Catching Up. Poll Result, Australia, Japan, and My Triumphant Return to USA!

So first, THANK YOU to the 38 people who took part in my poll. Out of the 4 choices, an overwhelming 50% voted I ought to move to Canada and become a farmer, so I decided to go with option #5, and get a job in NYC working for the international arm of a Japanese television channel.
I say "I decided", but I was also very fortunate that they agreed with my decision to work there :D That, btw, will be starting September 1st, so I hope the Big Apple is ready for Greg Beck!
 
So... Australia! I went there at the end of April and visited my sister, who was coaching the Adelaide Roller Derby (ADRD, but please read that as "Ad-Rad") and the ladies showed us a simply amazing time! Not only did this happen:

Hold a Koala? Check!

Pet wallabies, kangaroos, dingo, and capybaras? Check!

River Dolphin-watching Cruise. Cheeerk

Our hosts also planned a bajillion other amazing things for us. We went strawberry picking, saw an Aussie-rules football game, went on a wine-tasting trip, and sampled the the large selection of delicious food and beer that Australia had to offer! It was great fun hangin with my sis as well. She is my hero, and you may notice I have a link to her roller derby blog (which does much better than mine, no surprise) at the bottom of my page.

After that I spent a couple days in Melbourne with my friends Kathleen and Jude! They also did an amazing job playing host, putting me up, and taking me all around town, even to the school Kathleen works at, and the restaurant her sister works at (Clay Pots, i think it's called...it's a great live jazz bar, and seafood restaurant! Check it out in St. Kilda!) Here are some photos you can click to view full sized:

 

And to wrap it all up I saw my old friend Anni from back in my study abroad days in Japan! Stellar!

Then it was time to fly back to Japan, but not home! I bot picked up by my Hiroshima friends, Yamaguchi pals, and Ehime girlfriend in Fukuoka for another... RAMEN TOUR! If I've never explained ramen tours before, shame on me. I'll check later and post a link if I have.
Here's what you need to know about that:

IT WAS FUN! (You can see Steve and his wife on his motorcycle behind us!)

After that, Wendy and I split off from the group to sight see in Nagasaki and visit some of my CIR friends who took us out our second night there. Again, awesome, awesome, awesome. Here's the abridged version:

But we were by no means done. On the way back to Hiroshima we spent a day in Huis Ten Bosch, a Dutch-fashioned city in the northern cape of Nagasaki Prefecture, complete with gorgeous fields of flowers, a One-Piece (anime) themed harbor, real, working windmills, and a slew of attractions and restaurants. It was cool, overcast, and a wonderful day. Definitely a great place for couples!

Wendy brought her SLR so we got some very crisp shots of one another!

 Since then, I turned 27, but worked everyday that week (and weekend). And in June we went to our annual touch rugby tournament in Tokushima, Shikoku. Wendy met me up there too, along with her prefecture's team...grrr ;D

Most recently, I had another solid date-weekend with my Wendy! <3
We saw the new film Super8, spent a day at Kintaikyo and Iwakuni Castle, and spent the next day traveling out to Okunojima, the notorious "Bunny Island" that was over-run by escaped lab rabbits after the Japaense abandoned their illegal, top-secret poison gas facilities during WWII!

For some reason Kintaikyo is also famous for selling 100 different flavors of soft-serve! These were our second, EACH!

Not only did Wendy get these wild bunnies to hop upon the bench for some snacks, look how well they behaved!

So this has been my life these past couple months. Of course I'm leaving out my new venture in to the world of MMA, but that will wait for the next post!
With all this stuff, I hope you understand why I haven't been updating my blog so often.
July 30th will be my last day as a CIR and PA on the JET Programme, and after a couple more weeks with my girl, we must part for awhile as I fly home via Seattle on the 17th to visit my relatives and then fly down to Tucson and re-organize my American life while catching up with friends and family there as well! So busy! And to top it all off, I have to fly to NYC at the end of August and find an apartment by my first day at the new job!
PHEW!

