Fireworks

In Japan because we are all responsible citizens, mature beyond our years, anybody can buy fireworks pretty much anywhere. That anybody includes Cian and that anywhere includes our local supermarket. Summer is fireworks season and evenings are filled with the joyous sounds of exploding gunpowder and the excited shrieks of kids (and adults too).
It always amaze me that in an otherwise highly safety conscious society (top speed on the roads, a languid 60 kph), young children are permitted to handle and enjoy what is basically live ordinance. Back home doing the same can get you arrested. But then again the way kids carry on with fireworks inn Ireland would probably get you arrested here too.

Construction Site

There up to something across the road. Since last week what we had thought of as 'our secret garden' (we planted some strawberries there in spring and Cian dug a number of holes in the plot), has been turned into a construction site. Somebody did call to our house last weekend and explain that they were "going to be doing some work". And they said something about a car park.
Yes, a car park.
As the plot is surrounded by residential houses with their own parking we are a bit baffled by this. Cian reckons the story is a cover for building a secret missile silo aimed at the Chinese.
Could be, could be.
The construction work is due to continue until the end of August so it won't be until we come back from Ireland that we will know the end result. In the meantime we're hoping (barbeques notwithstanding) that we get some more of that torrential rain we experienced a fortnight ago and it causes a landslide into the house where d'auld bollox still lives. The bollox.

Barbeques and the Sunday Game

Summer. After watching the waterlogged Munster football final replay this morning, it would seem the season has decided not to visit Ireland this year. In fact towards the latter part of the second half it was getting so dark down there in Killarney I figured Ger Canning and Martin Carney were forced to use military night vision glasses just to see what was going on.
Here in Muroran by contrast, we are being blessed by a warm, though not too warm, sun filled summer. The only down side to the lovely weather is that all three of us have to look at most of it from inside a classroom. We are still two weeks away from the start of the summer holidays and are impatient for them to begin.
Recently on Saturday evenings we have taken to having a barbeque in front of the house. Not the kitchen-cooker-on-wheels, gas-flamed monstrosities like back home, but rather a small charcoal fired grill, ideally sized for three. And proper skewers of meat and onions, not the bloody chunks of engorged steak. Like so much else in Japan, the emphasis is on quality rather than quantity.
We also set up the computer outside (in the boot of Sanae's car) so that after we have eaten and Cian has fetched up another couple of bottles of suitably chilled Heartland beer, we can settle back in the day's fading light and watch The Sunday Game on the GAAGO website. And there in the glimmering twilight we can marvel at the lonely genius of Joe Canning, shake our heads in despair at the squandering of all that Clare hurling talent, and wonder what Tomás O'Sé is thinking when he stands in front of his wardrobe.

Mazdas, massages, and me

The end of June is bonus time here in Japan. I am of course using the Japanese word 'bonus' or ボーナス, which means a semi-annual lump sum payment of your salary, as opposed to the English meaning of an additional sum for good work on top of your normal salary. I receive a monthly salary and then twice a year, in June and December, I receive a 'bonus' which is essentially a deferred payment of 6 months worth of salary deductions. And why does this happen? Unfettered capitalism, my friends.
But that's not the point of this blog.
The point of this blog is that coinciding with the bonus period, there comes an avalanche of junk mail and fliers from companies desperate to relieve me of my hard earned yen. Among the letters I received yesterday was one from our local Mazda dealer.
As some of the more observant readers amongst you may recall, I have a Mazda. And I bought it from our local Mazda dealer. Nearly seven years ago. Now, the average length of car ownership in Japan is just over 8 years, so I sit atop that part of the bell curve that has our local dealer narrowing his eyes, rubbing his hands, and licking his rouged lips in anticipation of another sale to the hairy foreigner. To try and entice me down to the dealership the letter informed me that this weekend they were hosting a special 'test drive a new Mazda' fair.
But wait, there's more.
If the prospect of whizzing through downtown Muroran behind the wheel of a CX-5 or, whisper it, a turbo diesel Atenza estate, doesn't get me through the door then how about these enticements. Should I agree to take a car for a test drive, then I will get:
(a) a crepe. Yes, a crepe. With cream. And from the rather fuzzy, low resolution photo on the photocopied flier, some strawberries. Though that could well be the rouge lipstick mark from the over enthusiastic salesman.
(b) a massage. Yes, seriously, a massage. Not as practiced by those who leave their rather fetching calling cards in various niteclub toilets around inner city Dublin, but a genuine, god-fearing, hands-will-go-no-further-south-than-your-shoulders massage. The last time I had a decent massage was over three years ago on our first visit to Singapore when a particularly enthusiastic Thai gentleman tried to knead my left shoulder blade through my body and out my chest. As for Sanae, well, have you ever tried to get a massage from a hobbit? Lots of grunting, pinching, and snack breaks.
And finally (c): I would be entered into a draw for a box of hairy crab. No, really, bear with me here people. Crab, befollicled crab. Forget about your rebates and extended warranty incentives, here in Japan it takes shellfish to shift cars.
Now, I was game, good to go, but she who controls the purse strings (and doesn't give massages) said no, for fear that I would actually return with a turbo diesel Atenza estate. It is true that when it comes to shopping for, well, pretty much anything, that I am the impulse happy type. So the bonus (or what little that is left of it after the mortgage repayment), will instead probably be spent in the chocolate section of Tesco's when we are home next month.

