THE TOWN -- TOTTORI
I dig this town.  Way different from LA.  People are really nice, but they still stare at me (I guess I kinda stand out).  I stare at other foreigners too thinkin', "What the hell are YOU doing here?!  This is MY town!"  The bar scene is kinda funny cuz everyone just kinda clears out around midnight.  You gotta rush over there by around 9 or else you're gonna miss everything.  I see people trashed outta their minds stumbling back home around 10:30 or so.  The scary part is that the foreigners in Tottori are high-profile, so everyone seems to know what I did over the weekend.  This town is small, so everyone seems to know someone that I know.  For example, the bartender at a bar I frequent told me that his mother-in-law is a student at my school.  150,000 people in the town and 300 or so go to my school.  I guess I'd better behave myself, eh?

THE JOB -- AEON
I also dig this English teachin' gig.  My coworkers and I 

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After a very hectic week of training at the AEON West headquarters in Okayama, I arrived in Tottori, Japan.  Training week was crazy busy, but kinda funny.  Our dorm was like Gilligan's Island--no TV, Internet, or any connection to the outside world.  We were lucky to have running water in that place.  The 2 trainers were really friendly and supportive, so they turned the training into a beneficial learning experience.  I left Okayama feeling better prepared than I had expected to be.  We each taught 3 full-length classes to real Japanese students.  I have yet to use the monkey puppet I love so much because he's still in LA.  Plus, I'm not sure if I can work him in cuz I'm supposed to encourage the students to talk to each other (and not a freakin' monkey puppet).

Before moving to Tokyo, I taught English in a countryside prefecture known as Tottori.  I loved it there.  My only complaint was my noisy neighbor that liked to play taiko drums early in the morning (usually between 5:30am – 6:00am).  He would open all the doors and windows so that it could be heard by all.  He would play to no discernible rhythm and consistently modulate the tempo making it all the more irritating.

Unfortunately, the place where all the noise was coming from was a Shinto shrine.

But why should places of worship and the fallible men and women that run them be exempt from criticism?  If church and state are indeed separate in this day and age, then I should be able to proceed as if I were complaining about noise from a dance club or pachinko parlor.  I had always been told that Japanese almost never complain directly.  For example, a noisy neighbor would hear any complaints via the apartment building landlord.  

But what about a foreigner?  Could a foreigner even complain in Japan—let alone about noise coming from a shrine?  This was going to be an interesting social experiment.

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Most all tourists that visit Japan say the same thing: "Wow!  Everyone here is so polite!"  Well, that's true if you're a tourist--especially one with a phatty wallet.

Having lived here for over 5 years, I have come to realize that although Japanese people are generally very polite (why else would I choose to live here), there are times when extreme rudeness prevails.  Here are some examples along with some attempts to understand them: