If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

The Japanese salaryman is a strange beast. He wakes up early in the morning and takes a two hour train journey to work where he will spend the entire day apologising to his customers for not doing his job properly.

Exhausted after a long day, he is however forbidden to leave the office until his immediate superior has left even if he has completed all his work.

He will then endure the two hour return journey home spent asleep or pondering how to grope the young lady`s pert bottom in front of him without getting caught.

By 10:00pm he has arrived home. His children are asleep and his wife prepares him a meal and returns to bed. He eats his dinner in front of the TV and falls asleep in the kotatsu and the sequence of events are repeated the next day ad infinitum.

Why does he do this? There are two possible reasons:

1: He is a power hungry man marginalised by his family who he neglects in order to further his career. His job is the only place where he is treated with the respect and authority that he feels he deserves.

2: In order for the family he loves to be adequately fed and clothed he must work long hours in a job he hates.

Which do you think is the correct answer?

A sign for a fish wholesaler in Tsuruhashi, Osaka.

Childhood is the only time you`ll see girls hapily scoop up mounds of dirt with their hands and offer it to you. I was working at the kindergarten today and their playground was open for the first time. Though I successfully defended myself against later attempts, I was punched in the gonads once but years of teaching have thankfully taught me Kancho evasion manoeuvres.

We were told to wash our hands and not to touch our eyes or mouth when teaching. This is all well and good except most lessons involve me doing some sort of Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes activity defeating the point of the advice.

They seem to be misunderstanding commands as well. “Don`t put that chip in your mouth!”, means, “Cough in my face please!” One child on my left spent the entire lesson coughing on my left arm. He only stopped when I hacked up a phlegmy concoction and spat in his eye. A week later and I can still feel its weight though he will not cross me again.

I`m losing a lot of weight myself- A trend noticed since last summer. The Japanese food I eat is very healthy and entertaining 30 children at a time is strenuous. I often have to sing a six and a half minute opus called the Body March.

Less a Head, Shoulders Kness and Toes alternative than a full army style workout which orders you to march on the spot and touch a different part of your body eight times whilst transmitting coughs and sneezes to various parts of your body. At one school I do this in five consecutive lessons in heated rooms with no break.

I need to ask for danger money.

Pregnancy is a strange thing. It turns normally sane women into blubbering maniacs when confronted with pictures of babies and cots with Miffy themed furniture. It also compulses them to buy underwear large enough to house several families of refugees of war.

I don`t wish to mock the miracle of the all mighty life giver. It`s just the experience haas become more real thanks to the repeated trips to the baby clinic and the myriad of baby clothing shops. Reiko can quite happily spend an entire afternoon in these putting items in and out of the basket until two hours later she`ll exclaim “You know what? Let`s get them at the other shop , they`re cheaper there” leaving me to burst out into tears.

The lack of resources on the internet for foreigners giving birth in Japan is noticeable as well. I`ve found Tokyo with Kids (I`m not in Tokyo) and the gaijin pot forums. Anyone know of any other resources?

It can be hard - the doctor doesn`t speak to me anymore after his attempt at a conversation was harshly rebuked by me.

Where are you from in England?
Poole
Ah! Liverpool?
No, Poole.

That plus a lot of interesting words that I`m only beginning to learn in English let alone in Japanese such as episiotomy, breech birth and epidural block are creating a most unsettling experience.

I got this off Tony Pierce`s blog

Put your music player on shuffle. Press forward for each question. Use the song title as the answer to the question. Post on your blog.

Will I get far in life?
Jungle Boogie - Kool and the Gang

How do my friends see me?
Rock and Roll- The Velvet Underground

Where will I get married?
Into the Deep - Kula Shaker

What is my best friend’s theme song?
Paranoid Android - Radiohead

What is the story of my life?
Foundations - The Beautiful South

What was high school like?
Golden Slumbers - The Beatles

How can I get ahead in life?
Kumo ga Chigireru toki (When the cloud is tonrn) - Ua

What is the best thing about me?
Shangri La - Electric Light Orchestra

How is today going to be?
Number 12 in E minor - Antonio Vivaldi

What is in store for this weekend?
Track 48 - Opposites (work related homework)

What song describes my parents?
Michishio no Romansu (High Tide Romance) - Ego Wrappin`

My grandparents?
House Burning Down - The Jimi Hendrix Experience

How is my life going?
Always on the run - Lenny Kravitz

What song will they play at my funeral?
Louie Louie - The Kinks

How does the world see me?
School Spirit Skit 2 - Kanye West

Will I have a happy life?
Automatic Stop - The Strokes

What do my friends really think of me?
Gozen San ji no Opu (3:00 am Detective) - Flippers Guitar

Do people secretly lust after me?
Traumerei (Reverie) - Tokyo Ladies Orchestra

How can I make myself happy?
I Believe in You - Neil Young

What should I do with my life?
My Island Lung - Radiohead

Will I ever have children?
Living on the Edge - Aerosmith

What is some good advice?
Express Yourself - NWA

What is my signature dancing song?
Sunday (The Day Before my Birthday) - Moby

What do I think my current theme song is?
Nuclear War - Electric Six

What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
Clap Hands - Beck

What type of men/women do you like?
Message to Love - Jimi Hendrix

What did you think of this meme?
Who`s Loving you - The Jackson 5

This is the newest picture of the baby. You can see its right eye at the top and the nose neｘt to it and the five dots at the top right are its fingers. They say she`s got a Japanese nose - wide and short rather than my nose - long and bent.

She`s still healthy though. She weighs 1450 grams approximately. There`s one problem that she`s not in the right position so Reiko has to do some exercises which involve kneeling with her hands on the floor and bum in the air for 10 minutes and then lying on her side for another 30 minutes before she goes to sleep and when she wakes up in order to force the baby into the correct position.

It was a bit of a shock but I talked today to a private student I have and she had the same problem and her kid is now 13 and all fine and healthy. We`re going back next week to see if the exercises have worked.

Photo taken outside of Tsuruhashi JR railway station, the Korean part of Osaka, with my mobile phone.

I went to karaoke yesterday. As I`ve said before, karaoke is great. Instead of singing along to a room full of drunk, heckling strangers, you sing on your own in a small room with your friends and it`s a lot of fun. They have a good catalogue of Western songs.

The videos are always corny as well. They usually star blond Western woman model and blond male model who over the course of your song break up and then get back together (or get egaged.) There`s another one where you sing via the different cities of the world - Paris, London with its taxis and San Francisco and the trams replete with badly dancing 90`s haircuts.

You realise how cheap the thing is when you`ve finished and the next song has exactly the same movie playing.

The words are also amusing as they`re not always 100% accurate. Bill Bryson told us about his friend who thought the line from Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds went “The girl with colitis goes by.” I sang California Dreaming and was prompted as the first line to sing “Although there`s a crown.” It`s still lots of fun though.