Michael Bolton in Japan

He's just snorted rhino horn,

It's Rip Torn!

Christmas yuletideries to you all, as Black Friday gives American retailers a warm floaty feeling before the Chinese come in gouge the fillings out of their frigging teeth. And Europe? They've something special prepared for us... we get to make all their cheap zippers and lead painted children's toys.

Ho ho ho... hold off on the "motivation rod" for a minute there Mr Honourable Floormanager Sir wouldya?

As the bunga bunga cruise that has been the last 20 years slams into the rocky rapids of reality it's looking like there's gonna be many's the austere Christmas ahead.

Except in Japan!

Thassaright, while everyone else in the world is doing their collective nut worrying about their respectively fucked economies, Asia is making hay while the sun shines. Now the average Japanese person on the street will tell you that their economy is on in bits, but honestly things are pretty good on the ground in terms of unemployment, infrastructure, bad debt, credit card loans etc. All this adds up to yet another KFC and Strawberry Cake fuelled Christmas spendathon with the double whammy of the New Years coming one week afterwards.

As this is my second Christmas season in Japan, I have something in the way of traditions that I am following. For example in 2 weeks I'll be at an orphanage divvying out presents, ideally as "Santa-san" but we've got to wait and see on that. That'd be a lot of wandering hands to deal with and I gotta check if the santa suit interior is lined with Kevlar. Another tradition is my December classes getting progressively less educational and based more on explaining that no, a Turkey is not just a large chicken and that yes, cranberry works with it.

Over the past week we all have gotten out of school for two days to attend the Skills Development Conference. Of Doom!!! They wore our collective ears off about how it was no longer to be referred to as the Mid-Year Seminar and wrote SDC on every email and piece of info-garbage they gave us.

The intro began as thus.

"Welcome to this Mid-Year Seminar."

<slaps own forehead>

It was productive enough and consisted of lots of foreigners giving the shit out of their opinions while a load of Japanese Teachers of English sat on their hands and had to be coaxed to give any kind of response at the end of a bayonets with a piece of Christmas KFC at the end of it. A highlight was when one of the mouthier Americans wandered off on a tangent in a Q and A and another one raised their hand in the middle of flow and asked of the moderator..."Can I stop him? ... That's all!"

The seminar is the one time in the year when all 100 of us are in the same place, so you get to see a lot of too-few-times-met chums and go out on the tear with them on the Thursday. Assuming you're not giving one of the talks on professionalism or whatever the next day.

On Sunday I got to have an aul jam with a folk music trio as we are playing together next Saturday. If they were English one could refer to them as "crusties" but as we are where we are they were all fine upstanding types with their own cars and underpants and the like. I also got gifted some mandarins as I sat waiting for the train home from a lady who spotted me being foreign.

Also on Sunday I finally met one of Megs students as we tried to get ourselves human again after a night out. Weirdly her student is called "Seanie" and is the product of his local mother and a DCU student. Meg insists that he is about twice the size of the other kids his age and 3 times as active. True to form as Meg spotted him and said hello, he promptly ran out into traffic laughing maniacally.

I have essentially sorted out my Christmas presents except for the two people who will wilfully crush my hojo's underfoot if I give a hint of scrimp. A scrint.

Scrint≈Grint

That would obviously be Ingrid and Meg. Though I'm getting there. Girls like music right?

Check and mate!

Yuss! A lot of people are gonna be getting some seriously similar presents though I'm trying to make sure that everyone get's something offensively weird. Or weirdly offensive. No shortage of either here.

In other news I was engaged in converstion on a train a few days ago. It started in a fairly predictable way. "I want to speak English with you. Where is your country?" However after beginning like this it revved up to 90 in a fairly intense way. "Please, I would like very much to engage with you on a variety of topics. To begin, what are you're feelings on the European currency crisis?"

"Um... buh?"

Turned out the guy has learned to speak English from International news he watches on youtube.

"Hillary Clinton speaks so well and so forcefully, don't you think?"

"Um yeah. Gooo Hil-dog!"

Mercifully the train came to his stop before either of us had to give the other a right-wing tirade and start dismissing anybody without a Bentley as lazy.

13 more days of school and I'm back on the train/plane home. Last night I dreamt of a Roast Chicken sandwich. There was two much chicken in it, so I took some out and made a second sandwich. Todays lunch? Rice and seaweed.

Hildog's good and all but I'd like to see her jaw down a bowl of seaweed, whole (including the eyes) fish and enough tofu to choke Morrissey.

Peace to the out!

Michael Bolton in Japan