I think I will be pretty cold this winter. I came to Japan with only a thin Puma jacket so I have been searching for a winter jacket recently. Unfortunately, big, shiny poofy jackets with fur-lined collars seem to be in fashion at the moment and that doesn't really scream Bouche. Keeping with Japan's "Follow the herd no matter what" mentality, stores have all but banned the sale of any jackets other than big, poofy, shiny ones so I think I'm shit out of luck if I want to stay fashionable/keep warm for the next few months. Maybe I'll just wear a towel over my current jacket.
My work here in Japan is so easy I couldn't do it for more than a year, I would feel too guilty. Last month, I taught 31 classes, one class being 1 hour long. Adding office days and prep time, I worked a total of 62 hours in November. The work itself is very simple and very ineffective. These kids don't learn anything. They learn words like "hexagon", "octagon", and "sweet potato". We did Halloween curriculum in October and November and apparently the students' Japanese teacher had told them my class was going to be a "Halloween Party". No one informed me of this. So they were all bright-eyed and excited and came in asking if we were going to play Halloween games and if I was going to tell them a ghost story. I said, "Ha! Ghost story. Yeah, Ill tell you a ghost story. It's about a hexagon. Now sit down and try not to pee yourselves for the next hour." So we played the same games we always do, but I said "Boo" more often.
There are some very cute kids in my classes and some very ugly ones. Some of them are just ugly but are at least clean and sometimes funny, but some of them are disgusting. I avoid these kids as much as possible. They come in with dried snot on their faces and dirt on their legs and I spend the energy I would have spent teaching them English on avoiding anything they have touched. By the end of my contract, I hope to notice a direct correlation between how cute a kid is, and how much English they know. My theory is, if you are as irreparably ugly as some of these kids are, you probably won’t be going far in life anyways, so learning English shouldn't be a big concern to you. Most of the kids are fairly cute and there aren't that many "irreparables" as I call them, so I figure I'm doing a good job overall.
My company is very much more concerned with making money than anything else so they will often throw kids of very different levels in the same class, just to make it easier on the parents. This happens a lot with siblings. So I will have a class with 5, 7, and 9 year olds for example. One class was mostly 4 and 5 year olds until two younger siblings were thrust upon me, both having just turned 2 years old. These kids don’t speak Japanese well, never mind English. Fortunately, they don't cry and are quite funny. All I do is make funny sounds and they giggle and roll around for an hour. Apparently, 2 year olds don’t go to the bathroom by themselves so well though. One girl didn't sit far enough back on the toilet and peed all over the floor, then stood in the pee, then took off her pants and dropped them in the pee. So she didn't do a great job overall. We have spare underwear in the classrooms but not spare pants so I didn’t really know what to do and she was pleading with me to fix it. So I just shoved a bunch of toilet paper down her pants, cranked the heat, made some funny noises and got her to run around for awhile, hoping it would dry enough for her to not notice anymore. It worked quite well for the most part.
There are a lot of door-to-door salesmen here in Japan and they can be quite fun. I open the door and they take a step back and get a little look of surprise on their face. Then they smile and think for second about whether or not it’s worth trying to sell whatever they have to me. Some just say sorry and try the next door, but most make a pretty determined effort. Whenever I don’t feel like having a painful conversation with them, I just answer the door with my shirt off. This is very un-Japanese and freaks most of them out into saying sorry and trying the next door. Or, I mix some incorrect Japanese with some really complex sentences I have memorized, which can be very fun. An example.
Salesman: (Look of surprise) Oh! Good morning.
Bouche: I’m fine, thank you.
S: (Chuckles) Um. Do you need a warmer blanket? It's getting colder now, and I have some great blankets for really cheap.
B: (Blank stare)
S: Um, ok. I have blankets. Very good!
B: Ah, blankets! Hmmm, I have a good blanket but my friend in Hiroshima needs one and it would make a good Christmas present, wouldn't it?
S: Ah! You speak very good Japanese! Ok, I have a variety of styles and colours. Here, take a look.
B: (Smiles) I don’t understand.
S: Oh. Look at this. (Points at picture)
B: Ah. Price when pillow is it?
S: What?
B: Sorry, how long pillow price?
S: (Confused) No, they are blankets. Um....
B: What are they made from? And can I get one shipped to my friend?
S: Uh, yes you can. They are made from goose down, very good quality.
B: (Blank stare, shrugs shoulders)
S: (Gives me a weird look) Ok to send to friend. Good blanket!
B: I'm sorry, I don't speak Japanese.
S: (A little frustrated) Would you like to buy one?
B: Yes, I'm an English teacher.
S: Ok, um. Thank you for your time, have a good day.
B: Thanks, you should try the people on the 4th floor, they are very nice and are always home.
S: Wha-
(I close the door)
Aside from that not much to report from Japan. No one has looked at me yet and I am developing a hatred for my neighbours for never being visible. I’m going to Nagano, Tokyo and Yokohama for Christmas which should be fun.Anyways, have a good Festivus and New Years.
Bouche
P.S. I get some half-white, half-Japanese kids, or "mudbloods" as I imagine the Japanese call them, in my classes sometimes, which is really weird because they look white but speak Japanese. It freaks me out.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Drunk Businessmen and Aggressive 14 year old Girls.
Hello. Well, It's pretty cold here now. I don't think it would seem that cold if the houses here weren't made from chopsticks and origami paper. Honestly, it’s colder in my apartment than outside. We did have 2 weeks of good weather between t-shirt drenching heat and now so I guess I can't complain. Apparently there's 2 more decent weeks in the spring. Yay. Sorry,
complaining about the weather is dumb.
Still not getting any attention from anyone. I feel like I should maybe focus on getting negative attention, like some of my students. If I started slapping people or pulling people's hair I bet they'd have to acknowledge me. Other foreigners say hi to me sometimes but it's annoying. They must assume that just because we're not from Japan we have some personal connection. One guy walked by me and just pointed at me and nodded. I blanked stared him pretty good. I did meet another foreigner in my town, which was a surprise to say the least. She is living with some Japanese guy and seems pretty weird. When her and her boyfriend found out I lived in Habikino too, she turned to him and said, "See, there you go," and nudged him encouragingly towards me while he gazed at me with dreamy eyes. I don’t know what they had in mind but they didn’t get my phone number.
I know that all Japanese women don't exactly develop in the following pattern, but from what I've noticed in Osaka, a lot of them do.
0-13 yr olds - They cry. A lot.
13-16 yr olds - These girls make up the most courageous demographic group
in Japanese society. They are the only ones who will talk to me sober. They
usually don’t get past "hello" or sometimes "how old are you" without
exploding into fits of giggling, but at least they try.
17-25 yr olds - For these girls, the only main focus in life is applying
and reapplying makeup. Every spare minute they are checking themselves in
mirrors and fixing their hair. They enjoy shopping and other shopping
related activities and lose any muscle mass they accidentally built up during
childhood.
25-50 yr olds - Once you're around 30 in Japan, you give up on getting
married and having kids. 30 is way too old apparently. So, in this age
group, you have young mothers with Louis Vuitton bags who think that their
child's latest attempt to stab another child is cute, and women in their 30s
who work a lot and practice their English so they can marry a foreigner who
doesn't mind how old they are because back home they watched Battlestar
Gallactica and got beat up a lot in high school.
50-death - Possibly the most physically inept people on the planet. Their
day must entirely consist of going to the grocery store because it takes
them a fucking hour to choose which noodles to buy. They shuffle along,
stopping frequently and without cause so that I have to fall over backwards
not to run into them. I’ve never wanted to hurt old people more.
So that's pretty much Japanese women. Some don’t follow this life plan
but I think they are shunned. Oh, aside from 14-year-old girls, drunk
businessmen will also talk to me. Both conversations are usually
uncomfortable, but for very different reasons. I can usually see which drunk
guys are going to talk to me. They stagger in my direction, see me, and do a
double take. Then they sort of smile in a kind of smug/creepy way and stare
off in the distance for a few seconds as they remember a phrase from their
last English lesson. They then blurt out something like, "Hello, how are
you? Ok to talk to you?" The conversation usually covers where I'm from, if
I can eat Japanese food, where I'm from again, something unintelligible, how
I like Japanese women (he tells me this, I just listen), and we'll finish on
where I'm from again. There is a lot of handshaking and heavy breathing
involved. My friend Lisa and I had a fun one on a train in Nagoya. Keep in
mind this is at 10am on a Sunday morning and this guy has a drink in his
hand.
Drunk guy: (Sees us, comes over and sits down) Hello.
Bouche: Hello.
Lisa: Hello.
DG: "Where are you from?"
B: "Canada. We don't speak much Japanese."
DG: Ah. (Turns to Lisa, looks at her chest) "Where are you going?"
L: "I dont understand"
DG: (Turns to me) "How do you say 'sister' in English?"
B: Sister.
DG: (Turns back to Lisa) Sister.
L: What?
DG: Sister.
L: I don't have a sister. No sister.
DG: (Looks at me like Lisa is crazy) "How do you say 'when' in English?"
B: When.
DG: (Stares at Lisa's breasts) When. Sister.
L: What?
DG: "How do you say 'what' in English?"
B: What.
DG: Whatto.
L: "I don't understand."
DG: (Getting a little agitated) Sister! Whatto! When!
(The train gets to our stop, we get off)
DG: (Desperately) Whatto sister! When!
(As we are walking up the stairs, he gets off the train at the last second
and frantically pleads with Lisa)
DG: Whatto! Whatto! Sister!
(We run away)
So I've been sort of busy lately. I have a quasi-Japanese tutor whose
Dad is Yakuza and whose Mom is a tattoo artist. They invited me to their
blowfish party (kinda like a fondue party, but with poisonous fish). My
tutor is around half my size but figured she could drink more than me so we
got shitfaced on sake. She did well actually. I didn't die and the fish was
really good so I was happy. 2 weeks ago I went to Kobe with Sami and Alex
and ate at this Brazilian restaurant that was all you can eat meat. The
waiters were constantly coming around with giant skewers of meat and sliced
it right onto your plate. I ate so much I though I was going to pass out.
Oh, I bought a bike last week and I found a Subway that’s only a 20 minute
bike ride from my house. It's in the middle of nowhere, really random. My
bike, by the way, has a basket and a bell but I'm still cool because all the
bikes here have baskets and bells. So shut up. Even the police ride bikes
with baskets. Yeah that’s pretty much it. I’m going to put some pictures up
soonish.
Bouche
P.S. Some 14 yr old girls called me 'beautiful' the other day, finally
confirming what I've suspected for so long.
P.P.S. We get a new teacher in our area this month. Apparently he's a
football player from LA. Should be interesting.
complaining about the weather is dumb.
Still not getting any attention from anyone. I feel like I should maybe focus on getting negative attention, like some of my students. If I started slapping people or pulling people's hair I bet they'd have to acknowledge me. Other foreigners say hi to me sometimes but it's annoying. They must assume that just because we're not from Japan we have some personal connection. One guy walked by me and just pointed at me and nodded. I blanked stared him pretty good. I did meet another foreigner in my town, which was a surprise to say the least. She is living with some Japanese guy and seems pretty weird. When her and her boyfriend found out I lived in Habikino too, she turned to him and said, "See, there you go," and nudged him encouragingly towards me while he gazed at me with dreamy eyes. I don’t know what they had in mind but they didn’t get my phone number.
I know that all Japanese women don't exactly develop in the following pattern, but from what I've noticed in Osaka, a lot of them do.
0-13 yr olds - They cry. A lot.
13-16 yr olds - These girls make up the most courageous demographic group
in Japanese society. They are the only ones who will talk to me sober. They
usually don’t get past "hello" or sometimes "how old are you" without
exploding into fits of giggling, but at least they try.
17-25 yr olds - For these girls, the only main focus in life is applying
and reapplying makeup. Every spare minute they are checking themselves in
mirrors and fixing their hair. They enjoy shopping and other shopping
related activities and lose any muscle mass they accidentally built up during
childhood.
25-50 yr olds - Once you're around 30 in Japan, you give up on getting
married and having kids. 30 is way too old apparently. So, in this age
group, you have young mothers with Louis Vuitton bags who think that their
child's latest attempt to stab another child is cute, and women in their 30s
who work a lot and practice their English so they can marry a foreigner who
doesn't mind how old they are because back home they watched Battlestar
Gallactica and got beat up a lot in high school.
50-death - Possibly the most physically inept people on the planet. Their
day must entirely consist of going to the grocery store because it takes
them a fucking hour to choose which noodles to buy. They shuffle along,
stopping frequently and without cause so that I have to fall over backwards
not to run into them. I’ve never wanted to hurt old people more.
So that's pretty much Japanese women. Some don’t follow this life plan
but I think they are shunned. Oh, aside from 14-year-old girls, drunk
businessmen will also talk to me. Both conversations are usually
uncomfortable, but for very different reasons. I can usually see which drunk
guys are going to talk to me. They stagger in my direction, see me, and do a
double take. Then they sort of smile in a kind of smug/creepy way and stare
off in the distance for a few seconds as they remember a phrase from their
last English lesson. They then blurt out something like, "Hello, how are
you? Ok to talk to you?" The conversation usually covers where I'm from, if
I can eat Japanese food, where I'm from again, something unintelligible, how
I like Japanese women (he tells me this, I just listen), and we'll finish on
where I'm from again. There is a lot of handshaking and heavy breathing
involved. My friend Lisa and I had a fun one on a train in Nagoya. Keep in
mind this is at 10am on a Sunday morning and this guy has a drink in his
hand.
Drunk guy: (Sees us, comes over and sits down) Hello.
Bouche: Hello.
Lisa: Hello.
DG: "Where are you from?"
B: "Canada. We don't speak much Japanese."
DG: Ah. (Turns to Lisa, looks at her chest) "Where are you going?"
L: "I dont understand"
DG: (Turns to me) "How do you say 'sister' in English?"
B: Sister.
DG: (Turns back to Lisa) Sister.
L: What?
DG: Sister.
L: I don't have a sister. No sister.
DG: (Looks at me like Lisa is crazy) "How do you say 'when' in English?"
B: When.
DG: (Stares at Lisa's breasts) When. Sister.
L: What?
DG: "How do you say 'what' in English?"
B: What.
DG: Whatto.
L: "I don't understand."
DG: (Getting a little agitated) Sister! Whatto! When!
(The train gets to our stop, we get off)
DG: (Desperately) Whatto sister! When!
(As we are walking up the stairs, he gets off the train at the last second
and frantically pleads with Lisa)
DG: Whatto! Whatto! Sister!
(We run away)
So I've been sort of busy lately. I have a quasi-Japanese tutor whose
Dad is Yakuza and whose Mom is a tattoo artist. They invited me to their
blowfish party (kinda like a fondue party, but with poisonous fish). My
tutor is around half my size but figured she could drink more than me so we
got shitfaced on sake. She did well actually. I didn't die and the fish was
really good so I was happy. 2 weeks ago I went to Kobe with Sami and Alex
and ate at this Brazilian restaurant that was all you can eat meat. The
waiters were constantly coming around with giant skewers of meat and sliced
it right onto your plate. I ate so much I though I was going to pass out.
Oh, I bought a bike last week and I found a Subway that’s only a 20 minute
bike ride from my house. It's in the middle of nowhere, really random. My
bike, by the way, has a basket and a bell but I'm still cool because all the
bikes here have baskets and bells. So shut up. Even the police ride bikes
with baskets. Yeah that’s pretty much it. I’m going to put some pictures up
soonish.
