John Stupart.com

Or perhaps I’ll simply come back to this world as something cool, like a dolphin or wombat… Who knows; that was just the title of the song I was listening to while writing this. It seemed appropriate.

Spending so much time on campus has made me fully aware of just how shitty the catering is. From the plethora of Greek-owned franchises on campus one can choose from an array of equally-expensive stores where you can buy stupidly-overpriced coffee or, in the case of the Senate House’s store, serve it yourself from shitty containers into cheap Styrofoam. I’ve recently begun the trek to a more upmarket coffee shop which is part of the Origins centre principally because they treat their customers like human beings.

The converse of course is a stupidly cheap Indian joint that sells what is theoretically authentic cuisine for stupidly-cheap prices. However, their samoosas taste like saturated oil, their biryani is a yellow mass of congealed fat and cheap-ass rice, and the rest just looks inedible. Needless to say, John’s lunch consists normally of a packet of chips (crisps) and a bottle of flavoured mineral water. When those Greek sheisters stop being so bloody mercantilist I might return some form of patronage to their horrid establishments.

Food has been a primary thought of late, as last weekend saw my speaking partner and I taking part in the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) Gauteng Provincial Debating Championships. Sounds grand, except it was run by a single, incompetent student and they fed us one slice of cold pizza for the weekend. The tournament itself was a joke, and I kinda want my weekend back, returning to Gauteng in truly miserable spirits. To celebrate this horrid weekend my brother and Irene, a small-but-potent pixie who happens to be in the debating union as well, had some truly excellent pizza in this arb Italian restaurant in Emmerentia. My emaciated frame truly reveled in this decadence.

No matter. July sees Wits hosting the National Championships, which promises to be truly awesome, thanks largely to a ridiculously-large amount of sponsorship from Standard Bank. No matter how badly we might do in the actual competition, the entire tournament promises to be truly epic.

On a more housekeepingish note, I have once again tweaked the blogroll, adding one Sarah Richmond’s Yosh! site to my illustrious pagentry of amazing co-bloggers. Sarah has the unfortunate tendency to change blogs every couple of months, but this one seems to have been hanging around for a while, and she writes rather prolifically about life in Sapporo, Hokkaido. In some of my early posts I mentioned being one of only two South African ALT’s living in Hokkaido. Sarah is the other city-dwelling one. Aside from taking roughly 5 hours to find her apartment the first time I drove the six hours to her city, we never really had much contact. Nonetheless, you’ve heard my tales of the countryside, now read about her exploits in the city.

And lastly, on a geekier note, I play a PC game called America’s Army, developed by the US Military funnily enough. That’s irrelevant though. My clan has won the latest and largest tournament in South Africa, meaning that I am in fact fucking awesome! Of course there’s no prize money or anything, but it’s nice to be on top of something .

Music today:

Watching the black clouds gather over Johannesburg for another God’s-wrath-esque storm of doom – a daily occurrance in summer here – I noticed the ‘smell’ of Johannesburg more vividly than usual. I expect the sharp wind that kicks up just before the storms has something to do with it. More importantly, I noticed how different the smell was to Onishibetsu, Durban, Bangkok and even Johannesburg in winter. It would seem that each place I’ve been to in the world has a unique scent to it, and often characterises the area itself.

For example, Johannesburg smells of dry veld, faint hints of smoke and some miscellaneous city smells, coupled with a whole plethora of other things I can’t really describe. Onishibetsu smells of grass, cows and occasionally of salty sea breeze ( not to be confused with Hama-Onishibetsu, which smells of fish in non-winter months.) In winter it’s crisp, bracing and definitely very sharp. In Johannesburg’s winter, the dryness seems to encompass every aspect of life, smell included (there’s virtually no rainfall during winter here.)

Put simply, Joburg smells of harsh, dry natural things intertwined with urban concrete. I wonder if crime has a smell, in which case it’s probably there as well! Likewise Bangkok stinks of an over-populated Asian city, with the added disadvantage of having China’s smog waft over. It’s exhaust fumes, pollution, fish, river water, dirty sewerage and so on. It’s rather interesting how these smells can so affect my impression on a place as well. Coming back to Onishibetsu after a weekend away would always relax me; something to do with the pastoral existance I would assume. Touring Bangkok was crazy, hectic and always frenetic, with barely a minute to relax. Johannesburg implies an honest kind of tone, in the sense that the ever-crushing pressure of city life is there, but the city allows one time to sit and reflect on this.

In each location the smells offers very different sensory experiences, which always seem to lead to various non-sensory formations of conclusions. I would not particularly like to go back to Bangkok, for example, though I am glad for seeing it, while I voluntarily eschewed another year in the overly-relaxing rural Hokkaido/Onishibetsu to live in Johannesburg. Each one represents the content of the location’s character. I suppose there’d be an argument for it representing the people as well, but I’m not nearly well-trained in sociology and moonbat philosophy to be able to make that case! Nevertheless, the smells of the world remain unique, unparalleled in complexity, and always fascinating.

As a child I used to always try and identify the smells of different people (no, not those smells), and try and understand how or why one person has a very distinct smell from another. Growing into adulthood however, one finds that these are often masked by excessively strong perfume or deodrant, thus hiding the uniqueness. For those who happen to smell like Bangkok, I suppose this is a good thing, but there are some people who I know and knew in my life who I wished I could sort of smell uninhibited, so as best to understand just what it all entails. This because I suspect that people, just like places in the world, are characterised by their smell. Some places or people I can barely recall in terms of acquaintance, but I can remember their smell, and thus recall their personality and what made them unique.

