gaijin cuisine

A letter from Masaki, to his penpal in the U.S.A.

2010-07-25T22:33:00.005+09:00

It's four a.m....

2010-07-24T11:00:00.005+09:00

BOOM!

I go from REM to out of bed and wide awake in two seconds, flat. It takes me at least twice as long to realize that the sound was not caused by something exploding inside my house, but by thunder. Very near, very loud thunder. An explicative slips from my mouth. I wait.

Silence.

Silence.

And suddenly.

A deluge.

I've never heard rain like this before. It doesn't even sound like individual raindrops falling on my sunroof. It sounds like someone emptied a freaking ocean onto my house. I get up, go to the living room, open my laptop, check the weather report.

It says it's raining.

I go back to my room, turn on the air conditioner, and lie back down in bed, listening to the rain. It goes on for another minute or two, then, suddenly, softens to a light drizzle, and I fall back to sleep.

The End

2010-07-21T11:36:00.004+09:00

Yesterday I rode my bike past gleaming green rice fields on my way to Yamazaki Junior High School for the last time. I tried to review my goodbye speech in my head on the way there but it was too long to remember most of it. It didn't really matter: speeches in Japan are usually read. And my five-minute speech was all in Japanese.

I cried a lot during and after my goodbye ceremony. Even if I weren't a person who cried easily, it would be hard to withstand the emotional pressure that is embedded in the very structure of a Japanese goodbye ceremony: the principal gave a speech commending me on all my hard work and commenting on how well-loved I was by all the students and teachers. Then, four of my favorite students gave short speeches and presented me with gifts from the school. It was boiling hot in the gym, so the moisture on my face could have been mistaken for sweat were it not for the accompanying red eyes and sniffling nose. After I gave my own goodbye speech, the oendan--cheer squad--sent me off with a farewell cheer in traditional Japanese style, followed by the Japanese tradition of tossing me in the air. And then it was really time to say goodbye. The students and teachers of Yamazaki Chu Gakkko formed two lines and I walked between them, shaking hands with everyone. Several of the students even gave me hugs.

It's nice to be sent off feeling like I was personally appreciated. But I can't help wondering if I was really an effective teacher: several times during my goodbye ceremony, it was stated that I spoke Japanese well; but never was it mentioned that I taught English well. The school gave me a book of thank you letters from all the students--almost every single one written entirely in Japanese. Suddenly I start to worry that I was so concerned with having good relationships with the students that I never really did much to encourage them to improve their English language skills.

But that basically aligns with something I realized a long time ago about this job: these kids will learn or not learn English regardless of whether they have an AET there to help them. The Japanese teachers of English have more than sufficient knowledge to help junior high school students acquire the foreign language skills they need to enter high school. My job was not only to assist the Japanese teachers with actual English instruction, but to serve as a cultural model and make the mission of learning English more relevant to Japanese students.

I did that. Or at least I think I did.

So, in the end, I guess I'm satisfied; which is all that I could ever ask for.

Group v. Individual; East v. West: Thoughts from an American in Japan

2010-07-07T21:41:00.007+09:00

I like that being in Japan has led me to examine some of the prior assumptions I've made concerning what it means to have a Christian worldview. Many things that I've simply taken for granted as "Christian," when held in the light of Eastern philosophy, suddenly seem much more accurately categorized as "Western." I don't say this to postulate the definitiveness of the terms "East" and "West" to describe a dichotomy between two distinct cultures and ways of thinking. If anything, living in the "East" has lessened my confidence in what it really means for something to be "Eastern" or "Western," and, by association, what it really means to be "Christian." And I'm grateful for that.

As an American, I'm totally sold on the idea that my personal identity is an important and even sacred thing. I believe this, and it's a belief that has been reinforced repeatedly by self-help books, church sermons, and amicable advice-givers throughout my entire life. It's a belief I'm in no hurry to dispose of, either, because it makes sense to me. Obviously, I have a unique personal identity and, obviously, it is important that I be in touch with that identity because, if I'm not, I will undoubtedly end up making decisions that are detrimental to that immutable (and yet, somehow, fragile) essential identity.

There is no equivalent in the Japanese language for the word "identity."

You can imagine how shaken I was when I first heard this. How could a people group as advanced and globally influential as the Japanese not even have a word for something that I imagined to be so essential to human cognition?

Because it's not a concept that is essential to human cognition. It's a concept that is essential to the particular Weltanschauung into which I was raised.

Japanese society tends to be much more concerned with the condition of the group than that of the individual. Individual achievements are usually applauded to the extent that they benefit and reflect favorably on the group as a whole. At the same time, individual failures are something to be handled very cautiously. At the junior high school where I work, if one student is falling asleep in class or failing to complete an assignment, the teacher will scold the entire class rather than put that one student on the spot.

Yesterday, during the morning meeting in the staff room, one of my English teachers stood up and apologized to all the teachers. For something. I couldn't understand what. So I was grateful to have an opportunity to speak to her about it later that day. As it turned out, a ninth-grade student had gone into her desk and stolen a copy of the midterm along with the answers to the test. To further complicate the situation, a classmate spotted the thief and decided to blackmail him: cash in exchange for silence. When these events came to light and the students involved confessed their crimes, it was a scandal: these sort of things might be commonplace at most junior high schools, but the students at Yamazaki Junior High have a reputation for being honest and well-behaved.

Although the the two ninth-grade students were the ones who committed a misdeed, my English teacher was also held at fault for not having locked her desk in the first place. Hence, the demand for a humiliating apology to the rest of the teachers, whom she, as a member of their "group," had inadvertently let down.

She relayed these events to me, all the while expressing great regret and remorse for the terrible way in which she had shamed the school. I told her, "It wasn't really your fault."

"But it was," she assured me.

"No," I shook my head and looked at her earnestly, "It wasn't."

She has worked with a lot of American AETs in the past; she's been seasoned to quickly forgive my occasional lapses into cultural insensitivity. She was, after all, the one who informed me about there not being a Japanese word for "identity." She told me that she was also quite shaken up when she first learned this word, along with all its socio-psychological implications. Maybe my insistence that the incident with the stolen test was not brought on by any personal flaw of her own did not have the assuaging effect I intended. But I think she understood, nonetheless.

It's so humid!

2010-06-28T17:49:00.003+09:00

I feel like I'm swimming. But that's because I am swimming.

In my own sweat.

An Oldie but a Goodie

2010-06-26T23:45:00.003+09:00

I was browsing through some old pictures today and came across this little gem from last year. It made me smile, so I thought I'd share it.

I've actually had several junior high school students assume that my name ought to be spelled "Mergan." Don't ask me why.

This is gonna be tough.

2010-06-25T16:51:00.007+09:00

I found out today that I can't cry and speak Japanese at the same time. When I tried, only strange sound combinations came out of my mouth. Hopefully those present just assumed I was speaking unfamiliar English.

Today I had my last visit to Yamazaki Minami Elementary School. Somehow I thought it would be easier than last Friday's final visit to Nishidai Elementary; it wasn't. The minute I walked through the front door of the school this morning, a fifth-grade girl spotted me and began imploring, "Please, don't go back to America." By the end of fourth period, when the same girl erupted into sobs and the teacher and some of her classmates joined in, I finally gave into the pressure of the moment and let the tears fall. When the principal came by the room after the lesson to thank me for my hard work, I found myself temporarily rendered mute. Finally, I managed to squeak out a "Thank you." In English.

I know that a lot of it is just to be polite: the teachers going on and on about how much they will miss me, the principal telling me that she felt she and I had made a special connection, the children shyly passing me letters that thank me for all the "fun English" I taught them over the past two years. But each of these gestures strikes a resonant emotional chord in me. To them, my going home to America is a bit sad; but, from my perspective, it's my whole life. They are saying goodbye to just me; I'm saying goodbye to hundreds of children and their teachers, all of whom have held an integral role in constructing my experience in this country. I feel so much pressure--most of it coming from my own end--to imbue these final days with meaning. To make every moment count. But each goodbye I say is a little unsatisfying: there's no momentous sense of moving on from one era of my life to the next. It just sort of slips sloppily by, with a few sniffles, an awkwardly elongated procession of bowing, and me, regretting that I don't know the proper formulaic Japanese phrase for this sort of situation, settling with just saying that I'm grateful, and then not even doing that properly.

As sad and difficult as it is to say goodbye, both today and last Friday, as I rode my bike down that specific route home from elementary school for the last time, there was also a sense of relief at being done. Even though, over the last year, my elementary school visits have transformed from something to be dreaded to my favorite part of my profession, I'm still very unsatisfied with my job in general. At junior high school I'm rendered useless by the main English teachers' determination to exclude me as much as possible from the actual practice of teaching. And, while elementary school proves to be much more personally rewarding in the fact that I get to design my own lesson plans and teach most of the lesson on my own, maintaining a physical energy and vocal volume sufficient to hold the attention of a classroom full of young children is so exhausting that I could never see myself sticking with it long-term. I'm looking forward to being finished with all of it.

But I'm not looking forward to saying goodbye to two more elementary schools and--the big kahuna--Yamazaki Junior High School, where I've spent Monday through Thursday every week for the past two years, developing relationships and learning a lot about Japanese culture and about myself. I'm planning to give my goodbye speech in Japanese. I just hope, when it comes time for me to do so, I'm able to get the words out.

The Way It Is

2010-06-22T15:58:00.002+09:00

Here is an excerpt from a recent email I sent to a dear friend...

I'm really starting to feel done with being in Japan. Certainly, the prospect of saying goodbye to the place and the people that have constituted my home for the past two years is sad. There are lots of things I will miss. A lot. And I could certainly see myself living in Japan again some day, if the right job and community presented itself. But this really hasn't been the environment "for me." I feel bored and discontent. Most mornings, I dread going to work. And many evenings I dread coming home, too. I've been wondering a lot lately whether it was a good decision for me to stay a second year. It's probably been the most difficult year of my life. But being in Japan for twenty-two months has been way more meaningful than being here for just eleven months. I feel like I've learned so much (and un-learned plenty, as well), that I couldn't have accomplished in America. And I'm sure I'll continue to process and learn from my experiences here long after I've left Japanese soil.

I'm looking forward to coming back to California. I'm gonna buy a car. I'm gonna be in my sister's wedding and help my other sister plan hers (yeah, both my little sisters are getting married within five months of each other). I'm gonna visit friends that I haven't seen for a year or two or even longer. I'm gonna try to figure out what to do with my life (not as exciting a prospect, currently, but still, I'm optimistic). The other day while I was bored at work with nothing to do, I made a list of the most important stuff I want to accomplish in the two months after I return from Japan. Visiting you was definitely on there.

Get ready, America. You'll be seeing me real soon.

May Day Surprises

2010-05-01T23:11:00.001+09:00

To get into the spirit of spring, I made these little bouquets to leave on the doorknobs of unsuspecting gaijin friends.

I would have loved to have made some May Day bouquets for my Japanese friends--despite them not knowing what May Day is--but there's just one problem: I don't know where any of my Japanese friends live. Inviting one's friends to one's home is not common practice in Japan. Dinner parties are always held at restaurants. And, well, when it comes down to it, my house is just a preferable place to hang out. It's much more spacious than your typical Japanese apartment. And who could fail to appreciate the added bonus that I don't have any grandparents living with me?

Japanese-y Creations and the Sources of my Inspiration

2010-04-30T21:37:00.006+09:00

Let me just say that I feel as though I've completed an important rite of passage. I have stepped over the threshold into a new realm of personal identity. At last, I can call myself a true cook. I have made ice cream. From scratch. Without a machine. And it was delicious.

This is kurogoma (black sesame seed) ice cream. Since the first time I sampled this unique flavor a little less than a year ago, I've been enamored with the distinctive creamy-nutty quality that makes it, quite possibly, my favorite flavor of ice cream (Maybe even better than mint-choco-chip. Just maybe.). And, if the taste weren't already enough cause to hanker for a bowl of icy goma goodness, top it off with the exciting bonus of getting to eat something that looks like it should have just come out of a cement mixer. See the full recipe here.

Tonight, however, my creative juices flowed not through culinary canals, but rather into a reservoir of of a more crafty nature. A few days ago, after thoroughly admiring some innovative scrapbooking techniques by giddy giddy, I was all pumped up to make a shadowbox/scrapbook/diorama/collage of my own. Well, shadowboxes are lots of fun, but tonight I only had the energy to make one, rather than a full-on collage of shadowboxes. My own creation ended up looking very Japanese: it kind of reminds me of a butsudan, a Buddhist family alter found in Japanese homes. My version, of course, is not explicitly religious; rather, it commemorates a small paper crane that was anonymously left in my bicycle basket and which I discovered, with much delight, as I was leaving school one afternoon. Anonymous gifts from students are the best. Even if it's just origami.

