A Year in Tokyo

On Leaving and Returning

2008-09-03T14:42:00.000-07:00

"We have learned a lot, Siddhartha, there is still much to learn. We are not going around in circles, we are moving up, the circle is a spiral, we have already ascended many a level."
-Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

It feels like I’ve been here before. This point in time, this juncture of thought, this point in the flow of emotion. I seems like I’ve come upon this so many times before.

I knew about the Japanese love of the changing of the seasons, how in Japan it represents all that is ephemeral in life, how the entire mood of the country seems to change with the leaves on the trees as they sprout anew each spring as in birth, solidify themselves in the summer as in middle age, become deeply pensive red in autumn as in the reflective later years, and disappear during winter, only to be born again as the process recycles itself. That this cycle brings out a melancholy in the Japanese psyche I knew, but only now I feel it. Just as in September, when I first arrived, the humidity causes my shirt clings to my back as a child to its mother, and within a few minutes of being outside it feels as if I had taken a long bath in miso soup. Now, as it turns to summer, and the natural smells, sounds and tastes that greeted me in September and promptly disappeared are finally coming back to usher me out, now I know what they mean. I have completed one full cycle, and I am back where I started. The world around me is pretending that no time has passed, contrary to what I believe to be true, according to memory anyway.

How could this year possibly be summarized? Could I say it was wonderful, though there were times I felt mistreated because of my skin color? Could I say all the people were friendly, though some seemed to throw all of their aggression towards my country’s history with Japan my way? Could I say I was able to teach them about American culture, though I met some Japanese who had traveled more widely in my country than I have? Could I say all the food was amazing? (Actually, that one I could say.)

My feelings, and indeed the feelings of anybody who has lived here for any length of time, towards Japan are equally muddled. I came to realize, the hard way you might say, that no matter how fluent my Japanese becomes, or how much I learn about their culture, or how well I come to know Tokyo, I will never be Japanese; try as I might, I will never make my into their inner circle, nobody will ever look at me and assume I could understand if they said anything to me in their native tongue. This fact resurfaces from time to time, both when I come tantalizingly close to feeling like I belong here, and when I am pushed to the edge, as far away from it as possible, as if I were looking at my surroundings through a thick plate of glass. I’ve felt defeated by it, and at other times it has felt like I have successfully answered its challenge. I’ve felt as if I’ve moved past it, and I’ve felt like it has intimidated me to the point of being afraid to go outside.

This duality is both frustrating and relieving. On the one hand, it has driven people away from Japan in an angry mess, and on the other it has drawn people who are attracted to the idea that they will never expected to carry the burden of embodying a culture, that they can live full-time on the outskirts of society.

I still don’t know what I think of it, and that is why I am sad to leave. It’s possible to be on both sides at once, and it was here I discovered how that is possible to both love and hate something at the same time. I love Japan for pulling me in, I hate Japan for pushing me back out, and it’s because I am still able to feel this full range of emotions about Japan on a daily basis that I’ve felt more alive here than anywhere else.

So it is, then, that this return to the stifling humidity of summer seems to cause people to think about how they were during this same season in past years. I’ve yet to come to any conclusions on that subject, but I know that there are distinct similarities and important differences, most of which as a result of my Tokyo experience, between this summer and last. In a way, though, I’ve come to realize that there will be another summer, there will be times when I will be faced with challenges as I have faced this year, even though I feel I have moved past them. In the great cycle of things, it is not the repeated challenges that are different, but the individuals who face them. It’s not the seasons that are different, but the reflective power of the individuals who choose to mark their ebb and flow.

Ittekimasu is what the Japanese say when leaving the home, usually after they have put on their shoes and as they are opening the door. Directed at the people remaining in the home, it means, “I will go and come back.” I really like this statement: It is comforting, and it acknowledges the cycle of coming and going. It suggests that embedded somewhere in the act of leaving is the chance for return. I like to think that in a similar way, by coming to Japan, a place to which I have no ancestral, religious, ethnic or linguistic connections, I was able to uncover aspects of myself that will now shape how I look at the world around me and will prepare me for whatever journey comes next. Only while lost would I have been able to find them.

So, with that: Ittekimashita. I was gone. I’m coming back.

The Confidence-Boosting Compliments Department

2008-05-29T06:10:00.000-07:00

Japanese people are often amazed when they see foreigners surviving in Japan. Often they ask, "Are you able eat Japanese food?" which sometimes also is phrased as, "Do you like natto?" Natto tastes just like it looks, which is eeuwhhghghh, and the Japanese get a kick out of the fact that, though Westerners are quite good with most Japanese cuisine, natto is still out of our culinary reach.

When Westerners do show some skill in reading and speaking Japanese or eating Japanese cuisine, we are often complimented generously. For instance, I went into a bento (boxed lunch) shop, and told the lady behind the counter, "It all looks delicious."

Her face lit up like a prairie at sunrise. "Your Japanese is so good!" she cried.

I've also been praised for my ability to eat sushi, my talent for writing my name, and the language skills I possess for asking for the check at a restaurant.

Usually these comments are made in good humor, and it shows that they are trying to start a conversation with a safe topic in easy Japanese, and I really do appreciate it.

Yesterday, however, I received a compliment that I must say not only made all of my other worries dissipate, but reminded me that even though I may not write the next Great American Novel or win a Nobel Prize, sometimes it's the simplest things that matter most.

"My, my," said a kind woman who sat next to me on the counter at a little bar, watching me eat, "you are so good at using chopsticks!"

"Well," I said, turning towards her, in the coolest possible voice I could muster, "thank you."

Pale, Flabby Men Try to Push Each Other Out of A Circular Space. Comedy Ensues.

2008-05-24T22:41:00.001-07:00

Friday was one of those very special, "I'm in Japan, there's no doubt," experiences. My friend Arthur and I went to see the 14th day of the summer Sumo tournament in Ryogoku, in eastern Tokyo, the axis on which the sumo world turns.

The atmosphere was phenomenal, and the anticipation, watching the two wreslters (rikishi) try to psyche each other out, playing mind games, was so thick you could pick it up with your chopsticks. As they lunged at each other, even in our seats up in the second deck (the stadium holds 11,000) we could hear the dull slap of flab on flab, as well as their bull-like grunting as they held each other in position, waiting for the other to crack, waiting for that open split second to make the winning move.

All three of the favorites lost, but the next day Kotooshu, a Bulgarian wrestler and the first European winner of a sumo tournament in history, claimed the tournament victory. Finally, a white male has his day in the limelight. One for tellin' the grandkids.

(Can you tell which ones are the wrestlers?)

There's Nowhere to Eat Near Jiko-ji

2008-05-20T01:39:00.000-07:00

The only place I’ve ever seen Jiko-ji written about is in one of the guidebooks on Tokyo sitting on my bookshelf. Buried in the back of the book, a few pages from the index, it appears in a section titled “Other Trips,” which itself is a sub-section of “Trips Out of Town,” which itself is a departure from the main focus of the book, which is Tokyo itself. The entry has no pictures or maps. Because Jiko-ji is located in rural Japan, where public transportation is sparse at best, the book suggests the traveler check train and bus schedules ahead of time, but gives no indication as to where to access that information. Under the heading, “Where to Eat,” it informs the reader, with or without irony I can’t tell, that, “There’s nowhere to eat near Jiko-ji.”

Jiko-ji’s (-ji is one of the suffixes in Japanese for a Buddhist temple) claim to apparently low-grade fame is that it is the oldest temple in the Kanto (Eastern Japan) region, thought to have been established in 673, eventually wielding its greatest influence in the 13th century. It’s in an area that’s not really near anything, and not on the way to anywhere, and even though they felt it was interesting enough to include in their publication, it seemed that the authors of the guidebook didn’t really expect anyone to actually go.

I transferred trains five times before arriving at tiny Myokaku Station, manned by a single old attendant who bowed to each passenger as they handed their tickets over. Only about four other people got off with me, all old enough to be my grandparents. In the parking lot was the bus I was going to take another few miles to get to the entrance of the temple. The driver sat outside of the bus smoking a cigarette, looking slightly overweight and sweaty in his uniform, and when he saw me approach he flicked the last embers into the bushes and climbed into the driver’s seat. I told him where I wanted to go and he handed me a transfer ticket – this bus didn’t go there, but at the last stop, if I got out and waited another ten minutes, another one would come to take me to the entrance.

The Japanese attitude towards religion challenges its Western counterpart – actually, you could even say it laughs at it. We in the West give ourselves completely over to our religions – we are Catholic, we are Jewish, and we behave and identify as such. By doing so, we also make clear that we are not anything else. If we go to the worship service of another religion, it’s just for the experience, we say - it doesn’t become our identity. It’s not possible to be Jewish on Saturday, go to a Sabbath service at a synagogue, and then go to Mass on Sunday and be Christian, and then have a clean religious slate once again on Monday. Changing religions is a long and official process, and one notifies friends and family, who often object, of the change.

The Japanese are often described as being Buddhist at birth, Christian at their wedding and Shinto (the native Japanese religion) when they die. If one were to judge strictly by the type of ceremonies they have at these life cycle events, this would be true. But, if you ask most Japanese, they will tell you that they are none of the above, though one doesn’t have to look terribly hard to find traces of Buddhist, Shinto and Confucian ideas in the Japanese perception of the world and of society. A Christian wedding to them is just that – a wedding. Just because you have one does not mean you are a Christian, you do not have to be Christian to have one in the first place.

The same can be said, then for visiting Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, and their architecture confirms this. Unlike synagogues and chapels, which are indoor, private sanctuaries, temples and shrines are always outside, open to the world. Worship is done in public and is informal, always free form. You don’t need anybody’s permission to enter, you don’t need to be a member of either religion to pray, and nobody will ask you for anything when you leave.

I find solace in this idea, that one’s spiritual affiliation transcends dogma. In Japan, one can be Buddhist during the half hour they spend at a temple, then become Shinto when visiting the shrine next door – no long-term commitment is necessary. In both cases, some core energy is released that does not discriminate based on location – what is important is not by what means, but by what intent.

I was dropped off in the tiny village of Nishi-Daira, from where it was an hour’s walk up into the low-lying mountains, passing tiny wooden shrines and a few cemeteries on the way to the main building of Jiko-ji. Everything seemed swathed in a gentle light, and, in the absence of the cacophonous and never-ending background noise of Tokyo, the sounds of the birds chattering seemed artificially amplified. In between the trees, the expanse of stout, wide hills extended off into the distance, retreating into a dream-like haze towards horizon. The entrance to the temple, a narrow stairway that was encroached upon by the surrounding shrubs, suddenly appeared. Looking around, it seemed I was the only visitor that day.

Rural Japan, I have come to realize, is not the place to go if you are feeling paranoid, mainly because everyone who you would perceive to be looking at you and whispering to their friend about you probably is looking at you and whispering to their friend about you. For a long time, this sequence of events never failed to rattle me, not only because of my dislike for the running assumption in Japan that foreigners don’t know enough Japanese to figure out that they are being talked about, but mainly because it was the first time in my life that I was so aware that I was a white person.

Recently, though, I’ve been invigorated by these feelings. As I got further into rural areas on the way to Jiko-ji, as the trains I took became smaller and older, and the dress of those traveling more conservative and the stations more windswept, more eyes wandered my way. On one train, three young schoolgirls stood around the empty spot next to me, looking back and forth between the open seat and me, each offering it to the others, trying not to make it obvious that none of them really wanted to sit next to me. Early in my time here this would have bothered me to no end, but on this day it made me feel undoubtedly alive, as if it were a confirmation of what I thought myself to be, a sign that I was somewhere where I could create cultural and mental sparks, tension, and friction by simply being there, a simultaneous feeling of experiencing of the “other” and being “other” itself.

I climbed the steep stairway that leads to the main hall of the temple. It was almost gothic in stature, tall and dark and complexly built, even more so against the background of gentle forest green. A few sticks of incense that must have been put there that morning lay used up in the altar. Even though nobody was around, I felt embarrassed that I didn’t know the absolutely correct procedure for praying, and I made doubly sure that nobody was coming up the stairs or from the pathway veering back to the main road. I threw in an offering and clapped my hands twice, one of the few rituals I’m familiar with. Birds chirped. A fly buzzed past my ear. I bowed my head and tried to clear my mind.

From the roof, a multi-colored rope hung down attached to a bell that the worshipper is supposed to ring before and after praying. Three times I rang. Each time, the bell emitted a soft, dusty groan that was quickly enveloped by the surrounding silence. Alone on a holy mountaintop, it sounded like everything at once and nothing at all.

