Apparently this is pretty common in Tokyo …. people getting plastered before rushing to take the last train home, and then passing out before they reach their destination.

So I’m heading home to Bangkok today, after having spent the last month in Tokyo. My life here has really been idllic, I’ve been able to sleep in until 5:30 ever day, practice yoga with a great teacher, study Japanese in class for four hours and then head home work on my Kanji and grammar studies. I’ve been to a bunch of museums and art galleries, explored new areas, went to Mt Fuji, got caught up on Heros and Lost, and generally relaxed. Often in BKK I can get so caught up being social, running around to different events, that I sometimes forget how much I enjoy being alone. Working through these studies has also shown me how much I love learning, it’s been great to just focus on the Japanese language for a month. I feel like I have made good progress on the language, although three months probably would have been ideal. When I moved to BKK, it was about three months before I could have a reasonable conversation in Thai but at least eight months before I could sit at a table with a bunch friends and keep up with what was being said. Studying Japanese is a bit unique due to the Kanji (Chinese) characters and being a SOV language has taken some time for my brain to adjust. Before I came here that I wasn’t totally sure of the best strategy for study, as there was so much that needed to be learned. Having these long afternoons to myself and having access to some great books has helped me define a plan to keep studying the language (I’ll post more on that later).

That last sentence touches on one of the (many) joys of studying Japanese; the plethora of study materials out there to support me. Japanese is taught in universities all over the world and is apparently a very popular language for foreigners to study (I think it is somewhat being replaced by Chinese as the top Asian language for foreigners to study, but that doesn’t change the fact that these resources exist already). There are well thought-out books and websites available for every level of study, and the language schools here are organized have curriculum to support students at all levels. Thai is gaining in popularity, but still has few bilingual resources for intermediate study. The upside of this is that if you want to read a really good Thai grammar book, you have to just push through a book written in Thai for a Thai audience, unfortunately that leaves out beginners who want a solid footing in grammar. Less popular languages like Burmese and Lao have very limited resources for study, I’m rather fortunate in that they are taught at my university; students in other parts of the world would likely struggle to get anything worth studying.

Ok, I have to pack and clean … more from BKK.

I forget what the laws are governing cigarette advertising in USA are, but they must be pretty strict as I don’t remember seeing much. In Thailand, smoking is banned in bars and restaurants (and generally well enforced), as is any display of tobacco in shops. Stores are allowed to display a sign that says “Cigarettes are available here” with black letters on white paper, but the actual pack can’t be visible. In addition, the packs are covered with pictures of diseased lungs, ghosts and other things meant to scare people away. In Japan virtually everyone smokes and if a restaurant is non-smoking, that is the exception and not the rule. There is a coffee shop near my apt where smoking is allowed downstairs (where the employees work), and the upstairs smoke-free area is rather smoky owing to the fact that smoke rises and there is a huge open stair-case connecting the two.

Tobacco sales are prohibited to people under 20s, and vending machines have this card reader that checks IDs before a sale can be made. The thing is, the vending machines are everywhere … making sure that people grow up being saturated in tobacco advertising.