Journal lingqi's Journal: August 17th, 2004 6
August 17th, 2004 (7:02pm)
I have been staying here way too these days...
But darnit - I can feel my memories of the trip fading and I have to catch up on them; but yet a lot (well, not like a LOT, but a reasonable amount) has been happening in my normal life that I have not even begun on elaborating those...
So, in a summary mode:
The last two mondays I attended two separate driver's education courses, both for my speeding violation and has so far costed me ~30,000 yen. But enough about that - I am sure this is not the end of it. In any case, the one last week was for the beginner's - the one I should in fact not have been required to take, and this week was for the 6 points that I received. To be precise, yesterday's lecture was to reduce the 30-day suspension to a 1-day suspension.
It's an interesting arrangement - you get a 30 day suspension but you can reduce it my 29 days if you attend the one day lecture (which would happen to be the day you turn in your license, i.e. your first day of suspension) and score and "excellent" (34 out of 40) on a test afterwards. Scoring "good" (30 / 40) gets 25 days reduction and scoring "passable" (20/40) gets 20 days off, and "miserable failure" (less than 20) gets to take the test again, or something.
Before anybody goes off wondering how incredibly difficult such a feat is - let me tap with the enlightment wand which is that these are true/false questions. You should be able to guess your way out of at least 20 days off - and as much as the lesson is all japanese, the test comes in english too so getting "excellent" is not actually too difficult a task.
You also have to get an "excellent" rating in class attitude, but they didn't even list the other options, so I assume being really really quiet and grumpy would do the trick).
The facility is near Toro station, which itself is kind of like a modern suburb of... either Tokyo or Omiya. surrounding the driver's ed place is some school's brightly lit playfield, and a shopping center bright with newness. Nearby some tall apartment buildings, also newly erected, stand in groups of two or three - their fresh glistening paint shows through the palette of futons and knickknacks hanging on the balconies.
The reception was austere. The attendees are shoveled between a few tables, and eventually a line of the ground, made of white tape of some kind, lead ahead, around some corners and upstairs to the room where the lecture would be held. the line is highly reminescent of the lines as described my Asimov in the foundation series - though, being such a low tech substitute, is not anywhere near as awe-inspiring. The line ends and I arrive at the room.
The room had the world's most uncomfortable table and chairs. The tables were at most 35cm wide, and no more than a meter aross. the front of the table have a board hanging vertically which probably pevents the students from behind kicking those in front, accidentally or otherwise (ironically, this kick-prevention board have more area than the actual table surface). The chairs are fold-downs attached to the table behind, and leaves a very little room for one's body. Due to the design of the entire system, you cannot do anything except sit straight - and that includes crossing your legs in any way. I nostalgicly remembered of my Electrical engineering class (more like an auditorium) with movie theatre like seats, and how I used to fall asleep soundly in them.
The lecture was, as imaginable, boring as heck, but we did some interesting things - three to be exact: reaction time test, eye test, and actual driving simulation. The reaction test is kind of weird, there is this machine with a steering wheel and two buttons and two pedals and a screen, depending on the stuff displayed on the screen you should do some spastic movements as fast as possible, as a test on your reflexes. The simple one is where they display a red circle and you have to let go of your feet. the other is a combination - numbers circulate on screen, and if a miss comes up (skipped number, repeated number) you press a button, and shapes also flash on the screen, press pedal when X appears. It's harder than it sounds - though i have no idea how it relate to driving. maybe it's a test of "how fast can you downshift in an emergency" thing? the steering wheel would finally test some funkiness where you place this line between two a band on the screen but you cannot go over the other side and you have to place it within a rediculously short period of time. While I question the actual scientific values of all of these, I actually have to admit those were kind of fun.
Eye test didn't do much... In japan all the eye test signs are rings with a piece removed - the opening pointing either up, down, left, or right. As compared to the E that I was used to or the alphabet soup, it's an interesting change. I think it might be easier to calibrate compared to the alphabets.
Afternoon involved a driving test with a simulator. The simulator was made by mitsubishi (oh so scary) and the seats and shifter and instrument panel is an exact replica of a Galant. The actual simulation software, though, was based on maybe 1980 technology, with MAYBE 500 polygons on the entire scene. At least the seat was realistic.
