O Fim duma Viagem

Revenge of the Projects

kakimono — Tue, 24 May 2016 14:34:00 GMT

I haven't mentioned it in a while, so I bet you forgot about the projects that we had to do for class, didn't you? Yeah, me too…

A few weeks ago, there had been a takoyaki party at CET, with a lot of roommates and CET+ plus Japanese people had been there and willing to fill out surveys and do interviews. So I'd asked about 10 people. Combined with the volunteers who had come to be interviewed and my half-hearted attempts to approach strangers with a clipboard, this gave me nearly enough participants to pass the project. I was calling it close enough, at any rate.

One trend I noticed with people answering the survey was that they tended to stumble over the question “name five famous books and authors” and would pull out their phones or start talking to friends, or else ask if three was enough. Curious, I decided to ask the same question of the Americans both in the program and who I knew from college. And what I found out is that the issue comes with the “and author” part. Because people remember a lot more titles than they remember titles and associated authors, and they can get tripped up over things like the accent in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s name. My success rate would have been a lot higher if I hadn't listened to Yamaguchi-sensei when she told me to ask for authors as well.

Anyway, that was that for data collection. Next we moved on to analysis. This is what the two hours of project work following the exam had been about, and beyond those two hours we were supposed to work on it on our own. Our task was to notice trends, and describe them. Then we should compile our data into one or two nice graphs and write and memorize a speech for the other students and teachers.

My two graphs were on which Japanese authors were read in high school (although I had a number of people misunderstand the question and seem to answer which authors they'd read overall, which would have made for another interesting question…) and, of about ten canonical books Americans read in high school, which ones they've read.

I think I've mentioned the main result of the latter graph already, but it bears repeating. Tom Sawyer. That was the only high school canon book Japanese people read. Over half the people I asked had read it. By contrast, only one or two people had read To Kill a Mockingbird or 1984. No one that I asked had read The Odyssey. But they've read Tom Sawyer.

The other thing that stood out was that most of the Japanese people had read Natsume Soseki in high school. There's an involved explanation for why I find this so surprising, and it was generally too much work to explain it in any language to people who weren't exactly interested. So you had better be interested, because I'm going through the work of explaining it.

When I was in high school, I was involved in “quiz bowl,” an activity where you learn a lot about different subjects so you can answer questions about them. My specialty was literature. As such I had to learn key details of works and authors, such as “ending with him burning down the title structure” was probably referring to Yukio Mishima's The Temple of the Golden Pavilion and “went out of his way to run over a turtle” describes a scene in Grapes of Wrath.

In this capacity, I was also responsible for writing questions. So not only did I need to know way more than the average high schooler about literature, I still needed to keep in touch with what you could expect high schoolers to know. Both the works you could expect a reasonably inspired high schooler who had never really studied for quiz bowl to have at least heard of, and the works you could expect someone who did study to learn. When it comes to Japanese literature, these are both kind of small categories. Tale of Genji and haiku are both more or less free game. Anything else you can expect to go unanswered in a lot of rooms, but certain other authors, like Yukio Mishima or Yasunari Kawabata can be asked about without earning you too much grief, as long as you acknowledge they're on the harder side.

When I was a junior, the literature question writer a year above me got a lot of grief for asking about Natsume Soseki. Because you could not expect high schoolers to know him. By the time I graduated he was moving his way into the hard part of the cannon, but he was not, as the previous writer claimed so frequently it became a running joke, “so easy.”

Here's the thing: in Japan, Soseki is. Out of my short list of famous Japanese authors, the most read were Lady Murasaki, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, and Natsume Soseki. The least read were Yukio Mishima and Kenaburo Oe. And not by a small margin. Upwards of 10 people had read Natsume Soseki. Around three had read Yukio Mishima.

It gets better. An interview question was “what was your favorite book that you read in high school? Why?” I got a lot of answers, but two clear responses emerged. Lady Murasaki’s Tale of Genji, because it was famous and a love story (the latter being more commonly given by females, but I had a guy or two say it as well) and, because it was easy to read, Natsume Soseki’s I am a Cat. The book that so many Americans had said was not easy, and that you couldn't expect high schoolers to know turned out to be famous and easy to read and remember in Japan.

It was an interesting cultural difference, and the exact sort of thing I'd been unwittingly hoping to find with the project. Because of course Americans and Japanese are going to read different books in high school. Of course Japanese education is going to teach primarily books written in Japanese by famous Japanese people, and American schools will teach books written in English, with a decent focus on books written by Americans. What's less obvious is that, even in the context of authors famous in Japan/authors famous in America, there is a difference. And it's not ground-breaking, or probably even that interesting to people who aren't me. But I found it fascinating.

Summarizing everything I just wrote into a grammatically accurate Japanese speech which I then had to memorize and recite in front of twenty people was less fun. But when I saw several members of the audience widen their eyes when I said “Tom Sawyer is popular in Japan,” or “In the US, Yukio Mishima is considered to be more famous than Natsume Soseki,” it was almost worth all of the pain and frustration of the project just to be able to share some of that interest with other people. Almost worth it.

Burgers in Osaka

kakimono — Sat, 7 May 2016 17:13:00 GMT

Although I would never want to be one of those people who goes to a country and only ever eats at McDonalds, I see nothing wrong with occasionally wanting a literal taste of familiarity. In Paris, this took the form of a Friday routine of getting a burger formule followed by a Starbucks on Fridays. The burger formule because it was filling and the place that sold it sometimes had an Oreo tiramasu which was amazing, and the Starbucks because Fridays were long and I was worried about falling asleep without it. So when the second or third Friday of the program rolled around and I realized I wanted a burger, it was hard to say if it was because I missed America or because I missed my Paris routine.

By a month in, it didn't really matter. I wanted a burger. Whether it was because I missed the burger place near my house or the restaurant near Pierre and Marie Curie or just because I missed red meat, I wanted a burger. Both the guide I'd picked up and the internet seemed to suggest the same place- Critter Burgers near Mondial Kaffee. But the times I swung by it it was either closed or super busy.

So I considered other options. I considered McDonalds and Mos Burger. (Mos Burger is a restaurant chain here, and it also features in the non-existent first date of Mary and Takeshi, two characters in the Genki textbook series.) However, when I looked at the menu, the pictures of the hamburgers looked about as appealing as the hamburgers in my high school cafeteria look. When a restaurant's own advertisements can't make food look appealing, you know you have a problem.

So eventually I compensated with the next best thing: a hamburg. Hamburg, like Valentine's Day, is a Japanese take on an American concept. It is basically just the patty of a hamburger, but typically sold as a set, so it will also include rice, miso soup, maybe some vegetables… no bread, though. It's a lot like a hamburger, but it's not quite the same. Not enough to fully satisfy my craving.

So on Tuesday, when my spirituality class was cancelled, I decided it was worth another try and went to Critters Burger. It was full, but there was no line, and since that seemed like the best I was going to get, I settled in to wait. Fortunately, I had a book to finish for the spirituality report due Thursday to keep me company. Work you can no longer reasonably procrastinate on makes for the best company.

Eventually, people inside were finished eating, and I could go in and sit down. By that point I was very hungry and quite skeptical of it being worth the wait. Especially when I saw the menu. There was a one-page menu saying the lunch special which threw in a few fries for no extra cost, and listing about twelve burgers and six different drink options. Just a plain list naming each burger after what was on it. “Plain burger. Burger with cheese. Burger with lettuce and tomato. Burger with cheese, lettuce, and tomato. Burger with egg. Burger with cheese and egg.” Even if some of the options were interesting, the menu itself was rather dull and uninspired.

I caught the waiter's attention and ordered a burger with pineapple and cheese. And then I went back to reading my book until the burger came out.

The pictures I'd seen had not lied to me- this was exactly how I expected a burger to look. (Except for the pineapple sticking out. What kind of weirdo thinks ordering pineapple on a burger sounds good?) Surreptitiously watching a couple next to me, I determined that the paper I'd been given with my burger was for picking it up. Because finger food is only variably a thing in Japan. This trip, I have repeatedly had to use chopsticks to eat french fries. It never feels any more natural.

Although it was weird to hold the burger in a slip of paper, and I worried slightly about accidentally getting a bite of paper with my burger, it was very good. Well worth the multiple times I’d stopped by to try and find it, and the half hour wait even when I was the first person in line. And, more importantly, my craving for burgers had finally been satisfied, so I could stop trying the Hamburg set every chance I got.

Everybody Loves Kung Fu Fighting

kakimono — Thu, 5 May 2016 00:05:00 GMT

Sunday we were supposed to leave the house around 8:30 for karate class. So I got up at 7:30, which had the perk that it meant the bread I got for breakfast was still warm. Other than that, there wasn't much of a difference between getting up at 7:30 and getting up at 8.

Leaving at 8:30 was a rough goal, and by the time we'd all piled in the car and started driving it was a good number of minutes later. So basically it was exactly like my family when we're going somewhere. Nevertheless, we got to the gym the karate was held in without much difficulty and with a few minutes to spare. I took off my shoes and socks, then bowed and entered the main gym.

Youhei and Yuki introduced me to a couple of people, and then class began. The start was people moving around the gym at whatever pace they wanted. Yuki was moving at a fast walk/light jog that suited me just fine. Then there was a whistle, and everyone had to start running faster. Then another whistle, and we lined up on one side of the gym. Age group by age group, people raced each other across the gym and back. Even the adult age range I was now part of. It reminded me of a gym class.

When that was over, we spread ourselves out across the gym and had an advanced student who seemed to be high-school age lead us in exercises. This was challenging, since I wasn't familiar with the exercises, so I was just trying to figure out and imitate everyone else in the span of time allotted for each exercise. I also learned once again that when I don't do push-ups for a while, I lose my ability to do push-ups. At least I didn't need to worry whether or not I was doing the right exercise then.

With basic stretching and muscle-building exercises done, we moved on to warming up through basic punches and blocks. There was a brown belt around Yuki's age who essentially served as my private tutor during the class, and she helped me figure out what the rest of my body was supposed to be doing while I was throwing a technique. Because I would have been fine stepping forward with the same foot I was expected to punch with, and I would have been fine standing still. But the compromise step forward with the opposite foot, then punch, then step back which everyone else seemed to be doing was really confusing me. My tutor helped me at least figure out what was going on, and slowly I got the hang of it. Still wasn't entirely sure how to put power into it, but I tried.

After that, it was time to do forms. Forms are not easy things to fake your way through, especially when the people around you are going full speed, so it didn't take long for my tutor to take my off to the side so we could run through them more slowly, and she could actually show me what was going on.

In whatever specific style of martial arts we were doing, the forms were called gatas, literally, shapes, and we were beginning with the first one. In tang soo do, the kind of karate I've done on and off (but recently, mainly off) since I was in third grade, forms are called keybons. I bring this up, because my knowledge of keybon 1 was both helpful and a hindrance when it came to learning gata 1.

Keybon 1 (actually, most of the keybons) are 20 steps in an I shape. So you begin at the bottom of the I, turn left, step, turn around completely, do another step, turn 90° to the left, take three steps, turn left 90°, and you're now on the top of the I. Do another step, turn all the way around, take another step, turn left 90°, do three steps down the middle of the I, turn 90° to step, turn all the way around, and do the final step. Every time you turn or step, it adds to the count. And of course, since it is martial arts, every time you turn or step you are also punching or blocking and, in later forms, probably kicking too.

Gata 1 was the exact same shape. In fact, the only real difference between gata 1 and keybon 1 was that gata 1 used middle blocks where keybon 1 used low blocks. I kept screwing that up, because muscle memory is hard to overwrite in one day. However, knowing how to move in the right shape and throw blocks and punches meant I learned quickly and was soon able to move on to gata 2.

Gata 2 had none of the perils or advantages of familiarity. It was not in an I shape, and even though the blocks and punches weren't entirely foreign, I wasn't quite sure what stance I should be standing in, and had no idea what some of the moves were supposed to do.

Some of the forms I'd learned in Tang Soo Do had really weird parts, like 23.5° turns and jumping kicks and hand techniques that were supposed to do things like take someone's head and bring it down to the ground, preferably snapping their neck in the process. The point is, I know what all of those moves were supposed to do. I had the time and luxury of having had things explained to me in English, so I knew what I was supposed to be doing, not just to make it look right, but to make sure that every technique had power in it. It was weird to learn forms without power being the focus.

After a while of that, each group showed off what they'd been working on to the other groups. And I realized that it wasn't just me- most of the forms were lacking in kicks. Even the other adults who had been there for a while didn't really kick. The exception was a brown belt who did a form using not just kicks, but jumping kicks and strategic falling on the ground to get back to fighting. It was pretty impressive to watch.

Then class was kind of over, and we took a break to drink water and get out gloves and punching mats. I would have been content to just watch, but various women kept encouraging me to, so eventually I put on the gloves and tried hitting the mat. I didn't throw any kicks, though, because the kind my partner was encouraging me to throw involved hitting the mat with the top of my foot, which felt wrong and awkward.

After a bit of that, the medium-aged ones (older children, in this context) lined up to spar with each other. This time, I sat out and just watched. They had protection over much of their body as well as helmets, and certain things counted as fouls or points, but I never could figure out which. There was definitely a time limit, though, since I watched several people just pace around throwing fake-outs until the whistle was blown on them.

It was an interesting experience, and one that I was glad I could have in Japan, but mostly it just made me miss the Tang Soo Do classes where I understood what was going on, and had the practice to be able to do things well. Also, forms that involved kicks.

We had lunch at a place with a vegetarian buffet, and then, while we were in the city, they dropped me off at the train station. I went back home to do my homework and use the onsen. After a weekend that had involved playing with kids, climbing a mountain, and karate, I was pretty sure I deserved it.

Everybody Needs a Break

kakimono — Tue, 3 May 2016 00:11:00 GMT

Saturday, I got confirmation that the children woke up early when I woke up to the sounds of little feet running around the house. I checked the time, debated whether or not it was worth getting up this early and decided it wasn't. Two hours later, when I went downstairs, Yuma and Itsuki were still running around. There was also still breakfast and coffee waiting for me.

Breakfast was bread that had been baked that morning and spreads. I had the option of an orange jam or a peanut cream. I say “peanut cream,” because it's important to draw the distinction between that and peanut butter. In Japan, you can only get real peanut butter at great personal expense, however you can occasionally find reasonably-priced things that label themselves as “peanut butter.” It's hard to explain the difference because it's been close to a year since I've had American peanut butter, but I think it tends to be weaker in Japan, if it makes any sense for peanut butter to be “weak.”

The main plan for the day seemed to be climbing the nearby mountain, which I was up for, and not too particular on when. So Youhei decided it would be best to go in the afternoon, and that left me a morning I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with.

Yuma and Itsuki suggested “sanpo suru.” Sanpo suru is a word I would translate as “take a walk” or “stroll.” It's distinct from the word for “to walk,” “aruku” in that the latter is used as a verb of motion, and the former is more of an activity. You aruku to get to school. You sanpo suru when classes are over and you need to spend time moving outside instead of staying cramped in a classroom.

That, at least, is my understanding of the verb “sanpo suru.” Yuma and Itsuki had different ideas. So after deciding which way to head, they went racing up a hill leaving me no choice but to go chasing after them. Then they decided they'd gone enough in that direction and went tearing back the other direction. And then we paused in a field, and before I knew what was happening we were playing jangken to decide who was the oni in a game of tag.

So we played oni tag. And oni and cops and robbers. And soccer. And oni hide and go seek.

Hide and go seek, at least the way they played, was odd. Rather than counting to 100 straight off the bat, you count to ten. And then you ask “more time?” And they say “more time!” and that means you should count to ten again. Unless they call that out in the middle of you counting to ten, in which case you should stop counting and go look for them. At least, based off observation and the explanations I received, I'm pretty sure that's what was going on. It's possible that I was even more confused than those rules left me and just couldn't tell.

When the kids were bored or tired or something, we headed back to the house. After a little bit, Yuki suggested I go sit outside, so I found a beach near where Youhei was cooking rice with an actual fire and Itsuki and Yuma were playing. It was nice, peaceful, and pastoral.

Breakfast’s bread had been baked that morning by Yuki in a bread machine. The jams had been made by a friend. So was the soap I used to wash up the dishes after I was done eating. Youhei chopped wood. It all had a very natural country feeling.

At the same time, the house was very modern. It might not have had central heating, but it did have a self-heating bathtub, a nice kitchen, good heaters, and decent insulation. And Yuki and Youhei were by no means confined to the house in the country. Youhei had been in Osaka Friday, and Yuki went there Saturday afternoon.

Basically, it was lacking the contrast I've come to expect.It wasn't city vs. country life and never the two should mix. They might have a friend who makes dish soap, but the shampoo was generic and store-bought. They cut their own wood, but didn't appear to harbour any ill will towards people who lived in the city and let other people worry about it. And, of course, we weren't that much more than an hour out from Osaka. Nature and modernity mixed with ease here, and it was neat to see that.

Lunch was onigiri and miso soup. I helped make the onigiri, and learned valuable lessons in the process. Chief among them: do not try and make them with dry hands. Your hands must be wet and slippery or else the rice will stick to them badly. I also learned how to shape them into a triangle, and although they were nowhere near as good as Yuki's, they were better than Itsuki and Yuma's. (I need to take my victories where I can get them.)

In the afternoon, Yuki went to Osaka, and a bit after she left, the rest of us set out to climb the nearest mountain. I knew setting out that I was likely to be shown up by Yuma, Itsuki, and their nearly boundless energy. I was not wrong.

The only other Japanese mountain I've climbed was Mount Fuji, which was a very different experience. Actually, the only similarity was that I was being shown up by small Japanese children in both. The mountain that I was currently climbing was a lot gentler, and also a lot less popular. Mount Fuji has checkpoints and vending machines and stations selling food all over. This one didn't. When we reached the top, the only thing there was a shrine. It was a lot less commercial, and given I don't climb mountains for the opportunities to buy things, that made it much nicer.

Plus, it wasn't raining. Lack of rain makes hikes way more pleasant.

We were resting at the top for maybe a couple of minutes when Itsuki suggested we play hide and go seek. This very quickly turned into a tag game where I spent most of the time as the oni.

We were at the top of a mountain. Which we'd just climbed. Call me weak, but I did not want to be running around at the top of it. Besides, even when I did tag Yuma, he would make only a minimal attempt to tag his brother before turning and going after me. Itsuki was faster, liked climbing father up the brush, and wouldn't even try to go after Yuma when he was tagged. So I mostly just paced around threateningly and occasionally held my arms out like I was trying to scare away a bear. Coupled with the occasional lunge where I'd succeed I tagging one of them, this made up my attempt to pretend I cared about the game.

I quickly became more interested in the song that Yuma was semi-tautingly singing.

“London bashi ochiru, ochiri, ochiru.” Literally, London bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down. He continued to sing, or at least hum, the rest of the verse. But, much as I tried, I could not make out what he was saying. My attempts to listen failed, and when I asked, Yuma said nothing and Youhei said he must have learned that song in school, since he didn't know it.

Which is just as well, since once I knew the proper Japanese translation of “my fair lady,” there would be very little to stop me from trying to translate and sing the entirety of the song to an increasingly bored audience. It's the kind of thing I do.

“London Bridge” stuck in my head, we started our descent. Again, since the mountain was much less popular than Fuji-san, and since we wanted to end up on the same side of the base of the mountain that the house was on, we took the same way down that we'd used to get up. We didn't run into anyone on the way down either.

Dinner was takoyaki, and I quickly proved to be useless at any tasks involving them, including flipping the balls so that they could get equally cooked all the way around. It was also a gradual process, with 18 takoyaki being made at a time, and split unevenly between us. At the beginning Yuki made sure to give the children and guests more, but she kept making them, so she and Youhei got plenty to eat as well.

After dinner, I went up to the room to rest and avoid getting dragged into any more oni games. I wasn’t sure how much longer Yuma and Itsuki would have energy, but I didn’t want to discover it firsthand. Besides, I had another long, tiring day in front of me tomorrow.

Is this how people end up with sane sleep schedules?

Meeting My Host Family

kakimono — Mon, 2 May 2016 00:49:00 GMT

Do to a miscommunication, we ended up showing up to the place to meet with our host families at the same time our host families were arriving. This was a mistake, because they were supposed to have a brief orientation before meeting us. So they went in for the orientation, and we stayed outside the room, recharging our electronics and ourselves.

When it was time, we took off our shoes and went into the room. Standing in one line at the back of the room, we said our names and waited for our host families to step up and claim us. Then Ozaki-san told us that we should play jang-ken (rock paper scissors) with our host families, and the winner got to ask the loser one question. I recognized it as being the same ice breaker activity we'd done with Japanese roommates our second day in Osaka.

Yuki, my host mother for the weekend, was there with Yuma and Itsuki, her two children, agreed 5 and 7. I immediately decided that I would always play scissors, and see if anyone noticed. They never did. Whether intentionally or not, Yuki usually played rock, so she usually had to ask me the questions, but when playing against the children, I won a lot, so it was my turn to scramble for a good question to ask someone years younger than me.

And so in that way I learned important things about my host family, like what everyone's favorite colors were. Also my host mother learned actually important things about me, like that I don't like fish.

After that, the host family orientation was over, and we were free to leave. Since my host family lived in the countryside, Yuki explained that we would go grocery shopping now. She asked what kind of Japanese food I liked to eat, and I went with my new default of okonomiyaki.

Yuki: Really?

Me: Well, I live in Osaka, so I've grown fond of Osaka food. Like okonomiyaki and takoyaki.

Itsuki: Takoyaki! Takoyaki!

Yuki: see you all right having takoyaki this weekend?

Me: sounds good.

So, to Itsuki’s excitement, Yuki picked out octopus for dinner. Itsuki and Yuma didn’t seem too worried about sticking close to their mother, so I wandered around as well. And then after a few times of finding Yuki on my own, or finding one of her children. And then suddenly I couldn’t find any of them in the store. And I was just wandering around, exactly like a small child who had lost their mother and didn’t know what to do. But eventually I managed to find them again, no announcements necessary.

With groceries and family assembled, we got into the car and drove to the house. It was in the countryside, and night was falling by the time that we arrived, so I didn’t get to see the deer or goats that would apparently sometimes stop by their backyard. For that matter, I didn’t really get to see their backyard either.

Dinner that night was shabu-shabu, with meat and vegetables cooking in a communal pot in the middle. It was very tasty, and very plentiful. Youhei got back from his job a bit before dinner, so we ate as a family. Youhei worked near Osaka with something related to boats, I believe. He did a lot of travel internationally, to other Asian countries, and also to Europe, but hadn’t been on a business trip to the US, and neither of them had been to Chicago.

After dinner, Yuki found two old, small looms that had been tangled. The instructions were in Japanese and German, but since she knew I liked knitting (I’d knit on the way back) she thought I might want to give it a try. I could certainly untangle it, and then I thought I knew enough about the theory behind weaving to know how it worked. Especially when I noticed that there was knob near the top that changed the heights of the strings. Turn it one way and all of the odd-numbered strings would rise to be higher than the even-numbered strings. Turn it the other way and the even-numbered strings would be higher than the odd-numbered strings. Turn it in-between, and the two would be at the same level.

I undid a few rows that were funky looking, then added more rows of my own. It went well near the beginning, but then I got bored or tired or my inexperience simply started showing, because my tension was off and the piece was contracting too much. It was at that point that I got bored, and went to bed. Or at least to a gradual winding down phase to bed.

During dinner, Yuki had asked me what time I usually woke up. Bearing in mind what Ozaki-san had said a while back about the family that lived in the countryside and woke up really early, I went for a slight lie.

“Eight.” Left to my own devices, I will not wake up at 8. But it’s the time I’ve been getting up this school year because I’ve not been left to my own devices, and it’s a time that I can get up if I do have a reason.

“Oh. That’s kind of late. Yuma and Itsuki usually wake up around 6. What time do you usually go to sleep?”

“Heh. Heh.” I’ve been spending so much time around college students that I no longer know what a reasonable lie for that is anymore. And the truth is not self-consistent with my aforementioned waking up time.

The outcome of this was that I knew the next morning, I should probably get up at 8, so I went to bed earlier than I would have normally. My room was a traditional tatami room, with just a futon on the floor and a bean-filled pillow. The futon was the same as the one on top of my bed at my apartment, and it turned out there wasn’t much of a difference between a mattress on a bedframe and a mattress on the floor. And the bean pillow turned out to be surprisingly firm and comfortable. Too quiet, but otherwise nice.

Making Friends like in Elementary School

kakimono — Sat, 30 Apr 2016 23:53:00 GMT

Before class began on Friday, Dan asked me if I’d gotten an omiyage (literally “souvenir,” more generally, gift) for my host family this weekend. Which stole the exact question I’d intended to ask him, simply because the program had been vague about whether we’d needed one or not. So as I’d been packing the night before (well… that morning, but who was counting) I’d tried to quickly throw together things into a bag that wouldn’t make them look like they’d just been thrown together randomly.

First of all… Yes! Someone had at one point given me something in a nice paper bag, so I could regift that instead of using a plastic bag from a konbini. What to put in it… I had a lot of prints that I’d gotten from various Kickstarters and brought along to decorate. Since my apartment this semester didn’t really have the means or good locations to be put up (if I could put a picture there, I’d probably rather hang wet laundry to dry) so they were just together in a pile. That was a nice picture of Alice, from Alice in Wonderland. I also had a Japanese children’s book that I’d picked up in Japanese while it was on sale in Paris. I’d liked that book when I was younger, but let’s be honest- I wasn’t going to read it. Into the bag. I’m… not entirely sure what that trinket was, but it looked potentially interesting. Might as well throw it in. Tea… yes? No? Hmm… depended on how much the host family was expecting a thank you gift. I’d bring it, but ask other students before I decided if I should include it or not.

On the way to school, Brian had asked Dan if he’d gotten his host family an omiyage. The answer was basically “Oh dang! No!” So between class ending and us getting on a train to Sanda about twenty minutes later, Dan asked for and received permission to run to the Super and pick up a gift for his host family. The rest of us met up with Young-sensei in the downstairs lobby of the school and headed to the station. Dan met up with us there, and we got onto a train and rode it for a while.

We got off, followed Young-sensei for a while, and then stopped at a restaurant for lunch. About two weeks earlier, we’d needed to place our orders for the restaurant. CET had then presumably called those orders in, because the dishes were brought out shortly after we arrived without us doing anything. Somehow, we managed to remember our orders, and a quick, quiet meal later, we were ready to go. Young-sensei, who had been fretting a bit about keeping to our schedule, was surprised by how quickly we ate, but it meant that we were not rushing to get to the next place on time, so that was nice.