Rated G for the Masses

Here is a preview (two months early!) of the article I just wrote for the Hiroshima International Center's quarterly newsletter. That's right! I'm leakin' ME! Because the publication is made using our tax yennies, it has to be tame, but I still mean everything I wrote, even if it comes off as sappy. Enjoy!

I LOVE EXCHANGE        国際交流最高！－ 1月末行われた雪生活体験の楽しい一日について

By Greg Beck

Working at the Hiroshima International Center for the three years has truly been a blessing. As the resident English translator it can be hard. With a lot of last minute translation requests, long hours, and a constantly changing schedule it is impossible to commit to anything in my “free time”, because my free time is different every week! But, would I trade my experience for a “normal” Monday – Friday 9am to 5pm job? NO!

This photo won't be in the article, but apparently some Chinese people are equally clueless about what they wear!

Old dudes chillin' with hot sake

Most recently, I had the honor of working at the Life in the Snow Experience event for my third consecutive year. Even though I always have a wonderful time working at every exchange event, this was quite possibly the best event I have ever experienced! Here is what happened:

After driving two hours into the snowy north of Mizokuchi, located in Kita-hiroshima Town, we arrived at the Miwa-higashi Culture Center with participants from all over the world chatting excitedly in at least eight different languages. Outside more than one meter of beautiful, pure snow, had fallen on a hill with big, black inter-tubes, waiting to be used as sleds. After the opening ceremony inside, we split into two groups. A quarter of the participants went to the kitchen to make dishes from their home countries to share at lunch. Everyone else went outside to play in the snow. Also outside, some of the senior citizens had set up around the same rusty wood stove they do every year, heating sake in freshly cut, hollowed-out bamboo, and pouring the hot sake for anyone nearby into more fresh-cut, bamboo cups. This year however, they had outdone themselves, passing out fresh-stewed wild boar ribs for everyone to snack on in the hours before lunch.

That's one of my bosses with sake and wild boar ribs

Our participants from 15 countries went wild playing in the snow, and sliding down the hill. This year an quiet old gentleman had made his own sled out of skis, and everyone had a turn on it. “Can two people sit on it?” asked two girls, “Yes, two people is best”, he said sitting down and beckoning the closest one to ride with him, completely oblivious to the thought they may have wanted to go together!

Seriously...HILARIOUS!

Time passed quickly and at noon we all went inside for lunch and some amazing performances. The spread of Japanese food was amazing, with Indian curry, Chinese shrimp in chili sauce, Vietnamese fried spring rolls, and New Zealand no-bake cheesecake mix in among the dishes. 

As you can see, the locals did NOT ask for my help translating these (Kabocha = Pumpkin)

While we all ate, I took several breaks to translate in between performances. After watching a traditional, Japanese, artistic dance, a Chinese participant played the Hulusi (a traditional flute), two, young, Korean ladies sang and danced, everyone did a Japanese folk dance, followed by a Scottish country dance, and for a finale, the local Kagura group performed an incredible play about a demon spider! 

Left to Right - Japan, Korea, China

I fucking LOVE Kagura! Also, possibly the best-timed photo I've ever taken!

All day I kept pausing and thinking to myself, “I am so lucky”, and “This is my job? Amazing!” Everyone did a wonderful job of teaching each other about their cultures. Not just foreigner-to-Japanese, but every one learned something about the different nations represented that day. I know people sometimes fear the unfamiliar, but this job has taught me that nothing is more fun than sharing and learning about different cultures.

Later Skaters!

Reaction to "America's Losing Decade"

This link was given to me on a forum during a discussion on American and Japanese economies.
In my reply I unintentionally ended up critiquing his blog post and restating my underlying economic beliefs (without getting into things like economic schools of thought and fiat currencies).
By all means please read his post and share your thoughts on my reaction below.

http://savingtheworldeconomy.blogspot.com/2010/11/americas-losing-decade.html?spref=tw

It was a comparison. I am hesitant to say "good comparison" because he failed to actually explain why his examples led him to his conclusions.
If I am right in interpreting his point, it is that Japan (and subsequently America) has shifted from a production based economy to a consumer economy, then I agree completely. But he seems to almost purposely leave out what he thinks his "new market structure" would look. Maybe because he is promoting his market synergy company he hopes someone will read that and PAY him for the answers, but his data and examples still support my argument:

1)Japan is structurally more sound than the U.S. because the individuals save more (even 0 is more than a negative number) and they are still comparably more, although not by much recently, production-based than consumption-based.
 
2)The "answer/fix" is to raise interest rates. In the short term (read: 1,2 years), banks will stop loaning, people and companies will go bankrupt, and more people will lose their jobs; yes. 
But in the long run (read: 2-10 years) fiscally sound companies, entrepreneurs, and investors with excess capital will buy up those assets, stimulating an expansion of productive jobs, resetting of the over-inflated housing market, innovation, and an economic environment that encourages savings and investment.

Greg the Scrivner

Here are most, not all, but most, of the essays I have written while in Japan so far. I have ideas for many more, but in the meantime this will have to hold you over till I get out some fresh word document paper :P
CLICK HERE for good (I HOPE) reads

On the First Night of 研修...

Today was my first of five days of translation and interpreting research. We checked in before lunch, I ate with many new faces, and attended 4 hours of interesting lectures based on the meaning, atmosphere, and note-taking for interpreters.

Our guest speaker was an old man named Mr. Komatsu, who struggled to speak through the pain from pulling his back the day before, but in true samurai spirit, came to lecture us anyhow. He talked of many things I won't bore you with, but at the peak of his first lecture before all 115 students, he gave a hearty speech of how diligence and care-planning allowed him to translate, only one month ago, for none other than the Dalhi Lama, despite conditions where it was difficult to hear the man speak. He closed his speech with a heart-warming resolution in which "His holiness" gave him a scarf with Tibetan written, although it was made by Chinese people who, according to the Lama had no idea what it said, and stuck his tongue out in irony.

To any American this may seem like a harmless tale of someone who scraped through a tough time at work, but to the Chinese students this sounded like an endorsement of the Lama by Mr. Komatsu. In fact, Mr. Kotasu, whose speech was entirely in Japanese, only said that the Dalhi Lama was an interesting character and quite friendly, but when he asked for questions, two students felt the need to defend China. The first did not so much ask a question as clarify that the Dalhi Lama represented many anti-Chinese political views. Mr. Komatsu then carefully explained that while his Lamaness does hold those views, the speech which he translated for him concerned only religious and non-political views. Then there was the second Chinese student, who asked, rather pointedly, that Mr. Komatsu (who after speaking for over an hour and a half had demnostrated considerable knowledge of current world affairs) understood that Tibet was part of China, and the Dalhi Lama's comment regarding China and Tibet as being linked by that scarf, ignored the fact that Tibet was linked to China as a part of their country.

Most of us unrelated folk cringed at the awkwardness, but Mr. Komatsu calmly explained that his account had nothing to do with his own political beliefs (in which he had previously even gone as far as to subtly encouraged more foreign, including Chinese, immigration to Japan), and that what the Dalhi Lama said only struck him as friendly and well-meaning.

I take no side in the matter, but it was indeed a fiercely interesting experience for this CIR (Co-ordinator of International Relations).

After that I met a Korean first-year CIR named Baek (written with the kanji for "white" of all things :p) and for the reception dinner we shared drinks with my English friend Nick and talked about many things from our respective countries. All in all the day was more international than....well, the movie "The International".

This month will fly.

What am I doing this month? A LOT!
Work:
In addition to my daily work load: I go to two elementary schools this week to give talks about American culture. I will take a group of foreign people who live here in Hiroshima to a small town to learn about the Japanese traditions of making soba, mochi, and shimenawa (pronounced "she-may-gnaw-wa"). I also have to MC an "Exchange Party" for the Hiroshima International Center, which is basically a poorly disguised Christmas party for local people from many different countries. Also, I get to spend all of next week in Shiga Prefecture studying translation and interpreting on the coast of Lake Biwa.

