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Matsuri Cuts
Sweet dew. Me thinks he likes drums For the most part, I live in a relatively safe part of Japan. In the two years that I have called this island home I haven’t had to think once about being the subject of any crime or attack. It would be almost unheard of to even consider it.
The community that I live in is so small that everyone knows everyone and everything. I am consistently amazed by the things people know about me and I find myself having to think, did I tell them about this? And for the most part, no, I didn’t. They seem to pick things up with such a speed that the event had barely even had the chance to occur before it is being circulating around the island gossip line.
This knowledge network can be both good and bad. On one hand, it means that it would be near impossible for someone to get away with committing a crime without the neighboring obaasan, old lady, taking notice and voicing it to the other islanders. This is good, it makes things safe. On the other hand, the whole island could name off the various colors and makes of my underwear, while counting backwards
The Island
120 people, 5 cars, 5km in perimeter, 1 middle school student, 5 elementary school students, one yellow head, and a lot of old people. and balancing on their heads. This is bad, it makes things embarrassing.
“E-san, what pair of briefs are you wearing today???”
Prior to coming here I thought that I had lived in a pretty safe city, Boston. However, saying that, while there I almost always felt the need to safeguard my belongings from the wandering hands of others, lock my door and windows before I went out, and keep my third eye on alert and at the ready when I zigzagged my way home after a couple of pints on the dark path that led me home. Now that I think about it I realize that even having to consider any one of these things means that Boston isn’t the safe place that I made it out to be. The only reason that I believed it was safe in the first place was because I am from there and had grown accustomed to keeping these worries at mind. I had known nothing else.
Now that I have experienced living here I have begun to see my hometown in a different light. It’s a shame that these dangers and worries have become so common place that we have
Traffic Safety Day
For an island that only has around 5 cars this class is pretty important. The kids don't know what to make of it. come to accept them as the norm. Things shouldn’t be this way and I think this is why life in a big city always leaves me a bit jaded; always on alert, worrying about things that I shouldn’t have to and the mad rush of everyone trying to succeed and get ahead of the next man. It all just equals unnecessary stress.
My life now is almost the polar opposite of my life in Boston. The only worries I have are of the slithering beasts that lurk in the islands overgrowth and shadows. Over the course of these two years I’ve had the pleasure of living amongst huge adder snakes, venomous red jellyfish, spiders the size of a child’s hand, venomous centipedes whose length would put Tommy Lee to shame and a 80 kg wild boar that met its demise at the hands of the islanders stoning it to death. It’s a wild island to say the least; however, at least I don’t have to worry about the most dangerous beast of them all, humans. The worst thing I am subject to from them is laughter at my strange Japanese and the random finger attempting to “kancho”, or be
卒業おめでとうございます
"they grow up so fast" shoved into, my unexpecting buttocks, much to the amusement of the other onlookers. Other than that my door and windows are almost always left ajar and I could drop my wallet or imaginary gold and diamond studded Rolex in the middle of the town and be 100 and 10 percent sure that it will find its way back to my door.
The first year I was here I was always amazed by the stories of my friends who had lost there wallet on a train or in a bar only to receive a call shortly after saying that it had been found and was being sent to their apartment with all the money and cards completely intact. Now, I have almost come to take these things for granted. It seems natural, do onto others as done onto you, right? Well, no, if you take the majority of other countries into account. I am going to have quite the shock coming to me when I have the pleasure of finding this out again the hard way, be it back home or in another country. Until that day, my only worry will be of the aforementioned beasts and the occasional volatile
Just a Baby
It was actually quite horrific. A handful of the islanders stoned it to death while it was fighting to stay afloat in the water. I know they are dangerous and all but they took it a bit overboard. weather that throws down on the fine shores of this insular island.
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