The (Mis?)Adventures of Sarah (and Jim) Abroad

Trip to Hiroshima Part II: the Itsukushima Shrine and the Peace Park

2010-04-26T02:10:00.000-07:00

On Sunday morning we headed out to the Itsukushima Shrine on the island of Miyajima just outside of Hiroshima. It was a glorious sunny morning (thankfully—the night before was rainy and yucky) and we had a beautiful ferry ride out to the island. We immediately noticed that deer were littering the streets—and around each deer were people taking pictures with them. I was annoyed by how close people were getting to these “wild animals”—until one deer interrupted my picture taking by walking up to me and licking my hand. Another deer seemed to enjoy getting scratched on the head. Wild animals, ha! They were more like dogs, especially since they were much smaller North American deer; their backs only reached my waist. Japanese sized… ;)

The licking deer interrupted me as I attempted to take a picture of one of the most photographed sites in Japan: the floating torii (gate) in front of the Itsukushima shrine. Apparently at low tide this torii is surrounded by mud, so it was serendipitous that our visit coincided with high tide. The shrine itself was completely built over water since apparently the island was once considered holy and commoners back in the day couldn’t walk on it. Instead they approached the shrine by boat through the torii. Now the island is overrun with tourists arriving by the ferry load every few minutes, and vendors and cafes sell souvenirs, meals, and steamed oysters, so the modern atmosphere is a little different!

After returning to the mainland, we took a street car (there is an extensive and heavily frequented light rail system in Hiroshima) back to the city center to tour the Peace Museum and park. I was impressed that a city with such a tragic history has completely rebuilt itself: the only shadows of the tragedy are the Peace park, museum and the A-bomb dome. (The A-bomb dome is the ruin of a once gorgeous domed building that was completely gutted and almost obliterated in the bombing. The ruin has been kept up to its post-bombing state and remains as a strong visual reminder of the tragedy.)

The Peace Museum was built on the site of the epicenter of the Atomic bomb and is surrounded by the Peace Park. The Peace Park, with its multiple monuments commemorating various groups (children, mothers, school children, the general deceased), reminded me a lot of Washington DC’s mall area. The Peace Park is in the center of the city and is nestled between river forks. The monuments are very poignant: from a clock sculpture that is perpetually positioned at 8:15a (the time of the bombing), to a fire that remains lit as long as nuclear weapons exist, to a hall with the names of those killed etched in the walls, to a bronze statue of a mother shielding her babies from the blast, to a clock tower that keeps time but recognizes 8:15am each morning with chimes.

I was especially eager to see the children’s memorial since I had heard the story of the little girl who inspired it in high school. Sadako Sasaki was 2 years old when Hiroshima was attacked and came down with leukemia as a result of the radiation exposure when she was 10 years old. She believed that if she made 1000 paper cranes, she would get a wish so she folded crane after crane from her hospital bed. Accounts vary as to whether she met her goal, but she died that year and has since become a famous figure. The children’s memorial contains thousands of paper cranes sent from all over the world and while we were there, a group of students from the US was adding more cranes to the collection. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadako_Sasaki

The Peace Museum is very moving and makes understanding the tragedy much more palpable. It begins with a description of the history behind WWII and the creation of the atomic bomb by notable American scientists. There was a letter to an American president written by Albert Einstein explaining that a new atomic technology could be used to create very destructive weapons. I’ve always greatly admired Einstein; not only was he a genius scientist but he was a violinist and the source of many great insights. Seeing this letter from him urging that this dangerous technology be explored was a bit upsetting and was incongruent with my picture of this man. However, I suppose times of war cause even the most accomplished and sensitive humans to do surprising things. In the course of writing this entry, I read online that some of the scientists on the Manhattan Project actually disagreed with its use on cities and instead urged for it to be dropped in unpopulated areas as a demonstration of its power. Would history have been different if that had happened? Would Japan have surrendered unconditionally? It does not surprise me that, according to the DOE, “There is probably no more controversial issue in 20th-century American history than President Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.”

Many historians argue that it was necessary to end the war and that in fact it saved lives, both Japanese and American, by avoiding a land invasion of Japan that might have cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Other historians argue that Japan would have surrendered even without the use of the atomic bomb and that in fact Truman and his advisors used the bomb only in an effort to intimidate the Soviet Union. The United States did know from intercepted messages between Tokyo and Moscow that the Japanese were seeking a conditional surrender. American policy-makers, however, were not inclined to accept a Japanese "surrender" that left its military dictatorship intact and even possibly allowed it to retain some of its wartime conquests. http://www.cfo.doe.gov/me70/manhattan/potsdam_decision.htm

I have to admit that after spending so much time in Japan and seeing Hiroshima and the memorial, I would be in the camp of historians that question the use of the bomb. I would like to imagine myself as a scientist who would have urged dropping the bomb on an unpopulated place. Perhaps one of the most shocking things I learned at the museum was that Kyoto was one of four cities on the original bomb list. I can’t imagine Kyoto, with its thousands of shrines, temples and cherry trees, being destroyed…it’s unthinkable really. Another jarring piece of information in the museum was the suggestion that because the US had spent so much money developing the bomb, it needed to justify the expense. I really hope that money that never figured in to Truman’s decision. In the face of so many lost lives, money truly pales in comparison.

The museum had two miniature models of what Hiroshima looked like before and after bomb and on the wall behind them was a giant photo of the destroyed city. All the little houses that neatly lined the streets in the ”before” model were nothing but ash in the post-bomb model. So tragic. Perhaps the saddest part to me was that at 8:15am on a Monday morning there were many groups of school children who were working on the streets to clear buildings for firebreaks. An early morning air raid warning had been lifted and children, men, and women were in the streets, going about their daily lives on a beautiful August morning. (Ironically, it was the fair-weather that fixed Hiroshima’s fate as the final bomb target.)

The later part of the museum was the most disturbing because it contained personal stories, images and artifacts from those who perished in the bombing. I had known that as many as 50,000 died over a period of several years from complications of radiation poisoning such as cancers, leukemia, etc. What I didn’t realize is that, of those who died immediately as a result of the bomb, many were alive and suffering for hours and even days before they died. Harrowing eyewitness accounts recall the masses of people (including schoolchildren) walking the streets with their arms in front of them, unable to see, with skin hanging off their limbs. There were models and sketches of what this looked like and the images, seemingly straight out of a horror film, still haunt me. The final tally of deaths from the Hiroshima bomb is estimated at 200,000: a sobering statistic.

In the earlier part of the museum was a large globe with miniature warheads representing the numbers of nuclear weapons possessed today by each country around the world. It struck me that so few countries have nuclear weapons (that we know of anyway) and that the US and Russia have vastly more weapons than anyone else. Since I was alive to remember the Cold War, it seems odd that the now struggling Russia still possesses such nuclear capacity. [I was encouraged to hear recently that the US and the Russia have agreed to reduce their nuclear arsenals.]

As an American visiting this city, I expected to find resentment but instead found warm welcome and kindness so typical of everywhere we’ve been in Japan. Thank goodness that our countries are on so much better terms these days. We had to rush through the last part of the museum because we were late meeting a Japanese friend of ours who had recently moved to Hiroshima. (She sweetly and patiently waited for us and then took us to have Hiroshima okonomiyaki (a cabbage pancake), which is a specialty of the city.)

Hiroshima has rebuilt itself as a city that advocates for peace. Having seen in the museum how horribly destructive and traumatic it is to a city to experience nuclear warfare I have an increased desire to see non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. May our countries always have peace between each other and the rest of the world…

Busy with everything but blogging!!

2010-04-22T22:27:00.000-07:00

It seems keeping a blog is a bit like having a pet: it needs to be cared for and fed regularly or it will die. Hopefully my lapse in feeding hasn't completely killed my blog (and my dear readers)! I vow to get back on the horse and blog faithfully these last few weeks we are in Japan.

Here is what has kept me from blogging:

1. English teaching and babysitting hit highs Feb-March and I found myself busy nearly all day every day! I was babysitting nearly 15 hours a week, and had about 10 weekly English students. I also started teaching on Friday afternoons for Japanese 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders at an English school. Recently one of my babysitting charges started Japanese preschool, so I now have a bit more time.

2. We initiated a spurt of weekend excursions! Since we found cheap rail tickets which were only good through the school vacation period ending on April 10, we tried to maximize our traveling during this time. The weather has also been a little more amenable to traveling and we realized that our time in Japan is fleeting, so we got moving!

Here is where we've gone:

March/April:
Weekend 1: three day trip to Hiroshima
Weekend 2: overnight trip to Koya-san, birthplace and mecca of the Shingon Buddhist sect, to spend the night in a temple
Weekend 3: hanami (cherry blossom viewing) picnics with friends in Kyoto since the blossoms were at their peak
Weekend 4: day trip to Kanazawa, a city with one of the top 3 gardens in Japan followed by a day trip to Ohara, in the hilly outskirts of Kyoto, to see another temple with Jim's coworker
Weekend 5: day trip to Osaka (nearby city) with Jim's coworkers followed by a day trip to surrounding countryside and a small castle/town on Lake Biwa with two of my students
Weekend 6: day visit to a sake brewery and tasting in south Kyoto with Jim’s coworkers, lunches and dinner with Japanese friends, visit to Roan-ji, a famous zen garden in Kyoto

Whew. Jim and I joke that we need Mondays to recover from our busy weekends these days!

3. Finally, the remainder of my mental energy has been devoted to trying to make a decision about graduate school. After lots of consideration, I have finally decided to accept an offer from Rutgers University Graduate School of Education. Starting in September, I will be a PhD student and Teaching Assistant in the learning sciences with a focus on environmental education. It is a relief to finally have made a decision about where we will be living for the next few years (probably five) though it is not without a little sadness for it means we must move from the San Francisco bay area where I have lived for 4.5 years and Jim for most of his life. Thankfully, Jim has been incredibly supportive and we are both looking forward to yet another new adventure. This new adventure will begin with shipping stuff from Japan, packing up stuff in California, and then moving it and two cats across the country…At least our life isn’t boring! Stay tuned…

Sakura Fever

2010-03-31T02:42:00.000-07:00

That's right, it's just about sakura fever (cherry blossom not scarlet fever) time in Kyoto! Since hanami (picnic with blossoms) time is almost upon us, I thought I'd put this blog in sakura mode. So enjoy the new background... :)

Our First Rail Trip in Japan: Part I

2010-03-24T05:14:00.000-07:00

It only took us five months, but we finally took an overnight trip away from Kyoto. Why did it take us so long? First of all, we wanted to get a little bit better at Japanese before we started traveling around. Second, in the cold of winter, the last thing we wanted to do was go out. Third, it is incredibly expensive to travel within Japan and we finally figured out a cheaper way to go. Last of all, we unexpectedly had a three day weekend (my Monday students cancelled because of a national holiday in honor of the spring equinox). So, we were off!

Travel within Japan is expensive. Of course, being a highly developed country means that hotels and ryokans (Japanese inns) are pricey. But the most expensive part of travel in Japan is the rail tickets. I am extremely jealous of people who come to Japan as tourists because they can do something we, as foreign residents, can’t: buy extraordinarily discounted seven day rail passes. As a foreign tourist, one can buy passes for seven consecutive days of unlimited travel, including bullet trains, for around $300. If this sounds like a lot, consider this: for us to take the shinkansen (bullet train) from Kyoto to Tokyo costs $150 each way! I think folks back home tend to think we zoom over to Tokyo for weekends since it’s only 3 hours by shinkansen, but at those prices, for Jim and I to go to Tokyo would cost $600. That’s a pricey weekend trip.

[How about renting a car? It turns out that even if you own a car, it is incredibly expensive to drive because not only is gas very expensive, but nearly every road is a toll road incurring costs of $1 per kilometer. This is a great incentive for people to take trains since if the entire population of Japan were to travel by car, the roads would be impassably jammed. So, happily for the environment, most people in Japan travel by train, the train system is extensive and, like the Japanese, nearly always on time. I just learned from a student today that this year the Japanese govt has discounted the tolls on the weekends to encourage people to travel and therefore stimulate the economy. I wish they would stimulate the economy through trains!]

We have wanted to go to Hiroshima because of its historical significance (site of the first atomic bomb attack by the US in WWII). Also, we felt that, as Americans, it was our duty to visit. Shinkansen tickets are about $100 each way to Hiroshima which is why we were excited to learn about a pass called the seishun ju hachi kippu (18 year old ticket). This ticket, available to folks even if they’re not 18, is valid during school holidays (1 March-10 April) and allows five days of travel (not consecutive) for just over $100. The catch: these passes are only valid for slow trains. As one of my students described, they are for people with more time than money: 18 year olds and us. 

We loaded up on books and snacks and headed out at 7:30am on Saturday morning to begin our long train journey. On the way, we stopped at Himeji castle, aka the Castle of the White Egret, Japan’s most popular castle and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was impressive and so different, with its towers and gables, from the European variety of castles. It did have a lot of stairs and we felt like we needed to get “I survived” shirts since we had to wait in throngs of people both inside and outside the castle and could only move as fast as the line did through the entire six-floor journey. Furthermore, upon reaching the top floor I managed to whack my head on one of the low clearances above the stairs and the sound was so loud that the woman behind me exclaimed, “Dijoubou?” (Are you okay?) Fortunately I am pretty hard headed but I did worry that I might have damaged the castle…

We were pretty impressed by the large numbers of older people touring the castle since it was riddled with steep steps and lacked elevators. We imagined that a similar tourist attraction in the US might have warning signs with numbers of steps and health advisories posted. Ah, so refreshing to be in a non-litigious and non-overweight country!!

It was a beautiful day and appropriately there were bento sellers all around the large park outside the castle grounds. (Bento are scrumptious Japanese boxed lunches containing fish or chicken/pork cutlet, rice and some variety of veggies and pickles.) We ate our bento lunch in the park and then headed back to the train station. I have to mention this next part because it astounds me. After eating our lunches we couldn’t find a trash can anywhere. We walked and walked, searching for a recycling container or trash bin but could find nothing. There were many other people eating bento lunches, ice cream and other foods from vendors in the park and no doubt they were accumulating trash, too. But we saw not a drop of it on the ground. In the West, there are garbage cans everywhere but still people throw their trash mere meters away from a bin because—well, I don’t really know why—maybe walking a few extra feet is too much trouble? Anyway, we had to carry our bento box trash for about 10 blocks before we reached a trash can. (This situation is common in Japan. It is often difficult to find a trash can in Kyoto, but nonetheless, very little trash finds its way to the streets.)

After lots of train changes from one local train to another, pausing at every little station along the way, we finally pulled in to Hiroshima station at about 9pm. It was a long day but we enjoyed riding the slow trains since they gave us a chance to see the countryside. (The bullet train must whip by so fast you hardly see the scenery.) Of course, I learned that my enjoyment of the train is inversely proportional to how crowded it is. When people are crammed in, I can’t wait to get off no matter how brief the trip. On the other hand, when there are few people, I can stretch out, read a book and settle in to the rhythm of the rails.

All was well until we reached Hiroshima and began to look for hotels. This trip was last minute but why in the world we hadn’t made a reservation at a hotel is something to ponder. I guess we like to be spur of moment and assume that we’ll find something, but what we didn’t take into account is that there is a huge amount of tourism within Japan (by Japanese) and when things get crowded, they get CROWDED. So, at 9p on a Saturday night of a three day weekend (and in the rain), we ventured out into downtown Hiroshima in search of a hotel. After stopping at three or four hotels in our guide book and finding them all booked, we were given a list of hotels and Jim began the daunting task of speaking on the phone in a language you barely speak. He did a commendable job, but after calling twenty hotels and finding not one room available, we were getting worried that we might be sleeping at the train station. Finally, he called a hotel a bit out of town, near the shrine we were planning to visit in the morning and, wahoo, they had a room!! It was about twice what we were planning to pay, but under the circumstances, we agreed that beggars couldn’t be choosers.

We hiked back to the station and got on yet another train, then had a 15 minute walk in very blustery conditions before we finally dragged up to the hotel at midnight. The hotel seemed pretty fancy and when the woman completed our check-in and showed us the bill we gulped. Apparently Jim had misunderstood the guy on the phone (he was speaking Japanese after all) and the price the man quoted was for one person, not two. Ahh! But what could we do? It was midnight and we had no other options.

To be honest, this was not my shining moment of the trip and Jim had to put up with a bit of a temper tantrum from me. We had endured 8 hours of local trains in order to save money only to blow it all on a ridiculously expensive hotel room. To make matters worse, we hardly got to enjoy it since we checked in after midnight! We did try to make the most of the extravagance and got up as early as we could to take a hot bath in the hotel’s sento (which was quite luxurious) followed by a Japanese breakfast. (Believe it or not, the traditional Japanese breakfast is a big meal with rice, miso soup, fish, pickled vegetables, etc.) The hotel did also have some breads, juice, and coffee, too, for the Western palate.

Fortunately, the following night we secured a room in a Comfort Hotel (the same Comfort Inn chain as in the US) for 1/3 of the price. The room was smaller and there was no communal fancy bath, but the breakfast was more suited to Western tastes and big, so next time, we’ll definitely opt for the budget hotel!

Lesson learned: when in Japan, slow trains are okay but always make hotel reservations in advance.

Valentine’s Day and White Day in Japan

2010-03-23T06:32:00.001-07:00

I held off writing about Valentine’s Day in February because I wanted to experience the partner day of White Day and reflect on them together.

