the brothers crow

Commitment is a funny thing. When in a rhythm and maintaining a regular pattern, it can be easy to sustain. But if one eases up for the briefest of moments, the whole endeavor can fall apart. I think it’s safe to say that’s what happened to my blogging commitment over the past two months.

There are several things that are necessary for regular blog writing, I believe. For one, one has to have experiences worth writing about. I can confirm that I have had quite a few experiences I believe are worth writing about, so that’s not a problem for me. Secondly, time—one has to have a sufficient amount of time to transcribe one’s thoughts to paper. This has been especially hard for me because not only have I had very little time, but I think I take a good deal longer to write entries than most people; rambling and rewriting are not conducive to a speedy schedule. Finally, one has to possess at least a slight smattering of exhibitionist tendencies. If you aren’t particularly interested in showing the world what you’re up to, then it’s going to be that much more difficult to put virtual pen to paper.

I think the third is my largest problem, and for a greater number of reasons than you might think.

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If there’s one thing Japan has begun to strongly instill in me, it’s an appreciation for silence. When riding in trains, subways, buses and elevators, it’s not uncommon for friends to make a little small talk, right? In Japan, this is not the case at all. Sure, if you’re a little kid or some smarmy teenagers you might not care, but generally the people observe a strict code of silence. Those that violate it are rude, foreign or both. I won’t scold friends for doing this, and I’ll freely break the code myself with them, but I feel very awkward when doing so and tend to limit my responses in both length and volume.

The experience of being a foreigner in Japan is filled with these moments, especially when with other foreigners. The warring desires of behaving naturally and avoiding wider social awkwardness are difficult to reconcile.

Perhaps it’s different for the blond haired and blue eyed, who are pretty much doomed to always being stared at. I, on the other hand, can manage a certain measure of camouflage if desired. It’s hardly perfect, and any Japanese person paying attention can easily pick me out of a crowd, but it’s not about pretending to be Japanese. It’s about pretending to not be foreign.

The difference is a simple lack of common sense and basic courtesy. It’s the difference between getting a mild glance versus a long stare. And no matter how immune you may believe yourself to be from the opinions of others, those long stares add up.

—

It’s been both fascinating and troubling for me to observe how various ALTs who arrived with me last August have changed over the months. Many of them, who I have only seen maybe once a month, have become radically different in appearance and demeanor. The most common change, I hate to admit, is the gradual replacement of energy and enthusiasm with lethargy and hopelessness. Many of them are broken, frustrated, and eager to return home due to a variety of problems inside and outside of work.

At our last meeting, one of the presentations dealt with how to conduct your final lesson. The presenter stressed it as an opportunity to determine how you would be remembered, stating that “if you treat it like any other class, they’ll just forget you.”

One person in the second row muttered, “That’s fine by me.”

I’m not there yet, but I understand where he’s coming from. While some people become frustrated and lash out, it tends to end with a desire to sweep it all under the rug and leave quietly. Japan can be a very reactionary society, with active force being met with active force. Most of these dissatisfied ALTs find it easier to express themselves in a passive aggressive way which, in the end, is far more consistent with a Japanese mindset.

So at the end of this long, circuitous rambling, my point is that Japanese societal pressures result in more subdued and passive reactions. Blogging is in the opposite spectrum and not really consistent with that.

Yes, it’s ultimately a pretty lame excuse for why I vanished for two months, but it’s all I’ve got. Blah.

Also, the title is not a typo. I’m referencing the Dog’s Eye View song, not the Simon and Garfunkel one.

In the Japanese educational system, it is customary for teachers and staff to be transferred to different schools within the prefecture at the beginning of every April. I am not sure what criterion is used to determine which teachers are transferred and, from what I have seen, most Japanese teachers aren’t sure either. The initial announcements are made one week prior to the 31st, and the final confirmation is given on the 31st. And though I could have asked earlier which teachers were leaving, I didn’t bother.

You see, some things can be understood without words.

When I looked around the office on Friday and finally realized that some desks were far cleaner than others, I understood without asking. True, it was a time for rest and reorganization, but some desks looked markedly different than others.

