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Broadcasting to an audience of three (and a goldfish)...
Comment, ramblings and musings... life through the eyes of a Japanologist...
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Tuesday, November 19, 2002 |
 Found a good but cheap hotel in Matsuyama for the weekend- 4000 yen for one night, and the facilities don't seem bad at all. I talked to Osaki-kun, and he agreed that it looked alright, so I went ahead and made a reservation online. The form was slightly odd, though; there was nowhere to write how many rooms- or, for that matter, what sort of room- to reserve...
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Made the decision to go to Uchiko (a small town near Matsuyama) for the weekend this weekend. Osaki-kun, a friend from the yakuba in one of the other towns on the island, who's coming too, suggested going to Tobe (famous for its pottery) too, so we're going to do both, and spend the night rather than doing a day-trip, which I'd originally intended. It should be a very pleasant weekend, especially as there are almost too many onsen to count in the area. Fingers crossed for good weather...
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I spent most of the evening setting up a blogroll for the Breakfast Show using Radio's outliner. The blogroll itself was simple; integrating it into the main page wasn't difficult; getting it to update took hours. I'm still not sure it updates properly, but for the time being I'll leave it as it is. If I see a better way of doing what I want to do, though, I'll be changing it.
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Original recipes
Disclaimer: the Breakfast Show cannot be held responsible if this recipe turns out disgustingly or leads to food poisoning or any other ailment or distress. We can- and will- however, take credit for any and all successes. Email for details of where to send donations (financial)...
My 'Mince and Cheese Udon' turned out admirably! So, as promised, here's the recipe (watch out, this could be the first of many 'fusion' recipes!):
- Fry the mince (enough for one person) and two portions of udon in a little oil. Add shoyu (soy sauce) to flavour, and turn often to ensure that the ingredients are well mixed, and that the udon cook well.
- When the mince is well cooked, add two eggs and mix well. Stir until the eggs cook.
- Turn off the heat, and before serving, add five or six lumps of cream cheese.
- Dekiagari!
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Called in at one of the grocery shops near the office on my way home from work to buy udon for dinner this evening. I have a cooking 'concept' (I hesitate to call it a recipe) I'd like to try... I'd like to refer to it as 'fusion cookery'. If it turns out reasonably, I'll post the recipe to the Breakfast Show.
Anyway, in the shop there was a lady I knew by sight, and she took it upon herself to follow me around the shop, checking on what I was buying. Well, given that my shopping list consisted of eggs and udon, I wasn't particularly bothered, but she did become irritating when she saw the udon and asked, 'Are you going to use those tonight?' Then, she followed me to the cash register, and asked, 'Can you cook?' I was really tempted to say that no, I didn't cook, that I lived on Pringles and Calorie Mate, and that I'd only bought the udon for decoration, but something stopped me from doing so. Looking back, though, I wish I had said something like this, impudent as it might have been. If nothing else, it would have given the irritating woman something to talk about for the next decade or so!
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Actually, talking about various noodle products was interesting in another way. It showed me something potentially very significant about the mindset of the person who shall be referred to only as 'Nemesis T'.
What's the plural of 'nemesis', I wonder? I'd guess at 'nemeses', but I have to say I rather like 'nemesises', and given that there's 'Nemesis S' as well as 'T', this is a valid question...
Anyway, the 'satsuma' man mentioned to 'Nemesis T' that it was a rare experience to be able to talk like we were doing, and to compare notes, about Japanese noodles with an Englishman. To this, though, 'T' made no response at all. Hmmm- I think that this could be a clue as to why she won't speak to me or treat me in the same way as everyone else. I'm not a psychologist- I don't even pretend to be an amateur psychologist- but I wonder whether it might not in fact be that she doesn't like the fact (1) that a foreigner can be this knowledgeable about Japan, and (2) that a foreigner can get this much attention from the rest of the office. I think she doesn't like not being the centre of attention herself; it's noticeable that she won't join in any conversation in which I'm participating.
Of course, there's also the intelligence aspect as well, which is something quite a few people have mentioned. She is the only person in the office with a Masters degree, and she likes to think that she's an intellectual level about everyone else. Well, she might be able to do this with the other members of the office (she certainly is superb at looking down at her seniors), but not even she can persuade herself that she's the intellectual superior of an Oxford graduate... To be honest, though, irrespective of degrees or universities or anything, I don't think she's actually that intelligent anyway- certainly not in terms of real-life knowledge. For example, this afternoon she was trying to work out the money to pay for someone's business trip to Osaka on the Shinkansen. Not only did she not realise that there is a separate Shinkansen station in Osaka (this might sound like specialist knowledge, but in Japan it's general knowledge), but she didn't realise that the train ticket and the Shinkansen supplement were separate tickets and could in fact be from and to different stations (again, general knowledge). And she's been doing the same job for three years now...
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The office was enjoyable today. Some days people are completely silent; some days they're really enthusiastic to talk and ask questions about England and so on. Today was one of these 'chatty' days. First of all, there was a bag of satsumas, and when I took one this prompted a conversation. I'm sure I tell everyone every year that in English we call mikan 'satsumas', because of the link with Satsuma-han in Kyushu, but everyone seems to forget. In any case, it's an excellent conversation opener, so I never mind reminding people... Anyway, the second most important person in the office decided to make an effort to remember this, and every now and again held up a satsuma and said, 'satsu-ma', following this with one of a series of general questions about oranges in Britain. Not the most inspiring of topics, but hey!- it's nice to chat to the people in the office about things completely unrelated to work, every once in a while.