Bouche
P.S. Some 14 yr old girls called me 'beautiful' the other day, finally
confirming what I've suspected for so long.
P.P.S. We get a new teacher in our area this month. Apparently he's a
football player from LA. Should be interesting.
Its Thanksgiving Apparently.
Well, there's no juicy turkey, mountain of mashed potatoes, or thick, delicious gravy here. There's no vomit-inducing, digestion system testing, drunken, obnoxious, potentially violent meals of any kind for old Bouche tonight. Just me and Hugs, having a pleasant conversation about weird cartoon signs we saw today over a nice meal of chicken and rice. Yep, the Japanese don't really do Christmas so you can sure as fuck forget about Thanksgiving.
My kids haven't been too bad this month. Not that funny either though. I did have a funny pee incident in one of my classes. It was actually the same class that had the urine fiesta last time, same girl too. She opened the bathroom door and gestured for me to come take a look. This little 4 year old girl had managed to piss all over the seat, floor, and back of the toilet, and wanted me to clean it up. I was so dumbfounded how a little girl had managed to miss the toilet by so much that I wasn't even mad. She hadn’t impressed me enough to wipe it up for her however, so she only got a handful of toilet paper and an encouraging wink from me for help. There is one really cute thing a lot of the younger kids do though, I've discovered. There is a children's form of the title "San" (which means Mr. or Mrs., for those of you who have managed not to know this. By "those of you" I mean my sister). It's "Chan", so they will sometimes call each other, or themselves, ~ chan. Its very funny hearing them refer to other kids as, for example, "Ms.Yuka", when Ms.Yuka is currently eating a crayon.
I did a little traveling this month, making it down to Hiroshima for a 3-day weekend. Hiroshima is really nice but the museums are pretty depressing. For some reason, they are hung up on the fact that thousands of them were burned to death with a giant bomb, just so that the commies wouldn't have more influence in post-war Japan. Anyways, I kept reminding my friend Jessie that she lived in a very dangerous city, being as way more people have been killed by atomic bombs in Hiroshima than any other city and that it has the highest rate of mass destruction bombing in the world. Way more than say, Osaka or Vancouver. But she didn’t appreciate my logic. This weekend did, however, make me realize how crappy my apartment and neighbourhood are. Jessie's place is huge (comparatively) and she lives in a really nice town with libraries and universities and such. I live in the Hamilton of Japan. I never really had anything to compare my area to until I saw her place and its kind of a piss off. She is nowhere near a urology clinic though, so she’s shit out of luck if she gets the clap, sucker.
Ok that’s about it. I'm posting pics online soon I think. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving.
Bouche
P.S. There were no funny neighbour stories this time because I haven't seen one of my neighbours since the last time I wrote. There are 42 apartments in my building (I counted), and I didn't see anyone in 3 weeks. Stunning.
My kids haven't been too bad this month. Not that funny either though. I did have a funny pee incident in one of my classes. It was actually the same class that had the urine fiesta last time, same girl too. She opened the bathroom door and gestured for me to come take a look. This little 4 year old girl had managed to piss all over the seat, floor, and back of the toilet, and wanted me to clean it up. I was so dumbfounded how a little girl had managed to miss the toilet by so much that I wasn't even mad. She hadn’t impressed me enough to wipe it up for her however, so she only got a handful of toilet paper and an encouraging wink from me for help. There is one really cute thing a lot of the younger kids do though, I've discovered. There is a children's form of the title "San" (which means Mr. or Mrs., for those of you who have managed not to know this. By "those of you" I mean my sister). It's "Chan", so they will sometimes call each other, or themselves, ~ chan. Its very funny hearing them refer to other kids as, for example, "Ms.Yuka", when Ms.Yuka is currently eating a crayon.
I did a little traveling this month, making it down to Hiroshima for a 3-day weekend. Hiroshima is really nice but the museums are pretty depressing. For some reason, they are hung up on the fact that thousands of them were burned to death with a giant bomb, just so that the commies wouldn't have more influence in post-war Japan. Anyways, I kept reminding my friend Jessie that she lived in a very dangerous city, being as way more people have been killed by atomic bombs in Hiroshima than any other city and that it has the highest rate of mass destruction bombing in the world. Way more than say, Osaka or Vancouver. But she didn’t appreciate my logic. This weekend did, however, make me realize how crappy my apartment and neighbourhood are. Jessie's place is huge (comparatively) and she lives in a really nice town with libraries and universities and such. I live in the Hamilton of Japan. I never really had anything to compare my area to until I saw her place and its kind of a piss off. She is nowhere near a urology clinic though, so she’s shit out of luck if she gets the clap, sucker.
Ok that’s about it. I'm posting pics online soon I think. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving.
Bouche
P.S. There were no funny neighbour stories this time because I haven't seen one of my neighbours since the last time I wrote. There are 42 apartments in my building (I counted), and I didn't see anyone in 3 weeks. Stunning.
Beer and Cigarettes for Everybody.
Its getting a little bit cooler here, which is really nice as I am getting a little sick of peeling off my t-shirt everytime I get home. The kids sure aren’t getting any more intelligent though. I know learning another language is tough, and 5 year old kids should probably be given some slack, but come on. At the beginning of every single class, we do this thing called "greeting questions". No matter how old the kids are, they hear these questions once a week when they come to class. Some of these kids have been doing this for a couple years now so you'd figure they might get some of them down. Not a chance. "How old are you?", "What sport do you like?", "What's the weather like?". "What do you like to eat?", and so on. There's only like 6 questions. Without fail, everytime I ask them a question (and I use gestures, draw pictures, everything), they just look at me like I've asked them to recite a passage from the Koran. I’m trying to instill in them how dumb they actually are so over time they will develop some kind of personality disorder. They aren’t very tough either for the most part. Crying seems to be an everyday thing for a lot of them. Some examples of crying kids I’ve had:
Yuka - Was doing fine colouring in her book and, out of nowhere, started bawling. Reason= I stepped on her eraser.
Kodai - Went into a fit of crying which included tears, snot, etc in the middle of attendance. Reason= He couldnt get his clip-on nametag on. I put it on for him and he was immediately fine.
Asuka - Threw her pencil down and stormed off to the other side of the room where she bawled for about 10 minutes, refusing to look at anyone. Reason= Some other kid used her pencil sharpener by mistake.
Mei - Had an absolute fit for 20 minutes. Included flailing, spitting, snot, choking, screaming and kicking, and a little vomit. Got so bad I called my supervisor to see if I should call an ambulance. Reason= I had put her attendance book in another kid's bag.
So not exactly brave little kamikaze pilots here in Habikino city. The little kids can be funny sometimes though. One class, about half the kids decided that they needed to go to the bathroom. So, instead of taking turns like regular people, they all tried to go at once, in a big pee party. Four boys peeing in the same toilet at the same time. Piss everywhere. I had to hold a girl back because she wanted to go too. She didn’t comprehend how bad it would have been for her if she tried to go at the same time as the boys. Afterwards, Id say around 20% of the kids came back to the lesson with underwear on, so making sure everyone was fully dressed took up the remainder of class.
The social scene here hasn't picked up too much but its ok. I’m still in a fierce battle with the young people in my apartment building. I want to be friends, they just want me to go back to Canada it would seem. I was stretching in the hallway after a run one day (which, I admit, probably isn’t the prettiest sight), when one of the doors opened and a small Japanese girl, about my age, started to walk out, keys in hand. She saw me, her eyes went wide, and she quickly went back inside and closed the door. Now, she was obviously on her way to work or school, so I waited in the hallway near my door to see how long she would wait before coming out. I waited there an hour and she never came out. She figured that whatever she had to do that day, be it work, school, whatever, was not worth risking going near the big white guy.
I had some guy in the bookstore come up to me though. He wanted me to proofread his essay, but Ill take what I can get. His essay was on the physical punishment of children and he was all for it apparently. He thought that, "the master teacher when speaking the sermon must enforce the respect either in low or tide." Now, I don’t know what that means but he had some other good points. He wrote, and I almost burst out laughing when I read this, that "love punches" were sometimes needed to correct children and that the children benefited from such "love punches". He concluded with, "Love punches will make the childrens take one's fist seriously."
I mostly hang out with the other teachers from my company and they're alright. There's Sami and Alex, a couple from Australia who are pretty cool Then there's Jessica, an ultra-religious Korean-Australian and finally, there's Paul. Paul is a douchebag who has been in Japan for 5 years and thinks he knows just about all there is about Japanese people and culture. He is also one of those people who, once they begin a story, will finish the story no matter what you have to say. An example:
Paul: So, where are you from?
Bouche: Canada.
P: Ah, I was just there last summer.
B: Oh cool. Whereabouts?
P: I went to Vancouver mostly, really nice place.
B: Oh, that’s where-
P: Yeah so I went to this place, um, North Vancouver, it was called.
B: Yeah I grew up-
P: Really nice area. There's this little park area, don’t know if you know it, its called Lynn Canyon.
B: Yeah, its right by-
P: (Getting a little irritated) ANYWAYS, kind of off the beaten track, you probably don’t know about it, but you can go cliff jumping, and swimming, and there’s people just smoking weed right there on the rocks sometimes.
B: Did you go on the suspen-
P: OH! And there's this cool bridge, kinda scary though. I don’t know why you didn’t hang out there with your friends, such a cool place. I have a nose for these types of places though, I just seem to find the secret areas.
B: I hate you.
I saw my first fight here in Japan the other day. The Japanese are pretty reserved so actual fighting is pretty rare. Couple drunk guys were going at it in the subway station (there's quite a few drunks on the trains, the Japanese have an embarrassing tolerance for alcohol). Let's just say it wasn’t the impressive, acrobatic ninja fight I was expecting, more of an awkward bout of spitting and hair pulling. The number of drunks on the trains is partly due to the fact that beer and cigarettes are sold in vending machines here. The only thing preventing 12 year olds from drinking and smoking to their hearts content is a small sign on the machine reminding them that you have to be 20 to use it. I have tried unsuccessfully to impress upon Japanese people how quickly Canadian society would collapse into chaos with roaming gangs of drunk, cancer-ridden pre-teens if this was tried in Canada. They don’t get it though.
So yeah that’s pretty much it. I’m going to Hiroshima this weekend to meet up with my training friends so that should be fun. If anyone has Skype let me know cause I just downloaded it. Ok, see ya.
Bouche
P.S. Oh, update on the pedophile front. Apparently, in an effort to get their children molested, the Japanese don’t allow any children past Grade 1 to walk to school with a parent. They are not allowed. They have to walk by themselves. So there are little groups of plump, slow-moving school children walking to school everyday, the locations of which are well advertised. I can only assume Japanese people hate their children.
Yuka - Was doing fine colouring in her book and, out of nowhere, started bawling. Reason= I stepped on her eraser.
Kodai - Went into a fit of crying which included tears, snot, etc in the middle of attendance. Reason= He couldnt get his clip-on nametag on. I put it on for him and he was immediately fine.
Asuka - Threw her pencil down and stormed off to the other side of the room where she bawled for about 10 minutes, refusing to look at anyone. Reason= Some other kid used her pencil sharpener by mistake.
Mei - Had an absolute fit for 20 minutes. Included flailing, spitting, snot, choking, screaming and kicking, and a little vomit. Got so bad I called my supervisor to see if I should call an ambulance. Reason= I had put her attendance book in another kid's bag.
So not exactly brave little kamikaze pilots here in Habikino city. The little kids can be funny sometimes though. One class, about half the kids decided that they needed to go to the bathroom. So, instead of taking turns like regular people, they all tried to go at once, in a big pee party. Four boys peeing in the same toilet at the same time. Piss everywhere. I had to hold a girl back because she wanted to go too. She didn’t comprehend how bad it would have been for her if she tried to go at the same time as the boys. Afterwards, Id say around 20% of the kids came back to the lesson with underwear on, so making sure everyone was fully dressed took up the remainder of class.
The social scene here hasn't picked up too much but its ok. I’m still in a fierce battle with the young people in my apartment building. I want to be friends, they just want me to go back to Canada it would seem. I was stretching in the hallway after a run one day (which, I admit, probably isn’t the prettiest sight), when one of the doors opened and a small Japanese girl, about my age, started to walk out, keys in hand. She saw me, her eyes went wide, and she quickly went back inside and closed the door. Now, she was obviously on her way to work or school, so I waited in the hallway near my door to see how long she would wait before coming out. I waited there an hour and she never came out. She figured that whatever she had to do that day, be it work, school, whatever, was not worth risking going near the big white guy.
I had some guy in the bookstore come up to me though. He wanted me to proofread his essay, but Ill take what I can get. His essay was on the physical punishment of children and he was all for it apparently. He thought that, "the master teacher when speaking the sermon must enforce the respect either in low or tide." Now, I don’t know what that means but he had some other good points. He wrote, and I almost burst out laughing when I read this, that "love punches" were sometimes needed to correct children and that the children benefited from such "love punches". He concluded with, "Love punches will make the childrens take one's fist seriously."
I mostly hang out with the other teachers from my company and they're alright. There's Sami and Alex, a couple from Australia who are pretty cool Then there's Jessica, an ultra-religious Korean-Australian and finally, there's Paul. Paul is a douchebag who has been in Japan for 5 years and thinks he knows just about all there is about Japanese people and culture. He is also one of those people who, once they begin a story, will finish the story no matter what you have to say. An example:
Paul: So, where are you from?
Bouche: Canada.
P: Ah, I was just there last summer.
B: Oh cool. Whereabouts?
P: I went to Vancouver mostly, really nice place.
B: Oh, that’s where-
P: Yeah so I went to this place, um, North Vancouver, it was called.
B: Yeah I grew up-
P: Really nice area. There's this little park area, don’t know if you know it, its called Lynn Canyon.
B: Yeah, its right by-
P: (Getting a little irritated) ANYWAYS, kind of off the beaten track, you probably don’t know about it, but you can go cliff jumping, and swimming, and there’s people just smoking weed right there on the rocks sometimes.
B: Did you go on the suspen-
P: OH! And there's this cool bridge, kinda scary though. I don’t know why you didn’t hang out there with your friends, such a cool place. I have a nose for these types of places though, I just seem to find the secret areas.
B: I hate you.
I saw my first fight here in Japan the other day. The Japanese are pretty reserved so actual fighting is pretty rare. Couple drunk guys were going at it in the subway station (there's quite a few drunks on the trains, the Japanese have an embarrassing tolerance for alcohol). Let's just say it wasn’t the impressive, acrobatic ninja fight I was expecting, more of an awkward bout of spitting and hair pulling. The number of drunks on the trains is partly due to the fact that beer and cigarettes are sold in vending machines here. The only thing preventing 12 year olds from drinking and smoking to their hearts content is a small sign on the machine reminding them that you have to be 20 to use it. I have tried unsuccessfully to impress upon Japanese people how quickly Canadian society would collapse into chaos with roaming gangs of drunk, cancer-ridden pre-teens if this was tried in Canada. They don’t get it though.
So yeah that’s pretty much it. I’m going to Hiroshima this weekend to meet up with my training friends so that should be fun. If anyone has Skype let me know cause I just downloaded it. Ok, see ya.
Bouche
P.S. Oh, update on the pedophile front. Apparently, in an effort to get their children molested, the Japanese don’t allow any children past Grade 1 to walk to school with a parent. They are not allowed. They have to walk by themselves. So there are little groups of plump, slow-moving school children walking to school everyday, the locations of which are well advertised. I can only assume Japanese people hate their children.
Japan: Land of the Rising Sun... and Gingivitis.
Why won't anyone talk to me? I figured being the only white guy in a town would mean people would be staring at me, shaking my hand, throwing parades, etc. Not the case. No one will look at me. The white guy who lived in my apartment before me must have been like 7 feet tall with a penis on his forehead because my sudden arrival in the quiet town of Habikino has not made a stir. I am trying though. Some Japanese people really want to talk to me to practice their English and to learn about culture outside of Japan (Most know very little about other countries. One asked me if it was illegal for black people and white people to be friends in Canada). I've done a few language exchanges where you speak English for a while and then Japanese for a while. The Japanese part of these little exchanges usually consists of me staring blankly at the other person. Unfortunately, you get some weirdos with these exchanges. Enter Mariko. This girl, in our first conversation, came right out and told me that she never wanted to travel outside Japan, she's only trying to learn English for her job, and that the Roman alphabet is boring and dumb. Her life story was fairly depressing as well, to the point where I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Bouche: So, how is your family? Is it big or small?
Mariko: I am only child. My father was fired from job and my mother is sick in hospital.
B: Oh, I’m sorry. Do you work?
M: Yes I work. I wanted to work in Yokohama for a better job but I failed the test.
B: Ok. Um, do you have any friends?
M: Yes, I have two friends. Yoko has, um, mental problem? No, no, no, mental illness.
B: Oh, I’m sure she’s still nice. Does she live around here?
M: Oh no, she dead. She was killed in car crash 3 months ago.
B: Jesus. Alright, so do you have any living friends?
M: Yes, Noriko, she lives in Osaka.
B: That’s good, is she nice?
M: Yes, she is very nice sometimes. But sometime depressed too.
B: Oh God, why?
M: Her mother left when she was child and her father is in um, prison.
B: Wow. What does she do?
M: She is a, um, hocker? No, No. One second please. (Looks up in dictionary) Ah. A prostitute.
B: Oh......um,
M: Are you ok?
B: Yeah, I just um...bug in my eye.
M: Oh.
B: Ok, no more friends. Do you have any cousins or anything?
M: Yes, yes, yes. But I don’t see them, my uncle stole money from our family and left for south of Japan.
B: Ok, well I have to go....teach.....children.
So haven’t seen much of Mariko lately, I’m just assuming she has killed herself. I have also been trying to eat in restaurants more, hoping someone will want to talk but this has been largely unsuccessful. Once, when I was in a really busy restaurant, an old woman came in, and the waitress decided that she should be placed at my table with me. And I mean old. Like near death. So it was just me and this tiny 90-year-old Japanese woman eating some lunch together. I was trying to remember some Japanese, planning my conversation, when I looked over and discovered she was fast asleep. So my attempts to connect with the locals hasn’t been too successful but I’m working on it.
My work has definitely been getting better and working 3 hours a day is pretty sweet. Some kids are still horrible though. And we're not allowed to talk to the parents about them either, so when the parents come we have to smile and wave to the little shit who, for the past hour, has made you want stab him with a chopstick. One kid just went around viciously pinching the other kids necks. Like in the throat. And he wouldn’t stop. I think we should be able to talk to the parents a little at least, like, "Hey, yeah Yuka, um, stabbed some kid today. Pretty badly too. Don’t know if the other kid is going to pull through. She likes sharp objects, I’m a little scared. So just watch out for that. Oh! Look, she just stabbed you in the leg. Ok, well just, uh, keep an eye out ok?"
What else? Oh, the Japanese hate their teeth it would seem. Honestly, Japan has worse teeth than the NHLPA. Everyone has fucked up teeth. Either they are coming out at all different angles, or they are covered in plaque, or they are so bad they are actually black and you can see them rotting. And these aren’t poor Japanese people, these are the ones paying ridiculous sums of money for their children to get taught by some jackass like me. They just hate teeth. Either that or there are just no dentists. It’s distracting.
One thing I do love though, is that in every train station there is this tourist map with all the main attractions and stuff. And, without exception, on this map there will be all the elementary, junior high, and high schools clearly marked in English. So its like zoos, post offices, temples, shopping areas, and buildings where you can find little children.
Anyways, I went camping last weekend with some friends from training, which was different but very fun. Sushi and camping don’t really go well together though. It’s still damn hot here but the end is in sight and I get paid on Friday, which will help me out on the social side of things. I have a house number now, 050-1047-5638. Yeah that’s pretty much it. I’ve sent out a link for Japan pics and 2 videos from SE Asia.
Bouche
P.S. I’m kind of worried about my regularity. I’ve been living in my apartment for 6 weeks now and have only used up 3 rolls of toilet paper. It may be because I’ve always lived with family or roommates in the past so I don’t know how much I use personally. They might have just been big pooers (I’m looking at you Cmunk and Ms. Sellmann). But I think I might need more fibre. Thought Id keep you updated.
Bouche: So, how is your family? Is it big or small?
Mariko: I am only child. My father was fired from job and my mother is sick in hospital.
B: Oh, I’m sorry. Do you work?
M: Yes I work. I wanted to work in Yokohama for a better job but I failed the test.
B: Ok. Um, do you have any friends?
M: Yes, I have two friends. Yoko has, um, mental problem? No, no, no, mental illness.
B: Oh, I’m sure she’s still nice. Does she live around here?
M: Oh no, she dead. She was killed in car crash 3 months ago.
B: Jesus. Alright, so do you have any living friends?
M: Yes, Noriko, she lives in Osaka.
B: That’s good, is she nice?
M: Yes, she is very nice sometimes. But sometime depressed too.
B: Oh God, why?
M: Her mother left when she was child and her father is in um, prison.
B: Wow. What does she do?
M: She is a, um, hocker? No, No. One second please. (Looks up in dictionary) Ah. A prostitute.
B: Oh......um,
M: Are you ok?
B: Yeah, I just um...bug in my eye.
M: Oh.
B: Ok, no more friends. Do you have any cousins or anything?
M: Yes, yes, yes. But I don’t see them, my uncle stole money from our family and left for south of Japan.
B: Ok, well I have to go....teach.....children.
So haven’t seen much of Mariko lately, I’m just assuming she has killed herself. I have also been trying to eat in restaurants more, hoping someone will want to talk but this has been largely unsuccessful. Once, when I was in a really busy restaurant, an old woman came in, and the waitress decided that she should be placed at my table with me. And I mean old. Like near death. So it was just me and this tiny 90-year-old Japanese woman eating some lunch together. I was trying to remember some Japanese, planning my conversation, when I looked over and discovered she was fast asleep. So my attempts to connect with the locals hasn’t been too successful but I’m working on it.
My work has definitely been getting better and working 3 hours a day is pretty sweet. Some kids are still horrible though. And we're not allowed to talk to the parents about them either, so when the parents come we have to smile and wave to the little shit who, for the past hour, has made you want stab him with a chopstick. One kid just went around viciously pinching the other kids necks. Like in the throat. And he wouldn’t stop. I think we should be able to talk to the parents a little at least, like, "Hey, yeah Yuka, um, stabbed some kid today. Pretty badly too. Don’t know if the other kid is going to pull through. She likes sharp objects, I’m a little scared. So just watch out for that. Oh! Look, she just stabbed you in the leg. Ok, well just, uh, keep an eye out ok?"
What else? Oh, the Japanese hate their teeth it would seem. Honestly, Japan has worse teeth than the NHLPA. Everyone has fucked up teeth. Either they are coming out at all different angles, or they are covered in plaque, or they are so bad they are actually black and you can see them rotting. And these aren’t poor Japanese people, these are the ones paying ridiculous sums of money for their children to get taught by some jackass like me. They just hate teeth. Either that or there are just no dentists. It’s distracting.
One thing I do love though, is that in every train station there is this tourist map with all the main attractions and stuff. And, without exception, on this map there will be all the elementary, junior high, and high schools clearly marked in English. So its like zoos, post offices, temples, shopping areas, and buildings where you can find little children.
Anyways, I went camping last weekend with some friends from training, which was different but very fun. Sushi and camping don’t really go well together though. It’s still damn hot here but the end is in sight and I get paid on Friday, which will help me out on the social side of things. I have a house number now, 050-1047-5638. Yeah that’s pretty much it. I’ve sent out a link for Japan pics and 2 videos from SE Asia.
Bouche
P.S. I’m kind of worried about my regularity. I’ve been living in my apartment for 6 weeks now and have only used up 3 rolls of toilet paper. It may be because I’ve always lived with family or roommates in the past so I don’t know how much I use personally. They might have just been big pooers (I’m looking at you Cmunk and Ms. Sellmann). But I think I might need more fibre. Thought Id keep you updated.
It’s Not The Heat, It’s The Humidity. And It’s Killing Me.
I am so sweaty here. It's not even a nice hot like Thailand, its just moist. All the time. Apparently there's a hot-humid season, a rainy season (which is also pretty humid), a cold winter (which is made worse by their choice of origami paper for walls) and then some nice days in November and March I think. Japanese weather sucks.
The end of job training went ok. Pretty long days but we got to stay in a hotel, which was kind of nice. The hotel room got me used to the size of my apartment but I'll talk about that later. We went out to the bar a few more times and had some fun. My favourite night was when the Aussie and I went to this tiny Japanese hip-hop bar where about 30 Japos, dressed in ridiculous hip hop clothes were taking turns DJing and rapping on stage. Needless to say, we were the only white people/people over 5'6/people with self-respect in the place. For some reason, as we were about to leave, this guy grabbed my junk and encouraged his girlfriend to do the same. It turned into a frenzy as Adam and I had to flee with several Japanese rappers chasing us with outstretched hands, girlfriends in tow. Nothing is much funnier than Japanese hip-hop culture. If you think white guys trying to be black are funny, you should see the Japos do it. For example, these "hardcore" guys live with their parents until they're 30, read comic books for fun, and think girls are gross. But it's all about image in Japan. I watched 4 guys playing basketball surrounded by admirers, somehow consistently managing to miss lay-ups. But they had the right basketball gear on so they were good.
Mark. My God. I had had enough of that guy by the time training was over. He would ask me at least 50 questions a day, and that was with me trying to avoid him. He came into my room one night without knocking to ask me something. This was at like 3am. I thought it was some horrible dream until I saw the crumbs from the chips he was eating on the floor the next morning. We were doing some feedback form at the end and he actually asked me what his motivations for coming to Japan were. He tried to get my email at the end but I refused. I didn't want to write this email:
Mark,
Yes, shorts are the same as pants, you can't just jump into them. One leg at a time man. And I forgot whether or not you like curry, might have to give it a try. Talk to you tomorrow.
Love Bouche
So training ended and I moved into my new closet. It’s very small. I hit my head on the lights everyday. It is really nice however and pretty close to a train station, which is very handy. I am in the hair salon district of Osaka apparently. No restaurants but tons of hair salons. Sometimes I just want to scream, "I am a hungry man with a receding hair line! Stop mocking me!"
Japanese people are pretty weird. They are really shy but wear the most ridiculous outfits. I think they are shy because they don’t want to have to speak English to me and fail. Its kind of cool, if I want a seat on the train, I just get close to one of them and start whispering English. They clear out pretty quick. There are the few Japanese people who like practicing English and it usually comes out in a quick ejaculation of English, "HellomynameisYukihowareyouIamfineandyou?". But these are rare. The failure thing is the main reason they don't try their English, but apparently failure isn't followed by immediate suicide in Japan as I previously imagined. I figured if a waitress spilled your water that was it. It was like, "Uh-oh. Well, looks like the end of the line for you, eh? You've lived a long enough life. Well, to be honest, I can't really tell, you could be anywhere from 13-35. I can never tell with you Japanese. Anyways, thanks for taking our order, if you could tell your replacement about the no-wasabe thing for my sashimi before ending yourself, that would be great." I mean, it’s still really popular here, but less rampant than I had been led to believe.
They have bikes on the sidewalks here, which is very annoying, and made worse by the fact that everyone and their dog has a bike. I've almost been run over a few times and have taken to walking on the road. It’s safer. Its horrible in the rain too because they still hold an umbrella over their head while biking (actually its pretty funny), but they hate getting wet so much they will sacrifice their vision to stay dry. So all you see coming at you is a bike with little legs churning away, with an umbrella pointed at you like a lance. The guy on the bike has no idea what’s in front of him, but he's dry so he's doing fine. I've seen 4 head-on collisions. I usually just congratulate the winning knight on a good joust and move on.
So, my work. Its going pretty good. I work maybe 3 hours a day on average but some of the kids are little shits. Apparently you can't punch 6 year olds in the face here in Japan so that isn't an option. There is this communication book that you and the Japanese teacher who gets them most of the time write in, so that everyone knows which kids are problems, etc. For one class, the JT wrote, "Ayaka is a very funny girl/Ayaka was very funny today/ Good class, Ayaka was funny as usual :)", etc. So I figured she just had a good time and liked jokes. Turns out, "funny" means a sexually aggressive special needs child. I suppose, in hindsight, some people would find that funny, but I wasn't prepared for that. For an hour, I was molested more than a pre-teen Swedish boy at Neverland ranch. The kids molest themselves as well. The "kancho", also known as the "salmon" back home, is very popular. The weird thing is, some kids just sit there while it’s being done to them, with a huge smile on their face. Not even flinching. I just give them strange looks and continue on with the lesson.
Ok, almost done, I promise. I have this video I sometimes play while the kids are coming in, to calm them down while I sort them out and the song, "London Bridge is falling down" is on it. I've never really listened to the lyrics, and this might just be the Japanese lyrics, but its messed up.
London bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down,
London bridge is falling down, my fair lady.
FIRST VERSE: Build it up with mud and clay, mud and clay, mud and clay.
Ok, there's always some comedian at these meetings, very funny. Let's move on.
SECOND VERSE: Build it up with stone and mortar, stone and mortar, stone and mortar.
We're getting some progress now. Might not work for a major bridge in a city like London though. Lets keep it mind, however, if we ever have to do a project in Saskatchewan or something.
THIRD VERSE: Build it up with iron and steel, iron and steel, iron and steel.
Nice. That will probably work right? But no, the morons in charge decide that iron and steel will collapse and bend. What are you gluing this together? Something to keep in mind when you're going over Second Narrows though. So they throw that idea out and keep going.
FOURTH VERSE: Build it up with GOLD AND SILVER.
Yeah I can't see why that would be a problem. Why not? I’m sure we just have tons of gold and silver lying around. Why not build it up with panda bears and brave Frenchmen? So they figure that this might not work cause it would be stolen. So...
FIFTH VERSE: Get a watchman for the night.
This guy is sitting on a stool in the video with nothing. Not even a stick. A guy with a small rock and a medium level of determination could render this guy useless. But the big problem, according to the brainiacs in charge, is that he'll fall asleep at night. So...
SIXTH VERSE: Give him a pipe to keep him awake.
This is their solution. Smoking tobacco. So we started with a renovation of London Bridge and ended up with a gold and silver bridge with an unarmed guy sitting on it at night smoking himself to death. This is how Japanese children are learning how bridges are made. Precious metals and tobacco. I sat transfixed with rage at the TV screen while kids were headbutting walls and sexually assaulting themselves around me.