We're building an ark

I thing the gods must be reading this blog (such is its literary quality), for they unleashed an almighty downpour upon us this afternoon. In the space of an hour we had close on 30mm of rain which, to those still laboring under the imperial system (and living on the Death Star), is the equivalent of 17.8 gallons or 200 fluid ounces (approximately). On the hazard map for Muroran the slope behind our house and everything downhill from it is coloured a terrifying shade of deep, dangerous red, designating a potential landslide threat. As I type the rain has let up a bit but we're not taking any chances - rubber boots, drinking water, and a week's worth of chocolate have been left by the front door.

Where's summer?

I think I might have tempted the weather gods too much with my previous post extolling the sunny June we were enjoying. In response the deities have unleashed some torrential rain upon us for the past week and despite these being the longest days of the year, the gloomy grey rain clouds ensure it is dark by 7:30 in the evening. Adding to our seasonal despair is the fact that although it is July we are still 4 weeks away from the start of the summer holidays.
Yes, 4 weeks away. Sweet mother of educational Jesus.
By rights that should be in fact 6 weeks away for me (and 4 for Cian and Sanae). The end of the first term in the university is the 30th of July, and this is followed by a two week exam period, taking us up to August 14th. And only then, a mere fortnight away from the start of autumn, can the 'summer' holidays commence.
Matters aren't helped by the fact that Cian and Sanae will begin their holidays at the end of the third week of July but are then back in school by August 20th, which gives the Gaynor-Takahashi family a sum total of 6 days of shared holiday time.
Yes, 6 days. Sweet, sweet ripening fruit mother of educational Jesus.
Much is made in the media about Japan's fumbling attempts to 'globalize' its educational system and prepare its children for a cosmopolitan future. Hence, the seemingly annual plethora of initiatives launched by the Ministry of Education with aerily ambitious titles like 'Super Science High Schools', 'Super Global High Schools', and the 'Global 30 Universities'. A select number of schools are, well, selected for such 'super' designations, the principal super part of it all being the dollops of additional public funding they receive (which adds to the increasingly pervasive problem of educational inequality, but that's a post for another day).
A considerably cheaper and more equitable initiative in the country's attempt to become 'global' (whatever that means), would be to change its academic year. At the moment the Japanese academic year runs from April through to March, for all levels of education from primary to tertiary. Not many other countries maintain the same school calendar. This is in turn is a very large disincentive for both Japanese students thinking of studying abroad and for foreign students coming to Japan to study. (It should be noted that this 'start in April' ethos is not just confined to schools; the fiscal year also follows the same schedule).
A couple of years back the University of Tokyo announced that it was going to break with tradition and change its academic year to the global norm of September - June/July. Now, in the hierarchy of Japanese education, the University of Tokyo sits right at the top (and Muroran sits, or rather is squashed, somewhere at the bottom), so when Todai (as it is commonly known) says its going to change then the expectation is that the rest of educational world will hastily follow.
But not this time. Too many vested interests were opposed: corporate Japan and their established January to March milk rounds; civil service exams; various professional exam boards; not to mention the knock on effect this would have on high schools, junior high schools, and elementary schools. So the plan died a despairing death and we continue with our April-March year.
Personally, I am a tad skeptical of this urgent need to 'globalize' (read: adhere to western imposed notions of education), but if it meant that we (Sanae, Cian, and myself) got longer summer holidays then hell yeah, bring on the Coca-Cola capitalism and let's hit the beaches by the end of June.