Saitama

I spent most of the day today (a Gunma holiday, no school) in Saitama at Costco! As in, American Costco! I gawked at the pumpkin pies from the bakery, the Swiss Miss Hot Cocoa, the Tide detergent, and lost count of how many times my friends and I said, "They've got [fill in the blank]!" It was nice to feel "at home" for a bit. Then I ate a slice of pepperoni pizza and basked in its deliciousness.

Funny how at home, I never ate at McDonald's or KFC, and rarely drank Coke, and was so nice and healthy and organic, and I come to Japan and suddenly regress. I need to work on that, or I'll be a pig in a few months. But tomorrow my friends and I are getting KFC and eating it and watching scary movies for Halloween, so maybe NEXT week I'll start eating better....

I'm also happy because I got a package in the mail full of apple cider and hand lotion and Japanese study books! Time to drink hot apple cider and read some nihongo!

Stats

So I just discovered this website lets me keep track of visitors to this page. Not necessarily "who," but the countries they come from. It's an interesting list. I know people in the U.S., Canada, Japan, and the U.A.E., but not so much in Europe. I guess those poor folk were Googling something else and somehow stumbled upon my blog. Thank you for coming, anyway. じゃyまたね！

Pageviews by Countries (all time)

United States 1,406 Japan 501 United Arab Emirates 26 Denmark 20 Lithuania 19 Ukraine 18 Canada 16 France 16 Estonia 12 Italy 10

Mt. Miyogi and Japanese Rock

One of these weekends I'm going to stay home and relax; I’m just not exactly sure when that will be . . . my constant go-go-go life in Japan pretty well mimics my go-go-go life in the States. This weekend I went hiking in the mountains, soaked in an onsen (public bath/hot springs), went to a child’s Halloween party, and danced like a crazy person at an outdoor concert with my friend M who came to visit me from Tokyo.

Saturday was the first beautiful day we’ve had in a while. I had lost count of how many grey and cloudy days we’d had, and I was happy to see the bright sun come up that morning. I crawled out of bed at 7:00 on Saturday morning just like it was a weekday, but somehow was awake enough to pick up four friends at the train station to drive to the mountains. About 30 people—JET and non-JET—met at the Mount Miyogi Shrine, about an hour’s drive from Takasaki, to spend the day hiking the trails.

After much deliberation about cars, parking, pictures, and any other issue that comes up when a large group is involved, we started the hike. Mt. Miyogi is part of the large chain of mountains in Gunma (by the way, did I ever tell you Gunma means “herd of horses,” even though I haven’t seen one horse here since I got here?) and has some of the most dangerous peaks around. To get to the absolute top of the mountain requires months of strenuous training and really good rock-climbing gear, since after a certain height it’s only rocks. And apparently people die every year trying to scale it (14 or 15 died last year, I think I heard). Luckily for us, we weren’t getting anywhere near that spot.

Even though our trail wasn’t quite so dangerous, it still had its moments. Most of the trail reminded me of the Appalachians in Western North Carolina. There were even some of the same kinds of trees (birches and pines) that reminded me of home so much that people got sick of hearing me say, “Wow! It’s like I’m back in North Carolina!” The combination of fresh dirt, leaves, and crisp autumn air mixed with warm sunshine even smelled the same. Unfortunately, even though this was meant to be the “Colorful Autumn Walk Through Mount Miyogi,” all the leaves were still green, even at that elevation. A few trees were thinking about changing color and were tinting yellow and brown around the edges, but almost the entire forest was still in its late-summer radiance. I guess because it was so ungodly hot all summer autumn is coming slower than normally. I guess this also means winter is going to be impossibly cold . . .

Back to the hike, though. We marched through the woods, following the trail as it led through the thick, dense forest. Everything was going well, we were all feeling pretty good, until the path suddenly stopped. Instead, an imposing rock mountain loomed in front of us, dented here and there with tiny footholds. A chain was hanging from the top, about 20 feet up and to the right. A crudely painted arrow, yellow but flaking almost to the point of illegibility, pointed for us to follow.

No way, everyone said.

Yes way, the mountain replied.

F started up. He’s a big guy, tall and heavy, and he held onto the iron chain with all his weight as he swung himself up. It held. C was next. He grew up in Canada and had done things like this before and moved sure of himself. Then a woman I didn’t know started up. Then me.

I am petrified of heights, as you may or may not know. But I’ve climbed mountains before. I’ve been all over the Appalachian Trail; I’ve hiked in Mexico and various mountains around the U.S. Hell, I almost made it to the top of Mt. Fuji! But I hadn’t rock climbed, either inside or outside. Not like this at least. After I got to the top of the rock, I saw that it wasn’t really the top. More footholds had been carved into the mountain on the side for another 20 or 30 feet. The rock slanted down at about an 80-degree angle, giving us an impressive view of the mountains that surrounded us, the big blue sky above us, and the craggy rock below us that was sure to break every bone in my body. I held onto the chain and inched over, bit-by-bit, hugging the mountain and making sure my feet were secure on the tiny ledge. One foot at a time. But then everyone suddenly stopped moving. (I found out later it was because F had made it to the top and was trying to figure out how to get down to the other side through a narrow crevice and another metal chain.) Crazily, the lyrics from an old Heather Nova song floated through my head: Too scared of going down / too scared of going up / too scared of rock face. I could feel my heart start to beat faster the longer I stood there, and I gripped the chain until my knuckles were white. In the meantime, I was trying to breathe like D’s meditation class had taught me: I am breathing in . . . I am breathing out . . . I am breathing in . . . but meditation wasn’t working so well clinging to a chain on the side of a mountain thousands of feet up. I refused to look down.

