Skiing and When a culture doesn’t get all the facts.
So you’ll all hate me for this, cause Makata (actually that’s probably not what it’s called, but I can’t remember right) Onsen/Ski Resort was super beautiful (I mean, who can see the ocean from a ski hill everyday?) but I forgot to bring my camera. Actually, I told myself that I probably shouldn’t bring it because I don’t want it to get broken, but oh it would have been so worth the risk.
Friday I went on a school trip to Makata Ski Resort. It was pretty fun, even if the mountain was really a hill and it was more of a lesson than free skiing. But the instructor gave us some freedom to have fun and stuff, so it was a blast. Except for the rain that came in around 10:30 or so. That sort of sucked. It never stopped me before.
If I had pictures, I would have pictures, but I don’t, so that’s pretty much it for the Ski Trip. If I go next, I’m so going to Hakkoda, which is the best in Aomori, and it sounds great.
For the sake of making this post somewhat interesting, and slightly longer, I will tell you a bit about Valentine’s day, and its oddities in Japan. First, like most people, they have no idea what Valentine’s truly means, which isn’t entirely unusual. However, from what I’ve seen, they have a tendency to fall for misinformation. I was told today that Saint Valentine sent chocolate to people in need, and that’s how Valentine’s Day started. I tried to explain that Saint Valentine was put into jail for marrying Christians in Roman times, and even from his jail cell he would marry them, until he was martyred by Emperor Claudius, but my Japanese isn’t that good yet and I don’t think he would believe me anyways.
Secondly, Valentine’s Day, like the other Western holidays that have been integrated into this culture, began as a marketing strategy. The Japanese people then took the holiday and made it their own. At first it was a day for girls to give chocolate to someone they wanted to express a liking for, but then it expanded to girls giving to friends, coworkers, family, etc. It is always girls, and always chocolate, or something chocolatey. I think that when the day first came to Japan, the marketers thought that it was unlike men to give chocolate or express “femininity” so they only advertised to women. So where to the boys and men come in? It is called White Day. Ever heard of it? Neither have I. Well it is on March 14, one month after Valentine’s day, and it is when those who recieved chocolate to give back to the people who gave to them. Why it is one month after, and why it is called “White Day” is mysterious. It could be that men need time. It could be called “White Day” because we are not supposed to give chocolate (or non-white chocolate) back. I don’t think there is a set reason anymore.
Everyone was really surprised when I explained that there weren’t any rules for Valentine’s Day in most other countries. Or America at least. It seems strange to me that there are rules for such a thing. That got me thinking about Japanese culture. Why do they need rules for everything? It is true that almost anything, down to the simplest matter as taking notes (they all do it the same… it’s creepy). It seems to be a mix of uniformity and paradigmism (not a true derivative of the word, but I couldn’t think of the right one). And I think that the origin of this model-making may relate to much farther back to the Chinese influence, but the its current strain leads back to the end of the Shogunate and the beginning of a sort-of *democracy-but-officially-”Parliamentary Constitutional Monarchy”. To explain, I believe that because Japan did not revolt and make itself into a pseudo-*democracy, it was not entirely ready for it, and still holds onto the ideals of a Monarchy. Those ideals would be this paradigmism, group-thought, and filial piety, to name a few. (The fact that Japan, Iraq, and other newly *democratized countries did not choose this path on their own, as opposed to America, Rome, and Greece’s Athens, surmises that this is a different sort of *democracy that we didn’t learn in Three Democracies).
So I’m done for now, because you are likely bored out of your skulls (“I wanna hear more about skiing!”) and I’m tired and have tests for the rest of the week (finals woo). So goodnight, and I just remembered that Carthage must be destroyed.
********Note: I used the term “democracy” extremely loosely, for I believe that such a thing does not truly exist and never can. Japan is not a true monarchy, in that the emperor is not a nominal executive power, and it contains many values that it integrated from America and other countries that are “democratic”, but it does lack many essential elements of a “democracy”.********
