Hailstorm Today

10/5/12

The regiment of the school is strong. As previously mentioned, each class is preceded by a request for the teacher to come to the room and instruct, unless the teacher only has the ten minutes of passing time to transfer classes. Even in those cases, I have found, if you return to the office, you will be tracked down and found. I’m freely encouraged (or at least not shunned) when I make use of the blackboard, but fully discouraged from erasing my scribblings at the end of lessons. As one of my teachers told me when she stopped me, “No no no, the students have to do that.”
And clean it they do. In addition to this, they must clean the classrooms, hallways, bathrooms, windows from the outside and inside, the teacher’s office, empty the trash, and in the case of Kobayashi junior high, water the decorative plants. They sweep, vacuum, dust, wipe, and empty. This being Japan, they are able (by regiment) to empty erasers of the blackboards’ fallout by way of device (I think it uses water). They show me to my seat at lunch and bring me my tray, food prepared and steaming. They stand up and greet their instructor (or both, or all as the case may be) at the beginning of each lesson. They wear the same uniform every day, and often outside of the school as well, their name and that of their school emblazoned in kanji, in some cases along with their home room number. They don aprons and face masks and hair nets and gloves to ration out food to their fellows, their lunch room being their home room. They take their assigned seats, even if absences render the configuration a jigsaw, and are ever so slightly hesitant to switch seats when requested. There also seems to be an injured foot quota – one student is absolved of responsibility only when they tag another in. If you ask me the source of a tradition, I say you do not ask the old, you tell the young.
Yet for all this, they are not little machines. In between classes, they punch, they shout, steal each others’ notes, practice pitching form, sit backwards in chairs, they fear getting called on in class and cheer when our game does not select them. Ask them their favorite comic or singer or TV show and they blush with the apprehension of sharing what they actually enjoy without reason.
Yesterday, over lunch, I spoke with some third-years about the sports they would play for the upcoming tournament. One mousy girl hidden behind glasses and face mask had her face towards her food and didn’t respond, so I asked her if she had any club activities (a bit like asking if you have parents – the answer can’t be ‘no’) and she replied, ‘Brass ban-do’. I asked her what she played, ‘trom-bone’. ‘Do you like music?’ Silence. ‘What bands do you like?’ ‘Su-leep-naw-to’ (Slipknot). My sudden laughter ignites hers, and she blushes, her friend from the next table immediately leaning in and asking, ‘Nani nani nani?’ The amount of surprise I can credit to discovering differences in the world is seemingly by law inferior to that attributed to our similarities, like pine trees growing from all manner of soil. This may be the prevalence of American English and culture at the dawn of the internet, but it is what we are moving to be. It’s now our turn to define globalization and cultural exchange. Just think how culture will have contorted itself in one generation’s time.
I think of this partly as the composition of this leg of my adventure, and partly for another reason – in a way I am continuing the gift. When I first arrived, I was one of two newbies to the company, the rest were re-uping for another year. However, one girl in a neighboring city, Sakura (city), had a father that suddenly had very pressing health issues, and she made plans to depart on the 13th. So, my first day on this little archipelago, Greg asked if I had any friends that wanted to take her place for the year. I immediately thought of my friend English James, who, when I visited him in London on my way to Cape Town, made some not entirely empty proclamations regarding the benefits of rolling into work the next day (a job of comfort but not satisfaction) and informing them that he was going with me to the south of Africa.
As it so happens, James’ contract with his current company was expiring two months from when I told him, some three weeks ago, and he was in the market for a better job. We talked about it briefly, he got the details from Greg, and as I understand it, nearly came. The one factor holding him back that could not be satisfactorily overcome, was his new-ish girlfriend, with whom things are apparently progressing nicely. Compounding that was the prospect of a job he may better enjoy, and ultimately James elected to remain English. At almost the same time, however, my friend Sarah from Seattle e-mailed me with her hatred of her job and her recent break-up with her boyfriend as well as considerations on the need for imminent overseas expeditions. As they say, Bob’s your uncle, and less than two weeks later, she is currently at my place in Nikko waiting for her apartment in Sakura (city) to open up. One hopes she was not caught in today’s flash hailstorm, yet another example which makes clear to me that we are the breaking point for the meteorological tempestuousness of the great Pacific Ocean.
I sense an aversion to my creeping motivation deficiency.
-A Sly Stad

Summation of the Action: We’re going to cross off number two! Again! 9e is coming up! Australia is a hop, skip, and a lane flight away! Hooray! And in Tokyo this last weekend, I managed 7 pull-ups in a row, a new record. I’ve bought a dumbbell, and I can feel the inevitable coming on – this is the year for 10 in a row.

