These are a Few of My Favorite Things

Been kinda busy and hella fatigued this last week. Caught and got over my first cold in Japan and then also my first hangover in Japan. Fun times. Haven't done much when it comes to sight seeing but I did go to a coworkers birthday party which was a good time and the root of the aforementioned hangover.
So as for this post, I figured I would just give you all a general sense of the things I dig about Japan thus far with a comprehensive list titled:

The Things I Dig About Japan Thus Far:

Ballsy Ass Pigeons

This bird does not give one fuck.

There's a lot of wildlife here, and it seems more or less unperturbed by people doing whatever the hell it is people do.  I'll come up on a flock of pigeons just chilling in the middle of a path and they'll hardly spare me a glance or move out of the way. The only time I've seen them scatter is when little kids straight up run at them at full speed screaming like they're about to cross into Mordor. On top of that the ravens here are fucking huge. Its easy to see how Japan could come up with a game where birds might one be the dominate species, and also may be the size of people (that was always unclear to me.) 

I could also see why they might be interested in dating these hardcore motherfuckers. 

Rivers and the Things That Live in Them. 

There is a river or some body of water pretty much everywhere you look. And there's a shit ton of stuff in them. Oh, yeah, and like the water is clear enough that you can see those things. Having lived next to a park with its own fair share of lakes and rivers, its nice to have something like that around here to kinda make it feel homey. Although they're kind of a different breed. For Youngstown folk, I guess the easiest way to explain it would be the Lilly Pond x 10. I mean, you may spot like four or five turtles as the Lily Pond chilling on a rock or some shit, but check that out. That picture right there is like at least twenty turtles. That's at least five times as many turtles. That's what I call getting a bang for your buck. And people just fish like everywhere. I was riding near a pretty buisnessy section of town over a bridge and there was just this dude standing there fishing. Pole in the water, bucket of fishy ice at his feet. At night I'll see people along Old China River just throwing their poles in. Fishing, from what I can tell, is a major hobby here. And who can blame them? They're everywhere. 

(The whole fishing where you find water and catching something in Pokemon makes much more sense now. So does riding your bike from town to town. That is literally something you can do. Which brings me to my next thing.)

 Travel

Is so easy. Like, it just makes me kinda mad that America hasn't worked out a better transportation system. And also that there's no ferries cuz we don't need em, we don't got that much water--but still. I haven't taken a ferry yet, but the fact that I can is pretty radical. America, why don't you flood a little so I can come home and travel by ferry? I expect to find you Venice'd up upon my return. Get to work.  Plus there are the 

 Trains! (specifically.)

 I love taking the trains. Like dig it so much. So far I haven't had any grievous mishaps. They seem simple enough to work out. (I'll probably kick myself for saying that when I end up on the other side of the island.) A lot of them look crazy awesome too. 

Wut is this? A bunch of dinos, dolls, flowers and fish? Nah, its more than that. That's what we call art, son. 

Also it'll take my ass home. 

Let's see you do that, American art. 

That one right above is an Ampanman train. One of the first things I kinda learned about when I got here. Kids love him. He feeds people his head which is made out of bread, apparently. So an easy way to make students laugh is to pretend to eat them. (Or they could just find the idea of cannibalism delightful all on its own. Hard to say.) 

 

Anpanman pilot. 

The view from the train is usually pretty spectacular. There's one stretch in particular where its so close to the sea, it looks almost like you're coasting over water, and there's this small shrine out on an island with a bridge leading to it which is pretty much the most beautiful thing ever. 

No photo available so please accept this picture of me in a wolf hat which

is also pretty much the most beautiful thing ever. 

Trains also are like the perfect place to scribble a poem or two. Actually Japan in general gives me a shit ton of 

 Time to Write! (That's what we call a motherfucking SMOOTH TRANSITION!)

I've gotten like 20 poems done since getting here, two and 1/4 short stories, and put in some great organizational work and writing on the YA novel I'm trying to bust out. Plus I've got about 30 submissions (a lot of them simultaneous) sitting on the market as I type this. (It feels like it's taking forever to hear back cause of this, and everything that I am getting published is like so far in the future its making me impatient to the point of skin itchery.) I found time to write in America, yeah, and was cranking stuff out even when I was working as a telemarketer and my time was mostly ate up by the hours spent haranguing old folk for their money, but here I have time to write, work, study and also do other things. It's crazy what can be done when cold blooded capitalism doesn't stand in the way, and you don't have to work crazy hours to make a livable wage! To bad America can't be like that.

