Thursday, 29 March 2007

English Teacher Murdered

I just read about this seconds ago and am really shocked at this. The full article can be read here and I really recommend you give it a look for all the info.

After the obvious shock and sympathy something occurred. I felt a little confused. How exactly could a man, bare foot, escape from the fourth floor of an apartment building with a police presence? Sure, I don't know all the facts but I find if hard to believe that he got away that easily. I'm actually wondering if the police actually bothered pursuing or simply stood where they were and yelled for him to stop.

It's also just a bit strange that the police are saying that they're not issuing an arrest warrant for the suspect despite the fact that they found the body in his apartment, he had been stalking her and he ran from the crime scene. Come on.

Japanese police have always been a joke for me. From their complete lack of intimidation to their dated policies and racial discrimination I simply have no respect for them. But, damn. They can give directions like nothing else.

For those wondering how safe Japan actually is... well it definitely feels safe but when you sit down and discuss things like sexual assault, stalking and racism you really have to define what "safe" is. Personally I'm a 26 year old man and I've been groped several times on the trains and experienced one of the most traumatising situations of my life; an elderly man physically restraining my arm and licking it several times before yelling racial slurs at me after I turned down his advances. This was just on my way home from work on the train when I was working in Saitama.

I've been stalked by a student who wanted to "be my friend" (I don't think he had any) and constantly emailed and rang me at all hours just to talk. Luckily he didn't know where I lived and his phone number was blockable.

From talking to friends I've heard a LOT of stories of female teachers having Japanese men follow them back to their apartments. Being groped on trains is also very common. I remember one time at NOVA and the topic came up in the staff room with around 12 teachers present. 10 of them had been sexually harassed on Japanese trains.

Don't get me started on police carding and bicycle stopping.

After all this though I still find myself thinking about how safe Japan is.

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Labels: japan, Racism, Teaching English in Japan

Tuesday, 27 March 2007

Dancing on the JR

A few weeks ago on our way to an all nighter we got a little drunk and Callie got a little dancy. As usual in Japan, noone was looking at us.

Enjoy!

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Labels: clubbing, home movies, japan

Sunday, 25 March 2007

So good for you that you won't look like a burn victim

Ever since I've been teaching in Japan I've been amazed at the ammount of kids (seriously about 60%, sometimes higher) that have serious rashes, pealing or eczema on their skin (including arms, legs and face and even sometimes all over their backs and stomachs). From what I've gathered it's due to a combination of free radicals in the air and chemicals in washing liquids.

For the most part, parents here seem to have accepted all of these skin problems as a way of life. It's not until I tell them that I've never seen a child in Australia with any of these conditions that they begin to suspect that they should be trying to stop it.

It wasn't until I developed eczema on my leg a few years ago that I began to seriously think about this problem. I became so paranoid about Japanese products having different regulations to what I was used to in Australia (don't get me started on trying to find 100% dolphin safe canned tuna here) that I pretty much decided to buy as many imported food and products as I could.

Kaldi's Coffee Farm is a great chain store that sells food from the US, Canada, Australia and Europe at just a little over the home price. Unfortunately they've stopped stocking the Aussie Berri juices but they still got lots of Vegimite and Tim Tams.

Another great place to buy imported foods is the new convenience store chain, Natural Lawson (a spin-off of the regular Lawson chain). Not only do they sell imported foods, they also stock imported kitchen and bathroom supplies.

A great product line that I found through Natural Lawson was ECOVER. They use all natural ingredients to make laundry liquids, washing up detergents as well as softeners and now some shower gels. As soon as I started using these products I began to just feel better, you know? They're a little pricey, but if you want something to make your stay in Japan a whole lot healthier ECOVER is the way to go.

In retrospect this whole post looks like a paid advertisement for ECOVER but it's honestly something that I've been telling everyone to buy and try for a while now and just the other day when I suggested it to Cordelia, she told me that she had already used it when she was back in the UK so I though, "Hey this really is a great product that I should tell everyone about in a post" and here it is.

Hope you found this useful. I don't want you to look like a burn victim like all the kids here. ;)

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Labels: japan

Saturday, 17 March 2007

The Famous Shibuya Crossing

You've probably seen that famous busy crossing in almost any movie set in Tokyo, well a few weeks ago I thought it'd be good to film a whole clip of me crossing the crossing for my home movie collection. Just something I could look back on whenever I leave Japan.

Hope you find it interesting if you've never been here or nostalgic if you have.

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Labels: home movies, japan

Sunday, 11 March 2007

Renewing My Contract

In the last week or so I signed my new contract which basically means I'm in Japan for at least another year. Figured I've got a lot more to do here before I go such as travelling a lot more and start studying the language again.

I'll be starting my fourth year in Japan next month which means another ungodly trip to Immigration, waiting 8 hours for my ticket to get called and then get told that I've filled in the wrong forms. ;)

Me up with Yuri and Blair last night in Ueno and caught a glimpse of the Sakura trees in full bloom about a month before they're supposed to. Global Warming at work.

I like seeing the trees flowering as they're so damn pretty but it means that we may miss out on a Hanami party this year as it'll be too damn cold to sit outside.

Am thinking about stealing some of those plastic Sakura flowers that are decorating the grocery store down the road and throwing them around my apartment. Is it possible to have an indoor Hanami?

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Labels: japan, MLS, work

Saturday, 3 March 2007

How to speak Japanese, Scary Movie style

I was going to do a post about Little Black Sambo and it's controversy in Japan but then realised that I'm posting way too many negative things here about Japan.

So instead, here's a clip from one of my favourite movies, Scary Movie 4 which parodies The Ring. Japanese, Scary Movie style! Fujitsu!!!