Earthquake

19/4/12

I was sitting at my desk at Imaichi, writing in my notebook as I study for the LSAT, and the ground begins to shake, perceptibly. Filing cabinets are creaking. I don’t react at first – this is the third earthquake I could feel since I’ve been here. But this one is pretty strong.
This is also my first earthquake around the locals, and I look up to see their reactions. Most of them are looking at one of the cabinets with a glass door that contains what I assumed since I got here were servers. One has begun lighting several lights in unison and beeping loudly and unrhythmically when there’s a particularly strong tremor, and there are a lot. There are a few words exchanged, and some people begin to stand. I try to read body language to see what’s going on, and everyone is paying attention to this machine. It’s easy to miss, since this teacher’s office has clearly had a long process of evolution in the progressively more crowded direction, and is a hodgepodge of what it’s needed to be over the years. The way the few teachers that aren’t in class are looking at this machine, though, is in a way that until just now they’ve forgotten it’s there as well.
Two male teachers about halfway to the other side of the room are standing, and one begins to cautiously approach it, and the machine is still alerting us to abnormal tremors and the beeping, a lot like an alarm, is all that’s filling the room now, as the teachers are silent.
Over a dozen panels are flashing with each beep, and the man keep approaching it. He reaches the front of it, and hesitates, as it continues to alert him. He reaches out, pauses to think, opens the door, and flips a switch. The machine continues to blink with the tremors, but the sound has been silenced. He returns to his desk. No one else has moved, and everyone is working again. I continue to scratch out why my wrong answers are wrong in my notebook. Before long the tremors stop.
Life in Japan.
-Schuyler

The undeniably lovely Kobayashi

18/4/12

 

How clouded my memory seems to me now. I’m in Kobayashi Jr. High’s Teacher’s office, and I’ve taught my three classes for the day with Mista Shimizu. Where did I get his wrinkles from? He has no wrinkles, he’s far too young for any, in his late thirties. I have more than he does.

This school is situated in a location that seems to be made to display Japan’s beauty. Mr. Shimizu and me are both in our first years here, and I’m beginning to like it more than Imaichi. The classes are smaller, the uniforms are smarter, the kids slightly worse in English (I read out the alphabet for the youngest class) which makes it more fun, the staff less massed, more diversified by their profession. Imaichi is fine, yesterday I was only hoping Kobayashi wouldn’t be worse or less pleasant. There are cherry blossoms in the yard, and all of the classes appear to look out on rice paddies in the foreground and layered hills in the background. Presumably the face of windows that we have, which, in the rooms I’ve been, all face west, would be a problem if there weren’t such a cloud cover today. I asked Mr. Shimizu what he thinks of this school, as compared to his last one, and he though for a long moment, and replied, “Very difficult question.” I think I will like it here.

The music teacher (there appears to be only one) joined us for the first class of the day, and partnered with the one odd student out for the dialogue we were doing; the principal swung in for the ending of the second class, and another man (I’ve yet to figure out what he does here) came for the third, taking the teacher introduction test with the students and snapping pictures throughout the class. He and Mr. Shimizu seem to be the best English speakers here, and during our lunch outside in the yard (which the kids set up and broke down entirely, it appears, short of cooking the food), he explained to me the word for sesame seeds and explained what it was we were eating. Unfortunately I’m tragically terrible with names and didn’t have a pen handy, so I’ve forgotten it – I only remember it was three syllables with an o in front and a u in the back.

The man wearing a lab coat constantly, I’m guessing he’s the science teacher, seems to love his job. He plays with the kids when he gets the chance, I’m sure more so in the class, and seems to run odd jobs in addition, sitting at the head table with the principal and the man who is likely the head teacher. As the kids lined up for a picture below the cherry blossoms, he squat in the sand, trying to find the right angle. One girl poked him forcefully in the back, and he shouted at the sky in mock pain, and managed to get her before she could run far. He also showed me a five yen coin (go yen) he had found, in very good spoken english no less, but when I asked him if it wasn’t discolored, he paused, and happily called for his colleagues, “I don’t understaaaand!”

I can see Mr. Shimizu is doing the very thing I feared and keeping an overall class trajectory towards a competency goal, and I think he likes working with me – it’s easy taking the head of the class while he explains what’s going on from the back, and while he explains something in Japanese, I can look at the lovely layered hills rolling along outside the window. Wednesday job satisfaction rating, very high.

-Schuyler

Supplemental

17/4/12

I can’t get a bank account for another week or two, which means no cell phone too, but I got my hanko, and I sure as hell got my power cable. Holy fucking hell is it nice to have this back. I just hope I can get internet without a bank account. Greg, after being dialed when communication between Murakami-san and me hit a good old fashioned low, seemed to think that if my gas could be set up without a bank account, my internet could be as well. Does it seem odd to anyone that these two are equated? Because it seems much less odd to me than I thought it might.

-Schuyler

To learn languages

17/4/12

My fourth class is down, I await my fifth, the second of the day. After, I meet Murakami-san and get a possible quadruple-whammy: my hanko, a bank account, a phone, and hope against hope, my power cable. I have three indistinguishable choices for the third: AU, Soft Bank, or Decomo. The fourth should come today, according to my lovely girlfriend.

When I was working to get my TOEFL certification, the discussions about teaching reached a point when talking about classroom control, working with students, and tailoring lesson plans to suit class speed. Much of this boiled down to “feel”, several teachers said, “you would just know” how to make adjustments. Perhaps teaching isn’t something I learn by example, but everyone learns by example. How else can you learn it, if those in the know are at a loss of words? My attempts to approach it in this way seem fruitless, so I ran to something that suffers from the same condition at a certain point of advancement and to which I had become intimately acquainted: writing, and by extension, art. Which begged the inevitable question, are teachers under the umbrella of unconventionally defined artists?

After a few classes, my near collapse yesterday is embarrassing for a different reason: is this really all there is? If lesson planning is collaborative, I’m never alone. I don’t mean to demean teachers, there are several that spring to mind that I could never match for making learning fun or interesting, but what I was afraid of is now illuminated in such stark colors, and painfully noticeably not there. One wonders how lecturing a college course would proceed, start to finish, when the native language is your own, nothing moves slowly, and there’s no rambunctiousness to contend with. I thought I would need to think up games, have long speeches on diverse subjects, follow a general plan towards a competency goal, explain in detail the rules of grammar, etc. Today, if I finish telling the kids my favorite fruit and where I come from, we move on to past tense: was, and were. This job will be repetition: repetition for the children, repetition for me.

What I’m trying to say is, this is going to be easy.

I had considered studying Japanese with my free time. Today is the last five characters of hiragana before moving onto each character’s doppelganger in katakana – altogether, 95 characters. After that, to read a newspaper, one needs command of roughly 2,000 kanji, which are not an alphabet but just pictures. If Schuyler learns kanji for fifty weeks, how many kanji must he learn per week to reach 2,000?

The answer is forty. So eight new kanji every day, taking weekends off, two “holiday” weeks, say Christmas and New Year’s, and forgetting nothing. While this sounds do-able, at least for the first day or five, by day forty-seven I predict frustration. And this is simply to read. On top of all this, I will need to learn words, grammar, conjugation, and pronunciation. Sure, I’ve already learned twenty or thirty kanji since I’ve been here, but I think I will take in some phrases, maybe basic nouns and verbs, questioning words, and just write them in the roman alphabet, or maybe hiragana/katakana. I like working hard, and I like big projects, but this is just too big, too big for one year, and too big to likely never use again. I’m sorry Japanese, but I need to relegate you to the sidelines. I’m going to keep my New Year’s resolution, though a little late. I’m going to study French, which looks like child’s play in comparison. This will be a suitable project for 12-18 months.

-Schuyler

 

Summation of the Action: C’est bien, n’est-ce pas?

 

To Teach

16/4/12

I am sitting at my new desk at Imaichi Junior High School Teacher’s Lounge, just before noon. Weaving seamlessly through all of my activities in Japan up to this time was the ironclad rule, legislation my own writing, lobbying, and approval, that one day I would become a teacher, even if only an assistant. The me of high school age once resolved with all possible resolve than available to never teach, and if I did teach, to for the love of god never teach English. As my girlfriend would say, “Never say never”.

Much of my preparation up to this time has been aside from this fact, running parallel to it, providing at best indirect support. My standard response to standing in front of a classroom is avoidance. In the absence of this option, there is usually some heart pounding, an abbreviated stammer, and copious planning, usually involving something that functions as an escape route. If there are others banished to the front, I keep my eyes on them. Filling five minutes I think of as filling two, and somehow the other three will slide. Do I constantly talk? Do I provide enthusiasm for entertainment? Ask questions, involve the audience? How do I save face if no one answers? Words, to me, are a matter of ideas, speaking a conveyance, and a speech a sort of argument or point of view, the saying of which an act of convincing or enlightening. How vigorously do I argue? Will there be counter arguments? What if they are stronger?

Information in preparation is control in this case, and I want a trial run – I learn best from example. What is at stake, what is the point of doing this and what is best accomplished and ignored? This is what I want to know, and it comes from experience.

My co-teacher today is Okayasu-sensei, though I should call her Mrs. Okayasu while we speak English. When I realize it, she looks unbelievably like my ex-stepmother, but a Japanese version. She is wearing a windbreaker indoors, has gray hair at the temples, which comes out in about the same width, has the same sort of enthusiasm towards kids, and moves quickly in sneakers. At one point, I stare into her face for a moment, searching for physical markers that suggest she never married my father. However, I get along with her much more easily, and she is more than happy with the prep work I’ve done for the class – were her ideas of questioning added onto my work the night prior, I’ve probably done enough to handle the entire class by myself, were they a higher level.

As we walk into the first class, Mrs. Okayasu and me, I am adopting the approach that I adopt on first dates and early flirtation: the outcome doesn’t matter to me because I own the place. Fear has no address if it is not heeded. I am not afraid of the students, I am not afraid of them staring at me, I’m not afraid of their apathy, nor their rambunctiousness. These are no longer arguments but statements of fact. I’m not afraid of speaking, I’m not afraid of looking silly, bending odd ways, miming verbs. I don’t like dead space, but I’m not afraid of it. My speech is slowed down adequately, my voice loud. I have my prepared speech. So where is the leak? Where is this fear getting in?

And yet, as I talk and introduce myself to the class, I begin to feel hot. By the time I realize what it is, removing my jacket does nothing. There is a tingling in my head, I can feel my own pulse. Completely out of place, I kneel as Mrs. Okayasu is talking, and to cover a little, I act like I’m sorting my papers, but I only have three, and the subterfuge is weak. Kneeling helps a little, but not enough, not enough to stand again and write, which I must do. This is pure nerves, and the wave it washes upon me in is tall. I stand again, with no choice, and my peripheral vision shuts off. I can only see things I’m directly looking at. My grip weakens automatically and I drop the chalk accidentally. It breaks into three, but when I bend down and try to pick up the pieces, I can’t see them. Blood has stopped flowing to my eyes and now it stops flowing to my head. From experience, I know the color is quickly draining from my face.

“Are you alright?” Mrs. Okayasu asks me, “do you need some water?” Spatial awareness is still working, and I find her face and excuse myself, asking after a little water, and leave the room as I break into a cold sweat.

As soon as I step out of the doorway, my vision begins to return, and just down the hall is a trough with several spigots. I pick one of the ones pointing down, twist, cup, and drink from my hands. This used to happen when I was younger, though it’s been several years since the last time. I know it’s anxiety, though I’m too proud to tell my co-teacher when the time comes. This is not how I expected the first class to go. I kneel in a weak draft coming down the stairs. I suspected it might happen, but now I know it had to. I realize I wasn’t afraid of anything except being afraid; looking for fear is what let it in. But it was unavoidable in some way, that this is the only way not to be afraid of teaching. Now that my nerves have had the bottom kicked out, they never will break again for this situation.