Get ready for a shock: in Japan Valentine’s Day is for men. I repeat, Valentine’s Day is a day to give men, yes, MEN, chocolates and dinners. One of my younger male students was explaining to me that during his school days, Valentine’s Day made all the boys hold their breath…and hope that a desirable girl presented them with chocolates. For some reason that I cannot possibly understand, in Japan the woman has to make the brave first move on Valentine’s Day. Apparently sometimes it works out great, but my student told me that somehow he always received chocolate from girls who did not capture his interest. Que sera. (He did confess that he would happily eat the chocolate anyway.) He also explained that sometimes his friends would explain a lack of gift receiving by saying that, ‘I’m not Christian, so I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day.” (Naturally this surprised me since in the West we don’t exactly associate Valentine’s Day with religion. I believe this belief in Japan stems from the fact that Valentine’s Day is often referred to as “St. Valentine’s Day” and perhaps as a Western holiday it seems Christian by default.)

Around Valentine’s Day, displays popped up in stores with “Valentine’s Day” (or “St Valentine’s Day) written in English on banners. The displays contained lots of boxes of varying quality chocolates, some very expensive, some not. Also, to my delight, baking supplies, like chocolate chips, powdered sugar, and decorative candies, suddenly exploded. I was finally able to buy a Japanese cake mix and I could have even bought truffle mixes, muffin mixes, and chocolate dip mixes. It seems that Japanese women can bake, but don’t do it with the same year-round fervor that we do back home. (Like most Japanese households, we lack an oven, but fortunately our microwave has a “caki” (cake) setting that bakes. I am a happy girl now that I can bake brownies, cookies, and casseroles!) I think that normally in Japan most baked goods, including beautiful--but tiny--birthday cakes, are purchased from one of the million French patisseries.

Although only men in Japan receive gifts on Valentine’s Day, several of my students, knowing that Valentine’s Day is for “everyone” in the US, gave me chocolates. My little 8 year old girl student gave me a lovely assortment of butter cookies and chocolate almonds from a bakery, perfectly packaged in a lovely red box. Female coworkers very commonly give chocolates to the men they work with, but Jim only got one chocolate. Hee, hee. He didn’t suffer too much, though, because I treated him on Valentine’s Day to a special homemade dinner of paella and chocolate mousse. (Of course, he had to whip the cream for the mousse which is no small feat given that we don’t have a mixer!)

So what about the women? That’s where White Day, exactly one month later on March 14, comes in. None of my students were able to explain the origin of White Day or why it is called “White Day” (in English). Certainly everyone I’ve talked to about this has been surprised that we don’t have White Day in the US. The importance of White Day is that women finally get a treat. According to some of my students, the typical gift on white day is marshmallows. However, since many people apparently don’t care for marshmallows, chocolate is becoming increasingly popular. Also I am told that women often receive larger gifts like jewelry or clothes on White Day. (But all the women I’ve talked to so far didn’t seem to get anything special.) I teach a pair of housewives and when I asked last week what their husbands were going to do for them on White Day, they laughed and said “Nothing!” (They did say that they’re husbands said they could buy something for themselves. Humph. Come on men.)

Interestingly, Jim discovered that White Day was started by Confectioner’s companies-- namely marshmallow companies. It is apparently celebrated in several Asian countries including South Korea, Taiwan and China.

Here is what Wikipedia says about White day in Japan:
In Japan, Valentine's Day is observed by females who present chocolate gifts (either store-bought or handmade), usually to a male, as an expression of love, courtesy or social obligation. The handmade chocolate is usually preferred by the receiver, because it is a sign that the receiving male is the girl's "only one". On White Day, the converse happens: males who received a honmei-choco (本命チョコ?, "chocolate of love") or giri-choco (義理チョコ?, "courtesy chocolate") on Valentine's Day are expected to return the favor by giving gifts, usually more expensive. Traditionally, popular White Day gifts are cookies, jewellery, white chocolate, white lingerie and marshmallows.[1] Sometimes the term sanbai gaeshi (三倍返し?, literally, "thrice the return") is used to describe the generally recited rule that the return gift should be two to three times the cost of the Valentine's gift.[2]

Reading this passage about obligatory gifts reminds me of one of my student’s complaints that because several co-workers bought expensive chocolates for her husband for Valentine’s day, she now had to buy them Godiva chocolate (which is very expensive here). She knew how much they had spent and had to spend more and felt annoyed by this. Whew. I’m glad I don’t have to keep up with such strict social obligations!

After feigned indifference about White Day Jim actually did take me to a French restaurant we love here, but, alas, it was booked out on Saturday night. We instead took a chance on a Mexican restaurant and learned the hard lesson that when not in California, Mexico, the South, or Southwest of the US, steer clear of so called Mexican food! Ugh. My only comment here is that cream cheese is no substitute for sour cream!

White Day was on a Sunday and we planned a little outing to Kurama, an onsen (hot spring), in the Northern outskirts of Kyoto. Our friends, Jeff and Mery, joined us and we all rode the train to Kibune, a stop just south of Kurama, and enjoyed touring a shrine in the woods of Kibune. We also had a lovely lunch of soba (buckwheat noodles) and yuba (a Kansai region special and delicious tofu dish).

After lunch, we followed a hiking trail over a hill and through a wooded temple. The path was a couple of miles long and involved lots of stairs. I really enjoyed our hike because I haven’t gotten to see much nature since we’ve been in Japan. (Kyoto does have lots of gardens, thankfully, but it’s still a city.) The trail was through old growth that reminded me a bit of redwoods, though our guide book describes them as cryptomeria trees. (According to Wikipedia, these trees are called sugi, or Japanese cedar, but are actually related to cypress.)

Oddly, hiking conditions didn’t discourage many Japanese women from wearing their miniskirts and stiletto heeled boots. (We were so astonished that women would dress in this way for going to the woods that we started clandestinely taking pictures of footwear sported on the trip.) I know it was White Day, but it seems there is no limit to the lengths Japanese women will go for fashion!!

After hiking up to the mountain temple of Kurama, we hit the onsen for a nice hot soak. This was my first onsen, but I have been to our neighborhood sento (public bath) several times, and am familiar with the routine of washing at the shower before getting in the communal bath. (This is all done with no clothes on, btw, which sometimes is a little awkward for Westerners to get used to. The baths are always divided by gender, so it’s really not so bad.) Actually, it was funny, I have become so accustomed to scrubbing every inch of my body very thoroughly and slowly as everyone else does, but at the onsen I think I scrubbed more than anyone which was a first for me. Normally at the sento, I will scrub everywhere, wash my hair twice and condition it only to discover that a woman beginning her shower at the same time is still on her first limb. I never knew that the ability to deep clean was an acquired skill. Anyway, the onsen was great because it was outdoor and featured a view of the mountain. Nothing like relaxing in hot springs in the nude while gazing at nature. Ahh.

Best. White Day. Ever. :)

San Kan Shi On…“Four days cold, three warm…”

2010-03-16T07:50:00.000-07:00

Naturally, after I wrote the long winter entry, the weather made me a liar and for one full week immediately following we had almost summer-like warmth. Kyoto inhabitants swarmed the edges of the rivers that transect the city, walking their dogs, reading books, jogging or just sitting and watching the ducks, egrets and cranes. I even took one of the toddlers I babysit out on a bike ride to the river and she and I watched a grey heron along with an elderly couple. The elderly woman sat in a wheelchair enjoying a final break in the cold to rejoin the outside world. There was something very touching in the moment we all shared together—two caretakers with two dependents at opposite ends of life.

Of course, since it was still February, the warm weather was not to stay and the past week was nearly as cold as deepest winter-and very rainy. Yuck. One of my favorite things about living in Kyoto is that we bike nearly everywhere we go. However, biking in the rain is a total drag. I have rain pants and a rain coat and I have also slowly gained proficiency in biking with an umbrella (as most bikers do here). But, still, ugh. To add insult to injury, last week, while riding in the rain, my umbrella flipped inside out and later the same day my rain pants ripped at the crotch. Lovely.

Several of my students have taught me the Japanese expression san kan shi on. This phrase is roughly translated as “four days of warm weather followed by three days of cold” and aptly describes the early spring season. I find myself rotating between my light jacket and my heaviest winter one on a daily basis which makes getting ready in the morning a little extra challenging. Many days have found me walking toward my bike, only to turn around to rethink my wardrobe choices for the day.

At least we have had some reprieve to the cold weather and I can begin to imagine how nice it will be to not ever see our breath inside again!! I definitely feel like we earn the splendor of sakura, or cherry blossoms, after freezing inside for months. We still have a few more weeks until the pink profusion begins but until then I can enjoy my sakura mochi (special seasonal wagashi—Japanese rice and bean sweet), and even the sakura steamer and sakura hot bun at Starbucks.

Blossom fever is starting though…some Japanese friends of ours showed us a picture on their digital camera of a cherry tree in bloom they had just seen and it was clear that they were elated. Later while sharing a taxi with them, we all saw the tree and the taxi driver nearly drove off the road in his excitement. We have begun to reserve upcoming weekends for sakura viewing and I feel very lucky to live in what is possibly Japan’s most cherished sakura-endowed city. 

Today I was babysitting and my toddler and I walked around looking at all the buds on the trees and bushes and the few flowers like the daffodils who are heralding the upcoming show. The entire natural world is just getting ready to spring into life. Is that why we call this season “spring”?

Tales of Chilblains and Long Underwear: The Long Winter in Kyoto

2010-02-21T02:14:00.000-08:00

I used to like winter. I love snow, hot chocolate, fires in fireplaces. I especially love to experience four seasons. Fall in Kyoto was amazing because each day the leaves looked slightly different, giving the whole precious season an ephemeral feel. When we arrived November 1, the trees were just starting to consider changing color and by the end of the month, the colors of the maples (the Japanese variety with delicate tiny leaves) were brilliant reds and golds. Then, one by one the leaves fell and the air grew sharper…winter had come.

I realize that I really shouldn’t complain about winter here given how the East coast of the US has been deluged with snow. In Kyoto, we actually haven’t had any snow that has stuck and have only had two or three days of flurries. Many Japanese have told me that over the last 20-30 years, the winters have become much milder in Kyoto. They do not immediately mention climate change as Americans might, but when I probe further, they usually credit it to global warming in a very matter-of-fact way. Though the ability of people to accurately report long term changes in weather is questionable, the winter temperatures in Kyoto hover just around freezing much of the time and therefore snowfall is a very clear and obvious indicator of temperature. I have been told repeatedly that in years past, there was always at least one or two big snowfalls before February but that in recent years this trend has been changing. Indeed, there are many older pictures with depictions of Kyoto temples in the snow, but we have yet to see this scene. The environmental science teacher in me cannot resist the chance to remind everyone that “weather” (such as this year’s abnormally large snowfall in the US) is not the same as “climate”. Climate is much longer term, so we must be careful about making quick assumptions about climate change based on a one or two year occurrence. According to my sources, Kyoto winters have been steadily warmer over the last few decades.

Though it is not terribly cold, I have felt the cold here far more than any place I have ever lived. (Keep in mind I have lived in Boston!) Why does it feel so cold here? I attribute it to no central heat or insulation in homes (also traveling everywhere by bicycle not doubt has a big contribution). I’m not sure if I mentioned this fact in my blog; it is certainly a regular topic of conversation among foreigners here. I can understand no central heat/insulation in places that aren’t very cold (such as the bay area) but Kyoto stays around 40 degrees Fahrenheit all winter and when you add in the considerable moisture in the air, it feels much colder. The moist cold really eats right into your bones…brrrr.

Every home I have visited in Kyoto has the same high wall unit for heating. The unit supposedly has a thermostat, but in actuality the set temperature is never really reached because a lack of insulation means that you are constantly balancing indoor and outdoor temps. Not only is this a terrible waste of energy (hello climate change) it is also terribly expensive. Our electricity is 30 yen per kilowatt hour which is around $0.35 per kilowatt hour. According to the DOE, the average cost of electricity in the US is $0.12 per kilowatt hour. (I know that coal burning states are cheaper averaging around $0.07, while CA and NY top the scales at around $0.13. Hawaii is crazy pricey at $0.22, but the climate is pretty nice…) Given the cost of electricity here, not surprisingly, all of our foreign friends (who have larger apartments than we do) spend over $200/month on electricity in the winter. Shockingly, even with a tiny one room studio and very frugal use of electricity, our bill was over $100 for January. Yikes.

People here are certainly incentivized to be frugal with heating. Then again, all the more reason to use insulation since it’s cheap and really helps with saving energy. I think the US needs to export LEED (for green building standards) to Japan!
(I have tried to ask many Japanese acquaintances about the lack of insulation and I receive mixed reports ranging from utter confusion, to excuses that old buildings do not have it, to mention of how hot it is in the summer. But surely insulation would help with keeping the hot out in the summer, too, right? Anyway, concerning insulation I cannot understand their reasoning…I just met a gaijin from the Czech Republic who has just starting working in an architecture firm and he also cannot understand the lack of insulation. He confirmed that, oddly enough, even new buildings do not have it. Despite this fact, Japanese architects are supposedly world renowned.)

Okay, so now let me reframe how cold it is in our humble abode. We put up with it being quite cold, but our indicator to turn on the heat is when we can see our breath. (Remember, this is inside.) Until then, if I am home during the day, I will turn on a space heater and huddle near it (guess what I am doing currently), wear long underwear, two pairs of socks, slippers, and arm warmers that I can pull over my hands.
[Ah, long underwear…for years my mom used to sing the praises of long underwear to me but somehow I never got into it. Literally. Perhaps it was because all my previous pairs of long underwear were so thick they made my pants uncomfortably tight. Or maybe it was because I didn’t live in a place where it was cold enough either outside (as in California) or inside (as in the super heated indoor conditions of Boston). In any case, I have become unceasingly thankful for my long underwear here. It has become my second skin and sometimes I wonder if I actually do have skin under all those layers. Fortunately, I have also purchased quite a few pairs here that are thin enough to fit under even my form-fitting jeans, and fortunately they are quite inexpensive. Ah, long underwear, domo arigato gozaimasu!]

Last but not least, a description of my Kyoto winter experience would not be complete without mentioning my reoccurring outbreaks of chilblains. Several years ago, after wearing some waterproof shoes, I experienced red, itchy toes. Since they went away after changing footwear, I assumed it was some sort of allergy to the shoes. However, this winter after my toes grew increasingly red, painful and swollen, an internet search finally solved the mystery: I had chilblains. Chilblains are an abnormal response to cold that can occur most commonly in the toes and fingers. Aside from being terribly annoying and surprisingly painful, they are harmless. Many articles report that chilblains occur most frequently in cold, damp conditions and especially in environments where it is cold but not extremely cold. (Apparently when it is extremely cold—think New England or Scandinavia—people dress more protectively.) I nursed my toes through several bouts of swollen discomfort until I figured out that I needed to wear two pairs of socks at all times. Now my toes are better but the chilblains have migrated to the pointer finger on my right hand. Wearing two pairs of socks on your hands proves to be a little less practical…Sigh.

To recount the things I love about winter, this year I have consumed more than my weight in hot chocolate, but fireplaces are nonexistent here and the snow has been disappointingly absent. Thanks to Kyoto, I now associate winter with chilblains, long underwear, expensive heating bills, and cold bike rides. I am so ready for spring!!!

More Japanese Winter Fun: Coming of Age Day and the Bean-throwing Festival

2010-02-07T06:32:00.000-08:00

It seems that the New Year celebration in the first days of January is just the beginning of festivities in the winter in Japan.

In mid-January, Coming of Age Day gives everyone a reason to not go to work, eat street food, and watch all the 20 year olds stroll the streets wearing their gorgeous kimonos. They actually wear what is called a furisode, which is a type of kimono with very long sleeves (reminiscent of sleeves on the graduation gowns of master’s degree recipients). An English teaching book I have says that the long sleeves can be used as pockets and were often used to hide love letters. Therefore, once a woman is married she wears kimono with just normal length sleeves. Ha. Anyway, what I most enjoyed of the day was seeing all the 20 year olds in their finery. Apparently they often rent the furisode and hairpieces. (Often when a woman dresses up in a fancy kimono, she’ll wear a wig that has hair pulled back and piled on the top.) The girls also have their makeup done and then go out with friends to drink that night. Actually, Coming of Age day really reminded me of a Japanese version of American proms minus the dancing and limos.

In the weekend closest to Coming of Age day we headed to the Sanjusangen-do temple (the one with the 1001 statues of Kanon) to see the annual archery competition. The archery competition is for 20 year old men and woman from all over the country. I believe that this is their one shot (literally) at this tournament, but there were some older competitors in a different category, so I’m not quite sure about that. Anyway, despite the big crowd we managed to squeeze a peek at the competition a few rounds before it ended (for this I can thank our far-above-average height as a tremendous advantage in crowds). The archers were impressive, though most missed the mark (again literally) by quite a lot. To be fair, the targets were very far away and, if I had tried, I would have certainly been a danger to all the spectators.

In the first three days of February is Setsubun or the “Bean-Throwing Festival”. This festival is supposed to follow the lunar calendar’s beginning of spring, but the lunar calendar moves around compared to the Western calendar and apparently this is a little too flexible for Japan, so this “beginning of spring” ceremony is always celebrated on Feb 2,3,4 here. (Did I mention that February is the coldest month in Kyoto. Brrrr. We even had snow flurries yesterday…so spring is not exactly around the corner!)

Nonetheless, Setsubun is perhaps my favorite Japanese celebration so far since it involves evil spirits, bean throwing, bonfires and sushi rolls! Wheee. As it happens when you don’t really speak the language, I had been noticing lots displays in the supermarkets with pictures funny monster-looking characters, special food and masks, but I really had no idea what this stuff was about. Ah, marketing and holidays are keen partners in Japan! I finally figured out that the monster-men were supposed to be demons or oni and on Feb 2, people dressed as oni get thousands of roasted soybeans thrown at them at certain shrines. The soybeans are considered good luck beans and they are thrown at the oni to “cleanse the evil from the past year” and to rid people of bad health (according to Wikipedia anyway). Apparently people may do this in their own homes as well, though I’m sure not everyone does. In the Kansai region of Japan where we currently reside, it is thought to be lucky to eat your age plus one in roasted soybeans, too, on this day.

