This is it for Bullfighter!

After two years in this blogsphere, I`m making my exit.
This site was a great way to share my ideas while I was in Japan, to show my photos to my family, and to let friends see a different side to my thinking.

These archives are still important to me, so I will not delete the blog, but simply won`t be posting anymore.

I feel like this is the perfect time in my life to enact my luddistic tendencies and to break away from the electronic palimpsest that seems to be our modern lives.
I`ve already deactivated my facebook account in hopes that I can live more freely outside the realm of technological surveillance and more in the realm of the present.

More than ever, I think it`s important during this era of history to move outside of the grasp of mass media - whether that be television, or blockbuster movies, hit singles, facebook accounts, tabloid stories or any sort of phenomena that keeps us distracted from becoming enlightened human beings.

Whether or not there are sinister reasons for distracting us is irrelevant. I simply want to focus on creating my best writing, living skillfully and presently, and being a positive, inspiring human to those around me.

Thank you to everyone who has read my blog or posted comments. I will continue to check up on those friends whose blogs are currently linked to mine and will read comments concerning this post, but this is Sayonara to Bullfighterintoyama.

Inner peace, outer harmony,
Mattorero

Quoique je deteste ces Memes....je le ferai

10 Little known Facts about Bullfighter
(tagged by Nominally Challenged)

1. I was born in the North West Territories and my birth certificate is in Inuit script. Too bad I couldn`t claim Native status and get my University education for free. It does make for a few cool reactions when applying for things, though I think it freaked out the Japanese Ministry of Transportation who had no idea what to make of it and thought it was counterfeit. Ah, Japan.

2. The first album I ever bought was Get a Grip by Aerosmith. I was staying at my friends house at the time and his mother got freaked out by the pierced cow tit on the cover. She wrote a note to my parents saying that `We`re a bit concerned over some music Matthew purchased this weekend...` My parents grounded me and hid the cassette on top of the China cabinet, where I also found a Deep Purple album.

3. There`s a brown spot in the middle of my left eye. Sometime in utero, genes got confused, panicked, and fled the scene leaving this evidence.

4. My least favorite high school subject was math, followed closely by gym. My friend and I would `go to the bathroom` and simply never return. We`d walk to the coffee shop and have a cigarette instead. In my grade 13 year, I found myself the only white person in a class of Chinese exchange students who had all decided to take Algebra the same period. Needless to say, they practically did my assignments for me and I soon realized that Matt and Math have no common denominator. I get ripped off often.

5. My idea of `having it all` is when my apartment is clean, I`ve gone to the gym, the laundry is done and I`ve been grocery shopping. Then I get bored with my own perfection.

6. I have frequent Matt-only dance parties in my apartment, complete with white gloves, whistle and sleeveless top (In your dreams RSZ). Living by a rice-field, you learn to compromise. Though very few of my friends have seen me dance because I`m a snob about their crappy music. I like psy-trance. They like 80`s monstrosities.

7. Paradise can come in sandwich-form. Wheat bread, dry turkey, mayo, cucumber, tomato, lettuce, onion...and some salty chips. This is the only direct way to my heart.

8. In grade 6 I was the proud recipient of the `Operetta Award` - meaning I rocked my pig`s costume the best in the school play. Funnily enough, that year I was pulled out of music class to attend `Gifted math` classes for those, uh, `gifted` in math. That year I was also sent to the principal`s office for being in a fight during our graduation ceremony for calling the boy beside me `Big Bundie.` Luckily my parents were in England at the time.

9. I have actually been stabbed in sword fight and have the scar to prove it.

10. I am now a non-nail-biter. I quit at age 25 after I saw someone else do it and realized it looked like they were eating their own boogers. But I`ve had more health problems this past year than ever in my whole life. I`m pretty sure it was keeping me healthy

So there! 10 useless but wondrous facts about moi. I refuse to tag anyone, but if anyone who reads my blog wants to write their own 10 useless facts about themselves, I`d be happy to read.

Refujii ga Oishii!!!

I`m not often rendered completely speechless, but this horrendous photo/caption succeeded. Jaw-droppingly succeeded.

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In posh part of Tokyo, a taste of life as a refugee declares the caption to this seemingly harmless, if not common, image of Japanese people poised with their chopsticks and paper plates over some bound-to-be incredible cuisine.

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In the wealthiest area of the wealthiest city in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, this event which was "meant to give some idea of the hardships experienced by people who have been forced to flee their homes and live in refugee camps," becomes an horrendous mockery of the tribulations actual refugees endure.

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Jean Baudrillard`s concept of the hyper-real comes to mind. He says, "The very definition of the real becomes: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction. The real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is always already reproduced. The hyper real. "

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Like the famous Huis Ten-Bosch in Nagasaki, these mock-refugee setups are hyper-real, simulacra - copies without originals.

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Instead of being a pedagogical tool with which to educate spoiled Japanese Tokyoites about the plights of the less-fortunate, this event is more about creating an idea of `the refugee` the participants would be comfortable with.

