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!!!!