zuihitsu
Post-layover, post-first trans-Pacific flight, post-train rides from airport to Tokyo and Tokyo to Sendai and Sendai to Ishinomaki, post-night time car ride through a muggy Ishinomaki night (the sun sets here at about 6 p.m. as there is no daylight savings time), my first day in Japan.
Last night, the son of the man who owns the school where I'll be working met me at the airport, and his daughter met the Sendai train station and we rode together on toIshinomaki. We communicated using their English skills and electronic translators and my pathetic little Japanese phrase book which has a (very) limited dictionary as I left my "real" dictionary in the luggage that was shipped to TK's house, where I'm staying for the next week. Oh yes, in Japan they have a service in which at the airport you can have your luggage delivered to your door. Also carts to help you carry your luggage are free, which made life so much simpler. My flight was almost an hour early, but it took almost 45 minutes to get through immigration (customs took less than a minute), so TK and Shigeko's son had to wait about 2 hours at the airport, in addition to the hour it takes to the airport from Tokyo, an hour ride back to Tokyo and waiting for about 20 minutes to help me onto the train to Sendai. I ended up getting into Ishinomaki after 10 p.m. and in addition to a night time tour of Shigeko and TK's house, the evening included some food (which was good because I got sick from the first of two meals served on the flight over and as such didn't eat anything else on the flight) and meeting dog Choco-chan. Choco is a dachshund shape and size with coloration and fur styling of a Golden Retriever. When I arrived he had a fake flower attached to each of his ears (he had been groomed earlier this week I found out) and his eyes were literally rolling back in his head he was barking so much and was so upset to see me, a stranger, at his house. (Within minutes, he was my friend after Shikego gave me three bits of food to feed him. He still barks incessently when left alone in a cage in the front hallway, but is so incredibly adorable when out and being admired by people that it's forgiven.)
Morning. This morning started waking up before everyone else and taking a shower, and discovering too late that I didn't know how to turn OFF the water and thus having to wake up Shigeko (actually having Choco wake up Shigeko with his barking) to show me how as the water continued to run. Brilliant. Before breakfast, Shigeko, Keiko and Kyoko and I watched a Japanese soap opera (a woman was dying and I think it was set in the past) and, before we ate, the Yankees game came on. That was before 8 a.m. This international date line thing throws my mind for a loop. Here, it's 14 hours ahead of central time zone in the United States, so as we were having breakfast, it was time for the baseball game to start in New York. First morning here also included decidedly western breakfast of orange juice imported from Brazil, sandwiches with lunch meat and processed cheese, and salad). Then, because today is the last day of Ancesors' Week (which, from what I understand, is when people across Japan return home to be together and discuss and remember and honor their deceased relatives) TK and Keiko and I drove to their temple to lay bamboo boats and flowers in rememberances of their ancestors. They were put on a pile almost as tall as I am and the temple parking lot was very crowded. TK let me put one on the pile (I'm pretty sure he got a picture of it), which was surprising as I didn't know these relatives and they weren't my ancestors, but it was nice. TK said that later priests burn the gifts and that it's believed that the ancestors' souls are released again after they spent a week with their family. I like that idea - the idea of a time set aside specifically for remembering people who were important to you who are dead. There's the Day of the Dead in Mexico, but I don't know if any other cultures or religions have a time set aside for this.
Apparently, at the school, we teach kindergartners at the temple's kindergarten, so I'll be back. And I'd like to go back and walk around.
After the temple, Keiko and I accompanied TK on his daily walk in an Ishinomaki park. Apparently, the first time he went there was when he was on a grade school trip and he and Shigeko had their first day at the area overlooking the park's tiered green tea bushes. We parked at an area in front of a stairway that leads up to a 800-year-old Japanese temple. And on our walk, we passed by a marker which commemorates a woman (the woman who Miyagi, the name of the prefecture that Ishinomaki is located in, is named after) who lead resistance to the emperor's warriors when they attacked the area over 800 years ago. (TK said the emperor wanted to acquire the area to mine it and acquire gold to make pure gold Buddhas.) On the drive up there, I realized that this is just the beginning, this is just the start of a year here. I will likely go up that road and into that park many more times. After the walk, we picked up Adrian (felt a little guilty for speaking so much English with Adrian and also became aware how quickly one modifies speaking her primary language when talking to people who speak the language she's speaking as a second language) and went to the grocery store, which was huge and had peaches that cost $2 apiece (fruit, according to Adrian, is expensive here.)
We had a big lunch, a welcome and thank you lunch, TK said - welcome for me and thank you for Adrian. For lunch we had sukiyaki (stew with beef, onions, cabbage, several types of mushrooms, cabbage and other vegetables) and tempura (which I had always thought was just fried squid, but we had deep fried squid and squash and onions and green peppers and mushrooms. Lunch was followed by dessert of ice cream, custard and/or cheesecake and coffee or tea. Also, these people laugh a lot.
TK and Adrian went to school after lunch, but TK said that I didn't have to go today and I should stay home and "relax," which is what I'm doing (when not on edge by Choco's all-the-time barking). At 5, Keiko and I are going for a walk around town and apparrently dinner is at 6 p.m. School goes until 9:30 or 9:45 p.m., so I have a lot of free time today, which is nice. I still really can't fully believe that I'm in Japan.
One of the last stories I wrote for the Gazette was about a woman who was teaching a class on travel writing for the Haystack Program. One of the things she talked about (but I didn't put in the story) was how sometimes people need to let things sit and settle for awhile, even years, before they write about them. Even though I've been here less than 24 hours and been traveling for less than 48 hours, I can see how that's true. There's so much. So much that's different, so much that happens, so much that one learns and wants to remember that it would be impossible and drive one to distraction thinking about how to write about what happens as something is happening (which is typically what I do, maybe that's from my experience in journalism where you had to think about what details you want to include in a story as you're experiencing an event or a conversation). So, I will not be too upset with myself if this blog isn't a daily account of every little thing that happened or something that has profound insights about Life and Humanity with artful writing. This is just a place for me to record things that I choose during a once in a lifetime opportunity living in a different culture for the first time.
Man, is it hot here. Humid.
Miscellaneous that I know now that I didn't know about yesterday:
* J-Pop: Like Brit pop, but the Japanese version. On our train from Sendai to Ishinomaki, there was a banner advertising a boy band called "Cartoon" (possibly spelled wrong, but it sounds like cartoon.) When talking about music with Kazuhiro, he said one of his favorites was Mariah Carey (which isn't J-pop, but it is pop.) When Keiko brought down CDs to listen to this afternoon, one of the about 10 she brought down to chose from was Mariah Carey's Christmas album.
Japanese words/phrase of day:
- zuihitsu: my dictionary defines as "essay (consisting of the writer's random thoughts)." I like very much, but I am also a comedy of errors. I discovered this word because I got out my Japanese dictionary today, happy to not have to rely on the 10-page section of my Japanese phrasebook anymore, only to discover that I do not own an English-Japanese dictionary as I originally thought, but a Japaneseo-English dictionary - meaning that it has Japanese to English translations of words, but not English to Japanese.
Quasi-Japanese words for the day: Banana, tomato and interneto. Interneto is pronounced pretty much the same as "internet" but with an "o" at the end. Tomato is like pronounced like the second "tomato" in "you say 'tomato,' 'I saw tomato'." Banana is pronounced with the syllables running together.
Last night, the son of the man who owns the school where I'll be working met me at the airport, and his daughter met the Sendai train station and we rode together on toIshinomaki. We communicated using their English skills and electronic translators and my pathetic little Japanese phrase book which has a (very) limited dictionary as I left my "real" dictionary in the luggage that was shipped to TK's house, where I'm staying for the next week. Oh yes, in Japan they have a service in which at the airport you can have your luggage delivered to your door. Also carts to help you carry your luggage are free, which made life so much simpler. My flight was almost an hour early, but it took almost 45 minutes to get through immigration (customs took less than a minute), so TK and Shigeko's son had to wait about 2 hours at the airport, in addition to the hour it takes to the airport from Tokyo, an hour ride back to Tokyo and waiting for about 20 minutes to help me onto the train to Sendai. I ended up getting into Ishinomaki after 10 p.m. and in addition to a night time tour of Shigeko and TK's house, the evening included some food (which was good because I got sick from the first of two meals served on the flight over and as such didn't eat anything else on the flight) and meeting dog Choco-chan. Choco is a dachshund shape and size with coloration and fur styling of a Golden Retriever. When I arrived he had a fake flower attached to each of his ears (he had been groomed earlier this week I found out) and his eyes were literally rolling back in his head he was barking so much and was so upset to see me, a stranger, at his house. (Within minutes, he was my friend after Shikego gave me three bits of food to feed him. He still barks incessently when left alone in a cage in the front hallway, but is so incredibly adorable when out and being admired by people that it's forgiven.)
Morning. This morning started waking up before everyone else and taking a shower, and discovering too late that I didn't know how to turn OFF the water and thus having to wake up Shigeko (actually having Choco wake up Shigeko with his barking) to show me how as the water continued to run. Brilliant. Before breakfast, Shigeko, Keiko and Kyoko and I watched a Japanese soap opera (a woman was dying and I think it was set in the past) and, before we ate, the Yankees game came on. That was before 8 a.m. This international date line thing throws my mind for a loop. Here, it's 14 hours ahead of central time zone in the United States, so as we were having breakfast, it was time for the baseball game to start in New York. First morning here also included decidedly western breakfast of orange juice imported from Brazil, sandwiches with lunch meat and processed cheese, and salad). Then, because today is the last day of Ancesors' Week (which, from what I understand, is when people across Japan return home to be together and discuss and remember and honor their deceased relatives) TK and Keiko and I drove to their temple to lay bamboo boats and flowers in rememberances of their ancestors. They were put on a pile almost as tall as I am and the temple parking lot was very crowded. TK let me put one on the pile (I'm pretty sure he got a picture of it), which was surprising as I didn't know these relatives and they weren't my ancestors, but it was nice. TK said that later priests burn the gifts and that it's believed that the ancestors' souls are released again after they spent a week with their family. I like that idea - the idea of a time set aside specifically for remembering people who were important to you who are dead. There's the Day of the Dead in Mexico, but I don't know if any other cultures or religions have a time set aside for this.