From the Yamabeguchi Bus Stop

2010-04-03T13:38:00.000+09:00

Leaving day. Shigemi drove me up into the mountains so I could see a spectacular view of the town from above. Rice paddies were stacked like a giant staircase up the hillside. It’s hard to imagine the effort that must go into growing food up there on such steep terrain, and the enormous amount of work that went into leveling these “steps” out in the first place, hundreds of years ago.

On the way up the mountain, I saw a house of similar age and architecture to the one I’ve been staying in the last five nights, only the one I spotted had a straw, rather than a tin, roof (Shigemi told me on the day I arrived that the tin roof had been installed about twenty-five years ago). There is a different kind of life going on here, one that I don’t usually get to witness in the booming metropolis (or so it now seems) of Moka.

The amazake that I spent eleven hours making yesterday turned a bit sour, which means that the temperature dropped below 50°C while it was cooking. I don’t mind the sourness so much – in fact I rather like it – but I know it’s not the way it’s supposed to taste, and so I feel a bit bad that the family is now stuck with the rest of the batch.

I’m waiting at the bus stop now. The bus should be here in about ten minutes. It feels like I just got here, and yet the time before I arrived (i.e. Nagasaki) seems so long ago.

Wonder-full.

2010-04-02T21:52:00.003+09:00

Now, at last, I understand the reason for the existence of quarter tones. I will never be able to relive this moment. A realization that’s been plaguing me all day: I am in Japan, and in four months and two days, I will not be.

This is real Japan, with a realness that I’ve been utterly missing out on for the last year and a half: the click-pop of the strings of the sanshin as I warm my legs beneath the blanket of the charcoal-heated kotatsu. I am living in a world that I never could have dreamed existed in even the most imaginative years of my childhood.

Japan. It has tortured and changed me. I have loved and hated it in almost equal measure. What will I be, exactly four months from now, when I say goodnight to my last day on this island for who knows how long? Perhaps I will never come back. I am prepared for that. But, oh! I will miss this country so much!

Today was Good Friday. It was also the last full day of my homestay on a Japanese farm, organized through the network of the WWOOF program. Through email, I got in touch with Shigemi, the woman of the house, and we agreed that I would come stay with her, her 86-year-old mother, and her two teenage children for a certain period of time, during which I would work on her farm in exchange for room, board, and a chance to learn a little bit of what she has to teach (which is a lot).

I almost didn’t come. Standing in front of the ticket machine at the train station, I nearly decided that it all sounded too difficult and I was feeling too homesick and depressed lately, and I just wanted to go home. I had a bit of an emotional breakdown. I called Josiah and told him I was having second thoughts. He encouraged me and, in the end, I went ahead and bought that train ticket. And, wow. I am so glad I did. I learned things I never expected, like how to prepare takoyaki (bits of octopus fried in batter and rolled into spheres about the size of golf balls) and that, if your house is cold enough, you don’t have to refrigerate perishable food but can just leave it out on the kitchen table for days at a time (the house was definitely cold enough). The entire experience was a little bit miserable. But it was also a little bit life changing.

Just a little.

Shigemi finished practicing the sanshin and put it back in its case. When I said, “Maybe this is my only chance to ever hear this instrument played," she replied, “No! When you go to Okinawa you will find that they have one in every house.”

When I go to Okinawa? Yes, I suppose I do want to go. “Yes,” said Shigemi, “you have to go.” It seems that every word of conversation that passes from Shigemi to me is a bit awkward, but it's also laden with wisdom. I nodded. "Okay," I said.

After five days, I’ve just about come to like being here. But five days was enough. Or, maybe, it was more than enough. Maybe it was everything.

Curiosity

2010-03-16T21:21:00.004+09:00

For some reason, there's something about seeing me whizzing by on my bike after school that drives Japanese elementary students wild. They're standing by the street with their friends, they turn, see me coming, and suddenly they're hopping up and down, waving their hands over their heads, and shouting, "Meghan Sensei! Meghan Sensei! Haro! Haro!" I won't pretend it's not a nice confidence booster for me. I wave back enthusiastically, shoot them a smile, and return their salutation, adding "Goodbye!" as I speed past.

But the other afternoon, as occasionally happens, a group of about six kids were standing in the middle of the sidewalk and I was obliged to slow down for them. Seizing the opportunity, they immediately began to drill me with questions in rapid-fire Japanese:

"Are you going home now?"

"Yes."

"To America?"

"No, I live in Japan."

"Really?! Where in Japan?"

"In Moka."

"Eh?!...no way."

"Yes, I live in Moka."

"Where in Moka?"

"In Namiki-cho. Do you know where that is?"

"...No. Do you understand Japanese? (asked, as have been all preceding questions, in Japanese)"

"Yes."

"Can you read hiragana [phonetic Japanese writing system used mostly to write the grammatical parts of sentences]?"

"Yes."

"Can you read kanji [Chinese characters]?"

"A little."

"Amazing. Are you married?"

"No."

"How old are you?"

"What do you think?"

"Fifty."

"Fifty?!" They all burst into hysterics.

"Do you like Japanese food?"

"Yes."

"Do you drive?"

"Not in Japan."

"Do you $#!*?"

"Um...what?"

"Do you $#!*?" The child who used the word I didn't know began to elaborately act out his meaning. My mind made the linguistic connection and it quickly became clear what he was trying to ask me:

"Do you poop?"

I was a bit taken aback; I had to answer him in English, "You're crazy."

He stared back in confusion. "Eh?"

"Crazy," I repeated. "Bye-bye."

So concludes another successful lesson on American culture.

Guilt

2010-03-15T21:29:00.006+09:00

It's 3:15 on a Friday afternoon—still one-and-a-half hours until it's time for me to leave school—and I have nothing to do. My plan was to watch the kids do sports practice after school, but today is PTA observation day, and the schedule is all funky. So I'm sitting at my desk, studying Japanese.

Suddenly my principal is standing over me and saying, "Go home now." I'm taken aback and cannot help but reply, "Really?" He said the same thing yesterday, because there was a teachers' meeting (they usually dismiss me early when there's a teachers' meeting after school, on account of the obvious fact that I won't be able to understand or participate in most of what's being said). And he let me go early on Wednesday, too, because it was about to start raining. I'm paid on salary, so it's no money out of my pocket; I can't help but feel as though three days in a row is getting to be a bit scandalous.

As I pack up my things and clear my desk for the day, I am plagued by an overbearing sensation of guilt. "I should have tried harder to pretend to be busy," I scold myself, "How embarrassing to be sent home early while all the Japanese teachers have to stay for another three hours or more!"

I'm in the locker room putting on my snow pants (I ride my bike and it's still really cold out) when it suddenly occurs to me: "Wait a minute...I'm an American! I don't have to feel guilty about leaving work early when my boss tells me it's okay. There are things in this world that are more important to me than my job. Lots of things. It's a beautiful day outside, and I've been given the chance to get out and enjoy a little bit of it. Why on earth should I beat myself up over it?"

I am not Japanese.

Sometimes I forget.

Graduation Day

2010-03-10T23:07:00.002+09:00

But graduation from what? This is what I wondered to myself as I watched the third-year students of Yamazaki Junior High School march into the gym this morning to take their positions for sotsugyoshiki, the commencement ceremony.

The very fact that we use the word "commencement" in English to describe graduation from an educational institution indicates a sharp contrast in our attitude toward the event and the meaning that the ceremony signifies. In America, graduation ceremonies stand to celebrate academic achievement, as well as to point optimistically toward the future that our alma mater has (hopefully) prepared us for.

In a Japanese graduation ceremony, one has a hard time finding signs of any such things as "celebration" and "optimism." What you do find, however, are tears. Buckets of them. To be fair, I don't think there were nearly as many sobs wrenching from the throats of students, parents, and teachers this year as there were last year. But the reputation still stands: graduation day is a day to cry. Everything about the ceremony seems to be specifically engineered toward the purpose of making everyone feel really, really sad. Whether it's the solemn funeral-like atmosphere, the sappy funeral-like music, or speech after speech emphasizing that EVERYTHING YOU'VE BEEN THROUGH TOGETHER IS NOW OVER. YOU CAN NEVER COME BACK. THIS IS SAD. FEEL SAD.

For me, however, there are some positive points to this day. For starters, it's the one day out of the year that I really get to dress up. Despite the fact that it was a bitterly cold day, with snow on the ground and the temperature never rising more than a couple degrees above freezing, I enjoyed wearing pearls and makeup and a formal black dress. I have a few fans among the first-year girls at my school and, as I walked down the hall this morning, my getup elicited exclamations of, "Beautiful!" "Sooooo cute!" "Cameron Diaz!"

Hey, I'll take it.

After the ceremony, the graduates have a short while to talk to friends and teachers before heading home with their families. I went around shaking hands and giving hugs, telling kids "Omedeto!" (Congratulations!) and "Gambatte!" (Good luck!). One boy--Ryohei--flagged me down. I went up to him and shook his hand.

Ryohei is a small kid and not a very good English student. But he's always very enthusiastic about speaking up and volunteering to answer questions in English class. It's a characteristic that quickly made him one of my secret favorites. I greeted him cheerfully. He said, "Ms. Meghan..." then faltered. I congratulated him on graduating and wished him good luck. He seemed momentarily taken aback by my use of non-English, but then composed himself, looked deep into my eyes, and said, "Ms. Meghan...I love you."

"Oh. Thank you."

Awkward moment.

I will really miss this year's graduates. It's quite a different feeling from last year, when I had only been in the country for six months and didn't feel like I'd made a strong connection with many members of the graduating class. This year's third graders were a fun group and I really enjoyed teaching them. It's a weird feeling: it's not as though I can ever have a seriously deep connection with my students, at least not on the same level as their Japanese teachers do. But I did have some good inside jokes with several of them. And there were the few who always seemed a bit aloof, but who lit up every time I greeted them by name. In some ways, they're the ones I'll miss the most.

Two more weeks until closing ceremony and spring break. As I mount my bicycle and ride through the frigid air to a job where I spend a whole lot of time doing nothing (I'll be spending even more time sitting at my desk doing just that now that a third of the students are out of school), I tick the days off one by one and whisper to myself, "Gambatte."

Name That Tune

2010-02-11T13:56:00.004+09:00

For all of you folks who have lived in or visited Moka at some point, here's one to take you back. Relax, imagine that you're in at little corner in the southeast of Tochigi Prefecture, it's a cloudy day, and the clock's about to strike noon. Now click the link below.

12:00 in Moka - meghanjanssen

Posted using ShareThis

But What Do Gaijin Eat?

2010-02-02T20:36:00.004+09:00

Today I’ll let you in on a little secret I’ve been feeling a bit guilty about for the last year and a half or so. I didn’t just choose to name this blog “Gaijin Cuisine” because it rhymes (well, uh, kind of). Back in August 2008, when I was setting up a space where I could electronically catalog my experiences in Japan for all to read and follow religiously, I had in my heart the vision that it would be written from the angle of a food blog.

Well, if you follow this blog very closely (as I know you do), you’re aware that it hasn’t exactly lived up to my initial ambitions. I don’t usually write about food here. Or, when I do, it’s seldom a central theme to my writing. But now I feel I have an avenue by which all that is about to change.

I’ve been a fair-weather vegetarian for quite some time now. Ever since my sophomore year in college, when I decided I would be participating in a short-term mission trip to Kenya the following summer, my motto has been: “If you might possibly make someone uncomfortable or offend them by not eating it, then just eat it.” I carried that principle on with me through the rest of college and beyond, always feeling that it was better to keep my mouth shut when a friend suggested going to a burger place for dinner, rather than butting in, “Well, uh, I’d rather not. Because, uh, they don’t have any vegetarian options there and conventional beef-production practices are detrimental to the environment, to the cows themselves, and to the future generations of this planet.” No, that usually doesn’t fly in most circles. So I just went with the flow.

Since moving to Japan, I’ve eaten things that I didn’t even know existed before I came here. Some of them have been outstandingly delicious; and some, like raw shrimp, I now avoid at all costs. I’ve learned to appreciate certain kinds of fish as they come into season, and to savor the first persimmons of fall with an enthusiasm that I never would have foreseen. This is a country with rich culinary traditions; every meal has the potential to be a deeply memorable (whether in a good way or a bad way) experience. And I’ve been pretty eager to not miss out on any such experiences. So far.

I could easily go into lengthy detail as to my reasons for deciding to go vegetarian in Japan. But, for now, suffice it to say that my personal moral convictions regarding the decision to eat meat have finally outweighed my hesitancy to offend others by not eating the same things they do. It wasn’t an easy decision. Most of the vegetarians that do exist in this country are foreigners. If a Japanese person ever really prods me (which I doubt would ever happen, but for the sake of speculation...) as to why I don’t eat meat, I’m still not sure how I will manage to provide a satisfactory answer. The easiest thing would be to half-lie and blame it on my upbringing: “My family never ate a lot of meat while I was growing up, so I never developed a strong liking for it.” That’s only half true. What it really boils down to, for me, is: “All things considered, it’s just not worth it.”

