citizen of the planet

Maybe I’ve mentioned it here before, but I know I’ve told a couple of people that my parents decided to sell their house.  I can only imagine that it’s a difficult thing to transition from striving to buy a big spacious house to cutting back and moving into something smaller.  With me out of the house, it only makes sense for them to downsize.  Therefore, I fully support their decision.  They need to enjoy their years instead of finding themselves entirely concerned with just paying the house off, you know?

Anyway, the process of selling the house started at the beginning of April.  It seemed like things were going well.  The house had a lot of showings, and a heck of a lot of the people that came by liked the house.  They seemed interested and were very complimentary.  My parents patiently waited for an offer to come in, but one never came.  After a few weeks, the frustration was starting to kick in.  I was starting to become worried myself because I didn’t want to see them go through such trouble, you know?  I was telling a friend about this worry when she mentioned a little bit of related Catholic folk magic that seemed to have a following.  All of it revolved around making a petition to St. Joseph who’s the patron saint of the family and home.  Legend says that if you bury a statuette of St. Joseph in the ground and ask for your house to sell, the house will sell shortly thereafter.  If you search the Internet, you’ll find a good amount of stories from people that believe that this worked for them.  I passed this bit of lore over to my parents, and they decided to give it a shot.

On Friday morning, they went over to a religious article store and bought a small statuette.  When they got it home, my father buried it in the front yard and they proceeded to make the petition.  Heck, so did I.  I just wanted my parents to be happy.  The weekend came and went with a couple of showings, but nothing.  Monday came and two families dropped by.  The first one was ready to make an offer but they went well below asking price and had a ridiculous amount of conditions.  Both my parents and their real estate agents were frustrated.  A second family came by shortly after that was more amenable.  The family’s kids were all over the house and were enjoying the deck out back.  The family also placed an offer and actually went a bit over asking price.  And that’s the family that sealed the deal.  So yes, my parents went from having tons of showings but no offers, to having two offers on the same day.

I know, it’s going to sound a little bit insane to attribute any part of this to the lore, but for me I’m willing to believe.  Why not?  Yeah, it’s unscientific, and just crazy…but it’s also fun to think that this had an effect.  So yeah, much gratitude goes up to St. Joseph for looking out for them.  Once the deal is fully done I expect my mother to dig up the statue and put it up some place for people to see.  It sure is an interested story to tell, isn’t it?

It was quite a curious day for me today, and to be honest I’m not really sure how to process it all.  I suppose, first of all, let me get this out of the way–I’m now a Godfather to a second child.  The first time I was asked to be a Godfather was many years ago for a cousin’s kid.  By now he should be in his teens–I’m glad he’s doing well.  Anyway, the main story is a little bit convoluted.  This time around it’s for my father’s friend (a kababayan…a paisan!) whose daughter just gave birth to a child.  See, at the time they had more female Godparents for the child’s upcoming baptism than male ones.  I’m not sure what was going on, but I’ll assume that they just couldn’t find another guy to fill the role, so my father’s friend asked me to be a Godparent.  Maybe it was just because the friend genuinely liked me.  I’m not sure.  Now, when I heard the news through my own parents, that’s when I first learned of the custom for a child to have many ninongs and ninangs (Godparents).  Heh.  I suppose it’s a cultural thing.  My mind is used to the role being one conferred to just two people, you know?  In any case, yes, I was honoured to do so–puzzled, but honoured.  Thing is, even though I knew my father’s friend, I didn’t know her daughter at all.  I haven’t even spoken to her.  Thing is, how can I say no?

For this event, I knew I didn’t have that many (kind of formal) clothes which is why I went to Moores last weekend.  My original intention was to wear the new shirt, my dark jeans, new shoes and the new blazer.  I put it all together this morning, only to notice that my jeans smelled like hot pot from this past Friday.  I tried airing it out in the dryer with a fabric sheet.  When I wore everything together, I looked exactly how I wanted to look, but when I sat down my pants smelled like chicken broth.  Yeah, that prompted me to make other plans.  I switched to another pair of jeans, but they seemed too casual.  Twitter people suggested that a baptism required me to lean more formal, so I switched to pinstripe pants which are really the only pair of formal pants I’ve got that aren’t a size too big.  Bah.  My big fear was overdressing, but no matter, I had no choice.

