By Kevin Cooney



What exactly is so frightening about beans I will never know. How an Oni (devil) would have much cause to fear them is even further beyond me.  But there you are, today is Setsubun, the ancient Japanese tradition of driving out the evil devils of misfortune with a handful of beans.  Across the nation on this day Japanese families are carrying out the age-old tradition in their home by casting about handful's of beans and crying "Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!" Out with devils! In with good luck!
 
I've read in books about Japanese culture that it is typically the male head of the household who is honored with the task of driving out the demons.  But my own informal surveys reveal that actually it tends to be the male head of most households (or family pet) that puts on a devil mask and gets pelted with beans by his wife and children to complete the ritual.  I have a feeling the writers of those books were themselves the male head of a household.  It is a cute, truly fun family event for all.  Well, unless your kid has a pro-league pitching arm.
 
For research purposes I had friend wing me with a few dried beans.  It stung a bit, but barely left a little red mark.  If you didn't know an Oni is entirely red, so this would seem to be somewhat self-defeating.  Perhaps if the bean were fired from some type of makeshift gun using rubber bands or firecrackers you could start to do some damage.  And even then you'd have to hit a particularly sensitive area.  Realistically you'd probably just end up pissing off the demon even more.  Just throwing them, really?  Apparently Japanese devils are huge wussies.
 
I mean, if a demonic creature from the beyond is frightened of being dinged with dried beans, how serious a threat could it really pose to the health and safety of your family.  I found the biggest danger to this whole Setsbun thing is slipping on a kitchen floor covered in dried beans.  Don't tell me I'm the only person still finding bean fragments clinging to my socks two months later.
 
I explained all of this with excitement and a sense of accomplishment to one of my Japanese friends.  Brimming with smug joy I had pointed out the silliness of his nation's ancient traditions.  Then the little Oni asked "So how is it then, exactly, that vampires are afraid of garlic?"
 
"What!  That is totally different.  I mean, somebody throws a bean at you, that's one thing, but a head of garlic has some heft!"
 
"So Vampires bruise easily then?"
 
"Well no... It... Well... Doh!"

By Kevin Cooney

I spent the New Year's holiday in the most traditional Japanese way.  Cocooned inside layers of blankets watching TV and eating mikan oranges. Of course, the kadomatsu, kagami mochi and other seasonal decorations are an important part of the Japanese New Year celebrations.  They are, however, only minor distractions.  The TV is king during those lazy days of the New Year.  Kohaku Uta Gassen, the Ekiden are among a few of the programs that keep people glued to their sofas.

This year I passed on most of the traditional New Year's programming, and instead kept myself busy with a triple marathon of american science fiction shows.  I cruised the stars with Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5 and Star Trek.  I know, I am a stellar nerd.    

The year 2010 is a bit technologically disappointing.  I remember as a kid thinking about 2010 being so far in the future. I would have though we'd have flying cars and food made out of plankton by now.  But we don't.  Well, actually I'm not sure about the plankton thing. I think I might have been served that recently in Tokyo.

One thing struck me from all the Sci-fi I watched.  In almost every future world conceived by Hollywood, most people eat with chopsticks.  What's more, people in the future almost always appear to be eating udon noodles.  How is it that the writers and creators of Hollywood collectively decided that in the year 2365 all humans would be eating udon with chopsticks?

Chopsticks are not new, far from it.  Their origin predates the fork by centuries.  I prefer chopsticks to the knife and fork, but I'm curious why so many different science fiction creators agree that our future is the chopstick.  I had such high hopes for the "spork."

Obsessively watching the details of every scene, I started noticing Thai triangular pillows in the alien sleeping quarters.  Ikebana in the intergalactic meeting rooms.  Martians eating out of a donabe hotpot! American sci-fi set designers incorporate a stunning amount of asianesque bric-a-brac into future worlds.

I suppose it's due to the exotic nature these things have from a western perspective.  I'm often asked by friends back home about Japanese robots and technology.  No flying cars here.  Though the door at Seven Eleven opens by itself.  That's cool, but not a sentient cybernetic personality.  At some level living in Asia demystifies the foreignness of these things and thus ruins the imaginary future.  Instead of enjoying the fantasy world in my TV, I just wonder quietly to myself why hundreds of years into the future, the universe is using chopsticks yet still these gaijin can't slurp noodles properly.