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Had an actual refugee been sitting by these re-created campfires, in their rags, holding several malnourished children and mourning their eviction from their homeland in their own language, the event surely would not have been such a success.

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As the caption says - A taste of life as a refugee - it brings to mind the way foods are classified according to aji or `taste` in Japan. Ramen can have miso-taste or salt-taste. Beer can have bitter-taste or sweet-taste. Anything with mayonnaise on it has mayo-taste. I fear that I`ll go to the supermarket and find a woman in a tidy kerchief offering samples of `refugee-taste` yaki-soba.

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The purpose of using food as a medium was for "people to get the opportunity to sample food the way it is often cooked in refugee camps." Far from being an equivalent to sampling duck the way it is prepared in Beijing, or Pad Thai the way it is prepared in Bangkok, sampling refugee food creates a commodity, an `experience` of someone else's hardship. I wonder if there will be future events like, `Discover what it`s like to be evicted!` or `Want to run for your life when you fetch water?` or `Never been raped? Feel like you`re missing out? Let us help!`

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There are certain aspects to life that should not be simulated, that should be treated as genuine tragedies and not as weekend experiences for bored rich-folk with a few moments to spare before the Chanel boutique opens.

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For me, it seems as incongruous and offensive as wearing a muscle-hugging t-shirt of your World Vision sponsor child out for cocktails. Or making some trendy earrings out of the bones of murder victim.

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Am I taking this too far? Is my disgust misplaced? Am I over-sensitizing something that was supposed to be a genuinely informative educational experience? Or does it appear that having sampled chicken-a-la-Ein el-Hilweh or Janin-style curry is another certification for the hierarchy-happy Japanese?

A Place to Hang My Hat

So after a few weeks of intense house-hunting, and absolutely no effort whatsoever on my end, I have a place to live in Toronto this coming Fall! With views of the C.N. Tower and Skydome no less!

My brother and his girlfriend picked out this awesome condo in an old brick-building on King St. West, just west of Spadina near Bathurst.



I`ve been having mega-nostalgia lately about moving home. I spend hours on Google Earth planning out my route to school, what streetcar will take to me the fastest, where the good markets are, imagining what the skylines will be like from which sides of the building, how to get to the art galleries etc. It`s a bit maniacal, but I can lose myself for hours pouring over these maps of my soon-to-be-place-of-residence.




The apartment has huge floor-ceiling windows, and even a solarium that every room opens out onto. The building has a running track on the roof, a gym, a sauna and a coffee shop just outside the door. It`s an easy 3.3Kms to school through some of the coolest neighbourhoods in Canada like Queen St. West and Kensington Market.

My brother is sure that I`ll be sick of Toronto in five months. At this point I can`t imagine it.
All I can think of are the massive bookstores where you can browse for hours through books in your own language, the markets filled with food I recognize and haven`t eaten in three years, the used clothing stores where the prices aren`t the same or more expensive than new, leafy tree-lined streets, a plethora of foreign-food restaurants, and most of all, some anonymity - a place where I am as easily unrecognizable as the next guy.

But I`m definitely a grass-is-greener person, and perhaps come November, there`ll be a post about how it`s impossible to get cheap gyoza, or the sushi is horrendous and why does everyone talk so loudly about stupid things! Currently though, I`m just basking that I have an awesome place to live (the last pic: the room in the center with the double doors into the sun room is mine.)

The paperwork goes through tonight - thanks to my brother and his girlfriend, Kate.
Here`s hoping to no glitches!

Traversing the Axis Mundi

The documentary film `Other Worlds` by French director Jan Kounen has become a massive part of my recreational thinking as of late. Last night, for the fourth time, I sat mesmerized for the entire duration.

In the film, Kounen travels to a remote part of Peru to study with a Shipibo shaman the healing and mind-altering aspects of the plant Ayahuasca (Yage). It is not only his physical journey, but mental one as well, that begged to me the question, "Where are you willing to put yourself? Into what situations would you go? Take what risks?"

I don`t want to come across as someone who seeks out potentially dangerous `experiences` simply to augment a list of `things accomplished`or to impress friends at a party. One`s intent going into these kinds of situations weighs equally as important as one`s level of risk-taking. Jumping full-on into a war zone simply for the experience of being in a war can both discredit the experience and misconstrue the true danger. But after several tastes of very mild forms of danger during my own travel experiences (most specifically in India, Cambodia and Burma) I can`t help but feel both admiration and envy for those who have been not just knee-deep but head, life and sanity-deep in potentially destructive activities.

Where does my own fear come from? What am I capable of handling? And if I don`t test those limits, does that say something about me or my ability to know myself?

It`s a familiar situation: A group of travelers sharing some beers and cigarettes in some corner of Saigon or Mandalay and inevitably, crazy stories come out whose adventure quotient seems to dwarf your own to the point where you feel undeniably like some punk teenage joyrider in the company of base-jumpers. Why am I addicted to being safe?