On the way Up

Entrance and main hall of Jiko-ji

Myokaku station on the Hachiko Line

Notes from the Cherry Blossom Front

2008-04-07T01:11:00.000-07:00

Once again, o-mataseshimaimashita, I have shamefully made you wait.

The seasonal calendar has turned again, and the city has shed its winter malaise. In this country so finely attuned to the seasons, spring, the most anticipated, has arrived. The faces one meets on the street seem brighter, more playful; stepping outside without a coat, one feels lighter, suggesting a burden lifted. Storefronts are decorated with pink and purple, and inside the honorable customer is, on particularly nice days, served cold tea instead of hot.

And then there are the cherry blossoms (sakura). Oh, how the Japanese love the cherry blossoms. The Japan Meteorological Agency, a government organization, spends most of the year attempting to calculate when they will bloom, though they're usually wrong. When the flowers first bloomed in Tokyo two weeks ago, earlier than expected, the event made the front page of the newspaper. The article cited statistics kept over the last 100 years to identify the last four times Tokyo had had the first bloomed blossoms in the country. Those swathes of city green that I frequent that have a large number of cherry trees suddenly have twice as many people in them then I have ever seen. Many of these people are engaged in hanami, flower viewing parties, with friends or co-workers, sitting on blankets underneath the trees, sharing food, pouring warm sake for each other in the customary manner, brushing fallen petals off of their neighbor's head. Groups of people stand around the fully bloomed trees, aiming their hulking cameras at the tiny, delicate flowers, pulling branches down to their level to get a better shot. It's as if the entire country has been allowed to go outside for the first time in months.

It's easy to be cynical about this level of excitement over foliage, but the trees themselves are really magnificent. Held aloft by gnarled trunks of the darkest brown, branches extend like lithe arms, gently sagging earthward as they stretch languidly from the tree body. The ends of the branches hang limp, like hands waiting to be held. On every protrusion, dozens of tiny, glass-like petals of a transparent pink are presented elegantly, face-up, as if they it is in their very botanical nature to be admired. The colors of one tree become the foreground for the colors of the next, as the entire scene is set, the backdrop a surreal sky of pure pink.

I can't imagine that there is a cultural-botanical pair more perfectly matched than Japan and the cherry blossom. Trees that were bare for months on end suddenly burst into color, reinventing themselves, evoke the Buddhist theme of re-birth, on the other side of which the short lives of the blossoms – they bloom for only a few weeks - remind that, as life is a cycle, all things, for better or worse, must pass. The evanescence of beauty, the phenomenon that each and every haiku attempts to express, is fully represented within that cycle. A small hollow space at the base of a cherry tree is quite a conducive environment for reflection, for feeling nostalgic. The Japanese term mono no aware, 'the pathos of things,' is reflected in the bittersweet nature of this season, the simultaneous joy and sadness of enjoying something so beautiful that, almost before one can fully appreciate them, vanishes so quickly. Not surprisingly, in this literary vein, the cherry blossoms are often compared to, for lack of a more specific term, life.

My own cherry blossom search brought me to the Nakano section of town, where, I had heard, there is a place called the Philosophy Park, founded by a philosophy professor, that contains 77 spots that symbolize different doctrines. Disembarking at the station, I followed the broad central avenue, flanked by fully bloomed sakura, underneath which ran a seemingly never-ending succession of pink lanterns. There was a bridge over the street some ways down, and I climbed it to take some photos, along with a few older people saying kirei ne, sugoi kirei, it's pretty, so pretty, and a lone high schooler taking pictures with her cell phone, seeming lonely.

The park appeared after a bend in the road. The plaques on each of the 77 spots were only in Japanese (I don't know the word for existentialism, let alone the vocabulary necessary to read about it), but the mood was indeed pleasant enough to allow the mind to saunter along paths of contemplative thought. As I made my way through, I came to the cherry blossom area, a large square filled with the trees, a canopy of pink softening the entering sunlight. I found an empty bench and sat down. Many people were having hanami parties, six or ten people sitting on large blankets, while others were simply sitting against the base of a tree, eyes closed, soft grins on their faces.

I felt it too, that pinch of nostalgia brought on by the season. When was the last time I had simply sat against a tree and allowed my mind to wander? I held my head in my hands and sighed, listening to the white noise of the hundreds of branches above my head swaying in the wind. It was quite soothing. Gradually, the winds began to pick up, their shuffling growing louder. It was what I had hoped it would be - sakura fubuku, the cherry blossom snowstorm.

It's quite beautiful when it happens: thousands of little cylinders of pink dancing this way and that in the wind. Watching them drift down from the sky is mystifying, hypnotic – they seem to move in slow motion, weightless, as if they could float upwards like a balloon, were it not for the breeze. The children around me ran around joyfully, grabbing as many as they could, mid-flight, to bring back to their parents. I held my hand out to catch a few, while at my feet countless fallen petals began to make a small pile, fragile and pale, like a distant memory.

Okinawa

2008-03-11T22:17:00.000-07:00

Okinawa is a peculiar place to be for an American, all the more so for an American who is not in the military. For World War II historians, 'Okinawa' evokes fierce and merciless battle between American and Japanese forces during the closing scenes of the Pacific Theatre; for American soldiers at the time, what is most likely remembered is the Japanese soldiers being ordered to commit suicide rather than surrender to the enemy; and to the Japanese of today, it evokes palm trees, pristine beaches and the continuing American presence in their country.

Okinawa was in fact an American possession until 1972, when it was given back to the Japanese. Despite this, nearly 20% of the main island of Okinawa-Honto is still occupied by American military bases, home to nearly 25,000 personnel.

This has not been an entirely happy residence. Numerous incidents, most recently just a few weeks ago, involving off-duty American soldiers committing crimes and accused rapes of Japanese girls have lead to serious protests to the American presence, though the pact that allows the Americans to stay was renewed a few years ago.

Even so, Okinawa remains an extremely popular tourist destination among Japanese (nearly 98% of tourists who come to Okinawa are Japanese, amounting to nearly 5.5 million people [!]), and with good reason: it is gorgeous.

Perhaps I should be more specific; Naha, the biggest city, capital, and transportation hub, is not gorgeous, particularly in the eyes of tourists who step off their flights ready for their tropical adventure. The main island is dominated by the American presence: used car lots advertising prices in both yen and dollars, numerous A&W franchises, and rumbling military caravans were common sights.

The unfortunate Japanese tendency to overdevelop hit southern Okinawa-honto hard. Blank-faced concrete buildings lined the coast, exhaust fumes from the broad highway that runs up the spine of the island filled the air, and the finest beach we could find within a 2-hour bike ride was a man-made one, somewhat mockingly named “Tropical Beach,” though despite the irony of hanging out on a South Pacific island on a man-made beach named Tropical Beach (why not re-name the island Tropical Island?), it felt pretty good to face the open ocean again.

Destined not to spend our “tropical” vacation in a clogged city (though to be fair it had it’s nice spots), Jerich, my travel partner, and I set off for nearby Zamami Island, a two-hour ferry to the west of the main island, with plans to camp on the beach.

Which we did, though we didn’t anticipate the nighttime temperature dropping to below 40 degrees. Even so, it’s hard to beat a campsite from which one can wake up and see this:

Or before going to sleep, see this:

Our second day there, we happened upon a very enthusiastic pair of girls on a graduation trip who invited us to where they were staying that night to hang out. This place, a minshuku, a traditional Japanese guesthouse, would be where we would end up staying the remainder of our trip. A communal experience, a few people would cook each night for all of the guests, who sat (on the ground) around a (low) table in the common room, talking into the wee hours. Given that we were foreigners, these late-night sessions included English lessons, covering a range of topics including proper usage of the phrase “god damn it,” and when it is appropriate to call someone an “asshole.”

The remainder of our time was spent meandering around Zamami and the other islands in the chain, biking, hiking, snorkeling, getting sunburned, and marveling at the fact that in getting away from “it all,” we might have accidentally discovered where “it all” was hiding in the first place.

These guard dogs, called Shisa, are ubiquitous in Okinawan houses, holdovers from the old Ryukyu kingdom. Normally found in pairs, one always has mouth closed, to hold the good spirits of the household inside, the other open, to allow the bad spirits to leave. This one was on top of the minshuku we stayed at.

A Shameless Plug

2008-02-28T19:00:00.000-08:00

I feel a little sheepish posting this, but I hope you'll all forgive the shameless plug, as this is quite exciting for me:

My first published piece!

Thanks to everyone who encouraged me to expand outside the blog!

Back To School

2008-02-28T03:20:00.000-08:00

It was lunchtime when we arrived, five people in two taxis and one via bicycle, at Fuchu Elementary School #10. We were expected, of course, but were welcomed only by shrieking children, each nudging their neighbor, “Hey, get a look at who’s here.”

The “who” – well, “we,” – was the group of students that our university had selected to go to participate in Fuchu Elementary’s International Day: Claire from England, Usu from Cote d’Ivorie, Bibi from China, Samu from Finland, Zare from Brasil and myself, feeling quite unexotic indeed.

As we walked towards the main building, various children gawked, whispered “foreigner” to their friends; a few teachers poked their heads out of classroom windows to say hello and direct us to the principal.

The main entrance to the school was like a regular genkan, the typical entryway to a Japanese home: the floor was a few inches below the floor of the school building, and the walls were lined with hundreds of drawers where the students put their shoes before changing into their classroom slippers. I put on a pair, a few sizes too small, and shuffled over to the principal’s office, where we were seated and offered tea.

The principal’s office was charmingly cluttered. There seemed to be a thin layer of dust on everything. A half-erased chalkboard calendar hung on one wall, flanked by notices and other random-looking papers attached with pushpins. On the other wall, close to the ceiling, hung portraits of the 11 previous principals of the school, ten of whom were business-like men, and one of whom was an absolutely terrifying woman whom I was afraid would materialize at any moment to correct my posture, inform me that my behavior was “unacceptable,” and request a conversation with my parents. Each portrait was angled downward from its point high up on the wall, giving the impression that each principal was watching my every move, looking down at me with disgust and pity. I got the urge apologize for things I hadn’t done. If the pictures were positioned that way as a psychological maneuver to make students afraid of stepping out of line, well… it worked.

All of this in contrast to the current principal, who was so gentle a woman that I feared shaking her hand may crush it. Dressed in a conservative gray frock, she spoke softly and slowly, thanking us for coming because we must be very busy, reiterating how excited the children were to see us. Working in elementary education for 27 years, this was her first post as a principal. Even when speaking about the problems that face elementary school children in Japan (bullying resulting in refusal to go to school, overcrowded classrooms, hyperactive kids [sound familiar?]), she did so with a smile on her face and an attitude that spoke of infinite patience and perseverance. When she cited numbers, she held up as many digits for us to see; for larger numbers, she would extend five fingers on her left hand, in the palm of which she would place the remaining digits from the right hand.

A teacher and a few students came to the door and told us that the performance was about to start. Lead upstairs by an unbelievably nervous boy, who would walk ahead of me, stop, look back to make sure I was still coming, then start walking again before we got too close, we emerged on the roof, where around 120 students were waiting. We sat in front of them; Mt. Fuji was visible behind us, in the hazy distance. One of the students came to the front and, speaking through a megaphone, asked her classmates to be quiet, then welcomed us and said how excited everyone was to learn about our countries.

One by one, the three classes performed songs and dances for us off to the right, as the remaining students in the front row tried to guess which foreigner was from where. Upon their conclusion, each of us was handed the megaphone and asked our opinion of the performances. I can’t quite remember what I said but I do remember being glad that my Japanese teacher wasn’t there to hear it. It appeared that the children were too busy recovering from the shock of seeing foreigners speaking Japanese to care much about my grammar. Thankfully.

The six of us were to go two-by-two to the three different classrooms; I was paired with Samu from Finland, and we were lead to the first classroom by a small group much in the same way I was lead up to the roof, save for one tiny little boy who, in a voice barely over a whisper, and without making any eye contact with me at all, asked me how many people were in my family, how many were boys, and what did I eat at dinner with my family.

My assignment had been to give a presentation about America, but I had been unsure as to what 10-year old Japanese students already knew, or what they wanted to know. I told them about my hometown, about what my elementary school was like, and what I ate for lunch. I asked them what American foods they knew (“Hamburgers!”), what kinds of foods they liked (“Hamburgers!”), and what they thought a normal American student their age ate for lunch (“Hamburgers!”). As for famous American people they knew, their answers, in order of appearance, were, Bush, (they didn’t say which one) Clinton (they didn’t say which one), and Babe Ruth.

When I asked them what other American things they knew, the many of the boys screamed, “Baseball!”

“How about other than baseball?”

Silence.

“Baseball!”

The females of the group asked very good questions, and in general were much better behaved. One girl came up to me afterwards and asked me in all seriousness if I had any children. I did not enjoy this question. Another girl had brought a dreamcatcher her dad had brought back from a business trip to America. I saw her holding it, standing in my general vicinity, eyes towards the ground, looking very nervous. I felt similarly. Getting down to her level, I asked her what it was and if she knew what it was supposed to do. Biting her lip to hold back a smile, I told her that I had had a dreamcatcher when I was younger, too. She relaxed a bit and smiled fully; this melted me.

While preparing for the visit, I thought that the perspective I would gain from going to talk to these kids would be related to my identity as an American, something that I had never thought about fully until I began to feel uncomfortable, why I’m still not sure, claiming it to be “where I’m from.” I was worried about what these children’s image of America would be. Fat? Greedy? Loud? Warmongering? Gun-toting? Would I have to answer questions about the Iraq War, about Hiroshima, about racism?

As it turned out, they really didn’t have much of a well-formed image about America at all. Some had been to Hawaii but did not realize it was part of America. (To be fair, this is probably true of many Americans as well.) It was exactly this that left its mark on me through this experience at the school, and it’s something that I often come upon while traveling. One of the many humbling experiences involved in living abroad is discovering that there is a vast world with no relation to one’s own.

The place I long for and call home, those children had never heard of. The language I speak, they don’t understand. People who have hurt me and those whom I have wronged, who remain in my memory, stubborn and unmoving – those people the children will never meet. It’s an awe-inspiring thing to realize, though it is also at times frightening to think that everything I hold dear and that has contributed to making me who I am are entirely meaningless to nearly the entire world population, save my family and those with whom I am close. With this in mind, it is quite hard to take oneself so seriously as to lose proper perspective, a crime that I’m often guilty of and something that I feel travel is the best cure for.

Back in the principal’s office, the six of us talked again with the principal and some teachers about the visit, and about their students. The conversation came, as it often does, to each of our hometowns. When it was my turn to speak, I told those assembled that I was from San Diego.

One of the teachers’ faces lit up. “San Diego?”

“Yes.”

In English, she said, “San Diego! Blue sky! Freeway!”

As I reflected on this statement as one would a Zen koan, I saw peeking into the room from outside one of the girls from the classes we went to. Meeting her eyes, I smiled and waved softly to her as those around me continued to speak of their home countries. Her eyes widened, and in an instant she was gone. I focused my attention on that spot for the next few seconds, waiting. I couldn’t say why, but I really wanted her to come back.

The Great Pronoun Crisis

2008-02-06T04:06:00.000-08:00

Japanese pronouns are an interesting bunch. In general, spoken Japanese skips over pronouns when the subject is assumed. For example, in English, if you want to say that you ate, you say: "I ate." However, in Japanese, it's usually assumed that you're talking about you, so it's perfectly natural to say "Ate." As a result, subject-less sentences such as "Saw a movie," "Slept well," and "Want to know" are considered complete, since in each it's assumed that the speaker is talking about themselves. It's an economical language in that any unneeded markers are usually dropped. Of course, if you want to talk about your friend, you'd say "[Friend] ate," and so on and so forth.

In addition to this indirect way of speaking that seems quite vague to native English speakers (including myself), it's also a complex and difficult language to learn because speech is highly specified. At a talk by Alfred Birnbaum, a former translator of the popular (and my favorite) author Haruki Murakami, he pointed out this particular difficulty when it came to translating. In Japanese, it is possible, without knowing who is speaking, to deduce gender, age, social status and origin (what part of the country, from the city or a rural area) of the speaker entirely based on the type of speech. In the case of fiction, this is difficult for the translator because a lot of explaining must be done about the characters in English that is implicit and doesn't require extra effort in the Japanese.

This, among other things, is why Japanese can at times seem impossibly entangled in many layers of speech patterns, levels of politeness and styles - why there seem to be 10 different ways to say one thing, each one based on the situation and who's saying it to who.

My reason for writing is because I am going through a grammatical identity crisis. There are about five or six common ways of saying "I," compared to one in English. There's Watashi, the standard, non-gender specific title; Boku, used mainly by males, which has a relaxed, cooly detached tone; Watakushi, used in formal settings; Ore, a gritty, more confrontational term used to assert masculinity (used mainly among teenagers); and Atashi, which is most common with the 18-25 female bracket in a similar way that Boku is popular with males.

Herein lies my identity crisis. In high school I was encouraged to use Boku; in college I was rebuked and told to use Watashi; and now I can't seem to remain either of them for any length of time. I want to be Boku: hip, loose, casual. But since I've been most recently trained to be Watashi, I usually unconsciously use Watashi, which isn't really a problem except that soon after calling myself Watashi, I remember that I actually want to be Boku, and, mid-conversation, at times mid-sentence, leave Watashi by the wayside and become Boku.

I wonder at what point Japanese decide which pronoun to use - if one day they decide "I think I'm done with Boku, let's switch back to Watashi," and never miss a beat from then on, or if it's a more prolonged process, dotted with anachronistic references to a former self. I also wonder what they think of the fact that I can't figure out what to call myself, whether they commiserate with my Multiple Pronoun Disorder, my Grammatical Schizophrenia, and whether the fact that conversations end soon after I make this mistake indicates that it's a more serious problem than I previously thought.

It's Tuesday, It Must Be Kyoto

2008-01-21T02:28:00.001-08:00

Some much belated pictures from my family's visit:

Hakone - a popular hotsprings resort outside of Tokyo. The air was crisp, the winds lively. The closest I've been to pure paradise was sitting in a steaming hot bath outdoors - the extreme warmth underneath and extreme cold on top joined forces, melting away the tension stored in my joints and muscles. There's also a big mountain near there. Perhaps you've heard of it - Fuji.

Hiroshima - I was a bit nervous about Hiroshima. It felt wrong initially, hopping on a street car, camera in hand, going to the spot where my country cause untold amounts of human suffering, so much so that the city's name alone is a synonym for the deadliest of human ingenuities. The A-Bomb dome, a building whose frame survived despite being a few hundred meters below the site of the explosion, was, for locals, just another train stop. If my time there (just 24 hours) proved to me anything at all, I suppose it was that even the remnants of the atomic bomb can become just another tourist attraction with the passing of time.

Kyoto - This was a bit of a homecoming for me. Kyoto is the city where I spent my first weeks in Japan in 2005, so most of the sights reminded me of the time when I became determined to spend my year abroad here. It was as pretty as I remember it to be. Temples, shrines, a quiet walk along the Philosopher's Path, pensive amid a light drizzle.

Kamakura - A former Buddhist stronghold (the atmosphere certainly reinforces it) in 10th century Japan, I decided, visiting with the family, that if I were to move to Japan permanently (very unlikely; just a hypothetical), Kamakura would be where I would like to base myself. Small yet varied; quiet but active; humble without cause.

Coming of Age (Again)

2008-01-21T02:20:00.000-08:00

The national holidays of Japan consist of an odd mix of nationalist (the Emperor’s birthday), religious (Buddha’s birthday), pseudo-pagan (the autumn and spring equinoxes) and kind of cute (Respect for the Elderly Day, popularly known as Old Folks’ Day) observances. Save for New Year’s, I’ve yet to really feel a part in the observance of these holidays (I’m not elderly, or the Emperor, or Buddha), but last Monday’s holiday changed all of that.

The second Monday in January is Coming-of-Age day, where everyone who turned 20 during the preceding year gathers in public spaces and enjoys a ceremony marking their entrance into adulthood. This was very exciting news, because I am 20, and by all accounts there was to be a ceremony at the local city hall for all the 20-year olds in the city. I delicately asked the student affairs director at the university about it, and she managed to push a few buttons and get me an invitation.

Of course, the problem here is that I’ve already had a coming-of-age ceremony – my Bar Mitzvah. Whether or not this disqualified me from coming of age a second time (I didn’t tell anybody, just to be safe), it struck me as odd that two cultures ended up seven years apart in their estimation of when a person becomes an adult, what with a pool of only 20 years to choose from in the first place. Of course, none of this could stop me from donning a shirt and tie for the first time in months, hopping on the bike and riding to my Japanese Bar Mitzvah.

A few points really distinguished this ceremony from my Bar Mitzvah nearly eight years ago. To begin with, in lieu of the synagogue I grew up in, filled with family members and close friends, mostly Jewish, my Japanese coming-of-age took place in an enormous hall filled with about 600 Japanese twenty-year olds and one non-Japanese person (me). Instead of shirts, ties and skirts, the majority crowd was in kimonos and other traditional dress, although a fair number of the males were dressed in suits and had that pan-cultural “If it was up to me, I wouldn’t be wearing this” look on their faces.

The only similarity I could really think of was that at both ceremonies I was constantly being congratulated by old people whom I’d never met before.

As I found a seat, the lights dimmed and the curtain rose, revealing two lines of five seats filled with important people whose exact titles escape me. A few of these people went up to the podium, bowed down to their ankles, and then bowed to each row of people seated on the stage, who bowed from their seats in unison, like a crew team slowly moving forward against a current. They all praised Mitaka (the section of Tokyo I live in), wished everyone a kokoro kara omedetou gozaimasu (heartfelt congratulations) implored us (not me, I deduced) to vote, and passed the microphone to the next speaker. As is usually the case at ceremonies in Japan, the crowd was fairly talkative throughout.

Upon the conclusion of these welcome speeches, two males, probably local high school or college students (they received numerous “woo!”s from the crowd), informed us that we were about to view a performance (the program read “Performance”), so would we please all stop talking and be respectful. The white noise of scattered chatter slowly dissipated into a whisper, and once again the lights dimmed.

As soon as the silence had become whole, a thick baseline erupted from the speakers hanging on either side of the stage, and four youths dressed in matching black tracksuits galloped on stage and began a very specifically choreographed hip-hop dance routine to music containing the only English heard that day (variations on “Let’s dance,” and other passages directed at a girl with whom the singer would prefer to be physically closer). There was much gesticulation and gyration in the direction of the audience, and just to make sure nothing had been lost in translation, I double-checked with the girl sitting next to me (wearing a kimono and hairdo which had taken 3 ½ hours to put together, so she said) that there was indeed no relevant connection between this performance and the rest of the ceremony. After their performance was over, and the group stood in a line breathing heavily and bowing, their leader forwarded us a very formal congratulation from the group and exited stage right.

At about this time my neighbor became interested in my presence (she saw that I had a cell phone), and we exchanged the traditional greetings between a Japanese person and a foreigner (Your Japanese is really good! – No, it’s not – It really is! – It’s really not [when someone compliments you, its considered a little boastful to say “thank you, so you’re supposed to brush away the compliment]), and she told me that she likes Americans and Europeans because they’re tall and have blue eyes (oh, well), and did I know her friend who goes to my school (no). Her friends, sitting behind us, started making fun of her because she was talking to the foreigner. I turned around and introduced myself in Japanese, and they stopped making fun.

In the middle of our fourth or fifth exchange of “Your Japanese Is Really Good – No It’s Not,” the lights dimmed again, this time for a slideshow that went through each year of the attendees lives (1987-2007), showing a one or two pictures that detailed the big events of that particular year, set to cheery pop music. Here’s a sampling:

1995: the Kobe earthquake (6500 killed, $200 billion in damage, a major city uprooted by mother nature); Tokyo Subway Gas Attacks (an act of terror in the public transportation system of the largest city in the world)

1998: Ichiro breaks the Japanese League hits record

2001: World Trade Center attacks

2003: Hideki Matsui comes to play for the Yankees

2007: Billy Blanks*

*(Billy Blanks [of Tae-Bo fame] is HUGE in Japan. Walk into most department stores and you hear his videos being shown in the background. I really really really wish I were making this up. But I’m not.)

I haven’t the data to back this up, but I’m pretty sure that this is the first time that 9/11, Ichiro and Billy Blanks have appeared in the same presentation. Again, my neighbor was unfazed. I was too confused to request an explanation.

To conclude the ceremony, we stood sang Tabidachi no hi ni (On the Day Your Journey Begins), which is to Japanese graduation-type ceremonies what “I Believe I Can Fly” and that “Time of Your Life” song are to American graduation-type ceremonies. The lyrics were printed on the ceremony program, so I tried to sing along a little bit (You read Japanese so well! – No I don’t), and though I lost the tune a few times, I was able to follow.