So that's about it. I'm getting the Internet in a couple weeks, which will make things easier. My address, if anyone cares, is
583-0856 (this is the postal code)
Osaka, Habikino-shi
Hakucho, 1-4-13
D-H Hakucho Biru #301
I have a couple good weekends coming up, my buddy from Saskatchewan is coming over in early August and its my birthday next week so there will be drinking and laughing at Japanese people for all. Ok, goodbye.
Bouche
The end of job training went ok. Pretty long days but we got to stay in a hotel, which was kind of nice. The hotel room got me used to the size of my apartment but I'll talk about that later. We went out to the bar a few more times and had some fun. My favourite night was when the Aussie and I went to this tiny Japanese hip-hop bar where about 30 Japos, dressed in ridiculous hip hop clothes were taking turns DJing and rapping on stage. Needless to say, we were the only white people/people over 5'6/people with self-respect in the place. For some reason, as we were about to leave, this guy grabbed my junk and encouraged his girlfriend to do the same. It turned into a frenzy as Adam and I had to flee with several Japanese rappers chasing us with outstretched hands, girlfriends in tow. Nothing is much funnier than Japanese hip-hop culture. If you think white guys trying to be black are funny, you should see the Japos do it. For example, these "hardcore" guys live with their parents until they're 30, read comic books for fun, and think girls are gross. But it's all about image in Japan. I watched 4 guys playing basketball surrounded by admirers, somehow consistently managing to miss lay-ups. But they had the right basketball gear on so they were good.
Mark. My God. I had had enough of that guy by the time training was over. He would ask me at least 50 questions a day, and that was with me trying to avoid him. He came into my room one night without knocking to ask me something. This was at like 3am. I thought it was some horrible dream until I saw the crumbs from the chips he was eating on the floor the next morning. We were doing some feedback form at the end and he actually asked me what his motivations for coming to Japan were. He tried to get my email at the end but I refused. I didn't want to write this email:
Mark,
Yes, shorts are the same as pants, you can't just jump into them. One leg at a time man. And I forgot whether or not you like curry, might have to give it a try. Talk to you tomorrow.
Love Bouche
So training ended and I moved into my new closet. It’s very small. I hit my head on the lights everyday. It is really nice however and pretty close to a train station, which is very handy. I am in the hair salon district of Osaka apparently. No restaurants but tons of hair salons. Sometimes I just want to scream, "I am a hungry man with a receding hair line! Stop mocking me!"
Japanese people are pretty weird. They are really shy but wear the most ridiculous outfits. I think they are shy because they don’t want to have to speak English to me and fail. Its kind of cool, if I want a seat on the train, I just get close to one of them and start whispering English. They clear out pretty quick. There are the few Japanese people who like practicing English and it usually comes out in a quick ejaculation of English, "HellomynameisYukihowareyouIamfineandyou?". But these are rare. The failure thing is the main reason they don't try their English, but apparently failure isn't followed by immediate suicide in Japan as I previously imagined. I figured if a waitress spilled your water that was it. It was like, "Uh-oh. Well, looks like the end of the line for you, eh? You've lived a long enough life. Well, to be honest, I can't really tell, you could be anywhere from 13-35. I can never tell with you Japanese. Anyways, thanks for taking our order, if you could tell your replacement about the no-wasabe thing for my sashimi before ending yourself, that would be great." I mean, it’s still really popular here, but less rampant than I had been led to believe.
They have bikes on the sidewalks here, which is very annoying, and made worse by the fact that everyone and their dog has a bike. I've almost been run over a few times and have taken to walking on the road. It’s safer. Its horrible in the rain too because they still hold an umbrella over their head while biking (actually its pretty funny), but they hate getting wet so much they will sacrifice their vision to stay dry. So all you see coming at you is a bike with little legs churning away, with an umbrella pointed at you like a lance. The guy on the bike has no idea what’s in front of him, but he's dry so he's doing fine. I've seen 4 head-on collisions. I usually just congratulate the winning knight on a good joust and move on.
So, my work. Its going pretty good. I work maybe 3 hours a day on average but some of the kids are little shits. Apparently you can't punch 6 year olds in the face here in Japan so that isn't an option. There is this communication book that you and the Japanese teacher who gets them most of the time write in, so that everyone knows which kids are problems, etc. For one class, the JT wrote, "Ayaka is a very funny girl/Ayaka was very funny today/ Good class, Ayaka was funny as usual :)", etc. So I figured she just had a good time and liked jokes. Turns out, "funny" means a sexually aggressive special needs child. I suppose, in hindsight, some people would find that funny, but I wasn't prepared for that. For an hour, I was molested more than a pre-teen Swedish boy at Neverland ranch. The kids molest themselves as well. The "kancho", also known as the "salmon" back home, is very popular. The weird thing is, some kids just sit there while it’s being done to them, with a huge smile on their face. Not even flinching. I just give them strange looks and continue on with the lesson.
Ok, almost done, I promise. I have this video I sometimes play while the kids are coming in, to calm them down while I sort them out and the song, "London Bridge is falling down" is on it. I've never really listened to the lyrics, and this might just be the Japanese lyrics, but its messed up.
London bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down,
London bridge is falling down, my fair lady.
FIRST VERSE: Build it up with mud and clay, mud and clay, mud and clay.
Ok, there's always some comedian at these meetings, very funny. Let's move on.
SECOND VERSE: Build it up with stone and mortar, stone and mortar, stone and mortar.
We're getting some progress now. Might not work for a major bridge in a city like London though. Lets keep it mind, however, if we ever have to do a project in Saskatchewan or something.
THIRD VERSE: Build it up with iron and steel, iron and steel, iron and steel.
Nice. That will probably work right? But no, the morons in charge decide that iron and steel will collapse and bend. What are you gluing this together? Something to keep in mind when you're going over Second Narrows though. So they throw that idea out and keep going.
FOURTH VERSE: Build it up with GOLD AND SILVER.
Yeah I can't see why that would be a problem. Why not? I’m sure we just have tons of gold and silver lying around. Why not build it up with panda bears and brave Frenchmen? So they figure that this might not work cause it would be stolen. So...
FIFTH VERSE: Get a watchman for the night.
This guy is sitting on a stool in the video with nothing. Not even a stick. A guy with a small rock and a medium level of determination could render this guy useless. But the big problem, according to the brainiacs in charge, is that he'll fall asleep at night. So...
SIXTH VERSE: Give him a pipe to keep him awake.
This is their solution. Smoking tobacco. So we started with a renovation of London Bridge and ended up with a gold and silver bridge with an unarmed guy sitting on it at night smoking himself to death. This is how Japanese children are learning how bridges are made. Precious metals and tobacco. I sat transfixed with rage at the TV screen while kids were headbutting walls and sexually assaulting themselves around me.
So that's about it. I'm getting the Internet in a couple weeks, which will make things easier. My address, if anyone cares, is
583-0856 (this is the postal code)
Osaka, Habikino-shi
Hakucho, 1-4-13
D-H Hakucho Biru #301
I have a couple good weekends coming up, my buddy from Saskatchewan is coming over in early August and its my birthday next week so there will be drinking and laughing at Japanese people for all. Ok, goodbye.
Bouche
Welcome To Japan.
There are a lot of Japanese people here. Hundreds of them. Thousands even. They're everywhere and they speak Japanese all the time. It's weird. I got into Japan and Barrett met me at the airport and showed me around for a week, which was good times for sure. We went down to Osaka for the weekend and stayed at a "capsule" hotel, where you sleep in an actual capsule (like an MRI machine) in the wall with Japanese businessmen all around you. We went to a sweet club both nights of the weekend, which had all-you-can-drink for 30 bucks and models dancing on stage, which was fun. Met some guy named Jose from Peru who started off kind of cool and slowly became creepy as the night went on. My night with Jose:
Bouche: Hey man, where are you from?
Jose: I am from Peru.
B: Sweet, a Peruvian. What are you doing in Japan?
J: I paint trucks. Here look at my pictures.
(He brings out a picture of a half-painted crappy delivery truck like it was a picture of his son)
B: Oh. Um, cool. Do you draw any designs or anything? Or just white?
J: (Gives me a weird look). Just white. What is your job?
B: I’m going to teach English. Why don't you teach Spanish or something? Not much demand for it?
J: I, uh, don't speak Spanish.
B: Oh, do you speak an indigenous language or something?
J: No.
B: Uh-huh.
(I lose Jose for a while, then see him again on the dance floor creeping out some Japanese girl. He's comes over to me and the girl I'm dancing with with a sloppy grin on his face).
J: Heeeyyyy, what's ....(unintelligable).
B: Hey Jose. Your hand seems to have accidentally slipped into my back pocket.
(He has done the same with the girl I’m with and starts trying to push our genitals together while giving me a big grin).
B: Um, please stop that. What happened to that girl you were dancing with? She seemed really into you.
J: Bah, she was (something). I have a wife...(something)...dog home...(something that sounds awfully Spanish).
B: So you don't speak Spanish?
J: (Gives me a stern look) No. No Spanish.
B: Ok.
(He fucks off and I don't see him for like an hour. He comes back and gives the girl I'm dancing with a kiss on the cheek and I think tries to bite her ear. She is terrified. Then he whispers something in Spanish in my ear and grabs my ass before walking away).
So that club was pretty fun. Mark and I saw some sights and hung out at his place in the rice field district of Japan. Dominated some Asian kids at basketball. There was lots of Japanese schoolgirls taking pictures with Mark before running off giggling like a bunch of Japanese schoolgirls.
There is lots of weird stuff about Japan. The hair and the clothes are worth the trip alone. I think most of my pictures will be of awesome hair and clothes. If you enter a restaurant in Japan everyone including the cooks and dishwashers will yell some Japanese phrase at you. The only time I've had cooks yell at me when I enter a restaurant back home, the place was closing, so I just turned around and walked out. Then I realized it was like 7pm and other people were going in so I hung outside on the sidewalk for a while peering into the place before deciding to try again. They yelled extra loud this time so I yelled something in Japanese back at them. I think it was "I am an English teacher" or something. Also, everything has chimes or bells over here. The garbage trucks even have the ice cream song playing as they go around on their route. I can only imagine how disappointed Western kids are when they run out onto the street for some delicious ice cream only to find a truck full of wasabe and rotting eel meat.
The people here are so nice and helpful though. They will go so far out of their way to do things for you. I went for a run one morning and got pretty lost in the maze of buildings and lights and asked some guy in a suit where the train station was. He ran (because he didn’t want to disturb my jog) like 20 minutes with me and led me directly to it before heading off to work. My favourite people, however, are old Japanese men. They look so wise and noble. Then you start a conversation with them and they get all flustered and nervous and after they manage to talk to you without shitting their pants or having a seizure, they love you and will sometimes stroke your arm like you're a new pet. I've spent a couple times on the trains having an old man gazing into my eyes while muttering Japanese to me. There are a lot of ways to offend Japanese people however, but since gaijins are ignorant barbarians, they give us a lot of leeway. I could probably kick someone right in the balls and have them be like, "Ah, he doesn't know any better, he's a gaijin." So I might try to exploit that.
So I am now staying in a hotel training for my job. I was really worried that everyone in my training group would be social outcasts, trying to escape the embarrassing attempts of fitting in that plagued them back home, but its not bad. There's one token quiet Asian girl and a pretty cool Aussie (who would have guessed?) and a cool Canadian chick. Then there's Mark from Kamloops who is a poster boy for the previously mentioned group of social lepers. When introducing himself he said, "Yeah Biggie Smalls is probably my favourite artist of all time. And my hobbies include billiards and....um, I'm from Kamloops”. When asked if he had any experience working with children he replied,” Well, at the pizza place I worked at, some kids used to come in there sometimes. So yeah, I guess.” He's about 5'10", 260lbs and has decided that the baggy-jeans-with-half-of-his-boxers-showing look is about right for him. I figured that, coming from Kamloops, he would at least like hockey so I brought up the Bertuzzi trade with him yesterday. He froze and then started to panic for something normal to say and came up with, "Um...so, uh, how do you, uh, feel about that?" I gave him a blank stare for a couple seconds before excusing myself.
The good people went out this weekend to the same club Barrett and I went to and had a good time though. This one Japanese girl we started talking to was an artist and looked pretty funky until we realized how out-of-her-head drunk she was. She gave everyone the googliest eyes I have ever seen and was not speaking any language. She tripped when coming back from the bathroom and did a header right onto the corner of the table. I thought she was dead. I was thinking to myself that even though that probably wasn't the most ideal way of getting rid of her, we were still better for it. Then she got up, put her beer to her head and googly-eyed everyone again like nothing happened. I found myself alone with her later and, out of nowhere, she blurted out, "I did not fart." Which made me start to think that she did. Shortly after, she left, tripping over the same stair that got her the first time and landed on her face. I did not see her again.
So yeah, Japan is pretty cool. Sorry about the length of this one, I have free Internet in my room now and had some time this weekend. I will try to reply to people when I can but during the week I am kept pretty busy. I move into my place next week, which should be pretty interesting. Ok, that's it.
Bouche
P.S. Fruits are soooooo expensive here. Apples are like 3 bucks each. The weird thing is you can get 100% real fruit juice that’s really good for like a dollar a litre. It doesn't add up.
Bouche: Hey man, where are you from?
Jose: I am from Peru.
B: Sweet, a Peruvian. What are you doing in Japan?
J: I paint trucks. Here look at my pictures.
(He brings out a picture of a half-painted crappy delivery truck like it was a picture of his son)
B: Oh. Um, cool. Do you draw any designs or anything? Or just white?
J: (Gives me a weird look). Just white. What is your job?
B: I’m going to teach English. Why don't you teach Spanish or something? Not much demand for it?
J: I, uh, don't speak Spanish.
B: Oh, do you speak an indigenous language or something?
J: No.
B: Uh-huh.
(I lose Jose for a while, then see him again on the dance floor creeping out some Japanese girl. He's comes over to me and the girl I'm dancing with with a sloppy grin on his face).
J: Heeeyyyy, what's ....(unintelligable).
B: Hey Jose. Your hand seems to have accidentally slipped into my back pocket.
(He has done the same with the girl I’m with and starts trying to push our genitals together while giving me a big grin).
B: Um, please stop that. What happened to that girl you were dancing with? She seemed really into you.
J: Bah, she was (something). I have a wife...(something)...dog home...(something that sounds awfully Spanish).
B: So you don't speak Spanish?
J: (Gives me a stern look) No. No Spanish.
B: Ok.
(He fucks off and I don't see him for like an hour. He comes back and gives the girl I'm dancing with a kiss on the cheek and I think tries to bite her ear. She is terrified. Then he whispers something in Spanish in my ear and grabs my ass before walking away).
So that club was pretty fun. Mark and I saw some sights and hung out at his place in the rice field district of Japan. Dominated some Asian kids at basketball. There was lots of Japanese schoolgirls taking pictures with Mark before running off giggling like a bunch of Japanese schoolgirls.
There is lots of weird stuff about Japan. The hair and the clothes are worth the trip alone. I think most of my pictures will be of awesome hair and clothes. If you enter a restaurant in Japan everyone including the cooks and dishwashers will yell some Japanese phrase at you. The only time I've had cooks yell at me when I enter a restaurant back home, the place was closing, so I just turned around and walked out. Then I realized it was like 7pm and other people were going in so I hung outside on the sidewalk for a while peering into the place before deciding to try again. They yelled extra loud this time so I yelled something in Japanese back at them. I think it was "I am an English teacher" or something. Also, everything has chimes or bells over here. The garbage trucks even have the ice cream song playing as they go around on their route. I can only imagine how disappointed Western kids are when they run out onto the street for some delicious ice cream only to find a truck full of wasabe and rotting eel meat.
