8) Highs and Lows

MY BEST EXPERIENCE SO FAR IN GERMANY:

Turns out the choir I mentioned in my last blog were singing Russian songs for a reason- they participate in an exchange with a Russian Choir, who visited last weekend. We performed together in a concert in a massive cathedral-eqsue church. We were singing above the audience in a little alcove, and the echoes were phenomenal. The Russian choir were AMAZING- they sang unaccompanied in 8 part harmony, and the music was just so moving that I cried. This experience alone was unforgettable, but on top of this, despite the conductor speaking no German, we were able to completely understand what she wanted us to do. There really is some sort of universal musical language that exists. The whole experience made the world feel like a smaller place, and it was so comforting after two months of constantly struggling to understand everything.

After the concert we all headed to a pub to continue the high, and they produced multiple bottles of Russian vodka. The atmosphere was indescribable- despite nobody speaking a word of each other’s languages we had the most fantastic night. They all ended up singing drunken folk songs, and for once in my life my English clapping-phobia (because, lets face it, nobody wants to be the last one clapping) was conquered, because the joy was so infectious that it was impossible NOT to clap. It made me a bit jealous though; the ditties of drunken choice in Yorkshire tend to be slightly less beautiful-who really wants to clap along to “My name is Jake, Jake, Jake” (if you don’t know the song, count yourself as lucky). Then again, for all I know the folk songs could have been discussing the equivalent sexual conquests of a Russian stud. Somehow I doubt it, though.

Nobody from my choir knew any folksongs at all, because in the 1930s the Nazi state manipulated all aspects of German culture into their propaganda. Understandably, after the war nobody wanted to sing anything so tainted. It’s so sad though, given what I’ve just experienced about music joining cultures together. It seems like such a strange victim of the conflict. Then again, most English people my age don’t know any folksongs either. It’s even more tragic to think that we have no excuse for loosing this huge part of our musical heritage except laziness.

MY WORST EXPERIENCE SO FAR:

The student accommodation I am in has an eating hall where we eat lunch. They provide an evening meal too, but instead of the kitchen having to employ people in the evening, they provide it all at lunchtime and then you take your evening meal away with you (efficient, I know). That week I had invested in a new pair of slippers (=four pairs of new shoes so far. As I predicted, my escape from consumerism was nothing more than a shortlived dream). What I hadn’t however realised, was that the shoes had no grip on them. So, after piling my plates high with yoghurt and spaghetti bolognaise at lunch, I set off upstairs in my slippers. And slipped. And the food went everywhere. Literally. EVERYWHERE.  Walls, ceiling, and the ENTIRE flight of stairs became a sea of absolutely disgusting cack. This flight of stairs happened to be the only way out for the 100 odd other people who had eaten lunch that day, so EVERYONE witnessed it.

The worst thing was, it really hurt! Because both my hands were full of plates, I couldn’t use them to lessen the blow (to be fair, I did try. And hence the yoghurt managed to reach the ceiling). My knees whacked the polished wooden floor full on. Not only this, but I then had to kneel on them and feel them throbbing for the 3o minutes it took to clean all the mess up. I ended up having to walk around in a skirt for three days so that my swollen knees would be cooled by the freezing weather-my efficient answer to an icepack!

Mexico

            As I stood with both hands on the front of a Mexican police car with a burly and angry looking policeman emptying my pockets I began to wonder to myself about whether this last minute-trip to Tijuana had been worth it.  It was.

            This last weekend was a long one for us due to Veteran’s Day – so I and a few other lively fellows decided to hop on a train and head for Mexico.  Several hours of train/trolley travelling later we found ourselves on the American side of the border with lots of people directing us in lots of directions and foolishly thinking that we might have to get our passports out. Not so, it would appear; after following where the majority of people were walking we took ourselves over a bridge and through a gate and before we even knew we had arrived in Mexico we were being offered taxi rides from anyone who could get near enough for us to hear them.  ‘Take us to whichever road has all the clubs on’.  All of a sudden we are in central Tijuana and are ready to enjoy ourselves, so we dug around a bit for a hotel, found one that seemed OK, dumped our stuff and headed out onto the street.  ‘Hey hombre, come in here!  We have donkey show live tonight!’  Donkey Show?!  Within seconds we had piled inside and had beers being brought to us, but by the time they’d arrived I’d come to the conclusion that ‘donkey show’ must have been a euphemism for brothel…  So we stayed and finished our beers (it would be rude not to) and got out of there to find ourselves a club.