Eventually, though, we all made it across and down the other side, and all of us, I think, felt a little bit stronger afterwards, like we could do anything. But mostly relieved.

Luckily, that was the only truly frightening experience. The rest of the day was filled with beautiful sights of trees, tiny creeks, huge caverns, and the 100-foot high stone archways that marked each ascent. (Well, there was that one part coming down where we had to walk down what seemed like monkey bars over tiny gorges, but that wasn’t quite so bad.)

After the hike, everyone was exhausted, but some of us wanted to go soak for a while. My car full of people—three guys, a girl, and me (I am also a girl)—went to the Miyogi Onsen, about half a kilometer away. E (the girl) and I went through the red cloth to the women’s onsen; M and V (G stayed in the waiting room) went through the blue cloth to the men’s.

It wasn’t too full, and it looked like E and I were the only Westerners there. We showered, sat in the indoor tub for a few minutes, then got up to go to the outside one. There we discovered that C, C, and J, three JETs from a neighboring city, were also there.

There is something really fun about sitting naked in a huge hot tub on top of a mountain overlooking the city. The water was so hot we almost couldn’t stand it, but it felt fantastic on our muscles. The other girls kept exclaiming about the beautiful view, but I, who had left my glasses in a basket in the dressing room, could only see blobs of color (I actually had a hard time distinguishing who was who when I first got there, but didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable by staring at someone naked trying to figure out if she was my friend or just some stranger).

After 30 minutes or so, we all got out and headed back to our respective cities. G, M, V, E and I, along with another ALT from Minnesoooota, stopped and had udon at a little family restaurant in Annaka. Usually self-serve, the cook (proprietor?) left the kitchen and personally handed all of us our food at the table, while the rest of the customers tried not to stare at the loud group of gaijin. A little boy, who may have been the cook’s son, took a fancy to us and passed out huge hugs and pitchers of water (yes, that sounds weird, but he really wanted our attention).

I woke up on Sunday, had a delicious breakfast of un-pre-cooked sausage (very hard to find here), Mexican hotcakes, and coffee, and took off for my host mom’s Halloween party. Of course, Takasaki had to have some kind of festival today, making downtown traffic a madhouse, so I ended up being 30 minutes late. As soon as I trotted up to Yoko’s house, I saw that she had already lined up her students in preparation for trick-or-treating.

The kids were between 3 or 4 and maybe 11, all wearing the cutest costumes: I counted four witches, a bat, a pumpkin, Heidi (?), and a handful of children who just had Halloween-printed fabric draped around their body like a cape. Halloween is not a Japanese tradition, traditionally, but since Yoko owns an English school, they do cultural activities like this one. Her long driveway was decorated with Halloween-themed characters, black cats and pumpkins, and streamers were put up all over.

The children—about 25 in all—stood in two rows holding hands. Then, at Yoko’s call, we all, parents and children, marched solemnly down the street. I felt vaguely ridiculous, being A) the only Westerner, B) one of the only people not in a costume, and C) 28-years old holding a plastic bag with a Jack-o-Lantern on it. But Yoko was insistent that I, too, participate in the candy collecting, so I sang out, “Trick-or-Treat!” like a good girl.

We only went to a few houses before we went back to Yoko’s to have lunch. It was a potluck, and the table was weighed down with noodles, corn pizza, pigs-in-a-blanket, corndogs, salads, and so many desserts! crepes with bananas, mandarin oranges and pineapples, pineapple cake, doughnuts, cheesecake, tarts, and fruited Jell-O. I ate two plates full, then, after Yoko insisted that I take more (she’s so good at insisting!), one more. Then I was off to pick up my friend M from the train station.

M and I aren’t really close friends, but we did go to the same university for a few months back in 2007. She was one in the group of Japanese friends I had back at UNCG when I was first learning the language, and we had spent the day together at Disneyland back in February 2008. It was really great to see her again today and it was almost like old times!

After I found her at the train station, we went down to the Takasaki Music Festival, where a local Japanese rock band was playing music I didn’t recognize in an open-air setting. It was my first real “concert” since coming to Japan, and I was both shocked and completely not shocked at the sight of rows upon rows of impassive people watching the band throw themselves into a frenzy on the stage. A solitary row of 20-year old (ish) spectators stood in front of the band, sometimes tapping their feet and once throwing their hands in the air when the lead singer yelled, “Rock and roll!!!” but mostly standing still. There was little movement in the whole area.

The rock band finished, the audience mustered enough energy to give them a few claps before returning back to their quiet, and the next band came up. These guys were all wearing Hawaiian-printed shirts and dark sunglasses, and had their hair sprayed and teased into a high Elvis Presley-style rooster comb. Recorded music came on, the stage lit up, and they all started dancing in sync to Sufari’s (The Beach Boys?) “Wipeout.” Lights flashed, the speakers throbbed, and the audience sat.

Their songs were all catchy Japanese songs that sounded just like 1950s and 60s American pop. After a while, I couldn’t stand just sitting there, so I whispered to M, “Let’s go dance!” She was totally willing too (having lived in America for a year) so we went to join the line of people. At first, I was a little self-conscious being the only foreigner in front of a park full of people, but that went away after a few songs and the lead singer, an older guy with a huge grin, point at me and give me the thumbs-up. Actually, I guess there weren’t that many people, either, only about 50 or so, but since the band was playing near the train station there were always people hanging over the railing looking down.