That being said, if Johannesburg started to smell like a rotten fish dumpster, I think I’d be far less inclined to remember it, much less live in it.

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Music for the month: Deftones – Natalie Portman (or as I like to call it: “The Crush Song”)

To be frank, I had been battling like crazy to figure out just how I would put into words the effects of Japan upon me, now that I’m in SA and carrying on with a very definite plan of mine (refined and revised, of course!) I find it’s incredibly difficult to talk about Japan with objectivity, whether it’s with biting pessimism or with gloving love-drunk puppy eyes.

And that’s because I suspect that Japan was very much that kind of bipolar experience for me. I had the very best of experiences and the utmost disappointing. Professionally-speaking, the job was boring as hell, the prospects of furtherance absolutely non-existant, and it is ultimately a giant time-sink for one’s youth. Put simply, if you’re going to Japan just to experience Japan, good. Otherwise, there’s no reason to be there. Unless, of course, you want to find a wife, learn Japanese or prostrate yourself to the gods of Otaku culture. In my year, throughout Hokkaido, I met and shared experiences with all three groups of people, and it was great. But I would never wish to repeat it.

The trouble is, so much which I have learned about myself and have galvanised within has remained largely internal. This is because the only two people with whom I’d really experienced most of these ground-breaking, primal highs, both emotionally and intellectually, either live back in the USA or is still in Hokkaido. It’s hard to explain, and it’s even harder to justify in polite company in SA. That’s because I’ve now started to understand the mutual frustration of listening to people natter on ad infinitum about their experiences in X country. ” In <country>, <x> is so much better/worse/different.” Everybody knows someone like this, and I’ve evidently become one of them. The trouble with this is that I tended to come off as opinionated even before leaving for Japan, but with the self-confidence and indifference borne of experience which I have gathered, my natural aloofness has been elevated tenfold. I’ve learned that with precious few exceptions, I really don’t give a fat shit about someone else’s opinion or judgment on me. I’ve learned that, as much as everyone likes to pretend, we’re all just as clueless as the next person, so why give a continental about what the next peasant thinks about you? It never really affected me a helluva lot before, but my indifference has been polished to a keen edge. And why? Because I know what my abilities are. I know where my strengths lie, and I’m no longer pretending anything otherwise. Japan taught me to take pride in my abilities, my ‘uniqueness’. I might be as clueless as the next person, but Japan has taught me to acknowledge this and take pride in it. I’m different, but I’m not special.

So I’ve stopped trying to splurge about my experiences in Japan, negative or positive. I’ve stopped because it no longer makes a difference to me, and nobody else really cares overly much. What truly matters is what I’ve absorbed internally, and how that will shape me in the future. Going to Hokkaido, teaching English, traveling, saving some money, coming back to Johannesburg, getting registered for University and sorting out the scholarship is the first time I’ve formed a rough plan for my life and have it actually pan the fuck out! JET was the last resort in a long list of plans, and it turned out to be the best of the lot. I’m so terribly glad for the experiences, the people I met, and the lessons I learned while there that I can’t now imagine ever doing anything else. I know that spending a second year would have been a mistake, much less a third or fourth year. Looking at the folks I know who have been there for several years, who really have no designs in teaching as a career, I see them losing so much for the sake of financial security and the ability to speak Japanese. Japan can crystalise your dreams, and serve as a the focal point in their implementation, but it’s so very very easy to have your dreams erode over time for the sake of delaying the real world for a few years. Because Japan, in all its beauty, is a country that is only really a life for the Japanese. For foreigners it offers a stunningly fantastic experience, but it’s temporal, and it always will be. There will always be, for every ALT, even the tiny few who become Prefectural Advisors, the absolute knowledge that this will come to an end, and it will come to and end after it has taken from you a very heavy toll if you’re not careful. In Hokkaido I experienced some of the most amazing sights, sounds, people and events which will stay with me for the rest of my life, but staying longer would have turned me into a miserable curmudgeon. Well, more of a miserable curmudgeon then. I would have had a great few months snowboarding, seeing some more bands in Tokyo, perhaps even memorise Hiragana properly. But I’d get dumber, I’d get increasingly frustrated with the bureaucratic idiocy that is Japanese education policy for ESL, and the sheen of Japan’s outward friendliness would finally erode away, leaving me bereft of the very positive things I’d gained. Or I’d get arrested in Wakkanai because I looked Russian (and thus, criminal :p)

Even though teaching was ridiculously simplified, the kids were always special. Looking at some of the pictures my successor posts every now and then, I see the same kids I knew and wish them nothing but the best. They’re awesome, every single one of them, whether they end up as presidents or scallop-shellers. I made one or two really good friends while there, I saw and experienced the madness that is Tokyo, and I ate more sushi than you can shake a stick at. Japan was the epitome of a polar experience. I suspended any long-term ambitions I might have for a very immediate and – in hindsight rather necessary – visceral experience in the single-most rural area in Japan (barring the little island ALT’s, bless their souls.) It’s redefined John as John knows him, and he quite frankly doesn’t give two hoots if anyone cares or not. I would never do it for another year, because I feel there’s very little beyond personal gratification that I’d gain from it at the expense of so many more important things I have in mind, but it’s set me up perfectly for what could well be my final academic year, in which I finish up the theory and start thinking very seriously about the implementation thereof. Africa be warned! I’m gonna sort you out!

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Music of the month (I say ‘month’ because I write so sparingly these days): The Boss – Vietnam (audio only. Sorry!)