Are you... local?

With my tendency towards cynicism, there are moments where I feel that I have been too hard on my small town. True, it has about as much character as a stale piece of toast, and the majority of the buildings are sprawling complexes or run down shacks. The population of the entire coast has been steadily decreasing over the past two decades, as people move to the cities and no one moves in to take their places. One of the schools I teach at only has a fifth of the students it had a decade ago, so most of the classrooms are empty, full of dust and cobwebs. It makes me wonder what my town will be if I come back in twenty years (not that I ever would, life being too short and all that). I am envisaging that town out of What’s Eaten Gilbert Grape; a wee nothing in the middle of nowhere with a couple of Seicomarts and the odd intrepid German tourist. When I came to Japan, I was expecting Lost in Translation; what I got was The League of Gentlemen.

In the summer, things are much better. One can go for a run along the shoreline and if you go at the right time, the sunset in pretty stunning. Still, I can see why the population is draining away. Aside from the aesthetic unpleasantness, there really is nothing to do here. If you want to go out on Saturday night, you can do karaoke, or you can do karaoke.

Take last Saturday for example. My ALT buddy and his girlfriend and I were attending a dinner with some members of the English class we teach and planned to follow this with ‘a night on the town.’ For the first time, the ridiculousness of this phrase occurred to me. People use it to describe getting dressed up and having a blast courtesy of the bars and nightclubs on offer; something which can never actually be achieved IN a town but really only in a city. How I miss the going out on the town in the city. A paradox of amazement.

At dinner, my ALT buddies, being English and Australian, began the inevitable accent taunting. Now, I admit a certain amusement at the accent game. The odd mispronounced vowel can make quite the punch line after a few wines. However, this was something else. For two hours, I was made to perform for the table’s amusement. Oh, the laughs they had. The difference between ‘ten’ and ‘tin’ proved a highlight, as I was made to repeat each word over and over again to see if the bewildered Japanese diners could tell the difference. Any attempt to change the conversation would only result in another gleeful imitation of the New Zealand brogue. By the end of the meal, the table was in hysterics as I stumbled my way through ‘batter, better, bitter, butter’ and tried not to channel Patrick Bateman.

This was followed by a visit to a karaoke box. It was hardly a suprise given that in my town, there is not a single bar without a karaoke machine lurking in the corner. This is all you can do, no matter where you go, and after six months of it, the novelty has long since worn off. My favourite part is when you are lobbed a hefty 400 page encyclopaedia of songs, only to find the English songs buried in a six page appendix at the back.

Still sore at being the party’s court jester, I was made to suffer through the unavoidable set list of brown* anthems, including The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, U2, The Killers and my personal insufferable favourite; Queen’s ‘We are the Champions.’ The key to a good karaoke IS the songs and there are only so many times you can listen to someone singing ‘Mr Brightside’ with their eyes closed before you want to kill yourself. I got so bored that I ended up requesting ‘Que Sera Sera’ (after having watched Heathers the night before) although I don’t think anyone got the joke. At least the Japanese songs were fun.

Still not drunk, we decided to spend a couple of hours getting wasted at another bar, also karaoke-themed. The accent mocking continued, as well as the odd dig at my somewhat eccentric behaviour. We ordered a bevy of different drinks and the only ones that didn’t take were, ironically, the gin and tonics, which my fellow ALTs took a few sips of and then ordered another vodka orange.

Stupidly, whilst on the subject of Australian film, I brought up Bad Boy Bubby, and, after relaying the plot, was given one of those ‘well, I’ll stay well clear of that one’ looks of disgust which I have become used to but am rather sick of. I downed my drink and cried out in my best non-New Zeland accent: "Go on then, take the precious things of the shop! Burn down our home! Rape our dead mouths!" I got the look again, but this time it pleased me.

As the evening progressed, one of the Japanese girls from the English class began some rather unsubtle flirting after I stupidly admitted that I did not have a girlfriend (but didn’t follow it up with why). I felt sorry for the poor girl, who is lovely, but it got a bit awkward in the drive home, when she began seductively playing with my hair and then asked if she could sleep over at my house. I freaked out and made some excuse about needing to be dropped off at a Seicomart to buy some milk and ended up walking the rest of the way home; finally smoking the cigarette I was deprived of all evening with dull lectures on lung cancer.

This is about as exciting as my town gets. I think the smart thing to do would be to sit in next week with a bottle of whiskey and the Luis Bunuel back catalogue and get wasted on obscure cinematic goodness. It seems to be the less traumatic option.

*It must be noted for those who don’t know that ‘Brown’ is not used here in the racial sense. It is a term coined by my university chums to describe people or things of a certain dull and clichéd nature. Although I am frequently told that I cannot describe it accurately, some examples of brown traits include: drinking bourbon and coke; watching Anchorman; quoting Borat; Bryan Adams’ ‘Summer of 69’; playing drinking games such as ‘Lock in’ and ‘Hundy Club’; The Da Vinci Code; doing a yard glass at your 21st, Bon Jovi’s ‘Living on a Prayer’; Pirate and Ninjas themed parties; Marc Ellis; taking herbals. I actually paused for a good ten minutes to think of a word to replace it with, but there is none. If anyone has a better, simpler description, I would be most grateful.