What this means for my blog, at least for the time being, is that I have a fresh opportunity to share with the world my experiences abroad on a meal-by-meal basis. Being vegetarian means that I can’t eat the school lunches, so that’s five more meals per week that I have to work out on my own. I started the week out strong with vegetable enchiladas and a spinach salad on Monday, and sweet potato stew with rice on Tuesday (today). And tomorrow…more enchiladas?

Tonight’s offering: a picture of a cupcake. A vegan cupcake. The recipe comes from the cookbook, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. The authors, Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, promise in the introduction, “A surefire way to get people to look at your blog is by posting pictures of cupcakes,” so I’m going to give it a go. These come from the recipe for “Your Basic Chocolate Cupcake” with “Peanut Buttercream Frosting” and “Rich Chocolate Ganache Topping.” I had a lot of fun with these. And, boy oh boy, were they rich.

Keeping Warm

2010-02-01T20:28:00.009+09:00

I just went outside to check and, yes, it's still snowing. The whole concept of it snowing at the place where I live is a relatively new one for me. As someone whose sensory memories of snow have been largely fabricated from descriptions pulled out of children's books and memorable lines of poetry, I'm quickly held in thrall by even a few hours of coat-drenching sleet. Tonight I stood out in the darkness (which, with the street lights reflecting off the white on the ground, was really not that dark at all), and was held in awe by the astonishing stillness. How surprising, that a little change in the weather can make you feel like you're suddenly standing in some parallel universe and everything familiar is a billion light years away.

But I don't stay outside for long. Last winter's boots--which are soon headed for retirement--just aren't up to the challenge of the weather. Eventually I have to shun the cold and climb back under my kotatsu, a steaming mug of soy hot cocoa in my hands.

One handy remedy I've recently discovered for getting through these winter days is miso soup. It's especially good for those sluggish mornings where my blood can't seem to pump fast enough to get me out the door and to work on time. It's also surprisingly easy to make. After a little experimentation, I've settled on a vegetarian miso soup recipe that I can be satisfied with.

Vegetarian Miso Soup*

Makes 2 servings

Ingredients:

-one small piece of kombu
-four cups cold water
-eight or so little shriveled pieces of dried wakame
-tofu -- like, 100g or so -- cut into small cubes
-three green onions, chopped
-three tbsp red miso (or white is okay, too, just don't get the kind that already has dashi added to it [see note below])
-a dash of soy sauce (optional)
-a dash of sesame oil (optional)

Directions:

Place cold water in a pot. Clean the kombu with a damp clean cloth. Add it to the pot, and let soak for 30 minutes. Bring water to a boil, and remove the kombu. Set asside (you can use it again tomorrow morning!). Add the wakame. The wakame will rehydrate within a minute or two, but let it simmer for at least five minutes. Add the tofu and stir for a minute. Add the green onions. Remove from heat.

Here, I like to place a strainer over the pot and add the miso by pressing it through the strainer, as this makes it easier to mix it into the broth. Stir until dissolved. Add optional ingredients. Serve.

*But, wait: isn't all miso soup vegetarian? Well, no, it's not. A basic ingredient in miso soup is dashi, which is traditionally made with fish flakes. The Japanese put dashi into just about everything, so that it ends up in places you would never expect, like otherwise seemingly vegetarian soups and noodle broths. In this recipe, the boiled kombu serves as the dashi. There are other possible alternatives, such as dried shitake mushrooms, that I have yet to experiment with, and there is a trove of recipe resources on the Internet that I've yet to explore; I'm simply sharing the fruits of my own adventures in my own little kitchen.

I'm glad to know that it's easy to produce an animal free (and delicious) alternative to traditional miso soup preparation methods in my own home, especially since--as of today--I've embarked on a fresh mission to be a vegetarian. This means that I've had to cancel my school lunch plan and commit to preparing three meals a day in order to feed myself. I will keep you updated on the progress of this mission as it unravels.

Waikiki

2009-12-19T16:51:00.005+09:00

After leaving Japan at 9 PM Friday evening and, five hours later, arriving in Honolulu at 8 AM Friday morning, I did exactly what I promised: I checked into my hostel, dropped my bag in the room, changed into my swimsuit, and headed straight for the beach. And--as one might imagine would be inevitable after a long day of work, a long trip to the airport, and an overnight flight--promptly fell asleep in the sun. I have nothing but words of praise for the folks at Banana Boat for creating a sunscreen that somehow miraculously kept me from burning to a crisp while I lay snoozing and fully exposed to the elements (It was a gloriously sunny and clear day here in Waikiki, with a high of 80 degrees, the perfection of it all augmented by a persistent, pleasant breeze.) for a full hour and a half.

Still, after my trip to the beach I was ready for a big bottle of water and a propper nap, so I headed back to the hostel and helped myself to a generous helping of both. A cool draft passing through the windows of the dorm room provided natural air conditioning while I lay back and relaxed on the bed. Despite my heavily jet-lagged condition (or maybe partly because of it), I was euphoric.

And tonight, as I often do when I'm travling by myself and I don't have to feel guilty for even suggesting the idea to fellow travelers, I splurged on a fancy shmancy dinner. Very close to my hostel, they have one of those super cool rotating restaurants on the top floor of a tall building; so, as you enjoy your dinner, you get a full panoramic view of the city. I took the elevator to the eighteenth floor, marched up to the front desk, gave my name, and was promptly seated. In that moment, I felt fully vindicated for the time in Kuala Lumpur when Jennifer, Josiah, and I attempted to have desert in one of these types of places and were laughed out of the joint for not having made a reservation at least two days in advance.

My meal: Tea Smoked Ginger Duck l'Orange. Ever since I first tried it a few years ago in Oxford, I've had this crazy little thing for duck. Which is weird because, in the past three years, I could probably count on one hand the number of times I've actually eaten this animal...yeah, I can...five times, including tonight. It gets even weirder because, as many of you well know, I'm not totally crazy about eating meat. Josiah put it quite eloquently and indeed accurately a few days ago when he called me a "closet vegan." But the duck I had tonight was absolutely sublime: tender, sweet, wonderful. And to top it off, I indulged in an overpriced Mai Tai, a drink that I've always associated with face-lifted old ladies in animal-print bathing suits, lounging on pool chairs. So yummy.

And so my winter vacation kicks off to a perfect start. It took all day, but I think that the sunshine has successfully melted away all the stress of the past few weeks. Insert emoticon here...

:)

I'm All Shook Up

2009-12-18T08:01:00.003+09:00

This morning, at about 5:40, my own little prefecture of Tochigi was graced with a 5.1 magnitude earthquake that quite literally shook me right out of bed. As the preliminary tremors nudged me awake, my first thoughts went to the heater on the wall above me. If it fell it would crush my skull. I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, but as my bed began to shake back and forth, I felt less like a baby being rocked to sleep and more like...a baby being shaken. At this point I was wide awake, so I figured it would be okay to get up forty minutes earlier than usual.

Yesterday morning, I checked the weather forecast before I even started getting ready, hoping for rain so that my exhausted body would have an excuse to ride to school in a taxi. No precipitation predicted. I got ready and dressed for a chilly bike ride as usual. When I left for school, there were dark blue clouds in the morning sky. I thought, "Ooo! How pretty!" Ten minutes later, it started to snow. When I'm ten minutes into my morning commute, it's not worth it to turn around and call a taxi to take me to school. At this point, all I can really do is press forward. So that's what I did, laughing at the absurdity of the situation: a freak December snowfall decides to descend right in the middle of my morning trek to work, ending just a minute before I pull through the school gate.

It's as though the forces of Nature are playing a last-minute "Best of Moka" marathon in my honor. This evening, I will be boarding a plane to Honolulu, and it will be sayonara freezing misery and a warm, welcoming aloha! to sunny happywonderfulness.

I'm sure that after three weeks of traveling in first Hawaii, then Singapore and Indonesia, I'll start to miss little Moka and I'll be ready to come home. But, at the moment, it's hard to imagine. And, as I sit in my own living room with the electric heater blasting, huddled under a blanket and wearing several layers of clothing, including snow pants and a down jacket, I'm not apologizing. I'm ready for this vacation to begin.

Before my beard gets destroyed...

2009-12-03T23:12:00.001+09:00

...know this: tomorrow I will be Santa Claus.

To mask, or not to mask?

2009-11-11T18:51:00.007+09:00

Another kid at my school was out with the flu today. In the morning report, I heard them remarking to one another that it was because he was so bad at remembering to wear a mask. Everyone agrees on this: a gauze mask is the most effective way to guard oneself against the flu virus. As I listen in on this conversation, my expression is neutral, but my heart scoffs with all the scoffiness I can muster. I like to consider myself above all this foolery with masks.

Then I hear my name. I hate it when they do this: talk about me while I'm sitting right there, and then nobody bothers to explain to me why I'm being talked about. But, this time, I've got enough context to decipher the gist of what they're saying.

Basically, I'm the only person at my school who isn't wearing a mask at all times. I tried it for a while, just to keep others happy, but the truth about masks is: they're nasty. They're itchy and they make breathing difficult, so, at least in my case, that means that I'm constantly adjusting them. With my hands. So the germs on my hands are easily passing to my face--to my mouth and nose and eyes and all those places that I'm usually very careful to not touch while I'm trying to avoid getting sick.

But if everyone in Japan is obsessed with wearing surgical masks to stay healthy during cold and flu season, then there must be some evidence demonstrating their effectiveness, right? In all my perusing of the internets, I was unable to find a single article or study affirming that these types of masks do much of anything to keep a healthy person from getting sick. An article in the New York Times cites research presented at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in San Francisco. Researchers concluded:

Surgical masks are designed to trap respiratory secretions (including bacteria and viruses) expelled by the wearer and prevent disease transmission to others. Surgical masks are not designed to prevent inhalation of airborne particles.

I wish there were a means for me to present this argument to the teachers who eye me and my uncovered face suspiciously as I pass them in the halls every day.

I'm left with a bit of a moral dilemma. Is it better to stand my ground as a person who doesn't come from a culture where it's normal to wear a gauze mask in public when you're trying to keep from getting sick? I mean, not only are they incredibly uncomfortable, but there's no scientific evidence that they're actually helpful! However, I am living in their country, and if wearing a mask makes them feel better about me, should I just bury my pride and go along with it?

When it doesn't go against my moral principles, I always do my best to be culturally sensitive and to not offend the people around me with my flamboyant gaijin ways. Eventually, I suppose I'll just have to cave and go along with it.

Who turned off the warm?

2009-11-04T21:20:00.003+09:00

It's the fourth of November and suddenly we're in the throes of winter. There was ice on the roof and on the ground this morning. Still, I mounted my bicycle and made my late start to work, with fleece-lined gloves and wool socks that, despite their earnest efforts, could not keep my fingers and toes from going numb by the time I reached school.

Naturally, the school nurse has made an announcement that the best way to guard against swine flu contagion is to make sure every corner of the building is well ventilated. So, despite the bitingly frigid air, every window in every classroom and hallway must be open at all times. Of course, the school nurse issues such an edict while she gets to spend most of her day moving cosily between her office and a warm spot behind her desk in the teachers' room. But I'm not one who deserves to complain. These days it seems, with my classes being canceled left and right, I spend the overwhelming amount of my time at work in the teachers' room, shuffling nervously through the drawers of my desk as I rack my brain for something to do. Such is the life of a foreign English teacher in Japan.

I'd love to write more, but my fingers are so numb from the cold that it took me, like, ten minutes just to write this sentence. Good night, everyone. And sleep warmly.

The last of the Moh-kans

2009-10-17T14:43:00.003+09:00

On Thursday evening I received the startling news that the city of Moka's teacher-exchange program with its sister city in Glendora will come officially to an end after the expiration of my contract in July, 2010. In keeping with Japanese etiquette, I refrained from making any major announcements of the news until after our official meeting with the board of education on Friday afternoon. I made mention of it only to one of my English teachers, at a moment when I had a chance to pull her aside and tell her privately. Naturally, I prefaced everything with: "This is still a bit of a secret, so please don't tell anyone until next week!" After little more than thirteen months since my arrival in this country, I marvel sometimes at just how Japanese I can be.

The city of Moka made the decision to end the current AET exchange program on the grounds of increasing financial difficulties. In light of the struggling economy, it makes more sense for the local board of education to spend a great deal less money by hiring AETs through a private agency. There are currently three AETs from this agency already working at junior high schools in Moka. They make considerably smaller salaries and live in much smaller apartments than we sister-city AETs do, all the while doing essentially the same job. In consideration of the present tightness of the education budget, it certainly seems that these funds could be put to more practical use. Many of these things have been starkly apparent since my first month in Moka. Honestly, the BOE's decision to outsource all their AETs did not come as much of a surprise. The real surprise, in fact, was that they didn't do it a year ago.

So what's in store for the five remaining sister-city AETs as we face what are, unequivocally, our last months living in the quiet, rice-paddy encircled, slightly xenophobic, but generally pleasant little city of Moka? That's not a question that is easily answered. Joe is looking into teaching with the JET Program, Doug, Yves, and Josiah have all mentioned interest in working in another country, and me? I guess it's time for me to start thinking more seriously about graduate school.

In the meeting where we were given official notice that our contracts would not be renewed next summer, our supervisor told us, "This is your last time to do everything, so make it your best." I'm not sure exactly how this advice will play out in my decisions over the next nine months, but I hope that I will approach my job and life in Japan with a positive outlook, cherish each experience, and not miss out on any opportunities.

Sports Month

2009-09-30T11:33:00.002+09:00

I don't really like sports.

But most people do. And the Japanese are not exempt. And fall is a big time for sports. September 5th rang in the new semester with the school Sports Day (運動会). The entire last month has been chock-full of training and practice for the inter-school athletic competitions that run for three days and cancel out two full days of regular classes. And, in a couple of weeks, we'll have a public holiday devoted simply to health and fitness (体育の日), and who's going to complain about that?

Personally, I've enjoyed cheering my students on in all their athletic endeavors for the past month. It's a much more interesting perspective from the sidelines than it was a year ago, when I was still convinced that all my students looked exactly the same and all their names sounded exactly the same and learning to tell them apart was flat-out impossible and I should just give up now. Yes, Japanese kids still look a lot more alike than American kids, and their names still do sound the same; but now I really can put names and personalities with their uniquely recognizable faces, and my heart goes with them each time they swing at a baseball or race toward a finish line.

I got into the spirit of the season and went with a sports-themed English bulletin board for September. And the response was favorable. I actually had a student make the point of telling me that she thought the information on my board was very interesting! That's never happened before! I guess I'm finally getting to know my audience.

For this bulletin board: I polled my third-year students earlier this year to find out their favorite sports, subjects, and musical groups, so I made a pie chart demonstrating the most popular sports at Yamazaki J.H.S. Then I went online and found data stating the top three most popular sports in different countries, knowing that some of these were going to be sports that my students had never even heard of. I also printed out pictures of people from the countries playing these sports. I mounted all of this information in front of a large world map. Ta-da!

Saying Goodbye

2009-09-05T11:19:00.001+09:00

I had the privilege of attending the pool-closing ceremony at one of my elementary schools yesterday, during one of my regular visits. The event marked the end of an important summer pastime as the activity now passes officially into hibernation until next July. The entire school (no less than seventy-some students with the teachers and staff) gathered barefoot around the edge of the pool and hung their heads solemnly in memory of the times they’d had there over the last two months.

The principal opened the service with a few somber words, encouraging the mourners not to be too downhearted about the passing of their beloved swimming pool. She spoke of other sports that they would enjoy in the upcoming months—sports better suited to the autumn and winter weather. She congratulated the congregation on their achievements this summer, and encouraged them to find consolation in training hard for the upcoming Sports Day.

Next, six students—one representative from each grade level—lined up along the deep end of the pool, the bright blue waters spread out longways before them and reflected off their similarly moist eyes. One by one, they said a few words of their own.

The first and second-grade students kept it short, stating simply that they’d had fun swimming this summer. The third-grade student shared how he’d broken his former time on the 100 meters, and a girl from the fourth grade reminisced about the fun games she and her classmates had played. The fifth-grade girl, on her turn, stepped forward and recited a short speech detailing her enthusiasm for the fun times she anticipated having in the pool next year when it reopens. And the boy from sixth grade, with head bowed and shoulders quaking ever so slightly, lamented that this had been his last time to swim in the pool at elementary school.

All gazed stoically across the vibrant blue rectangular expanse, knowing that, within the span of their yet brief lives, they were witnessing the end of an era: the school maintenance man had already pulled the plug on the filtration system. In a month the vibrant blue would give way to a rich and marshy green, and the pool, in the height of its glory, would exist only as a fond memory in their tender little minds.

At least, that is, until next summer.

So long, fair swimming pastime: gone before I ever had the chance to appreciate you. You brought so much joy into the lives of those around you. I only regret that I didn’t get to know you better. Next time, I won’t let you get away so easily.

Back!

2009-08-30T07:48:00.004+09:00

A sudden glare of sunlight tinged blue as it's filtered through the curtains and the paper paneling of my bedroom window. My bare feet on the tatami floor. A bowl of day-old yakisoba reheated in the microwave for breakfast. Tea.

So begins the second day of my second contract-year in Japan.

It's Sunday morning, but I'm not getting ready for church: the airline left one of my bags behind at LAX, and it will be delivered sometime today between nine and twelve o'clock. While I wait I'll attempt to coax my life slowly into order with a bit of cleaning, organizing, and, of course, blogging.

Already, this year promises to be markedly different from last. Jennifer came to the decision over summer break that she would not return for a second year. She's here now, packing and internet-job-searching and saying goodbye to friends and thereby attempting to coax order into her own life. In a few days she'll be gone and I will be roommate-less.

August provided a much-needed break for me. It was fantastic to be around friends and family, to see where they are in their lives and to receive their words and prayers of encouragement. It was invigorating to be in America, too: to talk loudly in public, strike up conversations with strangers, eat bread and cheese from Trader Joe's, and go to bookstores where nearly all their stock was in my language. The three weeks I spent in California provided fuel for my long under-fueled personal flame. I'm grateful.

This year promises new challenges--with no longer having the support of a roommate who shares my Christian-based outlook on the world--along with familiar challenges--the tedium of my job, language difficulties, and the general and ever-present struggle for "community." But I'm also approaching the next eleven months with a renewed sense of hope. I have great enthusiasm for friendships developed last year that promise to deepen and grow over the next. And the creative outlets of music and art, greatly untouched in past months, still await utilization. I'm planning a birthday party for two weeks from now. Everyone can come. You can come, too. Check the facebook event for details.

Over the next eleven months, please pray that my relationships with the teachers and students at my school might be enriched, and that I would also find mutual peace and comfort in the relationships I have with other AETs and the few other friends in Moka. Pray for my continued effort to learn the language and to adjust to Japanese culture in an appreciative yet self-preserving way. Also, know that I am thinking about what life will look like post-Japan and will be applying for graduate school soon; I would appreciate any encouragement, advice, or prayer you have to offer on that subject.

Thank you for your continued support and readership. See you later. Mata-ne.

Ain't got nobody and monkey sat in my miso cucumbers.

2009-07-18T09:15:00.010+09:00

Yesterday was the last day of school before summer vacation. This doesn't mean that a new school year will start up again in September; in Japan, the school year runs from April to March. But it does mean that I have now been in Japan for eleven months and have successfully (at least in some sense) experienced every stage of the junior high school year.

I've been pondering and attempting to come up with a word that concisely summarizes my first year in Japan. If it were a Japanese word, I would definitely have to go with sumimasen, a phrase which can very conveniently be adapted to mean either "Thank you," "Excuse me," or, "I'm sorry," depending on the situation. But as far as English descriptors go, I'll have to settle with four:

Lonely. Restrained. Introspective. Revolutionary.

As I think my blog has faithfully reflected, being a foreign English teacher in Moka, Japan has been difficult. At work, there's a lot of feeling like I have to hold back and conform to social expectations, and both at work and at home, my friend pool is a bit spare. Though I don't necessarily miss America, per se, I have come to appreciate just how friendly and outgoing Americans are in comparison to some other cultures. I don't know how I'd get through it all if it weren't for Skype and the little people who appear in a small video chat box on my computer screen from time to time.

And yet, for all their difficulty, I can state confidently that my time and experiences in Japan have been meaningful, uplifting, and have led me towards positive introspection and change. As a teacher, I see that I've grown considerably in my approach to ESL instruction and in my interactions with Japanese junior high schoolers. And the challenges and the loneliness of this place teach me daily to rely on God and to see her even in the places where the concept of a loving and omniscient God is never even given the slightest acknowledgment. Revolutionary.

---

Yesterday evening I also had the unique opportunity to patronize a certain dining establishment which has, since its opening, attained a certain level of small fame. It's just your average little whole-in-the-wall izakaya, aside from the small detail that two of the waiters on staff are...monkeys. Yep, that's right: I went to a monkey bar. The monkeys wore weird little uniforms, brought us hot towels to wipe our hands, and poured our beer. I must admit, the whole thing made me a bit uncomfortable, both for sanitary reasons (my appetite wasn't exactly piqued when I walked in the front door and the whole place smelled exactly like a pet shop) and out of concern for the general wellbeing of the animals themselves. The highlight of the evening was certainly when the younger monkey suddenly lost control and began to jump all over our table, turning over dishes and planting a foot right in the middle of the lovely platter of miso cucumbers that I had been attempting to savor. At the end of the evening, the monkeys were made to put on a show for us, attaining such feats as jumping rope, riding on rocking horses, performing traditional Japanese folk dances, and even playing basketball.

I have absolutely no interest in ever going back to this place, but at least I got some cool pictures.

Only in Japan.

Why am I here and not over--over--over there?

2009-07-01T21:09:00.009+09:00

I'm still dwelling on how much I want to be with so many people I'm not with right now. And the only way I know how to express that is with dancing. And unitards. This video is far from perfect, and if it actually succeeds in communicating any of the things I want to say, it is thanks to Dirty Projectors for the inspirational tune and oh-so-fitting lyrics.

It's just June, I guess.

2009-06-28T22:01:00.004+09:00

Tonight I sat out on my porch for an hour and a half watching the rain.

June has been a long and difficult month. It is a month of no public holidays. The weeks rush by, but the weekends go past so quickly it seems like they never even happened. The weather, nearly every day, is overcast and humid. I started taking Japanese classes on the eighteenth but I my heart hasn’t really been in it. It doesn’t help that I began writing a novel on the fifteenth and it currently takes up nearly every minute of my spare time. But my heart hasn’t really been in writing, either.

The truth is, I miss my friends and family like crazy. Lately, it seems like the absence of these loved ones from my life is a real and physical emptiness in my own body. I wonder: What the hell was I thinking, moving to Japan to teach English? Am I really going to stay here for another year? How? Why?

But, I swear, there’s something about the rain here in Japan that’s different from any rain I’ve ever seen before. It’s like I can feel it under my skin, even when I’m not actually out in it. And the lighting as the sun sank, invisibly, behind the horizon but turned the whole cloudy sky a pale orange in doing so: my heart almost couldn’t take it. I would have sat out there longer except that, around seven thirty when it got dark enough that I couldn’t see the rain anymore anyway, I figured I had better eat something before it got too late and affected my sleep pattern.

Elementary school tomorrow. And a field trip to Tokyo with my second-year students on Tuesday. And then it will be July. Just a little bit longer. God give me the strength.

I like music. I play skiing.

2009-06-18T21:32:00.005+09:00

Today one of my first-year classes learned the verbs “play” and “like.” In preparation for a mini presentation that they will give next week, each student had to write his or her own sentences using “I like _____” and “I play _____.” I walked around the classroom, checking their work and seeing if anyone had any questions.

One girl raised her hand hesitatingly as I walked past. Now, when I first met this girl I admittedly suspected that she might be one of the “slow learners” (the “politically correct” term that gets used in Japan: certainly less ambiguous than Special Education, as we say in the States). This might sound horrible but I actually do have to try to be really perceptive about these things on my own because, although there are several students at my school who have special needs or significant learning disabilities, most parents, out of shame or denial or some other personal reasons, absolutely refuse to put their children in the Slow Learners’ class. And maybe, in most subjects, these kids can get away with just sitting there in frustrated silence. But in English class, where everyone is constantly called upon to read sentences and answer questions out loud, they definitely stand out. So I have to be sensitive as to who they are and just how severe their disability is so as to not embarrass them in class, if I can at all help it.

As it turns out, I don’t think that this girl is a slow learner any more, but she is incredibly awkward and painfully shy. Which is why I was quite surprised when she flagged me down and pointed to the sentence she had just written in her notebook, which read, “I like Man.”

At first I was too shocked to feel like laughing. Okay, so she likes men, but is it really so important that she feels it deserves to be the first example she gives for this assignment?

So I read the sentence out loud to her: “I like man?”

“I like manga,” she said softly and hesitatingly, looking anxiously down at the paper.

“Oh!” I couldn’t help but release a giggle of amusement and relief. For those less familiar with Japanese pop culture, “manga” is a form of comics that originates in Japan. Everyone likes manga at least a little bit. It’s not considered at all abnormal for grown businessmen with families to read manga in their spare time.

I corrected her spelling and told her, “Good job!” But I also felt inclined to explain to her the meaning of “I like Man.”

I told her what “man” was in Japanese. She just sort of smiled awkwardly and nodded: not the appreciative reaction I was hoping for. So I translated the full sentence. But she only bent her face down further and huddled over her notebook. Her shoulders were shaking, but I don’t think it was because she was laughing.