 

By Kevin Cooney

I've never been very good at remembering what year it is.  That's kind of a strange thing, since I have no such problem with, for example Tuesday, the second week of August, or even a smaller yet full month like February.  I generally know what day of the week it is, and usually what day of the month and yes, even the current month.  However, the year for some reason often slips my mind.  Many times I have filled out some form or dated some document only to have it returned to me with a quizzical stare that says, "Seriously, you think its 2008?"  It's with great embarrassment that I have had to scratch out and re-pen a year here and there.
    It would seem an eminently large enough unit of time that I could remember it.  But sadly, I can not.  So while most people are busy celebrating what a great new year it is, I'm always trying to just remember which great new year it is.  The months before January are not so tough.  I've usually just gotten the hang of it by August.  I'm fully engaged in the yearly cycle by November.  Then comes a whole new one.  For the next three months I'll be constantly dating things 2009, and getting wincing "you idiot" looks from friends and colleagues.
    I have actually had the following conversation at a post office.

Me: "Whats the date again?"
Them: "The fourteenth."
Me: "Oh... and this part" (gesturing to year)
Them: Uhm. (Silent Disbelief)

    While my issue with what year it is was comparatively minor stateside, I now have to deal with the Japanese calendar as well.  With its various periods, Taisho, Showa, Heisei and more all marking the reigns of various emperors I can say that I came to Japan in the 13th year of the Heisei period.  But only because I just did a web search to find out.  When filling out a bank statement and suddenly being asked what the current date is in Heisei, I draw a blank.  Which is fitting, considering my overdraft.  I know the day, week, month... but which year it is in the Japanese calendar always throws me.  (Pro Tip: I just write 09! Well soon it will be 010, if I remember.)
    Another issue is working with and living amongst other English speaking people who not only drive on the wrong side of the road but order their dates bizarrely as well.  Is it day/month/year or year/month/day or even month/day/year? I've seen fisticuffs erupt in an international workplace over the statement. "07/08/06... So was this in July?"
    I've thought about it, and I suppose the reason I have such difficulty remembering the year, is that it is of little relevance to my life.  I know its Tuesday because I have my Japanese lesson on Tuesday.  I know its the fifteenth, because that check is supposed to get deposited in my account.  I know It is February because I am freezing.  These smaller units I'm working with on a regular basis and interact with at great frequency.  But years? I don't have much cause to think about what year it is. I suppose that is Old Father Time's dirty little secret.  We get so busy with the Mondays and the Twenty-thirds that we forget all about the picture.  Time passes so surreptitiously that I hardly notice its already Hesei 22!  Oh my goodness, where has the time gone?  I'll tell you where it went, into lots of little 24 hour blocks of life here and there.

Happy New Year!

By Kevin Cooney

Most people spend their life searching for the perfect person.  They search for meaning in this transient earthbound life.  They search for answers to eternal questions about life.  For me, mostly I search for my keys and my train pass.

I am a moron.  That is to say an idiot, a spaz, a dimwit, a nimrod, a maroon. If I were smarter I'm sure I could think of more, but that's all I've got off hand.  I'm almost tempted to call it a skill, this ability I have.  I have the canny ability to lose things regularly and forever.  I've lost just about everything at one time or another.  Bags, wallets, coin purses, umbrellas, ohhhh the umbrellas... I have lost hundreds of umbrellas.  Sunglasses, watches, books, cellphones, even larger seemingly impossible to lose items like laptops and bicycles.  And yet, here I am perennially ransacking my apartment looking for a keys like a spy hunting micro-ficshe in an enemy hotel room.  

I'm starting to think I'm sleep walking or something during the day.  Only due to the kindness of taxi drivers, fellow train passengers and bemused cafe staff have I managed to limit my loses in recent years.  I've taken to chaining my wallet to my pants, so that if I can at least find my pants, I can find my wallet.  Fortunately, I can almost always find my pants.  I've begun giving myself a body search every time I stand up.  My grandfather did the same thing, doing a quick inventory of possessions before moving to a new room.  I used to mock his little "Do I have everything?" jig, but I've begun the same dance.  "Glasses, wallet, phone, Ok! We can go!"

It's in these moments that I lose things that I am grateful to be in Japan.  Anyone who has lived here, and like me is a moron will tell you.  Lost items almost always turn up again.  It's freakish, unnatural and utterly mystifying to me how a lost wallet found in the middle of the street can be returned to its owner cash intact.  I'd say 80% of my lost items have made it back to me.  Not including, of course, my tribe of orphan umbrellas out there... somewhere.

