How to Raise a Dragon (child)

How to Raise a Dragon (or child) or dragon-child.

Yes, kids at times can be annoying, ever so slightly I admit.

This title is a spin on a kid’s movies. Also, because its talking about Asian kids I’m associating them with Dragons. Because at least in China everyone wants to raise a Dragon (and perhaps ride one too), which is where my story comes into play (kind of).

Id like to point out a scientific point of "symbiosis" in that kind of relationship. You can raise the dragon and in turn it lets you ride it.  

Its a perfect relationship. Maybe if you pull its tail it will spit fire too and in turn it gets BBQ meat. Everyone wins except for the people being turned into BBQ I suppose.

Now back to raising kids and less about Dragons (unless you are interested then FYI I'm on the hunt of one now. I found some burnt cows, nothing left but teeth. Wish me luck. This might be my last blogpost if things don't go well).

Now back to the blogpost at hand!

Kids can be terrors, if you don’t know, you can take my word for it.
Most of you one day will create life and with it, its power! (and terror too!)

I feel like you will make Frankenstein based on the terror part. You probably won't (I hope). Unless you are Donald Trump. Then you may be trying to make a Lex Luthor child to rule the world and destroy SUPERMAN! (but that's a question to be asked at the next Republican primary, haha). Mr.Trump, should you be reading this its just a joke, I apologize if its in bad taste, but don't sue me for my billions (of pennies.......... ......again!)

Incase you didn’t know I have two children

(I guess the rumour is out I’m no Mary Magdalene) unless the children were immaculately conceived .....again!  I like adding "again" to things, makes it doubly as funny.

Kids. They are entertaining. This sounds like the right kind of teacher to have. I don't recall mine ever doing it.

Our children are of two worlds like Spock (from Star Trek. You know the dude with pointy ears!)

As you know Spock is half human and half Vulcan. No my children are not aliens from another world, but they are from two cultures, or perhaps three one might say. As the margarita's are in James Bond, shaken not stirred! (or martini's, whatever it is)

Momma is Chinese Canadian which means her side is into Dragons, daddies side mixed European (from the time of the big bang) but became typical Caucasian Canadian which means beavers and lumberjacks (that sounds very wrong somehow).

We both studied and lived in Japan, so that's our adopted culture (Ninja's, Samurai and Hello Kitty).

Somewhere in the middle we raise our kids. As it sounds, its an interesting mix.

Right and wrong may be subjective, depending on the culture. Some things are exact opposites.

In our case, we hug and kiss our children a lot. Use expressions like "I love you'. If I were in Japan I might say "you dishonor me", "you shame your family and its past generations". That's a heavy helping of sarcasm fyi, but its not an outright lie. There is an extra burden in Japan, of not only representing oneself, but of the family, the name and the legacy. One small slip of the domino and the chain reaction occurs.

If it were Japan distancing ourselves emotionally might be the preferred option. In ancient times teaching them how to be Samurai (now somewhat too) and live by the Samurai code (and go around slicing sh$t too). That's only a little sarcasm, the slicing sh%t is fun.
I've never enjoyed physically harming people (unless they are choking me in Judo, then I rage, till I pass out).
Having tight control over what children do, including the seriousness attached to study might be more important in Chinese and Japanese cultures than "typical" Canadian.
Life is short (unless you are immortal), so why not enjoy? I rather they have fun and play then locked in their room studying and memorizing useless stats (that's what the internet is for, well and for porn of course).

We could lock them in their room to study but I prefer they read nonsensical books like Thomas, play with Lego, go outside to step on anthills (not those fire ants, they hurt), burn sh%t with magnifying glasses etc. I used to do the last two. I also peed on Lego onetime (indoors). I hope the person's Lego it was, isn't reading this, but he might be. Sorry about that, we do stupid things when we are kids (15 years old?)
That's the way I want them to grow up (except for peeing on LEGO, that was not funny at the time, Although I do laugh about it now).

Beating kids is not nice nor does it instill in them kindness and love. I've met a few Chinese parents of the beating persuasion and I was not impressed. I wondered if they would like it if someone would do that to them. Maybe I'll choke them with a Judo move (and those MOFO's will pass out).
Unfortunately a lot of us are recycling the way we were brought up. The mold is set one might say.

I recall onetime witnessing a Japanese child get hit on their head during a meal. I had already told him from my point of view what he had done is nothing (playing mahjong at school), so what's the worst that could happen. After he got hit a few times in the ears and head I realized that was only in my culture not his. Whoops! I think I shouldn't have told him no problem. I should have said "Dude you are fu#(ked".

