Caveat… Obviously if you are unemployed and left destitute by your situation then you may not agree with title of this post. But if you find yourself with the opportunity (a working spouse whose given you leeway to decompress), quit that abyssal dead-end job and don’t look back. That is where I currently stand and I am loving every minute.
Better things lie ahead. But for now it’s time to indulge my hobbies, re-calibrate, read, and relax.
What does that look like? Well, getting this blog up and running after about a year of inactivity. Lots of server maintenance, full Linux distro upgrades and hours of troubleshooting.
Snowshoe / birding. Putting my new Tubbs Flex TRK snowshoes through their paces, mostly at my local trailhead at Asahiyama Park. Combined with my Vortex Diamondback 10×42 binoculars I’ve been able to glass (that’s a verb, get used to it) a handful of new additions to my life list.
A morning snowshoe on an ungroomed trailA Black Woodpecker glassed at Asahiyama ParkHad a 15 minute staring contest with a Eurasian Red Squirrel
Of course there is reading, made even more enjoyable by the addition of a Amazon Fire. And a new book lamp for physical books read under the covers. Finished Cormac Mccarthy’s The Passenger. Not his best.
Went ice fishing multiple times and tried out my new Daiwa Crystia Wakasagi E electric fishing real. Both times caught a ridiculously low amount of smelt. (less than 15 total) Just sad. The fish just haven’t been there. Oh well…
There is time to build models…
Always a good time.
On days when the weather is too intense there is sports. My Philadelphia Eagles lost the Superbowl, but even that didn’t upset me. I actual got to watch it live! With that out of the way I can now focus on international cricket. England in New Zealand, Australia in India, and the Women’s T20 World Cup all running concurrently! It’s a dispassionate cricket fans dream come true.
Of course, there is always snow to shovel. At 5:00 AM. Several times a week. But we’re having a good time!
Each year the snow piles up. Many hours are spent each week pushing snow around the in-laws’ 6 car open air parking lot (9,000 Yen per car/month – inquire in comments); a task that is boring, cold, and ultimately unrewarding. It will all just pile up again, without warning, without regard for your life.
There is a process here in Sapporo when it comes to snow removal. Many residences have a snow trap ( as I have labeled it), or 融雪庫, which melts huge quantities of snow with pressurized hot water. We move the snow to the snow trap with wide bodied, two handed, push shovels. These are more like small plows and can hold 5-6 cubic feet of snow per dump.
The snow dissolves back to its natural state, sucked deep down below, out of site, out of mind…
For these hour+ long removal sessions I am in a catatonic state, my earbuds tuned to a podcast, my limbs moving robotically, no thoughts other than when this ordeal will be over.
And each year I dream. Dream of a day the father-in-law will relent from his stubborn ways and allow us to purchase a snowblower. And not just any snowblower. No, sir. For when I dream, I dream of one majestic snowblower painted blue and white, with tank-like treads and a push button auto-start. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Yamaha YSF1070T:
Just take a moment to marvel at this beast. Its blue body contrasts wonderfully with the white top. Its pristine dual black tracks cleansed by the pure snow, self propelled, LED lighted for glorious night snow removal sessions, a control panel that puts you in charge — not the bastardly God of frigid precipitation. The day is coming when this 21st century marvel will be waiting for me after a tough day at the office. Quality of life will improve. Food will taste better. And winter will be a joy again.
In 2007 I broke by leg while slipping on black ice outside a boarding cottage I was responsible for at The Church Farm School in Exton, Pennsylvania. I was laid up for months with a compound fracture to my right tibia/fibia, crutching around my parents’ home, on medical leave from my duties, and with a full paycheck until my contract ended late in the summer. I wasn’t going back to that job. I had nothing but time to stare at my laptop with my legs propped up on a recliner.
So I decided to take a deep dive into a sports curiosity that had haunted me since childhood. Cricket: How is it played? I remember I had seen pictures of the game, its players decked out in white, in a photographic encyclopedia of sports, which gave a cursory introduction to hundreds of sports worldwide. I imagined it as some weird hodgepodge of baseball, croquet, and maybe jai alai.
With the power of the internet now at my disposal, and live sport streaming becoming a reality, I set out to finally crack this mystery. I needed to see the sport in action, not just read about it. Coincidentally there was a Cricket World Cup taking place just at that time in the Caribbean so time zones pretty much matched up (little did I know time zone interoperability would soon become the bane of my burgeoning cricket fandom). A service called Willow had a World Cup streaming package which I spontaneously purchased.
