Quiz on the Fish Tree Tales
Test your knowledge, your mettle, your trivia (not trivial) pursuit, your multiple choice skills. See if you cut the mustard, are up to snuff, ace in the hole, all that good stuff. Take my quiz if you dare! Good luck, and have fun!
Saturday
Monday
Adeste
I saw Emiko's work long before I ever met her. And even after I met her, it was weeks before I realized she was the woman who had drawn this amazing piece of work. When the connection was made, it was fantastic ~ I had been so enthralled by Adeste, and then I had come to really like Emiko. To have the two belong together made me very happy!
And when she offered to illustrate my book, I was REALLY pleased!
Adeste is unlike any of the illustrations in Fish Tree Tales, and yet I see elements of it within those same illustrations. The thing that impresses me most about Emiko's work is the fine detail. She has a strong talent for picking up on and adding minute, tiny details that add depth and meaning to the whole. If you are not looking closely, you will miss them.
Look closely at this one! Click on the photo to get a close-up view. It's astounding!
One Person's Trash...
I learned how to drive on the left, steering wheel on the right, to drive company cars to the various job sites to teach. It was on-the-job training: I was simply made to follow another teacher who would pass my particular job site, my first day with the company. She didn't slow down or consider that this was my first time driving with everything in the wrong place. I had very white knuckles... oh, and then I had to find my way back. Tell me that wasn't fun.
The first few weeks were my learning curve; after that everything felt normal and it was fine. But during those first few weeks, once I had a little fender bender because of the altered depth perception. And once I hit a kid.... HE WAS OKAY!! I was a wreck, but he was okay. Stupid teenage boy, driving his scooter at night without the light on. His parents arrived shortly after the police did; they said he did this "all the time."
Call me crazy, but if he'd been my kid, he'd have no scooter privileges.
So driving is a little intense. Many roads are 1.5 cars widths wide, and people are walking along the sides ~ children and old people and drunks.... There are unspoken, unwritten rules about driving and giving way on those narrow streets. Actually rather polite driving habits, much of the time.
I'd lived there the first three years without knowing how to drive in Japan. At university, one of my friends who had a car let me try it on some back rice-paddy road, but everything was backwards and I chickened out after only about 20 seconds. Maybe ten. But my International Drivers License allowed me to drive a scooter (like a Vespa, but of course a Japanese brand), so I bought a used one of those, instead. Vroom! Vroom! That was a lot of fun.
In Tsuchiura, site of my first teaching job, I was there for more than a year before I had wheels of my own. I'd take the bus to get downtown, and from there the trains, taxis, or other busses to get to my classes. Sometimes I'd walk ~ often I'd walk. It was a 20 minute walk from my apartment to the train station, but if the weather was good, and I wasn't late, there was no reason to take public transportation. Even coming home after dark was no problem. This was Japan, after all ~ safest place on earth!
About 15 months into my 2-year stay, a friend found me a bicycle in the trash. In the "big gomi" trash. (Gomi means trash.) There is a "gomi night" in every city or town in Japan about once a month. Non-burnable items that people don't want anymore are taken to a designated spot along a given stretch of road, where it's picked up the next morning. Many people go "gomi hunting" all night on those evenings. You can often find brand new, unused (unopened!) things ~ one of my friends found a VCR, still in the box; another friend found money inside a purse or envelope or something... but the rule is that you share money with everyone who's with you out there, in your group. Honor among trash hunters.
I went gomi hunting once or twice, but generally it gave me the creeps. Still, when my friend showed up at my apartment with a bicycle, I was happy. I was even happier to see it: just a little rust on the side, otherwise in excellent condition, key still in the lock (that's how we know it was "in" the trash and not simply beside it, owner down a ways somewhere, hunting gomi).
Suddenly my errands were done quickly! It didn't take all morning to go to the bank, stop at the dry cleaner's, pick up groceries, and go home. For that matter... I could stock up on groceries rather than go every two days, because I could put them in the basket in front, and strap them on the little luggage rack thing in the back. Sometimes my friend Margaret and I would ~ illegally, but shhh ~ double up and head into town. She'd sit on the luggage rack thing on the back, hold up her feet, and off we'd go. Just like all the junior and senior high school kids, we'd double up on the bicycle.
One of those “illegal” things in Japan that everyone does.
GL's Beach
In mid-August, either the 2nd or 3rd week depending on where you live, or on a solar calendar I don't understand, there is O-bon.
Before I knew better, I thought of O-bon as a Halloween-like holiday. But that's silly ~ Halloween is in October. Besides, my friends in Japan are as insane about that least-favorite holiday of mine as they are in my own country. And just like here at home, on Halloween I either stay home and pull all the blinds, or treat myself to a luxury hotel for the night. Don't believe me? Just ask my friends.