That band finished too, and a junior-high school boy (not one of mine, unfortunately), came on stage. He sat down at a keyboard/synthesizer-thing, pressed some buttons, and filled the air with the opening drums to the Benny Goodman Orchestra’s “Sing Sing Sing (With a Swing).” Then that kid proceeded to play that song on the keyboard. It was so, so, so cool the way his fingers flew across the keys. And he's only 13! I couldn’t stop swinging. I don’t know any swing moves, but I wasn’t a ska fan for nothing in high school. This time, the band members from the previous band, all in their 30s or 40s, came and danced with M and me. They had some good moves, too! It was nice to see some Japanese people letting loose, even though everyone else was not. The boy finished with a keyboard rendition of “Tequila!” (How was I to know when I woke up on Sunday morning that I’d be salsa dancing (my white-girl equivalent anyway) to “Tequila” that evening?)

M and I were getting ready to go when we ran into one of the members of the 60s rock and roll band (STRAY BOYS ストレボーイズ). We started talking, or rather, M and he started talking and I butted in every now and then, making M interpret for me. We found out they’d play again in November in another music hall in Takasaki. He and M became Japanese-Facebook friends (there’s a name for that website but I forget…) so maybe we’ll get to go! I felt kind of cool being “friends with the band.” It was almost like high school again.

This weekend, there’s a Halloween party and a wine tasting. The weekend after, another climb, I think. And I just got six emails in a row from Facebook inviting me to various events from now till the end of the year. All I really need, I think, is to slow down once in awhile. But you know me. I never slow down. Even in Japan.

おやすみなさい！

Nihon no Tabemono and Comida Mexicana

Everyone knows I love Mexico. I love Mexico like I was born there. Love the way the language drips off the tongue, the rolling r’s, the languid ll, the singing up-and-down lilt of the South (as opposed to the sharp screeching of the North). Love the mountains and the beaches, the brilliant colors, the open architecture and open-doored houses hidden behind tall gates. Love the people, salt of the earth, who would open their houses and share a simple meal with a gringa from el norte. Love the smell of the city and the country, that distinct “I-am-in-Mexico” scent that I’ve never smelled anywhere else. And, more than almost anything, I love the food. Huevos rancheros smothered in green sauce, pollo con mole, tomato-stained rice filled with vegetables, street-corner tlyudas with tasajo, thick corn cakes, and hand-made tortillas and salsa three times a day.

But something strange happened.

I went to Oaxaca, Mexico in 2008 for five weeks to study for my TESOL certificate. But just three weeks in, I started—dare it be true?—missing American food. Yes. I craved Papa John’s pizza. (Mexican pizza, bless its heart, is the worst.) I wanted my mom’s fried chicken and mashed potatoes and Rusty’s macaroni and cheese. I wanted Southern food: honest to goodness sweet tea, green beans, Brunswick stew. I wanted a hamburger without a fried egg on top. I was tired of Mexican food, dammit! Delicious as it was, Mexican for breakfast, lunch, and dinner was getting to me.

So I was worried when I found out I’d be moving to Japan for a year. Sure, I like Japanese food as much as the next guy, but was I really going to have to eat sushi every single day for 365 days?

Actually, no.

I have been surprised at the variety of food here. I can find almost anything I’d eat in the U.S., except, as fate would have it, good Mexican food. (There are frozen tortillas in the International Foods Store and made-in-Japan Coronas, but many of the fruits and vegetables that they have down south just don’t exist over here in the middle of the ocean.) There is a good amount of “American” food, though, sandwiched between the dried squid, seaweed, soba noodles, and other unrecognizables. (NB: By “American” I mean things I can eat in America, which includes food from all over the world.) Japan loves Italian food, so there are always jars of spaghetti sauce and various pastas in every grocery store. I can buy pancake mix (together with astronomically-priced pure maple syrup), olive oil, spaghetti noodles (no oven, no lasagna?), instant macaroni and cheese, oatmeal, and Ocean Spray cranberry juice. So I am eating toasted peanut butter and honey bagels with my cup of coffee in the morning just like I was back in the good ol' U.S. of A.

But.

I LOVE Japanese food. And I'm not tired of it at all. Even after hearing "What do you like Japanese food?" a thousand times at school, I can still answer, "Everything (almost)!" truthfully. On rainy days I want hot udon or ramen (noodle soups). I like to sip green tea (even though the powdered kind is not as delicious as the dried leaf kind). I've even started enjoying the tiny dishes of random fresh seafood you get when you go to a nice restaurant, even if they do slide off my chopsticks occasionally. It's funny. Here I was thinking I would get so tired of what they have here, and I find I am loving it.

I still miss some food, though. In no particular order:

Chick-Fil-A

Stamey's Barbeque

Beef Burger

Super-G Mart (cheap avocados! cheap mangoes! oh, the cheap mangoes!)

Estrella del Mar & La Azteca (or whatever its name is now) & La Vaca Ramona

You Greensboro people, go there for me, and tell them I wish it was in Japan.

いただきます！

A Day With Bijitsu no Sensei

Last Wednesday, October 13, I spent another day [struggling?] in English and Japanese. Mr. K, the art teacher, picked me up at the Gunma Library at 12:00 and took me to a delicious sushi restaurant near the school. It almost didn’t look like a restaurant: parking was extremely limited and if it hadn’t been for the sign out front, I would have thought it was a house. However, the inside was full of diners, all of them sitting on cushions on the floor around low tables or at the bar in front of the chef. We removed our shoes in the entranceway and put them in the cubbies provided; in our socked feet we were led across the restaurant’s smooth, yellow hardwood floors and to our table by a waiter, slightly agitated at the sight of us. “There’s a big party coming in a few minutes,” he slung over his shoulder on the way to the table. “That won’t be a problem, will it?”*

“Not at all,” Mr. K reassured him. As we walked past the row of middle-aged men and women crouched over their sushi, every head lifted and turned in unison to watch us as we walked by.