So I settled down for an opening round match between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. I didn’t know what I was in for. I barely could follow what was happening. But one Sri Lankan bowler caught by eye immediately. Lasith Malinga, was hurtling himself towards the wicket with an awkward sidearm arm action and a yellow permed mane of hair unlike anything I had ever seen in sport. I was hooked from that point onward. Because of my relative immobility, unemployment, and time to burn, I had developed the patience to last the 6 plus hour long match. (And this was the shorter format of the game!) I watched dozens of matches that World Cup.
That 2007 World Cup ended in farcical scenes of umpires declaring bad light to shut down play, despite there being floodlights at the stadium. Australia won. Sri Lanka, my adopted team for the tournament was denied their second World Cup. But I loved it all, even the absurd inflexibility of not having a rain day. I loved the politics of it all.
Turns out that the Caribbean had a less than elegant record during that World Cup for other reasons as well. The Pakistan head coach Bob Woolmer, died under mysterious circumstances in his hotel room after a shock loss to Ireland and early first round exit from the tournament. Foul play has always been the suspicion, though none could be proven. Match fixing was possibly in the cards as well.
This sport had it all! I quickly started reading and learning everything I could about the sport, despite not being from its colonial culture or having ever played it (except for being bowled first ball in the quad while on exchange at The College of Ripon and York, St. John about seven years prior). I started with The Wisden Dictionary of Cricket, reading it cover to cover. Then came the real literature of the sport, which it turns out also has a rich history. The Picador Book of Cricket, was an excellent anthology, as was Wisden Anthology 1978-2006. This helped inculcate me with the major historical moments of the game. Then came the yearly Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack. And of course never ending articles at cricInfo.com (now espncricinfo).
15 years on and I am still obsessed with this sport. I still don’t know a great deal of the finer nuance, but the pandemic has given me the time to get closer to that as well. Here in Japan, I re-subscribed to Willow, watching long replays the next morning as matches progress through my East Asia Standard Time night. I even traded in my Hokkaido job alert email service and replaced it with a Wisden Cricket Monthly online subscription. The gains I receive from following cricket far surpass any potential employment information.
Becoming a fan of a sport but having no national affiliation feels a bit disembodied. I find myself almost always rooting for the underdog. And that underdog could change as a match progresses. It’s a calming experience watching any cricket match. It’s a far cry from the “Jump off the Ben Franklin Bridge” intensity that Philadelphia sports fans (which I am one) are accustomed to. Cricket for me is a great read-along form of entertainment. I can easily watch an afternoon Test session with a book in hand and a clean conscience. It’s as violation free zone.
I restarted my Twitter account exclusively for following cricket. I play fantasy cricket with the IPL. The other day I watched with rapt attention the 4-day Women’s test match between Australia and India which ended in a draw. I did that with no side-eye. I was super into it. I can’t be helped. My wife thinks I’m crazy. I tell her to listen for the “Howzat!!!” while I use the bathroom. She thinks of it as the sport that randomly screams after long periods of calm. I’ll make a fan out of her yet.
And the bizarre twist is that cricket is coming full circle for me. That place where I broke my leg, the Church Farm School, in Exton Pennsylvania, now hosts Minor League Cricket in the auxiliary park next door. Cricket in America is finally making some slow progress.
So to sum it um. If you want to dive deep into some obscure pastime you probably have no business getting involved in, just do the following:
1) Horribly break your leg on a innocuous sidewalk covered in black ice at your place of work (be sure said workplace has a huge endowment and ability to pay out disability/rehab)
2) Take the money and run, prop yourself on a recliner for several months, with a laptop and nothing but undisturbed time.
3) Move to a country in the world least aware or exposed to the topic you build a passion about. (i.e Japan)
There is nothing like forcing yourself through the ultra-realist-modernist hell that is James Joyce’s Ulysses. For the last several months my “To Read” list has been mired in quicksand while this behemoth of a tome, with its micro-font, thin pages, and countless footnotes/ endnotes / addendum notes – plugs a hole in my brain. I couldn’t move on. I certainly couldn’t abandon it. But this time I actually didn’t want to abandon it.
I first tackled Ulysses way back when I was on exchange in York, England for a semester. A module on modernist literature tried to jam it into a two week stretch, where I am certain few if any of the students even got past the opening chapters. Even the professor admitted that he hadn’t read it in full! I read it incessantly, out loud, in my dorm room, on park benches and from the city’s medieval walls. I read it while lounging in a huge inflatable Guinness chair I won by drinking, you guessed it: ten pints of Guinness. All this was to establish a certain mood so I could comfortably navigate my way through the book. I got about 300 pages in. Not a bad effort, but failure nonetheless.
