And please...

"Please come back to Japan, and especially, please, in the future, be sure to marry Ryusei."

This was the message that nine of the ten boys in my junior high first year class delivered to me on my last day with them.

The tenth was Ryusei, who tried to redirect attention to Yukihiro. All in vain. All in vain.

It has been an emotionally exhausting, physically exhausting, liver exhausting six-to-eight weeks - and there are still two left to go. I'm psyching up to head back to the states after two years in the middle of nowhere. Every community group with which I have been involved, every drumming group I played with, every conversation class I taught, my church bible study group, my office, both schools, and our local chapter of Foreigners United (yes, you read that right) has had a party. Sometimes multiple parties if my imminent departure happens to coincide with someone else's imminent departure/arrival/birthday/baby shower.

I haven't gained any weight, knock on wood. But I would fail a breathalyzer three nights out of four.

Of course, I don't drink with my kids.

I do drink with other people's kids. I went camping with a friend, his boss, and his boss's family. After barbecuing, Mom and Dad took a nap in the next tent over, while Ben and I did some quality baby sitting. Go Fish and Asahi. And after that, sparklers.

In lieu of the obligatory drunkenness that accompanies almost every aspect of social interaction in Kochi Prefecture (that's not condemnation you hear, that's recommendation), students in the public school system write and deliver little automated speeches that their teachers forced them to write when they should have been focusing on the difference between "l" and "r". Seriously. It's important. No one really likes lice.

I brought these kids up by hand, spoon-feeding them English pronunciation, phonics, grammar, and the four W's and that pesky just-has-to-be-different H. I taught them words like "awesome" and "teal," plus the all-important phrases "oh, snap!" and "yummy in my tummy," complete with DJ record-swizzle hand motions. That's how ghetto I am. I call it the DJ record-swizzle. Totally gangsta.

We worked for two years, in class and out of it, at drumming practice, at festivals, at concerts and school trips. They are the class I worked the hardest with and for the longest amount of time.

So I really appreciated their individualistic and touching tributes.

"Thank you for two wonderful years, and please don't forget Ryusei."

"Thank you for teaching us, and Ryusei loves you."

"Thank you for playing taiko with us, and please marry Ryusei." You know. When he's legal.

Well, I definitely plan on coming back to Japan. But I think I will settle for someone besides Ryusei.

 

Bird Shit

Due to the English language's uncharacteristic lack when it comes to a reasonably quotidian equivalent of "defecation" and "poop," we will be visiting that much-loved Old English derivative "shit."  


Yesterday, I found bird shit on my kitchen counter.

Why? you ask.

Because a bird shat on my kitchen counter.

I ran home yesterday morning, just as the lunch siren sounded, to change clothes from my slightly artsy/almost professional attire to track pants and a "Just Do It" shirt so I could attend the Junior High volleyball game, up at Yuinooka Dome. One of the teachers invited me, and since I'm always complaining that they never tell me ANYTHING that goes on (which they don't, by the way, with few exceptions), I felt particularly obliged to present an officially supportive ALT face.

Back to the bird shit.

I threw some clothes on the floor, threw some clothes on the floor, and grabbed my water bottle with the intention of filling it up from the kitchen sink. As I rounded the corner, I realized a small feathery mouse was having a heart attack against the kitchen window. Natural, I supposed, since at this time of year they sometimes go a bit crazy eating fermented berries and things. One of the most vivid memories of my childhood is birds crashing into the kitchen window after consuming too much linden berry for their body weight, and then recklessly going for a fly.

Then I realized that this ape-shit aviator was inside my house, trying madly to escape.

Now, I live in inaka. That's code for that place in The Air Up There that crows won't even both to shit on. So I have seen my fair share of wildlife, critters, and pests, inside establishments and outside.

I have had cockroaches timidly invade my kitchen sink from behind the little aluminum separation that clearly does not do its job of separating the roaches from the kitchen sink. (He ran screaming in circles around the sink. I ran screaming in circles around the kitchen. We both exhausted ourselves screaming and running in circles and then I caught him in an old jar, covered it with a net, and thrust it into a garbage bag, before hurtling it outside and down the stairs, where unfortunately it still rests, behind the bike stand.)

I had a huntsman spider come spend the weekend in the guest tatami room, until I got my neighbor to evict him on the grounds that I refrain from eating meat in the house, excepting fish, and he would eat anything that wandered unknowingly into his web. We had incompatible lifestyle choices. It would never have worked.

I have seen rats and mice in other buildings, and outside several restaurants. (Never in my house! knock on wood and refill traps...)

I have heard many horror stories about millipedes, centipedes, mukade, although they've had the good taste not to speak to me in public without a formal introduction.

I have even had a shower of tiny ants recently, driven inside by the onset of rainy season.

But a bird is a horse of a different color. (Light brown, with whitish and darkish markings, presumably to assist as camouflage in the underbrush of the suburban outback.)

We stood there, trembling, heaving and flapping our wings at each other, wondering how the hell we were going to liberate Tommy the Sparrow (or whatever that character's name was) from his hell-hole that is my galley-sized kitchen. It was his own damn fault for getting in here, but as usually happens with me and my proteges, I took the responsibility to get him out.

After staring at his pain and flurry for a few moments, I remembered that I have a kitchen door that leads out to the balcony. I never open it, except in moments like this to get rid of unwanted house guests. Since my last house guest was my mother, and the one before that was about a year and a half ago, you can see how I might have forgotten this door exists.

I stepped forward tremulously, bending as far backward as possible to keep Willy! That was his name, Willy the Sparrow! out of my face. He spent this time whining and crying about his life imprisonment behind a cheap pane of shatter-proof glass.

Whoosh! I threw the door open and waited.

That moron just stood there, trying his damnedest to get out the closed window. I can't open that window. The handle must have broken, oh, I don't know, when they put it in. It NEVER opens.

Stupid dragon.

With a running monologue of "C'mon you stupid animal, get out, get out, get out, ohmyfuck'sake, you dumb bird, aauuuuughhhh!" I gently shooed him to the threshold, whereupon he realized his good fortune and took off like a bat out of hell.

I went to the volleyball game. It was only when I came home that I found out how, in his mindless terror, Willy had a spat of projectile diarrhea all over my kitchen (and the shower window, which was how he got in the house in the first place).

I've had it with nature. They make the worst guests.  

And Now You're Going to Die

“We can’t experience tsunami, but we can make you experience a terrifying simulated earthquake,” the Earthquake instructor politely explains.

Standing outside the earthquake truck, it’s hard to take the natural world seriously. I mean, there are cartoon characters on the side of the truck, and Earthquake Man glares out at us while first graders giggle uproariously as they ride the rocking dinner table. . 

But it really is no laughing matter.

After the March 2011 earthquake in Sendai, Japan has been busily ruffling its feathers and fur over the next BIG ONE, which will undoubtedly lay waste to all civilization, and possibly sink the island. If you live on the coast, you had best get your ass to confession and make a clean breast of your many sins to God. 

And don't think that just because you live away from the ocean you might live to see your great-grandchildren butcher "r" and "l". If you're lucky enough to escape the seashore rising out of its prehistoric bed to invade our woodsy shores, you will no doubt perish when Fuji-san blows its top and melts your eyeballs out with a roar of hot ash-filled mustard gas.

Or so they tell me. 

The news these days is filled with dire predictions of Our Imminent Demise(s). Scientifically-speaking, the Eurasian Plate, the Pacific Plate andthe Philippine Plate are having a three-way, and Japan rides the resulting tectonic chaos like a stuffed tanuki rolling over the bedclothes. One day, as in so many three-ways, somebody's going to decide they're not getting enough of the action and consequently go bat-$#!+-insane. 

And we all know which mail-order-bride will be the first to crack.

The Philippine Plate is being incrementally sucked ("totally sucked, Sir!") under the Eurasian Plate, where Japan has made its happy home, and eventually it's going to get tired of that bull and turn around and bitch-slap the Eurasian Plate until it lets go, allowing the Philippine Plate to spring back at the force of a GAJILLION-BAZILLION torque. Thus the Philippines wreaks dynamic revenge on the Japanese oppressors, thereby championing the rest of Asia.  

There must be a lot of money in fear-mongering, because research facilities all over Japan have made it their business. The most recent studies say that 73 prefectures will be heavily affected by the magnitude eleven earthquake when it finally thrusts itself upon us, which will probably happen within the next three to five seconds. The government must save up an extra 300 gazillion yen (about 150 million dollars) to be ready to face the apocalyptic destruction that will immediately follow the disaster. The army - err, I mean the defense force that was created at extraordinary cost for the sole purpose of keeping the Chinese off the island - is at the ready. 

I’m all for informing the public, but I draw the line at fear-mongering.

According to the newspapers, who cannot lie, our little island is a red-as-the-rising-sun ducky unsteadily bobbing in God’s bathtub. If anyone steps in or out of the tub too quickly, we capsize and the beach-dwellers, being deprived of lifeboats, freeze to death in their ugly yellow jackets. (I finally saw Titanic. I wasn't missing much….) 

And if you thought you might be safe, moving inland and northward, think again.

Always supposing you live in one of the three prefectures that might not drown, you will be at the mercy of the dormant-as-a-futskayoku-groomsman-on-wedding-day Mount Fuji. This perfectly symmetrical and beautiful natural formation, which has been nominated for an Oscar from UNESCO, has been suppressing all of its natural impulses for the past three hundred years and is expected to go ballistic at any moment.

It’s very Japanese, in that respect. 

But in other respects, I'm all for being a boy scout. Be prepared. Get your survival pack together and sleep with your shoes at the ready. There's no telling when the crap will hit the fan and what the actual effects will be. The fact is you can only be as prepared as possible. And that really is about having your pack and a pair of sturdy shoes.

And riding the earthquake truck.

The guys from the office pose in front of the earthquake truck. 

The Three Strike Law

Oka Goten - the historical building with flags. 

“That’s strike one,” said Junpei, when I knocked my coffee cup over, spilling all over the little tray and

a bit on the floor of the five-hundred year old historical landmark house. 

It was his idea to begin with. 

Junpei, who organizes events in town, suggested I come see the decorations put up for Golden Week, a series of invidual holidays strung together in order to get people to go to the movies during post-WWII Japan. (Says my English teacher.)

Shibahara-san, an older fellow with twinkling Tony Curtis eyes and a child-like frame, was there, manning the desk, and was so happy to see people, he jumped up and made coffee for me, which was nice. I tried to drink it, but he was also very intent on showing me everything that had been put up for the holiday, including a bunch of hand-painted flags from time out of mind, and a number of antique trinkets pulled out of the closet for the occasion.

“And this is a helmet! And this is an old-fashioned ice cream machine! And this is a cigarette box!”

A cigarette box, a button, a top, and a broken sword hilt.
It's like a treasure trove for a homeless man, from the Edo period.

At some point, the historical society had also acquired an accordian, an old-bed warmer, and a plastic crocodile (donated by Junpei).

In 1765, southern Japan was simply crawlin' with these guys.

Oh, the cultural significance of it all.

Shibahara-san was very excited about the tour. After we had covered both rooms, he sat me down to explain the stories on the various flags.

"Once upon a time, there was a man who went fishing. While he was fishing he came across a turtle. He met a turtle, or maybe he rescued a turtle from a net, or something. And the turtle took him down to a something something – a place where princes and princesses live,” he paused and look around.

“A castle.”

“RIGHT! A castle under the sea.”

Excitement is infectious. “I know this story, that’s the guy riding the –“ I exclaimed.

Crash, splash.

I turned around to point at the flag and knocked my china teacup right over. It poured the rest of my coffee out, over my hand, over the tray (mostly collecting there, happily enough), and splattering the floor.

Does coffee tint hardwood floors? Yikes.

Junpei chose this moment to explain about strikes and how I was now collecting.

“Now you have one. And do you know what happens when you get to three?’

nooo.

Shibahara-san and I mopped up the mess, and I am happy to say, he did not seem at all distressed.

(By the by, at the end of the story, the man returns to dry land after receiving a small box from the turtle, and wanders around his village where no one recognizes him. On learning that his father died of grief at his son’s disappearance, hundreds of years ago, the turtle-rescuer opens the box, out of which spring his lost years, and he shrivels up into an old old man and dies.)

It’s a Japanese fairy tale. What did you think was going to happen?

In an effort to make me feel totally at home, Shibahara-san reminded me to sign the guest-book. And old ojiichan (grandpa) who was wandering around the house at the same time added, “be sure to take a little flying helicopter.”

“Can you do this?” Shibahara-san picked up this cue and showed me how he could make it fly by twisting it together between his palms.

Little flying helicopters.

I tried and failed. The ojiichan came to my rescue as Shibahara-san scurried off to finish something else.

“No, no!” Ojii-chan chided me. “Like this. More power!” And with a vicious twist of his wrists, his helicopter went flying up to the roof.

“Like that, Mary. Do it like that,” Junpei egged me on.

I put more power into it. My little helicopter spun away and up into the air with fervor.

Whoosh whoosh, thwack!

Oh. My. Gah.

My helicopter had just popped a hole in the rice paper covering the lattice work on the top of the room.

If you look closely, you can see the hole. 

“Mary!” Junpei stared at me in shock. “We’re going to pencil in that you’re the one who did that.”

“Wait, I, what, the old dude said more power.” I looked around wildly, but  the ojichan absolutely deserted me here. I never even saw him leave, he was that quick. Guess you figure out who your friends are in times like these.

“That’s strike two,” J-kun warned me.

I sat down in the middle of the room with my hands folded on my lap. Junpei and Shibahara-san finished cleaning up and moving the temporary boards in place around the building.

When it was time to go, Junpei came to collect me, like an errant child, from my time-out.

“Say thank you,” he admonished.

“Thank you, Shibahara-san.” (I was going to do that anyway.)

“Say, ‘sorry’,” he added.

“Sorry, Shibahara-san.”

“Don’t mention it!” Twinkling eyes, laugh lines and all, Shibahara-san scurried off.

Junpei pulled the last sliding door into place. He turned the corner and grabbed the “open, come on in” sign out from in front of the house.

Crrrrrrk, chunk.

“Shimata!” (Oh, crap.)

Junpei had managed to knock the actual sign right off the signpost as he put it away.

“That’s strike one,” I told him.

Legit Travel Blog Part 4

Wednesday – Head home by 4 PM

Wake up. Check out. Head to Itsukushima Shrine.

Sneak in ahead of Japanese tour groups. Curse and mutter at tourists intent on same experience at simultaneous moment.

Watch part of a buddhist mass. Or a shintoist mass. Not quite sure.

Avoid deer.

Climb pagoda and shrine. Confound locals by skirting provided slippers. Insist not too cold, until after thirty minutes or so when weather turned to sprinkles and clouds. .

Head back to the ferry. Stop for souvenirs. Chat with shop lady and astound Sister and Mom by purchasing many gifts for Office, Junior High, Elementary School, and English conversation class members. Nihonjinpoi. (I am Japanese-like)

Ferry to Miyajimaguchi and train to Hiroshima. Shinkansen to Okayama. Delayed thirty minutes. Yikes. Coffee in Okayama and train to Gomen. Delayed ten minutes. Local train home.

Annoy recently graduated students by trying to secure seats for Mom and Sister which had been eyeballed by previously mentioned students for many stops.  Upon securing seats, find that mother and sister prefer to remain standing. Happily, however, succeeded in irritating kids, so not a total loss.

Make it home.

Try to assure mother that apartment is not as dilapidated as it appears after jet-lag and three hundred mile, five hour train ride. It's not the Ritz, but it's not a hole in the ground, despite the holes in the walls. I promise.

Eat dinner.

Drink.

Pictures to follow. 

Legit Travel Blog Part Tres Leches

Just kidding. There is no leche. They don't understand dairy here. 

Tuesday – Stay Hiroshima

Mister Donut with card - get points, and people-watch. Take pictures of hello Kitty donuts (Mom did, not me - sorry no pictures). Check out of hotel. Head to Shin-Osaka and buy bullet train tickets to Hiroshima. 

