Japan: Ganbate!: Week fourteen: Here's to the Thanksgiving miracle of not going to jail twice in a week...

Konnichiwa mina, and welcome back to another week in Japan. It has been a pretty crazy one, looking back, and I hope everyone has had as good of a week as I have. It has been really cold, in the upper 30s with the highest being the upper 50s, but I've been handling it pretty well I must say. I can't believe this amazing adventure is wrapping up so soon, but I'm ready to fill every day with something, and this is the last week of classes before finals! I'm excited, so let's get this started.

Our spread of food

Thursday we celebrated Thanksgiving by doing our own little Thanksgiving feast--we assigned different people to different foods, with the requirement of coming being that you had to contribute, as part of the pilgrim spirit.

We ended up having a really good spread between the 14 of us, including baked "honey ham" (ham slices with honey and sugar and some garlic), curry chicken, shrimp & chicken gumbo with rice, yaki onigiri (the fried rice balls), corn, garlic broccoli, roasted carrots, french fries, onigiri (rice balls wrapped in seaweed), little egg squares (a staple of the bento box here in Japan), deviled eggs (which, because of the mayo here being lightly flavored, end up having to taste pretty mustardy but still good somehow), mashed potatoes, mashed pumpkin, garlic bread, apple cinnamon rolls, cookie brownies, pumpkin cake, rum raisin bread pudding thingy, and sodas. I could not have asked for a better group of people to share my holiday with abroad, and I'm so glad we could show the meaning of Thanksgiving to different people who had never experienced an "American" Thanksgiving before. I'll have more pictures that the RAs took on their nice cameras, and I'll upload them to Facebook when I get them.

On Friday, I went to the Shiga Prefecture Men's Prison as part of a field trip for my class, The Dynamics of Modern Japan with Professor Paul Scott. When we first pulled up to the prison, I was surprised because of how nice and clean the area surrounding us was. It was nothing like the area the Orlando prison is in, filled with bails bondsmen and sketchy people, instead there were kids walking down the street and restaurants and a nice lake with flowers out front. In front of the prison, gray and white and looking kind of in need of a new paint job like most infrastructure here in Japan, there were nicely cut trees and plants, and everything looked very normal, very clean, with just a guard or two outside. There wasn't huge doubled barbed wire fencing. Just the prison beyond.

Inside, we walked up a nice tiled staircase, up through the older hallway into a large room where they had us sit down, empty out our pockets, and put on our communication listening device (so we could hear our professor translating). They led us out, in two lines, through the secure locked area (nowhere near as serious as what I've seen on those MSNBC Lockup shows of American prisons, instead it was just a metal door they locked with a physical key the guy had on his wrist), and gave us all face masks "to keep both the prisoners and you healthy". The place was super cold, as the entire prison is neither air conditioned nor heated--so for the Kansai region that means burning hot, humid summers, and windy, snowy winters. We walked through the open hallway where the prisoners walk, naked, from their cells into the cubby area to change from their jumpsuits (navy and gray stripped, like the ones you see in the pictures from the Holocaust) to their working outfits (a pleasant light green jumper). This walk would suck, because the windows are open and the hallway would be miserable to walk through naked--it was cold to me in my two layers + jeans, and it was only 45 degrees today, so in February when it's snowing? Yikes.

Beautiful fall tree outside my Seminar House

They showed us their work factories, where they did a variety of things: sewing (making futon covers and totes), a wood shop, and a tatami mat weaving area. The work is contracted through private organizations with the Ministry of Justice, so the organization pays the government directly. The prisoners do get paid for this work, they just receive it at the end of their sentence or when they go on parole--they earn, on average, about $30 a month for their work, but can earn up to $105 a month for more specialized skills. At this prison they can earn their GEDs, improve their kanji (reading and writing) and math skills, and become certified in a few different crafts. They also allow them to work on models, like ships and airplanes, and then sell them for money, which they'll receive with their other work money. There isn't any non-administrative job done (like, aside from guards, wardens, and office people) by outside workers, because instead the prisoners do all the work for themselves. They rotate some of the tasks, like cooking and cleaning or laundry and yard work, between prisoners.

All the prisoners were working when we were walking by, and none of them looked particularly terrifying--granted, most of these guys weren't yakuza (gang members) or anything so they didn't have tattoos, but still. They then walked us past their cells, which were about 8 tatami mat wide--the exact same size room I'm in now, which is 3.64 m × 3.64 m--and have 8 men per room. They each have their own futon, and there's a private (well, at least it had walls) toilet in the room, plus a really nice looking 24" (guesstimate) flat screen TV. All in all, they were pretty nice looking rooms.