            ‘$15, all you can drink!  Best club in Mexico!’  I’m sure you, unlike me have already realised that it wasn’t going to be the best club in Mexico, and that they’d be taking much more than $15 each from us!  The person who had cajoled us inside informed us that he’d be our waiter for the evening and bring us as much as we could drink for just $30 between us.  Then another friendly looking guy came up and started pouring tequila in our mouths at which point I’m thinking, best club in Mexico? Sure.  After putting it in several people he stops and tells us that that’ll be $25 – our costs are adding up.  So at this point stories of note begin to happen about as often as you could possibly imagine– sadly only a couple have made it past my censor!  My roommate (already fairly comprehensively tattooed) pipes up, ‘I’ll do anything for a laugh’ – less than twenty minutes later he has a tattoo of one of the girl’s initials, given not in a tattoo parlour, rather in a corner of the club we were in!  The rest of the night was equally eventful – I promise.  Suffice it to say that some people took renewed interest in the donkey show…

            So, now you may be wondering how I found myself spread-eagled in front of a police car – well…  It was morning(ish) and we were walking around town looking for a suitable place to eat.  Opinions differed and so we split up, with four of us doubling back for Burger King.  Somewhere along the way we were approached (not unusually for Mexico) by a guy who began to follow us – asking us if we wanted crack, did we have any etc etc.  After several hundred metres of road I informed him, as did the others, that we were genuinely uninterested and that he should please disappear.  He didn’t think that was a good idea, meaning that at Burger King he was still with us and we were thoroughly annoyed with him.  1,2,3 people bought our Burger Kings, still rolling our eyes but uneventfully.  My roommate paid  with $20 and they didn’t have enough change, so they went to get some–Crackhead manages in the meantime to get hold of his food ticket that was on the surface and so, I’m sure you can guess, on return the woman accidentally gives Crackhead the change and he decides that now he’s had enough of following us, I see a colour close to red however and the role reversal is complete when I begin at a fairly leisurely pace to chase him down the road.  He attempts to get into several taxis – I and a couple of other vigilantes including a couple of Burger King staff stand in front of them all and after a while we’re holding up several lanes of traffic.  Sirens go, and I sigh with relief.  The cops, however, didn’t presume my obvious innocence as quickly as I’d hoped and grab three of us (including one Crackhead) and put us against the front of their car.  Luckily at this point I realise that we had the good fortune to be found by two of the few unbent cops in Mexico who on speaking to the Burger King staff let us go with the money and threw the Crackhead in the van!  Woohoo!  Justice wins! 

Sorry this blog was ridiculously long – I had to cut loads out!

Branching Out

It’s been a while since my last entry, but things have been pretty hectic in the last couple of weeks. My first test was last Thursday. The academic side of things in Okayama has not been very challenging as of yet, so I’ve been trying to get out and use Japanese in day to day situations as much as possible. I think it’s doing some good because I’ve noticed that despite my vocab limitations, I can get my point across pretty well in daily activities. Lately, a friend and I have been scoping out the clubs and circles on campus. Japanese students are very involved in group activities and we think it would be a great way to meet Japanese students.

It’s strange how much things change in a month. A couple of publishers publish bilingual comic books. I’ve been reading a very strange one called Doraemon. Words seem to stay with me now. I don’t have to rote learn random words, because I need to think about them near daily. I’ve even had a few dreams in which I’ve been chatting away in Japanese.

The train system in Japan is brilliant. I took a day trip to Osaka last week. My first trip branching out from Okayama prefecture. Where Okayama is small, quiet and clean; Osaka is gigantic, noisy, and dirty. Osaka has a bit of a reputation as an odd city out and now that I’ve been there, I can see where this reputation comes from. Yet, Osaka is one of those large cities that’s just magnetic. There is trash on the streets, the pace of life is fast and the streets are crowded. But the city is really, unavoidable, alive.

Bunraku is a form of traditional Japanese theater that involves the use of elaborate puppets, each controlled by multiple puppeteers. Japan’s main bunraku theater is located in the heart of Osaka. Luckily for us, the theater had seats and tickets for people who would like to see a single act. Take all you know about puppet shows and throw it out the window, because what I saw was complex and fascinating. I don’t quite know how to explain it without using the term “intriguing in a very bizarre way.”

I finished off my trip to Osaka with a visit to the Umeda Sky Building. The rooftop offers a 360 view of the whole of Osaka. At night the city lights seem fade off into the distance. After visiting Osaka castle, the sharp contrasts that Osaka contains become very apparent. After visiting Osaka, the sharp contrast that Japan contains become blindingly obvious. I would not say that Osaka is one of my favorites cities, but I would say with certainty that it is one of those cities that just needs to been seen.

My eyes are opening to something new every single day. Blinding differences and surprising similarities.

