When in Japan, work as the Japanese

The Japanese language can be a psychologically humbling language - and not for the obvious reason of it being a difficult language to learn. There is a forced humility in the certain words and phrases that one uses.

Case in point, I leave for home each day around 7:30 PM. As I pack up and walk towards the door, I say, "saki ni shitsurei-shimasu" or translated literally, "please excuse my rudeness for leaving before you." Everyone that is still there replies, "o-tsukaresama deshita" or "you were a hard worker." It's not as awkward as it sounds, it's just a cultural norm replaces saying goodbye or goodnight.

But the fact that they don't simply say goodbye and goodnight in and of itself is telling. Japan as a society values working late, which value has been ingrained into millions of workers. It's not just about getting work done, but it's also about 'doing the time.'

And while I'm of the first to get to work, there aren't any accolades that come to those who come early...just those who stay late it seems. Only the last one home avoids having to apologze for leaving before the others.

I tried to work my hours, early in - early out, but when I would leave for the night the cynic in me hears a more sarcastic reply of coworkers who are stuck having to work, and in their minds are saying "o-tsukaresama deshita...NOT!" Because of that vibe that may or may not be there I changed slightly my hours - not working any more or less, but being there later. We'll see how it goes.

Anthon sings karaoke

Being a classically trained karaoke artist, it was important for me to get Anthon off on the right foot as a kid. Armed with his kiddie karaoke microphone, Anthon showed off his impressive repertoire of songs. If there are any unintelligible words it's because Anthon is 'speaking Japanese;' which in reality is nothing like Japanese, but Anthon thinks it is. It's cute, so we go with it. Anthon even sings a song all in this form of 'Japanese.'

It's fun to see Anthon get so excited about these videos. I know there will come a day when he doesn't think it's cute or cool to ham it up for Dad, let alone make it available for public consumption. All I have to say is thank goodness I didn't grow up in this digital age.

Click on the picture below to see the video.

Guess whose having a birthday?

It's birthday time in the Cannon home and the love of my life is celebrating her birthday today, September 24. I am truly lucky to be married to such a wonderful woman. She was born, and lived her first five years of life, in upstate New York before moving to Evansville, Indiana. When I met her in Los Angeles, she was working as a pharmaceutical rep and had chosen LA because she was sick and tired of cold weather. It's funny how in life such decisions one makes, like choosing your home because of the weather, can have a tremendous impact on other people's lives. And my life is so much the better for having met and married Shelley Daetwyler.

There are so many reasons why I love Shelley. Shelley is smart...really smart. She has a great mind. Did you know that Shelley was the math champ of Evansville? Well, she was. She also prides herself on having a mind like a steel trap. She frequently used it against me...since my mind is more like an old leaky bucket.

Shelley is also a great public speaker. When she was giving the commencement address in middle school, she said it was her wish that her class could have a successful high school career. Unfortunately, Shelley wore a retainer and successful came out "sexful", twice. The ground cheered loudly. In all seriousness, one of the things that attracted me to Shelley was her strong presence. I remember a church event that Shelley gave the spiritual thought and I was literally blown away at how powerful she spoke. I kid you not, it was that night that I ultimately decided I would ask her out.

Shelley is a wonderful daughter, sister, wife and mother. She is devoted to her family, where ever they may be. There is no other place she'd rather be than with family. She once told me that she was such a good sister that she would dangle her retainer over her younger sister Pam to make her do whatever Shelley wanted or else Pam would be touched by the retainer. (I see a theme with this retainer). Certainly Shelley has had to sacrifice a lot being here in Japan - away from family. I'm grateful for her spirit of adventure in making this time in our lives so fun.

I love Shelley because she makes me want to be a better person. She makes me feel loved. She is beautiful, funny and a lot of fun to talk to and be around. She is extremely spiritual and leads a true and honest life. She is a wonderful mother to our children. Each and every day I'm so thankful that Shelley is in my life.

So happy birthday, Shelley! I love you tons.