The baptism itself was fascinating, though awkward for me.  I recognized maybe…a handful of people in our party.  Those people were all my parent’s contemporaries.  As for my contemporaries…yeah, no clue.  The whole thing about pairing off ninongs and ninangs?  Nope…didn’t happen.  As I was there I couldn’t help but think that I was so clueless about this cultural thing.  There were two other families there that had just a limited number of Godparents.  I understood those families.  For our party it was sort of an amusing melee.  Even though I was confused I just smiled and followed the lead of everyone else.  It was only in the church when I first saw the daughter and her baby.  The baby was so cute!  It took me a while before I figured out who the father was among the many people.  Up to this point I still don’t know his name.  Awkward!

By the end of the ceremony everyone was taking pictures.  I was told to pose with the baby.  I was so reluctant but they were insistent.  I got my turn and awkwardly held the crying child.  With so many flashing lights, I can see why he was crying.  God, I had no freaking clue how to hold the baby.  All I could do was hold him awkwardly (apparently) and grimace.  Soon enough I’m sure someone was like “get the damn baby away from that guy!”  When I passed him on, I just went back to the pew with my parents.  I looked over to mom, and she understood.  Someone commented that I didn’t know what I was doing.  Duh.

So, in the end, I fulfilled my role.  I still don’t think the baby’s mother knew who I was.  Did it really matter?  It’s more important for her to cater to people that she actually knows, no?  I don’t think I’m going to have any role in this life, to be honest.  Though, due to what happened I guess that even if I don’t see him again I will have a spiritual connection to him.  As much as I’m confused about what happened, I do know that I’m going to keep baby JB in my thoughts.  May he grow up strong, loved, and of strong faith.

Just another lazy Sunday today.  Back on Thursday, at the end of the work day I emailed a document I was working on to myself in hopes that I’d work on it some point between Friday and today.  Well…at least I had good intentions.  Thing is, I know very well that I was unlikely to spend time at home working on it.  It would have been a different story if I was far from being finished, but no, the document has decent progress on it.  There are also some open questions against the project that need to be answered before I write about them, so I would have been stalled anyway

Funny how I seem to be attempting to justify it.

Anyway, since I’ve got nothing much I figure I’d pick a picture that showed up in the “Random from Viewport” widget on the right and give a few words on it.  I ended up choosing a picture from my trip to Japan in June 2006.  On one of my first days in Tokyo, me and a couple of travel companions headed over to the beautiful Meiji Shrine complex on the west side of the city.  If I recall, it’s pretty much adjacent to Harajuku station and a short walk to Takeshita-dōri which is that fashion forward place that Gwen was going on about in her pop albums. It’s accessible from the JR Yamanote line via Harajuku station, or the Tokyo Metro Chiyoda line from Meiji-Jingūmae station, which can be translated as “in front of Meiji Shrine.”  How descriptive.

Anyway, Meiji Shrine is a Shinto shrine.  This is where you would go to pay respects to Emperor Meiji and Empress Shōken.  What’s pictured here is a part of the complex where there are a huge number of these wooden plaques.  These are called ema.  You would buy these ema prayer boards and then write a prayer or a wish or some form of thanks on them.  You then hang these boards on a designated rack.  Now, what’s pictured here is just one rack, but at the Shrine there are many more racks right next to this one.  These are meant to communicate with the spirits.  Now, when you consider the fact that these boards hold what amount to the hopes, dreams, and wishes of thousands of people, it’s an extremely powerful symbol.

