Beware the Extin Panther

I really do like the sunsets here. They've been getting awfully early lately, such that by the time I get out of school it's already pitch-black outside, but occasionally I can get out early and capture shots like this. The lights are not faraway city lights, nor stars on the horizon, but rather ships fishing for squid: since squid are attracted to light, fishermen string up rows upon rows of blinding halogen lamps on their boats to lure them in.

Happy December to all! To celebrate the fact I have now survived in Japan longer than my previous four-month stint here in 2007, and to catch up on all the random things going on, I would like to introduce a new segment. Without further ado, here are some...

Important Things I Have Learned Recently

• Do not believe a Canadian who tells you they are not good at ice skating. This is a lie. It is a nice, polite lie, of the same variety as "Yes, of course I like your new haircut," or "I am resigning in order to spend more time with my family," but it is a lie nonetheless. When most Canadians think of ice skating skill, they automatically compare themselves to other Canadians, who are often born straight onto the ice, learn to skate before they can walk, etc. When most Americans think of ice skating skill, they wistfully imagine being able to slide slowly in a forward direction without falling on their faces. The TomaRink ice rink here is an excellent arena for experiencing this particular lesson.
  
  
• It is physically possible to prevent one's superior from paying the restaurant bill in Japan. In Japanese classes at Georgetown, it was quite effectively drilled into my head that one's seniors always pay for the restaurant bill when going out in mixed company. Paying for your own meal, I understood, was like trying to give your waiter a tip: a nice sentiment, but just not done here, and more likely than not to cause confusion. The few times I tried, the resistance was so adamant that nowadays I just put out one or two token offers and call it a night. However, recently in Sapporo I witnessed a miracle: the combined wheedling of four foreigners combined convinced one local Board of Education official to let us pay for our own meals. Perhaps from now on I will offer to pay three times, though without the backup of other foreigners I am not sure how successful I will be.

I found windmills! Real ones that spin, unlike the token windmills we've got on top of the hill next to the nuclear power plant here in Tomari. I swear they've got to be just for show. Anyway, these were awesome, so I stopped my car in a random parking lot, wandered around, took some pictures, and generally fulfilled every stereotype of the strange, suspicious gaijin. Mission accomplished.

• A sufficiently high-scoring game of Whack-A-Mole can entitle the player to free entry into a Japanese onsen. I am not making this up. With the ongoing collapse of the US dollar, I might propose that Whack-A-Mole game tickets replace dollars as the dominant world reserve currency. Some of us would be very well equipped to compete in such a market. I also bet that some Japanese onsens (bath houses) underestimate the willingness of cheap foreigners to play silly arcade games just to save ¥500 ($5) off the standard entry fee. For any curious Hokkaido denizens, the onsen in question is ハート＆ハート in Nanporo.
  
  
• Japan has poor taste in English-language Christmas songs. Evidence: the #1 most popular English Christmas song here is "Last Christmas" by Wham!. This is a sad, whiny, repetitive 1980's song, about a boy who can't get over a girl he met once last year and who doesn't even remember him. The lyrics lurch between overripe schmaltz and vague sentence fragments ("But a face on a lover with a fire in his heart; a man undercover but you tore him apart.") The wildly popular Japanese pop band EXILE released a new cover version this year, ensuring the song's continued undead survival for the foreseeable future. I would be less bitter about this song if I didn't have to sing it for every single 1st and 2nd-grade class for the month of December. Thank goodness the 3rd graders voted for the rock version of "The 12 Days of Christmas" by Relient K.

Before I figured out how to set the heater timer to warm up the house before I got home, I had to deal with temperatures like this. Inside. Now, 0 Celsius means 32 Fahrenheit, so it's not as bad as it might seem at first glance. But freezing is still freezing.

• The traditional dances of Australian Aborigines involve a lot of foot stamping and imitation of native animals and birds. This and even more random facts can be found in your very own copies of the junior high school Sunshine English textbooks. For instance, did you know that Japanese people invented a new form of tennis using a soft, squishy ball and different rackets? Or that if you ride a wild horse for more than eight seconds, it is more likely to become calm? Or that Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity has operated an orphanage in Tokyo since 1963? Or that an Argentine musician happened to hear the Okinawan song "Shimauta" in a Japanese restaurant and subsequently turned it into a fairly trippy international hit in 2001?
  
  
• Anti-lock brakes (ABS), when actually in use, feel like a small animal furiously attempting to burrow through the sole of one's shoe. I could have just as easily made this into another one of the "Things Japan Does Not Believe In: Clearing Ice Off of Roads," but this way is funnier I think. Knowing that the snowplows here tend to leave a couple centimeters of ice even on major roads, I tried a quick-stop test on a back road in Iwanai to see what really sliding felt like. The ABS rattled into force, and I thought for a moment I had run over something, but quickly realized the only thing vibrating was my foot on the brake pedal. It's nice to know it works at least.

It has snowed and melted a few times now, but it's always pretty while it lasts. Here's the nursery school opposite my house, with maybe an inch or two of snow all round.

Best Conversation Ever
Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) Edition

So the JLPT was two days ago, and the listening section contained the very best conversation question that I have ever had the privilege to answer: a perfect microcosm of character development, buildup of conflict, and an unexpected resolution, all conveyed through a low-quality 60-second audio recording. Four stars. A translated version is below:

A man and a woman are having a conversation. Why did the man not come to the party yesterday?

Woman: Why didn't you come to the party yesterday?
Man: Well, I... had some stuff to do.
Woman: "Stuff to do?" What is that supposed to mean?
Man: Actually... I was visiting a friend in the hospital.
Woman: That's not true and you know it. My friend saw you out on the street that night.
Man: I was... buying some fruit... to give to my friend in the hospital.
Woman: My friend said she saw you at the mall, going around with another cute girl! She said you were shopping together at the accessories store!
Man: It's all a lie! I was with my sister! We were shopping for a ring, so I could give it to you as a present. And... here it is!
Woman: ... Really? ... Ha ha... Thank you?

Why did the man not come to the party yesterday?
1: Visiting a friend in the hospital.
2: Buying fruit.
3: Buying accessories.
4: Buying a present.

And as an encore, one vocabulary question was all about the word こしょう koshō, the only reading which I knew at the time was "pepper." This resulted in some very odd sample sentences, over which I puzzled for some time:

1: My car is peppering lately.
2: That store peppers at 8 o'clock.
3: Mr. Tanaka has a cough, so he will pepper to work today.
4: I peppered with the TV left on last night.

It turns out that koshō also means "break down" or "be out of order," so choice 1 was the only correct usage. I chose 3, but I doubt it will be a fatal error, since the rest of the test was generally not so hard. Results come back in February, so we'll see then!

This box contains not the remains of an extinct panther, but rather the apparatus for a fire extinguisher. The only way I can imagine it would end up labeled as "Extin Panther" is a case of poor handwriting combined with overzealous spell-checking. Found in the main Sapporo Station bus terminal, of all places.