Thanks for your patience!
Tuesday I had dinner with my Pilipino friend Karen. She`s a wonderful lady with some amazing stories. She invited me to come visit her in the Philippines in 2012 when she returns there, and of course I asked her to visit me in America. And I got a letter from my Chinese friend Lu and my Korean Opa (big brother) asking when I could come visit them in their respective countries. It`s really amazing to sit back and think, Wow, I have friends from literally all over the world. It`s a very encouraging thought, being so far from my country and friends and family there.
Here`s a picture of Karen:
On Saturday we had an “open campus” so san-nensei (third year, or 9th grade) Junior High students came with their parents to check us out. Because high school is non-compulsory in Japan, there is a lot of competition between schools to attract students. Unlike most schools in the U.S., even Japanese public school students (the majority of Japanese schools are public) choose a school based on their interests and skills, not on location. Some students travel over one hundred kilometers (sixty miles) to go to their choice school. Of course, the train system makes this easier. And there are lots of smaller schools, rather than the “mega schools” like Owasso and Broken Arrow where I grew up.
Each school has a specialty. Our specialty is band and koto (Japanese harp). Koto club is number one in Mie and our band is number two. No choir, which is weird, and unfortunately English is very low on the list. My job, other than attending the opening ceremony (can`t do anything public in Japan without an opening ceremony), was to teach a basic English class. They were much more energetic and willing to participate than my regular students. Hopefully I`ll see most of them in April, which is the beginning of the new school year in Japan.
Sunday I went to church as usual, then headed for the Midosuji parade in Osaka. I`d read that it was really amazing and that people came from all over the world to see it. Unfortunately, when I got there I discovered that they actually discontinued the parade two years ago. Now it`s just a “kappo” or walk with displays along the route. About the coolest thing they had was a jazz band and vintage car. Here`s me with the car:
Not bad, but not worth missing my Japanese lesson and paying 2200 yen (about $25) just to get out there. I did have the consolation of seeing a pretty neat Shinto shrine and hanging out with some friends afterward, though, which was nice.
Monday was a holiday, so I debated over whether to go to Osaka or write. I did both. I printed off my short story that I wrote last week and edited on the train ride. And I`m really glad I went, because it was amazing! I really think God puts people in my life right when I need them. For example, when I wanted to go to the Midosuji parade, I had no idea where it was. I asked this man, and he just happened to speak English and just happened to be going the same way, and actually took me there, guiding me through what ticket to buy and everything. He was also the one who told me the parade ended two years ago and it was just a walk, so I didn`t wander around getting lost wondering where the “real parade” was. And when I got on the train to Osaka, I had no idea how to get to Universal Studios. I happened to run into another girl, who, low and behold, also happened to be going there. I gave her an extra coupon I had (the whole reason I went was because I had coupons and wanted to see the Halloween celebration). In return, she guided me through the train system and to the front gate. Not to mention there was that lady in Matsusaka a few weeks ago who told me there were no hotels where I was going and led me to a nice, cheap hotel in Matsusaka. I could list a dozen other times I`ve run into people who “just happen” to be going the same way as me or have that little piece of information I`m missing that I don`t even know I`m missing.
And now, as I`m writing this over the course of two days, I have one more incident like that I just have to add. I was walking home from school yesterday and, for some reason, decided to stop in the convenience store and buy their sweet potatoes that they had on sale, advertised outside the store. Inside, I met this very kind Brazilian man named Fabiano who`s been living in Japan for thirteen years. I was kind of in a hurry to get home, but something in the back of my head told me to talk to him, so I did. When we finally got around to making our purchases, I opened my bag and my wallet wasn`t there! Turns out, I`d left it at school! So Fabiano took me back in his car to get it. Then we had some coffee and a very nice chat about life in Japan. That was reassuring because he kept saying it gets better, easier, and assured me that a lot of the crazy things I do (like buying yogurt instead of milk for my cereal because it`s cheaper) are things that everybody does here. After that, he gave me a ride to the station and low and behold, my bike is gone! I had parked it at what I thought was a bike rack, but apparently it wasn`t. He took me to the police station (and showed me what a police station looked like on the outside, because I had no idea) and asked about it for me in Japanese. They told us it had been taken to City Hall. Turns out he had a back injury a few weeks ago, so the doctor told him he can`t go to work, but he`s bored out of his mind. So he offered to take me today during my lunch break to pick it up! Can you believe it? What would I have done if I hadn`t run into him? I would have not had my wallet and not had my bike, which would have left me with no way to get to school in the morning except to walk, and I would have been so late with no lunch and had no idea where my bike was! That`s providence right there, my friends.
So anyway, Universal Studios was amazing! Before I went, I was afraid I would be a little disappointed. Everyone said it was small compared to the one in California I`d already been to, but it was plenty big for me! You could easily get a bargain out of the two day pass. One day for the shows and visual attractions, another day for all the rides. And even though it was very crowded, I didn`t have to wait much. My strategy is to see all the shows until 5:00. You don`t have to wait for shows; you just come fifteen minutes early to make sure you get a good seat and then people watch, which in a foreign theme park with everyone dressed up for Halloween, is almost as amusing as the actual show. At 5:00, people start going home or going to the shows (I guess most people like to save shows for the evening when they`re tired), so instead of hour long waits, the waits are only ten minutes or so. And they`ve got pretty cool videos to watch while you`re waiting, so you don`t even notice the time.
The first show I went to was Peter Pan, which, truth be told, was a little disappointing. It would have been nice, but there were bars in the way so I could barely see. That`s their best show and no doubt the most expensive to put on (it had a cast of at least fifteen, a huge set, and lots of special effects) so you have to pay extra for the “special viewing area” without the bars. If you go to Universal Studios in Japan, I say don`t waste your time or money. There were plenty of other great shows with much better seating options.
Like the next one, which I happened upon by accident! I was wandering through the Jurassic park area when I saw a man dressed in a jocker`s costume and asked if I could take his picture. He let me, then told me he had a show starting in a few minutes. I followed him and since I helped gather people to watch, he gave me the best view of all! He was really good; here`s two videos:
And then I went to Wicked. You were right, Mom, when you pointed out the Wicked poster in my last blog. It`s showing at Universal Studios, or at least a condensed version, about thirty to forty minutes. But it contained all the best songs like “Popular,” (which was amusing to hear in Japanese) and “Defying Gravity.” They included most of the special effects, including the dragon and the wizard`s scary disguise, but for the flying scene, they had this pillar shoot up out of nowhere to raise Elphaba instead of lifting her into a harness. Still pretty cool, and I was ten times closer to the stage, which was awesome. I was curious to see how they would do the translation, since there`s so much word play with allusions to the American movie and books. They took the easy way out, doing most of the songs in English with Japanese translations on sideboards like at the opera, and the acting in Japanese. The girl who played Elphaba was obviously not Japanese, (American or Canadian I think, from her accent) and all of her songs were in English. The girl who played Glinda was Japanese, with a blond wig, and she did a really good job. Sometimes I think Japanese girls are more blond than real blonds, thanks to “kawai” (cute) culture.
I noticed that in all the shows, the supporting cast was entirely Japanese, but the main characters were almost always not. Universal Studios Japan is only about ten years old, so I bet they`re from the original shows at Universal Studios in America or wherever, then decided to take their show “on tour.” For all of the shows except Wicked, the actors didn`t really need to know Japanese. They were just lip sinking most of their lines, too busy doing stunts and dodging special effect explosions to do any actual singing and talking. I caught the actress in Water World “talking” when she was under water. Oops.
Yeah, Water World was next. That was pretty amazing. The Japanese were afraid of getting wet so they stayed out of the “splash zone” in front, but I didn`t mind, so another front row seat for me! I didn`t even get that wet. I won`t go into a lot of detail because for this one they actually allowed people to take video. Here`s the best scenes:
And then to get dry, I went to “backdraft,” a pyrotechnic demonstration based on the Ron Howard film with the same name. Here is the “climax” scene:
Pretty scary! For half a second I thought that ceiling was actually gonna collapse on us!
