Ganbatte means make that curry baby!

Ganbatte means go for it.

There's this line in Catcher in the Rye that has stuck with me. The lead character, Holden Caulfield, has this spiel about how he hates the English saying "good luck." I can understand his point, it IS vacuous. Holden describes it as something said by people who really don't care whether you succeed in something, but like a lot of English sayings, merely feel the need to say something even if it means nothing. So, Catcher in the Rye is a book about being a teenager, in which stuff like that matters, cuz it really does matter when your young and really doesn't when your older - but I wish I could have informed the author J.D. Salinger about the Japanese saying ganbatte. It means go for it, do your best, and I think it expressed the fact that they people saying it actually believe in you (or at least are fronting that they are) and care about your success. I love the word ganbatte. Wouldn't you rather always so go for it, do your best, I believe in you! when people you know are going after something. I like the Japanese language.

So I had a curry party. It was a success, even though if any of the English teachers there (english teacher means white people) had tasted my dad's curry they would have thought it was a failure. But lo and behold, they have not, and instead, they are one year veteran teachers who have been deprived of Indian food for quite some time, so their misery is my success. Word.

Honestly though, even if I fail as an English teacher, if I just make really good curry, Japan will be forever impacted by my presence. It's the following reprise from everyone (from everywhere) that I meet here, "Hello, nice to meet you. Where are you from? Oh, India..(eyes start roll off in another direction, a slight haze comes over their demeanor, the thoughts of Indian curry being dug up through the layers of rice, udon and Japanese curry which is nothing like Indian curry that have piled on since their last Indian dish)..aaah, do you eat curry? (This means "can you make curry?")" I then explain how I do eat curry, but imediately qualify that statement by saying how curry really isn't the staple Indian food, we don't eat, drink and breath curry in India and that 90% of Indians don't even eat meat, but rather cook vegetables in what might better be described as a mixture - not a curry...

Yeah, you can imagine how far I get with that large amount of cultural exchange and practically no Japanese. I get to the "yeah, I eat curry" part and...

"Oh, e, tooo, well, I actually like curry very much" (This means "please make me some curry during your one year tenure here, don't look at me like that, I know you have the time fool!").

So, I had a curry party. I fulfilled the stereotype. Is that wrong? Am I a sellout? Should I start eating more curry just so I smell like a stereotypical Indian? Would that make me more popular with the ladies? Would that make me less popular with the ladies, and perhaps more popular with somebody's household pet?

I also made daal and khir, which are lentils and rice pudding, respectively. I also explained during the party, the "sellout party" as I am now thinking of it, how the daal and pudding is much more frequent in India. Everyone listened, nodded there head, and proceeded to eat more curry.

Well, the curry party was a success. I would even go so far to say a tremendous success, since all the food was finished (that's the sign that the food was good...or that you just didn't make enough and they had to eat it all). I really don't care if I'm fulfilling the stereotype actually. I'll be having plenty more of these, so my curry should be pretty good by the end. Interestingly, I made a much better daal and pudding then curry, so I think what might end up happening is they'll all like the other Indian food better, and then the stereotype will break down. Like all stereotypes, it just takes time.

By the way, Mykella and Dan, my loyal, wise, curry loving friends, great comments on my last post. I'm pretty vain to commenting about my last post in my current post. But anyways, the other two kids need to eat more curry so that they can gain more wisdom about life. I'm just kidding, Koji I think you're right about America, but does the same thing exist in Japan? I was under the impression that status was strong in Japan, how egalitarian is it here? Maybe it's very egalitarian, but do Japanese people look down on other cultures? I've heard that they do, though everyone has been totemo shinsetsu here. I wish you guys had ur own posts so I could read 'em. Steve...buddy, pal, you make no sense as always.

Inspiration

I've always been a big fan of leaders you can look up to. I guess everyone has their own goals and ambitions, so who one looks up to differs, but lately, though there are many famous people worth admiring, I've taken to admiring certain everyday people whose lives really exemplify what it means to be a hero. This sounds like an eighth grade essay but what's funny is that now I mean it. These everyday heros are not perfect, nobody is, but they do things that are not glorified yet are necessary to the fabric of our society. Take the gakkuen I go to. There are people there that run the place. They are not invited to the town festivals to make speeches, nor do the people of Agematsu know their name, but without them the gakkuen wouldn't exist. Who is invited to the make town speeches? Of course, the leaders of the town, the mayor, the head of the board of education - I'm not at all saying that they aren't worthy, I'm just saying it's a bit more inspirational for me to look up to other people, maybe just because they do what they do without any credit. The teachers that I work with that don't go home until 9 o'clock. The kids at the gakkuen who clearly know that they're lives aren't normal - I remember being a kid and sometime feeling depressed and winding myself down into the viscious cycle of self-pity and depression. Maybe I compare things that are radically different too much, such as my life and a Japanese kid's life but I would feel so unmotivated sometimes - like I would want to give up. I look at these kids at the gakkuen and though I barely know them or their exact situation, the simple fact that they don't look like they've given up on life is inspiring. I'm comparing to myself, I know I've given up at times when I shouldn't have.

Back home in the U.S. it's the same thing. I always used to look outside for role models, or to people who were successful by society's standards. But people like my mother, my 8th grade social studies and english teachers, my teacher at Kung Fu, these are the people that I've known the best, and now that I look back, are the most inspiring. They work hard with no credit, they do what is right b/c that is what makes them who they are, and they have a strength for life that does not come from vanity, fame, greed, pride, or recognition. I'm trying to decide right now what I want to do with my life, and though sometimes I think about making huge changes and being a powerful leader, I think, do I have the character to handle great power? Why do I want power, is it for the right reasons? Do I have what it takes to be a good role model for other people?

So what inspires you?

Garbanzo Beans

So, I don't know whether this is worth posting about, but I had to ask a fellow JET today how to say chick peas in Japanese, b/c I'm going to attempt to cook Indian food for everybody, since if I do that it doesn't matter how bad of a teacher I am they will all love me (as long as it's good, please pray for me). So I ask him how to say it, and he asks me back, "what's chick peas?" So what do I do, I say "Ya know, garbanzo beans". "Ooooooh, garbanzo beans, that's tykomo mame" (or something like that). Do you get it? Using Spanish with an ethnically Irish or something person from Maine to communicate in Japanese. Word to the previous post yo.