Also for Setsubun, sushi rolls (makizushi) are eaten while facing the “lucky direction” which is based on the Chinese zodiac and changes yearly. While eating them you must be silent. This is said to bring good luck in the upcoming year. One of my English students who works in the sushi export business said that you must not cut the makizushi because it is supposed to represent good health and cutting it would be really bad luck. Ouch. This year the direction was Southwest and on Feb 3rd, Jim made makizushi with his labmates and ate it for lunch and then we made it for dinner and he and I dutifully faced Southwest and ate our rolls in silence.

Also, on Feb 3rd at one shrine in Kyoto at 11pm, a huge bonfire is lit. The bonfire, composed of people’s good luck ornaments from last year, was the biggest bonfire I’ve ever seen. As luck (ha) would have it, the shrine in question was just down our street, so we walked there, took in the street food scene, and stared at the fire with some friends.

So now that we’ve rung in the New Year at the temple, prayed for luck in the shrines, eaten lucky sushi rolls in the lucky direction and eaten our age in soybeans we should be having really good luck this year! Only time will tell… ;)

Kyoto: Quite Possibly the World’s Safest City

2010-01-25T23:46:00.000-08:00

I have been extremely blessed with living in safe places my whole life. This statement might astound many non-Americans who imagine that the US is a most dangerous and crime-infested place. And, of course, it is compared to most other parts of the developed (non-warring) world. But, I grew up mostly in a small Alabama town, then in a nice suburb of Lexington, KY. The college years I was nestled in the tiniest and most protected little women’s college campus and in a sleepy Scottish university town. Then I was off to a tiny African village where everyone certainly knew my name, then to a sketchy neighborhood in Berkeley where I nevertheless always felt safe, then to quiet Cambridge, MA and finally Redwood City where we seldom locked our condo. Anyway, all this is to say that I have indeed lived in pretty safe places. But, I do believe that Kyoto—a city of 1.5 million people and the largest city I’ve ever lived in--is perhaps THE SAFEST PLACE I’ve ever lived.

Here are a few examples to support my point:
I’ve already mentioned that at first I didn’t realize people locked their bikes since the bike locks are just small keyed loops that click through the back tire. Indeed, you can still pick up a bike and carry it away even when it is locked (which is probably by design so the police can routinely impound bikes that are parked illegally). But, nonetheless, I have left my locked bike all over the city for any number of hours and have never had to worry about it (expect for the police impounding it which, though I think is a crime, doesn’t exactly count in the crime category.) In fact, I have even forgotten to lock my bike several nights when I left it parked in the bike parking of our building. (The first time I did this, I was nearly late trying to locate my bike key when I finally gave up and went outside only to find it in my bike lock!) Last night, as I met an English student at a McDonald’s I forgot to lock my bike and left the key conveniently in the lock so that if someone took it, they’d even be able to lock it later. Over an hour later, I emerged to discover what I’d done, but fortunately, old Oranji (the name I’ve given my orange bike, not so creative since it’s the Japanese word for orange) was there waiting for me.

Another morning as I was heading out of the house I couldn’t find the key to our apartment. I finally gave up and opened the door to find the keys, there in the door lock all night…Good grief. It’s a really good thing I don’t live somewhere dangerous!

The other day I stopped in at a little fast food donburi (stuff on rice) place to get a quick bowl of beef teriyaki on rice and left my violin, purse, and shopping bag at my table while I went to the restroom. (I was on my way to an orchestra rehearsal and was alone and I didn’t think I could have fit everything in the restroom anyway.) Now I tend to be trusting, but I wouldn’t even do this in most of the places where I’ve lived.

What brought this post to mind today was what just happened to me on my way home from babysitting. I stopped at a grocery store and bought some things, but realized that I forgot to buy milk, so I stopped at another one that I passed on my bike ride home. Now, the tricky part about riding a bicycle everywhere is where to store things if you have multiple stops and bags. I couldn’t take a bag of groceries in to another grocery store, so I decided to leave them in my bike basket. A quick stop for milk turned into a stroll through the veggies and fruits, then the fish…so 30 min later I emerged to discover that my bag of groceries was not in the basket where I left it. I gasped--more from the shock of crime in Kyoto than from sadness about the groceries—but then I saw it. Someone had removed my bag from the basket and put it on the curb by my bike, perhaps to prevent the bike from falling over when another biked was parked near it. So, my hypothesis was not disproved; Kyoto remains the largest city and the safest place I’ve ever lived.

Pictures

2010-01-10T05:05:00.000-08:00

New Decade, new jobs, new blog features!

2010-01-10T00:58:00.000-08:00

Now that we’ve entered a new decade, my Kyoto life has taken on a new dimension and I have gotten busy! You may have noticed I took awhile to post my New Year blog and for that I apologize! I guess was taking a little break, but also life has gotten a lot more hectic for me.

Jan 5th marked the completion of my grad school applications. I have applied for a doctoral program in environmental education related stuff, so a sizeable bit of my time since November has been spent searching for potential advisors and applying to programs. In the end, I applied to three schools, so we’ll see how that goes…Many thanks to my California mom, Renee, for mailing and e-copying transcripts, and to my recommenders who kindly agreed to add one more school at the very last minute. As part of some Karmic circle, immediately after all my grad school stuff was finished, I received an email from a former student asking if I’d write a letter of recommendation for her. How fitting.

What else am I doing with myself? I am babysitting for two American families who coincidentally each have 18 month old little girls. Starting this month, I will be babysitting four mornings a week, so no more sleeping in for me! From one of these girls, Claudia, I am learning “Claudia-speak” which involves a mix of Japanese and English words. (Her parents are both American, but her mom is doing doctoral research in Buddhist studies and speaks Japanese.) Not surprisingly, I learned that “unchi” means number two (as in feces) in Japanese from Claudia early on! ;) The other little girl, Sophie, is quite adept at sign language, and from her I am learning all sorts of animal signs, “more”, “milk”, etc. Going from teaching 18 year olds to 18 month olds is quite an adjustment, but I am enjoying it. They learn so much at this age and, unlike my 18 year old students who were not always thrilled about learning, Claudia and Sophie seem to learn something new every day. They are both really cute!

I currently have four Japanese English language students whom I meet with once per week for private lessons. These students are testing my breadth of skill as a tutor since they are all so different: one is a darling 8 year old girl who is a beginner in English, another is a housewife (whom I think is a beginner, too—I meet her tomorrow), another is a male researcher whom I help by editing grammar in his science writing, and the last is a guy about my age who is an intermediate learner, working on his conversational skills. It took awhile for me to acquire students, but now that my schedule is filling up I seem to receive more and more emails from prospective students. How do I find these students? They actually find me through a flyer I posted on a board in an International Center where native language teachers advertise. Most of my students are fairly close by, though I travel over an hour by train to a nearby prefecture to meet with the little girl. (Fortunately, her family pays more than I ask local students, so it makes the long travel time less painful.) I also still have Japanese class on Wednesdays, but that will soon be over, thankfully, since my schedule is really filling up. Oh, and I have joined not one but two Japanese community orchestras…but I’ll save details about that for another post!

I was requested a long time ago to post pictures to my blog and, due to some technical difficulties, I wasn’t able to make that happen. However, we now have a better internet connection, a new camera on its way (thank you, Renee, and Amazon customer service), and a microSD card for transferring our pictures off our Japanese ketai (cell phones). So…expect to see more!!

I love to hear your comments, so please do speak up! If you have any specific questions, go ahead and post them and I’ll do my best to answer. Here’s to a new decade!

The Japanese New Year

2010-01-09T23:30:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in the previous post, the New Year celebration in Japan is much more significant and family-oriented than is Christmas. The basic celebration of New Year involves going to a Buddhist temple around midnight and joining in the ringing of a giant copper bell. The bell is rung 108 times to represent the 108 human sins in Buddhism.

We joined our multicultural (from Singapore, France, Ukraine and the US) group of friends for a dinner followed by a trip to our neighborhood temple to ring the bell. We stood in line waiting as groups of families took their turn directing a large beam into the giant bell. Each temple has a copper bell (known as a “bonshu”) and on the bell are 108 little balls representing those human sins. Below the balls is a lotus flower where the bell is struck. On the bell’s lower section is an inscription apparently that describes where and when the bell was made. Kyoto has some of the most famous bonshu in all of Japan (or so I read).
We stepped up to ring the bonshu and each of us grabbed a cord that was tied to the beam. The beam was suspended so that one only needed to give the cords a bit of tugging to achieve a nice loud crash. I really felt sorry for the Buddhist priests who were assisting with this process because it was really, really cold (there were actually snow flurries) and their bare heads and hands couldn’t have been comfortable. (Even in gloves my hands were numb!) Also, their robes didn’t look that warm, though apparently they will wear up to three layers of robes to combat the cold. Of course, only in Japan would there be a Buddhist priest stationed below the bell--not exactly a quiet place--to capture every group’s bell-ringing with their own camera. Ha. Kindly, the priests had built two small wood fires in the temples grounds and they were serving hot tea as well. No doubt they wanted to provide these creature comforts to their guests even though they weren’t able to enjoy them since they had to man the bell line!

New Year’s day (Jan 1st), everyone goes to the Shinto shrines to pray and give a small offering. Fortunately, there is a major shrine just around the corner from us, so Jim and I headed there in the afternoon. We were astounded at the size of the crowd and we dutifully waited in a very long line to reach the shrine to thrown in our coins and say a prayer. Fortunately, massive crowds here are very civilized and I have never felt uncomfortable in them. (It probably helps that we are so much taller; it allows us to see above the crowd a bit…;) ) When we reached the prayer spot (I’ll call it an altar), we noticed that there were many people in what looked like an inner sanctuary, engaged in some serious prayer or contemplation. My guess is that they must have gotten bad fortunes ;) ...for the other main activity at the shrines on Jan 1st is to purchase a fortune. Fortunes are available all the time at shrines, but it seems like the New Year is an especially popular fortune-receiving opportunity. At the Heian Shrine where we were, people shake a wooden container of wood sticks and pull one out randomly. They then take this to the window where the fortune paper corresponding to the number on the stick is distributed. Good fortunes are kept, but bad fortunes are immediately tied to lines or trees within the shrine. Following the receipt of a bad fortune, people will pray to the gods for a turn in this fortune. We have only gotten our fortunes once since arriving to Japan, and mine was the highest you can get, so I figured I’d stick with it! (Besides, the fortunes at this shrine were all in Japanese and we didn’t have anyone with us to help read them!)

Outside of the shrine there were tons of temporary vendors selling street food. The main fare: takoyaki (fried dough balls with octopus inside), okonomiyaki (cabbage and egg pancake-type things), yakisoba (fried buckwheat noodles), cotton candy (strange food only consumable by children), French crepes, shrimp crackers with fried eggs, fish shaped Belgium waffles filled with sweet beans (they’re really good), and frankfurters on sticks. Normally it is considered bad manners to eat while on the street, so I now relish these opportunities to gobble down street food on the street!

We then biked to another shrine that is quite popular on New Year’s and saw much the same scene. That shrine had displayed many pictures of tigers, which was a nice touch since 2010 is the year of the tiger. Roar! (The Chinese zodiac animals are used here as well to represent various years.)

I had read that New Year’s day is one of the times to see people out in their traditional finest: kimonos and fur stoles for the women, robes on the men, and wooden flip flops with slipper socks on both genders. Though we did see a few people dressed in this way, I was disappointed that the vast majority of people were not wearing traditional clothes. I’m hoping that many people chose not to wear traditional clothes because it was so cold, but it may just be that not so many people wear traditional clothes at all anymore. 
It’s really too bad, because there is almost nothing as beautiful as a Japanese woman in a kimono.

The final aspect of New Year’s is one that I cannot describe in great depth since we are not part of a Japanese family. Basically, it is a family time and grown children will return to their parents’ home to spend the few days visiting the shrines of their ancestors. Not surprisingly there are also special foods consumed only at New Years. Most of the foods are prepared in the days leading up to Jan 31st, because it is traditional for women not to cook for the first three days of the year—it’s sort of a rest period. For this reason, the foods are often smoked, dried or pickled so that they remain fresh for the three days. (It’s funny—three days of not going to the grocery store in the US is perfectly normal, but to Japanese women who visit the grocery store daily, it is an event for which to prepare!)
Apparently not that long ago, all stores were closed during this time, but now there is enough economic pressure that many larger grocery stores will remain open throughout the holidays. (Sadly it seems like much the same trend in the US, too.)

On Jan 3rd, Jim and I were invited to have “osechi” (New Year’s food) with Kazumi, a woman who runs a woman’s “tea salon” for Japanese housewives that meets once a month. Later this month I will be a guest speaker at the tea salon to talk about American culture. (Still trying to figure out how to structure that slightly broad topic—more details to follow!) In repayment for speaking, Kazumi wanted to teach me a little about Japanese New Year. Once we arrived to her house, we found that she had invited a younger cousin who was just learning English and his friend and they had dutifully prepared talking points under Kazumi’s direction. Kazumi and her mother brought out lovely trays of osechi and we all discussed the various components. There were pickled vegetables, dried cod, and all sorts of other hors’doeuvres all with a unique Japanese taste. I found them quite tasty, though I am a pretty adventurous eater (fortunately!) Many of the types of osechi were not parceled for four, so we dutifully used the serving chopsticks to divide portions. My awkward moment occurred with a slice of fish roe (fish eggs). There were only two slices of the fish roe and four eaters, so I thought Jim and I would both split our slices in half. Unfortunately, Jim beat me to the punch and shared his slice with both of the men, leaving me with a whole slice of fish roe encased in the egg sac. Oh boy. I tried to cut it but ended up making a huge mess of little fish eggs all over my plate and chopsticks to the extent that Kazumi’s mom had to fetch a cloth for me to clean things up! Oh dear. Once I couldn’t break the slice I was forced just to stick the whole giant bite in my mouth. Yum,yum. Let me just say that I won’t be buying any fish roe at the store any time soon. ;)

Perhaps the most special part of the New Year’s food is the miso shiru (we call this miso soup, though Japanese don’t consider it soup necessarily). Miso soup is a required component of the Japanese meal--even at breakfast--but there is a special type of miso that is consumed at New Year’s. This is a sweeter and lighter colored miso and apparently how it is prepared varies across different regions of Japan. I actually bought miso paste and made some at home which was quite similar to what we had at Kazumi’s. The only difference was that the miso at Kazumi’s had homemade mochi (soft, gooey rice paddies) in it. The making of homemade mochi is quite an important part of New Year’s (or at least I think it is!)

I could say more about the New Year, but this is probably more than enough for one post! In any case, we very much enjoyed the celebration and I have to say that to meet the New Year by ringing a Buddhist bell, eating street food, and shrine-hopping was certainly a more poetic way of welcoming a new year than the bar-hopping and drunken scenes of the Western New Year’s celebrations. I did miss my New Year’s Day Southern black eyed peas and collards, though…I guess old habits die hard. ;)

Christmas in Japan

2009-12-27T22:13:00.001-08:00

Christmas in Japan is not exactly what I’d expect given that the country is 84-96% Shinto/Buddhist and only about 1% Christian. (These figures were obtained from Wikipedia, of course.) Having already spent one Christmas in a non-Christian country (the Gambia), I figured that Christmas would pass unnoticed by mainstream Japanese culture. What a surprise when we started seeing Christmas decorations in early November such as the giant lit signs that said, “Merry Christmas” (in English nonetheless) at Kyoto Station (the huge central rail station).

After that we began to see Christmas decorations and hear carols (identical to those in the West) in major shopping malls and stores. Some packaged products even had snowmen and Santa and even the grocery stores had sections with Western sweets and goodies labeled “Merry Christmas” (in English). Now, was this for the benefit of the foreign residents of Kyoto? Absolutely not! It turns out that the Japanese do (sort of) celebrate Christmas…

Apparently Santa does stop in Japan on Christmas Eve to bring presents for children and, oddly enough, he is often depicted in pictures as coming down a chimney even though no one has a chimney here. Also on Christmas Eve, families eat Christmas cake, which has been purchased in a department store or bakery. The Christmas cakes are lovely affairs, with little signs that say (in English) “Merry Christmas”. The one we had even came with a tiny device that played Christmas carols. Just before Christmas, Jim and I were in a department store with a colleague from Jim’s lab, Sunnichi, and his girlfriend, Eumi. In noticing the bustle in the Christmas cake area, I remarked to Eumi that we didn’t have Christmas cakes in the US. The look of utter shock on her face was amusing since I’m sure the tradition assumes its roots in Western culture. I tried to explain about fruit cake, but describing a cake that few seem to like but everyone still buys seems enigmatic even to me.

As for decorations, we have seen a profusion of decorations from tree figurines to larger artificial Christmas trees. Of course, with the Japanese flair for style and cuteness, in addition to traditional green trees one can find hot pink trees with bows and sparkles. We were amused by the large variety of Santa costumes available in one home store. Most of them were “sexy Santa” female costumes…like Halloween met Christmas in Japan. Hmmm. Thanks to the abundance of Christmas decorations available, I have a gel gem set on our window that is a Santa sleigh with five reindeer (wearing red scarves) and surrounded by snowflakes. Cuteness!! Although house holiday decorations are nothing comparable to the US, I have seen a few houses with outdoor Christmas lights, stars and Santas. And, I couldn’t neglect to mention the life-size Colonel Sanders dressed in a Santa outfit in front of KFC stores. :)

[Sidenote: Apparently KFC has done well with marketing and has managed to convince many folks here that fried chicken is “the food” of Christmas in the West—never mind about turkey, ham or duck. We actually did eat KFC at one of our Christmas parties and I have to admit that it was delicious! I believe it (along with McDonald’s) is reputed to be much better here. What that says about the standards of American consumers I’ll leave you to ponder.]

