TODAY WAS A GOOD DAY (TAKE III)

Since I last checked in, I haven't magically conjured up a '64 Impala or nothing like that. I haven't seen the Goodyear Blimp proclaiming my pimpness. I haven't hit up Fatburger. My pager hasn't been blowin up.

I still get around on a ladies bike or a skateboard, or in the passenger side of the world's tiniest car. I am still a married man. I haven't even got a pager. For maximum street credibility I use Emma's grandma's old phone, which is bright pink flip phone with a doll hanging off it.

But its been a series of good days nonetheless.

Because I've done heaps of cool stuff.

I have skateboarded down the street with snowflakes flying into my face.

 

I have drunk tea with breast milk in it.

I have caressed my baby boy as he slept in my gentle, loving, massive and chiselled arms. An artists impression of this below:

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I have eaten a foot long sushi roll while looking north north west to celebrate Japan's traditional coldest day, and to welcome spring into the house. In a highly fortuitous circumstance, the traditional coldest day was actually the coldest day experienced so far, so I was confused when everyone was complaining that it was cold.

I have had an experience at the barbers shop that could only be described as sensual. I mean, I hate to be explicit, but I've had sex with less emotion than what he coaxed out of me during that magical hour and a half. Then again, in my experience, sex only lasts a minute and a half, so that is kind of logical I guess. He shampooed and hand trimmed my hair, shaved me both ways, used 5 different lotions on my face, trimmed my nostril hair, cleaned my ears and then, to top it off, gave me a lolly bag to go home with. I almost whimpered at one point as he massaged my scalp with his strong yet gentle fingers. Lets just say that if old mate wanted to take things a step further, I was putty in his hands. (Rock hard putty. Woof woof)

I have cooked and eaten an Amakusa Daio chicken. These chickens are so massive they actually eat their own eggs for breakfast. Serious*.

LIFT YOUR GAME

I know that we have had some disagreements in the past (like the small matter of Japan bombing Darwin 70 years ago...) and other trivial ones like Australia beating Japan in the 2006 Soccer World Cup and Japan killing whales for 'scientific purposes'.

Ok, so theres a fair bit to disagree on.

But, in the interests of world harmony there are two things I believe we can agree on:

1. Sending Australia's worst beer to Japan to be sold in supermarkets is utterly disrespectful. Then, to make it a special extra light 0.5 % alcohol version is a violation of human rights.
   

 

2. Banana on pizza? Honestly? If I was Italian I'd get some sushi and pour bolognese sauce over it, just to register my outrage. Actually, no I wouldn't. I'd probably be too docile from eating so much good pasta and gelati that I wouldn't care (is that how Silvio Berlusconi stayed in power so long?)

Fatherhood

Every day I learn something new about my son. And I don't mean any of that "Oh this week I learnt that when he opens his mouth its like doves start singing and rainbows start shining and he's just amazing" type shit that Drake would sing about.

I mean practical stuff, like this:

• If your son pees midway during a nappy change, you may be tempted to intercept the urine stream with your mouth, in order to avoid urine stains on clothes and bedsheets. As tempting as this may be, restrain yourself.
  

And my so-earnest-it-makes-myself-sick advice this week:

• Remember the advice on the airlines: when travelling with children, be sure to fit your own oxygen mask before fitting theirs....don't forget that you as a parent have needs that must be fulfilled before you can take care of your precious child's. So go on, join that yoga class. Eat that donut. Drink that coffee. Smoke that dart. Skull that beer. Bump that Biggie.
  

SONGS FOR MY SON

In a sign of impending or perhaps even well developed good taste, Plax has taken a liking to my dulcet tones. So I indulge the little fella, free of charge, on a daily basis.

Songs I sang for my son this week include:

A-side: Bob Dylan - Tangled up in Blue, Idiot Wind, All I really want to do. Paul Simon - Born at the the right time, The Obvious Child

B-side: Warren G - Friends. Snoop Dogg - Aint no fun (if the homies can't get none). Notorious B.I.G - Kick in the Door, Let me get down. Diddy - Coming home.

So far, 'Aint no fun....' appears to be his favourite. That's my boy.

Product of the week

Personal hygiene is paramount in Japan. The staple, or meat and potatoes, of the hygiene world is the public bath, or onsen. Down south where we are, many people use the public bath daily, and forsake installing a bath tub in their own house.

However, in this hectic world in which we live, sometimes there is no time for meat and potatoes. Or a rigorous bathing session.

Enter from stage left, deodorant body paper.

