Hi there folks,

I've been procrastinating about writing but I feel it's time...

I'm pretty much settled into Kyoto/English teaching/part-time musician life now,
so I'm going to write very briefly about my impressions and experiences after 2
months here...

NOVA - NOVAcation, NOVAlue, Network Of Voluntary Alcoholics
I'm teaching 40 hours a week, 8x40 minute lessons a day with a 10 minute
notes/prep time in between, which at first was quite stressful but is now just
routine and from experienced teachers looks potentially boring. For now I'm
having fun and trying to make the most of it for me and my students, who are a
great bunch of people. There are high school kids, college students, part-time
workers, office workers, bus drivers, housewives, salarymen, retired folks and
everyone else who can't really be categorised. They speak English at all levels
from complete beginners ("Hello, How are you? I'm fine, Nice to meet you.") to
very advanced speakers, with whom we do skimming & scanning exercises, tricky
turns of phrase and idioms, and have "focussed discussions" and so on.
The acronyms above refer to : NOVAcation - I'll get 10 days paid holiday/year
after 6 months service and no paid sick days;
: NOVAlue - it's quite expensive for the students and it's very much
factory/routine education (but we do the best we can with what the company
provides);
: Network Of Voluntary Alcoholics - after 5 days of being really cheerful and
putting it out there you feel like a drink!

MUSIC - Hooray!
Yes my weekends have been pretty great. I've been playing lots of Indian
classical music, although I'm missing the cross-cultural stuff we were getting
up to in Brisbane; hopefully that will come with time. My first musical comrade
here was Christophe Rossi, a French sitar player of 8 years experience who was
also a Munna House, Varanasi, resident (long-time readers of this list will know
that I stayed in the same place in Varanasi last year). We've done one concert
together so far and I usually play with him every week, which is very
refreshing. He has a very peaceful style. I've also met 2 other sitar players
from Osaka - Tanaka Minehiko, who's been playing for 20 years and likes to play
in every taal (rhythm) other than good old 16 beat teentaal, and Junichi Osako,
who's also a Varanasi boy and plays quite fast and intensely for his 6 years'
experience. Last week I also had the pleasure of playing with Carlos Guerre, a
Spanish Kyoto resident Bansuri (bamboo flute) player of 20 years experience -
wow what a musician! Really beautiful music! He was very complimentary to me
which was quite an ego massage coming from such a talented and experienced
musician.

I've also attended a couple of Indian classical music concerts in a local
Buddhist temple - a really beautiful setting for this type of music, with its'
Zen garden and ornate altar. The most recent concert was amazing - Carlos
Guerre along with a couple of Varanasi musicians on pakhawaj and sarangi.
Really inspiring!

On the other hand I've also been checking out a bit of the local experimental
music scene and one of the really big things here, it seems, is loops & effects.
One guy I've seen a couple of times is Ryusei, a 6 string fretless bass player
who builds up layers of sound into a diverse range of soundscapes and
jazzy/funky grooves. I've also met an American electronic musician with whom I
may produce some stuff - he's also been on a recording mission to India so we
have some ideas in common.

KYOTO
All up Kyoto is a pretty nice place to live. It's surrounded by forested
mountains so unlike nearby Osaka (1 hour away by train) you don't feel swallowed
up in an urban nightmare. In my first week I took a walk in the mountains and
it was really beautiful - I was surprised to find such a beautiful natural place
so near to my home. BUT I've been too busy since then to repeat the experience.

What else - trains that run every 7 minutes and are always on time, hordes of
office workers, cool college students and "freetas" (part-time workers with free
time) wearing great clothes, school girls in short skirts and makeup that would
never be allowed in Australia, lots of Japanese food and a real shortage of Thai
and Vietnamese food... Things don't seem as expensive as I expected although
that's because I'm earning enough to live easily - and in fact Japanese food
like miso, umeboshi plums, seaweed, tofu, etc is all cheaper than in Australia.
I'm still eating heaps of fruit for breakfast! The weather is getting very hot
and humid, just like a Brisbane summer. The thing is when I got here in April
the weather was just like Brisbane winter! So Brisbane's year of weather
happens in 2 months here!

I've been studying Japanese hard and I'm quite proud of what I've achieved - I'm
now exchanging emails in Hiragana with the help of a dictionary and having short
conversations here and there. I reckon I'll be somewhat fluent by the time I
leave next year, and I can get back into Hindi again with some good language
learning/teaching experience to help me out when I get there. I'm hoping that
within 10 years I'll be fully fluent in both languages. :-)

Enough for now,
Love to all,
Shen
Aum Mani Padme Hum


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