In which I do a lot of sightseeing, and hang out with awesome people

We only had orientation for twenty minutes apiece today, which left a lot of time to go sightseeing.  So I got in contact with my friend, Geoff, who is currently studying in the area to see if he wanted to meet up.  He said he did, so we made plans to meet in the afternoon.

My twenty minute orientation was actually a bit shorter than that, 'cause the program coordinators said I was really on top of everything and going in with a good game plan.  We actually spent a bit of time coming up for reasons for not drinking; one of the women suggested saying I have an allergy to alcohol if I'm asked, because that's a common excuse among Japanese people.  That is respected a lot more than "I just don't drink," so I'll probably go with that if people start pressuring me.

After orientation, three other Fulbrighters and I went to Yasukuni Shrine, the most controversial shrine in Japan.*  It enshrines the "glorious war dead," which include class A war criminals.  The shrine also has a very, ah, creative view of history, which does not go over particularly well with any of the countries Japan invaded during World War II.

Anyway.  We went to the shrine, and it was quite interesting.

Here's the main gate into the shrine.  What you might not be able to tell from the picture is that the torii (the shrine gate) is actually made of metal (I'm fairly sure it's bronze).  Most torii are made of stone or wood, so a metal one is quite unusual.

Here's the walkway to the second gate.

...and here's the main gate leading into the complex.  So far, pretty standard for a shrine.

Here's the main shrine itself.  

Still seems pretty normal, right?

Do you see him yet?

Yep, I'm talking about this guy:

Yasukuni Shrine has a security guard.  Given the amount of protest surrounding the shrine, it's not exactly unreasonable, but seeing a security guard at a shrine was rather strange.

This is an ema (a sort of placard on which you write your wishes) that was hung up at the shrine.  I took a picture** mostly because I really like the message, which reads in translation:

"I will definitely get totally better at drawings and making manga!!  Definitely definitely definitely definitely definitely!"

(Whoever wrote it made a couple of grammar errors, though.  Ah well.)

So then we went to the shrine museum, which was well worth the 500 yen entrance fee.  There were a lot of artifacts I wouldn't have been able to see anywhere else, but there was also the, ah, creative history I mentioned earlier.  Some events were rewritten, some were approached from a different angle, and others were ignored entirely.  For example, the entry for the Nanking massacre went something along the lines of "Nanking Incident: The Japanese army went to Nanking.  They had a resounding victory."  Although my favorite creative history example was that they argued that enshrining the war dead is an ancient Japanese practice--stretching all the way back to 1868!  ...of course, they fail to mention that 1868 was when State Shinto was formed, and enshrining the war dead had a political purpose.  It would be like if I rationalized my painting a horse blue because the U.S. has a long history of painting horses blue, stretching all the way back to 2011!

So, yes, very interesting.

Then I had to leave to meet Geoff in Akihabara, so I took two subways to get there.  Geoff and I wandered around Akihabara for a while, and somehow ended up in Ueno Park, where a guy was doing a cool juggling routine:

 (Yes, he is juggling his hat.)

After that, we wandered around Ueno Park a bit more, saw some cool ponds and a few small shrines and temples, and then wandered into a little shopping district nearby.  After failing at finding swim trunks (for Geoff, not me) and poking fun at each other's accents ('cause I have a Kyoto accent and he has a Tokyo accent) for a little while, we wound up in an arcade.

(Geoff got so many double-takes on the street...and even more stares when people heard us speaking Japanese together.)

After that, we geeked out around the model section in Yodobashi Camera for a while, and then hopped on a train to Hamamatsucho (another district of Tokyo), and grabbed dinner at Mos Burger, which was surprisingly good.  Japanese fast food isn't at all like American fast food, in that it's actually relatively healthy, tastes good, and doesn't make you feel like you're eating fried grease.  Also, MELON SODA.  It's so great.

And then we went...

...to Tokyo Tower.  And neither of us got transported to another world OR was told we had to battle for the fate of the world!***  GEEZ, DISCRIMINATION.

We went up to the observation deck (at 150 m) and it was AMAZING.

My camera, however, was not awesome.  In fact, this is the best picture it could take from up there.  YOU FAIL, CAMERA.

...and just in case you thought I could go for more than five minutes without talking about shrines, this was in Tokyo Tower!

So then we grabbed a (totally non-alcoholic) drink a floor down (which was still really high up), and talked a bunch before we headed back to the subway station.  (I also continue to be amused that he calls me senpai.****  I have kouhai!  It's awesome!)  All in all, a pretty excellent way to spend my last day before I have to begin Serious Research!

*For a complete explanation of the "Yasukuni problem," I highly recommend Helen Hardacre's Shinto and the State, 1868-1988 (ignore the negative review by the person who thinks he/she knows everything about East Asian religion, ugh), although it does not cover the more recent developments.  I also recommend this article, which is coincidentally written by my advisor at Nanzan, for more recent information.

**For anyone worried about how appropriate it is to take pictures of other people's ema, it is perfectly fine.  Ema are meant to be read (it's a way of proclaiming your intentions to the kami and everyone who comes to the shrine), and shrines encourage their visitors to take photographs.  What isn't appropriate is opening other people's envelopes with prayer requests.  That would just be creepy.

***Sorry, nerd references.

****Senpai-kouhai is a really important idea in Japanese society.  Essentially, a senpai is an upperclassman and a kouhai is a lower classman.  But, more importantly, senpai are expected to take care of and advise their kouhai, while kouhai are expected to treat their senpai with respect and take their advice seriously.  So the fact that I have several kouhai is kind of amazing.  Of course, all of them are older than me, which is a little bit weird, but whatever.  I have kouhai!  They ask me for advice!  It's crazy!

Orientation Day 1

I woke up at 3:30 a.m.

Yeahhhhhhhhh.  I tried to go back to sleep for about an hour and a half, but that failed, so I just got up really early.  I am surprised I haven't crashed yet.  I don't know why my brain decided that now would be a great time to run on 6 hours of sleep, but I completely disagree with its decision.

We (that is, all the Fulbrighters) ate breakfast* this morning, and then took the subway together over to the JUSEC (Japan-U.S. Educational Commission) offices for the first day of orientation.  It was basically a everyone's-gonna-talk-at-you-about-great-things-ahead day.  We were told very politely that we were incredibly privileged to have this opportunity and we will be attacked by man-eating monkeys if we waste it. (Okay, not that exact phrasing, but pretty close.)  And then we had a guy come talk at us about the Japanese educational system for about an hour.  It would have been interesting if I didn't already know pretty much all the information, and if he didn't speak in a monotone.  He did talk about zemi,** though, which was strangely ironic, considering what happened later.

For lunch we had a bunch of sandwiches that no one could figure out what was in them (including the woman who had bought them), and then we heard about the Fulbright alumni groups (which we're probably going to have to do presentations for, eek) and then we got OUR MONEY.  I will be incredibly relieved when I have a bank account.

I also bought a shinkansen (bullet train) ticket for Saturday.  It turned out to be about $100, which is what I thought it would be in the first place but twice would Google said it would be.  So I now know not to trust Google.  GEEZ, GOOGLE.  Next you're going to tell me that solid-gold train doesn't exist!

So then this evening we went to a reception/dinner sort of thing hosted at the house of the current Minister of the Embassy of the United States of America.  I met my advisor there, and it was not as terrifying I feared it would be.  However, within about three minutes of my introducing myself, my advisor informed me that I would be attending his zemi and THEN asked me if I could read Japanese.  (I'm somewhat terrified to consider what he would have done if I had said no.)  He also said he would introduce me at the local shrines.  So, pretty much, he's awesome and I managed not to fall over myself.  Yay!  And then I spent the rest of the evening talking to cool graduate students about their projects, and also hearing about amputating the fins off of zebrafish from one of the girls working on stem cell research (there are two of them total; what are the chances?).

Tomorrow is day two of orientation, and we're going to learn actually useful stuff, like how to set up a bank account.  So that'll be helpful.

