On Leaving and Returning

"We have learned a lot, Siddhartha, there is still much to learn. We are not going around in circles, we are moving up, the circle is a spiral, we have already ascended many a level."
-Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

It feels like I’ve been here before. This point in time, this juncture of thought, this point in the flow of emotion. I seems like I’ve come upon this so many times before.

I knew about the Japanese love of the changing of the seasons, how in Japan it represents all that is ephemeral in life, how the entire mood of the country seems to change with the leaves on the trees as they sprout anew each spring as in birth, solidify themselves in the summer as in middle age, become deeply pensive red in autumn as in the reflective later years, and disappear during winter, only to be born again as the process recycles itself. That this cycle brings out a melancholy in the Japanese psyche I knew, but only now I feel it. Just as in September, when I first arrived, the humidity causes my shirt clings to my back as a child to its mother, and within a few minutes of being outside it feels as if I had taken a long bath in miso soup. Now, as it turns to summer, and the natural smells, sounds and tastes that greeted me in September and promptly disappeared are finally coming back to usher me out, now I know what they mean. I have completed one full cycle, and I am back where I started. The world around me is pretending that no time has passed, contrary to what I believe to be true, according to memory anyway.

How could this year possibly be summarized? Could I say it was wonderful, though there were times I felt mistreated because of my skin color? Could I say all the people were friendly, though some seemed to throw all of their aggression towards my country’s history with Japan my way? Could I say I was able to teach them about American culture, though I met some Japanese who had traveled more widely in my country than I have? Could I say all the food was amazing? (Actually, that one I could say.)

My feelings, and indeed the feelings of anybody who has lived here for any length of time, towards Japan are equally muddled. I came to realize, the hard way you might say, that no matter how fluent my Japanese becomes, or how much I learn about their culture, or how well I come to know Tokyo, I will never be Japanese; try as I might, I will never make my into their inner circle, nobody will ever look at me and assume I could understand if they said anything to me in their native tongue. This fact resurfaces from time to time, both when I come tantalizingly close to feeling like I belong here, and when I am pushed to the edge, as far away from it as possible, as if I were looking at my surroundings through a thick plate of glass. I’ve felt defeated by it, and at other times it has felt like I have successfully answered its challenge. I’ve felt as if I’ve moved past it, and I’ve felt like it has intimidated me to the point of being afraid to go outside.

This duality is both frustrating and relieving. On the one hand, it has driven people away from Japan in an angry mess, and on the other it has drawn people who are attracted to the idea that they will never expected to carry the burden of embodying a culture, that they can live full-time on the outskirts of society.

I still don’t know what I think of it, and that is why I am sad to leave. It’s possible to be on both sides at once, and it was here I discovered how that is possible to both love and hate something at the same time. I love Japan for pulling me in, I hate Japan for pushing me back out, and it’s because I am still able to feel this full range of emotions about Japan on a daily basis that I’ve felt more alive here than anywhere else.

So it is, then, that this return to the stifling humidity of summer seems to cause people to think about how they were during this same season in past years. I’ve yet to come to any conclusions on that subject, but I know that there are distinct similarities and important differences, most of which as a result of my Tokyo experience, between this summer and last. In a way, though, I’ve come to realize that there will be another summer, there will be times when I will be faced with challenges as I have faced this year, even though I feel I have moved past them. In the great cycle of things, it is not the repeated challenges that are different, but the individuals who face them. It’s not the seasons that are different, but the reflective power of the individuals who choose to mark their ebb and flow.

Ittekimasu is what the Japanese say when leaving the home, usually after they have put on their shoes and as they are opening the door. Directed at the people remaining in the home, it means, “I will go and come back.” I really like this statement: It is comforting, and it acknowledges the cycle of coming and going. It suggests that embedded somewhere in the act of leaving is the chance for return. I like to think that in a similar way, by coming to Japan, a place to which I have no ancestral, religious, ethnic or linguistic connections, I was able to uncover aspects of myself that will now shape how I look at the world around me and will prepare me for whatever journey comes next. Only while lost would I have been able to find them.

