by ·Comments Off on Snow!!
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Tokyo rarely has snow.This the view down my street this morning. It dumped down last night and will probably snow all day. It is so pretty!
〓Tracey〓

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The French blogging community is currently abuzz following announcement that a high school principal, whose blog had reached a fair amount of popularity in its time, had been officially revoked due solely to his blogging activities.

Now, a few of you are probably incensed at such blatant disrespect for civil liberties, all the while wondering how you say “first amendment” in French, while others will object that employers are free to do what they want and getting dooced nowadays is hardly newsworthy stuff.

Here is where both would be wrong and what makes this situation very particular:

First off, being a school principal in France means being directly employed by the government as a civil servant (the infamous fonctionnaires). This work status implies an incredible number of particularities, both advantages and constraints. For instance, such employment cannot be terminated for any reasons other than gross misconduct on the part of the employee who is otherwise guaranteed a job for life. On the other hand, working for the State and being, in essence, representatives of the State, employees are held to what the French call “devoir de réserve“: an obligation to remain loyal to the State’s institutions and not harm its standing by one’s declarations or actions in public. Doing so being the one major ground for losing your job and status.

Ironically, this ground for termination, commonly used in countries where average work contracts do not require anything more than a notice anyway, would land any private company foolish enough to use it here in very hot water (ever heard of French labor laws? They make US HR execs wake up in a puddle of cold sweat in the middle of the night). If you are the government, though: it’s ok.

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Will you help a homesick gaijin cum starving Parisian student get back with the food, drinks and music he loves?

Any assistance on where to find the items below, subject to reward in the form of a free homemade dinner (sexual favours to be considered on a case-by-case basis only).

Bonus points for stores conveniently located close to 6th arrondissement (yea, yea: anything will do, but just in case).

  • Rice cooker: will soon die of starvation if I don’t get one. Was told to check out Chinese grocery stores… Haven’t seen any at Tang Frères… Specifics, anybody?
  • Fresh shiitake mushrooms: Japanese grocery store rue St Anne only carries the dried kind… Also sure the Chinese have that: how the hell do you say “shiitake” in Chinese?
  • Fresh kinugoshi tofu: Same as above (only have very bland vacuum-sealed stuff). Tell me somebody in France is making fresh tofu out of all these GM soybeans.
  • Yellow curry paste: address of a cheap Thai grocery store anybody? (Please don’t reply “somewhere in the 13th arrondissement”: have you seen the 13th arrondissement on a map lately? it’s big).
  • Cranberry juice: WhoWhat does a girl need to do, in order to get a proper Cosmo around here?
  • Glock 10 mm. or S&W .44 in working order: to be used as teaching material in my upcoming class: Neighbouring Relations 101 – “How Much Noise is Too Much Noise at 3 in the Morning?”.
  • Used audio amp & speakers: cheapness is of the essence here, seeing how I recently unloaded 30k yens of audio material on miscellaneous friends and not about to do the same here in six months.

by ·Comments Off on Mailbox Lessons of the Day

Lesson 1

Labeling to your name, a mailbox for which you turn out not to have the key: not a bright idea.

Lesson 2

With a piece of tape and a coat hanger, stealing mail from a mailbox is frighteningly easy.

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Am I the one with a sick mind, or would you also do a double take if, opening one of France’s leading newspaper, you glanced upon a headline reading something along the line of “Diddle: Little Girl’s Favorite”?

And just in case you thought it might be yet another unfortunate semantic collision between unrelated words in separate dialects, the article promptly informs you that it is to be pronounced in the English fashion (“dideul”, does it read in French).

And you thought Engrish would end with Japan…

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My two resolutions for 2006:

  1. Buy 200-page refill for Little Black Notebook of Hate.
  2. Append to said notebook, names of all those who have started the year wittily announcing: “My resolution for this year is not to take any resolution”.

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I think I may have, ahem, hinted at it in past entries, but let me spell it out for the benefit of the slower ones:

I am now living in Paris: P. A. R. E. E. S!

Yep, that means no more upskirt keitai shots of underage japanese schoolgirls. Not that there were any in the first place, but how could I resist the pleasure of one last Google keywords showdown. Actually, there might still be a few views of Nippon, gently contributed by our in-house Samurai and the ever cat-obsessed Tracey dearest, but still a massive slow-down from the old rate.

In exchange, all I can promise you is a bunch of tired rants on the French, their capital city, their greasy foods and promiscuous ways.

More of the former than the latter at the moment.

Understandably, some of you might feel shafted with the deal and turn your back on this page… To those people, I have this to say:

First of all, know that I won’t be missing your fickle, treacherous, back-stabbing excuse for a readership one least bit. Second, you may want to consider the fact that my current residency will only last six months, to be replaced by a potentially much more exciting destination: unsubscribe now and you may be missing out on all the fun then. Third and last for now: pleeeaase don’t go! Oh reader! soul of my life, salt of my existence! I need you so… I promise I’ll do my best to keep posting about cat-ear-wearing people and crazy language hijinx, even if I have to make them up. Just don’t leave me now.

A few random things of note so far:

  • In France, the letter ‘C’ on heaters and taps, stands for Hot (whereas Cold is ‘F’). Will you guess how many shivering morning wake-ups and boiling hot showers yours truly has had so far?
  • Whoever elected France as the country of all things gastronomical, never had to find the ingredients to a proper breakfast in a local supermarket: I had forgotten how unduly hard it was to find something as simple as bacon here. And no, I don’t want “smoked ham”, nor “diced bacon” with my eggs, I want plain crispy bacon goodness and it’s so far dearly missing from my morning table.
  • The biggest matchmaking service in France is called CUM. I am not making that up. In subways, in magazines, everywhere: you got huge ads inviting you to log onto CUM.fr or touting CUM as your gateway to a perfect relationship…

More to come soon, be sure of that…