One month left...

Got some really supportive comments on the last post, so I thought I'd give you the latest news, most of it good:

The Saga TV show I work with has put up some money and some equipment so that Yuri and I can do some filming ourselves, and I can turn my "Bobby's Kitchen" cooking segment into a "Bobby's WORLD Kitchen" cooking segment.

It'll air once monthly, and we'll be sending in weekly updates with pictures of where we are and what were working on, and I'll do my best to be available for phone commentary when the show is on. It's gonna be a little bit of work to do all the filming and setting up on our own, but it's nice to have a little bit of money coming in, and to be able to keep doing TV stuff. Makes me feel better about my chances of continuing down this road when we get back.

Also, there's a magazine called "Be-Pal" that's running one of my recipes this month. They've agreed to let us write a VERY small monthly column with pictures and stories about outdoor activities or outdoor cooking in other countries.

So that's all very encouraging.

And I've become more convinced that the timing for the trip is as good as it could be.

By which I mean, I'm about ready for a break from Japan.

There's going to be something really relaxing about still being able to do TV, but having full control over what footage gets used.

I know that I'm only on TV in the first place because I'm a foreigner, but I get really tired of having it reinforced regularly by the directors and other personalities. In the time that I've been working as a reporter, I've gained confidence and gotten better at it. There are a lot more funny conversations or interesting parts that the directors could choose to use in the final cut... but more often than not, they get chopped in favor of parts where I made a mistake in Japanese, or had to ask what something meant.

Then, on one of the live shows, I usually come out and say a quick greeting in English ("Good morning! How's it going? I'm Bobby Judo!") before jumping into the cooking stuff. The other day, to switch things up, the director said, "Just do it all in Japanese today." So I did. And the other reporters said "When Bobby says it, it sounds like English, but that was actually all Japanese!" WTF people.

And on a personal note, I'm exhausted with an excess of Japanese friends... if you're a foreigner here, you probably have experience with this, but you get a lot of people who think that you're friends based solely on the fact that they LIKE you. It doesn't require that they know anything about you, or care about you, or what you want, like, or are interested in. As long as they like you, you're pals.

There's one guy in particular who I was really trying to get along with. He's nice most of the time, and he goes out of his way to invite me to things, or takes us out, comes by the restaurant regularly. But in the end, he's had lots of time to get past the whole "Yay, I've got a foreign friend!" thing and just... be normal, but he can't.

Yuri and I went out to eat with him and his friends the other day and we were talking about something completely benign. An employee who got in an argument with another employee, then walked out and never came back. And he said "Bobby, as an American, what do you think?"

And I was like "What? What does that have to do with being an American? Why can't you just ask me what I think?"

It doesn't seem like a big deal, yeah, but I've already told him a number of times "I really don't like feeling like my value to you is as your gaijin friend." He doesn't care that it bothers me, nor make any effort to either understand why or stop doing it, and that tells me that he's not really a friend.

Plus, last night, he came to the bar for his birthday, and insisted that I drink and eat with him, even though I didn't really want to. I tried to politely refuse, but after a certain point, it becomes rude, so I had a couple of beers and some cake.

And then he started going on about how I was getting fat, and grabbing my stomach, and talking about how he was in better shape when he was my age, and how I was definitely going to be a fat old man.

It was clear I was annoyed, so I excused myself to do some work, and then later he started hassling me for not finishing my beer or cake. So on top of the "Japan/Gaijin" dichotomy, he can also just be a straight up douche.

Unfortunately, I have way too many "friends" like him.

On the plus side, they've made me feel a lot better about getting away for a while.

Before I go, I'm gonna do my best to upload a handful more YouTube videos.

Yesterday I posted a behind the scenes look into making one of the Bobby's Kitchen segments. Check it out if you have the time:

Two Steps Forward, Three Steps Back

It occurs to me now that I may not have yet mentioned on this blog that my wife and I are planning to take an extended vacation.

I've brought it up on YouTube, mentioned it casually on TV in Saga, and actually gone ahead and launched another website (running total : 4!) at 国際結婚旅, which is a succinct, apt, and catchy name in Japanese. In English (maybe "Mixed Race Marriage Trip?"), it sounds terrible.

