By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08) who is currently a teacher in the NYC Teaching Fellows Program.
I have an ESL kid! WHEEE!
I am way too happy about that!
I became fast friends with the ESL teacher at my school, Amercy. And she is. I love her first name. It’s eloquent! Once upon a time she worked as a push-in for my class but no longer. I was sad to see her go. However now she is coming back because someone gave me Jesus!
Though a majority of my native-speaking students need major assistance with English reading, writing and most importantly, EXPRESSION, this kid is mandated. His former classroom was taught by a Spanish-speaking teacher and his classmates were all bilingual.
But mami wants her baby to start speaking English.
He’s a good boy. Let’s call him Jesus. Jesus is half Puerto Rican and half Dominican. For the most part he sticks with my native-tongued Paras in the kitchen. Sitting him down for instruction in English is understandably a slow process. It’s scary being the kid who doesn’t quite catch everything. He’s a smart boy, though, and damn have I missed teaching ESL.
I don’t get much one-on-one time with my new kid and I always try to corner away just a little for everyone when they first come in. Plus, there’s no way I’m letting Graciela mommy him. He’s in my class because his parents want him in an all-inclusive English environment. It’s been a while since I’ve forced English on innocent kids who need it. Read More
As an ex-pat with nothing but obsessive affection for my former digs, I remain ever vigilant for any infinitesimal sign that Japan may be in the house. Any attempt to promote and dignify Japanese culture attracts me. When I see it, I am honor-bound to share. Dakara, I rec-o-mmend-o…
Show me a more definitive symbol of Nippon than a samurai and I will show you Hello Kitty 味 curry.
Have you dudes heard of Samurai Sword Soul?
Well, why the S not? ^_^
Serving up the 和風 to audiences since 2003, S.S.S is a highly professional TATE or sword-fighting theatrical group in New York. Fast becoming a staple of the Japanese event scene, their action-packed stage shows attract crowds for a reason. Who can possibly say no to samurai?
For those of us raised on the monosyllabic, unbalanced Belushi incarnation or the schizophrenic charms of Ruroni Kenshin, allow the adroit members of SSS to prove in the flesh that samurai embody a far wider range than bow, grunt and boldly confront death.
They slash. They parry. They emote.
Formed by producer, Yoshi Amao and artistic director, Y. Kuwayama, in addition to advancing the badassery of Japanese culture through performance, SSS also offers classes on sword techniques ranging from basic to advanced.
It is highly possible more than a few of you attended this year’s fully-packed Sakura Matsuri at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Do any of you recall a group of performers yielding katana onstage like bats outta hell?
That, friends, may have been your first encounter with Samurai Sword Soul. The Japanese artistic community of Nueva York is a fairly tight-knit outfit. Rather like a corset. There’s overlap and tie-ins and everyone seems to know just about everybody.
One of the members from my yosa-koi dance team also lends his talent to this worthy endeavor. As providence would have it, SSS is taking part in this year’s Fringe Festival!
So what are you waiting for?
CHECK THEM OUT! More righteous stage combat and samurai bushido-ing than you can shake a bokken at. Plus, any physical art that can waltz gracefully with camp is good eats in my book. ^_^ If you are a fan of kendo, samurai, hakama or just lovely ladies and the blades that wear them, dont just seiza around! 走れ and see SAMURAI SWORD SOUL on da Fringe!
Scattered Lives postcard
*MAKE PLANS QUICK! They’ve got 3 performance days left! However, SSS performs fairly frequently at events around the city so if you miss your chance this month, stay tuned…
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
Echigo Koutsuu spoiled the ever-living fuck out of me.
If I was ever for any reason required to place myself in Tokyo, I had four options:
1) The Shinkansen. Though I will forever be devoted to the miracle and blessing of the bullet train, one way on that horse cost 9,000 yen and required a trip to Nagaoka. Fast, clean, and idiot-proof, riding the Shink is kind of like God giving you a shoulder rub as you magically transport to any major Japanese city in .14 nanoseconds-mit snacks.
2) My Taxi: This was one of a few van shuttle services that picked you up from your front door and dropped you off exactly where you needed to be. Using this option required a keitai and a fairly efficient amount of Japanese as you had to be able to make the reservation and let the driver know where to find you in the terminal. Yes, once upon a time my Japanese was serviceable.
I often used this option when I was coming home from Narita. I could just as easily have taken the Shink but Read More
Note: This is the first in what JetWit hopes will become a series of “Japan Fix” articles. Each article can be a simple guide for where to go to get a Japan fix in your neck of the woods, or a more personal account of how you get your Japan fix. (Or in Kirsten’s case below, both of those and more.) The goal is to use the collective brain of the JET alumni community for the benefit of the JET alumni community.