About that time it was 5:00, so I went on the Back to the Future and Spiderman rides. Ug, I`m not as young as I used to be! I felt pretty sick after Back to the Future and had to close my eyes for part of Spiderman. And they weren`t even roller coasters, just 3-D simulation rides. I can only go on those because they just trick your body into thinking you`re doing ridiculously fast speeds and maneuvers. If you close your eyes for a second, the sensation stops. But on roller coasters, there`s no tricking. You really are going seventy miles an hour upside down on a loop!
The Blues Brothers concert was OK. They were good, and genuine “Chicago” Americans who didn`t speak a lick of Japanese (or else just REALLY good actors), even if they weren`t the actual Blues Brothers. I`m just not that into blues.
The terminator 3-D movie/stage play was pretty cool. They talked too much (a common crime in Japanese and American film), but the smooth, cool way the live stage actors melted into the movie and back out made up for that. Very seamless, except that the Japanese stage actor playing the kid was noticeably taller (believe it or not) than the American film actor. Sorry I wasn`t allowed to video tape it to show you; you`ll just have to see for yourself.
Then came the grand finale, the Starlight parade. Wow! Talk about a spectacle! The only thing that might have ruined it for me was the cold (I`d locked my sweater in a locker at the entrance because it was so hot that morning), but again, God provided someone right there when I needed them. A kind Japanese woman lent me an extra wrap. I made sure, of course, that she already had a thick sweater for herself; you`ve got to be careful what you take from a Japanese person because if you let them, they`ll give you their last meal. Very similar to Africans in that respect. She was also a Japanese teacher, so while she wasn`t skilled at English, she understood my broken Japanese very well, and we had a pleasant conversation while we waited for the parade to start. Here`s a video of my favorite part of the spectacular starlight parade:
On the way out while going through Universal City, (the area surrounding Universal Studios which could be an amusement park in and of itself,) I ran into another juggler. This guy had some pretty impressive balancing acts. Here`s the best:
I actually left before his show was over because I didn`t know when the last train for Nabari left. I`m glad I did leave then, because I ran into some other JETs (Japanese Exchange Teachers)! I rode with them for awhile, but fortunately I kept my head enough not to just follow, and when they said I needed to change trains with them, I was pretty sure I didn`t, so I stayed on and luckily I was right. So I don`t just randomly follow people all the time! I do have some sense of direction. Some.
From there I got the semi-express train straight to Nabari (I always get excited at the end of the day when I find a train with that lovely kanji representing my town) and got home about midnight. I read my Bible, said my prayers, and crashed. I`m glad I didn`t linger at Universal City longer than I did. As it was I awoke yesterday morning feeling pretty genki (healthy and energetic) and taught a geography class about America and especially Oklahoma. They`re starting to give me more classes, which makes me happy. I like earning my keep.
So the moral of the story is, if you ever get a chance to go to Universal Studios in Japan, it`s worth it. It cost me about $50 to get in, but when you think about all that came with that price, it was more than decent. Each of those shows by themselves probably would have cost $15 a piece, but there you could get much closer to the stage and even talk to the actors afterward. Then throw in the rides, the rose gardens, the starlight parade and the fact that it lasted all day instead of just one evening, and you`re definitely getting a bargain.
Prayer requests for this week: No more typhoons! It`s typhoon season here in Japan and I`d rather not have to go through that mess again. It`s more than just an inconvenience. Some people died. Not in Nabari, I don`t think, but closer to the ocean. The lady who has cancer at my church seems to be getting better. Pray that she will continue to improve! If anyone wants to post any requests on their end, feel free. Prayer is powerful!
Until next time, keep reading and keep praying,
Laura
I, being in my own little world, (meaning I can`t understand Japanese news so I don`t bother to read or watch it, which, I admit, is stupid), didn`t find out about the typhoon until the day before. My supervisor warned me, saying that school would be closed.
"So I shouldn’t come tomorrow?" I asked.
"Oh, no. We have to protect the students, but the teachers must come to school, no matter what."
OK, I`m thinking. It must not be that bad then. I went home on my merry way, made a batch of brownies, and sat down to write the end of my latest short story. That`s when stuff started banging against my glass doors.
Not a problem, I thought. I`ll just close the storm shutters like the weather advisory said to do.
So I went outside. The wind was tearing the trees apart and the rain was pelting the oranges off my neighbors orange tree. And what did I find? No storm shutters. The entire backside of my apartment is encased in glass doors.
Great. So I`ll just stay away from the doors. Then I heard the sirens. Loud and blaring, like the tornado sirens back in Oklahoma. And a voice over a loud speaker, sounding somewhat frantic.
The phone rang. It was my friend Charlie in Nagasaki.
"Are you OK?"
"I...don`t know," I replied honestly.
"Maybe you should evacuate."
"Evacuate?"
"Yeah, the news said some folks in Mie are having to evacuate."
I hadn`t even thought of that. "I`ll call my supervisor."
So I called her and she said to just stay put. If I needed to evacuate, my landlord would tell me. "There will be school tomorrow," she insisted. "You must come."
"What if the trains stop running?"
She laughed. "The trains never stop running."
Note to self: When a Japanese person, or anyone for that matter, says something will never happen, it`s usually about to happen.
I arrived at the train station at 8:00 in the morning, just two hours after the peak of the typhoon. The wind ripped my umbrella right out of my hands. And sure enough, I waited and waited, but the train never came. I called my supervisor. Again.
"You`ll just have to walk," she said.
I looked around at all the trees flattened by the wind. "Uh...if the two ton train can`t stand the wind, what makes you think I can?" I realized immediately just how rude that would sound to a Japanese person, so I tried to change the subject. "Maybe you could give me a ride?" Another not-exactly-smart-thing to say.
(Typical Japanese air-sucking-through-teeth sound.) “I`m already at school. The roads are closing so I would have trouble reaching you. Take care!"
Take care. If I had a dolar for every time someone told me to take care and then told me to do something risky anyway (come to school with my hand in a cast, walk with a sprained ankle, come to school when I`m sick, travel in a typhoon) I would be able to retire on that money! Not to be overly cynical, but sometimes I feel as if the Japanese just want me to think that they care, when in reality all they care about is work, work, work and keeping everything running at status quo no matter what.
I resisted the very strong urge to scream at her. During my silence she had to speak to a student and I hung up.
I did the only other thing I could think of. I called my pastor.
"Remember that time you told me that if ever I needed a ride to school you`d give me one?"
Silence.
"Um...yeah, I need one now."
More silence. Finally. "The roads are blocked, Laura."
"Oh, yeah." I started to cry. I couldn`t help it. I was cold, wet, standing in the middle of the biggest storm I`d ever seen and stuck in a Catch-22.
"Let me ask my wife!" I heard him run off, shout something in Japanese, and quickly run back to the phone. "She says she knows a way around the road block!"
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" I cried.
"Ah, it`s nothing."
I baked him and his wife some brownies and gave them to them at church, so I`m not a completely ungrateful moocher.
So I arrived at school half an hour late, sopping wet, and freezing. The truly ironic part is that when I arrived at school, half the teachers were absent. And I did nothing. All day. I just sat at my desk and wrote a whinny complaint letter to my mother. And finished my short story. Nothing I couldn`t have done at home.
On the bright side, I never lost power and neither did the school. And the typhoon was be over by in time for me to catch the train home. When I walked out of the school building at 4:20, I was greeted by sunshine and only a smattering of clouds. And we say weather is crazy in Oklahoma.
This is actually a picture I found of a typhoon in southern Japan, because I never risked taking out my camera during the storm! I wanted to give you an idea of what it looks like; ours was about this bad at the very peak, around 6:00 in the morning.
So, what happened was I went to J-house church on Friday night for funky party. It was pretty cool; lots of dancing and fun games and worship. I stayed the night there in the missionary dormitories with some visiting Koreans. They were really nice and headed for Kobe the next day, so I decided last minute to go with them. They were so sweet! They paid for everything for me; I felt kind of bad about that, I should have insisted more on paying for some things, but then I`m always afraid of offending people. It`s hard to know what to do in a foreign country.
