To The Honorable Barney Frank

September 30, 2008

To The Honorable Barney Frank

As one of Congressman Frank's former interns I'd like to thank him for his hard work on the failed bailout. It was misunderstood around the country but everyone I know in the 4th District trusts his judgement. I am in Japan right now but I still see him quoted in the local papers and my mom sends me frequent updates when Barney gets interviewed. I am certain he has gone through a very stressful few weeks and it looks like this is only the beginning for the HFSC. I hope he gets some good vacation time in before the House reconvenes and doesn't overwork himself. We will need Barney just as much in the years to come.

(No reply is necessary to this particular letter.)

Avery

The Negotiator

Lack of treatment or incomplete treatment of strep throat can lead to various complications. Some of them may pose serious health risks. Therefore, streptococcal tonsillitis is important to recognize and treat early. (Wikipedia)

I had a great experience this morning which pretty much redeems the Antioch program for me. Yesterday I mentioned I was annoyed at the site coordinator, who also happens to be the director's wife, for giving me kanpo homeopathic treatment for strep throat. Well, this morning I was feeling no better so I coughed all over the director, bemoaned the use of kanpo for bacterial infections, and asked to go to the doctor. She accompanied me and turned out to be the most wonderful person I've met on the trip so far.

First, she found me an ear, nose, and throat specialist who was literally two blocks from the hostel. She explained that she had a membership at the kanpo store and was able to get me that medicine, which had helped her college-age son, for free, while a visit to the doctor in Japan usually costs $70 plus the prescription. I told her a little about how homeopathic medicine is viewed in the USA: as Julian artfully summarized to me, you take it when you're feeling healthy, not when you are sick. My own experience verifies this widespread American belief.

I learned on the way to the doctor that our site coordinator is halfway to a medical degree and knows a lot about symptoms, treatment, and Japan's health care system. Apparently in Japan people generally avoid antibiotics because they are worried they will kill good germs. Also, Japanese doctors are frequently wrong, and do not like to be argued with. So, I'm looking at a scenario where I pay $70 to see a specialist, get prescribed nothing useful, and still end up sick. But this is where our site coordinator comes in: she is well-known for her negotiation skills. In the past she has arranged secret outings for Japan's imperial family, and for this reason I keep her name private. She also went to Hokyoji for us and managed to work out a stay of 5 days when we could only afford 3. She's an extremely agreeable and friendly person, and seems to always be travelling around the country booking events for us at her own expense.

I am lucky and gracious to have such a person on my side. We got an appointment immediately and I was in the doctor's chair in a shorter time than it took to walk to the office. Unexpectedly, he sprayed a nasty-smelling liquid in my throat and nose-- definitely not the American style of checking for strep throat. He then said that I had a mild inflammation and it would go away on its own. At this point, the coordinator stepped in and explained at great length how I was a college student who couldn't afford to get by on painkillers, and what my parents expected from a doctor in this situation. I couldn't understand most of it and she didn't translate, but it was a piece of work. Whenever I thought she was making a request of him, I would bow my head, the Japanese equivalent of putting on the charm. There was a long back and forth with the doctor and he raised his voice a little. I was expecting the worst, but at the end, she not only got me pencillin, but we got an enormous "student discount"-- not a normal event at a doctor's office, she said-- that knocked the bill down to $35. Wow!!

Interesting fact about doctor's bills in Japan: they are itemized. I now know that I received exactly $2.60 worth of treatment (the nose and throat spray) and $4.20 of diagnosis. We got the penicillin at a small ear nose and throat pharmacy coincidentally located 20 feet away for $12. Now I am good to go for the party this evening!

Goodie Bag

The scraps of paper in my backpack reveal the various interesting things I've been up to these past days. There's a sheet of paper with the URL http://yusuke7.web.fc2.com/ on it. On Saturday night I went down to the river and listened to the haunting sounds of that guitarist. I stood on the guitar and sipped my beer, until suddenly I felt like I was reenacting a scene from Honey & Clover. That was a little surreal. There were also some people juggling fire.