Japan Fix: New York City
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08), writer of the Kirsten’s World columns on JetWit
There are thousands of different angles to approach a story like this, particularly in a metropolitan city such as New York. But I’d really love to expand this topic and hear about Japan Fixes in other parts of the country, preferably those without a coast! Yes, I’m talking to you Wyoming! Hi there, Kansas City! Since Japan means something different for everyone who walks away from it, I’d really like to hear about where and how you find Japan. Whether its building a raft and fording rivers to reach that one Kaiten Sushi bar, renting your favorite Japanese language film, or simply chatting with your Japanese neighbor down the hall, tell us all about it!
Now let’s get one thing straight. I earned an admirable jones before I even lived in Japan.
I have my buddy Reiko to thank for the multitude of pre-JET Japanese obsessions I harbored before marching knee-deep into the trenches. In Nueva York, karaoke was only something I did when I was too drunk to care about the lyrics and the only songs I knew then were by Shiina Ringo. Tarako-spaghetti was novelty, not survival. I entered without ceremony. Tips were important. The sole purpose of a handkerchief was for gagging. Vending machines only offered one thing.
Although prior knowledge of Japanese custom, popular wastes of time and cuisine-abuses was a reasonably applicable methadone for the harder edges of culture shock, nothing can fully prepare you for the experience of living on Japanese soil. Everyone gets shocked in one way or another. However, once you get used to the vibe and start running with the pack, untangling yourself from that mentality can be equally as harsh. Three years of opening important doors with 失礼しますand public transportation that runs on time can really leave a mark. Also, it’s hard to say goodbye to your favorite onsen, izakaya, chuugakkou and depaato. A majority of these are difficult to revive even in facsimile here in the States unless you wanna fork over your rent check.
But for those who are blessed enough to live in or around Nueva York, Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
Don’t be such an Aso.
I should really fucking stop reading the articles on Japan Today. Simply because the comments crack me up. A majority of them are incredibly hateful, but the vapid self-righteous immaturity just makes me lose my shit.
So Aso, with superhuman speed, rescinded his statement about having kids as an “obligation” he has fulfilled. Smooth, Aso. Could you imagine Obama stumbling over that pitfall? There’d be rioting in the streets and then the Dixie Chicks would get involved…
Admittedly, using such terms to describe reproduction is a bit harsh, especially for a politician. No woman wants to hear about her uterus placed under any guideline, especially by their supreme leader. This is not the Third Reich, after all. Politicians are icons and the populace look to icons as shining paragons who watch their mouths– or at least have their mouths watched for them. Bless Koizumi for being a politician divorced with scattered spawn– a hipster, long-haired, Elvis-loving fuck. I miss him and have a crush on him in the same way any normal person might yearn for Jean-Luc (Picard, that is.)
Sorry, I digress… Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
As I have mentioned before, I am not well traveled in Japan. Hence, I have very little basis for comparison as far as varieties go. Whether or not a specific food was particular to my region or even just my town remains a mystery to me. A prime example of this is 新潟お米。 Known by the fancy name of Koshi Hikari. Is it the most delicious rice in all of Japan? I could not tell you with any certainty. I do not know what rice tastes like in other parts of Japan. The rice was certainly of a noticeable quality and texture and I was always happy to eat it but filled with rapture? Not so much.
I’ll tell you what did fill me with rapture, though. マーポーめん
Has no one else heard of this? Really? No one thought to do this?
Just across the bridge and right next to National Highway Route 8 was a tiny pink ramen-ya called Kuishinbo. Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
I would pay a ton of money to be a Japanese-comprehending fly on the wall of a Glico marketing conference. Summer approaches and Japan requires a new gum.
Eureka! I’ve got it! Monkey gum!
No one’s gonna buy monkey gum, idiot.
I tell you some folk can’t resist the idea of monkey gum! It’ll be a sensation! The people will embrace it by storm!
3 people will embrace it by storm–the guy in the strait jacket and the two men in white chasing him with a net.
You just don’t see my vision, man!
Ok. What exactly does monkey gum taste like?
I believe we may have found an appropriate vehicle for our as yet unlaunched gobo-yuzu series.
In what blanking universe does gobo OR yuzu have anything whatsoever to do with primates?
