Showa Day

Yesterday was Showa Day, a national holiday that commemorates the birthday of the Emperor during the Showa period. Traditionally Japan tracks years according to periods, rather than the standard B.C. - A.D. method. So I was born in the 62nd year of Showa, rather than 1987. According to Wikipedia, "the purpose of the holiday is to encourage public reflection on the turbulent 63 years of Hirohito's reign," but everyone I asked had no clue what the holiday was for (besides a welcome break from work).

Robyn, a fellow ALT, asked if I would like to go on a walk with her for the holiday. She said we'd have a long walk which would end at an onsen (hot spring) and have dinner and then go home. It sounded better than lurking in the apartment all day so I immediately agreed.

The walk started off very pleasantly; there were about 60 people, including elderly folk and small children. We all trotted in a line across the rice fields, enjoying the warm weather and the early signs of spring. It was all like the plot of a children's film, right down to the man who played "Hey, Let's Go" from My Neighbor Totoro on an ocarina.



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Pretty soon we left civilization and started hiking up into the base of the mountains. I hadn't expected that, but I'd worn good shoes and if there's one form of exercise I've done fairly regularly in Utah, it's hiking. In fact, I was looking forward to it. It would be nice to stretch my legs and see the Japanese mountains up close.

Little did I know that I would be seeing several of them up close.

After we'd been hiking for a while--I estimated  2 hours or so--and had reached the top of the mountain, I asked Robyn how much farther we were planning to go.

"Oh, we've still got about 10-15 miles," she replied.

Whoa whoa whoa, hold the phone. This is not what I signed up for. It's one thing to go on a long walk; it's quite another to embark on a quest into Mordor. And what the heck were the young kids and old people doing here? Didn't they know you should only exercise this much if you're escaping a Siberian work camp? But it was far too late to turn back, so I kept plodging.  Soon it started to rain and everyone whipped out umbrellas so we looked like a train of bobbing mushrooms. We stopped for lunch  and sat on plastic shopping bags on the gooshy mud while huddling under the umbrellas, but by then I was too fatigued to be hungry. I settled for sucking on an orange. I laboriously dug off the peel--my fingers were too cold to be much use--and finally prised off a section and crammed the whole thing into my mouth.

*munch much* "This orange is disgusting." *munch munch*

Robyn looked over, momentarily indulging my misery. "That's because it's a grapefruit," she said. So I gave it to her.

The rain continued for the rest of the trek and by the end at least one of the kids was in tears. We had crossed four mountains and two baby mountains over approximately 20 miles, in approximately 8 hours of constant motion, sustained along the way by communal snacks like mayonnaise-flavored seaweed and lemon salt drops. By the time we reached our destination, Nanyo, I was incapable of lifting my knees and was forced to progress in a zombie-like stagger. My legs had long ago given up protesting through pain and had settled into a dull ache of resignation. I was sure that soon the muscles would give up entirely and I would be forced to lift and place my feet with my hands. But I was wrong; we all made it to the onsen in the hotel and got to soak for a while before going downstairs for a drinking party to celebrate our fortitude (I drank orange juice. A LOT of orange juice.).

Mercifully, we managed to catch a train home. Most of our number were drunk by then but they kept drinking, sharing whiskey and sake on the train itself. They called the conductor the "superman" and demanded that he take pictures with them. They giggled like little girls when I told them I didn't drink and dropped their paper cups of alcohol all over the train seats and slurred out nonsensical sentences while grasping my hands like I was the source of all their fondest hopes. Finally we reached our stop and we all fell out of the train--whether due to drunkenness or sore muscles--and went our separate ways. I spent the next few hours in a scalding bath and curled up beside a space heater before falling into a blessed sleep, vowing to never accept any invitation to go on a "walk" again.

The Schools

Today was my first official day of teaching! I had to teach 5 classes, from 4th grade to 6th, at two different schools. I don't understand how anyone is comfortable doing this job with no understanding of Japanese. Not that I am all that capable; to the contrary, I sound like a monkey stringing syllables together. But at least I can manage to figure out what the teachers want from me, and they all want very different things. Some turned the class entirely over to me, while others wanted to teach jointly, and one just wanted me to parrot pronunciations.