For all intents and purposes, it`s this mentality that creates the backpacker trail throughout South East Asia. Very often it isn`t specific sights or scenery that draws us along the same conveyor from Bangkok to Chiang Mai to Vien Viang to Vientienne to Siem Reap to Phnom Penh to Saigon to Hoi An to Hue, Hanoi, Sapa and Halong. I`m more likely to believe that it`s our fear of the unknown masquerading as independent bravado that keeps most of us clustered in packs when people like Jan Kounen have made the decision to jump truly into the unknown - and not `unknown` like Leonardo DiCaprio swimming to a mysterious beach full of other backpackers, but `unknown` like venturing down an unguarded alley in Baghdad or leaving your entire psychology in the hands of a Peruvian shaman during an Ayahuasca ceremony.

During a similar conversation this weekend with my friend RSZ, he reminded me that what we consider `dangerous` is inextricably tied to our cultural upbringing, what we`re brought up to be accustomed to. While I could see his point, I argued that there are also certain activities whose danger is Universal, and perhaps even more so once you have traversed outside one`s zone of cultural snugness.

Perhaps what I was really trying to work out was why, during my travels, I had mostly stuck to `the trail` - only very infrequently finding myself as the only (Western) foreigner and never without at least a guesthouse to return to.

I wonder if the type of intrepidity I admire in Kounen or war journalists isn`t something learned and graduated to, the way a soldier becomes more confident once he`s seen combat and returned to his battalion to tell the tale. If I look at my activities in Vietnam (the first place I traveled) and those in Burma (the last) I can see a marked difference in how much I was comfortable with - where I ate, slept and who I conversed with.

Perhaps a person never puts themselves willingly into a situation they believe will outdo their ability to handle it Perhaps that`s the difference between an adventurer and a fool. But now that I know my limits have been stretched, am I not required to see just how far?

Cheat the Bloody System

So I`m barely two months into having been accepted into Grad School, with four months to go before classes actually begin and I`ve already (re)discovered the reason(s) I detest academia.

1. OSAP - The Ontario Student Assistance Plan has been the bane (bain?) of my academic career since my first year of Undergrad. I was dirt poor that year. So poor, in fact that my roommates were buying me groceries and my friend was paying my 100$/month rent. I had used all my savings from high school and before (read Paper-route money) to pay tuition and books. Since my parents had sent me to a private high school on the condition that University would be my responsibility, no support except the odd bag of muffins, came from them.

While the rest of my friends were collecting OSAP checks that September for up to 10,000$, I was ineligible for a single penny because of my dad`s income as a doctor. Eventually, after calls to our local MP, and a letter from my parents declaring me financially disowned, OSAP gave me 1,500$ during the final April of that year.

Now, trying to manage finances for grad school, I run up against the same retardedness. The OSAP online application asks for a rough estimate of your income in the months preceding enrollment at University. Being a semi-honest bloke, I declared my (modest) income from Japan, also that I am not currently a resident of Ontario.

A recent assessment of my completed application leaves me with a funding estimate of 6,900$ - barely enough to cover tuition for a single year, let alone living expenses in Toronto.

Fault #1 - Declaring my income from Japan even though this won`t show up on my Canadian tax forms, which they supposedly check to make sure your loan is accurate.

Fault #2 - Admitting that I wasn`t a resident of Ontario (now I`m required to fill out a lovely form called The History of Canadian Residency for Student)

2. Financial Aid Offices - At the University of Western Ontario, there was a building called the Stevenson-Lawson Building that handled all administration. It was a horrid building. Tan-stoned and ivy-covered on the outside, inside felt like the corridors of Auschwitz that echoed with all the screams of past, desperate students like myself. You waited in a hideously long line with other sad-eyed pupils who had come to beg The Administration for an extension on paying their fees, had come to pick up ridiculously inadequate Federal loans, or had come in response to a letter of summons that somehow you knew would f#%k something up for you. I loathed any day I had to make a trip to this building. The worst off were those standing in line with their bank cards. They sadly typed their PINs into the machines at the counter and watched as the greedy Admin behind the counter collected unpaid fees mysteriously called `Student Dues.`

Those memories came flooding back now that I`m contacting the University of Toronto`s Financial Aid offices to ask them to edit my OSAP application for income and residency. A week later, I`ve still yet to hear back.

I remember during my first year asking a girl I knew how much OSAP she was collecting. She smiled broadly and said, `The full 10,000$!` I said, `How did you get that much? Both your parents work, you work.` `Oh, easy,` she said. `I lied.` In fact, many of my friends collected OSAP this way.

I think I`ve been far too forthcoming with my honesty in dealing with `The System.` From now on, I lie. I lie about income. I lie about residency. I`ll lie about my non-aboriginal status and my non-dead mother and my non-hard-of-hearingness, my non-learning disability, my non-subsidized housing and my non-children.

Perhaps there is simply a way of playing the system that I haven`t figured out yet, a way of twisting the truth just enough to make it do what you want. Someone let me know if they have the formula.