Dictionary.com defines 'segue' as

noun
1.	the act of changing smoothly from one state or situation to another

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Over the last fortnight or so there was a volleyball tournament in my town. I think I've written about this before. It happens twice a year, in Spring and in Autumn. My team got a few new players which made us much better than in previous seasons, but in the second half of the tournament many of our players had other commitments. I think there were only three of us (out of a team of about 11 or 12) that played every game. We finished 5th out of 9, which is not too bad, with a 4-4 record. The four games we lost were all with our weaker members playing. If we had had our strongest team, we probably would have finished with at least 6 wins. It is just a social league anyway, so winning is not so important for us.

However, this is not so for the Japanese national volleyball teams. For some reason, which I am yet to fathom, Japan loves volleyball. It is one of the most popular sports here, behind baseball and soccer. Now, as most people know, Japanese people are not known for their physical height. Let's just say that, on average, I'll meet a Japanese person who is taller than me about once a year. Volleyball is similar to basketball in that most of the players are huge. Like basketball, being very tall is considered a great advantage as it makes it easier to hit the ball over the net. Yet, despite volleyball being a sport for tall people and Japan being a country of midgets, it is a very popular sport.

You might be surprised to know that the national teams are actually pretty strong. The women's team is usually in the top few teams in the world, and the men's team is usually around the top ten or fifteen, I think. Whenever there is a major volleyball competition or qualifying for a major competition, the sport dominates the media. Over the week the final Olympic qualifying matches have been held here in Japan. The Japanese women's team lived up to their hype by qualifying easily. The men's team are still playing, but it doesn't look good for them. Their campaign suffered a major blow during their first qualifying match against Italy. Japan was leading Italy 2 sets to 1 (best out of 5) and had match point in the 4th set, with the score at 24-17 (first to 25). This is an almost impossible situation to lose from. Volleyball is the sort of sport where the scores almost always remain close, making it very hard to build a large lead. 24-17 is considered a very large lead. So, with Japan having a seven point lead and only needing one point for victory, what do you think they did? Yep, they dropped the ball. Big time. It was actually really hard to watch for even a neutral observer to watch (I don't care at all whether they win or lose). At first the lost a couple of points by showing off too much. You could see that they wanted to finish with a massive spike or some other trick that would send the crowd wild. But, they continued to drop points. Even when they started to play safe again, they were unable to win that last point. You could see on the players faces, the coach's face and spectators faces - 'oh shit... they couldn't lose... they couldn't!'. But they did. And then, to further rub it in, Italy crushed them in the deciding fifth set. It was one of the hardest ways to lose a game, but I'm sure it taught them a good lesson.

As many of you probably don't know, Australia is also playing in the men's qualifying tournament. Australia are ranked somewhere in the low teens, I think, similar to Japan. People often ask me, 'Are you going to support Australia or Japan?' What a stupid question. Of course I'm going to support Australia. I can't imagine any situation that I would support someone else over Australia. It's just un-Australian. It's important for me as an expat to remember my heritage, and one way I can do this is by supporting Australia every chance I can. There are other things I do when I need to remind myself of Australia, such as watching Australian tv, or listening to Australian radio. Probably the easiest thing for me to do is to listen to some Australian music. I have thousands of Australian songs on my mp3 player, so I often listen to them while I am driving.

One of my favorite bands, and a great band to listen to when you need to be reminded what it's like to be Australian, is Cold Chisel. Most of their songs are about things that the average Australian can relate to. The themes are down-to-earth and gritty. Let's have a quick look at the themes of some of their most popular songs:

'Khe Sanh' - A Vietnam vet coming home but being unable to reconnect with society

'Bow River' - Working a dead-end job with only a dream to keep you going

'Flame Trees' - Returning to a familiar place where everything is the same except you

'Misfits' - Homeless kids

'Cheap Wine' - An endless cycle of drinking

'When the War is Over' - A troubled relationship

'Four Walls' - Spending time in prison

'Saturday Night' - Going out partying... on Saturday Night

The list goes on and on. Great songs with great themes.

However, there is one Cold Chisel song that has always stood out as being different. A song with a theme that is definitely Australian, but not particularly gritty. Whenever I listen to it, it kind of gives me a weird feeling. It doesn't make me feel embarrassed to be an Australian, but I always wonder how I would explain the song to anyone who wasn't an Australian. It's not their most popular song, but even people who are unfamiliar with the band have probably heard it before.

The song I am talking about is 'Ita'.

What's it about? Well, the simple answer is that it's about Ita Buttrose.

I'm sure some of you are wondering, 'What's an Ita Buttrose?' Well, this is an Ita Buttrose -

She's the founding editor of Cleo, former editor of Women's Weekly and, for some reason, the topic of a Cold Chisel song.

I have a mental image of Cold Chisel hanging around in bars, drinking hard and playing harder. Then I listen to this song and my image changes completely.

