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.

My personal experience with O-bon is... a week off! Holiday! Actually, I rarely went anywhere during O-bon, because prices are particularly high then, and all means of transportation except for my own car or bicycle are packed. Jam packed. Everyone is either going to their ancestral hometown, or getting away on a vacation somewhere. I found it easier to stay home or stay local, taking what has recently come to be called a "Stay-cation" ~ local travel.

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.

Fish Tree Tales

I’d never thought about the advantage I sometimes have with English as my native language, until I moved to Japan to teach it. I’ve studied six foreign languages, and when I was studying, I’d often wished osmosis would occur. I’d put a dictionary of that language under my pillow at night, hoping to simply absorb all the words and grammar in my sleep. Of course, that never happened. I had to study and practice like everyone else, making mistakes and learning along the way.

In the first years of learning Japanese, I often made mistakes with word choices. I’d forget the word I wanted, or say another word instead, rendering a completely different meaning to the sentence. I still make mistakes but they are usually of the less interesting, mundane, grammatical sort. In the early days, my mistakes were funnier.

One night at dinner with the family I was living with for the summer, there were many people sitting around the table, all of us eating and talking and having a good time. I was mostly listening, since I didn’t understand 98% of the conversation. At this point in my Japanese language journey, I was fluent in numbers and colors, but not much else. At dinner that night were aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, boyfriends and girlfriends—it was a large, happy group and everyone was quite jolly. They were happy with me and encouraged my stumbling attempts to communicate. Fortunately, several members of the group also spoke English, so we all had a backup.

After awhile, the food was being passed around for the third or fourth time. I was so full, but I thought that saying “no” was considered impolite, so I tried a different angle. I was very polite and I turned down the offer for more food, believing myself to say, “My stomach is full.” Immediately, everyone thrust their hands at me, palms up, as they grinned from ear to ear. I must have looked pretty funny at this unexpected reaction, and I searched the crowd for someone who would tell me what was going on….

And this is how I memorized the difference between the words for “stomach” and “money.” You could say this was osmosis of a different sort!

That was during my first month in Japan. Years later, on my third venture to this country, one day I realized I was speaking Japanese that I didn’t know I knew. I hadn’t studied since leaving the country five years earlier. I had studied Portuguese, however, and experienced an interesting phenomenon during that time. While studying lists of Portuguese vocabulary words, I would try to remember and use them in common sentences. However, instead of translating them into English, I found myself translating those words into Japanese, making Japanese sentences with them. It was bizarre, but it seemed to work and, in the end, gave me a much-needed boost for my move back to Japan a few short months later. When I got to Japan that third time, I realized that I could say things I’d never “gotten” before. It was eerie, and cool, at the same time.

During this third time living in Japan, I frequently went to one particular bar, “Eddie’s.” I loved going there. For reasons no one quite understands, there seem to be people from all over the world in Kofu, so I got to know people from many cultures. Some of us could only speak Japanese as our common language, even though it was native to none of us. After awhile I was going to Eddie’s almost every night, and friends knew they could find me there. We’d eat and drink and be merry. We’d talk and joke and discuss world events. We’d play chess or cards or backgammon, game after game after game. I had arguments there, got terribly drunk there, laughed and cried and got scared there. I fell in love there. It was very much a part of my world.

One evening when I was ready to leave, I went to the cash register to pay. In a clear, loud, perhaps drunken voice, I announced my desire to pay: “Hatarakita-a-a-ai !!!!” My good friend Kazumi, who was the waitress, looked at me strangely, then handed me a towel and said, “dozo”, or “please, go ahead.”

Huh? Ah, it was another example of the wrong word coming out of my mouth. I had meant to say “haraitai”, which is “I want to pay.” What I’d said was, “I want to work.”

Even after five years, mistakes and errors found their way into the course of a normal day. Once, my friend Margaret and I were walking along the riverbank that led from near our apartments to the downtown area. It was one of those stunning, glorious, early spring days when the air is soft and the cherry trees are all at the perfect level of blossom, just barely at full-bloom and only hours away from falling off. The cherry trees are so copious in Japan that a soft, pale white-pink bathes the light of every corner, blurring the mind to a soft focus of the world. It is simply breathtaking and wonderful for about a week every year.

So there it was, a splendid, glorious day, and I was moved to sing. What else, under the cherry trees, would one sing, except the cherry blossom song? If you’ve ever eaten in a Japanese restaurant, you probably have heard this tune. It’s one of those Japanese things that got itself exported to this country, like cars, chopsticks, “sayonara,” and karaoke. So I began singing: “Sakana, sakana…..” It’s a lovely little tune, although I don’t know what words come next in the song. I just knew, and so sang, that part. “Sakana, sakana….”