 

Just a simple wipe over the unclean bits and you're a new man/woman/whatever Lady Gaga is. Sure its not a bath but it'll get you through the day without rude comments from your colleagues/friends/public transport co-tenants.

However, do not rub on your nether regions. It stings.

WORDS OF THE WEEK

Oshibori (see below) means towelette. It comes from the Japanese word shiboru (絞る), meaning "to wring".

EXTREME COURTESY OF THE WEEK

As Bob Dylan once asked 'Have you seen Dignity?'. Yes I have, Bob. Yes, I have. She was working the midnight shift at Players Bar on the Gold Coast.

When I was a young man growing up in the wilds of outback Australia, fast food was a rarity. Most of the time we would kill then cook our nightly meals. Sure it was tough, but it made me into the ruthless, capable, outdoorsy type larrikin I am now.

Occasionally, however, when the kangaroos and drop bears were scarce, we would be treated to Kentucky Fried Chicken from Albury, the closest big town. It was such a treat. And not just because of the 11 secret herbs and spices (of which I'm sure the dried sweat of fat kids must be one). Given that we weren't allowed to eat it in the car on the way home, the magic of the Colomel's finest dissipated somewhat on the journey into a fatty, sodden cardboard container. Upon arriving home, as soon as we'd cleared the crocodiles and emus from the house, Mum would brightly say that she'd reheat dinner. The pieces of chicken would be placed into the oven directly on the oven rack, with a tray underneath to catch the fat. The chips would be put into a separate oven tray. Approximately half an hour later, a lukewarm serve of chicken and chips would hit the table, sadly missing much of the oily goodness that they had been cooked in.

However, the magic was still to come. For after the chicken had been cleared away, there were the Colonel's moist towelletes to use. Freed from their little package, these lemon scented wonders were the highlight of the meal, as they would quickly remove any lingering grease smears. The dignity that these little squares of paper could offer was immense.

Often as I went to sleep at night, I would think to myself 'Why don't kangaroos come equipped with hot towels in their pouches, so that we can enjoy this freshness every day?'

In Japan, dignity in the form of towelettes are dispensed liberally. Often when arriving at a restaurant, a hot, clean cotton towel will be lying in wait, and not in the sinister way that I just made it seem. A quick wipe of the mitts and the face suddenly makes a simple meal seem like a special treat. Unfortunately, not as many restaurants provide cotton towelletes as there used to be, with many cheaper places opting for the disposable version. Regardless, the chance to wipe your hands and face before eating is truly such a luxury that I savour every time.

In fact, here is one from last night. (Note the fried chicken, left background)

SPORTING MOMENT OF THE WEEK

How good was the Superbowl?

It remains the sports entertainment by which all others are measured. In all ways. They make an hour long game last 3 hours of live televised coverage. While the players themselves are uniquely one-dimensional, and the lack of positional movement on the field means that you miss out on the physical mismatches that are a feature of cricket, rugby and Australian football (cue footage of Curtley Ambrose, oh so fiercesome with a cricket ball, looking meek and ridiculous with a toothpick of a bat standing southpaw style. Or George Gregan tackling Jeff Wilson to win the Bledisloe...) I still find the entire thing breathtaking.

The equivalent sporting event on the Australian calendar is the AFL Grand Final. This is essentially a drunken orgy for everyone in Australia except the players involved, and after the game they make up for it by taking to booze with the sort of testosterone laced passion that leaves the 3 journalists assigned to manning the major newspapers waiting in the office playing with the options for the headline the following day, which inevitably involves one or all of the following: 'FOOTBALLERS DRUNKEN SEX ORGY FIGHT BRAWL FIASCO'. If ever there was a time to invade Australia, this is it. Shit don't tell the Japanese this. They'll bloody bomb Darwin. Again. Even if you're a nun, your Saturday will involve a bbq at a friend's house where you'll be served meat that has been barbecued by someone who has been drinking since breakfast, appears to have a stubby surgically attached to their hand and has used 3% of their attention for cooking, 7% for watching the game and the other 90% for checking whether any of their multiple bets involving first goalkicker, what colour shirts the umpires are wearing, who sings the national anthem and whether it rains or not have actually come through. I actually remember being part of a drunken throng of people cheering for a tie, because a mate had $2 on at 100 to 1. It came through. The "half time entertainment" served up by the AFL is notorious for it's lameness (last year it was Meatloaf....Which prompted people the next day to say 'I love Meatloaf. Just not the singer'), so most people go for a drunken kick of the football, generally on the road outside their house. Fleets of ambulances patrol the streets, awaiting knee injuries, lacerations and other things that come from having 5 stubbies for breakfast, two chicken wings, half a packet of doritos and a desire to take the mark of the year.

