Adventures in Japan

I totally cut that log. Like in half. Or: And Spinning, Always Spinning

A couple of days ago at work I was shown a video. It was all about DanSingLish. Dance. Sing. English. Yeah. It was a bunch of very basic English dialogues set to very crap songs with very amateurish choreography. It was glorious. I could not stop giggling. Which made the girl who I was watching the video with giggle. Which made me giggle even more. Which made our boss look a little cross. Which made us giggle even more.

Let's see if I can paint you a little bit of a picture. Open on an anonymous white space, sparsely decorated with letters and such. Cue the really bad music. Once the crap establishes its beat, the dancers twirl onto the screen. Whoever directed this thing really, really liked spinning. Almost every song and dance number began with the dancers spinning into frame and all ended with them spinning away. Each song had between one and three real dancers (most of whom were cute girls who could not show off more of their toned tummies if they tried) and about five children who were, in theory, the backup dancers. I say in theory because I don't think any of the kids had ever danced before. In fact it looked as if they had only ever heard vague whispers about this thing the elders call "dance". So all the assembled dancers started their odd gyrations, most of which bore only passing resemblance to the lyrics. Oh the lyrics. Actually, the lyrics were not that bad. But the person who sang them... he had a thick accent and sounded like that green Karaoke demon from Angel. I never did like that green Karaoke demon from Angel, always found his singing annoying.

So the dance steps, which were supposed to demonstrate what the lyrics were talking about, ended up being more confusing than anything. So between all the songs they have little vignettes where two people just talk the lyrics and do the actions normally. You'd think that would render the whole singing and dancing section of the video pointless, but you'd be right. The same two people appear in every "spoken word" vignette; a heavy, haggard looking blond woman and some smarmy jerk who looked like Brian Austin Green doused in extra annoying. I know, the mind boggles.

So that's about it. With a couple other little bits of chuckle fodder. Every 'song' was in a different genre, the best of which was the rap song about speaking good English. You have not lived until you have seen a five year old Japanese boy try to act thug whilst a Japanese accented singer in the background talks smack about how well he speaks English. Also funny: a part of one of the dances had one of the 'real' girl dancers crouch down so all the kids could leapfrog over her. It all went fine until the heavy kid tried. Hilarity ensued. I can't believe they didn't do another take.

Well, that took longer to detail than expected. While I'm here and you're bored, I'll just keep talking. I had my first real day of teaching today. I went to actual Japanese houses. They are small and cramped. Who knew? One of the students forgot that I was going to be showing up for his class this week. He got all nervous and didn't say very much. At least until I pulled out my DS, then he got a lot more animated.


I bought a DS.

Walking in Kyoto after dark is scary. There are no sidewalks and lots of traffic. Me no likey. I also didn't like being in a bus as it careened through the same small side streets.

After the last class, me and the other teacher went out to get some dinner. On the way to dinner she noticed that her bracelet was missing. We retraced a lot of steps. Didn't find it. She started to leak a bit from the eyes. Awkward. I paid for her dinner.

There is a print ad on the trains here that is deeply disturbing. I think it is supposed to be of people crying with joy. It instead looks like they are bleeding gallons of milk from their eyes as they scream in terror. It's like they've just seen the contents of the Lost Ark.

Another disturbing sight on the train: on my way home a very drunk business man got on and stood in front of me. I was seated. He grabbed onto the handhold and hung on with a death grip. He swayed and lurched all over the place. Then the train started to move. He was like a perpetual motion machine. I was positive that I was going to get covered in his sick.