Some desks looked gutted. My own, I admit, was barren. I had cleaned it last Thursday, taking time to toss out all but the most essential, most useful of materials and documents. It was refreshing to do this, and it was as if I was reordering the past in my mind as I cleared the cobwebs out of my drawers.

This other cleaning was anything but therapeutic. It was erasure, a purging of memory and emotion. Already I found it difficult to remember exactly what my coworkers had placed on their desks. I couldn’t remember what photos and charms had once told me what little I knew of their private lives.

Tomorrow they will be gone. Fresh faces, unheard stories, and new memories will come and replace them. The lingering feeling of something lost might fade with time, but I know there will still be moments when I think of the wrong name, or imagine a different face.

—

When I first arrived many months ago, my desk was clean. Teaching materials were organized and essential documents were lying on my desk, along with a perfunctory note from my predecessor. Pens here, paper here, goodbye and good luck. I didn’t know him and I never would—at least that’s what I thought. But, in time, he became like an unvoiced character in a play, a person the audience comes to know through the traces they discover.

There were the notes he meant to leave behind, the polite ones which offered advice and aid. I learned how to fill out the order form for lunch delivery. I deciphered the impenetrable Japanese on various cleaning fluids thanks to him and came to understand which chemical was for what surface. He made living easier.

And then there were the notes he didn’t mean to leave behind. It was an accident, an unintentional disclosure at first. He left me a small pile of scratch paper, which he had made from extra copies of handouts and printed materials. One day I flipped over a paper instead of writing on the blank side.

I was thrust halfway into a letter he had written his parents. He was angry, defiant, and almost petulant in his words. He demanded understanding, freedom and approval. He was emotional, stumbling from one disconnected point to another. He didn’t know what he wanted, but he argued for it all the same.

I was immediately ashamed for reading it. Even so (or perhaps because of that), I could never forget it.

The second time was a note he wrote to himself, found as a bookmark in a frayed textbook. There was no anger here, only frustration and despair. Everything was wrong, nothing was right. He wanted to run away, but he had nowhere to go. He begged god for the strength to carry on, for the fortitude to steel his heart against the slow-burning hopelessness. I felt even more ashamed for reading this note, as it was far more personal. I was treading on this man’s sanctuary, his deepest thoughts. Maybe even his dreams.

Time wore on, but his traces kept surfacing. There are still collections of photographs on this very laptop. I am reluctant to look, but I can’t bring myself to delete them. From conversations here and there, I pieced together what relationships he built. Sometimes the stories were clear, other times it was merely a word or muttered phrase. Sometimes it was even less than that; it was amazing how much meaning I came to discern in a gesture or shift in tone.

I’ve seen only two pictures of his face, one from when he arrived and one from before he left. In the first, he’s wearing a collared shirt. His desk is a mess, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He doesn’t smile with his teeth, but it touches his eyes just enough to prove genuine. Those eyes, a deep blue, are a sharp contrast to his sandy blonde hair, which is cropped close at the bottom but a touch longer at the top. It all betrays his youth, as well as an earnest desire to impress.

In the second, his face seems longer and paler. The color has started to leave his skin and lips, and the wrinkles are more pronounced. His hair is tussled and uncombed, and his hairline looks to be receding. His smile is the same, but his eyes are different—no slight squint, only a stare that doesn’t match his mouth. My first thought was that he’s tired. He’s so very tired.

I’ve never met him in person and have never even heard his voice. I don’t know him, yet I feel like I know him intimately. I know it’s an illusion in many ways, but I can’t shake the image of this person that’s been constructed in my mind. It makes me wonder if he felt the same way about his predecessor. Were there enough jotted notes and forgotten letters to speak for him? Did people tell him stories between words like they told me?

When I read his writing, I felt a desire above all else to be heard. He wanted someone to hear him, to listen to him, to know him. On some level, I question whether it was an accident or an intentional oversight to leave these traces behind.

I can almost imagine his hand pausing, hesitating as it hovers over an old cathartic confession. Maybe he wants it to be found and read, thinking it could help by serving as a warning of what could happen if his successor isolates himself. Or maybe he’s just tired of not being heard.

Well, wherever you are C.C., I hear you. I hear you very well.

