Home again, home again

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind. I spent the end of August on a magical island off of the southern coast of Japan called Yakushima. I went on a ten hour hike to the world’s oldest cedar tree (Jomon Sugi – 7,200 years old) and saw wild miniature deer eating alongside grooming monkeys. Since then, I have spent four days in Portland, Oregon resetting my brain with dear friends, four days in the Twin Cities finally seeing Nick again, and have been in Duluth for four days appreciating family and the worlds largest lake.

I can’t say that I’ve felt much culture shock upon my return home. The biggest thing that I feel here is a sense of freedom. It sounds kinda cheesy, doesn’t it? “Here in America, I feel like I’ve got all my freedoms back,” (insert twangy banjo music here). The thing is that I am able to walk down the street again without people constantly staring at me. This is even when I wear a tank-top or drink coffee while walking down the street. At times, I felt like Japan had so many social codes that I would rather scrounge the earthquake kit for a dinner snack rather than have to deal with the hassle of going out.
It’s funny when people ask me, “How was Japan?” I’m not sure how to answer. My response has typically been something like, “It was great. I learned a lot and really enjoyed it. At the same time, I wouldn’t want to live there indefinitely.” This is a response that could be given after any trip for almost any locale or time length. With such a generic question, I assume it’s more of a greeting than a genuine interest in wanting to know about my experience.

I certainly didn’t miss American food while I was gone. Japanese food was always fresh, seasonal and balanced. My stomach has been making an interesting symphony of sounds as it tries to processes the large amounts of bread, beer, cheese and chips that have been flowing my way.

I have never had jet lag in my life but it may have finally crept up on me. I have been taking a small nap almost every day which is pretty unheard of for me. It’s hard to say if this is due to the jet lag, or to the copious amounts of Welcome Home beer, or even the constant processing of English language throughout my day. In Japan, I spent some days teaching a few hours and then totally checked out of conversations because I didn’t have the energy to try and listen to and decipher Japanese. Being able to now understand everything that is being said and to ask for exactly what I want is convenient and connecting and can also be exhausting and overwhelming.

The chance to reflect on my time in Japan through this blog has been a great way to process my experience. I appreciate you taking the time to read and travel with me vicariously as I searched to make my home in a very different land. If you know anything about me, you can bet that there will be more adventures coming soon. That’s all for now!

The Fountain

My final days are approaching. I could go into detail about my colorful trip to South Korea or my upcoming hiking adventure to Yakushima’s ancient forests. Instead, let’s focus on the most memorable time of my parting in Japan – the people.

As I recently mentioned, I have been going to a bajillion going away parties. It is all very heart-wrenching and I have sometimes wondered why all the fuss. After all, some of these people who insist on throwing these parties have only met me just a few times.

Last night, in saying some parting words to friends at a going away BBQ, a few of my dear Japanese friends burst out into tears while saying sayonara to me. While people can be so reserved here and unnecessarily strict and serious, deep care and love are felt in a bottomless well of kindness. Likewise, in giving my last speech to one of my schools, I too burst out into tears whilst addressing the students. It is hard to fathom having such life changing experience with hundreds of impressionable youth through a year in a strange land and to know that in that moment of addressing them that it will be our last time to share a physical space together.
Today, I went into the massage place where I frequently go to get 15 minute medical massages. I went there to give some Korean tea to a kind lady who works there as a goodbye gift. She brought out a traditional Japanese fan that she had been waiting to give me and insisted on taking me out to a very expensive Japanese restaurant. We have talked about spirituality before and I asked her what books she might recommend. “When I was young, I read many books,” she said. “But it’s okay. You don’t have to worry. You’re perfect.” Tears welled up in my eyes as we spoke about making the most out of life and refining oneself by understanding the deep well of energy inside. “It’s like a fountain,” she said. “You work so hard hammering the earth to understand yourself and then you eventually tap into the fountain within.” As we left the restaurant, waitresses kneeling and bowing their heads all the way down to the floor in thanks of our patronage, Megumi held my hand like a dear friend or a grandmother in the final moments that would see each other in my little Japanese teaching life.
I could tell more stories about the tenderness of the goodbye I have felt here but the phrase that seems to summarize my feeling the best is Ichi Go Ichi E, which means “one chance, one opportunity.” I have only been here for one year but people have acted like the world might end tomorrow. No chance has been squandered to go all out with care and love for me. I am leaving Japan with a feeling that I am parting from my family. I spent a lot of my life hammering the ground and I want to remember how to get to the fountain.

