Japan: Ganbate!: Week six: Floating along in a sea of Asian

Konbanwa again everyone!

Hope y'all are doing well. Well, the week was a long one--fighting with my school to get my loan money (fingers crossed I get it this week), studying for some exams and quizzes, and fighting to stay awake half the time--but we made it through and we're rounding our way onto the seventh week. Wow!

Allied POW in Singapore

This week, in class, I spent a big chunk of time in my classes watching events leading up to Hiroshima and Hiroshima itself, as we prepare for our trip to Hiroshima this coming weekend. This was an incredibly graphic journey through the 1900s, from Vietnam to the horrors of WWII, with no mercy spared to my thoughts later. This was then rounded up by my trip to the Center for International Peace in Osaka this past Saturday. Peace Osaka is a museum dedicated to showing the horrors of war, and to promote peace. Well, they showed horrors all right--every bad thing that happened from modern day. This included, impressively, the horrible things Japan has done to Asia, as well as dedications to the Holocaust and the Stalin genocides, and various other terrible crimes against humanity.

Japanese attacking Manchuria (China)

They showed us an animated film where a family prepared for the fire bombing on their city, releasing their pet bird into the sky for freedom, and their entire ordeal of escaping just a little too late--the baby got blown up on the dad's back while he was bandaging up the arm gushing blood on the older sister, the mom was bleeding from her face, etc--such a graphic animation, something I know they'd never show in the US (even WITH parental permission). Funny how different societies function. Graphic but important, and interesting. History can't be ignored just because it's ugly. The museum did a good job not really placing blame on any one person or country for any horror, instead just really showing it and saying ways we could and have been improving.

Osaka Castle

After all of that, we went to the nearby Osaka Castle, a gorgeous piece of architecture. We browsed around (but didn't go inside or up top, because I'm planning on going back once the leaves change colors in another month or so), and went shopping in the souvenir shops around the area. And then, starving as we were, we headed off to Sweets Paradise in Umeda (a city about 15 minutes by train from where we were). Sweets Paradise is a sweets buffet, and for $14 you get 70 minute access. It included a lot of appetizers as real food, like various pastas and soups, finger sandwiches, mini-pancakes stuffed with mochi (surprisingly delicious), and curry rice. There's "nomihoudai" for the non-alcoholic beverages (amazing melon soda, as always <3), which is always a bonus. And then there were the cakes. Okay, so cake in Japan is usually dry as a desert, sticking to your tongue and basically being a choking hazard for every person who attempts to eat it. For whatever reason, they really like it this way--truly--and it is just horrid. Finally though, there were some not-dry cakes! I had chocolates and strawberries and cheesecake and some odd little fruit flavored jelly-like-mochi-kinda things (pear flavored?) and ice cream. While nothing here is ever as sweet as it is back home, and I mean nothing--not even the cheesecake!--it was nice to finally get (some) moist cakes and normal sweets. A pretty good deal I'd say.

Sweets Paradise cakes, mmm

Today I spent catching up on sleep, television, laundry, and homework. Overall a pretty productive day I'd say. TV can be all but impossible to watch here if you don't torrent it online, because even when you want to watch it legally, the websites for the official networks don't work here. Therefore, if you're ever going overseas for a length of time, download UTorrent and get on Piratebay or something. Your life will be much, much happier. This weekend, like I said, I'm going to Hiroshima and the next I'm going to go have a heart attack at Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Japan. Wish me luck!

Delicious!

Random thoughts: There's so many old people here, what with Japan's upside-down pyramid population, and it's so rare to see a family with more than two kids. My dorm is next-door to the cemetery, and so therefore I see frequent funerals and, as someone who has been to more funerals than weddings, I can notice some differences between the ones I've been to and the ones here. They transport them from the funeral home (also close to where I live) on a minibus usually, over to the cemetery, though I have seen some processions walking or a few cars straggling behind the hearse (maybe the cheaper funerals?) They still wear all black, but you don't see the weeping emotions you normally do at our funerals. It makes you want to find the person who is most closely related with the deceased and see if they, at least, are crying. I guess it goes with the whole stoic Japanese persona, but still...

Silly bean.

As I suspected, Japan has an extremely protected farming market, and places tariffs on anything imported, which causes apples to cost $5 and for 2 kilograms (4.4 lbs) of Japanese "high quality" rice--the only kind of rice you can buy (because non-Japanese rice isn't allowed here)--to cost $14.00. Japan has one of the lowest food self-sufficiency rates among major industrialized countries, and Japan’s food self-sufficiency rate on a calorific intake basis slipped to 39 percent in 2010. Half of the meat products consumed in Japan is imported, and even a vast majority of staples in the Japanese diet like soybeans and cooking oil are imported. This means that a massive part of their diet is heavily taxed, and that sucks for the Japanese people...and for those of us temporarily visiting. Augh. The tariff rate in 2007 on imported products was as follows: 10.1 percent for agricultural products, 4.6 percent for fish and fish products, and 1.7 percent for wood, pulp, paper and furniture. 10.1%! Holy cow. I'm all for supporting your local farmers and eating local, but you eat local what you have local, and you don't force those who can't afford it to pay a higher price (or, ya know, just kick them out of the market entirely, like all of us students who can't afford to buy fruit this semester). Also, all meat from the US is banned here, including weird things like beef jerky, because the Japanese government doesn't trust the USDA/US meat. Not like I blame them for not trusting the USDA, but come on. Australian meat, but not ours. Rude.

(http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2011/08/12/national/food-self-sufficiency-rate-fell-below-40-in-2010/#.UlFlZxC_sls)

Friends at lunch :)

I bought vitamins this week, too, after experiencing a lot of joint pains and fogginess. I guess any change in diet can bring this on, and since I've been taking it (call it a placebo effect) I've been feeling at least mostly better. Vitamins have to be bought at the health and beauty market, and most Japanese pills are really weird looking, and once again, in bags. Luckily they did have NatureMade (not my favorite brand), so I was able to buy some Vitamin B-12 and multi-vitamins. Huzzah!

I'm going to call this one a wrap and leave you with pictures instead. Have a great one everyone, until next time, ja mata!