There's a map in my bag with labels such as "Ititani munakata zinzya" and "please put paper bag here. Some monkey want to get it". On Sunday I went to the Arashiyama Monkey Park in the deep woods of western Tokyo. This is a seriously underadvertised place. You walk up a flight of stairs to a Shinto shrine, where there is a little gate. Pay $5.50 and you gain access to an incredibly dangerous cliffside trail with no railings. At the top of this trail is a hilltop full of monkeys. There is a cage-- but you are in the cage and the monkeys are outside. Of course, you have to enter and leave on the normal path, but you feed the monkeys outside the cage at your own peril.



You could see a spectacular view of Kyoto on the cheap, if you could get past the guardian monkey.



That morning I spent at the central Rinzai temple of Japan, Tenryuji. In my bag is a pamphlet explaining how the landscape garden there is a World Cultural Heritage site roughly 700 years old. There were Sweet Lolitas there when we showed up.



We got to go to one of the private areas, where we got one final lesson from Rinzai Zen monk Tom Kirshner. He explained how using zazen to improve concentration was practically useful. When he went back to Japanese college, he had to listen to long talks in Japanese for hours on end and memorize them, but managed it because of zazen. From his long talk I drew out a good example. I don't play guitar because I can't summon up the concentration to practice. I bet if I did more zazen I'd be able to devote myself to it more.



Today I woke up feeling very sick. I could barely swallow. It seems I have a case of Japanese strep throat. For this, the site coordinator explained, the correct remedy is Japanese/Chinese traditional medicine. I asked for penicillin but apparently in Japan people stick to "vitamin drinks" with homeopathic elements instead. I am instructed to not go anywhere today and avoid eating greasy food. I really wanted katsu-curry, too...

Finally, there is a crumpled list of names of people who helped me out at Hokyoji: the abbot, Shinkai Tanaka (深海田中); the monks, Kanzan Kageyama (寒山景山), Daishin Satou (大心佐藤), and the Polish Zen monk who knew English, Bazan Daidou (バザン大道); and the three ladies who cooked, Renshu Matsuri (蓮舟松璃), Fumon Sawada (普文沢田), and Futami Murano
(ふたみ村野).

Let's go get sushi and not pay

Ron Paul endorsed Chuck Baldwin, Sarah Palin outdid Miss Teen South Carolina, a $700 billion figure was conjured up out of nowhere, Barney Frank got slandered by Democrats, McCain threw the entire schedule of the election process into question, and everything went to hell. Am I caught up yet?

I had an exhausting meeting tonight where people were meant to talk about their problems and get closer to each other. I felt really closely linked to everyone for a moment... then they all went drinking and left me behind. I don't think it was personal, I think they all just decided for themselves. I would go with them but I'm kind of tired and the last drinking excursion I went on wasn't much fun.

Overall, this is a really cool group, but it's still a large group of Americans and their behavior isn't always what I want to see.

From Kyoto 2008

Nancy bought a kimono yesterday.

京都の日常 Everyday Kyoto

From Kyoto 2008

Flea market in northern Kyoto
Many antiques were here



Not sure what these were



The shopowner asked me not to take pictures of her cats
I apologized
But I already took one



Steamy, gritty arcade
Duct tape everywhere
All games were 50 yen



Natural foods store
Vegetarian meat sauce?
Took it home
Turned out to be useful
Vegan had bought butter sauce by accident

Hokyoji and Me

What I did today: biked several miles to Cafe Proverbs, talked to a Moonie minister in broken English, found an organic food grocery store.

Hokyoji was an interesting experience for me. Once again, I wasn't totally walled off because all my classmates were there. But I appreciated that I couldn't have done anything remotely like this alone. Some of the stuff that happened on the trip:

I would wake up in the morning at 4AM and wash up for a 4:30 meditation session. At that time of morning my brain would be shot and I would spend the session staring at the wall, half-awake, focusing on staying awake more than keeping my mind in order. This would be followed by a morning service, that is, prostrations and chanting. I enjoyed this more because it gave me something physical to occupy myself with. Finally we would get our bowls and have a formal breakfast at something like 6AM.