I also heard stories of children getting hit on the hands with chopsticks when they didn't listen.
It seems to be we all have a choice, raising a child with love and in turn will treat you with respect, or you can punish them with pain and they fear you (that sounds like some deep Nietzsche right there. Don't get it? Look him up).

For me the fear and pain to the child I created with my DNA, is not an option.
If I found out, the child was the milkman's, I might recant that statement. HA!

Uh OK, seems like a good note to leave the blospost ending on. And no it wasn't written by me (again!).

If you found anything above amusing or even slightly funny help me out and click one of those boxes above or give me a Google +1 or something. Might come in handy in the future.

My Youtube Channel, wearing red tights and jumping around as Deadpool (but I say Dadpool to avoid copyright. Smarter than I look!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUXxArlapy0

Other funny stories from this blog 

http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related/ and maybe less amusing )

http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/ 

My Youtube Channel (makes no sense just like my blog)

http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva

Tentacles and Testicles yum!

 Tentacles and Testicles yum!

A lot of Japanese think Gaijin (foreigners) are weird. And let’s face it, they aren’t wrong.

If you’ve lived in Japan, you would probably agree that they are more than a few messed up gaijin. By a few, I mean like as in almost all. Very few normal. Most are completely off their rocker.

They aren't just weird to the people of Japan. They are weird to me too. I wouldn't be caught dead being friends with a lot of them in Canada. This is the story of one of those types of individuals.

For some reason Japan is like a magnet for weird gaijin.

They are attracted to Japan like slugs are to beer (only faster! And that’s a useful tip about slugs should you be having problems with them in your garden, they get drunk and die).

So why do the weirdos conjugate in Japan?

That’s a question that’s hard to answer. but I think it has to do with a wide variety of fetishes.

In my case the apple didn’t fall from the tree.

I thought I was a samurai and could carry a sword around and occasionally fight ninja. To my dismay, neither exist anymore (total bummer). I did carry a broom stick around and pretended it was a sword a few times. I contemplated pretending I was Harry Potter and riding a broomstick too, but then I remembered I'm not six years old (another bummer!).

On the other side of the spectrum (or street), you will find people who have a fetish for anything, Be it manga, anime, cosplay, videos games, Japanese girls, tea, martial arts. Whatever floats your boat as they say.  

Japan has something to offer every nerd, weirdo or nut.

I remember about a guy who was sitting with a bunch of girls at a bar (my wife with him. She’s not Japanese by the way). While the girls were in mid talk he said “Does anyone like tentacle porn?”. I can’t imagine someone with a correctly functioning brain saying that. He must have had a few screws loose. I guess he already wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed.

I thought common sense dictates you don’t ask a girl if they like porn. Chances are they don’t. And even if they do they aren't going to tell you. And tentacles? Common dude. Why would a girl like tentacles? You are into some weird stuff (might I offer you a broomstick and you can pretend you are Harry Potter?).

Not the kind of stuff I'm into, but other people are.

As for tentacle porn you would have to be pretty mentally sick to be into that (I wasn't. For once I wasn't into something demented). I had to look it up and I wasn't really sure what it meant, but after reading about it, its worse than I could have imagined.

Its just tentacles and porn. And by tentacles I mean like octopus tentacles and just the tentacles in sexual acts, seriously its twisted, more twisted than a pretzel (lame joke I know).

And this gruesome question asked to five lovely ladies. Pfffft!!!

I guess the tentacles was the fetish that attracted him to Japan.

I knew he was pretty messed up but I can’t blame him a lot of people were. I knew some dudes who were playing Warhammer 2909 and dungeons and dragons in their closets and they were adults. Not cool.

Sadly I went down this road and am scarred (and scared too) for life.

On a side-note which has nothing to do with this story except the word octopus tentacles.

I was at a restaurant one time and they had a menu with limited English. All seemed well until I came to tako wasa, octopus tentacles which was translated as octopus testicles.

I wasn't sure I wanted to test it incase the English translation was correct.

I ate it anyways. It tasted what I imagined testicles to taste like.

A rubbery texture like skin and takes a lot of chewing.  

Gross.

Is this what your children are playing with? Better than eating them raw.

My Youtube Channel, wearing red tights and jumping around as Deadpool (but I say Dadpool to avoid copyright. Smarter than I look!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUXxArlapy0

Other funny stories from this blog 
http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related)
http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/ 


My Youtube Channel (makes no sense just like my blog)
http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva

Yoga on The Sun, Sorta

As we arrived in Japan the weather hit me like a session of hot yoga. The heat at 40 C (I don’t know that in Fahrenheit for our American friends but its about as hot as the sun). Like yoga you are sweating in the heat and your body is in weird positions. In Japan, you fit yourself into packed trains, buses, and shove your bags into any crevices available. And sweat like butter melting in a frying pan.

