October 8–12鴻雁来 Kōgan kitaru - Wild geese return
October 13–17菊花開 Kiku no hana hiraku - Chrysanthemums bloom
October 18–22蟋蟀在戸 Kirigirisu to ni ari - Crickets chirp around the door
My favourite from okasan's latest batch of seasonal postcards. Figs, for those that may be wondering.
Wednesday, Sept. 28th
Three weeks ago, our third quarter sojourn into residential hell began in earnest with the start of decennial renovations on the north side of the U.R. danchii (public housing) complex where we live. This mostly entails repainting the exteriors of the dozen or so apartment buildings in this section of 'the projects', though they also seem to be cutting down trees, and making other unwelcome adjustments to the lay of the land.
The danchii we live in is an eight story affair, built in the mid-80's, and comprised of 48 '3LDK' (three 'bedrooms', living room/dining room, kitchen) units. We live dead centre on the first (ground) floor.
This December will mark my 18th year in this apartment, and the second time we've had to endure U.R.'s hellish campaign of structural renewals and so-called 'upgrades'. We're currently about two-thirds of the way through 'phase one' of this hellish undertaking, in which an army of what appear to be reform school alumni encase our building in a steel pipe scaffolding shell from top to bottom. This is noisy, intrusive work. The sound of metal-on-metal hammering, hoarse shouting, steel pipes clanging and pneumatic drills boring into the outside walls of the building permeate everywhere from shortly after 8:30 am, until almost 5:30...with an hour off for lunch, and a half hour for 'coffee' between 3:00 and 3:30 pm.
They seem to be focussed on the south side of our building this week, and every morning there's been a row of flatbed trucks packed out with stainless steel pipes and ramp planks parked along the usually verdant grassy area that runs between our metre-and-a-half elevated balconies, and the stand of trees and bushes that form a barrier between our complex, a narrow asphalt sidewalk, and busy east-west thoroughfare that separates the north and south sides of our 'settlement'.
When I got back from my canal run just past noon on Monday, our room was stuffy and hot; so I immediately went to open the sliders on the south side of the apartment to let some 'fresh' air in. The scaffolding, nets and tarps encasing the building block a lot of light, and it's tough not to feel like a caged animal or prisoner with all of the surly helmeted construction guys and rent-a-cops milling around just outside the balcony caging, shouting and making a deathly racket from morning to night.
It's like being one of those poor fuckers trucked up by the gorillas in Planet of the Apes. A veritable madhouse. Just hose me down and call me "bright eyes", I guess.
The temporary absence of clanging, drilling, grunting and yelling indicated that the work crew were on their lunch break; but when I slid open the door, I got a face full of rank exhaust fumes, and heard the pervasive, low rumble of idling truck engines...as if I were in the midst of a stationary expressway queue.
It seems that 'the apes' had elected to lounge in the relative comfort of their air conditioned trucks for the balance of their hour off. From the balcony, I counted a row of three flatbed trucks, all rumbling away, pumping a steady stream of noxious carbon monoxide laden exhaust fumes straight at the balconies of all the ground floor apartments. I'm not sure who else was at home. Possibly the weird old lady to our left. The apartment to our right has been vacant for almost a year. In any case, it was enough to fucking knock a person over. It looked like I was going to have to keep everything closed and hotbox it until they were done.
Piss me off.
Even after I closed and bolted the sliders - and despite the fact we have two air cleaners and a rotary fan going all day long - the smell was noticeable in the middle of our living room. Like the enclosed car deck of a commuter ferry.
While our late September mid-day temperatures are now a bit short of 30C, it's still sticky and humid. With no air flow, it's easy to start feeling claustrophobic and trapped. I'm not particularly fond of the idea of breathing in a mother load of carbon monoxide and slipping into 'the big sleep' watching the BBC on my couch.
At close to 1 pm they were back to work, and all the engines were off. I opened the sliders.
Relief.
It took a good twenty minutes to air the place out. I retreated to the rear of the apartment for the duration.
At 3pm, they were at it again...lounging in their cabs, stockinged feet up on their steering columns, and engines rumbling away - their trucks blowing all those thick acrid fumes right back into the living room it had just taken half an hour to air out.
I had to go around and close everything up for another thirty minutes. Even at that, the smell remained noticeable close to the doors.
Fucking assholes.
