There's a summer reality show on ABC on Tuesday evenings called, I Survived a Japanese Game Show. I was looking forward to watching this, but as usual I forgot about it. Fortunately I was able to watch the full episodes online. It's a show where contestants go to Japan and participate in a Japanese-like game show, competing in teams to do ridiculous stunts for the chance to win $250,000. The stunts are funny, particularly for Americans as they are fairly unique, like crashing into a wall in a velcro suit to simulate a bug being squashed on a windshield, riding a tricycle on a conveyor belt whose speed is controlled by team mates pedalling bicycles, and becoming a human crane game trying to pick up large stuffed animals. What makes this a reality show is that one person from the losing side is sent home. Team mates conspire aginst each other to remain in Japan and continue to compete for the cash. Drama, drama, drama.

The Japanese game show is called "Maji de" which translates as "Are you serious?!?" In the show, they translate it as "you must be crazy" but mine is the correct one. This is not surprising as a lot of the subtitles are also mistranslated, probably to avoid insulting too many of the American viewers. Of course, it is not a real show. It was made up by Japanese specifically for this reality show, revealing all the crazy ideas they have had over the years. While this may seem fun for Americans, it is rather passe in the eyes of most Japanese. Velcro suits? They were doing that before I came to DC back in 1996. They have another show called Wipeout, which is a knock off of Takeshi's Castle, where contestants brave an obstacle course of water hazards, punching boxing gloves and large rubber balls.

What is fascinating is the difference in approach by each "culture". In Japan, most of these shows allow a large number of contestants. Takeshi's Castle starts out at least one hundred contestants, but when a contestant fails at a stunt, he or she is immediately disqualified and sent packing. In the US version, they can fall in the mud and splash into the water, but they can still continue in the competion in an attempt to qualify either by not being voted out (Survived) or recording a good time (Wipeout). In other words, the Japanese contestant competes against the obstacle--man against a fixed goal, like climbing Mt. Fuji. Conversely, the US contestants plays against one another--man proving he is better than his fellow man. This means, of course, that in the US version, there is always a winner. In the Japanese version, there are times when there is no winner, suggesting once again that in the US, it is the goal, the destination that is important, whereas in Japan, it is the journey. Sorta.

The last leg of Wipeout is held at night with spotlights and flames illuminating the course. This is similar to my favorite obstacle course show, Sasuke, which is aired twice a year as a special in Japan. Sasuke is the name of a famous ninja and so is aired in the US on G4 under the name of Ninja Warrior. The good thing about this is that instead of Americanizing it by changing the rules and contestants, they air it as is, mostly in Japanese with subtitles. However, it is heavily editted to focus on the best or funniest contestants, and divided into segments to show in 30 minute broadcasts. The original is a single three to four hour special. In Ninja Warrior, contestants--beginning with a field of 100--try to complete four incredibly difficult obstacle courses. The contestants include Japanese comedians, firemen, a gas station attendant, as well as former and current Olympic athletes--including US gymnast Paul Hamm twice. In the ten years of this show, only two have completed the course, one of them twice, Nagano Makoto, a fisherman from Miyazaki prefecture, who stands all of 5'4". The reason for this is because every competition is more difficult than the one held half a year earlier. Another major factor is that no one can test run the course first. It is do or die. If your foot or hand even touches the murky muddy water or if you step out of bounds for even a second, you are eliminated. This seems to be in step with the legend of Sasuke, for a real ninja would have only one chance at any given obstacle himself. Can you imagine crossing a span of 15 feet by clinging to a curtain? Or crossing on a ledge using only your fingertips?!? And the ledge is broken into three sections of different heights so you have to swing yourself over to reach the next ledge... again, on your fingertips. Everytime they introduce a new obstacle, I just sit back and mutter, Dude, are you serious?!? The video below is an example of a level three in the 13th competition. The twentieth is the most recent and all shows are repeated over and over on G4.

They even have one for women now, called Kunoichi, where there is more focus on speed and balance rather than forearm and shoulder strength.

Now I don't know whch is a better approach, the US pitting contestant against contestant, or the Japanese way of contestant against the course/obstacle/time. Both are interesting and fun to watch, but I must say I prefer the Japanese way. Even if there are often no winners, you know that the contestants gave it their all. They can't point fingers at each other for their failures, and it even allows for comraderie as they root for each other to do well since they are not in competition with each other.

Query: Which would you prefer? Contestant vs. contestant? Or all contestants fighting individually against a common foe (or themselves)?

The other day, I wrote about my my eye surgery when I was in Japan. The Greatest_Pip left a comment that suggested that he thought my English was pretty good for a guy who had been in the US for 12 years--since 1996. Haha, I'd like to take a bow, but I had to tell him that basically my English is as good as anyone who was born, raised and educated in the US. Which elicited the following:

Wow, that's pretty awesome. How long did it
take you to become fluent in Japanese? Do you already spend enough time
in a week teaching Japanese to not want to give tips in your free time?

Actually, yes, I do spend a enough time in a week teaching. But tips on Xanga are free, mostly because they are not that big of a deal, are mostly common-sensical, and advice means nothing if the recipient won't heed it. I wish there was something magic potion, or a hidden incantation. But the bottom line is simple: passion, diligence and determination.

Of course, these three apply to anything you may endeavor to do, but with regard to Japanese, you have to have a passion for the language. It is fun enough, and today maybe even cool enough, to dabble in it. Anime and Wii has ensured the Japanese language a place in the hierarchy of US pop culture. The title sensei, which some whom I have met here on Xanga call me--oh I miss ya' SleepingCutie!--is fairly ubiquitous. But I was shocked that many knew the word tanuki (badger-dog) from a game--was it Mario? But a passion for anime or games does not equal a passion for Japanese language. It is not as hard most people will have you believe, but it is significantly different enough to make people throw their hands in the air in frustration. So it takes a passion for the language to compel to to continue where others have given up. I love Japanese. The language is, to me, sonorous and expressive. And so contextual. Sometimes all you have to say is are (that), and the listener will know exactly what you mean. Or you can say, in the appropriate context, Watashi wa hanba-ga- desu (I am a hamburger), and the person taking your order will say thank you for your order without a snicker. I find these situations interesting and compelling, which stokes my passion for the language.

Now I said that it is not as hard as some make it out to be, but that means it isn't complicated. It doesn't mean you don't have to study, or that you'll pick it up eventually just by living in Japan. It takes study. And lots of it. Kanji is a good example. One character can have one meaning but different readings depending on its context. 女 (woman) has a Japanese reading, onna, which is simply the application of the indigenous pronunciation of the concept to the written term imported from China. When paired with other kanji to represent concepts imported from China, it can be read differently, as in 女性 josei (female) and 女房 nyoubou (wife, lady),  The different pronunciations are simply a reflection of when these terms were imported to Japan, i.e. which Chinese Dynasty. The fact that there are different pronunciations is a cultural-historical phenomenon, and one simply needs to memorize the different words. And memorization is not complicated; it's just a matter of diligence. Some may find the idea of different pronunciations depending on context to be ridiculous, but it is no different in English. Take the string of roman letters: "ough".  If you place different consonants around it, you get a different pronunciation for "ough"--cough, dough, though, thought, through. I think Ricky Ricardo had a hell of a time with this in I Love Lucy. He just had to memorize the different pronunciations.

Finally, there is determination, which is in many ways a compbination of the first two. You simply can't give up. You have to be determined to learn this. And you have to understand that this is a lifelong love affair. I have been  studying Japanese for over 35 years, and I'm still studying. Am I fluent. I guess sorta, but I don't know what fluent really means. Japanese is simply too vast and too deep to master completely. Even the Japanese haven't mastered it. Come to think of it, I know a lot of Americans who have yet to master English. I'd bet you've met some, too.

There are strategies to implement that could ensure retention and mastery of the different aspects of Japanese learing, but that will be for another day, if there is any interest. Just make sure you bring your checkbook. J/K J/K J/K...

Query: So how many of you knew what a tanuki is?

Paul, David, Dennis, Steven, Kevin, Bill, Richard. These are nice All-American names. Indeed, these are the names of my classmates as I was growing up in LA in the 1960s at a Japanese missionary school where all the students had an ethnic make up of at least one-quarter Japanese. While illegal--and immoral--by today's standards, up until the 70s, restricting admission based on race was not an issue. In fact, we might have considered it affirmative and empowering. Back in the early 20th century. there was a strong resistance and hatred toward Japanese immigration. This sentiment reached its peak with Executive Order 9066 when all Japanese and their US born offsprings living on the West Coast were required to move inland or be incarcerated in detention camps. Faced with a society and government that showed little love for them, it was comforting for Japanese Americans to go to a school where they could study without fear of discrimination.