So, with that: Ittekimashita. I was gone. I’m coming back.

The Confidence-Boosting Compliments Department

Japanese people are often amazed when they see foreigners surviving in Japan. Often they ask, "Are you able eat Japanese food?" which sometimes also is phrased as, "Do you like natto?" Natto tastes just like it looks, which is eeuwhhghghh, and the Japanese get a kick out of the fact that, though Westerners are quite good with most Japanese cuisine, natto is still out of our culinary reach.

When Westerners do show some skill in reading and speaking Japanese or eating Japanese cuisine, we are often complimented generously. For instance, I went into a bento (boxed lunch) shop, and told the lady behind the counter, "It all looks delicious."

Her face lit up like a prairie at sunrise. "Your Japanese is so good!" she cried.

I've also been praised for my ability to eat sushi, my talent for writing my name, and the language skills I possess for asking for the check at a restaurant.


Usually these comments are made in good humor, and it shows that they are trying to start a conversation with a safe topic in easy Japanese, and I really do appreciate it.

Yesterday, however, I received a compliment that I must say not only made all of my other worries dissipate, but reminded me that even though I may not write the next Great American Novel or win a Nobel Prize, sometimes it's the simplest things that matter most.

"My, my," said a kind woman who sat next to me on the counter at a little bar, watching me eat, "you are so good at using chopsticks!"

"Well," I said, turning towards her, in the coolest possible voice I could muster, "thank you."

Pale, Flabby Men Try to Push Each Other Out of A Circular Space. Comedy Ensues.

Friday was one of those very special, "I'm in Japan, there's no doubt," experiences. My friend Arthur and I went to see the 14th day of the summer Sumo tournament in Ryogoku, in eastern Tokyo, the axis on which the sumo world turns.

The atmosphere was phenomenal, and the anticipation, watching the two wreslters (rikishi) try to psyche each other out, playing mind games, was so thick you could pick it up with your chopsticks. As they lunged at each other, even in our seats up in the second deck (the stadium holds 11,000) we could hear the dull slap of flab on flab, as well as their bull-like grunting as they held each other in position, waiting for the other to crack, waiting for that open split second to make the winning move.

All three of the favorites lost, but the next day Kotooshu, a Bulgarian wrestler and the first European winner of a sumo tournament in history, claimed the tournament victory. Finally, a white male has his day in the limelight. One for tellin' the grandkids.






(Can you tell which ones are the wrestlers?)

There's Nowhere to Eat Near Jiko-ji

The only place I’ve ever seen Jiko-ji written about is in one of the guidebooks on Tokyo sitting on my bookshelf. Buried in the back of the book, a few pages from the index, it appears in a section titled “Other Trips,” which itself is a sub-section of “Trips Out of Town,” which itself is a departure from the main focus of the book, which is Tokyo itself. The entry has no pictures or maps. Because Jiko-ji is located in rural Japan, where public transportation is sparse at best, the book suggests the traveler check train and bus schedules ahead of time, but gives no indication as to where to access that information. Under the heading, “Where to Eat,” it informs the reader, with or without irony I can’t tell, that, “There’s nowhere to eat near Jiko-ji.”

Jiko-ji’s (-ji is one of the suffixes in Japanese for a Buddhist temple) claim to apparently low-grade fame is that it is the oldest temple in the Kanto (Eastern Japan) region, thought to have been established in 673, eventually wielding its greatest influence in the 13th century. It’s in an area that’s not really near anything, and not on the way to anywhere, and even though they felt it was interesting enough to include in their publication, it seemed that the authors of the guidebook didn’t really expect anyone to actually go.

