Our Mule Marvin

Our friend Marvin arrived last Friday for a 9 day visit. During his trip we'll visit some of our favorite Nagoya spots, Kyoto, and Tokyo. I was really excited to see him, but he blew me away with his gifts! (Do I blog about how much I miss beer and micro-brews too much?)


I have no idea how he got through customs un-checked, but certainly thankful he did. The only problem now is that I can't find it in me to open one. I just like looking in the fridge knowing they're there.

Thanks Marvin!

To Bow or Not to Bow...

That is the question.
Of course, if you're a Fox News pundit talking about the President of the United States, the answer is a resounding No.


Luckily, I'm no pundit, but I can say that I actually put a lot of value in respecting the customs of other cultures. That's why while living and working in Japan, we have tried to learn and respect some of the Japanese customs. Bowing, however, has been one of the toughest.

Before leaving for Japan, I asked my friend at work who had lived in Japan for a time and has married into a Japanese family how to properly bow. He started to explain, but then quickly stopped and told me not to even bother. He said that foreigners just end up looking funny and awkward. I suppose it's bit like a bad handshake in American culture - you know the limp handshake?

Bowing is, of course, deeply ingrained in the Japanese culture for greetings or good-byes. Often times at work, the end of a meeting is met with everyone bowing. I still have yet to partake, not wanting to give a "limp" bow. There just seem to be a lot of rules to it - where to put your hands, keep your legs straight, and most importantly, how far of an angle to bow to depends on the level of superiority, rank, etc.

As for Obama, I think he pulled it off rather admirably. Bowing to a Saudi king probably comes with a different standard of rules than bowing in Japan. But at least he came away showing a mutual respect for the king, which I suppose is the goal for any greeting in any culture.

Ichiro vs. The #42

In honor of the great Jackie Robinson and his contributions to baseball, the MLB designated April 15th as Jackie Robinson day. To celebrate this day, every baseball player across the league wore jerseys with Jackie Robinson's #42 on them. It was a fitting symbol of unity paying tribute to Jackie Robinson's pivotal role in breaking the color barrier for African Americans in baseball when he broke into the league 61 years ago for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

I wonder if someday, major leaguers will wear Ichiro Suzuki's number for a day of celebrating his contributions to the sport. Not only is he a future hall-of-famer in American baseball, but his success in the big leagues has helped pave the way for Japanese baseball players. He wasn't the first Japanese baseball player in the major leagues, but he is arguably one of the most successful. In fact, his numbers certainly make him one of the top baseball players of all time. His accomplishments have made him an instantly recognizable icon and a legend in Japan. He has a career .331 batting average since entering the league in 2001 and has remained a Seattle Mariner for his entire career. He has certainly done a lot in his brief career, but wearing Jackie Robinson's number 42 on Jackie Robinson day recently, had to be one of his bigger challenges.

See, the irony of the number 42 is that it comes with a bit of stigma to the Japanese culture. In the same way we are taught to think of 13 as unlucky, or 666 as evil, the number 42 has a negative stigma as well. I had heard that the number 4 carried a stigma with it. In Japanese 4 can be pronounced "shi", which is also how the word for death, "shinu", starts. So, the number 4 signifies death. We noticed the extent to this stigma when we first stayed in our hotel on our preview trip. The number 4 did not appear on the list of buttons in the elevator. I hadn't know about the number 42, though. Apparently 42 can be taken to mean "dead people". You see, 2 is pronounced, "ni" in Japanese, which is similar to the counter for people, pronounced, "nin". So, 42 in Japanese can be seen as "shi nin", or "dead people." Quite a stigma, huh?

So how did Ichiro fare wearing such a terrible number during his game on Jackie Robinson Day? He met the challenge with a 2 hit, 4 RBI night. One of those hits was a grand slam! So much for a negative stigma.

Pink Snow

I know, I know, enough with the sakura and cherry blossoms. Just one more, I promise.

We heard that there would be a fairly short window to see the cherry blossoms from the time they're in full bloom until the leaves of the tree take over and force the cherry blossom petals off. Two weekends ago they were in full bloom. This past weekend they started shedding. That was quick! I was told this was definitely something we didn't want to miss, and I can see why.

On our trip to Nagoya castle last weekend we lucked out with the weather. Lots of sun, and just enough of a breeze to encourage those stingy petals to let loose. The result is a beautiful pink snow. In those areas where there are a lot of sakura trees, the ground gets a beautiful pink coating - like the first snow only pink and a lot warmer! As we exited, I noticed one of the guards sweeping up some of the heavier petaled areas. Even snow that comes in the color pink brings with it back breaking "shoveling" work.