Tests of the Will

The days are moving towards summer vacation and the classes are heating up.

Last week, in 80+ weather with extreme humidity, I asked my students the daily question, “How are you?” Their sleepy response was, “Hot.” I then asked the teacher in the room if we could turn the fans on. “Ganbattemashou. We will endure,” she said. With Japan experiencing planned power outages throughout the country due (I think) to issues with the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, everyone is trying to do their part. There is no better place to see these sacrifices than in schools. In Japan, students are taught about collective responsibility and keeping fans off in the heat is a sometimes painful, but very clear way to teach this point. While my team teacher usually struggles to respond to me in English, her retort on this day was quick and clear. I have a feeling that it’s not the first time she has used the phrase, “We will endure.”

This week, I was at another school in a class of thirty seven 7th graders. Seven of these students had forgotten their workbook. The teacher said something to them and all seven got on the floor in seiza position on the wooden floor, sitting their little butts on their heels with their knees to the floor for the 40 minutes that remained of the class.  I was obviously shocked. I even felt mad at the teacher for being so harsh to these young students. The next week, the teacher apologized to me. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but those students are my homeroom students. They always forget their work and if they don’t learn responsibility, they’re never going to make it.” I can go into the details of how I might argue with his approach but the real lesson to me is the teacher’s intent.

These teachers, as Japanese teachers notoriously do, have taken on the role of parent for these students. While parents in Japan are known to coddle their children, teachers are expected to teach the students many of their life lessons. Schools can be a harsh place for students but it is where they learn about community, respect and diligence. This dynamic has changed in the last few decades as parents are becoming more westernized and their expectations of schools have changed. Still, some teachers are expected by the more traditional parents to play the disciplinarian role.

These role changes produce a lot of confusion. Yesterday, a teacher told me, “Teachers used to be respected in Japan. Now, maybe some people respect teachers, but not many.” The word Sensei, which is used for teachers in Japan, can be translated to “honorable master.” The guidance of the student is placed not with a fallible human but a person akin to a sage. When the master loses reverence, the entire system changes.

Being in the midst of these morphing times has been both an honor and also an awkward domain. We’re moving into the real dog days of summer here and I’m excited to see what other tests of will I may get to witness before my return home.

Pomp and Circumstance

Have I mentioned yet that Japan is chalk-full of pomp and circumstance? There were so many welcome speeches and parties when I first arrived in Japan. Now that I’m leaving, everyone that I have ever met here wants to throw a going away party. I am at six and counting for the parties and have written many different speeches. Overall, I will probably deliver 6 speeches to large groups of coworkers and teachers plus one to each of my 27 classes. That’s a lot of speeches!!

The event that I had this last Friday was with other ALTs that are also departing. I was asked to do a short speech and I wanted to share it with you since it encapsulates an all-encompassing view of my year here. Also, since I was able to give this speech in English, you may do better at reading and understanding it than the other 30+ speeches I will give! The audience is English speakers teaching in Japan. Here it is:

I remember my first day at Kanan Junior High School like it was yesterday. I was gearing up for the classes ahead and had asked the office lady for a coffee mug. She kept on insisting that we had met before. “You know me,” she kept on saying. “Yunomi.” I assured her that really, I`m sure we had only just met. It was an embarrassingly long time before I realized a yunomi is a small tea cup with no handle.

My time in Japan has consisted of many of these moments. I am sure you have a few yourselves. Here in Japan, I have often felt like a baby being reborn, learning a new language from scratch, stumbling over norms and expectations, and somehow moving along. Yes, living in Japan has been a trip.

Did you know that almost every prefecture in Japan is famous for something? Some for its beautiful women, some for its high fashion. Kumamoto is famous for is level of conservatism. We have had the chance to teach in a part of Japan that has preserved many of its traditional samurai rites. How many of you have seen a student’s graduation ceremony? The sports festival? The preparation of a kyushoku meal?