I text messaged Mina at work, and she called the office of the foreman running the UR renovation shit show and told him to get the crew to knock off the idling bullshit outside of the first floor balconies, as "people actually live here".
He was abrupt, dismissive and apparently resentful that she was 'wasting his precious time' with her complaint, but ultimately agreed to tell them to stop doing it. To Mina's chagrin, he stopped notably short of offering any sort of apology.
All was quiet yesterday. Despite it being a weekday, there wasn't a steel pipe laden flatbed truck to be seen out front.
Then, at around 8:10 this morning, they were back. Of course, the guy parked right in front of our balcony was idling.
Again.
Un fucking believable.
I couldn't see his face, but from behind I saw a tell-tale pair of black stockinged feet casually propped up on the cab's cluttered steering column. He was likely either napping or fiddling with his smartphone...no doubt hoping to score points with his boss for showing up 20 minutes early.
I closed all the doors and air vents, came in and texted Mina. I'd promised to let her know if they did it again, so she could call their foreman and tell him off. Again. As usual, her main concern was that I not start trouble with these assholes. I have a temper, and when my mouth gets going, things occasionally go to the next, unfortunate level.
I sent the text, and went back to the front to see if the fucker had killed his engine. Nope. I went out on to the balcony in my ginch and started cursing a red streak.
Loud.
It seems that one of them was lurking about on the other side of the idling flatbed, just within earshot. He wandered over to see what was up. Young guy, maybe 22 or 23. Short hair, earring. I pointed at the truck and gave him a load of simple, direct English, liberally peppered with expletives.
"Fuck man. Fucking stop idling in front of our balconies. The air is bad. It's dirty. People fucking live here!"
I suppose it came across a bit rough. He gave me a quizzical look, as if I'd just given him a giant box of mixed Lego and told him to build an exact replica of London Bridge in twenty minutes.
I pointed at the rear end of the truck, and made a gesture, like I was turning an ignition key 'off'. Then I waved my hand in front of my face like someone had just farted.
His expression changed. He got it.
"Ahhh. So ka. Wakatta. Sumimasen! Gomenesai!" (Oh...I see. I understand. Excuse me! Sorry!)
He pressed his hands together slightly and gave a shallow bow, kind of like a half-assed, 'Namaste' sort of thing.
I'm not Thai. Apparently he isn't, either.
Smarmy little dickhead.
With that, he wandered just out of sight, back over to the passenger side of the flatbed cab from whence he'd apparently come.
I waited.
About a minute and a half later, the engine shut down. The asshole driver had taken his time. Made me wait for it. I figured that they knew they weren't supposed to be idling there after the earful Mina had given their foreman a couple of days earlier; but the driver had just fucking done it anyways. I guess he thought he could get away with it.
Fist magnet.
In situations like this, I've essentially given up trying to make myself understood in Japanese. No matter how neatly and succinctly I try to say things in their language, I get the same reaction. A dumbfounded, 'deer caught in the headlights' look. So screw them. English it is. Sink or swim fuckers. Inevitably, they always understand exactly what I'm saying, anyways.
I opened the south side sliders halfway, and came back to find Mina ringing on messenger.
"Do I need to call them again?"
I told her that I'd sorted it out. I could sense a certain level of trepidation in her voice...like she wasn't sure whether that was ultimately a good or bad thing. She cut the call short, and was off to work. Apparently this intrusive shit is going to go on for the better part of the next two months...then to lesser degrees throughout the winter and into early spring.
Fuckers.
Saturday, Oct. 1st.
Once we're into October, the end is near. The last three months of the year go by really fast. Today was hot. Not as humid as it has been....but hot. Mina's car dash read 31C at just after 1:00pm.
Apparently we're in for more of the same tomorrow and Monday, a piss royal down on Wednesday, and then a major seasonal pivot on Thursday. From there on, afternoon highs look to go no higher than 20 or 21C. By the time I go back to Mr. Insecthead's on the 14th, I imagine I'll be wearing a hoodie on my morning ride across town.
Prices on a lot of daily items shot up over night. Almost everything in the shops is 10 - 15% more today than it was yesterday. Natural gas and electricity prices look set to go up by at least 30% between now and next spring. They've been warning us about this for the last couple of months, so it's no major surprise...but that make it sting any less.
The scapegoats du jour are, of course, almost three years of COVID, and the belligerent situation in the Ukraine.
