’s number of shootings by population: 53 times 2.3 is about 122. Take a a guess at the actual annual number of shootings in the US? Don’t Google it – take a guess: 10,000? 30,000? Not even close. I couldn’t find numbers for last year, but looking at 2004 and 2005 numbers, it’s about 83,000 annual shootings (not counting suicides, but including accidental shootings – I couldn’t find a breakdown excluding those), with about 12,000 of those being homicides (compared to 2 in Japan last year).

Looking at this table comparing 25 industrialized countries, Japan is at the lowest end of the spectrum for gun violence, and the US is at the highest. Looking at just gun-related homicides, the country coming closest to the US is Northern Island, but the US rate is almost twice as high. The next closest is Italy, and the US rate is over 5 times higher.

I’m not going to hold forth on some simple (or even complex!) explanation for all this. It’s not something I’ve done a lot of research on. But here’s some food for thought:

• Guns are virtually prohibited in Japan. But, if that table I mentioned is correct, Finland has no restrictions on gun ownership, has an even higher rate of gun ownership than the US, but a homicide rate that’s about one-seventh of the US’. So what’s going on is more complex than just whether or not guns are readily available. (I’m not saying the US’ lax gun laws are ok; I’m saying you would have to look at more than just gun laws to fully understand what drives overall gun-related crime).
• For a shooting to count as a homicide, the victim has to die. I heard an interview a while back with a doctor at the U Penn Hospital who had developed innovative surgical techniques for dealing with gunshot wounds that were eventually adopted by the US military. He said what sent the murder rate off the charts, at least in Philadelphia, was semi-automatic pistols, which hit the streets in the 80s. Instead of people coming into his emergency room with one bullet in them, they started coming in with three or more bullets in them, making it exceedingly difficult to save their lives.
• In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, law professor Jack Balkin wrote a thoughtful post on the Second Amendment. He doesn’t formulate any specific form of regulation, but he does make an even-handed, thought-provoking comparison between the legal limits placed on the First Amendment’s freedom of speech guarantees (restrictions often sought by the Right and disliked by the Left) and restrictions on the Second Amendment (usually advocated by the Left and resisted by the Right).
• In the 1980s and 1990s, I recall the gun control debate was often in the public spotlight. But in the age of terrorism, it’s moved way down on the agenda. Death by firearms, at the hands of fellow Americans, is one of the leading causes of death in the US (the only other major cause that’s not a disease is car accidents). Unfortunately, that simple fact cannot penetrate the political minefield that engulfs the gun control debate in the US. Look at how quickly the public policy debate on gun violence receded after the Virginia Tech shootings. Our political process is utterly paralyzed on an issue that should actually concentrate minds like almost nothing else.

Our original plan was to return to Philadelphia on June 26, but Maria and I have decided that I should come back early with the boys. So I’ll be flying back with Kai and Eidan on May 28. The main reason is that Maria will be away for most of June on business trips (she’s being sent to the Philippines and Vietnam to evaluate a couple of JBIC projects), and it’ll be easier for me to handle the boys on my own in Philadelphia than Tokyo. Kai will re-join his old class for a few weeks, and he’ll graduate from kindergarten…again! (He graduated from kindergarten in Tokyo in March). Eidan is also old enough now to start in the daycare program at the same school. So I’ll still be working part-time in June, but I’ll be able to go into the office for part of the day.

Also, after having a wonderful time in kindergarten here, Kai is having a miserable time in 1st grade. Kindergarten was mostly playtime and arts and crafts, so it didn’t matter much that he couldn’t speak Japanese. Also, there were a couple boys in his class who spoke Japanese and English, and they helped him out. But now he sits at a desk all day and doesn’t understand most of what’s going on, and none of his classmates speak English. He was supposed to get Japanese lessons, but the school has yet to find a teacher, so nothing has come of that so far (there are some other foreign kids in the class, but they don’t speak English, so they’ve been trying to find a teacher who speaks 3 or 4 languages). If we were going to stay for a year or more, then it would be worth it for him to tough it out, as he’s at the right age where he can learn through immersion. But we’re not here long enough for him to really benefit from the experience. He’s eagerly looking forward to re-joining his old class and seeing his old friends.

What I’m fearing is the 14 hour flight to Chicago, plus the 2 hour flight to Philly, with Eidan, AKA Baby Godzilla. I keep getting flashes in my head of a panicked John Lithgow from the Twilight Zone movie: “There’s a man on the wing of this plane!” But it’ll be Eidan out there, maniacally and gleefully tearing the engines apart with his bare hands. Wish me luck.