To me, the oddest part about Christmas in Japan is that, as Eiya, the postdoc in Jim’s lab said, “Christmas is for lovers.” Since Eiya spent several years in the US, she has a grasp of what our holidays are like, and she explained to us that it seems Japan and the West have switched the practices of Christmas and New Years. While in the West, Christmas is family time and New Years is for dates, parties and friends, in Japan, Christmas is a special date night while New Years is strictly family time. Indeed, in reading a little about Japanese Christmas online, I found that Christmas is somewhat similar to Valentine’s Day. Sweethearts give each other presents and there are decorations everywhere. However, people still go to work on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and businesses are open as usual. Ironically, Dec 23 is a holiday in Japan because it is the present emperor’s birthday. So, Jim didn’t go to work on the 23rd, but did work on the 24th and 25th! What an alter universe we are in!

Sarah substitute teaches for Japanese elementary kids

2009-12-20T01:35:00.000-08:00

The head of an English language school, Mr. Nakanishi, called me the other day asking if I’d be willing to substitute for one of his English teachers. We met to discuss the subbing assignment and he gave me the materials (books, CD’s) for the lessons. I was a bit apprehensive: the job was to teach 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classes and all the regular English teachers at his school speak Japanese. I figured that it was only two hours of teaching (this is an afterschool program) so it couldn’t be that bad. He and I agreed that in any case it would be an experience

The afternoon of the subbing, Friday, I gave myself plenty of travel time. The school was in Shiga prefecture which is the prefecture (region) next to Kyoto. Mr. Nakanishi had warned me that the train trip involved a very confusing changing of train lines from the subway to the commuter rail. I think he was really most worried that I would become hopelessly lost and not show up. He said he’d had many English teachers get lost in the train journey, so he cautioned me multiple times about it, insisting that I ask someone on the platform if the train stopped at my stop. Fortunately thanks to his incredible directions I managed to navigate the confusing switch with no problems. I even managed to arrive at my destination station with five minutes to spare. 

As I waited at the station and watched people drive in, I hoped that I would recognize Mr. Nakanishi. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I am still having trouble distinguishing faces of Japanese (men especially) I have met. I really find it bizarre, but it seems that across cultures, all people look the same until you get more used to distinguishing features. Definitely in the Gambia, I felt this way at first and I have heard some of my Latino students joke that “all white people look alike”, so I guess it’s universal. Funny. Anyway, I thought that I recognized a man who drove up in a white car, but I figured that since I was the only gaijin (foreigner) in the whole station, that he would make some motion towards me. Eventually my phone rang and it was him, in the white car. Ha. I wasn’t sure if he didn’t recognize me or whether he was wondering why I hadn’t come right up to his car…in any case, we made the connection.

We got to the school and immediately had to remove our shoes and put on the ubiquitous plastic slippers often in waiting rooms of places where shoes are to be removed. Unfortunately my slippers were way too wide for my feet and I could hardly walk up the stairs without having them fall off every step. The result was me slowly inching up the stairs trying desperately to keep the shoes on. Mr. Nakanishi scurried up to the top and looked back at me with a slight puzzled expression—I’m sure he wondered why I was so slow coming up the stairs. Once I finally reached the top we removed our slippers to walk on the carpets in our socks. I was really glad I had carried some little Isotoner house slippers with me so that I could put them on. (Thanks for buying these for me, Mom!) I don’t think I could manage to teach or at least feel professional in my socking feet!

We entered the classroom, and Mr. Nakanishi scurried around trying to set up the room, while I tried to put the books and CDs in order so that I would have some semblance of organization when the kids arrived. Moments later, small boys bounded into the room and began addressing me in rapid Japanese. Fortunately, Mr. Nakanishi was there to explain who I was and that I was from America. “Amerika!!” the boys exclaimed excitedly. They seemed truly shocked about that.

There were only about 10 students in each class, but I was really glad that Mr. Nakanishi was there since my Japanese is way too limited to conduct proper classroom management. I had asked Mr. Nakanishi when we met about the students’ behavior and he replied that some were a little “mischievous”. Sure enough, the first grade boys ended up being quite mischievous indeed. It was actually pretty funny. The first graders who spoke, in theory, the least amount of English were definitely the most excited by the lesson. They blew me away with their knowledge of food names in English. As we practiced flashcards they shouted out, “hambagaa!” “orange/oranji” “cherry” “peach”, etc. Of course, it did help that many of these words were borrowed words in Japanese and therefore similar. As I went student by student asking them to say the name of the item on each flashcard, the little boys turned it into a game of their own, shouting out their answer with funny expressions, jumping up, holding their arms out, etc. I would have been more worried about their behavior, but Mr. Nakanishi seemed to find it amusing, so I chose to be amused, too. The first graders really starting losing it when it came time in the lesson to run to opposite sides of the classroom, depending on whether you liked or did not like a certain food. Oh boy, let’s just say that once they understood what we were doing there was ostracizing of the only boy who didn’t like hamburgers, kids running from side to side repeatedly, kids rolling on the carpet in the middle, kids squealing…yikes. I ended that game as soon as I could!

Next came the second graders and they seemed to be more able to understand me. We worked on the words “on, in, under” using pictures, flashcards and props. I think this lesson was the most successful since most kids were able to say these words in context by the end of the 40 minute class. They especially got excited the lesson when they realized I was asking them to stand “on” their chairs and then get “under” them. Fun!

Definitely the girls were better behaved than the boys in the 1st and 2nd grade classes. True to many stereotypes of our gender, the girls were generally shyer, sometimes to the point that I couldn’t hear them when individually asking them their name or a word, etc. On the other hand, in each class there was at least one girl who was really on top of it and quicker than all the others. The third grade class was all female so I thought it would be a lot easier to manage. The only problem was that Mr. Nakanishi left me alone for this class and unfortunately, the book for this class was really too advanced. While the 1st and 2nd grade books seemed fairly appropriate for the level of the kids, the 3rd grade book was a bit too difficult. It was frustrating and if I had been their permanent teacher I would have done some serious restructuring of lessons. However, I was just a sub and therefore was supposed to stick to the book. The result was that most of the girls just drew pictures on their books and colored instead of participating. Hmm. I wondered how much of this behavior was typical. In any case, there was one adorable girl in the third grade class who was really being earnest in trying to learn and did I appreciate her!

After that class, I couldn’t help myself and told Mr. Nakanishi that I thought the book was too advanced. He replied that it wasn’t really a problem since the kids would get more English later in school and that the 4th grade book was on a similar level. I am unaccustomed to educators neglecting feedback that something needs to change, but, alas, this was beyond my control.

So, all in all, I guess the classes went pretty well considering…considering that I speak almost no Japanese and the students speak almost no English…considering that I am not used to teaching elementary kids…considering that I’m not an English teacher by training…so, yeah, I guess it all went surprisingly well. Mr. Nakanishi told me on the way back to the station that he wished he could give me a regular job (sadly I am not here long enough—1 year minimum--to be on contract for any English school). He did offer to me a chance to tutor for a family in the area privately, so maybe that will work out. For today I was just happy to get paid to have an interesting cross-cultural experience!

When the Lab Parties...

2009-12-15T06:55:00.000-08:00

Overheard this evening from our apartment: “Knock, knock, knock, knock!” (This was on our next door neighbor's door. He is a PhD student from Thailand.) “Hello?” Now awkward English from a Japanese student, “Um. You must come to lab party now.” (Some reply from the Thai involving an excuse.) “No, you must come to the year-end party. You do not need to pay.” (Some reply from our neighbor that he needs to go to the laboratory.) “No, Professor __ orders you to come. You do not need to pay. You must go with me now.” (Reply that he will go after he goes to the lab.) “No, you must come now. It is six already and the beginning is very important. The professor orders you to come.” (Our neighbor finally acquiesces and agrees to accompany this student.)
…Perhaps there was some mistranslation going on here in the way the Japanese student described that our neighbor was “ordered” to go to the party? Or perhaps not?

In any case, it seems that when labs party, it is an important occasion. In my experience, it is not an occasion that our neighbor should turn down. Jim has landed himself into a really nice lab full kind people. I have written already about Yasuko, the secretary and how much she has helped but did I mention that Satoko, the undergrad, is being paid by the lab to help translate for Jim? Needless to say, Jim's lab has gone out of its way to be welcoming and supportive, and in fact, even hosted a welcome party for us.

The party was planned around our schedule, which I guess is not surprising since it was in our honor. We had no idea what to expect. What we got was far nicer than any welcome party I've ever experienced.

Since people generally have much smaller homes here, most partying/entertaining is done in restaurants and bars. Our welcome party was held at in a private room upstairs in a traditional restaurant. In total there were about 30 people in attendance, most of whom were students in the lab. There was also one professor, several secretaries, and Eiya, the English speaking postdoc from the sister lab where Jim works. To begin the party, the professor (not the main one from Jim's lab, but an associate) gave us a sweet welcoming speech about how Jim was the first foreign student they've ever had in the lab and how nice he has been and that every student really likes him. (Imagine!) ;) Then, we all said “Kumpai!” (cheers) and began to drink beer. Then, the food courses began…

It was a set menu composed of many small courses that were beautifully presented. I wish I had taken pictures of all the courses, but alas, I will just have to rely on my memory. Here is what I can recall of the food: the courses consisted of sashimi (very nice quality raw fish), a creamy cheese dish served with fish roe, steamed tofu, tempura vegetables (delicately fried in a thin batter), miso soup (a staple here), Chinese pork slices (that Jim swore was the best pork he's ever had), fried cheese, assorted vegetables. The rice bowl came toward the end and the desert was a silken tofu chocolate pudding with whipped cream. Each course was very small and carefully portioned to be shared between four people except for the courses served in individual dishes. In the end, we had a total of perhaps 10 courses, though it didn’t amount to a huge quantity of food. Quality over quantity, I suppose.

There was a huge amount of alcohol, though, and it began to show over time. We all shared beer and then sake (rice wine). A cardinal rule in Japan is that you never fill your own glass without first filling your companion’s glass. (And even then, it is probably best to let your companion fill your glass rather than filling it yourself.) So, people were very attentive at filling each other’s glasses. Eiya sat next to me which was great because she could explain what was going on. She shyly explained (as some of the younger students grew rowdier) that Japanese are normally very shy, but when they drink, they are “released”. I had heard this before, that drinking in Japan was almost a sport and that perhaps it helped to compensate for an extreme cultural shyness. After a couple of students were lying across seats and generally being silly, I agreed that indeed, they were feeling “released”. It was actually cute how comfortable the students seemed around us once they started drinking and Jim got multiple hugs from drunken students. Interestingly, many of them who had never spoken to me suddenly seemed to all be able to speak English…hmmm. Coincidence?

At the end when everyone was chipping in money we thought, oh boy, this is going to be expensive, but then we were told by Eiya that we were the guests and therefore not allowed to pay. This, too, seems to be a Japanese thing. If someone invites you to dinner, coffee, etc. they will be paying. This is not always true with younger people, but definitely has proven true in our experience with older Japanese. The hospitality here reminds me so much of the incredibly hospitality of West Africa where people will generally bend over backwards to help you. It’s so nice and I can only hope that Americans are as kind to foreigners. (Hmmm.)

Anyway, I think the party was a great way for Jim to bond with other students since he reported that everyone was very friendly with him the next day. Since then we have been invited to join in on a student BBQ and Jim has been invited to join some of the lab guys for ramen at lunch. The “ladies” of the lab, spearheaded by Yasuko, invited me to take my lunch with them any day around noon. I haven’t yet but I certainly should.

I count us very fortunate to be part of such a nice lab group. I would assume all labs were this nice, but judging from the way some foreign friend researchers describe their labs, I believe that Jim lucked out. Yay. Maybe he can ask for Christmas day (not a huge holiday here) off… ;)

Our first trip out of Kyoto

2009-12-10T22:43:00.000-08:00

After five weeks, we finally managed to leave Kyoto for a day. It took Jim's cousin, Mark, coming to a nearby city on business to lure us out into the wider land of Japan. We met Mark in Kobe, another city in the Kansai region, about 90 minutes by train (approx. 50 miles) southwest from Kyoto.

Our adventure started off with a little misadventure—we biked to a subway train station downtown but could not find anywhere to park our bikes. We walked from block to block trying to find a safe place to leave our jitensha (bikes) but couldn't find a location without a “bikes will be removed” sign. We couldn't even find a collection of illegally parked bikes with which to sneak ours. (Kyoto is an incredibly bikable city and bikes far outnumber cars. Therefore, parked jitensha usually litter the sidewalks especially around convenience and grocery stores. Generally rules for bicyclists are pretty slack: riding on the sidewalk in either direction is expected and though not legal, biking with umbrellas, cell phones and head phones is seemingly overlooked. However, sometimes the police exact revenge by putting up no parking signs and impounding bikes. We have seen them in the act of impounding so it does happen. Of course, it's only 2000 yen ($20) or so to get a bike out of impoundment, but still...on our tiny budget it all matters!)

Around and around we went, stopping at several car parking places to be met by attendants rushing out, crossing their forearms vehemently against us parking there. (The forearm gesture means “dame” or “don't” and is not to be ignored. It's not often used, in fact, this is the first time I have seen it in action.) Finally, we saw a little collection of bikes and thought that might be the place to leave our bikes until we realized it was a police station! Seeing an opportunity, Jim went in to ask them where to park our bikes and promptly learned of a bike-pay-parking lot that we must have passed several times. How ironic: the very authority that caused our bike parking nightmare was also the one to end it! I must admit that after a full hour of wondering around looking for parking, I was not in the best of moods. (I pity the people who were walking in front of me as I stalked past dragging my bike along.) Jim, patient as always, was managing to see the adventure in the misadventure. Perhaps I would have to had I not been really hungry and past ready for lunch.

Anyway, the bike parking was interesting; there were individual racks and once you pushed a front tire up into one, a latch locked it in place. Thanks to a kind woman, who demonstrated how to use the machine, we deciphered that we should pay when we returned and upon payment, the bike would be released. Of course, we couldn't tell how much it would be for the day, so we just hoped that the end bill wouldn't be more than if our bikes were impounded. =P

Fortunately, Satoko (from Jim's lab) had helped him to buy the series of tickets we needed to get to Kobe and had written down lots of directions, so we were pretty okay getting there. The trains we rode (a total of about 7 throughout the day) were very clean but nothing special. The local (multistop) trains looked like subway cars while the limited (fewer stops) trains had more seats like a regular train. The most remarkable part of our trip was the never-ending image of settlement outside the window. In a trip of over an hour, I never saw open space other than rivers and the occasional park. Somehow between Kyoto and Kobe it is wall-to-wall houses, businesses, and buildings, buildings, buildings. It is clear that the population density is greater than the US just based on housing size alone. But to see such endless development for miles and miles caused me to feel a bit claustrophobic.

Once we arrived in Kobe, we headed to the city center and walked around. It was clear from the first moment we stepped onto the street that this city is quite different from Kyoto. Like most Japanese cities, it is riddled with bright lights and tall modern buildings. On the other hand, Kyoto has a height restriction on buildings and the only really tall ones you see are limited to a small area around Kyoto Station (downtown). We did see some nice parts of Kobe: there was a large landscaped clock in a small park that ran on solar power and whose background was made up of purple and green cabbages. We also saw a park where people were setting up for the Luminarie: a display for several weeks in December in which beautiful arched structures are constructed and lit along a street and in a park. The lights are in commemoration of the revival of the city after the great the Kobe earthquake of 1995 which measured 6.8 on the Richter scale and killed 5,000 people. We thought about returning later to see the lights lit, but figured that since people were already staking out their positions at 3:30p, it would be pretty uncomfortably crowded.

We had another tiny misadventure in trying to reach Mark. Mark works for Proctor and Gamble (known as P&G in Japan) and the P&G office was on a man-made island just off Kobe. We managed to get on the wrong train line in transferring (it's tough when almost everything is written in Japanese) so we had to do some walking in between train company lines. But, we did make it, albeit a little late.

We all decided to have a low key night rather than battling the crowds of the Luminarie, so Mark took us to dinner at a nice restaurant where we thoroughly enjoyed delectable beef and veggies that you grill yourself (in the Korean BBQ tradition, I think.) After that we headed to a little sports bar for beer/sake. At the bar I was mesmerized by a giant screen with American movies: Rocky and Back to the Future II!
The island where P&G has its office is apparently a foreigners' enclave. Much English is spoken and it feels quite different from the Japan we've seen so far. Mark said that some of his Japanese colleagues consider the area to be Disneyland, not because of it resemblance to an amusement park but because it seems so oddly Western. Mark also told us that P&G requires all their Japanese employees, including secretaries, etc., to speak English. Interestingly, P&G hires mostly women at the upper level because they are generally overlooked by Japanese companies and therefore P&G can pull in an extremely high caliber staff. Leave it to an American company to think of this aspect. Good for them.

It was great to see Mark and we also have to thank him, not only for a delicious dinner, but for hauling a heavy bag of American food for us. His great wife, Sue, graciously put together a care package for us including such delicacies as brownie and cookie mix, mac n' cheese, oatmeal, Cream of Wheat and cereal! (Can you tell I miss breakfast foods most?) Mark and Sue and their kids have lived several years in the UK, so they know all about missing the tastes of home and kindly offered to bring some foods we were missing. What a great early Christmas present! :)

(On this note, Jason--dad of Claudia, the little girl I am babysitting--remarked to me that everyone who visits from the US becomes a pack mule, bringing the things you most miss and/or need. Familiar food ranks very high on this list. For example, Claudia is completely enraptured with Elmo's organic graham crackers only found in the US and our friend, Jon, from Australia asked his parents to send him 15 kilos of muesli cereal as his Christmas present!) :)

Coming home from dinner with Mark we had our first brush with a stereotype we'd heard about Japan. Mark pointed out that all the lights were still on at P&G as we walked by around 9p. Later the trains at 10:30-11p were packed with people in business attire, apparently coming home on the last train from work. [Ironically, Jim has much better hours here than when he was at Stanford...so far. Trains, buses, etc. in Kyoto shut down fairly early, so maybe the work culture is a little less intense there than in bigger cities?] Anyway, perhaps because they work too hard, people commonly fall asleep on trains. For awhile on the trip home, I gazed at the train car window, simultaneously seeing the endless myriad of outside lights and the inside reflected train car full of people in suits nodding off. For the first time, I felt a little like Bill Murray in Lost in Translation, with little purpose in a fast-paced and intensely working world the likes of which I can only begin to understand.