They took us to a model of what the old prison was like, which was just a little wood house they kept the prisoners in, with straw masks to hide the prisoners face's (to hide their "shame"). They walked us past the area they put inmates who had been misbehaving in for their "outdoor" time, and it essentially was just a little gated fence area with high walls that a guard watches over. There was an area where they could all hang their futon mats up to dry out in the sun (something I wish I had here at the seminar house to fluff my darn mat up). They were going to show us the bathroom, but there were apparently some inmates in there so we couldn't go, however we were informed that they are allowed to have a bath for 15 minutes twice a week in the winter, and three times a week in the summer. Japanese people typically don't smell very much, but still, in these boiling hot summers, you know that even they must start stinking.

There is also recreational time, where they offer "after work" clubs, such as learning how to play some different instruments (clarinet, piano), dancing, calligraphy, and some other hobbies. They let them play sports like baseball, and let them hold festivals inside the prison that the outside world is celebrating too. They have a variety of religious instructors come in, and have different sessions on how to deal with problems like alcoholism, kleptomania, and drug abuse. They believe in socializing the prisoners, in a way of "wake up in the morning, go to work, come home and do something productive that you enjoy, go to bed, repeat."

Shiga Prison has been a prison for a few hundred years now, and it currently just hosts first-time male offenders over the age of 26. Almost half the population is made up of thieves and stimulant drug abusers (marijuana and any drugs considered "stimulants"), and the next largest portion of inmates were sexual offenders. There were some people serving time for murder there, but the prison only hosts criminals who received 10 years or less, so I'm not sure exactly what they did or how they got 10 years or less, but whatever. There were surprisingly few guards on duty, and I felt like they had more guards watching us than they did the prisoners. In 35 years there hasn't been any attempted breakouts at the prison, and in Japan the only recent breakout was in Hiroshima last year, and the inmate was caught within two days. The warden said there is almost no violence between the inmates and the guards, and sometimes the inmates scuffle but it's usually just grabbing the other inmate by the shirt and shaking them around while yelling, no actual beating-the-crap-out-of-each-other.

The guards themselves were pretty unimposing dudes--most of them I was taller and probably heavier than, and they weren't wearing bullet-proof clothing, just a uniform that pretty much looked like what the train station attendants wear, nor did they have any visible weapons. However, apparently the guards are all trained in some sort of defense, whether that be judo (just plain ol' butt kicking), aikido (the method of small-man-take-down-big-man-with-big-man's-force), kendo (where they beat the snot out of each other with sticks), or kyudo (archery). They have a small facility out front where the guards practice these things too. There's an ending ceremony for the inmates, which their families and friends attend, and they are given a certificate and a speech that pretty much just says for them think of their families and friends before they commit another crime, and to just be good citizens of Japan.

Birthday boy and I!

Overall, aside from the coldness, the prison seemed...kinda nice. They really focus on orienting these guys back into society instead of scaring them, but around 16% of the men that go through their prison do go on to be repeat offenders (and therefore moving on to a "scarier" prison, though the guard swears it is just the same as this was). There is a rising problem with the spike in women committing crimes, and it is something the government is trying to deal with through getting women involved in the workforce. All-in-all, it was a pretty cool trip. It's impossible, however, to compare almost anything in Japan to something in the US because of how vastly different we are, culturally, ethnically, and government-wise, everything is different. So I'm glad their system seems to work for them, I'm just a little more skeptical on how that would work for us in America. When I got back that evening, we just went out for some food and drinks at our regular place and had a good, easy night with good friends.

Now for Saturday! I slept in for as long as I could, and kept it easy during the day--grocery shopping, doing some homework--before getting ready for the night ahead of me. It was (is, today, actually) Cody's 21st Birthday (woohoo!), so we went out to Club Pure in Shinsaibashi, Osaka. It opened at 10, and admission was $15 for girls, $35 for men, which includes nomihoudai (all you can drink). After (surprisingly) checking ID, they give you a cup and a wristband, and then you're allowed through the dungeon-like doors. The nomihoudai is from a set list of mixed drinks, but the list is actually pretty good from a variety of bases, like vodka, whiskey, liquor, or gin. I stuck with some basics--a Cuba Libre, a Fuzzy Naval, and then a crap ton of Shirley Temples. The club itself is actually fairly small, but it was pretty bumping. They play "American" rap/R&B at this place, which is part of what makes it so popular. There are lockers you can rent for $3 to put your stuff in, plus a little section to play pool in, and a VIP section upstairs, with a staircase hidden by a fake bookshelf. Kinda cool.

