Saying Goodbye to Japan…

After three years I am finally leaving Japan. As the plane tickets are finalized (and payed for), and as we pack up our belongings; ruthlessly throwing out the things which we don’t need, the realization that we are actually leaving hits me. I have had a great time living in Japan and I have learned so much. This tangent I have spun off on from my original goal of working in theater has taught me a lot, and now is the time to go back to the States and use these skills I have acquired and find my place.

Inspired by my friend’s post, this is a reflection on my time in Japan.

Things I accomplished:

• Learned some Japanese (and learned how to learn a language).
• Learned that I love teaching high school students and became a good teacher.
• Met my husband and got married (and struggled through a yearlong wait for his spouse visa to be issued. At last!)
• Learned about a different culture and how to exist in it (when in Rome…)
• Lived on my own for the first time in a rural area and learned how to be fully self-suffient.
• Made a few Japanese friends.
• Became a better cook.
• Helped other Assistant Language Teachers with their problems and hopefully helped them become better teachers.

Things I regret:

• Not learning more Japanese.
• Not making more Japanese friends.
• Not going to Okinawa and Hokkaido.
• Not seeing Takarazuka (there are still two months left…)
• Not starting a blog about my experiences sooner.

Things I will miss about Japan:

• The food (soba, udon, ramen, the special taste of canned coffee, hire katsu ヒレカツ, izakaya 居酒屋 food, all you can drink specials, salad udon, agedashi tofu 揚げ出し豆腐, festival yakisoba 焼きそば, and much more.)
• Friends I’ve made.
• Karaoke boxes!
• Purikura (print club!)
• Nama gurepufurutsu sawa 生グレープフルーツサワー (shochu (焼酎) - Japanese vodka – soda, and a raw grapefruit that you juice yourself and add to the glass).
• Vending machines everywhere; from drinks, to toys, to oden　（おでん）…
• Summer festivals (祭) and wearing a yukata (浴衣) to them.
• Cherry blossom viewing parties (hanami 花見) where we sit outside all day and eat and drink.
• Great customer service and no tipping.
• Good trains and public transportation.
• Being an expat at time when when the reputation of the USA is not very good.
• Automatic flushing toilets and automatic faucets that actually work properly.
• How safe Tokyo feels compared with big cities in the States.
• Hot springs (onsen 温泉)!
• Watching gakkou e ikkou (学校へ行こう！) on Tuesday nights.

Thing I will be glad to leave behind:

• Having to bike everywhere.
• Being stared at just for looking foreign.
• Expensive fruits and vegetables.
• Not being able to find many cooking ingredients for recipes I want to try.
• Unequal gender roles.
• Simple things being difficult to do because my Japanese isn’t good enough, or there is excessive beauracracy.
• The translation/repeat method of English teaching.
• The idea that the group is always more important than the individual.
• Lack of central heating, kerosene heaters, small refrigerators, microwave/oven combination, Japanese stoves.
• Big, stripy mosquitos.

Things I miss about home:

• My family and friends.
• Cheap fruit and vegetables.
• Having a car.
• That being an individual is valued and success is not measured by seniority but by ability.
• Making theater.
• Not living in a tiny apartment.
• Being able to dress uniquely without worrying that I am not dressed appropriately for teacher (a highly regarded job in Japan).
• ATMs are open 24 hours and you can use a credit card or cash card almost anywhere.
• Cultural diversity.

Things I am worried about dealing with when I get home:

• Culture shock.
• Finding a job in the arts.
• Getting health insurance.
• Moving back to my hometown where I haven’t lived for 10 years.
• Evaluating my experience in Japan and creating a new 5 year plan.

Gunmania 2008: Spring Issue (vol 2)

The magazine I write for has just come out with it’s spring issue, so check it out. This magazine is a quarterly publication about Gunma Prefecture (群馬県), where I currently live.

