日本語教室 TAKE TWO

All right.

It’s been about two months since I went to my community Japanese classes (nihongo kyoushitsu in Japanese). You remember how they went: a couple of good ones, and a couple of un-good ones as well, like all those going home and screaming in frustration nights. I almost didn’t sign up again for the winter semester, but, seeing as I have a real tutor now who teaches me grammar, I figured I could at least practice my conversation skills once a week at the Fukushi Kaikan. So I signed up again, not for Monday nights as before, but for Wednesday afternoon, from 4:30-6:30 p.m.

January 19 was supposed to be the first day of class, but when I walked into the old familiar community center building, I discovered that neither students nor teachers were there. I waited around for half an hour, wondering what was going on, until a community employee came up to me and told me that the teacher wasn’t coming. Apparently, since I had been a Monday night student before, the teacher thought I would continue to go on that day, even though I had signed up for a different one. There were a lot of gomennasais and sumimasens, and then I went home.

A week later, on January 26, I went back, half expecting the same situation to happen again. Again, I was the only student there, but not the only person. My heart jumped in my throat for a second when I saw the same teacher I had last semester—was it just my imagination, or was he remarkably cooler towards me than he used to be? (I wonder if he’s still miffed about the letter I had written him in November, thanking him for teaching but letting him know that it was incredibly difficult for me.) Luckily he was only there for a few minutes to introduce me to my new teacher: a woman about my mom’s age (and with children exactly my age), who speaks in slow, understandable Japanese and who doesn’t mind repeating herself a few times. I wonder what Mr. S told her about me. . . “This one’s a hard one, she’s never happy, she’ll ask you all kinds of questions but then get mad if she doesn’t understand your answers. . . ” But, she was fantastic.

Unlike my very first teacher, who threw me into “Mr. Fox and Mr. Bear” on the first day, or Mr. S, who scribbled incomprehensible hieroglyphs all over the board in rapid-fire Japanese, Ms. T started the class by asking me what I wanted to study. I explained that I was studying grammar on Mondays, using the JET/CLAIR course on my own, and that what I’d really like was conversation and practice speaking.

So for most of the two-hour class, we talked about our families, American vs. Japanese housewives, the economy, learning Japanese, driving in Japan, and my job teaching English. (None of it was very eloquent, I’m afraid, but between my stumbling sentences and the pictures I drew, we were communicating!) I actually understood and could respond to about 80% of what she was saying! Of course, most of my sentences were punctuated with “umm”s and I only used the present and past tenses of verbs in simple sentences (“My brother lives in Oregon. My sister lives in Indiana.”), because I don’t feel confident enough yet to use conjunctions correctly. But she was patient and nodded and gave me time to formulate the sentences in my head, and I felt happy. She even understood my desire to learn casual speech quickly, and gave me examples in both polite and casual forms so I won’t be texting my new-found friends, “Whither shall we goeth to imbibe?”

Toward the end of class, she brought out a low-level textbook and had me practice reading from it. It was pretty easy (“This is a notebook. Is this a pen? No, it’s not. It’s a pencil.”) but, it was in 100% Japanese instead of romaji, and it used kanji! And because it was something I’d done before, it gave me confidence reading more quickly. And to boost my confidence even more, she, like the rest of Takasaki, was astounded by my writing skills. “Katakana, hiragana, AND kanji! Jouuuuuuzu desune???!!!”

When class was over, I thanked her for coming and told her I really liked the class. I also tried to excuse myself for last semester just in case Mr. S wanted to know if I was as impossible with her as I was with him. “Maybe I’m a bad student, but it was really, really hard,” I told her. “Really, really hard.” “Do you understand my Japanese?” she asked. “About 80% of it,” I said, and she smiled.

I’ve been saying I’ll speak Japanese “next year” for the past six months. So let’s see I actually keep my promise for 2011. I know I’ll never been fluent. It’s not my goal. But if I can carry on a simple conversation with people, I will be happy enough. Here's to a good start!