After the initial arrival at the airport, we all crammed into a bus like sardines in a can (does anyone enjoy my numerous similes? Cause I do). That's a big word look it up.

"Nothing to see here, we can put a few more on. Find a spot folks."

If their intention was to wow and woo us with their incredible hotel & amazing views, they did a stellar job. I was bedazzled (like Brendan Frazier in the movie Bedazzled). The only thing that would have been nicer would be air conditioning between the bus and the hotel so I didn't keep sweating.

Who knew the devil looked this good. Hot! Like yoga ;-)

I knew there were many personalities in the types of gaijin (foreigner) about to embark to the land of the rising sun (that’s supposed to be poetic and it means Japan if you didn't know). I just didn't know what kind of personalities I would run into.

When I came from Canada I had been lucky enough that I had some friends from my University going to Japan on the same program. I guess I hit oil cause I was double lucky. My initials matched one of my friends. The seats were picked according to alphabetical order. So I got to sit with him.

There is a reason I'm telling you this, don’t worry, just keep rolling with it.

Once at the hotel, it happened the rooms were also chosen by country and alphabetical order, so again my friend was in my room. I thought it was going to be awesome until I realized there were 2 beds and a roll-away bed (cot), but only two of us. “Hells no!” I'm not taking the roll-away. It will damage my spine and hip alignment (although in all fairness I had not yet cracked my ribs and spine so I may have been OK. Refer to other blogposts to understand). 
I jumped in one bed and threw all my stuff on it with my shoes on (ha!), I'm a jerk as you know. They didn't have dog poo on them (this time mwahahahaa evil laugh).

One minute later a gigantic dude walked into the room, sweating worse than me. By gigantic I mean, like an Ogre from Lord of the Rings. The body odour was the worst I've ever experienced (rather like an Ogre’s actually). I considered throwing up into my hands then smelling it, in hopes it might smell better. Purify his putrid stench (more poetry terms).

We received a large package of training events. It said something along the lines of mandatory attendance please join eight out of ten events.

I didn't think it should be trouble for me as I had lived in Japan before. As for the other people, they were like a fish out of a pond (I seriously love these similes, I may write a book about them).

My friend in my room informed me he would probably sleep due to jet-lag and lots of drinking on the plane so he was skipping the events (he said ideally for the whole three days).

After one day of easy “you will have the worst culture shock ever course” I went to the free lunch. I love free everything as you know. Its the bane of my existence. I headed to lunch, but none of my friends were around (sleeping or drinking perhaps) and I didn't have anyone to sit with. I was the uncool kid wanting to sit with the cool kids. I saw one table with people full of smiles (Canadians maybe!?). I headed to the table. I couldn't guess where they were from by looking, but as soon as the Southern drawl (accent) from Texas came out, I knew where two of them were from.

Our main course came out which happened to be Japanese curry and rice. If you don’t know what it is, it’s basically Indian curry, but not strong and no spicy flavour to it.

“I don’t wanna be eating this mud. I thought those Japanese eat sushi”, she said. Oh lord, she is in for a surprise I snickered. 
‘I expected the Samurai’s to greet us and all ya’ll”, she said. She said that with a straight face I might add.

I almost spat my curry out, is this girl for real? It was delicious and I didn't want to waste it. Who says that? I was grabbing at the curry sauce splashing out my of cheeks and pushing it back into my mouth.
She sounded a bit riceist to me (that's a lame joke, sorry. Curry and rice so go with it).

On top of that I had never heard anyone used both all and ya’ll in combination. Sounded abnormal. I know I was about to be an English teacher and my English sucks, but look at her.

I shut my mouth and ate my curry while enjoying the show. Everyone introduced themselves and one of the “all ya’ll” Texas girls stated she had never been out of Texas and this was her first visit internationally. Someone piped up even Canada? (A Canadian probably) and she stated no not even there.

I didn't see her again although I heard through the grapevine later (through another Texan) that she made it for two months then went back to Texas. Ouch!

I should have known, if she expects Samurai and only sushi 24/7 she came to the wrong place.

As for my friend, he didn't attend any courses and he asked me to write down his name on some of the attendance sheets so it appeared he was there. Smart guy.

He started to go out drinking at nights and he ended up getting stuck with the roll-away. I pitied his hips and spine alignment.