In this issue:
-Running (And Cycling) For A Cause
by Erin Kessler

-Great Japan Beer Festival
by Bahia Simons-Morton

-Gunma Public: Teacher Dorama
by Joyce Wong

-Koyasan: The Best Of Old Japan In A Day’s Leisurely Walk
by Symerna Blake

-Not Done Yet
by Chris Hensleigh

-The Princess Of Kiryu
by Bahia Simons-Morton

Download the PDF here: http://www.gunmajet.net/node/1171

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

A typhoon brought in rain from the south today. The amount of rain and wind is unpredictable, so I layered on my raingear this morning, piece by piece. From plastic bags in my shoes, to trash bags covering my back pack and a rain jacket, I waterproofed myself as well as I could. When I finally went outside, I was surprised at well I had wrapped myself up and how dry I managed to stay on the way to the train station. The visor attached to my jacket shielded my eyes from the worst of it and kept the rain off my face and out of my eyes.

As I waited at the train station, the usual group of high school boys eyed me as they talked amongst themselves. When I got on the train, I placed my backpack on the overhead rack, as usual, after taking out Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. As I became immersed in the book my thoughts began to take on the particular quality of the words. The translation is very good, though I wish my Japanese was good enough that I could read it in the original Japanese.

The story is not sad, not exactly, but throughout the story the theme of suicide is touched on frequently. This ordinary boy living day to day is faced with so many stories of suicide, and is deeply impacted by one that touched his life during high school. The thing that strikes me the most is that he doesn’t understand either. I have never understood the high rate of suicide in Japan; why you see it on the news all the time, why there are trends for different types of the suicide. The character Watanabe doesn’t seem to understand either. For a book that takes place in the free time of the 60s, it seems that while some things in Japanese culture have changed dramatically, others have remained the same.

This book doesn’t make me feel sad, as I might have expected. Instead, there is a certain quality of “the real” that imbues it. The characters seem so real, like the type of people you meet everyday. Woven throughout the story are references to great Western books, like Cather in the Rye and The Great Gatsby, and other authors as well; Dickens and Faulkner. The theme of the book, the melody of Norwegian Wood, reoccurs throughout. The story is bittersweet at times, but also reminds me of college days.

Upon arriving at the train station, I watched as the other cyclists wrapped themselves and their belongings in plastic and waterproofs and I felt a strange sense of unity with them; we are all the ones biking in the rain because we must. As I cycled the last leg of my route, from the train station to my office, I thought about this book and half formed thoughts floated throughout my head, but I couldn’t remember the words to Norwegian Wood.

学校へ行こう！

学校へ行こう！(gakkou e ikou!) is a Japanese television show showed from 8 to 9 pm on Tuesday nights on TBS. The title means, “Let’s go to school!” and the show focuses on various school related activities and games. It is hosted by the idol group V6. There is some debate as to the meaning of “V” in the groups name, possibilities including vegetable, volleyball, veteran, or vicycle (bicycle in the katakana spelling).

This show often features simple competition games that are often V6 verses popular girl groups or actresses. The participants, though much older than high school age, dress up in typical high school uniforms before engaging in the activities. An example of one game is when 3 members of V6 and 3 members of a popular girl group, sat in a circle, boy-girl-boy-girl. They then looked at the person next to them and said, “愛している” (I love you). The first team to crack up lost and had to do a challenge or punishment. This type of game is a typical batsu（ばつ）game.

A recent feature on the show is “high school boys who convincingly look like girls”. They invited boys from all over Japan to come on the show dressed in drag. Their charm points (チャームポイント) or most attractive features are then critiqued by an actress or singer. Introduced before a live audience of high school girls, the reactions of the crowd are shown before we see the boy-as-girl presented. Before and after pictures are shown showing that some of the boys look even better as women! The first set of boys-as-girls were so convincing as women, they were asked to take part in the fashion show of the Tokyo Girls Collection. The following week the show also featured “mothers who look like high school girls,” which really drove home the agelessness of some Japanese women.

Other features include inviting a girls’ high school photography club to follow one member of V6 for one day while another member plays pranks on him, various pranks and hi-jinks between the group members, and a high school confessional where high school students stand on the roof of their school and shout their secrets to a group of classmates on the ground below. This show is a great look at the culture surrounding Japanese high school students, and compared to most of the shows currently on Japanese TV it is both smarter and more entertaining.

The Morning Commute #1

On the morning train, the faces are always the same.

The Boy has a grey backpack and red shoes. His head weaves back and forth as he takes in his surrounding; the movement is punctuated by a change in focus on this or that. He mutters to himself quietly and earnestly. His pants are too short and his white socks flash like a beacon above his red shoes. His face is almost always lit up with a smile, but when it’s not, he is staring fixedly at something, thinking avidly. Some might say he isn’t all there, that there is something missing, but I believe that his brain is merely missing that censoring ability that separates thoughts from spoken words. Some of my students do the same thing.

