1998.07.03 FRI

Since the last message I've been REALLY busy, running around all over the place. Tuesday I went to the last class of graphic design that I'll be going to here - I thought there'd be at least one other class but I guess I was wrong. Design class was probably my toughest class, because it was actually a class for graduate students, and, well, I'm not a graduate student. Not only that, but I didn't realize until Tuesday the whole POINT of the class. I thought it was a typical graphic design class - go in and learn about graphic design techniques and stuff. Well, I think it was more of a class intended to teach us how to teach graphic design to other students, like elementary- and middle-school students. Whoops...

Which isn't to say I didn't learn from the class, quite the opposite. I learned more about fundamental art theories in this class than I did in the States - little things about color variations and afterimages, and lots of other stuff that I can't put into words because, well, I barely understood the Japanese but I still know what the message was ;b

Most of my learning has been from exposure to other examples of good design though - I've been so used to American design theories, and those of the European culture, that they all seem the same to me. Coming here did exactly what I thought it would - exposed me to a completely different design fundamental, as well as opened my eyes to what SHOULD be obvious but isn't. For example, I never before realized that putting a picture beside a word such as 'Men's Room' could do so much. If you don't know what the kanji for 'Men's Room' is, the sign isn't gonna do you a bit of good, unless there's a neat little picture of a man beside it, or someone to show you which room to go into.

Even though I can read the signs a lot of times, I often don't - right now, I just look for the pictures. After being here in Japan, I still hardly know any of the kanji characters, but I guess that's good in a way, because I am forced to look at things from a design perspective. Most of the signs here are written in three languages, actually - Japanese, English, and pictures. The train stations are very easy to navigate around - when you see a station name in Japanese, usually it has the English 'romanized' spelling of the name right under it. It seems like a trivial thing, especially to the people who live here, but to someone foreign like myself, it makes a world of difference. It's the little things like that that make design so critical - I wouldn't even have thought of that in America.

Designing for the 'lowest common denominator' is beginning to make a lot more sense now. I've never really considered myself on the low end of the intelligence spectrum, but here... well, seriously, kindergarteners could go over my head in a philosophical discussion in Japanese. I just don't have the vocabulary here - right now, I =am= the lowest common denominator. It's humbling, but at the same time, I've been learning a LOT with this 'worm's eye perspective', I'm glad that I've gotten a chance to try it.

There's a lot of things I took for granted in America that I wouldn't have thought of otherwise. It's like, in America, you're expected to know English. If you don't know English, you're more or less what we like to call 'screwed.' In Japan, though, you don't necessarily have to know Japanese, but it REALLY helps. In America, there are so many cultures blended together, that there isn't a single 'foreign' language which 'everybody' should learn - German, French, and Spanish are the three biggies, but there isn't just one. Just about everyone here, though, seems to know at least a little English. Walk into a CD store here, or a movie store, and a good half of the stuff there will be in English. I'm continually surprised at how popular American culture has spread over here, it's just mind-boggling.

Oh. Right. I was busy, wasn't I? Tuesday we went to Tanaka-san's house, over in Nara prefecture, and ate homemade okonomiyaki. Japanese quiche, KINDA... it's just REALLY good. I'll explain in a later article, because they fed me SO much that day - right after eating at Mrs. Tanaka's house, Chieko Yamashita picked me up. She's my 'host mother' now, as part of the homestay program here - not sure if I'll be living with her or anything, but tomorrow she'll be taking me on a little tour of the area.

Anyways, Chieko-san took me around the foot of the mountain where she lives. 'Yamashita' actually means 'foot of the mountain' - and boy, were there a LOT of Yamashita's down there. Every house we walked by had the family name Yamashita hanging over the front door - they're all related, SOMEHOW... anyways, we went up to visit the shrine further up the mountain. It was pretty darn impressive - perhaps even moreso than the big Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto. Maybe it was just because I got to look at everything up close - I was just amazed that the Yamashita shrine was so... impressive! Everything was so delicately crafted, and almost all of the hanging ornaments were coated in gold. It was REALLY impressive, I just can't describe how much...

Oh, and Chieko-san stuffed me too. Had SO much to eat, a very welcome change. (On a side note, I've lost ten pounds since I've been here - I haven't gone more than five away from 160 in the past five years...) On top of that she gave me some groceries to take home too... really nice people here.

Wednesday... yesterday was just weird. I don't want to get into it right now, but it was one of those days where every little thing that could go wrong, did. Or at least, it seemed to. So, to counter for that, we went out to karaoke ;b I =thought= I knew the words to the songs, but reading them in Japanese without the REAL singer to back me up kinda makes me forget REAL quick. (Then again, I never really knew the words ;b ) Any case, we had a good time... we missed the last train back, so we stopped at a little sushi bar on the way back to the school. Completely by chance, we had wandered into the bar of one of the people I had met at the Yamashita collective ;b He told me he worked in Kokubu, and named the bar, but I didn't remember or understand, but it doesn't really matter 'cuz we just ended up there anyways ;b

When we got there he was closing up, but once he recognized me he let me, James, and Adam in and gave us a round of drinks on the house. I'm STILL not up to drinking beer, so I got a Coca-cola... it's been near FOREVER since I've had a carbonated drink, and it did reeeeally funky stuff to my stomach x.x

Today, though, was pretty darn boring. The gang over here at the dorm told me we were going swimming at 10:00 tonight. So I took a nap at 8:00 and waited around for everyone - but no one was here. They'd all left to go to the gym at 8 or so, and had decided to go swimming while they were over there. I thought it was amusing how people go off and leave without trying to find me, and then ask me "Oh, why didn't you come with us?" There just isn't a nice way to say "Because you didn't tell me?" is there?

Anyways, I either need to get back to work on my comic or go to bed, this message's gotten long enough for now ;b