Once we arrived back in Kyoto the subway and buses had stopped, so we had to walk about 45 min to our bikes. I love that Japan (and especially Kyoto) is so safe that you see women walking alone down the street in a city at midnight. I also love that we could walk all the way from the train station without having to worry about wandering in to the wrong neighborhood. I most love that 2 blocks away from the biggest downtown area in Kyoto, we walked past a magnificent temple tucked in the main street and that we saw lots of little bonsai and other plants lining many streets. Our first trip confirmed what I suspected: of all the cities in Japan I am so glad to live in Kyoto!

Crazy Busy!!

2009-12-08T06:53:00.000-08:00

I apologize for the break in blogging: we have had the busiest week yet and my blogging fell to the wayside. Here is a taste of what we've been up to. I apologize for the lack of detail, but so much has happened! I will add details about certain parts in further blogs. Please let me know if you'd like to hear more about any particular event.
Mon Nov 30: Moving day! By taxi we moved from our little temporary apartment to an international house much closer to Kyoto University. All in all the move was very smooth and we are happy in our new place. (More details to come about that.)

Tues Dec 1: I ran around trying to get us settled (i.e. I had to figure out where to buy towels, groceries, etc.). In the afternoon, I met Kino-san (Mr. Kino), my new (and first!) English language student. It turns out that he wants me to help edit his grammar for science journal articles, and we'll meet weekly starting mid-Dec. From there, I joined Jim to visit Kiyomizudera temple. This magnificent temple is open at night for a short time and lit up to show the beauty of lights on the fall colors.

Wed Dec 2: Japanese class day from 8:45a-2:30p. From 3-5p I began my babysitting job for Claudia, a darling 18 month old of an American couple we've met here. Directly after, I met Jim and Satoko and Maiko (from Jim's lab) for a trip to the Noh theatre. It turns out Noh is a very ancient form of Japanese theatre with language that is so archaic even native Japanese speakers have a difficult time understanding it. The costumes were beautiful, but Noh is, well, quite slow, so after sitting for 2.5 hours I was relieved when it ended. (Not to mention I had been running around non-stop all day and hadn't had dinner yet, so I was sleepy and hungry: not a great combination for watching a slow art form. I admit I was relieved to see that I wasn't the only one struggling to stay awake in the theatre as heads bobbed all around me...) ;)

Thurs Dec 3: I met with a man who runs a small school that has students who need a native English speaking teacher for private English lessons. I think he was surprised when I turned down the opportunity to tutor on Saturday afternoons (since it would take me several hours to travel and would therefore eat up all my Saturdays) but I did agree to teach a student one weekday afternoon per week. In the afternoon I babysat for Claudia again. Immediately afterwards, I met Jim and some of his lab-mates to take a bus to our welcome party. Jim's lab organized this party for us and the whole lab (except his main professor) turned out. It was quite an event! More on this to follow...

Fri Dec 4: In the afternoon, I met Emi, a recent graduate of Doshisha Women's College in Kyoto who spent last year studying at my alma mater, Sweet Briar College. We met at a cute French/Western cafe and had cheesecake (yum!) and afterwards walked around Doshisha. Mai, another Doshisha student who also spent last year at Sweet Briar, and Jim joined us later for dinner and drinks at an izakaya (Japanese pub). I was introduced to Emi and Mai through my former undergrad advisor and friend, Sue Piepho, and I am very grateful for the introduction since Emi and Mai are lovely girls who speak beautiful English. (They are both English literature majors training to be teachers.)

Sat Dec 5: In the morning we met Andy and Rheanna, friends of friends from the US, who are traveling through Japan for two weeks. We joined them for a whirlwind and action-packed day of sight-seeing around Kyoto. They were the first people we've been around who know less Japanese than we do, so suddenly we became the experts, though it was a case of the blind leading the blind. (Or, as Rheanna suggested, the cataracts leading the blind...) :) A rainy morning cleared to a lovely day and we walked along the philosophers path (a gorgeous and quaint area), saw the Silver temple, ate a five course tofu special lunch (which fortunately the restaurant allowed us to split between couples to save money), saw Nanzen-ji temple, saw Kiyomizudera temple again, ate at our new-found favorite inexpensive sushi place and finally visited our first sento (public bath house). Since the sento water is really hot, it was the perfect end to soak our very sore feet (we—slightly regretfully—had walked everywhere instead of taking buses or trains...)

Sun Dec 6: We woke up just in time to head to Jim's lab for a BBQ with some other students. Apparently some students throughout his lab building organize a BBQ every few months. They had small charcoal tubs with grates on the top on which they cooked sweet potatoes, eggplant, peppers, chicken, fish, pork, mussels, mushrooms, etc. It was great to chat with those that speak English (I think they are more free around us after the big party) but eventually a cold wind caused us to head for home. (It hasn't been too cold outside, but for some reason Sunday was frigid.) Later that afternoon, we went to Jeff and Mery's house (which is amazingly just around the corner from our new place) for a Secret Santa name drawing. (A group of us exchanged names and will have a little gift exchange/Christmas party on Christmas day.)

Mon Dec 7: Jim had to work, but I met up with Andy and Rheanna again for more sight-seeing. (There is no end of sights to see in Kyoto. We are so lucky to live here!) We saw part of the Fushimi-Inari-taisha, a 4 kilometer series of torii (big traditional arches), had noodles (udon and soba) for lunch, visited Nishiki market downtown, and met up with Jim for dinner. Dinner was a bit of a misadventure since we went to the little restaurant next to our place and thanks to no English or paper menu, we had some confusion with ordering...ah well. It comes with the territory, I guess.

Today is Tuesday and I can finally catch up with laundry, errands and blogging before babysitting for Claudia tonight.
Tomorrow (Wed) we will leave language class early to travel to Kobe, a city about 90 minutes by train south, to have dinner with Jim's cousin who is in Japan on a business trip. So, the adventures are to be continued...

Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T20:34:00.000-08:00

The older I get, the more I love Thanksgiving. (Perhaps food is becoming more and more the center of my life?) Or maybe (I'd like to think) I love the meaning of Thanksgiving, that it is a day to spend time cooking a feast, then savouring it with loved ones. And, of course, a day to be thankful. I have been touched by reading everyone's Facebook status messages today as they say, “I am SO thankful for __.” (Yes, sadly these days I use Facebook as a way to keep my finger on the pulse of America...but I AM thankful for Facebook—there, I said it!)

I think that as Americans we really need to try to be thankful more often, especially given how much we have. Unfortunately, most Americans seem to be more focused on what they want rather than what they already possess. Of course, I know this is probably a basic human tendency rather than something distinctly American, but I do think that Americans have gotten more and more entitled for some reason. It's as if we all walk around thinking that we deserve better, something is owed to us, we are special, etc. Anyway, there are SO many things that we should be thankful for in the US. It is easy to lose sight of this, especially when you're in the thick of it, so I'm going to make a little list here of what I appreciate about the US (from an abroad perspective) on this very uniquely American holiday.

Here goes: (however, this is by no means a complete list)

-I am thankful that English is my native language, since it has become the universal language of communication. (To illustrate this, in our Japanese language classes, we are probably the some of the only native English speakers—so far we have met classmates from France, Taiwan, Iran, China, Ukraine—but the teacher instructs in English.)

-I am thankful that I live in a country where women are generally treated as equals. (Even in Japan where women are increasingly equal and have jobs, men are still expected to go out socializing/drinking with their office and come home very late at night while the wife takes care of the family, and the man gets first dibs on bath water, food, etc.)

-I am thankful that I have so many opportunities!! *this one needs subcategories
--for traveling abroad: With an American passport, you can enter any country in the world (except ones which are not safe/politically oppose us, etc). This doesn't mean everyone loves Americans-- we've done a lot to tick many people/cultures off--but at least we have enough money (and therefore status) to get into other countries. We were talking with a Japanese guy whose former girlfriend was Chinese, and he said that they wanted to go to Europe, but she had to get special permission from the embassy and wasn't granted it. So, no trip.
--for being able to live/work abroad: native English speakers are in pretty high demand. And since we are highly educated, we can easily be immigrants unlike most of the world's population in developing countries for whom nearly every border is closed. (There is a girl from Iran in our language class and she would love to go to the US for graduate school, but it is extremely difficult for her to get through between language testing, the GRE, citizenship stuff, etc. I jokingly told her she should marry an American guy and she agreed that, “Yeah, maybe I should think about it!”)
--for higher education: The US tertiary system is about the best in the world and we have so many universities from which to choose! We were discussing yesterday how many foreign students are dying to do under/grad/post grad work in the US and how proportionately few spots are available.
--for traveling domestically: The US is huge and that means we have a huge diversity in liveable locations. It is fairly easy to move from state to state, which gives us lots of opportunities for work, school, etc. Also, the national parks are AMAZING. We should all go much more often.

-I am thankful for spacious housing, central heating/air, big ovens,comfy beds, comfy chairs. These things can definitely be taken for granted, but even in a developed country like Japan, I don't have any of them! A big kitchen is probably the thing I miss most in our current living situation...

-I am thankful to be able to read and write (in English, anyway). Probably I have also taken this for granted until now. One becomes quite helpless in many situations when you cannot read/write. (Believe me!) Shockingly, there are close to 1 billion illiterate people in the world today. (And I don't think my current situation counts in that number.) That's nearly 15 percent of the global population!! Can you imagine? (From living in the Gambia, I really can. If this disturbs you—and I hope it does—consider organizing a book drive with or donating to the African Library Project: www.africanlibraryproject.org, a non-profit for whom I have been a board member the past four years.)

-I am thankful for the internet. When faced with no internet connection as we have been a bit lately (and will be next week when we move to a new apartment) I feel as if I am losing my lifeline. How much easier it is to be here, so far away from family and friends and well, English, when we can plug into the internet and chat and read away! Today, for Thanksgiving we skyped with Jim's family and then with mine, so I was able to see everyone we would have had Thanksgiving dinner with AND Sam, the best dog in the world. Oh, and my parents, too. ;)
I also have found free ebooks online (they're all classics, but that's good incentive anyway) and most websites are still available to us from Japan.
When in the US, there is Hulu for free movies, online TV shows, Amazon pay and view, Pandora free radio...Ahh. Enjoy them folks, these things are not available outside the US!! (I tried to pay for an episode of West Wing from Amazon the other day and the screen popped up: “We detect you are not in the US. Due to licensing issues, we are not able to sell outside the US.” Argh!)

-I am SO thankful for my tremendous family and friends, all over the globe. To have my family and my family-in-law be so wonderful AND supportive of our time overseas means more than I can possibly say. If we counted richness in people, Jim and I are wealthy beyond belief. I miss everyone! I am also thankful for our new friends here in Kyoto who have been so helpful and encouraging. It has made all the difference.

-I am thankful for Thanksgiving! And not just for the turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie---oh my!! (Though boy, I am thankful for—and missing—all that!) I am thankful for the emphasis on family, being together, and counting our blessings.

-I am lastly thankful to everyone who read this blog. Perhaps it's the teacher in me, but it's nice to know I might actually be reaching someone! :)

Cultural conundrums...Cash and smoking

2009-11-24T00:22:00.000-08:00

There are a few things that I have noticed here that really throw me for a loop and seem inconsistent within the Japanese culture.

First and foremost is how much cash is used. I had always heard that Japan was incredibly technologically advanced. That you could load money onto your cell phone and use it as a pass in the subway, etc. Maybe these things exist in Tokyo but not in Kyoto. Or, maybe we just can't read and understand Japanese well enough to realize how much technology is used in Kyoto. In any case, very few places seem to accept credit cards or even debit cards. As a result, we actually have to carry around and pay for things with cash. CASH!! I have almost forgotten what American dollars look like since the only place I need them at home is the farmer's market. Otherwise I've grown accustomed to using my debit card for everything back home. But here no such luck. Furthermore, the ATM machines are extraordinarily fickle. Very few of them accept a foreign card. When Jim and I were meeting our new friends for the first time, we were late because we had to stop at five or so different ATM's before we finally found one that would accept our card. Even when using a Japanese bank card, there are issues. It turns out that ATMs here (even your own bank) will charge a fee if used after banking hours. (!!) Jim says apparently they don't understand what the “A” stands for... We were grocery shopping with Mery and Jeff the other day and poor Jeff went to six different machines trying to get cash from their Japanese bank account without having to pay a fee. Unfortunately, he was unsuccessful, so they had to buy a bit less than originally planned. I had a similar problem in the grocery store a few days later, because I realized I didn't have much cash with me, so I had the sad task of putting things back and carefully counting my total before checking out. Another way I am truly becoming a “dependent” as stated on my visa is that we only have one bank card. (You have to pay for each card, so Jim and Yasuko decided—in my absence I might add—that one for Jim was enough.) So, now I have to wait until Jim withdraws money from the ATM. Unbelievable!! (Especially since I've been our breadwinner for the last four years while he was in grad school!)

The second thing is smoking in restaurants. The Japanese are, as a culture, probably the most polite people on the planet. Except that is, when smoking in a tiny restaurant with no ventilation. Fortunately most of the ramen shops we've eaten in have not had anyone smoking and in the izakaya (pub) we were able to have our own rice walled room which reduced the smoke around us. However, Jim and I stopped to get noodles in a little place a few days ago and after the waitress got us an English menu (they had one!) as we started to sit down we realized that the guy next to us was smoking like a chimney, and blowing the smoke in our direction. I have a really low tolerance for cigarette smoke (always have) so I turned to Jim and said, “This isn't worth it.” We turned around to the confused and concerned look of our waitress. Oh dear. How do you politely say, “There's too much cigarette smoke,” when the smoker is inches away from you. And, oh yeah, we don't know how to say that in Japanese yet (minor detail). As it was, we very awkwardly and apologetically left. I worried all the way home that we had created some horrible impression of gaijin (foreigners) in their minds. Jim did tell me later that the cook had turned quizzically, wondering what was going on as we were leaving and Jim motioned to him about smoke and the cook nodded understandingly. At least, I hope he understood. Being foreigners makes us pretty conspicuous so I feel like we need to always be on our best behavior. Ah, the responsibility of being cultural ambassadors!

Japanese Class Take Two...

2009-11-22T07:49:00.000-08:00

Well, the second Wednesday of Kanji and language classes definitely went better than the first for me. That definitely does not mean that I understood everything, or even most things, but at least I understood more than the week before. Definitely my biggest improvement was in reading Hiragana. This time I could generally recognize a good portion of the Hiragana that were written and, when given the quiz in language class, I was able to write some from memory. (We got our papers back from last week and I got a whopping 5 points out of a lot...At least there is no where for me to go but up!)
Indeed my improvement in recognizing Hiragana in just one week was decidedly measurable. Yay.

I know that my Japanese is getting better also because I was able to go into a book store and ask if there were any English books. :) I have also been able to say, “no thanks, I have a bag” at the check out counter of stores. Another :). I still have a really long way to go before I can communicate somewhat decently, but at least if I were to write all the words I can now say, it would take a paragraph or so. I owe this improvement in language mostly to our daily Pimsleur (computer) lesson. Jim is relentless about making us do a lesson a day—even on weekends and even late at night. He really is a fantastic language student. He comes home from work and studies a book we have and also studies Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji online. Whew. No wonder he learned so much Mandinka when we were in the Gambia—he is disciplined!

Okay, perhaps it's incredibly insensitive of me, but I find it very funny that, because there is no “l” in Japanese, foreign words spelled with “l” end up being spelled with an “r”. As a result, many Japanese do not seem to be able to hear the difference between our spoken “l” and “r”. (Jim was asking a postdoc in his lab who spent two years in the US and speaks English well and even she couldn't hear the difference between “er” and “l”!) Thus, the jokes about some Asians not being able to say “rice” but “lice” instead...Of course, I have no doubt there are loads of sounds we can't hear—especially tonal ones in Mandarin, etc. It's interesting the role that language plays in our brain development. I'm sure Vygotsky wrote something about this, but I digress. You may recall from an earlier post that Katakana is a separate syllabary that is only used for foreign words. (Unbelievable to me that Hiragana can't just be used, especially since the syllables represented are the same, just with difference symbols—eek.) Anyway, as there is no “l”, some foreign words end up looking really funny. In class I was reading (yes, reading!) a word “ko” “a” “ra” and I thought, I have no clue what that word is. Since it's Katakana, generally these words are taken directly from English, so technically I should recognize them. Alas, I had to refer to the picture and “koara” means “koala”. Teehee. See what I mean?

Here's another “foreign” word that we looked at in class. The Katakana says “u” “i” “su” “ki” “i”. So, can you guess what “uisukii” is? That's right! “Whisky”! (Yeah, I didn't guess it either which lead to my exasperated face, which then lead to our teacher coming up to me to see if she could help. How could I explain my frustration that these were supposed to be the easy words for us?! Oh well...)

