Sons of Loki

The word on the streets is taifu (which, fascinatingly, is a word that went from Chinese Hakka dialect tai foon (big wind) to English typhoon and then was imported from English into Japanese to taifu.

Either way, there’s a storm a-brewin’. Biggest in 10 years, so stay inside and drink tea. Except I have no tea, so I’m authorising myself an emergency trip to the supermarket for tea/milk/sugar/snacks/supplies.

Today we had our placement test, the results of which will be known in ten minutes (they’re fast here). I feel that I did as good as I could, so I’m not sweating it. It was, as Fran noted, weird to take a test where you weren’t supposed to know the harder stuff, and where guessing was a bit pointless.

After that we went into a big room to finally sign up for a MUFG bank account, and got some free wet wipes for doing so. In the end, it was a very smooth procedure. Also I signed something for JASSO, so should hopefully be getting that this month, too.

(update) Am in class 200, which is the slow readers group Elementary Japanese, along with Dan and Hattie. We are pretty sure we can get bumped up to 300.

Coffee and Oreos and rain outside. Is there anything more to life? Well, lots, evidentally, but it’s a start.

On Sunday I rolled into Shibuya, capital of kakkoii cool (I don’t know if the kids say kakkoii any more) with the famous crosswalk:

and stood by ye old statue of Hachiko with all the other girls and boys of Tokyo waiting for people as they have done for decades, and the salesmen blared and the screens flickered and a girl who looked about ten in gothic lolita fashion puffed on a cigarette and hey, this is Tokyo.

Katy turned up (or rather we noticed each other, both of us having waited for each other for about twenty minutes without realising it) and we took a tour through all the weird and wonderful things of Shibuya. Found a Uniqlo and I bought two “Heattech”-enabled (keeps you warmer or something? I’m not sure) t-shirts, which in Uniqlo style came packed square into zip-loc bags with tear-off tops like a packet of salami, two casual shirts, black slacks, a bandana and – in an uncertain moment – a flat cap.

Today we were all hoping to get bank accounts, but apparently due to the volume of applications that will have to wait. 仕方がない – oh well, it can’t be helped.

So instead Ella and Fran and I went down to Kichijouji, another of west Tokyo’s indistinct city centres, so Ella could purchase a guitar, for which she has been suffering withdrawal symptoms (and I can sympathise). With the help of a passer-by we found the shop and Ella picked up a cheap-yet-decent one – complete with an awesome free starter pack including capo, plectrums, peg winder thingy, and other goodies. Only in Japan. So now all we need is Fran on violin for our ultimate Tokyo bluegrass band.

We had a wander around Kichijouji in the intermittant rain and I bought a pot plant and some tonic water. Oh, and stopped off at a Japanese McDonalds, where we had our first encounter with Mr James.

Mr James is McDonald’s house gaijin mascot. He speaks in broken Japanese about how wonderful Japan is and how much he loves McDonalds. He wears funny clothes and silly glasses and is obviously a complete nerd. Crazy Mr James! He doesn’t even have a surname!
Now, Mr James has kicked off a bit of debate in the non-Japanese community, with Arudou Debito obviously a tad miffed, with a thorough dissection in the Japan Times.
Thing is, it’s quite hard to see how disarmingly offensive Mr James is without being down in the street in Japan. This business kicked off while I was still in the UK, and I watched the adverts on YouTube and chuckled a little and thought “Well, it’s hardly that bad.”
But when you’re out in the street and you pass one of Mr James’ ubiqutous standees, it’s like … It’s like a big company got someone to dress up like you, with that silly jumper you’re always wearing, and made them walk around saying the sorts of things you say in a moron voice and acting like a doofus and everyone laughed at that parody of you, because that’s what you’re really like, you clown!
Gaijin/non-Japanese turn up in ads here all the time as – well, token gaijin, or for a sense of international style, or simply because the product is targeted towards us. And that’s fine. I passed an advert in a shoe store today with a black model, and it wasn’t being offensive in the slightest. But Mr James is like a comedy mascot, like a big joke on every street corner aimed squarely at you, you weirdo. It’s not something that really bothers me more than a quick moan in a blog post, but still…
Anyway, headed back, popped in at campus store and got a few useful bits and pieces, including flashcards. The big placement test is on Wednesday, so I better revise.