Ch-ch-ch-changes

iPod morning commute music: David Bowie, Singles 1969-1993 (disc 1)
One of the sad truths of my youth is I didn't like challenging music. I liked The Beatles, The Stones, Bob Dylan. I did not like David Bowie. I liked some of his songs, but I didn't like the image of the man himself. I didn't like his dresses. Happily, I grew out of this over time (a remastered Ziggy won me over). This two-disc set is absolutely superb. Highly recommended.

Changes: Hmm...I'll have been in Japan for 22 years next month, 20 of them at my current school. There have been so many changes over that time. Most of you who will read this know me, and I you, and we've seen a lot of those changes as personal, the aging process. Dylan's wonderful album Time out of Mind was really one of the first to address this musically, though of course this has been a part of literature forever (Timequake by Vonnegut, Closing Time by Heller which I'm reading now having just finished Catch 22, come immediately to mind). Probably those of us with kids would have to say raising children brought on a huge change in our lives. I remember wondering how my parents could have been wise enough to raise children as I certainly knew I didn't have a clue. Then Tatsu was born, and 6 months later I woke up and realized that my life had really changed. And I realized that, just as I was winging it with child rearing, so had my parents.

But apart from personal change, I've seen a lot of change in Japan itself, especially change which affects foreigners in Japan. In the '80s and '90s, Japan really had to open her markets to foreign goods. Foods you could never get suddenly appeared: Good cheese, sour cream, cheap beef, cheap alcohol (when I first arrived, wine and whisky were WAY overpriced as they were mainly given as gifts, and so a high price tag was considered prestigious...popping that old bubble economy changed that way of thinking). Satellite TV suddenly opened the door to English television programming; the first season of Six Feet Under just finished on Sky/Perfect TV, and while the last season has concluded in the States, we are just pleased to have it here at all. When I first got here, we had as English programming NHK's 7:00 evening news, the occasional movie, the Rose Bowl, the Super Bowl, the World Serious (pun intended), and re-runs of Mannix (sp), a highlight of our afternoons. The Internet obviously opened up a means of communication those living far from home needed. Now, with my IP phone, I can call the States for about 2 cents a minute, cheaper than a local call.

People often wonder how I could stay in Japan for so long, but life's gotten easier as technology has progressed. An American (ie, English language) lifestyle is possible here, and far easier to obtain than a Japanese lifestyle in America.