As if the written language wasn't bad enough, probably the most difficult thing about Japanese (or at least that we know about) is the counters. It turns out that having a single word to represent one, two, three, etc. is just not sufficient. We already knew from talking to friends who spoke Japanese that there were all sorts of different words to count by. But, in class this week our teacher gave us the counting sheet of doom. I have to call it that because it was perhaps the scariest piece of paper I have ever seen. Here's why: there are different ways to call one, two, three, etc based on the type of object. Here are the categories on our sheet that have unique counting words:
things, persons, order (as in sequential), thin/flat things, machines/vehicles, age, books/notebooks, clothes, frequency, small things, shoes/socks, houses, floors of a building, thin/long things, drinks/stuff in glasses, small animals/fish/insects, large animals
So that makes SEVENTEEN CATEGORIES of different words to count from 1-10. !!! (And I think there are actually many more counting categories that weren't on our sheet...)
It turns out that there is one “catch-all” category, so guess which one we'll be sure to learn...
And, oh yeah, did I mention that the words for one-ten for each category were all written in Hiragana only!!! It seems it's not as “easy as one, two, three” in Japan...

Confessions of an obsessive grocery shopper...

2009-11-20T06:07:00.000-08:00

I am fascinated by grocery stores in other countries. Indeed, when I travel it's one of the first things I make a beeline to do. I think you can learn a lot about a culture through a careful analysis of its grocery stores. Poor Jim grew to hate our grocery shopping in New Zealand. I can turn a quick trip for two items into an hour (or more!) of fun and adventure. Or at least I think it's fun. Jim would heartily disagree.

Anyway, the cheapest grocery store, called Fresco, is only a short walk away from us. Oh! Dear Fresco, how I love to see what the sales are for the day! Sadly a couple of days ago I went in and realized I only had 800 yen (about 8 dollars), so I had the painful task of really picking and choosing (and totaling in my mind) what I bought. And, alas, two days later when I headed back, the prices seemed to have all changed! Well, not really, but some of the sale items (like potatoes) had changed in price—already! And it's not just prices that change. Much of the stock changes as well, perhaps because it is a small store? (Think of compact city shopping where the only options are hand-carried baskets.) A few days ago I bought funny cookies that were shaped like vegetables but had the taste and texture of waffles; but today they were not there. Another time I wanted to buy more mochi ice cream (little ice cream balls covered in chewy rice goodness—if you don't know them you need to find some!), but alas, there were none in stock. Instead I had to settle for coconut, green tea ice and red bean popsicles. (Fortunately, they are really good despite the seemingly odd combination.) I am learning that when grocery shopping I have to “get while the getting is good”. But, at least the main things remain the same: the milk/yogurt sections, the tofu section, the fish section, the rice snacks and cookies, the bread, the ready (and in-house) made delicacies (fried squid, gyoza dumplings, fried fish, sushi rolls, etc) . The latter make great impulse buys and interestingly they are placed right before the checkout counter. Mmmm.

Oh, here's an observation: the biggest grocery carts I have seen, even in the largest grocery store near us, are just large enough to set hand baskets inside. (They are basically frames for the hand baskets.) So, in general, people buy less at one time and go to the market more often than most Americans. This makes sense for two reasons: 1. people eat a lot of fresh fish, 2. the houses are very compact. The other day when I went to Fresco, I got a little carried away with the sales on veggies, etc, and I ended up filling my hand basket to the brim. Once I got home, I realized that I could hardly squeeze more into the fridge since our fridge is pretty tiny. (It's larger than a mini fridge for dorm rooms, but only by a little bit!) But, now, several meals later, the fridge is close to empty again! Time to go back to Fresco...

Other things I've found surprising in the grocery store:
The fish section is incredible, from salmon to octopus to tiny fish “sprouts”(really baby fish, maybe they're minnows?) Anyway, I read that fish from the sea and shellfish can be eaten raw but octopus is always cooked and fresh water fish must be cooked because of the harmful bacteria they contain. I do like sashimi (at least what I've had in the states, I haven't eaten it here), but I am a little nervous to cook raw fish myself. Er, I mean not cook fish. Anyway, we recently bought a variety pack of fish for adventure sake (and it was on sale) but I decided to cook it because I wasn't sure if it was okay to eat raw. I am adventurous, but I do have my limits...
Also, I never could have imagined so many different soy sauces! They all have different color labels and according to my friend, Mery, some are stronger than others. In larger stores there is a whole aisle dedicated just to soy sauce! Some of the bottles are over a liter in size and I, in awe, asked Mery what could possibly be done with that much soy sauce. She, being from Singapore, just looked surprised and said, “Well, for everything! Seasonings in soups, marinade for pork...I use it instead of salt. Much healthier...” So, I bought the soy sauce she recommended and that very night I used it to season our udon noodles. (She was right. It's really a good seasoning.)

Jim and I are already learning that when you go to the grocery store at the end of the day, the employees start putting stickers on the ready-made food, discounting it. What does that say about us that we can't really read kana and Kanji, but we can recognize the 30% off and ½ off stickers! We have had to experiment a little and sometimes it takes looking at the receipt at home later to learn—oh, that was a sale sticker, but that one wasn't. Nevertheless, we now know the difference between the “normal” stickers and the discount ones! ;)

Well, that's enough grocery store tales for now, but I promise that there will be more to come...

Our Japanese cell phones

2009-11-16T20:25:00.000-08:00

Once Yasuko (the secretary in Jim's lab who has been SO helpful) managed to open a bank account for us, we were all set to get cell phones. There are three cell phone companies here: AU, Docomo and SoftBank. After going to all three both by ourselves and with Yasuko and having lots of difficulties communicating across languages about the complicated plans, minutes, features, etc, we decided to go with AU because it seemed the cheapest and, most importantly, there was a guy working there who spoke English!

We arrived in the evening and our guy knew we were waiting for him—poor thing. After about an hour of filling out our paperwork, deciding on a plan, etc, we had phones! Perhaps the most amusing--or horribly depressing-- part was that we couldn't fill out the application. Bless his heart, (I'm Southern so I say that a lot) after realizing that we didn't even know how to write our names in Hiragana, our salesperson offered to fill out the application for us. Talk about loss of independence and self-sufficiency! (I really felt like an African who can't read or speak English, having to get someone to read and translate a medicine bottle.) Even worse, is having to sign a paper when you have no clue what it says. It is a very humbling feeling and you are completely at the mercy of your translator. Thank goodness the Japanese—as a huge generalization—are very honest! I think I mentioned in an earlier post that our salesperson wasn't sure how to write our last name in Hiragana because it doesn't really translate into the syllabary. Bless his heart again, he had to call a couple of people to get their advice and finally had to make something up. He apologized but said that he needed to represent our name in Hiragana so other employees could read it. How funny that our name can't be represented exactly. Talk about being lost in translation!

He gave us the only phone models that could be set to English (we got the last two in stock!) and he then set them to English for us, since we'd have no way to decipher how to do it. After all this, we still didn't know his name, so we had to ask. (Yes, he was wearing a name tag, but it was written in Kanji only!) It turns out our helper is a law student at the University and he is originally from China. (So Japanese wasn't his native language either, though he obviously was pretty fluent.) His name was Son and he said we could go back and ask for him for help if we needed it. So kind.

Now that we have our phones we are able to call each other for free (yay for family plans!), which is the main reason we got them. We have also used them to call our new friends when meeting, which has already been very useful. The per month cost of our phones is actually less than it would be in the US. However, once we add in the fee for early termination of a contract (we had no choice but to get a two year contract) it is about the same cost as in the US. Our phones are much fancier though. We can watch Japanese TV, take decent photos, and send email on our phones. I know that they many more fancy things, but unfortunately most of these things are in Japanese, so we probably won't be able to take full advantage of these gadgets. Ah, yet another inanimate object that's smarter than we are!

Inanimate speaking (and some non-speaking) objects:

2009-11-16T20:23:00.000-08:00

It is a little depressing when you get the feeling that every inanimate object is smarter than you. Or at least, that every object knows more Japanese. Lots of inanimate objects talk here. Our water heater says something when you turn it on, the elevator in Jim's lab building talks, the cash registers often talk, some public restroom talk: and all speak more Japanese than we do. -Sigh.-

I am thankful for our microwave that is actually a lot easier than US microwaves to operate. It just has a knob that you turn for the desired number of minutes and a switch that is either set to a picture of a hot drink or a snowflake. (Dummy me, the first few times I looked at it, I wondered if it actually cooled things, but it finally dawned on me that the snowflake meant “defrost”.)

We have a little washing machine on our porch and other than the top that says “Twin Air Dry” the rest of the directions and buttons are written with characters. Thankfully there is a booklet that the rental company gave us that says in English, “turn on faucet, load clothes and detergent, press this button and then this button.” After making the mistake of pressing another button just to see what it would do, I finally had the machine running and water was filling it and all systems were “go”. Awhile later the machine beeped so I figured it was finished. Now, the English on top of the machine “Twin Air Dry” led us to believe that this machine might somehow be a dryer as well. (Jim's reasoning was, “After all, even the toilet seats are heated.”) However, after staring at all the buttons I could not figure out how I could set it to dry clothes. Finally, Jim checked online (from work, our internet wasn't working at home) and found the model description. Naturally, it was all in Japanese, so he used Google to translate. What resulted was garbled silliness; something about air shooting in the machine and wringing out the clothes so they are ready to dry in the beautiful sunshine. So...it looks like our machine doesn't really dry clothes after all. At least I hope it doesn't since all our clothes are hanging on our balcony... :)

Talking vehicles:
There are trucks that go through our neighborhood on a regular basis, playing music reminiscent of an ice cream truck and making announcements in Japanese. We are slowly (with an emphasis on slowly) figuring out the functions these different vehicles. At first it sounded like some sort of propaganda a government would send out during wartime, but then we realized that one of these vehicles is the cardboard pickup (I assume for recycling). Another talking musical vehicle that sounded like a Mosque at the call to prayer was selling something (but it definitely wasn't ice cream so we didn't make a beeline for it). There is one that comes by every morning too early and has a woman's voice—that one I haven't figured out yet. One day maybe I'll finally understand...

Japanese Language...

2009-11-13T20:18:00.000-08:00

Today (Wed 11/11) was our first day of language classes at Kyoto University. We enrolled in both a Kanji class and a language class. Both classes had already met for one month, so we figured we'd have some catching up to do. It turns out there is a lot to learn for us to be even somewhat functional here.

Kanji: The wonder (and horror) of the written word!
Our Kanji class started at the painful hour of 8:45am. (Yes, I am getting spoiled sleeping in these days.) I really like the idea that Kanji are pictures to represent ideas, especially when the character bears resemblance to the idea. However, each Kanji character has multiple readings and most characters really cannot be likened to a picture. Jim and I really worried when we learned that the sign for man and woman, when put together was not couple or love, or family, but then must be read through the Chinese translation!(?) Yikes. Considering there are 2000 Kanji characters, I truly don't know how we can learn Kanji reasonably well in seven months.

I was okay following the book and learning the Kanji characters the lesson was introducing. In fact, it felt pretty good! That is until we got to the exercise that said, “Write the following Kanji in Hiragana.” Gulp. It is interesting that Jim and I thought that we would really just focus on oral language for communicating while we were here and figured that written language was more than we'd tackle. However, so few signs, bank letters, food labels, etc are translated to Romaji (the English alphabet) that it really is necessary to learn Hiragana and Katakana and at least some Kanji.

Japanese class...
Following the Kanji class we attended three hours of a beginning Japanese language class. Fortunately there was a lunch break in the middle, so the time passed surprisingly quickly. We expected to be completely lost since the class had already met for four sessions. Walking in we were given a paper to complete on which we had to translate into Hiragana. Gulp again. Further confirmation that I need to learn Hiragana! I wasn't sure if this was a quiz, but since it was our first day I didn't think we'd be graded. I saw another woman (with a head scarf—surely she was morally correct) looking at the Hiragana syllabary, so I opened my book and did the same. Of course, this action caused Jim to accuse me of cheating...Grrr. Anyway, it turns out that the class had focused on Hiragana and not speaking, so we are not behind in speaking. In fact, the Pimsleur language CDs we've been listening to daily mean we are actually quite a bit ahead in speaking. :) (Thanks for those CDs, Ross!)
I'm not sure if we'll go back to the class since it mostly consisted of the instructor saying words and having the class of 40 people say them back. It may not actually be worth the time, so we'll see what we decide next week.

It's not an alphabet!
Hiragana and Katana (collectively called “kana”) are syllabaries, not alphabets. This basically means that each symbol represents a syllable (usually 2-3 letters) rather than a single letter. This is fine with words that can directly translate. For example, there is a symbol for “sa” and one for “ra”, so my first name can be represented just fine with either kana. However, there is no “m” by itself, so Jim's name ends up being written as “ji” “mu”. (I guess that last vowel isn't pronounced, so it turns out okay.) The real problem is “Stapleton”. Double consonants are an issue in Japanese, so the name “Stapleton” is very problematic. In fact, when we finally got our cell phones this week, the poor guy helping us had no idea how to write “Stapleton” in kana. We gave him permission to make something up. I think the result is something like: “su” “te” “pu” “re” “to” “n”. Hee, hee. No wonder Japanese have trouble pronouncing our surname...

End of week 1 and into 2!

2009-11-11T22:33:00.000-08:00

We have been here ONE week!! It has gone by quickly, but I feel like I have learned much more than an average week's worth. As a week in review: we can now recognize some hiragana and katakana (Jim has studied more and is better than I am right now.) We also can say basic things: hello, goodbye, please, excuse me/I'm sorry, it's okay, do you understand English, I do not understand Japanese, yes, no, go ahead, thanks very much, good morning, good evening, when, where is ___, this, that, that over there, is, is not. We can also say random nouns like bank, cell phone, umbrella, book, etc.
This is certainly more Japanese than we came knowing, but we have SO much more to learn!

I am adjusting the style of my posts since not everyday will be exciting enough to recount all details. Yes, even life abroad can be mundane from time to time. I have gotten a little behind in my posting, partly because I have been out and about and partly because our internet connection at home is pretty spotty. (Our poor internet connection is perhaps the biggest hardship thus far! I was expecting higher speed internet than ever before, but alas. It is worse than home! Maybe because Kyoto is an old city, the internet technology isn't as advanced? Anyway, we are hoping for a better connection soon.)

Sunday:
In the afternoon we took a little walk in our neighborhood. For the month of November, we live in a quiet residential neighborhood in the Northeast section of Kyoto, very close to the surrounding hills. There is an imperial villa near us that we have been trying to see but it was closed again yesterday. (I finally looked in the guidebook and saw that you have to book a tour in advance.) We knew there was something else nearby, so we walked on a bit until we encountered what turned out to be a small temple-complex nestled in the woods. It was a lovely site, with beautiful small wood buildings with graceful sloped roof lines, so Asian in appearance.

I wish I knew more about Shinto and Buddhist beliefs and traditions, but hopefully I'll pick up some knowledge while we're here. From what our guidebook says, there are more than 1600 Buddhist temples and over 400 Shinto shrines and 17 World Heritage sites IN KYOTO!! Even if I saw a shrine a day and 5 temples, I still wouldn't see them all in seven months.

Monday:
Jim went to work but returned early because the professor with whom he needed to meet about his project was unavailable. I am surprised at how slow his work has been to get rolling, but I am happy he's had a little time to adjust and get settled. In the search for a better internet connection, we biked nearly an hour across the North part of Kyoto to a cafe that our guidebook said had free wifi. When we finally found it we discovered that it is now just an internet place—and expensive. So, we turned around and biked home again. (I have been getting lots of exercise, biking all around these days!)
You may wonder why we didn't call first or check online. Here is the situation:
1.Calling: we have no land line and no cell phones, so unless we use a pay phone, this is not really an option. Besides, calling in Japanese is not an option and there is little chance that the person answering speaks English.
2.Online: probably it wouldn't have an English website and we can't read yet. :P

Our trip wasn't all for naught because we did locate the Botanical gardens. We decided to save the gardens for another day when we would have more daylight hours. We also biked through the Imperial Palace park. The Imperial Palace itself is available for visiting but you have to apply and be granted permission to enter. Oddly enough, it is reportedly easier for foreigners to get it within a day or so, whereas locals may have to wait months for admission. This may be the only thing for which foreigners get preferential treatment. Everything else seems very geared to the non-foreigner. (More on this later.)
Surrounding the imperial palace is a large park whose most striking feature is the massive gravel pathways through it. Seriously, these park “pathways” are more than twice the size of any street in Kyoto. Strange. At least the park does have a number of trees and adds a nice green space to the city.

Tuesday:
We attended our first Klexon meeting tonight. Klexon is a cross-cultural group that meets to share culture and give Japanese folks a chance to practice their English. Jeff and Mery told us about the group, so we thought we'd try it out. Getting there was a little tricky...

We still don't have cell phones (we need a bank account and an alien card first.) As a result, we must plan to meet in advance and cannot change these plans. We had decided to meet at the International Community House because it was nearer to the Klexon meeting place and there were Japanese culture films being played there. Of course, it looked like rain when I headed out on bike, and I thought we might prefer to take the bus...Sure enough, by the time Jim meet me it was pouring and he was quite wet. We then had to bike to the meeting. We had rain jackets and I had rain pants, but apparently our rain gear isn't too good since we were both wet upon arrival. The meeting place was farther away than I had originally realized, so we ended up having to bike through the one big downtown street of Kyoto. (We bike on the sidewalk here, because everyone else does. This works fine except in areas with lots of foot traffic.) Needless to say, there were so many people downtown that we had to walk our bikes through the crowd. (Picture suave looking dry people with two wet, rain clothes-clad white people and their bikes. I felt a little silly.) When we finally reached the intersection of the Klexon place, we couldn't tell from our map which tall building was the right one. So, we ended up going to the second floor of four different buildings before we finally asked a tiny woman who was cleaning in a lobby. She pointed out the correct building, but then she insisted that we wait. We weren't sure what we were waiting for, but sure enough, she came back with two umbrellas and BEGGED us to take them. [Note: when it rains everyone carries an umbrella, even bikers. Many bikes have an umbrella holster for when it is not in use. Wearing raincoats and not carrying umbrellas is an oddity, I think.] We had learned the Japanese for it's okay, so we insisted that we were fine without her umbrellas. (Besides, we had no idea how or when to get them back to her since our Japanese is not sufficient yet.) She was so sweet, though.

