Gaijin Girl

today i am going to see radiohead in concert….yay!    i actually have a viral trachial infection, but i’m not letting that stop me from experiencing the loveliness of radiohead of course.  i also could possibly have temporomandibular dysfunction (TMD or TMJ), i found out yesterday.  stupid stress.  so i have had a really relaxing weekend….doing reiki and yoga and got an aromatherapy massage.  it has been lovely.  and this evening, to top it all off–radiohead!  now if only i didn’t have to work tomorrow….or ever again.  hmm, still working on that.

so since this blog is still living in the past, let me tell you about my birthday (may 20, in case you didn’t know)!  the weekend before my birthday, josh took me to this really cool place called nikko via shinkansen:

after many trains, busses, and walking,

we arrived at our campsite.

here was the view from outside our tent:

i was feeling kinda sick but gambatted through a trip to to toshugo shrine after we set up camp.

after we saw the horseback archery competition (which was AMAZING),

we took a bus and an ELEVATOR to the bottom of a waterfall!  it was totally weird.  of course it was beautiful, but i am not sure of the contribution of the elevator to the beauty of the whole thing.

after this adventure, we got a bite to eat and then walked over to a nearby hotel to enjoy a private onsen that josh had booked for us.  it has its own bathroom, in which the toilet lid raised and lowered itself automatically, a changing room with after-bath supplies and a full pitcher of ice water, and a bay window looking out onto the lakes and mountains nearby.  here was my reaction to all this:

after the onsen we took a bus back to the train station, only to find that we had missed our last bus back to the campsite.  we successfully hailed a cab, but the driver couldn’t believe we wanted to be taken to that campsite because the office was closed by this time.  we tried to communicate that we had already been there to check in and were now merely going to sleep in our tent, but he kept asking us if we were sure we wanted to go there during the drive.  even when we pulled up, he asked us if it was really ok to leave us there.  after many convincing remarks from us, he finally reluctantly drove away, and we began the hike to our campsite where josh cooked dinner and i fell asleep before it was ready!  it rained a little that night, but the next day was just a little cloudy and pleasant.  we returned to toshugo shrine for the thousand warriors’ march, which took most of the day.

we found lots of beautiful photo ops along the way to and from the parade:

and then stopped to sample some local beer, strawberries, and cheesecakes and chat in broken japanese/english with some nikko residents before heading home.

this trip was one of my best birthday celebrations ever!  the day of my actual birthday was just another day of work, but afterward josh and i celebrated with yummy cake.  then the next weekend my boss took us all out to dinner.  her birthday and another of my co-workers’ birthdays were in may too, so we all celebrated at a nice restaurant.

then the next night we hung out with some of our friends whom we met on the niijima island camping trip for another birthday celebration.  josh was actually working in the city where they live that day (about 2 hours from our house), so our friends amber & aaron picked me up at the train station, then we picked josh up from work, and then went out to dinner at a really nice indian restaurant, where i received the most unexpected gift ever–a pillow in the shape of poop from my dear friend shane.

after dinner a bunch of us went back to amber and aaron’s for drinking and good friendly gaijin conversation.  i absolutely adore that group of people!  we all ended up staying the night at their apartment and the next day went to a hot springs near their place.  to reach the hot springs, we had walk up a paved road to the top of a mountain.  luckily, the road was lined with great photo ops

and refreshments along the way.

this last photo pretty much sums it up.  it was a totally amazing birthday! 

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thank god for respect for elders day!  it provides the same type of post-summer vacation relief as labor day does for workers who hate mondays back in the states!  (except for millsaps college attendees, as i so sorely remember….)  anyway, so today i have the day off work, and i have spent it talking to josh about our options for his upcoming surgery.  for those of you who don’t know already, he will be having a basal cell cancerous spot on his nose removed on October 22.  i think the procedure will be fairly minor, but the nose is quite a sensitive spot for surgery, and we are hoping and praying that the cut will be as minimal as possible and not cause any damage to his tissue, leave a huge scar, nor be too damaging to his beautiful nose shape.  fortunately we both feel really comfortable with the japanese medical system from our experiences here so far, and the insurance benefits are quite good and affordable.  of course the language barrier is always an issue, but a bilingual friend of ours is helping us out a lot with the negotiations and decision-making process.  anyway, of course, josh is doing fine but is definitely dreading the surgery date.  i am just glad we caught the bastard cancerous thingie now while we can do something about it, and he will be ok!!  if any of you would like to send him a personal message, please e-mail me or leave a comment here, and i can send you his e-mail address and/or our mailing address.