Rules at Pure, no excessive "Namping"

So we were dancing, drinking, having a good time, making friends, getting some free shots from guys, doing our thing...and then things got crazy. Some of our friends start getting hit on by this ugly little older guy who had already hit on our (guy) friend in the bathroom, and now was trying to hit on well...at first, Adam, and then our two Japanese girl RAs we came with. He was making a lot of rude, explicit comments, so as a group, we tried to get him to just go, keeping it fairly nice in Japanese, "Stop, stop, not good not good, go go please." He left, but not without an attitude, shoving some of us, hitting our shoulders. We let it go and just let him walk away...but he came back. Several times. After the third time of him coming back, kicking the backs of Zach's legs, shoving Jacob's shoulders, we shouted loud enough that security got involved. With our broken Japanese, we tried explaining, and they eventually started walking away, telling everyone to calm down. His friends kept walking up and trying to "block" their friend, telling us it was "daijoubu daijoubu" but not actually doing anything or stopping him, just grabbing us and telling us it was fine.

My phone sucks, but Cody and Chihiro!

When the guy came back next time, he threw his drink on the ground by Zach and I, smashing his cup, and shoved Zach, who then stumbled into me. After a staff came to clean it, I complained about the "hentai", so security came over. I just told them, in my saddest gaijin broken Japanese, that the guy was a pervert and not only touched me, but touched everyone. They took me out of the club (and I dragged Kris who is all but fluent in Japanese) with the guy (who tried shoving security off, so already another point off for him) and tried explaining the situation. The guy mostly got in my face and called me a lying foreigner, but security was on my side with this one at least, and Kris kept trying to explain to them in Japanese but we were mostly ignored. Asumi (one of the RAs) came out then and told them what had been going on, and then (through my broken understanding), they said, "They even have a Japanese person telling us what you did, you need to stop. Leave them alone." So they told the guy he had one more chance, and let him back in the club...

...however, how often does that ever work? So for the next 35 minutes, the guy proceeded to keep coming up to us, shoving us, being creepy on the edge of our circle, just being gross. He was creeping on my guy friend's when I left to go use the bathroom, but when I came back out, there was a fight escalating between Jacob and the guy, lights clicking on and music stopping. As I went to go refill my drink past this, assuming nothing would really happen (or not really caring, perhaps, because of the alcohol), I'm walking by, and the creep is shoved into me (and this club is really multi-level, making it semi-frightening because with the mix of alcohol and darkness, it's hard to see the deep cobbled steps), so I go flying toward the crowd at the bar. The lights come on, the music is cut, and the next few minutes kind of go by in a blur--the guy, who now has a bloody lip and nose, comes up to me, threatening to punch me in the face (fist touching my cheek, putting pressure), and I kept telling him (more broken Japanese here) to do it so he can go to the police (station, apparently, because I haven't learned any other word), so then Japanese people (girls and guys) start shoving the guy away from me, screaming at him, blocking me, and then meanwhile I turn around and the guy's friend is now shoving past security to Jacob and Justin.

So what I didn't see: The guy came up a final time, spitting on Chihiro and Jacob--and punching Jacob in the stomach-- so Jacob finally punched him in the face (twice), which is what sent him flying toward me. His friend then grabbed Asumi's hair and started screaming, so security intervened by grabbing that guy, Justin, and Jacob, and shoving them as far away from each other as possible.

Train rides back at 5:30am~~

Back to my perspective~~Justin is then grabbed underneath the arms, hands in the air to show he's not fighting, and dragged past me by a guy who was friends with the creepy guy, around the club, up into a corner past me, even though I was trying to let everyone know it was fine because Justin wasn't trying to fight. These Japanese girls, who spoke pretty good English, had their arms around me still, trying to protect me, but chaos was all around--they finally got the original creep out of the club, then his friend. We thought things would settle from there, but like always, the person who threw the first punch gets ejected too, so my friend's were all trying to follow Jacob out, but meanwhile I was getting offered free shots with my apparently new-found protectors, who said that guy was a creep, deserved to go to jail, whatever. Lots of debating later, I headed outside to see what had come of the situation, and was greeted instead by a pile of cops and security. My friends were afraid Jacob was going to get jumped, so Justin left with him, but it was decided finally to let the party continue when we found out they were safe in the nearby McDonald's. They had actually locked the club doors, so after they let us (and those waiting) inside, the lights were still on, and were on for another 10 minutes while they cleaned up.