While the virus seems to be on a slightly less aggressive footing as of late (the local count was 1,310 for Friday), the potential for a serious escalation that could spill across the embattled Ukrainian borders and in to Eastern Europe proper is looking more like a dangerous eventuality.
It wouldn't surprise me a bit if Putin refused to extend the current agreement to allow grain shipments safe passage out of Odesa, and made good on his promise to employ tactical nuclear weapons against his NATO-backed adversaries.
From what I'm seeing on the locally prevalent 'western' media, it really doesn't appear that anyone is prepared to take Mr. Putin's dubious claims of Russian sovereignty over stolen Ukrainian real estate seriously...save for perhaps Fat Kim, over in North Korea.
Even the Chinese are taking a well calculated step back from Vladimir's recent outbursts and threats.
It remains to be seen what all of this will mean for the poor souls on either side, currently caught up on the ground in the Ukraine as winter closes in. It promises to be just about the last place on earth anyone would want to be. The only way out I can see at this point is either a Russian military coup d'état removing Mr. Putin by force, or the Russian people pulling together to topple him. I'm not holding my breath on either.
No one is innocent here.
The U.S. led NATO alliance have acted in bad faith since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and chosen to marginalize and encircle the Russian Federation, betraying promises implicitly made to refrain from doing so. The Ukrainians have a troubling history, particularly when it comes to their collusion with the Nazis during the Second World War. Looking through the lens of history, neither The United States or Great Britain are in a position to claim any sort of moral high ground, particularly when lecturing the Russian dictator on his wrongheaded and 'evil' imperialist ambitions. Both have launched countless ill-conceived, morally bankrupt campaigns across international borders over the course of the last few hundred years. Thieved, raped, pillaged. Murdered millions, subjugated the rest, and caused untold misery and destruction wherever they've gone.
While none of this excuses Mr. Putin for being the loathsome, duplicitous, power mad piece of shit that he is, it does make it hard to take the so-called 'western alliance' and their pious bullshit seriously. Vladimir knows this.
Which brings us back around to higher prices at supermarkets the world over, less busting out on 'luxuries' for the peasant classes, and maybe dressing a bit warmer at home this winter (if you're fortunate enough to have a place to live, that is).
Here in Deadbeat City, it's still rotary fans and air conditioners - for the next few days, at least. I expect this to be the last weekend for all of that.
We've got the old lady until tomorrow after supper. So far, so good. May the time pass quickly, and without drama.
Viva CBD!
(things usually go pretty smoothly on day #1, though....)
While Mina and I were out taking care the grocery shopping, she busied herself at the dining room table working on handicrafts for most of the afternoon. Today, she's making ornate table top pencil and pen containers. As far as the postcards go, I guess she did the bulk of that work over at Mayumi's or at day service over the last week. She laid three handsome new cards on me this morning. I'm getting quite a collection.
The south side of the building was relatively quiet today. The ape-city wrecking crew appeared to be concentrating their efforts on the usually quiet north side. We could actually put the laundry out to dry on the south side balcony for the first time in a week. It seems that things on the south side will start getting real from Wednesday. We got a notice in our door slot telling us to remove our screen doors before Wednesday morning. That means all doors, vents and curtains will need to remain closed until the following Sunday, at least. Fortunately this will coincide nicely with the change in weather and temperature coming down the pipes mid-week.
Still...no natural light or air circulation for most of the week? Not good.
No Ashtrayface Lady's scrappin' tweens this morning, That'll be happening next week. It will also be the girl's 13th birthday. A teenager. Jesus. I asked her what she wanted and she decided that it would be strawberry shortcake this year. That means we'll be out as soon as the bakery over the local AEON mall opens next Saturday morning, trying to get that sorted. No getting off easy with a 'cheap' box of donuts this year.
Wednesday, October 5th
Mid-week, and the apartment is sealed up tight until at least Saturday. At some point over the next three days, the ape-city wrecking crew will be out on the front south side balcony, doing whatever no good they're mandated to do.
Apparently there will be banging around and so on. Bad smells. Mina took the screen doors off yesterday evening, so there'll be no sneaking any 'fresh' air in. Every couple of hours I shove the curtains aside to see what's going on. All's quiet on the southern front... so far, anyways.
