Repatriation

It's been almost two weeks since I got back to the U.S., and although I have more Japan stories to tell, I really wanted to tell about Miyagi next, because I went directly (directly) from meditation retreat (on the eleventh day, you still get up at 4, but after the morning stuff and some cleaning, you may go along) to the northeast region to reach the Habitat for Humanity base by 6 pm. The distance between Kyoto and Sendai is pretty big, and had me driving (30 min or so) to a train station, where it was another 45 minute local train ride into Kyoto city, and from there a 2.5 hour shinkansen ride to Tokyo where I switched Shink lines (and bought a handy-dandy tourist pass called "East Pass") and then took another two or so hours to Sendai.

But because of a stupid move on my part, I don't have the photos yet for Miyagi in my camera. I do have the photos I managed to take with my phone (and upload before surrendering that phone's use) on the first day, which are pretty intense on their own, so I'm going to probably do what I can with those while I (or, my friends) work on getting my camera back to me here in the U.S.

So that should be the next entry, maybe.

Suffice to say that I was traveling a lot, and made it back to Shiso just in time to pack up, hit sports day (and its attached drinking party), and have a pretty good last weekend in town, capping off six weeks of living at friends' houses and traveling all the time.

I suppose if I want an explanation for my almost total lack of drive to do much other than unpack, study, read, sleep, sort things, watch TV, and attend Welcome Home soirees thrown in classic style by my parents, I need look no further than the calendar. Hitting the road for six weeks will take it out of you. Seriously. I just wanna hang out. I don't even really want to be entertained, and so if compared to my usual "two weeks to see everyone in Georgia" summer trips, my repatriation looks really dull and hermitlike.

But I assure you, so far, it's pretty awesome. I have a lot to do, and even though I feel like I now have nothing but time, I also still don't see enough hours in the day to do all the things.

I don't have any answers yet, my old room is a complex assortment of stuff I brought or shipped back, stuff I left for myself, and stuff that just sort of got left behind. I've got gifts that people gave me, and gifts I got for others, along with a bunch of other stuff that ended up in here after they moved it from the other rooms that underwent new occupations or major flooring changes in the last year. It's a process, and I'm taking my sweet time.

The Repatriation Roadtrip is about to be underway, in parts. I'm going to the Northwest first, via Denver, catching a ride with the (in)famous Kyle up in a zig-zag pattern through Utah and Yellowstone to Pullman, WA, where I will borrow his car and proceed west and north to meet more folks. I'm looking forward to my travels but it's hard to believe they're already upon me.

Kyle, circa 1999.

Aaaand circa 2009.

I'll be back October 22nd for a break, then hopefully it's off to do the Eastern Loop, Roadtrip Phase II which I am putting together.. But not very quickly. Cause you know, other stuff too. Like walking dogs and clothes shopping for the first time in over a year (yes really; I received so much last summer from departing JET Caito that I saw no reason to spend the money or dedicate the packing/shipping space to clothing I clearly didn't need), and excavating the closet, and stuff.

Oh, and my parents found me a car. (If I had a camera, I'd show you) ... I think I'm going to keep it. I think it might be named the Brave Little Toaster, if I do.

I had to convince my mother that this is a thing.

Apparently this is also a thing.

Culture shock hasn't been too hard, because it's been well expected. I kind of like freaking out at the grocery store and the feeling of wearing tank tops in public (scandalous!). Other aspects of things are weird, but they aren't quite getting the best of me. The best of me is like.. sleeping, or playing SimCity, or meditating, or vacuuming the floor.

Furusato

The furusato, 古里、the Japanese hometown. I wrote a post a few years ago about Obon, and it struck me recently to consider again how Obon feels to us, to me.

As mentioned before, Obon is the festival of visiting ancestors, the time when they come back to visit from their homes on the other side. It's a Thanksgiving-Halloween combo package, right in the dead heat of August. You go see your relatives, you go clean gravestones, you do the bon-odori and you eat stall food while watching fireworks. There's the homebody component (family focus), and the festival atmosphere. There's the traffic and the heat and the way every single place of leisure will be crowded because Obon is one of the few times of year that everyone is off work, and everyone is off work only a few times a year.

As a new JET, the sense of Obon as a reconnecting, a joining to family and return to one's 'old home' was almost like a cruel joke. Only a week after landing and you get to watch a bunch of people you don't know enjoy returning to their roots, their furusato.

But this is my fourth Obon season (kind of.. last year I missed it by being in the US a bit longer than before, so I was, I suppose, in my own furusato then), and I finally feel like coming to Shiso is a kind of coming home. I spent the last week running around, visiting Japan sites, mixed in with good old fashioned hanging-out with friends in both Kyoto and Tokyo. I've been expending my energy in the city and then finally, like a sigh of mountain and river air, getting off the bus in my own countryside home.

It wasn't so much a desire to be back in Shiso for the 13th, as a natural assumption that this is where I will spend that time, even if its just to be there and do nothing interesting. I've been in the cities doing so much interesting for so many days.. one almost needs a break. Where else would I be when everyone is traveling and everyone is going home? Where else would I want to be?

I walk through the festival with friends old and new, hoping to catch a glimpse of some of 'my kids,' who are graduated or grown or not mine anymore anyway.

I am rewarded.

Earlier in the day, I met up with Rio, my speech girl and last year's winner.

Minato, speech boy from two years ago, to my right in dark blue; glad to see he hasn't changed a bit.

Some current third years, the sweet gangsters? 

Assortment of ages and locations. But all kids I like, from the first-year smartass to the class leader to the sharp-as-hell goof off to the judo star.

She was a first year when I arrived and is still cute enough to tempt me to steal her.

Recent graduate, looking classy.

Second year girls.

Graduates of two years ago; far left is Kumi, who went to America for a short exchange (and who I hope can come back sometime!)

Old friends and new:

Yukata with Lorr

Anna and Miho!

Allison and ELove!

Liz!

Miriam, Marcus, Miho!

moving sucks

I don't suppose I have to tell anyone in the world that packing and cleaning a place in preparation to move out is not a fun task. When I was a kid (since I NEVER moved) I saw moving as a sort of cleansing, a time when you were forced to clean and sort carefully (because if not forced to do these things I could always find a better use for my time) all your possessions. When I heard people say "That got lost in the move," I could never understand it. In my mind, you FOUND stuff when you were moving, stuff hidden in places you would not have seen had you not emptied your house.

I think some of these notions still hold on because I was hoping to find treasures as I took apart my place. Mostly I just found dust, lots and lots of hidden dust.

I also found that my previous conviction that I would make it out of Japan with no more than my two allowed suitcases was pure folly. I've been here for three years; I've amassed a good ton of junk. I knew this, but I assumed that this would all be 'junk' that I would just leave behind, whether as give-away stuff or as trash.

Right.

