Taiko - Japanese drumming

JHS kids playing taiko

Here are some of my JHS kids doing a taiko number outside. Please turn the sound up for this one.

Scotsman in the land of no fork

Lion statue under lantern lit sakura, Kanai.


I don't drink oolong I drink bru my dear,
Like my breeks done on one side,
And you can hear it in my accent when I squawk,
I'm a Scotsman in the land of no fork.

See me sauntering down the paddy fields,
An arm and leg here at my side,
I take them everywhere I walk,
I'm a Scotsman in the land of no fork.

I'm an arian, I'm a regal arian,
I'm a Scotsman in a land of no fork,
I'm an arian, I'm a regal arian,
I'm a Scotsman in a land of no fork.

Buck Cherry 2007,
Duck Down Beeping Slag Records©

Apples, the choice of a new generation

Spring sunset, from our apartment

Click on the picture above to see the rest on flickr, I just uploaded plenty of pictures from the weekend for anyone that's bored.

My blogging has been a bit better lately. I'm getting more into it and have become a little better organised with the pictures (flickr makes this really easy) though I've still to plug a few gaps and update some old posts. All in good time, well before July anyway, as that's when we'll be winding up.

One update for the moment is about our trip to Osaka to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers. There isn't much to report other than the Japan leg of the tour was postponed until June because the singer had something wrong with his throat! Coming from the man who wrote and sang 'Can't stop, addicted to the shindig', I was a little miffed. I suppose these things happen but it was still a bummer. At least we weren't just down in Osaka for the gig and were able to move onto the next stage of our little tour without much fuss. Hey ho, back on with our show.

Last weekend was some what interesting as we were both at our respective office enkai's (Japanese after work drinking and eating party - I'll explain about in the next post) on the Friday night and I played for the first time, along with Matt (friend and fellow ALT on Sado from Atlanta, the home of Pepsi and an underwater city to boot - no surprise that it has the world's largest aquarium) for our new found Sado 'soccer' team - the Mano Destroyers. Sounds like some sort of gay sadist club, no hold on, that's the Conservative party. How come gays always get it in the ass? It still surprises me that 'gay' is still used as a derogatory term. It's like being bald. People take the pish but it's just the way some people are. Doesn't stop us from ridiculing gays, especially the bald ones. Tories on the other hand have a choice, so it's open season for them, even the shiny headed poofy ones. Anyhoo on with the show, Mano as it happens, is one of the larger towns on the island, 'famous' (every town has it's thing that it's 'famous' for in Japan no matter how lame, they draw a line at smells though which I found out to my detriment) for it's apples. The saying "How do you like those apples?" was actually started on Sado and then translated and brought across the Pacific by Robert De Niro, who buys all his San Francisco restaurant's sake from a high quality brewery on the island. There's even a really lousy picture of him next to this brand of sake in our local super market. Bobby D tried to put his own spin on this saying however, during the relatively unknown sequel to 'Taxi driver', called 'Grocer' (also directed by Martin Scorsese) with the line "Are you looking at my apples?!?". This he continuously repeats into a mirrored bowl that customer's use to weigh fruit in. An unbelievably powerful scene, especially as De Niro was brandishing a Magnum .44 pricing gun and sporting the most sinister of all shaved hair cuts, the weg. No calling him a wegetable I tell you. Not a chance, not even in a fruit and veg shop by a complacent German, you'd be sure to get your plums to play with.

Citizen caned

Hop, skip, jump

Click on the picture above to see recent pictures of us in Kyoto.

I often get asked why I came to Japan. Not by disgruntled people who would rather that I piss off back from whence I came, usually, but just because it's a pretty major decision to make. Especially when you end up on Japan's Craggy Island, and people unexpectedly find you here. So far, my explanation has been such that I was browned off with what I was doing, geek negotiation (a bit like a hostage negotiator - but instead of lives, I was working with software against the evil forces of customers) and I wanted to try something completely different. The true answer is far more shallow however. The real reason is because I correctly preempted a paradigm shift in the jean fashion world. Even Nostradamus had this one pinned down. 'Skinny jeans' (as recent visitors from the West informed us of) weren't made for my thighs. I'd end up looking like a pale white, shrunken version of the Incredible Hulk, with a slightly better vocabulary, a non tattered shirt and much less physical strength. I've also heard that facial hair is popular to boot, so I've really dodged bullets from both barrels on the fashion front (both barrels tend to relate to shotguns, which fire cartridges instead of bullets usually - apologies to all gun fanatics tuning in). Even though I'm now into my third decade, my facial hair is still to fulfill it's quota. It's getting there, I'm just a late developer. Great, now that I'm well beyond the legal age for everything, but fecking hopeless when I was trying to get into a nightclub back in Perth to see Carl Cox at the age of 15. The future's bright however, the future's not bald.