More than all that, I have bounenkai, which are "forget the year" parties. Most people have one or two this month, but I have four. Two are for work - one for my International Affairs office and one for the international center, one is for touch rugby this Saturday (after playing the Saijo team in Kure), and the last one is for my English Lunch group! Of these four, I am actually in charge of planning and hosting two of them, and each one costs about 40 bucks per person! :[

Social:
Then there is the matter of what little free time I have left. I wish I could say "One word: Snowboarding." but the truth is, I have other things like Christmas shopping and boyfriend/girlfriend obligations as well.

All this adds up to no time or money, and when I wake up January 1st, 2010, this month will probably be remembered as a blur, but most likely a very fun blur.

The Tame Article (written for January)

My Hiroshima Winters
By Greg Beck

This marks my fourth winter living in Hiroshima, and being an American raised in the hot, dry, desert, what an evolution I’ve experienced! I’ll never forget when I bought my first sweater. Probably because that happened only four years ago! Tucson, Arizona, where I have spent most of my life, is located in the Sonoran Desert, near the Mexican border. In the winter, after the sun sets, the temperature drops quickly and there is often frost on the windshields and lawns of dead grass. But if you own one jacket and drive everywhere in a car with a heater, you will never notice this nocturnal-only season.
I moved to Ondo, Hiroshima in August 2006, and it was hot, muggy, and beautiful. Fall flew by with amazing island views of deciduous trees, mixed with green pines and grey skies on deep-blue ocean, and jutting, mountainous backdrops. Then, all of the sudden, I was freezing. Not just at night either, the mornings, evenings, even most of the mid-days, I was cold, miserable, and wrapped in the same four or five layers of what warm clothes I bought that month. It wasn’t until late January when my friend came over and showed me my air conditioner had a heater mode that I started thinking positively. Before that, I worried and wondered every day how people can live in these conditions! It was also in January on a chance visit to Uniqlo that I discovered Japanese long-johns. These thin, warm pants and shirts provided me a desperately needed extra layer of warmth that helped me go outside, and stay out later, be more active and social, and all around start loving life again. Of course there were other factors; my friend Brian would drive me with him to Kiyomori Taiko practice, and I bought an electric heater and a kotatsu. I also took a trip to Hokkaido where I learned to snowboard, but that played more of a factor the next year.
My second winter started out completely different. I lived in Kure City. I knew exactly when it would start to get cold and I had my finger ready on the danbou heater button. I also bought clothes and a board for snowboarding so I was actually looking forward to the coming of winter! I was also jogging every night, by then, so the cooler air of fall was a welcome prelude to cold winter nights. Also, if you’ve followed my previous articles, this winter came just after the formation of Kure City’s touch rugby team. With all these things keeping me moving and enjoying my free time, winter quickly went from my worst, to my favorite season! I still needed to wrap myself in a hundred layers before going outside usually, but I happily put those layers on just to peel them off as I exercised.
Last winter was my third, and my first living in Hiroshima City. Surprisingly, it was both better, and worse, in many different ways. My new job here at the International Center meant I was warmer at work, but working weekends meant missing out on half the snowboarding trips I took my second year. We have a lot of fun events in the winter like our upcoming snow-experience in Kita-Hiroshima, as well as the exchange party every December. On the down side, my new neighborhood doesn’t have a track nearby like on Kure, so I stopped jogging, although that is probably just an excuse for being lazy. Lastly, I went home to the desert for Christmas. It was great to go outside again wearing shorts and a t-shirt, but when I came back to Hiroshima for New Years, I got the flu for the first time in my life!
This year, I feel like a winter warrior. I have adjusted my schedule and stayed in Hiroshima. No running away from the cold this year! I have sweaters, jackets, coats, and thermal clothes. I am taking multi-vitamins, working out at home, snowboarding every weekend, and next month my friends and I travel to Nagano for a snowboarding trip! I can’t stress enough how much Japan has helped me learn to love winter. But more importantly, Hiroshima has given me something more, the ability to see the bright side of something I misunderstood for so long.