"Every night when I get home
I settle down to prime time limbo
When all the boys are gathered around
Shouting Ita's on TV"

No drinking tonight guys. We're going home to watch current affairs on TV.

"Every week, in every home
She got wholesome news for the family
I believe, I believe, in what she says
Yes I do
I believe, I believe, at the end of the day
Her magazine'll get me through"

Not only do Cold Chisel like current affairs programs, they also seem to like Women's Weekly.

"Ita's tongue never touches her lips
She could always be my godmother
And though the desk-top hides her hips
My imagination's strong"

I don't know. Maybe Ita of the 80s was actually a hottie, but now... hmm...

The thing that surprises me most about this song was that an 80s TV and media personality was so popular that she became the topic of a popular song. I think back to the media personalities that I grew up with and I couldn't imagine any of them having a song like Ita:

""Every night when I get home
I settle down to prime time limbo
When all the boys are gathered around
Shouting Jennifer Keyte's on TV"

"Derryn Hinch's beard never touches his lips
He could always be my godfather
And though the desk-top hides his hips
My imagination's strong"

Yuck.

Cold Chisel isn't the only Australian band that gets regular play on my MP3 player. AC/DC is another band that I enjoy listening to, and a band that I have a personal attachment to. Why? Well, as some of you may know, the band's original singer, Bon Scott, died during the height of the band's fame. After a night of heavy drinking he was found dead in his car. The cause of death was listed as "acute alcohol poisoning" and "death by misadventure." But, here's a fact that I'm sure you didn't know. Bon Scott died on the 19th of February, 1980, the exact day that I was born. It's quite possible that at the exact time I was being brought into the world, Bon was saying goodbye. I took his place in the world. That's a weird feeling.

Anyway, I got to thinking, if I ever become famous enough at something to have my own theme song (you know, like a boxer has when he enters the ring, or like some cricket players have when they come out to bat during 20/20 games), I want it to be 'Thunderstruck" by AC/DC. Love that song.

If I don't become famous enough, I guess I could have it play at my wedding (no that's not an announcement), but I'm not sure my wife would be too happy about it (unless she turns out to be a huge AC/DC fan). One thing I can be sure about is that they would never play Thunderstruck at a Japanese wedding. Interestingly, I went to a Japanese wedding for the first time recently. Two teachers at one of my schools had been having a secret relationship for about a year and a half. Last March, when the female half of the relationship found out she was being transferred to a different town, the male half decided to propose. A few months later, they got married. Now, I don't want to blow my own horn, but I usually consider myself good at reading people. A lot of it comes from having lived in a country where the language spoken is not my native language. Particularly when I fist came to Japan, a lot of the time I had to rely on 'non-verbal linguistic cues' to help make sense of a situation. Things like body language, eye contact, pace and tone of the speaker, silence, etc. can all tell as much about something as what the person is actually saying. Anyway, this relationship between these two teachers was something that I completely missed, and it kind of pissed me off that I couldn't see it. However, I can take some solace in the fact that I usually only see them once or twice a week, whereas the other teachers see them every day of the week and even they had no idea.

So, I went to their wedding. It was in a big, flashy hotel in Sapporo, one of the most popular hotels for weddings. In fact, there were about 5 or 6 of them all going on on the same day.

My impression of Japanese weddings: well, I can only comment on the reception (because the actual 'I do' part is just for family members), best two words I can think of to describe it were 'theatrical' and 'regimental'.

I got the impression that Japanese weddings are based on the idea of a 'perfect western wedding' that has been put together by a bunch of Japanese people watching every wedding movie that Hollywood has ever produced. Everything is very glamorous and over-the-top (the cake was about 2 metres high). The whole thing is run by a horde of staff who are there to make sure that everything happens precisely, perfectly and exactly on time. People are assigned to take care of every tiny job. One person's entire job was to crouch down behind the bride, groom and other special guests, and to pull their chair out when it was time for them to stand. That's it. Pull the chair out when the person stands, put it back in when they sit down. That's your job.

The wedding was nice and the food was great, but the highlight for pretty much everyone was the after party, and the after-after party, and for some, the after-after-after party. Teachers had been talking about it for weeks. Even though they were saying 'I'm looking forward to the wedding', what they actually meant was 'I'm looking forward to partying in Sapporo'.

The after party started with about 25 people, and by the time the after-after-after-after-after... party finished it was 12 hours after the wedding started, there were only two of us left, we had visited half the bars in the city, and my wallet was much emptier than I had planned. Oh well, it was a great night.

The only realy disappointing part was the next day, driving home. I hadn't had much sleep, I was still a little out of it from the night before, but it was beautiful weather so I was in a decent mood. It was a 3 hour drive home, and I had the window down enjoying the weather the whole way. Unfortunately, I also had my arm up on the window sill for the entire trip. A few hurs after I got home my arm started itching, then burning. Great, first sunburn of the summer and it's on one arm only. Now I have one pasty white arm, and one pink one that is starting to peel. Great.