I was reading earlier in the week that Keith Richards snorted his dad's ashes during a drug binge. I take it his old man's snuffed it, so to speak, or are we talking about ashes from his old boy's 40 Lambert & Butler a day habit. Difficult to tell when this old puddin' is concerned. He also happened to slag off the Arctic Monkeys, The Libertines and Bloc Party, by calling them "a load of crap", some what randomly at the same time. Later, I heard on the radio that the dad's ashes bit was a pile of keich that he'd fed the press. Fair enough, I don't mind him mucking about with the press, bunch of mugs that they are, what bugs me is that his antics ever make it onto the news. This is a man who is lionised for his excesses. This is now what he's known for. I despise the excess pedestal that celebrities can proudly sway upon. Some could say that this man is a tit. I wouldn't argue with them either. When the Rolling Stones were the same age as the 3 bands mentioned above (who I think have done some good work), they did some great stuff. I love the Rolling Stones' work up until the early seventies, but since then they've been a joke. A crappy brand that's still being flogged around the world. A corporate rock band even. The IBM of rock. Who'd want that on their grave stone. One of my teacher's let me hear their latest album. Utter mince. Even the title bugged me. "A bigger bang". Who are these rubber faced skeletons trying to kid? These guys are now old enough to use their own sagging skin as contraception, though why they bother I'll never know. "A bigger bang" maybe, but it's a foosty old blank. Mick, Keith, if you read this - put your slippers on and grow fat and old gracefully. Enjoy the success, don't keep busting your manky old pans in knocking out a pile of crap week in, week out. That's meant to be for those that haven't sorted out their pensions. You're just rubbing their noses in it. Knock yourself out with the drugs, shag your way into the OAP record books (for most hip replacements, and not the poor buggers on the receiving end), I couldn't care less, just don't tell us about it. You may ask, why did I read about it. Just to write this and set them straight. Keith supposedly fell out of a tree last year. Did this really happen or was it spin to reinforce his crazy hell raising persona? Chances are he actually fell off his Stena stairlift, 'cause he'd fallen asleep to it's slender tones as it purred it's way up the stairs at 19:30.

What do you get if you cross a bump of chicken with a gunning sausage rag?