But for readers who follow The Yo-ji exclusively, I'll bring you up to speed: My wife has long dreamed of going on a 世界一周旅(sekai isshuu tabi; round-the-world-trip) and before we start thinking about family and kids, we're gonna go ahead and do it. We've been planning and saving for about a year and a half, and we leave on April 4th.

Less than two months from now.

You can follow along with us on the blog mentioned above and on YouTube, and I'm sure I'll have occasional things to say that would fit best here as well, so don't go deleting your bookmarks just yet.

Today, for instance, I want to talk about what this trip means for me in terms of work.

As of now I'm still doing "Bobby's Kitchen" on Saga TV, which is every other week, plus occasional guest spots on other corners. Still on the roster for TNC's Gee Bee, and Mezase Golden. And the cooking show on KBC, which I talked about last October, has become a regular thing. It's 4 days a week, 2-3 weeks a month, and it's equal parts awesome and taxing.

The producers and directors are extremely kind, and I hear nothing but good things from everyone about how I seem to be so "used to being in front of the camera." Plus, apparently they see a ratings spike every time I'm on, which is fantastic. Today after we finished a segment on making chocolate mousse, one of the producers said "It's really such a shame you're leaving so soon. We'd been hoping to do something more regular with you."

I wrote about this on the travel blog if you'd like to check it out, but there's something really difficult about having made it to EXACTLY this point, and then walking away for a year.

Breaking into Fukuoka, being able to actively contribute to a show, feeling like I've finally started to get good at what I do. I feel like I've built up a lot of momentum... and am now letting that go to waste.

But those feelings are tempered by a couple of things.

First, the more I develop the ability to work on larger and larger platforms, the more limited I'm becoming in how I can move. Over the last three weeks, I've spent most of my time in either TV studios, on location, or at home in my kitchen building recipes to introduce on the shows. Add part time job and commute to that, and that's my life.

I would love to become a regular on some show somewhere, but that comes with contracts, appearances, and other obligations that I wouldn't be able to set aside to take a trip with my wife. It would be cool to have that level of exposure at some point, but if I'm going to pursue that, taking this kind of trip will only work... now.

Then, there's the fact that the trip doesn't mean I have to stop what I'm doing completely. Not only can I keep doing my internet stuff, which is how I got into all of this in the first place, but I'm hoping that there are TV shows and magazines that would be interested in showcasing food, photos, and stories from our travels. Saga TV is trying to work something out, and I'm headed to Tokyo next week to test the waters with an outdoor magazine that I've been working with recently.

So there is hope for the future.

The problem, in the interim, is keeping my motivation up.

I go through regular cycles of ups and downs triggered by... well, pretty much anything.

If I have a great show, that can make my week. If I have a subpar show, however, that can ruin my month.

Today, the chocolate mousse went really well, the on-air interactions were crisp, fast, funny, and I felt great about it.

Then I was hanging around Fukuoka with Micaela, and we were approached by a crew filming on-the-street interviews for TNC. This isn't uncommon; there are 5 or 6 TV stations based in Fuk, and there are always crews filming around Tenjin and Daimyo. But I work with TNC. As they approached, one of the crew members was like... "Oh that's that guy," and I said "Yeah, hi, I'm actually お世話になっている (currently involved with) two of your shows, so..." and they were like "Oh, yeah! But that's cool, if you don't mind being on, we don't care."

So they interviewed us anyway, which was fine. Except that at no point during the interview did they say "Oh, hey it's Bobby! He's totally on our network!"

I felt kind of insulted. Like... it didn't matter that being on TV was my job... that they as a TV station are currently paying me for. Whatever I am to them, it's not enough that it's worth mentioning. I can also be used as just a man on the street.

I know, I know... there's nothing wrong with being just a guy on the street in an interview, but as a person who craves recognition, it blew. Especially because I felt like I'd gotten to a place where I ought to be able to expect it.

Part of it is me being overly-sensitive, another part is ego. But things like this tend to happen, and sometimes they make me feel like I haven't really accomplished anything at all.

