20081219
20081217
A rather long story about my strange, strange life
It all began a month or so ago when I decided to stop by a small flower shop on my way home from Nishidai Elementary School. I bought a plain bouquet of white daisies and was about to leave the shop when a man behind the counter asked me in English, "Are you an English teacher?" Excited by the unexpected chance to converse in my native tongue, I excitedly replied, "Yes, I am!" However, I quickly realized how limited his English really was when he subsequently found himself incapable of articulating what he wanted to say next. He excused himself to the back room, asking me politely to "Wait."
I stood around the shop, gazing awkwardly at poinsettias, while the ladies working behind the counter giggled and told me I was a "kawai sensei [cute teacher]." After about ten minutes, the man finally returned with a computer print-out of a message he'd just run through an online translator. It read,
Two weeks passed without a phone call. I decided to chalk it off as an older man's polite attempt (albeit a strange one) to have a conversation with his sole American customer. I was a little relieved.
Then, about a week ago, my roommate and I were enjoying a relaxing evening at home when our phone rang. Jennifer answered. Listening in on her half of the conversation, I quickly picked up on the fact that the person on the other end of the line was having difficulty communicating in English and I immediately wondered if it might be the man from the flower shop. The notes that Jennifer was able to write out from the conversation were as follows:
So, yesterday I finished teaching my last class and returned to the teachers' room. There I received notice that someone had called for me earlier and left a message: someone would be at my house at 6:10 to pick me up for some kind of Rotary Club meeting. As Shimowada relayed the vague details to me, I tried to convey to her exactly why this situation seemed weird to me and how I didn't understand why this complete stranger was calling my school, but my befuddlement failed to elicit sympathy. I hopped on a school computer and quickly typed an email to two of my fellow AETs, Jennifer and Josiah: "Please come with me!"
As it turned out, when I arrived home after work, Jennifer admitted that she had a lot of work to do in preparation for school the next day and would rather not go to the "whatever-it's-going-to-be" Rotary Club event; so, it was Josiah who semi-grudgingly agreed to accompany me, prefacing the evening with, "If they invite us to a second party, we should try really hard not to go."
The man from the flower shop arrived in his car promptly at 6:10. On the way to the party, minimal conversation passed between the three of us. Neither Josiah nor I knew where we were going. The man driving encouraged us to "Relax." Thanks, I'll do my best.
After a ten-minute drive, we arrived at the posh hotel in Moka, where women in kimonos showed us into a banquet hall where people of all ages were sitting around tables, already heavily involved in their dinners (The flower-shop man apologized later for getting the time wrong; the party actually started at 6:00. We assured him it was all right).
We were issued BINGO cards, I promptly received a door prize of a pot of poinsettias and the flower-shop man (at this point I still didn’t know his name) motioned to Josiah and I to follow him up on the stage, where he introduced us to the crowd. Nobody was really paying attention, so we started to step off the platform, but someone in the crowd shouted “speech!” and we were obligated to say a few words. Josiah said some things about himself in simple Japanese and I flowed suit, drawing on a few basic phrases that I’ve already mastered for the purpose of such occasions: “Good evening. My name is Meghan. I come from California. I’m really happy to be here. Please be kind to me.”
The party that followed was enjoyable. I won a box of energy drinks at BINGO, then I got pulled up on stage to lead the crowd in several rounds of janken [Rock, Paper, Scissors] to determine the recipients of the remaining prizes. At some point during the evening, someone handed me a flat of strawberries. What a party! And it didn’t cost me a thing!
But when Josiah told me, with the flower-shop man sitting between us, that the first party was over at eight and that we were invited to karaoke at a snack bar afterward, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say. “I told him we have school tomorrow, but maybe we can go for a little while,” Josiah said. I felt a bit backed into a corner. Should I say, “Okay, let’s go,” or “No, we really have to get home”? There was no way to pull my friend aside and discuss, so I just said, “Okay.”
Our fate was sealed.
The party came to a close with the traditional “This party is now over” speech and a courteous round of applause. The flower-shop man and a man who said he owned two of the 7-elevens in Moka led us out a back door and through an unlit outdoor passageway. Then they led us through a dark parking lot. Then through a shadowy alley. Then through (I’m not kidding) a graveyard. Josiah and I exchanged glances that said, “This is really weird and pretty creepy and there’s a slight chance we’re about to get murdered.” The path we were walking became faintly illuminated by the neon signs of snack bar after snack bar. They all had the same sleazy outward appearance. And finally, we walked into one of them.