There, singing together with about 600 complete strangers a song whose meaning I could only feel through the melody, I felt an unusual sense of belonging. Most of the time, I feel adrift in Tokyo – I don’t belong to the Japanese, and the foreign community is, in general, a scattered one. But standing in that hall, lending a voice – nationality indistinguishable - to the group, I felt, however fleetingly, that I was no longer just a visitor; after all the months of viewing their culture from the outside, I had found this hidden avenue to the inside, and, wrapped in the evanescence of melody, nobody seemed to mind letting me in. I wasn’t a foreigner; I felt I was a natural part of the whole.

The feeling lasted just a brief few moments, but that small glimpse of being just one of the crowd was clear enough to convince me that I had arrived at some sort of destination. By no means did I feel like had just begun or finally completed a journey, but somewhere in between confusion and understanding, singing words that I could only vaguely define with people I would never meet again, I came of age in a way that had nothing to do with getting older.

O-matase shimaimashita

2008-01-06T22:39:00.000-08:00

(First, a note on the subject of the post. At any store in Japan, if you are kept waiting for any period of time longer than nothing, before paying for or receiving something you ordered, the clerk or applicable body will say a heartfelt [or sometimes not so heartfelt] o-mataseshimaimashita, which is an untranslatably polite phrase that means, sort of, “I have shamelessly and undeservedly made you wait.” In Japan, a country with, in general, very little sense of irony, this phrase is said at points even when it’s obvious that a) there was no choice but to make someone wait, or b) the time spent waiting was approximately 1.37 seconds. So, because I feel that it’s been far too long since I’ve written, I wanted to say to all of you o-mataseshimaimashita; it won’t happen again.

In an unrelated note, whenever I’m with a Japanese friend and I have to tie my shoe or run back inside to get something, I come back and say to them o-mataseshimaimashita. They are never terribly amused by it, but I think it’s really funny every time. Okay, onto the actual post.)

Besides the obvious, I think that a lot can be learned from a language textbook. Gauging the category of vocabulary learned early on, the examples of discussion and role-play situations, a student can learn not only some new words but, in general, what cultural attitudes and experiences go along with speaking this new language. For example, in the Hebrew textbook I used, the situations given for conversation practice usually included arguing over prices at the local market, telling someone they were crazy, or lamenting the situation of the world-at-large in a uniquely enchanting Israeli way.

The authors of that textbook were correct (in my opinion) that the situations often encountered in Israel, where one will probably end up speaking Hebrew, usually revolve around arguing and passionate displays of emotion and opinion. It makes sense – prepare the students for the real-world situations they’re most likely to experience as speakers of the language.

So I think it’s safe to conclude that the context in which a language is taught provides a lot of implicit information about the culture.

Consider, then, the Japanese language textbook. Almost invariably, the situations described in Japanese textbooks involve a confused foreigner trying to figure out Japanese culture. Almost never are a Japanese and an American talking like normal friends, and almost invisible is the foreign student with a deeper understanding of Japanese culture.

For example, two weeks of class based on an essay written by a Japanese person bemoaning the lack of proper thanks given by an American he took care of. The American thanked him once and not again; the author could not understand how someone could stop after just one thank you. Roles for discussion are often given that include an average Japanese explaining a particular custom to a baffled foreigner, and popular essay topics include how Japan is different from home, what shocked one about Japan upon first arriving, and the difficulties of learning the language.

I know that much of this is out of consideration and politeness, and they certainly don’t have to go out of their way to help foreigners out, but if we compare the Hebrew and Japanese textbook models, it would be hard not to conclude that the expected situation for a student of Japanese in Japan is utter confusion. It certainly seems, based on all of this and my own personal experience, that I’m expected to not have any idea what’s going on around me.

It often feels like this kind of attitude is designed to keep reminding me that I’m an outsider, though I simply need to walk outside for that reminder anyway. The truth is that not much shocked me when I first arrived here – I had been to Japan before, taken a class on Japanese history and read enough Japanese literature to have at least a vague grasp on its collective unconscious. Does this make me an expert? Of course not, but with the world shrinking every moment, few people come to Tokyo without some sort of knowledge of Japan, its history, and its customs.

Yet the image of the confused foreigner continues to be promulgated. This isn’t to say I understand what’s going on – what I don’t get could fill multiple encyclopedia sets – but nearly four months into my time here, I’m ready to shed the image.

In fact, I may have to. This week I’m playing host for the first time – at first to a Japanese friend from Kyoto (I will show him around Tokyo, in a strange twist of roles), and then to my parents and youngest brother. With the job as host comes a certain feeling of ownership of one’s surroundings, and I’m enjoying it even before my visitors come. In the face of the expectation of being overwhelmed, I will show people around, tell them which trains to take, walk to new places without a map, serve as translator, and try to share my love for this incredible city.

The thought has come to me more than once that perhaps it is the locals who are overwhelmed by my presence, and that the confusion they expect me to have is in part their confusion as to where I fit in their society. Many times I feel that, when I go to a place where foreigners aren’t expected to go, the locals don’t know what to do with me. They certainly seemed as baffled, if not more so, than the foreign characters in my textbook.

The other day I went to buy a pillow and sheets for my guest coming on Friday. Outside the store, an older man saw me and said, proudly flaunting his English ability, “Shopping visit?” I answered in Japanese and we had a nice little conversation about where I lived, what I was doing in Tokyo, and other things like that. As we were about to part, he said, smiling and grandfatherly, “Be careful!”*

“But Japan is really safe, isn’t it?” I answered jokingly.

Turning away from me, he mounted his bike. “Be careful,” he said quietly in English, as if to himself.

*I feel I must clarify. The phrase he used is "ki o tsukete," which is kind of a cross between "take care" and "be careful," but I think it can be translated either way. I hope, anyway.

A Week in Hong Kong

2007-12-10T03:23:00.000-08:00

I know that including an entry on Hong Kong kind of damages the accuracy of the title of the page, but I think we’ll all agree that “A Year in Tokyo” is catchier than “A Year in Tokyo [including five days in Hong Kong and a day in Macau],” which for that matter wouldn’t be correct either (half-day in Yokohama, etc etc), but to keep things easy I’ll keep it how it is, although it would not surprise me, given the size of Tokyo, that it extended to Hong Kong in some way or another, if not now then sooner or later.

A little historical context: Hong Kong was an English colony from 1842 until 1997, when a “transfer of its sovereignty,” a kind of purposely vague term, to China occurred. Whole books have been written about why it was transferred (I saw one in the bookstore yesterday), but the end result is that Hong Kong is both part of China and not, and theirs remains a very complicated political relationship. Unlike mainland China (Beijing, etc), a traveler doesn’t need a special visa to enter, as it operates its own immigration policies.

If European capitols are cities of the past, and Tokyo and other big Asian cities hosts to the past and future meeting, then Hong Kong is most definitely a city of the future. The first thing that struck me was how foolproof their transportation system is – it’s nearly impossible to go in the wrong direction. The streets of downtown are connected via a labyrinthine system of overpasses and underground walkways, and each subway station seemed to have so many entrances that it would be harder not to find one than to get lost.

Of course, the main attraction in Hong Kong, is the city-of-the-future look of its skyline, where this incredible system of transport weaves in and out like ivy.

It seemed the entire city was on its way to a meeting with a high-profile client that would push Hong Kong’s economy even further. Well-dressed businessmen dominated the landscape, shoulder to shoulder with both each other, eyes down cell phones open, and wide-eyed tourists trying to find the point at which the skyscrapers ended (they don’t).

The skyscrapers literally had no end – as my dad and I walked further up the central hill on which Hong Kong is built, each building, whether it residential or commercial, rose 40 stories above the ground as if it were no height at all. Closer to the bay, expensive brand names and western-style hotels were the norm, and each corner turned revealed another shopping center with stores familiar to buyers the world over. Further up the hill, Hong Kong’s Chinese side slowly revealed itself – the ubiquitous small restaurant with the roasted duck hanging in the window, red lanterns hanging lazily outside rundown bars, dimly lit fruit and vegetable stalls, and dusty old storefronts selling electronics, souvenirs, and everything else.

In Hong Kong city:

Hong Kong Park

Incense coils and candle at Man-Mo Temple, the oldest in Hong Kong. They celebrate the God of Literature there - needless to say I had to get one. There's a sticker on the bottom that says "Blessed."

Hong Kong Flower Market

Yuen Po Bird Market. This was kind of heartbreaking, seeing all these beautiful birds in cages.

One gets the feeling, exploring downtown Hong Kong, that there is more to the area than that. Hong Kong’s largest island, Lantau, a ferry ride away, revealed rural areas that seemed miles and centuries away from the shiny capitalism of downtown. A long bus ride that seemed to ascend and descend the same mountain every few minutes lead us to Po-Lin Monastery, home to the largest outdoor Buddha in the world (who knew?) and, to my surprise and delight, a vegetarian cafeteria (quite the rarity in Tokyo). It was wonderfully peaceful, and even the presence of a largish bus terminal right in front of the monastery wasn’t enough to diminish the feeling of entering a sacred space.

A 15-minute walk away from the main monastery revealed the Wisdom Path. In the shape of the symbol for infinity, the path is surrounded by 38 halved tree trunks, on which are written passages from the Heart Sutra, a sacred document in Mahāyāna Buddhism.

Our second-to-last day in Hong Kong took us to the very north of the territory. Our destination was the Hong Kong Wetlands Park, a vast nature reserve on the border with China proper. The New Territories, as the area is called (it was the last section of Hong Kong to be incorporated), is home to both half of the population of Hong Kong (about 3.3 million), and new government subsidized housing projects for the built in order to maintain their stability as its likely future economic hope. These housing projects were awe-inspiring. Like downtown, each building was over 40 stories tall, and they literally went on for miles. The buildings were organized into single areas, each of which had a separate name. Each of these areas had their own grocery store, train station (explained later), play areas and other amenities. We saw many kids running about and giving us \ looks (we hardly saw another foreign-looking face).

The reason for this is probably because the Wetlands Park is so far away. We took a commuter railway out to one of the final stops on the line. Each of the stations on this line was nearly empty, spotlessly clean and utterly state-of-the-art. There clearly had been a large movement recently to increase the access of those living out in the New Territories to Hong Kong city. We hopped on what is called the Light Rail, which consisted of one little train filled mostly with young kids, old folks and the like. This train wound its way around all of these monstrous housing projects and stopped near every one.

This area struck a chord in me much more so than the Emerald City-esque city skyline. While exploring that area, I was struck by the feeling that although it seemed all-encompassing, there had to be a segment of the population of Hong Kong whose lives in no way related to the high-stakes business going on downtown. I believe we found it in the New Territories. It wasn’t desolate, nor did it seem crime-ridden or like an inner city at all. It seemed quite organized and the faces I saw did not appear to be those living in dire situations.

For me at least, what was overwhelming was seeing this endless skyline of apartment buildings and trying to picture the mass of people who lived there. Thousands of people living here, in such close quarters, in identical buildings in a community that looked exactly the same as the one next to it. It was humbling and made me feel quite small, especially since in the background of any view in the wetland park (which was quite beautiful), these buildings dominated the view. I doubted those who looked at the park from their small rooms on the 34th floor of a nameless building cared how many acres they had saved, or how many birds could now fly free.

The view looking south...

and the view looking north.

A common side trip for visitors to Hong Kong is to the nearby dependency of Macau. Macau was a colony of Portugal but, like Hong Kong, its sovereignty was transferred to China in the late 90s. It remains capitalistic, but unlike Hong Kong, it exuded a more provincial, laid-back feel. Although newly built-up sections of Macau are becoming indistinguishable from Las Vegas and other gambling hotspots, in the old sections colorful old colonial buildings dotted the landscape in between dilapidating apartment buildings and shops selling second- and third-hand goods.

From a chapel crowning the highest point on Macau, we peered at China proper lurking mysteriously in the distance, and walked around the small peninsula on the withered cobblestone walkway. Away from the glitz of the casinos and central tourist areas, Macau seemed tired. Our last stop, the A-Ma Temple, was a fog of incense that acted as a veil, an Oriental fog that clung to the skin like a sweet memory. Wrapped in dust, the sun set.

All of the street signs were in both Portugese and Cantonese. I took 7,000 pictures of them.

The Ruins of St. John's church, from the 16th century sometime, an important site for Asian Christians.

Colonial colors and styles.

A-Ma Temple

As is my tendency even when the occasion doesn’t call for it, I attempted to place my trip to Hong Kong in the context of my greater year abroad. Aside from the actual sightseeing, eating (the food, Chinese and otherwise, was fantastic) and photography, all of which opportunities were better than I could have hoped, this trip to me served as an extended meditation on the meaning of “home.”