My cold sweat begins to disappear, and I am returning to normal. Twenty minutes have passed since we walked into class, maybe two since I walked back out. I walk in again, and I am fine for the rest of the period; nothing is unknown, I have learned through example what I needed. I try to be bouncy and over-enthusiastic, which for me, is probably externally not that different. The class finishes and some of the students (who all know Ichiro and One Piece but none know Nirvana) ask me additional questions about music I like, what they like, and in the case of two giggling girls, simply introduce themselves and request, “Please teach us English” which, adjusting for the situation and Japanese politeness and formality, I’m guessing translates into American as something like, “Welcome to the class” (for our first class of the day, two students come to the teacher’s office and ask us to come teach them – they ask me for the appropriate phrase in English, but there really isn’t one – I try to tell them “We’re ready for you now”).

Though we teach the very next period, Mrs. Okayasu and I return to the teacher’s office and I attempt to tell her what happened, but it doesn’t seem to matter much. Later she’ll simply ask if I was nervous, and I say yes weakly, unable to give much more of an answer, but for now we must go to another class. I’ve executed my first lesson plan, and we’ve taught my first class. It’s now time for the second.
-Schuyler

 

Summation of the Action: Still alive.

 

Part III

14/4/12 Part 3

These mountains being swept by the storm clouds are jarringly beautiful, but I miss my mate.

-Still Schuyler

 

Supplemental

14/4/12

It’s now raining harder.

My goal of acquiring an alarm clock has so far escaped fulfillment. I feel vaguely like certain days I lack the required gameplan for a normal life. As I understand it, my unconnected condition, sans phone, internet, computer, books, and commitments, and yet being fully mobile, in a new country, and young and healthy should be perfectly desirable to many people, including previous instances of myself. Yet, met with these circumstances, I find myself wishing the day were through, and human interaction tomorrow would commence. Thinking of an upgrade to a smartphone, some would say inevitably, it’s easy to decry the helpless dependence of our generation/world to their own very recent connectivity. However, completely unconnected, I feel I’m careening back into the same helplessness, like walking off one end of a Pac-Man maze. Coming home from work threatens me in a similar way. I’m on my fifth of the six new CDs, and yet all I really want is to have someone here. I feel directionless by myself. And yet this isn’t even close to new. This is a recurring problem, like some disease you learn to live with. Perhaps it’s a symptom of the life resets. Perhaps it’s just me being dour. Maybe this is where hard work comes from – it satisfies the need to maintain this state, and gives me an excuse for not helping myself. But why maintain? The intimidation of the real world? The fear of living? Or the lack of interest? I’m sitting in the middle of Japan, afraid to leave my little housing unit. One time in Issaquah, when I was 17, I felt much like this, and went out driving east. I came back four hours later, no more money on me to pay for gas. Here, at the one gas station I saw, there are attendants to fill your tank for you, and I question the difficulty of this transaction when it one day will come. The sole of one of my slippers is beginning to come loose. Shit.

Ok, off to get an alarm clock, and maybe go looking around. I should’ve just bought that GameBoy.

-Schuyler

CDs

14/4/12

It’s not even one o’clock and already my day sounds like a series of implausible excuses. I concentrated on my inability to regulate my waking time with so much vigor last night, worrying about tomorrow (more on that later), that I awoke at 7 in the morning. Well, I had saved the ending of this Joan Didion book for tonight, when it’s too late and dark to do anything but stay home, but, you know, it’s 7:45 and rainy…and a few of the Moth podcasts I had saved up, one turned into four out of the ten left, cause I…slipped? I’m saving what in my mind has become the “World Heritage stuff” for a sunny day. And I should study for the LSAT, but oh, I looked over the wrong answers to the test yesterday after I did it, and it’s a good night thing anyway, and I’m only crawling under the blanket on my couch cause it’s cold and I don’t know how to make the heater work…

And when I finally go out, I just happen to wander accidentally into the further CD store (the entrance to the other’s parking lot was blocked! I swear!) which on the outside had many pictures of anime characters, including some of women with breasts bigger than their heads, in a colorful assortment of the stages of undress and eating something bitter. I’ve never seen a shop quite like this one, but I fear it’s attractive power. I think a few CDs were tucked in some corner, justifying the sign, but the rest was filled with video games and consoles, baseball cards, comics, arcade games, DVDs, clothes, backpacks, dirty comics, and something like seven different sources of music, either speakers or TVs playing loops, one of the former being (get this) that one hit Finch had once when we were growing up. There seemed to be more to the store, but I caught myself considering an N64 at one point (~$20, but I don’t have a TV or any games) and, avoiding attention, attempted to locate the exit.