The people here are so nice and helpful though. They will go so far out of their way to do things for you. I went for a run one morning and got pretty lost in the maze of buildings and lights and asked some guy in a suit where the train station was. He ran (because he didn’t want to disturb my jog) like 20 minutes with me and led me directly to it before heading off to work. My favourite people, however, are old Japanese men. They look so wise and noble. Then you start a conversation with them and they get all flustered and nervous and after they manage to talk to you without shitting their pants or having a seizure, they love you and will sometimes stroke your arm like you're a new pet. I've spent a couple times on the trains having an old man gazing into my eyes while muttering Japanese to me. There are a lot of ways to offend Japanese people however, but since gaijins are ignorant barbarians, they give us a lot of leeway. I could probably kick someone right in the balls and have them be like, "Ah, he doesn't know any better, he's a gaijin." So I might try to exploit that.
So I am now staying in a hotel training for my job. I was really worried that everyone in my training group would be social outcasts, trying to escape the embarrassing attempts of fitting in that plagued them back home, but its not bad. There's one token quiet Asian girl and a pretty cool Aussie (who would have guessed?) and a cool Canadian chick. Then there's Mark from Kamloops who is a poster boy for the previously mentioned group of social lepers. When introducing himself he said, "Yeah Biggie Smalls is probably my favourite artist of all time. And my hobbies include billiards and....um, I'm from Kamloops”. When asked if he had any experience working with children he replied,” Well, at the pizza place I worked at, some kids used to come in there sometimes. So yeah, I guess.” He's about 5'10", 260lbs and has decided that the baggy-jeans-with-half-of-his-boxers-showing look is about right for him. I figured that, coming from Kamloops, he would at least like hockey so I brought up the Bertuzzi trade with him yesterday. He froze and then started to panic for something normal to say and came up with, "Um...so, uh, how do you, uh, feel about that?" I gave him a blank stare for a couple seconds before excusing myself.
The good people went out this weekend to the same club Barrett and I went to and had a good time though. This one Japanese girl we started talking to was an artist and looked pretty funky until we realized how out-of-her-head drunk she was. She gave everyone the googliest eyes I have ever seen and was not speaking any language. She tripped when coming back from the bathroom and did a header right onto the corner of the table. I thought she was dead. I was thinking to myself that even though that probably wasn't the most ideal way of getting rid of her, we were still better for it. Then she got up, put her beer to her head and googly-eyed everyone again like nothing happened. I found myself alone with her later and, out of nowhere, she blurted out, "I did not fart." Which made me start to think that she did. Shortly after, she left, tripping over the same stair that got her the first time and landed on her face. I did not see her again.
So yeah, Japan is pretty cool. Sorry about the length of this one, I have free Internet in my room now and had some time this weekend. I will try to reply to people when I can but during the week I am kept pretty busy. I move into my place next week, which should be pretty interesting. Ok, that's it.
Bouche
P.S. Fruits are soooooo expensive here. Apples are like 3 bucks each. The weird thing is you can get 100% real fruit juice that’s really good for like a dollar a litre. It doesn't add up.
Back in the City That Never Bathes.
So after Luang Prabang the Saskies had to go back to Thailand and Trav and I went north to a really little town. Since Laos doesn't really have a regular trucking service, the bus system picks up the slack and delivers packages for people. This is really annoying as the driver is making more deliveries than a Catholic doctor in Ireland and you constantly have produce invading your personal space. The town we went to was pretty sweet and only had electricity from 6pm to 10pm, which made for some very early nights. Our bungalow cost $1 a night and was run by this lady named Mama. Mama really really liked money and insisted that we eat every meal at her place. We tried to find someplace else to eat one day and she spotted us and actually hit me. She made us come back to her place and eat twice the amount of food we had planned on eating. She would demand I drink beer at all hours of the day and would get angry at guests when they left if their bill wasn't big enough. Before this, I had also managed to avoid squatting a deuce in a squat toilet the whole trip. I was stuck and had no idea how to do it and managed to miss the toilet and spent a significant amount of time cleaning up.
After that town the rest of Northern Laos was pretty boring. The people traveling here were really stupid as well. For some reason, when people travel, they seem to feel the need to inform everyone that will listen about their idiot opinions that they have taken from a newspaper or recent documentary. We had to overhear this "debate" some Euros were having for like an hour. Memorable quotes included, "I really think corporations are bad and stuff. They like, exploit people," and "But what about Bush? He is like, so dumb. He loves oil a lot and kills people for it". In the end they agreed to disagree and I would have much rathered they agree to shut the fuck up but they started another one. Anyways, we did a little trek and found out a lot about the Akha tribe people. These people will eat anything. Small birds, geckos, dogs, cats, slow moving children. Anything that has any sort of meat on it will be hunted and eaten by these people. It is kind of disturbing playing with a cute little dog for awhile, only to find out he will soon be on a plate next to some sticky rice and veggies. The men in these villages are living large by the way. The women and children work all day in the fields while the men sit around and, until recently, smoke opium. Then the women come home and give them a massage and cook dinner. The men do absolutely nothing. We talked to the chief for a while about his lifestyle and he had the biggest grin on his face the entire time. If he weren’t so small and dirty I would have envied him.
Complaining about the buses in SE Asia is as useless as complaining about the rain in Vancouver but the one from Laos to Thailand was especially bad. They (as usual) overloaded the bus as much as they could and the fucker sitting next to me was eating these sausages that must have been made from some cancer-ridden dog and his latest bowel movement. Then they pumped some Laos music that sounded like an old women gasping her last breath accompanied by an instrument that could have only been invented from someone who had been smoking opium all day. The bus took this jungle path for 195km and it took 9 hours. That’s just over 20km/h. I was terrified the entire trip.
Then we were back in Thailand and we met up with the Saskies again and my friend Megan from back home. We had some good times, watched the superbowl at 6am and managed to finish 12 beers before 12pm. Then we took a drunk bus ride up to this hippie town called Pai and hung out there for a bit. Highlights included watching some guy getting taken down by the Army for some drug trafficking and watching a St. Bernard hump a small Japanese woman. Now, when a regular dog humps someone's leg, it's sort of cute cause the dog is getting it all wrong and everyone laughs. When a St. Bernard humps a small Japanese woman, its not cute cause the dog does it in the right spot and pretty much rapes her. His was breathing in her ear. I tried to get a picture but he didn't fool around with foreplay and was finished before I could get the camera out.
Back in Chiang Mai we met up with Trav's friend Alana and hit the town. We met a Thai lady pimp and her cronies and they took us to a bar they frequented. Trav and I had to share a motorbike with a lady boy prostitute and I talked with the lady pimp the whole night about how many people she owned. So a good night all around. We made our way down through Thailand and are now back in Bangkok.
Apparently they have Sizzler in Bangkok, which is awesome. They don't have all the same stuff we did and they have weird dishes like quail eggs, but its still good. This is what I imagine was going through the waitress's head when we showed up:
Waitress: Oh god, white people. We better get another cook on.
W: "Hello and welcome to Sizzler"
Bouche: "Oh my God! I can't believe they have Sizzler!"
W: "Um, yes. Come this way please"
(We sit down and commence eating. Bouche is on his 3rd plate)
W: (In Thai) holy Buddha, that big guy is disgusting.
Waitress #2: We're out of pasta again and a few people have complained
about the white people."
W1: "I know, that guy pushed some little kid out of his way"
W2: "Americans are so obnoxious"
W1: "How do you know they're American?"
W2: "They were chanting USA, USA, USA earlier"
W1: "Oh god he's coming over"
B: "Hey you guys need bigger plates, all this walking back and forth kinda
sucks"
W1: (In Thai) "Is that egg in his beard?"
W2: (Giggles)
B: "Oh you like the beard eh? You Asian girls are all right. Hey some egg.
W1: (In Thai) "Why do white backpackers always grow gross beards?"
W2: "I don’t know, why don't they shower?"
(1-hour passes, we are leaving)
W1:"Thank you for coming to Sizzler"
B: " We had a Sizzler once but it's gone now. Never let it go, ever.
Promise me."
Trav: "Hurry the fuck up Bouche, we're missing the movie."
B: (In a whisper) "Never let it go"
W1: "God I hate white people."
Anyways, this is probably the last email I'll send out as we're coming back in a couple weeks and all we have planned is sitting around on a beach and shopping. I'm home for 3 months and then going to Japan for a year to teach those short little bastards how to talk English good. Ok, enjoy watching Olympic hockey you bastards.
Bouche
After that town the rest of Northern Laos was pretty boring. The people traveling here were really stupid as well. For some reason, when people travel, they seem to feel the need to inform everyone that will listen about their idiot opinions that they have taken from a newspaper or recent documentary. We had to overhear this "debate" some Euros were having for like an hour. Memorable quotes included, "I really think corporations are bad and stuff. They like, exploit people," and "But what about Bush? He is like, so dumb. He loves oil a lot and kills people for it". In the end they agreed to disagree and I would have much rathered they agree to shut the fuck up but they started another one. Anyways, we did a little trek and found out a lot about the Akha tribe people. These people will eat anything. Small birds, geckos, dogs, cats, slow moving children. Anything that has any sort of meat on it will be hunted and eaten by these people. It is kind of disturbing playing with a cute little dog for awhile, only to find out he will soon be on a plate next to some sticky rice and veggies. The men in these villages are living large by the way. The women and children work all day in the fields while the men sit around and, until recently, smoke opium. Then the women come home and give them a massage and cook dinner. The men do absolutely nothing. We talked to the chief for a while about his lifestyle and he had the biggest grin on his face the entire time. If he weren’t so small and dirty I would have envied him.
Complaining about the buses in SE Asia is as useless as complaining about the rain in Vancouver but the one from Laos to Thailand was especially bad. They (as usual) overloaded the bus as much as they could and the fucker sitting next to me was eating these sausages that must have been made from some cancer-ridden dog and his latest bowel movement. Then they pumped some Laos music that sounded like an old women gasping her last breath accompanied by an instrument that could have only been invented from someone who had been smoking opium all day. The bus took this jungle path for 195km and it took 9 hours. That’s just over 20km/h. I was terrified the entire trip.
Then we were back in Thailand and we met up with the Saskies again and my friend Megan from back home. We had some good times, watched the superbowl at 6am and managed to finish 12 beers before 12pm. Then we took a drunk bus ride up to this hippie town called Pai and hung out there for a bit. Highlights included watching some guy getting taken down by the Army for some drug trafficking and watching a St. Bernard hump a small Japanese woman. Now, when a regular dog humps someone's leg, it's sort of cute cause the dog is getting it all wrong and everyone laughs. When a St. Bernard humps a small Japanese woman, its not cute cause the dog does it in the right spot and pretty much rapes her. His was breathing in her ear. I tried to get a picture but he didn't fool around with foreplay and was finished before I could get the camera out.
Back in Chiang Mai we met up with Trav's friend Alana and hit the town. We met a Thai lady pimp and her cronies and they took us to a bar they frequented. Trav and I had to share a motorbike with a lady boy prostitute and I talked with the lady pimp the whole night about how many people she owned. So a good night all around. We made our way down through Thailand and are now back in Bangkok.
Apparently they have Sizzler in Bangkok, which is awesome. They don't have all the same stuff we did and they have weird dishes like quail eggs, but its still good. This is what I imagine was going through the waitress's head when we showed up:
Waitress: Oh god, white people. We better get another cook on.
W: "Hello and welcome to Sizzler"
Bouche: "Oh my God! I can't believe they have Sizzler!"
W: "Um, yes. Come this way please"
(We sit down and commence eating. Bouche is on his 3rd plate)
W: (In Thai) holy Buddha, that big guy is disgusting.
Waitress #2: We're out of pasta again and a few people have complained
about the white people."
W1: "I know, that guy pushed some little kid out of his way"
W2: "Americans are so obnoxious"
W1: "How do you know they're American?"
W2: "They were chanting USA, USA, USA earlier"
W1: "Oh god he's coming over"
B: "Hey you guys need bigger plates, all this walking back and forth kinda
sucks"
W1: (In Thai) "Is that egg in his beard?"
W2: (Giggles)
B: "Oh you like the beard eh? You Asian girls are all right. Hey some egg.
W1: (In Thai) "Why do white backpackers always grow gross beards?"
W2: "I don’t know, why don't they shower?"
(1-hour passes, we are leaving)
W1:"Thank you for coming to Sizzler"
B: " We had a Sizzler once but it's gone now. Never let it go, ever.
Promise me."
Trav: "Hurry the fuck up Bouche, we're missing the movie."
B: (In a whisper) "Never let it go"
W1: "God I hate white people."
Anyways, this is probably the last email I'll send out as we're coming back in a couple weeks and all we have planned is sitting around on a beach and shopping. I'm home for 3 months and then going to Japan for a year to teach those short little bastards how to talk English good. Ok, enjoy watching Olympic hockey you bastards.
Bouche
A Long Email After a Tough Loss.
This is a bit of a marathon. Hanoi was the last place in Vietnam that we hit and it was pretty good. Not really that much to do in Hanoi but shop and buy a ticket to Halong Bay. Halong Bay is really, really nice. I've never really seen anything like it. But enough of that. So the four of us (we managed to ditch the girls) have started to play Hearts for the food or beer tab whenever we go out. The loser (first to 100) has to pay. It makes for
some very loud and angry dinners pretty much every time we eat and I'm quite sure we have offended many other tourists with our cursing, screaming, banging the table, and occasional outbreaks of violence. I am actually sulking right now after a bad loss. It's very addictive though and we are actually eating more often and becoming more and more anti-social because of this game. The cool thing is whenever we play out in public, groups of locals swarm around us and watch. In Hanoi we were sitting on the sidewalk drinking 10-cent beers (Think about that. For the cost of a Seabus ticket, you could get hammered. A return ticket would kill you. And they were still better than Canadian) playing Hearts for the $2 tab when like 8 old Nammy guys surrounded us. They kept laughing and shouting whenever we put cards down and giving us pointers in Vietnamese although I'm fairly sure they didn't know any of the rules. It’s happened other times in Laos as well.
After Hanoi we got on a 21-hour bus trip to Laos, probably one of the worst 21 hours I have ever had. Every country in SE Asia, including the loser countries like Laos and Cambodia, have recognized that people have legs and some room should be put aside in vehicles for such legs. Except for Vietnam. They refuse to believe that legs exist. I was sitting in the back of the bus with my knees near my ears and about 30 packages of gifts and stuff falling on my head while some Laos guy (we tried to call them Laosers but it's not working out) kept falling asleep on my shoulder for 21 hours. I changed from politely tapping this guy on the shoulder to throwing whatever oddly shaped gift that had just fell on my head at him at about the 4-hour mark. The Laos border was kind of funny though and it is a definite indication of how relaxed Laos is compared to the rest of SE Asia. The guy at the customs desk was wearing an adidas jacket and sitting next to a bonfire he had started in his office.