I thought it was funny, so the last night when he came back from drinking I took what I thought were empty beer bottles and surround him with them while he was sleeping. It was hilarious and I took pictures.

But it turns out a few of them had beer in them though, so he got covered in beer and so did his bed.

He probably thought he peed himself and I didn't tell him the truth.

Ha! I enjoyed thoroughly.

As a bonus his beer pee smell counter attacked the sweaty ogre's smell.

If you see this dude in your room, hold your breath. Or get someone to pee on their bed to mask the flavour and scent.



Other funny stories from this blog 
http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related)
http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/


My Youtube Channel (makes no sense just like my blog)
http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva

Kendo, it stinks! Literally!

 Kendo, it stinks! Literally!

To make it more interesting let's use live metal blades and no padding. Now, that would show who is the Last Samurai!

If you’ve ever seen The Last Samurai, you probably thought sword fighting is the coolest thing ever. Little boys no matter what country use sticks, brooms and pens to battle each other. I was never that good at it as a kid. I used to get hit, so I’d run and throw my sword or in this case my stick at them.
The moto “stand and fight” never stuck well with me, I always prefered “flee like a wimp and throw things”. Hope to live another day.
Regardless I thought THE LAST SAMURAI was so cool, Tom Cruise with his Scientology and their aliens that made the earth storyline. Oh wait! Sorry that’s real life.
I can’t deny he was very cool with his damn swords and training as a Samurai.
In Japan though, you can’t really train with real swords (for fear of cutting each other in half), although to be honest that would be pretty cool. Imagine seeing people practicing and they are like “Oh dude, wait wait, I cut your arm in half”. It would be like a scene from Monty Python Holy Grail.
Kendo is pretty much the closest thing to real swords, but its done with wooden swords (called shinai in Japanese). I always thought, if I get the chance I’d like to see someone do it. As its kind of like make believe being a samurai. That being said if you have ever been unlucky enough to watch Kendo before, you already know what I'm going to write about.
One of our school students was in a tournament on a country wide sports day. Since he was the only one from our school, he was unique at the tourney with no support. I went to go see him with the vice principal to give him a cheerleader. I thought it was also a chance to see some Tom Cruise like battles fighting to the death albeit with wooden swords.
Just prior to walking into the gym the Vice principal said to me, "Get ready for it, as soon as we walk in a very special smell".
I was thinking WTF does that mean! Then as we walked in I understood. The putrid smell of stinky, salty sweat! It was overwhelming to the point of almost throwing up. It was a horrible horrid smell. Let's called it the HH horrible horrid smell. 
He informed me that after a short time I would get used to it. I was thinking whatever time short is determined to be is going to be too long. He told me it was even strong for him and he was used to it, since he taught Kendo near his house. I guess because they have armour on, they sweat profusely underneath the armour. He said they could wash the gi (marital arts clothes) part of the cloth, but not the rest. Remind me not to do Kendo, unless I have a severe nose cold or a clothespin on my nose.

That's what my girlfriend always says. It might be a good thing in some ways. As long as it doesn't smell as bad as Kendo.

I always pictured Kendo just like in the movies with these huge cuts and slashes. To my disbelief they have only have 3 cuts (swings) in Kendo, that I’m aware of. Hmm, so much for surprise. Not that I should talk, I’d run as soon as someone started slashing.
After seeing each of the cuts I kept thinking wow, these small little movements are kind of boring. You can’t even tell if someone cut the wrist for the point or not. Too bad it wasn’t live blades, at least it would be more exciting. I contemplated going up to someones sword when there weren't looking and putting a metal tip on it.
It was so boring and I had to watch it for 3 hours. I realized at that point I should have chosen a more interesting sport to watch like golf. By the way, to the people who find golf interesting, I'm not even sure that counts as a sport. You don't even break a sweat.
I started to fall asleep and the teacher said, "Let's go, I've had enough of this". You could say that I again. I had enough of it  times 100! Once we exited the building I inhaled fresh air, it was nice, until we got to his old truck and the smell of gasoline and smoke made me sick again.

Sometimes you can't win!

If you found anything above amusing or even slightly funny help me out and click one of those boxes above or give me a Google +1 or something. Might come in handy in the future. If only it could make me some money.

My Youtube Channel, wearing red tights and jumping around as Deadpool (but I say Dadpool to avoid copyright. Smarter than I look!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUXxArlapy0

Other funny stories from this blog 
http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related)
http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/


My Youtube Channel (makes no sense just like my blog)
http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva