Gaijin Girl

my god, i’ve been busy!  but not too busy to share another japan moment with you.    last year we went on several outings with my friend david, his wife ryoko, and their son jonathan!  AND we had the wonderful opportunity to to be in japan while their second baby (joshua) was born!  he was soooo little when i first saw him in the hospital, but he turned into this beautiful guy within about six months.

here is big josh with jonathan at their apartment:

when we weren’t exhausted from work or traveling, we loved going into koenji on sundays and hanging out at their place–taking walks to the store and the taiyaki stand, cooking, eating, drinking, reminiscing, and taking in good music–and of course marveling over the two little boys.  i’m sure they already look different, and we miss them already!

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i hate money!  moving is expensive.  working part-time is hard when you don’t get paid much.  too bad my school is so disorganized that if i were to request more student loans to live off of this semester, the checks would probably arrive after graduation.  time to start working hard….and applying for food stamps!  work + school – $ = a very unhappy tired callie.  but i suppose this is just what people do.  i don’t think i want to do it anymore, but i’ve already invested a lot in this master’s program, so i don’t want to quit now when i am so close to finishing because i know i will feel like i wasted so much time and money.  this way at least i will have a very expensive piece of paper to show for it at the end of it all.  and i have FOUR credit cards!!  wooooooooeeeee!!  meh.

so here’s something amusing to put present day affairs in perspective.  this summer josh and i went to a fertility festival in kawasaki in tokyo.  time to celebrate the act of procreation….apparently with an emphasis on the contributing male organ.  there were shrines, giant penis statues, a penis parade, beers, a rockabilly cover band, & tons of people….and it was over by noon.  seriously.

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happy mlk day!  what a wonderful celebration today and tomorrow will be!  i am super psyched to be back in the US participating in the festivities!

so, as for japan stories, this summer after josh and i went to sapporo, we went to lake toya, which is where the G8 summit was held last year.  it is a totally picturesque little town with a lake and some islands that were formed by volcanic eruptions.  the place is so prone to volcanic eruptions, you can still see damage from the last one that took place many years ago.  several rocks are still smoking from the eruptions as well.  toya is also famous for hot springs & outdoor art sculptures.  we went to a museum, on a little hike, on several walks, & on a cable car up a mountain.

on the first day we hit up a museum near the visitor’s center & spent a lot of time figuring out the bus system.  we finally decided to go on a small hike to see some of the smoking craters.  the hike involved stopping at several ice cream shops with exotic flavors and a wonderful outdoor eatery with fresh potatoes and corn on the cob.  the earthquake damage we viewed was amazing and the craters even more so.

here is one of my favorite scenes in the lakeside park that was on the way during the rather long walk from downtown to our hotel:

after we checked into our hostel, we went out to dinner at a traditional japanese restaurant and then took a walk back to the lake to watch the fireworks in the rain.  it was quite nice, and we finally collapsed into bed exhausted, only to find that our pillows reeked of cigarettes and that the von trapp family were our neighbors….a huge blond family with about twenty children who stayed up all night running up and down the halls and screaming.  eventually we gave up on sleep and went down to the hot springs in our hostel, but my dip was quick because being alone in the stinky rusty room with huge windows opening to the blackness outside kept the horror movie scenarios running through my head pretty much the whole time.

the next day josh and i took a long walk up a mountain and then proceeded to take a cable car to the very top.  unfortunately the beautiful sunny day turned cloudy right at the moment we stepped off the cable car to take in the view of the lake and islands below.  the cold wind and rain kept our visit brief, but it was still a lovely trip.  after some souvenier shopping, we walked back downtown and ate a huge lunch before boarding the busses and trains back home.

the train we took that night was about 7 hours long, and josh and i couldn’t find seats next to each other because it was so crowded.  apparently, however, we were quite lucky to find those seats at all because several people had to stand up the whole time!  i am talking about people sleeping in closets, wedged between other patrons’ seats, etc.  it was crazy!  after that it was time to begin the 16 hour train transfer journey home.  everyone scurried off the night train and began the local train excursion–the cheapest way to travel from hokkaido to tokyo.  we would all cram ourselves onto the trains, check our schedules for the next rural station where we would change (usually about an hour away), and then thrust ourselves off the crowded cars onto the vacant platforms and make a run for it to the next train, with hopes of finding seats for ourselves and our loved ones.  i found the whole thing quite comical and passed the time by studying japanese and begging josh to play uno with me.  he tried to sleep, but it was pretty much impossible.  however, when we finally made it home, sleep had no trouble coming, and we stayed in bed for pretty much the next 24 hours!  what a wild trip!  i would definitely love to go back someday when we have more time!!