Vientiane was fairly boring as cities go but also refreshing. There was little traffic, no motorbikes, and no one really hassled you for anything. Laos people are pretty sleepy and lazy. Shopkeepers in other countries usually scream at you from the moment they see you until the moment you've pushed some elderly German woman in their face. In Laos, they are sleeping in their stall and seem annoyed that you've woken them up if you want
anything. We also met this guy Bob from Cameroon in Vientiane. Now Bob was the first guy from Cameroon I have ever met and also the first black guy named Bob I have ever met. We learned at dinner that Bob was recently in a Chinese prison and used to have a grand time back in Cameroon with his buddies hijacking cars and robbing rich people's houses at gunpoint. Once he realized that we were not laughing as hard as he was at his exploits, he assured us that usually only the guard was killed in the adventure and that
they didn't shoot white people, which is nice. Needless to say, the rest of our time in Vientiane was Bobless.
After Vientiane, we headed up to Vien Viang, which is pretty much a town that revolves around tubing. You go down this river in a tube and there are bars every 100 metres down the river that pull you in and sell you cheap beer and let you use their rope swings, zip lines, and volleyball courts. This is how we spent 4 days. There is this one rope swing bar that is the biggest and most popular and where most people spend the majority of their day. Its like 30 feet in the air and pretty scary. Most people doing the swing are pretty lame so our attempts at "grabs" and back flips were fairly big spectacles. And so forth. I actually went too far and almost completed the second flip, landing square on my back. Just a great four days of drinking and jumping off rope swings. We also did a whitewater rafting trip after which was pretty cool. Just when I thought I had trouble understanding the locals, this deaf, German couple shows up on this trip. They were completely deaf and knew about as much English as the guides, which wasn't a lot. I don't think they appreciated how I was standing right next to them with a stupid grin on my face, watching the charades they and the guides had to perform for every communication, and nodding along in encouragement. But they were amazing,
they figured out every little thing the guides were saying. I didn't even know half of the time. By the end of it, I learned a little sign language so if anyone needs to tell a deaf person any of the first 16 letters of the alphabet, I'm your man. Except for K.
Now we are in Luang Prabang, which is a really nice town. We walked around
yesterday and were invited to drink with some local students who had just finished exams. As usual the first question they asked was "Do you have a girlfriend?" followed by the less subtle "Do you like Laos girls?", "Do you like that girl?", "She likes you you know", and "You should learn Laos from her". We walked with their group of like 20 back into town and all of a sudden one girl kept smiling at me and laughing. Then her friend tried to push me into her. Then some guy told me I should go talk to her. I was wondering if I had mistakenly hit on her in Laos custom by walking too close to her or making eye contact (which by the way, is considered a valid contract to buy something in Cambodia) with her. So I walked faster and slower, looking at everything but her, including the guy behind me, until I was satisfied that if I hadn't shown enough lack of interest in her, I might have made enough eye contact with the guy behind me to dissuade her. I later found out that the whole thing started when Brett had told this girl's friend that I liked her and all of my evasive action was useless.
Anyways, we're going on a trek tomorrow and then Northern Laos, Northern
Thailand, and Bangkok and some other stuff. I hear the election is very soon and I'm not going to get preachy about how you should vote, but if you vote for the conservatives, you are probably a child molester. There, I said it.
Bouche
P.S. The age-old mystery of who wins in a fight between a preying mantis and a chicken was revealed to us while walking today. It's the chicken, and its not even close.
some very loud and angry dinners pretty much every time we eat and I'm quite sure we have offended many other tourists with our cursing, screaming, banging the table, and occasional outbreaks of violence. I am actually sulking right now after a bad loss. It's very addictive though and we are actually eating more often and becoming more and more anti-social because of this game. The cool thing is whenever we play out in public, groups of locals swarm around us and watch. In Hanoi we were sitting on the sidewalk drinking 10-cent beers (Think about that. For the cost of a Seabus ticket, you could get hammered. A return ticket would kill you. And they were still better than Canadian) playing Hearts for the $2 tab when like 8 old Nammy guys surrounded us. They kept laughing and shouting whenever we put cards down and giving us pointers in Vietnamese although I'm fairly sure they didn't know any of the rules. It’s happened other times in Laos as well.
After Hanoi we got on a 21-hour bus trip to Laos, probably one of the worst 21 hours I have ever had. Every country in SE Asia, including the loser countries like Laos and Cambodia, have recognized that people have legs and some room should be put aside in vehicles for such legs. Except for Vietnam. They refuse to believe that legs exist. I was sitting in the back of the bus with my knees near my ears and about 30 packages of gifts and stuff falling on my head while some Laos guy (we tried to call them Laosers but it's not working out) kept falling asleep on my shoulder for 21 hours. I changed from politely tapping this guy on the shoulder to throwing whatever oddly shaped gift that had just fell on my head at him at about the 4-hour mark. The Laos border was kind of funny though and it is a definite indication of how relaxed Laos is compared to the rest of SE Asia. The guy at the customs desk was wearing an adidas jacket and sitting next to a bonfire he had started in his office.
Vientiane was fairly boring as cities go but also refreshing. There was little traffic, no motorbikes, and no one really hassled you for anything. Laos people are pretty sleepy and lazy. Shopkeepers in other countries usually scream at you from the moment they see you until the moment you've pushed some elderly German woman in their face. In Laos, they are sleeping in their stall and seem annoyed that you've woken them up if you want
anything. We also met this guy Bob from Cameroon in Vientiane. Now Bob was the first guy from Cameroon I have ever met and also the first black guy named Bob I have ever met. We learned at dinner that Bob was recently in a Chinese prison and used to have a grand time back in Cameroon with his buddies hijacking cars and robbing rich people's houses at gunpoint. Once he realized that we were not laughing as hard as he was at his exploits, he assured us that usually only the guard was killed in the adventure and that
they didn't shoot white people, which is nice. Needless to say, the rest of our time in Vientiane was Bobless.
After Vientiane, we headed up to Vien Viang, which is pretty much a town that revolves around tubing. You go down this river in a tube and there are bars every 100 metres down the river that pull you in and sell you cheap beer and let you use their rope swings, zip lines, and volleyball courts. This is how we spent 4 days. There is this one rope swing bar that is the biggest and most popular and where most people spend the majority of their day. Its like 30 feet in the air and pretty scary. Most people doing the swing are pretty lame so our attempts at "grabs" and back flips were fairly big spectacles. And so forth. I actually went too far and almost completed the second flip, landing square on my back. Just a great four days of drinking and jumping off rope swings. We also did a whitewater rafting trip after which was pretty cool. Just when I thought I had trouble understanding the locals, this deaf, German couple shows up on this trip. They were completely deaf and knew about as much English as the guides, which wasn't a lot. I don't think they appreciated how I was standing right next to them with a stupid grin on my face, watching the charades they and the guides had to perform for every communication, and nodding along in encouragement. But they were amazing,
they figured out every little thing the guides were saying. I didn't even know half of the time. By the end of it, I learned a little sign language so if anyone needs to tell a deaf person any of the first 16 letters of the alphabet, I'm your man. Except for K.
Now we are in Luang Prabang, which is a really nice town. We walked around
yesterday and were invited to drink with some local students who had just finished exams. As usual the first question they asked was "Do you have a girlfriend?" followed by the less subtle "Do you like Laos girls?", "Do you like that girl?", "She likes you you know", and "You should learn Laos from her". We walked with their group of like 20 back into town and all of a sudden one girl kept smiling at me and laughing. Then her friend tried to push me into her. Then some guy told me I should go talk to her. I was wondering if I had mistakenly hit on her in Laos custom by walking too close to her or making eye contact (which by the way, is considered a valid contract to buy something in Cambodia) with her. So I walked faster and slower, looking at everything but her, including the guy behind me, until I was satisfied that if I hadn't shown enough lack of interest in her, I might have made enough eye contact with the guy behind me to dissuade her. I later found out that the whole thing started when Brett had told this girl's friend that I liked her and all of my evasive action was useless.
Anyways, we're going on a trek tomorrow and then Northern Laos, Northern
Thailand, and Bangkok and some other stuff. I hear the election is very soon and I'm not going to get preachy about how you should vote, but if you vote for the conservatives, you are probably a child molester. There, I said it.
Bouche
P.S. The age-old mystery of who wins in a fight between a preying mantis and a chicken was revealed to us while walking today. It's the chicken, and its not even close.
A Nammy Named Name.
Vietnam is awesome. Kicks the shit out of Thailand. We are getting pretty spoiled here for everything. Big, clean rooms with A/C, HBO, two beds, hot water, and a fridge cost 6 bucks a night. Food is really cheap and beer is around 30-50 cents or 8,000 Dong (Trav insists on calling them Dingos, I figure Dong is about as funny a name for a currency you can hope for). People are, in general, less concerned with ramming useless crap down your throat and it’s a lot cleaner than Thailand.
We started off in Saigon and I got into the Christmas spirit by giving my digital camera to some nice local man. And by giving my digital camera to some nice local man I mean turning my head for two seconds while my camera was taken off the computer desk I was on by some little fucker. It was literally a foot away from me. I guess I should have wondered why the creepy little Vietnamese guy (or Nammies as we call them) with shifty eyes was standing right beside me saying "Hello" over and over into a phone that didn’t work while staring at my camera. I'm not too observant. Anyways, I bought a new one and if I lose this one I will be taking mental pictures for the rest of the trip. Saigon was really cool though. We ate some cobra and drank its blood and stuff. Asian people always say that any food I eat is good for me. I don't think I've eaten one unhealthy piece of food yet. The cobra was good for me, as was its blood and raw heart, deep fried spring rolls are good for me, coke is good for me occasionally, cobra wine is great for maintaining erections (this is usually said by a creepy motobike driver who chuckles as he tells you this and then offers to take you to a boom-boom bar). Pretty much anything they've killed on the street, deep-fried in dirty oil and left for flies to enjoy is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle. Asian people also like to nod and smile whenever they don't understand you. After many wrong directions and frequently getting the wrong food in restaurants, I have learned to test them. If they nod and smile, I ask them a weird question like, "Would you mind if I ate your baby?". If they nod and smile again I know that there is actually not a bathroom on the bus and I should probably take a piss before I get on.
We decided to do a tour of the Mekong Delta for a couple days, which was not the greatest decision. We chose a place that was actually called "Happy-Happy Happy Tours". That was their sign. They were fucking ecstatic about everything. We figured that their happiness was a good sign and went with them. For the next two days all we saw was garbage, gift shops, and the inside of a van. Our tour guide was this little nammy who screamed at us to get on the bus, get off the bus, buy a drink, and that there was no time to go to the washroom, all with a massive grin on his face. I have no idea what he was so goddamed happy about, the tour was horrible. The only good part was the home stay, which the happy idiots had no control over. We were to stay at some local's house and just hang out there for dinner and sleep until the morning. The guy met us at a gas station and walked us over to his boat. This is our conversation:
Bouche: Hey, how's it going?
Name: (Nod and smile) What is your name?
B: Scott.
N: Stoc?
B: Not really, but you can call me Stoc. No one else though ok?
N:(Nod and smile)
B: What is your name?
N: Name.
B: Yes, you, what is your name?
N: (Points to himself) Name.
B: (Sigh) OK, my name is Stoc, what is your name?
N: Name.
B: You're a strange little person aren't you?
(Moment of silence)
N: My name is Name.
B: Ohhhhhhhhh, fuck. How unfortunate for you.
N: (Nod and smile)
B: You should get a nametag.
(Enthusiastic nod and smiles all around)
The home stay was cool but the next day Happy-Happy Happy tours were at the helm again and it was back to seeing the beautiful filth and wanting to kill myself.
Then we were off to Dalat, which is in the highlands. On the trip up there, we had this Nammy sitting behind us who insisted on singing to every crap song the bus driver played on the radio. When he broke out, "I can't liiiiiiiiivvvvvvvvvvvveee if living is without you", my iPod battery ran out and I wanted to kill him. After singing he broke open a pack of dried fruit and decided that the white people around him wouldn't survive the trip unless they ate the majority of his huge sack of fruit. As I kept trying to sleep, he kept on shoving this bag in my face and found it hilarious when I told him I was full. All in all, I wasn't in a good mood when we arrived in Dalat. Dalat was awesome though, kinda like Whistler without the snow and French-Canadians. It was actually kinda cold so it made Christmas feel a little more normal.
The six of us (Trav and I plus two Saskatchewan guys who are wicked and two Vietnamese-Canadian girls who got really annoying and are in the process of being ditched. We tried to pawn them off onto these Aussie guys but they weren't as dumb as their accents would suggest and the girls were sent right back) went to a massage place which was kinda weird. After recounting what each of our massages consisted of, we agreed that I had a very different massage than everyone else. It wasn't a dirty massage and there was nothing sexual but it was very different. I won't get into it now but there was more than one girl, they had no problem peeking down my shorts or patting my ass and they really, really liked my chest hair. We got pretty drunk Christmas Eve and it's kinda blurry. We also started to chant USA! USA! USA! whenever we do something obnoxious or stupid, as to not sully Canada's reputation.
After Dalat we went down to Mui Ne, a beach town that has, much to my surprise, real desert sand dunes. It was here that I realized that I have no appetite in Asia. I just don't really need to eat. So I decided to see how long I could go with out food. I made it 48 hours before I started to get sleepy and realized how dumb fasting is. But I wasn't that hungry. I did eat some cashew nuts one night but promptly puked them up on a restaurant floor when Brett challenged me to a pitcher-chugging contest. I did it in four seconds and it only cost me 75 cents and a substantial amount of self-respect. Another reason Vietnam is great is after puking on the floor in a crowded restaurant, the waitress just smiled and offered me another pitcher. This whole ordeal, of course, was followed by the USA chant.
We headed north to Nha Trang, which is a pretty big party town so we spent New Year's there. Nha Trang would be a really nice city if it wasn't for all the whores and garbage. It has a beach, beautiful mountains, a river, and even some hot springs. You can't go anywhere though without seeing, hearing, or being offered sex with hookers. Brett went to get a haircut in a barbershop and they refused to cut his hair. They first offered him a "massage". He said he'd rather have a haircut. They gave him a confused look and offered him a motobike ride. He pointed to the row of barber chairs and combs, scissors, etc. and they offered another "massage". It took him awhile to actually find someone willing to cut his hair. I tried to get a motobike and the guy offered me weed, boom-boom, and then marijuana just in case I didn't know what weed was. I asked if he could take me to the post office and he looked at me like I was a pervert. New Year's was really fun though. We took over the bar and grabbed bottles of tequila from the stunned bartenders and started giving everyone free shots. A similar thing happened with the champagne. The New Year was rung in with us shouting the USA chant.
Anyways, we're heading up to North Vietnam and then Laos. I'll put some more pictures up soonish. I hope there were some good New Year's stories back home.
BOUCHE
P.S. All the garbage cans in Vietnam are in the shape of penguins. I don't get why garbage cans have to be in the shape of an animal, why the penguin was chosen for the job, and what the hell penguins have to do with Vietnam anyways. But I don’t like it.
We started off in Saigon and I got into the Christmas spirit by giving my digital camera to some nice local man. And by giving my digital camera to some nice local man I mean turning my head for two seconds while my camera was taken off the computer desk I was on by some little fucker. It was literally a foot away from me. I guess I should have wondered why the creepy little Vietnamese guy (or Nammies as we call them) with shifty eyes was standing right beside me saying "Hello" over and over into a phone that didn’t work while staring at my camera. I'm not too observant. Anyways, I bought a new one and if I lose this one I will be taking mental pictures for the rest of the trip. Saigon was really cool though. We ate some cobra and drank its blood and stuff. Asian people always say that any food I eat is good for me. I don't think I've eaten one unhealthy piece of food yet. The cobra was good for me, as was its blood and raw heart, deep fried spring rolls are good for me, coke is good for me occasionally, cobra wine is great for maintaining erections (this is usually said by a creepy motobike driver who chuckles as he tells you this and then offers to take you to a boom-boom bar). Pretty much anything they've killed on the street, deep-fried in dirty oil and left for flies to enjoy is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle. Asian people also like to nod and smile whenever they don't understand you. After many wrong directions and frequently getting the wrong food in restaurants, I have learned to test them. If they nod and smile, I ask them a weird question like, "Would you mind if I ate your baby?". If they nod and smile again I know that there is actually not a bathroom on the bus and I should probably take a piss before I get on.
