memoirs of a gaijin: SUMMER

What follows is a detailed account of the minutae of my life in Japan, or more specifically in Hitachiota, just a few weeks after I'd arrived. Touch-down was one steamy day at the beginning of August. My initial impressions:

The language barrier is a formidable one, and I had forgotten what it was like to really be helpless. In this case it's worse than it ever was in Poland or Spain , because I can't just read the words off a sign or the paper and ask someone what it is. The kanji (Chinese characters) are numerous (thousands of them) and complex; they might appear in several contexts and be read in different ways. On the flip side, one word or sound might mean several things and only be distinguished by the various kanji associations. I think the majority of my culture shock was based on the fact that - because I can't get information from normal sources - I really am not a fully functioning member of Japanese society. If someone explains to me how to take the train, I can memorize the kanji I need to know to get off at the right place and make all the appropriate transfers. If I want to stock my kitchen, I have to sit with a dictionary first and write down all the possible kanji and phonetic spellings of the items that I want. If I want to get something done, I have to rely on the kindness and knowledge of my coworkers, fellow JETs, and the general public. In public places, especially in a mall or in a busy city district, the visual "noise" of hundreds of nonsensical characters can be over-stimulating and exhausting.

All this makes me all the more eager to learn Japanese! The good part is that since I've arrived, the sound of the language has become less foreign, and if you hear it without really listening, it could be any European language. Japanese is not tonal like Chinese or Thai and is not quite as foreign to my ears as some of the other Asian languages or what I imagine African languages would sound like. In some ways, I'm arriving in Japan with just as much knowledge and linguistic resources as I did when I came to Poland , despite having grown up with Polish in my family and having studied it for a year or so at college. My formal and informal contact with Japanese has been much more brief and thus less complete than I had had with Polish in October of 2004. Nevertheless, I feel that the types of encounters I'm having in Japanese and the amount that I feel I can glean from a conversation is just about the same as the Polish equivalents at the beginning of my Przegorzaly experience. Japanese grammar is much easier to manipulate than Polish grammar, at least at the beginning, so my rudimentary attempts to communicate are usually fairly successful - and as an added bonus, there are far more stock phrases to convey understanding or agreement in Japanese than in Polish, so it's easier to feign understanding and just smile and nod along!

I've found that the Japanese that I've met in my "city" have been exceedingly friendly and warm. I was warned that they would stare at me and that they might be wary of me. It is true that they stare. Usually if I make eye contact back and kind of nod/bow at them they will end up smiling and saying hello. Instead of being the ostracized foreigner, I've had more experiences in which people go out of their way to be complimentary and inclusive. When I went to pay the deposit to the landlady yesterday, I uttered some basic phrases and was met with wild approval. Two of the rental company ladies forced obscene amounts of cookies on me and went on and on about my beauty! Ha! The other day at school, I was sitting at a computer next to another teacher, and I said something in Japanese about the rain coming. Despite his disagreement with my prognosis, my linguistic overture was countered with a spontaneous tour of the amenities available to me in the teachers' room, including several ways to boil water and refrigerator space.

My supervisor is a very kind woman who has gone out of her way to help me since I've arrived. She not only spends long hours with me, tracking down the various important documents necessary for my residence here, but has on several occasions brought me vegetables from her mother's garden! After I make them for dinner, I take photos and show her the next day, which she loves. When I got here, I told her that I was relieved to finally be here and see that the people were kind and that it will be a good environment for me for the next year. She told me that she was also relieved to finally meet me! Yesterday she told me that "my smile makes other people smile" and this morning she told me that she found a quote on the internet that she wanted me to know: "a loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world. Everyone you meet is your mirror."

The other teachers at my school have also been quite friendly with me, especially the English teachers. There are 11 English teachers at Ota First Senior High, and I'll be working with all of them. Some of the teachers have invited me to lunch with them, and I've gotten to sample ramen, udon, and soba thanks to them. All of them seem to be open to chatting and seem interested to know about me and what I think about Japan . I, in turn, pump them for information about Japan , the food, the school, and anything else I need to know.

In addition to Ota First, I'll be working most Fridays at Satomi Senior High, which is about a half hour away through countless rice fields. I'll usually take the bus, but another JET in town goes out to Satomi most Fridays, so when I can I'll hitch a ride with her. I went out to Satomi yesterday, and found that it's a much smaller school than Ota (64 students to Ota's 700+), but the teachers are also friendly and I think it will be a pleasure to work there. The setting is much more rural, and the level of English will be markedly lower: some of the students don't even know the alphabet! Talk about starting at square one...