“Mina-san wa watashi-tachi o mimashite,” I whispered furtively as soon as we arranged ourselves around a small table near a larger group of tables obviously meant for the large party that was coming any minute. Everyone is looking at us.

“It’s because you’re so beautiful,” he answered in English, picking up a menu and smiling into it.

Oh. Not because I’m the only gaijin here. Right.

I soon found out that the group of 20 was actually a group of mourners, there to celebrate the passing of a family member. Mr. K was in the middle of a long explanation of Buddhist beliefs about death and the afterlife when they started to file in solemnly. Immediately he slammed his book shut, the blank-paged one he had been drawing in to help me understand these intangible concepts, and changed the subject. Not that it would have mattered, I think, considering we were speaking in broken English, but perhaps it was a kind gesture of respect nonetheless.

The waitress, this time a youngish woman with a beautiful smile and black hair piled onto her head in a complicated twist, soon arrived to take our order. Shortly thereafter, two huge plates of delicately arranged sushi and sashimi arrived, flanked by a bowl of miso soup without a spoon (one picks up the bowl and drinks it like water). Unsurprisingly, it was absolutely delicious, and I maneuvered my chopsticks with little difficulty. As I recall, I only dropped one piece on the table, but picked it up again quickly before anyone noticed.

We left about an hour after arriving, taking a shortcut through unfamiliar back roads that led us to the highway that dumped us off in the middle of downtown Takasaki. After driving around for a few minutes, we found parking on the 6^th floor of a parking garage near the Takasaki City Art Museum.

For the past few weeks, the furor about Alphonse Mucha’s Art Nouveau exhibit has been all over Takasaki, and almost every ALT I know wants to see his works. There are flyers tacked up around town, and a huge banner outside the train station advertising the show. Takasaki has a Sister City in the Czech Republic, so there are often Czech cultural demonstrations coming here. (Side note: Takasaki is also a Sister City with Battle Creek, MI, but no one really talks about that. . . . ) It was a fascinating exhibit in a beautiful, modern building, and being with someone who had studied art made it even more enjoyable (“My, would you look at those lines”). But the language barrier was also frustrating, and I understand how my non-Spanish-speaking friend S felt when we were gazing at Mexican art in the Districto Federal: a little confused. Luckily, there’s not too much philosophy in the majority of Mucha’s art, so I contented myself with just looking.

We explored all three stories and six galleries of the museum, as well as another entire wing situated on the other side of the train station, before calling it a day. There was even a Lord's Prayer exhibit, translated into Japanese. I found it interesting that behind every line was a "kudasai" (please): "Thy kingdom come (kudasai), Thy will be done (kudasai)....Lead us not into temptation (kudasai)."

We departed downtown Takasaki around 4:00 p.m. and headed to his house. He had a kerosene heater he wanted to give me to use this winter in my unheated apartment.

He, like Kyoto-sensei, lives in a large, comfortable house just a few minutes from the school, with his wife, daughter, and 90-year old father. Three stories connected by a polished, hardwood staircase overlook the street on one side and a large expanse of gardens on the other. Persimmon trees, potato plants, leeks, and flowers border the house. Inside, evidence of his 7-year old abound: cute pictures she has finger-painted, toys strewn in her room, a collection of children’s books that takes up the entire bookcase.

As soon as we walked in, I was taken aback by the smell of incense, a sweet, delicious smell coming from the back of the house. After our upstairs tour, where he showed me original paintings he had created, he opened the door to the room his father sleeps in, revealing a large Buddhist altar and stacks of fragrant, unlit incense sticks. A cozy-looking, made-up futon was on the tatami floor, and the sliding paper doors were open to let in the breeze.

Tour completed, we returned to the entryway where we put our shoes back on, took the heater, and went to my house, me giving directions in Japanese the whole way: “Koko, migi…..koko, hidari….” (Here, right….here, left…) Mr. K lugged my heater upstairs and set it on the floor in front of the open balcony door. After flicking a switch and lighting a match, it worked like a charm: too much, actually, for the warm day. (Don’t worry, though, neighbors [and family], as soon as I buy DD batteries, I won’t be lighting any matches around kerosene! And I’ll keep the windows cracked and the CO detector on. And I won’t sleep with it on. Promise.)

He left as soon as he was sure I knew how to operate the heater. My Western mind just wishes that Japan had better insulation and central heating and air conditioning in all of its apartments, but my immigrant mind is just learning to accept things the way they are. If I have to use a kerosene heater for heat all winter, well, then, I'll just have to use a kerosene heater. I can pretend it's Christmas 1993 and I'm living in the country again, laying on the floor with my feet propped up on the sides of the old heater, reading Laura Ingalls Wilder and wishing I lived in 1870.

_________________________________________________________________

(*My guess, of course, since it was all in Japanese.)

Stream of Consciousness

It's almost 6:00 p.m. on Monday night. I go to my Japanese class in an hour. I wonder what it will be like and if any tears will be shed or not. I also got my CLAIR Japanese language study books in the mail today (the JET Japanese course) and discovered that I know more than half of what's in it! That's exciting! But it still means I have to do the tests and turn them in on December 15 (?) because there is no way to accelerate the process.