We decided to do a tour of the Mekong Delta for a couple days, which was not the greatest decision. We chose a place that was actually called "Happy-Happy Happy Tours". That was their sign. They were fucking ecstatic about everything. We figured that their happiness was a good sign and went with them. For the next two days all we saw was garbage, gift shops, and the inside of a van. Our tour guide was this little nammy who screamed at us to get on the bus, get off the bus, buy a drink, and that there was no time to go to the washroom, all with a massive grin on his face. I have no idea what he was so goddamed happy about, the tour was horrible. The only good part was the home stay, which the happy idiots had no control over. We were to stay at some local's house and just hang out there for dinner and sleep until the morning. The guy met us at a gas station and walked us over to his boat. This is our conversation:
Bouche: Hey, how's it going?
Name: (Nod and smile) What is your name?
B: Scott.
N: Stoc?
B: Not really, but you can call me Stoc. No one else though ok?
N:(Nod and smile)
B: What is your name?
N: Name.
B: Yes, you, what is your name?
N: (Points to himself) Name.
B: (Sigh) OK, my name is Stoc, what is your name?
N: Name.
B: You're a strange little person aren't you?
(Moment of silence)
N: My name is Name.
B: Ohhhhhhhhh, fuck. How unfortunate for you.
N: (Nod and smile)
B: You should get a nametag.
(Enthusiastic nod and smiles all around)
The home stay was cool but the next day Happy-Happy Happy tours were at the helm again and it was back to seeing the beautiful filth and wanting to kill myself.
Then we were off to Dalat, which is in the highlands. On the trip up there, we had this Nammy sitting behind us who insisted on singing to every crap song the bus driver played on the radio. When he broke out, "I can't liiiiiiiiivvvvvvvvvvvveee if living is without you", my iPod battery ran out and I wanted to kill him. After singing he broke open a pack of dried fruit and decided that the white people around him wouldn't survive the trip unless they ate the majority of his huge sack of fruit. As I kept trying to sleep, he kept on shoving this bag in my face and found it hilarious when I told him I was full. All in all, I wasn't in a good mood when we arrived in Dalat. Dalat was awesome though, kinda like Whistler without the snow and French-Canadians. It was actually kinda cold so it made Christmas feel a little more normal.
The six of us (Trav and I plus two Saskatchewan guys who are wicked and two Vietnamese-Canadian girls who got really annoying and are in the process of being ditched. We tried to pawn them off onto these Aussie guys but they weren't as dumb as their accents would suggest and the girls were sent right back) went to a massage place which was kinda weird. After recounting what each of our massages consisted of, we agreed that I had a very different massage than everyone else. It wasn't a dirty massage and there was nothing sexual but it was very different. I won't get into it now but there was more than one girl, they had no problem peeking down my shorts or patting my ass and they really, really liked my chest hair. We got pretty drunk Christmas Eve and it's kinda blurry. We also started to chant USA! USA! USA! whenever we do something obnoxious or stupid, as to not sully Canada's reputation.
After Dalat we went down to Mui Ne, a beach town that has, much to my surprise, real desert sand dunes. It was here that I realized that I have no appetite in Asia. I just don't really need to eat. So I decided to see how long I could go with out food. I made it 48 hours before I started to get sleepy and realized how dumb fasting is. But I wasn't that hungry. I did eat some cashew nuts one night but promptly puked them up on a restaurant floor when Brett challenged me to a pitcher-chugging contest. I did it in four seconds and it only cost me 75 cents and a substantial amount of self-respect. Another reason Vietnam is great is after puking on the floor in a crowded restaurant, the waitress just smiled and offered me another pitcher. This whole ordeal, of course, was followed by the USA chant.
We headed north to Nha Trang, which is a pretty big party town so we spent New Year's there. Nha Trang would be a really nice city if it wasn't for all the whores and garbage. It has a beach, beautiful mountains, a river, and even some hot springs. You can't go anywhere though without seeing, hearing, or being offered sex with hookers. Brett went to get a haircut in a barbershop and they refused to cut his hair. They first offered him a "massage". He said he'd rather have a haircut. They gave him a confused look and offered him a motobike ride. He pointed to the row of barber chairs and combs, scissors, etc. and they offered another "massage". It took him awhile to actually find someone willing to cut his hair. I tried to get a motobike and the guy offered me weed, boom-boom, and then marijuana just in case I didn't know what weed was. I asked if he could take me to the post office and he looked at me like I was a pervert. New Year's was really fun though. We took over the bar and grabbed bottles of tequila from the stunned bartenders and started giving everyone free shots. A similar thing happened with the champagne. The New Year was rung in with us shouting the USA chant.
Anyways, we're heading up to North Vietnam and then Laos. I'll put some more pictures up soonish. I hope there were some good New Year's stories back home.
BOUCHE
P.S. All the garbage cans in Vietnam are in the shape of penguins. I don't get why garbage cans have to be in the shape of an animal, why the penguin was chosen for the job, and what the hell penguins have to do with Vietnam anyways. But I don’t like it.
Baguettes, Nudity and Poor Infrastructure.
Those are pretty much the main themes of Cambodia. We got a bus from Bangkok to Siem Reap in Cambodia and at first, it was pretty comfortable. Then we hit the Cambodian border and changed vehicles from a nice big bus to an oversized mini van. 25 of us crammed into this thing and proceeded along the worst road in the world. I was actually getting thrown into the air from some of the bumps we hit. I, however, had an iPod and legroom so I think I was the only one on the bus that actually enjoyed it. You notice how different Cambodia is as soon as you enter it. The countryside is nothing but flat farmland as far as you can see and there are poor people playing in garbage all over the place. It's what I imagine Saskatchewan looks like.
Naked kids are all over the place. Half of the population is under 15 so they just own the show. I'm pretty sure I've figured out how the clothes system works. You're naked when you're born and stay that way until you're about 7. Then, you might get sandals. You're happy with your sandals because they allow you to walk further to new garbage to play in. Then, at around 10, you get either underwear or a shirt. A shirt is preferable because it means you can still go to the bathroom with minimal effort. Finally, at around 12, you're fully clothed. I had to stare at my feet a lot of the time so I wasn't the creepy western guy who kept looking at the naked kids.
Cambodians, or "Cambos" as we called them, are the happiest people I've seen. They are always smiling and all the young kids wave at you and shout "hello" when you pass. If you wave back they have a fit of joy, it's pretty funny. Considering how poor most of them are and how violent Cambodia's history has been, their happiness makes you feel pretty guilty about ever complaining about anything. If I were in their shoes I would probably spend my days throwing rocks at children and buying puppies just to drown them.
Angkor Wat was pretty cool. It's a bunch of huge, elaborate temples built between 800-1300 A.D., around the same time Europeans were just learning how to not roll around in their own feces all day. We had an encounter with a group of old Koreans that was kind of funny. Koreans are a funny race. For example, in Seoul airport, we noticed that Korean couples are always dressed the same. As in shirts, pants, socks, shoes, hats,
everything. Seeing this in person has been one of the main highlights of the trip so far. Anyways, Trav, Alana, and I were just chilling on one of the temples when a Korean woman asked something about a picture and gestured to her camera. Alana thought she wanted her to take of picture of her and her friends so she tried to take the camera. The Korean woman shook her head and told us that the entire tour group wanted to take a picture with us. So they are at some giant impressive temple and three white people are the main attraction. Someone in Korea now has a picture of Trav, Alana, and me surrounded by around 15 geriatric Koreans.
After Siem Reap and Angkor Wat we headed down to Phenom Penh, the capital
of Cambodia. We shot off some guns at the shooting range, saw some museums, etc. One night we went out drinking and we asked the owner of a restaurant where all the good bars were. He gave us a name and we were off, only to find out that it was a quasi hooker bar. We had fun laughing at the weird couples of fat, old western men and hot young Cambodian hookers. Apparently, one of the ways hookers get your attention is to throw peanuts at you. By the end of the night we were in a peanut fight with a table of hookers and were all covered in salt. We did meet a Cambo named "Bambi" who seemed to think he could speak English but I wasn’t convinced. But we laughed when he laughed and nodded along. Two nights later, we ran into Bambi as he was getting off work and he decided he was going to hang out with us. We had just had some "happy pizza" however, and were pretty stoned so it was kinda awkward. He came back to our guesthouse and hung out, watching HBO while speaking "English" to us. I was chuckling the whole time about how a Cambo named Bambi was sitting on my bed watching HBO, laughing his head off about the joke he just made.
After Phenom Penh we headed down to Sihanoukville on the South coast of
Cambodia. It had fairly nice beaches and ridiculous beer prices. Pitchers of beer were $1.75. I was considering having one for breakfast by the end of our stay. The kids here were vicious. We would sit on the beach enjoying a 50 cent beer, and streams of them would come up and try to sell you fruit, drinks, lobsters, bracelets, anything, and they don't take no for an answer. They would just keep demanding that you buy fruit. I think they learn in school that white people love coke and fruit and if we don't have these items in constant supply we will die. Their only flaw however, I discovered the second day on the beach, was that they were quite trusting. So, I would say that if I wanted fruit in the future, I promised to buy it from them. They usually made me pinky swear, thinking this sacred ritual would surely bind me to this agreement. Apparently years under colonial rule by white people didn’t teach Cambos to not trust us. A conversation:
Cambo: You like to buy fruit mister?
Bouche: As you can plainly see, I am eating fruit right now, why would I want
more?
C: Why you not want fruit? It very good.
B: I'm sure it is, but I'm all fruited out.
C: Buy fruit!
B: No!
(A couple seconds of silence)
C: I have good mango.
B: So do I, right here, in my giant bag of fruit.
C: You want to buy fruit mister?
B: Listen, I'll buy from you in 2 hours.
C: You promise?
B: Of course I promise, I'll even pinky swear.
C: OK, in 2 hours?
B: Yeah, 2 hours, you better be here though. If you bail on me I'm going to be one angry fruit-hungry white guy.
C: I be here, I be here.
B: OK then. (Under my breath) Sucker.
(Trav and I run off 15 minutes later, never to return)
Trav got himself in a little bit of trouble with this promise thing though. He promised one girl he'd buy fruit off her later but then another girl came up and challenged him to a game of tic-tac-toe. If he lost, he would have to buy her fruit. Somehow, Trav lost the game. I didn't even think losing tic-tac-toe was possible. So he bought fruit. The first girl came back to discover Trav eating fruit that was not hers. She was almost violent she was so angry. She kept on insisting that he buy more fruit from her. We had to make a quick getaway.
Ok, well, we're in Vietnam now where beer is even cheaper. It works out to around 40 cents a beer. I'm convinced that sooner or later it will just be given to us. Sorry about the length of this one, I know most of you despise reading. We have free Internet though and we're waiting for a museum to open. Some pictures should be up soon. Have a good Festivus,
BOUCHE
P.S. Cambodian TV is so bad it hurts. They insist on playing it on every bus ride at full blast, even if there are no Cambos on the bus. I'm pretty sure the basis for every show is two Cambos, dressed in ridiculous costumes, shout and scream at each other over who looks the more ridiculous. This goes on for hours.
Naked kids are all over the place. Half of the population is under 15 so they just own the show. I'm pretty sure I've figured out how the clothes system works. You're naked when you're born and stay that way until you're about 7. Then, you might get sandals. You're happy with your sandals because they allow you to walk further to new garbage to play in. Then, at around 10, you get either underwear or a shirt. A shirt is preferable because it means you can still go to the bathroom with minimal effort. Finally, at around 12, you're fully clothed. I had to stare at my feet a lot of the time so I wasn't the creepy western guy who kept looking at the naked kids.
Cambodians, or "Cambos" as we called them, are the happiest people I've seen. They are always smiling and all the young kids wave at you and shout "hello" when you pass. If you wave back they have a fit of joy, it's pretty funny. Considering how poor most of them are and how violent Cambodia's history has been, their happiness makes you feel pretty guilty about ever complaining about anything. If I were in their shoes I would probably spend my days throwing rocks at children and buying puppies just to drown them.
Angkor Wat was pretty cool. It's a bunch of huge, elaborate temples built between 800-1300 A.D., around the same time Europeans were just learning how to not roll around in their own feces all day. We had an encounter with a group of old Koreans that was kind of funny. Koreans are a funny race. For example, in Seoul airport, we noticed that Korean couples are always dressed the same. As in shirts, pants, socks, shoes, hats,
everything. Seeing this in person has been one of the main highlights of the trip so far. Anyways, Trav, Alana, and I were just chilling on one of the temples when a Korean woman asked something about a picture and gestured to her camera. Alana thought she wanted her to take of picture of her and her friends so she tried to take the camera. The Korean woman shook her head and told us that the entire tour group wanted to take a picture with us. So they are at some giant impressive temple and three white people are the main attraction. Someone in Korea now has a picture of Trav, Alana, and me surrounded by around 15 geriatric Koreans.
After Siem Reap and Angkor Wat we headed down to Phenom Penh, the capital
of Cambodia. We shot off some guns at the shooting range, saw some museums, etc. One night we went out drinking and we asked the owner of a restaurant where all the good bars were. He gave us a name and we were off, only to find out that it was a quasi hooker bar. We had fun laughing at the weird couples of fat, old western men and hot young Cambodian hookers. Apparently, one of the ways hookers get your attention is to throw peanuts at you. By the end of the night we were in a peanut fight with a table of hookers and were all covered in salt. We did meet a Cambo named "Bambi" who seemed to think he could speak English but I wasn’t convinced. But we laughed when he laughed and nodded along. Two nights later, we ran into Bambi as he was getting off work and he decided he was going to hang out with us. We had just had some "happy pizza" however, and were pretty stoned so it was kinda awkward. He came back to our guesthouse and hung out, watching HBO while speaking "English" to us. I was chuckling the whole time about how a Cambo named Bambi was sitting on my bed watching HBO, laughing his head off about the joke he just made.
After Phenom Penh we headed down to Sihanoukville on the South coast of
Cambodia. It had fairly nice beaches and ridiculous beer prices. Pitchers of beer were $1.75. I was considering having one for breakfast by the end of our stay. The kids here were vicious. We would sit on the beach enjoying a 50 cent beer, and streams of them would come up and try to sell you fruit, drinks, lobsters, bracelets, anything, and they don't take no for an answer. They would just keep demanding that you buy fruit. I think they learn in school that white people love coke and fruit and if we don't have these items in constant supply we will die. Their only flaw however, I discovered the second day on the beach, was that they were quite trusting. So, I would say that if I wanted fruit in the future, I promised to buy it from them. They usually made me pinky swear, thinking this sacred ritual would surely bind me to this agreement. Apparently years under colonial rule by white people didn’t teach Cambos to not trust us. A conversation:
Cambo: You like to buy fruit mister?
Bouche: As you can plainly see, I am eating fruit right now, why would I want
more?
