Kombat Kulcha VII

This post has the dubious distinction of being my 100th post. Such a milestone cannot go unremarked, surely, and so in honour of this frequent-posting achievement I have decided to update that series of posts which has occurred most frequently in the history of these Ancient Chronicles. Despite a long break for christmas, my odyssey through the martial arts world of Japan continues apace.

I do use the phrase "continues apace" loosely, however, for I have been tardy about attending kickboxing of late and so have become decidedly unfit. Those times I have attended in the last month have been hasty on account of the strict time limit, and the fact that I am currently mixing teaching 3 foreigners with my training, so find myself a little snowed under. So it was that I chose this week to take a long car ride with Messrs Y and I, the latter being the head of the school, to Nanbu Cho in chilly Tottori. Mr. I's school has an outpost here, perched on the side of a mountain facing Mt. Daisen's lowest ski-slope; and I was determined to fit in a hard nights training.

The joy of going to these Tottori gyms is not so much in the exercise (we arrived late and didn't get much time to train, and it was damn cold) but in the chance to practise my Japanese a little. Last time I came to Tottori to train I discussed environmental issues with Mr. Y (since I learnt the verbs "to kill" and "to die" I have become quite a dab hand at explaining our river problems). Mr. Y was explaining this to Mr I, who was quite taken aback - Japanese people universally think of Australia as peaceful and pure, and are shocked to discover such things as Cubby Station or Roxby Downs - and so we moved on to a discussion of Australian and Japanese social problems.

Now don't get me wrong, dear reader, I have very little power to engage in these discussions except through using very basic language to talk around complex concepts. I can never remember a word I am told and I never understand anything that is said to me. However, it is surprising what one can do with the words for "friend", "die", "not good", "river", "farm" and "people". Quite surprising. Also last week I asked my private teacher how to say "I cannot distinguish between these two things", which meant that she somehow taught me how to say "I discriminate against ...", since the words are very similar. Thus it was that when Mr. I asked me about whether Australians discriminate against Aboriginal people I was able to both understand his question and respond. We discussed this for a little, and in response to his questioning me regarding Australia, I was able to elicit from Mr. I and Mr. Y opinions about Japanese social attitudes towards race.

Thus it was that Messrs I and Y informed me that Japanese people discriminate against black foreigners. This surprised me, since the black people I know have never talked about this problem (and have denied it when I ask them about it) - but I am in the country, and just as everything in Japan is the reverse of Australia, so it is that people in the country seem to be friendlier and more welcoming than people in the city. So too, perhaps they are less discriminating. Messrs I and Y also discussed the Japanese attitude towards Chinese a little, and agreed that it was a serious problem; and we compared the Japanese attitude towards their own Indigenous people, the Ainu, with that of Australians.

The really interesting conversational material appeared as we cruised into Matsue city, however, for now Mr I revealed that Japan used to have a caste system, and still discriminates on the basis of the caste from which individuals are descended. Particularly, the Burakumin are a class of people descended from those who worked with dead things, and are still treated poorly. Mr. Y revealed that while one might be able to have a Burakumin girlfriend, it would be considered very poor form to take such a lady for a wife; and he implied that some Japanese people do research on their own or their childrens prospective partners for the possibility that they might be descended from such a caste. When I asked, Messrs I and Y seemed to tell me that while discrimination had been disappearing in the past, it has returned somewhat in recent years. Sadly my power to understand Japanese tenses, especially when babbled out at breakneck speed by mumbling men, is limited. He may have been saying something else. Mr. I then tried to explain the very intricate details of this process of discrimination, but here my limited Japanese failed, and as we pulled into the convenience store parking lot where I was to alight, he said "When your Japanese has improved some more, we shall discuss this again."

This is the joy of both joining the rough and tumble of Japanese club life, and learning the language sufficiently to actually begin to try and converse. Things which previously I only ever could have learnt about in books written by dubious journalists are now open to me to learn for myself. Though it be slowly, it is through the kind and patient explanations of ordinary folk like Messrs I and Y that I shall learn my way around this strange and intriguing country. Kombat Kulcha indeed!