The lessons themselves were not nearly as intimidating as I expected, thanks entirely to the kids themselves. They were all shy, but immediately responded when I taught them games and used funny voices or gave them high fives when they did well. At one school the teachers had me read "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" by Eric Carle. It was perfect because I made all the animal sounds we grow up with in English (woof, ribbit, neigh, etc.) and the kids thought it was the most ridiculous thing they'd ever heard. In Japan, apparently dogs say "wan," frogs say "garro" and horses say "heehee." I considered myself a success when, at recess, a crowd of kids asked me to play kick the can with them. It was more fun than I've had with some people my own age.

The only significant challenge so far is the way the classes are integrated: kids with learning disabilities are mixed in the classes, with no indication of their unique needs. I've worked with kids like that in high school and never had a problem engaging them, but it's really sad when you call on a kid who starts crying from fear at the mere thought of speaking English (that happened today) and the other kids are just waiting for you to move on to the next game. And these kids are COMPETITIVE. It works to my advantage most of the time; if I ever sense their attention beginning to drift, I just have to turn the activity into a contest. I just have to make sure they don't exclude the less confident kids in the process.

All in all, I don't know what the teachers or other staff members think of me, but I'm relatively sure the kids like me. And they're way fun. :)

The BOE

I officially started work this week, which so far has entailed sitting in the Board of Education office and staving off boredom by surreptitiously reading Freakonomics for 6 hours a day.

Don't look at me like that. My lessons are already planned for the rest of the month.

Not that anyone at the BOE seems to mind. Most of them don't speak English at all, so beyond some friendly greetings they rarely interact with me. They have done their best to help me, however. They even sat down with me to go over my schedule and present me with a map of the schools I'll be visiting. A map that is as big as I am. I doubt I'll be able to use it in the car, unless I use it to wallpaper the windshield and cut two small holes to watch the road through. I finally settled for tacking it to the wall in my apartment in the hopes that its enormous presence would somehow make me more familiar with the area, perhaps through osmosis.

Continuing in this helpful vein, my coworkers took me to lunch at a traditional restaurant and  considerately ordered on my behalf. As I've mentioned, this practice has led to some interesting meals, like the little white fish (which Mogi-san now presents to me all the time, because she thinks my reaction is funny). I know enough Japanese to ask for considerably tamer options; but I'm afraid that if I'm honest about my tastes I'll offend everyone in the vicinity,  because traditional Japanese food always includes my worst fear: meat-that-looks-like-what-it-used-to-be.

You all know that feeling when the sight of something wrenches your guts into a knot, however irrationally. For some people it's blood or heights; for me, it's meat that has failed, through some egregious error, to be beaten beyond recognition. If I can look at something and see a general outline of its original form or--God forbid--a limb, it's all over. I blame my mother for informing me how to prepare lobsters (I think it's cruel and morbid, even for what is essentially a sea cockroach). Now whenever I see meat I can hear the anthropormorphized wails of Flounders and Bambis and Wilburs--at least until they're thinly sliced and hidden between two slices of bread and a little barbecue sauce quiets my conscience until the next encounter.

So you can all imagine my woe when the waiter brought me a very large, very intact shrimp. I know; I can hear all of you scoffing at my wimpishness (I was almost in tears, by the way). But "large" does not do this thing justice. It was the length of my forearm, from elbow to fingertips. I imagine it could have been frolicking around with Godzilla for eons before some Japanese fisherman dragged it from the frigid depths just so it could be deep-fried and presented to the last person on earth who would want to eat it. Its head--HEAD. HEAD. HEAD.--was as large as my palm, sparing my eyes not the slightest detail, from bulging translucent eyes to individual whiskers.  I put off the encounter for as long as I could, delicately munching some "ice plant" (a mountain fern with unique skin that makes it look like it's constantly shrouded in crystalline dewdrops) one leaf at a time. Eventually, however, I had to face the beast; and enthusiastically, too, or the nice people surrounding me would feel bad. At least the main body was shrouded in tempura, I thought. But my rudimentary skills with chopsticks were no match for the massive creature; it kept slipping into the dipping sauce and all the tempura began to slide off, leaving me no choice but to outmaneuver the deteriorating batter by shoveling the whole thing into my mouth in 3 bites. An ungainly victory was mine, and all that remained was to smile and say, "Oiishikatta"--"It was delicious."

New Friends

For the next week or so the Board of Education has me working from home, planning lessons and crafting props. It is a pretty sweet deal but, it must be said, excruciatingly dull. So Mogi-san showed me where the library was, so I can at least change the atmosphere once in a while. I met the staff and they were all extremely friendly (my mouth hurt afterward from smiling too much); the boss tried to set me up with a mortified single employee and mentioned that the way they say my last name, "Hen-daah" sounds exactly like the phrase, "Hen da" (she's strange). Everybody laughed, and I prided myself on the fact that I needed no translation for that part of the conversation. I may not know how to pay my own utility bills, but at least I know when I'm being teased!

In the library yard, there were a bunch of oddly-shaped benches. Mogi-san told me they're for exercise; doing push-ups and back-bends, etc. I wonder if there are many people who enjoy doing back-bends over a cold, wooden bench--but then again, these are the same people who sleep on the ground and use squat toilets, so I suppose comfort isn't a huge priority.

The next day, after I'd finished work and settled down to watch Terminator and The Magnificent Seven (what's more American than that, I ask you?), I got a call from Terumi, one of the workers at the library. She invited me out to dinner with her friends, Shizuka and Yuriko, all of whom speak a little English. They spoke the perfect amount, as it turned out: they got to practice English while I got to practice Japanese, with no crippling communication issues. At the restaurant, they kindly ordered all the courses so I didn't have to worry about deciphering the menu at all. We ate a salad with crunchy white things on top, which I assumed to be noodles until I noticed that they had eyes. They were actually very tiny, white fish that are often used as a topping here. I braved onward, determined not to offend anyone, but it was especially difficult when one of the heads fell of the plate and lay right in front of me, gazing up with glassy indignation.

The girls were all very curious about American food and asked if I knew how to cook, and when I said yes, they jumped on the opportunity to ask me to teach them how to make something they'd been longing for: oatmeal cookies. Apparently they tried to make them with just oatmeal, flour, and oil--a little bland, they told me. I promised to make some with them, and of course now the only trick is finding oatmeal out here...

The panic is beginning to set in...

It all started with a bill.

At least, I thought it was a bill. It certainly looked official, and it had my name on it. When I opened it, the only part I could make out was the 97,400 clearly displayed. When I asked a friend to translate for me, all he could manage in his limited English was a knowing, "Ah, yes. Insurance."

I spent the next day in a panic, pacing my living room and playing out all sorts of bizarre worst-case scenarios in my mind. If that number was a fee, there was no way I could afford it--especially if it was a monthly one. How had insurance gotten so expensive in a country with social health care, anyway? Weren't all those Japanese businessmen supposed to foot the bills for those of us who couldn't afford regular baths? I imagined informing Interac that I couldn't pay and then facing some unknown enemy (the company, or the government, or...why not?...the Yakuza!) who would inexplicably force me to pay for insurance I did not want by weeding rice paddies and clearing mountainsides of bamboo. And then I'd have to smuggle myself out of the country and when people asked what happened to my big plans to teach in Japan I would have to explain that I could never go back because I was wanted by the government, and not even for anything exciting either.

Then Mogi-san looked at it and laughed, telling me that it had nothing to do with me. It was just some detail of the coverage plan; not a fee at all.

This kind of stress is to be expected when you're living in a foreign country, but that doesn't make it any easier on your poor, adrenaline-riddled heart. Luckily I've found a way to cope: vending machines.

I got the white one with cow spots!

I've mentioned them before, but then they were just a passing curiosity. Now they've become little life rafts of sanity.  Whenever a situation suddenly vaults itself into the realm of way-too-much-to-handle, I dart to one of these machines. You can find one literally anywhere; they're more common than pets. So I dart to one of these and take a breather, considering all my beverage options in a nonchalant way that I hope conveys a message: "What, you thought I was here to integrate myself with your culture? Silly. Clearly I am here to experience your unique beverages, that's all. I got an apartment because it was a convenient distance from these machines. I got a car to take me to the less convenient machines. I'm only working here to fund this habit and am not at all invested in my own performance or concerned about my capabilities. Obviously."

Like the time I tried to refill my gas tank. The gas stations are full-service here, which would be very luxurious if you weren't the girl who rolled into the station with no idea which side your gas tank is on  or how to pay--much less how to say "gas tank" and "should I pay inside?"--and can now only blush furiously and throw money at the employee while repeating, "Gomen...gomen...gomen nasai" ("I'm sorry...I'm sorry...So sorry..."). Luckily the employee was unbelievably friendly (are you sensing a pattern?) and tolerated my laughable attempt with a broad smile and a promise  to study English so she could help me in the future. I was grateful and comforted by her silly promise (as if it was her fault I couldn't handle daily tasks), but the minute my tank was full I sped of for my rendezvous with a strawberry milk.

When I got lost and ended up in an unfamiliar supermarket, I left room in the budget for Calpis.

When I wandered into a local farmers' market, I headed straight for the canned peach juice.

When I got lost again, I beelined for the drinkable yogurt.

At first I tried to wean myself off the dependence, but I finally caved and justified it by claiming that an occasional 100 or 150 yen was not so much to invest in my mental health. The machines' contents are like a grab bag of magic elixirs: one sip and I'm no longer the bumbling American who mistakenly thought she could grasp this language and is now paying the price in installments of humble pie.

I'm the fun-loving, quirky American whose only concern is whether to try a cold drink or a hot one next.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, Everyone!

I wish it was big in Japan.

Excerpts from the last few days

As you can imagine, not much has been happening in the last few days that would interest anyone.  However, in my compulsive need to garner attention, I offer the following:

I tried cocoa from the vending machines. It was cold and it tasted like bog sludge, but I kept trying it to see if that might have changed in the last 2 minutes.

I met my bosses at the Board of Education and, in attempting to explain the concept of having two families (consisting of a mother & stepfather and a father & stepmother) I ended up convincing them that I have two mothers and two fathers all living together in a communal home. Oh, and that I'm not allowed to drink anything--at all--because of my religion. No need to thank me, LDS missionaries stationed in Japan! Just doing my part to make sure the people of this country know we're perfectly sane!

My forays into the world of cooking have so far been disastrous.  I was already an abysmal cook, but without even the comfort of English recipes on the backs of packages I've been reduced to adding ingredients until the consistency looks somewhat familiar. So far this has resulted in "cabbage chowder," and I think you can all draw your own conclusions from that.

Yesterday all the other ALT's in the area kindly invited me to go out to an all-you-can-eat buffet with them. Never have I felt so distinctly like a foreigner than I did in that restaurant, shamelessly loading up my fourth plate while all the Japanese around me hesitated to even take second servings of anything.

After dinner we went bowling, but it was too expensive so I sat out. It turned out to be a wise decision because it gave me plenty of time to watch Japanese music videos that were broadcast next to our scores. If you've never seen a Japanese teenager singing mournfully with eyes shut while surrounded by a bride, a cowgirl, and a Vegas showgirl on motorcycles, then you haven't lived.

 A few guys brought along a truly disturbing little beer called "Slat" (I have photographic evidence of this) that had fruit bits floating around in it (my gag reflex would not permit me to gather photographic evidence of this). Imbued with fruity confidence, some guys started making plans to go to a bar later with some Japanese girls. "What girls?" I asked. "You haven't talked to any Japanese people all night....oh, what, you mean THOSE girls?" I looked across the length of the bowling alley at a group of girls who looked firmly entrenched in the "underage" camp. Of course, that may have just been because they're Japanese and they ALL look underage.

"Have you even TALKED to those girls?" I couldn't stop myself from asking.

"No," said one of the guys, grinning. "But it's like a game! You lose sometimes, but sometimes you win!"

I watched incredulously as the guys marched over to the girls and boldly told them to accompany them to a bar--and were promptly shot down by the girls, who were neither interested nor drowning in Slat.

"Oh well we lost that one," the guys informed me on their return. Better luck next time, fellas.

 Don't do Slat, kids. Stay in school.