I transferred trains five times before arriving at tiny Myokaku Station, manned by a single old attendant who bowed to each passenger as they handed their tickets over. Only about four other people got off with me, all old enough to be my grandparents. In the parking lot was the bus I was going to take another few miles to get to the entrance of the temple. The driver sat outside of the bus smoking a cigarette, looking slightly overweight and sweaty in his uniform, and when he saw me approach he flicked the last embers into the bushes and climbed into the driver’s seat. I told him where I wanted to go and he handed me a transfer ticket – this bus didn’t go there, but at the last stop, if I got out and waited another ten minutes, another one would come to take me to the entrance.

The Japanese attitude towards religion challenges its Western counterpart – actually, you could even say it laughs at it. We in the West give ourselves completely over to our religions – we are Catholic, we are Jewish, and we behave and identify as such. By doing so, we also make clear that we are not anything else. If we go to the worship service of another religion, it’s just for the experience, we say - it doesn’t become our identity. It’s not possible to be Jewish on Saturday, go to a Sabbath service at a synagogue, and then go to Mass on Sunday and be Christian, and then have a clean religious slate once again on Monday. Changing religions is a long and official process, and one notifies friends and family, who often object, of the change.

The Japanese are often described as being Buddhist at birth, Christian at their wedding and Shinto (the native Japanese religion) when they die. If one were to judge strictly by the type of ceremonies they have at these life cycle events, this would be true. But, if you ask most Japanese, they will tell you that they are none of the above, though one doesn’t have to look terribly hard to find traces of Buddhist, Shinto and Confucian ideas in the Japanese perception of the world and of society. A Christian wedding to them is just that – a wedding. Just because you have one does not mean you are a Christian, you do not have to be Christian to have one in the first place.

The same can be said, then for visiting Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, and their architecture confirms this. Unlike synagogues and chapels, which are indoor, private sanctuaries, temples and shrines are always outside, open to the world. Worship is done in public and is informal, always free form. You don’t need anybody’s permission to enter, you don’t need to be a member of either religion to pray, and nobody will ask you for anything when you leave.

I find solace in this idea, that one’s spiritual affiliation transcends dogma. In Japan, one can be Buddhist during the half hour they spend at a temple, then become Shinto when visiting the shrine next door – no long-term commitment is necessary. In both cases, some core energy is released that does not discriminate based on location – what is important is not by what means, but by what intent.

I was dropped off in the tiny village of Nishi-Daira, from where it was an hour’s walk up into the low-lying mountains, passing tiny wooden shrines and a few cemeteries on the way to the main building of Jiko-ji. Everything seemed swathed in a gentle light, and, in the absence of the cacophonous and never-ending background noise of Tokyo, the sounds of the birds chattering seemed artificially amplified. In between the trees, the expanse of stout, wide hills extended off into the distance, retreating into a dream-like haze towards horizon. The entrance to the temple, a narrow stairway that was encroached upon by the surrounding shrubs, suddenly appeared. Looking around, it seemed I was the only visitor that day.

Rural Japan, I have come to realize, is not the place to go if you are feeling paranoid, mainly because everyone who you would perceive to be looking at you and whispering to their friend about you probably is looking at you and whispering to their friend about you. For a long time, this sequence of events never failed to rattle me, not only because of my dislike for the running assumption in Japan that foreigners don’t know enough Japanese to figure out that they are being talked about, but mainly because it was the first time in my life that I was so aware that I was a white person.

Recently, though, I’ve been invigorated by these feelings. As I got further into rural areas on the way to Jiko-ji, as the trains I took became smaller and older, and the dress of those traveling more conservative and the stations more windswept, more eyes wandered my way. On one train, three young schoolgirls stood around the empty spot next to me, looking back and forth between the open seat and me, each offering it to the others, trying not to make it obvious that none of them really wanted to sit next to me. Early in my time here this would have bothered me to no end, but on this day it made me feel undoubtedly alive, as if it were a confirmation of what I thought myself to be, a sign that I was somewhere where I could create cultural and mental sparks, tension, and friction by simply being there, a simultaneous feeling of experiencing of the “other” and being “other” itself.