Ride on Bullet train. 

Hit Hiroshima station and check luggage into lockers.   Taxi to Shekkeian garden. Rue bad timing and lack of tea ceremony viewing options.

Follow young brides getting pictures taken and attempt covert and stylish photo of bride with red kimono and red parasol. Fail. 

Convenience store lunch at Hiroshima Castle and Park – discuss misplaced victimhood of Japanese people in general and the perpetuated myth of the entirely innocent victim from WWII. 

Walk to Hiroshima Peace Memorial and Park. See Genbaku Dome.

 Wander park and bridges and river. Very beautiful and surprisingly European in ambiance. Back to JR station  and on to Miyajimaguchi Station. Ferry to Miyajima Island. Mother insists on riding on open top floor of ferry. Freeze. Irreparaly displace hair. Reach traditional ryokan and enjoy check-in process, including conversation in Japanese with frightened front-desk clerk and not frightened front-desk manager. Take mom to beach. Discourage mom from picking up trash. Go to bath. Very hot, but nice. Go to room. Enjoy strange dinner of unnameable dishes. Truly. And I eat Japanese food every day. 

Clams caught five minutes ago and all seasonal and local produce. Tasty, but difficult to describe. Eat. Drink. Sleep.

Detour

Excuse me while I whip this out:

How you know you live in Japan:

“Chunky” and “smooth” are not choices for peanut butter, but options for red bean paste.

You carry an extra bag on all of your trips, because you’re going ot have four boxes of omiyage for your coworkers and neighbors.

Every ramen restaurant has the potential to be the next GREAT ramen restaurant. And even if it isn’t the next GREAT one, it will by no means be anything less than good.

You are fully aware that if you can’t open a package with ease, it is due to user error.

You eat convenience store food on a regular basis, insist it’s relatively healthy, and can rank the major chains in order of the appetizingness of their menus.

How you know you live in RURAL Japan:

You appreciate the Gaijin barrier between you and the other commuters on the local train during rush-hour.

Riding your bicycle fifteen kilometers one way for an onsen and lunch trip? Challenge accepted.

You go to the next town (at least) to purchase alcohol, which you then hide at the bottom of the grocery bag or in your backpack for the trip home. You would never consider buying cigarettes, condoms, tampons, or any other personal and/or potentially hazardous product while you are on your home island, on the very probable chance that someone will see you, recognize you, look in your bag, and tell their mom, dad, sister, brother, neighbors, and dog about your purchases.

The word “gutter” no longer brings to mind gentle sloping divots in the concrete that end in a grate where the dog’s tennis ball is occasionally and unfortunately wedged. It now conjors up images of giant trenches, deep and wide enough to house a French platoon in WW1 and pouring out rice-paddy drainage at every corner.

You are invited to parties, events, clubs, and private family dinners – and *gasp* they expect you to show up. 

More travel journal later. 

Legit Travel Blog Kyoto

Day Two

Head over to Kyoto. Stop for breakfast at Pastry shop in Osaka Station city (not to be confused with any other of the massive department store/shopping complexes around Osaka Station and Umeda [which is a neighborhood and a station]). Cherry, tangerine custard things, almond croissant, coffee. 

Head to kyoto, on the ladies’ car on the damn local line. 

In Kyoto, taxi to Fushimi Inari Taisha and the thousand tori gates. Walk around and curse other tourists attempting same experience at simultaneous moment. Stop at little tourist shop and discover that deeper in lies beautiful hand-made pottery, “the best in Japan”. Truly gorgeous. Buy several pieces. Engage Okasan and Otosan in conversation about pieces bought and take picture with them. Secure business card for future purchases. Walk for a bit to get exercise and ice cream (soy, sake, and vanilla, respectively). Catch taxi to Ginkakuji (Silver Pavilion). Reiterate and emphasize “GINkakuji” and not “KINkakuji” for cabby (his request). Walk around Silver Pavilion and grounds. Curse tourists attempting same experience at simultaneous moment. Take picture of ladies on tourist trip – good deed for day, check. Walk down philosopher’s path and enjoy cherry blossoms. Thank God for not knocking all cherry blossoms down during typhoon-like weather of preceeding weekend. Taxi to Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion). Emphasize “KINkakuji” and not “GINkakuji” for cabby. Fall asleep in taxi cab due to exhaustion. Wake up and wander around Golden Pavilion grounds. Very amazing in real life. Almost too like the picture to be true. Extraordinary. Head back to station. Get coffee at Starbucks. Pick up Kyoto Starbucks giftcards. Clever girl behind the counter observes that we will not be using them completely in Japan. Puts our drinks and macaroon on our giftcards. Smart.

Train it back to Osaka (still carrying pottery purchases in fancy green paper bag). Subway it to Namba. Head up to Dotonbori. Pray for good restaurant with gyoza for sister who is craving gyoza. Experience vision from God. (seriously.) Enjoy famous gyoza, famous shumai, and famous pork buns. Also beer. Head back to hotel.

Legit Travel Blog

Even though my brother hates that word "legit" (and I am inclined to agree with him as to the utter absurdity of shortening words in order to sound "hip" or "totes coolz"), that is the best way to describe this next short series of entries.

My mother and sister came to visit me in Japan, and per japan-guide and travel spots in Japan, I took them round the usual line-up of famous places and an infinite sea of faces. These were all places I had also wanted to see (including the Sky Building in Osaka, which I had tried to find twice previously and only finally encountered on this trip). So everybody's happy, albeit somewhat jet-lagged.

Diary entries as follows for first two days...
Apologize in advance for funny fonts chosen at random by website program.

Begin Friday

Enjoy ride in car to Osaka with Moralistic Fictionalist philosopher (I think that's what he said). Recall that for only about 5000 yen more, I could have taken the train and assumed mask of anonymity among other unknowns with nothing to say about atheism, ethics, and evolution. (At one point, break into hysterical giggles and voice previous revelation to driver. Endure brief backlash including obscenity.) Ride uneventful and mostly lovely. Enjoy last remnants of a very early spring, but rejoice in prolonged cherry blossoms on Honshu proper.

Saturday Morning

Run recon in Osaka. Scope out Umeda Sky Building and ascertain from which tower one can most easily access Sky Garden. Have coffee downstairs and perplex salary man who clearly can't figure out what I'm doing there. Head back out. Curse weather as it perpetually drizzles. Buy soon-to-be-doomed umbrella. Enjoy last meal of sushi and frozen sake before non-raw-fish-eating family members make their Asian debut. Head to airport on train.

Frozen sake!!!

.

Arrive Saturday

Pick up mother and sister. Cancel plans to visit Sky Building at night since quite possibly it will blow down in the TYPHOON-like weather. Dinner at izakaya. Udon tonkatsu, katsu set, tempura, karage (fried chicken). Beer. Bewilder and entertain locals who are surprised at blond and blue-eyed foreigners. (Not me. Those genes skipped me...)

Sunday – Stay Osaka

Light rain in the morning – breakfast at travel café. Yogurt, salad, french toast, coffee. Head over to Osaka Aquarium, with all the kids. Potter around. Stop at little café for coffee. Head up to Osaka station. Walk to Umeda Sky Building. Lunch at little basement ramen joint. Tonkatsu ramen. Head upstairs to the floating observatory. Take elevator up obscene distance, then transfer to horrid skinny escalator of death. Contemplate life as not fully-lived while on spindly suspended moving staircase. Get to top. Windy! Freeze to death and irreparably displace hair. Get a fresh view of Osaka and become mesmerized by size and scope of urban environment. Head back down. Make it over to Osaka castle. Wander grounds and see cherry blossoms. Buy little pancake things. Eat little pancake things. Talk to nice woman with miniature Schnauzer. Show her picture of our miniature schnauzer. 

Hers is much better behaved. 

See castle. 

Go up to the top. See all the fancy exhibit things. Reflect on great fortune at birth and life during comparatively more civilized era (especially re: soap, toilets, and lack of feudal wars). Head back home. Dinner at california wine place: pizza, salad, pasta, wine. Head back to hotel and up to bath. Irritate lone Japanese lady bather who clearly wanted bath to herself. Heartlessly enjoy ourselves as she soggily stalks off.  

Motion Sickness

My taiko group went to Kochi City to bowl and eat cheap sushi for the last time before the sixth-graders graduated and moved on to the taiko-less three years of Junior High. They can come back in high school, but not before then, apparently.

The trip was about two hours out and two hours back, all on public trains and tram cars, and at the start of the day, I bitterly resented that I had left my Kindle at home, since all the kids pulled out their hand-held video games. I needn't have bemoaned my lack of entertainment so quickly, since 1) they kept talking and interacting even whilst playing games and listening to music, and 2) we had Yukihiro.

Yukihiro is a funny kid. For one thing, he just looks a little different from everyone else, not in a mean bug-eyed, uni-brow kind of way, just in a not-stereotypical-ly-Japanese way. He's dark like a Latin American elementary schooler who picks cacao beans for a living, has crazy stick-straight-up-in-the-air black hair, like an Asian Calvin, and moves like a tiny hyper Burt Lancaster, complete with stunt-man grace and crack-addict impetuousness.

He's also a decent impersonator, and performed a very creditable imitation of a chain-saw and a trumpet at the graduation PTA after party.

The most entertaining thing about Yuki-kun, when one is traveling in a group on a swinging train, is his tendency to be incapacitated by motion sickness.
.
The transformation from hilarious gad-about to pasty-faced and dismal invalid is swift and sure. One moment, he's telling jokes I can't understand, the next moment he's sitting a little unsteadily and eyeing the bathroom at the end of the train.

The effect is felt throughout the group and obsessively commented on.

"Sensei! Yukihiro looks sick...!"

Now it is a matter of watching the time bomb tick away its remaining moments of desperate poise, before he makes a slow and painful dash towards the loo.

Deliberately, he rises up, taking halting steps towards the end of the train car, his every movement updated by six pairs of hilarity-prone eyes.

"Sensei! Yuki-kun went to the bathroom!"

"Someone's in there! He's gonna get sick on his shoes!"

"The conductor lady is in his way. If he opens his mouth" (to say "pardon me" - Yu-chan is nothing if not a gentleman) "he's gonna lose it!"

To our equal part relief and disappointment, Yuki gains the restroom and exits public view. His actions are speculated on, but mostly we all think we know what happened.

When he emerges, a slightly empty-looking hero, he is greeted by rousing interest in his well-being.

"Omigawd! Did you puke?" his compatriots inquire enthusiastically.

He nods mournfully, and an impish smile flits on his lips. While the suffering is inevitable and painful, this is a kid who enjoys his celebrity status, regardless of how he gets in the press.
His recent nausea is briefly overshadowed by our arrival at the destination train station.

