Benni-sensei's reverse birthday

Benni-sensei's birthday is this week, and Sunday, she had a little taco party to celebrate. She invited three of us over to her apartment for the afternoon (another GEOS teacher, her best friend, and me). As always with Benni-sensei, I had only a vague notion of what was planned, but that's okay. All I had to do was show up, and that was simple enough.

Kozue-sensei (from the Maebashi school) picked me up at the train station in Maebashi and told me that we needed to stop by the nearby mall to get some chicken from KFC. Apparently, Benni-sensei was afraid the tacos wouldn't be enough. So, off we went to Keyaki Walk, where we ordered a box of chicken and wandered around the mall for a while. There's a really nice bookstore in the mall, and it even has a small English section, so we browsed there for a bit. I finally bought a book to help me practice reading and writing both kana and kanji. I'm pretty solid on the hiragana, and the workbook I use in my lessons with Benni-sensei is helpful with conversation, but I want to work on my kanji recognition. Doubt I'll ever really be able to write kanji correctly, but I'd at least like to recognize some of it.

After picking up our chicken (note: Japanese KFC is merely "okay" in terms of fried chicken; I was not overly impressed), we drove over to Benni-sensei's apartment and immediately dug into the food. There were only four of us, so we had more food than we knew what to do with. We decided to wait on the tacos, instead focusing on the KFC and a couple bags of Doritos for lunch. We also decided that we needed a diversion between lunch and dinner, and because it was Benni-sensei's birthday after all, we asked what she wanted to do. She suggested karaoke, and off we went.

It was an amusing birthday party - Benni-sensei had asked us not to bring gifts (we did anyway), and she gave gifts to us. Granted, they were souveniers from her trip to Thailand, but it was still kinda funny. She also treated us for the karaoke, which we protested vehemently, to no avail. She insisted. I've never attended a reverse birthday party, and it was interesting switch. Reverse birthdays and un-birthdays deserve more attention.

Continuing with the party . . . Japanese karaoke is highly amusing, even without alcohol. We stayed for three hours, singing both Japanese and English songs (they tried to teach me one Japanese song - something about a bear, pretty simple, like a kids' song - but it didn't go all that great). Benni-sensei studied music in college in Los Angeles, and she has a beautiful, trained voice, so it's nice to listen to her sing, even if I don't understand exactly what's being said. Also, it was incredible fun singing "Bohemian Rhapsody" with her. Benni-sensei has seen "Wayne's World" and agrees that head-banging is necessary when singing this song. We startled Kozue-sensei and Shinobu-san with our exuberant head-banging.

We'd worked up an appetite with the karaoke, so we went back to the apartment and absolutely gorged ourselves on tacos. Benni-sensei had asked me to make guacamole, and we also had refried beans, Pace Picante salsa, and jalapenos to top off our tacos. The taco shells were small, and I have no idea how many I ate. They were absolutely delicious and messy and fun. We enjoyed ourselves immensely.

The awesomest thing about Benni-sensei's apartment? It's right next to a train bridge, so you can watch the trains go by. Every time one passed by, we all stopped what we were doing and waved at it. Benni-sensei says she does it all the time.

Definitely a very fantastic birthday party. Benni-sensei's presents from Thailand were matching purse bags for us - orange for Kozue-sensei, purple for Shinobu-san, and chocolate-brown for me. I'll have to take a picture of it, it's really pretty. It has flowers and an elephant stitched on it. I like it.

I've been having very entertaining weekends this month, and next weekend should also be entertaining: we're finally having our New Year's party at the school. Going to an izakaya with my students should be incredibly entertaining. Add in that I don't have any kids' classes this week (hurray for William's perfect attendance! there's no need for me to do any make-up classes), and January looks to be ending on a high note.

Thus far, 2009 hasn't given me too much to complain about.

J-Rock

It's considerably trite to say that I like music, considering that most people do, but it's a straightforward truth. I like music, and I was unsure how I'd like Japanese music, because if you live outside of Japan, chances are you know J-Pop and that's it. And J-Pop is some of the most irritating music I've heard, but I think American pop is pretty irritating too, so maybe it's just me.

Anyway, now that I've been watching TV pretty regularly, I've seen a couple of music countdown shows, which basically review the best singles and albums of the week. Most of it is J-Pop, and my general rule is that if it looks like a girl or boy band, it's probably going to make me want to hit the mute button as fast as possible. This is especially true in the case of such groups like Perfume and Speed; calling them bands would be a misnomer because these girls don't play instruments, they just sing shrilly. Boy groups aren't much better because they're kinda sappy and do a lot of coordinated dancing and often look a little too effeminate for my tastes.

BUT. All is not lost when it comes to Japanese music. I have thus far discovered two groups that I not only like but have enjoyed so much that I went out and purchased their cds. I have also compiled a list of singers/bands that I want to learn more about because I think I might like them too. Most of them are very "rockish" and utitilize real instruments and not a bunch of electronica.

The first is Naifu, a group that is making their debut. They are an actual band that plays actual instruments (which I've noticed is the first step in catching my interest), and they have a definite "rock" sound. Their second single, "Mysterious," is in the top ten and has been used as an opening theme to an anime show called "Detective Conan," which I've seen a couple episodes of and plan to watch from now on. It's kind of a rock-love ballad, and I've found a couple of translations online, and I like the lyrics. (nota bene: a lot of Japanese music uses English in small ways, usually as titles or with a word thrown in here and there in the lyrics - in this case, the song title is actually in English, but the rest of the song is 98% Japanese.)

The second band is Asian Kung-Fu Generation, which I've decided is just downright awesome. They write almost 100% of their music themselves, and some of it is just plain brilliant. Their most recent album was released this year, and after hearing the single "Fujisawa Loser," I went out and bought it, and I've listened to it pretty much non-stop for the past three days. All of their songs are sung in Japanese, but they also supply English translation lyrics with their album. "Fujisawa Loser" is my favorite, but I also like "Inamuragasaki Jane" (which references the Beatles) and "Kamakura Goodbye." All of the songs are named for stops on a train line, and it's really just a great cd. There's a lot of indie and alternative influence in their style, and that's something I can appreciate.

My only complaint? iTunes has next to nothing when it comes to J-Rock, even in the Japanese store (which I can't buy from anyway, so maybe that's a good thing). Also, my iPod is nearly full, so I won't be able to add much more music to it - not that this is inherently a bad thing, considering I could play music on it for 5.5 days before songs started repeating themselves.

Bottom line: Japanese music is more than just J-Pop, and that makes me happy.