"Dinner together or be drunk?"
This is a message I received from the junior high school vice principal's daughter. They're my kind of family.
I forgot how much alcohol is an inegral part of Japanese socializing. It is totally normal and acceptable to go down ten or so glasses of beer while at dinner with your boss, his boss, and the boss of everybody, his wife. Granted, the glasses are pretty small. I went to the Parent Teacher Association graduation party, and everybody had a rosy time. But if I were counting honestly, I would have to say each person probably only had two or three 12 ounce bottles of beer over a two hour period.
This is not much to a bulky Anglo-Saxon.
It is a lot to a petite Japanese person.
The PTA enkai was pretty funny, mostly because my students' parents look an awful lot like their kids. It was a little like looking into a distorted futuristic mirror that showed me exactly what twelve-year-old Seiyuu would be like in twenty years, and after three rounds of henpai (that grand drinking game, where you pour for your neighbor, and they reciprocate, and you reimburse, until the bottle is empty and you have to Thor-style it to the waitress: "Another!").
I made the mistake of being able to identify match a few parents and students without asking, and this meant for the rest of the night parents wandered up to me and said, "Quick! Who'm I? Can you guess?"
Sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm slightly apalled at the hints they give.
"I have a daughter," one dad tells me. "She's kind of big."
"You mean tall?" I try to be diplomatic.
"I mean chubby. Fat. Big." Followed by an illustrative gesture.
Nice.
These introductions are always followed up by personal questions (let's face it - every question in Japan is a personal question: how tall are you, how much do you weigh, do you have a boyfriend, are your parents dead?). "Do you have children?" one mom asks me. I have about two hundred by now, if you count students. "No, not yet," I reply. "Are you married?" "No, not yet." "Do you have a boyfriend?"
If I did, he probably would be pissed off that I went to Japan for a month without him.
"No, not yet."
Surprisingly, though, when you talk to younger parents, they are very patient with you.
"That's okay," one mother tells me. "I didn't get married until I was in my thirties. You have to wait to find a responsible, hard-working man, who is financially stable. Nobody wants to marry poor."
I'll drink to that.
As the evening passes, you get up and move around to talk to other people, to drink with your superiors, and express gratitude to the right teachers. The principal came around to chat with me, knock me over with a feather - she's a nice lady, but we're not what you might call convivial with each other - and before we'd gotten two sentences out, some old dude plopped himself down and began chatting with us in extremely thick Tosa-ben.
The Principal translated into standard Japanese and I must have been pretty blotto by then, because I do not remember anything he said to me, although I remember he seemed to have a marvelous time conversing.
I am a great conversationalist.
At the end of the evening, I sneaked over to the sixth grade teacher and said thank you for being such a good teacher. This class was really tough - there were a lot of students and they did not work well together before he came along. In fact, two years ago when I met them, I worried that they were on the breaking point - something that most of the teachers also thought at the time.
By the time we broke up the party with the single unanimous hand clap (which must have an official Japanese name, but I sure don't know it) most folks were swaying, happily-red-faced, and ready for Bedforshire, myself among them. As I walked out the door, the junior high Vice Principal stopped me and asked, "When are we going to izakaya? Maybe get drunk together?"
Like father, like daughter. I really missed this place.
2014/03/25
2014/03/19
First Thing's First
My first official action in Japan was to lose my wallet.
I had made it through customs and immigration, desparately missing my relinquished resident alien card that had allowed me to take the fast lane, taken a trip to the ladies', and found my way over to the "please overnight my heavy and gaijin-sized suitcase to the back of beyond counter". Everyone loves the takyubin, especially yours truly. I was in the middle of congratulating myself for being able to write my former address in Chinese characters on the address form, when the multi-tasking counter helper-lady told me the total for my transaction. Just a moment, I replied. Let me get my wallet.
It wasn't in my purse where I ALWAYS put it. It wasn't in the convenient side pocket where I ALWAYS put it when I don't remember to put it in my purse.
No need to panic. I don't lose things. Except my mind, my temper, and occasionally my sense of proportion.
I remember I slipped it out of my backpack while in the bathroom, as I had taken a few things out of my big suitcase and placed them in my backpack for my overnight stay in Osaka. Of course, I knew where it was, where it had to be. I had zipped it into one of the many pockets of my jacket.
Upon investigation, however, I found I had zipped a plethora of useful items into my pockets, including my phone, chapstick, an extra sleeve of airport-purchased tissues, the cookie from my last in-flight meal, a tube of Gardener's hand therapy, my passport, and the little notebook wherein I wrote the reservation number for my next flight. But no wallet.
Mayhaps it's time to panic. I do lose things. Like my cool, my calm, and a billfold containing 20000 yen, my (useless here) driver's license, and my (vital to surival) Mister Donut Customer Loyalty Point Card.
Now I am in a blind frenzy thinking I have to run madly back to the restroom so I can search the grimy stalls for where my wallet must have plummeted from my pocket/backpack/sweating palms to the floor. I am breathlessly trying to ask the counter lady if she has change for the only bill I have with me, but it comes out as "oh no, I can't believe it, no way, *snort*, *fearful choking sound.*"
She gives me my change and drags my suitcase behind the counter.
I turn tail and run to the toilet like I'm having a bad reaction to too much sake, tempura peppers, and possibly an ill-timed bong hit.
Normally, in Japan, I wouldn't worry about losing anything. It's pretty common for folks to throw their wallets or purses down on their seat in the train while they head to the loo. And this isn't Thailand - people don't steal passports and phones out of your bag. Nor is it China - where they make it personal by knocking it out of your hands. Here there are monetary rewards for strangers who find lost personal belongings of other strangers. Last fall, I found someone's iPhone on the sidewalk and turned it in to the local police station. They asked me to fill out a contact sheet so that when the owner picked it up, he could pay me $100 for returning it. Like a fool, I cheerfully declined, as though I was just in it for the karma.
And look what happened to me.
I searched the bathroom, the stalls, the sinks, and finally began to take everything out of my bag, just in case I had accidentally slipped it into my suitcase and I was now sending that off to be shipped somewhere by shadowy beings with vague impulses and uncanny senses of direction and organization.
Thank God, I found my wallet stuff deeply into one of those convenient inner pockets, where you can place things to keep them organized and separated, and whose main purpose seems to be hiding your folding reusable grocery bag until you've returned from the Whole Foods where the checkout guy made you feel like you personally burnt that hole in the ozone all by yourself.
I figured I had had the scare for the trip. We'd covered all the frightened bases, and now it would be smooth sailing.
I continued to think that until the concierge knocked on my shoe-box-sized hotel room door to return my passport, which I left at the front desk after they copied it for their records.
It's going to be a great vacation.
I had made it through customs and immigration, desparately missing my relinquished resident alien card that had allowed me to take the fast lane, taken a trip to the ladies', and found my way over to the "please overnight my heavy and gaijin-sized suitcase to the back of beyond counter". Everyone loves the takyubin, especially yours truly. I was in the middle of congratulating myself for being able to write my former address in Chinese characters on the address form, when the multi-tasking counter helper-lady told me the total for my transaction. Just a moment, I replied. Let me get my wallet.
It wasn't in my purse where I ALWAYS put it. It wasn't in the convenient side pocket where I ALWAYS put it when I don't remember to put it in my purse.
No need to panic. I don't lose things. Except my mind, my temper, and occasionally my sense of proportion.
I remember I slipped it out of my backpack while in the bathroom, as I had taken a few things out of my big suitcase and placed them in my backpack for my overnight stay in Osaka. Of course, I knew where it was, where it had to be. I had zipped it into one of the many pockets of my jacket.
Upon investigation, however, I found I had zipped a plethora of useful items into my pockets, including my phone, chapstick, an extra sleeve of airport-purchased tissues, the cookie from my last in-flight meal, a tube of Gardener's hand therapy, my passport, and the little notebook wherein I wrote the reservation number for my next flight. But no wallet.
Mayhaps it's time to panic. I do lose things. Like my cool, my calm, and a billfold containing 20000 yen, my (useless here) driver's license, and my (vital to surival) Mister Donut Customer Loyalty Point Card.
Now I am in a blind frenzy thinking I have to run madly back to the restroom so I can search the grimy stalls for where my wallet must have plummeted from my pocket/backpack/sweating palms to the floor. I am breathlessly trying to ask the counter lady if she has change for the only bill I have with me, but it comes out as "oh no, I can't believe it, no way, *snort*, *fearful choking sound.*"
She gives me my change and drags my suitcase behind the counter.
I turn tail and run to the toilet like I'm having a bad reaction to too much sake, tempura peppers, and possibly an ill-timed bong hit.