Now, I’ve heard a lot about snack bars, but this was my first time actually going into one. Basically, a snack bar is a place where business men go to drink, have a snack, and be talked to and pampered by women who sit next to them, pour their drinks, light their cigarettes, and make idle conversation. Snack bars aren’t brothels -- well, not all of them -- but they’re run by a “mama” who floats around between customers, joking and even enjoying a drink or two with them.
The particular snack bar that we entered was furnished like a dentist’s waiting room, with pastel sofas and minimal wall decorations. Two TV screens at opposite ends of the room scrolled suggestions of available karaoke songs. At first it was just Josiah and I, our two hosts, and the snack-bar girls. But a woman and a third man from the Rotary Club eventually drifted in to join us.
The remainder of the evening consisted of an awkward procession of the Japanese people selecting songs that they insisted either Josiah or I sing. It was difficult enough to fake competency in old Carpenters songs I’d maybe heard once before in my life, but, as the evening wore on and the bottles of alcohol consumed multiplied, they began putting on Japanese songs for us to sing, too. It became clearer that, really, we foreigners were only there for their entertainment.
The third Rotary Club man who came in later spoke a little bit of English, explaining that he had lived in Los Angeles for a while thirty years ago. He also showed off his small knowledge of Spanish, reminding me repeatedly that I was a “muchacha bonita” and that the other women in the room were “not muchacha bonita.” He asked me, “Where is your lover?” but before I could reply changed his question to, “Where is your family?”
Strangely, this sort of behavior from drunken Japanese men no longer succeeds in phasing me one bit. As Japan guide books and my own experiences have taught me, Japanese say anything and everything they want to when they are drunk. And you aren’t supposed to hold them accountable for it. It’s just part of the culture. But now for the conclusion of my story…
The second party wound to a close. The woman who was there from the Rotary Club told me that she was good friends with my school nurse and gave me her meishi [business card]. They called a taxi for Josiah and me and sent us home, along with all our gifts and the mention of another party that we are invited to attend next month.
What makes this entire experience strangest is, I just don’t get what the flow-shop man’s (I know his name now, but don’t feel inclined to post it online) motives are. I did nothing and paid nothing to get invited to this Christmas party; and, I felt that neither my conversation nor my karaoke skills were significant enough to merit an invitation to another such party with the Moka Rotary Club in January.
I don’t know where this saga ends. I just know that, for now, it’s a funny little story. And, if you’ve managed to read the whole thing, I hope it’s conveyed to you a small glimpse of just how strange, confusing, and unpredictable life tends to be when you’re a foreigner living in Japan.
I stood around the shop, gazing awkwardly at poinsettias, while the ladies working behind the counter giggled and told me I was a "kawai sensei [cute teacher]." After about ten minutes, the man finally returned with a computer print-out of a message he'd just run through an online translator. It read,
Please come to Mooka wast Rotary Club by all means. We will wait. The international service chairman of Rotary Club of me is. I will report the date later. Could you teach telephone number and your name?Deciding that he couldn't possibly be an ax murderer and belong to the Rotary Club at the same time, I wrote down my name and phone number, thanked him kindly, and continued on my way. I was wondering many things, the list of them not limited to, Is he really going to call me?, How difficult will that phone conversation be if he does?, and Why on earth does this complete stranger want to invite me to the Rotary Club in the first place?
Two weeks passed without a phone call. I decided to chalk it off as an older man's polite attempt (albeit a strange one) to have a conversation with his sole American customer. I was a little relieved.
Then, about a week ago, my roommate and I were enjoying a relaxing evening at home when our phone rang. Jennifer answered. Listening in on her half of the conversation, I quickly picked up on the fact that the person on the other end of the line was having difficulty communicating in English and I immediately wondered if it might be the man from the flower shop. The notes that Jennifer was able to write out from the conversation were as follows:
Tues. 6:00. Dec. 16. 6:30 pm. Rotary Club Christmas. Bring friend. our house. [phone number].Clearly, I was invited to some sort of gathering, but I still didn't know where or, just as importantly, why. "Our house?" It didn't really make sense. I figured I could call him back at the number he left, but I doubted how helpful that would be. I decided to just wait and see what would happen next.
So, yesterday I finished teaching my last class and returned to the teachers' room. There I received notice that someone had called for me earlier and left a message: someone would be at my house at 6:10 to pick me up for some kind of Rotary Club meeting. As Shimowada relayed the vague details to me, I tried to convey to her exactly why this situation seemed weird to me and how I didn't understand why this complete stranger was calling my school, but my befuddlement failed to elicit sympathy. I hopped on a school computer and quickly typed an email to two of my fellow AETs, Jennifer and Josiah: "Please come with me!"