Finally we made it to the Klexon, nearly an hour late. Yikes. I had considered not going, but after everything we had gone through to get there, it seemed like we should at least see where it was. Fortunately, I think we, as native English speakers, are enough of a commodity that our presence, even late, was appreciated. We were showed to seats and jumped right in to the action. The meeting was interesting. It was highly structured--maybe to alleviate awkwardness. First, there was pair work in which one row moved every few minutes. In pairs, we were to talk about what prefecture we would like to see in Kyoto. Next was group work in which we had several tasks to discuss like describing games we played when we were young. I ended up talking with people more generally since I was meeting them all for the first time and it was actually really enjoyable. Since the goal was for cross-cultural communication and English speaking, it was a great way for us to meet new Japanese with whom we could converse and ask questions about culture. We will definitely attend Klexon again.

Day 6 Japan

2009-11-08T18:42:00.000-08:00

Socializing!
Today we were invited to join Nicolas and Francois, the French and French-Canadian researchers we met on Wednesday, along with some of their friends. The plan was to visit a famous Buddhist temple and then go to an izakaya, a Japanese pub.

Our group was a great cultural mix: Nicolas and his girlfriend Nina, from France, Francois and his girlfriend Hiromi, from Quebec (though Hiromi is also Japanese), Jeff from the US and his wife Mery from Singapore, Kuna from Japan, and Jim and I. Fortunately for us, everyone spoke English. (We are very lucky to be native English speakers since it has become the international language between people. Of course, that also means that native English speakers--Brits, Aussies and Kiwis included--often are less fluent in other languages!)

It turns out that Jeff is also working as a science researcher at Kyoto University and has the same fellowship that Jim has. Small world!

We all met near the University and took a bus down to the temple, Sanjusangen-do. According to our guidebook, the temple was originally constructed in 1164 but was completely destroyed by fire in 1249 and rebuilt in 1266. (Still a very long time ago...) It is apparently the longest wooden building in Japan and is so long in fact that archers used to shoot arrows down its corridor. (There is a festival here in January to commemorate the archery, so hopefully we'll get to see arrows flying!) The temple is to honor Kannon, the goddess of mercy, and there are 1001 (!) wooden statues (each maybe 5 feet tall) of her in the building. The statues are all as old as the building—around 750 years old—and I must say that they look pretty good for their age. The statues are painted with gold and to see so many, all in rows positioned on steps, is breathtaking! In the center of all these is a huge statue of Kannon that reminded me of a big Buddha, sitting on a lotus flower. Each statue of Kannon had 40 arms (4 in front, the rest to the sides) and elaborate headpieces. Apparently each arm is able to save 25 worlds, so with 40 arms, 1000 worlds could be saved. Wow, the power.

After feasting our eyes on gold statues, we all made our way to Kyoto Station because Hiromi needed to meet her brother there. Jim and I had not yet seen downtown Kyoto and whoa, was I surprised! Suddenly there were bright lights, big buildings, the huge Kyoto tower and shopping center...I felt like I was in Tokyo. (Yes, those of you who have been to Tokyo are probably amused. I can only imagine how overwhelmed I will be by that city.) We waited in the very modern and sleek mall attached to Kyoto Station (the main rail and subway hub) and ate donuts. Yes, in addition to French bakeries, there is a donut chain called “Mister Donut” which seems to always have a line. The donuts reminded me very much of Dunkin' Donuts, mmm. Once Hiromi was able to meet her brother, we all headed out to our izakaya for dinner and drinks.

The izakaya we went to was downtown on the 5th floor of a building, and I was very glad that we had several Japanese speakers with us since they had to order for us. (To their credit, all of our new friends speak and read at least some Japanese—and everyone in this group knows more than us since we are such new arrivals. I have been impressed that every (non-tourist) foreigner I have come into contact with here has known some Japanese. Of course, it really is a necessity for living here any length of time.) As soon as we entered the izakaya, we all had to remove our shoes and the greeter gave us each a plastic bag to place our shoes in. We had also had to remove our shoes in the temple, so this was the second time we had been walking around in public in our socks. [Word to the wise: when in Japan be sure there are no holes in your socks!! :) ]
The izakaya was really cool since, as a group, we got our own little room surrounded by wood and rice paper walls. The tables were low to the floor, but fortunately underneath the tables was open, so we didn't have to sit on our knees. (Jeff said that you do have to sit on your legs in some izakaya, which gets a little uncomfortable after a while if you are unaccustomed to that position.) Kuna and Hirumi expertly ordered for us a scrumptious selection of tasty plates. Izakaya food is probably the most unhealthy in Japan (much of it is influenced by the West) and is sold as small plates which everyone shares. (Think tapas!) We had fried cheese, omelet-type eggs with soy sauce, fried noodles, terriaki chicken on skewers, egg-tofu, fried shrimp, chicken wings and breaded ice cream balls for dessert. Not bad! For drinks, Mery and I had peach fizzy's (a peach mixed drink), others had beer and sake. We went to relatively inexpensive izakaya and Kuna had a coupon on her phone for this place, so our total bill was pretty comparable to what Jim and I would pay in our dinner club at home. However, many
“going out” meals with people can easily be from 5000 yen ($50) per person on up, so we may not be able to afford to socialize too much. Fortunately our new friends our all limited by small post-doc salaries as well, so we can all budget together. :)

After calling it a night, Jim and I discovered on our way home (on bikes at midnight—so nice that it's so safe here) that our local grocery store was still open. We needed milk, bread, etc, so we popped in and shopped. Surprisingly there were other shoppers—women, young people—as if it wasn't after midnight. We are so amazed by how late everything stays open here!

Day 5 Japan

2009-11-08T00:29:00.000-08:00

More help from new friends, banking, shrine visit, my first fancy toilet.
Today we needed to revisit some of our attempts at settling in (getting temporary ID cards, opening a bank account, etc) so we meet dear Yasuko and Satoko (bless their hearts) again at the university.

Jim and I decided to walk to the university since it gives us more of a chance to see new places than taking the subway, and we took a new route through our little neighborhood. We are starting to learn hiragana, so we used our walk as a opportunity to practice spotting characters we recognized.

[FYI, Japanese writing consists of three kinds of characters: Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. Hiragana are symbols used to represent letters, with one symbol usually representing two-three letters such as “ya” or “tsu”. There are only 100 or so (!) Hiragana, so these are probably more doable (?) for foreigners to learn. Katakana are around 100 less complex symbols (with more straight lines) that are used to represent letter combinations in words borrowed from languages other than Japanese (cognates). These will also be very advantageous to learn quickly since we will more or less (emphasis on less) be able to understand the words once we read them. Kanji are the Chinese characters that are used to represent whole words or ideas. Kanji characters are extremely complex and there are 2000 of them! We will be taking a beginner Kanji class on Wednesdays, but needless to say, it takes years even for native Japanese speakers to learn Kanji. Hmm. Our 26 letter alphabet is looking pretty wimpy in comparison. Oh, how I wish there were only 26 characters to learn!]

Jim and I have discovered a Hiragana character that means “mo”. Since our cat (back home in SF) is named Mo, we are pretty excited that he can be represented by a symbol. Anyway, we have now started playing the “Mo” game in which whoever sees a mo character gets a point. We also pulled Satoko into our game, so our first day playing she and Jim tied with 2 points each. (Apparently it is a fairly rare character.)

On our walk, Jim spied a poster on a house wall with a mo, so he pointed it out. We then started pointing (from across the path) at the characters we knew. A woman had just come out of her house next to us and looked at us quizzically. “Posta?” she asked us, pointing to the poster (it was some type of political message.) We then (in baby Japanese) told her we had “little Hiragana”. She smiled and walked across the street to begin pointing out each character, saying what is was and that, “This looks like this, sideways” etc, all in Japanese but using great body language. It was such a sweet cross-cultural moment! SO cute!!

We finally arrived at the university (a little late from looking for mos) and Yasuko and Satoko were ready and waiting for us. (We understand that Japanese are very prompt which is going to be tough for us. Jim was wondering if we could possibly explain that we were “P's” (Myers Briggs types—which means we are not so into schedules), but probably not.

We headed out first to the bike store because apparently our bikes had arrived! Sure enough, two 27” used bikes were waiting for us—one orange and the other silver. I took the orange one because in addition to the front basket it had a luggage rack on the back, my justification being that I will be doing most of the shopping (for groceries, of course) ;). It's also the cuter bike. ;) The shop added a lock on the back wheel of my bike (again, yes, people do lock their wheels), added a bell to Jim's, and raised both of the seats as high as possible. (Ha. I think being so tall here—me at 5'9” and Jim at 6'3”--is an endless source of amusement.)

After a short time our group headed out from the bike shop, all on our own bikes. Yay! Next we blindly followed Yasuko and Satoko to get a family seal. Apparently on documents here you use a stamp that represents your family. The stamps can be purchased at various card shops and 100 yen stores (think dollar stores). Yasoko, Satoko and a store clerk had to get creative about how to represent “Stapleton”. It seems there is no Kanji equivalent for that name. Imagine! After much thought and contemplation, we finally decided on the Kanji symbol for “east” which (from my understanding may also mean the sound for “tow” which sort of sounds like the last part of StapleTON. Hee, hee.) How this is supposed to be official I have no idea...

Anyway, with our new “family” seal, we headed to the ginko, or bank. Whew. If you thought it was difficult to bank in the US, it is a cake-walk compared to Japan. When we later told our new expat friends about our bank experience they all just groaned. One replied that the reason he was learning Japanese was simply to deal with the bank. So, there we were with Yasoko speaking to one bank employee, then another, then another, trying just to open a bank account for us and deposit Jim's paycheck. After about an hour of serious discussions (indeed Yasuko was fighting so hard on our behalf that things were getting a little heated and other employees began to stare) we weren't successful. Formerly, foreigners had to be in Japan at least 6 months before they could open an account. Not anymore, but still, there was some problem with transferring money from the lab to us. We have to continue this saga next week. Poor Yasuko! (And Satoko, too, who was trying to translate this!)

After the failed bank excursion, Satoko had to leave but Yasuko motioned for us to follow her. We biked to a place that turned out to be another lab and after some confusing moments, Jim finally figured out that this was the “other lab” his professor runs. This lab has more post-docs and more of them speak English, so it will probably be a good thing for Jim. In fact, one of the post-docs, Aiya (sp?) spent several years in Minnesota so she served as our translator. She, Yasoko, Jim and I sat down for tea (Japanese green tea) and rice crackers and after a short while it was decided that we should visit the nearby shrine.

It turns out the Shinto shrine next door to the lab is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is beautiful! A group from the lab walked us over to the shrine and we all walked around, learning about its various aspects from Yasuko. It was funny because only Yasuko seemed to know anything about the meanings and traditional procedures in a Shinto shrine, so we were all learning, even our translator. (It might have made a difference that Yasuko was the only one from Kyoto; the academics had all come from elsewhere in Japan.) We learned how to clap, bow, pray and clap when praying to the god of our birth year. (As Jim and I had previously learned from US Chinese restaurant place mats, Jim is the horse and I am the sheep.) Apparently you give the 5 yen coin as an offering to gods because the 5 piece is spiritually significant. (Interestingly, it is also the one without a number on it, so we had previously had to ask someone how much it was worth.) We also paid to have our fortunes told. We drew sticks with numbers and then got paper corresponding to those numbers. It was all in Japanese, so our friends translated for us. Jim's fortune was “more good than bad” and fortunately said he would get any job he wanted. Excellent. Mine was the best fortune you can get (yay!) and it said that traveling was good for me, to which we all agreed. :)
(If we had received a bad fortune, we would not have kept the fortune papers but instead tied them to a line in the shine and asked for help from the gods.)

Sarah's first fancy Japanese toilet experience:
A trip to the toilet can be quite interesting for a foreigner in Japan. Aside for the standard, no frills Western toilet (we have one of these in our apartment), there is an Eastern “squat” style toilet that is a flushing porcelain in-the-floor job. There is also the incredibly fancy and fabulous Western with frills toilet and I finally encountered one today. I visited that necessary room at the lab and lo and behold, I met the toilet. When it saw me, it greeted me by opening its lid to expose a nice heated (yes, heated) seat. Ahh! There were buttons which fortunately had enough pictures for me to figure out that they controlled various bidet functions, spraying water in select locations. Once I had tried out one, I was ready to turn it off. I couldn't recognize a stop button and it didn't seem to be subsiding. Hmm. I pushed the button twice, hoping to make it stop but instead it caused a massaging experience. Errr. Did I mention all the buttons were labeled in characters? (I had heard an NPR special in the US about expats in Japan getting into toilet “situations” in which they couldn't turn them off. I had imagined myself emerging from such toilet soaking wet and traumatized. Right now, I suspected my fears might be realized.) It was clear I couldn't stand up with the water flowing or I would be soaked. I worried that randomly pushing buttons might get me into bigger trouble, though. Thankfully, after pushing an orange button that didn't have a picture, the stream stopped. Whew. I emerged victorious!

Day 4 Japan

2009-11-05T16:52:00.000-08:00

Nature in Kyoto:
This morning we met Lauren, an American friend of a friend, who is living here in Kyoto with her husband and their 16 month old daughter, Sophie. (They are here for one year because her husband is on a Fulbright-Hays fellowship.) Jim joined us since he doesn’t have to work this week and we all went to a park so that Sophie could play. The park was really nice with big slides, swings and sandboxes. We grilled Lauren with questions we hadn’t been able to figure out such as “What is that packet of tiny white sprinkle-looking things that comes with the yogurt?” (This packet also looked exactly like a “Do not eat” packet, so we were erring on the side of caution. It turns out they are sprinkles, so I’ll eat them next time. :)) As we were leaving the park we ran into another American, Jason, and his little girl, Claudia who is about Sophie’s age. He and his wife are here for several years (his wife was in JET and now has a Fulbright-Hays fellowship as well). From Jason we learned more about the garbage and recycling system. (Throwing away garbage is really complex here—different items go in different bags and are picked up on different days-- and if they recycle as much as the sorting would lead us to believe, I am in heaven…) It is really nice to have some American contacts here since a major way information is passed on to our kind is through other expats.

After we left the park, Jim and I went on a big, multi-hour walk around our end of Kyoto (the very Northern-most part). We stopped at a little hole-in-the-wall ramen shop for lunch because it reminded us so much of a West African “chop shop”. (Jim and I met as Peace Corps volunteers in the Gambia, West Africa.) Fortunately, they had an English menu (!) and we were able to order a combo of ramen, rice and gyoza (dumplings). What a feast! As we finished, the shop had cleared of other customers and so we started practicing our “baby” Japanese with the family running the shop. (We guessed, anyway, that the restaurant team was a man and wife and grown daughter.) They were SO sweet and excited that we were trying to speak and they so wanted to say something we would understand. After lots of searching through my phrasebook, I finally found what I was looking for. “Oishikatta.” I said and immediately the three flew into bowing and “Arrigato, arrigato!!” (thank you). It was such a sweet moment. They were so kind, and as we left the older women took us to the door and gave us a deep bow. We definitely have to go back. I also wonder if any American restaurant owner would be so kind to a foreigner trying to speak English. I hope so, but I kind of doubt it…

Moving along, Jim and I followed a path to a lovely shrine area and saw a woman praying to various sides of it. We have a lot to learn about Buddhism and fortunately Lauren’s husband is a Buddhism scholar, so we’ll ask him. We then continued on our way until we encountered a lake Jason had told us about. There was a beautiful walking/running path around it and one end of it offered a view of the Convention Center where the Kyoto Protocol was signed (at least we think so. We couldn’t read the signs, but that’s what Jason told us.) After sitting for a while in the park we finally headed home (we had been walking all day and our feet were telling us it was time to turn in.)

So, no major misadventures today, but we did gain an appreciation of how much nature is just around our doorstep. Kyoto is renowned for its beautiful fall colors and the trees are just beginning to turn gold and red. The city is also surrounded by hills, so once you get to the outskirts you can see them all around. In addition, in every neighborhood, no matter how urban, there are gorgeous vegetable gardens. (We even saw a rice field today, in the middle of the city.) I am beginning to understand how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful place. I can’t wait to explore more of it.

Day 3 Japan

2009-11-05T03:36:00.000-08:00

We Get by with a Little Help from New Friends:
This morning Jim and I went into Kyoto University (aka Kyodai) to Jim’s new lab. Since his advising professor (and the only one in the lab who speaks English fluently) is at a conference Wednesday-Friday, he has given Jim the days to get settled. For today (Wednesday) it was decided that the department secretary and an undergrad would help us get some things done. The to-do list: buy used bikes, investigate cell phone plans, get our alien registration cards, and open a bank account.

At 10am we met Yasuko and Satoko and decided on a plan of action. (Satoko speaks some English and with the help of an electronic pocket translator we were generally able to communicate with effort). We first headed to a bike shop where Yasuko wheeled and dealed on our behalf. There were only a few used bikes available and Yasuko bargained for cheaper ones to be sent. (Also we needed a larger size than most of the bikes there…) So, in about a week our very own used bikes should become available. Check: pending.

We then stopped at a cell phone store and stood there while Yasuko discussed all the different options. When the salesperson finally gave her a monthly number I could tell by the panicked look on her face before I even saw the number punched into his calculator that it was high. I also realized that the complexity of cell phone plans far surpassed our small group’s language exchange abilities. Fortunately, Jim and I had found a salesperson in another cell phone carrier’s office yesterday who spoke English pretty well (!) and knew we could get a better deal there, so we were able to tell Y and S that it was okay. Besides, we needed our alien cards before we could get cell phones anyway, so this had to wait. Check: delayed.