Who fucking cares??? It’s monkey blast! Simmianrific! Sarutastic! My mojo’s on the yen, baby! Tart it up, get Kamenashi in a chimp suit to whore it out and it’ll sell like スルメ in a Nursing Home!
The ironic thing is, ladies and gents? It likely will. In fact, it might even launch an American remake.
Such a fickle lot the Japanese are. Just when I’d start developing a bitching jones for キャラメル 味 Kit-Kats, I’d find them cruelly yanked come Winter and Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
Loving Japanese music from afar is hard.
If it sucks this bad in the red, white, and blue I can only imagine what my poor J-music loving kindred in Yugoslavia must be enduring. Living in Japan was my oyster! For years I had to pay massive amounts every time Shiina coughed out a single or assisted someone else in coughing one out (I am dedicated, if broke…) In addition, much of the Japanese music that gets any play whatsoever on these shores doesn’t usually cater to my taste. Sure, I love Cibo Matto and Shonen Knife but they are practically unheard of in Nippon. That’s because by now they’ve worked themselves so firmly into the American indie diaspora, they are never to return. They didn’t so much make it over there, they left and began over here.
And truly no offense? But PuffyAmiYumi can kiss my ass. No, no, I don’t hate them? But I’m also not 12, thank you. Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
When you’re a Jet,
You’re the top cat in town,
You’re the gold medal kid
With the heavyweight crown!When you’re a Jet,
You’re the swingin’est thing:
Little boy, you’re a man;
Little man, you’re a king!-Stephen Sondheim
Hmmmmmmm….
The issue of employment prospects on my return to the Mothership left me with more than a little concern and doubt. People with families losing jobs or flocking to my hometown in droves to find work. The market in chaos. MBAs rejected by Dominos. It’s a mess and dearie me, what have I got that Sir J. Friends-a-Lot hasn’t? Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered…
A newly arrived ingénue sits on the 2nd floor of a local coffee dive in her adopted 田舎 dwelling. Birds are chirping. Squid is drying. All seems right with the universe.
Without warning, the earth trembles.
Delicately ejecting the coffee just inhaled a mere moment ago, our ingénue dives Bruce Willis style under the nearest table, taking out an entire shelf of neatly-stacked, carefully-categorized dog-earedまんが.
Her Japanese companion raises an eyebrow. She hasn’t even put down her cup.
“Uh…大丈夫?”
“No!” Ingenue blurts, biting down on a freshly polished nail to stay the hysteria. “This is it! Doomsday! The roof’s gonna cave, we’re all gonna perish-”
“ええじゃん? A little one like this?…” The owner, a puckish man named Kurochan, laughs as his establishment sways to and fro.
That was my first earthquake ever. Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
Japan is known to the world at large for its countless and enduring cultural contributions from the over-appreciated 茶の湯 to the oft overlooked (but sorely missed) heated toilet seat. However, there is one thing I’d like to scrawl into every guide book; one nuance of Japan that I’d like forever engraved in the minds of curious tourists: Excess noise.
What exactly is meant by excess noise?
It’s not something one cannot become desensitized to in time. But it is yet another reminder you are no longer in Kansas.
いっらしゃいませ！For the timid/under-informed, this customary holler of welcome and professional integrity is as intimidating as a car honk. Haplessly wander into any establishment in Japan and you will have to grow accustomed to multiple people welcoming you with bellowing. At least you know you’ve got their attention? But I’ve heard some dudes get creative with their shouting. Almost made me want to inch away from all that tempting スルメ they were peddling。
Let’s not even get into election time, shall we? Oh man, oh man.
Jingles. It seems like everything in Japan from coal to second hand stores has a mind-numbing jingle to it. I bet they even have a jingle for jingles! Augh! I pitied the dudes who had to work at Off House the recycling center. I have witnessed the slack jaws and desperate gazes of Disney employees trapped in their kiosks and made to listen to the Pocahontas soundtrack on an endless loop. So, too, was the fate of the Off House worker. But the fun did not stop there. Oh no.
“Why is the food singing at me?” I wondered aloud as I stared at the onigiri. Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
Many things in Japan were my crack cocaine. Tarako, choco an-pan, hijiki, and heated toilet seats all soon became things I could not smile without. I would do lines of kinako dust in the morning just to ease my peanut butter withdrawal. Hon maguro became my sushi requirement. In my rusty little hamlet by the sea there was no shortage of shiokara (salted squid guts) to go with the copious amounts of booze that somehow found me. The stuff was pretty tasty as long as you ate it with a heaping dose of denial.