Hitachiota itself is not the most exciting place in the world. I live between a newer area and the older, more historic district. The newer road, down in the valley, seems very American to me: strip malls galore! Though it's not very scenic, I can get my groceries at a great store that has a huge selection, there's a gym that I might be able to join, and there's a 100 yen store that has everything and anything I could ever need. In the other direction, up on top of the hill, is central Hitachiota. I prefer that area: the buildings are low and wooden and the shops seem to be in the more traditional style. Sometimes I can't even tell if some of the houses are places of business or someone's home! It seems that a lot of bars or restaurants are run out of the back room of someone's house. Either that or there are lots of private homes generating massive amounts of empty beer bottles that get set out on the street the next morning. I haven't explored terribly much in that area, since I'm working during the day and I haven't strayed that way at night, but it seems that there are a couple of interesting restaurants and maybe a few places to hang out.

I have gone that way quite a lot in the mornings, though: my morning run takes me through that part of town, which is quite ideal for jogging. The streets are cobbled with black and white stones and there is very little car traffic. There are plenty of other joggers here (all male sightings so far, though), and unlike Krakow , I feel free to run wherever I please. I'm looking forward to exploring other areas soon! I can also get around on my little bike, which is not the most luxurious piece of equipment I've ever owned. Its biggest fault is that it doesn't have a basket, which makes riding home from grocery shopping awkward. I think I'm going to invest in a better bicycle after next month's paycheck.

Yesterday was my first payday, hooray! Despite giving a third of it away immediately to the landlady for the deposit, it still feels good to have liquid assets! As we all know all too well, this is truly a foreign concept to me. From what I can estimate, my monthly rent and utilities costs will never be more than 1/3 of my salary, and probably closer to 1/6. That will leave lots of money to save and plenty to take trips. One more thing about finances: when I got my bank account, I was issued a cash card and a bank book. I thought that the book was an old-fashioned checkbook, but it's not! When you go to the ATM, you stick your card in AND your book in, and the machine automatically updates the balance for you with all the transactions that took place since you were last there. That includes any withdrawls I make, any automatic withdrawls for bills, and the automatic deposit of my paycheck! What a great system. Leave it to the Japanese to make things work.

As far as I can tell, I think I'm going to be able to have a very comfortable life here. It may not be the most exciting place in the world, but I'll be plenty busy. In addition to my grueling schedule as an assistant teacher (ha! right), I can take part in (and am encouraged to join) any of the after-school clubs, like calligraphy, tea ceremony, kendo, track, English club (that one I'm obligated to help run), etc etc. There is also a Japanese language class at the community center on Thursday nights, one in Mito on Saturday mornings, and an Ikebana (flower arranging) class in town on Fridays. There are monthly cooking classes I can go to - and on top of all that I'll be traveling some and just trying to continue running, hanging out with friends, and studying Japanese on my own! So although it's not Tokyo , I think it'll be ok.

Other uniquely Japanese things: it's the hottest summer in 70 years, according to my supervisor. Because of this, all of them are walking around with hand towels to mop off their sweaty faces. Some of the women hold their cell phones in the towels so as not to get them smudged with sweaty fingerprints. The men walk around the school with the towels around their necks like sumo wrestlers. Bowing: it7s not a myth, folks, the Japanese DO bow to each other, and if you're not careful, you can get into a situation where no one knows when to stop bowing and take a graceful exit. At the rental agency yesterday, we bobbed up and down for about 20 seconds upon arrival AND departure! It7s not just bowing that makes the Japanese so polite, either. At the bank, the tellers (always women) ceremoniously place a dish in front of them with both hands, so that you can put your money or your bank book into it, and they bow when they take it from you, using both hands (a sign of respect). When you buy something at a store, the salesperson will put it in a plastic bag and tape it closed. Then they quite often walk around the counter to hand it to you (with two hands, of course). Women stand with their feet together and their hands clasped, if the situation dictates a bit of formality. Gestures are also very controlled: fingers together, graceful sweeps of the arm.

Of course, not everything is good. I suspect that people are so friendly towards me as an extension of their view of me as something exotic, to be regarded from afar. In the grocery store parking lot today, I heard a woman yell something about a foreigner and then stare back at me. On the way home, a group of teenage boys on bikes across the street at a red light were laughing and saying things about English and America. I don't know what they were saying or even if it was necessarily directed at me. I assume that it was, that it wasn't malicious in any way, but that it pinpoints me as an object to be regarded as strange.

There has been plenty to keep me busy since I've arrived. Just getting settled in and oriented takes some time. There was a festival (Obon) last week, and I got to dress in a kimono and dance around with lots of people from the town! This weekend I'm going to help out at an English camp for high schoolers. It should be more fun than work, and even better, I get two "replacement" days off for having to "work" on the weekend! I have plans to meet next month with the brother of a friend (a Japanese friend from Krakow ), who lives in a nearby city. Conveniently, she is also friends with a Polish guy who lives in her city, so communication will probably happen through that channel rather than in English.

All in all, it's been an interesting two weeks! I'm sure that things will continue to be bizarre and exciting and wonderful (and sometimes frustrating and indecipherable) as long as I'm here.