Still, by the 1950s and 60s, after WWII, these sentiments had subsided if only to a modest degree. Second generation Japanese Americans--replete with memories of government mandated incarceration--felt compelled to show their patriotism in any way they could. This, of course, is a major reason why most Japanese American baby boomers speak little to no Japanese. Is there a more obvious and plainly recognizable validation of one's alien affiliations than language? Japanese American's looked like the enemy--be it Japanese, Korean or even Vietnamese--so every other element of their existence leaned toward emphasizing their Americanism.

This even extended to names, which is why my friends had great All-American names. Some didn't even have Japanese middle names. Not that this is good or bad. I am simply setting up a story of my own name... which is, as I think about it into this third paragraph, rather ridiculous, because I have no intention of revealing my real name--even though many of you already know what it is. Please don't shout it out. I call myself Ray Kanzaki here, but the name is more classically European, a name that is very rare in the US. Indeed, it would be more closely associated with a name like Maximillian or Raymunde, than Bill or Paul.

Now some may say that Max or Ray is a fine name, and maybe even a cool one, but in the 1960s in a sea of classmates with names like John, David and Steven, a Maximillian or a Raymunde not only stood out, but would be the target of endless teasing. I used to lament my name. Interestingly, that is not even my first name. Unlike my classmates whose Japanese name, if they had one, was a middle name, my first name was Japanese: Taro 太郎, which is a typical name given to the first born son because it virtually means "first son". (Okay, okay, for you Japanophiles out there, I realize that Taro literally means the "rich/thick/large son", but in use it means the "first born son" because it is synonymous with the aspirations a parent places in a first born.) The bottom line is that the name is totally vanilla and lacks imagination.

Why did you give me that name? I asked my mother. And the answer was pretty straight forward. As an immigrant from Japan, my mother knew little of the ways of the US. In Japan, after you give birth to a baby, you have about one month to register its birth with the local public records office. So most parents look at there baby after its born, consider its gender and maybe its looks and "personality" to come up with a name that is then registered in what would be the Japanese version of a birth certificate. This is what was in my mother's mind as she was being wheelchaired out of LA's Japanese Hospital in Boyle Heights back in 1955. Imagine her shock and discombobulation when the nurse told her that she couldn't be released until they had a name for the birth certificate. In such a confused state, she was bound to make a fatal mistake.

And she did. She turned to my father for help.

"What'll we do? We need a first and middle name?"

"Okay, um, let's see..." My father was just as perplexed as mother. When I first heard this story, I imagined a nurse, arms crossed, drumming her fingers. "He's the first born son," he said as if no one had yet realized it. "Yeah, that's it. How about Taro. We'll just change the character for 郎 (ro) to 朗 (ro) to match his Godfather's name."

Mother was in no condition to protest, so they let the nurse know the first name they came up with, and she duly noted it as my first name.

And for that other name?

"I came up with the first one," father said relieved, "Why don't you come up with an English name."

"I don't know anything about American names," mother protested, and again she turned to father.

"Most of my friends are Japanese so I don't know any good names either. Hmmm..." He thought about it for a while, but soon turned to mother with that all-knowing grin of his. "Remember the priest who married us in Kyoto?"

"Father Raymunde?"

"Yes! I don't think I've ever heard anyone besides him with that name. Wouldn't that be a great name for our son? Taro Raymunde. Kinda rolls off your tongue, no?" father said in a voice that betrayed his confidence as a senryu teacher.

Mother wouldn't dream of arguing the rhythmical value of these two names, so she nodded to the nurse and she inserted the name of a priest as my middle name. My mother was finally free to go home.

Now, I've heard of parents thinking about the perfect name for their child, some agonizing for weeks if not months. But according to mother, the above episode took less than ten minutes--A whole eight or nine minutes to come up with a name that would torment me throughout elementary school. Still, I'm not complaining. These days, the name serves me very well. In a sea of colleagues with names like John, Peter and Richard, the name Raymunde stands out. But if you prefer, just call me Ray.