It's turning into autumn here in Japan and it is so amazingly beautiful! The mornings and evenings are starting to feel crisp, and the leaves have a tinge of color around the edges. Last Saturday I went to Nagano with my host mom (we still hang out a lot) to go outlet shopping (yes, even in Japan). Up in the mountains, the air was fresh, people were wearing sweaters and scarves, and some of the maples lining the road were already brilliantly red and orange and yellow. But colder weather means less sun: I went to the park after school today and stayed until 5:15, but it was almost completely black by the time I pulled my bike into the driveway at 5:30.

Yesterday my friend Angela and I toured around Takasaki, looking around drug stores (I bought 7000 yen worth of stuff, but I was just so happy they had almost everything I wanted, including Cheetos!!!), clothing stores, and used book stores. There's even a sorta-kinda Japanese Best Buy called WONDER GOO (not sure who invented that name) that sells DVDs, CDs, books, magazines, shelves of manga, and, juxtaposed-ly, make-up. They also rent. However, their prices are bordering on ridiculous: although they have some "3 for 3000 yen" DVDs (about $10-12/DVD), most of what they sell is about 3800 yen each, and that, my friends, is exorbitant.

I know I've said it before, but Takasaki is a lot like Greensboro. It's slightly bigger, but not by much, and you do the same things here that you would there. That means find your favorite restaurants/bars, parks, and stores, without worrying about huge attractions that are in bigger cities. I'm happy here. Japan is really (strangely) starting to feel like home to me. Like it just feels normal. Even today when the staff meeting started, it seemed normal that I didn't understand any of it except ".....arimasuka?" and ".....irashyimasuka?" I guess I go through waves of normality and fear, and am on the "everything's cool" wave now. I do still think it's weird that ketchup and mayonnaise are sold with their plastic bottles wrapped in plastic bags, that fresh fruit costs more than my rent, and that children like to snack on dried fish that still have their eyes in, but hey, Japan will continue to do its thing whether I like it or not, so I might as well go with it.

Plans are falling into place about visiting more cities and places as autumn progresses. I'm going hiking in the mountains this weekend, going to a Halloween party next weekend, and from them on traveling around. Oh world, I cannot hold thee close enough!

Flower

My phone rang at 7:00. I was sitting around my table wondering if I should keep trying to write or if I should study Japanese instead, when the keitai guitar strum started. It was my neighbor from down the street.

“Moshi-moshi?” I answered, just to be funny.

“Konbanwa, Y- desu. Are you busy?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Can you come to my house? Now?”

“Sure. Is everything okay?”

“Okay. Come to my house!”

I got up to change clothes and five minutes later was in the bathroom looking at my hair when I heard a knock on my door. It was Y.

“Jaimie?” she asked. “Come!” She motioned quickly for me to follow her.

I gave my hair up for lost and followed her down the stairs. She was walking very fast.

Is someone important at her house? Is something wrong? Does she want me to eat dinner and she’s afraid the food will be cold? Possibilities and explanations passed through my head as we trotted down the street.

“Do you know something something?” she asked me suddenly, looking at me. I gave her my quizzical “I don’t know what you’re talking about” look that I have down pat from overuse. She also recognized it and said, “OK,” and we kept walking.

At her house, she threw open her door and rushed inside; after a quick shoe kick-off she slid open the paneled door to the tatami room, and with great bravado pointed to the tree in the middle of the room.

“Gekka bijin!” she exclaimed. “One time flowers open. Tomorrow, close!”

The tree was about six feet tall with about ten open flowers: white almost-roses with wavy fingers all around them. They smelled sweet. Apparently they only open once every couple of months (twice a year?) and even then they only stay open from about 7:00 p.m. to 2:00 or 3:00 a.m., when they close up again. The kanji decomposition is: Month, Under, Beautiful, Woman (Person).

We marveled at the tree flowers for a while, took pictures, then sat down to drink whisky and water and talk about religion some more. (We always end up talking about religion, which is always a challenge considering all three of our limited vocabularies! But they always end up being the most interesting conversations. Tonight I learned that there are just as many branches of Buddhism as there are of Christianity, and that many families celebrate both Shinto and Buddhist holidays. I really need to read up more on Eastern religions...)

We only talked for a bit longer, then I thanked them profusely and said goodbye.

"You come to my house!" Y called after me. "You are daughter! Please come to my house! Oyasumi!"

Coming soon: Autumn Thoughts & A Day With Bijitsu no Sensei

(N.B.: Today on the radio I heard a song with the lyrics: "It's time to go/ goodbye / goodbye/ I hate to leave / Oyasuminasai." I liked that "goodbye/oyasuminasai" rhyme. Totemo sugoi ne.)

Good Country Folk (Japanese-Style)

I always thought my Kyoto-Sensei (Vice-Principal) didn't like me. He is a short, stocky man with black hair streaked with gray and a serious face than rarely smiles. At school, he is the judo instructor in addition to being vice-principal, and he works more than 12 hours a day: sometimes from 6:45 a.m. to well after 9:00 p.m.

For the past few weeks, we’ve barely exchanged more words than the usual morning pleasantries and the usual afternoon “Gomi, onegashimasu” as I take out the trash. It’s not that he’s overtly negative towards me; it just seemed that he treated me as if I were a piece of furniture that sometimes got in the way.

That’s why I was so surprised that during the enkai (dinner/drinking party) on Friday night, he suddenly looked at me and, through the translation skills of T-sensei (the head of the English department and my supervisor), said, “I want to take you sight-seeing in Gunma on Monday!” I was a little taken aback, but knew better than to argue. Monday was a public holiday, the school was closed, and I had no other plans. “Sure,” I said. “Let me know what time.”

I was prepared for these evening-created plans to have been forgotten by Monday, but I received a text from T-sensei on Sunday night reminding me of my 11:00 appointment in the judo room at school.