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well hell’s bells; it looks like i’ll be ringing in the new year with a fever and a sore throat.    i am so psyched to be back in the desert with late evening calls for karoke and beers, dinner party invitations, birthday parties in parks, and plans for campouts and other grand adventures.  just as i prepared myself to grab it all by the horns and dig in to this grand life that i plan to live to the fullest, it set in.  the dreaded attack of the evil sinus infection….yellow green slime pouring from my nose that no tiny neti pot can entirely tackle, the persistant scratchy throat that burns and keeps me awake at night yet exhausted during the day, the pounding head that throbs and burns intermittenly, and the general confusion and frustration that accompanies all these bothersome physical symptoms–yup, it has come to conquer me this beautiful sunny last day of the year–a day that i am supposed to spend celebrating with friends, most of whom i haven’t seen in such a very long time but instead am spending it in jamie’s guest bedroom, longingly staring out the window at the ivy-covered sun in between fits of half-sleep and hot/cold flashes.  it’s the type of sickness that has swallowed my whole being; half the things i think and say don’t add up to become complete thoughts, and my actions are slow, clumsy, and cumbersome.  i started the beautiful morning yesterday with a broken coffee cup and frustrated tears in my eyes.  things didn’t really improve after that.  one of the things that still holds true in my bewildered state is the goodness of my friends here in tucson.  thank god for cell phones, the internet, and the physical presence of josh, who has fulfilled countless requests and cooked lots of soup and garlic dishes in hope of curing what ails me.  i’m not well yet, but i’m feeling pretty damn good just thinking of all the people i love in this beautiful town and how one day–ok, so maybe not a traditionally symbolic day like today or tomorrow–but one day i will get to sing and dance and eat and ride bikes and laugh and drink with them again.  yay!

so enough feeling sorry for myself.  remember that time i got to spend almost a week in hokkaido last summer?  well, let me tell you about josh’s and my trip to sapporo; that’s right, the beer town.  here is a shot from the summer-long beer festival in the park that happens every night for two months!

no, josh and i did not drink a giant test tube of beer; we stuck to regular glasses, but if we’d had company and/or hadn’t been so tired, you know i would’ve ordered the shit out of one of those! 

other highlights from the trip included watching bad television in an old-fashioned bar, riding a giant ferris wheel on the roof of a skyscraper, shopping for brand-name bargains, viewing beautiful flowers and visiting green and blue parks, taking long walks, visiting the sapporo factory and museum, and riding the bus around town.

here is a park we found on one of our walks:

sapporo was beautiful, and i’d love to go back there someday!  someday….when this godforsaken infection has left my beaten-down little body!!!  grrrrr….

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Back in Tucson!  sweet!  it’s a little different here than i remember….dustier and with more businesses closing, which is depressing.  but the people are still lovely and loving, and i love them!

speaking of lovely people, i should write more about this summer.  before our dear friends aaron and amber left japan, we went to enoshima near kamakura with them and went to the beach, which was so wonderful–except for the screeching hawks and girls in bikinis and heels. 

after an onion salad and some cocktails, we went to yokohama to see some fireworks.  aside from the millions of other people who were there, it was awesome.  we sat on the grass and had a feast while we watched beautiful scenes explode before our eyes.

before the fireworks show, josh, aaron, and i took a subway to chinatown for the fastest sightseeing experience ever.  we only had about 30 minutes before the show started, so we just walked around before standing in the longest family mart line ever for snacks and beer.

aaron looks much taller than actual size in this photo.    what a great day!

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well, it’s back to non-military time and living in the past! we arrived in seattle yesterday. although it feels like much longer ago. i slept for 20 hours last night, though off and on. i kept waking up and watching movies until i fell back asleep because i knew if i got up then (in the middle of the night), my schedule would be off. well, i kept doing that off and on for 26 hours!! i watched 2 movies and read a magazine on my breaks from sleeping. josh didn’t even wake up during my breaks….he slept for 24 hours straight!! besides sleeping i have done a lot of eating and sifting through piles of clothes, not really accomplishing much.

tomorrow the agenda consists of calling the Arizona MVD, cleaning the mold out of my car floor mats, washing my car and putting air in the tires, exchanging my yen for dollars, and getting a cell phone. tomorrow night we are going to a TRACE BUNDY show! he is a really super awesome musician whom we met in japan. his wife lived in seattle for a while, and we are going to see them with josh’s family and our friend katie, whom we met in alaska. on tuesday i have to pack and get some work done on my car because wednesday-friday we are heading on a mini vacation to birch bay and bellingham!! then saturday i begin the long drive down to the old pueblo. can you believe i already miss japan?? it’s true! i did nothing but miss this place while i was over there; now i would give anything to meet a super-helpful japanese person working at a bank or a store. i had forgotten how rude service workers are here! bleh.