Query: Got a story about your name?

In the previous post, I had a little fun at the expense of an innocent passerby--I do not assign any ulterior motive to his actions. Well, in the interest of fairness and openness, I should reveal that I too have had my own embarrassing moments when I did not realize with whom I was speaking.

A few years ago, I wrote about bathing at onsen, Japanese hot springs, and SammyStorm left a comment about men in tatoos, which led to the following, a slightly edited excerpt of a post from April 2004.

SammyStorm: The first time I went to a sento, I saw a guy with tattoos all over his body, and you know what that means. But for some reason I wasn't really embarassed about being naked, but as you said, I couldn't get used to the really HOT water.

O-man:　Yeah, the water can be REALLY hot. But body tattoo, yeah, that's scary. Tattoos equal yakuza... But I was hoping for someone to make this exact comment... the perfect segue.

Around 1992, when I was working at a thinktank in Tokyo, our section went to an onsen (hot spring) for our annual summer retreat. I love Japanese companies. They really know how to relieve stress. Here, in the States, a retreat by a company usually involves seminars on how to make the company better. Well, at this retreat, all we did was drink, eat and drink more to get drunk. I'd like to say we debauched, but we were a rather saintly group...

On our way home, our director told us there was one more onsen he wanted to go to. It was further in the mountains and we had to backtrack a bit, but he insisted it was a great place... and who were we to go against our boss? So we went to this little hole-in-the-wall of an onsen. It wasn't dirty, but it was old and--for lack of a better word--rustic.

Well, as our boss had promised, it was a nice onsen. Hot, intimate and comfy. Back then, I wore glasses instead of contacts and in the onsen, they would fog up, so I usually left my glasses in my clothing basket and entered the bathing area with only a strategically positioned tenugui--the long cotton Japanese hand towel--and a significantly diminished visual acuity.

So I'm chatting with a colleague in the small bathing area when I smell cigarette smoke. Now I'm no prude, and at the time I too smoked as well. But there is a time and place for everything, so I was rather pissed that someone would be ruining my enjoyment of the onsen with tobacco. I squinted my eyes and look around and saw a skinny guy with a dark towel over his shoulder sitting at the edge of the bathing pool taking long deliberate drags on his cigarettes.

I decided that I should tell him nicely but firmly that there's a sign that says "No Smoking" and that he's screwing it up for everybody else.

So I get up, walk over and sit myself right next to him, dangling my feet in the hot water like him. I turn to him as nonchalantly as possible and was about to speak my mind when I noticed that it wasn't a towel hanging over his shoulder. In fact, it wasn't any kind of cloth at all. It was a tattoo. *Gulp*

おい、何だ "Yeah? Whaddya want?" he asked in an annoyed tone.

いい湯ですね "Nice bath, isn't it," I managed in a voice about an octive higher than usual.

I got up, walked back to my friend, and enjoyed the rest of my bath, relieved in the thought that I would go home with nothing injured but my pride.

I just read a post by California Gal about her son. She posted a photo of her son and asked if he looked like a girl. He's a cute looking kid but still looks like a boy to me. But then, maybe non-Asians can't readily see the gender difference in Asians? They need other cues like clothing, cosmetics, or voice. This reminded me of an embarrassed look I received a few months back.

It was February in Virginia. As usual, I was running late to school. I had just taken a shower, thrown on my clothes and gather my stuff for the day. The day was sunny and bright, but cuttingly cold with a brisk breeze, so I threw on my knee-length parka, wrapped a wool muffler around my neck and put on my sunglasses. I didn't have time to dry my shoulder length hair so instead of putting it in a pony tail and risk letting it get all smelly, I did as I usually do: I let it air dry.

The walk to the Metro is a short seven minutes, and with the wind blowing, my hair was drying rather nicely despite the cold. As I was about to enter the Metro station, a rather big burly black dude abruptly approached me, as if to ask me something.

When I stopped, he asked, "Hey, babe, you gotta light?"

Okay, I'm not that skinny, but I guess a long puffy parka can seem to hide a girlish figure. My sunglasses perhaps would disguise the fact that I was not wearing make-up. Still... Babe? *sigh* So with my long hair flowing in the breeze, I responded:

His eyes grew large, and all he could do was sputter, "uh, oh, uh, okay," and he walked away, face looking rather flushed. Dude, I thought, I swear I didn't mean to embarrass you.

