Winter Jogging

Note: the following post has been jointly rated R18 by the Irish Film Classification Office, The Motion Picture Association of America, the Eiga Rinri Kanrai Iinkai, and my wife. It contains pictures of spurious near-nudity and bodily hair, which may cause some of our more easily, ahem, aroused readers to entertain thoughts of full body contact 'hey makarena'.

One of the great challenges of winter here in Hokkaido is maintaining some semblance of fitness. This can be achieved by either (a) shoveling snow every feckin day; (b) steroids; or (c) jogging. I do all three (as can be seen from the photos below showing my muscular physique, toned legs and lactating breasts).

The key to jogging in sub-zero temperatures is layering. Actually, come to think of it, the key to jogging in sub-zero temperatures is not to go jogging at all, but unfortunately the steroids have decimated my common sense.

The first layer is essentially wind protection. It also makes you look a bit 'gay Central Park jogger', but its either Hammerstein & Rodgers' musicals on my iPod, or death from wind-chill.

Hello limbs (note toes still tapping to 'West Side Story').

Next is the inner 'core warmth' layer and yes, my head really is that big.

Now steady ladies (and fellow 'Oklahoma' fans) - we are getting to the first layer, to some of you perhaps, the 'finest' layer. These should wick sweat. In any direction. But wick. Wick. Wick. Wick.

And finally (feel free to swoon), we have my rampaging body hair. After 14 successive Hokkaido winters, my body has evolved a sort of thick, matted, coarse rug covering, that traps both warmth and small hibernating animals. I am a walking rebuke to all those bat-shit crazy Creationists out there, which is why I am banned from the state of Kentucky.

Such is the neo-Darwinism I embody (evolution on speed as it were), that I have developed copious amounts of toe hair too. And yes, I would like to share that with you all. (Note: the donut-shaped bulge around my waist was due to the distortion effect of the lens, the close focal point, and the low f-stop. It was in no way due to the double-chocolate-chip muffin I have with my mid-morning cup of tea).

Speed

"Right, so, like man, there's this, like, bomb man, on the sleigh, right, and if, like, you, like, go any slower than, like mach 1 or something, like, it's gonna explode, right".

"Awesome, dude".

Basically that is what Cian and myself were thinking as we headed up to the slopes behind the house for our weekly sleigh-of-death routine. 'Cos there's being alive, and then there's living a life. Dude.

Think about it.

Then think about this: with a fall in gradient of 1:63 (i.e. for every metre travelled the slope drops 63 sweet-mother-of-Jesus centimetres), down a slope 85 metres long with a backing wind of 27km/h and with a combined weight of 100 kilograms, depending on our initial acceleration, we could reach escape velocity within 30 metres of our start.

Or so Cian told me. I was just completely taken in by the awesome rush that was sure to happen once we got that red rocket on the snow-covered road.

And whoosh! Away we went.

There were, as befits any edge-of-the-seat, sleigh-by-wire riding, some 'Bail! Bail! Bail! moments along the way.

But we are fairly confident that we will be wearing the green as Ireland's best medal hopes at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

"When we sung of hope..."

ハイツ　カサブランカ - Heights Casablanca
Back in the day, and man was it ever the day, the little village of Makkari in the slumbering shadow of mighty Mt. Yotei, was the place for men.
Called Ben.
And the women, oh the countless women, who loved them.
And, oh cruel, cruel time - who were lost to them.

A place of pilgrimage. Even for those of us cast to the far frozen wastes of Eastern Hokkaido, where we were closer to Russia than our nearest McDonalds.
On a Friday, weather and insomnia be damned, I would jump in my little Toyota Cynos (a great car; a great, fucking car, man) and battling my way through hoards of ravenous bears, spawning salmon, desperate deer not to mention one 24-hour-Kamik-boot-wearing-fully-paid-up-loon out Bekkai way, drive immeasurable miles for immeasurable hours just to enjoy, albeit all too briefly, some of that Makkari magic.