During the test (oh, by the way, it's an open book test, and although the specified time is 20 minutes, you can take as long as you want) the instructor hovered by me and pointed to me section of the book where each of my unanswered questions refered to. A formality at most.
A week before the training consisted of fewer people but actual driving in actual vehicles. That was about the highlights of it. The actual driving involved some mad manuvers where the car would come between two sets of cones at 30kph straight toward another set placed at most 15-20 meters in front of the passage. Passing between the cones lead to a sensor to trip and a light in the far end lits, a green means you avoid the cones under your nose by going left and red to the right - there is very little room for this manuver, and we enjoyed ourselves by running through the said barrier cones. It was supposed to show the reflex delay between detection of danger and the time it needs for reaction to take place. It also showed why the training cars, only clocking in at 30,000km on the odometer, felt like they have been abused through the majority of this century.
Other various things:
* On the 7th I saw a musical called Haiji - the young girl from the alps. I saw it mostly as a pity for the performers because the ticket did not sell very well (and a famous person, Mihara Junko, was supposed to star in it and 1,800 yen to see her musical was supposed to be a steal). It turned out to be a completely children's play, and I sat amongst an ocean of pre-school children and their moms, feeling all weird and out of place for 2 hours. The day was also of the heaviest rain I have encountered since I came to Japan: on my way to Tatebayashi, lightening fell what seems like only the next block over - and immediately a splitting thunder would crack through the sky, echoing among the thick clouds and disappearing, only to be followed by another. Rain poured like flood. The weather continued for some time and while I was in the theater and the musical switch to some heart felt moment between Haiji and her grandfather, the thunder rolling outside and in the background actually made it feel like I was watching King Lear. The story itself is very similar to The Secret Garden but not terribly worth writing about. Probably the most amusing thing is that the musical had a few key characters and then these four poor girls filling in every other spot, from dancing ballerinas to keep the audience from becoming bored during set-change to maids in the house to sheep frolicing on the alps (are there sheep on the alps?)... They crawled aronud on their hands and knees for the better part of the sheep scene and I really kind of feel sorry for them. I am sure whatever that does to their knees is not good for the pirouettes they'd have to do during the next scene change.
* Last saturday was this year's Kumagaya fireworks festival. The weather, being much better than last year, allowed for a much better view even from afar. Almost all of my pictures tured out not in focus, however, so nothing worth showing.
* After obon festival it is official autumn, and the weather reflects that. Overnight (literally), the weather changed from blazing hot to this temperate autumn. The sun still tries hard to excert its prowess and the days sometimes gets moderately warm (~32) but the mornings and evenings already show dew and it will only progress from there. The rice stalks are also bending down by the weight of the year's fruition.
Also some comments about the Olympics...
I think I have seen maybe six events about the olympics on japanese TV. Lots of Judo, some swimming (where one of their guys got a gold for men's backstroke 200, I think), table tennis with their 15 year old ai-chan who has a tendency of becoming tearful when the game isn't going as planned. Other than than, brief segments of Soccer, baseball, and Volley ball...
I guess every country is all about showing programs in which their own team is expected to do well.
BUT there are some interesting things amongst this: The game between Ai Fukuhara and Miao Miao (representing austrian) is repeatedly broadcasted here, probably because it was such a tight one - but after the first few rounds didn't go very well, one can almost see her trying really hard to hold back the tears that would otherwise be pouring down her cheeks. Miao Miao's expression during this first two rounds were of amusement, but then progressively turned to frustration as Fukuhara's true strengths caught up and won the whole game by a hair. What's with table tennis haveing so many chinese? Half the countries on there have players of chinese ancestry.
At the mean time, there were soooo many judo matches being broadcasted. Japan is obviously expected to do well, as it's her sport (just like US should be shameful if beach volleyball went south). Japan got second in Women's 52kg, which actually was kind of a shock - the semifinals Yokosawa defeated Savon in _the_last_second_ and that was also replayed many times... However, after her silver medal she was seen on TV no more. A culture thing, I guess...
The musical was "Heidi" (Score:2)
Dunno how much the story has been rewritten for Japanese, as I hear the current NHK anime "Poirot and Mrs Marples" has the lead character as a girl with a pet duck...
Oh, and BTW, if you're interested in theatre and dance, you should really try to get to Takarazuka Review once - they play in Toky
Takarazuka (Score:2)
The programs
Olympics...I can't stand that table tennis girl! (Score:2)