I asked one teacher about the almost militaristic discipline of our students and he said that it was based on Budō. This translates roughly to “The Martial Way,” or the code of conduct that samurai followed in the Edo period. While Japan is changing before our eyes in the realms of commercialism, consumerism, and economics, schools remain a bastion of traditional Japanese culture.

Being allowed into this realm has been an incredible privilege. I have learned a lot about the spirit of patience. I actually sat through a whole 50 minute class while a teacher stared a student down just waiting, minute after minute, for this boy to answer. I have also found an appreciation for acute subtleties in the delicate tastes of food, brewing of tea and art of conversation.

I hope that I instilled some of my values into my students and fellow teachers as well. In a country that works so very hard, in overtime hours and juku studies, I tried to convey my sense of wonder and excitement about the greater world. In a country that invented iaido (the art of perfectly drawing your sword, removing the blood and again replacing the sword in the sheath by practicing these motions over and over and over and over and over again)…I tried to share my acceptance of an imperfect self.

Living where you live and doing what you do is such a unique opportunity. Whether you will leave Japan in the next month or be here in your future to stay, embrace the chances you have to connect impact and be influenced by others.

There have been many times while here in Japan that I have been confused or frustrated. Still, I knew that each moment was a chance for me to learn and grow. I will leave you with a new favorite phrase of mine. Ichi go ichi e. The saying literally means “one time, one meeting” and it is a good reminder to treasure every encounter, for it will never recur.

The Moonlit Rice Paddies

There are so many parts of living in Japan that are starting to coalesce in my brain. A large part of living here was sheer strangeness but, just as I am preparing to leave, themes are starting to emerge.

For starters, I have been thinking back on the first month or so of living in Ueki, Japan. I was told initially that I would be living in Kumamoto, a city of over a million that has many restaurants, stores, and a vibrant and sometimes deviant nightlife. Weeks later, I find out that I will actually be in 30,000 pop. Ueki which was just absorbed by the large neighboring city of Kumamoto even though its 7 miles away.

When I got to Ueki, I learned that my apartment is about a mile from the main road where the bus stop is. I passed many fields (either on foot or by bike) on a narrow, unlit street to come home. Early on in my time in Japan, I started volunteering to teach an English group for adults here in Ueki. It wasn’t until recently that I found out the traditional Japanese style meeting spot that we convene at is over 400 years old. While America has a history of a few hundred years of civilization post-Native Americans, Japan has been a thriving populace for thousands of years. You wouldn’t find a 500 year old teepee on a hike through the hills of the U.S., but I see ancient shrines casually spotting the streets every day.

You may not believe in ghosts and spirits, but I had a really weird feeling when I first came here to my little apartment. The cicada bugs were making their piercing noise in the rice paddy that was underneath my porch and the 90+ temps plus 90% humidity had me lying in bed at night half awake for most of that first month. I still remember a dream very vividly that I had when I first got here. I was in my new apartment bedroom and my pillow was inflating and deflating underneath my head. I knew that it was due to the power of a spirit that was playing with me. Then – I woke up. Only I was lying in the exact position in the same place as in my dream. So, I couldn’t really be sure that I had been sleeping at all.

It took quite a long time before I felt comfortable walking down my street at night, but I’ve come a long way. Lately, I’ve been dreaming of hiking the PCT from Mexico to Canada. In order to keep the energy in motion towards this dream, I’ve started running again. Only, it’s hot here in the day and I want to do the hike with bravery so my running has been through unlit fields of rural Japan at night. One trail has bamboo that reaches up tens of feet in the air on either side of the path to create a natural archway that knocks and clatters as the wind blows the stalks into each other. I figure that if I can face the night spirits of rural Japan, grizzly bears in the Sierras won’t look so scary.

There is a deep history here in Japan and it’s not entombed in a museum. No matter what you believe, you can feel something when you walk out into the moonlight rice paddies in the summer night.

Step into the Japanese Twilight Zone

The students have been working on a hip hop dance for the past few weeks. I was cheered by the sound of popular club mixes bumping from the gymnasium on a rainy day and decided to join the party. The kids were being choreographed by two twenty-something Japanese club dancers.

