{"id":435,"date":"2007-04-24T23:30:37","date_gmt":"2007-04-24T14:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2007-04-24\/435"},"modified":"2007-04-24T23:30:37","modified_gmt":"2007-04-24T14:30:37","slug":"renewing-my-visa-with-bill-bryson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2007-04-24\/435","title":{"rendered":"Renewing my Visa with Bill Bryson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n

I renewed my visa today, so I'm allowed to live in Japan for another\nthree years. I'd applied\nfor the renewal<\/a> three weeks ago, and about a week<\/span> or so ago, got the\n“come in and pick it up” postcard. I went today<\/span>, bought 10,000\nyen (US$85) worth of revenue stamps at the little shop around the corner,\nsubmitted the stamps, the postcard, and my passport (and with a bit<\/span> of help\nfrom the kind, helpful man at the counter, the application for a multiple<\/span>\nre-entry permit), and sat down to wait.<\/p>\n\n

Unfortunately, it was ready soon and I was<\/span> out in less than five\nminutes. I say<\/span> “unfortunately” because I'd brought along a\ntreat<\/span> for the wait: a book<\/span> by Bill Bryson.<\/p>\n\n

It doesn't really matter what book it is — if Bill Bryson wrote\nit, it's got to be great. This man could write about wiping the dust from\npaintings at a museum,<\/span> and it would be riveting, entertaining, and\ninformative all at the same time. Or, to make a more<\/span> realistic analogy, he\ncould write about walking the Appalachian Trail — I can<\/span> scarcely\nthink of a more<\/span> boring subject — but with his writing, it would be a\nriveting,<\/span> entertaining, though-provoking, witty, wonderful book that's a\njoy<\/span> to read<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Anyway, the particular book I had today is The\nLife and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir<\/span><\/a>, which I recently<\/span>\nreceived from my folks for my birthday.<\/p>\n\n

Here's a taste... the first four paragraphs of the book:<\/p>\n\n

\n\n

In the late 1950s, the Royal Canadian Air Force produced a booklet<\/span> on\nisometrics, a form<\/span> of exercise that enjoyed a short<\/span> but devoted vogue with\nmy father. The idea of<\/span> isometrics was that you used any unyielding object,\nlike a tree<\/span> or a wall,<\/span> and pressed against it with all your might from\nvarious positions to tone and strengthen different groups of muscles. Since\neverybody already has access to trees and walls, you didn't need to invest\nin a lot<\/span> of costly equipment, which I expect<\/span> was what attracted my dad.<\/p>\n\n

What made it unfortunate in my father's case is that he would do his\nisometrics on airplanes. At some point<\/span> in every flight, he would stroll\nback to the galley area or the space by the emergency exit and, taking up\nthe posture of someone trying to budge a very<\/span> heavy piece of machinery, he\nwould begin to push with his back or shoulder against the outer wall of the\nplane, pausing occasionally to take deep breaths before returning with\nquiet grunts to the task.<\/p>\n\n

Since it look uncannily, if unfathomably, as if he were trying to force a\nhole<\/span> in the side of the plane, this naturally drew attention. Businessmen\nin nearby seats would stare over the tops of their glasses. A stewardess<\/span> would pop her head out of the galley and likewise stare, but with a certain<\/span>\nhard caution, as if remembering some aspect of her training that she had\nnot previously been called upon to implement.<\/p>\n\n

Seeing that he had observers, my father would straighten up and smile\ngenially and begin to outline the engaging principles behind isometrics.\nThen he would give a demonstration<\/span> to an audience that swiftly consisted of\nno one. He seemed<\/span> curiously incapable of feeling embarrassment in such\nsituations, but that was all right because I felt<\/span> enough for both of us\n— indeed, enough for us and all the other passengers, the airline and\nits employees, and the whole of whatever state we were flying over.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n

He goes on and talks about all kinds of things from his youth, about\neverything and about nothing at all. None of it is intersrting, yet it's\nall extremely interesting to read. I can't<\/span> possibly explain it because I\ndon't<\/span> understand it. It just is<\/span>.<\/p>\n\n

Eventually, he gets to Chapter 2.<\/span> Here's Chapter 2<\/span>'s first paragraph:<\/p>\n\n

\n\n

So this is a book about not very much: about being small and getting\nlarger slowly. One of the<\/span> great myths of life is that childhood passes\nquickly. In fact, because time moves more slowly in Kid World — five\ntimes more slowly in a classroom<\/span> on a hot<\/span> afternoon, eight times more\nslowly on any car journey of more than five miles (rising to eighty-six\ntimes more slowly when driving across Nebraska or Pennsylvania lengthwise),\nand so slowly during the last week before birthdays, Christmases, and\nsummer vacations as to be functionally immeasurable — it goes on for\ndecades when measured in adult terms. It is adult<\/span> life that is over in a\ntwinkling.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

So, a kid has a lot of time (especially a kid<\/span> growing up in the relative\ninnocence of the 50s, in rural middle-class Utah). Days were long and he,\nlike all kids, spent them doing kid things, and he writes in a way<\/span> sure to\nevoke the reader's own memories:<\/p>\n\n

\n\n

I knew how to get between any two properties in the neighborhood,\nhowever tall the fence or impenetrable the hedge that separated them. I knew the<\/span> cool feel of linoleum on bare skin and what everything smelled\nlike at floor level. I knew pain<\/span> the way you know it when it is fresh and\ninteresting — the pain, for example, of a toasted<\/span> marshmallow in your\nmouth when its interior is roughly the temperature and consistency of\nmagma. I knew exactly<\/span> how clouds drifted on a July<\/span> afternoon, what rain\ntasted like, how ladybugs preened and caterpillars rippled, what it felt\nlike to sit inside a bush.<\/span> I knew how<\/span> to appreciate a really<\/span> good fart,\nwhether mine or someone else's.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n

Sadly, my visa was ready, so I didn't add much beyond this to what I'd\nalready read. I then had<\/span> to make an unexpected trip to the ward office to\nhave my “gaijin card<\/a>”\n(proof of foreigner registration card) updated to reflect my now-extended\nvisa. I'd never<\/span> done this in previous years (in the 90s, when I worked<\/span> for\nOmron<\/a>), so either it's a\nnew<\/span> requirement, or I was<\/span> inadvertently naughty. I only knew<\/span> to do it this\ntime because the guy handing back my passport mentioned it. <\/p>\n\n

My favorite book of all time — the one I'd bring to the deserted\nisland — is Bryson's A\nShort<\/span> History of Nearly Everything<\/a>, so I'm looking forward to enjoying\nthis new one.<\/p>\n\n\n