God forbid my football team ever wins the Premiership. I'll be vegetarian (translation: off my chops, further translation: chops has double meaning of face and prime cut of lamb) for an entire week, and be even more unbearable for years to come.

In contrast, watching the Superbowl for non-Americans is like taking 12 hits of acid. For starters, it is on at an unsociable hour, generally a Monday morning. This means that you have to take a day off work to watch it live, which means either lying to your workmates (called chucking a sickie) or explaining that you are staying home to watch an 3 hours of commercials, "expert commentary" and half time shows with an hour of sport sprinkled like croutons throughout it. And where the sport itself is a series of stop start plays dreamed up by nerds on the sidelines and communicated to the blokes on the field via a device fitted to the arm of the chief nerd himself, the quarterback? Did I mention that the participants look like they've been dressed by Kanye West and Elton John after a coke binge?

Or that they run around celebrating every little play like its Dre day?

 

So yeah, after explaining all this to your colleagues its actually easier to say you're staying home to take acid.

But anyway, I loved it. At half time I was able to sing along to Madonna, (and this time there was a valid reason to) who in turn was singing along to her own tune on broadcast and generally looking like an unbelievably fit 52 year old who had a keen desire to parade her bits/get familar with other peoples bits.

 

Each to their own, eh.

All too soon, however, it was back to the sporting bit, and in a thrilling finish New York won.

However, none of this was quite as good as Linsansity......

Jeremy Lin is a young Taiwanese-American basketballer who went from sleeping on his brother's couch as backup backup backup backup backup (no I don't have a stutter, he was the 5th backup) point guard for the New York Knicks, to having the greatest first 5 starting games ever. Through injury and cicumstance, he was promoted to the starting line up after playing about 45 minutes over 6 weeks. And he took that opportunity and nailed it, in the bright lights of Madison Square Garden. He dumped 38 points on Kobe Bryant as the Knicks beat the Lakers. He not only got the Knicks winning (#linning) again, but he got people excited about winning. Now, apart from loving his dream, he's got a guaranteed contract, and probably a lot more on the way as Nike will look to cash in on his appeal to the huge China market.

The appeal to his story is partly that he's the first chinese or taiwanese american basketballer. People love that. They don't associate 6 foot 3 asians with basketballing excellence. But its also deeper than that. Son has been cut from this team and that, been written off by this scout and that, and looked down and out, but he never wrote himself off. And that is the key to it.

Because it is not a story of rags to riches - the brother's couch was in Manhattan and he had, after all, gone to Harvard on a basketball scholarship, but if ever there was a timely reminder of the rewards of perseverance and determination, this was it.

And if you need hear a some words to that effect from another great man, here they are:

 

 

As Ferris once said, ,Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.'

 

 

 

 

 

*not serious.

 

 

YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE......

[Being bathed by Tanaka's women] 
Tiger Tanaka: You know what it is about you that fascinates them, don't you? It's the hair on your chest. Japanese men all have beautiful bare skin.
James Bond: Japanese proverb say, "Bird never make nest in bare tree." 

As you can see from the above, ole JB is well aware of both the nature of our infatuation with the differences in other cultures and our need to explore them.

Noone is beyond this simple desire to see how the other lot lives (and in many cases, what they look like nude). Having said that, the Nazis probably weren't interested in exploring the virtues of the Poles when they invaded them, and I guess racists in general probably aren't overly fascinated by the body hair or lack thereof amongst their fellow planet dwellers.

But I digress.

Food is a common fascination among different cultures.

Indeed, a consistent response to me telling people I'm moving to Japan has been 'Oh you lucky thing, I love Japanese food'. Indeed. This is like claiming The Tourist will be your favourite movie because it stars Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp.

A lot of Japanese food is fantastic. Whale meat and natto are kinda foul, I'm not into rice for breakfast, but these are minor quibbles; I'm grateful to have food to eat each day.

However, like my fellow upstanding citizens in the media business, I believe that there are some truths that must come out. Important truths, like what Hugh Grant has on his voicemail, where Harold Holt is, and if its not butter, what the fuck is it?

The truth is, there are food and beverage crimes being committed on a daily basis here. And I'm not talking about petty crimes like harpooning whales for 'scientific purposes' (Experiment 1 - what does whale with soy sauce taste like? Experiment 2 - what does whale with wasabi taste like?) or slipping radioactive material into baby food.