By "formal" I don't mean French style. This breakfast was insane, like nothing I have experienced before. We ate on top of the zendo. No spilling. Absolutely no noise was allowed-- especially not clinking bowls. Every time you put your chopsticks down, you had to silently balance them on top of your bowls. At the end of the meal you cleaned every bowl with a special stick and stacked them as carefully as possible. If you dropped your chopsticks or, Heaven forbid, your bowls, that was it: you had to apologize before the altar and leave a donation. Also, everyone would know of your guilt in both rooms, because the sound was very loud.

Now, Brian was berating me the entire trip for not cleaning my bowls in the right order, putting food in the wrong bowls, and drinking the cleaning water before the donation to the hungry ghosts. I felt humiliated and angry. But soon I recognized that this was his way of reminding me to be extra careful. I spill stuff all the time, but at these meals, after I understoof his advice, I took extra care not to drop anything. There were some close calls, but the entire group went through the trip without dropping a single chopstick. Apparently this was a first in Brian's career!

We got to do takahatsu, or traditional almsround, in a poor part of a nearby city. By nearby I mean about a dozen miles away because the temple really was in the middle of the woods. But this was an experience practically no foreigner will ever have and I was really grateful.

I endured vicious-looking barking dogs, itchy feet from the painful straw sandals, wet roads, and a sore throat and donated merit to a dozen households in exchange for small donations. This is apparently a big source of income for this faraway training temple which no longer has many families supporting it.

Sadly, some Japanese people no longer understand what takahatsu means, and one woman donated twice asking us to go away and stop chanting. But chanting is the important bit. During these alms monks chant a semi-magical dharani sutra twice, then either dedicate the merit to the temple (?) if nobody is home, or in the lucky case that someone shows up, dedicate the merit to the donating party and their family. Whether or not you believe in the power of sutras, the monks will not stop the dharani to thank people for the money.

We also got to visit the off-limits treasure house and see those famous scrolls of Dogen, do a short dokusan with the head abbot and climb the mountain to the Zen rock as I have already described. In between this, meditation, and formal meals most of our time was spent. I didn't have much of a spiritual experience doing the things besides the Zen rock but they were all immensely enjoyable and the pace of life at the monastery was something I was grateful for the opportunity to take in.

We also had three unofficial meals, officially illegal under Buddhist rules, but now standard for hungry Zen monks. There were two informal teatimes with sweets, and an informal dinner with unnaturally delicious food cooked by three visiting women. Normally, people tend to thin out on this trip due to being served nothing but pickles and rice all day long. But I got to enjoy mochi, green tea cake, cookies, and curry for dinner (!) and for this I am eternally grateful to the women who cooked for me. They were hard workers who woke up before us, came to meditation at 4:30, and yet somehow made special portions for the vegetarians and lactose and wheat intolerant among us. I left them a present of chocolate. I did not take a picture of them, but my buddy Daniel did.

Soto Zen meditation has not been very useful to me. I think my qi gets stagnant staring at a wall. So far I haven't done much Rinzai but we sit facing each other and it feels a little nicer, easier to focus.

Brief History of Hōkyōji and Jakuen

From Kyoto 2008

This is the view from the temple we trained at this week. Hōkyōji (宝慶寺) is four kilometers from the nearest town, and a good day's hike from the nearest train station. It was founded by a Chinese monk named Jakuen (寂円) who was originally a disciple of Dōgen, the founder of Sōtō Zen. He was one of Dōgen's top disciples and may have been second in line to run the founding temple of Sōtō, Eiheiji. Then why did Jakuen leave Eiheiji? After the death of Dōgen's appointed successor, the monks began squabbling over who ought to be the new abbot. It seems Jakuen was disgusted and walked away from the temple entirely. Nobody is quite sure if this is the real story because Jakuen left no records--only local legends of his piety.