Right, Bernie? 

But nah, seriously. Getting some good scribbles and studying done. Now insert clever transition to:

Shrines

Which are everywhere. On my way to 7/11, there's a shrine. Going to work? Probs going to see a shrine. There's very little coding to where stuff is placed here, which means the historical and spiritual is bumping shoulders with the modern and commercial, and that makes for a really interesting blend of sights when your just walking around. 

I like to think those are pugs. I know I'm wrong but 

I don't wanna be right. 

Shikoku is actually a pretty rad place to be in if you wanna go temple hopping and such. It's home of the 88 Temple Pilgrimage associated with the Buddhist monk Kukai. A lot of people come here to complete (traditionally) the 750 mile walk along Shikoku to visit each Temple. (Now people also use bikes, trains, cabs, ect, cause we're lazy and they're there.) On top of that there's a good 200 temples on the island not related to the walk, and also a ton of smaller shrines. 

 I think I'm done transitioning now so lets just move onto 

THESE WEIRD LITTLE COCA COLA CARS!?

What is this? Look at it. It's so cute. It's like, not big enough to be a truck transporting good right? But here it is. Doing what? What is your purpose? Why are you here? I haven't seen any other brands driving cars like this around. Why do you make me so thirsty? You're an enigma. A beautiful corporate enigma. An that's pretty much all I have to say about that. 

And

last but not least

In fact, pretty much all of these have been at random, but

this next one is probably my favorite among favorites--

My local tobacco stand dude. Or more specifically him and his wife. 

They are just too cute. Like today he was watching TV and I was too shy to knock on the window. His wife was nearby drinking tea and noticed me and her reaction was adorable. She rushed over and tapped him on the shoulder and waved at me really hard. Then she picked out a lighter that she thrust into his palm to give me, as she always does when she is in the area of the window. She is like the sweetest lady ever. And they also feed my addiction so there's that. 

Watashi wa sensei desu

This week was my first full week teaching alone (mostly). I had one private session I had to observe, and then the rest was all me. So far, I think it's going well. I like teaching kids, it turns out. They're pretty funny and they warm up quickly. Discipline is something I may have to work on but so far there hasn't been a huge need for it. 

For the next week or so I mostly teach in Marugame, and once in Utazu, a neighboring city. It's not hard to walk or bike to either locations, but soon semester will change and I'll be getting a new schedule. Wednesday I taught at Utazu. Since it was raining I decided to walk. Getting there was easy until the end when my phone started to die and google maps went a little wonky. Luckily I had padded the time a bit and arrived way early. 

It's kind of funny teaching adult students here because they'll compliment you in a way that they don't tend to do in the States. A few times now I've had adult students tell me I'm "a cute girl" or heard them tell the office staff I'm sugoi (cool).  One lady at Utazu kept kind of chuckling whenever I got up to write on the white board and telling me I was cute. Japan may very well end up swelling my head. 

On the way home from Utazu I ran into some issues. With a dead phone I set off down the street, semi-confident that I knew the way. Not too long after that, I overshot the known way and ended up much further down than I intended to be. Luckily, I at least have the kanji down for my own city: 丸亀. (Or circle turtle, as it were.) 

After locating that on a street sign I kind of just followed them. I came out on the other side of the city, closer to Gold Tower in Utazu then Marugame station/castle where I live. Luckily I could spot Marugame Castle from the road and just changed course and headed that way. All ended well, and I got to spend a few extra minutes traversing Marugame back roads, singing showtunes to myself. We call that a kinda mostly win-win.

Gold Tower changes color depending on the weather. Green for a clear day.

Blue for rain. (Photo from hoosan.moo.jp)

Thursday I spent most of the day writing, and studying both Japanese, and for the GRE (I won't be taking the test for awhile, but I'm trying to make a habit out of it.) I found a good site for basic grammar online, and I'm pretty comfortable at this point with Hiragana. Going to be starting Katakana soon. So far, to my immense pride, I can say things such as: Are wa Amerika no kumaru desu. (That is an American Car!) And the oh so important: Kore wa hoteru janai desu (This is not a hotel) which I will be sure to tell everyone who enters my home every single time because I can say it. And of course: Watashi wa sensei desu.