Waiting for the elevator in the hotel one morning, a Japanese woman noticed that I was only wearing a t-shirt and, rubbing her arms to make the universal symbol for cold, asked me in Japanese if I wasn’t cold? I responded to her, No no, I’m fine, and she nearly fell over with surprise that I spoke the language.

Why is this relevant? This has never happened to me in Tokyo, that a random Japanese has talked to me in such a harmless manner. She undoubtedly talked to me because, in her mind, there was no way I could respond – in the same way that people sometimes tell deep secrets to people they have met once and will never meet again, secrets they haven’t told even their closest confidants.

Being out of one’s element is both a scary and liberating experience, and I suppose that I’ve gotten used to having that duality in my everyday life. In Hong Kong, when I looked at a menu in English for the first time in months, I felt like I was cheating on an important test. The ease with which I read all the signs in English unnerved me – I actually longed for the challenge of having very little available in English, and for the feeling of accomplishment that wells up inside me when I learn a certain word and can finally understand a sign I’ve seen so many times before.

As I walked through the airport back in Tokyo, I felt once again at home, but in a different sense than I would have expected. I count four cities in which I’ve lived in the past seven months, so I suppose I’m used to uprooting myself as of late. Although Japan is still a riddle I’ve yet to solve, I’ve realized that I’ve become comfortable not knowing the answer. I’m never going to “look” like I belong in Tokyo, but if that had been the goal in the first place, I wouldn’t have felt so wonderful when, upon returning home, I saw that my apartment was just the way I had left it.

Odds & Ends

2007-11-22T04:01:00.002-08:00

My bike was impounded yesterday. I suppose it had to happen sometime, law of averages and everything. I was really steaming mad, too - I had parked where I parked almost every time I came to the station. Why this time? Why???

To get from the south side (my side) of the station to the north side requires (I am not exaggerating here) taking five sets of stairs. This didn't improve my mood, but between the third and fourth I saw a man and a woman staring out the window. "You can see Mt. Fuji!" they told another person. I took a look myself.

Against the primal red of the setting sun, one could see the graceful silhouette of Mt. Fuji, the sun sinking behind it like a pebble in the ocean. The perfection of the slopes leading to Fuji's peak could be seen even from where we were, many miles away.

Mad as I pretended to be, seeing something so utterly magnificent (there's no other way to describe it) puts the impounded bike in enough perspective to float a tanker on.

But still... WHY ME??? I marched over to the impounded bike lot (quite far, considering most people going there don't, uh...have bikes). A kindly old man in a uniform fit for a submarine commander asked me when my bike had been taken, and had me pick it out of a bicycle lineup as if I were some kind of important eye-witness. He told me in very grandfatherly Japanese that I should really be careful, Wednesday mornings they clean the streets and I can't park there and will I be alright going home at this hour when it's already dark?

The man behind the counter, another older man (every bicycle parking attendant is between 75 and 85 and wears a hat) asked me if it's alright if I pay the fine ($25) and then gave me a receipt (?) and a packet of tissues with a cartoon on the cover depicting three people yelling out "Dang!" "My bike was taken!" and "I didn't know!" respectively. How could anyone possibly still be mad after that?

But still...

Last of the Autumn Leaves at School

Yokohama

My main activity Wednesday, other than getting my bike back (grrr) was a day trip to Yokohama, Japan's second largest city which is actually really for all intents and purposes an extension of Tokyo. It was a gorgeous day and I felt the travel juices flowing within me.

I learned before going that Yokohama is a sister city of San Diego, which made me very excited indeed. Not that I expected preferential treatment or anything.

I'm not sure if all sister cities are like this, but the areas of Yokohama I explored really did remind me of my hometown. Yokohama is a harbor town but also a bustling convention center. I explored harbor-side parks overlooking spectacular bridges and walked along a gorgeous autumnally colored avenue lined with old hotels modestly hiding their vintage interiors.

Yokohama is also home to Japan's largest Chinatown, where I heard some Chinese spoken and saw many tourists (Whether this title applies to me is debatable. You can guess which side I take.). Climbing a nearby hill, I saw the foreign cemetery (Yokohama was a very popular residential area for foreign dignitaries), and some small French-type bakeries and cake shops. It was Wednesday morning and the pace of life was slow; it was a leisurely stroll to Tokyo's constant sprint.

The unexpected highlight of the day, however, came on the long boardwalk that follows the harbor. A group of elementary school students were behind me, and I heard a few little girls commenting on the foreigner that was walking in front of them. I turned around to give them a quick look. "He looked at you!" one of them squealed.

I waited a few more moments before turning around again and playfully saying "I can understand what you're saying, you know." I walked away too quickly to take in their faces, but what I heard was a fit of giggling that would have surely sunk any of the old ships in the harbor.

I'm headed to Hong Kong on Tuesday to meet my dad (!) and won't be back until December (!!), so until then：じゃあまた。

Still can't actually believe this happened...

2007-11-22T04:00:00.000-08:00

I have a friend named Zare (short for Cesare). He is 27 and from
Brazil, and he is innately cool in a way that makes me feel
genetically inferior. Come to think of it, certain countries just seem
to have a knack for producing such people. Australia comes to mind,
for example.

In any case, I was at a museum with Zare on Saturday when a young
Japanese woman came up to him and asked if he was the Zare, from TV?
You see, Zare is on TV. He doesn't like to gloat about it, but he is.
Yes, he said. It's me. The woman told him how much she enjoyed his
comments on the show, and asked for a preview of the next show, to
which he obliged. All I could do was shake my head – that would never
happen to me. If only I was Brazilian…

Not 24 hours later, I was biking to my favorite Indian restaurant in
town for dinner, when I get a call from Zare. A hint of urgency
flavors his usual accent, which sounds like his native Portugese (an
intoxicatingly beautiful language to listen to) taking his English
salsa dancing. "David – I'm at the TV studio. We need other gaijin
(foreigners). Can you make it here by 5:30?"

On the trip there, which takes about an hour, I am on and off the
phone with the show's producer, telling me where to go, what taxi to
take, and mentioning multiple times that they'll pay for my cab.
OK!

I take a cab from Tamata station to Keio University, where NHK (the
government-run television station of Japan) has a small studio. The
producer is waiting for me at the front gate, nearly jumping into the
taxi in order to get things moving quicker. "This your friend?" the
driver asks. "Um," I say.

Wearing a worn forest green hoodless sweater, his hair is unkempt, as
if he had been running his fingers through it nervously for hours.
"Have you ever seen the show?"
"Um," I say.
This was not the correct answer.
"Can you write your major study in Japanese?"
"Yes."
"You're American?"
"Yes."
We go up and down a few elevators. Someone hands me a name card with
my name and nationality in Japanese flanked by a mini American flag.
"Put this on."
"OK."

This might be a good time to mention that I have NO idea what kind of
show this is. I am shown to a room full of wrapped sandwiches and a
big board with a messy schedule written on it. Peeking through the
glass doors, I see the studio.

The show is called "Cool Japan."
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtwD9ri_sDA) Hosted by a comedian, a
professor and a very attractive, very non-Japanese looking lady, Cool
Japan brings 50 foreigners into a room along with some Japanese
college students. Each show has a different theme on the topic of
Japan, and videos and speakers are shown and heard, and the foreigners
are asked (In Japanese. Everyone is given a mini radio that has a
simultaneous translation heard through an earphone) whether they think
the given topic is "cool or not cool." Or, in Japanese, "koo-roo o-ru
notto koo-roo?" There are a number of votes throughout the show.

The producer came over and tapped my shoulder. "You're going to be
famous," he whispered.
"Um."
Waiting with a French student who smells of cigarettes to go on set,
I come to the following conclusion: "What the hell am I doing here?"
Before adequate time was given to answer this, I was taken on the set
to sit down next to my French companion, who did nothing to improve
the French stereotype I carry.

This show's topic, apparently, was about college and job-finding. I
found most of the material presented notto koo-roo. Participants are
encouraged to stand up and talk about how whatever is talked about is
different in their country, but as I have a hard enough time
generalizing people in one city, and many other Americans had no
problem lumping all of America into one convenient package, I kept
quiet.
The taping went on for a good while. I still didn't really believe
what was happening. I yawned. Someone said that if you leave something
on a bench in America it will be stolen within 5 minutes. A guy from
Greece talked about Japanese architecture. I looked at the host. No
way she's Japanese. But she speaks perfectly…
After the taping finished and they took my picture (for the
tabloids…?) one of the producers came up to thank me. "You did really
well!"
"But I just sat there and said nothing."
There's no business like it.

Yasukuni, Asakusa, Shimo-Kitazawa. Oh my.

2007-11-10T05:22:00.000-08:00

At the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. The shrine houses, according to Shinto practice, all of those who have died in the name of the Emperor (read: Kamikaze pilots, those who organized the Rape of Nanking, Unit 731 and the Comfort women, etc etc). Former Prime Minister Koizumi angered China and Korea by visiting the shrine numerous times. The shrine museum's version of history, especially of World War II, can be most politely described as "creative."

A festival in Asakusa, one of the older, more traditional parts of Tokyo (it was the center of everything back when Tokyo was called Edo), whose theme escapes me.

Shimo-kitazawa is a very "hip" area that survived (for the most part) the rapid development of the rest of the city, by which I mean that its a collection of alleyways with no major roads or tall buildings, and just a few chain stores (There was a Starbucks. I pretended not to see.).

One of the main reasons for my trip there was to find the quintessential Jazzkissa, or Jazz Cafe (kissa is short for kissaten [key-sa-ten], which means coffee shop) in Tokyo. Jazzkissas are places to sit quietly, read a magazine or a light novel, drink sour, slightly overpriced coffee, and listen to jazz records (sometimes CDs, mostly vinyl) for hours and hours. They're all independent places, and they're all about the atmosphere.

Well, for me, this sounded like heaven, so online I went to find out more. By all accounts, the best preserved Jazzkissa, that is, from their heyday in the 60s and 70s, is in Shimo-Kitazawa, a little place tucked away on a side street called Masako. Many others have gone out of business, or presumably become soulless Starbucks.

Masako was as advertised, down to the taste of the drink (I had milk tea, possibly for the last time). The lights were dim, the music soft enough to relax to but loud enough to declare that this particular cafe is about listening and not talking. It might have been Lou Donaldson playing when I walked in, but I wasn't sure.

Forcing myself to finish my milk tea, I finished the Kawabata Yasunari novel I had brought with me and looked at all the old jazz-themed posters on the wall. Two guys with long hair and tight black jeans who had come in with guitar bags smoked cigarettes in the corner, talking quietly. A man, his teacup empty, looked asleep. Ella Fitzgerald's voice filled the room with soul, lingered for a moment, and evaporated. Someone coughed, and I got up to pay the bill.

Masako

Two Mountains

2007-10-25T04:39:00.000-07:00

I love waking up early.

Maybe I should rephrase that - I love getting up early for a reason. Especially if that reason has to do with (a) travel, or (b) doing something outdoorsy.

Luckily for me, Sunday brought the opportunity to do both. I read an advertisement from a club called the "Wondervogels," (Loyal readers of the blog will note that the theme of odd-sounding names with unclear origins pushes on as strong as ever*), inviting international students on a hiking trip to Okutama, which is the far west part of Tokyo Prefecture. Okutama has about as much in common with Tokyo city as Cooperstown has with New York City, to give you an idea of the vastness of Tokyo Prefecture.

Anyway, to back track for a second, I have heard many times that (the) Mt. Fuji was visible from a number of places in West Tokyo, but I had yet to see it and had passed it off as just a way to make the area seem more interesting.

Early Sunday morning, however, was as clear a day as I had seen in Tokyo, and riding the train out west to Okutama, I noticed a distant and beautiful mountain range surrounding the suburbs which I had yet to see in nearly 2 months of being here. My Japanese friend, after teaching me the word for mountain range, calmly pointed out to me that you could see Mt. Fuji as well.

"MT FUJI?!" I gasped. The Mt. Fuji?

As it turns out, one could see Fuji bright and clear from this normal suburban train that I had taken not a few times. It was in the far distance but one could sense its calm presence even in our airconditioned little compartment.

But more on this later.

Meeting up with the rest of the group in Tachikawa, the last major stop in Western Tokyo, we set out on a slow-moving train to Okutama, the last stop on the Japan Railways East line. I talked to two Japanese students who had been to Israel (seriously), watching as the concrete melange of Tokyo slowly faded into mountains of pine trees, deserted wooden train stations and lonely hilltop houses. One could sense the tension in the air of Tokyo releasing and melting away.