Apparently, at the school, we teach kindergartners at the temple's kindergarten, so I'll be back. And I'd like to go back and walk around.
After the temple, Keiko and I accompanied TK on his daily walk in an Ishinomaki park. Apparently, the first time he went there was when he was on a grade school trip and he and Shigeko had their first day at the area overlooking the park's tiered green tea bushes. We parked at an area in front of a stairway that leads up to a 800-year-old Japanese temple. And on our walk, we passed by a marker which commemorates a woman (the woman who Miyagi, the name of the prefecture that Ishinomaki is located in, is named after) who lead resistance to the emperor's warriors when they attacked the area over 800 years ago. (TK said the emperor wanted to acquire the area to mine it and acquire gold to make pure gold Buddhas.) On the drive up there, I realized that this is just the beginning, this is just the start of a year here. I will likely go up that road and into that park many more times. After the walk, we picked up Adrian (felt a little guilty for speaking so much English with Adrian and also became aware how quickly one modifies speaking her primary language when talking to people who speak the language she's speaking as a second language) and went to the grocery store, which was huge and had peaches that cost $2 apiece (fruit, according to Adrian, is expensive here.)
We had a big lunch, a welcome and thank you lunch, TK said - welcome for me and thank you for Adrian. For lunch we had sukiyaki (stew with beef, onions, cabbage, several types of mushrooms, cabbage and other vegetables) and tempura (which I had always thought was just fried squid, but we had deep fried squid and squash and onions and green peppers and mushrooms. Lunch was followed by dessert of ice cream, custard and/or cheesecake and coffee or tea. Also, these people laugh a lot.
TK and Adrian went to school after lunch, but TK said that I didn't have to go today and I should stay home and "relax," which is what I'm doing (when not on edge by Choco's all-the-time barking). At 5, Keiko and I are going for a walk around town and apparrently dinner is at 6 p.m. School goes until 9:30 or 9:45 p.m., so I have a lot of free time today, which is nice. I still really can't fully believe that I'm in Japan.
One of the last stories I wrote for the Gazette was about a woman who was teaching a class on travel writing for the Haystack Program. One of the things she talked about (but I didn't put in the story) was how sometimes people need to let things sit and settle for awhile, even years, before they write about them. Even though I've been here less than 24 hours and been traveling for less than 48 hours, I can see how that's true. There's so much. So much that's different, so much that happens, so much that one learns and wants to remember that it would be impossible and drive one to distraction thinking about how to write about what happens as something is happening (which is typically what I do, maybe that's from my experience in journalism where you had to think about what details you want to include in a story as you're experiencing an event or a conversation). So, I will not be too upset with myself if this blog isn't a daily account of every little thing that happened or something that has profound insights about Life and Humanity with artful writing. This is just a place for me to record things that I choose during a once in a lifetime opportunity living in a different culture for the first time.
Man, is it hot here. Humid.
Miscellaneous that I know now that I didn't know about yesterday:
* J-Pop: Like Brit pop, but the Japanese version. On our train from Sendai to Ishinomaki, there was a banner advertising a boy band called "Cartoon" (possibly spelled wrong, but it sounds like cartoon.) When talking about music with Kazuhiro, he said one of his favorites was Mariah Carey (which isn't J-pop, but it is pop.) When Keiko brought down CDs to listen to this afternoon, one of the about 10 she brought down to chose from was Mariah Carey's Christmas album.
Japanese words/phrase of day:
- zuihitsu: my dictionary defines as "essay (consisting of the writer's random thoughts)." I like very much, but I am also a comedy of errors. I discovered this word because I got out my Japanese dictionary today, happy to not have to rely on the 10-page section of my Japanese phrasebook anymore, only to discover that I do not own an English-Japanese dictionary as I originally thought, but a Japaneseo-English dictionary - meaning that it has Japanese to English translations of words, but not English to Japanese.
Quasi-Japanese words for the day: Banana, tomato and interneto. Interneto is pronounced pretty much the same as "internet" but with an "o" at the end. Tomato is like pronounced like the second "tomato" in "you say 'tomato,' 'I saw tomato'." Banana is pronounced with the syllables running together.
posted by kathy at 8:30 AM
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