I next went about it more than a decade ago using an email service that sent three pages a day, which I read on a flip-phone while on my daily hour long commutes through Yokohama. It was a laborious and painful process, but I managed to get through it. I retained almost none of the plot however. The words just flowed through by brain like a drunken tinker telling a tale at the local pub.
This last time (but probably not final), I decided to take a decidedly different tact and used an audio recording from RTE circa 1982 (available as a podcast). Each episode is acted out dramatically and is followed by a short thirty minute analyses. This worked wonderfully. There are just too many characters, songs, accents, and dialects to do the text justice by tackling it in your own voice. As an audio play, Ulysses moved along with a level of understanding I hadn’t managed before. I also followed along in my Ulysses: The 1922 Text, a version that seems to sync up well with the RTE version.
I won’t say I completely grasped everything going on in the text. There were still large swathes that left me stumped. But with this audio follow-along method I was able to find fragments of the text that peeked my interest and follow them down their own rabbit holes. The next time (Yes, I said it.) I will glean even more I am sure.
In the end, what strikes me most, when coming out this literary Stockholm Syndrome, is how anything I read from this point forward, at least for a couple months, is absorbed quickly and with a focused understanding. It is like coming out of a long meditation session, opening your eyes wide and just breathing in the world around you. Reading becomes fun again.
Ah yes. The cool Hokkaido summers. Where temperatures stay pleasant and mild. No need for air conditioning. No humidity. These lies still get pushed upon us. Those lies gave us an Olympic Marathon and the ridiculousness of the Run-Walk. (Come on. This is a sport?) These lies kill quite a few elderly people up here. These lies forced me to buy two additional fans this August so I could triangulate an artificial breeze in 36° C. Most apartments up here don’t have air con unless they are very new. Some offices, government facilities, and most shopping malls offer relief. So it’s been rough.
But finally I have been vaccinated. So that brings some mild psychological relief. It’s taking way too long nationwide. Anyone who has been to the mass vaccine centers here can conclude why. I went to the Sapporo Convention Center. Outside the convention center are approximately 30 volunteers blocking off the parking lot (which is roped off already) and funneling you into the entrance (which is already extremely well marked). Then comes a 4 tier screening, where other staff check and recheck the same form and ask you the same questions repeatedly. Finally, after all that, you get your shot, then are ushered out for another waiting period and final screening/stamp. Probably 10 doctors on hand to provide shots (max) and about 200 other staff doing mostly standing. It’s a long, laborious process. It is Japan in a nutshell. Meanwhile, they are vaccinating people at baseballl games in America. No reservation needed. Comes with free hotdog. (And in some cases free tickets!) The contrasts are absurd.
To keep cool I have sought the refuge of cool mountain streams. There was my usual go to tenkara fishing expedition by bike to Mt. Teine on the Kotoni-Hassamu River (above the Heiwa Waterfall). I did did some deep exploration, climbing over rock walls, avoiding giant hornets, bow and arrow style casting under the thick trees and brush. Managed to to get several white-spotted char (iwana), but a few got away.
Above the Heiwa waterfall
There were trips to more far flung locations outside the Ishikari Plain. We explored the Kimobetsu River, and other areas west towards the Niseko resorts. Fish out this way can be more selective, but chances of finding larger Rainbow or even rarer Dolly Varden trout exist. Late summer the water has cooled considerably. So wet wading is like going to a natural water park for the day. Very refreshing.
Apparently we are still in the thick of a COVID spike. Not being flippant here, just avoiding the news religiously. When restrictions are lifted, I’m sure I’ll get the message. My news firewall isn’t that thick. Until then we are sticking to the rivers. Which is a good thing because our local park, which provides access to Mt. Moiwa, has been shut down for more than a month because of bear(s) sightings. Personally I think this is a very Japanese over reaction. I mean, bears exists, we are the ones intruding. Unless it is like a pack bears attacking people, stomping on cars in the parking lot, daily. But pretty sure that is not the case.
This really ground my gears. Sometimes there are bears people! Word has it they actually cut down a lot of bamboo near the trails so people could see the bears more clearly, if they are around. Seriously?
But summer is finally winding down. Deep into the teens at night. Winter is coming….
Have you ever felt that you are not a good person, a little dirty, a bit of a slob, or just had an impure thought? Just read this short novel from a modern master and you will soon feel positively angelic about your life. The central character, Lester Ballard, basically checks all the boxes for depravity: necrophilia, murder, rape and/or rape-ish tendencies, arson, compulsive lying, and animal cruelty – just to name a few that stand out on first reflection. By the end you’re searching for anything not evil that he might have done.