Disembarking at a one-room train station with a number of other climbers, our group leader Yuta-kun told us our climbing order (which we never actually climbed in) and lead us up a paved road to the entrance of Mt. Honita, our challenge for the day.

The mountain was steep - no doubting that. To be honest, I wasn't prepared for the type of hike it turned out to be. Not that I'm a hiker anyway. But our Japanese leaders were as prepared as the most decorated boy scout in town.

I alternated between hiking partners, discussing the difficulties of translating Japanese to English and vice-versa (My Japanese friend from early told me on the way up that someone had asked him "How are you?" and he had no idea how to respond. The phrase simply doesn't exist in Japanese. Even the idea of asking "how" something is doesn't really exist. I taught him to say "I'm fine, how are you?" even in situations in which he is not fine. My only suitable explanation for this was that it's just the way you do it. Not sure I'm going to be an English teacher any time soon.)

After about two and a half hours we reached the summit, where predictably older folks who have a considerable edge on me in the category of years lived sat calmly eating a picnic lunch while I wiped the oceanic amount of sweat from my brow with a bath towel. Japanese old people are superhuman. There's no other explanation. Must be something in the rice.

Anyway, as previously reported, Mt. Fuji was indeed visible from sea level. To my great surprise and delight, however, the top of Mt. Honita offered quite a more dramatic view:

The peak of Mt. Fuji, rising up from the clouds blocking the view of the onlookers below. I cannot describe the feeling this gave me. The mountain was understated, tranquil and beautiful in a very "Japanese" way. I felt peaceful simply looking at it. True, I did not climb it, but to have this privileged view of the peak gave the feeling of having arrived, not in the physical sense but, if you'll allow the mountain to be used as a totally unimaginative metaphor, having overcome some initial obstacles to not just be in Japan to be Living in Japan. I took approximately 2,000 pictures of Fuji, drank in the view some more, and returned to my group.

Often in Japan, one will be engaged in an activity that reminds one of something at home, only to be surprised at the end by a turn of events that seemingly has nothing to do with what had been going on before.

The leaders of the group had brought out portable gas burners, put some pots on top and...made cheese fondue. Oh yes, America. I had cheese fondue on top of a mountain. Before I had ever had it when not on a mountain.

I would suggest not thinking about it for too long. Your head might hurt.

We shuffled down the mountain, using the mountaineering technique known as stuffing your toes into the front of your shoes as you slide down hoping not to slip and fall into a tree, which were plentiful:

One of the down sides of waking up that early, however, was that after I made it back to my train stop, I stood in front of the huge bike parking lot with absolutely no recollection of where I had parked my bike. 15 minutes later...

The next day the group leaders e-mailed me to thank me for coming. Why they were thanking me I do not know. Unfortunately, compared to down here on the ground, the view from the top of that mountain made it a lot easier to find things lost in translation.

*Actually, it's not totally random: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wandervogel . But its still pretty random. (Thanks Judy)

Not-So-Secret Gardens

2007-10-24T02:25:00.000-07:00

Part of the fun of Tokyo is the little nooks and crannies that make the traveler forget that they are in a massive, mostly concrete, metropolis of some untold millions of people.

This last weekend, in my pursuit to make it to as many different areas of Tokyo as possible (I've given up on thinking I can get to all of them - it's too big) I went to Meguro, a quiet, up-scale suburb in central Tokyo and home to two oases of nature that are unfortunately rare in this city.

The first garden was formerly the home of Prince Asaka. I'm sure you all remember who he was, so I'll skip the biography, but in short, after his death the park became "public," the $1 entry fee notwithstanding. There's also a French Art Deco house of his on the grounds which serves as a museum of sorts, but my goal for the day was to spend as much time surrounded by green as possible.

The garden was split into three sections, and indeed had a very European feel. On the main lawn of the garden, a young man and woman sat on a blanket and ate snacks from a wicker basket, a father chased after his ecstatic children, and others simply sat with well-worn books, enjoying the soft early autumn sunlight.

Wandering into the western section of the garden, another lawn opened up, dotted with tables and chairs and home to about a dozen amateur artists, mostly senior citizens, calmly painting the garden around them. I walked around, sneaking looks behind their backs as they meticulously added laborious strokes here and there, languidly gazing at the scene they were attempting to recreate. Every once in a while an older woman would walk by, gravel crunching under her feet, to offer a handful of snacks to the painters. It was bucolic to say the least - despite the distant rattle of trucks passing on the street, the main background music consisted of the airy songs of birds.

Moving on, I came to the Japanese garden, complete with a small bridge arched over the murky coi pond like the spine of a threatened cat, a tea house hidden in the bushes, and an enigmatic woman staring into the schisms opened up in one's existence that are only visible in such tranquility. I took a slow-paced walk around the pond, looking for my own such windows. A dragonfly flew over my head, causing me to jump. I hope nobody saw; such was the mood.

Teien Gardens

Luckily for me, right next door is the (say it with me now) Shizenkyoikuen (National Science Museum's Institute for Nature Study). The (let's just call it the) park is a large expanse of land held over from the days before Tokyo was an urban jungle. Upon entering, you get one of 300 ribbons to pin on your shirt, as only that amount are allowed in at one time. Not that space is at a premium - it took me a good hour to saunter around all the paths. Accompanying almost every tree was a little sign stating the species name; signs also stated that one shouldn't pick up the little acorns on the ground, for they are for the animals who also live there. Men with very large cameras walked around with a purpose, and old friends slowly made their way, sharing long held-back stories. It was that kind of place.

Despite the presence of untold amounts of spiders (I hate spiders), I was able to relax in this environment. I took a seat on a bench and watched ripples of water form and disappear in front of an old wooden bridge. Behind me I could hear the grind of gravel under the wheels of a stroller. A butterfly flew in front of my eyes. Again, the sense of tranquility heightened my sense of place, though my surroundings in this place were the opposite of the well-manicured Japanese garden.

I walked across the bridge and around a small pathway with flowers on either side, making sure my feet landed on the withered stepping stones. I saw an enormous spider and nearly fell over. Leaving the grounds back into manic Tokyo, I thought about silence.

Shizenkyoikuen

Housekeeping

2007-10-18T23:29:00.001-07:00

Just a quick update with some pictures.

Something I forgot to mention was the address system here in Japan. While my apartment is on a relatively large and busy street, my home address actually doesn't include the street. In fact, only the largest of streets in Tokyo have any names at all. That's correct, most streets don't have names. They're just "street."

So, you might ask, how in the world are you supposed to find anything if the streets have no names? In general, any unfamiliar location one might be tempted to go to comes with a map from those who live there. That, or you go by monuments such as "the 7-11" (they're everywhere), or a school, or something.

So what IS my address?

Tokyo-to, Mitaka-shi, Jindaiji 3-10-3 Angelique 205

I realize this may as well be in hieroglyphics. It kind of still seems like that to me.

In actuality, while Western world addresses generally go from the most specific location to the least (Street address, street name, city, state, country), Japanese addresses go the other direction (the address starts with the most general address [in this case, Tokyo] and ends with the most specific location).

Further, because there are no street names, cities are cut up into blocks. For example, its as if Manhattan's streets did not have their convenient numbered grid, but was officially split up into Upper West, Columbus Circle, Lower East Side, etc, and each of those divisions had subdivisions by location, which would then be divided once more into blocks.

If you need a break, go ahead and take it.

SO

My address (Tokyo-to, Mitaka-shi, Jindaiji 3-10-3 Angelique 205), translated, means:

I live the third building of the 10th block of the third section of Jindaiji, which is in Mitaka city, which is in Tokyo prefecture. My building's name, as previously reported, is Angelique, and I live in room number 205.

Exhale.

So, in conclusion, the only thing more difficult than acquiring this apartment is actually finding it. I think I'll just meet visitors at the train station.

I spent last Saturday in Ueno Park, which is where many of Tokyo's finest museums are, along with a plethora of shrines and temples and where the largest cherry blossom viewing parties are (more on that this spring), and also Asakusa, a famous Tokyo shrine that's a favorite of tourists and locals alike. Yesterday afternoon I went to nearby Inokashira Park, one of the loveliest natural enclaves in Tokyo.

Ueno:

Asakusa:

Inokashira Park:

House Work

2007-10-14T00:21:00.001-07:00

I was first driven towards finding a new place to call home when I had more and more trouble sleeping at the dorm I was placed in. Yes, it was the commuter train coming by every few minutes, but it was also the noise of the other people staying there. My room was not a few feet from the bathroom, and the Japanese youth seem to have a habit of clearing their throats so loudly that for a while I was afraid they had accidentally swallowed something alive that was trying very hard to get back out. This was a problem because the amount of time and energy spent simply getting to school should have been enough to knock me out come dusk.

So it was that I was introduced to the army of women working at Pitatto House, a real estate company with bright green offices all over western Tokyo. I went in originally just to look at a few places, and one of the ladies (who spoke no English) showed me around two apartment buildings, both of which were a short walk from school. I immediately liked one of them (the rooms), and told them such the next week.

Thus I entered a process that I'd really prefer not to go through again. Japan is bureaucratic enough as it is (I had to register my bike with the city after I bought it), but the process of finding a place to live was quite remarkable in the amount of paperwork and trips to government offices I made. The following is an abridged list:

Approximately 35 trips to the Citibank ATM to take out enough to pay all the fees in advance (they wanted it in cash!)

Mitaka city office to change the address on my alien registration ID (I'm an alien) and to apply for National Health Insurance in Mitaka

2 Trips to the post office for two different kinds of insurance

5 trips to the student affairs office because they're concerned with my affairs

3 trips to the Japanese bank to open an account (the first I didn't have the correct paperwork, the second they were closed [The lady told me they would be open that day. Alas.], and the third to finally open an account) through which I would pay rent, despite the fact that the first months' rent was in cash. (Don't ask. I don't know.)

Of course, I still had all my stuff at the dorm, which is about a 45 minute journey, so I made a bunch of those as well.

Was it worth it? Absolutely. My Japanese improved significantly, I think, as most of this process was not in English. Vocabulary involving rent, delivering of appliances, bank accounts and furniture have been stored pretty tightly in my head. So if you're ever in the market for a place in Tokyo...

Of course, this left me with an empty apartment. Japanese apartments generally come unfurnished, and when they say unfurnished, they mean no stove, no fridge, no nothing. Totally bare, save the necessary facilities which would have been very difficult to buy (shower, etc).

This then required numerous NUMEROUS trips to local warehouses such as the ironically named J-Mart, and another store that is very popular called "Don Quixote." Again, I don't know why. I also learned that it's a very very bad idea to try to carry a box containing a bookshelf on a bike for more than a mile. On the first day I had my bike. Of course, I repeated this mistake another two times carrying similarly heavy and bulky items, and although I was concentrating on not falling over, I could swear I heard onlookers expressing their confusion as to why an American was on a bike carrying large items that would be much more easily transported on a bus. I guess I'm wondering that now, too.

In any case, after two weeks of organizing, purchasing, and re-organizing, and with absolutely no background in interior design, here's what I came up with:

Sleeping on the floor (not ON the floor but close enough to the floor [on a futon] that it's correct to say on the floor) definitely took (is taking) some getting used to, but in general I love it here. It's also an item in my contract that I cannot wear my shoes inside, so I get this little area for my shoes.

I realize this is probably the most boring picture I've ever taken, but in terms of cultural comparison I think it's necessary. Thanks for bearing with me.

Of course, one of the nicest things (they're all nice, really) about living here is the proximity to school. To give you a visual picture of what I mean, let's have a look at what I had to look at on my way to school before the move and after the move.

Before:

After:

That's the entryway to ICU. Not bad, not bad.

Museum Day

2007-09-29T17:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was one of those gloomy-type days, where even if it stopped raining it wasn't worth going to any of Tokyo's outdoor sights because it would look like it was just pulled from the washing machine. So, I decided to check out a few of Tokyo's myriad museums.

The day started at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, where I saw an odd-looking exhibit on seasons. Many of the pictures were of random things and were (artistically, I suppose) out of focus, and for a moment made me wonder why I've been wasting my time taking pictures in focus. Then I realized that's kind of counterproductive and decided I would indeed continue to take pictures in focus.

Ebisu, where the photography museum is, happens to also be the home of the Yebisu Beer Museum. This museum is on the location of the original Sapporo brewery, kind of the heart of the beginning of the Japanese beer indistruy, which, if you have a look around on a Friday night, is doing quite well. The entrance to the museum was guarded by two novelty-sized beer cans.