I’m pretty sure I completely embarrassed her.

I told my English teacher, Mr. Ishikawa, the story after class and we both had a good laugh over it, but I couldn’t help thinking back and feeling bad for making the girl blush. Right now she’s probably still thinking, “I used to like English. But now I hate it. And I hate Ms. Meghan, too.”

But, oh man, was it funny.

An American Lunchbox in Japan

2009-06-16T22:31:00.003+09:00

Japanese children think that Americans eat hamburgers on picnics.

Since half of my AET job description is “cultural ambassador,” I saw it as my duty as an American to set the record straight.

Today was Bento Day. A bento is a kind of Japanese lunchbox. There are little shops all over the place that specialize in bento. You can order a plate with any number of different lunch items—usually rice and at least one or two, but often a lot more, little dishes—that will be packaged into a neat little (usually) plastic box with (usually) a little rubber band holding the lid on. You are free, then, to bring this box with you on a picnic, a hike, or to your office lunch. Or even, once a month, to school.

In public elementary and junior high school, all students and teachers, with almost no exceptions, are required to eat the school lunch. School lunch isn’t bad. And, by Japanese standards, it’s pretty cheap (the standard price is ¥5000 [roughly 50 USD by the current exchange rate] per month but I don’t drink milk so I get away with paying only ¥4400).

But one day out of the month, everyone gets to bring a bento. Teachers can get away with picking one up from 7/11 or bringing (as one of my English teachers did this month) just a big plate of salad from home. But, if you’re a student in junior high school, your bento had better follow an unwritten, yet very strict, set of guidelines.

First of all, you need a cute little bag or a cloth to wrap everything up in. Inside this bag, your mother stacks a set of nifty matching containers that hold your lunch. One of these containers is almost certainly filled with white rice. Fried rice is also acceptable and maybe you can get away with fried noodles; I’m still a bit hazy on where this line gets drawn. The second container is a hodgepodge of tiny paper or foil cups containing what appears to be two spoonfuls each of leftovers from the last six nights. One cup perhaps contains a piece of breaded pork, one a meatball, one a salad, one a few bites of spaghetti. If you’re lucky you might get some fried chicken, but you’ll probably just have to settle for a piece of broiled fish and an array of different pickled vegetables. Also, make sure you don’t forget the fork and spoon and the pair of chopsticks that match the set of containers your lunch came in. Because then you’ll be forced to use a set of waribashi (wooden disposable chopsticks) that your homeroom teacher keeps handy in his desk. And that would just throw off the whole experience.

I don’t have a cute little set of containers for my lunch, but I do have some nice Tupperware that work just fine. So, on Bento Day, I usually fill one large Tupperware with leftover spaghetti, pack some carrot sticks or a piece of fruit, toss in a little bottle of Yakult, and I’m good to go. Sometimes I bring a sandwich, but that’s about as crazy as things get.

The students are always really interested to see what I’ve brought in my bento, and equally amazed to hear that I actually made it myself (“What? You mean your mother didn’t make it for you?”). Today, I took it upon myself to explain to the group I was sitting with that American students almost always have sandwiches in their bento boxes. They nodded, considering this carefully and acknowledging that it indeed made sense. Then one girl asked me, “What about hamburgers?”

I shook my head. “No. Never.” All seven students sitting within earshot responded the same: by widening their eyes and saying, in unison, “Ehhhh?”

“Rice?” said another girl.

“Not usually,” I told her. They all looked confounded.

This incident wouldn’t have impressed me so much had it been the first time that I’ve encountered this misconception about Americans having hamburgers in their lunchboxes. Another student wrote something to that effect in his notebook just a few weeks ago. It was in response to an in-class assignment to generate a sentence that employed the new grammar point they were learning. His grammar was fine, so I didn’t think the timing was appropriate for me to question the content. But today it was time for me to take a stand.

Someone has been feeding these children lies. American school children do not get BigMacs in their lunchboxes. People don’t barbecue their lunch and then take it with them on a hike. Well, maybe some people do, but they’re not normal. They’re deviants. They don’t represent the American norm, which is good old-fashioned PB&J: white bread, grape jelly, and Skippy.* Nothing more, nothing less.

*Okay, I admit, I no longer eat white bread if I have a choice, grape jelly is lame, and I’ve long since come to favor natural over hydrogenated peanut butter; but that’s beside the point. We’re talking about America here people, and I’m not going to let my own sissy preferences tarnish the national icon that is the classic peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Again, I direct you to the disclaimer in this blog’s first entry.

京都

2009-05-14T21:45:00.002+09:00

The fact is, the longer I put off updating my blog, the more pressure I feel to make a decent account of my long silence, which makes me feel all the more inclined to continue to put if off. A lot has happened since the beginning of March: my third-year students graduated, the school year ended, I went home to California for spring vacation, a new school year started, I took a trip to Kyoto. And here is my attempt to somehow bypass all of that and bring you to the place where I am now. ☺

However, I can’t not tell you a bit about Kyoto. Knowing that Kyoto is there makes me feel better about Japan as a whole. In Kyoto one discovers a wealth of Japanese art, culture, beauty, and history that seems depressingly absent from the Kanto region. Or perhaps just absent from the tract-house-and-chain-businesses-lined streets of Moka. I went during Japan’s “Golden Week,” so called because it’s a week when three public holidays occur three days in a row; and, as a result, all of Japan goes on vacation at the same time. For this one week, the trains are crowded, airline tickets are twice the usual cost, and booking a hotel room less than a month in advance is just about impossible. Everywhere I went in Kyoto was completely overrun with tourists—foreign and Japanese alike. But I loved it. A lot. In four days, I came nowhere near running out of things to see, and I eagerly anticipate my next opportunity to visit.

A Bit of a Local Celebrity

2009-04-27T21:54:00.002+09:00

Ha!

"Yes, my hobby is writing!" I reply to my school nurse, Hashimoto-sensei, as she makes known her observation that I've been spending a great amount of my day at school today just sitting at my desk writing in my journal. She goes on to list off two more off my other hobbies: reading and hiking. It's amusing to both of us because she got this information from watching my recently aired interview on the local Moka "Ichigo" cable channel. It ran six times per day from the 23rd to the 25th, and it had completely slipped my mind to try to catch one of the airings. Hashimoto-sensei proceeds to share her amusement at how nearly every single AET, in his or her "message to the people of Moka," said something along the lines of, "Please talk to us when you see us around town!" Hashimoto-sensei laughs at this. "Japanese people are shy," she observes, and, to further illustrate the point, impersonates a Japanese woman in the supermarket, bashfully avoiding eye contact so as to evade the risk of feeling obliged to make casual conversation.

I wonder if my encouragement to the people of Moka to come speak to me will actually give birth to a response. Perhaps I'll have to start leaving home an hour earlier in the morning to make time for all those people who will now abandon all social reservations and fear of foreigners in order to placate their curiosity about where I'm from, can I speak Japanese, can I use chopsticks, how many boyfriends do I have?

I hope so.

But I doubt it...

church in Japan and the Church in Japan and Church period

2009-03-09T22:04:00.008+09:00

Yesterday I went to church in Moka for the first time. The congregation was small (including Jennifer and me, the pastor, and the parishioners, there were eleven people total in attendance that morning); and so the service was intimate, to say the least.

I've been wanting so much to get connected to the Church in Japan and to feel part of some larger Christian community in my area. But I've been in a bit of a slump on account of the fact that there just isn't an English-speaking church in Moka or anywhere nearby. I've followed Jennifer to church a couple times to places outside of Moka (last weekend to somewhat disastrous but mostly just humorous results when what was described to be an English-speaking Evangelical church turned out to be a Spanish-speaking Jehovah's Witness congregation; but if you want to know more about that, I'll let you read Jennifer's account), but have never exercised much initiative on my own part to find a "church family" with which to associate myself.

The church I attended on Sunday was conducted entirely in Japanese, so I understood nothing of the Message and very little of the service as a whole; yet, it was powerful and refreshing and entirely beautiful just to be there worshiping with other believers.

How is this possible? The answer is, Jesus.

I don't understand how Christianity works in Japan. By this I mean, my own grasp of Christianity is so embedded in Western culture and has been shaped and influenced by two-thousand years of Western thought. And Japan is not Western. At all. And this general clashing of worldviews is one of the myriad reasons why only about one percent of all people in Japan refer to themselves as Christians. And yet there are people in this country who know and love and serve Jesus Christ, despite the centuries of culturally-biased gunk that cling stubbornly to our collective notion of this person that English speakers call Jesus but in Japan is known as イエス ("iesu"). But though the numbers are small, they are still a testament to the truth that God is so much bigger than language or culture or boarders or continents.

A Sunday school class for children ran concurrent to the church service in an adjacent room. After the service had finished, a boy came into the chapel holding a heavy white book. I noticed with surprise and delight that it was the exact same illustrated Bible that I had owned as a child (except this one was, undoubtedly, written in Japanese). But I assume, with a tinge of sadness, that the pictures must be the same: that Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and Jesus are all depicted with white skin and auburn hair. I think about my friend Ebi confessing only two nights before that she, as a child, had bought into an assumption that White people where somehow innately superior to Asians. Today she has, at least consciously, outgrown this perception, and yet how heartbreaking it is to hear this! How devastating that there are children who don't know that they have been made in God's image; that they are beautifully and lovingly crafted individuals with a unique capacity to give glory to their Creator.

Sometimes I feel weighed down by the spiritual deadness that pervades Japanese culture. People don't seem to really believe in much of anything. Most people cling to their work, and the people (mostly women) who don't have to work constantly find other (mostly materialistic) avenues for passing their time. Fanaticism and radicalism, in general, are looked down upon. Which makes things tough for Christians because following Jesus can look like a pretty fanatical and radical thing. But God is bigger than all these variables. And so, regardless of them, the Church exists in Japan. It is small, but against incredibly unfavorable odds, it exists.

I want to go back to this church, and I ask that you would continue to pray for the community that I'm surrounded by here in in Moka. And please pray for Japan.

Proof That I'm Turning Japanese

2009-03-06T19:50:00.005+09:00

MyHeritage: Celebrity Collage - Pedigree charts - Historical photos

Yeah! I look like Ayumi Hamasaki!
P.S.: Thanks Vicki.

Igirisu & aamondo

2009-02-27T23:46:00.009+09:00

My English bulletin board for February and March. Sometimes, I err toward information overload. Especially when I'm talking about something I get really excited about. Like the U.K.

And, for those of you who are as unceasingly amused by awkward Engrish as I am, here's the bemusingly obscure message that I found on my package of almonds the other day:

How like a winter...

2009-02-17T21:09:00.003+09:00

As I stand in the bathroom tonight, ready to leap into a scalding-hot shower, I first gaze down, astonished, at the mountain of clothing that has just come off of my body: a pair of sweater-knit tights, track pants, wool socks, leg warmers, heat-reflective tank top, long-sleeved shirt, sweater, fleece jacket. And what is more astounding than the towering heap itself is the realization that, even with all these things on, I still felt cold! In my own house! With the heaters on! I shake my head confoundedly before slipping into the steaming shower.

Yes, it’s still winter in Japan. My bike-ride to work in the morning still requires all the above-mentioned articles of clothing, plus the addition of a heavy topcoat, gloves, scarf, earmuffs, hat, and warm boots. And despite the brief lapse into slightly more spring-like weather that we were graced with this last weekend, I still found myself cursing life itself as I plopped down at my desk in the teachers’ room this morning and furiously attempted to rub life back into my sorely frosted fingers.

But, otherwise, life is good. Which is weird, because life has also been exceptionally difficult lately. I haven’t taken the time to update the readers of this blog on any of the major events of the last few weeks. And, even though I could sit here and type out a half-hearted and tactfully censored version of my February in Japan so far, I’m going to put it off just a little bit longer, until I feel I can more adequately reflect on what all these events have meant for me and my life and my future life in Japan. What I will say is that, when the representatives from the Board of Education came to my school last Tuesday to meet with me, my principal, and Ms. Shimowada, my English teacher, I felt no hesitation in informing them of my intention to renew my contract for a second year. Yes, living in Japan is difficult. However, gently and persistently, God reminds me of the incredible beauty that can still be found in this country and these people. More on this later. I promise. Until then, thank you for your readership, your prayers, and the little comments you occasionally leave. They mean so much to me.

A Few Simple Reasons

2009-02-16T19:41:00.009+09:00

There are several little things that make life in Japan lovely. Here are just a few:

1. Sometimes, the English translations on signs and packagings are so strange that they read like poetry.

A sign on the Utsunomiya Line train.

The glare sort of interfered with this one, but it says, "I threw my cigarette butt in the drain. That is to say, I hid it in the drain."

2. The children are always excited to meet me.

I didn't know which teacher's room to go to, so I just went to the teachers' room.

