I read a series of articles by an English teacher working in Japan (teaching English) in the early Noughties (please, for the love of Ganesh and all his trunks can we please have a better term for these years people??!) and beyond, and among the many amusingly disturbing anecdotes (see the new webpage for the latest weirdness - Kancho is the best; the art of poking your fingers into someone's arsehole. Yes, their arsehole, in school, no less. Don't believe me? Even wiki-bleedin'-pedia has an article on it, so there! ...and of course that means it must be true ) is the idea that in part gives title to this newly available site: the Gaijin Smash.

Gaijin, in Japanese, means foreigner, or outsider. It is fundamental to the Japanese psyche to be polite to guests, and foreigners are pretty much guests of the whole country. So. The author of this site, The English Teacher, developed a few universal phrases along with his friends to explain some of the weirder behaviour of Japanese, among them for example the awesome Gaijin Perimeter.

This dictates that the Japanese, bizarrely but you have to agree with the guy here, are mortally afraid of foreigners due to various things such as, first off, the fact that Westerners tend to be a lot larger than they are. Okay that's a bit of a joke and he plays up to it, but it is actually true (and this guy is quite a big guy by our standards) and along with that, plus a general latent worrying about the whole WWII thing - the Japanese are often readily prepared to feel unsubstantiated guilt out of politeness; even more than the English in fact - it's a general fear of the unknown, coupled with the fact that most tourists in Japan are quite magnificently loud, brash, more confident and a whole hell of a load more independent-minded compared to your common or garden Japanese person and everyone they've ever known.

This creates a terrible fear, not exactly countered by the Japanese government at all in any way, of larger-framed white foreigners. Thus, the Gaijin perimeter is a boundary of about one person's extra personal space around all foreigners, particularly Western ones.

Seats on the astonishinly overcrowded trains are left empty on all sides of the Gaijin, and whichever ones are left are fought for tooth and nail. Crowds practically part to let them through, and everywhere where there is any possible space the Perimeter will automatically establish itself.

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My personal favourite, and probably everyone else's though, is the Gaijin Smash, taken off from the Incredible Hulk, of course, whose vocabulary was never very wide-ranging; "Hulk smash!" and "Hulk angry!!" took up a lot of printer's ink in the green one's comic books throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s.
The idea is that through sheer obviousness of being a Gaijin one can smash through whatever social, economical or moral boundaries the japanese already have. Basic example is the Teacher's friend walking through a train station with an invalid ticket and the staff being unable to follow him, despite the flagrant abuse of the rules and minor defrauding of the rail network, because of who he is: a large black/white guy: Gaijin Smash.

Others would be something like paying too little and walking away from a restaurant, barging through queues, demanding more from your hotel/taxi driver/employer than you are really entitle to, stuff like that. Read the original article that lends it's names to the new site.

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Anyway. This is all irrelevant to what I'm thinking about today, but it was a very attractive diversion, don't you think? Makes me want to go to Japan again (not go again, but want to go again, or again want to go, if you prefer. Those of you fortunate enough to know me will be aware that I haven't ever been to the land of sumo and sushi, maybe because I'd become an active member of the former by eating way too much of the latter).

What I meant by the title before I got distracted by the memory of the Gaijin Smash was me being pretty bloody livid with things this morning, for no good reason at all. Well, maybe two good reasons: the first was the speed of the internet connection over the water - imagine the movement of thick treacle at a low temperature down a very gentle slope, or possibly the small-scale observations of plate tectonics, and you'll get an idea of how achingly, soul-crushingly enraging this actually is. I could do a murder every time I use the 'net on that side of the river, I really could.
Whenever I want to upload photos it takes, I do not kid you in the slightest good people, about 2-4 minutes for every single picture, and I am taking my photos at the smallest resolution my camera will allow. This is very, very annoying. Especially when you make a mistake or the system decides to reject the whole process at the `90% complete` stage.

The second good reason was the memory of a general lack of willingness on the part of many people (Indians) that I've spoken to, to think outside of the box; literally. If you don't fit into one category then you must fit into another, sort of thing - I shall explain this properly at some point later, but basically it is an unthinking mentality that's used by many people, and the stupidity of it is infuriating.

What is worse here though is my reaction to this less than joy-inducing service and company; this morning I was swearing not-quite-under my breath while incarcerated in the musical gehenna that is the local 'net office (I would have done more than one murder if another `1940's talentless warbler` album had made it onto the stereo), and received unimpressed looks from the ancient, ragged, bald European hippy who runs this cafe, right next to my new guesthouse.
She knows English. She knows what "fucking come ON you motherfucking shitty fucking fuckwipe" means and she wasn't too happy to hear it in her own cave.
Thank goodness she left and the bald, ragged, probably-male counterpart took her place and even played some better tunes. He even smiled as I paid, while I inwardly grimaced at paying out a hundred rupees for 2 hours of irritation, rage and forced suppresion of my more homicidal tendencies, of which there are still a large and powerful number, believe me.

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Maybe it is the diet (appalling, I admit), maybe it's the fact my brain isn't wired together like a normal person's is (unfortunate but mostly self-inflicted), perhaps it's the way I'm neurotic beyond measure and have OCDs lining up behind my eyes with little numbered tickets, or maybe it's just the sporadic irritation at other people and myself for ever being less than charming and presentable and punctual and open-minded, but boy, I do feel like turning green and overmuscled and psychotic at times, and I really think it would do me good to trash a few science labs, overturn a few cars and walk through the occasional building as a bit of light relief.

Either way, I'm gonna try a little Gaijin Smash theory out here in India, of course it will have to be renamed and rebranded and the dynamics wont transfer easily - firstly I ain't gonna try and defraud anyone and secondly the Indians wont let a simple thing like size and weight get in the way of an agreed price or an established procedure - but I reckon I can turn the idea in my favour.

I can see the headlines in a few weeks:

`English tourist Mr. Tim_____ has been nabbed by vigilant police officials as a result of the campaign instigated by him in Hampi, Karnataka, which was dubiously titled by Mr. ______ the Colonial Respression Maneouvre, which many locals found extremely rude and undiplomatic.
Mr. ______ awaits trial and is said to be entertained by the whole idea, even now while waiting for justice to be served.`

See you in court...