Cleaning the Cab; Mumbai

Delhi: A Work In Progress

India attacked my senses like a midget wrestler to my groin. And I have to say that I enjoyed it. It is a country of constant sensory overload. Colours so rich and vivid – the people, dressed like moving rainbows, dashing in front of my eyes. Pungent smells, both wonderful and putrid, floating down the crowded streets, ripping through my nose and rattling my bones. And piercing sounds that never stopped - not for an instant. Not even for one moment of silence. Here was India. And it was un-like anything that I had ever seen. I was captivated.

We started our trip in Delhi, where the nights were cold, and so were the people. Generally, the most animated response that we would get from someone when asking for directions, would be a look of disdain and the all-encompassing “Indian Head-Tilt” – a slight jerking of the noggin from side to side; speed, and the number of tilts depending on the enthusiasm level of the head-jerker. Smile - usually not included. Coming from Japan, a land where they have near perfected politeness, we were in for a shock. Luckily, an un-expected lay-over in Beijing, en route, gave us some practice in dealing with a rude culture.

Visiting India proved to be an incredible experience, albeit layered with personal ups and downs. I would spend nearly 50 percent of my three week vacation feeling ill. I was vomiting within 48 hours of landing on Delhi’s chaotic landscape, and spent half of my time in the capital city, keeled over in the back of our hired taxi, too sick to explore the many cultural and historic sights. Whether it was the toxic water, the dirty food prepared by cooks with un-washed hands, or the horrible air quality, by the time Delhi was finished with me, I was several pounds lighter, and was drained of energy.

Holding in my liquid sickness as we barreled down the hodgepodge roads of Delhi, the images were overwhelming. The streets are jumbling messes of human life – cars, rickshaws, cyclists, pedestrians, old, beaten-up tractors- all criss-crossing; weaving back and forth as they travel perilously through the city– one near death experience after the next. The paint dividing the traffic lanes has either long faded or is simply ignored. Drivers constantly swerve in front of one another; passing on blind corners, speeding to overtake a colorful bus or an old man mounted on a camel or an elephant, pulling a cart overloaded with straw, metal or television sets. Mopeds zigzag through the thick traffic, often transporting a whole family; a husband and wife, and three or even four children squished onto the tiny motorized bike, all without helmets, all completely relaxed, as if they had done it a million times. The city is alive like no other that I’ve seen. It is a city where the most brazen driver reins supreme; where courage is king. The constant honking still echoes in my mind.

Delhi, like most of India that we saw, is not pleasant on the eyes. The roads are bleak and falling to pieces. Massive heaps of bricks and mud lay like rubble from a bomb in front of the tiny store-fronts, flowing out onto the roads, causing drivers to swerve around the scattered piles of debris. Un-finished bridges, leading to nowhere, sit like ugly, forgotten monuments, spikes of jagged rebar shooting out of them toward the sky. Dust hangs in the air like a blanket over the town. The most stunning parts of Delhi have had their beauty all but stolen by the surrounding ugliness, leaving former symbols of magnificence lost amongst the scars of a worn-out city.

The city’s people are in no better shape than its structures. Like India as a whole, Delhi has an extreme gap between the rich and poor. But there is something in this city that people of all incomes must share, and that is its horrible living conditions. India is not a country where your money can buy you total ease and comfort. The rich travel the same horrendous roads as the poor. They use the same filthy public facilities. They eat from the same un-hygienic street vendors. As I took in the objectionable sites that a city in the grip of poverty has to offer, I noticed this fundamental difference from the other developing nations that I’ve visited. Regardless of how rich a person is – regardless of how much money lines your pockets – you wouldn’t be able to buy a clean and quiet lifestyle in India. Madness surrounds you at all times. On the roadsides, groups of elderly homeless people lie lifelessly under blankets, or sit around flaming piles of burning garbage, trying to stay warm in the cool, winter air. At stop-lights, young children, mud etched into their skin and dressed in rags, walk barefoot between the waiting vehicles, stopping at the windows of passengers and lifting their dirt-covered hands to their mouths to motion that they are starving. Others try to sell cheap goods to passing drivers; anything that will make them a Rupee or two – a calculator, a Santa Claus mask, a piece of colored fabric. For the most part, all I could do was stare straight ahead, as if they weren’t even there.

Scattered across the city, old faded metal signs, with the words ‘Work In Progress’ painted across them, stand in areas where the rubble is at its thickest – beside giant, dug-out pits in the earth, near abandoned construction sites, and in areas where gutted buildings stand, crumbling away, as they have probably stood in the same state for years. I couldn’t help but laugh quietly to myself. The ‘progress’ was nowhere to be seen. With its garbage-lined alleys, Baghdad-style infrastructure, and a ruthless poverty that has engulfed the city, tearing at the heart of any human with a pulse, Delhi, it would seem, was more so a ‘Work Falling Apart’. The city is a massive bee-hive. And I think the queen might be dead.

Photos by Navin Bahl

J-Pop: Some Languages Sound Nice Being Sung… Japanese Isn’t One of Them

Japan produces good pop music like McDonald’s provides great health food options. Such a creature just doesn’t exist. J-Pop – or, Japanese Pop to the tragically un-hip – is, in my opinion, disharmonious, ear-piercing sonic-plastic – most songs without any redeemable qualities at all. Amass it together and you have the worst popular music catalogue of any country that I have visited – likely the worst in the world. I’ve never been to Serbia, but even Belgrade’s own DJ Salty Squirrel Nuts and his Euro-trash club anthems put J-Pop to shame. The saddest part: Japanese people don’t have a clue just how horrible their nation’s pop music is.

Stray dogs are in fact pickier about their choice of sexual partners than the Japanese public is about their music; they have horrible taste. There seem to be only a few requirements for success as an artist in the Japanese pop industry. They are as follows:

1. The beats/music must be as un-natural sounding as possible and smothered in thick layers of gorgonzola.

2. A song’s chorus must contain a few choice words sung in un-intelligible English. This is to give the band undeserved ‘street-cred’ and legitimacy. The singer must perform these mispronounced phrases in a shrill voice and with a complete lack of understanding of the meaning. During a television performance, these English words must be subtitled in order to provide a clue as to what the fool is singing (and, yes, the little bouncing ball helps the audience mumble along).

3. Male pop-stars must oddly resemble girls; female pop-stars must be strikingly beautiful.

4. Groups are better than individuals (as is always the case in Japan), and said groups must perform embarrassingly pathetic dances that seem to have been choreographed by dropouts from the Mickey Mouse Club. Yes, the boy band trend, which died on the table in North America years ago, is alive and well in Japan.

5. The names of groups must be written in the English alphabet (even though they have no chance of cracking the Western market) and must be extremely queer; a few choice examples: ‘Bump of Chicken’, ‘SMAP’, ‘Orange Range’, ‘Porno Graffiti’, and ‘Puffy AmiYumi.’

Just as Canada - with its lax security policy and care-free acceptance of all - is a haven for terrorists, Japan, a country with no musical morals, is a sanctuary for less than stellar musicians from other countries. These ‘musical refugees’, who are unable to overcome the stringent, listener-driven quality control standards on the radio waves of their home countries, needn’t look hard for musical exile, knowing that the ears of Japanese music listeners are open to just about anything. The only additional requirement for these pond-jumping, often half-Japanese hacks, is that they must include a few Japanese words in their songs - a small artistic sacrifice to make in order to plunge toward sure stardom in Japan. And one can’t exactly sacrifice their artistic integrity if they didn’t have any to begin with.