Always sitting at the end of the row next to the middle doors is Handyman. Handyman always wears navy blue and red, and usually his pants are workman’s pants with many pockets. He is almost always asleep. Large, square glasses obscure most of his face, but his drooping cheeks are reminiscent of a large dog.

Between The Boy and Handyman is Mr. Newspaper. He often sits between the two, yet purses his lips with displeasure whenever The Boy attempts to engage him in conversation, or points out pictures in the paper with questions or comments. He wears the standard salary-man coat (khaki and long), which hangs down to mid-thigh over his dark pants. Between pants and shoes there peep light-tan socks; only in Japan are light socks acceptable with dark pants and dark shoes.

On the other side of The Boy is Paper. Everyday, he wedges himself into the seat, bursting backpack still perched on his back like a fat monkey. As he pulls out his school work from his large purple shoulder bag, papers drop to the floor, which he hurriedly gathers into his lap with a surreptitious look around, his glasses glinting in the sunlight. He pulls out a chocolate bar and devours it completely, making the sheen of his skin somehow more noticeable.

America is Not a Country

Sitting on the express train returning to Gunma from Tokyo, we were a bit tired from our busy weekend, yet optimistic because the next day, Monday, happened to be a holiday. We fidgeted in our seats, adjusting them for a comfortable trip; though not quite as comfortable as the shinkansen, riding the express train is nonetheless usually a pleasurable experience. With more room than an airplane seat and a vending machine in the vestible between the cars, the trip between our rural Gunma and big city Tokyo is usually fairly painless.

Still, on this occasion, we found ourselves in the middle of a rather active car, despite it being 8:00 pm on a Sunday. Two rows up and across the aisle, a chattering group for four took their seats. The men were slightly inebriated and a bit loud, the women rather passive and patient, and all fairly old. As the louder of the two men cracked open his can of pre-mixed whiskey and water, his voice rose and he started into a loud rant.

The first subject was America. Specifically, it was that “America is not a country”. I am not exactly sure what he meant, as my Japanese is not great, but my husband picked up much of what he was saying and commented to me every time he changed subjects. America is not a country. Why exactly? I’m not sure. It could be because it is made up of too many large states, or because it is too big. He next started in on the “whaling problem,” which may have contributed to his anti-America feelings. His next topic was the UK, followed by Wales and several other countries. We buried our faces in magazines and tried to read, but he was speaking so loud that it was difficult to concentrate.

Every few minutes one of the other three would interject something, however, he seemed not to notice. By the time he was on his second can of whiskey and water, his wife seemed the be biting back exasperation. Eventually, his ranting grew quieter and he fell asleep. His companions, too, dozed off. The car was finally quiet. Solitude, at last. The only thing that inturrupted the peace from then on, was the exasperated wife, he feelings lingering even in rest, as she began talking in her sleep. “Shut up, you noisy idiot!” and more along the same lines, but he was out cold and never stirred.

When the train arrived at their stop she roused him from his slumber. As he fell all over the place, forward onto her and finally backwards into his seat, she attempted to get him to put on his coat. She would place it over his shoulders, and he would then throw it off, moaning like a petulent child, “It’s hot.” She finally bundled him up and assisted him to the vestibule between the cars and off the train.

Small Moments

This was written for the Gunma Guide, an English language newsletter for Gunma Prefecture, Japan.

***

In my opinion, there are two types of people who come to Japan; there are those who stay for a short time, and there are those who stay forever. Each of these individuals must have a spirit adventurous enough to pick up and move to an unfamiliar country. Those of us who come for a short time may have different experiences; some may have negative experiences and leave after only a few months, but I think most have positive experiences and stay longer than expected. Some become what are often known as “lifers”; those who have no plan to ever leave Japan and return to their home countries.

But what is it that these two groups have in common besides the obvious that they both live in Japan? For any person, living in a foreign country for any amount of time will leave indelible marks. We may seem calm and still like the surface of a pond; if we return to our home country we may at first seem the same as we did when we left. But like throwing a rock into the water, though the surface regains its former equilibrium, the rock stays forever, and we remain changed.