I’m not planning on heading back to Tokyo anytime soon.  However, if I somehow found myself there again at the big Meiji Shrine I would buy an ema.  What would I write on it?  I would pray for peace.  I would wish for someone to come into my life to change my life for the better.  Most of all, I would give thanks for all of the blessings I have in my life: family, a place of my own, a job, and nice things.  I wonder if that’d all fit.  Guess I’d just have to write smaller.

Hey, so what would you write on an ema prayer board?

When my radio turned on this morning, I was noticing that the playlists were particularly loaded with all this love sentiment.  It took me a while before I figured out that the station was on a love-song bender for the day.  I got up and shut the damn thing off.

If I peeks over to the “Around this time…” widget on the left I can see I’ve written about V-day a few times.  How I feel about today seems to be documented, so I might as well just do a quick roundup.

Happy…Thursday?
How my job has gotten me to associate the day with stress through negative reinforcement.

Red Day
The act of getting through the day, trying not to feel like crap.

Gazing
Astronomy revealing a more romantic bend.

Nice. Well, my situation hasn’t changed since last year. That’s fine because I’ve got a lot more important things to fret over–like my job, the mortgage, and car payments. Still, I can pray for change on occasion. On the BBC News website I read that the RC church in Britain is encouraging people to seek intercession from St. Raphael who’s the patron saint of happy encounters instead of St. Valentine, from whom you’d seek intercession from if you’re already in a relationship. The distinction makes sense, but I didn’t even know it existed.

Perhaps I should take a moment here to draw another distinction. When I say, “I’m fine,” it’s not in the sense of any finality. It’s more of a “I can deal with my situation” type of thing. If changes occur, I will do what I can to welcome them into my life.

As a final note, this is what Phil Booth’s horoscope on The Star says for me today:

Scorpio (Oct. 24 — Nov. 22)

Your mind is racing ahead of where you are. Fear of the future is causing needless anxiety. Given all you’ve got going for you, there is nothing you should worry about. Let a benevolent destiny lead the way.

The appropriateness for today amuses me.

So, some people say that how you spend January 1st is an indicator for how the rest of the year will play out. Well I certainly don’t say that, but hey, for this post I’ll play along. The day isn’t exactly over yet, but I think I’ve gathered enough empirical evidence to be able to make a statement. I say, this year I will: grow stronger in faith, be more active, and be likely to make multiple racial faux-pas.

So, first thing this morning, I went in to church because today’s a day of obligation. I couldn’t go with my parents because I had other plans that I had to squeeze in before noon. I felt all right about being there so early in the morning, if only because it’s a fine way to start the year. Consider the Japanese. It’s customary on January 1st to make a trip to visit a shrine or a temple.

Anyway, after mass I rushed home, got into my running gear and drove up to Markham for this year’s (last year’s, I guess) Resolution Run. It’s a 5K round the block affair meant to symbolically mark this year as one where I’m going to commit to living a (relatively) healthy lifestyle. Yeah, plus they give a free jacket if you register which, I’ll admit, was incentive for being there. I layered up well: running tights, track pants, long sleeve shirt, t-shirt over, jacket, mesh baseball cap, and gloves. The weather reports were indicating that it was going to be cold, so I wanted to be sure that I wasn’t going to suffer from being too cold. I mean, I’ve been on too many runs where some part of me is unbearably cold making for a miserable run. The crowd was large, though smaller than last year’s run. The course was, for the most part, similar to some of my regular running routes. It involved some steep inclines–which was cool because it meant a lot of downhill breaks. Conversely it meant there were a few challenging uphill climbs.