I decided to stick close to the wall so that I didn’t have to actually dance with the kids. While I like to dance at a club, I’m not a big fan of scripted moves. Some of the teachers were even getting down to the music and I was considering joining the dance…and then the lyrics of the song hit me. Before I go into more detail about the music, let me remind you that I work at an extremely conservative Japanese middle school in the rural countryside. Boys and girls don’t mingle because they are still scared of cooties. They usually listen to adorably cheerful Japanese or Korean pop music and many of them spend morning until night at school between classes and their after-school club. They wear uniforms to school and will giggle with a hand over their mouth if you ask them what they did for the weekend because they are simply that shy of talking with a foreigner. They live in a very strict, traditional society.

Back to the music. Japan may be isolated in some ways, but it picks up bits and pieces of American culture nonetheless. Oddly, many students don’t know who Michael Jackson is but everyone seems to know the Carpenters. It’s like there’s some invisible conveyer belt from the States and only certain random pieces of pop get shipped over while others get left or lost along the way.

When I heard the song playing in the gym last week, my jaw dropped. Through base and loud, synthesized noise, nobody seemed to noticed when the song blared out: “The ladies love us, when we pour shots. They need an excuse, to suck our co@*s.” But STILL, when the song just started chanting “I’m f$#ked up, I’m tryin’ to f$#k. I’m f$#ked up, I’m tryin’ to f$#k” over and over again, it still didn’t seem to faze a soul but mine. I panned the audience of sweaty teens and teachers for some sign of recognition about what was happening. Nothing but cheerful, innocent side-steps and hip pops.

The communication barrier alone can put you in a hyperbaric chamber where you phase out all sounds and sights and focus on the one strange thing that you just can’t believe is happening. And when all those senses start to narrow, highlighting the absurdity of the moment, you know that you’ve entered the Twilight Zone.

More About the Interns

This past week, there were four smartly dressed, ambitious interns shuffling around my school. I had the opportunity to work with one of them in a few of my classes and even as the encounter was happening, I was looking at the scenario from above and contemplating how bizarre it was.

As I mentioned in my last blog, these interns were ready for action. I imagine them as similar to interns in a top rated legal firm or sales businesses in the U.S. They have their legal pad ready for scribbles at any given moment and can jump up from their chair faster than you can say sayonara.

I felt bad from the very start for Mr. Hayashida, the 24-year old graduate from this very junior high school that he was now interning. Afterall, as a future English teacher, he would have to work with Takano Sensei, the current 9th grade English teacher. Takano is a woman I’ve grown to respect. She is known for giving you nearly impossible tasks like the time when I had an hour to create, print, cut, glue and collate 18 decks of cards for an upcoming class. She is one of the rare teachers that gives me responsibility and challenges me and her students to the very edge of capacity. She is not the advisor you would want if you were a young, nervous, neophyte. But alas, Hayashida had no choice.

The schedule on Friday was shortened because of an assembly in the late afternoon. I am not sure if it was because of this that Hayashida wasn’t on time for the class. The students were doing a routine in the first five minutes of class where they take a short quiz on past, present and future tense of verbs. Takano goes to get Hayashida and he bolts into the room, sweaty, huffing, and apologizing to the students since he doesn’t realize that they are quietly taking their daily test.

From there, the class is…okay. He has made some decks of cards for the students to use in pairs but hasn’t separated them so there is a massive pile of cards to assemble and most of them are still wet with glue. We get through the class and I try to add an extra element of goofiness since poor Mr. Hayashida is obviously stressed. As we leave the class, I say, “It’s okay. Now you’ve got that one out of the way with. The next one will be easier.”  With sweat dripping down his face, he looks at me, distressed, and explains that, “Takano Sensei is going to reprimand me severely for this.”

For the second of the two classes that we have together, Hayashida is on time. I ask him before the start bell how his lunch was. He pauses and, with a motion of putting food to his mouth and being sick, says,”I…couldn’t swallow.” The class starts with the daily greeting where I ask students simple questions about the date and the weather. When I ask Hayashida, “How are you?” he looks at me with a face that says he wants to run out of the class. I wait for a long pause and say, “Tired. You look tired.”