I woke up on Monday morning still dreaming about God knows what and confused about my ringing alarm. The sun was shining hotly even through the closed curtains, and slats of warm sunlight fell onto my futons. When I stumbled over to open the sliding paneled doors that lead into the living room, I found the next room ten degrees cooler since no sunlight had come in. It was a beautiful day, though, and after I got ready, I biked to school, enjoying the air on my face and hoping my going-flat tires would get me there. I met Kyoto-Sensei at school, we got into his car—a huge monster of an Isuzu SUV—and drove to his house.

He lives in a big, two-story, Japanese-style house off of Highway 25. A large garden filled with trees and flowers surrounds the house, and inside, it is light and airy from the opened doors and windows. We crossed one of the rooms, covered with tatami mats and home to two beautifully decorated altars (one holding the remains of his father) to sit around the low table in the other tatami room. His wife came out from the kitchen and we introduced ourselves, giggling because neither one of us really spoke the other’s language. She motioned for me to sit on one of the cushions around the table, which I did, and she brought me a cup of hot green tea and a plate of sliced Japanese pears. The three of us sat around the table, me feeling a little awkward because no one else was eating but me, but it seemed like that’s the way it was supposed to be so I didn’t argue. We talked a little about my trip to Niigata and they showed me pictures of their travels to England and Finland.

After a while, Kyoto-sensei stood up and said it was time to go. The three of us got in his gigantic vehicle and drove to the Takasaki Museum of Archeology. Outside, there was what looked like a pyramid from Mexico City that had been made out of leftover rocks: it turns out that it was not authentic, but a replica of a temple that had been there 1,500 years ago.

Touring the museum in Japanese was fun but I was filled with questions I couldn’t ask. Through a lot of sign-language and my dictionary, I found out that in 1980, as they were building the Shinkansen that runs through Takasaki City, they accidentally excavated the ruins of an ancient Japanese city, covered with ash, much like Pompeii. So there used to be an ancient civilization here in Gunma!

After the museum, we drove north for about 20 minutes, winding up the narrow mountain roads, to Mount Haruna, one of the famous mountains in Gunma. Unfortunately, so did half of the prefecture. Our plan had been to visit Haruna Shrine, but after sitting in deathly slow traffic for thirty minutes, we decided to skip the shrine and visit the lake.

The drive over the mountains and to Lake Haruna was lovely: it was a clear day, and the leaves were just thinking about changing colors. You don’t see anything but mountains until you pass a curve, and then the huge lake at the foot of the mountains, covered with families in swan boats, comes into view. But because it was 2:00 and we still hadn’t eaten yet, we stopped at a restaurant by the side of the lake that advertised soba and udon instead of going straight to the lake.

The restaurant was a traditional Japanese-type, with a raised platform against the windows with tables and mats that you sat around. We took off our shoes and stepped up onto the platform, then sat down around the table. I knew I wanted udon, but I didn’t know which type, and, as I didn’t understand the menu, Mrs. A ordered for me: udon noodles swimming in a broth with something like green beans. It was delicious!

Of course, it’s also a little unnerving to be sitting in a restaurant and realize that the majority of the other guests are staring at you, so I was happy to go as soon as we ate.

We left the restaurant and headed towards the mountain itself, where a line of cable cars had been strung up to carry passengers to and from the top of the 1,300-meter mountain. After buying our tickets (which they paid for, thank you!), we headed diagonally up the mountain in a swaying cable car.

The view was terrific: mountains surrounding us, the water below us, the sky above us. We wandered around for a bit, snapped some photos, then went back down the mountain and to the car, headed for Agatsuma.

Since I knew we were going to meet Kyoto-sensei’s family, I was trying to prepare myself on the drive there to be good and proper. Mentally, I rehearsed all the polite greetings I had learned: Hajimemashite, doozo yoroshiku onegaishimasu, and tried to think of polite conversation topics (“What a beautiful day”?). I had a drink in my lap that I had bought on top of the mountain and I took a few sips every now and then to take away my nervous thirst. When we had almost arrived, I set the can of Aqua-Something in the crook between my legs so I could reach for my purse that was on the floor. Immediately, the rest of the contents of my beverage spilled all over my pants and onto my seat, so I was sitting in cold, wet, sticky sports drink. I let out a surprised yelp and jumped up.

Kyoto-sensei stopped the car on the side of the road and turned around quickly. “Are you okay?” He asked in Japanese.

“Dammit, I spilled my drink all over myself!” I shot back in English, upset but laughing so he wouldn’t know. “Oh, no, now it looks like I just peed on myself!”

“Is the car okay?” He responded in Japanese.

I felt it. A little damp, but not too bad. “OK,” I said.

“Good,” he returned, and kept driving.

I, on the other hand, sat back down on the wet seat in my wet pants, and prepared myself to be good and proper.

We pulled into the driveway of his mother’s house five minutes later. It was a tiny dirt road leading off of the paved one, winding for a couple hundred feet before depositing the car in a driveway between a three-walled shed and a handsome one-story house. A green tractor and various pieces of farm equipment could be seen inside of the shed. Outside, stacks of firewood logs leaned against the wall four feet high, waiting for winter. An expanse of land sat around the buildings: three of four acres of flat garden space, in which gigantic broccoli, pumpkin, onion, and uniquely Japanese plants flourished. There were vegetables I didn’t recognize, but whose green leaves made me think would be delicious.

