April 2009Archives

By Claytonian

First off, allow me introduce myself via my works. As a blogger, I run The Hopeless Romantic and His Adventures in Japan. I also pop up on YouTube (where I met JibTV's own Kevin Cooney), and occasionally on other Japan sites, like this one. Feel free to visit me.

With that out of the way, let me tell you why I am in Japan!

It started with a poster.  Happy children and the words "Teach English in Japan!"  I was just a junior, and on my way to Japanese class-- a language I had chosen for the strange challenge it represented.  It seemed that getting payed to go to Japan and live with its people and teach its children sounded like one of the best jobs ever, and from that day forth, the official plan became to go to Japan.

A few years later and the first step had been accomplished.  I was in Japan.  A place I had never heard of, called Saga.  I had been placed in a small town nestled between the twin awe-inspiring forces of mountains and seaside.  It was wonderful, to say the least.  I would drive along the coast on my way to work, and gaze upon the beautiful bay, visible just outside the classroom, when ever I had a chance to stop and think to myself, this is actually happening.  I am in one of the most interesting places on Earth!

Years later and I find myself in Saitama, outside of Tokyo. Japan has continued to prove interesting to me; I've never really grown out of my tourism phase.  Instruments to document my travels accompany me wherever I go, and I love sharing what I uncover.  My drive is to find the hidden in a country full of mystique, ancient traditions, and receding civilization on one hand, and the down-to-earth realities of the modern world on the other.  I hope you enjoy what we find together.  This is Japan, and there is nowhere else like it!

Imagine one curly blonde head among a thousand Japanese elementary school students.  That was me.  I was six. 

My parents came to Japan in 1983, and I came with them because I had so little clout back then.  I quickly learned some crucial skills on the playground: how to make a perfect sunadango (sand dumpling), how to speak Japanese so I didn't sound like a foreigner, and how to stand up to bullies.   I may never master kanji or keigo, but the playground skillset has stood me in good stead.  Now I watch as my daughter negotiates a familiar scenario: same blonde curls, same sea of glossy black hair. 

Along the way, I've experienced Japan from wildly different vantage points.  I attended an international high school in Tokyo that banned spoken Japanese.  I studied Japanese postwar literature at an American university.   Many years later, I acted in a Japanese theater production.  (I played an American with a good heart and terrible pronunciation.)  The show toured Japan for months at a time, and I saw ancient hierarchical social structures still alive and kicking within a traditional theater company.   It was an unusual education. 

Every time I leave Japan I mourn it; every time I come back I have to get a new visa. 

Because no matter how deeply I may feel rooted here, I'm just a guest.  I'm an intimate outsider.  I have blue eyes, pale skin, and when I open my mouth I sound like a local.  Sometimes that freaks out the actual locals. 

But I love having one foot in each world: my education is western, my thinking is feminist, my aesthetic sense is wafuu, and my cooking is bad in any culture.  That's okay.  In that funny space in between, I'm home.   

Hello comrades! My name is Danny Choo - originally from the UK and been living in Japan for 10 years now.

My parents are Chinese Malaysian. They moved to the UK 40 years ago and of all places, they decided to choose a dump called Hackney to live in ^^; I was brought up on English and Cantonese at home but unfortunately I didn't have any Chinese education at all. Given my appearance, I always get "yeah but you had a head start in Kanji" but alas - I didn't have the luxury of being able to read kanji at first.

My first interest about Japan came way back. Back in the UK, I remember watching a children's program called Blue Peter where the presenters came to Japan to cover Tokyo culture. Can't remember what age I was but I swore to myself that I would live and work in Japan someday.

It all continued with my interest in gaming. I wanted to know more about up and coming games so I got my booty along to a Japanese bookstore in Piccadilly called the Japan Center. They had tons of imported books from Japan, which they sold for an arm and a leg. When doing my rounds in the Japan Center one day, I chanced upon the cover of a magazine which featured the most gorgeous thing I ever saw - t'was an idol called Nishida Hikaru. Added the magazine to my weekly stash and from then on wanted to know more about her so I started to buy a ton of idol magazines. My Japanese reading capabilities from this point forward started to improve ten fold as I needed to be able to read to find out more about her ^^;

The main ingredient to learning any language and understand a country is passion. With passion, one can achieve anything. I kept on learning, took several jobs related to Japan, and finally came to Japan.

I have been working in the Internet for about 10 years now and now run my own company in Japan. 　My full profile and other bits and pieces lives here.

In my spare time I run a Japan Portal at dannychoo.com where I post daily photos and write about life in Japan and Japanese subculture, check it out if you want a daily dose of Japanism.

One of the reasons why I blog is because I want to share what life is like in Tokyo. I take pictures of my food, shopping, meetings, filming - just about everything which enables me to cover many aspects of living in Tokyo. I know what it is like to live outside of Japan wanting to know more about the land of the rising sun. I also write about things like how to buy a house, health checkups, getting a Japanese drivers license, setting up a business entity, installing optical fiber internet connections and much more useful information
for folks who are living or thinking of living in Tokyo.

One of the subjects I would like to cover is the Japanese subculture otaku - anime,
manga, figurines and dolls. This is my line of expertise and will be
sharing much of this interesting culture with you.

I also work part time for the Empire where I spend most of my
time recruiting new troopers. I do this by attempting to "Dance" around
Tokyo in Stormtrooper armor to let people know how fun it can be
working for the dark lord - you may want to subscribe and see more of
my recruiting videos at YouTube. I never
mention the possibility of getting a Vader Force Choke though.

I'm humbly honored to have been given the most bodaciously awesome
opportunity by comrade Kevin to write in the jibtv's blog and hope that you will enjoy my writings.