3. It forces me to be creative.

Our own desperate version of Girl Scouts' Thin Mints: one Mentos (or Mento, as Jennifer put it, in the singular) between two squares of Meiji chocolate. Yum.

Sayoonara, ichi-gatsu

2009-01-31T19:53:00.010+09:00

It's really easy to learn the names of the months in Japanese. Basically, you just need to learn the numbers one through twelve and add the word for month, gatsu, to the end of them. So, January is 1月, or ichi-gatsu. Pretty easy, huh?

What's not so easy is believing that it's already the last day of the first month of 2009! The last thirty-one days have involved traveling in Bali and returning to Japan; finding out that I'm officially invited back to teach for a second year; getting the flu and getting over it; and finally deciding to disregard the guilt and awkwardness of reading books at my desk at school because, let's face it: there's nothing better for me to do.

And, finally, though I'm not as proud of it as I was of my December creation, here's my English bulletin board for January. The light reflecting off the laminated papers makes it a little difficult to see what's on it, but I dedicated the month to information about President Barack Obama and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Hajimete: "Frostbite"

2009-01-20T21:28:00.006+09:00

Well, maybe. After all the time that I spent today agonizing over the Wikipedia article on frostbite, I still feel pretty ignorant as to exactly what qualifies as frostbite and at what point it becomes seriously threatening. And let me abate the fears of my parents, who are undoubtedly my most devoted readers, by saying right off the bat that everything turned out okay in the end and that as I'm typing these words I have full feeling in all of my extremities and, as far as I can presume, nothing's going to have to get amputated any time soon.

However.

When I arrived at school this morning, I didn't give a lot of thought to the numbness in my feet. It's cold here in Japan and, as of late, it's quite common for my fingers and toes to get a bit chilled on my morning bike ride to work. But when, an hour-and-a-half later, I still had no feeling in my left big toe, I began to wonder if I should feel alarmed. Mostly, I just felt stupid for not having warmer shoes. Like I said above, I know nothing about frostbite; born and raised in San Diego, California, I remember thinking it was a rare and special occasion if I could see my breath while outside (nowadays it's a rare occasion if I can't see my breath while I'm inside). My ignorance, coupled with my embarrassment at not having upgraded earlier to more adequate footwear, prevented me from mentioning anything to anyone. I just told myself that if I still couldn't feel my toe by lunch time, then I would really start to worry.

I might as well come forward with the already obvious: this is not a very interesting story. By the beginning of third period, my feet were entirely back to normal. And yet, through this experience, I was struck once again by just how starkly different my life in Japan is from anything and everything I've ever known before coming here. As I sat on the floor in the teachers' locker room, poking my toe with my finger and marveling at the way my finger could feel my toe but my toe could not feel my finger, it was another one of those hajimete moments. And, despite my then-fear of ensuing amputation, I couldn't help but feel slightly amused.

And Mom and Dad, rest easy: on my way home from work, I stopped at the store and bought a new pair of boots. They are very warm and should keep my toes nice and toasty on future morning commutes.

Earthquake!

2009-01-18T19:09:00.003+09:00

So, I'm sitting on my bed in my room, lookin' up stuff on the internets, when suddenly it feels like the earth beneath me has a chill and gives a little shiver. My bed jolts suddenly and violently, followed by a series of smaller, less detectable jolts. Oh the thrill of living in Japan!

I'm always a little surprised and not a little amused when I meet Americans who aren't from California who think that we Californians must have it real rough: what with all the earthquakes we're always having. The truth is, folks (and I hesitate here, for fear that my confession will strike a sudden surge in immigration to California, causing the Golden State to at last buckle beneath the weight of its many inhabitants and finally drop off into the Pacific), that I lived in California for twenty-three years and only once -- that's right once -- in my entire time there did I feel an earthquake. True, I didn't live right above a fault line, and perhaps I'm just not very sensitive to the things. But, in general, Californians don't go through their daily lives agonizing that the ground beneath their feet is unstable. They don't Velcro their china to the shelves. For most Californians, earthquakes just don't occupy a lot of space in their daily thoughts.

Before I came to Japan, I'd felt one earthquake in my life. Since moving to Japan, I've felt...well, lots. And I love it! There's something truly exhilarating about being reminded that the earth beneath you is big and powerful and constantly moving and changing. I think I often take the earth for granted. When I feel an earthquake, it's as if the earth is saying, "I'm here. I'm quite large. Don't forget me."

Okay, I won't.

Hajimete

2009-01-10T23:38:00.004+09:00

When it rains in the morning, I have the option of taking a taxi to school on the Board of Education's tab.

Yesterday morning when I left my house, it was not raining. There were ominous clouds in the sky; but, no rain, no taxi. So I hopped on my bike and took off, already running a bit late for my visit to Yamazaki Minami Elementary School.

I wasn't more than two minutes from home when I started to feel the gentle patter of light precipitation on my cheeks and forehead (the only parts of me that were exposed, since the rest of me was securely bundled up against the biting cold). I considered just turning around right then and calling taxi from home; but, for some reason, I'm really stubborn when it comes to riding my bike and I don't like to take a taxi unless it's absolutely necessary (i.e. typhoon), so I just pressed on.

I was cycling like mad in the hopes of making it to school on time (I'd managed to get out the door about fifteen minutes later than I should have), so although my fingers and toes were numb with cold, my torso was sweating profusely. I panted heavily as icy droplets of rain continued to strike my face.

I was about half-way to school when looked down at my arms and realized, with great shock and amazement, "It's not rain, it's snow!" I was riding my bike in the snow! Wet snowflakes had accumulated on the arms of my jacket. They were sparse and very melty, yet unmistakable as snow nonetheless. I became aware of the fact that I was laughing, loudly and delightedly and probably much to the wonder and discomfort of the high school students who passed me going the opposite way on their bikes. At this precise moment, the word that sprung to mind was: hajimete, "for the first time." It was my first time riding a bike in the snow, and I doubt it will be the last.

In other news, on Tuesday I returned from my winter vacation to South Asia. Having spent two weeks surrounded by people from countries in which strangers are friendly and nearly everyone speaks English makes returning to life in Moka especially difficult. But as I look back fondly on my time spent in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, I feel my experiences have left me feeling refreshed and determined to face my job again with renewed energy and optimism.

For more on my travels to Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Kuala Lumpur, and Bali, please see my Picasa web page.

You know you're really a teacher when...

2008-12-19T22:22:00.000+09:00

You get to laminate stuff.

A rather long story about my strange, strange life

2008-12-17T20:04:00.008+09:00

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,

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.

Two years to the day and feelin' the Oxford blues

2008-12-15T22:29:00.008+09:00

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.

Creative me

2008-12-10T22:16:00.001+09:00

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.

Candles

2008-11-30T22:16:00.006+09:00

So, I bought some candles today. Here's what the warning label on the back had to say:

*Please use the goods with the good flow of the air and a suitable case.
*When the candle is burning or right after putting off a fire, don't touch it, otherwise, you may burn with it.
*Be careful with the sudden fall that is caused by the earthquake and the wind.
*Don't put the goods near the thing which burns easily, children and pets.
*When you put off the fire, don't water it.
*This is not a food, so don't put it in the mouth.

Not bad, I realize, especially in comparison with a lot of the Engrish that's out there, but I suppose I was just in a chuckling mood tonight.

Gratitude, etc.

2008-11-27T00:08:00.005+09:00

Tonight, I'm not going to blog about my musings on the meaning of gratitude. I know that somewhere, on land mass much larger than the one upon which I currently reside, people are beginning to say hello to a day on which they will sit around a table, stuff themselves stupid with opulent amounts of food, and watch football or It's a Wonderful Life on TV. But, apart from a few Thanksgiving lessons that I've given at elementary schools over the past month, that has little to do with me right now.

Tonight, as I huddle in front of the cool glow of my MacBook screen and the hot air from my oil heater, I don't really have anything special to say about gratitude. But I do want to talk about creativity. And maybe gratitude ties into that a bit in the end. We'll see.

This evening I made stuff. For starters, I made some pumpkin pies (OK! You got me: you can take the girl out of America but you can't take the America out of the girl). They're sitting on my kitchen counter right now and the festive aroma they're sending my way is delightful. While the pies were cooking, I made some lanterns out of recycled glass jars and hung them in the kitchen. They look sort of pretty, dangling there.

There's something flooringly spectacular about the fact that human beings are creative beings. We've got something in us that no other creatures on Earth have got. God put it in there. Every creative act that we perform has the potential to be worship and all worship is creation. Pretty exciting.

I was reading a recent blog post by Ashely and it got me thinking further about how an important aspect of my job as an educator -- perhaps even the most important aspect, is my role in encouraging students to think for themselves and push themselves to be more than they realize they have the potential to be. This can be fairly tough at times because junior high school students -- particularly junior high school students in Japan -- don't like to stand out too much; and standing out is very often a direct byproduct of thinking for oneself.

The situation isn't helped much by the fact that language education in Japan, in general, emphasizes rote memorization and repeating lines from the text book over and over and over again until you finally reach the point where your brain implodes on itself from sheer boredom. It's no wonder that when I try to get my students to put together original sentences in English, using vocabulary they've already learned, they freak out. "What? You actually want my to think for myself? You mean I can't just copy a sentence out of my textbook? It's too hard!"

But we can't settle for mediocrity because the alternative is too hard. We need to push ourselves to achieve a potential beyond what we already know to be attainable and we need to encourage others to do the same.

So how can I respond to this responsibility? How do I encourage my students to live up to their potential when all most of them want to do is blend into the crowd and slide through classes by doing the minimum amount of work and praying that they teacher won't call on them and make them look stupid in front of their friends?

I've learned that the most important thing I can do is laugh with them. In class, I'm ridiculous. When I read passages out of the textbook for the students to repeat after me, I do so in absurd voices. I use excessive gestures, dance, sing, and basically leave class every day knowing that I've left a little bit of my dignity somewhere inside and that I'll never be able to get it back.

Does this work? I think so. Or at least sometimes it does. There are a few students who are so painfully shy, it's likely that nothing I do will ever make them feel comfortable speaking English in class. But there are others who realize, even if they mess up when forming sentences in English, they can't possibly make themselves look any more ridiculous than I've already made myself.

Perhaps my acting silly has nothing to do with English-learning, directly. But it does have to do with encouraging people and loving them and making them feel valuable and empowered to try their best. And, as I've come to learn, that's really what my job is, anyway. I'm grateful for such a job.

Snapshot

2008-11-21T21:47:00.005+09:00

On the last stretch of my bike ride home this afternoon, I rounded the corner and saw an old woman standing on a sheet metal roof, using a long tool to pluck persimmons from an already leaf-bare tree.

Furbies discovered alive and well in Indonesia!

2008-11-19T19:32:00.004+09:00

Well, not really Furbies. But when I first glanced the image that went with the news headline on my Yahoo! mail page, I couldn't help but note the striking resemblance:

The little feller in the 2nd picture is a pygmy tarsier, a tiny primate long thought to be extinct, but recently spotted in the forests of Indonesia, eighty years since its last sighting by human eyes.

The reappearance of the pygmy tarsier gives me hope. For eighty years, he sat mum in his little island jungle. Nobody knew where he was and after a while, I bet nobody really cared. But suddenly, just when we had given up on the chance of ever seeing him again, he waltzed right back into our lives. No questions asked: the pygmy tarsier is definitely here and (let's hope) here to stay.

So why does this give me hope? Well, in case you haven't noticed, I've been a bit out of sight for a while. I'm far away on my own little island, and sometimes I worry that the folks back home will forget about me. When I eventually decide I want to move back to the States, what will my homecoming be like? Will my friends and family be able to seamlessly welcome me back into their lives? Sometimes I worry that they won't. Sometimes I worry that, by choosing to move to Japan and away from most of my loved ones, I've lost something that I'll never be able to get back.

But then there's the case of the pygmy tarsier. And if a primate the size of a mouse can do it, shouldn't I be able to as well? I want to think so. But the more realistic side of my urges me to focus not on what I've lost, but rather on the insights and experiences I've already gained by living in this crazy country that I now like to call home.

Praise

2008-11-17T20:30:00.002+09:00

For fat, thick drops of rain trickling down my scalp. For things that can be reused and thus become more beautiful. For children who say hello to you not to impress their friends or feel brave, but just because they want to say hello. Praise for autumn. Praise for earth. Praise for praise.

I am grateful today for beautiful things, and how their existence has a way of making the not-so-beautiful things around them look something closer to beautiful. Sometimes the beautiful things are artwork, sometimes cups of tea, sometimes dear friends. Regardless, they make life precious. Praise for precious life.

I have been in Japan for two-and-a-half months. Sometimes living here is horribly difficult. But tonight, at least, it is beautiful. I light some candles and listen to the rain tap dancing on my sun roof. Life becomes simple. Thank God for simple life.

Good morning! It's Japan!

