Know anyone gone mad here?

[hidflect]

I can't fault him, because cages here are so easily rattled and so badly in need of rattling.

No kidding. Godda admire his bells to dress like that. I was a bitoffa nightclub debutante and developed a (not so irrational) loathing of the way everyone wears black in nightclubs. It's a real cowards colour. Blend in, make no mistakes, look cool, yadayada. So I went to some 3 storey grand nightclub palicade holding @1500 black-clad lost souls in Hamamatsucho (now defunct) wearing an off-white suit a la Mark Twain (or so I thought). Fckme! I had people from below coming up to me and swearing in my face or banging into me... Though' I would'na make it out the door alive, man... (slight exaggeration).

[String]

I once saw an old guy in the Haagen Dazs in Shibuya who was either nuts or highly belligerent. He asked if the second floor was open, and when the clerk said no he threw his ice cream against the wall and in excellent Japanese accused her of being a racist and called her kuzu. He was as nasty as he seemed to be able to muster, but the young clerk handled it with complete dignity. Then again, you wouldn't have to work in that area very long before you'd have seen it all.

Mental note: If it ever comes to throwing ice cream in a fit of rage, it's time to go home.

I haven't been here long, but I've seen crazy looking foreigners on the street (although I've seen far more crazy looking Japanese people). I did speak to one on the phone who was on his way, however. I work for a small 7act type company doing private English lessons. In the beginning before I had a lot of students I would help out at the "office" (read: studio apartment) with various tasks for an hourly wage. One day I was taking calls from teachers who wanted to work for the company. A guy from Minnesota who had been in Japan for about 5 years called up and we had a very friendly chat, but when I told him that the company generally requires the teachers to have cell phones, he said, "Boy, I've been descriminated against for a lot of things, but never for not having a cell phone!" He tried really hard to sound friendly as he said it but in his voice I could hear the paranoid angst that was slowly taking him over.

[altar]

I've always noticed a high percentage of mentally instable within the Japan-enthusiasts. There are the martial artists who start loosing it because things don't turn out to be what they had expected. Boy they can go off within weeks!
I had a fascinating conversation with the guy who was in charge at the French Embassy of repatriating such cases. The culture choc effect can occur very soon and be extremely spectacular. He had worked previously in India and had observed the exact same phenomenon. FGs in Japan start acting like they were Edo era samurais, satori endowed synchretic prophets, or simply turn completely paranoid and aggressive. In India they get all spiritual and have to be caught running in the streets yelling or living like untouchables.
There are 2 funny things though: first the symptoms generally disappear very quickly once the FG is sent back to his own cultural environment. Second is that it works both ways: dozens of F**'d Japanese are repatriated each year from France after having been caught running in fields naked claiming they were reincarnations of Van Gogh...
huhuhuhu!

[groovewonder]

Mental note: If it ever comes to throwing ice cream in a fit of rage, it's time to go home.

I don't know... sounds like fun to me! I'm pretty sure I'm gradually going more and more crazy with every new day I've been in Japan, but I've been here abt. 2 decades so far and haven't gone completely mad yet (IMHO), so I think I might be ok. But I definitely felt more sane in America.

I attribute it to the amount of alcohol Okinawan's drink. My competitive spirit always drives me to be the last man standing (or stumbling) at a nomikai.

Everytime I go to Osaka I'm amazed at how early the izakaya's close out there. In Okinawa, the izakaya's are open from 5 to 5 even if there are no customers. Osaka is what? 5 to 12? Geezus!

[Taro Toporific]

....Everytime I go to Osaka I'm amazed at how early the izakaya's close out there. In Okinawa, the izakaya's are open from 5 to 5 even if there are no customers. Osaka is what? 5 to 12? Geezus!

Last train and waking-to-suck-the-corporate-tittie "is what" that is.

[Buraku]

just met another a few weeks back,
total nutcase

[Greji]

just met another a few weeks back,
total nutcase

Met another what? FG, nutcase? What part of the deep inaka are you in Buraku? Is it only inhabited by you and the dog? In downtown Tokyo, if I don't meet a minimum of at least one nutcase before I get to the train station, it's going to be a bad day!

You don't see as many true dingers among the FGs, because we get sorted out pretty fast and if you don't have anybody that you can go home to or who will tell the authorities that they will look after you, the embassy will see that you are on the plane and gone forthwith (yesterday if not sooner!!) No country wants that image of their citizens (actually its one of the few times that embassies will go overboard to help an FG out of town!

[kurohinge1]

. . . In downtown Tokyo, if I don't meet a minimum of at least one nutcase before I get to the train station, it's going to be a bad day! . . .

What about that crazy guy you see in the bathroom each morning . . .

[Charles]

I may be going mad right now. My town unleashed a high volume rock concert in the city park right next door, my house is the closest home to the stage. For the last two hours, I have been subjected to Charlie Daniels shit-kickin dixie rawk, so loud my walls are shaking. I am shaking.

Excuse me mister Charlie Fucking Daniels and your suthern dixie rawk band, the Civil War is over and you lost. We were on the NORTHERN side, my state sent an all-volunteer force of tens of thousands of men, and we KICKED YOUR REDNECK ASSES. Oh if only it were the Civil War NOW, you would be shot on sight.

[kurohinge1]

. . . My town unleashed a high volume rock concert in the city park right next door, my house is the closest home to the stage. For the last two hours, I have been subjected to Charlie Daniels shit-kickin dixie rawk . . .

4th Fest: Day 3

Calendar of events:

All Day: Hollywood Cowboy Display at City Hall
Marriott Hotel Art Show at City Hall

10:30 am: Children's Museum & City Circle Acting - Creating Seussical

Noon: Carnival by Superior Equipment

Noon: Weide Pony rides

Noon: Jorgenson's Exotic Acres Petting Zoo

12:45 pm: Coralville Library Stories in the Park

4 pm: Food Vendors

4 - 9 pm: American Legion Bingo at Hilltop Shelter

5 - 7 pm: Hollywood Cowboy Autograph Session

6 pm: Euforquestra Band

8 pm: FREE CONCERT - The Charlie Daniels Band

Man, Pony rides AND Bingo!

[Ol Dirty Gaijin]

Noon: Jorgenson's Exotic Acres Petting Zoo

Al Jorgenson?!?! Maybe there will be someone to throw the shit-kickers shit back.