However, now that I've fully established that O-bon is not Halloween, let me explain what it IS. It's a Buddhist time of praying to, paying attention to, and feeding the spirits of one's dead ancestors. It is believed that our ancestral spirits come home every year during this week, and there are special prayers the faithful pray, and special attention is given to cleaning and sprucing up the cemetery grave markers and in-home altars. Lest you think I was joking, there is indeed food meted out and set aside for these guests. At the end of the week, small paper boats with candles are sent down the local river, to help guide the ancestral spirits back to... back to wherever they are the rest of the year.I'm not clear on all the details.
However, one year my Iranian boyfriend and I went to Chiba to spend some time with one of his friends and some more friends. We were three sets of friends who all converged on the 1st friend's beach house. It was a small house, but the 11 of us had a good time most of the time. A few tempers flared now and then during those several days, (uh-UH! Not mine! Okay ~ fine), but for the most part it was good. I remember lots of tea, curry, beer, smoking, and talking. There was no air conditioner but in my mind, no self-respecting beach house has air conditioning anyway. That's why you go to the beach!
So we went to the beach.
It was August, hotter than snot since early July. Hamid and I got on the train in Kofu, and began the 6-hour ride to Chiba. I think it was six hours. Felt like 20, but I think it was only six. We rode the "milk trains," meaning, those that stop at every station along the way, because they were cheaper and not as crowded as the express trains. And it was hot. The trains attempted air conditioning but every time they stopped, they insisted on opening the doors. So "cool" was inconsistent. We changed trains a few times, and then it started to rain. Hamid's friend ~ whose name I could never pronounce right (they told me the way I said it meant "turkey" in Farsi), so I just called him "GL" ~ he picked us up at the station and we drove to his beach house. It was evening, around 8:30, and it was raining, so all 11 of us ~ Hamid and I were the last to arrive ~ sat on the floor around a big sheet with food in the middle, ate, drank, and told stories.
The next morning came crashing into the house with the 5:00 a.m. sun. Maybe 5:30. It was blinding! But we got up and the men made breakfast (hooray!), while we women relaxed in our sleepy state, and sipped on mugs of sweet tea. Out came the sheet and dishes and food, and we dug in.
We were all on vacation, so there was no rush. It was a long and leisurely breakfast with many, many mugs of sweet tea. Finally around 9:00, to my utter shock, the men picked up the dishes, cleaned up the kitchen, and then... we headed to the beach. Sometime during our lolling repast, the clouds had rolled in, but we were undeterred. Clouds come and they go, so we went on.
To be shocked twice in one morning seems unfair, but that's what happened. We got to the beach and it was pretty empty. Granted, it was not quite 10 a.m., but in my days of beach living in New Jersey, all summer long, the beaches begin to get crowded by 9:00. After 10:00, you have a pick your way through the carpet of people. But here at GL's beach, it wasn't like that. There were a few people sitting on their beach towels and kind of looking a little dazed. Others were walking around with their towels wrapped around their shoulders. Not a typical beach scene.... but.... it was freezing!
A front had come in, and that wind was cold. Surely the water itself was warmer than the air, but no one wanted to test that theory. We spent some time walking along the beach, hoping it would clear up and heat up. We walked out on the pier, took some photos, walked along some more, then went back to the house. We had to regroup, warm up, and decide what else we would do. All of our plans had been based on spending most of our time at the beach.
In the end, we took a few local drives, did some shopping, had some arguments, played cards, had a barbeque, and found more to laugh about. We just hung out together. The whole time we were there, it was cold enough for sweatshirts and socks ~ fortunately, Hamid and I had each brought a sweatshirt (not sure why, but we had), and GL had plenty of socks!
After breakfast on the fourth day, GL drove us to the train station. As we stood around waiting for the train, the sun came out. And just like that, it was oppressively hot again. We boarded the train to go back to Kofu, and until the end of October it was, as before, hotter than snot.
Not Another Rink Story...!
Have I mentioned The Rink? You know, the place Danni owns. The place I went nearly every night for dinner & to hang out with friends, different friends every night. Sometimes Emiko, sometimes Roppongi, sometimes Misa or Misaki or Mariko. Yukie or Yuuki, Tomo or Atsu or Mochi-kun. It was always good.
One day Emiko (the illustrator for Fish Tree Tales) sent me a picture of my favorite food at The Rink: chicken dippers with honey mustard sauce. I watched Danni cut and coat and fry and freeze the chicken himself, every Monday, so I know it's "homemade". And went shopping with him sometimes when he bought the ingredients to create his own honey mustard sauce. At The Rink, I'm eating a home-cooked meal, every time. That's one reason I loved it so ~ whether chicken dippers, pizza, nashi goren, chili (HOT HOT HOT!!!), Thai curry, or anything else on the menu, it's all made from scratch. Many times I watched flames shoot up two or three feet while Danni or Atsu cooked in that tiny kitchen! It's an adventure all its own, sitting up at the bar watching the goings-on in the kitchen.
I ordered this so often that we came to call it "Sue Set" ~ Chicken Dippers and a beer. Yummm.
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