You are abroad (not in Japan) and you mention to a non-Japanese that you live in Nagoya City, and chances are, he or she will go, "Where in the world is that?". Nagoya is pretty much unknown outside of the Land of the Rising Sun, but it is, in fact, the fourth-largest city in Japan and quite important in the sense that it is the capital of Aichi prefecture and the Chubu region in general, the latter being the industrial center of Japan. Here the Toyota group of companies have their headquarters and built a whole city for themselves, called (drum-roll please...) Toyota City, which is right next to Nagoya City. But I should not introduce Nagoya in relation to its neighbors, because the city in itself is worth taking a good look at...

Or so I wish! Nagoya is, needless to say, neither Tokyo nor Osaka (super cities), neither Kyoto (culture vulture paradise) nor Yamagata (cherry country). It is, well, Nagoya, and the adjectives that would best describe it are....boring, boring, boring.

That's the way I used to look at Nagoya. When I first came here, after a one-year romp in Terrific Tokyo, I was mortified by how, well, boring everything was. So the first thing I did (big mistake) was to compare the two cities, which are really incomparable because they are so unlike each other and play entirely different roles in the large scheme of Japan Inc. In my old website I did not hesitate to scoff at all that Nagoya was not: Tokyo was hip, cool, alive, bursting with energy, a bustling urban super-metropolis, while Nagoya was a "village that had grown too big for its knickers", as someone succintly described this large city which is not as urban as Tokyo but way far from rural either.

Why was this city so difficult to love? Personality factor, I would say. I'm more of the extremes type of person, you either give me 100% city with all the works: night life, bright lights, the hustle and bustle, or give me 100% village, complete with rice paddies dotted with scarecrows. All or nothing, as this present web site's theme goes. Nagoya is obviously a bastard in this particular prism of things, and so I spent the first year of my life in the city ranting about how inconvenient and uncharming and boring it was. I complained about everything under the city's umbrella, from the high-priced subway rates (higher than Tokyo's) to the lack of Hyaku-en (Dollar) shops to the overall uninteresting atmosphere of it all.

The turning point, meaning my transition from Nagoya Basher to Nagoya Nut (well, not yet, but I'm getting close) was around my early sophomore year at the uni, when I decided that it was a complete waste of time and energy, this being bored by the city and hating everything about it. I took my friend Mari Morioka's words to heart (that Nagoya was essential because it was the service and financial center of Japan's industrial center, and that its staidness is but a reflection of its focus on manufacturing and production) and decided to quit wasting my time ranting and instead find points to appreciate and maybe even enjoy. The first step included enrolling myself in a uni course called Seisan Kougaku Gairon or Production Engineering-in-a-Nutshell, where I dragged my bored self to class and tried not to fall asleep as the lecturers from Toyota Cars, Yamaha Motors etc bombarded us with the basics of their production industry. The next step for me was to actually hire myself to a company within the Toyota group, and luckily Takashimaya Nippatsu Kougyou--interior car parts maker for Toyota-- was looking for an interpreter/translator, and so I signed a six-month part-time work contract and off I went to discover the whole new world of industrial production. This is a story in itself, and you can find more of it (as well as my other part-time jobs) in another page.

That's for the industrial part of Nagoya/Aichi Prefecture. For the cultural part, finding gems in the city was essential to one of my new hobbies, photography, and so I set out to look for postcard places and more. Nagoya is pretty historical in the sense that it was the home of a member of the most powerful clan of and builder of feudal Japan (the Tokugawa Shogunate), and so remnants of this period are prominent in the city. I love Kyoto because it is oh-so-traditional-oh-so-exotic, and while Nagoya doesn't hold a candle next to Kyoto in terms of culture overload, it does have several unique cultural treasures which are well worth appreciating.

Perhaps the best, and absolutely unbeatable, thing about Nagoya is that, unlike all other cities in Japan (except for Tokyo, Osaka and Fukuoka down south), it has the unique honor of hosting one of the six Osumo Basho or Grand Sumo tournaments! Now that I mentioned sumo, I could go on and on and on and on about it, which would make a novel. My being a sumo freak, a shrieking, screaming, fainting sumo freak, I owe to being here in Nagoya. I know that I would never have gotten into the sport/art had I decided to study in Tokyo. It's a very long story, too long for comfort, in fact, that I have grand plans of building a full new web site for this sumo passion. Back to Nagoya, I have to admit that the very situation of being here and being bored was what led me to pursue sumo (vicariously, as women cannot practice the sport/art) with such energy and enthusiasm. Being a sumo fan is now a pretty significant part of my life, has become one of my distinguishing characteristics (Sumo Nerd), and as a result, due to the fact that I still haven't completed my sumo website, you'll find smatterings of sumo in this site. Thanks to Nagoya, which had me so bored at first that I ended up watching too much TV and thus my first glimpse of Yokozuna Takanohana (I told you, it's a long story), and again thanks to Nagoya, which hosts the July grand sumo tournament . The 1999 tour I frequently and valiantly attended despite the fact that it was midterms at the uni (shh, don't tell my academic advisor). Now the funny truth is that I have become a hopeless sumo fan willing to throw herself at the feet of the god Chiyonofuji (the greatest sumo guy to grace the face of the universe) and at the feet of the lesser sumo mortals as well. Just kidding, of course! ^o^

All in all, Nagoya Notes is, as the title goes, notes about Nagoya City, things that came and went, and, because I am stuck here till the next soccer World Cup, a lot about Nagoya University and uni life.