Dongurigal

Manipulating brains with The Moonlight Sonata

As a birthday present to myself, I'm having my parent's piano tuned. It's been years since I played that old Yamaha upright, but after I opened the lid, removed the dusty dust cover, placed the sheet music of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata on the ledge, and pressed down on the first few keys, I realized it would easily be another million years before I played it if I didn't do something about the tinny sounds echoing forth. 

It's like one of those out-of-tune pianos you hear, playing all by its lonesome, in some haunted western saloon.  All very well if you're plodding through Sixteen Tons, but not all very well for playing the Sonata.

And since I'm playing it for the kid, it's at least got to be in tune. I don't want him/her coming out of me all tone deaf and musically averse.  It's bad enough that I swear outloud when I'm learning a new piece of music, a bad habit I picked up back in the 70s when I first started taking piano lessons, only the curse words now are not nearly as benign as they were at 8 years old. "Darn it" has been replaced by....well, never mind.

I don't want kid to hear.

Like all pregnant women who get oodles of advice, I was told to buy a certain CD of classical music--I forget the name already--to play to the kid every single day because that would improve brain development.  Instead I bought an opera CD because it has the Flower Duet from Lakme which is kind of pretty and kind of annoying at the same time.  I don't know if kid likes it or not, I forget to play it everyday and probably when I do he/she is sleeping.

So much for brain development. But he/she does like it when one of the cats sits on my lap and purrs next to my belly. Likes it so much, kid kicks or punches the hell out of them till they're totally spooked.

Kid takes after me in the punching and kicking department.  It's family legend that I beat the crap out of mom in her eighth month of pregnancy during the Anvil Chorus of Il Trovatore. My parents had actually gone out to the opera so it's not like mom could turn off the record to get some respite from the abuse.  She was stuck in her seat with me pummeling away at her and could hardly walk after the show was over.

Like I said, family legend.  But it's why I've chosen to learn how to play The Moonlight Sonata on our soon-to-be-tuned piano.  This kid's going to be mellow. Forget brain development.

Brain manipulation.

So long as I can keep the swearing to a minimum.

PS: Youtube's the best!

Boozy bubble baths that you just wouldn't remember

On the way to my first French class yesterday evening, I picked up a copy of The Carillon, The University of Regina's student newspaper because the front cover caught my eye. It was Frosh Week last week, or as they call it here, Welcome Week and there on the front cover was a full size photo of a cluster of first-years clutching beer bottles and boogying under shiny liquid bubbles.

Was I ever jealous.

Where were the bubble machines when I was a first year at Carleton U, back in, ahem, 1985? Not that I would have remembered them that first week of school. I vaguely recall having a job interview at the resident canteen one evening. I was sloshed, as we used to say, because I had just taken part in some sort of beer relay. You know, the kind of relay where you have to drinkveryveryveryfast and then put the bottle upside down on top of your head. 

I got the job. And accepted some of the worst shifts for a university student ever:  Friday night, Saturday morning, and Sunday morning.  I shudder remembering the hangovers I had as I scooped out the breakfast slop onto fellow hungover students' plates. 

As I waited for class to begin yesterday, I flipped through the newspaper. According to one report, it's hard to be a full-time student these days in boomtown, Saskatchewan. There's a rental crisis in Saskatoon and university officials are begging homeowners to take students in.

The Carillon also boasted lots of reviews on bands I've never heard of because I'm a bit of a music gomer and also nearly 2 decades older than most of the readers of this particular paper.

In the Commentary section, I read an editorial about Facebook. See, I've signed up with Facebook, but I just don't get it.  The gushing or dismissive explanations of crusty old farts in more staid newspapers like the National Post or the Globe and Mail don't help me to understand its real purpose--something blahbitty blah to do with social networking blah blah blah.  It's why I keep forgetting to log on each day. No one "pokes" me. I can't figure out how to "find friends." So, I thought, oh, I'll read this. Maybe the young writer--I'm assuming he's young--will help me understand what the hype is, in youthful terms.

