My Accent

I've sorta come to realize that what I speak is not really "English", it's more American than anything else... my current company is quite diverse and you hear all these accents around the office: British, Indian, Australian, Spanish, Portuguese and of course Japanese and American.. and many more.. You'll be amazed how different that one language can sound. Some accents are harder for me to comprehend than others. Guess it's something that I've got to get used to..

Ever since I came to Japan, I've had people telling me that I have an American accent. Never really thought of it that way but I guess that makes sense... All those years I spent in ESL thinking I was learning English, ah well :)

The Group

Went to a Canadian friend of mine's wedding party. They had the actual wedding in Vancouver, Canada (I actually attended the post-party) but had this party in Japan to share this special event in their life together with their friends here as well.

The Canadian friend of mine, I've known from the days when I first moved over here in Japan and was out partying with the group of random foreign people every weekend. It really was an interesting mix of people from North/South America, Europe, Oceania along w/ some locals. We simply called this gathering "The Group". The sole reason of the Group's existence was so we, most of who were fairly new to the country, could stick together and enjoy the weekends by drinking and partying. The beauty of this Group was we didn't know much about each other aside from some really basic info like where everyone was from, how long they had been in Japan and maybe how old they were.. A lot of times, we only knew each other by the nick names they went by inside the Group and never found out what their real full names were... We didn't really care what everyone else did in the day time or what their real names were. All that mattered was that we had good times whenever we got together.

It'd be a lie if we said we didn't have any problems inside the Group. Being a bunch consisted of people of various origins from all over the world, it was never easy to get a consensus within the group. And a gathering like this was probably not meant to last forever anyway. As we all aged, many of the Group members found significant others and started "retiring" from the Group. Also because the majority of the Group were foreigners who somehow winded up in Tokyo temporarily, one by one (or sometimes by couples) people left the country. Getting back to the reality, basically, seeking a real career, etc.

So the Group has practically died. Most of people are long gone from the country. And even the ones that are still around, we rarely see each other except for special occasions like this. However, when we do see each other, we still have good times. We may not know that much about each other's lives but we certainly know how to have good times together from countless night outs in Tokyo. And it really doesn't matter where we are, it seems. I've met up w/ some of the European former Group members that used to live here in June in Germany and Spain. We really had good times despite a drastic change in geographic location. And this past September in the US and Canada, I met up with some of other former members again. Whenever we meet up, it almost feels like we are back in those good ol' days when we were meeting up every Fri/Sat night in Roppongi around 11PM, anxious to hit the clubs, just a little older, maybe :)

True, it does kinda blow that many of them are no longer around to hang out on weekends but this is life, I guess... and instead, I am now able to say that I have friends in all these different countries that I could go visit and have good times together, which really is something. By far, the friends from the Group are the most important assets that I have gained ever since I've come to Japan. I do miss my friends from Seattle at the same time though.. they are friends of different.. qualities, I guess.

Tokyo is Tiring?

Quite a few of my Japanese friends that have lived overseas and come back to Japan (or foreigners who somehow winded up here) tell me Tokyo is a tiring place. I don't know if it is the number of people, the fast pitch at which things seem to be moving.. But I must agree that the city does wear me out sometimes. You really don't need to be doing anything special, something as simple as just getting to work or going out to meet up with your friends can be pretty tiring. There's too much of everything: too many people, too many buildings, too many stores, too much noise... and anywhere you go, it seems so congested and everything is moving about at this amazing speed... it just wears your mind out.

If you spent all your life here in Tokyo, it's something you would grow up with and not be really conscious about. But once you move away from the noise for a while and come back, things would appear to you way too hectic and almost insane. And a good number of the returnees say they just wanna get away from this chaos again. I sometimes feel the same way. Get away from this place all together and live a more quiet and peaceful life somewhere that's not so busy... but at the same time, I realize that if I were to pursue my career, this probably is the place to be for me. My market value is much higher here than the rest of the world, being Japanese/English bilingual and all. Mmm. Such dilemma. I only got a few years left though if I were to do working holiday.. so gotta make up my mind soon, I guess.

NUKE ME NOT

So looks like they are ready to nuke us.. Now they've officially got nuclear weapons, successfully-tested-out, what can you really do. They won't just give up their precious big guns just because someone told them to..

Well, no one really wants a war. Not even the North Koreans. They are the ones that'll lose the most should a war breaks out for they'll probably get bombed to ashes. Someone's gonna have to talk some sense into them. The question is who will do that... I mean, we obviously can't expect much from Bush as far as talking sense..

Every Vote Counts

We have a 3 day weekend here in Japan. Mon (today) is the Health Sports Day (Taiiku-no-Hi), a day when we are all encouraged to exercise apparently. But more importantly, we have the day off. That's what's really important :)

We had a mayor election for the city of Shinagawa, where I live, yesterday (Sun). You know when elections are coming up in Japan. The candidates go around in their vans w/ speakers making sure you remember their names by repeatedly yelling out their names on the microphone. They do talk about their policies and stuff a little but every other sentence is "My name is so-and-so. Remember my name! Please put down my name on your ballot!". I guess it's a pretty effective strategy since unless you really care about the local politics, you are likely to pick a name that sound familiar... which was what I ended up doing.

For the past a few weeks, the candidates went from a station to station in their district each morning greeting "their voters" on their way to work. It's bad enough you have to go to work and they were just making it worse by blasting their names out on the speakers early in the morning. So many times, I was tempted to just snatch their precious mic from them and just toss'em away. I'm sure if it wasn't illegal, many people would've done that.. seriously, I don't know how they can get away w/ doing that w/o getting noise complaints. They all looked like typical politicians too, w/ fakey smiles and everything...

So I fulfilled my responsibility as a registered voter by going to the booth and casting my vote once again. I really don't know much about politics and I must admit that I really don't follow it too much. Yea, I may have voted for someone whose policies I hardly knew. But I believe the action of going to vote is almost as important as who you actually vote for... a vote is a vote no matter how you cast it, who you choose or how you choose the person. And every vote does count, believe it or not. It's easy to say "my vote won't make a difference anyway so I'm not gonna even bother". But then you really can't expect the government to be responsible for you when you are not being a responsible citizen yourself. Well, that's how I see it anyways.