We were a mixed group of American, Korean, and Japanese, all communicating through English, which I`m realizing more and more truly is an international language. It`s a dominant or official language (meaning it is widely used in schools and business) in over fifty countries, and in over half of these the majority of citizens can speak it. More people speak English in China than in America. Even though most people don`t know it well, everyone seems to know some.
Koreans are a lot more touchy-feely than Japanese. It wasn`t just these guys. All my Korean friends and students back in the states were like that too. They give you hugs and girls hold hands. They thought I was cute and kept playing with my hair or patting my face. Pretty soon they were calling me “Yuh-dong-saeng” or just “Yuh” for short. For some reason whenever I`m in a large group setting, I always take on that persona of “little sister.” I`m usually the youngest, a little absent minded, and I lose things a lot. So they looked out for me and made sure I kept up with the others, with all my things intact. There was just so many things to see— sometimes I`d stop and stare and take a picture of something and my two “Opa” or big brothers would pick me up by my arms and run with me after the others. Here`s an underground garden:
And here`s a beautiful fountain:
In Kobe, we visited the Earthquake museum and memorial. In 1995, Kobe experienced a horrible earthquake that completely destroyed the city. There was a reenactment room with images projected on a screen where we watched the buildings collapse in on themselves and glass shatter and fires blaze. It only took two minutes for the entire city to be demolished and 6,000 people to die. (It was fortunate that it occurred at 5:00am. If it had happened just two hours earlier during the commuter hour, they estimate that ten times as many people would have died on derailed train cars and busses or plunged into the ocean from broken bridges.
You never know when you`re going to go; it might be in your sleep, crushed beneath rubble or in a terrible fire. The whole theme of the weekend was “What`s going to happen to you when you die?” The Koreans said they weren`t afraid of any earthquakes or North Korea bombing them. They said they knew they would be in heaven with Jesus when they died. The people I met in Malawi have similar sentiments, yet the Japanese run around like chickens with their heads cut off, afraid of every cold, tremor, and nuclear threat they hear about on the news. It`s a really interesting contrast.
The good news of the Kobe story is that the city was rebuilt, with the help of thousands of volunteers around Japan and abroad, in just one year. Now the buildings are much safer and Japan has a lot of laws about earthquake safety. The interesting thing is, those apparently don`t apply to my apartment. It`s pretty structurally unsafe and has no sprinkler system. Most buildings in Japan don`t have a sprinkler system, in fact, I don`t think I`ve seen a single one. And with all the straw tatami or wood floors…it just makes me wonder what`s going through their heads. It`s the same with all the flu spreading. They wear face masks and shut down classes with two or more students infected, but there`s no soap in the bathrooms and teachers have so few sick days and are often pressured into coming anyway, work outrageous hours, and never rest.
Anyway, my favorite part of the weekend was Korean night. When we got back from Kobe, we ate lots of Korean food, played Korean games, and dressed in traditional Korean costumes. The Koreans were here during their Chusok holiday, the Korean equivalent of Thanksgiving. Here`s traditional Chusok food:
The dish in front is fried squid, then beef with onions, then rice noodles with vegetables, and from the left a pickled green garden lettuce with minced red pepper, boiled rice flower in red pepper sauce, and kimchi, or pickled cabbage with red pepper. Notice a trend? Those Koreans like their pickled things and red pepper! It was all very delicious, and for desert later with had seafood pancakes with squid, shrimp, and octopus.
Then we had International Worship! That was a really amazing experience, singing to God with people from all over the world. Here`s a video of one of my favorite songs, sung in English, Japanese, and Korean:
And then we played Korean games! I didn`t know that the old game we used to play in middle school, hacky sack, was invented in Korea! That`s what they said, anyway. Here`s a video of my “Opa,” MioHyeon Han showing me how to play:
Everyone in the group turned to me.
“Nani?” I asked, pointing to my nose in the traditional Japanese/Korean sign language meaning “me?”
“You`re the prettiest one in the group, Laura, so you have to go up and compete.”
What? I thought they were joking. But no, they had me get up and see how many times I could hit it with my shoe. I only hit it once and it wasn`t much to see. But here`s me at a slightly more successful Korean “chicken fight.”
And finally, we got to try on traditional Korean clothes. This is me in a Hanbok, a traditional dress, with my friend Hana (on my right) and another Korean girl who`s name I can`t remember:
I spent the night again on Saturday and on Sunday, after breakfast, bid goodbye to my new Korean friends. They invited me to come visit them at the church in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, any time. I`m totally taking them up on that, I was planning on visiting my friend Casey there anyway. Maybe in February. It`s only a one hour flight from Osaka!
Sunday I went to church in Nabari, as usual, and enjoyed the company of more friends. It was a good weekend.
Oh, and here`s one more picture I want to post, of the bio park back in Nagasaki. Here`s a monkey on my shoulder!
Prayer requests for this week: Same as before. That this flu might stop spreading, I get over this stupid cold that won`t go away, and that we don`t have any natural disasters!
But, please add to that the struggling churches in Korea and Japan. My Korean friends told me how hard it is being a minority, how they face constant persecution. One lady at my church gave her testimony this week, talking about how her husband told her that if she became a Christian, he would never speak to her again and start having affairs with other women. She became a Christian anyway, and that`s what he did. My Korean “Opa” has only been a Christian for two years, and it`s very hard for him because no one else in his family is. They are angry at him for deserting the traditional beliefs and many won`t speak to him. I was talking casually about American history with a colleague this week, and he asked me why so many people left Europe for America. Religious persecution was one of the reasons I listed. He grew very upset, and told me very pointedly that there was no more religious persecution after the Enlightenment began. When I insisted that there was still religious persecution still going on even today in many places of the world, including Asia, he was downright angry with me and told me I was ignorant. Many people in the room seemed to agree with him. How can these people be so blind? They have closed their eyes to what they don`t want to see. Pray for that. Pray that they see it and that the persecution stops, not just for Christians, but for every religion and every people all over the world.
Blessings,
Laura
Last Wednesday my adult class took me out for a super nice dinner at a Chinese restaurant, and they paid for me! I won’t go into the food, because I think I’ve already covered the topic of how Chinese food is different in Japan than America. (Though it seemed to surprise the Japanese that we would have Chinese restaurants at all. When I told them we had at least three in my hometown which was half the size of Nabari, they were shocked. That’s more than they had!)
I talked with my “Ojiisan” (Japanese grandpa) for a long time. I told him I was going to Nagasaki next week, and for the first time since coming to Japan, the topic of the war came up. He talked about being a boy during World War II and running underground to escape the American fire bombs.
“Back then, Japan and America were enemies,” he said. “But now we are friends. I am very happy about that. But it is not that way with all countries. You must visit the nuclear bomb memorial in Nagasaki. You must see for yourself what happened. When you go back to America, in three, four, five years Laura-chan, you must tell your leaders to get rid of your nuclear bombs. The world is not safe as long as there are nuclear bombs. Why does America fight so much? Japan’s army is only for defense. All armies should be only for defense.”
I didn’t know how to tell him that our Congress thought the wars we entered were only defense; that it’s very hard being a country that many people hate and want to destroy. Mostly, I didn’t say anything because I don’t know how I feel about the subject. Of course I hate war, of course I wish there were no nuclear bombs. But what do you do when there are other countries who refuse to get rid of their nuclear bombs and they’re just waiting for a chance to train them on you? It is a very difficult, messy situation. We can complain about it all we want, but until someone comes up with an alternative, a way of creating a lasting peace contrary to human nature, what can be done? I firmly believe that it is only by the grace of God that we haven’t already blown each other to smithereens. And it is only by the grace of God that there will ever be true, lasting peace on Earth.
So that`s what I wrote last week. I wasn`t planning on visiting the Peace Park, but I promised my Ojiisan I would, so I did. The park was beautiful, of course, but marked by a deep sadness.