The class continues and you can tell Hayashida has almost given up when he asks me to read a sentence in English for the students to repeat about 6 times. I worried that he may just keep having me say this sentence until the class finishes 20 minutes later. I am not sure of what the severe reprimand entailed but this poor man was in shambles by the end of the day.

And why do I tell you this heart wrenching tale of initiation and despair, you might ask. Well, sometimes when you feel like you’re having a bad day, you can just think of being in a room full of teenagers with no spit left in your mouth. Imagine a sleepless night and gluey cards in messy piles and you will hopefully enjoy your comparatively better day.

Just like America in the 50s

Its been a while since my last post. With my approacting departure, my plate has been full and my mind is a-swimmin’. Still, I have some semi-coherent reflections that I wanted to share with you.

Today, a teacher held up a laminated poster in the morning meeting. The photo on the poster had the good and the bad way to arrange your indoor shoes when you take them off to go to the bathroom. Students all wear inside shoes in the school and then take them off to put on bathroom slippers when they go into the bathroom. The poster highlighted that the straightly aligned slippers that are neatly symmetrical are best.

Students in Japan’s junior high schools have a lot of rigorous expectations such as the one I just mentioned. That’s why it’s funny when they try to act out. In class, all students have to respond in unison to certain commands from the teacher. One way that students revolt is to scream. They don’t get in trouble for being loud and the teacher is asking them, after all, to repeat something. So the student will shout that thing with all of the wind in his sails. It’s a small act of defiance but I hope it makes them feel better throughout their often repetitive, militaristic day.

Along with the high expectations is a system of hierarchy that has been fascinating to watch. This week, college students are interning at my schools as they prepare to become teachers themselves. They have been diligently opening windows in stuffy offices, hopping to the side when a senior teacher is walking by, and generally being the dutiful and skittish intern that is expected of them. I mean, when was the last time you saw a group of intern teachers wear black suits in 90+ weather everyday for a week? The times that this hierarchy has bothered me the most has usually played out in the gender realm. Women teachers, for example, are almost exclusively the ones to prepare tea for guests at the school, even if they are far older and have been working at that school years longer than some 20-something P.E. teacher.

Japan is often described as “just like America in the ’50s.” This means that the pension system is still taking care of its workers, smoking is still a nightly fixture at the local restaurants and tailored suits are worn by anyone that has a 9 to 5. It also means that the annoying gender struggle that we saw in the 1900s in the U.S. is preserved here in Japan. In the US, while women were allowed to vote in the 1920s, they still held only about 30% of the workforce by the 1950s. You may know that I worked for the Campus Women’s Center in my college days at the University of Wisconsin as a coordinator for university families. I’m not an expert on gender inequality but I do consider myself a feminist and the imbalance of equality between men and women, even today in the US, irks me. Therefore, with Japan’s Confucian roots (children are subordinate to women who are, in turn, subordinate to men) I often feel somehow disappointed. I even had a woman in my evening adult class here in Japan say that if she were to be born again, she would want to be a man because she has spent so much of her life relentlessly cooking and cleaning for her husband.

Back at school…The lesson plans often have the same lackluster as the dress code. I am given very little bandwidth to influence the lesson so teaching alongside a “by the book” teacher can be excruciating. This is also what really highlights the good teachers. I have a new teacher that starts each class with a song in English. Just when you thought these 15 year-old students were too cool to sing, a teacher shares his love of music and they open up. Sometimes, under the humidity, social pressures and homesickness, it takes a lot of energy to be cheerful and engaging in class. I believe, however, that students deserve to have teachers that are interested in them, excited about the teaching material and that have a general wonder about the world. I am sure that I could find criticisms of any place that I decided to live but I will say that my students, through all of the laborious exactness that is impressed on them, continue to inspire me. Their personality sparkles through the school uniform and their acts of individuality radiate against the backdrop of austerity. They are indeed one of my very favorite things about Japan.

Taiwan: Onsen and Bullet Trains in a New Country

I wasn’t sure what to expect as we boarded the Hello Kitty themed airplane bound for Taiwan. When I conjure an image in my head of Taiwan, it’s hard not to think of sweaty little children hunched over sewing machines. It is, after all, where many of my cheap clothes and shoes seem to have been “made in.”