I climbed the steep stairway that leads to the main hall of the temple. It was almost gothic in stature, tall and dark and complexly built, even more so against the background of gentle forest green. A few sticks of incense that must have been put there that morning lay used up in the altar. Even though nobody was around, I felt embarrassed that I didn’t know the absolutely correct procedure for praying, and I made doubly sure that nobody was coming up the stairs or from the pathway veering back to the main road. I threw in an offering and clapped my hands twice, one of the few rituals I’m familiar with. Birds chirped. A fly buzzed past my ear. I bowed my head and tried to clear my mind.

From the roof, a multi-colored rope hung down attached to a bell that the worshipper is supposed to ring before and after praying. Three times I rang. Each time, the bell emitted a soft, dusty groan that was quickly enveloped by the surrounding silence. Alone on a holy mountaintop, it sounded like everything at once and nothing at all.




On the way Up




Entrance and main hall of Jiko-ji



Myokaku station on the Hachiko Line

Notes from the Cherry Blossom Front

Once again, o-mataseshimaimashita, I have shamefully made you wait.

The seasonal calendar has turned again, and the city has shed its winter malaise. In this country so finely attuned to the seasons, spring, the most anticipated, has arrived. The faces one meets on the street seem brighter, more playful; stepping outside without a coat, one feels lighter, suggesting a burden lifted. Storefronts are decorated with pink and purple, and inside the honorable customer is, on particularly nice days, served cold tea instead of hot.

And then there are the cherry blossoms (sakura). Oh, how the Japanese love the cherry blossoms. The Japan Meteorological Agency, a government organization, spends most of the year attempting to calculate when they will bloom, though they're usually wrong. When the flowers first bloomed in Tokyo two weeks ago, earlier than expected, the event made the front page of the newspaper. The article cited statistics kept over the last 100 years to identify the last four times Tokyo had had the first bloomed blossoms in the country. Those swathes of city green that I frequent that have a large number of cherry trees suddenly have twice as many people in them then I have ever seen. Many of these people are engaged in hanami, flower viewing parties, with friends or co-workers, sitting on blankets underneath the trees, sharing food, pouring warm sake for each other in the customary manner, brushing fallen petals off of their neighbor's head. Groups of people stand around the fully bloomed trees, aiming their hulking cameras at the tiny, delicate flowers, pulling branches down to their level to get a better shot. It's as if the entire country has been allowed to go outside for the first time in months.

It's easy to be cynical about this level of excitement over foliage, but the trees themselves are really magnificent. Held aloft by gnarled trunks of the darkest brown, branches extend like lithe arms, gently sagging earthward as they stretch languidly from the tree body. The ends of the branches hang limp, like hands waiting to be held. On every protrusion, dozens of tiny, glass-like petals of a transparent pink are presented elegantly, face-up, as if they it is in their very botanical nature to be admired. The colors of one tree become the foreground for the colors of the next, as the entire scene is set, the backdrop a surreal sky of pure pink.

I can't imagine that there is a cultural-botanical pair more perfectly matched than Japan and the cherry blossom. Trees that were bare for months on end suddenly burst into color, reinventing themselves, evoke the Buddhist theme of re-birth, on the other side of which the short lives of the blossoms – they bloom for only a few weeks - remind that, as life is a cycle, all things, for better or worse, must pass. The evanescence of beauty, the phenomenon that each and every haiku attempts to express, is fully represented within that cycle. A small hollow space at the base of a cherry tree is quite a conducive environment for reflection, for feeling nostalgic. The Japanese term mono no aware, 'the pathos of things,' is reflected in the bittersweet nature of this season, the simultaneous joy and sadness of enjoying something so beautiful that, almost before one can fully appreciate them, vanishes so quickly. Not surprisingly, in this literary vein, the cherry blossoms are often compared to, for lack of a more specific term, life.