In the middle of the museum, which was set up with a kind of rotunda in thie middle and exhibits all around, was somebody playing the piano gently. Let me just say there is nothing like learning about the beer-making process while listening to renditions of "Beauty and the Beast" and "Somewhere over the Rainbow." It adds to the experience in a way I could not have anticipated.

They also had a little show about the purity of Sapporo beer. This was one of those deals where it's a solid set, but computer images of actors are portrayed on it. This is how the story went:

The setting: a cheerful morning in Any-prefecture, Japan. A suspended Sapporo bottle pours cyber-beer into a glass, the golden hue as pure as the light of the sun. Suddenly, we see a fairy-looking creature rise up out of the glass holding the beer. Out walks a King of some kind (maybe bakufu?), clearly in need of a cold one. The fairy encourages the King to try some of the beer that she just flew out of (sanitary?). He tries some and it is delicious.

However, at this point, a bad guy shows up on the other side of the stage. He waves a magic wand and using voodoo makes the beer disappear!

At this point, I'd like to point out, a 5-year old girl has leaned up against the glass, staring intently at the action.

The bad guy then fills his own glass with what looks like water, which then becomes fire, and then acid, and then somehow turns it into beer. The King is invited over to try it, and he does, and it makes him physically sick.

All of the sudden, then, a Sapporo brewer comes out on the other side. He then begins to go through the beer-making process with the audience (me and 5-year old girl), and we see the contrast between brewing the natural, Sapporo way, and the voodoo heeby-jeeby way of the bad guy (who looks like some sort of devil creature one might see at a Chinese New Year parade).

The King, still recovering from the taste of the voodoo beer, tastes this regular beer, which has once again been poured from the suspended Sapporo bottle, says its delicious, and has a big smile on his face. The bad guy disappears, the fairy returns to her post inside the glass of beer, and it's over.

"Tales as old as time,
rising from the east..."

I made my way over to the gift shop then, where the following items were for sale:

Beer soap
Beer candy
Beer chocolate
Beer jelly (?)
Beer crackers
Beer t-shirts
Beer soy beans
Rice made with hops (I think. One of the ladies working there [it was all ladies] handed me a sample cup of rice, and I asked if it was beer rice, and she said no, and maybe then said the word for hops, but I do not know the word for hops)
The only thing not for sale at the gift shop?

Beer.

(To be fair, there was a tasting lounge, but still.)

Besides all that, I'm all set to move into my new apartment starting Monday, but it will take a few days to get all my stuff there. Surely that will warrant a post or two (with pictures), so please keep reading.

Kamakura

2007-09-25T05:30:00.000-07:00

This weekend, in addition to being Yom Kippur, was also my first opportunity to get out of this enormous city and into the countryside. Kamakura was the capital of Japan in the 1200s, and as such is home to many famous and beautiful temples, an enormous Buddha, and the first ocean that I have seen since my arrival (I'm used to using the ocean to give myself a sense of place, geographically and metaphysically speaking, so the three weeks I went without seeing it left me a little lost as to where I really was).

Luckily it was not all exchange students on the trip, and I had the opportunity to converse at length with a few Japanese students about life, college, the differences between America and Japan, and various other things including what they knew about Jews. (In Japanese. My head hurt after a while. I also ended up explaining to them why immigration from Mexico was such a complicated issue. In Japanese. I had to take a half an hour nap afterwards or I would have collapsed.) One girl told me she spent a year in a town in Missouri three hours outside of St. Louis. I apologized accordingly.

The latter was something I was especially interested in since I had just spent two consecutive days at the JCC Tokyo. The Japanese I talked to had little interaction with Jews, and when I asked what their image of Jews were, they said things like diligent, honest and intelligent. Not bad, not bad. One girl said that I looked like Elijah Wood from the movie version of "Everything is Illuminated," which is apparently translated into Japanese. Her mother had read it and had become interested in Jews and Israel.

By the way, I've been told that I look like Elijah Wood on two separate occasions, although on one of those occasions the individual bypassed Elijah and simply said I looked like Frodo.

But anyway, it was a holiday weekend in Japan (The autumn equinox gets its own holiday. O.k.), so it was crowded, despite the gray weather. Kamakura is very popular with Tokyoites as a day trip.

As soon as we got off of the train, I separated myself from the group of about 25 and went to check out the main attraction in central Kamakura, the Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine (built 1063). Once again I happened upon a wedding, which had a 3-piece band, adorned in purple costume, playing oddly-shaped and even odder-sounding bamboo flutes:

Some other shots from the shrine:

From there we took the creaking old half-trolley half-train to Hase, home to the Daibutsu (Big Buddha), where there was an enormous Buddha:

Me & Buddha

Buddha w/o me.

Noticing that there was indeed a beach in the area, I negotiated with the trip leader to allow me to leave the Big Buddha to it's sitting around and thinking and to go look at the ocean. It was permitted.

The beach was rather dirty and smelled of rotting wood. It was no Okinawa. It was no Moonlight for that matter (Encinitas reference. Sorry east coasters). But as I said above, I really did just need to see it. Just looking reminds me of my location; there is the ocean...here is me. There's the water, here's the land. I can picture on the map exactly where I am - the border between green and blue. Although I'd never attempt it, it makes the world seem a lot smaller when I'm reminded that I could throw off my backpack, untie my shoes, start swimming, and eventually end up back in America, or Canada, or anywhere.

Some sand made its way into my shoes, and although I itched the entire way home, I was thankful for the reminder that there is more than phone lines connecting me with home.

2007-09-22T01:07:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to stick my head in for a moment, since it's been a week since I've written anything.

I should be in my apartment by October, which is very exciting indeed. On Monday I'm going to Kamakura, a small town on the ocean (it's been too long since i've seen a body of water not involving a spilled bottle of tea).

And of course, it is Yom Kippur, and I went to go both Kol Nidre and the morning services at the JCC of Tokyo (a.k.a the Jewish Community of Japan), and clearly there's a ton to write about that experience, but I'm hoping to make it into more of a formal essay than a blog post, so it's going to take a little while. But know that it was very very interesting and that there'll be some sort of final product based on that whole experience.

Out to the Ballgame

2007-09-14T18:31:00.001-07:00

Well, it finally happened. Something that I've been wishing to do for a long time now, and I finally got the chance to do it. And my God, was it worth it.

I was able to attend a Japanese League Baseball game on Thursday night - the Yakult Swallows vs the Yomiuri Giants, Meiji Jingu Stadium. There's so much to write about and so many interesting contrasts in terms of this game versus the countless American games I've gone to, as well as the differences in just plain old baseball.

To start out, unlike American baseball, most Japanese teams are sponsored. Both the Swallows and the Giants are based in Tokyo, but are not called as such - Yakult is a dairy company, and Yomiuri is an enormous newspaper company, and they fund the teams, so the names reflect as such.

Jerich and I got there a little early and got outfield unreserved tickets for about $12, and as soon as we walked in the first amazing thing occured to us: They had Japanese food for sale! The concession stands' menus consisted of udon and soba noodles, curry rice, yakitori (chicken skewers), sushi (of course), and edamame (!). There were also smatterings of popcorn, etc, but it was the exception and not the rule.

We got dinner and took our seats amongst the salarymen, who were putting their Swallows jerseys on over their work clothes. Not a bad way to end the work day, I'd say.

The stadium:

The stadium itself wasn't much to look at. It's actually on the grounds of the Meiji Shrine, attended the weekend before. Meiji Jingu actually means Meiji Shrine. But in any case, it was kind of an old-style stadium, the outfield wall a simple arc, and the field artificial turf that is all but old-fashioned in American sports. We were seated in the outfield with the Swallows fans, and across the way on the other side of the outfield were the Giants fans. The Giants are kind of the Yankees of the Japanese league, and their fans were loud and proud and very coordinated (explained later).

Cheering:
This turned out to be one of the most interesting parts of the game. The method of cheering is much more like that of a soccer match - there were innumerable chants for the Swallows, and all the fans seemed to know every word. There were even hired cheerleader types who waved behemoth flags around and played trumpet to the tune of the said cheers.

Each player seemed to have his own cheer designated to him, so that when he was up to bat thousands of people serenaded him. Imagine doing your job with 7,000 people singing to you. Not easy. By far the most popular player appeared to be a guy named Aoki - at least half of the jersey-wearing fans were wearing his name and number. He had a particularly rousing song for him.

The funniest song by far was for Aaron Guiel, who is Canadian, the only North American player in the Swallows' lineup (There was a Venezuelan player, who, when he came up, would be greeted by the waving of an ENORMOUS Venezuelan flag right near where we were sitting. It looked so amazingly bizarre. It really made me wonder if he would be this welcome if he didn't play baseball well. But anyway.). When Guiel came up to the plate, the trumpeters in the crowd began to play Oh, Canada. We found this hilariously funny, until the second or third at bat, when we realized that they were actually replacing Canada with "Ga-e-ru," which is the Japanese pronunciation of his last name. Whoever said they weren't creative?

The most bizarre aspect of the cheering was the fact that whenever the Swallows scored a run, nearly every fan brought out identical umbrellas and began gesticulating them up and down. I honestly have no idea what this was all about, and even after doing some post-game research, still don't really know:

I seriously have no idea what this was all about.

Anyway, the other impressive thing was that neither of the teams' fans really jeered the other players. There was never any booing of anybody, just a kind of unconditional love towards the players for doing their best. The word "ganbaru," do your best, is used often in Japan, and I think that's all the fans really want (besides a victory). Even with two out in the ninth and their team down 5-0, the Giants fans were as vocal as they were when the game started.

The other cool thing was the scoreboard:

I know, cool, right? On the right and left, under the team names, are the players, surrounded by (from left to right), their position (1=pitcher, 2=catcher, etc), their average, and the number of home runs they'd hit. In between the two line scores are the Japanese characters for 1-10. On the black screen is the pitch speed, in kilometers.

After the game was over, Jerich and I shuffled with a few hundred other fans to the nearest train station. Needless to say, I'll be back.

Cellular

2007-09-12T04:39:00.000-07:00

Well, I could talk about a plethora of things here, including my accidentally requesting to sit in the smoking section of a cafe (this ended badly. I remember when I was a kid going to restaurants that my parents were asked 'smoking or non-smoking,' but not in recent memory. here they still allow smoking indoors. boo), going to the John Lennon museum where the amount of time spent discussing his post-Beatles music and life defied historical standards (what else would you expect of a place approved of by Yoko Ono?), or the start of classes (which I suppose I will get to at some point).

What I really want to talk about, though, is my cell phone. I know, sounds kitchy.

I know we're all aware that Japan is technologically pretty good, but I had to see it to believe it.

I went in to the cell phone place to get a plan, and nearly 3 hours later I walked out not exactly sure what kind of plan I had signed myself up for, but happy that I just had a mode of communication all to myself.

Only later did I discover the power of this phone.

It can...
take pictures and movies. (ho-hum)

edit those pictures, add captions and a border, and place on one's screen (kinda cool)

It has a Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionary. (really?)

It has an infrared technology that, when paired with another phone with a similar power, allows one to simply put the phones close to on another and transfer each other's phone numbers into the other's phone. (it can do that?)

My phone has its own email address, so I can send emails to regular computer email addresses as well to other phones with similar capabilities. (kinda like text messaging on steroids)

It also has GPS that i haven't figured out how to work yet, a thing to help you keep track of what you pay money for, a journal, something that automatically sends out emails at any certain point you want them sent out, and a thing that is able to read script and translate it for you by using the video camera and dictionary. (yes.)

Oh, and you can call people on it too.

How much did this cutting-edge technology cost me?

1050 yen, or about $9. Long live qualcomm.

The Week's End

2007-09-09T05:05:00.000-07:00

The weather finally let up this weekend, so I was able to put my full touristy energies toward the vast cityscape that is Tokyo.

Saturday was a day of solitary travel, which I rather like. What made the situation so much more exotic is that I did feel like I was traveling throughout the city almost in a separate universe to the thousands of people surrounding me. I had very little idea what any of them were saying or where they were going. It's a very isolating and freeing feeling at the same time, and depending on the eyes that met mine as I explored the oceanic masses of people, it teetered to either side.