One such musical refugee is Shen, a white rapper fleeing from the hostile, high-standards of the Hawaiian music scene. He, along with his Japanese buddy Micro, makes up Def Tech, one of the ‘hottest’ groups in Japan at the moment. With millions in album sales, cheesy videos in constant rotation on television, and posters plastered on the walls of the hippest stores in the hippest sections of Tokyo, one would assume that Shen has the talent to back-up such a phenomenal and rapid rise to stardom. Wrong. He’s terrible; just utterly devoid of the type of talent that should be a prerequisite for stardom. I have friends from high school who are far better rappers! He is surely the worst famous rapper in the world; a male Britney Spears, yet missing two important ingredients: sex appeal and a team of professional songwriters and image consultants planning his every move. This is a man who couldn’t win a ‘battle of the bands’ contest in a back-country town like Smackover, Arkansas, and has yet gone on to become a sensation in Japan – a country where, and excuse me for making a bold generalization, the general public cannot seem to differentiate between crap and talent when it comes to music.

Shen’s lyrics flow from his mouth like marbles rolling down the stone path to a Buddhist temple. But there is nothing Zen-like about the messages that he is driving home. His words are the lyrical equivalent of smiling puppies sitting under a rainbow, but without the warm, fuzzy feeling that that image might provide. Listening to American MCs rap about how great they are and how many diamonds and ‘biatches’ they have is actually refreshing after listening to Shen’s guttural mutterings about catching waves. He should consider himself the luckiest bastard in the world. I’m ashamed to admit that even Britney Spears is more deserving of her fame. At least she’s got star quality.

Not only does their own music suck (99% of the time), Japanese people also happen to have an unhealthy appreciation for the crappiest specimens of Western song. They have a special fondness for foreign artists whose CDs, in North America, you can only find in the overflowing discount bins of the Walmart electronics’ department. One friend of mine, a Japanese teacher of English whom I worked with last semester, is a perfect example of this misguided taste in music. He is a 30 year old guy – cool in every respect, with great English skills and a healthy appreciation for beer, women and foreign culture. However, he listens to the most dreadful American artists; boy bands well past their prime and pop princesses that are ruining music’s good name. His favourite artists include the Backstreet Boys, ‘N Sync and Britney Spears, and he would often bring the albums of these artists to class, forcing his poor taste on the children of the future. Nowhere in Canada would you find a mentally fit, 30 year old male with similar taste in music. That idea is just not fathomable. Twelve year old girls in Canada don’t even listen to the Backstreet Boys anymore. They’ve moved on to crap that is much more contemporary, like the Black Eyed Peas (also very popular in Japan).

Needless to say, this particular 30 year old English teacher still lives at home with his parents. But I swear, he’s a cool guy. In his defense, listening to ‘N Sync is a far better option than listening to the crappy boy bands of Japan. At least ‘N Sync had funkiness and talent, something that most J-Pop artists wouldn’t know if they were run down in a car driven by Mr. James Brown, himself. I mean, Justin Timberlake… come on. As easy as it is to dislike him, the boy’s got soul. Sing on, bruva.

In a country at the pinnacle of technological development, Japan is always 10 steps behind the latest North American music trends. They are a people easily deceived by the cookie-cutter sounds of programmed pop; a nation with a twisted obsession with out-of-style American pop-artists and obscure acts from the 70’s, such as The Carpenters, a group that is hugely popular in Japan, yet today virtually unknown amongst 20-somethings in North America. Ask any Japanese teenager if they know the poppy-folk sounds of The Carpenters and a smile will in all likelihood stretch across their face. The same goes for The Bee Gees and ABBA. The singing of the aforementioned groups’ songs is virtually a prerequisite in junior high school English classes. The lyrics are printed in the bloody textbooks!

Of course, there are exceptions to the norm; some Japanese people do have great taste in music. But, on the most part, they listen to music that, in North America, is more out of style than the abacus. Similarly, there are musicians here who are producing great material, but who was the last Japanese artist to crossover to the Western market? Or, has there ever been one?

And the radio waves of Japan are crying…

More J-Pop Facts! (taken from Wikipedia, as well the depths of my own tainted mind):

-J-pop’s impact on popular Japanese culture is immense. In anime and television shows, particularly dramas, opening and closing songs are changed up to four times per year. As most programs have both opening and closing songs it is possible for one show to use 8 tracks in a single season.