Irate Restaurant Blog

6:00 p.m. Tuesday Night

Angela and I go to the Red Lion—the only English pub in Takasaki that I know of—to meet Grant for dinner. There are a few tables with a scattering of people. We read the katakana menu. Angela and Grant order their speciality: fish and chips. I order Shepherd’s Pie. We pay for our food in advance (that’s how they do it here). We talk with the German guy sitting next to us. The place slowly begins to fill up.

6:30 p.m.

Grant sips his Guinness. Angela and I sip our waters. The German guy keeps talking about his world travels. We nod.

6:45 p.m.

“Where is our food?” mutters Angela.

“Give it time,” Grant advises. “It’s Japan.”

“Oh my God,” says Angela. “The bartender is the cook.”

He—the sole employee—goes to the back to start cooking.

7:00 p.m.

We can see the fish and chips lying on the plate in the kitchen.

The waiter carries a plate out and sets it in front of a couple sitting at the bar. A couple that arrived after we did.

7:05 p.m.

Angela’s fish and chips are set in front of her. The waiter/cook/bartender smiles politely and returns to the kitchen. Grant and I look at each other. Angela starts to eat. Grant sips his beer. I sip my water. The German guy lights up a cigarette.

7:15 p.m.

Grant and I steal a fry from Angela. She finishes her food. Another table gets their food: fish and chips.

A second employee walks in. He takes care of the beer orders while the first guy continues busying himself in the kitchen.

7:20 p.m.

Another table gets their food.

7:25 p.m.

Another table gets their food. I feel incredulous.

7:30 p.m.

Another table gets their food.

7:45 p.m.

The waiter comes out to our table.

“Gomen, gomen,” he apologizes, pulling out the 1,000 yen bill I had given him earlier and handing it to me. “The oven is broken. You can’t eat here.”

“大丈夫、”I said.“ちがおうレストランで食べましょう.”That may or may not be correct, but I wanted to say, “That’s okay, we’ll go eat somewhere else.” My incredulity is surpassed by something akin to rage.

7:46 p.m.

Angela and I walk out.

7:57 p.m.

Grant, back at the Red Lion, gets his fish and chips. He was the first person to arrive and the last person to eat.

8:05 p.m.

I bite into my Big Mac at McDonald’s that took all of 45 seconds to order and receive.

***

I don’t care if only one guy was working at the Red Lion. I don’t care if it takes a long while to get my food. I don’t even care that the oven was broken (although he didn’t need to wait two hours to let me know). I care that every other person in the restaurant—even people who arrived 30 minutes after we did—ate before us. 日本へようこそ、indeed.

Kyoto Part Deux (Finally)

(and not very good)

Anna and I left Osaka around 8:00, taking the JR back to Kyoto. We quickly dropped our purchases (I bought way too much in Osaka) off at the hotel, just to turn around and get back on the subway to meet Wayne in Gion. Together, the three of us were carried along with the crowd—thousands, thousands! of people—to the entranceway of the shrine. It was a cold, cold night, snow still on the ground and our breath making smoke every time we talked. The crowd was somberly subdued (as opposed to rambunctiously subdued?), as they walked along, befitting the quiet, reflective state they must have felt at the cusp of the New Year and their shrine visit. But there was also a happy, festive, fair-feeling in the air, too. Once we got past the shrine gates themselves, we saw rows upon rows of food vendors selling fried chicken, takoyaki (octopus), grilled corn, hamburgers, and so much more. Everywhere was the smell of food cooking and smoke. As I chewed on a grilled corn on the cob, I reflected on the corn differences around the world: dipped in soy sauce in Japan, slathered in mayonnaise and Parmesan cheese in Mexico, buttered and salted back in the U.S. It was a sobering thought.

Around midnight, everyone starting counting down from ten seconds, even though Wayne’s watch said it was still 11:58. The counting was subdued, though, almost like a mass whispering. There were a few belated cheers; Anna and Wayne and I hugged, but there didn’t seem to be anything else going on. The shrine itself was opened so everyone could go in and pray for blessings at the new year, but we didn’t stay. Instead, we walked back to the train station on our frozen feet on the frozen snowy ground. There were thousands of people lined up to pray, and the street leading to the shrine was closed and filled with people.

