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.

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