Well, nothing screams “birthday wishes” like a laptop that suddenly refuses to admit it has a hard drive. So it’s back to hitting shift-7 for an apostrophe on this bizarre Japanese computer that switches into kanji characters without warning. (Actually, this keyboard layout is very similar to the keyboard on my very first home computer: an Amstrad 1512, complete with 512K of RAM, no hard drive, two 5 1/4-inch floppies, and a screen resolution slightly worse than most Palms today. Amstrads were/are British-made, so maybe we Americans are the ones with the screwed-up keyboards. Ah, I remember waiting anxiously for MS-DOS 3.3 — those were the days.)
Tuesday: I didn’t realize it was my birthday until I saw the date on the day’s paper at breakfast — I guess life’s a little too disorienting right now. I met up with Kiyomi, my translator, and headed to the Tokyo Institute of Technology (where, one hopes, they aren’t too attached to their acronym) to interview Prof. Hiromitsu Muta, who researches educational trends. When reporters conduct interviews, there are two basic possible outcomes: either the subject will answer in curt, three-word answers in an attempt to be as unhelpful as possible, or he will go on and on for hours on end without even the slightest prompting, like a windup toy. And within that second group, there are the people who go on and on helpfully, and those who go on and on about the most bizarre, off-topic subjects until you start to feel dizzy. Dr. Muta was a talker — I think I asked two questions in the first hour — but the good kind. The man knows his stuff.
That afternoon, Kiyomi and I went to the education ministry to interview Satoshi Ashidate, who is in charge of Japan’s national curriculum standards. (Actually, it isn’t the education ministry; it’s the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology. I’m trying to picture what the American equivalent would be: one person in charge of the GED, the Museum of Modern Art, the Super Bowl, particle-accelerator research, and Windows XP.)
Interviewing people through a translator is tough. Kiyomi is great, but everything takes twice as long, for obvious reasons. So it’s hard to get any sort of flow going. But everybody’s been a pro.
That evening, I was planning to blog, but my laptop decided to pine for the fjords, cease to be, go to see its maker, join the choir invisible, which left me without a connection to the wired world. (Marie, one of the reporters here, teases me constantly about my computer addiction. I think she’s right.) I was settling in for an evening of Japanese rugby on the telly when a couple of the other journalists decided to take me out for a birthday dinner, which was quite nice. Since it was a special occasion, we went to get some Kobe beef, the legendary Japanese luxury. (These cows get more massages than businessmen at an airport brothel.) Unfortunately for Kobe producers, Japan recently had its first case of mad cow disease, so the Japanese have pretty much cleared all the beef from their menus. The place was empty, and the owner was obviously quite happy to see four gaijin willing to risk their lives for steak you can cut with chopsticks. It was delicious, and less utterly outrageous in price than I’d expected. (Just $55 or so — thank heavens for a per diem.) Then we all went out in search of beer in Shibuya, Tokyo’s version of Times Square. Along with the three of us Americans was Mike, an editor at the National Post in Toronto, who was shocked by my knowledge of Canadian media gossip (I was shocked too, to be honest). We spent most of the night taunting each other over the events of 1755, when my people (the Acadians, who became the Cajuns) got kicked out of Nova Scotia by his people (the Scottish johnny-come-latelys, who became unimportant drunkards). Much fun was had by all.
We wandered home guided by the lights of the Tokyo Tower, which is the biggest rip-off of the Eiffel Tower imaginable. I’m sure our hosts selected our hotel for us because it’s right next to the tower, which means that it’s basically impossible to lose your way home — if you can see the tower, you’re not lost.
Wednesday: Visited another school. (On Monday, I spent the afternoon at Azabu Elementary, interviewing people for the education story I’m working on.) This time, I went with Kiyomi to Mita Junior High School, which sits somewhat ominously in the shadows of the imposing Kuwaiti embassy. Japanese kids from junior high on wear uniforms, and the boys at Mita wear Nehru jackets, which look just smashing. I interviewed this one kid who had a slightly shaggy hairdo and round glasses; with the Nehru, he looked like John Lennon circa-Yellow Submarine. (Well, an Asian John Lennon, at least. Maybe a Sean Lennon?)
Then, when that was over, I went to MOO, I HATE YOU, MOO! MOOOO! YOU SUCK! MOOO! (Sorry — a little mad cow coming on.)