-Japan is the land of ‘one-hit wonders.’ The face of J-pop is constantly changing, with many artists only releasing one album and several singles before fading back into anonymity. It is very difficult to stay prominent for longer than this, and artists who sustain their popularity for a decade are considered outstanding.

-Recently, as video games have been taking over the world, J-Pop has been spreading like poison to other parts of the globe. Lethargic couch potatoes with no substantial hobbies and no hope for the future will import the Japanese versions of the games that they want in order to obtain them up to a year in advance of their Western releases, thus exposing the J-Pop soundtrack to wider audiences. Those ‘gamers’ are more dangerous than you think… Never trust them.

-The only song sung entirely in Japanese to reach #1 on the Billboard charts was “U o Muite Arukou” (‘Let’s Walk While Looking Up’) by Kyu Sakamoto. It topped the charts back in 1963. The song, and its beautiful melody, has been sampled and covered hundreds of times, most famously by those forgettable one-hit wonders, 4 P.M.

Check out Def Tech's ridiculous website here.

I Have A Dream!

... rather, I had a dream. It was last week. I woke in the middle of the night with the images of my vision fresh in my mind. Like most vivid dreams, for a short time, I wasn’t able to separate reality from the disturbing figments of my imagination. And, like all dreams, the seed was planted in real life.

Earlier in the day, one of the school boys came into the staff room with a scared look in his eyes and a tissue held to his mouth. He shuffled slowly to the nurse’s desk and was quickly surrounded by several comforting staff members who began to examine his face, tilting his chin this way and that, and talking in smooth tones. The boy stood, expressionless, muttering short answers and rolling his eyes toward the ceiling; clearly awkward from the outpouring of attention from middle-aged Japanese females.

The boy’s dilemma was not typical of a school-boy. He wasn’t sexually provoked by the football team or flushed down the toilet by the cheerleaders. He didn’t lose his lunch money either, and he hadn’t wet his pants. Rather, his problem was one that I had never seen before. His teeth were quite literally rotting out of his mouth. That morning, he had lost another one, and he had come to the staff room to find the nurse.

This particular boy has some of the worst teeth in a school of diseased chompers. He, along with a sad group of three or four others, have by far the worst teeth that I have ever seen on living human beings. This boy’s teeth are nothing more than jagged, blackened shards; rotten remains of once healthy fangs. After years of increasing rot, they are finally falling out of his mouth.

That night, after seeing the sad 13 year old kid in fear as his teeth crumbled away, I dreamt that my own teeth were rotting out of my mouth. I saw a detailed image of an insect scurrying into a hole that separated my bottom gums from my putrid incisors. And I thought it was real. I woke up in a mild state of fear, pressing my fingers against my teeth in a private act of worried vanity, reassuring myself that they were still intact.

That morning, I imagined how traumatic it must be for this boy who will likely live the rest of his life with few or no teeth. The ones that he does manage to hold onto will be black, diseased pieces of brittle bone. Dental work just doesn’t seem to be an option on the table for the kids in the countryside of Ibaraki.

After teaching at an elementary school the other day and meeting 6 year old kids with dark, rotten baby teeth, I wondered how a child’s teeth can become so diseased at such a young age. Knowing that these black baby teeth will soon be replaced by new, healthy ones, I thought to myself, while staring in bewilderment at the cute little Japanese kids with bad fangs, ‘now at least you have another chance.’ But the 13 year old junior high school boy with the mangled teeth isn’t so lucky. He’s used up both of his chances.

That morning, when I awoke after my dream, I found myself expressing gratitude that I wasn’t born into the Japanese lifestyle. Worried about my teeth of all things, I felt lucky that I wasn’t born in Japan, the second richest country in the world, and on paper, not a bad place to be born. It’s on days such as these, in the heart of the developed world, when you see a kid’s teeth rotting out of his mouth and subsequently have dreams about it, that you think you may need a vacation from Japan.

School Ceremonies Part 2: For Those Special Occasions....