…at which point Margaret began laughing so hard she had to stop walking. Now, I know I’m not the world’s greatest singer, but I thought this was a bit overdone. I stared at her, wondering what was up. When she could catch her breath, she told me I’d sung “sakana” instead of “sakura.”

Sakura, you see, is the word for cherry blossoms. Entirely appropriate to the day. Sakana, on the other hand, means…. Fish Now I’m doubled over with laughter, then we cried because we couldn’t stop laughing. Then, finally catching our breath, we continued on.

But we were noisy foreigners who ruined the “wa” of all the Japanese in our hearing, because we couldn’t help singing at the top of our voices, as we continued along the river, “SAKANAAAA, SAKANAAAAAA!!!”

The Italians

Wow. That was my first impression, seeing a small group of three Italian men sitting with my friend in the McDonald’s on the second floor of the train station in Tsuchiura. “Wow.”

You’ll notice the lack of an exclamation point. Not a “Wow!” More subdued, sublime, internal. More like a sigh or whisper. “wow….”

My friend, “A”, who was sitting there in the McDonald’s waiting for me with these three men (she had called me, told me she’d met some people she knew I’d like to meet) smiled, and the five of us sat there ~ in a McDonald’s! ~ having a nice little time. These men were in town on a job contract, doing some engineering work for 2-3 months. They were staying at the fancy-schmancy hotel that was just across the street from the language school where A worked.

In a coincidental accident of time, A was leaving work and they were leaving the hotel at the same time. In Japan, foreigners are eye magnets. It can’t be helped ~ foreigners stand out, you cannot help but notice them. So A met the Italians, who said they were going to McDonald’s (the only place they knew to get some food), and invited her along. She called me, and the rest is this story.

After spending about two hours sitting in that McDonald’s, the counter staff eyeing us nervously because we didn’t leave, we finally were shooed out when they wanted to close up. A and I arranged to meet the Italians again the next evening, thinking we’d go to one of the bars we liked, for dinner after work ended at 9:00 for us English teachers. We told the guys how to get there, and they said they’d meet us there. We think that’s what they said. Their Japanese was non-existent, and their English was not exactly precise.

The next night, A and I met up and walked to the bar together. We’d invited another friend, “F”, to come with us so we’d be three and three. We opened the door to this little 26-seat bar and…. Wow! There were now about a dozen Italian men there! We could only laugh! Where had the others come from? Why hadn’t they been mentioned the night before? What on earth was happening… were we in Japan?

Yes indeed. This was the first of several experiences I had, meeting groups of people (okay, men) from a non-English-speaking country and getting to know a new non-Japanese culture, in Japan. A and F and I spent a lot of time with several of these men during their stay in Tsuchiura. We three women were all there on one to two year contracts, and these men gave us some much-needed frivolity. We were hard working English teachers, and we spent a lot of time being serious. These men had no interest in learning English, or really in what we did for a living. When we got together, we just had fun. Lots of laughing!

One thing that I remember about one of these men was a misunderstanding in English. In Italian, “ciao” means both hello and good-bye. This man always got it wrong. It was like the Beatles’ song ~ I’d say hello, he’d say good-bye. He really thought that was the answer when someone said hello. Like in Japanese, when you come home or come back to work after leaving for an errand or lunch break, when you enter you said tadaima (I’m home, or I’m back) and the reply is always okaeri (okaerinasai, if you want to be formal), which means welcome home, or welcome back. So being in Japan and hearing that two-word greeting exchange, this young man said, he thought the answer to hello was good-bye. That’s what he said, anyway.

Did he really believe that? Was he just joking? Who cares!? He was Italian, and…. wow.

Sayonara.... Again!!?

July 15, 2001. A date I’ll never forget. Among other things, it was the date of my next-to-last sayonara party in Japan. There’s always a good-bye party, and since I’ve been there six times, I’ve had six sayonara parties. Yes, even when I was only there for a week on vacation, the last night there was a sayonara party.

And so July 15, 2001 was one such evening. It was a lot of fun, with friends and students packing The Rink. Or at least filling a goodly portion of it! Nearly all my friends were there, plus I’d had a very special afternoon beforehand, with one friend in particular. Nothing but good memories about that day, and unlike other “nothing but good” days, for some reason this one was truly unforgettable. And it makes me a little sad. It was so spectacular, and nothing has come along since then that has been so overwhelmingly good as that was.

