October 21, 2007
For Oscar - Without your support, none of this would be possible.
My good friend Sandra said something the first week I was here, "Japan is like a puzzle and everything we do is all about solving the puzzle..." Well, she said it much better than that, but I think you get the idea. Everything this place throws at us is a riddle and our "survival" here depends on decoding every little thing. It's kind of like those situations where you find people proclaiming, "This is just like a video game!" While most of the people who say this are usually on drugs, many such sober people claim this too, and this situation is like that, only no one is brilliant enough to make THIS into a video game...we can only come up with stories and relate them to simple board games......right? Because everyone does that...
Everday is like Pictionary. My first day to work, I was late...as usual. I'm walking down the wrong street for at least 15 minutes and I get the feeling I'm lost. I stop a man and try to ask where my school is, "uh, sumimasen (excuse me)...um...uh...(I stretch my arms out wide) Big um....Esquela? No!....um....(I move my arms up and down)....school?" A blank stare.
"um....children? (I gesture my hand to my chest as if to say 'yay high')" A blanker stare.
"uh...." Then the name of my school, slips its way into my head, "Matskura?!" A light goes on and he knows exactly what that is....because I'm in Japan and they speak Japanese here. Triple Word Score!!!! I find the school and win Japanese Scrabble!
Of course everyday situations can also feel a lot like Shoots and Latters. Say you prepare for a great Elementary lesson on numbers, go in there and every kid is laughing, loud and jumping on you the entire day. This is like hitting one of those 3 story latters...you climb right up there with success written all over your face. Then, because its Friday, you go celebrating that night with Sushi, sake, go to 3 bars then end up at a Kareoke club singing "Man in the Mirror" until 4am. Next morning....is a shoot. Depending on the amount of Japanese "advil" and green tea you drink the next day, it could be a 2 story shoot or, if its anything like the Monday morning after our first "Magical Sunday" than its equal to that one bastard shoot that sits like 2 squares from the end, and when land on it, it takes you back to square 11! Fuck that shoot! Now that I think about it, I've probably landed on that one shoot every time I've played that dumb game. Anyway, that stupid shoot is like a hangover, and they both suck. I'm done with that analogy.
Finding an injured bat on your balcony and scooping it up with a tuperware container-go back 3 spaces and lose a turn/tuperware container. Getting sick in a country with no Nyquil or Tylonol cold and flu, go to jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200....oh and on your way, pick up a "cough mask" to wear in public, so you can be branded like a diseased animal and no one can talk to you for 3 turns. (These things are like wearing the scarlet letter. I hate them.) On a better roll, Pay Day! Take a ride on the Reading Railroad, if you pass Go collect your hefty salary and buy something cool, like a guitar, woohoo!!
Having your computer break down IS like playing a video game. It's like being on the Oregon Trail and losing Bobby, Sue, Ma and Pa all while trying to forge the river. You're family's gone, you're lonely and bored and the inevitable, looming thought lingers...pretty soon you have to get another wagon. And those new wagons are expensive dammit! But the journey must go on, and you know for damn sure you can't get anywhere these days without a good wagon.
And finally, whenever you're in another country and YOUR TEAM goes to the World Series, that's like playing Poker. Because you're sittin' on a big stack and you keep looking at your sizeable chip count, you're bound to overestimate the guy sitting to your right (who, in this case will be played by the Colorado Rockies). And because the guy on your right has been a shitty player for nearly every year you've known him, you decide to push him all-in. Well, its at this point that he surprises you, along with the rest of the world, by showing you he's been practicing and out of no where he pulls out a historic Royal Flush!! -The likes of which no one has ever seen from HIM of all people! He gives it to you in front of everyone and they instantaniously thank you for his sudden, yet unexpected success, as if you had something to do with it.
And it's hard because you like the guy, after all, you've watched him lose....a lot.....and win too. You can't control but being a little mad at him for his sudden change of luck.
But, when all is said and done, he is your boy, so you gotta root for him, no matter what......Goddamn Rockies, pulled a Flush on me! Oh well, PURPLE AND BLACK ALL THE WAY!!!!!!!!
So there it is, life really is a game, and I play it every day. Feel free to add your games, I know not all of these are made in Japan.....come to think of it, none of them are. huh. That's a first.
My good friend Sandra said something the first week I was here, "Japan is like a puzzle and everything we do is all about solving the puzzle..." Well, she said it much better than that, but I think you get the idea. Everything this place throws at us is a riddle and our "survival" here depends on decoding every little thing. It's kind of like those situations where you find people proclaiming, "This is just like a video game!" While most of the people who say this are usually on drugs, many such sober people claim this too, and this situation is like that, only no one is brilliant enough to make THIS into a video game...we can only come up with stories and relate them to simple board games......right? Because everyone does that...