When those co-workers go "We can't believe how used to the camera you are!" in praise, a part of me goes "Why the hell not? It's been my job for over a year!"

But as others are quick to point out, some people try to do the same thing here for years and years and never make it this far.

I'd like to take it further... but I don't really know what I'm trying to prove. And sometimes I don't know if I really believe it would be worth it.

In any case, starting in April, I should have about a year to figure it out. Hope you guys will still be around if I ever do.

The American in Japan:

This is a conversation from facebook that I got caught up in and decided to bring over here:


It started because last week I had an idea for a comedy routine that I thought would work in Japanese.

I was finishing up a shift at a yakitori restaurant where I work part time, a place where it's customary for the owner and staff to eat and drink while we wait tables and cook. When things start to wind down, the owner will often invite me to sit at the counter and share some drinks or snacks with him.

On this particular night, he offered me some Japanese sake and some french fries. As I was eating and drinking, I looked over at him and said "Drinking sake and snacking on french fries. I don't think I've ever felt MORE like an American in Japan."

And he laughed for something like 5 minutes straight.

The thing about Japan is, they LOVE to laugh about things foreign. There are stand-up comedy duo routines like "欧米化; oubeika" where one Japanese man berates another Japanese man for becoming too westernized, or performers like Dylan and Catherine, two Japanese people pretending to be American, mostly by means of speaking Japanese with an affected accent.  There are characters in advertisements like "Mr. James," the dorky white foreigner who loves Japan, or characters on TV like Bobby Ologun who make their living by playing into Japanese stereotypes.

Without getting into issues of racism, I think it's safe to say that the roles for foreigners on TV and in media are somewhat limited. Even the few foreigners who've gone from comedian/entertainer to roles with higher levels of respect and acclaim, people like Dave Spector or Makkun, are still largely defined by the Gaikokujin label.

I saw a telephone interview with Dave Spector in which he explained that Former Prime Minister Hatoyama's wife was seen by Americans as the "Lady Gaga" of Japan, a line I'm sure his producers and directors insisted on because... it's blatantly untrue. They just wanted a foreigner to confirm something they made up about Americans.

And I watched Makkun miss a kanji question on a quiz show, which prompted the comment "I think we hear that he was Harvard-educated and forget that in the end, he's still a foreigner, and Japanese is hard for foreigners."

As someone who feels strongly and negatively about the boxes that foreigners get placed in, not only on TV but in personal interactions, I was kind of surprised to find myself thinking so seriously about creating an American comedic character.

The unpolished idea was to be "THE American in Japan," and make jokes accordingly. The jokes came really easily.

Some were based on truth, little things that I really do or feel. For example, a lot of times, a Japanese person I meet for the first time extends their hand for a handshake, when I've already started to bow, which results in a bowing handshake that is hilarious. And it only happens because I'm a foreigner, and I'm trying to act accordingly to Japanese culture, while they're trying to act according to mine. 「握手しながら、お辞儀。ザ・日本にいるアメリカ人。」

Other jokes were silly stuff like "I'll only ride in a rickshaw if the driver agrees to run in the right hand lane." or "For breakfast, I eat Miso SHIRIARU (a cross between Miso Soup and the Japanese for Cereal). The latter, I felt ashamed for even thinking of, not just because they're groaners, but because they're blatant pandering to Japanese stereotypes. "What's your favorite nabe? HAMBURGER NABE! OH, AMERICA."

And then there were others. Jokes I felt like I could make without feeling like I was selling out. Something that was simultaneously self-parody, and a parody of Japanese attitudes towards foreigners like: 「要らないのに、道でビラを渡されないと寂しい。。。;   Even though I don't want them, I still feel kind of rejected when  people in the street don't try to hand me fliers. 」Equally targeting how silly it is for me to react negatively for being treated differently in a way that ultimately benefits me, AND the Japanese people who don't think a foreign face can be a customer.

And just as the "Oubeika" routine eventually started to incorporate "Nanbeika; you've been South-Americanized!" jokes, I could branch out and make other points.