For one, it isn't an online dating site, so he advises users not to send annoying messages to people asking for a romantic meet up. Instead, he insists, what's so great about it is that after a night of binge drinking and table dancing--which of course, you don't remember--you can log onto Facebook, find photos of yourself doing things you most certainly wouldn't do sober, have a laugh at your silly antics, write snappy comments, then log off.

Huh? What? See photos of yourself doing stupid things that you don't remember. And everyone else in the whole wide world seeing photos of you doing stupid things that you don't remember.

Including your mother.

Uh--maybe I'm old, but thank fricken god Facebook wasn't around when I was in first year (and second, and third year) university.  I don't want to remember what I don't remember.

And trust me, you don't want to know either.

Not even you, Hubs.

The queen of fruit

The first time I ate a mangosteen ** was in a market in Chiang Mai, Thailand and it was a little piece of heaven, or so I thought, until I bought a frozen mangosteen in Kobe's teeny Chinatown, ate it as you would a sorbet and just about died (and went to that little piece of heaven I mentioned two lines above).

(**My word, someone has actually devoted an entire website to this tropical delight. I must read it.)

All the fruit sellers are selling mangosteens for a pittance these days, so I'm guessing that it is mangosteen season right now. (Along with durian season, but as this post is about my beloved mangosteen I won't tell you how vomitous the marketplace smells right now).

There are piles and piles of the purple-skinned fruit to choose from. The hawkers argue over who has the right to sell to the gullible foreigners.  I know a thing or two about bargaining now and I can even exclaim 'Mac Qua' (my god, how bloody expensive, are you trying to rip me off!) convincingly, but with mangosteens, you name a price, I'll pay it, no questions asked. That's how much a love them.

I bought a half a kilo yesterday and put all except two in the freezer.  Today at lunch, I grabbed one for myself and gave another to Hubs and told him he was about to experience a taste sensation unlike any other.  In fact, I talked on at length at how delicious, how refreshing, how exquisite the taste would be while he looked at me like I was, uh, nuts.

We then spent nearly 20 minutes trying to cut open the damn things because, apparently, when they're frozen, they are unopenable.

All that struggle kind of took away from the whole taste sensation promise, but then, I'm pretty sure, judging by Hub's face, that he did like it.  Maybe not enough to blog about it, if he had a blog, but I wouldn't be surprised to catch him sneaking one out of the freezer tonight if he thought I weren't looking.

It's safe to say...

We'll be almost done our Hong Kong trip by the time this publishes and at the time of creating this post, I have no idea how our trip went. But I think it's safe to say that, while walking and hiking around HK, I will not have missed this.

In which Dongurigal reminisces about Japan

First it's the cicadas, then it's an email from my friend, A, who writes as infrequently to me as I do to him. In his email he tells me that he's just gone back to Osaka with his Japanese wife and their new baby girl to visit her family.  (And if you're reading this A, I repeat, you don't have to worry, she doesn't look like you.)

Apparently, on arriving in Umeda, downtown funky funky (or is that Shinsaibashi) A saw some girls sporting fashion so garish he was immediately reminded of me.  Not that I am 'fashionable' a la 20 something Japanese gya-rus, he was quick to declare, but that the way many young women in Japan dressed so irked me when I lived there that he couldn't help but think of me when his own sense of sight was assaulted.

Thus commenced a flurry of emails, now that we're almost in the same time zone, in which he recalled some of his (not my) previous shenanigans, often involving the police or middle-aged Japanese ladies, or obattalions as they are not so affectionately called.

Obattalion (n) origin Japanese/English. Combination of obasan (aunt, middle aged woman) & Battalion (group of soldiers ready for battle).

How could I have forgotten the time, he wrote, when I got on the train at Hyotanyama, which is in a quaint little area of Higashiosaka, which is a not-so-quaint suburb of Osaka.  A and I were to meet up on the train three stops later, an easy arrangement as Japanese trains are more punctual than a Swiss watch maker. 