But it appears that he took several of Eiheiji's most valuable possessions with him. That is to say, as far back as recorded history goes Hōkyōji has owned calligraphy and painting dating from the thirteenth century. Eiheiji burned down in a fire in the 1570s, but Hōkyōji preserved its treasures. Therefore, Eiheiji (which is now a tourist attraction and has a tour route running directly through the monastery) proudly presents to visitors a fancy, climate-controlled museum full of eighteenth-century reproductions. Meanwhile, Hōkyōji, which is scarcely visited by people out of the district, has a small building below the temple grounds which is normally locked and unavailable to visitors. It was opened for us.



Inside, in a rather plain atmosphere, are scroll portraits most Japanese people only ever see in their history textbooks. Nearly all of them are from the thirteenth century, including calligraphy by Dōgen himself and the only portrait of Dōgen made during his lifetime. The amusing exception is some random calligraphy from the seventeenth century by an unknown author declaring Hōkyōji the "number two Zen temple in Japan," something most Japanese would not jump to think of. Because the scroll is so old it was put in the treasure house as proof that Hōkyōji is awesome.



There are several interesting legends about Jakuen. He is said to have sat on a rock for eighteen years meditating before a stunning view of a sacred mountain called Hakusan. We ourselves were allowed to climb our way up the mountain to the rock ("Zazen Rock") and meditate there.



I had a very strange religious experience on this rock. A slight drizzle was falling on my face, and ahead of me was mountain from bottom to top. Trees below the rock shook in the breeze. Zazen in the temple makes me feel kind of dead, but on this rock I felt very sure that I was alive. Particularly, when my hands touched each other in the Zen mudra, I felt their warmth in a very direct and fulfilling way. It didn't calm my mind, but it made me want to stay. Unfortunately, we had to get back in time for lunch. Here is the view from the Zazen Ishi.



It is also claimed that Jakuen befriended a dog and cow who followed him around at all times. The dog would watch from the zazen rock and defend him. In fact, when he did takuhatsu (almsrounds), the dog and cow were said to follow him into town. In the treasure house we saw the alleged alms bags of the dog and cow. The cow's bag is bigger than normal and the dog's is very small.



There are more pictures at this previous Antioch participant's blog. His experience was eerily similar to mine.

My personal experience at Hōkyōji is next.

Hokyoji

Briefly: I will be spending the next six days at Hokyoji. Needless to say there is no Internet there. I might be able to take pictures, but there is no guarantee.

See you soon!

Cafe Proverbs 15:17, Daibutsu

I was unable to post this on Friday because my camera is mostly broken. Here are a bunch of photos to make up for it. I will hopefully be writing a wordier post later today.

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On Friday I teamed up with Daniel to conquer Kyoto. First we went to the Long Island Cafe about which, if all goes well, more will be written later. Then we took off for Cafe Proverbs 15:17 which turned out to be food of Biblically good proportions.

Better is a dish of vegetables where love is,
Than a fattened ox and hatred with it.
Proverbs 15:17

Most food in Japan is non-vegetarian, due to the ever-present fish sauce. Therefore, vegetarian cafes tend to go the extra mile and be vegan as well. Unfortunately, most of these cafes are expensive, and some are actually Buddhist temples that will charge you $150 for dinner. I went to a place called "Hale" last night and paid $20 for poor-quality soymilk and an unsatisfying block of fried tofu. But Cafe Proverbs-- take a look!

From Kyoto 2008

This is a 100% vegan restaurant with great prices, relaxing decor, amazing food, friendly staff and delicious cookies and cake for those sorry vegans in Kyoto with a sweet tooth. I had lunch for $13 total, and bought some cake as well.

From Kyoto 2008

We took the cake back to Koshoji where we surprised our resident vegan, Loftin, with a birthday present. It was extremely well received.

More Kyoto vegan links: Deep Kyoto - Vegetarian, Vegan Japan

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On Sunday the whole gang went to Nara, home of the biggest Buddha statue in the world. Nara is famous for its deer but at first I thought the deer were just an old story from the area. We saw some very pretty boats and temples...

From Kyoto 2008

...then...

From Kyoto 2008

Wait a minute, what on earth?!