Then there was the last party, on December 21, 2007. My friends know me well… we decided to call it an “itterashai” party ~ a “see you later” party. That evening, a man named Daisuke, who I hadn’t seen for years, came into The Rink by chance. Daisuke had been one of my students, 1996-1998, in a company class. He’d been at the previous two sayonara parties (1998, 2001), and when he came into The Rink last December, I called to him and waved him over to our crowded table.

“Daisuke! I can’t believe you’re here,” I said. We hugged and laughed and commented on whether and how the other had changed. Then I told him, “it’s my sayonara party.”

He said, “Again?”

Ah! The brat. My jaw dropped but he just laughed. That is his way, but still, it struck a nerve. I wasn’t sure what to think of that, but on the other hand, truth is truth. So, what the heck? I just shrugged and laughed along. No point in arguing the obvious!

A Story about Eel

Tomorrow is July 1st, and I know that in Japan, many people are about to embark on the annual eel eating feast. It’s not the same time every year or from one person to the next, but my first year in Japan we specifically went out for lunch ~ my then-boyfriend, his mom, and his cousin, and I ~ to have eel.

Grilled eel.

The aroma of grilled eel wafts through the air.

I like the smell, actually. Which is good, because all summer long, you can smell the aroma (some say stench) of grilled eel wafting by as you walk past restaurants with their front doors open, hoping to let in any possible breeze.

No, you cannot assume any traditional restaurant will be air conditioned. Better to assume the opposite! Only the western-style restaurants like Denny’s, McDonald’s, Starbucks, and their ilk are sure bets. I think most of the mom & pop coffee shops I went to were, as well. But I digress. Back to the eel.

So there you are, walking down the street, passing this and that Japanese restaurant with their doors open in hopes of catching any possible breeze, and the smell of grilled eel is wafting out. If you hate that smell, then you’re out of luck. Get used to it. Or carry around a scented handkerchief to hold up to your nose when you walk through the cloud of eel-smell (sometimes I think I can see it). You’ll need that handkerchief anyway, to dab at the sweat that will be pouring from your body in the extreme humidity that is summer in Japan. So make it a scented one, and you can hold it up to your nose to hold the grilled eel smell at bay.

But I like the smell ~ I don’t know why. I hate the taste. Of course, I didn’t know that the first summer I was in Japan and I went with my then-boyfriend, his mom, and his cousin to eat eel on July 2nd. The purpose of eating eel, Atsuko (then-boyfriend’s mom) told me is to gain stamina in order to make it through the summer. They know what they’re talking about. That humidity is unbelievable. It drains the energy out of everything, even my clothes as they hang on the line hoping to be dry three days later. It wreaks havoc in cupboards and closets and on ceilings, inviting mold and mildew to take hold and grow and ruin everything it touches. I know a woman who was unprepared, and everything in her closet was ruined. You can’t wash that out. You can’t dry clean that out. The only way to get mold out of your clothes is to throw them out! She got a new wardrobe out of the deal, but it’s better to be prepared. Get those water-sucking things ~ they’re called “Dry Pet” ~ that go in closets and cupboards and drawers, and change them weekly or monthly. The humidity is murder.

Hence, the eel. I swear, this story is about eel.

So, June is the rainy season, then the rain stops and everything just steams all through the rest of the summer. Laundry, as I mentioned, hangs on the line hoping to be dry in three days. You can see, it looks limp. Airless humidity, and even your freshly-washed clothes (out on the line) look tired. You can imagine, then, how it is for people. They need something to build up their stamina to get through the summer months.

Grilled eel, to the rescue.

I don’t know why eel is the answer, but I know we ~ the four of us ~ went out to have eel for lunch on July 2, 1985. My first taste of eel.

My last taste of eel. Here’s how it went.

Bite 1: I’m leery, because it’s something new, but then I thought, “Mm, not bad! I can eat this.”

Bite 2: Okay, still alright. I can it eat but there’s a bit of an aftertaste.

Bite 3: Um, I’m done. That aftertaste is giving me the shivers.

Bite 4: Nope, didn’t even make it inside my mouth. Had to stop. Couldn’t. Get. In.

Bite 5: No, silly, this isn’t eel. It’s a McDonald’s cheeseburger!

Atsuko was very kind. They all finished their eel and watched me turn green, then we went across the street to get me a cheeseburger. Either to celebrate that they had finished their eel, or that I didn’t pass out, we all had milkshakes, too.

Mm, grilled eel and a milkshake. Make mine chocolate!