Normally, in Japan, I wouldn't worry about losing anything. It's pretty common for folks to throw their wallets or purses down on their seat in the train while they head to the loo. And this isn't Thailand - people don't steal passports and phones out of your bag. Nor is it China - where they make it personal by knocking it out of your hands. Here there are monetary rewards for strangers who find lost personal belongings of other strangers. Last fall, I found someone's iPhone on the sidewalk and turned it in to the local police station. They asked me to fill out a contact sheet so that when the owner picked it up, he could pay me $100 for returning it. Like a fool, I cheerfully declined, as though I was just in it for the karma.
And look what happened to me.
I searched the bathroom, the stalls, the sinks, and finally began to take everything out of my bag, just in case I had accidentally slipped it into my suitcase and I was now sending that off to be shipped somewhere by shadowy beings with vague impulses and uncanny senses of direction and organization.
Thank God, I found my wallet stuff deeply into one of those convenient inner pockets, where you can place things to keep them organized and separated, and whose main purpose seems to be hiding your folding reusable grocery bag until you've returned from the Whole Foods where the checkout guy made you feel like you personally burnt that hole in the ozone all by yourself.
I figured I had had the scare for the trip. We'd covered all the frightened bases, and now it would be smooth sailing.
I continued to think that until the concierge knocked on my shoe-box-sized hotel room door to return my passport, which I left at the front desk after they copied it for their records.
It's going to be a great vacation.
2014/03/01
Part Deux
The funny thing about air travel is that one-way tickets are ludicrously more expensive than round-trip tickets. Actually, it's not so much funny as annoying. I don't know if it's a conspiracy between immigration and United, or if it just ensures a body in a seat on at least two flights.
There are some perks, however.
For instance, when I left Tano last August, I bought a round-trip ticket. Because escaping rural Japan and staying in your home country can cost you $3,500, or you can come back and irritate your former coworkers with your unintelligible Japanish for almost fifteen hundred less.
"She may not even use the return ticket," my CIR argued on my behalf.
That's what hooked them. My town bought me a round-trip ticket, several sets of chopsticks, and waved good-bye to me at the Kochi airport, world-renowned for having one terminal with one breakfast shop, and seventeen life-size cardboard Ryoma Sakamoto cut-outs. Patted me on the back and said, "Sayonara sucka-san."
But like a bad one yen coin, I'm turning up again.
I worked holiday at a coffee shop, fished around for some permanent work, found that most fish, unlike St. Peter's do NOT have gold in their mouths, and decided to take a holiday. I'm heading back to Tano, (country rooooooooooad, carry me hoooooooooome), back to the land of too much yuzu and not enough cheese.
Back to the place where American coffee is instant coffee that's been watered down to a poor imitation of dirty dishwater.
Back to the town that's only on the map because of some rather crooked and usurious tendencies back in the day.
Back to always having in the back of your mind, "Is it going to be today? Or tonight? That huge wave that's going to wipe this place off the face of the earth?"
Back to fish fresh off the neighbor's boat, fruit straight out of the mayor's orchard, rice you plant and harvest with a bunch of ten-year-olds, and wild-boar caught on my boss's property with a snare and an old spear (true story).
I can't wait.
There are some perks, however.
For instance, when I left Tano last August, I bought a round-trip ticket. Because escaping rural Japan and staying in your home country can cost you $3,500, or you can come back and irritate your former coworkers with your unintelligible Japanish for almost fifteen hundred less.
"She may not even use the return ticket," my CIR argued on my behalf.
That's what hooked them. My town bought me a round-trip ticket, several sets of chopsticks, and waved good-bye to me at the Kochi airport, world-renowned for having one terminal with one breakfast shop, and seventeen life-size cardboard Ryoma Sakamoto cut-outs. Patted me on the back and said, "Sayonara sucka-san."
But like a bad one yen coin, I'm turning up again.
I worked holiday at a coffee shop, fished around for some permanent work, found that most fish, unlike St. Peter's do NOT have gold in their mouths, and decided to take a holiday. I'm heading back to Tano, (country rooooooooooad, carry me hoooooooooome), back to the land of too much yuzu and not enough cheese.
Back to the place where American coffee is instant coffee that's been watered down to a poor imitation of dirty dishwater.
Back to the town that's only on the map because of some rather crooked and usurious tendencies back in the day.
Back to always having in the back of your mind, "Is it going to be today? Or tonight? That huge wave that's going to wipe this place off the face of the earth?"
Back to fish fresh off the neighbor's boat, fruit straight out of the mayor's orchard, rice you plant and harvest with a bunch of ten-year-olds, and wild-boar caught on my boss's property with a snare and an old spear (true story).
I can't wait.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)