Most recently I lost a small USB device.  A USB device that due to advances in technology is the size of a pack of gum and priced around 300 dollars. While I appreciate this new space age technology, I shouldn't own anything that small and expensive.   It went missing a few weeks ago, and after inquiring at the shop where I purchased it I was told to call the company's main office.  

I dread calling main offices.  My Japanese is fine for normal conversation, but dealing with keigo, the highest politeness of Japanese language on the phone is near impossible.  I have begged telephone operators to simple down their "Are o tsukau you ni onegai shimasu" to something briefer like"Are ne!"  Seriously... you humbly request that I consider using something.  Just tell me to do it.

After three attempts to navigate the keigo speaking auto-menu I was finally able to reach a human being.  She told me which buttons I was supposed to have pressed to get to the right department, but hadn't.  Finally connecting to the right person, I managed to explain my situation, and work out a solution to the problem which will end up costing me only 30 bucks.  I hung up the phone, relieved I didn't need a new multi-year contract and a wad of cash for my stupidity.  

Amazingly, I was glowing. Yes, I had just lost something.  Yes, It was a waste of time and money.  But I had managed to work everything out, by myself on the phone in a foreign language.  Maybe I'm not so stupid after all.  All I had to do then was bring the new permission code to the electronics store to get a new device.  The permission code I wrote down during the phone call.  Somewhere on a piece of paper on my desk.  Somewhere.

By Kevin Cooney

By Kevin Cooney

 

I struggled for a while trying to popularize an emo-con to demark sarcasm in typed text.  I have both lost and made unintentional friends due to misunderstood e-communication. "Oh I am soooo excited to go to Steve's party."  You see, there is an obvious need for this universally understood emo-con. Just think of the sanity it could restore to youtube video comments, and endless bickering threads on Japan "discussion" forums. The need is clearly out there, but when will some clever anonymous netizen deliver the sarcastic hieroglyph that finally goes viral and ends the epic miscommunication everywhere on the net.

 

Another place I have found our current linguistic options lacking is in the endlessly spouted term "Gaijin" or "Gaikokujin".  This word is abused, misused and entirely lacking in certain discussions. 

 

I was thoroughly not enjoying my dinner, while next to me a Japanese man and woman, slurring slightly from the mojitos, picked apart the injustice of "Gaijin stealing Japanese women." The gentleman, believe it or not ladies, was bemoaning the ease at which Gaijin men poach the local ladies but Japanese men rarely are successful in the reverse direction.  Impelled to butt in (I'm such a Gaijin) I leaned over and pointed out that by government statistics more than two-thirds of international marriages in Japan involve a Japanese man and a foreign woman.  Less than a third of them involve a foreign man and a Japanese woman.  This is fact straight from the Japanese government.  It is not open for debate.  He was, as I'm sure many readers are right now, in disbelief.  The issue at hand though is rather one of linguistics. He wasn't talking about Gaikokujin, he was talking about GONADs.

 

To explain further however I must point out that the wide majority of married foreign women in Japan come from China, Korea and the Philippines.  The gentleman however was more specifically talking about white or black foreigners when using the term Gaijin.  We are all guilty of this in someway.  Walking down the street in Shibuya we see the dorky white dude and his Asian counter part and think... oh look an international couple.  We pass a Japanese man with his Chinese bride and think, "Oh look! McNuggets are only 100 yen today."  The wide majority of international marriages are mostly invisible to people watchers.  But the statistics say different.

 

The term Gaijin is too often invoked when talking about issues relating only to non-Asian foreigners in Tokyo.  Often its usage fails to include the great majority of foreigners, largely Asian living in Japan.  Of course they, if anything bear a more difficult burden for being a foreigner in their daily lives, but in the general discussion of Japanese, Non-Japanese issues they are not the ones being talked about.  The words Gaijin, or Gaikokujin are not really applied properly and inclusively.

 

Into this void I suggest the word GONAD.  I am a GONAD.  Many of my best friends are GONADs.  And often when I hear people discuss Gaijin life in Japan they are really talking about their GONADs.  That is, "Gaijin of Non Asian Descent."

 

So if the soused salaryman had said as he meant, "It is difficult for me to get a GONAD in the sack." He'd still be a moron, but somewhere closer to the truth. In the self obsessed, mini-western world theme park we've created in Roppongi, Hiro and Aoyama the word Gaijin is used incorrectly and incompatibly with the demographic facts of an international Tokyo. 