I'm talking fraud. On a grand, horrific scale, like putting egg, mayonnaise and seaweed on some dough and then calling it a pizza. Cod roe and tinned corn with pasta. A proper napoli style pizza would go down like the proverbial Hindenberg here. That is if the Hindenberg crash landed from quarts of mayonnaise coating its engines. The Italians in particular cop it. Perhaps it is some sort of inbuilt rage the Japanese have towards the Italians for their outrageous good looks, their infuriatingly irregular public transport, their somewhat unreliable cars and their penchant for leaders who have a sense of humour.....and bunga bunga parties.

Coffee, as I have mentioned previously, is also a complete con job here. Its like the Yanks taught them every thing they know about coffee (insert disparaging comment here), and the Japanese decided to then apply their innovation, ensuring that you can purchase ready made coffee, in a can, with sago pearls, from a vending machine with a pair of schoolgirls panties to mop your face with.

And the bread. Oh the bread. I asked a local if they liked bread, and they responded with 'Yes, I like chocolate bread'. Up until this point I wasn't aware that chocolate was a legitimate variety of bread. I thought things like sourdough, wholemeal, multigrain were varieties of bread, all of which remain unseen here.

So yeah, I guess I'm kinda missing coffee and bread, huh.

Japanese Product of the Week

Incredible stuff this week. Actually saw a breast pump in action, and we have a heated baby wipe dispenser for our Plaxico.

However, while the above are pretty cool, and assist in the day to day living of our little man, this week I'm talking about something that goes way deeper than that. Im talking about something that nourishes you. Keeps you alive. Has magic healing properties. Tastes funny.

In short, your placenta. Well, not yours, actually, but Plax's.

Thats right. In the haze of the afterbirth I managed to communicate to the nurses that we wanted to keep the placenta. They duly obliged, rolling it up in newspaper and popping it in the freezer.

Last week Johnny and I put on the ceremonial galoshes, dug a hole, plopped the placenta in it and planted a plum tree on top.

After that, we had a naming day celebration for our little man, involving the whole Akiyama family. I cooked a lasagne, with homemade bolognese sauce containing pork, beef and a mystery ingredient.

After dining, everyone felt rejuvenated and years younger.

Weird huh?

Japanese Extreme Courtesy of the Week

Saw some massage chairs at the local laundromat the other day. While definitely a good idea, this is just good business - like having a pool table in a pub.

Instead, the Japanese Formal Informal Short Term Loan is the winner this week.

The idea of giving a gift at times of change in someones life is not new, and nor it is confined to Japan. However, it is the grace and ease with which money is given, that elevates the custom to qualify as extreme courtesy here.

Obvioulsly, the concept involves the gift of money to the recipient at times when the recipient is mostly likely to need a short term cash float, such as at a wedding, funeral or births. It is always given in an attractive envelope, such as the ones pictured below:
 

This therefore provides a cash float when most needed. The recipients can use the money, and then when life has returned to relative norm, contribute to other people`s short term needs accordingly.

But here is where it gets real courteous: the giver receives a small return gift from the original recipient worth up to a third of the original gift. To facilitate this in a simple manner, there are catalogues you can order from to provide personalised return gifts to everyone.

Indeed, often after a wedding, the attendees will be sent a catalogue from which to order their return gift. I only discovered this concept when I saw my brother-in-law idly flicking through a catalogue one day. He declared 'I'll get the matching Tiffany teacups'. Kind of weird, I thought, to do your shopping from a catalogue. He then explained it was a return gift because he'd already given a present to the wedded couple. Then I just thought it was kind of camp that he wanted Tiffany teacups. Each to their own, I guess.....

Following the birth of Plaxico, we have been swamped with the kindness of friends and strangers, who have donated gifts and money to Plax's cause. This has helped to offset the costs around this time. Many of the fifts have come from people who I don't personally know - they are friends of the family or business associates.

Word of the week

Fuwa fuwa equals fluffy. Chickens are fluffy. Good onomatopoeia, but not enough to win this weeks award.

Oyakodonburi. Literally translated this is parent and child (oyako) on bowl of rice (donburi).

But in practice, this means chicken and egg served on rice.

Chicken - egg, parent - child.......

Love the logic.

Sporting Moment of the Week

In light of recent events, here is a question I know everyone is asking themselves right now.

Just who is the best red-haired athlete on the planet?

Is it Blake Griffin, a man with mad hops who threw this dunk down last week, possibly the dunk of the year?



Is it Shaun White, who threw down an incredible perfect score of 100 at the Winter X-Games last week?



Or is it Chuck Norris, who won the Professional Middleweight Karate champion title, and then held it for six consecutive years?

Trick question. Of course its Chuck Norris.

Remember, Chuck Norris did not learn karate. Karate learnt Chuck Norris.