Bicycle Special

Sunday 27th September 1998

Still Not Climbing Mt.Fuji | Not Watching Titanic | My Bike Saga | Surreal Conversation | Me In A Nutshell

Well, it's definitely Autumn now and no mistake. Not because we've been told - the official end of summer is when the government says it is, not before, not after, and certainly irrespective of what the weather is doing. No, it's clearly Autumn because all the girls are wearing high-heeled calf-length boots. They've still got the lacy lingerie tops and skirts you'd have difficulty wrapping an average-sized paperback in, of course, but with boots, not sandals. So there you go. If I've been a bit uncommunicative recently, it's because I'm a boots man and I've only just managed to pop my eyes back into their sockets. Sorry.

Still Not Climbing Mt Fuji

And I still haven't climbed Mt.Fuji. My excuse this time? Well, I just haven't wanted to recently. That's all.

Not Watching Titanic

It's not so much to do with the price (1800 yen, or about 8 quid) as the fact that the cinemas are still packed out, nine months after the damn film opened. I could see it, but I'd probably have to stand. The number of seats is no indicator as to how many people they admit - they just keep selling tickets and warn you that you "might" have to stand at the back - or stand at the sides, or lie on the floor at the front, or hang from the projection unit on the ceiling.

The Japanese love Titanic with a passion. Japanese girls get together to worship Leonardo DiCaprio at "Leo Cry Parties" where they watch his films (and possibly his Subaru minicar and Orico credit card TV adverts) and, er, well, cry. Presumably because he's so beautiful (and he winks so well). Even Kate Winslet advertises shampoo on TV, walking along a London Underground platform. (Message: "Buy this shampoo and negotiate London's Tube without a care in the world." Or possibly: "Buy this shampoo and survive major nautical disasters." Or even: "Buy this shampoo and shag Leonardo DiCaprio." The last seems more likely.)

And, best of all, people (*lots* of people, most of them my students) pay a fortune to go to a posh hotel in Tokyo for a replica dinner consisting of the exact same menu as the last dinner on board the ship, with the band playing the same music, and the room decorated to look like the Titanic's first-class dining room. And then, at the end of the meal, there's a huge crash, the replica ballroom lurches violently to one side, the hotel sinks, everyone dies (except those using a certain brand of shampoo) and James Cameron yells "cut". So, perfect in every detail. And not at all macabre. Oh no.

My Bike Saga

I'd like to tell you about my bike. It's not a very good bike, but what do you expect when you "appropriate" one which a former colleague has abandoned? Having "liberated" it some six months ago, I have come to regard it as my own, even to the extent of removing the previous owner's name sticker. I bought it a new bell, a new lock, fixed the puncture and even had the arcane rear braking mechanism replaced with a similarly arcane (but at least well oiled and not as squeaky) one.

It whizzes me with rapid, if somewhat wobbly, efficiency to the video shop, the supermarket, and damn well anywhere else I please. As long as it's not too far, 'cos the saddle isn't up to much.

Each night I secure it with my trusty numerical lock, and each morning it's waiting where I left it, ready to continue its faithful service.

Until! One day I left Omiya school only to find my bike..... well, only to not find my bike, actually. Some bugger had pinched it from outside the school. I realised with a sick feeling in my stomach that I must have forgotten to lock it after returning from the hospital in my break to visit a bed-ridden friend. Having delivered him some magazines, too. To be so cruelly struck down after a mission of mercy; was there no God? No compassion amongst the deities of this orb? Apparently not. They were clearly all having a bit of a laugh. Bastards.

I felt much the same way as I did upon reading for the first time the part in the story of Goldilocks and the three bears where she trashes the baby bear's chair with her fat, insensitive, arrogant arse. The baby bear cries at the sheer injustice of such an apparently senseless, thoughtless and wanton act of destruction. I felt for that bear, ladies and gentlemen. Maybe I even cried a bit myself. And so, last month, I empathized with that bear again.

The perpetrator of my own wrong was not, however, some blonde trollop with a penchant for porridge and a predilection for pain-bringing, but in all probability a very drunk salaryman who couldn't be arsed to walk home. Bastard.

So I walked home, bitter. I went to bed, bitter. I taught the next day, bitter. I railed against the suited hordes of inebriated businessmen in a couple of bars that night, bitter and a bit drunk. And I was still bitter when, walking to the 7-11 at 2am the next morning, I noticed an abandoned bike under a nearby footbridge. "No," I thought, "I can't steal another one. That would not only be wrong, but somehow tarnish the memory of Old Faithful. I want *my* bike. My old blue bike with the faded bird-crap down one side of the handlebar mounting. A bit like that one, actually....."

I looked closer! I blinked! Was it! It couldn't be? It was! "R2-D2! R2-D2 it *is* you! It *is* you!" Indeed my bike had been abandoned underneath the bridge next to the very block where I live. Not because I had a name sticker on it, for I didn't - seemingly by hap alone! Hurrah!

Thus reunited, everything was alright once more. I still whizz to the video store late at night, and enjoy the freedom and the thrill of the cooling breeze on my face. The nightmares have stopped.

But I still feel for Baby Bear.

Surreal Conversation

The middle-aged couple who run my local dry-cleaners are a nice pair. I discovered the other day that the mysterious symbol they scrawl on the packaging of my newly-pressed shirts is actually the kanji symbol for "English bloke" - I guess I'm unique. Anyway, here is a transcript of a conversation I had with the old guy while waiting to collect my shirts the other week - in Japanese. I was very proud of myself at the time, although looking back now it's hard to see why...

Old guy: "England, huh?"

Me: "Yes."

Old guy: "Heathrow airport is in England, isn't it?"

Me: "Er, yes. Yes it is."

Old guy: "I went there seven years ago."

Me: "Really?" (then, feeling that I hadn't contributed very much thus far:) "I live near Heathrow. It's a very big airport. It is very crowded. They will do a new runway next year."

Old guy: "Oh."

Then he gave me my shirts, and I left.

So he went to the airport without being fully sure which country it was in? Didn't he leave the airport? Maybe I just misunderstood. More conversation practice with possibly insane shop assistants as and when they happen.

Me in a nutshell

Well, I think that's quite enough of that for now. As usual I've managed to avoid telling you anything about what I'm actually doing over here at the moment. So, just to break with tradition, I might as well tell you that I've asked for my contract to be extended past January 1999, and so I plan to stay here for a while longer yet. I'm considering what kind of job I want to have in a year or so's time, and am looking at a number of different companies. I'm still learning Japanese, and will take a test in December. I'm doing the lowest level, so I'll still be crap, but at least it will be an officially-recognised level of crap.

And that's me in a nutshell. Or, as Mike Myers said in Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery, "This is me in a nutshell - help! I'm in a nutshell! What am I doing in this bloody big shell? Get me out! Help!" (with suitable accompanying mime.)

Seeya

Chris

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