so let me reminisce a little. over the summer i met this really cool funny guy at a vegan dinner. he ended up being my first jewish kosher friend. i learned so many things when groccery shopping with him. one day i went to harajuku with him, blanche, charie, and kjell. we had brunch at fujimama’s and then did tons of shopping, where i got my dear kappibarachan.

after the shopping spree, we headed to meiji shrine, and then we ended the night with a soak in an amazing onsen that included restaurants, stores, and a relax room. it was a wonderful day in tokyo!  other wonderful days spent with yotam included seeing the turner prize exhibit at the mori art museum and eating tapas and finding the cutest kitten ever in yoyogi park.  he went back to new york about a month after i met him.  such is the life of an expat….which i totally miss already!

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so how psyched are we about our new president?  hell yeah!  of course i would have loved for cynthia mckinney to have gotten more votes and for people to stop controlling the legality of other people’s marriages with ballots, but i am choosing to be content with what i consider to be a major major victory for us all–the 44th president of the united states, mr. barrack obama!  woo!  i can hardly believe it.

so i want to finish telling you about june.  josh and i went to the izu peninsula with a tour group called the tokyo gaijins (clever name, huh).  luckily i got a new raincoat just before the trip, because this is what our hike to see the seven waterfalls (eight, if you count the rain) looked like:

after this hike we went to an outdoor onsen, soaking in the hot water at the base of a waterfall in the freezing rain….until we got kicked out by a worker because of the dangerous rising waters.  i hear the waters are beautiful and sparkling turquoise on a sunny day.  however, we saw mostly gray, gray, and more gray.  but isn’t my rain jacket cute? 

on another positive note, some of the onsen (hot springs) were in caves, so we had some nice sheltered soaks, positioning ourselves just so to avoid the occasionally leaky roofs.  i would love to go back to this place, but i fear we won’t have time before we leave.  so i guess i’ll just have to be content with the images from the postcards i bought while we were there since my own photos just look like a mass of blurred rainyness. 

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wow, i am so tired!  halloween parties are no fun when you’re old.

so i’d like to tell you about the first week of june….the 2nd anniversary of when i met josh.  truthfully, josh and i were too damn busy to remember that that was in fact the meeting of our anniversary until a few days before, at which point we already had plans to volunteer at this place called the earth embassy for two days.  the earth embassy is in kawaguchiko near mount fuji, and we had heard stories of it being a cool place with a farm, farm school, vegan cafe, campground, and stable.  the place always needs volunteers, and we thought we might like to do a one-month internship there this winter in return for room and board.  so we e-mailed the director and decided to go out there for two days to see if we clicked with the place and the people.

well, as you might expect from such a place, it was a bit disorganized.  we ended up camping in the backyard behind the cafe where we cooked breakfast and cleaned in the mornings to earn free dinners.  we also spent 3 hours weeding a mint field the first afternoon. surprisingly, it was one of the most fun things i’ve done in japan.  for one thing, the mint field was located near the base of fuji san, and it was a beautiful day, so we spent most of the day with a great view of mount fuji, which is kinda rare.  also it was inexplicably wonderful to feel the dirt beneath my hands, encounter hilarious spitbugs, smell nothing but clean air and fresh mint leaves, and to not see any buildings.  i guess i hadn’t realized how much living in this concrete jungle has affected me.  i had completely forgotten about working with my hands and feeling connected to the land around me.  it was also really satisfying to complete a tangible task–see those weeds, pull em out, and pile em up.  then you’re done.  i could actually see the physical results of our success after only three hours, something that feels so good and that i’d apparently forgotten all about!  i love teaching; i really do.  but there is something so simply blissful about finishing a physical task and immediately seeing the successful results.  plus it was really fun to do something, just me and josh, where we were on an even playing field.  we work together to do stuff all the time, but usually we take our expected roles–i’m the planner, he’s the doer.  in the mint field, however, it was just me and him and the weeds….side by side pulling em out.  not much to plan, just doing our jobs….together.  i still can’t totally wrap my head around why i was so happy weeding a mint field on our two-year anniversary, but i totally was. 

it wasn’t all work though.  after dinner with the staff, we walked about 20 minutes in the cold to a super cool onsen, where we got a private room with a bathtub made of stones.  we soaked for about an hour and then bought locally brewed beer to sip on the front porch of the cafe before retiring to our tent for the night.