So I bought three boxes for shippin' stuff back, and given three boxes, I've now filled three boxes. Since my sorting/cleaning choices expanded from pack, give, or throw away to pack, give, throw, or ship, several odds and ends have been literally chucked into the box area of the living room (I lined them up side by side in a corner and then would just fling things into that direction if I wanted to ship it).

I'm still throwing out and giving away a good deal of stuff, of course; I got rid of 31 kilos of used clothing, not all of it mine, a bit over a week ago. To the stayers go the spoils, and I've been dividing up my stuff amongst the staying ALTs and my successor, mostly 'useful' things and 'pretty' things. I can't believe I have to be out of there by the end of the week, although the walls are finally bare (and that does help it look more like progress).

I traded the tall couch for a short one, better suited for sitting at the kotatsu come winter, and I traded back my kotatsu for the one Sam and Carl had (I gave them the giant one that hardly fit in the room and took their tiny one that couldn't fit Carl's legs under it). I'm leaving the vanity, the green chair, the denki carpet, the kitchen unit, the bike, the heater.

But moving stuff around in this heat is anything but a fun pastime. I have interrupted the process frequently for social and other excursions, like visa-getting trips to Himeji, parties with leavers and stayers (as a leaver myself)... the weekend of the 21st was a sort of "party all the time" wherein we spent basically the whole weekend kicking it with Shiso all over town. I'll do posts about all that (as well as.. I suppose... my bye-bye work events). But there's no putting it off forever, and the process has been slow and painful and hot and painful and slow.

So it goes!

I did find some things I had squirreled away, forgotten, or thought lost.

This is something I mentioned in my farewell speech, unaware that I did still have it in my house. It's a talisman-like gift from a school excursion from back when the current 3rd-years were in the 6th grade. It says something like "Emily-sensei, please make fun memories with us." In writing my speech (writing, not even saying, just pre-work), the thought of including a reference to this object followed by the question, well, did we? would cause me to leak tears on my desk.

This is just a man-en with a different version of birds on the back of it than usual. I'm gonna have to spend this, though, cause that is a hundy right there.

This is a twenty, and though they are rare, I've somehow been in possession of several of them over the course of my time. I am gonna spend this too, cause I think I have one back home. 

Back of the 20.

This isn't something I lost, it's just something I thought was kind of funny and wanted to share.. try to ignore the total chaos and... Above my kitchen table I had placed a picture of Siena, Italy, because there was a larger version of a very similar picture above the table where I often at at the Centro in Rome. I created my own version of that place here, right after I moved in. 

Anyway, all these various treasures don't really make up for the fact that moving sucks, it really really sucks, even more so when it's hot and your house doesn't have 'real' AC, and topping that off, you don't really WANT to leave, you just kind of have to.

Wrecks and Unwrecks

So lately I've just been doing a lot of chilling and grilling.
Okay not that at all. I have no idea.
Things are just in a holding pattern. It's why I haven't written anything new in a long time. The days are much like the week before.
Except, maybe not at all.

After I got my black belt, I was in a tournament. Being in the tournament felt a lot more like a coming-of-age than the actual test. For the test I was kind of a nervous ball of wreckness, but the tournament was pretty awesome. I got to wear the special uniform over my gi, and where last year I was in like an event and a half in our city taikai, this year I was in four things!

Two were just like the things I had done last year, by-yourself kind of kata, and group kata. The special things were that during the opening, just after the warm up and before any of the actual taikai competition style events, I got to present the 'mohan embu.' I don't quite know what that means, except someone explained it's like an example form, a presentation to be a sort of example for the kids and perhaps the others present. Basically an exhibition by black belts to kick things off. For this embu, we just re-did the kumi embu (paired form... so like we have these moves memorized and go through a sort of choreographed pattern of attack and defense) that I had to do for the test. It was fun as hell. Like, doing that for show and not for testing purposes, moving through it more fluidly, it changed the way I do paired embu.

The other thing I got to do this time was fighting, which was also awesome, if a little scary in the moment. Beforehand, I hardly gave a thought to the fighting; it was not something you could prepare for, it was going to be a reaction thing, catch as catch can. It was going to be the high school boy that rides the same bus. He was strong. Too strong for me. I won, I think, the match, but in a real fight, I would have lost pretty hard. He was nervous, and it made him less in control. I broke a toe and got some astonishing bruises on my forearms.

 Since then, the kempo trajectory has changed to focus on the Hyogo prefectural tournament, coming up on the 24th. It's going to be another paired embu set, but after furiously memorizing everything I could for the test, the techniques I have to learn aren't so far from me, and after doing that mohan embu I'm way less freaked out by the idea of doing embu as a presentation. So I've really tried to focus on working with my partner to help her feel the same way. To feel the timing, the give and take of distance, the naturalness of the motions. I used to sometimes skip kempo if I was tired or didn't feel like going, but lately I've been going whenever possible, in preparation for these trifecta of stuff (testing, then citywide taikai, now prefectural taikai).
So there is that.

In the meantime, work continues apace, trying to plan out an arc of what I want to do and where I want to land, elementary-school wise by the end of the semester (and the end of my work here). Keeping up with the middle school shuffling and observation days and games and demonstrations.

Spend the kempo evenings enjoying kempo and the non-kempo evenings doing random things like firefly hunting, or consuming TV shows/books/other media.

I've also discovered a website called unfuck your habitat, which is pretty nice, and I've spent some time over the last week or so gently trying to clean things up. There is a lot to do, but I've managed to accomplish things that got shunted to the "do later" pile for like.. years. As well as stuff that tends to just get overlooked because it's not immediately noticeable and isn't on my mental roster of How to Clean House.  So all this is good.

I've been watching a lot of Avatar, the Last Airbender, because it's the best thing Nickelodeon ever did, and I've only recently realized this. It goes together with unfucking the apartment because I work for twenty minutes on something, then get to watch about half an episode. Twenty more minutes of work, and I get to finish the episode! The episodes are like crack which I am watching basically whenever I am not doing something else.

 I redid the potted garden because the pansies died in the heat and looked so sad I couldn't hold to this concept of not doing/changing/buying more stuff when you are not far from moving out.

I hear there's a hurricane (or two) a-coming, so this might have been a stupid idea. But yesterday was just so sunny and warm I had to. For the first time in a long time, I had a whole weekend of downtime, and it was pretty much the best thing EVER. The last several Sundays have been taken up almost entirely by kempo and while those are good times, so is drinking not-mosas, playing vidjagames, zoukin'ing, gardening, scrubbing laundry with a brush, and watching Avatar.

I love the feeling and smell of early summer, and while it's still not quite right to still be in school, I've even gotten used to that. I can't tell if it's really rainy season yet and we are having some sunny days in the rainy season, or if we have just had some really rainy ones in a still not-yet rainy season.

bringing

So after being so eager to start up the tag "for my successor," I have added virtually nothing to the blog in that category since April.