Which brings us to today’s little pleasure – no, not the dirty comics. I went to the other CD store which had “books” which meant more manga and dirty comics, and possibly some normal books, but my Hiragana is still rough and my kanji laying with fixed and dilated pupils. The one aisle they had on CDs from out of the country was actually pretty reasonably stocked. Most things were between fifteen and twenty bucks, but their used section was even more well stocked. I returned home with a stack of six, something I haven’t done since 2009. As the British say, Smashing! This is how I make a good mood. Though they had Leann Rimes, Simon & Garfunkel, Meat Loaf, and Van Halen, they had the Cardigans, the Cranberries, Massive Attack, Silverchair, Halestorm, and the Corrs (yeah, yeah, kind of flavorless, but they have their time and place; they’re the water to my wine). All I can say is thank you Sara Starkey for leaving me a CD player, who/wherever you are. Also, I have some of your mail.

Now I just need to solve that alarm clock problem, which is why I originally set out. I don’t mind not getting breakfast tomorrow, but getting to school on time (hold back, memories!) is another matter.

Yesterday is yet another matter. I met the other ALTs here and we are few. I count eight in my head, including two girls (both from the Phillipines) and one aussie who had come from Sydney to the airport to the meeting that day. One Japanese teacher from each school came, and they discussed…something. We sat at the side of the room, and I, between Greg (the one who I corresponded with before I left) and Jeremiah, another ALT (who apparently knew Rick [for my Seattle friends, he told me about the job]) gathered as much information as I could as quickly as I could. When Murakami-san gave me my car, he showed me my two schools, but here I learned where in the school and when to go, the best place to buy fruits/veggies, milk/eggs, meat, the location of a pachinko palace, and got my schedule for the entire year (somewhat unbelievably to me, layed out entirely on two pages with space to spare). I learned where to get a phone, potential problems with signing a contract, how signatures here are replaced with a circular stamp called a hanko which has your family name, that I can use Jeremiah’s internet in a pinch, I can purchase an American-style fridge (which goes up to and beyond my waist, unlike the current one). What’s more, partly from driving around but mainly from talking, the town seems much smaller and more useful than it did at the start of the day. I found out from my lovely girlfriend that my power cable should be here in two or three days, and after Murakami-san and Taka(hiko-san, or is it Aiuchi-san?) took me to get my own hanko (which sounds humorously like honk-o), I can get internet and a phone and a bank account set up. Should be ready on Tuesday. (Taka is much younger than Murakami-san, very good with his English, and a very slick character by all appearances, but how much I will see him in the future is in doubt).

I got to meet with the teachers from my two schools afterwards, Imaichi Jr. High, and is my m-o everyday except Wednesdays, where I wheel across town to the junior high school named…Kobayashi! No word yet on if they serve Coney Island franks for lunch. My two teacher representatives that I met are Miho Eda and Naoyuki Shimizu, though properly called in Japanese Eda-sensei and Shimizu-sensei. Shimizu-sensei was in a large suit and some large glasses, keeping a straight face through the proceedings and jokes, wearing his wrinkles well, gained from no doubt more years of experience than I have at anything. His school, Kobayashi, is small he said, twenty kids a class, and only so many teachers, and didn’t seem to have much to give me. That, or Eda-sensei kept me too occupied until our time was up. She was short, by admission several years older than me but hiding all appearances of it. To go with her sweater and skirt, which seemed to be the standard outfit for all of the female teachers in attendance, she had a bob-cut and instructions for my first day – I should make a quiz about myself and introduce myself to the classes for the day. Shimizu-sensei said nothing on this, but I assume it will be the same. As the two discussed changes to my schedule for the year (some days cancelled, woo!), I saw, to my surprise, all of the teachers had been handed our resumes, translated. I could make out “GameXplain”, “Monthly Moose”, “Exigere Corp”. And next to my picture, Eda-sensei had written “very tall”. When she saw me read it, she covered her mouth with both hands as she laughed.