From Kyoto 2008

Yes, the deer of Nara are actually an attraction of the present. They roam through the parks and accost tourists on the sidewalks. I can't think of any other city like this one in the world.

From Kyoto 2008

The big Buddha has had many pictures taken of it from various angles. I attempted to give some idea of its scale here. As you can see it is clearly too large to be useful. It wouldn't fit in my house very well. They actually had to build a special temple to hold it in. I did manage to climb through a hole the size of its nose but I don't have that picture available right now.

From Kyoto 2008

The government has hung up posters and decorations which seem to declare the season to be fall, but they are still selling shaved ice on the streets. You can't control the seasons. While I was walking back I saw a mother doing 50 meter dashes with her two kids. The little girl was yelling "oniichan, dame yo" and the brother was giving hugs to everyone. I think Japan is a great place to live.

From Kyoto 2008

This is a picture of the road to Horyuji which is one of the oldest Buddhist temples in the world in this little nowhere town called Ikaruga, which is kind of like Ercolano. You can tell this is not a big town like Nara because they just plopped this insanely long road down off of the main road and you have to walk to the end to get to the temple.

From Kyoto 2008

We weren't allowed to take pictures in any of the buildings but I'm cool with that. In any case there were some really old statues and paintings inside. One thing you won't learn about this temple on Wikipedia is that it's run by the Shōtoku sect, which split from the Hossō sect in 1950, likely over some tourist issue because only a handful of Japanese people belong to either sect. They do still hold lectures though.

From Kyoto 2008

Hossō is a Buddhist sect from before Zen and Pure Land arrived. In case you aren't taking an intensive Buddhist Studies course abroad, that means it predates the religious traditions of most of Japan.

From Kyoto 2008

I returned to Nara in time to catch some sort of small parade, which seemed to be a preparation for 753 (a Shinto thanksgiving ceremony for children). You can see here a girl taking a traditional Nara "taxi" to the parade. The pictures of the parade itself didn't come out too well.

Meditation

I am living in Koushouji, a small, old-fashioned hostel which is physically part of a large True Pure Land temple complex. I didn't think to take pictures of this place because it's a very old-fashioned and unkempt Japanese building and there's nothing exciting about it. I'll remedy that soon. In the meantime here are some pictures from around Kyoto.

Golden Temple. From Kyoto 2008

We sit zazen at 5:30 every morning, before breakfast, and 5:00 every evening, before dinner. I thought I knew three kinds of meditation. The first is the monkey mind, where I would just sit and think of events in the past and plans for the future. The second is a dream state which I enter into without even thinking. The third is that blissful state of perfect concentration which I almost never achieve.

From Kyoto 2008

In the past few days I've thought about Japanese phrases and dreamt I was a Buddha statue in a roadside shrine. But the most unexpected thing happened to me the other evening. I sat down in a usual grumpy mood, thinking of all the more interesting things I could be doing. I recognized this "busy mind" as one obsessed with trying to hoard impermanent things, and reflected on how different I was when I started meditating in fall 2006. Suddenly I was bombarded with images of failure, poor decisions and setbacks. I felt hopeless, as if I were onto something very great when I was younger, and I had abandoned that path. I breathed in deep, reminding myself of impermanence and weathering the blows.

Higashi Honganji. From Kyoto 2008

These feelings haven't come back. I wonder why it is that they arose. After all, this trip is a sort of dedication to a Buddhist lifestyle. I have an extremely wise Zen teacher who explained today why having a comfortable life with the things you own, "I-me-mine," does not jibe with the true reality. To dedicate yourself to Buddhism is to step outside that. So, I should be free from the business that makes me feel busy when I set down on the zabuton. Somehow that isn't happening yet.

When I was in Japan the first time, I was completely disconnected from the outside world. I had no contact with my parents, my friends, or any other Americans. I was very far from anyone and while I didn't go anywhere, I felt very much in control of my own experiences. On this trip, though, the people I'm living with have brought their own lifestyle. They talk about sex and drugs as if we were in a dormitory in Massachusetts. There's a little America being recreated around the kitchen table.