At our subway stop, Anna and I stopped at the Seven Eleven for a snack: rabbit-shaped mochi and sake to celebrate the New Year! The cashier spoke a little English and seemed pleased to be able to carry on a slight conversation with us in English. I love how in big cities no one seems to be afraid of trying out their English on us; in Gunma they like to do the all-Japanese thing.

January 1 was my favorite day in Kyoto! We woke up a little later than usual, had another delicious breakfast of coffee shop pastries and coffee, and went to Kiyomizudera Temple. It is so named because of the clear water (Kiyo Mizu) that runs down there. We spent a while at the temple, wandering around into the Love Shrine, too (I bought a love charm while I was there, too, but I didn’t try the walking 10 feet with my eyes closed between two rocks thing because there were too many people). I got a fortune, though, that is the best one possible: apparently everything I want this year will happen! Fantastic! We lined up for the waterfall and drank from the tinny cup we were offered. I think we’ll get wisdom or health for having drunk from it.

After we left the shrine, we ate street vendor hamburgers and teriyaki chicken burgers and talked in broken English with the guys who sold them. We wandered around some more and found a beautiful shrine of a Buddhist goddess (Kannon), 70 meters tall (?) but behind a closed and locked gate.

That night we ate at a tofu restaurant. We were herded in from the street and put in front of our table before we could even say, “Maybe. . . .” I’m glad we did, though. I had the most delicious tofu dish I’ve ever had in my life. I didn’t even know tofu could be so good! It was mixed in with a dish of rice, finely chopped green onions, and ginger. There was also a piece of tofu with a dash of wasabi sauce on one side, and some mixed vegetable tempura. De-de-de-de-licious!

January second was spent much like Black Friday in the U.S.: shopping! Apparently this is the day most of the stores have their big sales, and people line up for hours before the store opens in order to go in and take advantage of them. We discovered Nishi Market and a couple of large shopping districts that sold everything I could ever want. A lot of vendors get rid of excess merchandise at this time of year, and create mystery “Grab Bags” that they sell for ridiculously low prices. I bought a 1050-yen bag at a sock store and got five pairs of cool tights that were worth about 5000. I wanted to buy more, but after walking around for a couple of hours and noticing how light my wallet was getting, I made Anna stop me from making any more rash purchases. (Over the course of my five-day stay in Kyoto, I bought a new pair of boots, a sweater, two dresses, those tights, a ton of yatsuhashi for my friends and co-workers, Kyoto incense, a wooden rabbit plaque, a rabbit-shaped bell, postcards, 2 pairs of leg warmers, and yarn. I needed to get out of there before I went broke!)

We met up with Wayne in the afternoon and hung out with him for a bit. To celebrate our last day in Japan’s oldest and most traditional city, we had dinner at McDonald’s before going to one last store to look around.

I’m writing this from my seat on the Shinkansen heading back to Tokyo. Of course I bought the return tickets for the wrong day, and they were unreserved at that, so we have to make do with where they put us: in the smoking car. Ugh.

It was a fantastic trip, even though I would prefer to return when it’s warmer. Since most of the famous sightseeing destinations are outside, it’s better to go when the sun is shining. I can’t wait to return in May when my Greensboro friends come to visit me (hint hint)!

デートがあった！(I Had a Date!)

(Kyoto Part Two is coming soon, but I wanted to interject just for a moment. And family, please don't be alarmed upon reading this entry.)

Now I don’t usually go around putting my love life up on my blog, but I just had a date I can’t keep quiet about. I’d had my eye on this Japanese guy who works at Softbank at Yamada Denki for a couple of months now, and when I ran into him with a couple of bilingual ALTs at the end of December, it seemed like fate was on my side. I ended up giving him my email address, and he sent me a message just an hour after we had left the store. We texted back and forth a few times (in my pitiful Japanese and his atrocious English) before finally settling on a day and a time to meet.

