Gaijin San ã?¸ by Joss
There’s been some bicycle hassles recently. We’ve noticed that Japanese people love moving bikes when nobody’s looking. This has happened a few times from our landlordly-appointed spot recently. A note was left on them one day, I then parked my bike in the landlord’s new area where other people from our building seemed to be parking and had the air and valve removed from my tyres. I confronted our landlord who assured us that we were in the right spot originally and should have stayed there, so we put the bikes back. Now they’ve been mysteriously moved again in the last few days. Today I found our bikes back in the new landlord-area (where the air had previously been removed for erroneous parking) with a note addressed as above, “To gaijin san”, telling me that we were not to park as before, but this was our new spot. “OK?” (underlined several times). This is typical of the nonsense that happens around here. No signature on the note, they only move the bikes when we aren’t around and don’t consider that they should actually be approaching our landlord. This is also symptomatic of the assumption that all foreigners are basically ignorant and troublesome retards. Take, for example, the other night, as some awful gurning, preening, prima-donna rip-off band announced jokily from the stage “There are a lot of gaijin in Kyoto, aren’t there? Even in Live Houses. I was surprised.” not for one instant considering that Cormac (the only foreign punter) or I (the only foreign band-member) might actually understand what this cretin was saying. Sigh. Bus drivers are also fond of this approach. A local who makes a mistake on the bus is dealt with in the humblest of language while the likes of Giita and I were shouted at. Without any politeness at all. I realise that most of the foreigners they deal with are numbskulls, but it’s pretty galling nonetheless. Exciting updates on BicycleGate may follow, if you can possibly hold on.
Last night’s gig also had it’s good points. There was a chap dressed all in red, drinking tomato juice from a red mug, running around like a loon with his wireless mic and guitar singing repeatedly that his name was FIRE Kawabata. He was entertaining. Then there was Lib Apathy, a Fall-styled name if ever I heard one. Three lads playing quality vaguely rockabilly stuff, wearing pink t shirts, then the Random Element. A bald guy with a paunch who played the didgeridoo for one brief part, then ranted over the rest of the songs, at one point with a megaphone. He also had a good skinhead dance. My new hero. Not only were they great, they played South Of Heaven by Slayer as one song’s intro. They liked Rune so we may yet get to play with them again. The only other notable thing was the final band, average enough, but with a lady who was probably the best Japanese drummer I’ve seen since getting here. Fantastic.
Last weekend was the Rune recording session. I was told it was far away, but was unprepared for a 2 hour journey into the middle of the country. Still, it did have fireflies. And a lot of heat. Nervousness made the heat more acute, but it was fun nevertheless. Some photos below, the last of which was a cannabis-related sticker on the car of our lift. Pro or con, I can’t work out. Either way, he doesn’t actually involve himself in the use of it. He’s Japanese.
We managed to get all the basic tracks down, but Miki and Saeko will be out that way plenty more times for overdubs before any results can be heard. We had them both over for dinner and jenga on Tuesday night, which was entertaining. And we had one extra surprise guest, the rarely spotted John Warrander, over for work purposes. Here he is in Cafe Independents beforehand with Giita.
Other than that and a night out to Cafe Peace and Ringo the Beatles Bar with pals on Thursday, it was a week of rehearsals for me. In at 9am this morning (Sunday) to get the venue ready, tomorrow I’m playing in college with Rune, then on Tuesday it’s the new emo band (Hanshin Tigers, possibly for once only), Kujira (the hardcore band) and Hito Genome (the industrial noise/metal band). Quite excited. Taking it easy band-wise after that. While I was rehearsing this week, Giita took some great photos in Osaka and went to the beach in Kobe, but I’ll leave her to talk about that. I’m away to bed, but first here are a couple of photos of us at a not-very-70s 70s night last weekend in town. Night!
PS. Got my exam results back. 90% in kanji/grammar/essay, 88.5% in speaking/listening. Pleased!
Yay - well done for clever exam results!
Regarding your bike troubles, maybe a gaijin section is required in “liberty osaka”, that museum julia and I visited concerning the bad attitudes in japanese society - like with koreans, the disabled and err, women.
I had a great holiday there though! And where else in the world do you get ally kerr on karaoke - nowhere!!
xx
you’d think though that they’d be more polite to a gaijin who’s living in japan and presumably attempting to learn a thing or two about the country and culture, rather than some blow-in like me who is there for a few days and is unlikely to become less ignorant in such a short amount of time? oh well, i hope they are nice to me! i’m leaving for my flight to tokyo in just under half an hour. have pulled an all nighter packing, tired now!
Congrats on the exams
That’s the bizarre thing about Japan - super-modern in some ways yet so archaic in others. Don’t think I’d live there permanently. Regardless, well done on your fab results!!
Oh congrats on those exam results! Looking forward to seeing you both back in Dublin soon.
Please go back to Japan soon though as both Leo and I would love to visit!! ..:-)
Really enjoying the blog, too! Pics are just fab!! keep em comin!
yep, you’re made very welcome but ultimately not accepted. I wasn’t there long enough to experience that, but I’ve heard that many times before. You should have heckled that band in your 88.5% correct Japanese. They would have shat themselves. Seriously.
Was there no reaction from the audience about the comments? Does ‘gaijin’ translate as ‘foreign person’ or is it closer to more offensive racial epithets’?
If a Dublin band playing in Dublin saw a couple of Japanese people in the audience and made any sort of negative comment most of the audience would react, even if just to shout ‘eejit’ at them.