Owner: A Japanese Story URL:http://www.20six.co.uk/ajapanesestory Join Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2007 08:18:08 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: The life and (exceedingly weird) times of a young Japanese American trying to deal with an oppressive mother, high school traumas, and general life in the weirdest town that the American Midwest ever did produce. Site statistics:Click here
Blueberry Muffins 2007-07-05 13:56:41 Blueberry Muffins
(December 1994)While my first few year in Midwest were less than auspicious, and lead me to develop to dislike America and most things America on general principle,there were some aspects of my new surroundings that weren't quite so bad. Particularly those involving blueberries.Despite having spent the first 14 or so years of my life living amongst American ex-pats my experience of Western food was very limited when I arrived in America. For the first 9 years of my life I spent more time with my Japanese grandparents than my own parents, and I ate more meals with them too. After that my general desire not to be in the Kyoto compound generally meant that I didn't eat there either (My Mother wouldn't have cooked, even i was there, she simply wasn't that kind of woman), and Read more:Blueberry
, Blueberry Muffins
Surreal 2007-07-01 14:27:46 If I had to choose just one word with which to describe the compound in which I lived in Kyoto it would probably be "surreal". Indeed, living there was a very surreal experience.Outside of the compound's walls was one of Japan's oldest and most traditional cities, a world of vibrant colors and smells where Japan's past and present intermixed freely. However, once you passed over the compound's threshold, and its large barred gates swing shut behind you, you were no longer in Kyoto, or any other place that could be found on a map of Japan. Or so it sometimes seemed, at times.Inside the compound everything was as American as Apple Pie, or at least as American as you can make a converted Siheyuan (Chinese courtyard) style mansion. The Stars and Stripes flew from every apartment, red
About Me 2007-07-01 07:57:26 About MeOK, so who am I? Well, to start with my name is Akito, and I'm a Japanese-American who is currently living in Tokyo, where I work as a business linguist; which is a bit like being a professional translator a bit like being a public relations agent and a lot like being a typical Japanese wage-slave. I'm also a martial arts expert, an avid collector of Anime and Manga memorabilia, and a recovering victim of years of sustained psychological abuse. Though I try not to let it get me down.My StoryUntil the age of 9 I technically lived with my Mother (American) and my father (Japanese) on one of the lesser known American bases in Japan. Though, in reality, I spent 5 ½ days a week living off base with my Japanese grandparents owing, in part, to my parents being workaholics and
Vendetta 2007-06-30 06:06:00 Vendetta (November 1993)As school children, most of use have, at one time or another in our lives, come to the conclusion that one of ours teachers was out to get us. It might have been the math teacher who always called you up to the board when a particularly nasty equation needed solving, the geography teacher who used to shout out at you in front of the entire class if he didn't think that you were paying attention when it was clear that you were, or even the psychotic gym coach who seemed to be unusually fond of making play dodge ball. We've all been there.Of course, as adults most, of us have grown to realize that it wasn't true - that said individuals were just teachers doing what teachers do - and they weren't really out to get us. Not me though; I know for a fact that my school Cou Read more:Vendetta
Going Naked 2007-10-21 14:29:21 Although it might seem strange to some people, particularly those with a more conservative upbringing, but right up until I was 14 years old I had absolutely no concept of male prudishness. None whatsoever. I literal had no idea that one man might feel in any way uncomfortable at the thought of being in a state of undress while in the presence of another man. I'd grown up in a world where such an idea simply didn't exist. On the base, my world had consisted of servicemen who had absolutely no inhibitions at all around each other. The showered together, they got changed together, and they had a penchant for skinny-dipping together at every opportunity. Outside of the base, I went to public baths and hot springs where communal male nudity was the norm and I showered in school a after martial Read more:Going
9/11 2007 2007-10-06 05:28:00 Each year, when 9/11 roles around, my company holds a memorial service for its American employees and any of our American client who happen to be in Japan at the time. Even though I don't consider myself to be American the fact that my Mother is means that I'm permanently on the guest list, and I make a point to going out of respect for those who lost their lives on that day. For the most part, the company memorial ceremony is usually nothing too fancy. A 10-15 minutes of memorial with a basic religious ritual, then a 20 minute buffet and networking session afterwards. All conveniently timed to coincide with lunch. so that employees can meet, greet, and eat, and then be back at our desks without breaking our normal working routine. However, things were a little different this year.However,
Bedtimes 2007-09-08 13:46:48 October 1995 - BedtimesI know that there is a lot to be said in favor of living in a small community like the Midwest town in which I found myself. From my years spent living on the base as a small child, and from the time that I lived in small town America, I can well appreciate the support that a small community can give you, when it comes together to rally around you. However, I have also seen exactly what can happen when such a community rallies around against you.During my time in the Midwest I noticed that, when it came to my increasingly dysfunctional family, there were three kinds of people. There were those who saw what was happening in my family and tried to help Lucy and myself as best they could, there were those who seemed to be utterly blind to our plight, and there were thos