Kyoto-sensei’s mother, brother, and sister-in-law all sat under a gnarled, twisty tree around a crudely built table on seats made from thick sawed-off tree trunks. All of them were wearing tall rubber boots and flannel shirts streaked with mud, and their hair and fingernails were dirty. As we got out of the car, they stood up to greet us, and I saw that Mr. A’s mother wasn’t able to straighten her back so that she walked at a 90 degree angle. She grinned a happy greeting at her son and told us all hello. The family stood around and talked (I stood there and smiled) for a few minutes, before we all went out into the garden.

The sun was on its way down, throwing hazy afternoon light onto the family as they picked greens, dug up sweet potatoes, and picked chestnuts. All of the produce was loaded up into cardboard cartons and piled in the back of Mr. A’s truck to be taken back to Takasaki.

It was such a familiar experience: the garden, the work, the dirt, the early autumn smell in the air. In slow, roundabout Japanese, I was able to tell Mr. A’s wife that I had grown up on a farm, and that I felt very happy here in the mountains.

We went inside for tea a little while later, an experience that was both exciting and nerve-wracking. Plates of cut-up persimmon, Japanese pear, and cucumber were set in front of me, along with a ceramic dish of Japanese sweets. “Taberu!” everyone motioned at me to eat, but after a few bites, I realized, once again, that I was the only one eating. I put my sweet roll down. I looked at Mrs. A. “Is anyone else eating?” I asked in English. She politely reached for one, too, but only ate a little.

During the tea, conversation swirled around my head, broken occasionally by long pauses in which no one said anything either to each other or to me. I tried to put myself in their shoes. Then I reversed the situation and thought about my family, back in Littleton, North Carolina, good country folk as well, and wondered what they would do if an exotic Japanese girl came into their midst. What would they do? Offer her fried chicken and collards with vinegar and a glass of sweet tea? What would they even ask her? More than likely, they would just be afraid of her and feel tongue-tied.

“Something something something brother and sister?” Mr. A’s mom asked me. I thought I caught a conversation topic.

“Yes,” I replied, wishing I knew how to say “Yes, ma’am,” which would seem so much more polite. “One brother and one sister. They’re married with children, so I have a niece and two nephews.” (Of course I didn’t speak that smoothly, though; it was more like: “Brother. Sister.” [Point at ring finger to indicate marriage.] Children. [Hold up one finger to indicate one child. Hold up two fingers to indicate two children.]

“Something something something something something?” she asked, and I stared at her blankly.

“Sumimasen,” I excused myself. “Hanasetai desu, demo dekimasen,” (which may not even be correct Japanese, but should mean, “I want to speak, but I can’t!”)

The awkward tea finished a few minutes later, and we stood up to go. Mr. A’s mother picked up two tiny boxes and gave one to me and one to Mr. A’s wife. It was green tea soap. She motioned to me to have it.

“Something something something something grandmother something something,” she said, pointed at her own face, and threw her head back and laughed. Without missing a beat, I laughed, too, because I understood without really knowing what she had said: “Wash your face with this and you won’t have wrinkles when you’re an old grandmother.”

Her son and daughter-in-law and I piled back into Mr. A’s enormous vehicle together with the fresh vegetables, and we drove back to Takasaki.

After a quick stop at Belc, the Harris Teeter-esque grocery store, to pick up sashimi, sushi, and sake (three very important eses), we went back to their house to eat. It was a fantastic spread, and we even used one of those hot-pot dishes to boil vegetables and tofu at the table.

We were talking about music when Mr. A suddenly shot up from his cross-legged position on the floor. Motioning towards me in the Japanese “come here” (hand palm-down with fingers wagging), he led me to the back room of his house, his wife trailing behind us. He opened the door.

It was a music room! A full-sized, black Yamaha grand piano took up more than half of the floor space, and a smaller, two-keyboarded organ stood against the other wall. Piles of sheet music and music books were on the piano, the floor, and the bookshelf behind the piano.

“Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!” My hand flew to my mouth in wide-eyed wonder. “Sugooooiiii!!!” I bounded over to the piano. “Wow!!!!”

“Play!” Mr. A demanded, and I played.

We spent a good thirty minutes playing (alternating between me and Mrs. A, whose piano skills are so much better than mine, given that she’s a music teacher) and looking at sheet music.

“You must come back and play and sing!” Mrs. A told me when we got up to go at 9:00 p.m.

“I would love to!” I told her. I have access to three pianos now (four, if you count the one at school), and my soul is thrilled.

I left my bike at school, and they took me home. It had been a 10-hour day of all Japanese, but I felt like all I had learned was the kanji for “construction.” Surely I had picked up more than that! (maybe? maybe?) Either way, it had been a fun day.

Tuesday and Wednesday are “Office Days” (hour-long meetings before having the rest of the day free to do any office-y or non-office-y work you have to get done) and I don’t return to school until Thursday.

Wednesday, Mr. K, the art teacher, and I are going to an art museum and to lunch. It should be another lovely day!

Tonight, my host family is coming over for Mexican food. I hope my shrimp quesadillas and ensalada are good enough. I also hope my Spanish doesn’t dissipate: today I was going to give a new ALT my phone number in Spanish, but I looked at the number “eight” and could only think “hachi.” I started over at “one” but only thought “ichi.” No puede ser!!!!

You Knew This Was Coming

I apologize for being that girl in Japan to talk about sushi. But. Tonight. I had the best sushi I've ever had in my life.

My neighbors from down the street invited me to their house for dinner. Y-san had hand-made sushi: some with egg, some with mushrooms and cucumbers, some with beef, some with fish, and all of them absolutely divine. Restaurant food doesn't compare with her. Also on the menu were:

-braised (?) fish in some kind of delicious soy-sauce based sauce

-kuri (?): fish and cheese

-breaded pork cutlets

-cabbage salad

-salted cucumbers

-biiru and sake

We usually have tofu too but not tonight.