The day started in Harajuku, which is inside the city. (I live in the outskirts...think spending a week in Queens and going into Manhattan for the first time...sort of.) I went to the Meiji Shrine, which is this enormous complex of temples and gardens in the middle of the city. The foliage was a heavy, pensive green, and I was thankful for the numerous patches of shade that lined the gravel road into the temple:

I wandered into the main section of the temple, an austere square surrounded by wooden buildings. I threw a 10-yen coin into the altar, as you are supposed to do, bowed, clapped twice, centered my mind to the best of my ability (the axis has been thrown off a little bit lately), bowed again, and turned around to find a Shinto wedding procession marching right through the center of the square:

The husband and wife were housed underneath the red umbrella. They marched through the square in this manner no less than four times, and each time a bovine hoard of tourists marched with them, taking pictures unabashedly. I try to keep my distance at photo-op times like these because, well, after all, it's not my wedding.

From the austerity of the temple, it was on to the flamboyance of the main Harajuku throughfare, Takeshita Dori, which is a haven for those individuals who enjoy "cosplay." Cosplay is the Japanese portmanteau of 'costume' and 'play,' and adherents are encouraged to dress up as their favorite manga (Japanese comics), anime, tv show, or anything else characters and hang out in a public space. They look to be alternative, to be rebellious and on the edge, but their laughs reminded me of the innocence required to dress up in semi-sado-masochistic outfits and parade oneself in an extremely busy public place. Sadly I didn't get a picture of any of them, but I'll know next time.

I then walked up to Shinjuku, which is a very crowded place indeed. Shinjuku is home to the busiest train station in the world, which on a Saturday early afternoon really resembled most places' Friday rush hour. Shinjuku is home to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, whose 45th floor I was hurdled towards by an elevator. Also in the elevator was a young boy and his father. The boy saw the floor to which we were headed (45), proclaimed his fear to all within earshot, and proceeded to squat behind his father's legs, holding his calves like prison bars. I wished to commiserate with my young elevator-mate, but we were upstairs quickly. The view was, to say the least, impressive:

It reminded me of both the enormity of the city I temporarily call home and also my dislike of being quite so high above the ground.

I was quite in the mood for an iced coffee, but for some reason I could not find one. (I did happen upon a Starbucks which, after wandering around very intimidatingly crowded streets in search of refreshment, didn't look so bad. My better conscious was then locked in a battle of wills with that oceanic goddess of the Frappuchino on the Starbucks logo, and I came through victorious, though at this rate I wouldn't be surprised to open my door tomorrow morning to find a Starbucks replacing my neighbor's room, in which case I suppose I would have to concede and order a cup.) What I did find was an establishment called Wired Cafe.

Wired cafe was one of those, you know, uber-trendy, hip places that was, well, wired, the type of place where you could feel like you were all around the world at once, that had that edginess about it that draws in that yuppie, globetrotting type crowd. A sign outside described the cafe's ambiance as such:

"Where the sense of place and time is reflected.
The dynamic mindscape of your emotions and your lifestyles.
Where the beauty of the past collides with the excitement of the future."

Their iced coffee cost 6 dollars, so I went home thirsty, occupying myself on the train ride home with guesses as to what my mindscape might look like from 45 floors up.

A Day at the Park

2007-09-07T05:16:00.000-07:00

Classes this morning were canceled due to quickly approaching and extremely angry typhoon "Fitow" (I did not realize typhoons had names), but it turned out to be the nicest morning in a few days. I was finally ready to put some of my wanderlust energy that had been stymied by Fitow to work and went to Kichijoji, the funky home of Inokashira Park. I even had lunch at a great little place called Pepecafe Forest (I was sure it was Pepe Forest Cafe, but alas) which was opened up to the park, those damn cicadas rattling my ear drum like new junior high band students as I attempted to enjoy my Thai noodles before setting off to school for the first time as an actual student.

In other news, I know many of you are curious as to my classes, so here it is: I am taking 2 periods of Japanese per day, as well as a 3-period a week class on modern Japanese literature (my wheelhouse, if you will), and a one-night a week class about the function (or lack thereof) and history of the United Nations. Two of the three are in English, and I think that you can guess which one isn't.

Tomorrow I'm going to the Meiji Shrine, one of the grandest in all of Tokyo. Sunday it's up north a little bit to see the John Lennon museum, put together by Yoko Ono, the representation of whose role in the latter years of the Beatles is sure to be both skewed and understated.

Foreigner.

2007-09-05T23:45:00.000-07:00

I am a foreigner here. I have been identified as one, and, by law, I am forced to register as one. There's a window at the city office for "Alien Registration." They're not talking about E.T. They are referring to me.

The word 'foreigner' is used much more freely here than in America, where (in America) I think its connotation is not only fairly negative but bordering on insulting. It's used here really without regret or flinching, and the term, however impolitely blunt it may seem, is a fairly accurate description of my status here.

American culture, speaking very broadly, is a kind of open-source culture in that anyone can come on over and attempt to "make it," and in many cases their way of "making it" is by creating their own version of the qualified "it." I feel I may have more in common with a Canadian or a Brit than I do with someone from Ohio or Alaska or Houston. It's very easy to feel like a foreigner in America while simultaneously being...American. In my own country I have seen a community cut up a recently caught whale to distribute, I've seen overly caffeinated businessmen in New York pushing people out of the way to make it onto a train, and I've seen surfers sitting on their boards a few hundred feet out into the Pacific, their silhouettes bobbing up and down in the kaleidoscopic light of the setting sun.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that it's very difficult to identify "foreigners" in America because so much of it is foreign to us anyway. It is most definitely a country of distinct regions and populations whose main ties to each other often are mislabeled as "patriotism" and in reality is more like economic and political coexistence. In a broad way.

This all came to mind as I sat, mentally reviewing some various grammar and vocab before the Japanese placement exam, where we would show the program directors which level of Japanese we should be placed in. (I tested into Japanese 4, in case you were wondering. Not sure if this means I did really well or not.) The scene:
Three Japanese professors standing at the front of the room, explaining in basic Japanese the process of the test to a room full of...foreigners. I'm sorry, there's no other way to put it. Looking around me I saw all kinds of faces, none of which were Japanese.

Most of these people had come to Japan to experience the country, the culture. They came to be "closer" to the Japanese, to make "Japanese" friends. (I really hate this. Many people have said that such-and-such is a great way 'to make Japanese friends.' That one of the reasons someone came here is to 'make Japanese friends.' I think it sounds ridiculous. Why would you want to be friends with someone just because they were Japanese? I know it's a harmless thing but I don't understand why they can't be friends you like for normal friend-liking reasons, but happen to be Japanese. Anyway.)

But none of these people will ever be...Japanese. Speaking at our orientation was an American Professor at ICU who has lived in Japan for 30 years. He said that even after that length of time, he still did not feel like he was truly "a part" of Japanese culture, although he also didn't feel as if he were still on the outside. 30 years! Didn't feel "a part" of the culture!

This may well be so for a number of reasons, but I think the elephant in the sociological room is simply that he is not Japanese. Someone from Mexico, Nigeria, Israel, or China can become at least an accepted member of American society fairly easily, for reasons noted above. But can anyone who is not genetically Japanese be an accepted Japanese? It would certainly seem not to be the case.

Then what in the world were so many "foreign" faces doing in that room taking a test on Japanese language in Japan? Maybe they were just doing something they enjoyed doing, in the place of its birth and prominence - Anime, sushi, nerd culture, electronics, literature (in the case of myself). But why wear a suit to a party whose dress code has nothing to do with clothing?

More pictures, more humor next time.

Orientation

2007-09-04T04:30:00.000-07:00

We were asked to be present for the Matriculation ceremony by 9:30, where we were given assigned seats based on status as a student, and then by last name, so that the girl sitting to my left's last name was Good and he to my right was Gonzalez. The matriculation, however, did not start at 9:30. What occurred at 9:30 was a rehearsal for the orientation. What did we need to practice?

Signing a student pledge that was included in packets that were on our seats, and handing them to the center aisle. We then practiced singing the ICU song, praising in awkward, jetlaggged unison a school that we were not yet officially part of. I looked around. The grey-faced school bureaucrats didn't seem to share my sense of irony about the whole thing. I followed the notes on the distributed sheet music but didn't sing.

So that was the rehearsal. We were allowed a 20 minute break and then the actual ceremony happened. Each new student was introduced (about 200 in all), and after each group there was a small round of applause. The department heads were there, and it was an eclectic mix of Japanese, American and British accents speaking in both common languages. They welcomed us, often in the name of Christ (I was not aware that he had anything to do with my arrival. Again, the bureaucrats didn't seem share my cynicism. Their matching concrete-colored suits suited their stoic faces eerily.)

Lunch was served, an uncomfortable melange of sushi and french fries, kung pao shrimp and fried chicken, that pretty accurately portrayed the uneasiness between the Japanese students and the pale American hoards, mostly clumped in teams by college program. (FYI: The Japanese school year technically starts in April, so only a few of the new "September students" were Japanese).

Up at the front of the room the Dean of something-or-rather was giving a long, monotonic speech in fairly incomprehensible English, and although at least two-thirds of the assembled were talking heartily to their neighbors throughout, he persevered and finished to quiet applause.

The second day of orientation was more of the same. I'm actually quite tired now but my goal is to make it past 9:00 pm before collapsing. We'll see, I suppose. More to talk about but it'll have to come tomorrow or later.

To begin with

2007-09-02T04:23:00.000-07:00

Well, where to start...

Japan is only partly what I remember it, and that's most likely because when I was here last it was with a group, which moved in a bovine clump so that nobody really had to know exactly where one was going to get to their destination. The train system is entirely bilingual, and luckily for me the second language is English, so even the poor non-Japanese speaker would be able to manage alright. I say poor because, although it's not likely such a person would choose to come here, any non-Japanese speaker would be in serious trouble. Although many of the signs are bilingual, most of the people are not. So if you need help beyond what is written...good luck.

This morning I met my friend Jerich from high school at Musashi-sakai station, the closest train stop to ICU, my school. We ate, and then took the bus to the campus and walked around its eerily silent pathways - almost nothing arises such a mystical, almost metaphysical silence than the emptiness of a location that is designed to be full of people. Such was the mood this afternoon. As Jerich and I stood silently in the school chapel as an unseen organist played baroque, non-believer-scaring pieces on the enormous organ, the sense of religious accomplishment accompanied by angst of being a place long imagined but never viewed overtook me. The process that had brought me here was nearly 10 months in the making.

The cicadas were buzzing madly, and I felt called upon. To what I do not know, but the location was finally revealed. The combination of deep green foliage and concrete on campus evoked a convergence of the man-made and the natural, and as I boarded the bus I felt that I was leaving a place I had already spent many hours before I had actually arrived.

Ittekimasu

2007-08-28T17:29:00.000-07:00

From the age of 10, when my family moved to Australia, the idea that the world does not begin and end in that culture of which I was a part of has been firmly entrenched in my wanderings throughout the world since. I know that the opportunity to study abroad during junior is many people my age's first opportunity to realize this; I know I am one of a very lucky few who were able to understand this early on. My friends are going to places like the aforementioned Australia, London, Spain, Italy, France, and one is even staying in the same time zone, just going to a different school.

I don't mean to say that these people are not adventurous, or that where I am going is somehow superior to where they are going – it's very likely that I would feel just as much a stranger in those places (maybe except Australia) as I will in the labyrinthine, chaotically organized streets of Tokyo. All of those places, however, have accented our American culture, the one we are so comfortable in. We share a mother tongue with the Australians and the British, we live in a place which still has remnants of the Spanish culture, and we are so familiar with Italian and French cuisines and tourist sights that they sometimes seem passé.

In Japan, however, I will be constantly forced to confront my identity in ways taken much for granted for the first time – as a Caucasian, as an American, as a Jew, and as an English speaker. These are things I have held in common with nearly everybody around me my entire life. Once I step foot in Japan, I will hold almost none of these things in common with nearly everyone around me, and looking around nearly anywhere will remind me that these four things make me different as opposed to the same.

What this will require me to do is to make connections with people and places on a level beyond nationality, religion or language, beyond appearance or cultural background – they will, in other words, force me to make connections on a purely and admittedly intimidatingly human level. Being successful in such an atmosphere requires leaving those identities I'm familiar with using as cultural measuring sticks behind and proceeding with a vastly open mind.

With such a job ahead of me, it will not come as a surprise that, I hope, the more I am able to understand Japanese culture, the more I will be able to understand, appreciate and be willing to change for what I perceive to be the better, my own culture.

It's customary in Japanese homes to say ittekimasu when one leaves the home. It translates to, "I will go and come back." The former verb, to go, is shortened, in order to connect with the latter verb, to come back, which is in its full form. I leave to go on a journey yet to be fully identified, but I plan to return in full form, my travels making up but a part of the identity I will carry with me upon returning.