The trial is not over yet.

We decant from the first train and sit for a few minutes on the platform of the next, waiting for the inner-city tram to depart. As soon as the car sets out, the turbulence begins. Above our heads (well, not mine, because I'm a tall foreigner), the white hand-straps dance merrily to a two-step, dosey-doeing (dosy-doing?) back and forth with hypnotic rhythm.

"Sensei! Yu-chan's gonna hurl!"

Sensei unleashes a storm of irritated chatter, as though chiding can force the unfortunate's tummy to calm down.

I know better. I hand him a plastic bag.

Five minutes later: "Sensei! Yukihiro blew chunks!" (Or whatever the equivalent slang is.)

We emerge from the tram, bloody but unbowed, and Yuki is the least distressed.

We walk along for several city blocks and finally an uncharacteristically sympathetic friend asks him how he feels.

"Not so good," he replies candidly. "I'm hungry."

The Age-Old Conundrum

Funny place, tano. Or maybe just lacking in women.

I went to the grocery store in the next town, and on the way there, three of my students waylaid me and made me have tea and coffee with them at an old grandma's (no relation to anyone present) art shop. they asked me a lot of questions about where I was going (the grocery store) where I came from (my apartment) and if I liked anybody in Tano (ensuing discussion about the appropriateness of me liking an elementary school student). They also all confessed who they liked (not as exciting as it sounds - this seems to be par for the course in the tano shougakkou fifth grade - everybody likes someone and it's no big deal who knows, unless i'm talking to Airi who recently told me she only has one more year to trap Seiyu because he's going to Aki Junior High and he likes Honoka, who is going to the same school, while Airi is going to Tano Jr High. Drama, drama, drama.) and proceeded to as me why Ryota sensei (25) and Takamatsu sensei (26) were "too young" (although they had no problem asking me if I liked one of them [11]).

We finished our tea and Yugo, who originally ran out and flagged me down while I tuned out to "Without Love" from Hairspray, disappeared for reasons that are still unclear. But the others of us decided to go check out the local home of historical significance, Oka Goten, and check out the dolls resurrected from storage for the annual Doll Festival, a girls' festival. N.B.: boys' festival is in May and includes giant flags of brightly-colored fish.  

We went to the house and had tea and sweets. The boys were mostly awful boys, except for the one sitting across from me who in almost every way epitomized an exemplary member of Japanese society, minus the bike helmet which he refused to remove for reasons that are still unclear. 

At one point, one of my coworkers came in and asked what they were up to. "Tea with Mary," was the response, upon which they were asked if they weren't a bit too young for that sort of thing. i'm not sure they got it. Whatever. I either get only old men or only eleven year olds (Gakuto, who has a text-book crush, remained aloof and outside for the duration of tea). Either way it was fun to be appreciated.

It almost made up for the lack of men.

Take That! Little Germ Factories!

Ha ha! I've vanquished the cold!

Working with kids means you get sick more often than working-with-adults people do. It is a well-known fact that children, while sometimes misleadingly adorable and precious, are simple little petri dishes of communicable diseases. And the little grubbers are persistently taught to share things with others.

Sneeze, hurk, cough, snort.

Kill me now.

It only took two weeks, three packets of nodo-ame (throat drops; i.e. candy!), and four boxes of expensive tissues to get the mucus to turn from yellow to transparent. It's still flowing like a faucet, but we may attribute this to perpetual allergies, not actual plague.

Others of my acquaintance have been less favored by fortune.

My neighbor, the next-door Kiwi, was stricken with Norovirus and was consequently banned from the school and office premises, days after its disappearance. Apparently very young children can sometimes die from the dreadful pooping and puking scourge. In retrospect, he concedes it might just as easily have been food poisoning brought on by his wife's incorrectly cooked tofu. Either way, it's five days of vacation shot to piss.

Not me! I'm turning Japanese and I insist on attending work while I struggle with infectious diseases. As testimony to how awful I felt on Monday, I wore a semi-permeable cloth mask over my mouth and nose while attending Junior High classes. While masks make Westerners think of terrorists (in Tokyo, I'm sure this train of thought carries some weight), here in Japan, wearing a mask symbolizes your selfless act of putting the group above yourself.

In the west, when you're sick, you call the office and say, I'm working from home. No need to check up on me, I'll be at the golfing range - I mean, in bed all day. Cough, cough.

In Japan, staying home literally means your work will not be done. If it's possible to work from home, I've never heard of anybody doing it. And the simple fact is, nobody can do your job.

Let me repeat that: NOBODY can do your job for you.

You see, business in Japan is so compartmentalized that office workers' responsibilities rarely overlap. This not only means that when the volunteer who oversees Sports Club step out for a ciggy, the secretary has to take a message because no one else can answer questions about the next day's practice schedule. If the volunteer is absent all day, vital questions like the "basketball or table tennis conundrum" might never be addressed. Imagine being absent all week. Your desk is now full of post-it notes with politely urgent reminders to call back every Obaachan in the neighborhood who didn't read the monthly newsletter. (I helped put 2,000 of those @&%^!! things together. Read them, minna-san!)

My boss was in the hospital for almost three months recovering from shoulder surgery. When he came back to work, he spent most of his time sitting at his desk working out the budget, like he does every year at this time. Except this year he was twelve weeks behind. Because nobody could even get information together in his absence.

It's a little ridiculous.

In some cases, it's obvious.

I'm the only person in the Junior High who speaks English, so even though they don't use me very often, I simply can't be absent. What would they do without the CD player?

So I wore a mask.

And happily (albeit groggily) shared my native-speaker knowledge and my foreign-acquired sickness with my students.

Happy to return the favor!

I Can't Hear You, the Post-Nasal Drip Is Too Loud

So now I've been ill for going on two full weeks. Some people will tell you that should read three full weeks, but they are silly. I almost got completely better two weekends ago when I went to Hokkaido. After that, it was all downhill again.

I'll tell you what happens when you're ill and working. You are either super-productive or not at all.

I've actually accomplished a fair amount over the past two weeks. I've done research on TEFL certificates and stalked Craigslist car+trucks as I look for potential 1986 BMWs with over 200K miles on them. (I can drive stick. As long as it still drives.)

Nine of seventeen kids finished their pen-pal letters. We have one more full week (send-off date is March 1st!) and I have been cajoling and harassing every step of the way - except for the over-achievers who already finished and remind me at every opportunity.

I began organizing files on my computer, setting the stage for a smooth transition to the new ALT, beginning in August of this year.

I found a Taiko internship to which I am determined to apply.

I'm 23% of the way through Embracing Defeat by John Dower (John Downer? That can't be right...) and getting ready to discuss it on Sunday with my Japanese teacher who is also reading it.

I've watched almost half of one season of The Big Bang theory and almost laughed a few times.

I've lost my hearing in both ears, only about half-way, but enough to make it difficult to distinguish Tosa-ben through the bubbling mucus-filled cavities behind the ear drum (in front of the ear drum? I really don't know).

Maybe tomorrow, I will go to the clinic and see what they can give me in the way of medicine. This is beginning to drag.

And so are the posts!

Sick

Not like perverted in the mind, sick. I've had a cold for almost two weeks.

Actually, it's not a real cold. I don't have any more of a runny nose than usual (which is considerable, since I am surrounded on all sides by things that bloom all year round) and everything just seems to sit beneath my sternum in the top of my lungs. I've been coughing for a long time and though some of it is real, I think some of it is psychosomatic. Like a limp from a shoulder wound in the war.

Sapporo was fan-damn-tastic. Snow, ramen, and Italian lessons abounded. More on that later.

So this is just checking in to tell you I'm still alive. Barely. Every time I get up to be active, I wish I were back in bed. I don't stand up as I write the blog, of course. But it takes a great deal of mental focus.

Which I don't have right now.

You Just Have to Talk

There's a crazy dude out there who claims to have become fluent in an inordinate number of languages simply by talking. No classes, some self-study, and a jovial attitude seems to be what he brings to the table.

The crazy part is: he's right.

I don't know enough about any of the languages he claims to speak to tell you if he's doing it right. But I know plenty about language learning and basically, on every account, the dude has it nailed.

The only difference between a fluent speaker of a foreign language and someone who does not speak a foreign language is the speaking part. If you spend every day making a conscious effort to speak only your target language, you will acquire it. End of story. Now, it may take some people a long time to do this and it may take others a short time to feel comfortable or even minimally functional in their target language, but the fact is, if you expend the effort on speaking, you will learn to speak a different language.

This is something the Japanese may never fully understand.

I don't have to go back over all the excuses I have been given for why Japanese people can't speak English (or other foreign languages). The reasons are many and varied, imaginative and mundane, logical and completely absurd. As are the Japanese, if you get them one-on-one (every Japanese person does not like rice, contrary to popular belief perpetuated by those Japanese people who do like rice).

While the teachers constantly tell you (and their students) that their students cannot speak a foreign language without suffering a stroke, you can see the obvious falsification of this theory right in front of your own eyes.

Yesterday, my third-year students at the Jr High played fruit basket - a seat substitution game in which one person in the middle of a circle of chairs says something and the people who have a matching element to that statement must switch chairs, including the speaker - a game they love because they get to run around and push each other over. Shy students who will not look at me in class were speaking loudly and clearly with decent accents. Tougher kids, already interested in English to varying degrees, were successful as well. They obviously can speak, when you provide a fun environment.

But why would they even try when the only person who speaks English is me? The teachers won't speak in front of the students for fear of making mistakes. They stare at me in bewilderment when I ask questions or seek clarification. They quarantine English speaking time by calling it my "corner" as though this is the only appropriate time for speaking English: for fifteen minutes twice a week. They continually praise my acquisition of Japanese and tell the students they could do the same if they only study harder in class.

And then they shake their heads and lament Japanese students' sad and perpetual failure at acquiring communication skills, a failure that is no doubt intrinsically linked to being Japanese.

It is an unfortunate and expensive waste to hire a foreign language speaker to stand at the back of your classroom and listen to a lecture in Japanese about how hard you must study to learn English.

The only reason they don't speak English is because they won't.

Let's Get Up to Business...class.

It's a terrible title. So sue me.

Things I Learned From Flying Business Class

When my sister changed my flight for me, so I could spend a few extra days with the family I know and love, I was a little worried that the ticket wouldn’t stick. Don’t ask me why, but I have a kind of paranoia about traveling in general. It manifests itself in frightfully illogical ways: thinking that I am on the wrong train, even though I can clearly read the destination and the stops in Japanese and English; thinking I’m driving the wrong way down a one-way street, probably because there are no other cars going my way and the on-coming traffic seems to be glaring at me; thinking that my seat will be given away because they’ve overbooked the flight (they always tell me they won’t do that, but how can you trust them? These are companies that intentionally sell too many seats and then ask paying passengers to inconvenience themselves and step onto another flight at the last minute!).

So when I got to the gate and they called my name over the loud-speaker, I instantly had heart palpitations that would make a cardiologist salivate. I approached the desk and saw on the screen that *gulp* my previously assigned seat was now available to anyone who wanted to upgrade. And I had been so stoked that I could ride in Economy Plus for the first time on an international flight! Dammit.

They issued me a new ticket, and being a brainy chick, I took a look at the number and noticed it was lower than before. About twenty rows lower. I got upgraded to business class. Fo’ free. Woo-hoo!

First, there is the abundance of free cocktails and liquors. I started my journey off with a glass of champagne, already a little homesick for the mimosas my sister made all throughout vacation.

Another thing about flying business class is that you board first which means you don’t have to fight your way down the aisle with all the poor peons savagely hacking their ways through the jungles of jutting-out-into-the-aisles roller-suitcases, set aside by grandmas in their Monterey Bay t-shirts and performance sneakers, as they search for an extra blanket or pillow to keep their toddler grandkids warm for the thirty-five minutes (out of a twelve hour flight) that they’ll spend sitting down in their own seats.

On the other hand, you do get kind of soft and bored while you sip your complimentary champagne and wonder if you look as out of place as you feel, which is very. I didn’t know how to work the tray table, the television (which was on an Arabic setting – have you ever tried to change it back to English from backwards-squiggle-dash? I just hit every button on the screen, on the controller, and after the second glass, on the floor), and for a while, forgot that I knew how to read a menu.

Another thing is the wine. You have a selection, not just of red or white, but of grape and region, and still or sparkling.

Yes, you have a menu. Food is no longer the potential horror story that follows the plight of “the thing that lurked beneath the tin-foil.” It still doesn’t taste particularly like anything, because at 35,000 feet you can’t really taste anything, anyway, but it is recognizable as material that once was food you might see on your plate at home. Which is a huge step forward. 

Did I mention the sake?

Then comes the dessert course on a little tray. No one could tell me what exactly the cheese plate was, but since I was headed to the land of less cheese than is healthy, I went ahead and took a chance. Muenster, something else, and something else.

And brandy. (Or maybe it was whiskey. It was golden, though, that’s for sure.)

After all that eating and enjoying, you settle down in a reclining chair that is not limited to four and a half inches and a gradient of 160 degrees. The footrest moves, the headrest moves, the backrest moves, hell! it all moves into an almost perfectly level bed. It’s like bunking down with fifteen other people you’ve never met before and hopefully never will meet again, since you’ve made more trips to the (conveniently located) loo than the rest of the cabin combined.

Even if you’re in business class as a result of a happy accident and a few other people taking a later flight, it’s nice to know that you can still enjoy the amenities. A few more flights and I’ll be a pro.

And a Happy New Year to You!

My kids all know how to say "Merry Christmas" and "Happy New Year", which is no small accomplishment, since they sure didn't hear the latter from me. We did Christmas when we made stars and pinned them on the wall in the open-space area. But I didn't think the teachers would go for the sharing of a traditional New Year's drinking bash with my ten-year-olds. Too bad. Everybody's foreign language skills improve after drinking a couple flutes of champagne.

For my New Year's Day celebrations back in good-ol-U.S.-of-Assault-Weapons, I dragged my family to Half Moon Bay, where we watched the whales migrate down the coast (and up the coast for a bit - there must have been a school of fish just beneath the surface) and almost froze our asses off cooking breakfast.

My brother, trying to protect the fire from being quenched

by the wind (can the wind quench?)

See those tiny black things on the left-center side? Those

are whales or porpoises or something! Not sharks.

It was all worth the potential pneumonia, as was the trip to Disneyland, although I could have sworn the dark lord was gathering his Ringwraiths unto himself behind Sleeping Beauty's castle. We weren't fazed; it would take more than the armies of Sauron and Saruman put together to discourage the Farray family from supporting Disneyland and Downtown Disney and California Adventure. We have our priorities straight.

One ring to rule them all and, in the 56degree 

Fahrenheit weather, bind them.

When I was home, I sent my students holiday cards from California so they could see that there really is a world outside of Japan, even one with a semi-reliable postal service.. Some of the kids have already received them and thought it was awesome. Some of them haven't received them and were very confused (to which a few of their friends asked them, "are you sure you wrote down the right address?" You'd be surprised how often the answer was "eto, ne.... I dunno!") and a few of them didn't know if they'd got them or not. (Seriously, Moto. How could you not know if you got mail? Go ask your dad.)

So it's a Happy New Year for most of us, including my sixth-graders, some of whom grew half a foot in height (not on their foot) over the holiday. I am no longer the tallest person in the classroom excepting the teacher. It is so sad to have been supplanted by a juvenile, but oh well. We are back to the daily grind. Classes, masses (not the Catholic ones), and Akiriho and Kouki who think they're bad-asses, await the next few months. Graduation is coming up, which will mean a frigidly cold ceremony attended by funeral-attired teachers and weepy kimono-clad moms. After which another series of parties will be expected, as we say good-bye to staff and students and start all over again. At the last year-end party, I gave a speech before the formal "Kanpai!" and explained that my Japanese isn't very good until I start drinking. In the interest of internationalization and communication, I've already got my bottle of champagne.