Today's promised piss-down has also failed to materialize. The sky is a flat grey and oppressive looking. Still a bit humid; but apparently that's going to be replaced by some distinctly cooler 'autumn weather' by Friday - oh...and another promised piss down.
I'm off the canal track today. I spent the morning cleaning the house, and nursing some nasty, painful callouses on the upper outside edges of both feet. This is what I get for running 150 km a month, I guess. I don't seem to be losing any more weight. It looks like I've settled in at just shy of 83 kg, give or take.
At 7:22 am yesterday morning, the North Koreans shot an intermediate range ballistic missile over the northern tip of the archipelago into the Pacific Ocean. While they've been testing rockets almost every two days for the last six months, they haven't shot anything over Japan in almost five years.
Everyone on morning TV was losing their shit.
From what I could see on the local news variety program here in Losersville, air raid sirens were going off on the streets of Tokyo (?!?) as perplexed and bewildered looking people simply continued about their morning commutes.
I mean...what were they supposed to do? Run? Duck and cover?
To add insult to injury, by the time the klaxons started going off at around 7:30, the missile had already passed over Aomori and the southern tip of Hokkaido...and was well on its way toward international waters in the Northern Pacific.
Epic fail, Japan.
What was the government aiming to accomplish by stoking this level of unwarranted panic?
One can't help but wonder what ulterior motives are at play, as the current government looks set to pick up where the loathsome, late-of-this-earth Shinzo Abe left off, and pursue amending Article 9 of the post-war constitution - the one that stipulates that Japan remain firmly outside of regional conflicts and military adventurism. I suppose 'the men in grey' over in Tokyo figure that stirring up some good old fashioned fear and panic is bound to bring fickle public opinion around to more firmly supporting the ultra-nationalist/revisionist cause.
Of course, the Americans are surely rubbing their fat little hands together in glee. A successfully revised Japanese constitution puts the U.S. one step closer to getting another regional proxy army to help do their bidding in Northeast Asia. They've already got the South Korean military on their leash.
"Do it for Shinzo".
The Kishida administration has been on a pretty serious losing streak for the last few months.
At the end of September, Mr. Kishida, the self-professed 'great listener', ignored public opinion and pushed ahead with an unpopular, expensive, and apparently un-lawful public funeral for Japan's divisive former ultra-right wing Prime Minister, the aforementioned loathsome Shinzo Abe.
The ceremony was finally held on September 27th, under tight security at Tokyo's famed Budokan arena almost two full months after the former PM was dispatched by a disgruntled, unemployed former GSDF (Ground Self Defense Forces) man with a homemade shotgun. He went down mid-speech, as he was stumping for an LDP candidate at an urban intersection in the city of Nara.
They deified the bastard on the tax payer's dime, to boot. Twelve million dollars from public coffers down the shitter for a fete that over 70% of the general populace were pretty firmly against holding.
When the rubber hit the road, Prime Minister Kishida showed the people what a 'great listener' he really was. Regardless of public opinion, the beady eyed banker pushed forward, only taking responsibility for not 'explaining' the situation to the Japanese people in a 'clearer way'.
"If I explain more effectively, people WILL understand..."
Spoken like a true autocrat.
If there's one thing that the Japanese excel at, it's making excuses.
Abe's assassination in July stemmed from his 'involvement' with the controversial South Korean based Unification Church (the Moonies), and exposed the extent to which a large number of politicians in Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (Jiminto) had been accepting kickbacks and cash 'donations' from said organization, in exchange for favours or preferential treatment. It was a textbook case of influence peddling.
Corruption is nothing new in Japanese politics....but the Moonies aren't Japanese - they're a South Korean religious cult.
Some Japanese media outlets have tried to link the public's outrage at learning the extent to which the Moonies had been using gifts and donations to curry favour with Japanese politicians to the fact that the group is a de facto 'religious organization' (cult). Article 20 of the Constitution of Japan stipulates the separation of religion and state.
I suspect that it has at least as much to do with the J-native's historically deep rooted distrust and hatred of Koreans.
In other words, racism.
The Moonies have been brainwashing and fleecing vulnerable (read: weak, stupid) Japanese for years and years, and sending their ill gotten gains back to the cult's headquarters in South Korea, to line the pockets of the cult's leader, 'True Mother' (a.k.a. Hak Ja Han Moon), widow of the Moonies late founder, Sun Myung Moon.