2008-11-09T09:26:00.006+09:00

Yesterday was a long day. I spent half an hour on a bus to get to the train station to spend one-and-a-half hours on a train to get to Tokyo. Once there, I went to the Tokyo National Museum and walked around looking at Japanese art and artifacts for two-and-a-half hours. After that, I got lunch, visited Harajuku for some brief shopping, then hopped on the Yamanote Line back to Ueno, where I boarded another train for one-and-a-half hours, then finally took a bus back to Moka.

Naturally, I was looking forward to sleeping in on Sunday. No such luck. Because at eight o'clock in the morning, this happened.

No gaijin allowed

2008-11-07T16:20:00.009+09:00

There are some days when the existence of the "Japanese only" pub around the corner really gets to me. I'm reminded repeatedly that, to the majority of the people I encounter in daily life, I'll always be a foreigner first, a person second. Whereas, on some days it's amusing to witness people's astonished reactions when I confirm that, yes, I can eat Japanese food; on other days it's simply exhausting. And the language barrier doesn't do much to improve the situation: some people laud my ability to speak even a few words in Japanese; others seem to hate me for not being fluent. To tell the truth, I sometimes can't decide which bothers me more.

Yesterday, during my lunch break, I went for a little walk. The weather was absolutely perfect and, in the mild autumn air, my mind was clear. I seldom observe Moka from on foot, since I tend to ride my bicycle everywhere. On the occasions when I do decide to walk, however, I notice things about the city that I don't normally take into consideration. Yesterday, as I strolled down the street from Yamazaki Junior High to buy some juice from a vending machine, it struck me for the first time that, for the majority of the teachers and students that I work with, I'm the only foreigner they'll see all day. Perhaps, if they go to the grocery store, they might observe a Brazilian or even a Peruvian, but other than that, I'm it. They'll learn English regardless of whether I'm at school: Shimowada and Ishikawa both have more than enough knowledge and teaching ability to satisfy the foreign language-learning needs of junior high schoolers. So much more important than my role as a teacher is my role as a cultural ambassador. By interacting with them on a daily basis, maybe I can show my students that, even though we look different and don't speak the same language, we are equally valuable human beings, and that our feelings, emotions, and deepest desires (acceptance, attention, affirmation, love) are basically the same. Maybe some of them won't ever become consciously aware of this concept. But maybe -- just maybe -- if any of them grow up to own a restaurant or other small business, they won't write "Japanese Only" on the front.

A-camping we will go

2008-11-05T22:44:00.005+09:00

Monday was Culture Day. No work. And so it came to be that, in order to fully savor the three-day weekend, Ryan, Doug, Yves, Josiah, Toshi, Kousuke, Sakaka, Jennifer, and I found ourselves camping out in cabins in the beautiful woods of Ashio. No, we didn't see any monkeys. But the autumn leaves were amazing.

I also had my very first onsen experience. That means I was naked. With strangers. I wish it weren't so late and I weren't so exhausted or I would fully do justice to the variety of emotions and comical encounters experienced this weekend. However, for now, it's off to bed I go.

the results are in

2008-10-30T22:55:00.006+09:00

Today was the day of the long-awaited regional speech contest. Much to my delight, my third year girl was good enough to walk away with a third-place award. And as for the ichi and ni nensei boys...they both received nothing less than first place! Shimowada was absolutely thrilled. But I sincerely think every heart in the room that day was warmed by my first-year student's delivery. He's one adorable kid. He worked his butt off for this day; and it paid off.

The entire afternoon, once the winners and runners up had been announced, Yuki Nakazato, first-year student at Yamazaki Junior High School, seemed to be trapped in a haze of pure bliss. We went to Joyfull, a local "family-style" restaurant for celebration ice cream and, the entire time, I watched as the immense smile on Yuki's face refused to fade. As happy as I was for Keita, the second-year winner, I could not help feeling a surge of especial pride and empathetic satisfaction at Yuki's achievement. Keita knew that his speech was good. Yuki, I think, up until this afternoon, had been completely oblivious.

So now we're off to the province-wide competition in Utsunomiya; which means two more weeks of after-school rehearsals and drilling. But I'm so happy for Yuki and Keita. And I'm happy for Ms. Shimowada, too. After hearing the results of the judge's decision today, she told me with enthusiasm: "Let's go to Utsunomiya and win the big cup! Then we will come back home and fill it with beer!"

I gotta love her.

I'm tired

2008-10-29T10:00:00.005+09:00

And pretty much all the time, too. Today I have the day off, though, to compensate for having to come to school on Saturday for Rindosai (School Festival). Yamazaki's Rindosai, from what I understand, was not as exciting as those of some of the larger junior high schools in Moka, but it was still much better than an actual day of work. I even got to participate in some of the activities with the kids and it was one of the first days that I actually was able to walk around and just chat with some of my students.

Tomorrow is the long-awaited speech contest (at last!). Two of my students are actually quite good and that sort of worries me. You see, the first and second place winners both get to go on to the state-wide competitions, which would mean more preparation and more time after school listening to the same words and the same awkward intonations repeated over and over again. Ms. Shimowada and I keep joking with each other that we hope our students will all get the third prize. We want their hard work to pay off, but we're done.

In further news, I got a sewing machine! It's been great fun so far making little things to decorate the house. Pictures of my handiwork to come later.

For now, please enjoy this video clip of a "traditional Northern dance" that several of my students performed last Saturday. They did it twice, and the second time I was coaxed into joining them. My thighs burned for two whole days afterward.

"fo-ku dansu" at Rindosai from Meghan Janssen on Vimeo.

Japan has enough crazy machines as it is: I don't have to become one.

2008-10-22T17:47:00.005+09:00

Finally home after a long day at work, blogging is just about one of the last things I feel like doing. It seems that every morning, as I ride my bike through the vast fields of dirt that up until recently were filled with tall stalks of rice, I'm full of interesting thoughts that I just can't wait to sit down and relay to all my eager readers. But, when the end of the day finally rolls around and I've got the time to sit in front of my laptop for a bit, I'm too exhausted to feel inspired.

Suddenly I think I've gained a little insight into why Japanese people as a whole don't seem to be all that creative: they work too damn much.

Nevertheless, I find ways to reassure myself that I am, in fact, a human and not a robot. I spend my spare time at work designing hand-drawn picture cards and worksheets for elementary school lessons. In class, when the other teacher is lecturing in Japanese and I'm left standing against the wall like a painting, I fantasize about interesting little things that I can create when I get home. Like a crocheted afghan for my bed. Or Halloween decorations for our party next Friday. Or a time machine that will transport me to some time after speech contests are over.

Always, again with the bugs!

2008-10-13T14:09:00.006+09:00

They're just everywhere. All the time. This weekend there seemed to have been a surge in activity among the praying mantises in the area around my house. The following picture shows me as close as I was willing to get to the enormous one outside my neighbor's front door.

Besides the excitement with this exceptionally beady-eyed and unsettlingly observant green insects, the majority of my weekend was preoccupied with sitting on my living room couch with a tissue in one hand and a cup of hot tea in the other, combating the sudden onslaught of a cold that took hold without warning on Friday night. I was alone in the house, since both my roommate, Jennifer, and my friend Josiah left for the weekend to take part in a home-stay rice-harvesting festival. I was pretty jealous of them for getting to go to this, especially as I was the only AET who didn't get invited. But not having any plans for the weekend ended up meaning that I had ample time to lie around my house sniffling and groaning as I waited for the sickness to subside.

Today (Monday) we have the day off on account of National Sports Day. I have yet to work a full five-day week since starting teaching at Yamazaki. For as work-obsessed as the Japanese are, they certainly have a lot of national holidays. Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean that all of my teachers aren't at school anyway today, finding some task that they absolutely have to complete or some school club that absolutely must meet even on a holiday. Luckily, they don't hold us foreigners to the same standards.

ra d iohea_d

2008-10-06T23:05:00.004+09:00

was amazing. Thom Yorke is a dancing machine. I really wanted to stand up and dance with him, but Japanese people don't really dance; they just sit politely and clap and cheer when appropriate. Our seats were just about as terrible as it gets but, wow: what an amazing show.

For further details, please see my Picassa photos (right sidebar).

autumn arriving

2008-10-04T16:54:00.008+09:00

Today the weather was beyond perfect. The sun was out, but the air was mild. It was a day where I could sit outside in jeans, a t-shirt, and sandals and be perfectly comfortable. So that's what I did. For pretty much the whole day. Sublime.

This supremely relaxing Saturday differed significantly from last Saturday, when I made my first visit to Japan's capital, Tokyo. Tokyo is quite possibly the most bizarre place I have ever been in my life. Walking down the street in the neighborhoods of Shibuya, Shinjuku, and Harajuku, I realize that my small effort to dress nice for the day has fallen flat on it's face. Amid the throngs of young, beautiful people dressed up to the nines in the hight of modern Tokyo fashion, I fit in--at best--with the many haggard-looking tourists scattered throughout the crowds. In Moka, I'm "kawaii" and "kakkoii;" little children and old people stare at me and my European genetics make me constantly something of a novelty. In Tokyo, I'm just another under-dressed white tourist; nobody takes the slightest interest in my presence and waiters in restaurants speak English to me.

If a visitor's only impression of Japan were Tokyo, it would be easy to jump to the conclusion that Japan is a nation of young people; hardly anyone looks like he's under thirty-five. But the truth is, Japan is the world's oldest country, you just have to get outside the big city to notice it. Here in Moka, there's hardly anyone my age. On the bus, everyone's over sixty. At my school, several classrooms go nearly completely unused because, for the past few decades, the student population has done nothing but decline.

All-in-all, this translates into a very peaceful existence for me. I can spend long hours reading at home or crocheting on my front porch because, in the whole town, there really isn't anything else to do. Sometimes this makes me feel antsy; but, for the most part, I enjoy these quiescent weekends.

And tomorrow night: Radiohead.

2008-09-24T22:27:00.005+09:00

Today I reached a point in the third-year English text where I had to read a story out loud to the class about the bombing of Hiroshima. Standing in front of my students, reading a simple but painfully tragic story about the United States' atrocious act against Japanese civilians, I'm a confused jumble of emotions. As I read the sad description of a little girl and boy struggling to comfort each other as the sit beneath a tree slowly succumbing to a gruesome, painful death, my voice cracks a little and my eyes start to well up with tears. I feel an awkward urge to apologize to the class: to recognize the fact that, in this room, I am the sole representative of a people group who committed a horrible, contemptible act of violence against their people group. I want their forgiveness. And yet I know it's not the time and place and that an apology might not carry much weight when made by a person who wasn't even born until some forty years after the fact. Or maybe it would have value. Who knows? Regardless, I made no personal epilogue, simply read the questions for the corresponding true-false quiz, still a confusion of emotions, still desiring some form of absolution.

reality setting in

2008-09-21T21:17:00.006+09:00

Last night I visited a big yellow castle; I watched people drink beer out of mugs with pictures of cute cartoon cats on them; I sat on tatami mats and belted lyrics into a microphone as they appeared on a TV screen. For the second time in the three-and-a-half weeks that I've been living here, I had one of those "Whoa: I'm in Japan" moments.

The first one came only two days ago when I payed my first visit to sho gakko (elementary school) and gave four English lessons to first through fourth graders. Midday, I had lunch with the ni nensei (second year) class. The children I sat with seemed eager to explain to me how to eat Japanese food and inquired several times as to how I felt about nattou (nasty rotten soybean snot food that I tasted for the first time on Thursday). I explained to them in my meager Japanese that I didn't understand much, but this didn't stop them from repeating their questions over and over, speaking very slowly as if this would somehow assist me to recognize the completely unfamiliar words they were using. As the "conversation" reached a lull, I simply allowed myself to look around the room at the students and their teacher, chatting, laughing, and shoveling mouthfuls of rice and nattou with their chopsticks. Every single one of these kids was so stinking cute. And that's when it hit me. All of a sudden, like the image in a 3D mystery picture coming into focus after I had been staring at it forever and seeing nothing but fuzz. I am freaking in Japan! Before leaving California, I had wondered and wondered just how long it would take for it to set in. And now I have the answer: precisely three weeks after arriving in the country.

Maybe this seems like a long time; but, at this moment, lying on my bed in my tatami-floored room, typing away on my MacBook, I sort of feel like I'm back in my bubble of non-reality. This morning I went out for brunch with my roommate, Jennifer, and two of our new Japanese friends, Toshi and Kosuke. I had a mayonnaise pizza (!?!?!?) which was shockingly delicious. In the afternoon I rode my bike in the rain to the grocery store and regretted not bringing an umbrella because the acidity of the precipitation here really fries my hair. This evening we watched half a Hayao Miyazaki film on Jennifer's laptop and now I'm getting ready for bed so that I can get up early and get ready for school again tomorrow. And the whole thing sort of just feels like a haze.