Here is the main statue, donated by the people of Nagasaki. It is meant to look like both the Christian God and Buddah, and to personify both strength and peace. One leg is curled in a meditative pose, the other poised for action. One arm is stretched out the help mankind, the other pointing to the sky at the threat of nuclear arms. It`s eyes are closed in a silent prayer. It is one of the only statues in the park, I believe, whose sentiments, are genuine:
What do I mean by “genuine sentiments?” I went around the park and looked at other statues and when they were donated. The largest and most impressive were from The Soviet Union, Cuba, East Germany, China, North Korea, right at the height of the Cold War. Right when they were threatening to rip the world apart. To me, they seemed like false ploys, a front over a seething hate and vengeance. I don`t know, maybe they were genuine; of course there were people in those countries who wanted peace. And I couldn`t help but notice, while there was one statue donated by an American sister city, there was nothing from the American government. It seemed to me that at the very least the U.S. should have presented Nagasaki with a token of apology. While I admire my country`s boldness, doing what “needs to be done” and never looking back, it seems that, in this case, some kind of peace offering, a memorial, would have been a smart idea. Of course, America poured billions of dollars and resources into helping rebuild Japan, but it seems like a physical token…well, maybe it exists in Hiroshima where the bigger bomb fell.
Here is the plaque that talks about the damage done:
Charlie started crying when he got to the part about it being a Boeing plane that dropped the bomb. I`m sure he already knew, and I`m not sure that`s why he was crying, but it was a powerful moment. We did this. Or rather, our people. I didn`t cry, and I can`t say I was really ashamed. How could I be? I didn`t do it, and what`s more, I`m not sure it was the wrong course of action. Morally wrong, of course, but war is war. If you look at it from a purely tactical point of view, if America had continued their island hopping strategy of taking one island at a time, millions more would have died, both American and Japanese soldiers, along with many more civilians. It was better to act in one swift, isolated motion rather than cause more pain and suffering across Japan over many months or even years. As terrible and ironic as it sounds, by dropping the bomb, America actually spared lives. And afterwards America did rebuild Japan, they did forge a lasting and true peace with their former enemy. Would any other country have done that? Maybe. It`s hard to say. Was the bombing Right, as in ultimately Good and True? Of course not. Was it the right thing to do? Probably. How can I explain the difference? We live in a twisted world. I`m just glad I wasn`t Harry Truman. I`m not sure what I would have done.
I have only one more thing to say about the Peace Park. There were many students there, some standing before the statue, praying for peace, others silently meditating. Two groups of them came up to Charlie and me and interviewed us. As soon as they found out we were America, they seemed more interested, but there wasn`t a trace of anger or even awkwardness about them, just like my Ojiisan. They asked their questions: Do you know when the bombing took place? What is the cause of war? How old are you? No, “Why did America do this?” “Do you think it will happen again?” nothing like that. If there`s one thing I can say for the Japanese, they`re a forgiving people. I told them I believed war was the caused by evil in the world, working inside the hearts of people through greed and hate. That Kamisama (God) dosn`t want us to fight and that He cries when He sees us killing each other. Someday Kamisama will bring peace on Earth and there will be no more tears and no more hurting and no more nuclear bombs. That`s what I believe. I think they understood. Here is a picture of the kids giving the peace sign. You can`t get a picture of a Japanese kid without them making that sign.
So that`s the “death” part of this blog. Let`s talk about life! Next we went to the Nagasaki bio park, and it was amazing! First we went into the orchid house. Here`s all the beautiful flowers!
Here`s my favorite orchid:
And here`s a butterfly that landed on my shoe!
Next we went to the Amazon building. Here`s a giant fish! You can`t see him very well, but that sucker had to be at least ten feet long!
We were lucky and showed up right at feeding time. Here`s a video of feeding that giant fish:
We were lucky and showed up right at feeding time. Here`s a video of feeding that giant fish:
As we were leaving, we noticed a very large, smiling snapping turtle. Come to me, my pretties:
Then we visited the barn yard. There was a baby goat being bullied by all the other goats. I think this is the baby with its mother; maybe she`s trying to toughen him up? I wouldn`t want to be her student!
My favorite was definitely the “pet” area. They had hundred of different kinds of pets from around the world from guinea pigs to monkeys. The mice just loved climbing up Charlie`s arms!
And we saw a crazy squirrel! Talk about a Hammy (Remember Over the Hedge)? Charlie thinks it`s just like me!
By then it was closing time, but we figured we were halfway through, so we continued on to the end. We got to feed the wallabies and monkeys on the way out, and one of the monkeys jumped on my head! Hopefully I`ll get that picture from Charlie soon.
In the morning, we had breakfast at Maria and Antony`s restaurant. This is what I mean by life. Death and destruction may always be looming around the corner, but this is our hope:
Cute little Akachan! Akachan literally means “red little thing” but the Japanese simply use it as their word for baby. This is Maria and Antony`s newest granddaughter. Isn`t she cute?
Before I left, I wanted to take a quick swim in the ocean. The water was so clear! Only in Scotland have I seen it so perfect:
Then I headed for Taki, a small town where a number of my friends were planning to head out for Shiga. I wanted one more adventure, just one more! This time, the journey was quite eventful. A man sat next to me on the shinkansen who was obviously roaring drunk. He spoke to me in slurred English, grumbling loudly about America and Christians, especially “Texas cowboys” and “Bush.” Totally unprovoked, I hadn`t said a word. But he was obviously directing his angry discourse at me, because he kept waiting for some response. I found the whole ordeal rather amusing, actually, and was stupid enough to think that if I responded, he might shut up.
“I don`t like Bush either,” I said. “But he`s not president anymore. Things are changing, you`ll see.”
This seemed to get him real excited. “Change, change, that`s right, change! Good for black people. In olden days, black people, yellow people, red people, Christians make them slaves.”
“Ah, but you forget it was also the Christians who freed the slaves.”
“Really? Naw. America never done nothin` right.”
Interesting that he automatically associated America and Christians as the same entity, I thought. We continued this unusual banter for quite some time, and rather than be annoyed, most of the people around us seemed interested, leaning in closer to hear. The man seemed to get less and less violent and belligerent as we went along, as I very casually and kindly presented the evidence against his angry arguments. By the time I got off the train, he reached out to me and patted my hand.
“You good girl,” he said. “You Americans and Christians not so bad.”
Maybe he`ll wake up in the morning and never remember that conversation. I don`t know. That`s up to God.
On the express train to Taki, by yet another act of providence I ran into a woman who lived in Matsusaka. We got to talking (in Japanese), and she informed me there was no hotel in Taki. But she knew of a nice, cheap one in Matsusaka! So she took me there, and I stayed there the night, planning to go to Taki to meet up with my friends in the morning. First, I had to sample the famous Matsusaka beef. Here`s yaki niku (Korean barbeque) at a local restaurant:
Totally delicious, if you`re willing to pay the price! The girl made it sound like it came with rice and vegetables, but then they charged me for it. (Note for future reference, you pay for every individual item you order at a yaki niku place.) Without those, it would have been about $10.
Then I crashed. In the morning, I awoke with a cold. I should have known better than to try to squeeze in one more adventure that week! I took a cue from my body and decided to go home. They may still charge me for the trip; I don`t know. But Charlie`s right, I always try to do too much. I have a long life ahead of me, and Taki will still be there next year!
These are snap shots of my life, bits of the whole. Sometimes I need to just slow down and reflect on them a little. With a little peace, and a little time, God`s ultimate purpose for me will become clear.
Prayer requests for this week: that I finally kick this cold! It`s been plaguing me off and on for weeks. I`m exhausted and can`t sleep at night. Also, there`s a teacher at my school with cancer. He`s been out a lot lately and we`re really worried about him. And on the other side of death, is life. Hiyashi sensei and my sister-in-law Emily are having their babies soon. Please pray for easy final trimesters and healthy babies.
Until next time, Grace and Peace,
Laura
Then we took a drive around the mountains. Here`s my favorite view, of a lone island in the middle of the clear, blue ocean. It reminds me of the Simon and Garfunkel song “I am a rock. I am an island!”
Then Charlie took me to the top of a high tower to show me a bird’s-eye view of his entire island. I took a video because a picture just wasn`t good enough:
It`s amazing the things you find in these little, out of the way places! We turned the corner and low and behold, another surprise! A little store crowning the crest of a hill, overlooking mountains, sea, and forest. We each bought a bento (boxed lunch) and sat outside at the little tables to enjoy the gentle island breeze, the pounding heartbeat of the ocean, the cry of the seagulls, and one of God`s greatest paintings. To top it all off, the store also sold all kinds of beautiful roses, and I bought a bag of rose heads for hyaku en (one dollar)! I scattered them over the table and the smell of them, mingled with the ocean air, made the moment perfect. I`m just sorry the picture only allows you to enjoy one of the senses:
You see, that`s what I`m talking about. In America, a hill like that would have a five-star hotel, spa and restaurant at the top, swarming with tourists. But there was only a handful of people there. And places like this exist all over Japan; why waste your time and money in crowded, tourist-trap Tokyo? I`ve been to Tokyo, it`s just like New York except the people speak Japanese. My students are the same: “I want to visit New York, I want to visit Los Vegas.” I keep telling them, come to Oklahoma and the Midwest! That`s real America, the heartland, not some greedy commercialized city all glitzed up to sell, sell, sell!
Though I have to admit, even I wouldn`t have felt my trip complete without visiting famous Nagasaki City. (Prefectures, like counties in the U.S., are often named after the largest city. So all this time we`d been in Nagasaki prefecture, but hadn`t seen the city.) We arrived around 4:00. Charlie wanted to get his re-entry permit, but the office closed at 4:00. We decided to find it anyway, so we`d know where it was in the morning. Low and behold, another surprise! They went ahead and let him apply! While he worked on that, I wrote on outline for a new short story I just started yesterday, “Tapestry of Time.” Despite everything, I always find time to write.
Then we walked through the Dutch district, enjoying all the little glass shops and sampling cream cheese and chocolate pastries. So I got my Dutch food after all! At the top of the hill stood a little Catholic church, and though the gates were already closed, we found two adorable kittens and cuddled them while speaking English with two very interesting, kind Dutch tourists. When they found out I was Dutch, they of course wanted to know how my ancestors came to America. “The potato famine,” I replied, repeating the story my grandparents had always told me.
“There was no such famine in the Netherlands,” they said.
“Oh, I know they call it `The Irish Potato Famine` I agreed, “But it was really all over Europe. Not as bad, but people still left by the droves!”
“Not in Holland,” they insisted. “We`ve never had a famine in Holand, not in all our history.”
I believed them at the time, thinking that maybe the “fleeing religious persecution” story other members of my family tell might be more accurate. But now, curious, I looked it up. I just found an article published by Free University Amsterdam entitled, “Long-Run Longevity Effects of a Nutritional Shock Early in Life: The Dutch Potato Famine of 1846-1847.” Guess what? That`s when my ancestors came over. So I`m slightly more inclined to believe the university.
Anyway, after that, we went to Glover Garden. Oh, my goodness! If I had a dollar for every time I`ve said in Japan, “It feels like I`m in a video game,” I think I`d be rich. There were so many things I thought in Japanese games, “that would never happen in real life.” Guess what? Japanese people do randomly walk into strangers` houses, they do repeat themselves over and over if you talk to them more than once, they run everywhere, the whole “…” thing is perfect for expressing the common silent treatment you receive, they over exaggerate their emotions, shout “hai!” all the time, and they have frugalin` escalators in the middle of public gardens! I got a picture:
I`m just waiting to find a random treasure chest with a heart inside nestled among the bushes.
During the late seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries, the shoguns would not allow the Japanese people to leave the country, and no foreigners could come to Japan. Except for the area now known as Glover Garden. That`s why there are so many Dutch things in Nagasaki; they were the only European traders allowed in Japan for a long time, and only that port. Later, other Europeans flooded into the area. Far from becoming a ghetto, the area of Glover Garden was filled with the mansions and gardens of rich European and American merchants. Many of these have been preserved. Here`s a picture of two random Japanese girls, not tour guides or anything, dressed up in European costume:
Now all I need is a picture of me beside them in a kimono. Isn`t it funny how we tend to obsess over the exotic? Cowboys and European stuff are all the rage in Japan, but half of them don`t even know when their home-town festival got started, let alone what it means. Of course, I`m one to talk. I tell my students all about rodeos and barrel races, but I`ve never been to any myself!
The gardens themselves were lovely, though most of the flowers weren`t blooming. This is Nagasaki port at sunset:
After dark we briefly visited Mr. Glover`s house in Glover garden. He was a Scottish business man who contributed a lot to Japanese modernization. He constructed the first European-style building, brought the first steam locomotive, coal mine, dry dock, war ship, laid the first telephone wire, and founded Kirin Brewery and Mitsubishi company. He also played a major role in the Meiji Restoration, supplying arms and ships to rebel factions, eventually returning Japan to a state of political stability and open foreign policy. So he`s pretty popular in Japan.
We started to head back to Charlie`s place, but it was two hours away, and Charlie was getting sleepy at the wheel. So we decided to stay somewhere. We found a decent-looking hotel that appeared fairly cheap. That`s when we got our biggest surprise of all! When we went in, the ladies were all grinning at us strangely and gave us only one key. Then we entered the room and my jaw dropped.
“What the heck is this? Massage oil, a porn magazine, only one bed?”
Charlie turned bright red. “I think we`re in a love hotel.”
“A what?” Of course I knew what a love hotel was; I`d heard about them enough at orientation. And even if I hadn`t, it was easy enough to guess. I was just so appalled at the situation that I couldn`t speak.
“Uh…we can leave,” Charlie said quickly, and hurried for the door. It was locked.
“What the heck? They locked us in the room?” I tried the door. Sure enough, bolted tight. “I can`t believe this; why would they do that? So one member of the couple can`t run off and rob the other blind or something?”
“Talk about a fire hazard,” Charlie muttered.
He called the front desk. The ensuing conversation sounded something like this:
Clerk: Moshi-moshi.” (Hello.)
Charlie: Eh, moshi-moshi. Watashtachino…door…locked. Open…kudasai.
Clerk: “Eh? Wakadimasen.”
I supplied the words for “closed” and “please open.” The woman still didn`t seem to understand.
“Locked, locked!” Charlie was practically shouting into the phone. “We`re locked in our room!”
More “wakadimasen.” Finally we realized the problem. “Wakadimasen” literally translates to “I don`t understand,” and like English, it can mean that you don`t understand what the person is saying, or you don`t understand why they`re saying it. The other word she kept saying was “mochiron,” which, once I heard it clearly, understood as a word I`d just learned in my last Japanese lesson with Pastor Toshi. “Of course.”
Finally, the woman asked “Ninika kaitai des ka?” (Do you want to buy something?) So we just said yes. Then, we tried the door one more time, and it opened! So the lady came up, grinning at us and bringing a little basket of “exotic” wares, with us blushing and apologizing for bothering her.
Then, the really ironic part was, we realized we couldn`t get our money back, so after fetching our stuff, we just stayed there anyway. Charlie took the couch, like the gentleman and good friend he is, and I took the rather…awkward…bed.
I wasn`t going to include that story, but I couldn`t resist. It`s the best illustration I have to show how Japan can quickly become “awkward land.” I could talk about the waitresses bowing over and over and you can`t figure out if you should be the one to stop bowing first or keep returning their “Sumimasen, onegaishimas!” (To paraphrase my good friend “Mistress Powell,” that best translates to “Oh, my goodness, you`re a foreigner and I don`t speak English, and you don`t speak Japanese, and I don`t know what I`m supposed to say or do so I'm so sorry, sorry, sorry for being born. Please forgive me for whatever it is your not happy about or for not knowing how to read your mind but please just get out of here and let me do my job.") That`s a good story too but the love hotel takes the cake.