The next thing on our schedule was essentially a before, after, and supplemental to school program for elementary school students. Young-sensei’s two sons were both there, as were probably another dozen students. We arrived, Aaron gave an introduction of the United States, and then we split into smaller groups for self-introductions. I’m tired of giving the same self-introductions, especially since the ones to younger students (which I’ve had to do a lot) tend not to mention either my college or my major. At this point in my life, leaving those things off feels weird.

I forget what the next activity is called in either English or Japanese, but it brought back fond memories of my childhood.

Then we had a create-your-own-miniature-pizza-things. We got to go up three times to add ingredients, and though I kind of didn’t want to after the failure that was my first one, I decided to anyway. For starters, the “tomato sauce” they’d had for the base was in fact ketchup, and even though I’d been suspicious enough to not add it in full force on my pizza, it was still ketchup. Also, something I’d thought was chicken turned out to be tuna. So that was less good. But with mochi and corn, it turned out to be pretty good, if pretty non-resemblant to pizza.

After snack time, we went outside to play. One girl went running to the opposite side of the playground, and after Midh and I watched her for a little bit, I realized she was not turning back and someone should probably go to make sure she didn’t run off completely or something. So I went running after her.

From that point forward, we were best friends.

She had slight stilt-like things, which she filled with sand and left in the sun, because then the insides would be warm. It wasn’t that cold outside, and given the “stilts” were about the size of a soda can, it’s not effective for warming much more than a finger. But it was still interesting to see that was her idea of fun time.

We played on the swings for a bit, then I suggested we go back to the rest of the group, so off we went, running, of course. We caught the tail-end of a game I didn’t understand, though from what I could tell it was a game of fast-zombie-tag. (Not a real name. Basically just means you start with a small number of people who are oni, or in my naming, zombies, and they go along tagging people, and anyone they tag become oni as well.) Not being aware of what was going on, I was tagged almost immediately by Dan.

The next game was a game of Oni Freeze Tag. (Again, not the literal name. It was a game of freeze tag, just where the “it” people are called “oni,” or demons.) The girl that I’d befriended earlier was one of the oni, so her friendship proved anti-helpful as it meant she was hanging around and tagging me more often. Little kids are so nice…

After that game eventually finished, the girl went on to play on the jungle gym while I watched. I was too short for the monkey bars, and too lacking-the-determination-and-physical-strength-of-Mulan for the other. So I let myself get shown up by an 8-year-old. It would be a running theme for the weekend.

When it was time for us to leave, my newest friend very much did not want me to go. She said “bye” to the others, but she clung to my arm like if she just held on I would change my mind and stay with her forever. It was pretty cute, and it was nice to be that appreciated.

And then on the way back to the train station, Dan realized that he’d forgotten his omiyage for his host family back at the school. And so, for the second time that day, he needed to go running back to get it.

Onomatopeia

kakimono — Sat, 30 Apr 2016 13:25:00 GMT

Technically the theme of chapter seven was “Japanese pop culture,” but in reality, onomatopoeia would have been a better descriptor. Because that's what the reading, dialogue, and large amounts of homework focused on.

This might seem like overkill. And, in most languages, it would be. Maybe you can do a quick aside after you finish a chapter test and your students don't really want to learn, but you have twenty minutes of class left so you need to do something. Might as well go through what animals sound like in English vs. the target language. It might be relevant someday. If they're ever interacting with young children maybe? Otherwise you're not usually expected to say onomatopoeia, and by definition, if you hear them you should be able to figure out roughly what they mean.

In Japanese, one could comfortably teach an entire elective course meeting once or twice a week on onomatopoeia alone. Such a class could be interesting, serious, and incredibly useful. Because in Japanese, onomatopoeia are incredibly important.

The first thing you need to know about Japanese onomatopoeia is that there are three different subcategories of it. Giseigo, giongo, and gitaigo. Giseigo are the sounds of voices, animal or human. Cats go nya, nya, dogs go wan, wan, children playing go waa, waa, etc. Giongo are the sounds that objects make. When your computer is broken, it might go peeeen. Thunder goes goro goro. And so on. Gitaigo are the reason that Japanese onomatopoeia are actually worth studying.

See, gitaigo are not approximations of the sound something makes. They are, rather, approximations of the sound that something would make if it did make sound. Or something like that. For example, if you have a fever, you go “zoku zoku.” If someone is grinning, they have a “niko niko” face. And… so on, I guess?

The way the textbook explained it, Japanese doesn't have as many verbs as English, so it needs onomatopoeia to serve as adverbs. “Laugh/smile” is ambiguous unless you use onomatopoeia to specify whether they're giggling, guffawing, or grinning. When you say “cry” do you mean sob, wail, weep, snivel, or sit there silently with tears streaming down your face? In English, this calls for a stronger verb, or possibly an adverb. In Japanese, you would use onomatopoeia.

Having read the chapter in the textbook and talked about the it with the teachers for several classes, Dan and I have come to the same conclusion- gitaigo should not be thought of as onomatopoeia. They should be thought of as adverbs or adjectives and learned that way. The problem is that the Japanese speakers we interact with don't want us thinking of gitaigo that way.

“What does ‘pasha pasha’ mean?”

“It's onomatopoeia.”

“Yes, obviously. What does it mean, though?”

The idea that it's onomatopoeia, and sounds like what it means, can only carry you so far. Like, basically it helps you figure out what the giongo are. If I tell you that Person A was going pata pata down the stairs, but Person B was going batta batta, you probably have a rough idea of who you'd rather live downstairs from. If I told you I had a chiku chiku pain, you'd likely have no idea what that means, or how that compares to a gusa gusa or zubari zubari pain.

And yet our Japanese teachers kept expecting us to come up with the right onomatopoeia on our own. “Oh, she likes strong, macho men? What's the onomatopoeia for that?” How am I supposed to know?! Morimori definitely sounds… like some forests, if I'm being honest. How do you get strong with big muscles from there?

“Your stomach hurts? What kind of pain?”

“Like it's being stabbed with a knife.”

“No, what's the onomatopoeia for that?”

Nope, can't think of anything other than loud screaming that would reflect that. And I get that these are important words to use, because “zubari zubari” is definitely much quicker and easier to say than setting up a similie in proper Japanese. But it's not obvious. At least not to Americans.

Over lunch, Dan tried to get John's help on understanding why Japanese onomatopoeia worked the way they did. John did not have much insight to add. “Some things just sound like being stabbed to Japanese people.”

“Chiku chiku” sounds like being stabbed with a needle-like object repeatedly. “Gusa gusa” sounds like being deeply stabbed repeatedly. Or like the pain in your heart that comes from your boyfriend becoming your ex-boyfriend via a monologue about how terrible a person you are. “Zubari zubari” sounds like being deeply stabbed near important organs. “Putsu putsu” sounds like making a lot of holes by stabbing something soft. And so on with a lot of onomatopoeia that actually don't sound like anything.

Although I'm not terribly fond of the way they're treated like they're sounds that should be obvious by themselves instead of words that must be memorized like all other vocabulary, I do have to admit that Japanese onomatopoeia make things easy more interesting. Consider the following story.

I was in the math classroom, doing tsura tsura (thinking deeply for a long time.) Suddenly… Peeen! (I had an idea.) I worked with this until I realized I was on the wrong track. Kabeen. I became gakkari (disappointed), and went for a walk. While I was tobo tobo-ing, (trudging along disappointedly) the right solution was muku muku. (Suddenly arose.) I was ran ran (jumping for joy.) Uttori (transfixed by wonder) at the beauty of math, and went back to the room to tsura tsura some more.

Obviously the story is changed by throwing Japanese words info the mix, regardless of whether they're onomatopoeias or not. Also, two of those words (gakkari and uttori) were words I'd previously learned as regular verbs and just happened to find in an onomatopoeia list. Still, I think it would be more interesting to read aloud with the onomatopoeia, and am honestly rather amazed by some of the onomatopoeia that do exist. Even if I have no idea where they come from and don't think they sound like what they're supposed mean. They're useful Japanese words that are fun to say, and what more could you really want from a vocabulary list?

Ferries and Shinkanesen, Everyone's Favorite Modes of Transportation

kakimono — Thu, 21 Apr 2016 23:03:00 GMT

Sunday morning, Rachel and I planned to catch ferry to Nokonomishma. This required catching a train, then either a bus or a ten minute walk, buying ferry tickets, and getting on the ferry. Which wasn’t all that complicated until the last step. Since Rachel and I had about forty minutes to kill after buying the tickets, we figured we could walk around for a bit. We got back with ten minutes before the arrival of the ferry and a truly horrendous line. Our questions of whether the ferry would be big enough to fit all the people who wanted to get onto it was answered in the negative when the line suddenly stopped moving with several dozen people still in front of us. So Rachel and I settled in to wait for an hour for the next ferry.

Fortunately for us and everyone else in the line, they decided that their were enough people to send a “relief ferry” for us in between the normally scheduled hourly ferry. So after only half an hour of standing in line, we were boarding a ferry to Nokonoshima.

The ferry docked, and Rachel and I headed towards what looked like a tourist information center. It kind of was, in that it had information and places to return maps, but it was pretty empty and deserted, and we couldn’t see any maps, so after looking around for a bit we decided to go out and try and find food. It was a little early for lunch, but we were hungry, so off we went. Without maps or much idea of where anything was, this was slightly challenging.

After walking a few blocks in one direction, turning around, and walking a few blocks the other way, we determined that there wasn’t much in the way of restaurants. Like, we’d seen two restaurants right when we got off the ferry and nothing since then. Not only that, but we’d gotten off of a very full ferry which had followed an even fuller one. And, after leaving, we had immediately lost everyone else. Wandering around we saw a number of houses and a shrine, but no trace of all the people who, like us, had come over to the Nokonoshima from the “mainland” of Kyushu.

Lack of food options meant we headed to eat at the first place we’d found, which was a place selling “Nokonoshima Burgers.” You know it’s good because it’s named after the island we were on. After making sure that their burgers were actual burgers and not fish or something, Rachel and I agreed that it sounded fine, and ordered. The server left to get us English guide maps, which was really exciting since we hadn’t seen anything even close to that earlier. The food was OK, I guess, though I’ve definitely had better burgers in my life.

During lunch, Rachel and I plotted our next move. There was a coffee farm nearby that had tours and a tasting included with entry, so that sounded like a good thing to head to. Then of course there were the famous gardens near the top of the island that we should head to. (Of course, because I’d definitely done research about what we should see on this island…) The coffee farms were closer, so we started with those.

Or… not. Because it wasn’t a thing that you could tour, or that even seemed to grow coffee beans. How old were the maps that we had?

After wandering around for a little bit more, we headed back to where the ferry had dropped us off so we could catch a bus to the top of the island. Here at last we met up with our friends, huge crowds of people who were waiting in line to catch the bus. Rachel and I ended up being a little too late far back in line to catch the first one that arrived, which meant we were in the front of the line for the next one and actually got to sit. Which did make the ride much more enjoyable than it would have otherwise been.

The gardens had a thousand yen entrance fee, which was definitely worth it. I finally got the question of where everyone else who came over on the ferry had been hiding answered, and Rachel and I wandered around enjoying the beautiful views.

And the beautiful flowers.

And the beautiful trees.

Basically, Fukuoka and the surrounding area is just really, really pretty.

At last, we were done wandering around admiring the gardens and caught a bus back to the base of the island. Then a ferry back to Fukuoka. Then we decided we were tired of being crammed in a moving vehicle with lots of people, so we walked to the train station. Then caught a train back to the hostel we’d stayed the night before, then walked to the station to wait for our next train. Where better to wait than the Seattle’s Best Coffee? (Answer: nowhere. There are few better places to wait ever, and none in the Fukuoka train station.)

The shinkansen is the pinnacle of the best and worst parts of Japanese trains. It’s fast and furthermore, it’s convenient. On the other hand, it is really expensive. (If those past two sentences had been written in Japanese, I would have used two new grammars and Yamaguchi-sensei would have been borderline proud of me.) Still, it had made my list of things I wanted to do in Japan, so I’m glad I had it. I can now confirm that it’s a super convenient way to transfer, and then even if an airplane flight is probably cheaper, it’s nowhere near as nice. Basically, I want an employer to someday care enough about me that they pay for me to take the shinkansen. That’s a reasonable goal, right?

Oh, the People You'll Meet

kakimono — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 01:01:00 GMT

The AirBnB hostel that Rachel and I were staying in seemed like it couldn't make up its mind about what kind of place it wanted to be. On the one hand, there were 8 beds in one room, and there were rules like “be back by 10” and “don't eat” which made it seem like a simple and cheap place to spend the night. On the other, the woman who owned the place kept appearing every hour or so with small cups of water or tea, and even some snacks. And when it came time to leave, she gave Rachel and I each our choice of hair tie. (Unfortunately, I put mine at the end of the braid, and it fell out before I returned to Osaka.) They were nice touches, just kind of inconsistent with the rest of the feel of the place.

Rachel and I had arrived, set our electronics to charge, and we're plotting our next move when someone else arrived to check in. He said he was from Paris, which to me sounded like an invitation to start talking to him in French. He asked “what did you say?” in English, which was a huge boost to my confidence in my French-language skills…

His name was Vidal, and he was originally from El Salvador. He'd moved to Paris about 10 years ago during university, and had recently quit his job, which had been something banking related. He had another job lined up to start in August, but in the mean time wanted to travel. He'd decided to go to Japan about two weeks ago, and had booked his flight three days prior. (The reason for the delay was that he'd decided to go skiing in the Alps, and had therefore put Japan plans on hold.) His rough plan was to go to Shikoku, then up to Kyoto, then Tokyo during his three weeks in Japan. He'd arrived that morning, and didn't really have any plans or thoughts about things to do in Fukuoka.

Rachel and I invited him along to the shrine that we were planning on going to, and after looking at the photos, he decided it was probably a better plan than falling asleep ridiculously early. So off we went.

Daizaifu Tenmagu Shrine was my sole contribution to the “things to see in Fukuoka” list Rachel and Chiharu had come up with. Yamaguchi-sensei had suggested it when I'd said I was going to Fukuoka, although given it's a shrine dedicated to scholars and good grades, that might have just been her passive-aggressive way of saying I should study more. Nevertheless, it sounded like a good place to go, and to tell Yamaguchi-sensei about so that she'd feel more guilty about failing me.

Going there, Vidal had his first real experience with the pleasures and pain of the Japanese train system. Mainly pain, to be honest. The two of us nostalgiacized about the Paris metro (his favorite line was the 6) and complained about how complicated and expensive Fukuoka was by comparison. And Fukuoka's a relatively small city. The train system gets much worse as you get to larger cities like Osaka, or Tokyo. It makes for thrilling fun times for a while.

We got off and followed signs and the flow of people towards Daizaifu Tenmagu. There was a still fountain with ladles nearby, so it to Vidal.we rinsed our hands and mouths in the fountain before approaching the shrine.

The temple was crowded, and it was hard to tell if this was standard levels of crowding or if it was especially busy since it was during Japanese students spring break, which for them is the major one that marks the end of one academic year and the start of the next. Or maybe, because there were no tests for most of the students to worry imminently about, it’s less crowded than usual. I have no idea.

We continued to wander around, exploring the area, and I tried to get Rachel and Vidal to care that Andrew Wiles had recently won the Abel Prize. Because there aren’t enough people in my life who do.

Basically, there are two are two prizes that get to make the claim they’re the “Nobel Prize of Mathematics.” Those awards are the Fields Medal and the Abel Prize. The Fields Medal has the claim of being older and better established. The Abel Prize has the claim of giving away more money, being awarded by a group based in Scandinavia, and not having the same weird rules as the Fields Medal.

There are very few times that solutions to problems in mathematics are seen as being worthwhile enough to write an article for a major news outlet or do a TV program on. Andrew Wiles proving Fermat's Last Theorem was one such time.

Pierre de Fermat was an “amateur” mathematician. Which is to say he was largely self-taught and had a day job, not that he was bad at math. He was rather good at it, just an annoying “friend” to have. He would rather frequently write letters to his friends describing a mathematical problem he had solved. But rather than give a solution, he would say “I did it! Can you?” to see what they came up with. Because of this, upon his death he left a number of open theorems that he had proofs to, but other people didn't. All but two of these were later proved to be true. One was proven to be wrong. And then there was Fermat's Last Theorem.

Fermat died in 1665, leaving behind his copy of Diophantine’s Arithmetica and the marginalia stating that a generalization of the Pythagorean Theorem in higher powers was impossible and the note “I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this margin is too narrow to contain.”

300 years later, in a paper over 150 pages long and using very modern methods, Andrew Wiles finally proved Fermat's Last Theorem. Surely that was worth a mathematician's Nobel Prize, right? Well… no. The Abel Prize was not around, and by the time the next International Conference of the International Mathematical Union rolled around (the Fields Medal is awarded there every four years to between two and four, but usually four, mathematicians) Andrew Wiles was 41. The maximum age for winning the Fields Medal is 40.

The first Abel Prize was awarded nearly a decade later. Since then it has been awarded to a mathematician or two every year, without regard to age. A lot like the Nobel Prize.

Even though mathematics, mathematicians, and mathematical prizes might not have been things Rachel or Vidal intrinsically cared about, they were pretty patient for the twenty minutes or so I was talking about it. They even asked me some follow up questions so I knew they were actually listening. So that was pretty nice.

]

Cherry blossoms were starting to bloom kind of sort of, so we took pictures and looked at a tree while we were talking. Then we decided we were getting tired and hungry, so we headed back to the hostel with the plan of catching dinner on the way.

Dinner turned out to be a slight challenge because, even though we were in agreement about wanting to take advantage of Fukuoka cuisine during the limited time we were there, we weren't in agreement about what that meant. Rachel, having had ramen for lunch, was keen to try mendaiko, spicy fish eggs. I was not. Vidal kind of wanted ramen, since he'd never had ramen in Japan before, and we were telling him Fukuoka was a good place to get it. We settled on a compromise that was another notable feature of Fukuoka- the yatai, or food stalls. These were small, tent-like places that allowed for a quick and inexpensive meal. They're also what inspired Momofuku Ando to create instant ramen. So college students everywhere can be grateful for that.

After dinner, we returned to the hostel, then headed out again to go to the onsen. The place that we were staying had a shower, but it wasn't very nice and it cost extra. The woman in charge also mentioned that people previously preferred going to the onsen, and when we asked about that, we were quickly and graciously lent towels and shown the way there. The onsen was nice, and possibly felt more luxurious than the one by my apartment. It was also more expensive, not nearly as big, and had no night sakura water. Still, it was a nice, relaxing end to a very long day.

Now to finally sleep.

True Japanese Hospitality

kakimono — Fri, 8 Apr 2016 23:53:00 GMT

Rachel's best friend's mother lived in Fukuoka. This meant that, even though Rachel's best friend was not there, the mother, Chiharu, still came and showed us around with traditional Japanese hospitality.

First of all, Chiharu had a car. So we met up with her outside the station, and for the first time since… the taxi ride to the airport in Paris? I was riding in a car again. Chiharu told us and we could leave our bags in the car and should go explore a grove that she was describing while she parked. Rachel and I kind of missed what she said, so we were still standing by where we'd been left when she arrived. In our defense, it was still a pretty area.

Chiharu led us to the grove she'd been describing with a lot of cherry trees. Unfortunately, it was not quite sakura season, so there were only a few trees in bloom. I imagine it would be beautiful in a few weeks, but I wouldn't really know.

We went from there to what may or may not have been the remains of a castle. All of the signs talked about how, although they were sure it used to belong to a feudal lord, they weren't sure if he'd actually built a tower there or not. But if he had built a tower, it was sure to have had a good view, because from the top of the hill alone you could see a lot.

Next, Chiharu asked if we wanted to go to gardens. Rachel and I both thought that sounded good, so off we went. There was an admittance fee, which Chiharu paid without giving Rachel or myself a chance to argue. Since it was almost the vernal equinox, we each got a plant as well. Then we went and looked around the gardens, which really were stunning.

Chiharu bought fish food so Rachel and I could feed the koi, and I relearned something I'd always kind of known: I hate fish. I'd always assumed that the greater part of this hatred was due to taste, but upon further reflection I'm pretty sure that's not true. Fish are just generally creepy and smelly things, and the more I can tell what they are, the more I hate them. This is why I like breaded fish but freak out every time someone next to me orders a fish and it comes with a head.

Normally I'm fine with fish in ponds and rivers and such because they're far away from me. And fish aren't the kind of scary that's going to come out of the water and eat you. And koi are pretty. Up to this point, if you'd have asked me my feelings about koi, I would have responded with something between ambivalence and slight interest.

Koi are not cool when they're being fed. Because over time, they slowly realize that there's something good going on by you, and then you have dozens of koi crowding themselves in the water next to you looking for food. And they're just opening their gaping mouths and closing them again. And again.

I spent most of the time answering questions like “how dumb are koi?” and “which nearby, more deserving animals should I feed instead?” The answer to the first question turned out to be “very,” since they would not swim to the food if you dropped it a couple of feet from them. Instead, they'd open and close their mouth and continue waiting for you to feed them. The answer to the second question was “pigeons and ducks.” Which should seem odd to the people who know that I also hate pigeons. But I have some respect for them and their abilities to beg and find food. Unlike koi. Freaking fish.

Koi aside, the garden was nice. And even with the koi, it still made for some beautiful pictures.

After that, we went to the tea room for a slight break. Chiharu ordered matcha and washiki for Rachel and I, then explained a little bit about the room and the tea. She usually came here once each season which, from the photos on the wall, seemed like it must be beautiful. Not for the first time, I felt a pang at not being able to see Japan in its fall foliage.

Then we got back into the car and drove to by Fukuoka tower. There was an ice cream shop which we stopped into, and Rachel and I split the flavor which Chiharu had recommended. She brushed away Rachel and my comments that we could pay, and so we decided that we'd buy lunch when the time came.

From there, we walked around to the the beach, and Chiharu pointed out a church that was popular for weddings. So popular, in fact, that there was a wedding party gathering at that exact moment. Despite this, we were still able to enter and walk through to admire the ocean views.

It reminded me of southern Spain. (Actually, having no memory of Spain, it reminded me of the more European parts of Morocco, which I'm told is what Spain is like.) It was beautiful and instantly familiar in the way that certain beaches are. Apparently it doesn't matter if it's the Atlantic or Pacific- an ocean is an ocean, and certain coasts are the same.

Then the three of us went to Fukuoka Tower and looked around the base. The answer to that was, well, yes, but we really could pay… Chiharu thought differently, and although we tried to say we could cover it, she bought two tickets, told us to have fun, and she’d be down here waiting.

And that was how Fukuoka joined Chicago and Toronto (but not Tokyo, Osaka, or Paris) as cities I’ve seen from near the top of a very famous tower. It’s a kind of weird list by this point. But the views from the top were beautiful, and well worth the elevator ride up.

Then we went back down, met up with Chiharu, and went to lunch. Fukuoka is famous for ramen, so that was a logical place. Chiharu brought us first to a restaurant that was either the oldest or best-known, or both, but due to the length of the line, we ended up walking past it and finding a not-as-famous restaurant nearby. There, Rachel and I were foiled in our plans to pay for lunch by having lunch be ordered and paid for beforehand, and Chiharu understanding how to order and pay much better than Rachel and I. So instead she paid for all of our lunches, in addition to everything else she had done for us.

Finally, she brought us to the hostel where we were staying, and we said our goodbyes and thanks. So many thanks.

Rachel and I both felt a little awkward about her having done so much for us without us being able to return the favor, but we also had to acknowledge the cultural understanding behind that. Rachel hopes to be able to return the favor in the nearish future the next time Chiharu goes to Singapore, but I don’t even have that option, since “You should come to Chicago and then…” is a rather empty phrase, and I likely wouldn’t even be there by the time she might get around to visiting.

“Next time someone visits, you’ll just need to pay it forward,” Rachel said. Which is a nice thought. Now to just get someone to visit, preferably a place that I can actually show them around… (I try and give family and friends guided tours of campus when they visit me at a university. It usually just consists of me giving the building names that I remember and elling them where I spend most of my time, which is invariably my dorm, an academic building, and the library. It’s a thrilling tour that’s almost as good as bringing them to and paying for the possible site of a castle, gardens, tea, the ocean, ice cream, the tallest tower in the city, and lunch.)

On the Way to Kyushu

kakimono — Wed, 6 Apr 2016 23:23:00 GMT

“I want to go to Kyushu,” I heard myself say while video chatting with my parents. It was a weird thing for me to say. Like someone in Chicago saying “I want to go to Minnesota.” There’s nothing wrong with Minnesota, it’s just a kind of odd place to want to go without a reason. Unless you like decent-enough-I-guess lakes. But for whatever reason, the idea of going to Kyushu was in my mind, and I kind of wanted to go.

When I realized we had a really long (four day) weekend coming up, I did some looking at plane and train tickets to see how feasible it was. I sketched out a rough trip that involved me going to Hiroshima, then Fukuoka, then Nagasaki, then back, but transportation alone would have made that expensive and kind of a pain to plan, and I wasn’t that committed to that idea. So I let that go, and was once again looking at a long weekend with no plans, and trying to decide if there was anywhere I wanted to go enough to change that.

It was at about this point that Rachel told me she was planning on going to Fukuoka, and asked if I wanted to go along. That sounded like a plan, so I agreed.

Rachel had planned most of the trip before deciding she wanted company, so I didn't have to do anything more than book the same things she had and maybe find something to do in Fukuoka. So together we bought night bus tickets there, I booked a bed in the same AirBnB hostel she had, and we planned on buying Shinkansen tickets back.

I had roughly two days to hang around considering going to Osaka proper, but ultimately deciding to just hang around and walk by the river. Then it was 8:00 Saturday night, and Rachel and I met up to go to Namba Hatch where we would be catching our bus.

The way to get to Namba Hatch was to go to Shojyaku Station, get on the right train, and ride to… Nagorabashi? And you're done? Seriously? Basically, the same way I'd get to Mondial Kaffee, the illusory second Mariage Frères, the big Tokyu Hands, or the restaurant alleged by multiple sources to have the best burgers in Osaka, but that seemed to always be busy or closed? Yes, the exact same way.

If I could go back and give myself one piece of advice for this semester, it would be this: “don't worry about the trains. I mean, they're expensive and annoying in comparison to the metro, but you literally only need to learn how to get to three different stations and you'll be fine. Oh, but you should probably know how to get back too. Learn what final destination goes past your apartment, the sooner the better.” But yeah. 3 stations in Osaka, 2 in Suita, and 1 in Kyoto. It's a lot simpler than it looks when you're staring at a train map.

Although the entire trip hadn't come together until kind of the last minute, especially for me, Rachel assured me several times over the course of the trip that she was not normally like that. She was normally more organized and planning and such. This reflected itself in our getting to Namba Hatch with nearly two hours to spare. Though technically she'd just wanted to get to the general area, and going all the way to where the buses were supposed to be to make sure we knew the exact location, then finding a place to sit and hang was my idea. Rachel took charge of navigating us there while I kept an out for promising hanging places, especially as we drew closer. McDonalds won for proximity and still being open, if not for anything else, so we went there and studied for a bit. Then we went to the bathroom, brushed our teeth, and headed back to Namba Hatch to wait.

After three buses came and left, our bus to Fukuoka arrived. It was pretty full, and Rachel and I weren't that near the front of the line, but fortunately we got seats next to each other instead of seats next to strangers. The bus driver made a long announcement in Japanese, from which I understood that there was to be no smoking in the bus and we'd be stopping for a break at either 1:00 or in one hour. And then he pulled the curtains separating us from the front, we started driving, and a little later the lights went off.

The point of a night bus is of course to sleep. The assumption being that you can sleep on moving vehicles. Which is something I do with difficultly even under favorable circumstances. The aisle seat of a bus isn't exactly a favorable circumstance. But the bus was dark, and even on their dimmest setting my electronics felt too bright. I spent large portions of the bus ride with my eyes closed getting really sick of the music playlists I normally listen to when I'm going to sleep. (Normally I don't get sick of them because I'm asleep after a few songs.) The rest of the time I hid under the blanket to cover the light just like I… Definitely did not do as a child. Because I was a good child who went to sleep when I was told.

The first time the bus pulled over for a break was freaky. Because every single window was covered with a curtain, and it was dark, but I could feel the bus turning and just hoped it was normal. It felt like I was being kidnapped, up to the point where they turned on the lights and told us to get out. OK, they told us we could get out if we wanted, which was, in context, an incredibly important distinction.

Given nothing bad had happened the first time, it was notably less freaky the next few times. And then, at last, the sun was rising and we were pulling into Fukuoka and being told that actually, though, this time we needed to leave. So we grabbed our bags and headed… to the train station? Rachel seemed to think it was a good place to head for bathrooms, coffee, Wi-Fi, and waiting. So off we went.

After seeing the options for coffee, I was not about to disagree.

Tests, Plums, and Cats

kakimono — Mon, 28 Mar 2016 01:18:00 GMT

On Wednesday my religion and culture class was cancelled, which should have made the day seem shorter and better by comparison. It didn't.

In part this was because we had our second Japanese test, immediately followed by two hours of project work. That was not fun. Especially since the test once again took over an hour to finish. Yamaguchi-sensei generously gave us extra time to work on it… specifically, the ten minutes between the end of the test period and the start of the first project period. Then she gave us even more time after second project period, but by that point my brain was fried and I needed a break.

This break took the form of eating lunch and catching a train to Osaka castle. Once there, rather than going directly to the park or castle, I went to the nearby Seattle's Best that was supposed to be open on weekdays. It was.

Unfortunately, the Seattle's Best allowed smoking (it's kind of disconcerting how many buildings in Japan allow smoking inside. Even in Paris that's pretty uncommon at this point, and Paris is a city where the stereotype involves people wearing a beret and smoking a cigarette) so I went outside to finish my coffee. This meant the majority of my ascent up to Osaka Castle was spent looking for somewhere to throw away my coffee cup without making it obvious that's what I was doing.In part because I wasn't entirely sure outside food was allowed in the park, in part because I still have a hard time understanding cultural feelings on what things are OK to do while walking.

So for reasons, putting my empty coffee cup in my coat sleeve seemed like a reasonable thing to do. It was a nice day, and the only reason I still had my coat was because I hadn't realized how warm it was when I left the apartment. And as long as I was careful about how I held my coat, both hands were free to take pictures, or write something, or dramatically photobomb other people's pictures. Plus I felt less awkward passing all the “please don't litter” signs when the casual observer wouldn't be able to tell I might be inclined to litter. (Tip to anyone who is ever responsible for a park, or even a building: if you really want to reduce littering, put a trash bin beneath every “please don't litter” sign.)

I let the search for a trash can guide me up a hill closer to the castle itself, since I figured the presence of stores that sold food would increase the odds of finding a place that let me throw out food there. Sure enough, there was a trash can past the benches where paying customers were sitting and eating their food. So, nonchalantly, I walked past them to throw out my coffee cup in the customer trash. Only it got kind of stuck in the sleeve, so I had to fumble around by the garbage can for a while. Once I finally had it out to throw it away, my coat was in a very precarious position and I nearly dropped it, so I couldn't even slink away.

It's days like this that you just take advantage of “gaijin privilege.” Basically, you're a foreigner and can only be expected to do dumb foreigner things. When you live in Japan, 80% of your time is spent trying to defy this stereotype. The other 20% is spent taking advantage of it. Like… you know when you see a road, and you're not quite sure who has the right of way? So you hesitate, and then decide you really hate this side of the street so you go running across while cars and motorcycles glare at you? Imagine stopping at the other side of the street to smile and pose for a picture, maybe saying something like “gaijin desu!” That's what gaijin privilege feels like. You're not expected to understand Japanese culture and, for all the work you put into trying anyway, there are days where it's really nice to put that aside and not care about being judged. I mean, you're still being judged, but you're not being judged that much more than you would be if you'd done everything you were supposed to. Which, depending on your mood, may or may not be a good thing.

Anyway, now that I was no longer trying to hide a coffee cup, I could go back and enjoy the plum trees. Or try. Since the last time I'd gone a little over a week ago, most of the plum trees had lost their blossoms. The few that still had them were relatively crowded.

At least the castle is always pretty.

After finishing up the castle and park, I went back to my room and tried to motivate myself to work on homework. There's nothing like a brutal test followed by two hours of project work to make you wonder why you bother doing anything and if you really need to do the reading for the next day. So it wasn't that long before I needed a break.

During this break, I was walking past a house, heard a jingling, and looked up to find the calico cat from earlier, meowing and demanding to be pet. I could certainly do that. So I sat down and pet her for a while. Then I decided to see if she would be content in my lap, so I picked her up and put her there. She immediately left. But within a few minutes, she'd crawled into my lap of her own volition and just stayed there, purring.

This was very nice and all, but much as I wanted to stay there, I did still have homework to do. So after a while more sitting there and petting her, I pushed her off and started walking home.

She followed me. Initially I encouraged her by pausing to pet her every time she plopped down in front of me, then I started just stepping over her. She continued to follow me. All the way to the house before my apartment. Then she went behind the gate and didn't seem to care when I opened the door to my apartment and went inside. Which, although disappointing, was probably a good thing. “It followed me home” might not be the most convincing excuse to the owners of the cat.

Still, if she'd followed me just a little further then stood staring at me pathetically, I probably would have found someone else to come keep her entertained while I did homework. The apartment is full of people whose days could have been improved by petting a friendly cat.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/aphs.worldnomads.com/kakimono/55629/IMG_20160316_154746.jpg

Kiyoumizu in Kyoto

kakimono — Wed, 23 Mar 2016 02:15:00 GMT

On Friday we had a class excursion to Kyoto to make pottery. I love that that's a thing we can do. Not the pottery so much as just going to Kyoto for a class excursion. My parents were notably less thrilled about the entire thing, and advised me to “make something small.”

We got on a series of trains to bring us to Kyoto while I started Beauty and Sadness, the novel by Yasunari Kawabata. Fittingly enough, that work began on a train to Kyoto. (I'd read it before, just forgotten many of the details. And to be honest, the generalities. Basically, I remembered something about Kyoto and new year's bells and art, and it had seemed like a good title.) In Kyoto, the task of navigating fell to me since Yamaguchi-sensei wanted one of the students to navigate, and Dan didn't have the address on his phone. So yay.

The pottery lesson began with pretty brief self-introductions. The potter had dealt with our kind (CET classes before) and knew roughly what to expect. Basically, give sufficient demonstrations of what we're supposed to do and lack of Japanese abilities aren't an issue. Skip the visual step and even if we were fluent in Japanese, it would be hard to understand what we were doing.

What we were doing was making a base, then rolling decently thick ropes of clay and adding it to what we already had. So layer by layer the cups grew, until eventually they were large enough and we could decorate them. It wasn't the most thrilling thing ever, and they all turned out rather lopsided, but it was enjoyable enough. Once the first ones were done, we had more free reign for what we wanted the second to be. I made another cup under the theory one of them has to turn out well, and Dan and Yamaguchi-sensei made plates. Then for the third piece, Yamaguchi-sensei and I made plates, or at least plate-like things, and Dan made a cup. Then we washed our hands, choose glazes, and got a cup of tea and more information on kiyoumizu pottery.

Unfortunately, the information he gave was delivered very quickly and almost exclusively to Yamaguchi-sensei. It was like he gave up on our ability to understand anything in Japanese when we didn't understand him when he was asking where we were from, and decided there wasn't much point in talking to anyone but Yamaguchi-sensei about sophisticated things like kiyoumizu pottery. Even more unfortunately, Yamaguchi-sensei was expecting us to pick up information from this speech and use it in the essay we had to write as homework. I tried, but the only points I managed to pick up were the points I'd already found when looking it up online. Like it varied a lot from artist to artist so there weren't really any defining characteristics. (One of the questions on the worksheet we'd needed to answer for Friday had been “what are the defining characteristics of kiyoumizu pottery?”)

Once that was over, we moved on to other topics the potter trusted us to be able to discuss in Japanese. Like food. He asked what our favorite kind of Japanese food was. And as I scrambled for an answer, I realised something. I was doing a study abroad in Osaka. For the rest of my life I would be able to say “well, I spent a semester in Osaka while I was in college, so probably okonomiyaki.” And anyone who is not familiar with regional variations of food in Japan will look kind of confused, but anyone who is will go “ah, soo.” And I never need to stress about how to answer that question again.

Dan's thought process had fun along a parallel line, and he also responded “okonomiyaki.” So the potter went “ah, Osaka people” and drew us a map to a nearby famous okonomiyaki restaurant.

It was a good thing we had the map, because otherwise it's unlikely we would have made the right turns. The first few were straightforward enough, then we had to turn into an alley that looked like a driveway. Between the map and the sign pointing, we were relatively sure we were in the right place, but it still felt super sketchy.

The restaurant was apparently famous, with signed photographs around the room. I didn't recognize any of the photographs or signatures, but Yamaguchi-sensei recognized a few.

City loyalty prevents me from saying anything more than that the okonomiyaki was good for Kyoto, but not as good as it is in Osaka.

On the way to and from lunch, we passed a store with earrings that I wanted. They had earrings made from old Japanese postage stamps and they were super cute. But Yamaguchi-sensei was looking at them askance, and I didn't want her judging me. Besides, I didn't want to be the one holding up the group, and I could probably get them elsewhere in Kyoto.

Yamaguchi-sensei walked Dan and I to Sanjuusan-gendo temple, and then she left to go do something. Dan and I paid and went into the temple, which is famous for its 1,019 statues. 1,000 of them are the same, then 19 are guardians which are each unique and different. About halfway through, we went from quietly looking and reading the descriptions to whispering our commentaries to each other. Things like:

“Why does it seem that half the people either killed snakes or were themselves snakes? What was it with snakes?” or

“She's a mighty female general and here she's shown… praying? She doesn't even get a weapon!”

“To be fair, most of the generals who are described as having weapons do not look like they'd be able to do any damage with them. Like that guy! What is he even supposed to be carrying? It looks like a boomerang.”

By the time we got to the final area, where they described funtime activities of shooting lots of arrows, we were less impressed by the numbers and more by the fact that this was a funtime activity. For girls and boys!

“Why would you put on your best kimono to fire a bow?”

“It's not like these were the day-long 10,000 arrow competitions. They were much smaller.”

Or the picture from a famous play during that period.

“If you gave me 100 guesses, I would never have gotten that meaning.”

“What, you wouldn't have guessed that the woman was about to be turned back into a tree because of something her husband did?”

“Well, that to. But I would not have even gotten that she's upset to me leaving her son. She doesn't look very upset.”

For some reason, given the snarky mood we finished that temple in, we still decided it was worth going to another one. Maybe it was because Yamaguchi-sensei had managed to bring up Kiyoumizu Temple at least three times in two days and had expressed her disappointment neither of us had been. And it was totally an option while we were in Kyoto… so off we went.

Kiyoumizu Temple is reachable from Sanjuusan-gendo Temple by walking. It’s not too bad a walk if you ask for directions before climbing up a steep incline only to learn it doesn’t connect and you need to go down and up again.

On the way, we saw… this place.

I’m not sure what it was, but I liked it. It was beautiful, quiet, free, and would make a good place to read. This isn’t just my projecting “good place to read” on basically every place that’s light and dry- other people agreed.

Kiyoumizu Temple was large, pretty, and crowded. Dan chose to pay to go in, and I took the description (“historic temple with picturesque views”) at face value and wandered around just admiring the views. Dan later said that it was big, but not all that impressive as a temple. No Fushimi Inari or Kinkakuji (two temples that I have yet to go to and really should. And then should resist the urge to burn down the latter for the literary reference.)

With the advantage of working cell phones and Dan being a tall blond foreigner amidst a lot of Asian visitors, we found each other without much difficulty. First, though, a group of middle schoolers looking for English-speaking tourists found him. He was telling me about the interview questions they’d asked him when we crossed paths with them again. Dan asked if they needed someone else to ask, and even though they admitted later they’d only needed to ask one person, they still decided asking two would be better so got out their sheets and materials. Reading off what seemed to be a phonetic script, they asked me pretty simple questions about Japan. They were tape-recording me, so even though I was sometimes tempted to answer in Japanese, (as when they wouldn’t understand me and would start discussing their interpretation of what I said in Japanese) I thought of how disappointed Yamaguchi-sensei would be if our roommates started speaking English during our recording homework, so I stuck to English. The middle schoolers were pretty cute, and it was nice to be the helpful foreigner for a change.

After that, Dan and I headed back to the station and Osaka. The route back was very much traditional Kyoto, full of pottery (real kiyoumizu pottery!) and kimonos and other crafts. Dan noticed me checking out the earrings and asked “you didn’t want postage stamp earrings?”

“I did actually.”

“So why didn’t you get them?”

“I didn’t want Yamaguchi-sensei judging me.”

Dan found this an immensely amusing reason, especially since Yamaguchi-sensei would be able to tell if I bought a pair of earrings and wore them during the weekdays. But since we were walking right past the place that we had lunch, we were able to stop in and I bought earrings. Three pairs- one pair of the stamp earrings that had brought me into the store, one pair of origami cranes folded out of old Japanese money, (the storekeeper said the bills were 120 years old) and a birthday present for my sister. While I was still trying to decide on the first pair, the owner came over with a simple hair stick as a present. My hair wasn’t even in a bun. (It had been earlier in the day. Then Dan and I had been on the top of a hill without many people and gone racing down it. It was very fun, but my hair didn’t like it.) And, with two pairs of earrings that might make Yamaguchi-sensei judge me if I ever wore them, (Technically three, but only two of them were staying with me) Dan and I continued our return to Osaka.

I have to get to Kyoto more often.

Birthday Traditions Old and New (Like, so new they're not even a tradition yet...)

kakimono — Sat, 19 Mar 2016 03:15:00 GMT

On Thursday, I decided to celebrate my birthday in some kind of imitation of tradition. One part of the tradition was getting pancakes. (Another part was going to a Japanese restaurant where they cook the food in front of you, which sounds like it should have been much easier to find than it was. To be fair, I didn’t really try, and just decided getting okonomiyaki the next day was close enough.) So after class ended on Thursday, I went to Hoshino in Umeda to get pancakes.

I ended up needing to put more money on my IC card on the train, and didn’t realize until after I’d already ordered and eaten that the cafe did not have a way to take credit cards. It was a large restaurant with a computer-driven system for paying the bill. But they couldn’t take credit cards.

After no less than four people came over to talk in simple Japanese or simpler English, I finally understood that they wanted me to go to an ATM and get money. I asked where the ATM was, was pointed in the direction, and then right before I left they asked for my bag, but didn’t object when I stopped to grab my notebook out of it. I wonder if they would have objected if I’d gone for the tablet instead…

I missed the obvious and nearby ATM and ended up running around the shopping mall area until I at last found a 7/11 and was able to get cash from the ATM in there. Then I headed back as quickly as I could, hoping they hadn’t given up on my return and burnt my purse/started talking with police to make a police sketch. And of course on the way back I saw the nearest ATM to Hoshino. However, they had my purse and no arrest warrants, so I was able to pay and head back.

On the way between the train station and my apartment, I ran into Elena, who was going to the onsen. She asked if I wanted to join her, and I said yes. I’d been to a smaller onsen the last time I’d been in Japan, and I’d heard other people talk enthusiastically about the nearby one, but for some reason hadn’t gone before. So off we went.

The nearest onsen is in the same area that has the Super and the JR station, so it’s pretty close. It’s also 600 yen, which is cheap, at least from an American perspective. Yamaguchi-sensei doesn’t’ seem too impressed with it, but everyone else pretty much is.

The first thing was to take off our shoes, put them in the locker, take the key, and proceed to pay. They gave us a promotional pamphlet, a wristband, and a hand-towel-sized-towel, and we continued you. There was a foot court, and a couple of claw games like they want to pretend they’re secretly a shopping mall. Elena got a smoothie, and during the time she was eating it two people came over to talk to us. After they left, I joked to Elena that this would be a great place to come with our surveys. (In actuality, though, it would. Old Japanese people are like the only ones who are friendly when you meet them on the street, and if you start talking to them when they don’t have anything else to do, they’d probably respond positively.)

Once Elena was done with her smoothie, we continued on to the actual baths part of the onsen. There were more lockers where everything we were wearing or carrying had that wasn’t our shoes, the towel, or the key to the locker went. Next we showered. They had soap and shampoo provided, though if you were particular about that sort of thing you could bring your own, and some people had. Once we were clean, we could go on to the baths.

The room that we came out into had one bath that was essentially a hot tub. There was also a cold tub that no one was in, so it was easy to overlook. There was one area that had bubbles, and another that was electric and tingly feeling. And then most of the bath was normal, which was preferable.

I’d tried to tie the towel to keep my hair up the way that I’d seen other people do, but had not done a good job. One of the older women in the bath came over to try and help me with it, and eventually do it entirely herself when it became clear I had no idea what she was doing.

I noticed that there were people going through a door, so I asked Elena what was through there. “More baths. Do you want to go?” So we went. The outside was way larger, and it was hard to ignore the part of my mind that was going “that looks interesting and different! You should go check that out!” And just sit in each of the different areas enjoying them. But we were there for a while, so I had the time to do both.

There were two baths which, similar to the one inside, were large and full of hot water. However, the hot water was a special kind of water. For the day that we were there, I think it was ginger? (They had a drawing, and also kanji and hiragana. It looked like ginger.) But there were other types that they changed every few days. White day water, night sakura water, etc. The color looked different, but I think the only real difference between those two baths were that one was hotter than the other.

Past those were three human-sized buckets, full to the brim with water that was continuing to fill up from a faucet near the top. Getting in is a demonstration of Archimedes’s principle, and it serves as motivation not to move, because moving will upset the water more. And if you just stay resting, almost floating, in a world to yourself...sitting in a large bucket never felt as appealing in theory before as it did in practice.

There were also personal baths with strong jets that was super relaxing. Right next to it was a large bath that seemed to be the most popular one. Probably because there was a TV there and the women felt more comfortable chatting with each other there. Even though I was pretty close to them, letting water massage my back and calves, the noise of the water mostly drowned out their conversations and the TV. There was also a dry sauna that I did not go into.

After we were done, we went back to the showers and rinsed off again, then dried off and changed back to our clothes. So my 21st birthday was the day that I learned that I could get sufficiently dry with a single hand towel, though that left my hair still pretty wet and dripping. I probably need two hand towels if I want to be able to deal with that. Then I said goodbye to Elena and headed back to my apartment, feeling relaxed and peaceful.

A few vacations ago, I was in Edinburgh with my family when the apartment we were renting had the water shut off for a while. Once that had been dealt with, the landlord made it up for us by treating us to day passes at a very nice spa. I don’t remember a lot of details about that, other than that I really enjoyed it and there was water everywhere.

The onsen reminded me of that. Only cheap and really close. I’m not sure why it took me so long to go, but I should definitely go back. (After all, I need to find out what night sakura water is. Sounds mystical and cool.) And also figure out what kind of onsens Yamaguchi-sensei thinks are impressive and go to one of those. Because I thought the nearby one was pretty great, but...

Why are Tuesdays so Long?

kakimono — Thu, 17 Mar 2016 01:56:00 GMT

On Tuesday we started chapter six. Which was sad, because six is a multiple of three. We have chapter tests every three chapters. So even though it seemed like we’d just finished a chapter test, we were already nearly due for another one. Joy.

Chapter six was on religions in Japan, and we started with a reading on superstitions. Like the way, in Japanese, 4 and 9 are unlucky numbers because they sound like the words for “death” and “suffering.” Or the way that 25, 42, and 61 are considered unlucky ages for men and 19, 33, and 37 are unlucky for women. Then Yamaguchi-sensei asked about superstitions in the United States, and Dan and I went off for a while naming them.

At one point, I got onto the topic of crows. After beginning with the traditional “bad luck/death” which in several traditions, including Japanese, I mentioned that it’s dependent on the number of crows there are. At least in British tradition. So I went through and started translating the counting crows rhyme.

“One for sorrow, two for joy

Three for a girl and four for a boy.

Five for silver six for gold

Seven for a secret never to be told.”

Around six, Yamaguchi-sensei started making a face and asked me how much longer the rhyme went. I assured her there was only one more and finished off. However, that was probably a smart question for her to ask. Technically, I can go three farther, but only in English. (“Eight for a wish, nine for a kiss, ten for a time of joyous bliss.”) And if I really get started, I can give another variation or two. (“One for sorrow two for mirth, three for a wedding and four for a birth. Five for heaven, six for hell, seven for the devil his own sel’.”)

This was also a very exciting occurrence, because normally Yamaguchi-sensei wants me to keep talking. “Make that sentence longer!” “Why?” “Can you expand?” Even if I start talking, get both of us really confused, and realize I have no way of salvaging what I was trying to say, she’ll still look kind of disappointed when I wave my hands and try to change the topic back to something I can talk about. This was the first class that she ever wanted me to stop talking. It was incredibly exciting.

The next class was with Suzuki-sensei, and it was along the same themes. We had a series of role plays, usually with Dan in the role of inferior (younger sibling or underclassman) and me as some kind of social superior (older sibling, teacher, upperclassman, etc.) Pretty sure this was deliberate on Suzuki-sensei’s part, since Dan has a tendency to forget to use formal speech with the teachers, and I’m still pretty weak with casual speech.

Our first conversation was about superstitions. Dan asked the first question which came to mind which was “what’s your favorite Japanese superstition” and I gave the first answer I could think of, which was “foxes.” We went for a bit on that, but it wasn’t the most interesting conversation ever.

Then Suzuki-sensei told me to ask Dan about his major. He’s a computer science major, and played really dumb on the subject. So when he mentioned that it was making apps, I asked “Like Angry Birds?” And made him explain that he couldn’t create Angry Birds, because someone else had already created it. And then I shot down his career goals, because he said he wanted to work at Apple.

“Do you have a Mac?”

“No.”

“Do you have an iPhone?”

“No.”

“...do you have an iPod?”

“No.”

“...have you ever in your life owned an Apple product?”

“No.”

“Have you ever used an Apple product.”

“No…”

“I don’t think they’ll hire you.”

And then we switched roles and it was Dan’s turn to ask me about my major. Only he was supposed to be a middle schooler, and I was supposed to explain it in simple terms.

It took Dan a while to get into character. So his first question was what I wanted to do after graduation, and when I said “grad school. Do you know what that is?” He responded “Yes. I want to go to grad school too. For math.” Then it emerged that he hadn’t even had a pre-algebra class, and after I gave a very brief idea of what higher level math actually looks like, he decided he didn’t want to study math anymore.

So it went about as well as my real-life conversations go.

Then Suzuki-sensei left, Yamaguchi-sensei came back, and it was time for another hour of class. The class began with a kanji review, and Yamaguchi-sensei got disappointed when we we couldn’t read several characters and reminded us that studying was part of our homework. These were the same characters we had been able to read two hours earlier when she’d asked us then. The problem wasn’t that we hadn’t reviewed, it was that we were on our third consecutive hour of Japanese study and reading is hard. It’s a truth that all of the Japanese students but none of the teachers seem to know.

At last, class was over, and I could go… oh shoot we had a meeting for the weekend with host families at the end of the month. Guess it was time to go to that. The meeting wasn’t that informative, but we did fill out forms that would match us with the host families, so at least it was useful. Now it was time for lunch and a slight break. Then religion and spirituality.

That class has moved on to be about zen, to which end we were watching a movie about young monks who get into all kinds of wacky hijinx. I’m pretty sure it was supposed to be a comedy, but it was all in Japanese, and the professor was mainly focused on the aspects of religious life, so it was kind of hard to tell.

Class ended, I took a couple of minutes to myself, then I headed to the Super to meet up with my housemates and Komuko-san who were buying stuff for that night’s communal dinner. When we got back to the apartment, I stole away for another fifteen minutes to go for a walk. Or I intended to. Instead I found a calico cat wearing a bell on its collar that actually let me pet it (Osaka has plenty of cats, but most of them run away) and got kind of distracted.

Dinner was good, though I definitely would have appreciated it more on a day with an actual break sometime between 9am and the start of dinner. Because now I still had so much homework to do, and not as much energy or motivation to do it as I probably should have. Which honestly not that different from an ordinary day, but at least this time I had a reason.

Shoes and Chocolate

kakimono — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 02:25:00 GMT

Following class on Monday, I took the now-familiar train to Nagahoribashi as if I was going to Mondial Kaffee. (Spoiler alert: I wasn’t.) Then I walked the same way I had last time when I was just looking around until I found the Sketchers shop I’d stumbled into last time.

It seemed kind of silly to buy shoes from an American company while I was in Japan. However, it probably doesn’t seem as silly as having three pairs of the same shoe at any given point in time. Which is what I’ve done between graduating high school and this semester. I really like that pair, they don’t hurt my feet, and they get worn out when I walk too much in them. It makes sense

Sketchers is the company that makes that pair of shoes. And even though the store I walked into wasn’t selling that particular pair, they were selling ones that looked close enough. Only a mellow blue instead of a bright pink, which honestly was kind of an improvement. So, since I needed a new pair of shoes before my current pair fell apart, there I went.

I’d prepared in advance (read: I looked it up on my phone on the commute there) with my shoe size in Japanese, so I was about as prepared as I thought I should be. The idea of walking into a store and not walking out until I’d bought a pair of shoes I wanted was oddly intimidating, but it was a good objective to keep in mind.