The Surgery

After the preliminary exams checking my fitness for the procedure, I was set to have surgery. You can understand how nervous I was. Today, Lasik eye surgery is ubiquitous and seemingly mundane, but back in 1993 I found nothing mundane about a laser that would cut a thin layer off the surface of my cornea. Japan is notorious for babying its patients. In the US, women who give birth to a child without any complications are regularly sent home on the very same day, but in Japan, a one week stay is not unusual. So I was shocked to learn that mine was an outpatient procedure--Check in, then check out after the operation if there were no complications. I guess free surgery meant free surgery.

I was led into the operation room, but it looked more like an empty conference room. It was clean but did not comfort me with the sense of sterility or competence that an actual operating room would convey. There was no heart monitor. No IV stands ready for action. None of the trappings of ER or Chicago Hope or even Dr. Kildaire. Only an operating table, a tray with utensils, three or four computer screens and a humongous laser machine with overhead lighting. Besides the doctor and a nurse, there were three suits monitoring the computers--were they government people monitoring the operation? Representatives of the laser machine company, to make sure the laser operated properly? When I think about it now, I should have asked more aggressively who everyone in the room was. Instead, I just lied down on the table as instructed, like any good guinea pig would. While the nurse put a patch over my left eye, the doctor forced open the eyelids of my right eye to place a ring directly onto it to prevent my eyelids from closing should I get the urge to blink during surgery. He then put some eye drops in my eye to desensitize it. Local anesthesia? I asked. Yes, it should be more than enough.

How exciting, I moaned beneath my breath.

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Okay, in the interest of honesty, I must confess. I chickened out. I didn't go to the National Mall. The weather.com forecast and my past experiences told me to stay home and watch TV. Yes, M expressed her, um... disappointment. and I kept a nervous eye on the dry sidewalk all afternoon. *gulp*

Thankfully, around 5:30 PM, a half hour before the scheduled concert, it began to rain steadily. It didn't pour down like a storm, and there were no bursts of thunder as forecast, but the rain was steady enough for about an hour that I am sure we would have had a very uncomfortable time on the Mall. Now, if I was a young whipper snapper, like most of you--and young means anyone under 42--then the rain would have meant little. But a fifty-something and bad weather are not a good match.

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Today is the 232nd year of our nation, the 232nd year since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I kinda pre-celebrated by watching the HBO special John Adams. I don't get HBO but it went to DVD a couple of weeks ago and I devoured all seven hour long episodes in a few days. I thought it was very good, although I have to admit to being a bit of a fan of historical movies, and I mean historical. I'm not much for new history, like 9/11. That isn't history to me; it's recent news.

In any event, I found John Adams quite entertaining and I was rather surprised to see Paul Giamatti actually pull it off. I have to admit I was skeptical. My image of Giamatti is closer to his character in American Splendor and Sideways. Although perhaps I shouldn't have sold him so short after his performance in Cinderella Man, although it was a supporting role. So if you are into US history and you enjoy watching the History Channel, then perhaps you will like this one too.

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I have this incurable habit of going off on a tangent. Many of my students know this and seem to gleefully lead me astray in class with unrelated questions to minimize actual study time. I want to say that I realize what they're doing but allow them to do so anyway as way to give them an academic break and relieve the day-in and day-out stress of college life just a bit. Unfortunately, the reality is that I just like to talk and simply lose track of my thoughts. My inability to stay on topic is apparent here as well.

Now where was I? Oh yeah, my cornea....

Previously...

"Perhaps I had been fooling myself all along. I mean, I had come to
terms with my lack of depth perception, but the adjustments in the
brain more than made up for the visual acuity I needed to function in
everyday life. I felt that I was able to enjoy anything and everything
life had to offer. I was wrong. But, hey!--and maybe I'm just trying to
rationalize my situation--3D is not the end all of life. It just seemed
like it would be a little more fun.Unfortunately, it turned out that my vision affected more than my enjoyment of 3D effects. So I had an operation."