As it turned out, when I arrived home after work, Jennifer admitted that she had a lot of work to do in preparation for school the next day and would rather not go to the "whatever-it's-going-to-be" Rotary Club event; so, it was Josiah who semi-grudgingly agreed to accompany me, prefacing the evening with, "If they invite us to a second party, we should try really hard not to go."
The man from the flower shop arrived in his car promptly at 6:10. On the way to the party, minimal conversation passed between the three of us. Neither Josiah nor I knew where we were going. The man driving encouraged us to "Relax." Thanks, I'll do my best.
After a ten-minute drive, we arrived at the posh hotel in Moka, where women in kimonos showed us into a banquet hall where people of all ages were sitting around tables, already heavily involved in their dinners (The flower-shop man apologized later for getting the time wrong; the party actually started at 6:00. We assured him it was all right).
We were issued BINGO cards, I promptly received a door prize of a pot of poinsettias and the flower-shop man (at this point I still didn’t know his name) motioned to Josiah and I to follow him up on the stage, where he introduced us to the crowd. Nobody was really paying attention, so we started to step off the platform, but someone in the crowd shouted “speech!” and we were obligated to say a few words. Josiah said some things about himself in simple Japanese and I flowed suit, drawing on a few basic phrases that I’ve already mastered for the purpose of such occasions: “Good evening. My name is Meghan. I come from California. I’m really happy to be here. Please be kind to me.”
The party that followed was enjoyable. I won a box of energy drinks at BINGO, then I got pulled up on stage to lead the crowd in several rounds of janken [Rock, Paper, Scissors] to determine the recipients of the remaining prizes. At some point during the evening, someone handed me a flat of strawberries. What a party! And it didn’t cost me a thing!
But when Josiah told me, with the flower-shop man sitting between us, that the first party was over at eight and that we were invited to karaoke at a snack bar afterward, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say. “I told him we have school tomorrow, but maybe we can go for a little while,” Josiah said. I felt a bit backed into a corner. Should I say, “Okay, let’s go,” or “No, we really have to get home”? There was no way to pull my friend aside and discuss, so I just said, “Okay.”
Our fate was sealed.
The party came to a close with the traditional “This party is now over” speech and a courteous round of applause. The flower-shop man and a man who said he owned two of the 7-elevens in Moka led us out a back door and through an unlit outdoor passageway. Then they led us through a dark parking lot. Then through a shadowy alley. Then through (I’m not kidding) a graveyard. Josiah and I exchanged glances that said, “This is really weird and pretty creepy and there’s a slight chance we’re about to get murdered.” The path we were walking became faintly illuminated by the neon signs of snack bar after snack bar. They all had the same sleazy outward appearance. And finally, we walked into one of them.
Now, I’ve heard a lot about snack bars, but this was my first time actually going into one. Basically, a snack bar is a place where business men go to drink, have a snack, and be talked to and pampered by women who sit next to them, pour their drinks, light their cigarettes, and make idle conversation. Snack bars aren’t brothels -- well, not all of them -- but they’re run by a “mama” who floats around between customers, joking and even enjoying a drink or two with them.
The particular snack bar that we entered was furnished like a dentist’s waiting room, with pastel sofas and minimal wall decorations. Two TV screens at opposite ends of the room scrolled suggestions of available karaoke songs. At first it was just Josiah and I, our two hosts, and the snack-bar girls. But a woman and a third man from the Rotary Club eventually drifted in to join us.
The remainder of the evening consisted of an awkward procession of the Japanese people selecting songs that they insisted either Josiah or I sing. It was difficult enough to fake competency in old Carpenters songs I’d maybe heard once before in my life, but, as the evening wore on and the bottles of alcohol consumed multiplied, they began putting on Japanese songs for us to sing, too. It became clearer that, really, we foreigners were only there for their entertainment.
The third Rotary Club man who came in later spoke a little bit of English, explaining that he had lived in Los Angeles for a while thirty years ago. He also showed off his small knowledge of Spanish, reminding me repeatedly that I was a “muchacha bonita” and that the other women in the room were “not muchacha bonita.” He asked me, “Where is your lover?” but before I could reply changed his question to, “Where is your family?”
Strangely, this sort of behavior from drunken Japanese men no longer succeeds in phasing me one bit. As Japan guide books and my own experiences have taught me, Japanese say anything and everything they want to when they are drunk. And you aren’t supposed to hold them accountable for it. It’s just part of the culture. But now for the conclusion of my story…
The second party wound to a close. The woman who was there from the Rotary Club told me that she was good friends with my school nurse and gave me her meishi [business card]. They called a taxi for Josiah and me and sent us home, along with all our gifts and the mention of another party that we are invited to attend next month.