And since there was sushi left over, I got to take it home and it will be my breakfast tomorrow.

I'm going to bed happy tonight.

Nihongo 101: Class Three

Acts 8: 26-31

²⁶And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. ²⁷And he arose and went: and, behold, a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship, ²⁸was returning, and sitting in his chariot read Esaias the prophet.

²⁹Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot. ³⁰And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest?

³¹And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me? 

I took one formal Japanese class in 2008. I had studied for a couple of months beforehand, though, so I already knew a little bit when I joined. The first few classes were a review of hiragana and katakana, which I had learned already, and the basic Japanese sentence structure, which I had found out from a Japanese linguistics book. But since I was working full-time and taking graduate courses in the evenings—and, to be completely honest, because I found the class challenge-less, terribly boring, and a waste of time even if Ben what’s-his-name was in the same class—I dropped it mid-semester and never studied Japanese again. Until I moved to Japan.

Everything I’ve learned, though, has been through conversations with Japanese people or textbooks I read myself. Sometimes I wonder why I continue to go to the community classes every Monday night if I always leave almost in tears and with a headache. But I feel like if I keep going, surely something, sometime is going to stick.

I have switched teachers: I don’t know if my other teacher who gave me Kuma-san to Tsukine-san requested that I be moved, but two weeks ago I was handed over to the “director,” whose table was empty. He is a nice man, in his 60s, tall and pleasant and always smiling, even when I’m staring so hard at the board I could drill holes in it. (He also has absolutely atrocious handwriting—I have to ask him to re-write half of what he writes because he slurs all the letters together. Note to self during class: write legibly.) But it was a fairly good first class. We talked about time and I learned time expressions like “the day before yesterday” (ototoi), “the day after tomorrow” (asatte) and “this morning” (kesa, not “kono asa,” as I had mistakenly thought). I was feeling pretty good when I left.

Tonight, however, I felt that old familiar frustrated prickle behind my eyelids again. I can’t express the frustration I feel: There is so much I want to say and ask but can’t! I started making a list during class. Expressions include:

“I don’t understand why this is wrong.”

“If I say . . . is it right?”
“What’s another example of that?”/”Can you give me an example, please?”

“I don’t know where the words divide” (Japaneseiswrittenlikethisandifyoudon’tknowwhichwordiswhichyouendupveryconfused—ne!?)

Verb

Noun

Adjective

Grammar

Correct/incorrect

There are two (well, more, but two that are used the most) ways of conjugating verbs. One is the ~masu form, which is used in more formal situations. The other is the plain form, which, obviously, is used between friends and family. So “I eat” will conjugated in all the tenses (present, past, continuous, conditional, etc. etc.) at least twice, one in each register.

I’ve learned the ~masu form. It’s been drilled into my head since I-don’t-remember-her-name-Sensei taught it to me two years ago. But I rarely hear it, since almost everyone I know uses the plain form both between themselves and with me. It’s frustrating not to be able to reply to them in the same register that they are using with me (akin to me having to reply in “ustedes” instead of “vosotros” in Spain, because I had just never learned that form . . . ). So tonight I had it in my idea that Sensei was going to help me with the plain form of verbs.

We talked for a bit and then shifted over to reviewing my last week’s homework (shukudai). I had written all of my sentences using both the “~masu” and plain form of verbs, as practice. To explain, I pointed at myself, pointed at the teacher, pointed up, and said, “Watashi wa sensei ni…..’hatarakimasu.’” (I to the teacher….’work.’) Then I pointed at myself and away to another spot parallel to my chest. “Watashi wa tomodachi ni…..’hataraku.’” (I to my friend….’work.’). Then I wrote in my notebook, “hatarakimasu, hatarakimashita, hatarakimasen, hatarakimasen deshita” (I work, I worked, I don’t work, I didn’t work). “Kore o wakarimasu” (I understand this.) Then I pointed at “hataraku, hatakanai, hataraita, hatarakanakatta” (ditto, in plain form). “Kore o wakarunai” (I don’t understand this).

He proceeded to teach “~masu” all night long.

Later, I was given a worksheet in which I was to read a sentence, insert the correct particle (ha, ga, wa, no, ni, etc.) and conjugate the verb according to tense. I looked at the paper. Not a drop of furigana on the whole thing. Just scary, intimidating, hint-less kanji.

I tried to read the first sentence:

Watashi ( ) something no habeniwa something no karenda ( ) ( ) arimasu.

This is what I understood:

I ….. there is.

I looked at number two.

Watashi ... dake Tokyo deizunitando ( ) ( ) kotoga arimasu.

I .... Tokyo ... Disneyland ... there is.

Sensei pointed at the verb and I think said something about conjugating it. I wanted to conjugate them in the plain form, but I didn't know how. I also know there are verbs in different categories (like the –ar, -er, and –ir verbs in Spanish, I think . . . ) which won't all conjugate the same.

That’s when the Bible story hit me. “How am I supposed to do this,” I thought to myself, “if no one has ever taught me how to do it?!” I felt like I was being tested on something I never learned, expected to perform something I had never practiced.

I politely explained, in broken, broken Japanese punctuated with sign language, that I hadn't studied a lot of Japanese, that I'm not stupid, but I just haven't had the opportunity yet to learn it well. Sensei mo nodded politely, and we changed activities.

My Japanese studies are not progressive. They are not linear. They jump from topic to topic, tense to tense, random vocabulary word to random vocabulary word. And I feel frustrated.

Maybe I should have stayed in that Japanese class at UNCG after all, instead of thinking I knew everything.