But of all things Japanese that would make me their bitch, I owe my sanity to one ambrosial substance: 玄米茶。
That’s brown rice tea for those not in the know.
Friends, a steaming cup of genmai-cha on a colorless cold morning feels like a mini three day weekend. It tastes like autumn in a cup, like being hugged by your ample armed mother. Please have some. Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
The trip home was poetic. Trying to spare myself the tremendous charge for checking more than 2 bags on a flight, I condensed the entirety of my JET existence into three bags. One of them (a duffel bag to be precise) broke 30 minutes before the takyuubin people were due so we Macguyver-ed the fucker up with twine and a paperclip and hoped for the best.
How I thought that bag could not be the source of hilarious drama is beyond me.
You should have witnessed me getting it onto the plane. Narita is like some parallel universe where things have to go right even when they are noticeably falling apart. The lack of stress at Narita is downright fucking scary for an airport. Bless its hallowed grounds.
So let me present you with reason #718 of just how stupid I can be. Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
I had an inaka bank. 弟四銀行. Anyone outside Niigata even heard of it? Is it just a Niigata thing? Do they have those in Nagano/Toyama/Nagoya?
I was always nervous going to Tokyo because the only ATM that would recognize my ATM card was the 7-11. Not the Save-On, not the AM/PM, not the Circle K, not even some of the LAWSON’S in the big city would take my card but I could always rely on 7-11. Oh, how sad I was when I parted with my cute little pink ATM card with the cartoon duckies on it. Nah, I’m not shitting you.
Learning the Japanese ATM ropes was quick enough. Once I recognized the kanji for “balance” and “withdrawal”, my financial worries were over. Furikomi? Yeah, I love those! They’re sooo yummy, especially when they’re r-….wait, that’s not a food?
Ohhh, friends. Nothing could be more tragi込み than watching American citizen Numero Uno trying to pull off a delicate kanji procedure such as a furikomi on her own. Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
My first year in Japan schooled me.
Learn how to suck it up, you soft American pansy. This is Nippon and we don’t care if your carcass is rotting and your soul is spiraling rapidly towards damnation. We will smile and hand you the five letter dirty word: G-A-M-A-N. Now get your sorry ass into that tanmoku of 40 revved up first years or we will not be amused.
Going in to work sick is a part of life. You popped your meds, filled your water bottle and dragged your dead weight to class. Some days you just don’t have the juice to perform. When you haven’t seen the sun for 3 straight months and Kocho thinks its a swell idea to keep the heaters turned off in January to save money, you sometimes have to look under the couch of your soul and hope to scrape up some change in order to get through the day.
Nonetheless, sick is sick.
I only ever got heinously ill once in Japan. Heinous enough to see a Japanese doctor, that is. The guy was curt, handed me a vast array of Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
This rant is in reaction to yet another Gaijin in a Strangeland vehicle starring Brittany Murphy. Ramen Girl. The mythicization of Japanese culture or should I say, Tokyo. “Put tears in the broth.” Augh!
I suppose there is some part of us that wants it to be true. After all, we don’t want the Japanese to be “just like us”. Noooo. That’s buzzkill for the exotic hard on. Barred behind a wall of cultural differences, a needy bitch of a language barrier and a society oft coined as “repressed”, it’s downright fucking magical to buy into the wax on/wax off charms of the Floating Kingdom. Where there are question marks, there are bound to be intrigue and lies and after all, what is Hollywood for?
Ohhh, Mr. Keisuke (yes, you have a first name) Miyagi:
You have forever damned your race with your awesomeness! Your humble janitorial exterior and invincible hidden dragon have created fantastical expectations for Japanese everywhere in cinema. Japanese people must all have two identities now. Every ramenya san must be a tough yet secretly kindhearted sage, every high school girl a porn star, every businessman a casual ninja, every sushi artist a contraband swordsmith for the likes of vengeful blondes. Come now. Let us stop making a fetish out of the entire nation. I propose some indie film maker focus on the truly lethal demographic of Japanese society:
Obaasans.
These dames are not. fucking. around. Read More
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
Dudes, I have a confession.
I am scared shitless of the yaki-imoyasan.
Granted, I am a petit pussois and many things creep me out. But I will chalk this up to sheer cultural ignorance and unexplainable skeevies. The potato man is out to get me.
For those not in the know, a yaki-imo is a roasted sweet potato and a yaki-imo ya san is the elderly chap designated by some hellish force to peddle it. Oh, the sweet potato man ain’t lookin’ for your money or to warm your cramped fingers, friend. Nah-uh. He wants your soul. You’ve been warned. Read More
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