[Insert pun about Noh drama here.]

I have a few stories to tell.

So at the end of last week, we had a farewell party for Michael, who leaves in a couple days. I'll be lonely for my last week and a half at the center, but he really needs to go home, or I'm afraid he might start shooting. Anyway, at this farewell party, Kitajima-san, the quiet, sweet and innocent seeming guy who sits across from me in the office got totally plastered, which, as usual around Japanese people, yielded some hilarious results. For example, we were talking about sumo (what else?), and he asked me if I had ever worn a mawashi (the loin cloth thing), and everyone within an earshot cracked the hell up. But the funniest part was when the boss was asking Kitajima to take me to Zazen sometime, to which he responded, sure, but if you come you should wear a kimono. Seemed a little out of the blue, but I just let it go. But then for the rest of the evening Kitajima would find a way to link every topic of conversation to why I should wear a kimono to Zazen, why I should wear a kimono to Noh, why I should wear a kimono to work, until finally Yasuta explained that, "It's cool. Kitajima-san just has a kimono fetish." Ha! Quiet little Kitajima-san has a kimono fetish! Classic! I actually ended up going to a Noh drama (in jeans) that Kitajima performed, so I got to see him in a kimono. It was really interesting to see how different it was from western drama. Noh makes no effort to convince the audience that they're not at a play. The house lights stay on, and the chorus and the guys playing the goofy drums and flutes sit right on the stage, not hidden or anything. So instead of focusing on the plot, you're forced to focus on the sound, the music, and the visuals, and take them for what they are, not as tools for creating a reality for the play.

So after the farewell party I went to Nagoya and watched approximately 25 hours of sumo in a three day period. It was sweet.

Then another week of work. My sanity continues to decline, and the gum chewing is spiraling out of control. One day this week, Michael brought in a bucket of gum containing about 50 pieces, which we chewed in about two hours. I think that's bad. I haven't had any gum since then, but I want some. Real bad. We had to sit through this seminar on Friday, some training on how to teach Japanese second-graders how to say "sea cucumber" and "The mouse likes to eat candies" taught by a woman with a giant frizzy mullet, whom we can only assume makes most of her living as a crack whore. And her husband was even nuttier. "Captain Jim," as he calls himself, was both a ship's captain, and a family and marriage counseler. Are we to assume that he performs therapy aboard a ship? At any rate, as I played Simon Says and sang painfully moronic songs about aquatic animals, I realized that 6000 miles is a long way to come to be subjected to this. And that I really, really HATE origami.

On a tangentially related note, I was watching TV for a few minutes the other night, and there was a program on about dance or something like that, which had some Japanese people visiting some European country, and they were interviewing some Japanese students of dance or something like that. The point is, it wasn't about this country in Europe, but as the credits rolled, as the cheesey theme music played, in the background they showed a group of white people smiling and waving at the camera. At that moment I realized that in Japan, I am neither human nor animal, but something in between. When you see a white face, a black face, a Hispanic face, you must be nice to this thing, but it's not something you talk to, not something you build a relationship with. It just looks cute when it smiles and waves, like an animal in a zoo. It's easy for me to understand why foreigners who have been here for a long time grow to hate the Japan they loved from across the ocean. It's a beautiful place, full of fun and exciting things to do, but staying here as a foreigner comes at a price. But hell, maybe I'm just talking this way because Japan doesn't have furniture or grass or Hoagie Haven. I'll think about it more after I've eaten an enormous cheesesteak.