Traveling without moving 2007-09-08 13:41:37 August 1995 - Traveling
without movingIn geographic terms, I was well traveled boy. By the time I was 16 I'd been around the world a couple of times on planes, boats and cruise ships. However in real terms I'd managed to grow up with a rather stunted experience of what life is like in other countries.I knew what other countries should be like but only because I have read about them in books had seen pictures on them on the television, and with the exception of Hawaii and Spain, where my family draws its non Japanese roots, my experience of other countries can be summed up as being like looking at the inside of a plush hotel. Which was exactly where I'd spent much of my time over seasIf I hadn’t been well read, and raised in Japan, I might well have grown up thinking that everywhere f
Gadgets 2007-09-01 05:16:38 January 1995 - Gadgets While Japan is widely thought of as being one of the most high-tech nation on earth by most young Americans, it is a misconception to think that this means that every Japanese household is a mass of gadgets and wizardry. Actually, in Japan we tend to live far simpler lives than our American counterparts and, unless they’re ‘cute’, the gadgets seen on the television in America are usually reserved for a few city dwellers and ‘hip teens’. When it came to gadgets, or even electrical appliances, my childhood existence in Japan was very simple even by Japanese measure. Downstairs we had an icebox, an electric whisk, an oven and a vacuum cleaner, and upstairs we had an air conditioning unit. Apart from a couple of telephones and four li
Conservatives, Liberals....and mad dogs 2007-08-05 12:05:00 Conservatives, Liberals
....and mad dogs (1996) Having spent the better part of teenage years living in a small Midwestern town; somewhere out past the boondocks, I have long had a familiarity with the well known killjoy that is the All-American-Conservative. Indeed, I have encountered them, and come to blows with them (usually verbally, sometimes physically), on many an occasion.Throughout that part of my life, the part that I spent in the Midwest, I generally considered said conservative to be the polar opposite from normal. A breed of man (and often woman, too) whom could find vulgarity in purity, whom saw egalitarianism as being a plot destroy their way and quality of life, and whom saw the first amendment as giving them the constitutional right to try and impose their views on the rest Read more:Conservatives
Blueberry Muffins 2007-07-05 13:56:41 Blueberry Muffins
(December 1994)While my first few year in Midwest were less than auspicious, and lead me to develop to dislike America and most things America on general principle,there were some aspects of my new surroundings that weren't quite so bad. Particularly those involving blueberries.Despite having spent the first 14 or so years of my life living amongst American ex-pats my experience of Western food was very limited when I arrived in America. For the first 9 years of my life I spent more time with my Japanese grandparents than my own parents, and I ate more meals with them too. After that my general desire not to be in the Kyoto compound generally meant that I didn't eat there either (My Mother wouldn't have cooked, even i was there, she simply wasn't that kind of woman), and Read more:Blueberry
, Blueberry Muffins
Surreal 2007-07-01 14:27:46 If I had to choose just one word with which to describe the compound in which I lived in Kyoto it would probably be "surreal". Indeed, living there was a very surreal experience.Outside of the compound's walls was one of Japan's oldest and most traditional cities, a world of vibrant colors and smells where Japan's past and present intermixed freely. However, once you passed over the compound's threshold, and its large barred gates swing shut behind you, you were no longer in Kyoto, or any other place that could be found on a map of Japan. Or so it sometimes seemed, at times.Inside the compound everything was as American as Apple Pie, or at least as American as you can make a converted Siheyuan (Chinese courtyard) style mansion. The Stars and Stripes flew from every apartment, red
About Me 2007-07-01 07:57:26 About MeOK, so who am I? Well, to start with my name is Akito, and I'm a Japanese-American who is currently living in Tokyo, where I work as a business linguist; which is a bit like being a professional translator a bit like being a public relations agent and a lot like being a typical Japanese wage-slave. I'm also a martial arts expert, an avid collector of Anime and Manga memorabilia, and a recovering victim of years of sustained psychological abuse. Though I try not to let it get me down.My StoryUntil the age of 9 I technically lived with my Mother (American) and my father (Japanese) on one of the lesser known American bases in Japan. Though, in reality, I spent 5 ½ days a week living off base with my Japanese grandparents owing, in part, to my parents being workaholics and
Vendetta 2007-06-30 06:06:00 Vendetta (November 1993)As school children, most of use have, at one time or another in our lives, come to the conclusion that one of ours teachers was out to get us. It might have been the math teacher who always called you up to the board when a particularly nasty equation needed solving, the geography teacher who used to shout out at you in front of the entire class if he didn't think that you were paying attention when it was clear that you were, or even the psychotic gym coach who seemed to be unusually fond of making play dodge ball. We've all been there.Of course, as adults most, of us have grown to realize that it wasn't true - that said individuals were just teachers doing what teachers do - and they weren't really out to get us. Not me though; I know for a fact that my school Cou Read more:Vendetta
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