What makes this entire experience strangest is, I just don’t get what the flow-shop man’s (I know his name now, but don’t feel inclined to post it online) motives are. I did nothing and paid nothing to get invited to this Christmas party; and, I felt that neither my conversation nor my karaoke skills were significant enough to merit an invitation to another such party with the Moka Rotary Club in January.
I don’t know where this saga ends. I just know that, for now, it’s a funny little story. And, if you’ve managed to read the whole thing, I hope it’s conveyed to you a small glimpse of just how strange, confusing, and unpredictable life tends to be when you’re a foreigner living in Japan.
20081215
Two years to the day and feelin' the Oxford blues
As of yesterday, it's been two years since I completed my undergraduate university education. And it's two years since I arrived back in the U.S. after spending a semester – my last semester – abroad in Oxford, U.K. Two years ago at this time, I was filled with a deep sense of longing and remorse for the loss of a part of my life that I couldn't help wondering if I'd taken for granted. My months in Oxford had been the best months of my life and I knew it. I wondered – and very much doubted – if life could ever be that good again. My ubiquitous post-college life loomed uncertainly before me and I had no idea what on earth I was supposed to do with myself.
As of today, I've been in Japan for longer than I was in the U.K. Let me tell you, Moka is no Oxford. There's no surging intellectual aura about the city that pervades every aspect of daily life. There's no dimly lit pub, within a two-minute walk of my grungy flat, where I can splurge on a pint of Old Speckled Hen and watch the bartenders banter with the regular patrons through an impenetrable haze of cigarette smoke. And I'm different, too: I'm no longer the poetically penniless university student, blissful in my poverty and relative detachment from the drudgery of the economic machine.
I don't want to go back to Oxford. Or, what I mean is, even if I do want to go back to Oxford, I'm wise enough to know that I can't go back – at least not back to the Oxford I left two years ago. Even now, new laws have ensured that the air in the Radcliffe Arms won't be clouded with cigarette smoke (a change which, even now, the knowledge of which makes me a little sad). But, more importantly, I'm not an undergraduate. And I'm not poor. If I went back to Oxford today, I'd find myself suddenly able to afford to do all the things I wanted to do but couldn't the first time around. And I think that would make it certainly less magical.
I should have read Jude the Obscure. I'm sure I'd have better insights on this point if I had. But, for the moment, I'm still just trying to figure out what comes next. In a little over a month, I'll have to decide (or at least I flatter myself now with the assumption that I'll be asked to decide) whether I'm going to renew my contract for a second year of teaching in Moka. Why am I here? and Is this where I'm supposed to be? are questions I've been asking myself a lot lately. And I still haven't come up with answers. As of today, I've spent two years trying to figure out what it means to live as an adult. And that little effort is still giving me quite a bit of trouble.
As of today, I've been in Japan for longer than I was in the U.K. Let me tell you, Moka is no Oxford. There's no surging intellectual aura about the city that pervades every aspect of daily life. There's no dimly lit pub, within a two-minute walk of my grungy flat, where I can splurge on a pint of Old Speckled Hen and watch the bartenders banter with the regular patrons through an impenetrable haze of cigarette smoke. And I'm different, too: I'm no longer the poetically penniless university student, blissful in my poverty and relative detachment from the drudgery of the economic machine.
I don't want to go back to Oxford. Or, what I mean is, even if I do want to go back to Oxford, I'm wise enough to know that I can't go back – at least not back to the Oxford I left two years ago. Even now, new laws have ensured that the air in the Radcliffe Arms won't be clouded with cigarette smoke (a change which, even now, the knowledge of which makes me a little sad). But, more importantly, I'm not an undergraduate. And I'm not poor. If I went back to Oxford today, I'd find myself suddenly able to afford to do all the things I wanted to do but couldn't the first time around. And I think that would make it certainly less magical.
I should have read Jude the Obscure. I'm sure I'd have better insights on this point if I had. But, for the moment, I'm still just trying to figure out what comes next. In a little over a month, I'll have to decide (or at least I flatter myself now with the assumption that I'll be asked to decide) whether I'm going to renew my contract for a second year of teaching in Moka. Why am I here? and Is this where I'm supposed to be? are questions I've been asking myself a lot lately. And I still haven't come up with answers. As of today, I've spent two years trying to figure out what it means to live as an adult. And that little effort is still giving me quite a bit of trouble.
20081210
Creative me
This is my English bulletin board for December. The little box of text near the bottom right-hand corner explains what an Advent calendar is. The Christmas carol is "Let it Snow."
And, just before posting this picture, I noticed that someone flipped around my ornaments so that Santa's reindeer are in fact chasing the sleigh, rather than pulling it. I'm so glad that my creativity could inspire creativity in others.
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