Japan: Ganbate!: Two months in: Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum--Gaijin smash!

みんなさん、こんにちは！

Wow, am I seriously already at the halfway point of my study abroad? That's insane. I've now been in Japan for two months (to the date in three days, but close enough). I will be back in the States on the 19th of December--in less than two months! Holy crap. I genuinely can't get over all these emotions! I've always been a planner, so I'm already preparing for what I'll do when I get home and next semester, all of which I'm excited for, but I'm also already sad about all the things I'm going to miss about Japan.

はじめましょう！ (Let's begin!)

I had a pretty school-heavy week this past week, filled with two exams in Japanese (a unit test and then an oral midterm exam), plus the second half of that midterm tomorrow. Luckily, my other classes took mercy on me and kept it interesting. We learned about the different McDonald's around the world from various students, one of whom was Russian. Did you know the largest McDonald's is in Moscow? They have like, 23 cash registers. 23! That's a lot of burgers. Anyway, it was pretty cool to see the different building designs and the different menus, and hear from kids from around the world the differences at their McDonald's.

Buraku slums, Meiji 34

In my other class, a speaker came in who is a member of the buraku community here in Japan. Now this is kind of hard to explain--buraku is one of the four major minorities here in Japan, and you may ask, okay, so where are they from, how are they different? Well...they're Japanese by blood and ethnicity, they're the same religion (or non-religion) as the rest of Japan, they speak the same language, they have the same names...and yet they're a minority. Back in the Edo period, they had a feudal system in Japan. This caste system was made up as such: the ruling class was made up of the emperor, shogun (military commanders), and daimyo (land lords), immediately below that were samurai, followed by peasants and farmers, and at the "bottom" were the merchants and artisans...and then came the buraku, similar to India's "untouchables" people, a class that didn't really even make it into their triangle of power. No one is really sure how or why they were chosen to be in this caste, as even then they would have been normal, everyday Japanese people, but that's how it was. These people were given the "dirty jobs", and lived a lot like African American's did in America--slaves up until the "freeing" of the caste system with the Meiji period, but given "equal but separate" treatment. They weren't allowed to use the same facilities (restaurants, shrines and temples, public baths, etc.), nor were they allowed to marry a non-buraku. This separate-but-equal continued up until the 1920s (Showa period). They lived in slums, faced a lack of employment, poor education, and dirty or dangerous low-salary jobs.

Even after "integration" of the buraku into normal society, in the mid 1990s, 95% of people wouldn't marry a burakumin (buraku people), and many of them couldn't get jobs, live among or go to schools with other Japanese people. In the same time period we were doing our "New Deal" in America, Japan was implementing similar protocols here, with affirmative action laws and the like. And in the 1960s continuing through today, these greatly helped the buraku community, and now the polls have almost completely flipped, to 95% saying they would marry a burakumin.

Now, obviously all discrimination is dumb, but discrimination against people who are literally exactly the same as you? I completely do not understand. Anyway, even with these things all greatly alleviated, our speaker was there to just discuss the problem that Japan still faces with discrimination. There are approximately 1.5 million buraku still in Japan today, and like with most problems in Japan, the Japanese people are afraid to talk about it, even if it's happening in front of them. He said the greatest problem Japan still faces with the buraku is that if you admit to being of buraku origins, people still pull back and distance themselves, leaving the burakujin to feel excluded, something that is much more difficult to solve. The whole discussion was very interesting, and it just goes to show that people will find someone to hate no matter where, or who, you are.

He also gave another speech about homelessness in Japan, something I've seen but that isn't as prevalent as it is in America perhaps. Now, my professor and others say not to really believe the Japanese statistics on a lot of issues, and homelessness is one them, because they believe the numbers are greatly skewed due to the way they define homeless. There are homeless people, who can't afford housing at all, and then there are "day-laborers", which are people that are able to work during the day (mostly construction and the like), and are able to afford housing in the "mansions" (マンション), or "doya", which are essentially government low-rent housing. The rooms are usually about one tatami mat wide (about 3 feet by 6 feet), and go for 1,500 yen a night ($15). They get it per night, and have to be into the shelter by 5:30pm, out by 4:30am, and must lineup the following afternoon if they want another night. A lot of these shelters are in bad areas (yakuza-run towns, filled with prostitution, drugs, pawn shops, and other sketchy stuff) and, funny enough, tourists are often told by places like Lonely Planet to stay here because of the cheap hostels and hotels. Many, who either can't afford this or who don't make it in time, go to Internet cafe's to sleep (where I ended up in Hiroshima) or to McDonald's that are open 24 hours. There are approximately 5,400 of these "Internet Cafe/McDonald's refugees".

Homeless in Kamagasaki (found online)

Most of Japan's homeless population are single adult men, with almost no women and no children facing homelessness. Many of these homeless people have problems with depression and anxiety (about 10-20%), some have alcohol problems, but the majority are just unskilled and old laborers. Drugs are typically too expensive for homeless people to afford, so they have more alcohol abuse than drug abuse. They have low life expectancy and a large portion of them also are infected with tuberculosis (the "disease of the poor"). Osaka has, by far, the largest homeless population in all of Japan, with approximately 20,000 in Kamagasaki.