I spent the whole afternoon both looking forward to and dreading our upcoming meeting. We were virtually strangers, and I was worried that our lack of each other’s language skills would pose a huge problem to both getting to know each other and getting along. But as it turns out, we could understand  each other perfectly well without really knowing what the other was saying.

He got lost on the way to my house, but I found him a block away. He was in a souped-up station wagon with rims on the wheels, blaring Japanese hip-hop and blasting the heater. He had his hair gelled up for the occasion and was wearing low-slung jeans, a white button-up shirt, and gray suede boots. No coat, even though it was close to freezing out. A big change from the black pants and white Softbank shirt I always see him in. He smelled strongly of some kind of cologne but I couldn't place it.

As we rode toward what I thought was the restaurant we were going to—he had texted me previously something about nabe—we made small talk in a Japanese/English mix. Out of curiosity, because I had him pegged around 26 or 27, I asked him how old he was.

“Twenty-two,” he said. “You?”

Oh.

“Twenty-eight.”

Score One. All my nervousness completely disappeared. Most of my attraction did, too.

“Are you hungry?” I asked in Japanese.

“Yeah, I’m starving!”

“Where are we going now?”

“Do you know how to cook?”

“Yes. . . but . . . not now. Where are we going?”

“Jaimie cooks tonight!” He flashed a huge grin at me, then turned back to steering the car (his brother’s, as it turned out) quickly through the narrow walled streets of Gunma-machi. He pulled into the local Torisen (supermarket) and reverse-parked.

I, wide-eyed in exasperation, heaved a great sigh and pulled myself out of the car. Is this for real? Am I really baby-sitting tonight?

“Nani ga hoshii?” I asked, resigned. (What do you want?)

“Niku niku niku.” (Meat.)

Of course.

He picked up a basket at the entrance and we walked around in a hurry. At the back of the store, he vacillated at the meat section before placing two huge packages of pork in the basket. I, running a recipe through my head, looked up “vegetables” on my iPhone dictionary and showed the word to him. He looked confused for a second, then shrugged as if to say, “Whatever.” I got some green peppers, knowing I had mushrooms, carrots, and onions at home. Before we left the store he exclaimed, “Oh! Sake!” (or maybe “O-sake!” but I doubt he’s that respectful) and promptly plopped a 700mL bottle of Suntory whiskey in the basket.

Luckily, he paid for everything.

Back at my house, after exclaiming, “Ahh, samui!” (“It’s so cold!”) he went out on the balcony to smoke his charcoal flavored cigarettes. I plopped my bags on the counter, rolled my eyes, and asked myself again what the hell I was doing. Cooking for some 22-year old guy who ore’s it up, apparently. (Ore is a super casual, super manly way of referring to oneself. A lot of guys do it, but it seemed doubly arrogant coming from this one.)

While I was busying myself slicing vegetables and stir-frying the vast quantity of meat he had bought, Nao—oh, that’s his name, Nao, which means “furthermore” or “in addition” in Japanese; an adverb for a name—came back in and immediately burrowed himself under the kotatsu. Thanks for asking if you can help, buddy, I thought darkly.

“Drink?” I asked.

“Yes,” and he waited for me to fill his glass.

During the meal, sitting around the kotatsu, he shoveled the rice/meat/vegetable combination in his mouth without saying much, sometimes picking his plate up to eat directly from the rim. I was waiting for the “oishii” stamp of approval, but it took a while for him to remember to complement the dish. He ate two huge helpings though, which might just mean that he was starving. I tried to talk a little during the meal, and when he would attempt something in English that was understandable, he’d joyfully shout, “Okaaaay!” just like my 15-year old san-nen-sei boys do. It was uncanny how similar they sounded.

“Sooo . . . did you go to college?” I asked. He is 22, after all.

“Naaah.”

“You went to the same junior high school I teach at, right?” I started. I had learned this little tidbit back in August when he signed me up for my iPhone. “Were you a good student?”

