Gerpan

To Those Who Are Concerned:
I am not dead. Nor am I single handedly clinging to the lip of an earthquake chasm like Dr. Elsa Schneider from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I have not been affected by the radiation and my skin is not dripping off my body like Rene’ Belloq’s from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.

If I am able to make two clumsy Indiana Jones analogies in one paragraph, then please take a minute to take a deep breathe.

I am fine.

The emails have been trickling in and I am incredible grateful for everyone’s concern. The nuclear power plant situation is very real and very serious here but it is important for everyone to try to keep things in perspective, at least in regards to moi.

Here is a map of where I live in relation to the Fukushima power plants.

I am protected by two mountain ranges and most of the radiation is being blown out to sea.

There has been radiation detected in my prefecture, Gunma, but it is an extremely low amount. As of blog time, it is at 0.122 millisieverts. Being outside naked for an hour right now is less than the radiation you would receive being on an international flight. Here is a link to the Gunma radiation levels. It is in Japanese but from left to right the chart displays the date, time and the amount of radiation. Here is a link to help put the radiation levels in perspective.

Fuel and food shortages are still widespread and it is recommended that people avoid being outside if they can help it. Rolling blackouts are occurring in order to help conserve power in the greater Tokyo area now that all nuclear power plants have been shut down. Earthquakes have been happening on a pretty regular basis but none as terrible as last Friday’s. A Chernobyl-style explosion at the Fukushima plant is highly unlikely according to the BBC but it is very difficult to gage information between the slightly sensationalized foreign media and the Japanese officials who are trying to prevent a mass panic.

It is also hard to stay calm with the anxious emails I am receiving from people back home. The biggest problem right now is the stress. Please know that I am monitoring the situation very closely and trust that I will take care. The situation at a local level is very different from what is being covered by the international media.

If I do decide to leave, it would be to avoid potential chaos should things escalate. Leaving Ota would not go without a sense of betrayal to my friends, coworkers and students. If I left I would either go south temporarily to stay with my host family in Hiroshima or try to catch a flight from the least hectic airport. I did have a contingency plan to ride my bike to Nagoya but that has been scrapped due to radiation levels.

I still have not decided although many of my foreigner friends have left. It is a very exhilarating and stressful time to be in Japan.

Bye for now,

Taylor

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What is the meaning behind a name? In Japan, apparently, the significance of a name is taken at face value. Last weekend I was hanging out with some bosom buddies and one Japanese friend spotted a strange word scribed on my sketchbook. “Baldry.” Not knowing me as anyone other than “Tayrah”, I tried to give my friend a faithful interpretation of my surname.

Me: “Baldry is a compound word for ball and dry. In America, we use ‘baldry’ to describe someone with significantly dry balls.”

J-Friend: “Honto? (Really?)”

Me: “Yes.”

J-Friend: “Wow. Sugoi (Amazing).”

Me: “Yeah, I have to write this word on of all my belongings so everyone knows that I have unmoisturized testicles. It similar to the Star of David used to identify Jews in Nazi Germany.”

J-Friend: “Taihen datta deshou (That must be tough).”

Me: “It is taihen but the nice thing is that at parties I am a big hit because I can absorb spills with my brittle scrotum.”

J-Friend: “Ehhh? (Holy shit)”

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Happy Father’s Day to all of the dads of the world. If your offspring forgot, couldn’t be bothered to do something special for you, or went out of their way to ignore you today, here’s a little something to ease the pain of being a thankless father. It’s a drawing of my dad.

From drawyourdad.com

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Japan changes you. I see it in the Gollum-like faces of foreigners whose visas statuses have gone from “working” to “permanent resident.” After having been here for more than a year, I am beginning to experience a similar ‘thinning of the soul.” I sense I am becoming more socially awkward, dull and ashamed. But what to do short of leaving? How to break free of my sophomore slump and jump-start my creativity?

During the formative years of his career, Steve Martin had a trick that gave him a comedic leg-up during his stand-up routines. Every night before he went on stage, Martin stuffed his shoes with slices of balogna. If at any point during his act he began to feel stale or mundane, he would just remind himself that “hey Steve, you have balogna in your shoes” and that would bring him back to a goofy state of mind.

As soon as I heard this, I had to try it out. Meat-in-footwear could be the elixir I needed to bring back my artistic flair or at least get the juices flowing. But when is the best time to put cold cuts in your shoes? If I wore balogna slippers everyday they would become routine and lose their intended effect. I decided to try the experiment on Saturday. It was the night of a friend’s birthday bash and was the first opportunity in a month for me to socialize with people my own age. So en route to the party, I asked my friends if we could make a quick pit stop so I could do some last minute shopping.

The convenience store was fresh out of balogna, so I substituted with bacon. The aspiring-vegetarian in me was disgusted but my edible endeavor was for the greater good. I would emulate Steve Martin and get my goofy groove back. So, I shoved the packages of pig flesh into the soles of my shoes like a stubborn pair of Orthotics and with a beer in hand and rashers in my stride, I made my way to the party.