I wasn’t intent on really doing the race really fast. With all of the ice and snow on the ground, I knew that I was going to have a hard time through some parts. That’s basically how it was. Some parts of the sidewalk weren’t clear. Running on the snow was hard on the ankles. I just kept on going. Everything was smooth going downhill. I felt like I found a rhythm, but I also felt like it was a bit more difficult than usual. As I rounded the turnaround point, I felt myself slow down. Heading back up the big hill was just brutal. My breathing was hard, and sweat was streaming down my face. I was regretting having so many layers on. Well, by the time I got to the top I was shocked at just how much difficulty I was having so I decided to pump up the effort for the last kilometre back. The result? Well, the race wasn’t chip timed, although, according to my watch, I made it back in a faster time that my PB at the Island race. Whoo! So, if the paths were clearer I can say that I might have done even better. Nice! As I was speaking with people back at the store, just about everyone was commenting about how the uphill climb really took a lot out of them. People were attributing it to partying hard the night before–so what excuse do I have? Hmm. Overall the race was really fun. It seemed like most people there knew me. I got a lot of “Happy New Year, Jason!” greetings, so much so that some random people I didn’t know started joining in to greet me. That amuses me greatly.

Anyway, so here’s where the racial faux-pas comes in. Back at the store, at the snack table I spotted this Chinese guy who had also run the race. In my mind a lot of alarms were going off. This was one of the guys I ran with during the 2007 Run for the Cure. At least, I thought it was–I wasn’t sure. It’s been a while. So, I went up to the guy, and I said, “Hey, I think I know you.” He just looked at me blankly and said told me otherwise. I smiled and with an “oh, sorry” I ducked back into store. Well, sure, cases of mistaken identity happen all the time, right? I normally wouldn’t tie this in as a racial thing. However, within the past month at work I was passing around a link to All Look Same to my colleagues to see how they’d do. I can say that I did a little bit higher than the average probably indicating that I can discern a little bit better than the average person. Hahah, then this happens. As a result, I felt kind shitty. I know I’m over-thinking this. No matter.

In any case, the year’s off to a good start. May many blessings come this way this year.

A priest from Kenya visited our parish today to celebrate mass and ask for monetary aid for his diocese. He was really well-spoken and knew how to delivery the homily with emphasis. I just wanted to share one thing that stuck out at me from the words he spoke:

A hopeful man is someone who can face anything that life throws at him; it’s because of hope that he can do so.

That’s pretty deep. I think those words will stick with me for a while.

After my last post or two, it may seem like I’ve lost a bit of faith in Tokyo.  Fair enough, you know?  I mean, it almost seems like this whole experience is just one insult to foreigners after another, right?  It almost seems like all you can do is to just go along with it and not pay too much mind.  Well, I have to be fair and say that Japanese people are really friendly.  I think any misgivings that arise are really as a result of a few things.  First, there’s a great deal of shyness that the locals have when communicating with someone that speaks English.  As much they’ve been trained, there’s not much practical time when it comes to putting the language to good use.  So, the result is that a lot of people are just plain afraid to try for fear of making a mistake.  Frankly, I’m pretty much the same way when I try out my Japanese–I’m painfully shy!  I can make the effort, but I’m also hung up on whether I was using polite language, or maybe whether I was using the correct inflections or vocabulary, etc etc.  Lately I’ve been getting better at making the effort, but it’s still a struggle.

Anyway, despite all of this it’s easy to fall into a state of dislike for the place if you’re caught off guard.  Today I did a few things that really helped me restore my faith in the city.  First, thing I did was to find a RC church with and English mass and attend.  I found one in Roppongi which makes sense due to it being considered a foreigner hangout.  Due to an error in time adjustment instead of arriving half an hour early like I’d wanted, I actually arrived half an hour late.  Anyway, despite that I felt quite at home in there.  I mean, wow, I’ve never seen so many foreigners gathered in one place in Tokyo–not even in the airport.  Seriously, I felt like I was back in Canada.  So many of them were Filipinos too.  It was mind boggling.  I don’t know what happened, but for that mass in particular I was really moved.  At the end, they asked people new and visiting to introduce themselves to the congregation.  After each introduction there was a round of applause.  I got to do my introduction, and wow, that was a good feeling.  At the end, the announcer said something to the effect that they were happy to be people’s “spiritual home away from home,” I seriously nearly lost it.  I was so deeply affected by it that I needed to take a few moments to regather my thoughts just to not start bawling.  It’s so easy to feel isolated and lonely here: that’s why the warm welcome really got to me. After the mass, a parishioner came up to me and asked if I was Filipino in Tagalog.  I replied that I was.  We had a nice mini-chat after which she wished me a nice stay.  I felt so good coming out of that place.