Young people who qualify for public assistance are told to work 26 days a month to earn a liveable sum (around $1,000 a month), and it used to be 10,000 people could do this amount of work. Nowadays however, it is down to just 1,000 people. This is due to Japan's aging population (can't do construction at 67), and because of the economic under-performance since the late 80's, and lack of jobs since the Asian Financial Crisis and bubble burst back in the late 90's. Many homeless people do things our homeless people do to earn money (aside from begging, though they have done that a few times to us, possibly because we're foreign), like gathering aluminum cans (60 cans = 120 yen or $1.20) or grabbing the past "sell by" date bentos from the conbini's and selling them half price elsewhere. If you're 60 or above, you can qualify for public assistance of around 120,000 yen/month ($1,200), and this is a strict process, given only to those with no other options--in Japan, it's shameful to resort to public assistance, and it means that either your family has already completely cut you off (a terrible fate), or that you will cut them off because you will bring shame to them. I just found this viewpoint interesting, and something I think we desperately need back in America, because the government should truly, always be your last resort instead of your first friend. Ah well.

(Clockwise: Brandon, Yuri, Chiharu)

My weekend was uneventful--after class Friday I went shopping for a few hours (stocking up on winter clothes, crying over how huge my feet are here--triple L, laughing over hilarious Engrish), and then we went out for drinks at our usual place, Toriyiki (or whatever), and that was tasty. I do love their amazing skewers, and with everything only 294 yen after tax, it's a good time for everyone. Saturday I was going to go to USJ but I guess we're going to try to go next Saturday instead because the weather was crappy, so instead I met up with some friends and we went shopping in Namba (Osaka). I got my Halloween costume all prepared (it's a surprise!), and managed to find some really cute things on sale at H&M and at various little side shops. I finally got some Chinese food--not exactly like takeout at home, but man it was still so good, I forgot how much I missed it, and it was super cheap. We split 4 dishes: fried rice, crispy noodles, sweet and sour shrimp, and gyoza, and it was both filling and delicious, all for $4 per person. Sahweet! I spent today curled up, nose cold, studying for the last part of my Japanese midterm tomorrow and doing laundry.

I've got my Tokyo trip booked (did I mention this? I don't remember) so we leave the night before Halloween (Wednesday the 30th) on another night bus (this time we got "sleeper" seats, $10 more, so we'll see how it is), and stay until Monday the 4th (Monday is a half-holiday, so we just miss Japanese class that day). I'm so pumped it's ridiculous.

Random:

They count by different years here. Usually they'll show both, but on any official forms you'll have to put the Heisei year (named after the current emperor, Akihito Heisei). If you're like me and you've never really heard of this concept like an ignorant Westerner (whatever), here's what you have to do: to convert a Western year after 2000 to Heisei, subtract 1988 (the year when the last emperor died). For example, 2013: 2013−1988 = Heisei 25. You have to do this for your birth year, too, (I was a Heisei baby so it's the same math, 1993-1988 = Heisei 5). If you were born in 1960, you're Showa 35. (1960-1925, when the Emperor Showa started). Odd, right? If you wanna see what year you are, check this out here: http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~watson/ref/mtsh.html

Throughout Japan, they have this black dust in the air, pollution they claim comes from China, which is a very real possibility...but also kind of questionable. Scientists did report Chinese pollution up on Mt. Fuji, but this then led to every pollution and soot Japan has in it's air to be blamed solely on China. I'm not a big fan of communists, so I'm all for blaming them whenever possible, but it is another amusing observation of the (not-so) secret distaste for their neighbor because, in reality, you know that a majority of the dust found in these smaller towns is probably still their pollution. It is pretty prominent, something I've never had happen in Florida, and on the possibility of TMI'ing you folks, here it is: when you blow your nose here, there's always a lot of black mixed in with your clear mucus. At first I was pretty sure it was because of my cold or something, but it's continued up and out when I'm healthy now, and my Japanese friends have explained it on this phenomena. I guess Florida gets African dust, but since they're still mostly dust instead of soot...

KFC Christmas Bucket, Japan

Did you know that during the holidays here (like "Christmas", aka just a totally commercial holiday here), people go to KFC to buy their "chicken dinners"? It's a fancy big deal that everyone does. Pretty much some of the only times Japanese people eat KFC. Turkey isn't a product that's available here (though I have, oddly enough, bumped into turkey legs, but they don't sell turkey in any of the grocery stores), and most Japanese people don't have ovens, plus their cost of electricity is so high that even if they had an oven it would probably be too expensive to make, so KFC is the next best alternative.

After a long, stressful week, sometimes it's nice just to be out there, by yourself, taking it all in. It's easy to get caught up in our own nonsense, to get so muddled that we don't really appreciate everything we're experiencing or have. I try to remind myself not to do this on a daily basis, because I think it's so important to remember what an incredibly blessed life we have...even if it's something like breathing on your own, or having even one great friend, or eating a friggin' piece of cheese, there's so much awesomeness around us that it's actually easy to blur it into one mass. So at least once every few days, I like to try to go out, walk around, and just breathe. I go shopping, even to just laugh at Engrish, or just take a moment to count my infinite blessings as the cat down the road coughs out a meow. Life can be hard, but it's so intrinsically good. If you feel pent up, just go out and do something for yourself, stop worrying about everyone else for an hour, and do what you have to do. You won't regret it! I know I never do.