Everday is like Pictionary. My first day to work, I was late...as usual. I'm walking down the wrong street for at least 15 minutes and I get the feeling I'm lost. I stop a man and try to ask where my school is, "uh, sumimasen (excuse me)...um...uh...(I stretch my arms out wide) Big um....Esquela? No!....um....(I move my arms up and down)....school?" A blank stare.
"um....children? (I gesture my hand to my chest as if to say 'yay high')" A blanker stare.
"uh...." Then the name of my school, slips its way into my head, "Matskura?!" A light goes on and he knows exactly what that is....because I'm in Japan and they speak Japanese here. Triple Word Score!!!! I find the school and win Japanese Scrabble!
Of course everyday situations can also feel a lot like Shoots and Latters. Say you prepare for a great Elementary lesson on numbers, go in there and every kid is laughing, loud and jumping on you the entire day. This is like hitting one of those 3 story latters...you climb right up there with success written all over your face. Then, because its Friday, you go celebrating that night with Sushi, sake, go to 3 bars then end up at a Kareoke club singing "Man in the Mirror" until 4am. Next morning....is a shoot. Depending on the amount of Japanese "advil" and green tea you drink the next day, it could be a 2 story shoot or, if its anything like the Monday morning after our first "Magical Sunday" than its equal to that one bastard shoot that sits like 2 squares from the end, and when land on it, it takes you back to square 11! Fuck that shoot! Now that I think about it, I've probably landed on that one shoot every time I've played that dumb game. Anyway, that stupid shoot is like a hangover, and they both suck. I'm done with that analogy.
Finding an injured bat on your balcony and scooping it up with a tuperware container-go back 3 spaces and lose a turn/tuperware container. Getting sick in a country with no Nyquil or Tylonol cold and flu, go to jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200....oh and on your way, pick up a "cough mask" to wear in public, so you can be branded like a diseased animal and no one can talk to you for 3 turns. (These things are like wearing the scarlet letter. I hate them.) On a better roll, Pay Day! Take a ride on the Reading Railroad, if you pass Go collect your hefty salary and buy something cool, like a guitar, woohoo!!
Having your computer break down IS like playing a video game. It's like being on the Oregon Trail and losing Bobby, Sue, Ma and Pa all while trying to forge the river. You're family's gone, you're lonely and bored and the inevitable, looming thought lingers...pretty soon you have to get another wagon. And those new wagons are expensive dammit! But the journey must go on, and you know for damn sure you can't get anywhere these days without a good wagon.
And finally, whenever you're in another country and YOUR TEAM goes to the World Series, that's like playing Poker. Because you're sittin' on a big stack and you keep looking at your sizeable chip count, you're bound to overestimate the guy sitting to your right (who, in this case will be played by the Colorado Rockies). And because the guy on your right has been a shitty player for nearly every year you've known him, you decide to push him all-in. Well, its at this point that he surprises you, along with the rest of the world, by showing you he's been practicing and out of no where he pulls out a historic Royal Flush!! -The likes of which no one has ever seen from HIM of all people! He gives it to you in front of everyone and they instantaniously thank you for his sudden, yet unexpected success, as if you had something to do with it.
And it's hard because you like the guy, after all, you've watched him lose....a lot.....and win too. You can't control but being a little mad at him for his sudden change of luck.
But, when all is said and done, he is your boy, so you gotta root for him, no matter what......Goddamn Rockies, pulled a Flush on me! Oh well, PURPLE AND BLACK ALL THE WAY!!!!!!!!
So there it is, life really is a game, and I play it every day. Feel free to add your games, I know not all of these are made in Japan.....come to think of it, none of them are. huh. That's a first.
1 comment:
Kyliebobo!
I think my life is like that game Taboo. Not that I say wildly inappropriate comments all the time (unless you count the occasional updates on the state of my bowels to my roommates)... Actually, there is no good analogy here, I just like to press that buzzer with the satisfying "EEEH" sound that silences your opponent instantly. SO fun. Your life seems a lot like Balderdash, where you get an obscure word and have to make up the definition for it. Just like your experience in Japan, it requires constant improvisation and a creative sense of humor to allow you to cover up the fact that you have no freakin' idea what's going on or what anything really means. Rock on fun lover, we'll have to play Balderdash when you return.
--Gabri
2007-11-05 01:04:36 GMT
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