The cult will bully its followers into remitting excessive 'donations', and purchasing loads of religious items and accessories (read: junk) that they can't afford. This sometimes leaves particularly gullible and/or vulnerable followers (and their families) in financial ruin.
'True Mother' strikes an imposing figure, more than slightly reminiscent of North Korea's late dictator Kim Jong Il (who was widely referred to as 'Dear Leader') or some sort of eccentric female mafia Don.
This gets blood boiling over here.
While the aim of Article 20 was originally to prevent the revival of 'State Shinto' (and Japanese militarism), in contemporary terms it can be interpreted more broadly...and literally. Keeping politics and the business of governing free from the influence of any religious organization guarantees the populace the freedom to worship as they choose - or not at all. At least that's the way it's supposed to go. If the Japanese people harboured any real concerns about safe guarding the integrity of the country's embattled post-war constitution - and Article 20 in particular - they'd have made an issue out of the Sokka-Gakkai backed Komeito party joining Jiminto as junior coalition partner back in 2012. While Sokka-Gakkai (SGI) has made serious attempts to gain mainstream acceptance, and fought hard for respectability and legitimacy over the last couple of decades, it remains a cult...in the same sense that the Unification Church, and Aum Shinrikyo (later known as 'Aleph') are cults.
In today's Japan, maintaining the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and 'junior coalition partner' Komeito's broad majority in the upper and lower houses of the Diet is largely dependent on the votes and cash that Komeito can bring in to ensure there are no seismic shifts in the balance of power. One would have to be blind and stupid to think for a moment that Sokka-Gakkai wasn't pushing its own agenda through Komeito. Hmmmm. A religious cult pushing its agenda at the very heart of the country's government. We're back to influence peddling...but this time in plain sight.
So...where's the outrage?
Sokka-Gakkai is like the proverbial 'elephant in the room'. Everyone is aware of the myriad legal and ethical problems their presence on the political stage represents...but deliberately fall over themselves to avoid bringing it up. It's like a massive taboo to even broach the topic.
I was here in Deadbeat City when Aum Shinrikyo launched the sarin gas attacks on Tokyo's subway system back on March 20th, 1995. I remember it all clearly. I also recall the scrutiny that all of these cults came under in the wake of those attacks - among them, Sokka-Gakkai.
These days, they advertise on television, under the moniker SGI (Sokka Gakkai International). They frame themselves as some sort of charitable organization, and spotlight their good deeds and acts of philanthropy. They don't talk about brainwashing, pyramid scheme-type discipling, or bilking their followers out of rivers of cash in the form mandatory tithes and 'donations' in the same way the Moonies do. Now they sit at the head of the table, with the bankers, ultra-nationalists, gangsters and historical revisionists, calling the shots.
I guess it's OK...because they're not Koreans.
On that note, I'll roll up the carpet and turn over the shingle for another two weeks. When next we meet, I'll be into the autumn cycle over at Mr. Insecthead's, edging toward Halloween, with all the pissed drawers, screaming and toddler trauma that event entails. From there, it's a short hop, skip and jump to Santa Day, and the December holiday season. We're already being promised a new wave of COVID infections the first week of January - just in time for our fifth jabs. Hopefully the newfangled vaccine has a bit more staying power than the old one, and gets us through to summer, at the very least.
In between, I'm scheduled to have my annual 'Ningen Dock' full physical health check on October 31st. Trick or treat, indeed. Never my favourite of days. This year I'll have the added pleasure of deep throating a fibre optic endoscope to probe around for anomalies in my gut - just to be sure that everything is in good order. I'm a gagger, so I'm definitely not looking forward to that; but better safe than sorry. Early in the new year, I'll embark on part 2, and have a similar camera up my arse to probe around my colon...just to sure everything is in good order, again.
From what I hear, that's a little less...gaggy.
In between we'll have the usual alternating weekends of old lady minding. She seems to be in something of a holding pattern recently, coming in with a string of flat 'C's on her bi-weekly obasan report cards. These 'service weekends' crawl by, and are no one's favourite things to deal with. I'm fairly certain she dreads them as much as we do. If nothing, it's a chance to catch up on my sleep, as she insists on 'lights out' at 9:00 pm. Sigh.
So...until we next convene, you'd do well to remember that...
"No matter where you go, there you are".
There, and nowhere else.
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