My own cherry blossom search brought me to the Nakano section of town, where, I had heard, there is a place called the Philosophy Park, founded by a philosophy professor, that contains 77 spots that symbolize different doctrines. Disembarking at the station, I followed the broad central avenue, flanked by fully bloomed sakura, underneath which ran a seemingly never-ending succession of pink lanterns. There was a bridge over the street some ways down, and I climbed it to take some photos, along with a few older people saying kirei ne, sugoi kirei, it's pretty, so pretty, and a lone high schooler taking pictures with her cell phone, seeming lonely.

The park appeared after a bend in the road. The plaques on each of the 77 spots were only in Japanese (I don't know the word for existentialism, let alone the vocabulary necessary to read about it), but the mood was indeed pleasant enough to allow the mind to saunter along paths of contemplative thought. As I made my way through, I came to the cherry blossom area, a large square filled with the trees, a canopy of pink softening the entering sunlight. I found an empty bench and sat down. Many people were having hanami parties, six or ten people sitting on large blankets, while others were simply sitting against the base of a tree, eyes closed, soft grins on their faces.

I felt it too, that pinch of nostalgia brought on by the season. When was the last time I had simply sat against a tree and allowed my mind to wander? I held my head in my hands and sighed, listening to the white noise of the hundreds of branches above my head swaying in the wind. It was quite soothing. Gradually, the winds began to pick up, their shuffling growing louder. It was what I had hoped it would be - sakura fubuku, the cherry blossom snowstorm.

It's quite beautiful when it happens: thousands of little cylinders of pink dancing this way and that in the wind. Watching them drift down from the sky is mystifying, hypnotic – they seem to move in slow motion, weightless, as if they could float upwards like a balloon, were it not for the breeze. The children around me ran around joyfully, grabbing as many as they could, mid-flight, to bring back to their parents. I held my hand out to catch a few, while at my feet countless fallen petals began to make a small pile, fragile and pale, like a distant memory.

Okinawa

Okinawa is a peculiar place to be for an American, all the more so for an American who is not in the military. For World War II historians, 'Okinawa' evokes fierce and merciless battle between American and Japanese forces during the closing scenes of the Pacific Theatre; for American soldiers at the time, what is most likely remembered is the Japanese soldiers being ordered to commit suicide rather than surrender to the enemy; and to the Japanese of today, it evokes palm trees, pristine beaches and the continuing American presence in their country.

Okinawa was in fact an American possession until 1972, when it was given back to the Japanese. Despite this, nearly 20% of the main island of Okinawa-Honto is still occupied by American military bases, home to nearly 25,000 personnel.



This has not been an entirely happy residence. Numerous incidents, most recently just a few weeks ago, involving off-duty American soldiers committing crimes and accused rapes of Japanese girls have lead to serious protests to the American presence, though the pact that allows the Americans to stay was renewed a few years ago.

Even so, Okinawa remains an extremely popular tourist destination among Japanese (nearly 98% of tourists who come to Okinawa are Japanese, amounting to nearly 5.5 million people [!]), and with good reason: it is gorgeous.

Perhaps I should be more specific; Naha, the biggest city, capital, and transportation hub, is not gorgeous, particularly in the eyes of tourists who step off their flights ready for their tropical adventure. The main island is dominated by the American presence: used car lots advertising prices in both yen and dollars, numerous A&W franchises, and rumbling military caravans were common sights.

The unfortunate Japanese tendency to overdevelop hit southern Okinawa-honto hard. Blank-faced concrete buildings lined the coast, exhaust fumes from the broad highway that runs up the spine of the island filled the air, and the finest beach we could find within a 2-hour bike ride was a man-made one, somewhat mockingly named “Tropical Beach,” though despite the irony of hanging out on a South Pacific island on a man-made beach named Tropical Beach (why not re-name the island Tropical Island?), it felt pretty good to face the open ocean again.



Destined not to spend our “tropical” vacation in a clogged city (though to be fair it had it’s nice spots), Jerich, my travel partner, and I set off for nearby Zamami Island, a two-hour ferry to the west of the main island, with plans to camp on the beach.