I know Charlie is reading it saying, “Okay, Laura, that`s a tiny bit exaggerated.” What can I say? I`m a science fiction and fantasy writer by trade; I`m entitled to a bit of poetic license. Sorry, Charlie.
Tomorrow, you can look forward to a post all about Nagasaki bio park and island beaches!
While we were trying to find a store that sold some sort of cat food, we happened to see a goat tied up beside the ocean. It felt like something you might have seen a hundred years ago! We were curious, especially about the horns that seemed to have been halfway sawed off, so we got out to have a look at it. There was food beside it, so I decided to feed it. Here’s a picture:
But sure enough, right after Charlie took the shot, the thing charged me and almost knocked me down! There was a reason the ornery old goat was tied up and had the end of his horns lopped off!
Oh, but I haven’t told you what that church on the hill really was. It wasn’t really a church but a memorial to a Portuguese monk, Francis Xavier, I think, who first brought Christianity to Japan. Everything was in Portuguese, but I was surprised that I could actually read it and understand most of it without ever having learned a word of Portuguese. It was close enough to Spanish and Latin that I could guess the meaning of most words and figure out others from context and structure. But don’t ask me to reproduce any of it! Reading is one thing, speaking is quite another.
And, not to get sidetracked, but that is the problem with the Japanese way of teaching English. They have two classes a week in grammar and three for reading. None for speaking. The once a week I (sometimes) come to their class is the only chance they have for speaking, and even then, the class is so huge that it does not facilitate this easily. I can tell them to practice the dialogue and answer questions verbally all I want, but they still continue to speak Japanese or struggle to write their answers on paper, out of sheer lack of confidence. For Pete’s sake, students can study reading and writing on their own as homework; that’s easy. But when else are they going to get a chance to speak except in class? And let’s be honest, what’s more useful, being able to communicate in a language through written or spoken word? Unless you’re insane like me and actually enjoy reading foreign literature in the original language (for most people torture would be preferable), the spoken word is ten times more useful (for me it’s still five times more useful). Sure, written communication is used on a day-to-day basis, but spoken communication is used on a moment-to-moment basis. Chances are if you go abroad or are dealing with foreigners or taking a foreign class or simply watching a foreign film or listening to foreign radio, there isn’t time to sit down and dictate what they’re saying and/or what you’re going to say back. In the states, it frustrated me that I had students who had taken English all their lives, and could read and write in it perfectly, but couldn’t speak a word or understand anything spoken to them. So I had two months to prepare them for graduate school lectures from teachers who often could barely speak English themselves. Sometimes the students came to me crying because they felt like complete aliens in the classroom. And here in Japan, some of the ENGLISH TEACHERS don’t speak English! Arg!!! But they’re trying to fix it; the Japanese Ministry of Education is making all schools switch to a more verbally based system. It’s only a matter of time.
Sorry for the little rant. Moving on. After we fed the cat, we went to a Dutch amusement park called Huis Ten Bosch. They had a beautiful flower garden, a nice chocolate fountain, and some interesting 3D movies. And it was amusing to see Japanese people dressed up in Dutch costumes and the Dutch actors on the 3D films dubbed in Japanese. Here`s some flowers and windmills:
And the chocolate fountain, that unfortunately I did not get to drink from, because it cost about twenty bucks:
And here`s a Japanese infomercial/auction. I have no idea what the lady’s selling, but it looked interesting to me, especially with the cute tulipman mascot:
One of the main reasons I wanted to go was to get some delicious Dutch fudge. But they didn`t have any! I couldn`t believe it, they had a “chocolate house” with every kind of Dutch chocolate imaginable, except fudge! And all the restaurants selling my favorite Dutch foods were closed. No Dutch cheese. No Dutch pastries or candies. Darn it.
Overall the park was okay. It honestly wasn`t much different from Windmill Island in Holland Michigan I used to visit as a child. My blood on my mother`s side is pure Dutch, but I`ve never been particularly pumped about my heritage. I`m sure there are many moderate, easy-going Dutch people in the world, but in my family they tend to be uptight, overly analytical workaholics. Of course, I`m speaking mostly of myself.
It was precisely this sort of nature that got me into a little tiff with Charlie. His idea of a vacation was to relax and take it easy, while mine was to go, go, go, see, see, see, do, do, do. I like to plan every hour, know exactly what`s going to happen when, and be overly prepared. He`s not the first person to get really annoyed with me on this issue. So we came to a compromise. The next few days we still got to see a few of the things I wanted to see, but at a slower, more relaxed pace. Kind of wandering, enjoying the moment. And I have to admit, I probably enjoyed those days more. You can look forward to reading about them in my next post!
I went to visit my friend Charlie who I met at the Houston pre-orientation group before I left the U.S. You might remember that I explored Tokyo with him when I first arrived in Japan.
Charlie’s island is a place frozen in time. Not completely; there are motor boats and the people listen to relatively modern music and wear mostly modern clothes. But it has an old, county hometown feel to it. A genuine “how may I serve you” attitude in most of the workers, plenty of privately owned Mom and Pop businesses, a pristine, untouched innocence in the beaches and mountains. The island is beautiful enough to be a resort, but thank God no one’s adulterated it yet. I didn’t know such places still existed.
But it didn’t feel that way in the beginning. When I first arrived after a long day of traveling, Charlie met me in Sasebo, an American military base town. It was just as commercialized, if not more so, than my area of Japan. Here’s the famous “Sasebo burger,” a Japanese adaptation of the American marine favorite:
We took the ferry to Charlie’s island and returned to Sasebo the next morning. My thought was, the ferry has a top, right? Just because no one else is sitting up there doesn’t mean we can’t! So that’s what we did. It was wonderful; not only did I keep from getting seasick riding up top, but I just love the sea breeze and looking out over the misty ocean! Here is a view:
I had so many plans, but those first two days it rained, and Charlie suggested we just take it slow and leisurely. So, taking a cue from the awesome ferry ride, we decided to explore Saikai National Park. The majority of the park consists of an area called Kujukushima, literally “99 islands.” The Japanese use 99 like the Hebrews used 40 in the Bible; it just means a lot. There are actually 202 islands in the park, most of them completely uninhabited by humans.
First we took a cruise ship, which was nice because the intercom narration talking about the different islands was both in Japanese and English, probably for military guys to enjoy on their days off. Even so, we were the only non-Japanese people on the boat! It felt good to find something “secret” that “only the locals knew about.” Here’s a video of part of the cruise:
Towards the end I say something like, “Oh, look, there’s a cross.” I think I was referring to a carving on one of the boulders; I can’t remember exactly because there were a lot of crosses in Nagasaki signifying places where Christians were martyred in the 17th and 18th centuries. But whatever it is, I don’t think you can make it out on the video. But here’s a clearer picture of a cross on an island. I thought it looked pretty stunning:
Next, Charlie suggested we go sailing. I was worried I might get sea sick, but with clouds to block a nauseatingly hot sun and a light, cool breeze, I had nothing to fear. Due to the “bad weather,” there was no one else, so besides the two Japanese crew members, Charlie and I were the only ones! We both got to pilot the ship and help hoist and maneuver the sail. Here’s me looking out over the edge; you can see Charlie piloting in the background. I actually sat on the stern for awhile with my legs dangling over the edge, but I won’t show that picture because it would scare my mom!
We toyed with the idea of renting sea kayaks the next day and going out to explore the little islands ourselves, but then I remembered how I was with a sea kayak in Florida. I was so sea sick after just ten minutes; I had to lay down for the rest of the day! Besides, if we got lost or hurt in the middle of the ocean, there would be no one to help us. Though a storm hadn’t come yet, with the dark clouds, we didn’t want to risk it. But someday, if I get a chance to go back, maybe we’ll build up the courage!
For dinner, we stopped by a Mom and Pop place owned by two of Charlie’s Japanese Christian friends. I can’t remember their Japanese names; they only said them once. But they called themselves “Maria and Antony” when we were around. I asked for “sake,” which literally translates to salmon, but this is what I got!