so now i would like to tell you about what we did in may, which was one of my absolute favorite times in japan.  at the beginning of may was golden week, kinda like a late spring break in japan.  anyway, josh and i spent three days and nights of this week on a trip to niijima island, one of the best surfing spots in the world!  we went with an outdoor adventure gaijin (foreigner) group, with whom we’ve actually done several trips.  the first night consisted of taking a ferry to the island

(notice the non-japanese flag on the ship, not sure what is up with that?), and we slept in bunk “beds” in several rows in the ship.  i write “beds” because they were basically just raised compartments of carpeted floor–absolutely no padding or anything else of any comfort typical of most bed-like structures.  the ferry ride was beautiful, with views of giant ferris wheels and distant well-lit harbors across the bay on our way to the island.  anyway, sharing our “bed” area was a group of five friends who happened to live within walking distance of one of the schools where josh teaches (about 2 hours from our house!)  we ended up totally hitting it off with them and hanging out with them almost the whole weekend.  we remained close friends with the other couple in our group from that weekend, although they have recently left japan for australia & are dearly missed! 

so after a basically sleepless night on the fake beds, we were awakened by lights turning on and noises of fake birds chirping (seriously, this was the “alarm” for each stop on the ferry) when it was almost time for us to leave the boat.  as sleepy and grumpy as i was, i was happy to discover sights such as this when i stepped down from the boat ramp into the sunshine:

i sleepily followed our group on a short walk to the bicycle rental shops, pausing to take in sights such as this along the way:

finally i ended up with this tiny, permanently flat-tired, squeaking-braked beauty of a bicycle, which we promptly took on a ride to the surfing beach after setting up our tents in the park:

after eating lunch and exploring the small island a bit, we went to an onsen that was clearly inspired by greek architecture.  it was definitely an interesting experience.  there were four pools of varying temperatures, the very top one overlooking the beautiful ocean, but it was rather cold and drizzly while we were there, so we mostly stuck to the lower pools, which were much warmer.

our second day was spent beaching it and attending a local festival.  josh decided to try to catch some waves, and i headed to another onsen (hot springs) overlooking the ocean and a glass museum displaying items crafted using a rare stone that is found only in two places in the world–niijima island and somewhere in italy.  it was quite beautiful and a really nice day.  that evening when we returned to camp for dinner, we were greeted by a torrential wind storm.  little did we know that we were in for a completely sleepless night, when others’ tents would blow on top of ours, sometimes tearing the fabric and rendering their owners essentially homeless for the night.  we packed one guys’ belongings into our tiny tent and gave him one of our sleeping bags, while he tried to sleep just outside our tent, pushing against our tent for warmth every now and then.  a bunch of people decided to just give up attempting to sleep and sat up inside (or outside) their makeshift (or destroyed) shelters for the night playing cards, drinking, laughing, and screaming at the sounds of the ferocious wind, which made sleep for those of us with well-protected tents even more impossible.  however, in the morning, we couldn’t help but laugh.  in the light of the calm beautiful day, the cold destroying wind didn’t seem so theatening, and the piles of mulitcolored tent canvas strewn all around the grass looked comical and almost beautiful.  here is just some of the damage that was caused at the beginning of the storm.

so ours is the closest yellow tent on the right.  check out how much better we fared than our neighbors on our left, who happened to be some of our dear friends.

the bikes weren’t quite the same after the storm. 

so the next morning, not exactly rested but determined to see more of the island, we ventured out on a hike (which actually turned out to be more of a walk on a paved road) to a lookout point with some friends.  we got too hungry to make it all the way to the top, but we did get a nice view:

after lunch josh and i headed to a sculpture park next to our campsite, which was really one of the strangest and most wonderful places ever.  this is just one of many interesting things we saw that day:

after that it was time for one last trip to the beach before boarding the ferry again:

and this is how we spent the way home on the ferry:

it was such a great trip; i’d love to go back someday!!

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so i need to take a little break from all this presidential campaigning nonsense to relive one of my favorite times in japan–hanami, which means “cherry blossom time” (or something).  i find it very interesting how so many eloquent japanese words lend themselves to clumsy multi-word translations in english.  anyway, in this case pictures speak louder than words.

here i am at a park in our city after a picnic with my japanese class:

here is the outside of the community center where i take japanese class:

the blossoms only last a few days and then start to fall, so hanami parties have to be timed perfectly.

of course we also went to kamakura, where we saw beautiful blossoms, but the sights in our own city were very lovely, and i was sorry when the last of the blossoms were swept away (by the diligent street sweepers–as in people with brooms and dustpans, not some noisy truck or something-employed in ageo city; i am not kidding.)

in april we also went to a wonderful earth day celebration at yoyogi park in harajuku, and i experienced my very first gynocological visit in japan, which is probably a story only for those really curious.  anyway, after a lot of confusion and knee pain from japanese-sized stirrups, i left feeling slightly less confused and even a little accomplished.  stay tuned for more exciting updates. 

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i am starting to love wordpress.  in other news today is the anniversary of the hiroshima bombing.  i have never been to hiroshima, and i don’t know if i’m going to go.  perhaps unsurprisingly i was invited to many more anniversary events that are taking place in the USA than in japan.  i might go a drumming peace circle tonight at one of my favorite restaurants in shibuya  (yes, it’s a hippie thing).  but i might not have any genkiness left in me by that time.  this city life is tiring, especially when i’m on summer vacation. 

speaking of vacation let me fill you in on when josh’s sister danielle came to visit.  we took her to some places in the tokyo area and also went down to kyoto with her, where we met up with one of her friends from seattle, robert, who was just delightful.

here is danielle at meiji shrine in harajuku, tokyo.  it is one of my favorite little havens in the middle of the craziness that is harajuku.

we also took her to see the imperial palace in maranouchi.  i loved all the tulips planted near the station; it reminded me of bellingham!

and i finally got a good photo of the palace!  (probably because josh took it)

kyoto was really cool.  josh and i stayed in a hostel in the gion area, and danielle and robert stayed across town in this cute place in a traditional shopping district.  figuring out the bus transportation system (and getting stranded in the center of town twice after getting on the wrong “last bus of the night,” which, interestingly enough, had the same name as the right bus) proved to be our biggest source of frustration.  however, by the end of the trip, we were almost confident in our bus riding skills and even started to dream of future routes we would take if josh and i ever had the opportunity to return.  you just can’t see all of kyoto in three days.  no way.  anyway, the trip mostly consisted of temple sightseeing, consuming large quantities of beer, and gorging ourselves on pastries.  it was wonderful.  we were there just before hanami (cherry blossom time), unfortunately, but we did spot some blooms and also some beautiful flowering plum trees.  some of the highlights of the trip for me were the random walks that josh and i would take while waiting to meet the other members of our party or waiting for the bus or whatever else you are forced to wait for when traveling.  anyway, we found the coolest shrines and temples, the cutest parks, and the stores with the friendliest shopkeeprs during these random wanderings.  we also found vending machines with some of the biggest cans of beer we had ever seen, which were sort of worth the entire trip themselves. 

here is me with one of the said cans:

don’t worry, we found large beers in glasses too.

of course we also loved the planned outings to the beautiful temples and shrines.

this is inari shrine, one of my favorites:

we got lucky enough to see this beautiful lady at another shrine:

after we got back from kyoto, we took danielle on a day trip to kamakura (one of our favorite places) for hanami.  we did the hike up enoshima again, which looked totally different than in january because of all the beautiful spring blooms.

we also spent some time picnicking under the cherry trees at the main temple.

anyway, i loved the opportunity to be a tourist here; it was so fun to travel with other people with whom we could put our heads together to figure out what the hell was going on when linguistic and/or cultural differences got in the way.  what a lovely introduction to our first spring in japan!

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so i came to japan with this idea that we shouldn’t judge other people’s cultural values because who says that “ours” are so right anyway?  then i started considering the cultural values of the united states and how maybe all my personal values don’t mesh with the widely accepted ones in my home country.  so i am aware that people from other cultures of course may have different values than those widely accepted in their home environments.  i try to keep this in mind in my studies as much as possible because i certainly don’t want to generalize an entire population based on some cultural theory i might not even know that much about.

i have always felt a little conflicted about the roles of women in traditional mexican culture that is often still prevelant in homes in tucson today (with some of my former students) and how i wanted to show the girls in my class that they could be anything and go anywhere without belittling any of their familial roles or connections with their families.  for instance i could encourage them to go to school at yale or somewhere else far away, but then what would happen to their familial structure?  how would they cope with leaving their families, etc?  for me it was no big deal to live far away from my family, but that value is not usually consistent with the familial/cultural values and practices of most of my students.  this was just one of the many things i was considering in the whole debate if some white teacher should even be teaching those kids anyway.  i mean, who the hell am i to think i can teach them what they “need” to know?  and who decides what they get to learn anyway?

so of course there are definitely aspects of japanese society that are shocking to me and also cause a little well of anger to rise inside my white priveleged grrl tummy.  the most glaringly obvious are the gender roles/marriage institution here.  for instance if a woman is legally married, regardless of the husband’s actual role in her life, she has to get his permission to receive some serious medical treatments.  supposedly this is to insure payment for the treatment; the husband will pay because the woman is ultimately his “responsibility.”  they supposedly might not be able to trust the women to do so after she receives the treatment, especially if the treatment involves some type of mental issue.  also in documented rape and domestic violence cases, women can also be questioned regarding the actions they carried out that ended up leading to the men’s violent acts (i.e., he is so stressed out from work, if you are “behaving badly” when he gets home late at night, how do you expect him to react?) and so on along those lines. it seems to be widely accepted here that you shouldn’t really talk about such events anyway but just handle them yourself instead of alerting the proper authorities, seeking counseling, or even “burdening” family members and friends with your problems by confiding in them.

now because i work in a mostly western environment and have mostly gaijin friends, sometimes i forget about these aspects of japanese society–simply because i am allowed to.  i am not married to a japanese man; i am not really too involved in my community.  i can just go into tokyo and get lost in the anonomous sea of gaijin and then come home to my lovely josh and be thankful that no one expects me to conform to japanese gender roles because i am clearly not japanese.

well, this week some events got me thinking of other japanese societal values outside of the gender realm.  i won’t go into details here for obvious reasons, but something really serious and health-related happened that could have been potentially dangerous/embarrassing for everyone involved.  some of the attitudes of the japanese people who were invoved were to a) pretend that nothing was happening, b) create logical reasons for the strange events that had no basis in reality just to “explain away” the situation so that we could go back to option a), c) assume that the situation would just go away after we talked about it without taking any real action, d) assume that everything would fix itself in time and that we couldn’t do anything else to help, e) blame everyone else for the events that had happened.  it was really really scary to me.  and the most fucked up thing was that i got called out for speaking up about my disagreement with these “solutions” to the problem.  in fact one japanese person, whom, up until now, i had considered to be a friend, took it upon herself to tell the others that they just had to accept my weird american spoiled bitchiness because i didn’t understand japanese ways and that i would go back to the U.S. soon anyway.

while she may have a point there, i hope that i am not perceived as bitchy and spoiled just because i have respect for myself and the other people involved by speaking up for an environment in which everyone is safe and can feel comfortable.  her comments have caused me to wonder if, despite all my studies about tailoring communication styles to meet different people’s cultural needs, i really do have no idea how to tolerate cultural differences.  i am not sure what other specific behavior i have exhibited before this incident that she finds spoiled or bitchy, but her claims could be legitimate.  what worries me is the thesis i will be writing about cultural differences, communication, and education.  if i can’t accept cultural differences in the country i am currently living (and if those around me feel i don’t understand their culture and are counting the days until i beat it out of here), maybe i should look into a different line of work.

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god, i hate mondays.  josh and i had such a lovely weekend that this morning was a cruel reminder of the fact that we have to go somewhere at a certain time and act professional all day in order to survive on this planet.  yuck.

anyway, let’s talk about march.  the month of march i mean.  we had many visitors.  the first was our dear friend fran.  she is a girl whom we met on our first day in japan.  she was in our training group at the small nova branch near our apartment in gifu, and she lived in nagoya, which was about a 20 minute train ride away, so she often ate meals with us in between training sessions at our apartment and stayed over a few times when we went out after work and she missed her last train home. we stayed in touch with her when we moved to ageo, but she stayed in nagoya working for nova, which just got shittier and shittier.  apparently they switched her schedule so that she never had consecutive days off, she had increased work loads due to the lack of teachers, vacation time was out of the question, and pissed off former students were showing up and threatening the employees almost every day.  (if you don’t know, it’s because nova went bankrupt and students who had paid for lessons in advance lost over half their money….not to mention the employees are still owed part of their lost wages.)  anyway, all that said, our friend’s life after the nova scandal was not improving.  so she decided to leave japan and go back to the usa.  but before she left, she stayed with us for over a week, and we had a wonderful time together.  actually while fran was staying with us, another girl, whom i met during the training for my current job, also left japan to return home (scotland) indefinitely.  so march was filled with saying goodbyes to people whom we had just gotten to know here in japan.

for josh’s birthday weekend, we took a trip to ueno park/zoo and asakusa, a really old shrine in tokyo.  here are fran and josh in ueno park:

at asakusa we saw the first signs of spring, which made me really happy.

on josh’s actual birthday we were all sick (especially me), so we didn’t do much, but we had fun hanging out at home and went out to our favorite local bar.  here josh enjoys his mochi birthday goodness:

he’s so cute, ne? 

anyway, i am really glad that he was born and that we got to celebrate together.  shortly after his birthday, his sister came to visit, but i think those stories are for another night.  i’m super tired.  thanks for readin! 