Then, when I got back from my school visit, I asked Shinbe-san whether udon marked 'boil' could actually be fried, and this prompted a long and very involved conversation about ramen, udon and soba. The people who came into the office in April were all very surprised to hear that I'd made soba myself last New Year, and from this the conversation turned (somehow!) to good ramen shops.
If only the office were this interesting every day!
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Got back to the office to find my newsletter article waiting to be checked. This always takes ages, because it's the final chance I have to make changes or corrections to the article before it's published, and so I make sure I check every character. This month's proofing, though, went quite smoothly; I hardly had to correct any of the publisher's inputting mistakes. Sometimes there are tens of mistakes, though.
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Went to Miyanohara Elementary School after lunch. With the third- and fourth-years, we played rounders. Well, the children were better- very significantly better- than last time- but that's not saying much. And even after this lesson, about half the children were still completely clueless. I don't think it's rounders they're clueless about, either; rather, it's ball games in general. For example, one girl stood up and asked, 'How do you run from the first base to the second?'! Even the Japanese teachers were stumped by this question! I mean, how exactly do you answer? 'Via base 4!'? Or perhaps, 'Hop in a zigzag line!'? Needless to say, this girl was one of the several pupils who, instead of running straight from one base to the next, decided to take a circular route, running wide into the field, right past the base, and then doubling back... in most cases to find themselves out.
That these children found themselves out, though, is not to say that the fielding was good. Far from it. In fact, in any one word should be used to describe both teams' fielding, then it should be 'laughable'. Again, more than half of the children had absolutely no clue what they should do if they got the ball. Despite my having explained- several times- that they could get people out by touching the cone with the ball before the runners touched it themselves, half the children still had no idea that they should therefore get the ball to a base as quickly as possible. And even when they did, it didn't occur to them to actually touch the base. I actually saw one girl run with the ball to a base, stand around and ponder what to do having got there, and finally hand the ball to a boy standing nearby. Needless to say (again), by the time the boy had touched the cone, the runner was easily safe. Despite all this cluelessness, though, I asked the children at the end of the lesson if they'd enjoyed the game, an they all replied they had, and that they'd like to play it again...
The fifth- and sixth-years, meanwhile, continued with the practices for 'Jack and the Beanstalk'. They're getting better- some of them are actually quite good- but they don't have enough time. The performance is on December 8th; were it in January, or better still in February, I'd be confident of a good show, but as it stands I honestly don't think the children will be ready in time. There are still children who read their lines (and no, they haven't learned them) as if they're seeing them for the first time... but they've all had scripts since about June. At least they're listening to the CD of the lines I recorded for them, and this seems to be having some effect. If only they'd bothered to start listening to it two months or so ago...
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I booked the day off tomorrow. I don't have to get up early tomorrow morning! An excellent feeling...
I think I like taking Wednesdays off more than any other day. A break in the middle of the week is really refreshing.
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On duty at lunchtime, I found a useful article on setting up a blogroll using the outliner built into Radio. I've never used this outliner before- I have the excellent OmniOutliner on my Mac- but it sounds very easy to build a list of links I can easily incorporate into the structure of the Breakfast Show, so I think I'll give it a go this evening. It should certainly be more convenient than having to go to the Prefs in Radio and change the coding by hand every time I want to add or change a link...
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One of the reasons I had time to think about my speech and update the Breakfast Show was that my school visit in the afternoon was one of those rare but perfect ones: a school visit where I don't have to plan anything, because both lessons are the same as the previous time I visited. If only all lesson planning was this simple...
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Spent much of the morning making notes for my speech on Friday. At least as far as the rest of the office were concerned, that's was I was doing, anyway...
In fact I did write some notes, but I also got the Breakfast Show a little more up-to-date, and also listed it on Blogwise, a blog directory searchable by country or by keyword. Of course, though, with links to so many blogs all in one place, it wasn't a question of just getting the Breakfast Show listed and then carrying on with the speech, oh no. I had to browse as well... I think this'll be a site I'll be coming back to fairly regularly.
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Had to see the Mayor this morning about the school link with Dartmouth Primary School. We've been talking about the children in Dartmouth sending over some pictures to be displayed in the Manabi no Yakata alongside those done by the children in Ozu, and the Mayor wanted to know how things were progressing. I was able to tell him that things were going smoothly, and so we set a provisional date of the middle of December for the exhibition to begin. This should be a great little project- and hopefully, plenty of the townspeople here will be able to enjoy it too.
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As I got into work, someone who commutes from Kirikushi was just coming in. He said that there'd actually been a frost there, the first of the season. I can well believe it: Kirikushi is the coldest part of the island, but even in Washibe (probably the most sheltered area) it was very cold indeed this morning.
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Once the sun is up, it soon gets at least tolerably warm, but obviously, as the days get shorter, the sunrise gets later and later. I noticed as I was walking to work this morning that even at 8 o'clock, the sun was only just peeping over the mountains separating Washibe and Akizuki. Still, it won't be long until the shortest day now- only just over a month. At least after that we'll be on the long, slow road back towards spring, and after that I'll be able to moan about it being hot again!
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I really don't like getting up in the morning. Not because it's dark still, but because it's cold. Damn cold. And then I have to have a shave, and a shower, and they're cold too. I suppose it goes without saying, really, but the better the weather, the colder the night.
Anyway, I've made the decision to take tomorrow off- I still have a day's holiday from bunkasai to take- so I won't have to get up while it's still nose-numbingly cold...!
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© Copyright 2003 Nathan Duckworth.
Updated: 8/1/03; 8:56:15 pm.
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