Wally Nes’ Blog

While it is true that this is one big holiday for me. This holiday keeps getting interrupted by 4-5 days of school.

I am here, for the first 4 months at least, to learn about Japan. Its language, its people, its customs etc etc etc.

One of the most noticable differences is that the Japanese have a group (say: hive) mind. You can’t directly compare them with the borg, but there’s some overlaps in their view of the world. The do EVERYTHING in groups.

And because I’m learning about the Japanese . . . . .

So do I.

I say “I” because I’m not Japanese and I will keep thinking of myself as “I”. I will keep thinking of myself as “I” because I loathe big groups. I don’t mind smaller ones. Groups made up of individuals, but with bigger groups the individual has an increasingly smaller role. And with the movements of the vulcanus group you can only make out “The Italians” and “The Spanish”. There is no “The Wally” in the vulcanus group. Although I’m sure me, Doc and Chris are the closest things to that we have in that group.

So we practiced the group thing. Last week we went to the Bosaikan (emergency centre), and we proved that moving a group of 25 is a long and arduous task. Having an individual brain and knowing the itineraire I moved there in a smaller group of 2 after passing the presence check.

Thrusday we went to the Sumo, proving that moving a group of 40 is an even more strenuous task. The sumo was nice btw, but the continued presence of 39 loud people in a small room (the restaurabnt before-hand) was quite tiring. There’s a Sumo wrestler taller than me. There’s plenty of em that weigh more than me . . . . pretty much all of em actually. The Sumo wrestler taller than me was . . . . . . a Bulgarian. go figure

Friday was the International Friends Centre party. Once again many many people in a small place for extended periods of time. While it was nice it was also very tiring.

When there was bar-hopping afterwards I went my own way half-way through, I like good cheer as much as the next guy. But 35 people bar-hopping through Tokyo . . . ..

So the weekend came and the chance of individuality presented itself. Unfortunately, the chance of the Tokyo Game Show 2007 (read: Asian E3) presented itself aswell. So much for feeling like an individual. While the show was wicked, and the booth babes can only be described as babes, with the feeling of lost-individuality I had from the last couple of days it did cast a gloom over it. Luckily there was enough cleavage to help me forget that. I’ll post pictures of that for sure.

Sunday I withdrew into my smaller group as we went sight-seeing in Kamakura with a group of 4. We would’ve been 5 but one of our group chose to conjugate verbs over walking through the hills and seeing Buddhist-/ Shinto Temples and the one of the biggest buddhas in the world. The return of feelings of individualism together with being able to walk for 5 minutes without seeing anyone else (it’s still Japan you know) was refreshing. The beech was rather dissapointing, but all in all, it was a day spent well. The purple natural ice cream was a nice closer for Kamakura. We spent the evening walking through the Biggest China-town in Japan (Yokohama) and listening to an acrobat/comedian on the waterfront. . . . . obviously only the first bit was usefull to us.

It’s hard to explain the way having to deal with such big groups can be draining and I suppose that if you don’t know, I won’t be able to explain it to you anyway. But I thought I’d post this anyway. The Sheer Football-supporter mentality of big groups. The inverse group-size/intelligence curve. It just makes things so . . . . . . annoying.
On a different note: I’ve found out why I can’t buy a proper laptop here. The market is divided into 2. There’s the home market and the work market. Obviously if it’s for work you need to be able to work in english, Globalisation and all. But the gaming laptops . . . . well, that’s the home market isn’t it. And we don’t make those in english. CRAP.

So now I have to figure out if the Vista Ultimate OS translator function has any draw-backs. Apperantly a lot of software won’t recognise this and install Japanese anyway. And while you may think: “But it usually asks which language you want to install it in” . . . . apperantly . . .. it doesn’t . . . . or smthg. I’m not too clear on that juncture. But then again: I didn’t even know the option existed before saturday.

Still: When faced with stupid people behind counters: Locate the BIG guy and make him fix things for you. He won’t speak english himself, but he has the rank to go get someone that can And now, I’m one step closer to knowing if I can get a laptop here or if I’ll be buying Gateway.

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Quote of the day:

To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself

- A. Einstein

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 at 5:01 am and is filed under Japanese (Culture), Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.