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i am so turning japanese.  military time even.  except in my work ethics, i suppose.  i still bitch about working on my break and doing unpaid overtime.  can’t take those american (privileged) values away from this girl! 

anyway, let’s not talk about work.  it’s dreadful, and i want to spend my time lying in the sun playing guitar all day, not having meetings about who should do what.  i’m feeling quite disheartened with the whole concept of money right now.

well, anyway, in february josh and i tried to go on a trip.  we had decided that we had had enough of sitting around watching terrible movies (at least they were in english!) on his computer in our tiny room every day.  so we scrimped our first real paychecks and decided to go on a tour to see some wild monkeys and also visit a castle two prefectures away.  well, as fate would have it, our first real vacation in japan was snowed out.  we got up before the sun rose to catch a train and then caught a bus only to turn around after a few hours because of the dangerous road conditions.  so we spent the rest of the day in shinjuku eating doughnuts, drinking wine, and taking pictures in the snow.

it was nice.

anyway, we rescheduled our trip, and it was UNREAL.  first of all the “wild monkey park” was actually the opposite of wild.  it was an area in the forest where people feed monkeys some weird mixture from buckets so they will play near the admission area and they can make money.  the monkeys are so tame that they have no hesitation about approaching/touching humans, and it was really fucking scary.  i mean, who wants wild monkeys running all around them?  i prefer viewing my wildlife from afar.

if i had to choose between sliding down this steep snow covered ramp or having monkeys touch me, i was totally going for the slide….now way i was touching those hand rails!

in a way the experience was cool because we got to see things like this up close and personal:

but it was a little too close for comfort for me.  i don’t think i would have gone if i had realized how much i would be intruding in these monkey’s space…i don’t guess it would have mattered much since there were about 8000 other people there though.  anyway, what an experience!

after that we went to matsumoto castle, which was super beautiful and had a lot of interesting information in english.

we also had about 30 minutes to run around the downtown of matsumoto, which i have decided is one of the cutest cities ever.  it is on our list of places to revisit….someday.  i have a lot of really long lists.

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so i am happy that i finally am feeling more comfortable with the blog and can now even upload photos!  go me!  well, actually, go josh for enabling such an easy uploading tool.

so yesterday at work was really, really hard.  i guess i can’t really go into details since this blog isn’t exactly private, but i will tell you that yesterday after work and a train ride to a doctor to get some new inhalers, i came inside my apartment and lay on the kitchen floor for at least ten minutes before i could bring myself to actually start unpacking my bags and settling in properly.  and when i did get up, it was only to eat chocolate covered peanuts–an entire bag (however, it was japanese sized so a whole bag is probably equivalent to an average serving in the US).

well, enough about that….it’s saturday!  and hopefully when josh comes home tonight i can actually be a good stay-at-home girlfriend (this is my role every saturday since he always has to work) and welcome him with a proper dinner, a cute outfit, and a bright smile instead of my usual bitching and lolling about.  ha.  hopefully i will actually have something to smile about when he comes home instead of stories about broken appliances and my inability to find anything we need at the store, which have been habitual occurrences as of late, unfortunately.

anyway, luckily, my plans for today mostly consist of playing guitar, surfing the internet, doing laundry, and studying japanese–none of which is too stressful.    tomorrow we are going on a hike to see seven waterfalls and also go to a mixed onsen, where i can try out my new swimsuit and soak with my man in the relaxing healing hot spring!!  i’m pretty psyched…except for the inevitable looming chance of rain that preceeds every activity one plans here in the early summer.  anyway, i just got a new rain jacket, so whatever.  i’m going on that hike.