"I get upset when people ask me about the US," says the Canadian in Japan." Punchline being, to Japan a foreign face equals American.

"I get really upset when people ask if there are chopsticks in other countries." Says the CHINESE PERSON in Japan! Hahaha. Cause... Japanese people forget that other Asians count as gaijin too. And they forget that chopsticks aren't unique to Japan.

Over the past few months, I've been trying my jokes out here and there, in my personal life, and through outlets like facebook and twitter. They're not all tagged with "American in Japan." Some are just jokes about language gaffs.

And the responses from Japanese people... have not been good.

I made the following joke on Twitter: "Hey Japanese-language enthusiasts, learn from my mistake! Hieshou (suffering from low body temperature) means sensitivity to the cold. Jiheishou (autism) is a different thing altogether!"

The majority of the responses from Japanese people were explanations of the difference between the two words, of even corrections of the way I had defined "hieshou." They totally missed the fact that I was consciously making a joke.

And when I explained my "American in Japan" concept to some friends, and added in the part about the Canadian who's tired of hearing "Tell me all about the States," they blanked. They said "We don't get it? Why would that bother them?" You can't expect parody to work when the target has zero self-awareness re: the shortcomings being parodied.

Which made me realize... the material doesn't matter as much as how the audience takes it. And right now, there is no place in Japanese comedy for a foreigner who isn't a stereotypical foreigner.

When I first conceived of the idea, I kind of thought that if I worked it the right way, it might have the power to change that, to change something about the way we're perceived in Japan. In practice, I realized I may have been hoping for the impossible. So I'm giving up.

Hello. I'm Bobby Judo. I am THE American in Japan.

Japanese People Are Staring at Me...

If you're a foreigner in Japan (excepting those of Asian descent), you've been stared at. A lot.

You've probably even developed the ability to identify a certain look on the faces of some Japanese people. There's a flickering of the eyes as the wheels in their mind turn, a slight inclination of the head, and a nervous, involuntary twitching in the corners of the mouth, a fluttering movement in the lips. They're not just staring, they're working up the courage to talk to you.

When I'm not in a social mood, I catch myself hoping that they won't have to time to find ENOUGH courage before the train reaches my stop, or I finish my coffee, or whatever situation has flung us together ends... because it's almost always the same conversation. They'll ask "(Where) Are you from?" or "How long stay Japan?" and then it's on into chopstick, sushi, and samurai territory.

And keep in mind, I don't mean to make fun of anyone or imply that Japanese people can't speak English well. But I have noticed that in general, the Japanese people with the best English skills don't really tend to start random conversations with foreigners who cross their path. Maybe it's because they're internationally-minded enough to realize that we're not a big deal. In any case, it's usually the "Are you from?" crowd, and the older, less easily embarrassed people who end up speaking up.

Having been in Japan for over 5 years now, I'm not really that open to rehashing the same ground about who I am, where I come from, and what I can or cannot eat, just because people are curious. I think I've developed an aura that tends to discourage that curiosity where possible. But recently, I'm having to rethink a lot of that, because the circumstances of my life have changed.

Now, when I notice people staring at me, I can't always tell if it's because I'm a foreigner, or if it's because they recognize me from TV. The realization that this meant I was going to have change my attitude came about 3 months ago. We had just aired a segment where I went to a town called Shiroishi to learn how to harvest lotus root, and then taught the farmers how to make an Indian dish with it.

(You can actually watch that segment if you'd like, here! Sorry, it won't be subtitled.)

A few days later, at the supermarket, I got to a certain line at exactly the same time as a nervous-looking Japanese woman in her 40s. We both took a minute to try to defer to the other, non-verbally, gesturing with our hands: "You go ahead," "No, by all means, you." In the end, she had a full cart and I had two items, so I gave her a bow of gratitude and accepted.

But I could feel her behind me, hovering over my shoulder, standing a little too close and chewing her lip, building up the courage.

What she said, without prefacing it with a "hello," a "sumimasen," a "konnichiha," or a"Can you speak Japanese?" was "レンコン、観れなかった； I couldn't see the lotus root."

My first response was, "Oh. It's in the vegetable section, by the potatoes."