Which we did, though we didn’t anticipate the nighttime temperature dropping to below 40 degrees. Even so, it’s hard to beat a campsite from which one can wake up and see this:




Or before going to sleep, see this:



Our second day there, we happened upon a very enthusiastic pair of girls on a graduation trip who invited us to where they were staying that night to hang out. This place, a minshuku, a traditional Japanese guesthouse, would be where we would end up staying the remainder of our trip. A communal experience, a few people would cook each night for all of the guests, who sat (on the ground) around a (low) table in the common room, talking into the wee hours. Given that we were foreigners, these late-night sessions included English lessons, covering a range of topics including proper usage of the phrase “god damn it,” and when it is appropriate to call someone an “asshole.”

The remainder of our time was spent meandering around Zamami and the other islands in the chain, biking, hiking, snorkeling, getting sunburned, and marveling at the fact that in getting away from “it all,” we might have accidentally discovered where “it all” was hiding in the first place.


These guard dogs, called Shisa, are ubiquitous in Okinawan houses, holdovers from the old Ryukyu kingdom. Normally found in pairs, one always has mouth closed, to hold the good spirits of the household inside, the other open, to allow the bad spirits to leave. This one was on top of the minshuku we stayed at.

A Shameless Plug

I feel a little sheepish posting this, but I hope you'll all forgive the shameless plug, as this is quite exciting for me:

My first published piece!


Thanks to everyone who encouraged me to expand outside the blog!

Back To School

It was lunchtime when we arrived, five people in two taxis and one via bicycle, at Fuchu Elementary School #10. We were expected, of course, but were welcomed only by shrieking children, each nudging their neighbor, “Hey, get a look at who’s here.”

The “who” – well, “we,” – was the group of students that our university had selected to go to participate in Fuchu Elementary’s International Day: Claire from England, Usu from Cote d’Ivorie, Bibi from China, Samu from Finland, Zare from Brasil and myself, feeling quite unexotic indeed.

As we walked towards the main building, various children gawked, whispered “foreigner” to their friends; a few teachers poked their heads out of classroom windows to say hello and direct us to the principal.

The main entrance to the school was like a regular genkan, the typical entryway to a Japanese home: the floor was a few inches below the floor of the school building, and the walls were lined with hundreds of drawers where the students put their shoes before changing into their classroom slippers. I put on a pair, a few sizes too small, and shuffled over to the principal’s office, where we were seated and offered tea.

The principal’s office was charmingly cluttered. There seemed to be a thin layer of dust on everything. A half-erased chalkboard calendar hung on one wall, flanked by notices and other random-looking papers attached with pushpins. On the other wall, close to the ceiling, hung portraits of the 11 previous principals of the school, ten of whom were business-like men, and one of whom was an absolutely terrifying woman whom I was afraid would materialize at any moment to correct my posture, inform me that my behavior was “unacceptable,” and request a conversation with my parents. Each portrait was angled downward from its point high up on the wall, giving the impression that each principal was watching my every move, looking down at me with disgust and pity. I got the urge apologize for things I hadn’t done. If the pictures were positioned that way as a psychological maneuver to make students afraid of stepping out of line, well… it worked.

All of this in contrast to the current principal, who was so gentle a woman that I feared shaking her hand may crush it. Dressed in a conservative gray frock, she spoke softly and slowly, thanking us for coming because we must be very busy, reiterating how excited the children were to see us. Working in elementary education for 27 years, this was her first post as a principal. Even when speaking about the problems that face elementary school children in Japan (bullying resulting in refusal to go to school, overcrowded classrooms, hyperactive kids [sound familiar?]), she did so with a smile on her face and an attitude that spoke of infinite patience and perseverance. When she cited numbers, she held up as many digits for us to see; for larger numbers, she would extend five fingers on her left hand, in the palm of which she would place the remaining digits from the right hand.