Through the great windswept hills of Kushiro, across the lush plains of Tokkachi, up, up, up and over the mighty Hidaka mountains, along the serene shores of Shikotsu-ko and then, as you drew closer to Kimobetsu you could see the sky glow from the bonfires.
And the fireworks, streaming up into the night sky, their momentary splendor scattering amongst the stars.
Coming down Route 66, as the road slid gracefully through the potato fields and the neon began to dazzle, you could hear the music: the Magnetic Fields, unadulterated Appalachian bluegrass, Ride, Tindersticks, Wilco, Creeper Lagoon, lots of banjos; the sound rippling out through the sweet night air.
And then you were in the village and the girls. The girls, brown-eyed and cute, in gaggles of two and three, wandering around Makkari, expectant, excited, uncertain as to whether they should really be here or back home studying for their High School entrance exams.
Finally, you'd get to Heights Casablanca, tired, wrung out; but all that vanished after the first can of Asahi Super Dry. And the weekend would disappear into itself and we'd sing of hope and life was all about now.

And then Sunday evening would come and rent the magic asunder and we would disperse into the twilight, back to our mundane selves, taking only with us memories and hangovers and the promise of the next time.

And somewhere along the line the next time became the last time.

Ahh Makkari...

Even now it is a place of pilgrimage for those who went and never quite left.

And for cute girls too still trying to grasp some of that ethereal magic.

Japanese Demographics Part 7

They were at again in the newspaper this morning, cheerily painting a bleak-as-can-be picture of Japan's impending 'Apocalypse Soon'. Apparently the number crunchers and crystal-ball gazers in the civil service got together and took a shot at predicting the country's future population trends.

By 2060 they reckon there will be some 40 million fewer people eating rice and driving Toyotas. To put that in perspective, that's the disappearance of 800,000 people a year, every year, for the next 50 years. Whoommpp! and the entire population of Connaught is gone in a year (which, admittedly, might actually be a positive thing for Galway hurling). And gone again next year, and the next, and so on.

Not content with that bit of doom and gloom, they also predicted that by 2060, close on 40% of the surviving population will be over 65 years of age. Though they softened that by saying that the average life expectancy for males and females will be an all time high of respectively 84 and 90 years of age.

Now, as an Irishman with an average life span of 76 years, these figures don't overly concern me as I will be statistically dead by 2060, but Sanae and Cian will be finding life here "grim up north".

All the more reason then to move to Singapore where life is bountiful and balmy, 'demographics' is a trendy bar on Robertson Quay, and McDonalds are still hiring (I checked).

Muroran in 2060.

Singapore

The writer William Gibson memorably described Singapore as "Disneyland with the death penalty". Perfect then, for a family holiday; no crime and plenty for Cian to do.

Having tired of so-called 'holidays' in northern hemisphere winters (cf. Ireland 2010), we decided we wanted to go somewhere (a) warm; and (b) English-speaking.

That tends to limit your options in this part of the world. Hong Kong - close but not particularly warm; Hawaii - too ostentatious in these days of austerity (and the jet-lag is an absolute bastard); Australia and New Zealand are a little too far for a week long break); and the west coast of the United States is, well, part of the United States (though we did give some thought to the people's free republic of San Francisco).

So Singapore by default. Yet, it turned out to be a wonderfully relaxing holiday. Not invigorating, not stimulating, not mind-expanding; rather cosy, contained and cheerful - just what the three of us were after.

And the warmth. Ahh, that rich balmy, tropical air that suffuses the city. Even as I write this the memory of same is bringing a cold tear to my near-frozen eyes. Everyday was t-shirt and shorts weather and despite the New Year period having the highest monthly rainfall, we only had one prolonged afternoon shower on our first day and the rest of our stay was blessed with blue skies.

By contrast the Hokkaido Shimbun informed us this morning that Hokkaido is suffering through its coldest winter in a decade. We have had sub-zero temperatures for over a week now and 'de paper' told us the freezing spell will continue until the middle of February at least.