Can I take a moment here to complain about the weather?  'cause, good grief, I had forgotten how horrible humidity is.  I feel like I need a bath if I've been outside for more than fifteen seconds.  Blech.

Also, all the other Fulbright grantees are so accomplished, I feel kind of lame next to them.  One guy already has two articles published...in completely different fields.  And almost everyone has already spent at least a year in Japan, and has a way bigger academic network than I do.  They can do the academic talk thing too, while I mostly know a lot about sketchy internet websites.  Oh, and Ian Reader.  I've read a lot of stuff by Ian Reader.

The only place where I actually stand out (other than age) is that my Japanese is a lot better than most of theirs.  We had to take a taxi over to the reception, and I wound up doing all the talking to the taxi driver, because the other two girls I was riding with couldn't understand anything he was saying.  Then again, I also think I'm a lot more willing to try to speak Japanese than some people.  I have done the whole sound-stupid-and-stumble-over-words-to-get-the-point-across thing, and I'm really okay with sounding stupid if it means that my Japanese improves.  So that was why I was speaking 75% Japanese, 25% English with my advisor, and the other girls were speaking entirely English.  I dunno.  Maybe I'm just more willing to make a fool of myself.

In response to questions from last blog:
No, there is no concept of sarcasm in Japanese.  There isn't even a word for sarcasm; you have to use the same word as "irony."  One of my Japanese friends asked me to try to be sarcastic in Japanese once, and I couldn't do it.  Sarcastic Japanese just sounds really confused.
And, no, I only ever call myself a gaijin ironically.

And now I'm going to collapse toward bed.  Good night!

*Japanese breakfasts are so excellent.  I have waxed poetic about them many times before, but they are basically the greatest thing in the woooorld.  So many Japanese pickles, rice, miso soup, roasted fish, a fresh-baked roll and grapefruit juice--what more could you want?

**Zemi is the shortened Japanese version of "seminar." It's basically a discussion class led by a professor which can last anywhere from a semester to four years.  A lot of the time, it's an invaluable networking opportunity, and the professor takes on the role of advisor/counselor/parent figure/employment finder/matchmaker.  Also, a lot of the time, professors get to pick which students they take into their zemi, so being picked for one is a huge honor.

Less than 2 months 'til departure

Well, I've finally got a departure date: September 12.  Orientation starts on September 14, so I'll have a little longer than 12 hours of being in Japan before I have to get dressed up and listen to people talk about The Great Opportunities Ahead of Me.

I'll be living in an international dorm...but despite being told I would get information on it more than a week ago, I haven't gotten anything.  Oh well.  What I have gotten is a list of the other Fulbright fellow grantees. There are nine of us total, 3 in sciences and the rest in humanities and social sciences.  It looks as though there are 7 girls and 2 boys.  The closest fellows to me will be in Kyoto, which isn't particularly close.  Tokyo is the farthest north any of us has been placed.

I also have an advisor, who I've emailed already.  He emailed me back a bunch of shrines I can check out in the Nagoya area.  I also found out that Tagata Jinja is not far from Nagoya.  If you don't know about Tagata Jinja, type it into Google images.  But only if there aren't any small children around.  Yeahhhhhhhhhhhh.

I just received my affiliation letter, so I need to apply for a student visa.  The info they sent me on the visa says it can take several months, which has me slightly worried.  But if worst comes to worst, I can enter Japan for 90 days on a tourist visa.

ALSO, because sometimes I just space out, I forgot to mention in my last post:
ALL OPINIONS IN THIS BLOG ARE MINE AND MINE ALONE AND ARE NOT ENDORSED BY THE STATE DEPARTMENT OR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT OR THE FULBRIGHT PROGRAM IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM.
Also, if I post "inappropriate or offensive material on the internet," they can take away my Fulbright.
I doubt this will actually be a problem, given that I don't really have a propensity for posting inappropriate or offensive material on the internet.

Yay, boring paperwork recap done with!

I'm gonna go do something interesting right now, like beat everyone and his brother at Catan.