Halloween

Sorry doting readers (Mum), it’s been a bit longer than a week but things are so busy here!  Even as I write it’s in a break from revision for my midterm tomorrow, group h/w for Thursday and another midterm on Thursday!  Certainly if any, this Blog should be one that was worth the wait as it encompasses a little noticed and little cared about event back home that several people here have – in stark contrast – even described as their favourite holiday?!  Halloween (not even actually a holiday) is more than just celebrated here, I can’t even think of a single word that encapsulates what the people of Santa Barbara do!  Basically, this little sub-centre of SB, called Isla Vista, is known almost solely to outsiders as the place to go at Halloween.  On a normal day its population is around 3,000, Halloween launches it well beyond 10,000 – someone even quoted me 30,000, not sure about that.  Once these people get here, it would appear that all they expect to do is walk up and down the streets dressed in an amazingly wide variety of costumes (an 8-foot penis and a group of sperm chasing an egg stand out in the memory) and occasionally get arrested.

Before dressing up, along with 7 or 8 other Brits as William Wallace et al, I was given 3 separate, compulsory safety talks about Halloween!  My Residence Halls changed the locks for the week around Halloween and checked our IDs on entry to the building; it’s like being in prison! 

Nevertheless, as Brits, we fancied ourselves to stand out in the crowd.  Around 11pm on Friday evening before Halloween (forgot to mention that it’s celebrated both nights of the weekend before and on Halloween, and there were still people running around in costumes the weekend after!) the Flower of Scotland began to ring through the streets of IV in the coarse (possibly drunken) voices of 7 or 8 people dressed in nothing but skirts and face-paint!  That was about the most exciting part of the night – as was probably the case for everyone else trying to assert the brilliance of their own costume over everyone else’s!  The night followed on much as I’d suppose you could imagine at a couple of different house parties, it was on the way home that I had my eyes opened a little to the reasoning behind all my Halloween safety talks; it appears they’d not been talking about staying safe but safe from the police!  Walking past a large prison-in-a-van I saw 2 people being added, and by the sounds of the inside they weren’t the only ones – I put my head down and shuffled past!  $250 to get let out of jail – once they get round to identifying you, which can take anything up to a week seeing as they have so many people there after Halloween – essentially the price for getting drunk on Halloween could be anything up to a week and $250 – and that’s if you don’t get charged for anything!

In other news:  I’ve Wakeboarded the last three weekends and managed to start landing jumps last time.  Also, I’ve managed to secure an invitation for a place to go for Thanksgiving!  I saw some fancy-pants add a photo to their Blog a couple of weeks ago, so I’ll try and give that a go next week if I get round to getting any photos off my camera and on the computer!

7) Recreational activities?! I can’t keep up.

I have joined two choirs here, and have been struggling to keep up.
The repertoire of the first includes songs in Russian, and so, yet again, I am coming across as ignorant and xenophobic, “What, choirs in England never sing in Russian?” I know it would have been unrealistic to have expected England’s cultural hegemony to have extended into choir music (the empire fell long ago after all), but come on! I thought at least Latin’s dominance in Church music was a given! Apparently Tchaikovsky disagreed, along with the Russian Orthodox Church.
My second choir is singing an evensong in English, so I was pretty relieved when I first discovered this. Unfortunately however, after learning I am English, the Musical Director has decided to get me to read out the song lyrics at every rehearsal (in front of 70 people) to make sure we pronounce the English right. The music is written in Old English, and I come from Yorkshire. I now have to endure the weekly humiliation of having Germans WITH BETTER ENGLISH ACCENTS THAN ME correct my pronunciation. On the other hand, the American exchange student isn’t even asked for his opinion!
I have been struggling to keep up with the various sport groups I’ve joined here too. I thought sport language was linked to common sense, and that I would therefore be able to get by with my limited vocabulary. However, when someone is running towards you shouting a word you don’t understand, it quickly becomes apparent that there really IS no universal body language, and that yet again the only solution is to sit and add to my vocab list.
As far as I was concerned, club etiquette was an unchanging, ageless code. Chat up lines aside, I thought a gradual stumble towards you after staring at you for an hour was, ever-dissapointingly, the only way to meet someone of the opposite sex. Not in Germany!!!
Before you jump on a plane and arrive expecting decent conversations with more than just your breasts, let me explain; German pulling etiquette seems to involve DANCING. Not just next to the chosen person, but in the middle of her circle of friends. Irrespective of the pursuers dancing skills. I would argue this is a highly dangerous strategy, but German men seem to assume their (probably alcohol related) fearlessness will be interpreted as brilliance. Unfortunately, it is not. On the plus side though, this approach harks back to the jousting competitions of yesteryear. As a bemused spectator, I couldn’t help but think that my feelings of pity and annoyance linked me to the generations of irritated women that have gone before me; each one of us barely tolerating the pointlessness of it all, each one of us scornfully thinking, “this really is ridiculous” (each one of us secretly fancying the man who can break-dance/stay on his horse). Thus, whilst I have come to realise during my time here that almost everything I had considered to be universal isn’t, I was at least comforted last night by this link back to generations of ogling women before me.