From right to left and top to bottom: Spicy spaghetti, one whole fish with lime, chicken? tempura (tempura means deep fried) with vegetables, white rice, miso (soy bean paste, tofu, green onion and seaweed) soup.
Not bad, actually. The only thing I wasn’t used to eating was the fish, but I felt like being adventurous anyway. And very cheap; twice as much food than I’m used to getting at a Japanese restaurant, for half the price. Charlie informed me that “sake” is not actually salmon, but a whole family of fish related to salmon. That’s just how Americans translate it because “salmon” is the only one of those fish we actually eat!
That`s all for Monday and Tuesday! I`ve also added a lot of details to last weeks`s post about Iga ninja town! You can look forward to reading that, and my post about my Wednesday adventures, full of violent animal attacks and Dutch amusment parks, in just a few minutes!
So I keep getting these notices about swine flu. From JET, from CLAIR, from my prefectural advisor, from my supervisor, from the principal, from random health agencies who don’t know how to form a coherent sentence in Japanese, let alone English. It’s really annoying. Everybody assumes that since I’m the foreigner I’m the one who’s going to spread it to everyone else. Sometimes people will sit next to me on the train, I’ll sneeze once, and they’ll get up and leave the car! Not just slide over casually. Actually get up and leave the car. People go around wearing face masks like it’s the plague. I’m thinking to myself, They’re paranoid! They’re immune systems can’t even handle a common cold!
And, of course, like any other time I get arrogant and start thinking I’m smarter than everybody else, God humbles me. I got sick on Tuesday night and had a terrible time getting through the rest of the week. I was able to perk myself up enough to get through my classes and other responsibilities, but I pretty much slept the evenings away. Fortunately, it wasn’t swine flu, and for some reason my body never registers a fever. Once I was sick in bed with pneumonia and mono and I still didn’t have a fever. The downside is that I always stay sicker longer, but the upside is that I can honestly tell people who repeatedly ask “Do you have a fever?” “No” and they can’t make me take a vacation day. (I have more important things to use them for.) Teachers with a fever are required to go home, but if you don’t have one you can choose to stay. They told me to go to the doctor but I know they’d just hook me up to an IV, not trusting me to keep myself hydrated and prescribe a bunch of symptom relief medicine I wouldn’t take anyway to avoid the nasty side effects.
Speaking of nasty side effects, on Wednesday night I couldn’t sleep because my coughing and sneezing kept me awake, so I drank some Celestial seasonings Sleepytime Herbal Tea. It worked great. Too great. Thursday morning I slept through two alarms and didn’t wake up until 8:07. The last train before school leaves at 8:07. So I took my bike there and back, which only made me sicker. I wore a mask on Friday to help alleviate the fears of my colleges and ended up going home early, much to their relief.
But Friday afternoon, I was invited to go to Iga on Saturday to be part of a training session for Japanese tour guides to practice giving tours in English. It was totally free! Iga is the birthplace of ninjitsu, you know, and had one of the most famous schools through the 17th century, renowned for its sorcery and divination. So I wasn`t about to let some common cold best me! As soon as I got home I started on a strict, home-made regiment:
One clove of raw garlic, once in the evening, once in the morning
One gallon of water (over the whole day)
Chicken noodle soup with raw pepper (use real chicken broth), once in the evening, once in the morning
Ricola natural cough drops as needed
Three cups of strong, fresh green tea
Half the recommended dose of Sleepytime Herbal Tea
Thirteen hours of sleep, from 2:00pm to 7:00pm and 11:00pm to 7:00am
By the time I had to catch the train for Iga, I was good as new! I got a free tour of a ninja house, ninja museum, cultural museum, and Ueno castle. This was our tour group:
Our first stop was the ninja house. It was a residence of a real ninja spy in the 1600s. It had all kinds of trap doors, secret passageways and hidden weapons. Here’s a picture of a shelf that becomes a hidden staircase to a place where the ninja can see out, but no one can see in:
Contrary to common ninja myth, they did not engage in combat often. Since they were primarily spies, assassins, and keepers of secrets (especially how to make gun powder) they never wanted to risk being caught so that information could be tortured out of them or they could be killed and the secrets lost forever. The whole art of ninjitsu was based on deception and the ability to escape quickly. It included training in survival (how to find water, food, directions in the wilderness), divination, meteorology, sorcery (I’m not exactly sure how that worked), philosophy, psychology, illusion, code forming and hacking (ninjas could often create or decipher a complicated code on the spot), memory retention (they sometimes had to remember long encrypted messages and formulas), chemistry, medicine, meditation, endurance, and last and least of all, combat.
But, as I suspected, the vast majority of ninja knowledge has been lost because, of course, it was secret and therefore never written down. The way of the ninja disappeared after the Japanese civil war when they were no longer needed. Nobody seems to believe this, though; they seem to think that ninjitsu is still a thriving art. But I saw for myself in Iga that everything was all based on pieced together evidence, and a lot of questions were met with “We’re not sure how the ninjas did such and such, just that they did.”
So that said, here is a cheesy, very commercialized ninja show, fake blood and all. The last video is kind of cool; knife throwing.
First part of ninja show:
And this is me wearing ninja armor and holding a ninja sword. The armor is surprisingly heavy made chain mail and concealed metal plating; they must have had to train hard to remain so agile:
And that’s all I have to say for now! I’m having a blast in Nagasaki!
It was really quite fun, actually. The kids had prepared hard for it. ESS club (English Speaking Society) spent every day after school working on their posters for the last week. Me being their primary teacher with Hayashi sensei under the weather (she’s pregnant), I had to stay every day to help them. They prepared posters, in English, explaining the culture and customs of Spain. Each home room prepared something special; there were two haunted houses, two karaoke stages, choirs, mock game shows, bands, lots of carnival games, and most popular of all, food venders! I’ll try anything…once, without the sauce and octopus, thank you.
Thursday morning we were treated to a visit from a Chinese circus. I’m pretty sure I saw the exact same troop in Branson with my mom last year. There was a woman who balanced twenty five candles on her body while doing yoga, another who performed handstands on chairs stacked fifteen feet high, girls who spun plates on long poles while forming painful-looking human pyramids, girls who did gymnastics why playing with Chinese yo-yos, and a man who specialized in juggling pots and jars and balancing them on his head. I remember all of these exact acts from the other show to the point that I would whisper to my friend Ota-sensei what would happen next and be right every time. But I still enjoyed it, and there were a few acts missing and others added in their place. I think I discovered the Chinese equivalent of vaudeville and possibly Japanese anime. The actors silently played out a very funny “battle” scene between an ancient shogun and a thief. Lots of slap-stick similar to the old Charlie Chaplin tricks of slipping across a wet floor, throwing a punch and hitting yourself, that sort of thing. Only in slow motion and very stylized. There was also a very interesting lion dance, or shishi-mai. I took a video, but later learned that video was prohibited, so here’s a public dominion picture off the internet:
In shishi-mai, two people wear the lion costume and dance around (similar to American comedy with the two-man horse) and then run off the stage and bite people. (Really they just gently enclose your head in the plastic teeth; they don’t even touch you.) During the New Years celebration, by far the most important festival to the Japanese, Ota-sensei told me that priests dressed as shishi will go from house to house biting the children to give them good luck for the coming year. There were people in the audience jumping up and thrusting themselves in the shishi’s path so they would get bitten. I got bit by the shishi without seeking it, so Ota-sensei said I will be very, very lucky. Maybe I won’t have any more injuries!
Thursday was also the cross-dressing contest. We always had something similar when I was in high school around homecoming. Only with Japan, you really can’t tell! These were the boys I thought looked the most convincing:
Friday I sang karaoke twice for the school. The first was “On Top of the World” with the school band as back up, the second was “If You Wanna Be My Lover” by the Spice Girls with just the CD. The first went pretty well, I thought, but the second was just plain embarrassing. I didn’t know the song at all. I ended up making up a silly little dance half way through and people clapped and shouted my name anyway. With karaoke, it doesn’t matter how bad you are. It’s just the effort that counts.