Next, we headed back to the university to borrow bikes for Jim and I to use that day (Yasuko and Satoko were walking their bikes at this point). After some giggling in the lab with other students (I think about whose bikes would be big enough for us) two guys graciously (and bravely) gave us the keys to their bikes. [CORRECTION: I realize I made the “no one locks their bikes” statement (yesterday’s entry) too hastily. It seems that the bikes DO lock around the back tire. It is very small so we missed it initially. However, even then we do still see some bikes not locked…]

Although I am an avid bike commuter at home I was slightly terrified biking here. First, the bike I was on (even though borrowed from a guy not too much shorter than me) was so short that my legs were fully folded while riding. I must have looked like one of those clowns on a tiny bicycle, knees popping up everywhere. In addition to this, bikers and walkers are everywhere and it is a small miracle that there are not collisions every moment. Bikers are all over the side walk and manage to squeeze through any gap in pedestrians with little pause or hesitation. My only solace is that the bikes are all cruisers that don’t go too fast—and being lower to the ground makes it easier to touch ground if needed!

It was nearing lunch time and I was relieved to hear Yasoko ask if we were hungry. Something was decided on and we obediently followed Y and S. (Ah, the old “I have no idea where we are going because I don’t understand the language but I am following and trusting anyway” feeling!) We all headed down to a University entrance where several women were selling Bento boxes for 500 yen (about 5 dollars). We selected our choices and after a battle trying to pay for Y and S (which we lost) we all headed back to the lab to eat.

Ah. Japanese food is SO GOOD!!! My bento box had a battered chicken breast, rice, a cabbage salad, a spaghetti salad that tasted just like a US macaroni salad, pickled eggplant and yam (I think?) and some pickled radish. Everything was absolutely delicious! I can’t wait to have more Bento!! Yasoko showed us that the little packets included, when added to hot water, make miso soup. (I don’t think I would have figured that out on my own.) Yasoko was very concerned that we were happy and she kept asking if we liked the miso soup and the food. She needn’t have worried: we were happy as clams. (If clams can actually be deemed happy—what a funny expression.)
Anyway, we ate with Y and S and two other female students and when we insisted on eating with chopsticks, they were all very determined to teach us the correct way to hold them. Hmmm, I thought I was perfectly functional holding them in my self-taught way, but upon correction I could hardly get the food into my mouth. Oh well. I will have to practice more.

After lunch we realized that we needed to retake our photos for ID cards because the ones we brought were too large. (Ha, imagine something American being too large in Japan.) Yasoko had an appointment, so another student, Reiko took her place. She and Satoko took us (on bikes) to the student center where, after many confusing gestures and silliness, Jim and I got our pictures taken and poof, the pictures were ready and in our hands. Check: done. :)

We all then biked to the registration card office. It felt just like a DMV in the States, except that everything was in Japanese, of course. We filled out paperwork and then were informed that it would be a month (!) before our cards were ready. Fortunately there is a temporary form we can get for opening a bank account and getting cell phones, but we had to fill out more paperwork for this and we have to return to pick those up on Friday. Ah, government red tape is the same everywhere. Check: delayed.

By this time we had pretty much exhausted what we could get done that day without ID cards, so we decided to reconvene on Friday for the temporary cards and bank account opening. Before we left Yasuko wanted to introduce us to a Canadian at the University so we followed again. [Note: If you haven’t gathered this already, Y, S and R spent a good part of their day helping us and would have spent many more hours with us had there been any more we could have done. I can only hope that international students without English skills receive some similar support when they study in the US. We are so thankful to our new friends for the incredible graciousness and kindness they have showed us!]

Once we arrived at another lab, Yasuko poked in and saw her friend (who looked Japanese—huh) and then the friend took us all to two white men in another office. Jim joked to me that Yasuko was saying “We brought our white people to meet your white people.” Ha. We then met two guys, French and French Canadian who were working as researchers. They were very nice and told us about the Japanese language courses offered by the University and how to get to the appropriate office. After chatting with them for a while we headed to this office to see if we could enroll in the language course. It turns out that the language course has been running for a month and is not supposed to admit late applicants but we were taken to a professor’s office and she (speaking perfect English) gave us permission, primer books to start learning characters and a list of books to buy at the bookstore. Wow! (It turns out the University allows spouses of researchers to take a semester of Japanese language. I imagine them realizing that makes for happier spouses (and in turn, happier researchers!)

So, Jim and I are both enrolled in a beginning Kanji class (characters) and a Japanese language class. This means we will spend 5 hours in class--all on Wednesdays. Whew. At least I don’t have to go back to another Kumon center (see Day 1 post)!! ;)

If you are half as tired reading this lengthy thing as we were doing all of this, then I apologize. It was a very busy and full day!!

Day 2 Japan

2009-11-03T03:19:00.000-08:00

Today was a national holiday so Jim didn't have to go in to work and when we went to see our local temple there was a sign in front of closed doors that must have said "Closed for the holiday". It is SO strange to be illiterate. Suddenly even the most mundane signs seem very alluring...Jim and I are taking to making up what the signs say which can be pretty amusing. For example, in our first Japanese department store today there was a bin that had a cat and dog with an X over them. Jim then remarked, "That sign says that we can't put our dogs and cats in there."

Fortunately most food stores and shops were open since it wasn't really a big holiday. (Jim's professor said it was not a big holiday, just a government one.) So...more shopping for us! I am quickly realizing that shopping could easily be my main pastime if I don't get a job. Uh oh. We did manage to find the big mall about a 20 min walk from our apartment. There is a Starbucks, McDonald's and Body Shop in it which is so odd since everything else is so Japanese. There was also an international food shop that my Italian friend from yesterday was telling me about. Of course, this was also full of Japanese food as well and we were the only non-Japanese in the shop, but still--we found peanut butter, more cereal, herbal teas, Hellman's mayo (that was my splurge Southern girl that I am), cheap pasta, pasta sauce, and even snickers and M&M's! The most surprising thing was that most things were really reasonably priced, comparable to home prices even though they were imports. This means that we actually WILL shop there. Yay! (Don't worry folks, I promise we won't only be eating "our" food. It's just that a taste of home now and then is really comforting.)

Tonight we ate at our first ramen noodle shop. We were trying to chose from the many little tiny restaurants and noodle shops on our walk home from the mall and we ended up picking one that had a bit of a line outside. (We figured the locals knew where to go.) It wasn't as good as Pho, but pretty tasty and very cheap! I am relieved to know that we can actually afford to eat here. Everyone had told me over and over how ridiculously expensive Japan was, so I have been pleasantly surprised--no relieved--to see that it isn't too bad. In fact, a number of things cost less here than in the US. And, what's more, the fast food is really good and healthy (aka Sarah edible) unlike fast food in the States. :)

I also had my first Japanese public toilet experience. I visited that necessary place in the department store and met the non-Western squat toilets. Fortunately, after two years of pit latrines in Africa I am an expert squatter, so no problem there. I was a little perplexed as to how to flush since everything was written in characters. I pushed one button but it only made a flush sound (so one can cover up uncomely noises perhaps?) but the second button I tried did the job.

Thankfully no major misadventures were had today aside from the ever awkward feeling of not being able to converse with people. Oh, I did almost get run over by a man on a bicycle. It was totally my fault as I was blocking the narrow path caused by a long line outside a donut store we were passing. He made a funny "uuooh" utterance just as I scurried out of the way and everyone in the donut line turned around in response to his proclamation. Dumb white girl...

Everyone seems to ride bikes in Kyoto. Bikes are absolutely everywhere!! In fact, Jim and I were looking at bike stores today since we plan on purchasing our own bikes and we were heading across the street to one such store before we realized that it was just bike parking out front, not a bike store. The most amazing part of this bike culture: NO ONE LOCKS THEIR BIKE. Yes, that's right. In a city of 1.5 million people, no one locks their bike. All the bikes are the cruising kind with kickstands and everyone of them are simply parked out in front stores, completely unattended. Amazing...

Day 1 Japan

2009-11-02T17:51:00.000-08:00

Drive to the airport, Auckland, NZ:
After awaking at 4:30am in Auckland, NZ from a glorious 2 hours of sleep (ugh) we headed to the airport in a taxi. Little did we know we were in for quite a ride (mentally though, not physically). Our driver was from Ethopia and his mother was from Yemen and his politics were a little different from ours. Perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to tell him we were from the US given at how many enemies our country has made around the world—especially that part of it. In any case, we had a very strong discussion about homosexuality—it turns out his sister lives in San Jose (!) and he had been to SF several times. He liked the city but not the homosexuality he saw—and Jim pushed him on that (probably a little harder than he should have). Anyway, so here we were having a tough conversation after no sleep at 5am…whew. When he said he thought homosexuality was worse than killing people I got a little worried and began to imagine him taking us down a dark street, never to be seen again…Anyway, he did take us to the airport with no other event besides our morality discussion and Jim and I do hope that he at least thinks a little about what we said.

Drive from the airport, Kansai to Kyoto, Japan:
Fortunately our landing was super smooth: we sailed through customs, our bags were waiting for us and a man was holding a sign that said “James Stapleton” (whew).
We got into the shuttle we had reserved and our driver began speaking to us in rapid Japanese. We just looked dumbfounded (it turns out it is really hard to remember how to say “I don’t speak Japanese” when you are put on the spot and just learning). Fortunately again, another passenger spoke English and he translated for us. It was a very long (nearly 2 hour) ride from the airport to Kyoto which was surprising to us since Kyoto is a city of 1.5 million people. Perhaps there is not enough room for airports? Anyway, all the other passengers transferred over to other vehicles once we got to Kyoto and our nice English speaking passenger asked the driver what we should do. It turns out that he was taking us to our doorstep thankfully, so we sat tight. As we drove on our driver kept looking at a map with a perplexed expression and then asked us something in Japanese before he sighed and realized that we couldn’t understand his question. It became clear that we were lost as we drove up a tiny side street and stopped outside a building. He pointed to the building like “this is it” but we just shrugged. Jim then gave him the number written down of the woman who was coordinating our housing this month and he looked so relieved. He called her and they talked for a long time and then he made motions to us that we were going to drive elsewhere. We drove again, stopping finally at a Seven-eleven (yes, the convenient store) and there on the curb was Harumi, the woman helping us. It turns out that we needed to get the key from her and the place we had stopped earlier was indeed our apartment. What a relief when we finally (after about 17 hours in transit) arrived to our new home.

First impressions about our apartment:
I was expecting a small apartment and had prepared myself…but nevertheless I was shocked by how teensy it was. It is about 300 square feet which includes the kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. Basically it is smaller than most hotel rooms in the US and makes our already big 1700 square foot condo in the bay area seem like a mansion. The worst part was that our luggage alone filled up the place! However, after unpacking our bags the next morning and stuffing them under the twin sized bed, our apartment felt more livable. (The bed is a twin, so one of us sleeps on a futon mattress on the floor that can be rolled up during the day.) Our bathroom is so tiny that Jim can’t fit in the shower with the shower curtain closed (hehe). Thankfully there is a drain in the bathroom floor, so he can still take showers, just with the curtain open. As a result the floor gets wet, so I now understand why there were special bathroom slippers, even though the bathroom is standing room only. Other apartment features include a water heater that must be turned on before using hot water, a one burner gas stove top, a ½ sized refrigerator/freezer, a small table and two chairs, a tiny TV (with all Japanese channels of course), a kitchen sink, microwave (yay!) and a very small cupboard.

Food!
I don’t imagine I’ll be doing a lot of serious cooking since I don’t have an oven, much space, etc. Fortunately there seems to be an abundant supply of yummy food that is pretty affordable near us. In our first venture out of our apartment yesterday morning we found (in our extreme jet-lagged hunger) that Seven-Eleven sells delicious hot buns stuffed with beef and mushrooms and that there are several French-type bakeries selling all sorts of sweet and savory bread treats. (We bought sausage rolls, an asparagus and cheese bread-thing, and a raisin bread roll. Yum!) For lunch we bought some ready-made sushi rolls and a hot potato, egg and cabbage pancake type thing from a grocery store. For dinner I bought some potato patties (hot and ready to eat), a piece of fried fish that was incredibly cheap and tasty, and some gyoza (dumplings). I also happily was able to find affordable cereal and milk, so we can even have a taste of home to start our day. So, whew, it looks like we’ll be able to eat (and eat well!) here. 

Misadventures of Sarah
Kumon Center Snafu #1:
Jim had to go in to the University to meet with his professor, so I was left alone to wander. I had seen a Kumon center three doors down from our apartment and recognized them as a tutoring center. When I googled them I saw that they had an English webpage that told about their Japanese language course. There was a number to call but since we don’t yet have phones, I figured I would just pop by the center near us and ask. I entered the building with some small kids who had just gotten out of school and took my shoes off with them in the foyer. (They were looking at me and giggling which reminded me of my Peace Corps days.) There was a clear reception area, so I peeked around to the room where I saw kids milling around, arriving, and three teachers. I said (in my best Japanese), “Good afternoon, excuse me, do you understand English.” To my surprise, everyone just giggled, the kids stared and one woman came over and began speaking to me in Japanese. Unfortunately, I haven’t figured out what to do when people don’t speak English, so I just stood there looking confused. I thought she was trying to tell me to speak in English, so I tried that, but that didn’t work. Finally she held up her hand and got a phone and stepped into another room and closed the door. I figured she was calling someone to translate, so I stood awkwardly in the foyer, with kids still staring at me. Eventually the kids lost interest and I began to think I should just leave when she reappeared, said something in Japanese and then returned to the classroom. She was very nice, but I still felt absolutely ridiculous. I put on my shoes and left, thoroughly embarrassed and confused.

Rainbow snafu:
It had been raining and was still lightly raining when I stepped out of a store and saw a vivid full rainbow over the building across the street. It was breathtaking and I was surprised that no one else seemed to notice it. These things of beauty must be shared, so as a couple walked by I caught the eye of the man and pointed to the sky. Instead of following by direction he instead looked shocked and appalled, as if I was completely crazy. I pointed more insistently, trying to get him to look up, but instead he continued to look more and more frightened and shocked. Oh dear. I must seem absolutely crazy.

Kumon Center Snafu #2:
I am either persistent or just plain dumb, so when I saw a second Kumon tutoring center that looked larger than the first, I decided to try again. This time it was upstairs, so I walked upstairs and was faced with a door through which I could see mothers and kids in a waiting room. I went in, removed my shoes and walked to the reception area. Again I said my phrase, asking if anyone spoke English and the women giggled and looked around, looking for someone else in the office. Both the women were wearing face masks but so many Japanese do that I didn’t think anything of it. It was only when I looked through the window into the office that I saw the dentist chair. OMG, I have walked into a dentist office. Everyone is staring at me and I don’t have the Japanese to say, “oops, wrong place”, so I just said “Excuse me. Kumon?” and pointed upstairs. The women giggled, nodded and I got out of there as quickly as one can when you have to stop to put on your shoes…
(Btw, the Kumon center was upstairs but the door was closed and I wasn’t about to have another incident.)

Shopping
Although there were many things in the grocery store that I couldn’t identify, at least I could recognize the general categories: the milk section, the yogurts, the salts, the sugars, the soy sauces (there is a huge, huge section of soy sauces!), the vegetables, eggs, instant noodles (it seems instant ramen noodles are not just for American college students), etc. It seems that with shopping there are enough American brands and random English words on packaging that we can generally navigate around. I was able to buy shampoo and conditioner (although I was restricted to the brands that said these words in English), toothpaste (because I recognized “Aquafresh”), shaving cream, etc. (Funny how I would hardly consider those purchases an accomplishment in the US. Context is everything.) I was excited to find a little alarm clock and hairdryer (both very affordable) in one shop until I went to check out. The store clerk held the hairdryer box and pointed at a corner of the box, telling me something in Japanese. I asked if she spoke English (in Japanese. It’s the only phrase I can say so far) but she didn’t and she kept on trying to tell me something. I was a little worried that it might something important since this was an electronic device, so I didn’t know if I should just say “okay” and move on. Fortunately, the only white person I saw all day (besides Jim, of course) had walked in and saw what was going on. I looked at him with a pleading look (as did the store clerk) and he said, “She wants you to know that if you keep your receipt the warranty is good for a full year.” Ah. The truly funny thing in this is that the hairdryer was about $13—not exactly a huge purchase. I was touched that she felt the need to tell me this info, but really, was it worth the effort? I think this is the first of many, many similar incidents…

[BTW, I completely lost all pride and waited for my translator to check out before profusely thanking him and telling him how happy I was to encounter someone who spoke English. He was extremely nice about the whole thing and assured me that “We have all been there” especially since it was my first day. It turns out he is a researcher at another University in Kyoto and he and his wife are from Italy but have lived in Kyoto for five years. They even have a daughter who was born in Japan (though unfortunately not considered a Japanese citizen since her parents are not). After seeing my helplessness, he gave me his card and said that we could contact him with questions or if we needed assistance. He pointed out the cheap grocery store next door and after a moment’s hesitation I followed him in. (Honestly at this point I was just desperate for someone with whom who I could communicate. Normally I would not be so pathetic.) Thankfully, he was very kind, deciding to give me a brief tour of the grocery store, pointing out how to recognize whole milk, good yogurt, salad dressing, etc. How wonderful to be with someone who could both speak English and read Japanese! He did bow out gracefully but not before I had been able to get cereal, yogurt, spinach, and tomatoes. He also told me that a 20 minute walk would get me to a big mall with an international grocery, a Starbucks and a McDonald’s. He laughed when he said that he and his wife went to McD’s once a month in Italy but go more like once a week here. It seems that no matter how adventurous you are, when in a very different culture it is so comforting to taste the familiar. Thank you to my Italian friend! ]