A weekly school ceremony is the Japanese school system’s way of torturing foreign English teachers. But these frequent gatherings pale in comparison to ‘special occasion ceremonies’ – lengthy, tedium-inducing jamborees from hell where the staff pull out all the stops. These momentous occasions in the yearly agenda of any Japanese school, thankfully, happen with less regularity. But what they lack in frequency, they make up in sheer insanity.

The two biggest ceremonies of the year in a Japanese junior high school are the ‘graduation ceremony’ in which the 3^rd year students are bid farewell, and the ‘welcoming ceremony’ in which the incoming 1^st year students are inducted into their new school. Each of these over-the-top ceremonies, which commemorate what in most countries is a rather minor blip on one’s personal history, make my weekly Monday morning gatherings seem like a walk in the park. Not a glamorous park - perhaps one riddled with strung-out addicts and disposed needles - but a park, nonetheless.

These ceremonies creep up on the calendar like a pair of drunken elephants, arriving within weeks of each other in the spring, after a great deal of organization, fanfare and a general ‘the world will end if this isn’t done properly’ mentality. Weeks of preparation are undertaken by the staff and students. Choreography is rehearsed. Strategies are planned. Protracted speeches are penned. Tissues are prepared in anticipation of the crying masses. Suits, skirts, and traditional Japanese costumes are pressed into creaseless sheets of softened fabric. And, a video of the previous year’s tiresome ceremonies is studied by the teachers in the staff-room as they discuss ways to improve the flow of events, which, to me, pass as comfortably as golf ball-sized kidney stones.

Several days in advance of a ‘special occasion ceremony’, the gymnasium is transformed from its typical, dimly-lit character, into what resembles a traveling medieval road-show - minus the horses, armor, and un-bathed maidens. Green plastic sheets are strewn across the scarred floor and lined with rows upon rows of rusted folding chairs. A lengthy red-carpet is taken from storage, shaken of dust, and stretched down the centre of the room. Ruffled, multicoloured flags and wax-paper designs are placed along the sides of the expanded red carpet like throngs of paparazzi; tripods and cameras are carefully assembled in areas with good sight lines. Lastly, a garden variety of flowers is arranged along the stage and podium, and the walls are draped in bright banners to cover the imprints of poorly guided basketballs of past. Preparations are so intense in fact, that on the eve of the latest ‘special occasion ceremony’, several teachers from my school spent the night sleeping in the nurse’s room. This enabled them to get up at the crack of dawn and work on the final touches required, proving that Japanese teachers are more dedicated to their school than Robert Downey Jr. is to getting back on the smack.

On the morning of the ceremony, pandemonium ensues. The baseball diamond quickly transforms into a makeshift parking lot as the gym is flooded by the students’ family members, dressed in their finest garments and carrying digital cameras and pride-filled hearts. The staff members stand rigidly in rows at the gymnasium entrance - adorning their finest suits, complete with flower lapels and shining cuff-links- greeting spectators as they arrive, and ushering them to their seats. Just prior to the ceremony’s commencement, everyone in attendance rises to their feet as a throng of local dignitaries is marched in; former principals, distinguished members of the community, bureaucrats from the board of education - a group of nearly twenty geriatrics in total, all grinning the same expression of fake enthusiasm and walking with cautious, frail steps.

Then, heaven help me, come the speeches; an endless barrage of repetitive well-wishing and congratulatory sermons. First the principal addresses the hordes with one of his longest numbers of the year. The panel of worthy guests is then introduced, each standing, one by one, to say ‘congratulations’ or ‘welcome’ or whatever the occasion requires. Several of the VIPs then take turns making lengthy inspirational orations to the group of students (whom they have probably never met before in their life). And, in the case of the ‘graduation ceremony’, a pre-selected student presents a lengthy speech to the principal. Last April, this speech was given by a boy who sobbed uncontrollably throughout the entire delivery, providing for quite the spectacle; a demonstration of family-like attachment between student and staff that I could never imagine witnessing in a Canadian school, let alone most Western families.