 

I suggest we add this subtle distinction so those late night carping sessions at Pubs across the city reflect who we are actually talking about.  All 100% of the Gaijin community are foreigners, but let's not presume to think that the issues of us GONADS define the experience here for the majority of non-Japanese.

 

 

 

By Kevin Cooney

To me the single most stunning attribute of Tokyo is it's capacity for change.  Sweeping changes, small nearly unnoticeable changes, shocking changes, silly changes, meaningless changes, my 8 years in the city are catalogued most not by the seasons or years but by things dissappearing, appearing and even reappearing.  Tokyo is a constant work in progress.  Like a painting whose neurotic creater feels impelled to keep fiddling with his master work and never gaining a sense of completion.  Of course all major cities are the same in this way, but of the major world cities I've lived in none seems as constantly transformative as Tokyo.  With all this change though, I'm not always sure the city is improving.  Or perhaps I'm just too stubborn to change.
     Long time expats, many longer than myself, mark their years in this city in remeniscent sentances like "There used to be this shop in omotesando with the best coffee." or "Remeber that buidling on the corner that looked like a broken down space ship?".  Sometimes they are personal rememberances like "Mike, what a crazy guy he was.  Hmmmm... whatever happened to him?"  He went home.  The building was torn down.  The coffee place went out of business.
     Some of the changes coincide with social or technological changes.  I have ex-pat friends who remeber back to when 99% of the population had black hair.  When you boarded a train an actual human being stamped your ticket instead of the magnet reading robots that guard the station gates today.  My personal biggest sense of loss and rebirth was when the iconic Dojunkai Aoyama Apartments were torn down and replaced with the buzzing hive of commerce that is Omotesando Hills.  The old, beautiful, ivy covered buidlings gave a sense of quiet to the street that is now gone. To be fair they were put up in 1927 and crumbling.  Other ex-pats like me were livid when we heard it was being torn down for "improvement". As a nod to those upset by construction, they even designed the south east corner of the building to approximate the look of old building.
     Now when I walk down Omotesando I have trouble recalling what it looked like before the face lift.  And actually, I can even admit to be pleasantly surprised how well the buildings outdoor design looks. Not to mention the bladder saving public bathroom they've included. I mention the old landmark to a friend once, and he seemed surprised anything ever existed before Omotesando Hills.  As though it had always been there, and the street the way it is today.
     Frankly, I find it is the foreigners who lament these changes most.  The locals seem endlessly verastile to put it in a positive way.  After all the bustling metropolis we busy ourselves about was completely flattened twice in the last hundered years.  Rebuilding seems almost an intrinisc part of the DNA of Tokyo.  Forgetting the past and moving on a mission statement boldly declared in every new towering building site.  Ive seen more than a few go up recently.  Roppongi Hills, Tokyo Midtown were just the start. Now even more unthinkable are the current projects to build a new Tokyo Tower, a new Tuskiji Fishmarket and a new Kabuki-za
     Sometimes I want to scream "Stop all this newness!"  But to deny the ever evolving skyline of Tokyo is to miss the most essential characteristic of this city.  Nothing stays the same for very long.  Least of all me.  I can't believe what a crotchety old timer I've become in just eight years.

By Kevin Cooney

Everyear that I've been in Japan the Halloween holiday season has grown.  The Halloween spirit is reanimated each year by corporate sponsors who smell profit in this celebration of the undead.  The average Tokyoite seems not so interested, but just as Valentine's Day and Christmas took some convincing, I have a feeling the day will come when the whole nation is celebrating it.  Each passing year the size and scope of the celebrations expand and as the market for Halloween goods expands so do more stores jump on the broomstick.

     The register workers at my local supermarket are all proudly wearing little cat ears and devil horns.  Entire floors of the stores Don Quixote, Tokyu Hands and Loft have been transformed into Halloween emporiums.  Import food shops display mountains of spooky chocolates from abroad.  The full force of consumerism has jumped in on the side of Halloween, and appear to be promulgating it well.

     That said, I'm guessing that probably only about 5% of the Tokyo population is actually actively participating in Halloween.  This makes the greatest feature of it, trick-or-treating, essenitally non-existant in Japan.  Trick-or-treating requires that everybody understand and willingly participate in the concept, otherwise it is basically door-to-door candy extortion.  Fancy dress... extortion.