But she just laughed and clarified what she meant. She had seen the TV commercials for my show, and even marked it on her calendar so she could catch it. But on the day of, she got stuck in traffic, and could only catch the end, after my segment had already aired.

So we ended up talking about when I would be on next, and she was very friendly, and supportive, and said that she would be rooting for me to continue to succeed.

In the weeks and months that have followed, I've had a lot of similar conversations, and all started with a stare.

The funniest so far has been from a middle-aged man who saw me jogging past his business and hollered out　「おい、ボビー!家の店もテレビで宣伝しろ！」 or "Hey Bobby! You better introduce our place on your TV show too!" Most of the shows I do are food related, and we often go to restaurants and give them glowing reviews on TV, so when I go out to eat I hear that kind of thing a lot. "Next time you come, bring the cameras!" But when I stopped to wave back at this guy, I cracked up because his "place" was a fantastically filthy hole-in-the-wall, and it was an auto-repair garage.

But getting those kinds of reactions has really forced to me become a nicer kind of person. I have to be on my best behavior, because I never know who's watching.

Once my wife and I got home from an outing at the park in Fukuoka, and I had received a Tweet from someone I don't know. It said "Hey! You and your wife were at the Starbucks in Ohori Koen for about an hour, right? I was sitting right behind you, the whole time!" 

That... is super creepy.
To avoid that kind of thing, and so I don't come off like a closed-off douchebag to potential fans, I'm enforcing a big change. When I see someone looking at me, I'm saying "Hi."

Here's hoping a general air of positivity and friendliness will be rewarding. Rewarding enough to justify the minor annoyance of "Are you from?"

疾風迅雷 + New TV Job

I know, I know... you guys are all like "WTF? A yojijukugo? On the Daily-Yoji? What is this, 2008?"

But there is an explanation.

I have a new TV job starting tomorrow. It's a mid-morning bangumi called "Sawada De~su!" on KBC. I'm doing a 5 minute cooking segment that they've roughly titled "Bobby's Cooking." It's all live, and it's going to be Monday~Thursday for the next two weeks.

After that, I hope that they'll consider a once a week or twice a week spot. Every day is kind of rough.

But we've spent the last month or so doing 打ち合わせ (うちあわせ；preparatory meeting)、hammering out the details and trying to decide on what kind of feel we want for my "character" and for the segment. They want to capitalize on the whole, cool looking foreigner thing, so they put together a ギャルソン (waiter) costume for me, complete with black vest and necktie. They also want me to wink... like, a lot.

They also decided that the focus of the segment should be less on the food and more on the conversation. They imposed the 5 minute limit because they thought it'd be more amusing if I have to hurry and the food didn't come out right, or I didn't finish in time and everyone got to joke about it.

But while they were searching for anything else about me that might add a little more プラスアルファ(bonus material) to the segment, I mentioned that I'm slightly more knowledgeable than average about yojijukugo. They loved that.

The way they've decided to incorporate that is by having me spout the occasional super complex Yo-ji or kotowaza while I'm doing my cooking. The first script though, for tomorrow came with a yojijukugo I'd never seen before. The director said it took her a little while to come up with one that would work. I wish she'd have taken a liiiiiittttttttle more time... because this one is kind of a stretch. Here it is:

疾風迅雷
しっぷうじんらい
shipuu jinrai

Definition:
非常にはやい風と激しい雷。行動がすばやく激しいこと。
Translation:
1. Lightning-fast
2. Fast and rough

疾風 is a strong storm or gale. Hurricane level even. 迅雷 is a clap of thunder. You can use it literally to talk about a storm, or you can use if metaphorically to talk about someone's actions.

How will I be using this you ask? Well, the recipe in question is my California Style Spicy Tuna Bowl, which necessitates the preparation of sushi rice. Since we've only got five minutes to do everything, the mixing of the sushi rice has to be done with 疾風迅雷の勢い。 Like I said, it's a stretch. They're probably going to ask me to explain it, and I'll say something like 「風のように早く、雷のように激しく。」

It has a synonymous yoji in 電光石火.