so let me finish telling you about some rather more interesting events of the past few months.  in my last blog i forgot all about christmas, which is kinda understandable if you’ve ever spent one in a foreign country.  well, on christmas eve we visited some friends in tokyo and looked at christmas lights in shinjuku, which i expected to be pretty spectacular, as it is the second largest & busiest train station in the world.  (i also regularly frequent the first largest/busiest train station in the world, don’t worry.)   anyway, it was kinda mediocre, the one notable display consisting of a small gazebo with a huge line to enter.  we weren’t really into the japanese custom of line-waiting at that point yet, so we instead stood off to the side and craned our necks to see inside the gazebo, probably much to the dismay of the japanese line-standers.  anyway, what we saw inside was a flat screen tv adhered to the roof so the people inside could look up and see various scenes of stars and lights moving across the screen and also hear some accompanying music.  they usually stayed inside for about 5 seconds, probably due to the pressure of the growing line behind them.  it was quite interesting, i suppose.  i thought we took pictures, but i can’t find them.  yes, i know, i’m really organized.  however, i did find a photo of a christmas display at our own little train station, which was quite lovely.

luckily christmas day fell on a series of holidays that we got off from work.  however, it also fell on a day right before a series of national holidays, so it was our last day to make imperative banking and shopping runs, so christmas was kinda like any other errand-running day.  during the rest of our vacation, we were completely broke, so we spent a lot of time watching movies, playing guitar, playing yahtzee, and having petty arguments about really important things like who that actor is, what movie to watch, etc.  (you try surviving in a tiny room with one other person for two weeks straight).  anyway, we made it out alive, and now that we have finances to go out and engage in normal social activities and even take some nice trips now and again, we realize how much we must love each other when we look back at our first five months here when we were so isolated and really dependent on one another.

hm, that is a nice segway into valentine’s day, ne?    so valentine’s day, as you may remember, was on a thursday (i think….anyway, it was definitely a week day that josh and i both worked).  i get home a couple of hours before josh, so i made a lovely dinner for us that we devoured hungrily at 9 pm

(notice the large quantity of cheese!!

and then exhaustedly fell into bed about an hour later (more in a sleepy sense than a romantic one.) so, in order to make up for this lovely but not so extensive celebration of our relationship, josh planned an outing to a park in the nearest big city the following sunday.  we went to omiya koen, which encompasses a japanese garden, a large shrine, some lakes, some museums, an archery center, an aviary and zoo, and an amusement park, in addition to a traditional park area for relaxing/exercising/picnicking, etc.  we couldn’t begin to see everything that we wanted to because we love to sleep in, but we had a really nice time and look forward to going back some time.

here i am at the shrine gate

josh scrubs up before we head to the main shrine

here is some info about the shrine we visited

and part of the shrine itself

after visiting the shrine, we had a delicious picnic near the lake.

the cold wind, however, kept us steadily on the move.

after watching some high school girls participate in an archery competiton, which was really impressive, we ended up at a history museum that had some special exhibits about ancient japanese fashion.  it was pretty interesting and definitely educational, although it was sometimes difficult to rely on the english translations, especially when the text seemed to convey life after WWII a quite pleasant for japanese people, since that is when they got to become familiar with american culture!!  another interesting thing that i remember reading in the museum is how christians were persecuted by the japanese government and how buddhism in the 1800s here was quite different than the ancient buddhism in other asian countries.  anyway, i still don’t know that much about buddhism, its introduction in japan, and/or its association with persecution of otehr religions (which was surprising to me)….i’m sure some of you know a great deal more about this topic than i do, so please share your thoughts and wisdom! researching more about the history of religion, particularly its development and the conflicts within japan, is on my ever-expanding list of things to do. 

here are some exhibits at the museum:

i vaguely remember that this is an oni (monster) face used in a festival to request fertile crop production from the gods (or something :

traditional collection of dolls, which almost every girl in japan seems to acquire at a very early age (some of the 2 year olds in my class have brought in photos of their personal collections that rival the display in this museum).

anyway, after the museum closed, we wandered around the city a bit and did some used clothing shopping (which is actually the complete opposite of thrift store clothing here, as most of the clothes are imported and marked up.)  we found cute t shirts that, probably because they had english text, were like $20.  they would probably cost around 50 cents at the salvation army in jackson, mississippi.  oh well, less clothes for me to carry around the world, which is a very very good thing.

on that note, it’s time for me to do laundry!  have a good weekend! 