I've collected a number of pictures of Shelley as a baby and young girl. Click on any of the pictures in this post to see a gallery of those pictures.

Ella finds her hands

Ella has found her hands and is learning that if she wants them to move, they move...and if she wants to grab, they grab. She will sit there and stare at them for long stretches of time as she moves her hands around - opening and closing her fists. She looks at her hands with such dreamy-wonder and fascination in her eyes, it's almost as if she's on hallucinogenics and is seeing "Strawberry Fields Forever."

Click on the picture below to see a brief video.

Ella is a talker

Ella is finding her vocal ability...and we're finding out that she can jabber on quite loudly! During these first four months of life Ella has actually been a fairly quiet child. She's certainly more active and VERY LOUD. It shouldn't come as a surprise, as I'm sure with Shelley and I as her parents she was definitely coming into this world hard wired for talking. Just as there are families who have to fight for food around the dinner table, we have to fight to get our time to talk.

Click on the picture below to see a a video of Ella talking about something - probably politics, or maybe her thoughts on the current financial crisis.

Weezer and my first rock concert in Japan

I first heard of Weezer in 1993 when I was a freshman at the University of Utah. My friend at the time told us a story of the girl he was dating at the time and how while they were making out one night she had a bad asthma attack and she had to be rushed home and hooked up to a big breathing machine. On the way home because of the constricted airways into her lungs she was wheezing quite a bit. She was henceforth called, you guessed it, Weezer. It wasn't until a few years later that I actually knew Weezer for their music.

I had the chance to see Weezer play at a venue two train stops away, or literally a brisk 20 minute walk, from our apartment. I mean, you have to go right? I have to agree with my wife when she says that she is the best wife a guy could have. She not only told me about the concert, but she stayed home with the kids allowing me the chance to see Weezer, whose music I've re-discovered of late with their new album. I bought tickets blindly on an online Japanese auction site, below face value, and I ended up with 12th row seats on the floor. Being head and shoulders taller than everyone in front of me I had an unobstructed view to Weezer...or said differently, Weezer had an unobstructed view of my head.



Concerts in Japan have some interesting differences to concerts in the States. Namely, when a concert is said to start at 6:00 PM, the concert begins promptly at 6:00 PM. There's none of this starting late BS. When a song ends, people cheer, sometimes loudly, but then the crowd of 20k+ gets really quiet. It's almost an invitation for loud Americans to shout something...which happened quite often...but only sometimes by me. And finally, when the concert was over, thousands of Japanese sat there until their section was excused by the faceless PA guy. I kid you not. It was reminiscent of church in my youth when our teacher would only excuse the rows of kids who were quiet and behaving well. No way this flies in the U.S. I of course didn't notice most people sitting until I was well on my way out the door. Come on, I'm from Los Angeles. Weezer is lucky I didn't leave before the encore was over to beat the rush! :)

Both opening acts were local Japanese rocks bands. One of the bands had a guy who seemed to be a J-Rock version of Flava Flav. His job was to sometimes play the electric piano, the kind you sling over your shoulder that looks like a guitar...remember those? And clearly his bandmates were humoring him because he only got to play every third song or so. During the rest of the set, the guy did a lot of fist pumping, a fair amount of mini-trampoline jumping and even tore off his white t-shirt to a less than excited crowd. If this band were the TV show Survivor, shirtless-wonder would be the nice old lady who had fought cancer but was a total liability to her team on any of the physical challenges. He was that guy. Except this time, his cancer zapped him of any and all musical ability.



Knowing I would have only slight interest in the warm up bands, I brought along my Blackberry and let my corporate side mingle with my anti-establishment alt rock side. I was engrossed in some great Washington Post articles about the Lehman bankruptcy, Merrill acquisition and the domestic surveillance controversy. I highly recommend checking them out - even if you're not waiting for Weezer to come on stage.