The store clearly only had single shoes for display purposes,so if I wanted to actually try on a pair I needed to get the attention of a sales person. But that should be easy. I was, after all, in Japan. More than half the time your entry into a store will be acknowledged with “irrashaimase” (“welcome honoured guest,” or something like that) and if you spend too much time hanging around the lоtion part of a department store, someone will come around and give you a sample of a lotion so expensive that even just the small amount you got would be measured in dollars. Basically, all I needed to do was wait.

Well, this isn’t working very well. Maybe I can catch the eye of someone who’s not busy… nope, she’s busy. Nope, she’s very much ignoring me. She’s busy. Umm…

Eventually, someone saw me and came over to help. I picked up the shoe I wanted and handed it over to her with the description “40.” Here’s where counters would doubtless have been useful, since without a counter, her returning downstairs with forty shoes would have been a justifiable interpretation. It wouldn’t have been a reasonable one, but it would have been justifiable.

Fortunately, the person helping me was reasonable, so she came back with only one pair of shoes. Unfortunately, the pair she brought was a solid size lower than I normally wear. She had an explanation which was either “we don’t have that size so I got the closest I could” or “I had no idea what you said, so I just grabbed a pair and hoped it worked.” I nodded and went along with it, whatever she said.

I sat down, and the saleswoman started loosening each of the laces. Then I put my right foot in and she tightened the laces and tied them. Repeat for the left foot. It was the first time in years I’d had someone else put on my shoes for me. Coupled with a large language barrier, it made me feel especially like I was a small child who couldn’t put on my own shoes, which was a rather disconcerting feeling.

Once the shoes were on, I was trusted enough to walk around the store without someone holding my hand or watching to make sure I didn’t try to fit entire shoes in my mouth. The shoes felt fine. Based on a short pacing, they didn’t feel too tight or painful, so I signalled my approval to the saleswoman and changed back into my old shoes. She asked if I lived in Japan (I think that’s the first time that anyone’s looked at me and made that assumption) and when I said yes, asked if I had Line. (popular messaging app here) Again, yes. By friending the store, I could get another discount on top of the ten percent off that was unique to the pair of shoes I wanted for that day. Slightly confused about what was going on, I did so.

At the register, I was surrounded by Vietnamese women (they had their passports for a different kind of discount) who couldn’t seem to quite decide who was buying the shoes, and how many at a time. At last they got it straightened out, and it was my turn. Both discounts were applied, I got a cloth bag to put the shoe box in, and my mission was complete. Yay!

Next mission: buy chocolate. Now, this is not a hard mission, and I do it most days. But this time, my parents had said that part of their birthday present to me was for me was White Day chocolate. Around Valentine’s Day, I noticed that Tokyu Hands had a box of space-themed chocolate with chocolates chocolates designed to look like planets and galaxies. And although Japanese gender roles are such that I wouldn’t expect to see that again, there would probably still be a decent selection.

I was not wrong about that. There was a decent selection of regular or merely flavored chocolate. (Flavors included Japanese sake, several kinds of tea, and sakura, so normally I would not call it “merely.”) There were also a number of novelty chocolates, like a box of dinosaurs. Or this.

Well, that looked interesting. So I bought it. The chocolate part turned out to be a slight exaggeration. There were chocolates, which were shaped like macro Nanoblocks minus the ability to fit together. The chocolate was tasty enough, just kind of boring.

The same was not true of the Nanoblocks. Nanoblocks are like smaller, more detailed versions of Legos. Assembling those to form a heart was almost too too much fun. I say “too much fun” not because I want to be bored in Japan, but because I’ve seen some of the designs that are way more interesting than a heart, even a broken one, and don’t really need to pick up a new hobby right now.

Even if it would be fun.

Plums and Deer

kakimono — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 03:10:00 GMT

On Saturday I returned to Osaka Castle. It was a rather impulsive decision, since I’d been most of the way towards just taking another walk by the river when I decided I’d rather go back to Osaka Castle and see if I could find the plum trees and the Seattle’s Best. The Seattle's Best turned out to closed on weekends, but by paying a bit more attention to signs I actuall found the plum trees.

They were in bloom.

Sunday was the Ariyama-san trip to Nara. We were supposed to meet up at the Aikawa station at 10:00. Sarah, Rachel, and I arrived at the Shojaku station at 9:55, which was two minutes late to catch the train that would bring us there on time. But John, Brian, Dan, and Jin had arrived only a minute or so before us, so we could all be slightly late together.

Because leaving the train station would have been really expensive, we stayed on the platform and tried to figure out either which direction we’d need to be to get to Nara or where the Ariyama-san house was. Someone eventually concluded it was definitely the platform we were on, and I noticed one of the non-CET exchange students in an Ariyama-san apartment within sight. Near her was the Ariyama-san son. No one else was around. Guess we weren’t that late.

The only other people to show up were Midh and Elena, which made for a rather small group. Especially when Sarah and Rachel split off from the rest of us early on.

Nara is famous for two things: deer, and a giant statue of Buddha. Not the largest one in Japan (that one’s in the vicinity of Tokyo) but decently large. Unless you’re South Korean, and you look at even the largest Japanese Buddha and are disappointed because that would be an average Big Buddha in Korea. It’s worth noting that the one near Tokyo is large enough that people can and do walk around inside it.

I can certainly confirm that Nara has deer.

Because the trip turned out to be far more expensive than I was expecting and I barely had enough money to allow me to eat lunch and get back to Osaka, I didn’t go see the giant Buddha. Dan had seen it before, and didn’t think it was worth seeing a second time, and John decided that there were enough other people going in that he didn’t have to.

As it was explained to me, John is susceptible to the opposite of peer pressure. If almost no one is doing something, he’ll do it. For example, coming to Nara. If a lot of other students had come, John probably would have stayed home. But since most people weren’t really interested, and the Ariyama-sans were being nice by having it as an event, John had come.

Similarly, if more people had been hesitant about seeing the Big Buddha, John would have said he wanted to go in so that someone else who wanted to see it, just not alone, could go. But most people were going in, he didn’t. Instead, Dan, John, and I wandered around.

Our priorities were rather different. John wanted to find a bench to sit down on, and I was in the frame of mind where I saw a set of stairs and went “that looks exciting! We should climb it!” You’d think this would have been a conflict of interest. And yet it wasn’t. We went up the stairs because the inside looked interesting, though it became a lot less interesting when we realized we weren’t sneaking in a secret back entrance to the temple. But by wandering through, we found not just a bench, but a set of chairs with a table and everything.

“It’s too bad I didn’t bring a deck of cards with,” John said.

I immediately pulled a deck out of my purse and started shuffling it. “What game do you want to play?”

He didn’t know. Dan also couldn’t think of any good three-player single-deck games, so it was up to me. After a little bit of thinking, I remembered ERS, or Egyptian Rat Screw, or any of the other names it goes by. We had all played the game before, but we had very different approaches. I played just by reflex… if I saw a double or a sandwich, I would slap. John played exclusively by memory: he knew which hands had doubles in them, and would go for those when he had the opportunity, but if a combination came up that he wasn’t expecting, he would lose. Dan played with a mixture of both strategies.

During the course of the game, each of us went out, and each of us looked like we were winning. A fablelized version would probably have Dan winning because he was the only one who knew how to combine strategies, but he probably spent more time out than John or I, and eventually went out permanently when he tried to slap back in on something that wasn’t a double. John and I went back and forth for most of the game, though I had a hard time slapping back in after I lost all my cards, because I wasn’t as involved in what was going on. But eventually I did, and won. So the real moral of this story is that remembering and planning ahead doesn’t matter: it’s all about having fast reactions. And telling distracting stories, which was my winning move last summer.

We met up with the others and followed Ariyama-san to another temple, meeting more deer along the way. Dan discovered that some of them had been taught the trick of bowing. People who hadn’t seen it seem to think we’re making it up, but some of the deer in the touristy areas did actually know how to bow. You’d need to start, and then they’d nod their heads. And if you fed them, and then bowed your head again, they would imitate you once more. Only in the really touristy areas, though. Once you got even slightly off the beaten track, they’d just stare at you dumbly and go “what is this human doing, and are they going to feed me?”

Speaking of food… we didn’t get lunch until after we’d seen another temple and Ariyama-san had headed back, leaving Jin as the only Japanese student in charge of making sure we got back. Lunch was good, but nothing spectacular, and then we headed back. Somehow, we didn’t get lost, since “sense of direction and ability to understand what the trains are doing” appeared to be inversely proportional to “experience in Japan and Japanese.” I think there was a lot of confusion at the train station we transferred at, but to be quite honest I was pretty absorbed in my book at that point and was only paying enough attention to what was going on to make sure everyone didn’t leave without me. By the time I finished my book, I was walking on the platform of Shojaku station, so someone must have navigated us there successfully.

So that was Nara. I wasn’t overly impressed with it, but it’s the kind of place that it’s nice to be able to say I went. And the deer were cute.

This Seems Like It Should Explain Something

kakimono — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 03:01:00 GMT

On Wednesday, I was exposed to several small but very odd things about Japanese culture.

First of all, we were practicing new kanji. One of those kanji was the character for rice, which, for whatever reason, is also the character for America. So if you want to talk about US-Japan relations you say 日米. If you want to talk about South America, you say 南アメリカ or 南米. If you want to talk about the United States, you say アメリカ or 北米, the latter literally meaning North America.

That's right. I'm Japanese, “North America” means “The United States of America.” If you want to refer to the other countries in the same geographic area, you say “North American continent.” And then really all you're doing is lumping Canada together with the US. From Yamaguchi-sensei’s description, it sounded like Mexico joined Cuba and Guatemala as countries that don't really get a continent other than “probably South America.” Turns out that Japan manages to be even more US-centric than the US.

And then we moved on to talking about instant ramen, and further discussion of why America was more than the United States had to be pushed to the side. Instead me moved on to other, way more important topics. Like what flavor foods had.

Dan and I had both given the same only arguably right answer to the prompt “name a bitter food.” We both said “coffee” which, although bitter, is not a food. So to try and come up with a better example, I decided to go with chocolate. To specify that it should be bitter, I needed to indicate not just any chocolate, but dark chocolate. Without thinking too hard about it, I called it “kuroi chokoretto,” literally, black chocolate. I think I was probably borrowing that from French, where it’s called chocolat noir.

This was wrong. The proper way to talk about dark chocolate is “da-ku chokoretto,” or possibly “buraku chokoretto.” Point is, you katakanacize everything. OK, fine.

Similarly, it’s not “kuroi ko-hi-,” it’s “buraku ko-hi-.” Again, that makes a reasonable amount of sense, at least as much as chocolate does.

So then if you want to say you like dark beers, you should say “da-ku bi-ru,” right? No. That one is “kuroi bi-ru.”

Chocolate. Coffee. Beer. All foreign words. All using katakana. So, since subtypes are still going to be foreign words, it makes sense if any modifying adjectives are also katakanacized. But that’s clearly not always the case, as the translation for dark beer shows. And if any of those three darker versions of a consumable item I enjoy should break that pattern, it shouldn’t be beer.

You can get black coffee at every other vending machine you find. There are several kinds of dark chocolate sold at any konbini you walk into. For those who missed it, vending machines and konbinis are everywhere in Japan. Dark beer is not. If you walk into a bar with the expectation “they’re a bar. They have to have dark beer. At least a Guinness or something” you are likely to leave very disappointed.

Yamaguchi-sensei was looking at me, clearly wondering what part of “kuroi bi-ru” I didn’t understand.

“Dark beer isn’t common in Japan.”

“You can get it.”

Yes. You can also get matcha-flavored things in the US. Mainly at Asian grocery stores and a few other places,but you can get it. That doesn’t make it common, and it doesn’t explain anything.

The next time someone asks me about how hard it is to study Japanese, I’m going to start to explain how it’s actually kind of straightforward, and then I’m going to trail off mid-sentence as I remember this. And then I’m going to say “Nevermind. Japanese is a complicated language deeply rooted in a culture that you can study for years without understanding.” And if they ask me what I mean, I’ll mutter something about honorific language and bushido code. But I’ll actually be thinking about dark chocolate, black coffee, and dark beer.

The last revelation of the day came during my culture and society class, when the teacher started talking about “June brides.” It is such a common notion that it gets katakanacized into Japanese. Here’s the thing: June is a terrible time for a wedding in Japan. The old name for June (that isn’t just “sixth month”) is “month full of water.” Because June is the rainy month. But, even though people don’t actually want to get married in June, the notion of “June bride” continues. Because, as with Valentine’s Day, it’s a part of American life that Japanese people see in movie and TVs.

One thing that an absurdly high number of Japanese couples do do for their wedding ceremonies is celebrate it in a church. This number is so absurd because for the most part, neither party is Christian. In well over 90% of weddings, no one is Christian. But they’ll celebrate it in a church and wear a puffy white dress and have a traditional American wedding. Or at least what they think a traditional American wedding looks like. And of course the wedding industry is encouraging this whenever they can.

There are a lot of strange experiences about being in a foreign country, adapting to a foreign culture. I think some of the most disconcerting come from seeing and coming to understand an outside perspective on the culture that you’ve lived in your entire life.

Growing up, I got to see not just the American movies and ads, but also the conversations that counterbalance them. On mother’s day, young children are taught to make crafts that their mothers will have to cherish because their own children made them instead of buying them flowers. Elaborate and public promposals may well be accompanied by a whispered conversation about how the only reason he’s asking so publicly is because he knows his would-be date will be too embarrassed to say no. By living in the United States, you get to see what happens after the wedding, however happy or unhappy that might be.