At the next stop, Higashihanazono, home of the Osaka rugby stadium, a couple of obattalions got on.  Next to me were two available seats. One of the women sat down and pointed to the spare seat next to her, which was, unfortunately for her friend, next to me, smelly, big-nosed gaijin.  The two of them argued and gestured, in front of me (and I speak both Japanese and Gesture, by the way) over who should sit next to me.

Their argument lasted until the next stop, Hanazono, when two seats across from me became available. In true Obattalion form, they pushed their way across the aisle to claim them. The two empty seats next to me were soon filled by a couple of Japanese who were evidently visually and nasally impaired as they didn't seem to care that I was sitting there.

At the next stop, Wakae, A hopped on.  As he got on, one of the passengers sitting next to one of the two obattalions got off. That was the only seat available. He sat next to them.  I must have giggled. Or smirked.  It was all so ironic and you'd have to know A personally to realize just how ironic.

Not one to miss a joke, A asked me what was up. Oh, nothing, I said. Not one to let up, EVER, A insisted I tell him what was up or else. Then he promised not to embarrass me. Promise, I asked several times. Promise.

So I told him what the two women had just done.

Then he embarrassed me. Really really embarrassed me.

He turned his head in their direction and stared opened mouthed at them for a while, as in slack jawed and almost drooling. After which, and I'll let A speak for himself here: 

i unleashed a flurry of snorts, burps, fart gestures.  then i proceeded to smell my own armpits (not with a sniff) with loud snorting inhales from deep in my abdomen. i think i set a personal record on that one of making a japanese person get off the train.  it only took two stops if i remember correctly.

He remembers correctly.

Sometimes I wonder how much more I would remember of my adult life in Japan if blogging were popular back in '98.  Back then, I had just signed up for a hotmail address and was doing several UBC correspondence courses and sending all my essays by snail mail.

Now that I think of it, 10 years ago today I was in Toronto, writing final exams at the U of T where I had taken some Japanese language and literature classes, and packing my bags for Japan. I moved to Higashiosaka in early May, 1997, with permission to arrive one month late for my job at one of the junior high schools there. 

I lived in Higashiosaka for 3 years and took the train nearly everyday.  Lots of stuff happened on those train rides, but I don't remember them all.

Thanks A for reminding me of one very funny incident. And for defending my honour.

That there machine needs oiling

Hubs works all day at a construction site, I don't. If I'm not on a bike ride, swimming in the pool, or power walking, I'm at home, all windows and doors open, listening to the wildlife--to all those bugs and birds and gekkos chattering--outside.

(And sometimes inside, gah.)

In the middle of lunch the other day, Hubs got a peculiar look on his face. He glanced at the air conditioner. Shook his head. Got up from the table, went into the kitchen and checked the stove fan. Shook his head again, went to the front door, opened it, stood out in the entrance for a minute, pursed his lips, frowned, shook his head yet again and came back to his seat, perplexed.

"It's the cicadas," I say.

"Huh."

"You know, the semis," I use the Japanese word. I can't think of the French word because I don't know it. "You know those bugs that make a lot of noise. Boomboombooomboooomboooom."

"Huh."

"You know at our wedding when your mom brought that ceramic bug for my parents that you put lavender in?"

"Oh ok, cigale. Those are cigales?"

"Yep."

It's mid-April and the cicadas have just started their endless chorus.  Perhaps chorus is too gentle a term.  Here they sound like a machine that needs to be oiled. 

Growing up in Japan, I still associate cicadas with those hot, late summer evenings in August when you wore your yukata to ancestral festivals and danced around a high platform, a taiko drummer keeping the beat.

Japanese cicadas are noisy, relentless. They sound like a million heart beats.  Sometimes their rhythmic thump is so loud and persistent you can't even hear yourself think.

Vietnamese cicadas are not as loud. But their "tune" is more annoying. They really do sound like a squeaky wheel that needs some grease.   

And yet, they make me nostalgic. I hear them and I think of Japan. I think of my childhood. I think of the festivals. I think of eating squid on stick, catching goldfish with paper spoons, and buying superhero masks.

I may not be able to take an afternoon nap, but reminiscing is just fine with me too.