So, finally to the main event, Weezer. They do something pretty cool before their concert - called a Hootenany. The band gets together with some fans who play a wide variety of instruments and jam on some of Weezer's songs. Even the shirtless / talentless guy was part of the group, fist-pumping to Island in the Sun. All in all, Weezer rocked. They played 20+ songs in their set, even did a cover of Radiohead's Creep. Astonishingly, Rivers Cuomo, the lead singer, spoke most of the night in basic but quite good Japanese. Good energy, sound was good. They rocked. Fun night.

Here's a bootleg video I shot of the concert.

Anthon and his Japanese

This post may only really be funny to those who speak some Japanese. Nevertheless, I want to share this story about Anthon, who is learning Japanese at his pre-school. The teacher gives the kids a set of words to work on and they practice talking to their teddy bears, which is kind of a cute visual. It's helping him be more proactive in using his Japanese around town. The other day with Shelley, Anthon approached a mother/daughter two-some and said, "Konnichiwa, guys." Then turning back to Shelley said, "I said Konnichiwa to them."

Anyway, One of the words they've been learning is the word "itadakimasu!" (pronounced ee-ta-da-kee-mahs) or basically what you say right before you eat a meal...it literally means "I humbly partake." It's like saying "bon apetit." The teachers explained how you pronounce the word to the kids by saying, "remember before you eat, you say 'eat'-adakimasu."

On Friday night we were eating dinner and had already said, "itadakimasu" when Anthon grabs his drink and said, "I'm not going to say eat-adakimasu again, I'm going to say drink-adakimasu." It reduced Shelley and I to tears of laughter. The kid continues to surprise me with his grasp of language and unique sense of humor.

Company Softball

The Tokyo office of the company that I work for takes softball VERY seriously. Every summer we field a team that enters into a local corporate league...and they've won the tournament two of the last four years.

When I think of corporate softball leagues, I think of sweaty fat dudes in their shorts and ratty t-shirts running around and having a beer in between innings. It seems like it's a casual, family affair. It's way different here. The first thing I noticed was that we have uniforms, and hats, made especially for our softball team, with our corporate initials on them. We look like the Yankess. I don't have one, mostly because I probably couldn't fit into one. Nevertheless, I did my best to fill the sweaty, ratty casual stereotype of an American softballer! Another difference is how formal everything was - opening / closing ceremonies, speeches from municipal leaders, real umpires, etc. I was waiting for someone to present the national colors of Japan, someone to sing their anthem and a ceremonial first pitch. No luck.

In my quest to bring more closely together my family life and my work life, I brought Shelley and the kids to the game. Though it was an extremely cloudy day, it was about as chockingly humid and stuffy as it has been all summer. I broke into a good sweat just standing around and thinking about playing softball. On top of that, we all came away with a really good sunburn - even Ella. She looked like a cute cherry tomato. But my family were big time troopers. Nothing screams fun like going to watch someone else play softball.

But having my family there was the best part of playing softball...not the actual physical activity or comraderie with my coworkers. Hearing the cheers from my son is seriously one of the best feelings in the world. Even for a few minutes, I was his hero. From the moment I ran out to center field I could hear Anthon yell, "Good luck Dad!" If I caught a fly ball, get on base or score a run I could hear him cheering for me. Now, all good things come to an end and after a few innings he was off chasing other kids and playing ball. But it was fantastic while it lasted.

Thankfully for Shelley, all of the cheers and congratulations one gives in baseball is just a Japanized version of what you would say in English. Nice catch is "naisu-kachu", one out is "wan owto" and so on. Shelley said it was the most Japanese she had understood since moving here.

My goals for the game were to: 1) not embarrass myself; and 2) not be a hindrance to the team. My first at bat was reminiscent of the scene in the movie Major League when Willy Mays Hayes strides up to the plate, swings hard and knocks the ball maybe three feet down the third base side. When he legs out a single the first basemen says, "Boy, you really knocked the crap out of that one." That's what it felt like to me too. To my credit, I ran hard and legged out a single. I think people were so surprised that someone who swung that hard could have such a piddly result. My next at bat, I hit the ball pretty far into left field, but got caught stretching a double into a triple. I was greedy and couldn't slide underneath the tag and didn't want feel it right to plow into the third baseman. Despite that, I think my goals were achieved. I caught a few balls in center, drove in a few runs, scored a few times and in the end we won the tournament, third time in five years.