     The closest thing I can think of amongst Japanese holidays is Setsubun.  Setsubun which is celebrated on the third day of February is somewhat akin to Halloween.  Though from any child's point of view Halloween is decidedly better.  On Setsubun, only one member of the family is allowed to dress up, and that person must dress as a devil.  The family then throws roasted soy beans at said devil to drive out bad luck whilst inviting in good luck.  After the ceremony is complete, each member of the family eats a roasted soybean for each year of their life so far.  Mind you, these are not chocolate covered roasted beans.  Heck, they aren't even salted.

     I've explained the concept behind trick-or-treating to more than a few children and totally blown their pre-pubescent minds in the process.  Usually it ends with the kid in stuttering disbelief... "Wait... whuh? You mean any house I go to they give me free candy? Real candy!  Not blah tasting roasted beans?"  It's a good thing most are unaware, or children would realize how shafted they are getting on the holiday front.  

     Halloween has become, like Christmas and Valentine's Day more of an adult's holiday in Japan.  While the popularity of schools having Halloween parties has grown, the more noticeable change has been in the explosion of adult themed Halloween costumes and adult oriented parties.  It's a perfect fit for the Japanese, many of whom are already dressed Halloween appropriate year round.  But still it's struggling to take off.

     I suppose the last thing Japan needs is yet another imported holiday.  But the retailers certainly seem to think it's necessary.  Something to fill in the dead shopping space before Christmas begins in earnest.  But that holiday is still the premiere shopping event.  Halloween is still in full swing, and yet I've already seen shops bring out the Christmas decorations.  Some lament the westernization of the local culture.  I understand their point of view but in my experience, quite simply everybody likes a reason to party.  Japanese and Western holidays can live happily side by side.  Even though, beans do have a hard time competing with "Candy Bindge Day." 

By Kevin Cooney

      It occurs to me (often) that more than a few pets in this city have a higher quality of life than I do.  Even my own goldfish, Kenji, has a comparatively sweet set up compared to my humble abode.   I mean considering his size versus my size and the size of our respective homes, he is swimming around in a palatial mansion.  Plus if it's really true that goldfish have a very short memory, by the time he gets to one end of his tank he doesn't even remember where he was a few seconds ago.  This would explain why he turns around heads back to where he was about 5 seconds earlier.  I hope he has a short memory, because that fish has seen things that would surely scar his young fish psyche forever, were they not happily already forgotten. 

      I pace around in my apartment a lot.  Unfortunately because it is so small I only go a step or two before I have to turn around.  So I guess Im not really pacing, just spinning.  It occupies a very large portion of my day.  The other portion is spent on my computer.  Similarly my fish hovers next to his endlessly bubbling water filter.  It's our respective comfort zones.  Cutting of his air supply or my internet would have disastrous health affects.

    Dogs carried in bags by attractive female Tokyoites however, I beat on acreage.  I have the added benefit of not having a mascara brush crammed halfway up my butt and a compact mirror digging into my spine.  While the prospect of being totted around by an attractive 20 year old is neat, I would really require a roman style litter and 4 to 6 litter bearers.  Preferably gyaruo.  That would be awesome.

    I digress.

    

    The sight of dogs carried in bags is a typical Tokyo sight, and one everyone seems to notice.  Mostly people just remark how decadent it seems, and when the woman is also carrying a parasol one starts to wonder if people missed the whole point of the Marie Antoinette story.  But what I take away from it is that, as ridiculous as the situation seems, the dog likely is unaware that the situation is ridiculous.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but dogs... while wonderful creatures are not particularly attuned to their surroundings.  My shins attest to the fact that most dogs have little social awareness.

    But dogs, if they dream, probably dream about pretty straight forward things.  Food, sticks to chase and an occasional tryst with a corduroy covered leg.  I never quite got the phrase, "every dog has his day."  I think for dogs, the standard to which they consider "having had their day" is pretty low.  Pretty much everyday is a dog's day.  Probably because dogs don't complain about apartment sizes.  Have you seen a "dog house."  That almost makes the japanese euphemism "Mansion" seem accurate.  Dogs also don't generally pass up delicious looking garbage... or really any garbage.  And of course dogs don't blog.

    So with this in mind I'm going to attempt not to envy my goldfish and his comparatively lush, lavish lifestyle.  I'm going to forego jealousy of pampered poodles in Prada.  I'm simply going to enjoy what life has given me and not want for anything more.  

    Well... ok, a little more closet space at least.