His is an evil stuck out of time. Aside from small contextual clues scattered throughout, one might wonder when this story takes place at all? Contemporary? Early 20th century? There are automobiles and carnivals, but somehow it all feels very medieval. Ballard, scraping his way through moldy caves like some creature from Middle Earth only adds to the confusion.
Weaved through all of this is McCarthy’s incredible language. Though the story may not be that complex, following Ballard’s heathenish rampage through the Tennessee countryside, the complete lack of redemption experienced by the main character is not a path usually explored in fiction. There really is nothing to salvage.
As the cherry blossoms begin blooming, let’s look at a unique hanafuda set featuring the heritage of Kyoto. Visually this is one of the more stunning sets in my collection, but it’s best to compare it to a standard deck to see the artistic license taken. Most hanafuda follow these traditional motifs.
January-June
July-December
The red borders and glossy plastic surface makes these cards durable and easy to play with, but I think that my Kyoto hanafuda set really makes things more stunning by using a more subdued green color palette and adding localized touches. Now let’s compare the two sets side by side:
Spring is almost here, but the nights are still chilly and when a breeze is blowing it can feel like February. The waters too high for safe fishing. They were still storing plowed snow along the banks of the Toyohira when I checked last week. Mountain trails in and around Sapporo are a mess of mud and slush, pretty much impossible for hiking. Safe to say that April/May might be the worst season should you ever plan to visit Sapporo. Golden week approaches feeling like fool’s gold. A camping trip near Hokkaido’s south shore is about as far as we’ll venture. Oh, did you know there is a pandemic going on still? Because Japan apparently forgot. Rumors of vaccines being available for all by September seems optimistic at the glacial pace things currently run at. Apparently the 65+ vaccines that where supposed to roll out on April 15th was for a select few elderly scattered in the countryside. My 80 year old in-laws haven’t heard a peep about it. Meanwhile India is making the vaccine available to all by May 1st. India! Jeeee…..sus.
Regardless, our bikes are out. My 30 minute walking commute is now a quick 10 with Jabra earbuds (featuring ambient noise pass-through, safety first!) pumping a Bob Dylan podcast (“Hard Rain and Slow Trains: Bob Dylan and Fellow Travelers”) making everything right. Schools back in session, which means the drudgery of work for this guy, but a endless supply of bloggy goodness about to be unleashed.
We all fib. Some white lies here and there. I exaggerate on this blog, just for effect. But in my 20 years in the ESL racket spanning two countries (South Korea, Japan), I have heard some amazing backstories from fellow foreigners explaining away their current predicaments with yarns so shoddy it’s laughable in retrospect. Back in the days before social media, LinkedIn, and the internet in our pockets, a vagabond language instructor could create the most fantastical CV prior to their employment as an unlicensed kindergarten teacher. Add in some alcohol and a naive and homesick listening audience… voila!
“A commercial helicopter pilot? That’s awesome! Why’d you give it up?”
“I’d rather not go into it.”
People bought that line. Chicks bought that line. Gullible people in the throngs of culture shock will buy anything. When the 2007-2008 financial crisis hit, Korea saw a huge uptick in ESL refugees. That’s understandable. Go where the jobs are. But the “I used to make 6 figures as a day trader, glad I landed on my feet at the GnB English Academy,” conversation got old after I heard it from multiple frazzle-brained dudes that following spring. It still comes off pretty hollow.
Another line I keep hearing a lot here in 30 year-old-stagnate-economy Japan is the “I don’t need this job” variety. Anyone, in any job, worldwide, who consistently tells you that they “don’t need this job” is full of it. Unless the next words out of their mouth are “I quit!”, followed by early retirement. Nobody works in Asia, beyond a couple years, for the fun of it. And that ain’t no lie.
Not to say there aren’t some incredible resumes that are completely legit. The “I was executive vice president at [blah blah blah]” might actually be true (though rare). But there is most definitely a string of bad decisions (family, law, drug) that caused that person to flee their homeland. All of this is conveniently not mentioned – probably for good reason. Charlatans exist everywhere. Just because another whitey happened to find his way to some bumblefuck part of Asia just around the corner from you doesn’t mean their story automatically checks out. When they tell you something ridiculous like “I invented the futon”, trust your instincts.
Anyway, I gotta roll. I recently refurbished a classic biplane that I am anxious to get off the ground. I’m licensed.