Cicada Madness

I am not a person of hate. I hate relatively few things in life. But if you were to ask me the one thing I hate the most about living in Japan? It's the cicadas. I hate cicadas with the heat of a thousand suns.

Cicadas are gross, disgusting, gigantic insects that live below ground for the first seven years of their miserable lives before emerging and living in trees wailing and crying and making the world's worst noises before shedding their shell, dying or being unceremoniously eaten by the large black crows that also infest this city.

You don't believe me? Try listening to one cicada sing his sweet song of death. (Warning, audio starts automatically...you'll need to be in a place where those around you won't mind listening to a noise that could literally make them vomit.)

To me this is the sound I would make if I were being tortured to death, slowly...by insects. And in a way I am being tortured to death because I can hear these bugs through my windows, and they drive me crazy. And can you imagine how awful it can get when you have hundreds and thousands wailing away at the same time? It can literally drive you crazy if you let it. Cicadas last throughout the summer and luckily we're just past the peak. But they are still a force.

So, now you know something that I hate.

Update on the Taco Truck Law

The "taco truck law" has been overturned by an LA County Superior Court Judge. Here is an LA Times story if you want to read all about it.

It's one thing to require taco truck adherence to health and safety standards. That ultimately is in their best interest, as well as the public's. But this case isn't about public health & safety, it's about two competing business interests - taco truck proprietors on one side and established restaurants and perhaps real estate developers on the other. There has to be more socially optimal resolutions than legislating away the existence of taco trucks. The economist in me thinks, why not let the market decide for themselves?

I doubt this is over. If you want to learn more, go to Save Our Taco Trucks.org for more information, including a petition.

Anthon's First Day of School

Monday was a bittersweet day in our household. It was Anthon's first day of pre-school. While on the one hand we know that Anthon will have a lot of fun and learn a lot, meet new kids and make friends, on the other hand we can't believe our boy is big enough to go to school. He's still my little guy and part of me isn't ready to accept the fact that he's growing up. Shelley was excited to have some free time!

We've thought about this decision for a while. Anthon, though not quite three, is a smart, social and very talkative. We thought that perhaps the challenge would be good for him. We had initially thought about putting him into an immersion program with other Japanese kids, and we still may do that at some point. But for now we have him in an international school not far from our house.

While Anthon is a social kid he does have bouts of separation anxiety. Dropping him off at our church nursery can be hit or miss. Last week he unlocked the door and came screaming down the hallway looking for me. But, we've built up Anhton's going to school for months. He got to pick out his own Thomas the Train lunch box and has his Elmo backpack and Diego backpack and for a while he would pretend to go to school. He was mentally well prepared. Shelley made Anthon's lunch and he got to pick out his own juice box at the convenience store on the way to school and you could tell he was just happy and excited.

The walk to school was hilarious. Because he was going to school, everyone else must have been going to school too. Shelley was going to "Mommy school" and I was going to "Daddy school." He had a spring in his step and was singing the entire way.

He walked into his classroom, sat right down and didn't seem to be flustered or worried by a few other children who were crying. Our little man. He played with toys and gave us each a big hug and kiss and we were off. As Shelley put it, FREEDOM!

As far as we can tell his first day was a success. The teachers said he didn't cry. But the only thing that Anthon can really recall from the day was that he fought with his friend Noah. In talking with Shelley over the phone I could hear Anthon in the background repeating, "Fight, fight, fight!" We're not really sure what that's all about. Anthon does have a vivid imagination. Maybe school will bring out his aggressive tendencies. He did say he had a good time and wanted to go back. So that's good.