we got up early the next day to help marcel, the other volunteer cook breakfast for everyone.  he proved to be lovely company and cooked us delicous vegan pancakes and shared loaves of bread that he had made the day before.  we had planned to go on a hike after breakfast, but it was rainy, so instead we walked about 20 minutes in the rain to two caves that were formed by lava from mount fuji.  there were no english explanations on any signs, so i’m still not entirely sure exactly how everything was formed, but it was really cool anyway!

this is inside one of the caves:

then it was back to the cafe for lunch (banana garlic pizza, which was strangely totally delicious!) and then to the bus stop that would take us back to the train station to catch another bus to another train station.    the bus in that area is totally unreliable because there’s only one road and a lot of traffic, and to make matters worse, it was raining pretty hard at this point.  so we ended up standing on the side of the road in a torrential downpour for about 20 minutes before the bus arrived, and it was so worth it because the bus was decorated like thomas the train.  so cute.

so we left being not exactly sure of our decision to return to the earth embassy this winter.  for one thing there was no real farm school.  the teacher was no longer working there, so they basically needed someone to organize a whole new program–probably not something that could be completed in a one-month internship.  also the farm basically consisted of the mint patch and two goats–not exactly what we had expected.  so if we were to volunteer there in the winter, we would basically be working in the cafe and hostel, which we wouldn’t really mind–except i’m not much of a cook.  however, there are no bathing facilities on site, so any time we wanted hot water, we would need to walk 20 minutes in the snow to the onsen–and pay about $10.  we would receive no payment for working there but of course room and board.  the director told us he wasn’t sure if they would need us during the winter because business slows down a lot then but that he would let us know, and we haven’t heard from him.  to be honest i’m not so disappointed.  i’m really ready to come home, and although i loved being out there away from the city, i don’t know if i’m up for a freezing winter with no hot water right now.  if the place ends up expanding some of their children’s programs, i would totally be interested in spending a summer up there helping out sometime.

who knows?  maybe we will find ourselves back in japan someday; i would definitely answer the door if opportunity came knocking. 

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so i came to japan with a vague idea that somehow the experience of living in a country that is so completely different from my own might give me some perspective on how my students and their families who migrated to the United States from countries like Mexico might feel living in an environment so different from their previous ones.  of course i knew that i could never share the exact same experiences as a latino/a because i am a caucasian and thus have different perceptions and experiences than a latino/a immigrant might.  so here i am, and i have learned some things.

for starters shortly after i arrived in japan, i learned that my company had not paid their employees on time for the last month.  i also learned that several of my coworkers expected the place to shut down at any minute and that the recruiters had lied to us about many of the job conditions.  i wondered if any of my students’ families had ever experienced similar working conditions and felt sure that they had.  it is so easy to convince people of how great something is in another country when the people they are recruiting have never been there.  however, i also realized that many of my students’ family members probably had no work promised to them in the United States before they arrived.  many of them had to frantically search for work that they could perform to support their families.  i was lucky that i had had the privilege to find work before i came to japan and was able to receive assistance from my new company in reaching my new apartment from the airport.  i also lived in very nice accommodations, provided by my company, something i doubted a lot of my students’ families experienced upon reaching the United States.  i also realized that some of my students’ parents didn’t even have proper work visas for employment in the United States, so they couldn’t just look for another job if they weren’t satisfied with their current one.  i, however, had obtained a visa in a matter of three business days and used this privileged position to post my resume on a web site that helps foreigners find work in japan.  within two weeks of posting my resume, i had another job and was preparing to relocate to another part of japan in order to accept my new position.  i was able to travel for the interview and afford the moving costs because my family from the United States sent money to help me.  most of the latino/a immigrants i knew in the United States usually sent money to their families rather than counting on their families back in Central America to send them money to bail them out of difficult situations in the foreign country they now called their home.

despite the privileged position i was in because of the financial contributions of my family and my work visa status, i felt very alone and confused during this time.  i had no money and had to rely on others to help me–a lot.  i had no idea what to expect from the housing and environment in the new city where i would be living.  i couldn’t read and could barely communicate with most of the people around me.  however, i found it quite strange that many of the people who tried to help me apologized for not being able to speak english.  what?  we were in japan.  why should they be the ones to learn the language of the foreigner?  i tried to imagine people who worked in the service industry back home apologizing to customers for not being able to speak spanish or some other foreign language and almost laughed.  no way.  the pressure would definitely be on the foreigner to learn english, the official language of the united states.  why, here in japan, were people trying to accommodate my needs as a foreigner, even going so far as to apologize to me for the fact that weren’t able to speak foreign languages to people in their own country?  maybe it was just true that japanese people are really polite and that americans are really rude.  but somehow i didn’t think that that stereotype really encompassed all that was going on here.