So it’s weird for me to hear about the Japanese interpretations of American traditions. The commercialization of love and romance is one of the things I dislike about American culture. But it’s spreading, and any meaning that could be taken from a religious ceremony is made negligible by not sharing the beliefs or traditions of the religion. And yet the number of Christian June Brides continues to grow.

If I could understand the reasoning behind everything I learned about Japan today, I feel like I’d be a lot closer to understanding Japanese culture and society.

What Day is It?

kakimono — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 02:32:00 GMT

One of Suzuki-sensei’s favorite starts to the class is asking “what is today’s date? What day is today?” The first is a straightforward question, the second is a question that only she knows the answer to. Usually it’s something odd like “well, if you write the kanji, then give them a skewed pronunciation, you could read it as “nya nya,” which is the sound a cat makes, so today is Cat’s day!” But it’s informative, I guess, in the same way going to Wikipedia and clicking the random article button is informative.

Tuesday, even the simple part of answering the date was kind of a trick question. See, Japanese loves stealing things from Chinese. And as if the alphabet weren’t enough, they decided to take numbers too. Not just the numbers, but some pronunciation that is supposed to be derived from the Chinese as well. But they still wanted to keep their own numbers and pronunciation. So they kept both.

If you ask a student studying Japanese to count to ten in Japanese, odds are they’ll give some close variant of “ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, nana, hachi, kyuu, juu.” (I say “some close variant” because “yon” and “shi” are both ways of saying four and “shichi” and “nana” are both seven, and I still need to guess which one I should be using.) And then if you say something like “what about ‘hitotsu, futatsu, mittsu, yottsu, itsutsu, muttsu, nanatsu, yattsu, kokonotsu, tou?’” They’ll probably roll their eyes and say “that too.”

On one hand, having two different ways to count to ten in the same language is kind of annoying, and it would be easiest if we could just stick to the sino-Japanese numerals. (The first one I listed.) On the other, native Japanese numbers don’t have a counter. And if you want to give the number of something, you can usually get away with using the native Japanese number. Provided there are under ten of them and your teacher isn’t too picky. Otherwise, you have to use counters.

Counters are simply a word, usually with a single character, added on at the end of a number to explain what kind of thing you’re dealing with. Some of them make sense, even in English. For example, if someone were to ask what floor of the apartment your room is, you probably wouldn’t just say “five.” You might say “fifth,” but you’d likely say “fifth floor.” If a classmate asks “how much longer do we have to wait,” you’re not going to say “10.” You’re going to say “ten minutes” or “ten hours” or “ten weeks,” depending on which answer it is.

However, if someone asked how many cards were on a table, you wouldn’t say “there are 10 flat things.” If someone asked “How many knitting needles are you using!” You would say “four,” or maybe “four knitting needles.” You wouldn’t say “four long thin things” or “of knitting needles, I’m using four long thin things.” Those translations sound ridiculous, because there’s no reason to literally translate the counters into English. But in Japanese, you need them. And there are a lot to learn, and some of them change the pronunciation, usually in a logical manner though it takes a while to get that logic. And there really are a lot of them. So being able to use native numbers and avoid them is convenient.

And you need to learn them anyway, because they show up when you’re trying to count certain objects. Like people. “Hitori, futari, san-nin, yon-nin, go-nin…” or dates. The first ten days, and any day that ends with a four, use a variant of the native Japanese numbers that are easily recognizable. So the tenth is “touka.” The ninth is “kokonoka.” The fourth is “yokka.” (Not to be confused with “youka,” the eight.) The second is “futsuka.” The first is… “tsuitachi?” Where does that come from?

I don’t know. It never appears again. But you had better learn it, because that’s how you mark the first day of a month. And even if that’s only twelve days a year, it is twelve days that Japanese teachers are sure to ask you about, because they know you can almost, but not quite, get away with not knowing it.

Once we’d passed that test, Suzuki-sensei moved on to the next question. What day was it? We had no idea. So she read us a passage talking about three people who had their birthdays on 1 March. The first time through, the only name I caught was “Chopin,” and I had to ask a clarifying question to make sure it was the composer. The second time through I somehow managed to catch everyone’s name, even the person I’d never heard of before that day, and made a rough stab at the years she was saying. I got the century right, at least. Having heard of two of the three people she was mentioning helped both for taking notes, and helped a lot in the conversation that followed and ended up taking up most of the class.

First of all, I needed to explain who Chopin was. This is what happens when you use aizuchi too well. “Oh really? Frederic Chopin? Hmnnn…” It makes it sound like you’re actually interested in the subject, which implies you know something about it.

What I know about Chopin: he lived in Paris, and died there. He was a composer of piano music, and wrote a number of Études, Preludes, Mazurkas, and Nocturnes, including Opus 27 Number 2. He’s buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery, and I have a friend who’s a huge fan. That is such scattered and useless knowledge, but I was the one asked to explain who he was. After I translated some of my knowledge into Japanese, Suzuki-sensei played pieces composed by him. Dan didn’t recognize any of them.

Moving on… the next person born on 1 March was Ryuunosuke Akutagawa. Suzuki-sensei seemed to want to go through the explanation of who he was more quickly than we’d gone through Chopin, but this was an author who I actually knew things about. I don’t have real music knowledge, and even though I can sometimes give facts about composers, I don’t actually know anything. Chopin wrote Fantaisie-Impromptu for piano… what’s a piano?

By contrast, even though I don’t always have genuine knowledge about the books that I’ll talk about, I feel on much steadier ground. And I like talking about it. So when Suzuki-sensei started giving some titles, I immediately chipped in with the titles that I knew. Rashoman was easy, no translation necessary. In a Grove was harder. Explaining how Kurosawa took the plot for In a Grove and gave it the title of Rashoman when he was making a movie was harder, so I just went with mentioning that Kurosawa made films about Akutagawa’s works. And also Akutagawa had a major literary prize in Japan named after him. Having watched Rashoman the film and skimmed through the list of Akutagawa prize winners, that still felt like more real knowledge. It’s not necessarily more helpful than what I know about Chopin, but on the other hand knowledge of Akutagawa is much less common, so that should count for a lot.

Finally, it was also the birthday of Ogura Yuki. She was a Japanese artist. 以上。

And that’s what day it was. It was 1 March (三月一日）and it was the birthdays of Frederic Chopin, Ryuunosuke Akutagawa, and Ogura Yuki. That’s a lot less contrived than “Cat day.”

I waited until it was 1 March in the United States and texted the friend who adores Chopin to wish him a happy Chopin’s birthday. Because that’s definitely a thing that you wish someone. (Actually, I’d probably be pretty happy if someone were to wish me a “Happy Eugene O’Neill’s Birthday!” Happier still if they celebrated it by reading one of his plays. The person who did so would be more depressed as a consequence, but such is life.) He did not know that it was Chopin’s birthday, and I got to continue pretending I actually knew things about music. Now if I could just figure out what a piano was...

How do you say "Omm" in Japanese?

kakimono — Wed, 9 Mar 2016 03:11:00 GMT

Sunday was the CET trip to Arashiyama, near Kyoto. So we met at 8:30 (on a Sunday!) at the train station and caught a succession of trains to Arashiyama. It was pretty uneventful, with the most interesting part probably being watching a woman come to the sudden and too-late realization that she was surrounded by a sightseeing group of mostly foreigners. Because by the time she realized this, it was already too late and she couldn’t do anything other than huddle closer to her book and hope we went away quickly. We weren’t even doing anything, other than being there having some conversations amongst us, but our mere presence was clearly disturbing.

Arashiyama was beautiful.

The first place that we went was Tenryu-ji, a Buddhist temple and world heritage site. There, Thomas Kirchner, a monk who had been born in New Haven and moved to Japan as part of a study abroad and then never left. He eventually got his bachelors from a Japanese university because his mother had written to his zen master expressing concern. Other than that, he’s just been living the life of a Buddhist monk.

So, what does this life look like? Well, it begins when you decide that you want to be a monk. For many people, becoming a monk is just the family business. Japan has some 27,000 Buddhist temples, most of them pretty small. But even the smallest need to be run by monks, and usually they’ll be the (oldest) son of the current head of the temple. (There’s no vows of celibacy after you leave the monastery.) So most people who come to a monastery come for a 2-3 year seminary course. A few others, generally far more self-driven, come instead for a 15-20+ year course in the zen koans, working through them koan by koan. However, even those people leave eventually. The only people who spend their entire lives in a monastery are the zen masters.

You’ll have a sponsoring monk, usually from the temple that you hope to take over. If, like Thomas Kirchner, you don’t have a temple, or really any pre-existing connection to Buddhism, you’d better find one quickly. They’ll help you get your paperwork ready, so when you show up and present it, the monks at the monastery will look at it, decide it’s all in order, and turn you away. But you don’t leave. Instead, you kneel down in the genkan (the generic Japanese word for entryway. They can be found in any house, and that’s where you put your shoes, but it literally means “dark barrier” and has its origins in Buddhism) and sit in a supplicant position for 2 days. You’re treated as a guest and given food and such, but still. Two days of sitting in entry hallway just to prove that you’re serious.

Once everyone else realizes you’re not going to leave, then let you into a room where you sit facing a wall for another three days. If you didn’t want to sit in quiet meditation for days on end, now would be a good chance to take a hint and leave. Because that’s literally what life in the monastery looks like.

An ordinary day begins at 4 in the winter and 3:30 in the summer, because they need to get up in time to be done with the morning sutras before the sun rises, and the sun rises early in summer. So they wake up, quickly fold their futons and shove it up in the overhead compartment that contains all their other belongings in the world (that’s a slight exaggeration. They also have a drawer at the bottom and a coat hook that they can put things. Still, not a lot of room for anything beyond the necessities.) Then they briefly wash up and go to red the morning sutras.

From there, they have three hours of meditation. During this time, they meet one on one with their zen master to discuss what they’ve learned. “And he would instruct us or whack us with his thick if he thought we’d been lazy, whatever he saw fit.” This goes until about 7, when they go to breakfast. Breakfast is a simple and quick meal, usually taking between 20 and 25 minutes and consisting of rice gruel and pickles, and is followed by sweeping the gardens, a repetitive task that allows for a continuation of the meditation.

From 8 to 11 is the morning activity. This is most commonly Takuhatsu, or begging. This serves a triple purposes. First of all, it’s a form of walking meditation. Secondly, it is a way of earning money, or, less commonly in Japan, food, for the monastery. And finally, it shows the interconnection of these branches, and makes it clear how dependent on everyone else the monks are for their current life.

When they don’t have takuhatsu, they have samu, meaning work. This is rather unique to the zen school of Buddhism, especially in places like China and Japan. It’s practical, especially when your monastery is on a mountain, to garden instead of trying to find people, let alone people who would give you money.

Finally, days with a four or a nine in them are rest days. This is a common Japanese belief, since “4” and “death” share the same pronunciation, as do “9” and “suffering.” Therefore, to avoid these unlucky days the monks will have time to themselves to clean the monastery, take baths, shave their heads, and even have some free time.

Around 11 they’ll have lunch, though they must finish before noon, since a part of Buddhism says that they can’t continue to eat after noon. After lunch, they have an hour rest, and in the afternoon they have more samu. And then at 16:00 they have the evening meal.

Remember the beginning of the last paragraph where I said they had to stop eating by noon? Yeah… Basically, East Asia does Buddhism slightly differently. The climate is colder, and they have samu, which makes people hungrier. For a while, they tried to compensate by putting a warm rock on their bellies (called a “medicine stone”) but eventually they decided this was dumb and they should just eat. The meal is still rather simple, and still called “medicine stone,” but it exists.

From 5-9 they have more seated meditation, and then at 9 they pull their futons down and get ready for bed. However, before they actually go to sleep, they must go outside for another two hours minimum of nighttime seated meditation. And then they can go to sleep for real, only to be woken up 4-5 hours later.

Despite the lack of sleep, Thomas Kirchner insists it’s a healthy lifestyle. In part because because meditation and sleep are kind of similar, so because they spend so many hours meditating, they don’t need much sleep. It’s certainly a simple lifestyle, and one that I’m pretty sure would drive me crazy.

Even though I wouldn’t want to jump into several years of monastery life, I was definitely up for twenty minutes of sitting in lotus position trying to clear my head and getting hit by a stick. (The blow was voluntary for us, and quite probably lighter than it would have been for real novices.) In a not terribly shocking turn of events, I did not reach inner truth and enlightenment.

After the lecture and meditation concluded, we had two hours of free time to look around the gardens and the town and get lunch.

The gardens were of course beautiful.

Lunch was tempura udon/curry rice (I split with Elena, who was eying the same two options I was) and then we listened to Jin’s suggestion and got matcha… stuff. No actual matcha, but Elena got a matcha latte, a lot of other people (myself included) got matcha dango, and some people got matcha ice cream. As we were looking around, I saw a Sakura Black Tea, and gave into the temptation to buy it. Even though I’d just gotten tea the day before. It was sakura, and I’m definitely not going to get enough of that in the coming weeks.

At 14:00, we all met up and headed to the Washiki shop to make them. Which mostly involved being handed dough and told how to shape it. The result was that we could make pretty sweets without learning how to actually make them. And mostly I was just imitating what other people were doing, since I caught very few of the words that they were saying. It was a fun, and we got actual matcha at the end to drink with the sweets. And then we caught a train back and I could try and catch up on my homework due Monday. I really missed my previous three-day weekends...