C: Why you not want fruit? It very good.
B: I'm sure it is, but I'm all fruited out.
C: Buy fruit!
B: No!
(A couple seconds of silence)
C: I have good mango.
B: So do I, right here, in my giant bag of fruit.
C: You want to buy fruit mister?
B: Listen, I'll buy from you in 2 hours.
C: You promise?
B: Of course I promise, I'll even pinky swear.
C: OK, in 2 hours?
B: Yeah, 2 hours, you better be here though. If you bail on me I'm going to be one angry fruit-hungry white guy.
C: I be here, I be here.
B: OK then. (Under my breath) Sucker.
(Trav and I run off 15 minutes later, never to return)
Trav got himself in a little bit of trouble with this promise thing though. He promised one girl he'd buy fruit off her later but then another girl came up and challenged him to a game of tic-tac-toe. If he lost, he would have to buy her fruit. Somehow, Trav lost the game. I didn't even think losing tic-tac-toe was possible. So he bought fruit. The first girl came back to discover Trav eating fruit that was not hers. She was almost violent she was so angry. She kept on insisting that he buy more fruit from her. We had to make a quick getaway.
Ok, well, we're in Vietnam now where beer is even cheaper. It works out to around 40 cents a beer. I'm convinced that sooner or later it will just be given to us. Sorry about the length of this one, I know most of you despise reading. We have free Internet though and we're waiting for a museum to open. Some pictures should be up soon. Have a good Festivus,
BOUCHE
P.S. Cambodian TV is so bad it hurts. They insist on playing it on every bus ride at full blast, even if there are no Cambos on the bus. I'm pretty sure the basis for every show is two Cambos, dressed in ridiculous costumes, shout and scream at each other over who looks the more ridiculous. This goes on for hours.
There are No Koalas in Kuala Lumpur.
Ok, that was a bad joke. Well, after diving in Koh Tao we headed south to Koh Samui, which is a horrible place. At first I thought it was pretty good. The beach was alright and it was quasi topless, which was very fun. I learned immediately that having sunglasses on a topless beach is a huge asset. Without them, you are the creepy, bearded Canadian at the back of the beach with a perverted gleam in his eye who tries to pretend he is looking at some fascinating object at the end of his foot every time you catch him looking at you. With them, you are the cool guy who may or may not be taking a mental picture of you. Koh Samui is a huge Euro resort however, which drastically affects its appeal. Numerous times I saw two figures in the distance, one with a bikini, the other with just the bottoms, walking towards me. I prepared my sunglasses in anticipation, only to realize that I was checking out some slender European man with a fucking Speedo on. Every European man we saw wore a Speedo. It was horrible. We also went to a Muay Thai kickboxing match, which was ok. We realized that it wasn't that important of a match though when we entered a high school gym and there were maybe 20 Thais in the whole place. The heavyweights were literally 120 lbs and were 15 years old. It was a little disturbing having young Thai boys fight each other for my entertainment. I felt dirty. Also, I think there are more prostitutes in Koh Samui per capita than anywhere else in the world. We went to some clubs and there were no white girls. It was all Thai girls and Western guys. Some of them aren't prostitutes, they are just Thai girls who like Western guys, but it’s hard to tell the difference. I discovered that the girls who actually paid attention to me while I drunkenly swaggered around the bar, sloppily grinning at everyone I saw were prostitutes. The others were just regular Thai girls. Lady boys are also very aggressive in Samui. They figure that if they grab your genitalia hard enough and with enough frequency, you will like them. At first I tried to explain why a relationship would never take place between us, but that just encouraged more grabbing so I just started running whenever I saw them.
After Samui, we went to Phi Phi, which is the nicest place I have ever been to. It's where they filmed "The Beach" and its ridiculous. We had a good crew of Canadians, English, and Irish and partied pretty good till about 9am most nights. Everyone is very good looking there however, so Trav and I didn't really fit in. That relates to our slightly unreasonable dislike of Scandinavians, or "Scandies" as we have labeled them. They are too good looking. They also have stupid accents but it’s mostly the looks. We also hate Israelis but that's because they think they own the show in Thailand.
After about a week in Phi Phi, we headed down to Malaysia for a couple days, which was pretty cool. Lots of phallic shaped buildings and cheap markets. We were there for 4 days and tried to go to the ultra-phallic twin towers everyday but we couldn’t get in. The first day we were too late, the second day was a Monday so it was obviously closed, the third day we realized that we needed tickets and didn’t have any, and the fourth day they were sold out. I left truly hoping a terrorist incident would kill everyone in the building. The rest of Kuala Lumpur was cool and it was refreshing going 4 days without a beer. Apparently, Muslims aren’t the party going people everyone makes them out to be so booze is quite expensive and no one smiles.
We are now in Bangkok, doing some shopping and other touristy things. We met up with most of the crew from Phi Phi so going to bed at about 9am is becoming more and more normal. I think I'm actually back on Vancouver time. We are headed to Cambodia in a couple days so I'm looking forward to that. I'm also getting better at bartering. The trick is to have no desire whatsoever in the item you are bartering for. I point out these things to Trav that are so stupid no one would want them but the Thai guy selling it thinks I'm interested. So he will knock the price down over and over again, basically bartering with himself while I try to figure out a way to get the hell out of there without seeming rude. Its even worse if you shake their hand because they don’t let go and then you're holding hands with this Thai guy on the street while he's frantically dropping the price of this thing you want nothing to do with. So, of course now I have all this stuff I hate but I did get really good deals.
Oh, I need to rant. I fucking hate the dirty, middle-aged hippy travelers who think they are better than everyone just because of their filth and random local they have permanently attached to their hemp bag. I mean, these people were persecuted their whole lives because of their lack of hygiene and odd behaviour and now that they are traveling they figure it makes them better than anyone who actually has a clean shirt. These people must go back to wherever the hell they came from (the Netherlands in most cases I'm assuming. God I hate the Dutch) dirtier and weirder than ever before and have to either go back traveling or kill themselves. Alright, that's enough; it's time for noon food.
BOUCHE
P.S. I don't know what they put in the booze here but its weird. I woke up at 4pm today clean-shaven with 5 new books and a fresh haircut.
After Samui, we went to Phi Phi, which is the nicest place I have ever been to. It's where they filmed "The Beach" and its ridiculous. We had a good crew of Canadians, English, and Irish and partied pretty good till about 9am most nights. Everyone is very good looking there however, so Trav and I didn't really fit in. That relates to our slightly unreasonable dislike of Scandinavians, or "Scandies" as we have labeled them. They are too good looking. They also have stupid accents but it’s mostly the looks. We also hate Israelis but that's because they think they own the show in Thailand.
After about a week in Phi Phi, we headed down to Malaysia for a couple days, which was pretty cool. Lots of phallic shaped buildings and cheap markets. We were there for 4 days and tried to go to the ultra-phallic twin towers everyday but we couldn’t get in. The first day we were too late, the second day was a Monday so it was obviously closed, the third day we realized that we needed tickets and didn’t have any, and the fourth day they were sold out. I left truly hoping a terrorist incident would kill everyone in the building. The rest of Kuala Lumpur was cool and it was refreshing going 4 days without a beer. Apparently, Muslims aren’t the party going people everyone makes them out to be so booze is quite expensive and no one smiles.
We are now in Bangkok, doing some shopping and other touristy things. We met up with most of the crew from Phi Phi so going to bed at about 9am is becoming more and more normal. I think I'm actually back on Vancouver time. We are headed to Cambodia in a couple days so I'm looking forward to that. I'm also getting better at bartering. The trick is to have no desire whatsoever in the item you are bartering for. I point out these things to Trav that are so stupid no one would want them but the Thai guy selling it thinks I'm interested. So he will knock the price down over and over again, basically bartering with himself while I try to figure out a way to get the hell out of there without seeming rude. Its even worse if you shake their hand because they don’t let go and then you're holding hands with this Thai guy on the street while he's frantically dropping the price of this thing you want nothing to do with. So, of course now I have all this stuff I hate but I did get really good deals.
Oh, I need to rant. I fucking hate the dirty, middle-aged hippy travelers who think they are better than everyone just because of their filth and random local they have permanently attached to their hemp bag. I mean, these people were persecuted their whole lives because of their lack of hygiene and odd behaviour and now that they are traveling they figure it makes them better than anyone who actually has a clean shirt. These people must go back to wherever the hell they came from (the Netherlands in most cases I'm assuming. God I hate the Dutch) dirtier and weirder than ever before and have to either go back traveling or kill themselves. Alright, that's enough; it's time for noon food.
BOUCHE
P.S. I don't know what they put in the booze here but its weird. I woke up at 4pm today clean-shaven with 5 new books and a fresh haircut.
In Thailand, Dogs Have Balls.
It's true, they do. It’s distracting sometimes. Even the cats have balls, which looks even weirder. Anyways, The weather has picked up over here somewhat, which is nice. For a while there, it was pretty bad. The last morning it rained I sat on our patio and watched the locals sandbagging areas of the beach because the rain was cutting rivers into the beach and the bungalows were in danger of being swept in the sea. We also ran out of things to do. The rain did have some good parts, it kept everything in Thailand really really green. And that was one of the main reasons I came to Thailand anyways, green things. On the first day of "sun", we ran out to the beach and chilled for a while. I promptly got very burnt under the overcast sky, which was impressive even for me. After that we had a good time driving around the island on scooters and snorkeling etc. we were trying to get someone to take us out fishing but all the travel places wanted like 5000 baht so we scootered to this tiny fishing village and asked the mother of the ugliest family I’ve ever seen if any one of them could do it. We got a good deal (my first ever) and some old guy who didn’t speak a word of English took us out for a few hours. Grunty, as Trav and I called him, would only communicate with grunts. A small fish would call for a disapproving unnnnhhhh. A nice fish would be rewarded by a more enthusiastic gaaaaaaaaaahhh. So we had fun. One thing about Thailand, the servers here are fucking horrible. I mean, I wouldn’t work very hard if I wasn’t getting tips either but they are really bad. One person's food will come right away while the other person sits for like 30 min, then juice will come later, then the easiest thing on the menu will arrive as you're about to leave. Its weird. This is a typical conversation for Trav and me in a Thai restaurant.
(My food arrives, missing toast)
T: Looks pretty good doesn’t it? (English accent of course)
B: Quite right, I believe he has missed my toast though.
T: I wouldn’t count on seeing that mate.
B: Oi! Is that our fucking waiter buzzing off on his bike?!
T: He's buggered off!
B: Probably off to find your juice.
T: He better not go to fucking Thong Sala for that juice, I’ll be here all day.
B: Well, my juice is fucking magic.
T: Wanker.
(Trav's food arrives 20 min later, sans juice)
B: Well, you want to play some hearts while we wait for your juice?
T: Yeah alright.
(2 hands later)
B: Fuck this stupid game! I’m not playing.
(Silence for 5 min, both of us bring out books)
B: What kind of juice did ya get anyways?
T: I haven’t the foggiest.
(10 min of reading passes)
B: Oh Harry potter, you've done it again.
(Trav shakes his head in disgust)
B: Oi! Look at that dog's bollocks! They’re huge they are!
T: Shut up Bouche, just (sighs) just shut up about the dogs.
(Silence for 5 min followed by waiter coming back with juice. My toast
arrives 15 min later)
Yeah, so that’s about it. So we went to Koh Tao after a couple days in Koh Phangnan to do some diving. Pretty wicked compared to home, actually swam with a whale shark yesterday. We had people coming up to us last night in the bar asking about it. My instructor was a bit of a douchebag, spent like15 min last night in the bar telling trav and me the ins and outs (no pun intended) of buying whores. Met up with some crazy Danish guys and have been hanging out with them for a while. The Danes have a dumb language. They call breakfast morning food, lunch is noon food, and dinner is evening food. Im not joking. The Vikings must have been too busy raping and pillaging to come up with names for stuff. Last night they dressed up in child size superhero costumes and hit the town. Very funny. Oh, one more story. There’s this guy who went to argyle, don’t remember his name but I played rugby with him and I didn’t like him. I saw him the other night in town, pretended not to see him. Then, we're with the Danes in a restaurant watching a movie, “Deuce Bigalow European gigolo”. (The Danes felt that this movie was a good choice to watch while eating evening food). This guy sits down 5 feet away from me, facing me. And he knows Im there and he’s staring at me and I had to sit watching that stupid movie for 2 hours focusing the whole time on not looking to my right. That’s a long time to not look to the right. Might be a bit awkward if I run into him back at home.
So anyways, going to see a couple more islands, then off to Malaysia then back up to Bangkok before seeing Cambodia, Vietnam etc. I will respond to individual emails eventually so I am not ignoring you on purpose. Well, some of you maybe.
BOUCHE
P.S. Trav and I just witnessed a group of hookers beat up some girl in the street. They’re ferocious.
(My food arrives, missing toast)
T: Looks pretty good doesn’t it? (English accent of course)
B: Quite right, I believe he has missed my toast though.
T: I wouldn’t count on seeing that mate.
B: Oi! Is that our fucking waiter buzzing off on his bike?!
T: He's buggered off!
B: Probably off to find your juice.
T: He better not go to fucking Thong Sala for that juice, I’ll be here all day.
B: Well, my juice is fucking magic.
T: Wanker.
(Trav's food arrives 20 min later, sans juice)
B: Well, you want to play some hearts while we wait for your juice?
T: Yeah alright.
(2 hands later)
B: Fuck this stupid game! I’m not playing.
(Silence for 5 min, both of us bring out books)
B: What kind of juice did ya get anyways?
T: I haven’t the foggiest.
(10 min of reading passes)
B: Oh Harry potter, you've done it again.
(Trav shakes his head in disgust)
B: Oi! Look at that dog's bollocks! They’re huge they are!
T: Shut up Bouche, just (sighs) just shut up about the dogs.
(Silence for 5 min followed by waiter coming back with juice. My toast
arrives 15 min later)
Yeah, so that’s about it. So we went to Koh Tao after a couple days in Koh Phangnan to do some diving. Pretty wicked compared to home, actually swam with a whale shark yesterday. We had people coming up to us last night in the bar asking about it. My instructor was a bit of a douchebag, spent like15 min last night in the bar telling trav and me the ins and outs (no pun intended) of buying whores. Met up with some crazy Danish guys and have been hanging out with them for a while. The Danes have a dumb language. They call breakfast morning food, lunch is noon food, and dinner is evening food. Im not joking. The Vikings must have been too busy raping and pillaging to come up with names for stuff. Last night they dressed up in child size superhero costumes and hit the town. Very funny. Oh, one more story. There’s this guy who went to argyle, don’t remember his name but I played rugby with him and I didn’t like him. I saw him the other night in town, pretended not to see him. Then, we're with the Danes in a restaurant watching a movie, “Deuce Bigalow European gigolo”. (The Danes felt that this movie was a good choice to watch while eating evening food). This guy sits down 5 feet away from me, facing me. And he knows Im there and he’s staring at me and I had to sit watching that stupid movie for 2 hours focusing the whole time on not looking to my right. That’s a long time to not look to the right. Might be a bit awkward if I run into him back at home.
So anyways, going to see a couple more islands, then off to Malaysia then back up to Bangkok before seeing Cambodia, Vietnam etc. I will respond to individual emails eventually so I am not ignoring you on purpose. Well, some of you maybe.
BOUCHE
P.S. Trav and I just witnessed a group of hookers beat up some girl in the street. They’re ferocious.
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