The whole ‘special occasion ceremony’ process can take upwards of three hours. Speeches are interspersed with several long renditions of the school anthem and, at the graduation ceremony, impressive choir numbers performed by the students, who moan wildly, crying while singing songs of affection and farewell. The audience rarely, if ever, claps, and not a single spectator or participant, staff and students included, has a dry eye.

Why such great lengths are gone to for junior high school ceremonies is a mystery to me. Perhaps it is because Japanese students work so much harder than their Western counterparts and thus take middle school much more seriously. Thinking back to my own days as a junior high school student, we had no induction ceremony in grade 7. Rather, we were given a confusing class schedule and a locker combination, and left on our own to find our way about the school halls, receiving intermittent beatings and froshing from older students – our own welcoming ceremony of sorts. I can’t recall having a graduation ceremony in junior high school either, but instead had a shoddy boat cruise down Winnipeg’s (in)famous Red River, eating horrible buffet-style food, and ending the night in a nauseous state - but not from the swaying of the boat.

Junior high schools in Canada simply don’t demand the same type of dedication from their students as they do here in my adopted home. In my school days, we weren’t required to clean the entire school twice a day as the students do in Japan, but instead had a team of paid adult custodial engineers who dealt with daily abuses from ungrateful little punks. And things haven’t changed. Western students don’t have hours of homework and mandatory after-school programs. Nor do they spend 10 hour days at school. Rather, they loiter in front of public buildings, discover the joys of fermented agricultural products, and develop a keen interest in after-school botanical experimentation. Or, so I’ve heard. And thus, there is a certain emotional attachment absent in most Western schools; the student-institution relationship lacks somewhat in sentimental value.

I didn't cry when the students a year ahead of me graduated from junior high, but was rather happy, seeing as I would now be amongst the ‘clusters of superiority’. Nor did I cry when I said farewell to the teachers in my junior high school for the last time, knowing that I wasn't graduating to a high school in Mongolia, but was rather moving to one just down the road. But, this past April, as I witnessed more than one hundred 1^st and 2^nd year Japanese junior high school students wail hysterically as the 3^rd year scholars, also crying, marched out of the gym in army formation for the last time, an image was permanently penned on the mushy inards of my mind. It is an image that I hope will stay with me forever. The kids cried like their parents were being shipped to serve in the Iraq war. And I have to say, it was quite touching. I think I almost cried myself… well, almost.

School Ceremonies Part 1: Play That School Anthem One More Time!

For me, attending school ceremonies in Japan is like watching a mind-numbing foreign film with no subtitles. Nothing interesting is happening, the monotonous actors seem so distant and lifeless, and I can’t understand a damn thing. And, unfortunately, the Japanese love nothing more than pointless gatherings to practice their ‘group think’; this is a performance that I have to watch at least once a week. Every time, it is déjà vu all over again.

My school has a 25 minute long assembly every Monday morning. During these tiresome morning congregations, when all of the students are gathered in the gymnasium for ‘debriefing’, one could easily jump to the conclusion that Japanese schools have for years been successfully cloning children. Like a field of oversized, Single-Stuffed Oreo cookies, the students stand attentively in inflexible lines; the blanched, creamy complexion of their faces sandwiched by their straight, carbon-black hair and their equally dark school uniforms. Today, this is a sight that I am well accustomed to. However, during my first experience at a morning assembly last September, I had to take note of the large ‘rising sun’ flag hanging ominously over the stage to make sure I hadn’t inadvertently landed myself in the midst of a North Korean military rally. Kim Jong Il and his platform shoes were nowhere to be seen. And the clone-like students, thankfully, were not wielding rifles.

Regardless of whether or not there is something important to be discussed, these Monday morning ceremonies happen with unfaltering regularity. And therein lies the problem; there rarely seems to be anything of importance happening. At the assembly’s onset, the students are called to attention by one of the principal’s henchmen. Silence falls over the group. They wait and watch patiently as the headmaster makes his way to the stage, shuffling dazedly like Quasimodo with a bad hangover. At the top of the stairs leading to the stage, the principal pauses briefly and bows in the direction of the slightly crooked hanging Japanese flag. He saunters slowly to the podium and then bows to the masses, receiving an enthusiastic ‘good morning’ and teeth-to-the-floor bowing from the students and staff. Talking like he has wads of cotton balls shoved into the pockets of his mouth, he proceeds to ramble on in his gravely voice, sputtering out a variety of formal greetings and pleasantries for which the Japanese - who can’t pour a cup of tea for a friend without rhythmically bowing their heads and muttering a succession of needless humble sayings – are known for.