Cold-nosed sisters

One of the hobbies I thought I’d develop while here in the Middle of Nowhere, Vietnam, was crocheting. I admire people who can take a ball of twisted yarn and turn it into a cozy sweater or an elegant shawl with a couple of straight sticks, or a hooked one, and an ability to count stitches.

So far I’ve crocheted two strings—a total of 100 stitches, more or less, I wasn’t exactly counting—that I’ve sewn at each end of our mosquito net so that I can attach it to the legs of the bed frame. This is an innovation that keeps the net from bunching up around our legs and drooping into our faces—why the manufacturers didn’t think of this is beyond me.

An email from my sister reminded me that I used to crochet as a kid. She described how cold it was at the moment in Mountain Town, BC and how she was sitting at the computer wearing a toque, a wool sweater, a fleece jacket, a down coat,  and down booties, in addition to being wrapped up in a winter-proof sleeping bag.  The only part of her that was cold was her nose and, hey, did I remember the nose warmers I used to crochet back in the day? She sure could use one. 

Nose warmers! My sister is four and half years younger than I. I made nose warmers when I was 11. I can’t believe she remembered them.

I learned how to crochet in grade 5 while still in Japan and made a number of lopsided doilies. When we moved to Tiny Town, Saskatchewan, with its winter temperatures in the negative forties, I put my nascent crocheting skills to good use and whipped up a bunch of nose warmers for my family.   

Then, I discovered how to build snow forts in the massive snow drifts that settle against the wind breaking trees, and forgot all about crocheting, until this summer.

Wracking my brains for activities I could do during my non-working day here, I thought crocheting would be one way to keep me busy. In August in Canada, mom taught me how to hook more elaborate stitches and we went to a local wool store where I bought some silver hooks and a few balls of silk and cotton yarn. My first project was a headband.

That headband, almost finished, sits in a plastic bag with the mostly untouched balls of silk and cotton yarn. It’s not that I don’t like crocheting, it’s just that I don’t really like making only what, at the moment, I’m capable of making nor do I like making something just for the sake of making it, rather than making something useful and fashionable. Plus, I’m lazy.

If I had some wool yarn, however, I’d make a nose warmer, which is both useful and fashionable, for my sister.

Then, I’d deliver it in person.

You see, for me, forget the nose warmer. I miss having a cold nose.

 

La Cucaracha--ya no puede caminar

That's right. The resident cockroach ain't walking anymore. He ain't breathing either.

That's because I gassed him.

But I do feel really guilty. Watching a dying bug, flipped on its back, its legs and antennae jerking erratically is awful. So, I sent him swirling down the toilet wrapped up in at least half a roll of toilet paper.  I figured drowning would be less painful. Or at least take less time.

It's such a relief to know that, in feeling pity for a dying cockroach, I don't have a smidgeon of serial killer in me. 

Neither Hubs nor I wanted to kill him in the first place, we just wanted to remove him from our hotel room.

Actually, that's not 100% true.

The first time I saw him I screamed at Hubs to do something, like stomp on him. Instantaneous death and all. But when Hubs saw the creature which was, no lie, a dark brown, armoured bug at least this long ______________________________ (go on, get a ruler out and measure), he excuted a pirouette as graceful as any prima ballerina and refused outright. After much haranging from me--he is a manly man after all, c'mon, help me, be my hero, save me from this monster, aaaaaahhhhhh--he grabbed a piece of paper and a cup and chased it around the room.

These guys can sure skuttle fast.  He didn't catch him that night and I couldn't catch him, as I chased him around the white tiled bathroom, several nights either.  So, we gave up. Every time we saw him saunter smugly around the hotel suite, we'd give chase, just to have him out of sight and therefore, out of mind.

I finally got some spray but not to kill him, simply to keep him in his hideyhole. Before I went out to teach for four hours the other day, I sprayed the noxious fumes all around the baseboards. When I returned, he was there in the middle of the room, taking in some fresher air. That's why I just had to gas him, once and for all.

I should have known better.   I should have remembered what happened the time I sprayed RAID down all the bathtub and shower drains in my apartment in Kuwait. Back then, I had a huge apartment. I was a single gal with two bathtubs and one shower and a brand new boyfriend from France.

