26 May, 2002 - 23:48

I love coming back from a good day and feeling tired but energised. Good, good energy. Matt and I went to Iga-Ueno, a city famous for ninjas. Not regular ninjas, but guess what kind??? As my teacher says "lady ninjas". God they're cool. And hot. I really can't say I've had much attraction to the skinny, ditzy everyday Japanese woman who can't go five seconds without checking her mirror first, but these ninja women are so toned on different levels.... ahhh. Wow. Anyway, we didn't see too much of them - closed at five thirty. Beforehand, we went to a world cup friendly soccer match between South Africa and Japan (J League). It was fun, even better with someone who can explain all the things I usually get bored about. What was the most interesting is that we stayed in the free area to watch the match which was a park with children's equipment in it. But so were about 100 other people, and the children's slides, ladders, climbing poles and horses were filled with soccer fans standing precariously close to the edge of substantial drops just to see a game. There was even three people lined up standing on each of the parallel bars just to get higher.

I need to see non-Japanese people more often. I think that's one reason why this adventure in Japan feel monotonous sometimes - being surrounded by the sameness of this place is deafening.

We ran into two of Matt's Brazilian students walking home from the station... these kids are great. But they've got some big stuff to get over. I can't imagine fitting into the Japanese school system as a non-Japanese. It's embarrasing sometimes to see how shallow students are ... there's a zero recognition of other people existing in Japan. I'm not talking about me or other white western people - I think we've got all the financial breaks anyway with our ability to speak English. But the Brazilian, Korean, and Chinese immigrants have some major walls to get through to crack open Japanese traditionalism, especially with so many stupid stodgy old-guards in control of the country.

I was wondering today if it's because Japanese young people have nothing to feel passionate about. There aren't any real issues for them to be debating. At least in America you can argue about gun laws, abortion rights, gay bashings until you're blue in the face. Polemical arguments abound. But here, what is there really? Shopping malls, large stuffed toys and the search for the ultimate mobile phone is what is left. There is search for peace and freedom but it's actually a perverted version of the once-likely authentic version which existed after the war. So peace as a BRAND exists but the semantics is so warped, I'm afraid only old people understand what it once meant. And they'll be dead soon with their grandchildren driving their new cars in the dust of their burial.

In Japan, no one understands why they do things - they just do them.

And that's why I hate pidgeon-toed, high-heel wearing stupid Japanese women and the boys they're with.

However, today was amazing and fun and brought me up from a funk that's settled in for the past week. Aikido was a joke, I was so out of it. I felt sorry for Tom who was my partner - I couldn't remember any moves, simple one especially.

I guess I'm a bit bored with the things that I see as happening in a pattern. I keep expecting the answers to come from familiar things - isn't that the way things are supposed to unfold? But perhaps that's a faulty approach. Maybe I shouldn't be looking to the people whom I use as defaults for stability. Maybe I don't really have any. Maybe Phil is right and I'm an anglophone slut who only takes what he wants. But more to the point I think the gauze of monotony has more to do with not knowing who I am and relying on so many others for a guage of my existence. I think my work is to try to break that need for consensus out of my relationships with people.

I could start by burning my mobile. ; )