Jeremiah, shorter, freckled, informative, and apparently set to live here for some long time beyond his already accumulated three years, mapped for me many of the shops mentioned above, told me how to get a phone, things to watch out for, and offered to come with me, as well as invite me to a Costco run tomorrow. He has no trouble finding “Sara’s old place” and offered to pick me up at 7am, and allowed me to use his computer for the quiz and the pictures that will be part of the self-introduction Monday. “Hey,” he said, “I like helping people,” and one wonders if this is why he is going into his fourth year teaching.

One last interesting note – Murakami-san and Taka, who apparently remembered me from my interview in January too me to order a hanko, ready on Tuesday. The sounds of the Japanese alphabet always end in a vowel (almost) and breaking these sounds of a name up allow it to be translated, which, if you think about it, account for a lot of the accent. Syllables ending in consonants other than N become difficult, and usually become more than one before getting changed into katakana characters. However, the vowel sound “I” as in “lie” doesn’t exist. The two of them and the hanko shop owner weren’t sure how to spell my last name, then. Some time ago, Greg had translated it into katakana, but this had been four characters, and the head of the stamp was not very big, made to facilitate the much more common two-kanji names of the Japanese. They asked me how I wanted it written, knowing I was at least familiar with the vowel sounds of Japanese if not all of the characters. I was immediately and briefly reminded of Sharif Ali from Lawrence of Arabia when he learns Lawrence was born out of wedlock. Lawrence is tired from his heroic deeds saving Gasim, and additionally so from the story, not his proudest, especially in the very religious and patriarchal Arabia of the first World War. He doesn’t give up any more information than he has to to satisfy Ali’s questions. When Ali learns the truth, he smiles and tells Lawrence, “It seems you are free to choose your own name, then.” Lawrence, satisfied, rolls over and goes to sleep. In the hanko shop, I felt the same sudden freedom to invent myself. In the pronunciation of my name, I am limited. What it comes to mean, I am not. Nor are ay of us, I suppose, but with all of my life resets, and knowing another is coming, maybe my little Suzuki Alto can be like a camel in the desert. So continue the adventures in Japan.

-Laughing Cloud

 

P.S. We took an approximation of the Norwegian pronunciation and went with “Lee-suh-tah”, leaving off for spatial reasons the “duh”

 

Summation of the Action: No advancement on the list today.

 

Apartment.

12/4/12

I have an apartment. The name of the complex is “Play Park C”, and mine is #102. When I first heard about this, I wondered if I would get from my bedroom to the kitchen via slide, or be able to climb to the roof via rope ladder, or maybe my den would be a ball pit. One never knows what awaits one in a new country. I should have taken the hints from stores that had immigrated (or do I say emigrated now?) to the States, like “Lucky Dragon” or “Golden Wok” (My personal favorite was always Bellevue’s Vietnamese restaurant, “What the Phǫ?”). The Lucky is subjective, there’s very little Dragon, Golden is exaggerated, and only the Wok seems undebatable. In this instance, “Play” is subjective, and “Park” seems hard to deny. Only the “C” seems exaggerated, since I can only see one other that might fit the bill. I say “Play” is subjective because, though I live mostly near farmers, as is one of our liberal guilt talking points, people are generally smiling on my street, even though they’re working, and working hard. And I’ve got to say, their spinach and cabbages look excellent.

The plots of land are smaller than some front lawns I’ve seen, though I must say I’ve seen some expansive front lawns. In one plot of land, it’s difficult to leave inside voice earshot. They cover the visible distance to the hills, but in ten minutes, I can walk to a street fully lined with small buildings reminiscent of back alley-Beijing, everything somewhat gray and stone, some things run down, small, at odd angles, though not dirty, and irrigation dug into every crack along the road and between houses. The shoulder/sidewalk is is the width of my shoulders here, except where I get extra allowance from someone’s patio that isn’t at a right angle to the street. Caution is exercised when cars pass people or other cars. In some cases, with all three present, one has to stop and wait. A little further on, and I’ve come to a main thoroughfare to my town, Nikko. As I walk out on this real sidewalk, I can see a bridge to the right, and a street sign above it guiding people to the World Heritage section of town, some 9 km away. I’ve yet to go myself.