Several free shots later from sympathetic Japanese and foreign people, and a different unrelated fight with the lights coming on, the party continued, and we did have a good time. Japanese people were talking to me everywhere, and insisting on taking pictures with the "super cute" white girl (thank you? They mostly liked my outfit, I think, because I was rocking the cat galaxy pants and my sequin Jaws shirt)--so now I can't wait until Interpol allows us to use their facial recognition thing and find all the random pictures of us out there on the internet. Around 3 (an hour and a half after the fight), we headed out to the McDonald's for some fresh air and to check on the guys. We decided to sit and eat, and while the three of us were downstairs--Kris, Cody and I--some Japanese guys from the club found us and started yammering on to us about various things. While they creeped on me in Japanese, they also offered to sell us some weed...which was totally not weed. It was definitely Spice, the synthetic marijuana garbage, because even though I've never smoked weed, I've seen it enough times to know that what was in the little two-thumb sized baggie in front of me looked nothing like it. This was more like flat, short-cut cat nip, with little red flakes in it. Through the grape vine I've already heard about the Spice/K2 problem here in Japan, and I've known enough people, and done enough drug articles (and covered Spice several times in The Blade back in high school), to know that this stuff is bad. (If you've never heard of it, just look up some news articles--it has been a growing problem to pin this stuff down legally around the world, and it very often has really bad, sometimes hallucinatory, affects on people). Anywho, we proceeded to shuffle away from these people shortly after this, back to the club to find my friend's iPhone (which she had lost). Amazingly, she did find her phone, which had been turned in to the staff members. For this incredible achievement, we celebrated, dancing, getting free champagne, getting dragged onto the stage, jumping around, being morons, and having an absolutely amazing finale to our crazy night.

We took one of the first trains of the morning, and got back around 7. I showered and washed my hair with a ton of shampoo and two rounds of conditioner, and my hair still smells like smoke tragically. I slept until 1:30 and I'm feeling surprisingly good, so it's a Christmas miracle.

Some funny notes--there were some dancers here on the polls and dancing on stage in little frilly lingerie looking things, and let me tell you, there is hope for us flat-butts for being Japanese dancers/strippers! It is absolutely hilarious to watch them try to twerk or get low with their flat little butts. Really inspirational (I'm kidding!). Japanese people know all the words to these random rap songs, and will sing it loudly and proudly with you, which is also hilarious, because you can hear them say certain words with a really thick accent. One of the Australian guys there came and told us later that he had gotten punched by some random Japanese guy, and they ejected the Japanese guy without a question, and let the Australian guy stay, so I'm happy to say there wasn't a lot of sabetsu (discrimination) here. The shots at this place (and I assume all over Japan) were tiny. If you paid for them (I believe they were $3 a shot), they came in this itsy bitsy plastic cup that was legitimately about the depth of half the length of my pinky, and were about as wide as half the length of my thumb. Such a joke! I guess they assume because Japanese people are such lightweights that those are legitimate shots? I don't know. And can I just say I never lose my voice--not from sickness or after concerts, even all day ones where I yell constantly, but somehow I managed to last night. Also, if they don't take showers in Japanese prison, do they not worry about dropping the soap?

And now, today, we did our International Pot Luck Party here in the Seminar House. A bunch of people made a bunch of different foods and it was delicious. We took our Christmas picture for our final event, and called it a night.

I have so much to do in the next two weeks school wise, yet I can't seem to bring myself to care about much other than that I'm leaving this beautiful country in 18 days. I'm really trying to care about my classes...but I don't. So pray I get motivated, somehow, to pull through my Japanese lesson test tomorrow, my final Japanese oral exam Thursday, and my Japanese final Monday. All my other classes should be a breeze, I just have to find a way to survive through Japanese class.

Well, I know this was a long post so I'll let you guys go now. Here's an interesting article I found while researching for one of my final papers. Enjoy! http://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/rent-a-boyfriend-dispatch-service-because-japanese-women-get-lonely-too

PS, I will say, I miss seeing the stars here. There's still so much pollution here that you only really see a few bright ones on clear nights, and I miss being able to see shooting stars and the clear sky. Even with the lights pollution my house has from Disney and the theme parks, I can see it better than I can here. How sad.