memoirs of a gaijin: FALL

Another semi-exhaustive update from yours truly...

I've successfully passed the two-month mark here and am steadily approaching three months. Not everything is still as frustrating, thrilling, new, and indecipherable as it was when I first arrived. Thankfully, and naturally, I'm feeling much less helpless than I did. This is due partially to my slowly evolving Japanese skills, but also to the fact that I'm just getting used to the systems and various resources available to me. Travel, for example, seemed intimidating. In my last email, I wrote that taking the train was somewhat difficult. I've since discovered that it's just about the easiest thing ever. In fact, I made it all the way to Kyoto by myself, and that required me to negotiate the purchase of a bus ticket by myself, and then take the bus to Tokyo, transfer stations, find the right bullet train, and board it. I managed to do all this with a minimum of floundering. The point is that I did it, by myself. The next time will be even easier. I understand enough Japanese now to know that there is a ridiculous amount of information coming at you, constantly, when you're riding any form of transportation. On the bus to Tokyo, the bus driver announces the bus's route multiple times, the stops the bus will make, the rest stop, how long the bus will stay at the rest stop...etc etc. There's no danger of being underinformed.

I'm still slowly conquering the supermarket, one mysterious product at a time. I've bought such Japanese staples as mirin and sake (both cooking wines), fish stock, various seasonings for rice, tiny dried shrimp to sautee with eggplant, yogurt in fanciful flavors such as aloe, pickled cucumbers, radish, eggplant, etc. Tracking down normal things that I wanted has proven to be the hardest of all: it took me six weeks to locate baking soda. I knew it had to be there somewhere, because after all they eat tons of cakes...but it wasn't where I expected it to be and it was in a tiny little package.

My job is going pretty well. Some days I really enjoy it, and other days I'm bored to death. The problem is that my actual teaching responsibilities are somewhat sporadic. It seems like the students are forever having exams or else they're off on some trip. From what I hear, though, I'm better off than most of the other JET program people in my area in terms of getting independence to plan lessons. My school is Ota First, which means that it's the highest level high school in the area. That explains why my students are uniformly such dutiful high achievers. I must say that I enjoy that as well. My Friday school is quite low-level, and it's frustrating that the students a) don't care to learn English and b) don't have a level of English that makes it possible to do anything very interesting at all. Though I had lofty goals of giving these students the speaking practice that they so sorely need, I may abandon them in favor of activities that actually work in the classroom. I only go to that school on Fridays, and not even every Friday. What hope, then, do I have of counteracting an English education that consists of their teacher opening every class with "Open your textubooks on pagee...sirtysree" and proceeding to lead a class of ineffective repetition and parroted phrases? Never fear, I'm not quite ready to give up on them yet. I'm just working on figuring out which things work with them and which don't.

Since the last time I wrote, summer has mercifully given way to autumn. This summer was really unbearably hot, and the fall is proving to be beautiful, long-lasting, and most importantly, temperate. The Japanese are very aware of the seasons (they'll tell you every chance they get that Japan has four seasons: did you know?) and as a consequence there is a preponderance of seasonal products, an emphasis on the various goodies available at various times of the year, and of course the craze over nature's seasonal show (in the form of autumn colors in the current case, and in the spring in the form of the cherry blossoms). In case you were wondering, the autumn harvest yields: grapes, mandarin oranges, squash, chestnuts, Japanese pears, tons of crazy mushrooms, and apples, among other things. Obviously there is some overlap with the crops that we're used to. One of the funniest ways that the seasonal things get pushed forward is in the many flavors of KitKats. In Japan, KitKats aren't just chocolate and wafers. Right now you can get the regular ones, as well as vanilla bean, dark chocolate and orange, chestnut, caramel, green tea, and red bean. In the summer there was kiwi KitKat and melon, and lemon.

Anyway, it's fall now, and the temperature is basically perfect and comfortable. I don't expect it to really get cold until December or January. That's more than fine with me, since my apartment is *not* insulated and I'm going to have to cozy up to my heaters and my electric blanket. I also have a heated table, called a kotatsu, which the Japanese use to keep warm in the winter...but its heating element is broken, so that'll do me a fat lot of good. (I haven't actually seen one of these things in use, but in the stores they're displaying them with their special blankets and pillows. They look kind of cozy...if you want to sit on the floor by a table all day.)

I've done a bit of travelling so far...I mentioned that I went to Kyoto. I was duly impressed by the gorgeous shrines and temples, but was put off by the masses of tourists. The Japanese appear to approach tourism the same way that they approach consumerism: dutifully and zealously. This means that at any of the "Japan's top" whatever sights, you're guaranteed to be elbow-to-elbow with picture-snapping hordes. Kind of takes some of the magic out of the places. In Kyoto, we did manage to end up at a few places that were empty (usually because of the late hour or bad weather), and it was in those moments that I was able to appreciate the magic of the place. My favorite place in Kyoto was a shrine called Fushimi Inari, where there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of orange gates in the woods. You can hike around in there for hours. Really a special place.

Last weekend I went to a town called Kamakura, which is sort of a more compact version of Kyoto. There are tons of impressive zen temples and some very pretty shrines. The most notable attraction of the town is the giant Buddha statue, which was constructed in the 13th century (I think) of bronze and has outlasted a few buildings built around it as shelters. My favorites there were definitely the giant Buddha, and another temple that housed a huge gold image of the Buddha and had a spooky cave for a female deity, as well as some great gardens.

Tomorrow I'm going to have a true cultural experience: I've been invited to my coworker's wedding reception. The actual wedding ceremony is tomorrow too, I think, but only the family gets to go to that part. Everyone from the English department was invited to the event, in the spirit of true group dynamics. Imagine being duty-bound to invite all your coworkers to your wedding, regardless of the fact that you've only worked at that school since last April. The principal of the school is going to give a speech at the party. Seems a little bit impersonal...but I'll reserve judgment until I see how it all goes off. The bride will apparently have several outfits. The Japanese-style wedding dress is a white kimono and this huge round headpiece. I think she'll have a western-style dress too. I've heard that lots of people get married outside of Japan (in Hawaii or Spain or any number of other places) because it can actually be cheaper that way.

In November I'm not really planning too much. We have a long weekend for Thanksgiving, so I will probably take an extra day off and go down to Hiroshima with a friend from Ibaraki. Hiroshima is pretty small, but there is plenty to see related to the bombing, a couple of good museums, and Japan's NUMBER ONE sight: a "floating shrine" called Miyajima. Then it'll be December, which is sure to be a hectic month, what with the holidays and various visitors!