Well, I just couldn't keep this blog up. Many apologies to all you loyal readers. I returned from Japan in September of 2008. You are invited to view my photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/coryandrew.
I intend to start a new blog soon and will link to it from this page.
Yours, C.A.
samedi 7 février 2009
lundi 31 décembre 2007
Kingashinnen!
Happy New Year! The snow’s returned just in time for 2008, which might scare me off the traditional midnight visit to the local shrine. Then again, armed with my hefty and hideous snow boots, I could probably make the trek. I’ve mostly outfitted for winter, which means that I wear the same three pairs of wool pants in rotation (and actually, since I tore one of them along a rather crucial seam, I’ve been down to two), an undershirt, dress shirt, tie, sweater or jacket (or both), two pairs of socks (I’m turning into my father already), scarf, overcoat, beret (pulled down over my ears), gloves, and the giant muffler Aunt Dawn knit and had sent to me while I was surviving my first winter, in Toulouse.
It’s a lot colder here than in Toulouse, of course. We’ve had snow, off and on, since the week before Thanksgiving, and I feel I’m muddling through both better and worse than I did in the Midi. Part of what made the Toulouse winter so bad was the surprise of it, both for me as a Californian, and for my preconceptions of the South of France. Then there was the fact the gas heating leaked and I was afraid to turn it on. There’s been little surprise about the weather this time around. When the leaves started changing, and I started asking people what lay ahead, I learned that, here, bubble-wrap isn’t reserved exclusively for packages. People seal their windows and doors with it and aren’t considered eccentrics. A friend suggested nailing blankets over the glass, but I retorted: blankets or bubble-wrap, what if I want to see outside; what if I want to step onto the balcony with hot cocoa; what if I always sleep with the window cracked? I am told I am lucky not to live on the Western side of Tohoku, through which the Siberian winds blow en route to Ichinoseki, or indeed on Hokkaido, the Northern island. Hokkaido, however, I am told, has insulated its buildings for the chill, and central heating is not unheard of. Tohoku heating options are three: kerosene heaters, generic electric heaters, and kotatsu—electric heater-coffee table combos that I was at first skeptical of. No more! I’ve avoided the kerosene, after I smelled it, and after learning that old folks sometimes fall victim to the heaters’ emissions of carbon dioxide or monoxide or whatever that bad carbon is (my brilliant but joke-cracking high school chemistry teacher was fired part way through the year, and only replaced some weeks later by a dotty but lovable retiree, which I like to blame for my failure to retain even basic chemical nomenclature). The electric heaters are fine in their place, which is while I’m getting dressed or brushing me teeth, or drying off after a shower, but the bulk of my home hours I now spend snug under my coffee-table heater, reading a Japanese grammar, Bashou poetry, Proust, or the International Herald-Tribune online, drinking a pot of Japanese or English tea and, when I’ve braved the snow long enough to get to the store, mochi. I don’t really like the International Herald-Tribune so much these days, but my cinephilia ensures I prefer it to most other papers. When nature calls, I begrudgingly rush through the frozen kitchen and hallway to switch on the toilet seat and hop about trying to avoid congealment before burning my bottom.
So when I don’t need to go to school or the store, I’m perfectly comfortable, in the third of my apartment I now use. The cold is worst when I leave for school in the morning, around 7:20 if I have to walk, as late as 8:00 if I’ve decided to risk my bicycle. The sun is only just rising (it does still rise most days—after all this is Japan—though it usually sets behind clouds by 10:00 and definitively by 4:15) and by the time I get to school, my hands and nose are red and no longer painful. What is most irksome is that in thawing out again, the pain of their first being frozen resurges.
Everyone keeps asking me about school, and I’m anxious to tell, though there are rumors that JETs have been disciplined for blogging less-than-glowing reports of their schools. Generally, I like teaching, though I do not pretend to have discovered my vocation. I am continually surprised by the differences between Japanese (or at least Tohoku) and Californian (or at least Christian Brothers) high schools. There is a certain rigid discipline that in my estimation is pure façade. Students must dress in identical uniforms that are modified not really according to the weather but according to set dates. Girls must always wear skirts, with either knee socks or thick tights. Boys must always wear vaguely Chinese jackets with high collars. In the classroom, students wear loafers, but for physical education and sometimes for the street they wear athletic shoes color-coded by school year. When the students seek or are summoned to the cavernous teachers’ room they must knock before entering at the door for their grade level and call out a set phrase which translates I think as « Excuse me for disturbing you may I please speak to X teacher ? ». The word used for teacher is sensei, which means really « master ». Even I am usually referred to as « sensei ». At the opening and closing of each class, the teacher leads to students in a salutation with bow. But class begun, the students return to the California-style chatter that fills the hallways. Rivaling chatter among students’ favorite classroom activities is sleep. There are almost always two to three sleepers in each class. The most lethargic don’t wake when I knock on their desks and say “good morning!”, while others jolt to wakefulness while I hover over them, only to retreat to dreamland when I pass on. When I’ve consulted other teachers about sleeping students, they mostly agree that it is a frustration, or else offer that the students do not sleep enough at home. Attendance is mandatory at every morning’s teachers’ meeting, but, between the opening and closing bows, most teachers pay little attention to the speakers, instead adjusting lesson plans, grading notebooks, or sifting through papers and forms. In more than one lecture, I’ve noticed sleeping teachers and attendees. I’m pretty sure the Japanese are chronically sleep-deprived, but I’m also sensing that physical presence is far more important than presence of mind.
My first lesson plans were hopelessly advanced, and I spent much of the fall worrying about how to encourage the students before settling into several realizations. Most of these students do not really want to learn English; it is required of them. Many of them will not be using English in their adult lives because most will remain in Tohoku. Classrooms with forty students are too large to expect miracles. I cannot and probably should not do much to reform the Japanese educational system, based as it is on memorization and cramming for tests rather than American-style interaction between students, teachers, and materials. Students in Japan are essentially passive, and this, though a great frustration to me, must be the foundation of my methodology here.
Other than teaching, I’ve traveled around my region a great deal, though I have not yet ventured to the traditional cultural heart of Japan, Kansai, or abroad. Part of my reticence is due to the immense costs of domestic travel, compared to American or especially European standards. Taking the two-and-a-half-hour bullet train to Tokyo (not so fast or comfortable as the TGV but efficient nonetheless) costs over 100 American dollars (73 euros +/-). Tokyo is the nearest true cultural hub, and I’ve been there two times since my orientation in August. I quite like the city. It reminds me a bit of Berlin, not least because so much of it was destroyed in the second World War and there are many distinct centers. The lack of a single center, and the overt ugliness of most of the architecture, makes its appeal harder to grasp or describe. It feels very haphazard, and the threat of earthquake and typhoon is very real. There are beautiful gardens and temples and shrines and the most beautifully designed bars I’ve ever visited. Interiors are so often well-lit and wood-paneled and subtly textured and flowered with delicate arrangements. In some places there are rushing crowds, but in most of the side streets silence. It is very clean, and while I’ve seen some transients, they are few, even without comparison to San Francisco. I have benefited immensely in my discovery of Tokyo from two friends: Lisa, who I met in Toulouse, and Waka, from the International House. They’ve each spent time showing me the neighborhoods they like, and Waka’s mother Sachiko and aunt Yoko made my Christmas visit to Tokyo especially memorable. Their hospitality astounds me; I have never known nor do I presume to ever know its equal.
The holidays were of course a bit sad; really, they didn’t exist for me, for how can they without a family that celebrates them? A few days after Thanksgiving, though, the other American in my town, a young woman from South Carolina named Jenny, hosted a Thanksgiving feast. I made my mother’s famous sweet potato-apple butter-rum casserole and Martha Stewart’s mother’s apple pie. In my classes, I force-fed my students the Thanksgiving story, though most didn’t quite get it. In a fill-in-the-blanks-from-the-word-bank worksheet I received some quizzical responses: ‘ the Pilgrims went to America because they wanted their own Indians », « the Sweet Potatoes taught the Mashed Potatoes how to grow Corn » (Lily suggests this is an allegorical reading), « On Thanksgiving we always eat Holland » (Hollandaise sauce, maybe, though that wasn’t included in the word-bank). The students better enjoyed the photographs of my family and friends from last Thanksgiving, though as always, a few asked whether my sister was my girlfriend. Christmas I spent in Tokyo, where the always rampant consumerism of the city and the country shone yet more completely. I wonder whether the Tokyo Christmas is what a Western European or a Californian Christmas will be like in a few years, when these places will have been more fully liberated from religious sentiment and family attachments, and Christmas will constitute only, as in Japan, cream cakes, tinsel, and plastic trees. Though they have not really celebrated Christmas since Waka and his siblings grew up, it was nice to spend Christmas Day with a family. Yoko and Sachiko took me to Kamakura, an old administrative capital with many beautiful temples and shrines, and a giant bronze Buddha. On the way, passing Yokohama, we could just make out Mount Fuji. I also found, with Yoko’s assistance, an English-language Midnight Mass at eleven pm on Christmas Eve, and, passing a Westerner near the Dutch embassy a couple of hours earlier, shared a smile.
I’ve now amassed quite a collection of photographs from the digital camera that was a Christmas present from my parents last year, and I’ve uploaded a selection onto Picasa. They are unlisted, which means I think that you must follow the link I will send in the e-mail that announces this blogpost. If you do not receive or discard that e-mail but would like to access the photographs I can send you the link individually. I am very grateful for all your e-mails and especially to those who sent cards. They rest under my « Christmas Tree »: a cedar branch stuck in a wine bottle. I wish you all a very blessed Christmas season, and a joyous 2008.
It’s a lot colder here than in Toulouse, of course. We’ve had snow, off and on, since the week before Thanksgiving, and I feel I’m muddling through both better and worse than I did in the Midi. Part of what made the Toulouse winter so bad was the surprise of it, both for me as a Californian, and for my preconceptions of the South of France. Then there was the fact the gas heating leaked and I was afraid to turn it on. There’s been little surprise about the weather this time around. When the leaves started changing, and I started asking people what lay ahead, I learned that, here, bubble-wrap isn’t reserved exclusively for packages. People seal their windows and doors with it and aren’t considered eccentrics. A friend suggested nailing blankets over the glass, but I retorted: blankets or bubble-wrap, what if I want to see outside; what if I want to step onto the balcony with hot cocoa; what if I always sleep with the window cracked? I am told I am lucky not to live on the Western side of Tohoku, through which the Siberian winds blow en route to Ichinoseki, or indeed on Hokkaido, the Northern island. Hokkaido, however, I am told, has insulated its buildings for the chill, and central heating is not unheard of. Tohoku heating options are three: kerosene heaters, generic electric heaters, and kotatsu—electric heater-coffee table combos that I was at first skeptical of. No more! I’ve avoided the kerosene, after I smelled it, and after learning that old folks sometimes fall victim to the heaters’ emissions of carbon dioxide or monoxide or whatever that bad carbon is (my brilliant but joke-cracking high school chemistry teacher was fired part way through the year, and only replaced some weeks later by a dotty but lovable retiree, which I like to blame for my failure to retain even basic chemical nomenclature). The electric heaters are fine in their place, which is while I’m getting dressed or brushing me teeth, or drying off after a shower, but the bulk of my home hours I now spend snug under my coffee-table heater, reading a Japanese grammar, Bashou poetry, Proust, or the International Herald-Tribune online, drinking a pot of Japanese or English tea and, when I’ve braved the snow long enough to get to the store, mochi. I don’t really like the International Herald-Tribune so much these days, but my cinephilia ensures I prefer it to most other papers. When nature calls, I begrudgingly rush through the frozen kitchen and hallway to switch on the toilet seat and hop about trying to avoid congealment before burning my bottom.
So when I don’t need to go to school or the store, I’m perfectly comfortable, in the third of my apartment I now use. The cold is worst when I leave for school in the morning, around 7:20 if I have to walk, as late as 8:00 if I’ve decided to risk my bicycle. The sun is only just rising (it does still rise most days—after all this is Japan—though it usually sets behind clouds by 10:00 and definitively by 4:15) and by the time I get to school, my hands and nose are red and no longer painful. What is most irksome is that in thawing out again, the pain of their first being frozen resurges.
Everyone keeps asking me about school, and I’m anxious to tell, though there are rumors that JETs have been disciplined for blogging less-than-glowing reports of their schools. Generally, I like teaching, though I do not pretend to have discovered my vocation. I am continually surprised by the differences between Japanese (or at least Tohoku) and Californian (or at least Christian Brothers) high schools. There is a certain rigid discipline that in my estimation is pure façade. Students must dress in identical uniforms that are modified not really according to the weather but according to set dates. Girls must always wear skirts, with either knee socks or thick tights. Boys must always wear vaguely Chinese jackets with high collars. In the classroom, students wear loafers, but for physical education and sometimes for the street they wear athletic shoes color-coded by school year. When the students seek or are summoned to the cavernous teachers’ room they must knock before entering at the door for their grade level and call out a set phrase which translates I think as « Excuse me for disturbing you may I please speak to X teacher ? ». The word used for teacher is sensei, which means really « master ». Even I am usually referred to as « sensei ». At the opening and closing of each class, the teacher leads to students in a salutation with bow. But class begun, the students return to the California-style chatter that fills the hallways. Rivaling chatter among students’ favorite classroom activities is sleep. There are almost always two to three sleepers in each class. The most lethargic don’t wake when I knock on their desks and say “good morning!”, while others jolt to wakefulness while I hover over them, only to retreat to dreamland when I pass on. When I’ve consulted other teachers about sleeping students, they mostly agree that it is a frustration, or else offer that the students do not sleep enough at home. Attendance is mandatory at every morning’s teachers’ meeting, but, between the opening and closing bows, most teachers pay little attention to the speakers, instead adjusting lesson plans, grading notebooks, or sifting through papers and forms. In more than one lecture, I’ve noticed sleeping teachers and attendees. I’m pretty sure the Japanese are chronically sleep-deprived, but I’m also sensing that physical presence is far more important than presence of mind.
My first lesson plans were hopelessly advanced, and I spent much of the fall worrying about how to encourage the students before settling into several realizations. Most of these students do not really want to learn English; it is required of them. Many of them will not be using English in their adult lives because most will remain in Tohoku. Classrooms with forty students are too large to expect miracles. I cannot and probably should not do much to reform the Japanese educational system, based as it is on memorization and cramming for tests rather than American-style interaction between students, teachers, and materials. Students in Japan are essentially passive, and this, though a great frustration to me, must be the foundation of my methodology here.
Other than teaching, I’ve traveled around my region a great deal, though I have not yet ventured to the traditional cultural heart of Japan, Kansai, or abroad. Part of my reticence is due to the immense costs of domestic travel, compared to American or especially European standards. Taking the two-and-a-half-hour bullet train to Tokyo (not so fast or comfortable as the TGV but efficient nonetheless) costs over 100 American dollars (73 euros +/-). Tokyo is the nearest true cultural hub, and I’ve been there two times since my orientation in August. I quite like the city. It reminds me a bit of Berlin, not least because so much of it was destroyed in the second World War and there are many distinct centers. The lack of a single center, and the overt ugliness of most of the architecture, makes its appeal harder to grasp or describe. It feels very haphazard, and the threat of earthquake and typhoon is very real. There are beautiful gardens and temples and shrines and the most beautifully designed bars I’ve ever visited. Interiors are so often well-lit and wood-paneled and subtly textured and flowered with delicate arrangements. In some places there are rushing crowds, but in most of the side streets silence. It is very clean, and while I’ve seen some transients, they are few, even without comparison to San Francisco. I have benefited immensely in my discovery of Tokyo from two friends: Lisa, who I met in Toulouse, and Waka, from the International House. They’ve each spent time showing me the neighborhoods they like, and Waka’s mother Sachiko and aunt Yoko made my Christmas visit to Tokyo especially memorable. Their hospitality astounds me; I have never known nor do I presume to ever know its equal.
The holidays were of course a bit sad; really, they didn’t exist for me, for how can they without a family that celebrates them? A few days after Thanksgiving, though, the other American in my town, a young woman from South Carolina named Jenny, hosted a Thanksgiving feast. I made my mother’s famous sweet potato-apple butter-rum casserole and Martha Stewart’s mother’s apple pie. In my classes, I force-fed my students the Thanksgiving story, though most didn’t quite get it. In a fill-in-the-blanks-from-the-word-bank worksheet I received some quizzical responses: ‘ the Pilgrims went to America because they wanted their own Indians », « the Sweet Potatoes taught the Mashed Potatoes how to grow Corn » (Lily suggests this is an allegorical reading), « On Thanksgiving we always eat Holland » (Hollandaise sauce, maybe, though that wasn’t included in the word-bank). The students better enjoyed the photographs of my family and friends from last Thanksgiving, though as always, a few asked whether my sister was my girlfriend. Christmas I spent in Tokyo, where the always rampant consumerism of the city and the country shone yet more completely. I wonder whether the Tokyo Christmas is what a Western European or a Californian Christmas will be like in a few years, when these places will have been more fully liberated from religious sentiment and family attachments, and Christmas will constitute only, as in Japan, cream cakes, tinsel, and plastic trees. Though they have not really celebrated Christmas since Waka and his siblings grew up, it was nice to spend Christmas Day with a family. Yoko and Sachiko took me to Kamakura, an old administrative capital with many beautiful temples and shrines, and a giant bronze Buddha. On the way, passing Yokohama, we could just make out Mount Fuji. I also found, with Yoko’s assistance, an English-language Midnight Mass at eleven pm on Christmas Eve, and, passing a Westerner near the Dutch embassy a couple of hours earlier, shared a smile.
I’ve now amassed quite a collection of photographs from the digital camera that was a Christmas present from my parents last year, and I’ve uploaded a selection onto Picasa. They are unlisted, which means I think that you must follow the link I will send in the e-mail that announces this blogpost. If you do not receive or discard that e-mail but would like to access the photographs I can send you the link individually. I am very grateful for all your e-mails and especially to those who sent cards. They rest under my « Christmas Tree »: a cedar branch stuck in a wine bottle. I wish you all a very blessed Christmas season, and a joyous 2008.
samedi 22 septembre 2007
(Just Like) Starting Over
I'm finally sitting down to write about these first seven weeks in Japan. Let's see how far I get. To begin, to prove that I've been reading the book of Buson poetry that Aunt Dawn gave me, I lay the scene. The moonlight illumines my balcony on this comfortably cool night. This is in fact the autumnal equinox, and it really does feel like the first day of fall. The green of the fields now admits of golden undertones, and a few impatient leaves are falling. I'm listening to Abbey Road, sipping genmai-cha (that roasted brown rice tea I always tried to feed you in California), and there is a bar of Lindt 85% cocoa solids just beyond arm's reach. I've tried the Japanese chocolate, but even the dark tastes Hokkaido-milky to me. But I've discovered that it's cheaper to buy chocolate-covered almonds than plain almonds, so I am still supporting the local chocolate industry. Swiss Lindt is in fact my second favorite chocolatier, and I think it well worth the occasional splurge. I also get the bonus of thinking of Sabine whenever I eat it.
So, seven weeks already since I flew from SFO to Narita, outside of Tokyo. I was so tired during the drive from Sacramento to SFO that I mostly missed driving through San Francisco on the 101. This would have made me sad, but the night before had been a suitable farewell to my favorite city. After a mandatory pre-departure orientation, we were shuttled to the Consul General's marbled mansion in Pacific Heights for a send-off reception. The home commanded sweeping views of the declining sunlight across the Bay and beyond the Golden Gate, and we were gorged on oysters, Japanese caviar, and California wine (mercifully, not Japanese--more on this later) while conversing with the consular staff and prominent expatriates. I also met someone coming, like me, to Iwate: Amanda Evans, a Spanish teacher from Virginia, and we fast became friends.
SFO seemed overrun by JETs, and since I knew many of my fellows from Japanese classes over the summer, the general ambience was one of a class trip rather than a tearful farewell to California. Among those de
parting with me were two pals from Cal (one a Bowlesman), and a guy from my Algebra II/Trig class at CB. Still, it was hard to say goodbye to Mom, Dad, and Kelsey. Somehow, the fact that I would not be seeing them for many months didn’t hit me until we got up from our breakfast table and walked to the security checkpoint. Oomph!
I had the misfortune of a middle seat on Japan Airlines Flight 001. To my left was a svelte, androgynous Japanese who must have taken some sleeping pills and only awoke for meals. Maybe s/he was wearing a diaper, too, because not once did s/he rise to use the restroom. To my right was a Japanese man to whom I made the mistake of addressing in Japanese. « Sumimasen » (Excuse me) I said as I passed over him to my seat upon boarding. He turned to me and uttered something about my wonderful Japanese, to which I could only reply, « Iie » (Not at all). Then I felt bound to maintain the illusion of Japanese fluency, but as I was not then nor am I now fluent, I had to limit my communication to the basics: « arigatou », « sumimasen », « doozo ». This also meant I had to limit my drink orders with the stewardess to those words I could remember « mizu » (water) and « kohee » (coffee), when I would have loved some tea or cranberry juice. I had brought along study materials with the purpose of becoming proficient in Japanese by the time I reached the far side of the Pacific, but I had so little space that I only managed to reach into my bag once or twice. Worse, the man on my right, though seemingly diaperless, only used the restroom once in our ten hours together. Since I couldn’t remember the Japanese for, « Excuse me, I need to use the restroom » (I had restroom and excuse me down, but couldn’t string them into a fluent-sounding sentence), I only used the restroom, and stood up, once.
Apparently Avril Lavigne was passing through customs at Narita as we were, but as I haven’t really followed her career since the early heights of « Complicated » and « Skater Boy » (or was it « boi » ?) I really didn’t care. I was much more involved in trying to strike up a conversation with the Germans in line behind me, because wherever I go, I always wind up making German friends, and I’m nursing a desire to one day move to Germany. Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of much German after my 9 hours and 50 minutes of sitting.
After the whirlwind of Tokyo, and leaving all my new-made JET friends, it was off on the Shinkansen to Tohoku, the Northern part of Honshu, the main island of Japan. The Shinkansen is only the second fastest train in the world (after the TGV Paris-Lyon) so I was duly blasé. Still, I arrived in Morioka, the capital of my prefecture, about two-and-a-half hours after leaving Tokyo, while the same trip on the (much more affordable) conventional trains takes 12 or so hours. In Morioka, I made more friends, this time with fellow new Iwate JETs, as well as a few returning JETs who work as coordinators. One of the coordinators, Mary Ring, is from Sacramento, graduated from St. Francis High School in 2001, and grew up in Oak Park.
A couple of days, and innumerable formal ceremonies, later, we were formally handed over to representatives of our host institutions. I was picked up by one of the vice principals at my academic school, and one of the English teachers. The vice principal began our hour-and-a-half drive to Ichinoseki, my town, by asking two things, in Japanese, « do you speak Japanese? » and « the last two ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) only stayed for a year each, will you please stay longer? ». Luckily, I am not formally bound to re-contract until January.
Upon arrival in Ichinoseki, I was shuffled about to have my picture taken (a priceless expression of « ohmyGodwhatamIdoinghere justhaveagoodattitude Idon’tunderstandathingthey’resaying whatreallyaretheconsequences ofbreakingmycontract andtakingthenextplanebacktoSanFrancisco? justhaveagoodattitude »), to registering at city hall, to meeting the principal of my main school and introducing myself in Japanese to introducing myself to the entire faculty again in Japanese to my apartment to an enkai (welcome party) where I was plastered with really good sake, sashimi, and salted fish. The vice principal told me she was to be my mother figure here (I found out later she is the same age as Mom actually), which meant stern and disciplining, and also that she had chosen me because I looked the cutest of all the candidates in my application photograph. All I really wanted to do was be alone in my apartment and sleep myself back to California (I still hadn’t had a good night’s rest since arrival), but when I was finally dropped off, I only managed six hours sleep before reporting for my first day of school.
My first week at school is fixed in my memory as insanely hot and sticky, and essentially void of meaningful work. Most of the faculty took off the day after my arrival for Obon holidays, and the school’s air conditioning consists of three fans in the cavernous teachers’ room. In Japan, teachers do not have desks in classrooms of their own, but share space with the entire faculty, including the vice principal(s). This means that students can never have a private conference with a teacher, nor teachers with each other. So teachers are both more on task, because they are always being watched, and less on task, because there is always someone with whom to share distracting chatter. At any rate, the shared teachers’ room is emblematic of the group culture mentality, which often frustrates me as a Westerner (by which I signify my identity as a member of the Occident, the Western Hemisphere, and the (once wild) West of the US) and something of an individualist, but made a lot more sense after I survived my first typhoon.
Yes I survived my first typhoon! Unfortunately, I don’t think this post is going to survive long enough for me to relate the experience. I’m telling myself now that I’ll bring it up to date tomorrow morning, but we’ll have to see.
(L) I felt a little like Scottie looking down from the 43rd floor bathroom window.
So, seven weeks already since I flew from SFO to Narita, outside of Tokyo. I was so tired during the drive from Sacramento to SFO that I mostly missed driving through San Francisco on the 101. This would have made me sad, but the night before had been a suitable farewell to my favorite city. After a mandatory pre-departure orientation, we were shuttled to the Consul General's marbled mansion in Pacific Heights for a send-off reception. The home commanded sweeping views of the declining sunlight across the Bay and beyond the Golden Gate, and we were gorged on oysters, Japanese caviar, and California wine (mercifully, not Japanese--more on this later) while conversing with the consular staff and prominent expatriates. I also met someone coming, like me, to Iwate: Amanda Evans, a Spanish teacher from Virginia, and we fast became friends.
SFO seemed overrun by JETs, and since I knew many of my fellows from Japanese classes over the summer, the general ambience was one of a class trip rather than a tearful farewell to California. Among those de
parting with me were two pals from Cal (one a Bowlesman), and a guy from my Algebra II/Trig class at CB. Still, it was hard to say goodbye to Mom, Dad, and Kelsey. Somehow, the fact that I would not be seeing them for many months didn’t hit me until we got up from our breakfast table and walked to the security checkpoint. Oomph!I had the misfortune of a middle seat on Japan Airlines Flight 001. To my left was a svelte, androgynous Japanese who must have taken some sleeping pills and only awoke for meals. Maybe s/he was wearing a diaper, too, because not once did s/he rise to use the restroom. To my right was a Japanese man to whom I made the mistake of addressing in Japanese. « Sumimasen » (Excuse me) I said as I passed over him to my seat upon boarding. He turned to me and uttered something about my wonderful Japanese, to which I could only reply, « Iie » (Not at all). Then I felt bound to maintain the illusion of Japanese fluency, but as I was not then nor am I now fluent, I had to limit my communication to the basics: « arigatou », « sumimasen », « doozo ». This also meant I had to limit my drink orders with the stewardess to those words I could remember « mizu » (water) and « kohee » (coffee), when I would have loved some tea or cranberry juice. I had brought along study materials with the purpose of becoming proficient in Japanese by the time I reached the far side of the Pacific, but I had so little space that I only managed to reach into my bag once or twice. Worse, the man on my right, though seemingly diaperless, only used the restroom once in our ten hours together. Since I couldn’t remember the Japanese for, « Excuse me, I need to use the restroom » (I had restroom and excuse me down, but couldn’t string them into a fluent-sounding sentence), I only used the restroom, and stood up, once.
Apparently Avril Lavigne was passing through customs at Narita as we were, but as I haven’t really followed her career since the early heights of « Complicated » and « Skater Boy » (or was it « boi » ?) I really didn’t care. I was much more involved in trying to strike up a conversation with the Germans in line behind me, because wherever I go, I always wind up making German friends, and I’m nursing a desire to one day move to Germany. Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of much German after my 9 hours and 50 minutes of sitting.
The JET Programme (official spelling, though most schools in Japan ask participants to use standard American spelling in the classroom) is exceedingly well organized. Armies of coordinators held signs and pointed us in the right direction immediately following disembarkation. Soon, I’d been herded onto a bus driving on the wrong side of the road (yes, they drive like the British here!), into the biggest metropolitan are on the planet. There are about 30 million people in greater Tokyo-Yokohama. And a dizzying, but amazingly well thought-out metro moves them around daily. I didn’t really get to see much of Tokyo, but what I saw was bright, sleek, very modern, very neon, clean, and pulsating with the best and worst dressed people I’ve ever seen. I think I really liked it, but I was so tired while there that I can’t be sure. During the simmering days, we were safely inside the handsomely appointed conference rooms of one of the finest hotels in Tokyo (the Keio Plaza, kitty-corner to the Park Hyatt of Lost in Translation fame). The hundreds of JETs absolutely overran the hotel, and I hoped the non-JET guests received a discount. I felt both very mature in my I-can’t-believe-I-let-the-sales-clerk-con-me-into-spending-this-much John Varvatos suit, running from meeting to reception to luncheon on the 43rd floor, and quite like a kid at summer camp (which is something I never really experienced). In the (somewhat less brutally) hot evenings, I saw some of Tokyo nightlife, which I think I really enjoyed, though again, don’t quote me on that. I did meet a few locals, and two merry, holidaying Sydneyans, but mostly, we JETs stuck in swarms.
After the whirlwind of Tokyo, and leaving all my new-made JET friends, it was off on the Shinkansen to Tohoku, the Northern part of Honshu, the main island of Japan. The Shinkansen is only the second fastest train in the world (after the TGV Paris-Lyon) so I was duly blasé. Still, I arrived in Morioka, the capital of my prefecture, about two-and-a-half hours after leaving Tokyo, while the same trip on the (much more affordable) conventional trains takes 12 or so hours. In Morioka, I made more friends, this time with fellow new Iwate JETs, as well as a few returning JETs who work as coordinators. One of the coordinators, Mary Ring, is from Sacramento, graduated from St. Francis High School in 2001, and grew up in Oak Park.
A couple of days, and innumerable formal ceremonies, later, we were formally handed over to representatives of our host institutions. I was picked up by one of the vice principals at my academic school, and one of the English teachers. The vice principal began our hour-and-a-half drive to Ichinoseki, my town, by asking two things, in Japanese, « do you speak Japanese? » and « the last two ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) only stayed for a year each, will you please stay longer? ». Luckily, I am not formally bound to re-contract until January.
Upon arrival in Ichinoseki, I was shuffled about to have my picture taken (a priceless expression of « ohmyGodwhatamIdoinghere justhaveagoodattitude Idon’tunderstandathingthey’resaying whatreallyaretheconsequences ofbreakingmycontract andtakingthenextplanebacktoSanFrancisco? justhaveagoodattitude »), to registering at city hall, to meeting the principal of my main school and introducing myself in Japanese to introducing myself to the entire faculty again in Japanese to my apartment to an enkai (welcome party) where I was plastered with really good sake, sashimi, and salted fish. The vice principal told me she was to be my mother figure here (I found out later she is the same age as Mom actually), which meant stern and disciplining, and also that she had chosen me because I looked the cutest of all the candidates in my application photograph. All I really wanted to do was be alone in my apartment and sleep myself back to California (I still hadn’t had a good night’s rest since arrival), but when I was finally dropped off, I only managed six hours sleep before reporting for my first day of school.
My first week at school is fixed in my memory as insanely hot and sticky, and essentially void of meaningful work. Most of the faculty took off the day after my arrival for Obon holidays, and the school’s air conditioning consists of three fans in the cavernous teachers’ room. In Japan, teachers do not have desks in classrooms of their own, but share space with the entire faculty, including the vice principal(s). This means that students can never have a private conference with a teacher, nor teachers with each other. So teachers are both more on task, because they are always being watched, and less on task, because there is always someone with whom to share distracting chatter. At any rate, the shared teachers’ room is emblematic of the group culture mentality, which often frustrates me as a Westerner (by which I signify my identity as a member of the Occident, the Western Hemisphere, and the (once wild) West of the US) and something of an individualist, but made a lot more sense after I survived my first typhoon.
Yes I survived my first typhoon! Unfortunately, I don’t think this post is going to survive long enough for me to relate the experience. I’m telling myself now that I’ll bring it up to date tomorrow morning, but we’ll have to see.
(L) I felt a little like Scottie looking down from the 43rd floor bathroom window.
(R) Kilometer-High Summer Camp!
jeudi 13 septembre 2007
My neighborhood
Looks like it'll be a few more days before I can catch up the blog. Meanwhile, here are some pictures from and near my apartment.
The westward view from my apartment:
The lights were hung for Obon, a Buddhist holiday for the remembrance of ancestors. Below the lights, strung in a single curving line, perhaps two dozen people danced to a single, repeating song.
Above and below, a shed, a rice field, and the temple nearest my apartment.
Don't worry, Mom. I'm eating well seated on my tatami:
The westward view from my apartment:
The lights were hung for Obon, a Buddhist holiday for the remembrance of ancestors. Below the lights, strung in a single curving line, perhaps two dozen people danced to a single, repeating song.
Above and below, a shed, a rice field, and the temple nearest my apartment.
Don't worry, Mom. I'm eating well seated on my tatami:
lundi 10 septembre 2007
Backwards glance
The view East from my apartment. To remind me that I am in Japan, a rice field spreads from below my balcony, and across it sweeps the dawn, at 4:45 every morning.
Yokoso!
Welcome! This is my new blog, where I'll be posting words and images from my new home in Ichinoseki, Iwate prefecture, Japan, and you can post your responses. Alas, tonight I'm off to bed, but do come again soon for the first full-length entry. Best, C.A.
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