And back to the subject of being a teacher--Thursday is also the day I had my first lesson with Masamichi, who is apparently the pot of gold at the end of the Gem School rainbow. Having him as a student is something to be envied from what I've come to understand. He is a retired office worker who speaks English very well, and his lessons are basically just for his enjoyment and not a necessity. He likes to teach his foreign teachers all about Japanese life and culture, and seems like one of the nicest, coolest guys you'll ever meet.  

Our first lesson he asked me how much Japanese I knew, and after I told him, we spent the time talking about the difference between hiragana, katakana and kanji. He showed me his name in roumaji and in hiragana and kanji, and told me all about its meaning. (Pine tree on the seashore is his family name and right way is his given name. Matsuura Masamichi. Or: 松 浦  正道.  He also told me that my name sounds like "ice" in Japanese since my name in when pronounced by a Japanese speaker sounds like Kouli--and ice is Kooli.) I most definitely learned more than him that session, but he seems to like teaching me about Japan, so as long as he's enjoying his time, no arguments here. The only thing I may have taught him is the word "pun" because he told me a joke.

What is a type of green vegetable that sings?

Elvis Parsley. 

He's a really funny guy. Told me he would be like my "Japanese father", and if you know me you know my favorite thing in the whole world is being mentored. So yes! Fantastic. 

As far as doing things goes, I mostly stayed home this week. I did check out Ritsurin Gardens with a native Japanese person, and that was pretty interesting. Sadly my phone was mostly dead at the time, so I didn't get any pictures. Please accept this photo of a Japanese 7/11 and me drinking a Japanese energy drink as a substitute. 

possibly just as majestic 

to work with kids you gotta be genki

I intend to visit the garden again soon. It was full of Japanese pine, and flowers big as my fist that hadn't bloomed yet. Really nice stuff. The local I was with told me a bit about everything, and then I got to tell him about tattoos. He noticed mine and asked me to show him, and he was kinda in the same awe I was in the garden, which was funny to me considering tattoos seem pretty commonplace to an American.

Sunday I went for sushi with my coworker at a local joint, and that was pretty radical. It was served on a conveyor belt, and you could grab whatever you wanted or order it special on a screen. When it comes close your screen will beep and show you a picture of your order. Its kinda adorable. 

they had some bomb cheesecake.

Then after work tonight I went out with my friend Kenji to a bar or two. We checked out a jazz bar and a sports/dance bar. They were both kind of dead because tomorrow night Marugame is having a festival. The sports/dance bar was styled in a way that almost nearly reminded me of bars in Youngstown. Ed Shreen was playing, while the three other people in the bar we trying to make a hip-hop remix of something, and tennis was muted on the television. In the end we took advantage of the Japanese liberty to drink on the streets and bought a good old fashioned bottle of Carlo Russio, and headed to Marugme Castle. It was pretty strange walking around a park near a historical monument with wine at night. Especially dirt cheap wine like C.R.  In America, that wouldn't really fly. But we sat outside and sipped wine, and even when the cops drove by there was no issue. Here, I guess, there's the assumption that you can trust people. 

As far as lit goes, I've been slowly crawling through the last of Sherman Alexie's  The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven, cause its the second to last unread book I have with me. The last being a manuscript from Gitta Albares. After that it's all rereads. 

So far I have three publications coming up in various anthologies. Weird City will be publishing my modern urban retelling of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," titled "Dancing Girls",  For Books' Sake will be putting out a fairy tale themed YA anthology with my retelling of "The Man with No Heart" re-titled "Animal Heart", and Zimbell Publishing House will be producing a horror anthology called Tales from the Grave, featuring "Dream Girls" inspired by a fairy tale based in Native American folklore where a man carves a doll in likeness of his wife after she passes. I left the specific collection it was in at home, and if you know anything about fairy tales you know that googling "Dead wife" along with "Fairy Tale" pulls up pretty much every single story in existence.  (I almost want to say it was actually called "The Dead Wife" or "The Doll Wife".)

On top of that I received word today that Dancing Girl Press will be releasing a chapbook of my poetry tilted Revisionist History in the early Spring. 

Overall, it's been a pretty good month both professionally and personally. Most def, top 10. Probs even 5. Maybe even 3. Okay, yeah, probably top 3. Can't think of many better. Kampai!