Each day is bringing new pleasures. The first day, though a marathon, yielded my visa and my apartment. The second day gained me hot water, and a couple North American veteran fellow teachers and their phone numbers, as well as food and furniture, guided by my apparent escort, Murakami-san. I even ate fried balls of octopus that, if laid flat, would cover my palm. I accidentally bit one in half, so I could see one of the tentacles, suckers totally intact, and a healthy purple and clear. The next day my international driver’s permit arrived, and though I was rather down in the dumps over not having a phone, computer, internet, or car, I did what I do best, and explored on foot. I found two sweetshops, a grocery store, a liquor store, about four barbers, plenty of specialty shops from fish to cheese, several cheap restaurants, and a payphone. That was yesterday. Today was my car (which I drove on the left for over an hour!), some chocolate from dad for easter, a library with internet, and a librarian with basic english. I’ve also secured the arrival of my power cable from my lovely girlfriend who is wonderful and smart and hardworking and loving and who takes care of me (clearly) and who I will cover with a thousand sweet kisses when next we meet, which will be on her side of Russia. If I continue at this rate, I estimate being supreme emperor of greater Asia by the time I leave.

I mentioned an apartment. It’s shaped rather like an H, the bottom side being my entryway and bathroom, the upper my den and bedroom, with my kitchen connecting the lot. I had the fortune to inherit from the previous resident (a Ms. Starkey – does anyone know if Ringo has a daughter?) a sofa, small table, smaller shelves, a couple of the best non-stick pans money can buy, a wealth of hangars, and a surprisingly formidable bed. But, this being Japan, there are some extra touches. The air conditioner has a remote, the door a video camera. When the doorbell is rung, the latter automatically switches on for my viewing pleasure, or I can turn it on at will to spy. My shower room has two control panels, one inside it and another in the kitchen. They’re linked by intercom, separated by maybe seven feet going around corners. I can control the temperature of the hot water with deft precision, fill my cramped tub with a single press of another button, alter the level with another, and this is confirmed by a wonderfully pleasant Japanese woman who seems passively appreciative of my selection. I can control an intercom between the two, and in the dizzying array of options, I’ve forgotten the last button. They’re written down for me, but in rather intimidating kanji (Chinese), and when I get internet, I will attempt to decipher them. So far I’ve managed the kanji for Nikko, Utsunomiya, Imaichi, school, on, off, entrance, exit, and stronger and weaker. I look forward to the challenge of my washing machine.

Far and away, however, is the toilet. It’s equipped with a cyborg arm, none of the buttons upon which influence the, at least to me, principal operation of a toilet, the flushing. There are six buttons, though I only have steeled the courage to try two of them, which happen to be the colorful ones. One is green and makes a small umbrella of dots. This button extends an arm a predetermined length below the seat and blows warm water in a constant stream upwards until it retracts at a second press. The other is pink, and has a similar symbol beneath the female toilets character, though she has no legs and it appears to shoot straight up her dress. Interestingly, these are different retractable arms, and both shoot with a force to impact the wall in front of the bowl. We’re talking head level, almost to the ceiling. One wonders how much toilet paper this nation consumes compared to its industrial economic partners. However, even the biggest prude can appreciate the constantly heated seat, warmer than a lover pulled from her blankets, and everyone can realize the obvious brilliance of a sink installed on the top of the tank which turns on automatically for the duration of every flush and refill period.

If this is how farmers live, I envision Tokyo with equal parts apprehension, admiration, and adventure. My nights, so far lonely, are spent with my iPod, books, and miniature balcony, which blocks me in as much as lets me out. If babble is what brooks do, then there is a brook babbling just past the rear gate, and its muffled chatter sends me to sleep, where I shall be headed soon. Tomorrow is an all-ALT meeting, as I understand from Murakami-san’s limited spoken English (which he more than makes up for with his politeness and dedication to me, as I find more and more things in need or correction, though hopefully this is almost over). The information I can get from other ALTs is staggering in it’s efficiency, much content squeezed into tidy brevity, brilliant fountains of practical information and long periods of quiet reflection. I bid you all good night from the start of the day (which I guess makes Seattle the end). I am safe, and I shall soon thrive. There is much more adventure yet to be had.

-Schuyler

 Summation of the Action: You might even call it a house.