Music

In addition to witnessing my first attempts at skiing, this last month has also been an interesting one musically.

Jessica and I saw Coldplay in concert a few weeks ago at this massive arena in Saitama, the prefecture north of Tokyo, and last week I saw Jason Mraz perform in Shibuya. I had a great time at both shows, even if neither got really rowdy. Chris Martin is great, but he’s just not good for rocking out to. (The great Coldplay pics are courtesy of Jessica).

At work, I’ve spent a lot of time this last month shaking, dancing, wiggling, jumping, hopping, flying, eating, and running my sillies out [Raffi, my apologies for bastardizing your song]. I also taught my older classes the Cookie Jar song, which I didn’t think they’d like, but it’s about the only thing they want to do now. I added an extra dimension to the song by having all the kids close their eyes and put their heads down on their desks before the song; then, I hide a cardboard cookie on one of their desks. After the moment in the song when the alleged cookie heister is accused “Yes, you!” that person checks inside his/her desk, and if no cookie is found, the person responds with the traditional “Couldn’t be!” and the song continues until the perpetrator is correctly identified; if a cookie is discovered in the desk, the student screams “Yea, me!” and the song ends. I continue to be shocked by how long this is able to entertain a group of 10 year-olds.

The Cookie Jar song has actually proven to be a welcome respite from the endless playing of this one boy-band song that seems to have put on repeat by every radio station in Japan over the last few months. I hear it at every bar, in the ramen shop, and on the sumo wrestlers’ iPods. I can even hear it when I’m teaching in class—one of the mothers has it as her cell phone ring, and her phone seems to go off every five minutes. I’m so tempted to do as I used to do with my Sunday School 7th graders—take away her phone and make her parents get it back from me, but I’m sure there’s a rule against that in Japan.

Enjoy 扉 ("Tobira") by GReeeN. That's actually the name of the band, and this is actually the music video. And no, despite what's in the video, the band members are not 4 white guys. For reasons I don't entirely understand, the band members have never shown their faces and refuse to reveal their true identities—something about not wanting to get distracted while studying for dental school exams. Oh, Japan...

I'm not sure if I was the only one who noticed, but hearing Chris Martin belt out "you were all yellow!" in a crowded arena in Japan just didn't seem very p.c.