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clearly i am terrible at writing blogs.  i have also decided to throw capitalization out the window.  not capitalism….i’m not that enlightened yet.  i’m also lazy, hence my addiction to capitalism and my avoidance of capitalization.

i guess i don’t feel as pressured for this blog to live up to some ideals of amazingly insightful thought provoking content when it is not part of my required schoolwork.  such pressure is by no means brought on by my amazing graduate advisor nor any of my wonderful colleagues but purely by my own feelings of insecurity in the academic community.  i guess i never really thought of myself as an “expert” on any one particular subject, so choosing topics for presentations in the academic community have proved to be quite humbling experiences….not to mention the actual act of getting up in front of peers and “real” experts and talking about stuff for an hour.  anyway, i did that last august and was blown away by how unprepared and unprofessional i was.  i have since been taking a sort of hiatus from academia but of course am still self-studying and thinking about what i would essentially like my work to consist of and contribute to society.  yeah….that’s a real mind full.

anyway, i guess my main idea for this blog is to stop worrying about if it’s legitimate or relevant and just make it more me.  after all, it is calliepoole.com.    when josh bought that domain name, i instantly felt pressure to make it so me and then was disappointed when it somehow didn’t reflect what i wanted it to.  it’s so silly how we (i) can get so caught up in how we appear to others….even when it’s just a reflection of ourselves on some stupid web site.  i guess a part of is how searchable what we write becomes….i mean, just google my name, and anyone can have access to a summary of my experiences and thoughts.  and i’m sure googling my name is quite a frequent activity for most of you!  ha ha.    all 2 of you. 

so, anyway, enough about that.  let’s talk about living in japan.  that is, after all, why you’re here, i ‘m sure.  well, let’s see, josh and i are doing quite well.  we were pretty much broke until about three months ago when nova finally came through with our backpayments from the bankruptcy settlement and we started receiving full paychecks from our new jobs.  so we spent a lot of time hanging out in our tiny apaato.

on the job note, mine is stressful, as i’m beginning to think all teaching jobs will inevitably be (someone please tell me i’m wrong…and please cite a concrete example….with contact information for the person in charge of hiring).  anyway, of course the kids are really great.  they always seem to be, anywhere i go.    i just love kids for that.  they are my role models.

so some of the highlights from the last six months include a new year’s trip i took with josh (the boyfriend and creator of this wonderful site) to kamakura.  we ended up spending the day at a beautiful temple,

taking a hike to see the great buddha (second largest in japan),

(i love the two birds fllying above him in this photo)

eating really expensive and yummy tofu, seeing mount fuji from a bridge to an island in the middle of a wind storm, eating italian food for dinner, getting lost in the dark for a couple of hours, finding a lost wallet and reporting it to the police at a festival (which proved to be quite a process…i honestly wouldn’t recommend it!), and then freezing our asses off while exhaustedly waiting for midnight so we could ring in the new year at the famous temple during the festival.  we waited for the new year to strike at a temple with tons of other people, drinking coffee and sake and huddling together.  we walked outside a few minutes early to find this line

these are the people waiting to make their prayers at the very beginning of the new year.  we hung out until the countdown (which was screamed by like 5 guys and us only) and then booked it out of there to be on a packed train for a couple of hours and then asleep in our bed (um, futon) by 3 am.  the crowd stretched wayyyyyyyy down the street, as we noticed on our way to the station.  i guess it would have been cool to participate in the first prayer of the year but not cool enough to wait in that line in the freezing cold.  it is tradition in japan to see the sun rise on the first day of the new year, but i just couldn’t drag myself out of bed 2 1/2 hours later, so we missed it.  maybe some other year.

new year’s eve was a great and unforgettable experience, and i’m really glad i had the chance to take part in a traditional new year’s holiday in japan, but i think next year i’m going to stick to drinking heavily with all my friends.    i sure did miss them on this night.

hm, you know i think it is rather ambitious to sum up the last six months in one blog, so i guess i’ll stop there for tonight.  stay tuned….i might even post another blog before 2009….you never know! 

Posted in Japan | No Comments »

Josh and I are still getting settled in our new home. Josh actually has a viral infection that I think I am coming down with as well. Although my boss requested that I get a flu shot (which she paid for!), I still haven’t been feeling that great ever since it has started to get colder. I am actually quite disappointed that fall is already over; the leaves were so beautiful–all yellow and red–and we didn’t even get any photos! Anyway, winter is in full force here. I deck out in my new pea coat (purchased for only $10!), my wool hat, and mitten glove things every day and am still chilly on the way to and from the train station. Speaking of the train station, it is fully decked out in Christmas attire–a giant tree, twinkly lights, and lighted signs proclaiming “Merry Christmas” everywhere! I was quite surprised by the festivity with which this country celebrates a Christian holiday, given the low popularity of Christianity here. However, capitalism, the true spirit of Christmas, abounds plentifully here. While it is not customary for people to exchange gifts here in quite the same way as in the United States (children usually only get one unwrapped gift), you’d never know it from the giant sales at the huge shopping malls! Each store also plays jolly medleys of Christmas carols–some Japanese versions of all of our favorite jingles and some traditional versions. This place never ceases to amaze me.