A funny coastal, wooded lump with a temple on top,
Sado's eastern coast


We've had a relatively quiet time since Christmas, between the weather and Caroline's studying. We have managed out for the odd bit of fresh air as there has actually been a few sunny days amongst the cold ones. Click on the picture above and it will take you to some pictures of us mooching up a big lump of rock and around a light house, both on Sado's eastern coast near Maehama JHS, where I teach once a fortnight. I had a great last lesson with the really nice third grade class there recently. There's only four in the class and just one girl, whom I tryed to teach how to play the guitar now and then. I think this was requested after I did an impression of Elvis singing and playing 'House of the Rising Sun' (a beginner's favourite) on the guitar in class. I can actually do not a bad singing impression of Elvis and try to belt out a few of his numbers at karaoke - Devil in Disguise, King Creole and I tried Big Hunk of Love once but the version of the music wasn't up to scratch. I've also had a running gag about sausages in the class, which started for some reason last year, but we've managed to keep laughing at it every week since. The best was the other week when I was asking them about what music they liked and they were reeling off the Japanese pop bands - SMAP, Mr Children, Orange Range and a pile of other bollocks that I couldn't care less for (it all gets played on school radio at lunch time). There's also a band called Bump of Chicken that aren't as bad as the other J pop guff. It has to be said that the Japanese bands have some poxy names. I however, asked one of the boys if he liked Bump of Sausage, continuing my sausage theme. For some reason this resulted in the biggest sausage laugh yet. Good old sausages, funny in any language. Anyhoo, for the last lesson the students requested that I let them listen to some popular music that I like. Great idea, and a nice way to depart in English class. Music for me isn't something that I want to ram down other folks ears, it's a matter of personal taste, but they were genuinely interested to hear what I was into. I wasn't being a self indulgent plonker. I've been listening to all sorts of stuff over here. There's a chain store in Japan, a bit like HMV and Blockbuster combined where you can rent CDs on the cheap. I've been listening to some older stuff, as is my want, the best of which has probably been Neil Young, who has me burning for my guitar, and some talent, at home and in my dreams respectively. I've also been listening to the odd Blur album. They were the best band of the Brit Pop generation, hands down, in my opinion. Because of them I've also given Demon Days by the Gorillaz a good grilling. It's a few years old now but is a very different and great album from start to finish. Between this lot and other odds and sods, I've been listening to some probably very popular music. I'm not that bother where it comes from these days, just as long as it's agreeable on the sound palate. It's funny, at school I would only listen to a very certain kind of dance music though my out look on life was very open. Nowadays, I'll give anything, within reason Robbie Williams, a listen though my opinions on life are hardening faster than a teenage bump of sausage at the back of a bus. There's a directly proportional relationship in there somewhere. As mentioned previously we're going to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers next week. I've really love their last few albums dearly. We saw them play Murrayfield after they released By the Way. This concert should really have been in Glasgow, but. The latest offering is a double album and is simply excellent. There are only a couple of tracks that I'm not that fussed about but there is so much good stuff and such variety. For me it's the RHCP's white album. The Killers' latest album is a belter too. I read a review on rolling stone's website about this, which was so wrong that the reviewer can't have given it enough time to infect his rocking melody bones, dumplin'. I therefore made a CD of recent songs that I liked including; RHCPs, The Killers, Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Daft Punk, Gorillaz, Kaiser Chiefs, Razorlight, The Strokes, The White Strips and even flung on a bit of patriotic Franz Ferdinand. I've been listening to the Magic Numbers' and Muses' latest LPs, which I'm enjoying. In the pipe line is the Kaiser Chiefs new album, I've heard a couple of songs on the radio both which I enjoyed. I really liked their first album 'Employment'. We saw them perform a great show in a small venue in Osaka, last winter, and felt very privileged. The Views' album is also on it's way, along with the Kooks, who we saw just before the Artic Monkeys (both great) at Summer Sonic with Nez and Suzi in Chiba. For the last class I managed to convince the English teacher that we should go along to the music room, which is isolated out on a limb in this small new school, as it has an awesome sound system that can be cranked right up. He was right up for this and is actually a bit of a sound system buff (that's not cockney rhyming slang). I introduced each band and song and gave them a little bit of information about the band, where they are from, ages, etc., which album the song was on and previous albums. I ended up playing 'When you were young' by the Killers, I like this simple yet catchy tune. Next, one of the kids wanted the Artic Monkeys, so I played 'When the sun goes down', and didn't explain the great lyrics. I gave them a taste of an old Daft Punk tune 'Around the world' and tried to give them an idea of what dance music is about. Gorillaz nicely quirky 'Feel Good Inc.' was next. Last, I finished with 'Knights of Cydonia' by Muse, which was immense when it built into a face melter of a guitar riff blasting out of the quality Japanese sound system. Easily the most sublime lesson yet as along with the nice people, blasting music, sausage gags and facilities, the scenery surrounding the classroom is unbelievable. On one side we look out over a few terraced rice fields, the land then drops sharply over a wee cliff into the sea, beyond which we could see the mountains of the mainland faintly on the horizon. Out of the other side we can see a fantastic view of Sado that encompasses rice paddies, old Japanese dwellings, hillside forests and the largest mountain on the island, snow capped Kinpoku San, all on a sunny day.

I've had a few other good last classes lately with a couple of my third grade English elective classes, where we baked short bread. Not easy to get the kids through this in fifty minutes without making a mess, and I had to take the time to bake everything in the oven afterwards. But still good fun none the less.

Nez and Suzi does Japan part iii: Tokyo II and Summer Sonic

work in progress

A good Yosh! and a cauldron of stovies to chase away the winter blues

Way back on the 18th of February (this year...), Caroline and I organised a Ceilidh on Sado. As the winter is cold and dark we thought that the Sado islanders needed a bit of warming up on a Saturday night to the tune of bag pipes and the shout of a big tuchter in a kilt.

That weekend I was playing in the Ryotsu futesal competition on both the Saturday and the Sunday which meant a very busy weekend. The futesal was good fun. I was playing with some of the lads from Ryotsu High School though we were playing against men and the old saying 'men against boys' rang true. I was the biggest punter at the tournament but that didn't stop the little Japanese dudes from getting stuck into me. The footballing level was higher than I thought that it was going to be and the Japanese guys proved to be well suited with their quick feet and never say die attitude. Our team lost all of our games apart from one which we drew 3-3. This team were probably the best team we played against though I helped matters by accidentally landing on their best players foot halfway through the game. It was good fun but I ended up getting a bit of a black eye from a strae elbow, so by the time I got to the ceilidh I looked bona fide Scottish.