once things settled down on the financial and professional ends, and i had adjusted to my new life of teaching preschoolers and living in a tiny room near tokyo with my boyfriend, i was able to better observe and experience daily life and interactions in japan.  over time i began to notice some things.  the thing i hate most is being stared at everywhere i go.  japan is a small island; there area actually not that many people who look different from one another.  the united states is a huge country, full of many cultures and races.  i almost began to admire my home country for the fact that its people are so diverse and that we almost never stare at other people just because we are shocked to see a different skin color.  now we may stare at them for other reasons, but i am concentrating on the positive aspects of my country right now.

in the myriad of experiences i have had as a foreigner living in japan, i have felt both admired and hated by different japanese people–just as you might feel anywhere, i suppose.  however, the feelings are much more intense when you are the only “different” one, i have found out.  although i am a minority here, however, i have noticed a difference in the way different minorities are treated in japan.  i am often approached on trains or elsewhere in public only to be asked how old i am, where i am from, what sports i like, and if i have a boyfriend.  sometimes these questions come from people wanting to practice english, sometimes from people who are just excited to see a foreigner and are perhaps interested in traveling abroad themselves, and sometimes from creepy old men who think white women are hot.  however, some of the friends i have made here from other asian countries often report people eyeing them suspiciously or moving away from them on trains or even being asked why their skin color is so dark.  i have also heard japanese acquaintances make negative stereotypical comments about chinese or filipino people.  now they also make lots of negative comments about american people, but i have noticed that the negative things i’ve heard about white-looking immigrants have been mostly about their straightforward communication styles, inappropriate senses of humor, arrogance, and ignorance, while the negative comments i’ve heard about asian or african immigrants often focus on physical appearances or speculations that the women may be mail-order brides or involved in some other shady businesses in japan.

in fact i have noticed a disproportionate amount of filipinas working in the sex industry in japan, and the men who stand outside the businesses where many sexual encounters take place are often african.  there is a  stereotype about a certain area in tokyo where black men hussle passersby to enter their clubs and partake in sexual relations with women that seems to me almost similar to associations with certain streets in mississippi and black men selling drugs.  these are places that self-proclaimed self-respecting people–in the case of tokyo, mostly japanese people and in the case of mississippi, mostly white people–simply don’t want to go.  i guess i have experienced firsthand how true it is that racism is a worldwide epidemic, that one group of people suppressed by white people in north america has become comfortable doing the same to people of other races in their own country.  if everyone feels that their race and culture is superior to those of foreigners, how are we ever going to work together for the greater good of all world citizens?  in the same vein, i find it very frustrating when i am invited to spend time with japanese people who seem to only be interested in me because i am in fact american.  they have so many questions, which seems natural and friendly enough.  however, once they get into comparing the two countries, sometimes they end up conceding that america must be so much better than japan because of our tv shows, music, youth culture, etc., i realize how sad but true it is that many youth look up to the predominant “white-upper middle class” culture that is projected in the american media–worldwide.  why is that?  shouldn’t their sense of national pride that makes them skeptical and judgmental of so many foreigners also spill over into the genres of fashion, music, entertainment, beauty, etc.?  why is lotion that “whitens” the skin so popular here?  who decided that white was beautiful or desirable?  the world is so full of contradictions and ironies that i am just beginning to understand that i may never understand.

living in japan as an american has only strengthened the complexities of immigration and intercultural communication issues that have fascinated me over the past few years.  i feel that i will return to the united states with more questions than answers, which isn’t what i expected before i came here but might just turn out to be more influential in helping me connect with my students who are facing cultural contradictions and complexities every day.  like many white americans, i was never forced to formulate such questions or reflect on such issues as a child, as i have typically been a demographic of the “mainstream” culture and surrounded by a group of others like myself.  everyone else has always been the “other,” not me.  while i can never put myself in the shoes of a person of color, i am happy that i have had the chance to experience being a racial minority in another country, even though i haven’t necessarily come up with any solutions or profound answers because of this experience.  i feel lucky to have met so many people in my 27 years, from all over the world and from so many different backgrounds and cultures, from whom i have learned so much.  i look forward to connecting with many more different kinds of people over the years and feel grateful that i have recognized the importance of discussing culture and race rather than simply being confined to the role i was assigned at birth as the “mainstream” and making uninformed assumptions about the “others” because of what i was told by those who look like me.  thinking about the real issues of culture and race have changed the way i think and feel about everything, although the main thing i have learned is that i have so much more to learn.  hopefully i will learn more about all this each day.

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