Now yesterday evening I was haggled into explaining getting permabanned from the Something Awful Forums. This seems like an irrelevant event for me to talk about in Japan, where nobody even knows what that means. They asked me why I didn't just change my nickname-- well, it's because a month after getting banned I went on my homestay and the whole thing seemed fairly silly to worry about. There are more pressing issues in the world than American television shows and websites, and greater depths than mere national politics can hope to reach. That's the kind of perspective I was hoping to come back to here. Instead, I'm being confronted with the incessant monotony I was hoping to escape.

From Kyoto 2008

I promise I'll stop complaining soon.

Breakfast

We eat breakfast in silence here. Every day we have the same rice, miso soup, and tea with a Pure Land blessing. Yesterday, after saying the morning prayer, I took the opportunity to reflect on everything I was grateful for on this trip, and everyone I was grateful to for bringing me here. I thought about my parents, the opportunity to practice Buddhism, and the new friends I was making. I ate every grain of rice I was given and every slice of negi in the miso soup.

Today I was just grumpy, and the food seemed rote and unappetizing. The climate of Japan seems to lend itself to constant sleepiness, and I guess waking up at 4:30 doesn't help very much. Yesterday I drank a bottle of milk coffee to wake up, and it made me feel very faint and sick to my stomach. Today I have a headache. I'm checking up on the news I missed out on-- Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae getting bought out, Olbermann being kicked off of MSNBC due to political pressure, 600,000 citizens being denied the vote in Ohio-- and that's not making me feel too good either. And it seems like the only thing adults my age are concerned about is the "new Facebook."

It's nice that all this is happening very far away, but every day I encounter reasons to fear for the future of humanity within my own exchange group. I was in the 100-yen store the other day with of the vegetarian converts. She walked up to an employee, showed him some chopsticks, and asked him "Is this a dollar?" In English. "Is it a dollll-aaaaar?" she repeated slowly and loudly, until I ran over and translated (and converted the currency) for him. Then we went to the bookstore, where she asked in English where the dictionaries were, being greeted with more blank stares. I once again ran to her assistance and got them to show me where it was, but the just-turned-vegetarian pushed me away angrily. "I can figure it out for myself," she told me. Well. I have never before seen someone talking to people in a foreign language and assuming they understand. I've seen it as a gag in movies, but I never thought that people in real life act like that. Or, if they did, I expected that sort of behavior would be limited to silver-spoon folks whom I'd never have the displeasure of hanging out with. So no, N., I do not feel very secure in your ability to figure it out for yourself. Actually, I am kind of worried.

I'm hoping that as the weather gets colder in Japan, I will become less cloudy-headed and more attuned to my beautiful surroundings. Yes, I hope the colorful leaves will make me less judgemental. I've heard that it's a wonderful experience to watch the seasons change. In between telling us about ice cream cone wrappers and the appropriate way to put one's chopsticks on the table, our leader has explained it to us.

Kyoto International Manga Summit

Just another boring day in Japan.

From Kyoto 2008

Busy people on their way home from work.

From Kyoto 2008

A crowd of average Japanese gathers on a public lawn.

From Kyoto 2008

Ha ha, just kidding! It's a private lawn.

No, seriously. This is the 9th Kyoto International Manga Summit.

From Kyoto 2008

I paid $5 for the museum (including the opportunity to photograph cosplayers) and $5 for a special exhibition which turned out to be a tourist trap. Basically it was a small collection of comics from around the world, including all the Anpanman characters and a wall of old Superman comics.

There was also a live presentation of kamishibai, probably one of the last in Japan. I got to see an Ōgon Bat story performed live by a highly entertaining Japanese storyteller. Most of the kids seemed enthralled. Did you know that GeGeGe no Kitaro was originally a kamishibai?

I wasn't allowed to take photos indoors for copyright reasons, so here's a photo of some Haruhi cosplayers.

From Kyoto 2008

To get this photo I asked "sasshin wo totte mo ii desu ka" which seemed overly formal. I'm not sure if Japanese teenagers expect me to be polite or casual.