Sakura Celebration Comes Full Circle

We had heard the cherry blossom season was pretty big here, but I had no idea it was this big. To the Japanese, cherry blossom time is referred to as the sakura season, and it comes with quite a lot of hype. In a lot of ways the energy was very similar to Christmas season in the States. There's music on the radio singing about the sakura, the weather forecast tracks the cherry blossom front (sakura zensen), and people plan flower watching parties (hanami) to picnic and drink under the cherry blossoms. It is quite a time, and I can see why. The trees themselves are beautiful and there is about a 2 week span from when they initially blossom to when the petals begin to fall like pink snow. Along with the beauty the sakura trees represent, I also think it's somewhat of a rite of passage to spring.

Curious about this phenomenon, my wife and I joined our friends A & M from upstairs for a lighting ceremony at Tsurumai Park on the Friday of the first weekend that the sakura trees were in full bloom. It was Friday night after work so it was dark, but it didn't take away from the beauty, or the spectacle that had us all rather speechless.


We found a place to "picnic," but were quickly snatched up by some happy (and drunk) Japanese business men claiming they had a better spot and plenty of food and spirits to share with us. It was very fun. We met a bunch of guys, whom by the end of the night I had promised to go golfing with and exchanged business cards.



That was last weekend. This weekend, my wife and I heard Nagoya Castle was a prime spot for viewing the cherry blossoms. The cherry blossoms themselves were breathtaking, but I was more excited about finding the same image on that business card. So this is the construction job that guy was trying to tell me about...

Uptune Girl

A perfect Saturday in Nagoya. Temperatures reached 81F with nary a cloud in the sky and a slight breeze. Perfect for checking out the Kakuozan Spring Festival near downtown Nagoya. The festival itself was fun, complete with music and street vendors selling mostly artsy goods. But the real treat was a cover of Billy Joel's 1983 smash-hit "Uptown Girl." Those of you who know me, know that I'm a sucker for 80's music, so when I heard those oh-so-catchy and familiar Owowowowowowowowowowowowowowo's, I had to turn and make a B line for the stage. It's one thing to hear a Billy Joel cover. Quite another to hear it from a Japanese singer.



Turns out the guitarist also had one of the stands amongst the street vendors selling, what else, soap-on-a-rope.

Customer Service

Last weekend, life came to a sudden halt. That's right. Our Internet service went down. Don't worry. I'm typing and posting today, so all has been righted.

OK. So losing Internet service isn't quite as bad as I made it seem, but I think everyone can sympathize with the frustration that Internet blackouts lead to. As you fumble around helplessly unplugging and then plugging in random cables. It's a fun game, but gets you nowhere if you don't know what your doing...like me. And deep into my game of "How many times can you cuss at inanimate objects?" I kept thinking how long I could hold out before breaking down and calling customer service.

Our Internet provider is StarCat. They have an English call center, so it wasn't the language barrier I was worried about. It was more the idea of calling customer service given my history dealing with our IT friends back home, Comcast. Customer service isn't really something Comcast is known for. I'm not just talking from personal experience, either. This chart shows how Comcast fared in a 2007 JD Powers survey to reinforce the point.


So, naturally, I was expecting some sort of hastle like, oh, I don't know, like how Comcast used to manage to turn the problem onto me. And by the end of the conversation, I was an idiot and reluctantly they would be sending somebody to clean up my mess. You know, something of that nature.

You can imagine my surprise when I recieved nothing of the sort from StarCat. In fact, quite the opposite. Although no one answered the English call center line for StarCat, I was able to navigate to somebody who could speak English from the main line. Although they couldn't offer technical support - I think because they just grabbed someone who could speak decent English in the office - the kind person told me that the server had gone out that morning, but that it should be on later in the day. Two things then happened. First, my confidence was restored in the ol' trouble-shooting with random plugging in category - Hey, this problem was no fault of mine. And second I was more than pleased to give the fine lady my number because StarCat was going to call back later in the day to make sure my Internet came on and there were no further problems. Not bad customer service right?

Well, later that day I came home to find the Internet working. Yay. And I also found 3 missed phone calls and 2 messages from StarCat. Ace Ventura's quote, "Obsess Much?" immediately popped into my head. OK. Well, the Internet works at least. I'll just make sure to pay attention to the phone to get the next call.

Day 2. At work, I missed two more of their calls...and two more messages. Ugghhh. This is the most phone traffic I've had since I've been in Japan, I thought. And now I was actually starting to get annoyed with StarCat. So, I tried calling them, to tell them the Internet was ok and to stop calling.

Problem solved. Until the next day. Missed another call before finally catching them on try 2 of the day. "Yes. Yes. The Internet is fine. It was fine three days ago like you said it was going to be. And it was fine yesterday when I called to tell you everything was fine. Now for the love of God, Please. Stop Calling Me!" I wasn't that harsh, but I did feel relieved. And you know, it actually kind of made me miss Comcast's customer service...or lack there of.