Apparently McDonalds in Singapore are hiring.

I could do that.

Pride doesn't keep you warm...

The Center Test

The ｾﾝﾀｰ試験 (Center Test), is the annual university entrance exam held simultaneously across Japan every January. It is akin to the Leaving Certificate back home, A Levels in the UK, SATs in the US, and erm, 'Gladiators' in Russia.

In comparison to the bruising two week, heavyweight ordeal of the Leaving Certificate, the Center Tests are a lean, mean two day affair with the longest exams only running to 80 minutes.

And they are all multi-choice. So, unlike say the English 1 paper back home where you spend three hours furiously scribbling down every random thought you have ever had on the bog-soaked poetry of Patrick Kavanagh before your entire arm cramps into a sort of twisted claw reminiscent of Dr. Strangelove, the Japanese tests are genteel exercises in mark filling.

Choose (a), (b), (c) or (d) and fill in the corresponding circle on the answer sheet.

Duration aside, it is this emphasis on discrete item learning as opposed to discursive answers on how you apply that knowledge, which is probably the greatest difference between here and home. I may not particularly care for Kavanagh's evocation of mildewed life amidst the misty drumlins of county Monaghan, but at least in the Leaving Certificate I may well be asked to justify that stance.

The Center Test, by contrast, will have a long piece on say, the Tale of the Genji and then present you with a question and four possible answers. The implication being that there is a single right answer to whatever is asked. And with just four answers provided, it is only through statistical probability that students' knowledge of the Genji can be imputed.

(As an aside, that reads kind of cool, doesn't it - 'knowledge of the Genji'. "According to the Center Test, wise are you in the way of the Genji. But, impetuous too, young Kenobi").

This is a very reductive way of both testing and ascribing value to knowledge. And it also leads to some peculiar forms of assessment. In the English exam for instance, in the first question, four words are given with the same letter(s) underlined in each. Students have to choose the word which has a different pronunciation for the underlined letter sound as compared to the other three words.

Now remember theyare in an exam situation so students can't actually vocalize the sounds. Instead they have to (a) either sound it out in their minds; (b) depend on their memory of the phonetic spelling of the words; or (c) curse this whackshit question and take a blind guess at the inane answer.

(For those of you who would like to take a shot at Japanese academic glory, the entire English paper is available here).

Oh my God, I hear you cry, but what sort of English education are those poor students getting in high school. To which the honest answer would have to be: "one that can be discrete-item tested on a nationwide university entrance exam".

The fact that pronunciation of the 'u' sound in 'amuse', 'cute', 'future' and 'rude' (to continue with the above example) depends on the speaker's identity, gender, social standing, the context in which the utterance is made, and, oh I don't know, the time of day perhaps, renders the question communicatively invalid.

It is, however, statistically valid and that is all that counts.

(The answer by the way is 'rude').

A belated happy new year

It has been, I will admit, a while. At this stage I am not too sure who is still reading this (but according to Google's ever helpful 'Stats' function, I am still resplendently popular in Thailand, Russia and Canada. God/Buddha bless you one and all).

We were away over the holiday period, though admittedly only for 10 days, so that still leaves a further three weeks to account for. But in those three weeks, I have been composing furiously on behalf of you, my dear readers in Bangkok, Moscow and Moosebay, and over the next couple of days I hope to brighten all our lives with my blogs.

If I'm not too busy shoveling snow.

So my new years resolutions for 2012 are:

(a) break through the magical 100 blog mark for the year. I came close last year but topped out at 89 due to a sudden outbreak of tropical heat induced lethargy just after Christmas (but more of that anon).

(b) And, you know, the old world peace gig; saving some whales should they happen to cruise into Muroran harbour; getting the Chinese to cut the Dalai Lama some slack; and finding an immediate cure for advanced male pattern baldness.

Yes, a tad conventional I know, but that's the early middle-aged latent Republican in me beginning to emerge.