For no apparent reason there were maskers at this convention. I apologize in advance for showing you this photo. If you don't want to see something really freaky please turn back now.

From Kyoto 2008

Please note that the person under this mask is most likely a man.

Haha. I just blew your mind.

One masker was disturbing enough but he appeared to have shown up with several of his friends. I wish I had a better picture of the expression of the girl on the right.

From Kyoto 2008

That's enough of that. Posts about Buddhism to follow.

Hello From Japan

Hello everyone, I am in 日本 (Japan) right now. Last time I was in Kurume. It turned out to be a pretty good model for most of Japan, but definitely not the best of it. This time I am in Kyoto. I wish I had some way to upload my pictures but I won't have computer lab access until Monday afternoon.

I am reminded of a characterization of Carleton students as "passive-aggressive non-smoking atheist vegetarians." It's not just a mockery but an accurate characterization of the sort of mindset that's encouraged at a liberal arts college. I recounted this story to a friend on Wednesday afternoon, and now four days later three of the 17 group members have converted to vegetarianism simply by associating with other liberal arts students. I really wouldn't care about this too much except that we are in Japan where the idea of identity politics is distinctly frowned upon. So I had a conversation like so half an hour ago:

- We can't eat anything here.
- This is a food court... it has most of the food you can find in Japan.
- None of it is vegetarian.
- When did you become a vegetarian?
- Yesterday.
- So you started protesting Japan on the day you came here.
- [shrugs]

They asked me how to say "I can't eat meat" in Japanese, and eventually they all went looking for a salad bar. Amusingly enough, one of the actual Antioch students is a homeschooled vegan lesbian who never talks, much less complains. She's a model Japanese citizen.

My instructor is the world's greatest bore. I worry that I am being too judgmental but I've asked the other students and we are all sick of this guy. He took us on a tour of Kyoto where he would show us something new, exciting, and mysterious, and talk about every single aspect of it for what seemed like several years until it seemed entirely boring. Examples: "This is a restaurant. They have what's called a breakfast set here for 500 yen. This is the cheapest way to eat out in Japan. You will get an omelet, toast, and coffee or tea. They also serve tempura. The word tempura is... anyone? It's Portugese. The Portugese introduced the idea of deep fat frying to Japan. This tempura set is 2,000 yen. That's $20. So, it's a little too pricey... unless if you really want it... now here's a powdered green tea set. [continue talking about the menu for for 10 minutes while Japanese people walk by laughing at us]"

There's a silver lining, though: sometimes while going on an uncomfortably racist tangent or droning on about unrelated historical events, he'll bring up a quite surprising story from his hippie days. For example, he was deported from Japan for smuggling army war objectors to Sweden via Russia. All of this while he was a Zen monk.

Enough whining. I'm still kind of grumpy right now from jet lag and a climate which doesn't agree with my digestive system. Let's talk about some of the little things I love about Japan:

- Those little trucks
- School uniforms
- Shop uniforms
- Ten-square-foot convenience stores with soda, snacks, toiletries, and a tiny rack of Yotsuba&! comics
- Twelve-story department stores
- ...with a twelve-story open-air staircase cutting through its center
- ...that is taller and longer than Michaelangelo's Capitoline Hill cordonata
- ...and is impeccably clean
- Sleek black food courts where the decor is done in painstaking detail and waitresses pick up after you
- Cleaning something before it gets dirty
- Posters and magazines overloaded with text (Japan is a language-loving country)
- Playing music from the Amelie soundtrack at the train station
- Women who carry umbrellas on a sunny day to keep their skin pale
- People paying attention to how they dress
- Playing a song at the crosswalk instead of beeping
- Food that comes in small portions
- Calpis
- Pocari Sweat
- Milk tea
- Milk coffee
- People worrying about preservation of traditions and culture
- Clotheslines
- Ubiquitous bicycles
- Tiny gardens cultivated around every house
- People who are grateful for my attempts at speaking Japanese
- Buddhism

More to come, undoubtedly, as the first week progresses.