A (not-so?) quick catch up

Okay, so I've decided to give this "blogspot" a try, mostly because i can use my google log-in for it. Very disappointed "Yogafire" was taken for a a URL. I will leave a comment on their blog afterwards.
I'm guessing you are all on different pages in the book of Greg, so this should be your cliff notes so you can skip ahead:

I'm 25, living in Hiroshima City, Hiroshima Prefecture (not the same) and working as a Coordinator of International Relations (CIR) for the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme (British spelling, sorry). This means I work for the Prefectural Government (think "State House") in the International Affairs Division, helping with many tasks, bust mostly translating Japanese documents into English, and trying to talk them into sending me on international business trips. So far, no luck. Also, as part of my job i spend afternoons and the occasional weekend, working at the Hiroshima International Center, where I do much of the same work as well as plan, and host events, and guide people on the occasional field trip. Several times a year (including yesterday) I get to go to an elementary school and talk to the children (in Japanese) about American culture. Because I taught at Japanese elementary schools for 2 years in Kure, Hiroshima, this is an awesome perk. I love Japanese children. My normal schedule is Tuesday through Saturday, but sometimes I work Sunday or Monday meaning I get a three day weekend of my choosing that month.

I live in a small one bedroom apartment on the sixth floor of my building. My landlord Mr. Nakaura and his family live above me and he is a friendly old dude. Next to my apartment is Honkawa park, a small park with no grass, but some playground equipment and open space. During the day it is often used by the school next to that, in the afternoon old people hang out there, and at night drunk people smoke cigarettes while high school students practice their dance routines to a boom box; no joke! Running alongside the park is the river, Honkawa (lit. "Main River") and on the other side is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. As in "where we dropped the bomb, UNESCO World Heritage Site - The Atomic Bomb Dome, the Peace Memorial Museum, dozens of smaller memorials, tons of tourists from Japan and all over the world, hordes of park benches, Cherry trees, and old men playing Shogi, Igo, and Majong"...all 30 seconds walk across the bridge from my apartment! And no, the level of radiation in the area is no different than Tucson, Arizona. I have a bicycle and the nearby street car lines taking care of all of my transportation needs. I love my neighborhood.

My girlfriend Sachie and I have been together almost two years now, and everything's great there. She lives in Kure, but has been working/studying/staying in Hiroshima City for the past 6 months, so I still get to see her almost everyday. Last night they turned on the "Dreamination" lights on Peace Boulevard, I think as a test run, but it was a cool, beautiful evening out so we took a stroll down and back together which was lovely. Dreamination, by the way, is thousands of Christmas light displays strung all over both sides of the street which is actually a 100-meter-wide road including parallel side streets separated from the main road by park paths with towering trees, sculptures, and dry, decorative streams.

Winter is upon us, and the artificial snow will hit Mizuho Highlands at the end of the month, where my friends and I snowboard every season. My left knee STILL kinda hurts from when I came down Mt. Fuji last September, but I had it x-rayed, my bones are good, and I'm taking it easy until I hit the snow.

My Japanese language skillz are still slowly progressing as well. I study kanji, though not as seriously as I should, but I can read more and more everyday. lately my team-leader at the Prefectural Building, Mr. Yahata, has been helping me read though an editorial article once a week during our lunch break, which hopefully will improve my overall reading comprehension too. Most days I learn at least one new word, and just while writing this I learned tsutsuga-mushi, which is Japanese for chigger (the bug).

Oh, and "Prefectural Building" is super annoying to write because in Japanese it's just "kencho", so please remember that for my sake.
love peace and chicken grease!
greg