The experiment was a failure. While on the dance floor, I completely forgot that I was wearing pork-padded sneakers. I blame it on Zima. I awkwardly danced the night away and told boring stories, and never once thought to myself “Taylor you goofball, you have uncooked meat in your shoes!” I wish I had. If I had remembered, I would have removed the meat from my shoes before the packages ruptured, making me smell like a slaughterhouse and causing bacon juice to swish between my socks and toes.

When I woke up the next afternoon I discovered that my nice Tiger Onisutsuke’s were embedded with strips of raw meat. I tried to detoxify them but it was too late. Instead of gaining a creative edge I had a lost a nice pair of shoes. Steve Martin had probably put meat above his feet instead of below his soles.

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A glimpse at Gerpan’s site analytics reveal a variety of means through which readers visit the website: many folks know the site url and enter directly, others opt to follow a link from a referring site such as Facebook or Twitter, while most visitors are spambots that trawl the internet seeking susceptible blogs and forums to comment on. While these are all great ways of accessing our content, our favorite way users come to our blog is through keyword searches.

The following is a collection of our favorite Gerpan search engine terms. If you can come up with a more ridiculous key word phrase that leads to Gerpan, we would like to hear it. The best keyword search submission will be rewarded.

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who said “profanity is the attempt of a lazy and feeble mind to express itself forcefully”"

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A friend, Megumi and I went out for dinner the other night. I could tell that she had something important to say when she leaned across the table and dropped her voice to a whisper. “I think,” she paused, checking for eavesdroppers, “I think, my hairdresser might be gay.”

I spat out my green tea in what I thought to be obvious mock disbelief. “Are you serious? You mean your flamboyant hairdresser? How do you know?” I raised my voice at the end and threw my hands in the air for added comic affect — a gesture I use in Japan to punctuate my sarcastic remarks, should there be any room for doubt.

Megumi giggled before replying. Good, I thought, not without excitement. Maybe she’s beginning to understand dry humor.

“Well, he always wears nice clothes and his voice sounds like a woman’s and he always talks about nice clothes.” I nodded my head in agreement but admitted that I was still skeptical. Void of humor, she sounded like a witness testifying at the Nuremberg Trials. Sarcasm I’ve learned, like pubic hair grooming, is largely a foreign concept in Japan.

Two weeks ago I spent some time in South Korea. Despite the countries close proximity, the Korean and Japanese people seem worlds apart. Koreans are laid-back, their youth do not dress like senior citizens or in blackface, and when Koreans smile, it doesn’t look like someone set a grenade off in their mouth. However there is one common thread that ties the two cultures together: their inability to comprehend or detect sarcasm.

While in Korea, I spent a day in a Daegu mountain village with my friend Mike and his ex-pat comrades, Llana, Stephanie, Julie and Julie’s Korean friend, Chen. Chen was a middle-aged loner hell-bent on showing foreigners a good time. He met Julie earlier that day at a subway station when he spotted her eyeing a poster for a festival and offered to take her there as a guide.

We spent the afternoon hiking and afterwards we decided to dine at a local eatery. The owner brought out several appetizer dishes such as kimchi, pickled vegetables and sliced radish dyed purple. I had never seen purple radish before and I joked to Llana that I couldn’t eat anything that was purple, such as prunes, grape-flavored candy or eggplant. Llana laughed politely but Chen took action.

Moments later, a beaming Chen returned with the owner who, in a flurry of apologies, set out fresh plates of white radishes. Chen confessed that he overheard the comment about my no purple diet and didn’t want me to feel left out of eating delicious Korean radishes. Not wanting to make him look the fool, I thanked him for his consideration and sharp ears.

Later in the day, Chen turned to me and inquired why it was that I couldn’t indulge in purple provisions. “Good question Chen,” I said, stalling for an answer. “I guess it goes back to my childhood when I had a birthday party at McDonalds. As we were enjoying our McNuggets and milk shakes, a man showed up in a purple Grimace costume and tried to burn down the building.” Chen stared at me blankly. “Also,” I added, “he popped my purple balloon.”

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Dear Gerpan (and readers!),

Today my adolescent students thought it would be funny to swipe my sphincter with chalk-coated fingers. Good grief! It happens to me every time I walk down the hall. Now the rectal area of my slacks is a rainbow of dusty fingerprints. Ugh! If I had wanted a group of people fingering my butthole, I would have gone to airport security! Or better yet, the Interstate 94 rest stop at 2:30 A.M. Holy moley rocky! I tried to wash out my colorful derrière by splashing my behind with handfuls of sink water in the bathroom. Big mistake! I was forced to creep back to the staffroom with my toosh against the wall so no one would see my wet ass. Think of the explanation I would have to give if someone saw me and I don`t even speak Japanese! What a bunch of malarky!

But seriously, how do I deter my students from goosing me every time I walk to class? I can`t give out detentions, I can`t finger them back and I can`t hit them.

Sincerely,

Frustrated When Fisted

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