My mother and I were upgraded on our flight, so even if there would be poverty to contend with, we were getting our champagne bottles worth of royalty first. The themed plane was quite impressive and Hello Kitty (Japan’s beloved cat animation) was absolutely everywhere. We sat on our Hello Kitty pillows while Kitty played on every screen on each chair. The menu, steward aprons and even the toilet paper followed suit.

Taiwan surprised me with it’s conveniences and cleanliness. This up-and-coming status of Taiwan was reflected in its prices. While Thailand and Vietnam had cheap, plentiful dinners and markets, Taiwan had computer centers and ritzy hotels. Taiwan is owned by China but had a brief occupation by Japan in the 18-1900’s. The older generation can speak Japanese but nowadays, most people communicate using Mandarin Chinese. Still, the kanji characters for Japanese are pulled from Chinese writing so I was able to recognize many familiar symbols.

In Taiwan, we soaked in a green sulfuric hot spring and rode Taiwan’s high speed bullet train. I drank Taiwan’s famous green tea and ate aged, stinky tofu. We only had a four day whirlwind to explore but it was fun to plan out the Taiwan adventures together with my mom, versus the detailed itinerary that I hashed out for her time in Japan.

I don’t want you to think that I’m not enjoying my time here. I will say, however, that I’ve got 92 days left in Japan and I miss my friends, my family and my boyfriend. I had to decide by this week when my return date would be. I could have chosen to stay for all of August on my visa, but I wouldn’t have a place to live. I could use the time to travel but I feel that I’ve seen so many amazing places already and there are many more wonders of the world I have yet to explore. I plan to visit Seoul, Korea before I head home if the political situation deems it safe. Other than that, I’m looking forward to some US conversation over beers in the near future.

I’ve posted some new photos so take a look and let me know what you think!

Looking back on April

I spent the beginning of April eating and harvesting bamboo. I unearthed about 20 bamboo shoots in a forest on Kimpo Mountain one day as a volunteer for a local farmer. One of the things that I’ve come to love about Japan is the appreciation of seasonal foods. Right now, every meal has weaved in some bamboo. Soon, I get to try Japanese peaches in desserts, drinks and alone in their juicy splendor.

I finally feel like I know what to expect and how to get along in Japan. My mom has been in Japan for the last week visiting. I surprised myself with what I was able to accomplish with the Japanese that I have learned in the last nine months since I moved here. The biggest accomplishment since she’s been here was calling the post office and getting them to deliver a package to me. It is easy to take these menial transactions for granted when you are living in a land that operates in your native language.

My mom and I explored a lot of the southern island of Kyushu including a trip to Kurokawa hot spring village, touring the battleground of the Japanese Civil War and seeing dolphins on their migratory path from a boat on the west coast of Japan. Being with my mother reminds me of all of the little rules and ways of living in Japan that I’ve had to learn. When I first came to Japan in the 95 degree heat and intense humidity of August, I didn’t even know what to wear as I looked around at all of the women adorned in full sleeves down to the wrist and even gloves to protect their hands from sun on the hottest of days. When I moved to Japan, I didn’t know how to take a bath right: by showering on the side of the tub and then only getting into the bath once I was completely clean. I didn’t know where to take my shoes off when I got into a restaurant with tatami mats. It feels good to prevail in such a curious place.

All of that has gone out the window since we arrived in Taiwan this afternoon. I don’t speak the language and I don’t know my way around. Finding and navigating the subway was quite easy, however, and we got to shoot up 89 stories in a few seconds to the observation deck of a 101 story building that was the worlds tallest up until a couple of years ago. On the way to Taiwan, we were upgraded to a Hello Kitty themed first class flight where we made sure to appreciate perks like all you can drink champagne.

We’ve still got three days left in Taiwan and then I’m headed back to Japan for three more months of teaching. I am curious to know where the acquisition of basic Japanese will resurface, if at all, in my life. I’m also looking forward to finding out how the next few years will unfold. For now, I’m committed to exploring new terrain and learning every last piece of Japanese culture while I still live in Japan.