A Kinda Oldie

In honor of it being Thursday and the new tradition of throwing things back, check out my story in Deimos Ezine from around two years ago. Providence was my first real work in Speculative Fiction, which really along with Fabulist tales, has become my genre of choice since I started (and finished) my MFA. Before I wasn't really sure what I was writing or where it fit in. I bounced around a lot as an undergrad from horror, to straight realism, to fantasy, without really knowing what to call myself or my work.
I'm not advocating, of course, for writers to box themselves in and only write to one genre, nothing else ever until the day they die, but I remember being really relieved to find, explore and write Speculative Fiction. Right before I entered the MFA I was worried that I would have to write only realism, slice of life, literary fiction. I kind of forced myself to do this piece on a forty year old man going through some kind of midlife crisis and it just didn't work for me. It was bad. But I was convinced that was what literature and real authors wrote. We go through a majority of our academic careers being exposed to very limited and very specific voices when it comes to literature. (Typically white, typically male, typically with money, typically dead and typically realistic in style.) It was a relief, and a godsend to my lit, to discover other avenues, other ways to tell a story, and the other voices that are available. It worked for me. I found that it was more entertaining, and it opened up a way to talk about social norms and politics in a way that wasn't too heavy handed.
Right now, I've got a lot of irons in the fire. Which means I'm just waiting, really. I finished a lot of fiction recently and I have about seven stories out for review, along with a poem or two and some queries about the novel and the fairy tale collection. So much of moving forward is waiting. Which is cool. Its quiet, and it always means there's something to look towards. Currently I'm writing a piece about a girl gone dead turned to doll, which is also pretty fun. Now that I have a fabulist collection put together, I'm thinking of getting back to some of my roots and working on a speculative one. Could be a good time and a good home for Providence, (kinda) old as it is.

These Girls, I tell ya.

Graduate school is all done now and I'm off in the real world. Planning a hopefully triumphant return to academia in the nearish future. (Chasing that Ph.D!) But until then I am writing a lot, reading a lot, and sending out a lot, just as I've been told I ought to do.
So far I have 45,000 words of a short story collection finished, and it was a real blast to write. Hopefully some snippets of it will start appearing on various lit mags around the web. And I've been reading a lot of fairy tales. No surprise.
There are some that are just so strange. And I don't mean in the magic and beast way.  I mean in the women's reactions and motivation way. I've read more than a handful that have left me scratching my head going "huh?" when it comes to what the women in the tale do.
For instance, in "The Man with No Heart" a girl who was setting off with her sisters to get married is taken captive by an old man who turns the rest of the party (all of her known relatives) into stone. And she is totally cool with this. She just lives with him and cares not one iota. Just settles in and is like "cool, you killed all my family basically, but now I'm your wife so whatever." Then a boy shows up and kills him and she is equally cool about this. Basically has the same "well, you just killed my husband, but now I'm your wife, so it's cool. Whatever," reaction.
 This isn't the only one where I encountered this kind of lack of care and duplicity on the part of the Princesses. In a Russian fairy tale, this random dude sleeps in a castle, and the Princess of the castle who lives all alone stumbles upon him, and instead of freaking out as she should she immediately says they are married and tells him how to kill her very own brother.
In "The Princess' Chest" the Princess is basically sentenced to death because her father comes to her a day too soon, and she is totally not mad at all at him. She's all like "Oh Dear Father! I love you! But now I'm going to die. So sorry." Then, at the end, she's married off to a stranger after he breaks her curse, and that's totally fine by her.
It's a trend that icks me out. There's a lack of agency, motivation and actual desire in Fairy Tale women and girls that is actually quite alarming when you sit down and think about it. Because now, in the modern day, fairy tales are mostly marketed to young girls. So their view of the world is kind of shaped by these stories. Girls who need rescued, but lack any actual motivation to change their circumstances, and the ultimate key to that rescue is marriage, more often than not to a stranger. Perhaps back when these were handed down orally this was closer to the reality that young girls faced. A restriction in agency and position that could only be alleviated by the right marriage. But that's not how the world is now, and so maybe its time we look into changing them.
Because there is a lot to love about fairy tales. The magic, the pattern, the connection with nature and the intricate but simple, often repeating symbolism. These are things that can really engage and shape imaginations, and they're something that I have loved all of my life.
I am glad that there are people out there working to turn around the lifelessness of the Fairy Tale princess. The collection Tatterhood is a fantastic example of tales that empower young girls rather than use them as props. And even Disney has made a push to include more nuanced and active Princesses.
I know one of my greatest pleasures is plucking apart a tale where the girl is nothing but a cardboard cut out and reworking it so she has some life. So the story is more in her hands.