Caroline and I had been planning the ceilidh for a month or so before. Our Japanese tutor, Yuki, helped us enormously by organsing the hall (which included a kitchen, dining facilities and a sound system) and translating our flyer. Yuki also managed to get in a local 'Harigoma' performance group who would perform for part of the evening. The aim was to make it a Scottish night with ceilidh dancing and some traditional Scottish food and drink. The number of people that we planned for was about 40ish but we estimated that between 20 and 30 of our friends and colleague would make it to the night. I had decided to make cock-a-leekie soup and stovies (easyish to make and serve to the masses) to eat and buy in a load of ale and whiskey to drink. On the week prior to the dance we were really busy trying to source all of the ingrediants and booze that we hoped to prepare for the evening. I scoured the Island for a decent sausage, only a worthy man can take on such a task, and eventually hit the jackpot in a little shop that specialises in German sausages. Whiskey wasn't too much of a problem but the closest we could get to ale was Guinness. I didn't mind chorin' the tattie howkers' heritage as I'm sure they've half inched ours more than once. Once we had all of the stuff, I spent most of the Friday working out proportions for the recipes and making chicken stock and beef stock for the stovies and then finished the soup. I also attempted to make tablet as a sweet for after the meal. This turned out to be too sticky however and we ended up reheating it and making millionaires shortbread with it post ceilidh. The next day (the day of the ceilidh) Caroline, Lora and Thea spent the day peeling potatoes and getting the hall ready for the big night. This was no mean feet and it took them most of the day. Once I had finished at the footy I had to bomb it back to the apartment, get washed and changed, grab the rest of the stuff and raz down to the hall to get the stovies on the go. Fortunately, we got a lot of help from the other ALTs: Thea and Lora were still going strong and Polly, Daniel, Matt and Naoko (honorary ALT) all rolled up their sleeves and pitched in. Johnny and Chibo, who are a couple who have lived on Sado for a while now also turned up, in kilts (Johnny has some Scottish blood in his veins), and mucked in with the rest of the crew. Caroline and I were thankful of the help as there was plenty to do.









The night went exceptionally well and surprisingly over 50 people showed up. Caroline gave a welcome speech which was kindly translated by Johnny and from there we demonstrated a couple of dances. The Japanese were smart when it came to the dancing and soon learned the steps which they appeared to enjoy. It was great to see a busy hall of Japanese and non Scots happiluy bopping around to a bit of diddly dee. After the first session we had a performance from the local 'Harigoma' group. This is a traditional Japanese performance that is from Sado and involves costumes, crazy looking masks, singing and some drummming. I have to admit I didn't see much as I was trying to sale the good ship stovies through some stormy water. I had a moment of panic when I came back from the dancing to find that the stovies were heading in the overdone mushy stage. I salvaged them though and it worked out well. Not an easy job, I was basically making a cauldron of the stuff. After the Japanese performance we sat everyone, tried to make sure they had a drink, then we served the soup and then the stovies. Luckily we had estimated the food for a maximum of 40 but we had just enough to go round. Both cauldron's were emptied. Also, some of the local fisherman had dropped off tonnes of oysters and shell fish which were knocked into shape by Lora, Chibo and co. and then served up. This bolstered the dwindling Scottish tucker handsomely. After the grub was served and the guests were allowed to have a bit of a yarn and an ale or so, we had the second session of the Scottish dancing. I couldn't be humped personally as I was cream crackered after the soccer and then all of the running around and cooking. Still we had a job to do. During both sessions of the dancing, Caroline and I, the ALTs and Johnny and Chibo demonstrated and explained the dancing to the Japanese. Then we all tried and then had a second go for good luck. The nature of ceilidh dancing is great and it's good for mixing up a crowd and meeting people. My favourite job during this was shouting 'Yosh!' as loudly as possibly to tell them when to start. Everyone laughed everytime.



And so the night ended and we were thanked fully by the ever grateful and polite Japanese guests. By all accounts it was a success and many asked when the next one would be (at the time I thought no chance matey). Everyone helped to tidy up which displayed the 'many hands make light work' theory. Next, I invited all of the inner sanctum to our joint for an impromptu party and some free beers (a few anyway...) to say thank you for all their kind efforts. The biggest laugh was going into the local convenience store. Johnny, Chibo and I got more than a couple double takes when we took the beer up to the counter all dressed in kilts. I think we could have stopped traffic, though I'm sure the same would happen if a clan of Japanese in kimonos made a stop late at night into the spar on Sauchiehall street.