Well, after mass, I had a few hours to kill before my friend became available, so I decided on his suggestion to wander around the city and take in the people and the sites.  So that’s what I did.  I started wandering around Roppongi.  I had intentions of going west over to the Meiji shrine and Harajuku on foot, but I got side-tracked and saw a familiar hospital that I passed by in the 2006 tour.  Since it was familiar, I decided to see if I could somehow end up seeing any other familiar places.  Somehow made it over to Azabu-Jūban.  I think only one reader out there knows the significance of this place .  Anyway, I bought a Pocari Sweat and drank it on Patio Jūban.  Everyone in that district looks so posh!  I continued to wander and ended up at Daimon and the area around Shiba Park–both places that I’d seen before.  I decided to just keep going and I ended up at district after district.  Shinbashi, Ginza, Nihonbashi, Akihabara, Ueno…  I was surprised when I got to Ginza.  The main artery through the shopping district was closed to cars and only allowed pedestrian traffic.  Apparently this only happens on Sundays.  Holy crap, why can’t we do that more often in Toronto?  Seriously, if Tokyo can do that on what seems to be a major road, why can’t we?  It was a popular area–so many people crowded the place.  After four hours of straight walking I got tired and ended up stopping at Ueno park.  I hit that fatigue point where I just needed to drink something sugary to get my glycogen levels back to normal.

From there, my friend called me to say that he was done with his business and asked me to meet him at Nihonbashi station on the subway.  As I was on the subway, I was thinking that on the subway it took only a few minutes to get someplace it took me an hour or two to get from.  Crazy.  We went over to Yoyogi park and took in a random rave party.  Don’t ask me.  There was a lot of drunk naked people stumbling openly in daylight.  There were kids running around with incense sticks.  It’s not normally my scene, but damn, it was interesting to watch the general debauchery.  I got a good laugh out of it.

From there, my friend, his friend and I walked all the way back through Roppongi to Azabu-Jūban.  That was basically another 45 minute walk–honestly it felt like an eternity.  We went there for some really great thin pizza at a place called Savoy.  It’s a small place, but damn the food was awesome.  The three of us finished off 4 small pizzas–well worth it.  From there, we walked from Azabu to Roppongi to get some frozen yogurt.

That’s been my day.  I can honestly say that the long walk helped me absorb more of the character of the city.  I’m feeling a bit better about being here.  It’s like…the city really only reveals its true nuances to those that are willing to explore a bit.  All of the walking has wiped me out.  I’m going to get a good night’s sleep.  I have to be up early tomorrow to start the 7 day tour all over the country.  It’s going to be fantastic!

Today at the end of the mass the priest took a moment to talk about an incident involving one of the other priests. As it went, a family of parishioners confronted the priest in an angry manner regarding the fact that the mass intention that they had requested was not announced during the Sunday mass. From the way the story was being told, it seemed like they were getting all up in the priest’s face. The joke was that it made that priest’s blood pressure go up mid-week. Now, while being confrontational like that is ugly behaviour, doing that to a priest is just bad. And while doing that to a priest is bad, doing that to a priest after receiving communion just minutes before is horrible.

I don’t know. From what I’ve observed in weekly mass, the intentions aren’t announced on weekends (at this parish). They never have been. So, just to make sure it was clear, the the priest today emphasized the fact that this was the case. Glad that’s settled.

When we were in the car, my father started venting about how the office should be more careful in making sure people know the deal. I wasn’t sure why he was indignant, but then it became clear that he was still frustrated that I was once included in the prayers for the deceased back in 2006. After all this time, he was still kind of miffed. And yes, after all of this time I still find the whole thing to be funny. I’m stiiiiiiill not dead. Whatever.