One night, I planned the romantic bath.  Candles, low lighting, hey hey, humala humala, let's have a bath. I filled the tub with scalding water, dumped in a packet of Yuzu scented Japanese onsen powder and in my sexiest voice possible, invited brand new boyfriend from France to join me.  He dipped his toe into the steaming water and yelped. He then turned on the cold tap at full blast and we sat on the edge of the tub, smiling awkwardly, as the water turned tepid. Since he was the brand new boyfriend from France, I let him get away with this. I did spend my childhood in Japan, afterall, where bathwater any cooler than 40° C is considered freezing.

The water finally reached temperatures brand new boyfriend from France could handle. (Brrrrrr. Freezing.)  He got in and sat down, splashing water over the sides. I got in after and as I was slowly sitting down, I noticed, sticking out of the covered hole just under the faucet, some wiggling legs and two feelers. I screamed, jumped out of the tub and flapped my arms about like a clucking hen.

Indeed, the romantic bath was over before it started and brand new boyfriend from France, who later became Hubs, and I have never attempted to bathe together again.

The next day, I sprayed all down all the drainage holes and when I came home from school, there they were, lying on their backs, dead, in both tubs, or dragging themselves down the hallway, at least 5 cockroaches in all.

Gah.

I wasted a lot of toilet paper that day.

You're not at the mall

Reminder--the dongurigal default will change in 2 days time. Please change your bookmarks, blogrolls, brain memory to http://dongurigal.typepad.com/dongurigal

Two pm in Vietnam is nap time, so if you happen to be out shopping or in need of a coffee, some noodles, or a haircut, you won't get the usual friendly, smiling service that you would if you try for the same at, say, 7:30 am. Rather, you'll be greeted with a yawn and a grunt. 

It's best just to stay in your hotel room and watch a bit of MTV. It's too hot to be out anyway.

Watching MTV, I realize how clueless I am about music. I thought this hysterical video of four retro-looking guys dancing on treadmills was one I had missed back in the late 80s.  Seriously, that is how behind the times I am.  Turns out, they're a hot new band called OK Go. Or maybe they're not a hot new band, but for me they are. And maybe they're not called OK Go, maybe they are called Okay Go.

Not only am I clueless about music, I am also embarrassed by my cluelessness, so I qualify all my music statements with a maybe.

What I love about the two videos I saw (here's another one) are how they reminded me of a movement (aka dance)  seminar I took at the University of Toronto as part of a teaching drama to junior high school students course. 

Incidentally, for the dance strand in junior high, you never say dance, you say movement. Square dancing, salsa dancing, hip hop dancing--that's all just movement, thank you very much. Oh we sure trick those 13-year-old boys with that kind of talk.

The seminar was lead by twin sisters who were studying education at York University and who had been cheerleaders for the Toronto Raptors basketball team. They were a bubbly pair, they finished each other's sentences, they had big hair, they were the kind of young women you want to hate and I just loved them. I'm sure at whatever school they are teaching at now, the boys just love them too.

Their basic premise was that anyone can dance, I mean, move like Britney Spears or the Jackson  siblings (but maybe not quite like shake your bum bum Shakira, sorry).  By the end of the day-long seminar, these two gals had transformed us klutzy, left-footed teachers into back-up dancers for Madonna. Sort of.

We even split up into groups and each did a mini-dance piece which has fortunately not been immortalized by Youtube.

The line these twins constantly yelled that has stuck with me all this time is, "you're not at the mall, quit walking like that."  "Like that" meant shoulders slouched, feet shuffling on the ground, stomach stuck out, ass clenched, and head down. They would then imitate us, just to clarify what they meant, in case we couldn't figure it out for ourselves.  They were good, these two, they had us walking proud to the beat of, ah, I can't remember the song, but we were walking proud.

We were walking like dancers.

The lads of OK Go (Okay Go) walk proud too. That's why I like their farcical videos. They can move.

Ah heck, let's not get caught up in pedagogical mumbo jumbo--these lads can dance.