And so, with the resolution of today’s closing ceremonies, the school year has finally ended. I’ll be spending the next few weeks in the office, twiddling my thumbs and trying to be productive. I’ve already started writing a list of things I can do during this time:

Finish reading a few novels (less than half of Dark Tower VII left to go!)
Finish Japanese lessons
Finish some tax forms
Prepare English conversation class plans more than a day in advance
Write more entries in this blog
Write the great American novel
Look into various graduate programs and see if anything interests me
Look into various jobs and careers, seeing if anything seems worthwhile

Of course, I doubt that I’ll be nearly as productive as I can be. But I’m not one to let logic, reason and past precedent get in the way of optimism.

—

So I’ve long since given up on fantasy basketball, as I never really had a chance of remaining informed with my much busier work schedule. However, March Madness only really requires that you fill out a bracket. I didn’t put too much thought into it, but I managed to throw one together a few hours before the deadline for my Facebook competition with friends. I’m in serious trouble though, as six of my Sweet Sixteen picks were wrong. I may yet survive though, as Duke was the only team I got wrong which I had pegged to go further.

And for you unimaginative cowards who picked UCLA to win it all, I’ll have you know that I have them losing to Texas in the final four. If I’m right, I’m a genius. If I’m wrong, I’m simply an alumnus with an indomitable school spirit. Heck, this plan alone makes me a genius!

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One more vidja game review: Apollo Justice, Ace Attorney (DS)

This is the fourth game in the Ace Attorney series of adventure games for the DS. A hilarious, well written (and translated) script allows the player to immerse themselves in the not-so-naturally-funny world of criminal law. Gameplay is identical to past games, with courtroom chapters interspersed with investigation chapters. The methods are the same as well, with evidence collection and contradiction hunting as familiar as it is often frustrating. Trust me—you really don’t know why the dead guy was pulling a noodle stand through the park in the middle of the night.

New additions to the series include forensic mini games, which were originally introduced in the bonus chapter of the first game’s DS remake. The system is much more fleshed out in this game, though I do sometimes feel as though it’s more gimmicky than necessary. I really like the perception system, however, and found it to be an excellent successor to the previous games’ methods of interrogation. Carefully observing and catching a person’s tells is far more plausible to me than a magical rock which lets you ‘break the locks’ on a person’s secrets. Realism aside, it was a much more natural process for me to uncover those subtle tells as well.

The story remains the strength of the game. Unraveling the mysteries of how each case and character is connected is satisfying as always, and this game lays the foundation for the next generation of games in the series. However, because the game is so linear, there is little replay value—this is also the case with the previous games, and is simple the nature of the game, as is the case with countless books and movies.

Never the less, it’s an easy recommendation for me to make. If you enjoyed the previous games (David, I’m looking at you), then you will almost certainly enjoy this one. Playtime is probably ten to twelve hours, if not more. That figure is highly dependant on your reading speed, of course, and how long it takes you to determine the right course of action in the courtroom.

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And while this post is certainly long enough, I thought I’d use this as an opportunity to comment on a related subject.

The court system portrayed in the Ace Attorney games may seem unrealistic, but it is in fact very closely based on the Japanese criminal justice system. While there are plans to reinstitute trial by jury, Japanese criminal courts have not used juries since 1943. It is, in fact, judges who determine guilt or innocence. The conviction rate is abnormally high; 99.9% is often quoted, though I have not personally confirmed it with a source.

What’s more, it’s legally permissible for suspects to be detained for up to 23 days without being charged. During this period, their freedoms are extremely limited. The wikipedia entry on Daiyo Kangoku (代用監獄) is fairly detailed on this, and it explains the legal loopholes which allow police and prosecutors to do this with ease.

Sadly, the most unrealistic aspect of the Ace Attorney games’ portrayal of the justice system is arguably the fact that the defense attorney is even attempting to prove their client is innocent. Because defense attorneys often recommend that their client confess, the most spirited arguments come during sentencing, rather than the actual trial.

It’s a disturbing situation, one which is little discussed outside of Japan and law circles. And given Japanese police’s propensity for attributing crime to foreigners, it’s one you might want to keep in mind in case I disappear without a trace for, say… 23 days. Though I’d like to believe I won’t be so unlucky…