For those of you who don’t know, this is an example of karaoke. The woman singing is Hayashi-sensei, the pregnant ESS teacher. She’s one of the better ones, and very pretty, I think:
And this is the Japanese version of the YMCA song! They try so hard…
Unfortunately, the Japanese view of karaoke has spilled into all their singing. They all think they can sing. And they all think they’re wonderful. On Friday morning, we had a choir contest. The whole school had been broken up into twenty choirs. Ten of those progressed to the final competition for everyone else to watch. One of the teachers told me before it started,
“Japanese choirs are the best in the world. Our composers write the best songs. They make me cry. American choirs just can’t compare.”
“Really?” I asked. “Do you have a choir class?”
“Oh, no. The students are too busy with academics to have choir class.”
“Well, what about a choir club?”
“No, no. The students only practice once a year for this festival.”
“And…does anybody train or coach them?”
“No, it’s all student led, no teachers. Why should anyone train them? Everyone can sing. You just open your mouth and sound comes out, like speaking.”
“I see.”
So, I’m thinking to myself, statistically, only fifty percent of the world is tone deaf. Fifty percent of the students have been weeded out. Therefore, at least these choirs won’t be tone deaf. Well, I made the fundamental logic flaw in assuming that these kids were accessed and then placed in choirs. Oh, no, each class had their own choir, and they were sticking together, thick or thin. So the tonally inept were smashed together with the musically inclined. Here is the choir that one FIRST PLACE, at what they called “gospel” music (a slight inaccuracy; the version they sang was the original “My Guy,” a popular rock `n roll hit from the 60`s, but I can see where they`d be confused, with the movie Sister Act). I will let you make your own assessment:
Ok, my tirade is over. I don’t have a problem with bad music. Just don’t tell me you’re the hottest thing under the sun and then sound like a screaming banshee.
Actually, having been trained as a choral conductor in college, they did ask me to help one of the choirs. I only had five minutes with them; I wish I had more time because they could have been really good. The director was a clever kid in one of my classes named Shuhay. They ended up winning second place. I suppose, putting it all in context, it wasn’t bad for kids who had never received any kind of musical training whatsoever.
The Japanese are, however, infinitely better at their traditional musical arts. I highly enjoyed koto club’s performance. They always win first place every year out of the whole of Mie prefecture. After the performance, they let me come up to experiment and teach myself the basics. Here is a picture of the koto, or Japanese harp:
It’s a very versatile instrument. They played all kinds of different songs from Appalachian folk to very ancient, oriental-sounding. It’s pentatonic, meaning only five notes in the scale instead of the Western eight. It has about two and a half octaves, or pentaves, I guess, and sharps and flats are played by pressing down on the upper part of the string you want to modify. I figured out how to play simple folk songs on it very easily, but there were many complex techniques I observed that I wasn’t sure how they did. These effected the tone quality, making it sound anywhere from a guitar to a hammered dulcimer. This was my favorite song:
The other thing worthy of note in the cultural festival was the martial arts demonstration. Here’s Shuhay again:
One of my friends commented to me that it’s not necessarily the most studious students who master English, it’s the noisy, outgoing ones who aren’t afraid to speak up and make mistakes. Shuhay is one of those students. He talks to me all the time, frequently making mistakes, but every day they are different mistakes. He fixes the old ones. There is another student who on the first day pointed to himself and said, “Teacher, who is I? What my name?”
“Who ARE you?” I asked. “I don’t know, who ARE you? What IS your name?”
“I is Genius!” he declared.
“I AM A genius,” I corrected.
“Ah, thank you, teacher! Now I really am genius!” he cried.
So, suffice it to say, it wasn’t all party and fun this week. I had my first real class. It went OK, but I overestimated their willingness to participate in the pair work/group activity. I thought offering rewards like extra points on a test and candy would be a good enough incentive. But no one (other than Shuhay) wanted to volunteer or even do their work. They simply refused to speak English, even though the teacher assured me they all knew the vocabulary I was reinforcing; it was all basic stuff. I’ll have to think of a more creative way to get them to participate and not fall asleep in class. I also overestimated the amount of time given. We weren’t able to finish half of the activities I prepared.
Honestly, I find the small group teaching I do in ESS club much more fun. For one thing, that’s mostly what I did at my jobs in the U.S, be it at the elementary school, private tutoring, English lab, or Kaplan small classes. And it was the kind of learning I personally thrived on in high school and college.
So, that said, I know I’m not supposed to have favorites. But there is one girl I’ve taken a strong interest in. Her name is Yuri. Her English level is very low, but she has such a passion for learning. Every day after school, she comes to me asking for individual help. I gave her one of the books I brought from home, a children’s book called People, and she stood beside me and read the whole thing aloud in an hour, explaining her interpretation as she went. She catches on to the nuances behind words without me having to explain even the meaning. The way she forms sentences is very creative; her grammar is almost always wrong but despite her limited vocabulary she always makes herself understood. She’s very friendly. She gives me a hug every time she’s sees me and often walks all the way to the station with me, talking and asking questions without coming up for air. She seems to want to know everything. I told her about the class I’ll be teaching at the church on Thursday night and she got so excited! That’s the one evening we don’t have ESS club.
Speaking of that, yes, my church class is solidifying. It starts on October first and runs every Thursday. I also teach a class on Sunday now after church; yesterday was our first meeting. I teach one hour of English and then thirty minutes of “Christian Education.” That last part was my idea; I figured since the non-Christian class gets ten minutes of Bible, why should the Christian class get left out? I prepared a special lesson for them on evangelism. It’s kind of odd; I never took a single theology class in my life and I never thought I’d be teaching a class like that. But they really loved it and so did I, so I guess it’ll be a weekly thing too. Next week’s topic is going to be on bad evangelism/wrong attitudes when doing evangelism. You know, the angry, accusatory, makes-people-want-to-hate-all-Christians type. The best way to go about it is to look at actual Biblical accounts of evangelism, I think. After all, Paul didn’t go around telling everybody they were wrong. He was very loving and gentle, like when he spoke to the Athenians about their shrine to an “unknown god.” He didn’t point out all their other shrines and say they were a bunch of pagans going to hell. He picked the one aspect they could connect on, the bridge, and drew on that. Love and respect is the key, I think. We tell people about Jesus because we love them and want them to know the truth and share in that eternal happiness. Not because we have to prove ourselves or “be right.”
After I give my lesson, I get a Japanese lesson from the pastor and his wife. I learned a lot today, and not just about language. They taught me how to make California sushi rolls!
Speaking of that, I made fajitas, peach pie, and guacamole this week. Yea! Of course, in Japan, you have to be a little creative when it comes to baking, since they don’t have a lot of the stuff we had in America, or it’s really expensive. Here’s my super simple recipe for a wheat/egg/gluten/milk/yeast free “Japanese” peach pie:
Ten-twenty crushed cookies, depending on the size, you want enough to form the crust; any type or flavor will do (even rice)
Half a tablespoon of butter or margarine
One can of peaches
One fourth a cup of sugar (can be more if you like it sweeter)
One teaspoon cinnamon
One teaspoon nut meg
Crush cookies, add butter. This forms the crust.
Mix together peaches, sugar, cinnamon and nut meg. This forms the filling.
Bake for forty minutes at 180 degrees C (about 375 degrees F)
Enjoy!
And, other than that, I did absolutely nothing this weekend except read, write, and do laundry. It was glorious! Here’s a picture of my neighbor on his roof harvesting Chinese oranges. I thought it looked interesting:
Oh, yeah, and you’re probably wondering how my injuries are doing! Much, better, thank you. I got my cast off on Friday. The only thing that still hurts is the pinky finger on my left hand. Speaking of that, I should probably stop typing with it now.
Prayer requests for this week: There’s a lady at my church in Nabari who has cancer. Please pray for her. Thank God that my injuries are healing quicker than expected, and that I don’t get any more! And please pray for these classes at the church. May God bless them and make them fruitful for Him.
Thanks for all your prayers and support. Until next time!
Laura
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