I have thought about it, I really have. But I seem to get bogged down in the particulars which, when I examine them, seem to have potentially no relevance at all to an incoming person. I thought about including much more detailed information about the schools, the classes, the teachers, then reconsidered because that kind of thing is neither relevant nor particularly prudent to put on the interweb. I thought about making a list of stuff I wish I'd brought or wish I'd known... but even that seems out of date when I look at this blog explaining how you can get the stuff you miss.

I also keep thinking of the questions I want to ask this mystery person for all manner of different reasons. What is your shoe size? How's your Japanese? Are you the sort of person who prefers to inherit a minimum of stuff (clean slate), or that wants a bunch of used stuff to adopt and make your own (taker)? Do you like gardening?

But sidestepping all this for a little while, what I'd like to first do is just make a list of the stuff I import and the reasons for it. When I say "import" I mean ask family and friends for, and/or fill my suitcase with when I make a visit to the US.

• Instant hot cereals. Mostly oatmeal, but also grits. Mostly I import this because it's cheaper and there's a better selection in the US than there is at the internet-international stores I've used so far. That plus the ubiquity of hot water dispensers makes instant oatmeal a wonderful thing on chilly mornings.
• Regular cereal. Again because I'm cheap and lazy... the local grocery only has four kinds of cereal: flakes, frosted flakes, choco flakes, and granola.
• Facewash. Because I know what I like and don't feel like working my way through bottles and bottles of stuff from the drugstore. Same goes for face lotion.. I have a particular type that I like, so I just stick with that.
• Makeup. Because I could maybe find 'dark brown' mascara, but I would rather just use what I know.
• Toothpaste. I hear this is totally unnecessary, but Japanese dental work scares me, and I like to use stuff I know what's in it. I also import toothbrushes, which actually is totally unnecessary, but I just do it because it's easy.
• Another totally unnecessary thing is Bath and Body Works body cream. There is plenty of lotion in Japan, but if you get this thick cream of a smell you really like at 1/3 price during the semi-annual sale, there's no reason not to bring it. You might need a lot of lotion in the cold, dry winter.
• Hand sanitizer in small bottles. It's just useful for all those bathrooms without soap.
• Sunscreen. Again, cheap/lazy.. you can get it here, but the selection and prices are better there.
• Deodorant. I hear you can get good deodorant in Japan these days, but I bought a huge multipack of my favorite kind a long time ago and have just been using it ever since.
• Over the counter painkillers. Your basic Tylenol/ibuprofen stuff, because if I hurt I can't be bothered to navigate the linguistic and cultural differences of my local drugstore. Plus I think it's cheaper back home.

That's the stuff I would regularly refill each year. In the beginning, though,  there is plenty of stuff I wished I hadn't brought, basically any products outside of those listed. You only get two suitcases, and you really can get most stuff in Japan that you want to find.

I wish I HAD brought better souvenir presents, more edibles basically. People even told me to bring edible stuff that was small, individually packaged, and preferably specific to that area. I was terrible at this. I think I brought mini bottles of lotion (because I just prefer 'real stuff' to 'snacks' personally as gifts? I dunno) and jelly beans or something, and then not really enough. I wish I had gotten ahold of little packs of peanut brittle or little jars of apple butter or some other such thing as my parents brought when they came to visit.

The problem at the time was partly that I was broke as hell. Getting a job with JET is great, and you will make some decent money doing it, but before you start getting paid, you might not have any money. Not having any money does not match up well with filling a house with new stuff, bringing presents for all the people it is probably appropriate to give them to (here, too, opportunities abound). Plus, unlike in Japan, those gifts can be hard to find or figure out, and that may be time you don't have in the process of packing, saying goodbyes, and otherwise preparing yourself for your whole new life.

Luckily, the local stores are at your service too. It would be best to bring stuff from your own local area, but failing that, anything from the home country is good (mini candy bars might have been a nice touch), and failing that (say, you get in and find yourself with enough to give out at your base school but nothing for your elementary staff-mates!), getting a gift box at a nearby shop is totally okay. I wouldn't necessarily do it, because no one will really mind if you don't pass out presents, but they'll be super impressed if you do.

I am GLAD I brought along an international driving permit. It was more than worth the hasslesome trip to the AAA office in the middle of the summer and the fifteen or so bucks to get, because a car is freedom etc. etc, and I live in a town with no trains.

I'm also glad of all the fake business clothes I brought; you need that kind of thing for official events and to give a good impression early on in your tenure. I wish I had brought more "work appropriate" sportswear for sports day practice.

In the very early days, before you have a life, you might want to have stuff to do to keep you happy or occupied. Books, games, video games, whatever. You can also spend this time exploring. The first week or so can be weird and rough because a lot of the staying JETs around the area are off on their once-yearly summer trip home, so there's all these ropes and no one to show them to you. You also might have to endure a state of internetlessness at the apartment for about a month (although there is some possibility that if you ask nicely, you can use the wireless from next door during that time)... so be prepared for this, as skyping at work is weird and skyping at home perhaps impossible, it might have to be email for a while.

As for furniture.. there can be some, though there need be very little, it all depends on your tastes. There is a recycle shop or four in town, and you can pick our your own stuff there, or buy new stuff, or buy my stuff (discounted extra for saving me the hassle of moving it/getting rid of it).. so are you the kind of person who wants a clean slate, or a mostly-there house?

And. How is your Japanese? Because one of my elementary contacts is really worried he won't be able to talk to you in English.

Bless Your Little Heart

I've been following a discussion over at Locohama about gaijin clashing over microagression and racism. I read the article and watched the discussion, and it sounded to me like all of them were right. Which is confusing since they are making opposing statements.

I'm foreign in Japan. A few of my readers (hi Mom hi Dad!) have made the trip to also check out being foreign in Japan. And although I haven't considered this permanent, have not dreamed of spending the rest of my life on the island, I will admit there are moments it has come up in my mind, especially of late as I prepare to leave. Japan is so beautiful, and so friendly. Sometimes I look at the mountains and rivers and I don't know how to let them go. Same with the students. I think it takes a long time to get into a place, and even longer where Japan is concerned. They don't move fast in the 'accepting outsiders' department, but I really do feel like most of my co-workers, kempo folk, and students have some notion of who I am after working with me for as long as they have.

It may even be an illusion, but I feel like most of the kids in the JHS even see me as a person now, not just a diversion (although that too), and not just a foreign face. We're at a point now where all the JHSers were in elementary school when I arrived, so they've seen me push, pull, demand, relent, and instruct. They've seen me at my best, and in some cases at much worse, on sick days, running short on patience, and with a surfeit of good humor. Even though I try to keep it all professional, of course personality and personal place-in-the-moment leaks through. Some days I don't feel like going out to play at recess. Sometimes I bitch at the kids for not doing a good job at souji. Some days I just make faces at them in the classroom when I see them cutting up. Because I know them and their games, and even when I don't strictly approve, I am glad to see them play.

But like I said, these are the people I see every week, or every day. These are the teachers I've been bathing with, drunk with, and a couple of times bathing drunk with. These are the people I've learned to respect and even admire, to like and in some cases even trust. And that's kind of a two-way street, and that takes a long time. I'm actually pretty shy, terrified of mistake-making, and introverted, so I sort of get the whole Japanese slowness to warm up to outsiders.

When I meet strangers, it turns into the same old thing. As observed by many, Japan is a friendly place. Especially in the countryside, people are extra nice and helpful. This extends to a desire to feed you (which often turns into the quiz game Will You Eat It?), or show you some aspect of Japanese culture that you have probably never seen before. Because a tourist would not have. There is this friendliness that also pushes the assumption of your ignorance. Have you ever tasted this?

I've discussed this with many people before, about the manner and mien of some JETs we meet in the world. Some of them happen to have a greater than average amount of knowledge in Japanese language, culture, or other general stuff. As you know, I'm all about learning. There are people who I could just listen to all day long because they know so much interesting stuff. I like people who know more or different stuff than me -- they are the people I have something to learn from, and I want to do that because I'm a junkie, hooked young.

But it's all about the presentation. There is a different between the kind of person I could listen to all day, and the kind of person I want to punch in the face after ten minutes of talking with them. That difference is embedded entirely in my reaction to how they present the stuff they know (or believe) that I don't know. Whether or not I believe there is an assumption on their part that they are instructing me on something I know nothing about. It's especially funny when someone like this lectures me on an area where I do have some stowed knowledge or expertise; I tend to just let them go on, partly because for all I know, they do know more than I do about that topic, even if was my major.

But we have a general use term for the people who posture themselves as in a position to school you, rather than share, who assume your ignorance or inexperience or confusion or difficulty: we tend to react to them as douchey. It's a fine line, and I believe that most of those who fall on the side of douchiness are not at heart total jerks, but they are merely insecure, they have something to prove, that is that they know stuff, more stuff than you, and they have to exert their superiority. They don't even think of it as you NOT knowing stuff, they think only of the stuff they KNOW.

Like I said, it's a fine line, and one that I consciously avoid myself, lest I slip into that douchey know-it-all role too. There's the added bonus that I know there is always more to learn, and that you can learn it in the most unexpected ways or places from the most unexpected sources, it's true.

Anything can sound patronizing in the right situation. I'll admit that even as I was hitting the end of that Oita bike ride, the cheerful shouts of encouragement from fellow bikers and supporters began to hit nerves. "You can do it! Keep going! You're almost there!" Probably because I was by then into an irrational state where I could not maintain much emotional balance. Of course I can do it. I mean, everyone else has already. Almost there? But not there yet. Of course I'm going to keep going, what do I look like, a quitter?!

Well-intentioned gestures can be interpreted as anything.

You hear all the time about how Japan is "so homogeneous." What that means is, Japanese is a big solid concept. A kid asked me the other day, Emily, do you like Japanese? And I answered yes, before realizing I had no idea what he had really asked me. I hear the question as Japanese language, because that's what the word means all by itself to me (and I like language, so of course I like Japanese language too.. it's fun!). Japanese people would be "the Japanese," and any other thing would have the noun following the adjective "Japanese". Japanese food, Japanese music, Japanese art, Japanese whatever. The kid probably just meant "Do you like Japan?" but was a first-year and so it came out wrong.

The point being, though, that Japanese means all those things. It's a nation, but it's also a culture, complete with all the set of traditions and foods and language; it's also a race, and for most people, they all mean the same thing. A scion of Japanese people is heir to all that entails. We are us, this is ours, our legacy, which passes to you.

In the US, for example, America is a nation. But races and cultural legacies are something else. You can be a child of German and African descent, practicing Hinduism against your parents' wishes if you want. We fracture on all kinds of lines in America, beliefs and traditions and religions. We belong to groups that fall under the umbrella of being American. Because America is just damn big, and it's populated by people from all over the place, and it would be ludicrous to expect that Americans could have anything in common with all Americans other than their national affiliation to the country they live in. This is why anyone can look American to me. And if you aren't American, there is a process by which you can become one (I will admit up front that I have no idea how this process works for whom).

I'm aware that there is a process by which you can become a Japanese national, and that it's really difficult. But there is no process by which you can become Japanese. And this is why people are surprised to see you, a foreigner, participating in their cultural stuff. You may spend a very long time learning and taking in Japanese ways and customs and abilities. You may speak better Japanese than your fellow townsfolk. But a stranger meeting you for the first time has no idea that you aren't a tourist on a two-week vacation.

And the tendency so far is to assume that you probably are. There are questions you get used to answering. That "where you're from" isn't necessarily where you live now, it's where you were before Japan and more specifically, your racial descent. That "how long you are staying" is how many weeks, not years. It's not an overt aggressive speech act. They aren't trying to drive you out of the country; they're glad you are here to see their wonderful culture. Take lots of pictures and tell your friends about it when you get home.

Why would you stay? You aren't Japanese, after all. And bless your heart, that isn't your fault, now is it? You just happened to be born not one of them, and that's just how the ball bounces.

Okay so there is a presumed superiority inherent in that sensibility.

It's not your violent, hateful brand of racism, but it's still othering. You don't have to hate on someone to make them feel small. Sometimes being nice will do it. You aren't to be blamed for your not being Japanese, so who could hate you for it?

I'm not quite comfortable calling this aggression, although I also think it would be irresponsible to pretend that the compliments on your Japanese language or chopstick wielding ability aren't galling and some days totally wearing. It's gotten to the point that I don't even want to have the conversation with foreigners about it anymore. Yeah yeah, so someone told you your Japanese was good after you only said "Good morning" and you stumbled on the syllables, and you wanna bitch about it? I don't want to hear it anymore, you wear me out as much as they do.

But we do have to acknowledge the double edge of that sword. If you're so quick to compliment, your compliments become meaningless. The only real compliments I've gotten on my Japanese language are the times someone mistook me for Japanese when they weren't looking at me (by phone, or looking down at a clipboard as I walked by and spoke). They're only trying to be friendly and make conversation with these things, but occasionally the ignorance is astonishing.

America must be a scary place, what with everyone carrying guns all the time, and all that. But, on the other hand, girls in America are really tough and all know martial arts so they are probably okay. You get questions like "What do Americans/Westerners/foreigners think of such-and-such?" And you have to field that shit. And all you can do is say, "Well I don't know, Margo. But as for me..." and give your own opinion, stressing that it's just yours, not America's official position. And hope that over time they meet enough foreigners to being to see the pattern that there is no set pattern.

I've occasionally heard summations of an American way of doing things that were startlingly on target. I don't even remember what it was about (probably sports day), just that I explained how we did a thing compared and contrasted to how we were doing it at my school. One of the teachers laughed and said, isn't that just so American. To be so concerned with the final outcome, the bottom line, efficiency. And when I thought about that later, I thought, aren't most of my frustrations with the office mostly a matter of inefficiency and time-wasting? Maybe she had a point.

Still and all. It's a bit of a fix. Japan is incredibly welcoming and friendly, but it's a place where you will never been seen as one of them (unless perhaps you look like them). People who stay permanently or long-term have to find a way to fight that, or rise above it, or bottle it up until it causes their internal organs to explode. It takes a lot of energy to buoy up that kind of thing some days, and it can really wear you down. Maybe the answer is just to have a good support network, to get to know the people you like, to participate and to be involved. Yeah you won't reach everyone, but you'll slowly make a deeper impression on the people who have to deal with your shit and who get to be impressed by your poise and bravery on a weekly basis.

I say maybe, because that would be my go-to answer, and if it didn't work I'd have to try something else.

There is no quick way to make "the Japanese" see you as anything other than "not Japanese." Because for every co-worker you vehemently school, there are a hundred people who have never met you who might see you tomorrow and stare. But one day, maybe some of those hundred will all have a friend of a friend who is Japanese-not-Japanese, a person of non-Japanese descent who nonetheless is perceived 'Japanese' in behavior and language ability and cultural understanding.

But that's all missing the point. The point is to be a person, not "Japanese" or "not-Japanese." There's nothing more frustrating than standing in the void and shouting, I'm a person! I matter and have feelings! Some would rather not shout. Some would.

There are people in Japan who know that I'm a person. There are many more who don't and never will.

foreign travel

In the last month, there have been two instances of foreign travel: one was my parents coming to me, the other was my trip to Korea.

Part of the fun of having people visit you somewhere foreign is remembering what it was like when you hit the ground, reflecting on how far you've come in terms of what it takes to conduct your life. Remembering what stuff looked like when you first saw it, even the things that have become commonplace since then. Remembering what it was like to have never ridden a Japanese train, never have browsed a combini, never have switched shoes three times in ten minutes. Normal things. For you, now.

Going to Korea had much the same effect. Effective illiteracy, total failure to pronounce even "thank you," and inability to remember "excuse me." Complete lack of knowledge on how to buy a subway ticket.

I had shared this link earlier, and so now I can claim a very limited and slow competency in puzzling out some place names written in the Korean writing system, Hangul.

But anyway, it was kind of interesting to be on one end of that hosting experience in the beginning of the month, and at the other in the end.

Mostly, though, the two trips were a little about the place, and mostly about the people. My parents are pretty game for stuff, but their interests don't necessarily lie in Japan or Japanese stuff specifically.

Same goes for Korea; I didn't really have all that much interest in Korea previous to going there. I hate admitting that, but it's just true! I don't really like spicy food, so the reasons for going drop to almost nothing right there (according to the Japanese, who are ALL FOODIES). Other reasons that lots of people go are because there is good shopping for cheap. But lately I'm in the business of getting rid of junk, not collecting MORE, even if it is cheaper there than here. Finally, I know so little (and this is pretty sad actually) about Korean history and culture, I have no compulsion to visit famous landmarks or stuff like that.

Still, have foothold, will travel, as it were. My being in Japan was one thing, but my being here for three years is even more of a thing, and I think that spending that kind of time in a place will naturally cause it to seep into you in a lot of ways. I won't be the same when I get back, that's just the nature of the beast. But in order to understand the new beast, it can be instructive to take a taste of the soil whence it grew. So the new  Emily isn't Japanese, but she did some time there, so... Also, I like sharing the stuff I think is cool or beautiful or special, and there is a lot (LOT, too much for any given visit.. too much for three years) of that here.. and I am gratified to think my parents want to have it shared at them.

I shouldn't be surprised that my parents are troopers and game for almost anything. I don't know.. I think I've spent too much time lately meeting other people's parents or hearing about their plans with them; it's sort of made me believe that parents are a certain way, they can't help it, they're just older, richer, and more experienced at shit than us kids... while traveling with people my own age is more gritty, silly, and catch-as-catch can, by the seat of one's pants as it were.

But there is a saying in Japanese, that the frog's child is a frog. Meaning, the apple doesn't fall too far. Meaning, of course, that other people's parents and my parents are different things, and while other people's parents may be particular about such-and-such, it doesn't mean mine will be. And that, in fact, a fair predictor of what kind of things the will like is actually what I already do like.

Seriously: combini beer in the park is how we DO in Japan.

It doesn't hurt of course that they wanted to have dinner, beer, and karaoke with my friends. I think they won over the Shisoshians forever (or until such time as all the current Shisoshians are replaced). People showered them with gifts (and they, intelligently enough and I don't even know if I suggested they do this, brought gifts to give out as well). What I feared would be an overly traditional ritualistic respect dinner with the kempo people turned out to be the biggest "houseparty" fun fest of all. They tried things, they drank the sake, they watched and learned and it all dazzled me because there are some things I'm kinda proud of being able to do, and watching them reminds me that I come by those things honestly.

These are the light/heavy rocks -  if they feel heavy, your goal will be difficult to accomplish.

Among the lucky, you are the chosen one. It's a fortune cookie that my dad got once. But I feel it goes for me, too. The more people I meet, the more I realize that what I believe as a young child (that everyone has the same kind of life as me) just isn't so. That some people are born into a lucky situation, with parents that teach them to be good, that are proud of their achievements but love them with or without them, and make sure they know. I'm not fearless, but when my parents call me fearless, I really do start to think I can do anything.

Like just go to a different foreign country every time there is a break in the work schedule? Well yeah, like that. Korea, though, was mostly about chilling out and visiting Erin, seeing Korea more through her eyes than as a tourist. I didn't even go to Seoul, but rather spent most of my time in GwangJu, with a little side trip to Busan that I am calling "the extra day," because I got it by changing my boat reservation to Sunday morning rather than Saturday late-morning.

Ever-present water bottle, and the hike begins.

In GwangJu I had a bunch of marvelous experiences that were part Erin and part Korea.. stuff I might have done something like if I had been alone and had done my own research, maybe. On my first day, we climbed up a hiking trail mountain to a temple she liked to visit, stopping also at a small art museum on the hillside. We ate at a vegetarian buffet until we couldn't move, then walked all the way back to her place. Other days, we drank coffee on the roof (which she brewed with cinnamon), or fresh juice (fresh meaning it was a carrot and some oranges a second ago..), baked banana bread and made pasta (SHE did these things, I consumed them). We drank makkoli, watched Wizard People Dear Reader, and Game of Thrones. I visited her school to meet her bosses and her students (all of whom speak way, way better English than mine... oh Japan and your language teaching systems). I met her friends. We talked about all the things. You know; the friend visit.

FRESH JUICE. And coffee too.

We went to a jimjilbang, which is like an onsen but so not like an onsen. For one thing, despite the jokes to the contrary, I have never been touched in an onsen by anyone. In the jimjilbang, after we'd excercised a bit on the top floor and let one of those crazy belts you see old women using in movies rub our waists and butts, we went down to wash and soak in the various pools. It's even more a Roman bath than the onsen because there were pools of hot, cold, and tepid water, including a few different hot ones with different minerals (maybe iron?) in them. The tepid one had exercise equipment, and jets for the back and shoulders. After a few hot and cold dips, it was time for my.. what? Mini massage?

She started by removing what I was wearing. Yes, I was naked: she took off the first layer of skin. Just the dead stuff of course-- it felt really nice to be scrubbed so thoroughly, the only gross part being when I opened my eyes and saw where the dead skin had sort of... well, never mind that, just I saw and it was gross. After dumping water on me, she soaped me down, then oiled me up then womanhandled me as I have never been womanhandled. She wrestled with the knots in my back and shoulders in such a way that it was excruciating but good, like brutal massages can be. When it was all over, I felt as pink and pummeled as ... I wanna say a newborn, but I was newer and cleaner and more relaxed than that.

On the extra day, we hit the beach and spent the night in a minbak, which is mostly a room with blankets for you to use to lie on, and an attached bathroom and semikitchen. The beach was gorgeous under the full moon that night, and four of us even managed to hit a noraebang, or karaoke room, before the end. Before all that, between day beaching and night beaching, we visited a seaside temple that was super awesome for being right on the coast.

Minbak near the beach.

Temple by the sea (Yonggungsa).

Mostly, though, I can see that little changes inspired by my time there, and by my friend there, are going to leak over into my life as they are wont to do. And I think that is the other reason we travel abroad, to get that perspective, to try that new thing, whether it sticks or not, whether it is actually from that foreign place, or just based on what we ourselves found there.

Emily, it’s been so long since you updated! What have you been doing that is so absorbing?

A whole lot of not much to write home about.

Well. Let me tell you what. At work, as things continue apace, rocketing toward graduation, I finally took all my marbles in hand and chucked them in the river (so you can’t call them ‘lost,’ exactly..). Idecided it was high time I tried the old ‘cooking class’ with middle schoolers. I also decided that, instead of some kind of culminating lesson with the younger elementary students, we’re just going to do a ‘cultural’ lesson for the end of the year instead (see: play foursquare and HORSE in the gym). This is essentially my way of giving up on teaching 4^th graders anything but the alphabet, God love ‘em.

As for the cooking, I have chosen my favorite recipe perhaps of all time, the delicious cookies I have been making since perhaps I myself was in middle school, recipe received from childhood friend Cindy. I thought of them because once, in high school, a few friends and I made a huge mess of them (like the way you might make a ‘mess of biscuits’ with Pappy O’Daniel flour) in lieu of other Valentine’s Day activity, then went about the school dispensing them in decorative baggies to our favorite people.

The problem with them is they require special ingredients not found in Japan, specifically instant pudding mix and chocolate chips. And I know certain Japan-familiar friends are going to give me shit about chocolate chips, because you can get them at Jusco, so let me qualify that by saying I went to Jusco and the chocolate chips there are MINI chips and they come in MINI bags, and are not appropriate for this LARGER THAN LIFE recipe of deliciousness.

So I sent away for some chips from Foreign Buyer’s Club (along with some oatmeal, taco mix, and other wonderful things, although I yesterday rediscovered a box of Reese’s cereal in my pantry I had forgotten I hid there.. basically I mean to say, I’m hitting the food jackpot)and found myself wondering why I haven’t ordered anything from them ever before, or in fact why I go to the grocery store at all, excepting the fact that I don’t think it’s a good idea to ship eggs to me, and also that bread comes in packs of about 3 slices, so you run out of that pretty fast (which is actually a good thing, because it goes bad just as fast), when ordering stuff online is so very easy.

Because, why leave your house at all? Well, actually I’ve not spent as much time there as I had expected to. I’ve been writing, actually. That novel I keep going on about (do I?), I’ve actually started working on it again and have completed a lot more words. But before you say “send me the first bit,” halt, you who are ignorant in the ways of “NaNoWriMo” and other such ‘just-write-that-shit’ techniques, because the first bit is total tripe right now, because I’m just trying to push through to get any possible amount of the plot barfed through the keyboard into word documents, so it calls for massive revision, especially because on some days, I didn’t feel like writing ‘description’ of any kind, and those happened to be the days that certain scenes were set specifically so that I could describe the setting of the fantasy world as seen through the eyes of a visitor. So that section goes kind of like “There was a parade. It was colorful.” The end.

I got the best comment EVER from a first grader yesterday at go-home-kai. I’ve been swimming a few times a week, just to stay moving, and especially on the Thursdays where I have to skip kempo for evening English class (I just bring a bag and my car and spend the entire day up near work because the pool is right next to work, actually). So it was Thursday, and the week before, I’d been at the pool, so this little first grader said “You’ll be at the pool today, won’t you.” And I said, noooo, actually today I have shorinji kempo instead.

And that cute little kid’s eyes bugged out of his head and he cried out "Suge~ onna!" And I laughed right out loud, because “sugoi” is a word that means .. “awesome” or “incredible, terrific, impressive.” But sugei is the Kansai version, and truncating it is a way of intensifying the word to sort of import shock into that impression. Onna means woman, but is not the politest thing to say.. normally you say onna no hito, meaning female person, for woman. So overall it was pretty much an intense, very Kansai, rather rude, very flattering interpretation of me. The kid then went on to tell the kid next to him that I was scary and one should not mess with me. 

It was pretty much the highlight of the month.

Otherwise, things just keep on keeping on. Lots of changes on that horizon, lots to come. Keep feeling like the end is nigh (and it is, with graduation upon us as of the 9th), the end is nigh, but there's a lot to go between here and there. And beyond!

Officially Any Good

Well, it’s officially official. I turned in my paper yesterday.

It’s kind of silly how, when a decision is actually uncertain, I will submit the paperwork as soon as I know. And yet when I know ahead of time, dither to and fro, take out the form, look at it, put it away again, unwilling to submit to the inevitable, pushing back til the last minute the official sealing of my own fate. It is my way to go dragging my heels (not kicking and screaming, that is far too dramatic and noisy) through a change of any appreciable size, and this upcoming repatriation is appreciable.

When I finally did turn in the form at the last possible moment, nothing changed, no new sense either of despair nor relief washed over me. This is the next step in the way of things, it does not push its weight upon you, because its weight was meant to settle gradually, day by day, and you’ve already begun to feel it some time ago, and it will get more and more obvious, in some ways more and more strenuous, as the days go on.

But you’re doing it right, taking it slow, even being willing to enjoy, to some extent, the way that it hurts to leave. Let yourself wax poetic as you watch the snow falling between you and the dark of the evergreens.

Yesterday was a day that could have been any day. After school, I walked up the hill to Sponic, had a swim, showered, came back to school where some of the girls on their way home stopped to talk to me, then rode with the music teacher back to town. It was the first round of test for third years to get into high school, and there was a dinner party that night. We talked and ate, and I forgot, and the food was so good, and the guests between heartbreaking and a little annoying once the beer wore off in the karaoke box and the principal wouldn’t stop shaking my hand, asking if I thought he was cool.

At some point during dinner, the judo coach was talking about his time in America, mishaps and fast food restaurants, and I saw reflections of my home in his words. Then he talked about the kyoudai, the students I refer to as twins even though I am fully aware that one is older, who may work their way (is this small town gullibility?) to the Olympics in judo in a couple years. I wondered, will I hear about it? Will I see them on TV, grappling with French kids, and remember how they were when I called on them in class?

I have a connection to this place, and while it will thin and grow taut, I like to think it will not break entirely. I don’t skim easily over change because I sink into things, or they sink into me. I burrow, I feed my need to explore, to find out shit. Some of it also comes by accident.

The band teacher said something in the car on the way back to town, about how good the school has been this year, all three classes stacking up well. Last year the third years weren’t very responsible, they were full of troublemakers, but this year, there’s a harmony in place that is rare in middle schools. She called it a “miracle” and I agreed, because middle school is a tough crowd, a tough age to be, and somehow this student body makes it looks easy. I sighed to myself. All that will change in a month, as graduation hits us and a new school year begins, so it’s not that I’m losing that. It’s just that I’m glad I got to be part of the miracle year, I guess, to watch them grow and become.

One thing I remember from my kepmo homework that sticks out still is something about how, not only is it important to believe in your ability to change yourself, but it is impossible to remain the same. I’ve had a tendency all my short life long to try to keep everything, to hold on to things, even when I knew I knew better. There are pieces of that I’ve been seeing recently in my iTunes, of all places.. I don’t use iTunes, or didn’t, but have been more lately, and a lot of the music I have isn’t stuff I sought out on my own. I’m not very good or motivated at chasing down music I like. I much prefer asking for my friends’ music and then letting it sink into my consciousness by just having it in the car until I get tired of it. There aren’t a lot of people in the world I have actively cut out of my life.. I can think of two, actually. And I still have the music they gave me.

Why? Ah, why not? Because it was theirs? It’s not theirs anymore. Because it reminds me of them? So it does. Is it so bad to be reminded? That’s not what I cut out; I didn’t want to deal with them anymore. Is keeping the stuff they gave me dealing with them? Remembering them is bittersweet, and I kind of like that.

So anyway, it’s impossible to remain the same. Like, even if you stay in the same place and do the same thing and get the same result, even if you never move forward, you still can’t stay the same. If you never take a step, or a leap, if you never try, you still won’t be the same old thing (theoretically, good thing, since you wanted to avoid that change, right?) you wanted to stay being.

It echoes into the contractual paperwork. It is impossible to stay in your apartment and job forever, even if you wanted to, which you must admit (while there are some thing of which you may never grow tired), you don’t even want to.

But if it’s impossible to remain the same, then why not try to become better? In whatever way. Stronger. Happier. Better at math. More patient. More kanji in your head. Whatever. My JET life is in its final one-sixth, but my ties to Japan could just be beginning. They will be different, in six months, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be any good.

nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior

It's finally here: Wednesday. I've been looking longingly at this day on the calendar since sometime last week when I realized what was happening on that pattern of numbered squares. It's a desk day, a nothing but do as you will you little ALT you day (oh, and o-souji), after weeks and weeks of classes and lesson planning and elementary and children being horrible brats and snide comments and terrorizing each other and I need a vacation for the love of God...

As usual, there's a lot going on. A lot of fun things, a lot of exciting things, a lot of tiring, tedious things, a lot of normal things, daily grind things, online course-taking things (did I mention that my TEFL course has been both more interesting and helpful, and also more demanding of me than I predicted it would be?).

I just checked to make sure my flights are all in order (that is, that I actually do have tickets for all the different flights I thought I had tickets for). Now I'm putting all the info on to one handy page, registering with the travel website of the US, and trying to generate a packing list.

But when I say there's a lot going on, it isn't all just out there in the physical world.. I also mean inside my head. It's been a bit of a mess in there lately. I don't mean to complain, but I do mean to be honest. I've been riding right up on the edge of a nice toasty meltdown.

A lot of it has to do with my ever more precarious position, timewise. As the weeks go by, things shift more and more. Everything becomes a game of now or never. I look outside and I resent having to leave this place. I look down and can't wait to get out. I say, it's my third year, so that means I have to go. "They've changed the contract," my fellow ALTs tell me, "look, you can stay up to five years, now."

Five years, three years: neither one is really permanent. The more I learn and the better I get at my job, the more frustrating become the confines of the system within which I am wrapped. They don't know what I mean when I say, it's my third year, so I have to go.

It feels connected to an inner need to own something, or build something, rather than just subsist comfortably between the lines of what the teachers expect and the students enjoy.

You can always tell a Dutchman, but you can't tell him much. When I arrived, I was daunted because the shoes were bigger than my feet, but the more I learn about language, about teaching, the more I wish I could run the city's English program (does it officially have one?), design its curriculum, lay out its calendar, and direct its activities. I want to do things my way, but not just my things. I want to be in charge of the entire affair, albeit in small scale. I would say, let me open a language school, but there are already plenty of those. Besides, I want it to be available publicly, to everyone; I want the English classes already happening four times a week to really accomplish something. I want to go at it in a systematic and real way, I want someone to see what a multi-layered approach to foreign language education starting in elementary school and pursued in earnest can really do. I mean, you'd have kids, like, fuckin'... speaking English and shit!

My dreams and desires are too big for my pigeonhole. So even though I like my salary, and I love my school (I seriously think my particular position is one worthy of envy) for its wonderful students and excellent fellow staff members and sweet new building, and I like my apartment, and I like my ALT friends, and my travel opportunities, and my Japanese townies and their gifts and their pets, and my Japan seasons and small town life, I don't like my job anymore, and I honestly think that for that reason, someone else will do a better job than me next year. Because they'll be excited to teach Halloween or whatever cultural holiday, and I skipped it entirely this year. Because I'm tired of fighting fourth graders, and enduring exuberant shouts of "gaikokujin!" (though it is pretty friggin cute that a four-year-old is able to include the "koku" part of that word... it's much more polite that way) I'm tired of "harro" and "ohashi jouzu," and all the stares and trepidation I encounter when I try to deal with people that don't know me.

And I'm tired too of missing holidays, family gatherings, weddings, funerals, parties, and babies. I'm tired of telling kids about holiday traditions in which I don't get to participate this year, and furthermore, knowing that they don't quite get it, because you don't know what it's like unless you're there, and moreover, there again and again every year. What is Halloween really like? How can I simulate or explain the experience of trick-or-treating, costumes, and also how your Halloween evolves from age 5 to 15? What is the true meaning of Christmas, especially to a roomful of Shinto-Buddhists?

I'm not part of Japan, not really, and in many ways never can be. In other ways, it could be a matter of time. Language barriers shift, weaken, and in some sectors come down, but in others they remain annoyingly in the way. But I'm not part of the lives of the people back home either; how much does anyone really know or understand about how my life goes on a normal basis, about what annoys, delights, gratifies, or frightens me? About what I enjoy, what I'm grateful for, what I need, and what I want? And what do I know about what it's like to be over there now? That feeling of disconnect has been approaching fever pitch.

I've complained before about people who say they want to start on their "real lives," how I think being here is just as real and just as part of life as going back home to a non-existent job and a bigger picture. But I do have to admit that there are a lot of things that are on hold while being here. This is another case of totaling up the little things -- each on-hold item is not a big deal by itself, but enough of them, and for long enough, starts to tip the balance over. Professionally and personally speaking, I can see the way the scales have slid, and I know it's time to go (relatively).

But I still hate to have to.

This Post Has No Photos; Camera's In the Rice Bin

What's upsetting is, it's a brand new camera. I'm worried about the water damage it might have taken yesterday evening when I went out to get photos of the flooding.

Typhoon Talas moved through (finally) after sitting just south of middle Japan, inching up towards us at like 12km/h. I was told, and this is unprecedented, that I needed to leave my apartment because of its proximity to the visibly out-of-control river..! It looked even higher than it did two years before.

Everything is okay where I am, though two years ago when I had just arrived in Japan, Typhoon Melor did some horrible stuff to areas north, in Ichinomiya, Haga, Chikusa, and Sayo. In Yamasaki, it was mostly just mud damage, lots of tatami being replaced.

Usually, wind isn't so much an issue around here (which is why it was so weird a few months ago when the wind was whipping through, taking things apart and throwing Pachinko Parlor pieces onto cars!), but the rain overload becomes dangerous. Landslides can happen in the mountain areas, and flooding in the lower spaces by the ubiquitous rivers.

Everything I could think to, I put up on top of something (tables, the bed, chairs, etc.), then grabbed my computer and some clothes, and went to Monzen. Before it got dark, I saw that the river had come up just below our apartment complex, and the bottoms of the cherry trees on the bank were underwater.

Day before, someone had stolen my favorite umbrella (!) but it turned out okay, because it was rainin' sideways, and I just wore my rainjacket everywhere anyway. My phone is also in the rice bin. I hope they recover. I'll be very sad if they don't.

Though it might be time for me to get a phone that can access google maps. So I spend less time being lost on Japanese roads!

And now for some more geography:

First, look at this map to remember where I live.

Next check out the track of Talas here.  I know, right?

In terms of things that have a direct impact on my immediate reality, this was a fairly big deal (it changes my weekend, and in some very minor ways, my life). The funny thing is, almost no one outside Japan asked me about it! Everything is relative.. some things that hugely impact Japan don't actually affect my immediate circumstances, and then some things that no one hears about have me replacing my shit and crashing refugee-style on higher ground!

Stay dry, everyone.

Not Without

On Turning Japanese:   There's a philosophical line that we discussed once in high school that goes something like, if something is real, you cannot destroy it, and if something is not real (and therefore destroyable), then it can never be made real. (The continuation of that being, the human soul/God-consciousness is real, but material is not, etc. etc.)

So likewise, sometimes I think, you cannot become something you weren't already. So if I seem to an onlooker to be 'turning Japanese,' actually to me I feel like I always was a little bit Japanese. Which doesn't make any ancestral sense, so maybe just in the way that a person is or may be a little bit anything, or everything.


Aaaaanyway, now that that is cleared up, I'd like to turn to the other side of the coin, the things we do not "learn to live without" forever, being people.

As you know, I went to Amerika! And it was culture shocking! But that's not all it was. I got to see old friends, and have some new experiences. One of them was Isthmus Fest. This is a yearly gathering of AP kids from our high school, and this was my first year in attendance. People came from all over the place, close as right there in Georgia, far as New York, Yellowstone, Ohio, Japan. We built a fire on the isthmus and watched the Milky Way move overhead until it was 4am. I saw more shooting stars over that lake than I have in a long time. It was nice to hear the AP kids talk and argue and reminisce. We fled when we noticed the water was rising, and retired to the actual campsite to steal a few Zs beneath the dawn.

Josh ascertains that the isthmus is exposed.

From 2011_07_30

"the safest place for a fire, EVER"

From 2011_07_30

Oh what a beautiful mornin'

From 2011_07_30

The next day had us decamping until we were all sitting in folding chairs in a circle, no tents in sight, sipping beers and watching the trees thrash overhead. L and I managed to escape just before the downpour started. It was a good visit. 


My camera died on the Isthmus, so there's nothing photographic after that, until I got back. There were good times though, just hanging out with the family, lots of good foods, seeing people I hadn't seen for years (or a year, but you know), karaoke, dinners and dinners, swimming (goodness, I miss the pool!), driving Jill around, dogs and walks, coffee with cousins, and the hot hot hot of a Georgia August heatwave. L and I went to see Shannon, but she wasn't there.

There's never quite enough time to do everything or spend enough with everyone before it's time to get back to life on schedule in Japan, but that's the way of it. The more of anything you see or touch, the more you realize there is to see and touch.


It's always different, these visits back, and the people with whom time is spent tends to shift around from one year to the next. I mean some people, you see every year, because they are part of that, part of your yearly picture. The people you keep up with, even if only lightly, the people you e-mail and skype, your family. These are the people you make time for, and who make time for you, because you're back, for a limited time only. There are others, who just happen to be in town, just happen to have time for you, and you for them, and at the right time. Still others who were always around, but you never had (made) time for them, but you do, because why not, it's been 7 years, why wait until you are really "back" and it's then 8? 


But the truth is, the thing I look forward to most about being back isn't Mexican food or reasonably priced fruit or palatable beer or even air conditioning, or being able to read everything. It's having a month to hang out and catch up, not just a week. It's being just a car ride or no-more-than-5-hour plane ride from my parents (and their dogs). There are things we learn to live without because we reassure ourselves that we'll have more plenty of them very soon. (This is why homesickness for me isn't an initial thing to get over, but a fatigue.. my insides start to demand, after some time, how long is this so-called very soon, anyway?!)


So that's that thing. For all the very good reasons not to leave Japan (they are numerous and varied), there's one monumental reason not to stay forever. And for all that people teased me and said "What if you fall in love and never come back?" .. well, I always knew I couldn't never come back. Though I did fall in love, with the place itself.