Back in 1993, as I was working on my dissertation, I would get severe headaches. My eyes
would tire easily and I came to realize that I was actually reading
texts with only my left eye. Indeed, following the cursor on a computer while editing large portions of texts with only one eye was neither an easy nor a comfortable task.
Doctors told me the only way to fix the problem was to get a cornea
transplant. I did not like the idea of going under the knife, but the headaches were becoming intolerable so I was willing to confront the issue with an open mind. But of course, nothing is easy. There was a waiting list, and for me a rather long one at that. Since I had one
functioning eye, I would perpetually be pushed back--those who could
not see through either cornea due to injury, age or illness were always
bumped up to the front of the line. I was told the wait would be about three years.

However, one doctor offered another
solution--laser surgery. The procedure was called excimer laser surgery, and was being carried out on an experimental basis under the auspices of Japan's Ministry of Health. They were looking for appropriate candidates for trial laser surgeries and I was a good guinea pig since I only needed one eye done--in other words, I guess, if they screwed up the surgery I'd still be able to function. The good news was that the trials had been going on for about a year without any notable issues, and the procedure itself would be cost free. I'd only pay for basic hospital visit co-payments and post-op pharmaceuticals. This sounded like a plan to me, so I agreed and I was sent to Juntendo University Hospital in Tokyo. 

I initially went through a battery of tests: they gave me a physical exam as well as visual tests to determine the health of my eye. I have to admit I found the experience very  interesting. Since the alphabet is not the standard writing form in Japan, the eye chart is a bit different as you might imagine. There are a variety of charts in Japan, some using the Japanese syllabary, others using a combination of numbers and alphabet. But I was particularly stumped by the broken circle chart. You tell the tester where the break is: left, right, top, bottom left, top right, etc. When vision is blurred, it is virtually impossible to tell where the break in the circle is.

Another thing about the Japanese medical system is the waiting. At a local clinic in Japan, there is no such thing as an appointment. You go in, hand your health insurance card to the receptionist and wait... If you're lucky, you'll get seen within half an hour. If not, then you wait... and wait... and wait. Fortunately, at a major university hospital, they actually have appointments. I was skeptical on my first visit to meet the doctor who would perform the surgery, but after handing my insurance card to the receptionist, they called my name in about five minutes. そうこなくちゃ！ Now this is what I'm talkin' about, I thought. They instructed me to go to the next room where... there were more people waiting. Yikes! I sat myself down, glad I had brought a manga just in case. In about 40 minutes--I was almost finished with the manga--they called my name. Whew! I was led into a dim hallway that had cushioned benches lining one side and doorways to small examination rooms lining the other. And yes, there were more patients sitting on the benches waiting! Aargh! I finally figured out the strategy. By moving you from room to room, they create the illusion of movement, of getting closer to your appointment. I finished the manga and decided that next time I should bring a novel. I closed my eyes to rest, maybe even to doze off. Kanzaki-san, Please step in to see Dr. Murakami. It had taken almost an hour and a half to see the doctor. I had many subsequent visits to this hospital, but I learned that this first visit was relatively quick. I can still recall having a 1:30 appointment and after exams and waiting--again--for prescriptions dispensed by the doctor, I'd be lucky to leave by 4 o'clock. The shortest wait was always at the cashiers window. That will be 1500 yen please. I wonder why...

To be cont'd. Next post will definitely be the last.

I took the "how much do you now about dragon ball z and dragon ball gt" quiz and I totally  bombed it. I got 42% out of 100. Of course, I didn't review the material before taking the quiz, but I didn't think I had to. Let this be a lesson to all my students: Always review, regardless of how much you think you know.

Anyway, Dragon Ball was one of my favorite manga. It started to drag on a bit towards the end. And personally, I'm not sure how necessary Dragon Ball GT was. But Dragon Ball up to Majin Bu was fun, and I always looked forward to the next issue. I first picked up a copy of the book back in the summer of 1986. As many of you probably know, Japanese comic books are usually a compilation of the comic that appears in the weekly magazines, like Jump or Magazine. Each weekly carries dozens of titles, each episode ranging anywhere from 12 to 24 pages in length, just long enough for a middle school student to read from one trains station to the next. After about two or three months, when there are enough pages, the publisher compiles them into book form. I don't read every title in any given weekly, so I appreciate the book form. the first title I ever started to collect was Hokuto no ken (Fist of the north star), a great manga if ever there was one. In fact I still have the complete set and I still read them once every 7 or 8 years.

But I digress....

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