photo!

I should have known in advance that it's probably not the wisest thing I've ever done to join a group of students on an day-excursion under the leadership of a japanese guide. As our pride of students strolls down the alleys and places of Shuri Castle every new attraction triggers the camera reflex of our chieftain. "Come on, let's all get together for a nice shot!" is what I hear the tenth time by the time I reach the inside of the castle and the actual place you have to pay an entry for in order to visit it. Hilarious. For some reason Asian folks do not only have a close relation to cameras as such, but the way they're gonna behave in front of them is always the same. You can try it yourself at home: Grab some Japanese or Korean dude, place him anywhere, make sure it's silent....then pull the trigger of your camera! As soon as the sound of the camera switch is hearable the pavlovian experiment will show first results. Hands will rise and fingers will form a victory-sign immediately. This is so reliable that I spent most of the day watching my classmates being photographed as I couldn't follow what the guide in front murmured anyway. Peaktime is reached when we arrive at the great central plaza. Everyone takes pics of everyone and the ecstatic photosession has its impact on the lady with the umbrella as well. We've come to the point that relaxed individual shots are being taken, i.e. groups of 5. I find myself watching some girls being just about to have a photo taken, the camera is switched on....3....2...1...this is so funny! I can just refrain from falling on my knees yelling a loud "Strike! Got ya!".
Apart from that Shuri Castle was a nice one to visit. Lots of history is what they show us even though the building as such is a replica of what has been destroyed during WW II. At the very place where this originally had happened is where they built my uni instead, so my day-to-day life takes place at a place where a whole kingdom was reigned from. Quite interesting. King for a year. Yeah.

I survived my first week at uni and it's pretty obvious that Japanese matters of teaching are rather different from the German ones. This as such is not a bad thing at all, even though this country seems so determined to actually learn that even my mobile reminds me of my mission here every day. Upon switching it on, an imaginary desk appears on screen and the light above it switches itself on, same thing the other way around upon switching it off. This however is one of the weird things only I see every day. Whilst being absolutely earnest in class about learning as such the contense of the material I work on makes me smile more often than it probably should. Japanese manners are extensively polite as long as the sun shines. Afterwards lots of these office workers seem to turn into alcohol loving maniacs. It doesn't surprise that the only thing which apparently got stuck in the minds of my teachers after I introduced myself is that I do in fact favour beer rather than liqeur, however this for sure was the least part I was talking about. The other day I seriously learned the character for downing a drink. Hehe, unbelievable.

Apart from surviving uni I survived my first encounter with local animals as well. Geez, quite interesting to meet venomous snakes next to the lane I'm running on! Nothing happened, but if I had known about their nature I probably would have run a little faster than I did...

every day is a new day.

There's a book named something like „That's why Japanese suck...“ by some German guy who has lived here in Japan for ages. It's hilarious even for those who don't study the matter the way I do. When I arrived here I was actually hoping that dude was a bloody liar as some things seemed rather strange to me. The permission to ride a bike for example, which at some place can be won in the lottery. Paramedics who have the time to take off their shoes on the doorstep. 'Special days' as well. That people don't just attain full age on their birthday but on a special designated day in January for that everyone can celebrate together is what I've known before. What I didn't know was that there's a day for real estate as well, one for the passport (in the country where the majority never went overseas) which the department of immigration even honoured with a mascot named pass-boy, a day for cabs, one for saltsticks and I better don't forget the one for salad, which is June 7^th, by the way. A lot of rubbish, but some serious stuff as well.

„Yupp, „Nothing to declare“, that's my exit...“ is what I'm thinking upon leaving the airport. I still must look a bit puzzled though when I bump into that smiling officer who raises his finger up to the ceiling. „Today is 'Special Inspection Day'“, is what he says, pointing at the fixed sign at the ceiling which for sure had not been set up in the morning for that single day. First lesson in Japanese societyism: When crossing interpersonal boundaries is never really easy, how do you get the permission to dig into someone's dirty socks? Right. Authorisation through a 'Special Day'. As it's communicated at the airport it must have been granted by some official instance, for that reason must be a proper rule and as such needs to be followed by the people who according to that German guy apparently live to follow even the weirdest rules. Pretty long way to someone's undies and - just by the way - to make sure there's no bomb hidden between them, isn't it? It's taken probably 5 minutes to discover 'Special Day' # xyz. Good start I guess. It's as far away from my understanding of how to reach a simple aim as it's fascinating that this system does in fact work for almost 130 million people.

Life is somewhat different. It's hot. Bloody hot. Humidity is about 77% in the yearly average which makes me wonder how they managed to set up a population here at all. Shaking hands is such a wet experience already that my desire for body contact any closer than that went down to the same level as my natural craving for tofu. Perhaps that's why they don't shake hands in Japan but bow instead. Okay, it's probably not only that, I must admit.

Sitting in a sushi restaurant the very first night the girl I came over with tumbled over exactly that one gesture of politeness. Whilst mumbling to herself that she won't get used to that never-ending bowing and bending the waitress must have felt herself caught causing trouble. Again in German the waitress (!) apologized for what she had just done, ie serving (the best sushi I've ever seen) the way she did. Amazing to see differences between cultures. Any western world - waiter would have given her an odd look for being rude the way she was. Anyway, also my first impression is that Japanese spend the same time a day bowing that I need for my morning run. Actually, it feels like they spend half their time making sure that they don't bother anyone else and consequently make their actual work a second priority. My european personality is far more extroverted compared to the average here and I wonder whether hesitation is the key to success in this surrounding. It's dancing between cultures already, about the capability to adopt a completely different way of life 24 hours a day trying not to laugh about things that seem so funny at first sight. On that basis I wonder what would have happened this morning if I had told the staff of the town office that they made two tiny and funny but unpolite translation mistakes in the center and on the bottom of their explanation sheet of how to queue for the highly official „alien registration“...

kick off in sushi country.

Well, I'm afraid there may be other websites like this on the internet so it's going to be pretty hard to re-invent the wheel this time. Anyway, welcome to this splendid and breaking innovation of probably like a good dozen years ago! What you see is what people commonly refer to as a weblog and will as such perhaps be as exciting for up-to-date myspace-treated minds as the breaking news that cars do have a spare tyre (And by the way: Seriously, they really do. :o) ). For some unreproducable reason though some of you guys never learned German and can't read the first one I created, which is a pity. However, there were some people who saw me off with a "...and let me know how you go over there!". Now, this is the moment when things get a little tricky and none of you could have known before what the consequences of those few words would be. It turned into a challenge and you are about to witness a glorious moment of history: With this site I'm going to be the first male being ever (!) who fully aware of what he's attempting to do tries to go multitasking! Isn't that brave..? :o)

So, this is supposed to give a little update on my life on Okinawa every now and then. There are just another two days to go until take-off and as quick as the time-out in Germany came up it's over already. Time to move ahead. Four weeks at home is more than enough I reckon.
On the map below you can actually see where that hidden island is hidden, namely straight in the middle of nowhere on a silver tray. It's the little spot on the bottom, far away from all the rest of what is described as the 'real' Japan. Okinawa however is usually pictured as 'not the real Japan' by mainlanders which makes me think I'm going to some fake place. The last fake country I heard of was the land of cockaigne and if those two were one and the same.....wicked! :o) It's going to be fun.

To be continued after I had my first Nemo. :o)