Last night was the second time I've been out for karaoke since arriving in Japan. The first was at the "second party" of my enkai (company party) that followed Undokai two weeks ago. That had been crazy. (Imagine sitting in a tiny karaoke bar with half of your co-workers, including your principal, all of whom are fantastically drunk and all-too eager to pick out songs for you to leap up on stage to preform. Some of these songs are going to be quite tame, like The Beatles' "Yellow Submarine." And inevitably one of these songs is going to be Madonna's "Like a Virgin." But you just have to say "hai" and go with the flow.) Going out last night with people more my age made for a very different karaoke experience. There were ten of us in all--six Americans and four Japanese--and we went to a karaoke bar that looked like and enormous cartoon castle and rented out our own room for three hours. It's no wonder that karaoke has achieved popularity outside of Nippon.

I apologize for the rambling nature of this particular post. Again I'm sort of weighed down by the fact that I don't often have the time or energy to sit down and blog. And, when I do, the overwhelming array of things I could write about is so daunting that I have an incredibly difficult time focusing on any one thing but feel pressure to somehow compress all my experiences from the last week or two into three or four barely coherent paragraphs. Forgive me. For next time, I'll do my best to squeeze an hour out of my hazy existence to compose a blog entry when I'm not already dead tired and struggling to account for the last two weeks that I haven't been updating my friends and family on the numerous ongoings of my new Japanese life. Until then.

Undokai! [Sports Day]

2008-09-10T21:06:00.008+09:00

It's becoming incredibly difficult to bring myself to add to this blog because there is simply too much to say. As of tomorrow I will have been in Japan for two weeks and I can't make up my mind whether that sounds like too long or too short. The numerous new experiences I've had since arriving makes it feel like I've been here forever, and yet the days seem to fly by...

For now I'll settle with saying a few words about Undokai on Saturday.

All last week, classes at my school were for the most part forgone in order to allow ample time for the students to practice for Undokai. What this meant for me was that my first three days at Yamazaki Junior High were spent mostly sitting outside in the altogether daunting heat and humidity and observing their rehearsals. Whenever my head would start to nod, I would keep myself awake by standing up and walking around or -- if she was anywhere nearby -- asking questions of Mrs. Shimowada concerning what the students were doing. For the most part, I was quite baffled by the strange behavior of the children running about on the sports field. Much of the "rehearsal" consisted of the students miming the sports they would actually be playing on Saturday. At one point, my English teacher leaned over and told me, "Now the students will rehears the game where they push the huge ball." Excited by the prospect of seeing an enormous ball, my eyes perked up and I asked, "Where is the huge ball now?" "Oh!" She replied, "It will be there on Saturday!" Sure enough, three groups of children were running across the field, pretending to push a large ball that wasn't actually there. I managed to stifle a laugh. I told this story to Doug, one of the AETs who has been in Moka for a while. He was unsurprised. "When Japanese rehearse," he said, "they rehearse everything."

Sports Day itself could be summarized most accurately as follows: it was long, and it was warm. It was the day that I learned the Japanese for "hot" -- atsui -- because I heard everyone around me muttering it repeatedly all day as they fanned themselves viciously with pieces of paper and plastic fans. Sitting to the side among the students, I learned that junior high schoolers basically smell the same in every country. The combination of the heat, the humidity, and my inability to comprehend anything that was being said throughout the ceremony led me to doze off. Yet, as soon as this happened, I was awakened by the sound of both my English teachers -- Mrs. Shimowada and Mr. Ishikawa -- coming toward me and shouting, "Meghan Sensei! Please come help us!"

The schedule of the day had come to a track event in which the students were required to run through a sort of obstacle course. At the final stage of the race, they would pick up a card which would give them instructions on how to get the rest of the way to the finish line. It might say something like, "Hop on one leg," or, "Take a female teacher," or, "Ride on a teacher's back." At first the students were too shy to acknowledge my presence and other female teachers got snatched up while I stood by and watched the finish of each race. However, once one student worked up the nerve to grab my hand and run, I became the new favorite. Each time, I sprinted with all I had in me in order to keep up with these junior high boys who run faster than I can see. Still, they seemed to drag me along with them. At the end of four races, the muscles in my legs felt like they had turned into tofu. But at least I was awake again.

The unbearable humidity persisted through the afternoon and the sun continued to scorch the sports field; but as the Sports Day drew near its close, dark clouds began looming in the distance. A young man who was there to see his younger sibling came up to chat with me and said, "It's going to rain tonight." Throughout the entire closing ceremony, thunder boomed and drowned out half of my school principle's speech. And as the students marched off the field, the clouds opened up and it started to pour.

I really love it when it rains here. I don't mind riding my bike in it because the air is still hot and I know that when I get home I can towel off and change my clothes. No problem. And yet, as of a couple days ago, it seems that the weather is beginning to shift into autumn mode. The air is drier and the mornings cooler. I hardly sweat at all on my bike ride to school this morning. Marvelous. Even though I've already grown accustomed to the humidity, I'm looking forward to sweaters and hot tea and early sunsets. When I asked my English Elective class students today what their favorite season was, none of them said Summer. "Too hot," they explained. Most of them said Fall or Winter. I did not tell them this, but they've made me very excited.

a word about bugs

2008-09-04T22:16:00.007+09:00

Japan has a greater abundance of large insects than any place I have ever been before. Whether it's praying mantises, cacophonous cicadas, poisonous caterpillars, wasps, killer bees, flying ants, mosquitoes, enormous cockroaches, or spiders the size of small cats, none of them seem shy about making their presence known at all hours of the day. And they all seem to have one thing in common: an insatiable appetite for my blood. Though the problem seems to have subsided somewhat since I purchased a spray can of "Mushi Bye-Bye" from the local grocery store, I still have myriad constellations across my legs, arms, and torso displaying the proud handiwork of many a diligent mosquito or biting ant. The predicament leads me to look forward to the colder autumn months when the little biting fiends will go into hibernation.

On another note, today I turned twenty-three years old. I'm usually not a fan of birthdays and the way they make a person the awkward center of attention for no other reason other than having been born (big deal: 6.692 billion other people in the world have achieved this, too, no thanks to any effort or desire on their own part); however, today proved to be very pleasant. After a looooooong first day at school, which consisted entirely of me sitting and observing school rehearsals for Sports Day on Saturday, I met up with my fellow AETs and we went out for dinner at Taj Mahal, the local Indian food restaurant. It was very oishii (delicious), and I'm sure I'll return again to enjoy another helping of spicy vegetable curry and "robstar" (menu's misspelling of Lobster).

Tomorrow will be my first day actually participating in the classroom. Shimowada sensei, my first English teacher, tells me that the students will introduce themselves to me and that, after that, she has a lot of instruction that she has to get through on her own. My other English teacher--Ishikawa sensei--I have still not really spoken with beyond a curt self-introduction he made to me before hurrying off to his homeroom class this morning. They both seem like nice people, but the craziness of preparing for Undokai (Sports Day) has prevented them from having many opportunities to talk with me. This will probably change next week when the school reverts to normal scheduling.

And suddenly I realize how late it is and remember that I have to get up again at six o'clock tomorrow morning and ride my bike three miles to school. It will be a pleasant ride, I'm sure, as it has been the two other times that I have made it. But I will need my energy to make it there on time. That said, goodnight and sayoonara.

home at last

2008-09-02T23:08:00.004+09:00

With wireless internet freshly installed in my house, I am finally able to sit down and take the time to publish my first update from Japan! On Wednesday, August 27 at 1:04 PM, I and my fellow AETs left LAX airport and arrived eleven hours later in Narita Airport, Tokyo on Thursday, August 28 around 5:00 PM. Time is a funny, funny thing and I don't pretend to comprehend it. The next couple of days were a blur of combating jet-lag as we trudged through a procession of meeting the superintendent of the board of education and the mayor of Moka; procuring national health cards and registering for our gaijin (foreigner) cards; setting up bank accounts and filling out tax forms. It seems absurd to realize that I've only been in the country for six days. A month, perhaps, would feel more like it, and I haven't actually even started working at school yet!

Already I'm quite clear on the fact that I must learn Japanese if I'm to get the most out of my time living in Japan. Prospects are good, however, since according to my observations so far, Japanese seem to use the same handful of phrases over and over again for a wide variety of situations. Every interaction I have, I seem to hear:

hai (Yes)
arigato gozaimasu (Thank you)
sumimasen (Excuse me)
gomennasai (Sorry)
daijobu (It's okay/fine)

With these five phrases I feel just about ready to take on the entire Japanese archipelago. If I want to ask for assistance while in the grocery store in discerning the difference between two kinds of tofu, however, I might want to work on extending my vocabulary.

Perhaps.

Already I've learned that a few Japanese words and a lot of elaborate sign language can get you far.

Pictures from my new life are soon to come. As I said to the teachers at Yamazaki Chu Gakko in my speech of introduction yesterday, "Please be patient with me." I am doing my best to take things as they come and absorb my new surroundings without neglecting my other responsibilities. This includes learning Japanese as well as maintaining contact with people back in the States and in other countries that are not Japan. So, although I want to continue to elaborate on the idiosyncrasies of daily life that have already surfaced since my arrival in this country, the need to go to bed and get some sleep requires that I save these things for later. Until then, know that I am well and loving Japan. Thanks for reading.

two days!

2008-08-26T14:22:00.000+09:00

For the last few days I've had an incessant queasiness in my stomach that seems to intensify whenever I think about packing or the fact that one week from today I'll be half way through my second day of work. A rough self-diagnosis concludes: reality is beginning to settle in. The fact that I'm actually leaving for Japan in less than two days is finally feeling like just that--a fact--and the excitement and anxiety concentric with this realization are making me physically ill.

This day was filled mostly with a great deal of last-minute shopping for omiyage (gifts to present to my bosses and co-workers in Japan) and was highlighted with the excitement of a new haircut. I feel that the new 'do corresponds nicely with my upcoming transformation from a post-college freeloader living with my parents for the summer to a mature (but still kinda funky) English teacher working in Japan. Perhaps you will understand what I mean:

Old me (immature)

New me (very professional)

two weeks?

2008-08-14T12:54:00.001+09:00

Stalkers: you’ve got your work cut out for you. Exactly two weeks from today I shall board a plane at LAX and fly across the Atlantic Ocean to Narita Airport, Tokyo, Japan. In Japan, for the next year of my life, I will be working for the Moka City Board of Education as the Assistant English Teacher (AET) at Yamazaki Junior High. As the days dwindle away until my departure date, I wonder how long it will be until the reality of it actually sets in.

I’ve spent the majority of this largely uneventful summer putting off the looming obligation to start packing or at least to begin considering exactly what from my nearly 23 years of life I can cram into two 50-pound pieces of checked luggage and one carry-on. When I went to the Japanese consulate in downtown L.A. last week to get my visa, I had a moment where the immediacy of my future suddenly threatened to overwhelm me. As the man at the passport window to my left spoke rapidly in Japanese to the woman behind the counter, a sense of anxiety swelled up in me as I realized, all at once, that I really have no idea what the hell to expect when, before the month is over, I arrive at my new home and workplace. I don’t speak Japanese. I don’t know much about Japanese culture. I don’t know how to teach a classroom, let alone a classroom in Japan. In the waiting room of the Japanese consulate, I realized that I was scared––a realization I quickly squelched by forcing myself to focus on more immediate concerns, like the backpacking trip I would be leaving for the following day. This worked nicely. No more anxiety. No more nervousness. No more helpless ineptitude for grasping the pervasively advancing unknown. Just me looking forward to five days of hiking in Sequoia National Park.

But now the backpacking trip is over. I’m forced to accept that the next major event in my life is moving to Moka. I’m sort of terrified. But, even more than that, I’m excited. And even more than either of these, I’m just plainly incapable of grasping the reality that I’m actually going to Japan.

What it comes down to, I’ve accepted, is this: whether I can believe it or not, at this time next month I’ll be standing in front of a classroom of Japanese preteens and attempting to smooth out for them the rougher points of this one peculiar language that is so highly coveted around the world. Two empty suitcases sit on the floor of my bedroom and I have fourteen days to fill them up. Somehow, this seems like too daunting of a task to get started on quite yet. I put it off by composing the first entry of my Japan weblog.

So here it is: a little place on the internets where you can, if you so desire, track the events, thoughts, and habits of my daily life as an AET in Moka-shi over the upcoming year. As I expound on the details of my life, continue to keep in mind that the opinions and ideas expressed in this blog are in no way intended to reflect those of the Moka Board of Education or the Glendora-Moka Sister City Program. And, while we’re at it, please don’t draw any conclusions about Americans based on my ignorance and ethnocentricity; don’t judge Christians on account of my frequent failure to live according to the teachings of Jesus; and don’t judge women on account of my occasional regression into passivity when I ought to be a strong leader. All that being said, I hope you will enjoy this blog. I write it for you.

Peace,

Meghan