To make matters worse, these weekly assemblies are highly formal. Despite the fact that everyone in attendance at these gatherings is a member of the ‘school family’, everything is performed as if someone of great importance is watching. In fact, the assemblies are executed as if they are practice sessions for the day that Japanese President Koizumi himself will walk in through the rusting doors of the school’s gymnasium. One example of this pointless formality stands out in mind; often, the principal will give his opening greeting, but have nothing else to immediately add. He will walk off the stage, pausing to bow once again at the flag as he stumbles down the stairs. Before he even has time to catch his breath as he leans against the gymnasium wall, his sidekick will introduce him again, yet for a different task, such as presenting awards to several outstanding students. The principal will saunter slowly back up the stairs, bow at the flag, approach the microphone, and again bow to the students and staff. “Wo! Didn’t this just happen?” I ask myself sarcastically. Couldn’t he have just stayed up there and finished everything that had to be done at once rather than leaving and coming back? Some days, this will happen three or four times – he returns to the stage alone, leaves, comes back with the vice-principal in tow, leaves again, the vice-principal comes alone… Each time with a formal introduction, bowing to the flag, and a warm greeting from the populace as if he had just entered the building. Formality taking precedence over efficiency; the Japanese way of handling business.

During assemblies when there is very little of importance to mention, adjournment does not come early. Rather, time is filled. Usually, the remaining minutes in the allotted ‘meeting time’ are worn-down by the brass band- a group of pint-sized twelve year olds no bigger than their old, faded wind instruments- who torment us with endless renditions of the school’s anthem. Yes, the school, like a tiny, autonomous socialist nation, has its own anthem praising its glorious history and successes; a simple melody sung in Japanese and repeated over and over again for what seems like a short eternity. Any given performance of the school anthem is reminiscent of a scene from a comedy film that I cannot quite place my finger on; just as the band seems to be winding down on the last pass through the song and the instruments are holding what you are praying is the last note to be played, the percussionist cracks the dull drum-snare with her splintered stick and the band kicks off once again from the top; the staff and students singing boisterously along en masse. “La la da da doo da doo doo da.” Every time that you hope it is nearing the end, they loop it back to the beginning for another delivery. Even bad foreign films without subtitles need a soundtrack, I guess.

With all of this practice, one would think that the brass band would be a top-notch ensemble. But unfortunately, no, they cannot play one pass through the school anthem without several discordant squeals from the members’ instruments. ‘The Squeakers’, as I call them, are great kids, but in a system where the 3^rd Year students don’t take part in the ‘club activities’ (they ‘retire’ to focus on their studies), and with every new school year, half the band is replaced by 1^st Year students who have never played their instrument before, you have a recipe for cacophony. After all, a band is only as good as its weakest member; and a trumpet being slobbered into by someone with only a few months experience handling their horn, will never sound good. Even Miles Davis and John Coltrane started out as ‘squeakers.’ Brass band musicians who cannot yet play an instrument but are anxious for success should pawn their rusting saxophones and start a punk band. Then maybe they can sell a million. Hey, it happened to Green Day - once, and forever... 'squeakers'.

The Most Expensive Fruit You've Ever Seen

Sorry to beat this 'expensive fruit' thing to death, but some things are just too shocking not to report. I have found the world's most costly fruit, sitting elegantly (or, at least as elegantly as fruit can sit) in a posh department store in the basement level of Tokyo Station.

Included here are cellphone pictures of a $120 US dollar box of cherries, a pair of mangoes for $95, a small bunch of grapes for $100, and a cantaloupe (notice the fancy ribbon attached) for $100.

Un-f#$king-believable!