“Noooo! I slept all during class.”

“Who was your ALT?”

“Paul. From . . . Canada.”

“Do you want to travel?”

“Yeah.”

“Where do you want to go?” I prodded.

“Italia!”

OK, we’re getting somewhere. “What do you want to do there? Look at paintings? Michelangelo?”

“Nanimo shinai, sake dake nomu!” (I don’t want to do anything, just drink.)

Oh. You can do that in Gunma, you know.

“Have you been anywhere?”

“Tokyo, Saitama, Gunma, Tochigi. . . “He started rattling off the names of the nearest prefectures.

“Do you have a passport?”

“Nai.” (Nope.)

Somehow we made it through dinner. I got up to put the plates in the sink and said, “All right, since I cooked, you have to do dishes.”

He gave me a look. “Let’s janken.” (Rock Paper Scissors)

“Saishogu, janken poi!” My scissors beat his paper.

“Two out of three! Two out of three!” he demanded.

“Aikodeshyo!” My rock beat his scissors.

And I did the dishes.

When he finally left, after another hour of strained conversation, I shut the door and said to myself, “Did this really happen?” People say Mexican men are machista, but at least they’re romantic, and at least they try. I’m not going to throw every Japanese guy in the Asshole category, but I’m also not going to be calling up ol’ Nao to take me out again anytime soon. I’d probably end up barefoot and pregnant on a tatami mat before I knew it.

Kyoto Part One

(Sorry I haven't been writing ....!)

PART ONE

When most people think about traditional Japan, they think about the pagodas, the gardens, the famous temples and shrines: they think Kyoto. I’d never been before, just read about it on WikiTravel and in a couple of Lonely Planet books, and it turned out to be much like they said. Kyoto is still a normal Japanese city; it’s just pocketed with super famous, ancient historical sites. It would have been nice to have been instantly transported back a few centuries ago, but I didn’t see one geisha or maiko (geisha-in-training) while I was there. No samurais or ninjas, either.

I did see a lot of tourists from all over the world, though—Korea, China, Vietnam, Germany, Russia, France, Australia, England, the U.S., and even Spain! It was wonderful to hear so many dialects and languages in one place, and I was thrilled to speak a little Spanish. I was disappointed though because I kept messing up! A) I said “Amerika” instead of “los Estados Unidos” as the response to the “¿De dónde eres?” question, which you never do in Spanish but always do in Japanese; B) I said “hai” instead of “sí”; C) I said “Puedes usar nuestra mesa” instead of “Pueden”; and D) I bowed and said “arigatou” instead of “muchas gracias” when I left. I get stuck in Japanese mood and can’t switch to Spanish as easily as I would like. (Like this morning I had to Google “cute” in Spanish because all I could think was “kawaii”. Good grief!)

But I digress.

On Tuesday night, I stayed with my friend Anna in Maebashi. We woke up at 5:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning and were on the train to Tokyo by 6:29. We took the JR (Japan Rail) from Takasaki to Tokyo, and then the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto. Due to circumstances beyond our control (i.e. I don’t speak Japanese) we ended up in a smoking car in a kind of uncomfortable seat, but it was a quick ride to Kyoto, just a little over two hours.

Once there, we shoved our luggage in the Kyoto Station lockers, met my friend Wayne, and had lunch at a tonkatsu place (deep-fried breaded pork cutlet served beside a mountain of shredded cabbage). Then we bought a 500 yen bus pass and went to Ryoanji to meet our friends L & M (who prefer for their names to remain anonymous even though their pictures are all over Facebook). We saw the temple there and stared at the famous rock garden, searching for a deep meaning between the stones. (L said the garden meant islands in the middle of a sea; another friend of mine said it means that since the rock formations aren’t perfect, humans aren’t perfect either. I haven’t decided what I think it means.)

That evening, we had green tea parfaits for dinner, and then went back to the hotel.