Each day I try to feel more comfortable on the trains and try not to be offended by everyone around me either staring at me or closing or averting their eyes in order to avoid making direct contact with a stranger. Most of the people here seem to genuinely polite and friendly; however, when they get on the train, some of these people assume robot or sheep-like roles of ignoring their surroundings and failing to communicate with anyone around them. It’s quite strange because I am used to making small talk with or at least exchanging smiles with others in situations where you are forced to be so physically close to groups of strangers. It’s also quite unnerving just to be stared at because you are different. It definitely hasn’t helped my level of self-consciousness. My landlord talked to me the other day about where Josh parks his bicycle. It was quite a comedic conversation that we held in two broken languages and many gestures. However, in the end, I presented him with a gift (a small hand towel) that he really seemed to love and spoke the politest Japanese that I could muster. He seemed happy after our exchange, so I’m hoping that he will leave Josh and me alone and just let us live there together. I really don’t want to move again, and we want to settle in a little more permanently by ordering Internet service and maybe even buying a washing machine! I know this is a big step into the grown-up world, but it costs us about $15 a week to wash our clothes and $200 for a new washing machine, so it’s actually cheaper to buy one than to continue going to the laundromat, which is actually where I’m writing this entry! I give so much of my Saturday to this laundromat, it seems.

My job is really fun because I absolutely love my students–that is, when they’re not crying, pulling down their pants, or running around like crazy people. However, the same politics of who-likes-who that I’ve experienced in so many places of employment abound at this school. While I am a little disappointed by this discovery, I expected nothing less and am just trying to become more confident in speaking up for my own ideas about the curriculum and schedules of the school. It’s difficult to do this when I am the newest employee; yet, because of my native English ability and my previous teaching experience, I found myself in a lead teacher role almost immediately! While I do not exactly want this role, I am pleased that my opinions are respected. However, because I have so much experience teaching, my boss hasn’t offered me any feedback on my performance. I would like to know how I am doing in her eyes and plan to ask her, but, of course, we are both always so busy. I have virtually no planning time but was recently given more time by my boss, which has helped my level of sanity immensely.

I have noticed that it is much easier to me to write about how to interact with parents from other cultures and backgrounds than to actually do so. For one thing, I have a class of 13 two-year-olds who constantly demand my attention, so I don’t have much time or attention to devote to parents when we need to talk. For another thing, the parents of my current students are pretty well-to-do. For instance, the mothers aren’t usually working and are very available for their children. They are also able to provide supplies for the classroom at a moment’s notice. It’s completely different than anything I’ve experienced. I guess that was the whole idea of coming to Japan! Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about practicing theory and the challenges that we face in doing so, and I am trying to work out some of the obstacles I’m facing in my own struggles with this.

I’ve been reading a lot on my lunch breaks just to stop thinking about teaching for a while. I’ve been reading a lot about race and gender and community relationships and have been applying a lot of what I’m reading to my own relationship with Josh. I guess you have to start somewhere with applying theory, so where better than my personal life? I’ve especially been considering gender roles in relationships, perhaps because the feminine and masculine roles are so blatantly in place here in Japan, which I continually try to challenge in my interactions with people here everyday.

Although I definitely miss all of my friends, I must say that I feel that this time of introspection being almost isolated here in Japan with no money has provided me with plenty of time to analyze my theories, actions, and relationships, which I feel is important for me to do before beginning the type of thesis work on which I wish to embark. We have enough friends here for which to be grateful and still have plenty of time to ourselves; I’m sure once the paychecks come rolling in, our lives will be a blur of travel and constant interaction with others again, so I am appreciating this quiet time for what it is, although I must say that I am anxious to spend time with the mountains and canyons sometime really soon!. I am pretty nervous about my upcoming thesis research and all that I need to set in stone before it begins (i.e., When am I returning to the United States? Could I conduct my research at Southside? Whose support and assistance can I solicit in my endeavors?) I am sure that it will all work out in time, but I really hate setting dates and making decisions solid with my signature and official approval from others. At the same time, however, I am so grateful for this approval because it affirms my doubts that my ideas are, in fact, good enough for others to consider worthy of spending their time reading. I hope to be able to produce something really good and meaningful to others out of all this. Here’s to the support of everyone who’s supported me along the way and all the experiences that have helped to mold this process–both the wonderful and the shitty ones.

Posted in Japan | 2 Comments »