On Thursday, Anna and I woke up at 8:00, had a traditional Japanese breakfast of coffee and pastries at Starbucks, and visited four temples/shrines in a row:

Daikakuji Temple (which was closed but we got in anyhow)

Tenryuji Temple

Iwatayama Park

Matsunoo Grand Shrine

It was freezing all day long, the sky threatening rain for hours until finally it started coming down. Looking at the unheated temples with their wooden floors and tatatmi mats made me feel sorry for the monks who lived there in the days of old: surely they were cold all winter long! But maybe that's how it's supposed to be . . .

I won’t give you a detailed description of every temple and shrine, but I will say that they were beautiful and historic. They also tend to look fairly similar after a while. (And this isn’t just my American-ness coming out; one of my Japanese friends said that even he thinks it’s all kind of the same old hat after you’ve seen a few.) I had thought that shrines were Shinto and temples were Buddhist, but then I saw a statue of Buddha in what I had thought was a Shinto shrine . . . so I’m confused again. Can anyone enlighten me?

The way it works is this: You enter through a large red gate (torii) [鳥居] whose kanji for reasons I don’t understand is made up of “bird” and “live”—avian sanctuary?) You walk down a path a couple hundred meters to the actual buildings that are usually in a group of a lot or a little, depending on how big it is. The architecture is fairly plain compared with the ornate temples I saw in photos of Taiwan, which seems to fit with the Japanese spirit.

After our temple tour, we met Wayne, Amy, and Andrea at a delicious ramen place, which came with a huge steaming bowl of ramen and four pieces of karaage (fried chicken), plus a bowl of rice for less than 1000 yen. Delicious!

Friday, New Year’s Eve, Anna and I repeated our breakfast adventure at Starbucks, this time admiring the new snow falling quickly down. But we didn't stay in Kyoto to see the snow; we took the train to Osaka to meet L for his last day in Kansai. We spent the entire day shopping at Amerimura (American Village!) which is a super hip, super cool section of town where I couldn't quit buying clothes. We ate famous Osaka okonomiyaki for lunch (I'll try to upload a picture soon).

My highlight was finding a Krispy Kreme with a brilliantly lit up red sign, that immediately devastated me because only the name of the store was lit up: not the HOT part. However, it was a little piece of heavenly home to stand on the corner of a busy intersection in Osaka, Japan, eating a chocolate glazed doughnut and sipping coffee.

At said intersection, waiting to cross the street, some Japanese boy (maybe 23 or 24) stood in front of the growing crowd of people and started singing in a loud voice, “I want you! I need you! I want you! I need you!” doing a little dance and pointing at Anna. After he finished, we clapped, ignoring the other people who were obviously horrified, and he came up to us. “Nihongo jouzu?” he asked, wanting to know if we spoke enough Japanese to talk with him. “Um,” we replied. Slowly, enunciating every syllable, he pointed at his face (not chest, like we do in the U.S.) and said, “Wa-ta-shi-wa- (pause) Hi-ro-shi-ma-ni (pause) sun-de-i-masu” (I live in Hiroshima). He said something else I didn’t catch, but it might have been asking about us, so I said in Japanese, “We live in Gunma.” “Eee? Gunma?!” was his shocked reply, and then the light turned green and we never saw him again.

That evening, Anna and I celebrated December 31 by going to the Osaka Sky Building to stare at the Osaka skyline. On the way there we kept hearing what sounded like an old man coughing up his lungs, but ended up being the sound caused by clogged pipes running overheard. Regardless, it still sent us into fits of giggles every time we coughed. . . .

On top of the building, 160 meters tall, there is an open-air viewing of the city. Anna felt a little vertigo, so she made her tour quickly, but I stayed out for a bit and tried to take pictures of the night skyline. None of them came out the wanted them to, but it still felt nice to be on top of the world on the last day of the year.

(Next Post: New Year's Eve and the days following)

Back in Takasaki

Que onda amigos,

I'm back in Takasaki and am working on my Kyoto blog. It's going to be ridiculously long so I apologize in advance. I'll try to break it up into sections for easier reading.

Mata ashita!

Jaimie