A teacher and a few students came to the door and told us that the performance was about to start. Lead upstairs by an unbelievably nervous boy, who would walk ahead of me, stop, look back to make sure I was still coming, then start walking again before we got too close, we emerged on the roof, where around 120 students were waiting. We sat in front of them; Mt. Fuji was visible behind us, in the hazy distance. One of the students came to the front and, speaking through a megaphone, asked her classmates to be quiet, then welcomed us and said how excited everyone was to learn about our countries.

One by one, the three classes performed songs and dances for us off to the right, as the remaining students in the front row tried to guess which foreigner was from where. Upon their conclusion, each of us was handed the megaphone and asked our opinion of the performances. I can’t quite remember what I said but I do remember being glad that my Japanese teacher wasn’t there to hear it. It appeared that the children were too busy recovering from the shock of seeing foreigners speaking Japanese to care much about my grammar. Thankfully.

The six of us were to go two-by-two to the three different classrooms; I was paired with Samu from Finland, and we were lead to the first classroom by a small group much in the same way I was lead up to the roof, save for one tiny little boy who, in a voice barely over a whisper, and without making any eye contact with me at all, asked me how many people were in my family, how many were boys, and what did I eat at dinner with my family.

My assignment had been to give a presentation about America, but I had been unsure as to what 10-year old Japanese students already knew, or what they wanted to know. I told them about my hometown, about what my elementary school was like, and what I ate for lunch. I asked them what American foods they knew (“Hamburgers!”), what kinds of foods they liked (“Hamburgers!”), and what they thought a normal American student their age ate for lunch (“Hamburgers!”). As for famous American people they knew, their answers, in order of appearance, were, Bush, (they didn’t say which one) Clinton (they didn’t say which one), and Babe Ruth.

When I asked them what other American things they knew, the many of the boys screamed, “Baseball!”

“How about other than baseball?”

Silence.

“Baseball!”

The females of the group asked very good questions, and in general were much better behaved. One girl came up to me afterwards and asked me in all seriousness if I had any children. I did not enjoy this question. Another girl had brought a dreamcatcher her dad had brought back from a business trip to America. I saw her holding it, standing in my general vicinity, eyes towards the ground, looking very nervous. I felt similarly. Getting down to her level, I asked her what it was and if she knew what it was supposed to do. Biting her lip to hold back a smile, I told her that I had had a dreamcatcher when I was younger, too. She relaxed a bit and smiled fully; this melted me.

While preparing for the visit, I thought that the perspective I would gain from going to talk to these kids would be related to my identity as an American, something that I had never thought about fully until I began to feel uncomfortable, why I’m still not sure, claiming it to be “where I’m from.” I was worried about what these children’s image of America would be. Fat? Greedy? Loud? Warmongering? Gun-toting? Would I have to answer questions about the Iraq War, about Hiroshima, about racism?

As it turned out, they really didn’t have much of a well-formed image about America at all. Some had been to Hawaii but did not realize it was part of America. (To be fair, this is probably true of many Americans as well.) It was exactly this that left its mark on me through this experience at the school, and it’s something that I often come upon while traveling. One of the many humbling experiences involved in living abroad is discovering that there is a vast world with no relation to one’s own.

The place I long for and call home, those children had never heard of. The language I speak, they don’t understand. People who have hurt me and those whom I have wronged, who remain in my memory, stubborn and unmoving – those people the children will never meet. It’s an awe-inspiring thing to realize, though it is also at times frightening to think that everything I hold dear and that has contributed to making me who I am are entirely meaningless to nearly the entire world population, save my family and those with whom I am close. With this in mind, it is quite hard to take oneself so seriously as to lose proper perspective, a crime that I’m often guilty of and something that I feel travel is the best cure for.

Back in the principal’s office, the six of us talked again with the principal and some teachers about the visit, and about their students. The conversation came, as it often does, to each of our hometowns. When it was my turn to speak, I told those assembled that I was from San Diego.

One of the teachers’ faces lit up. “San Diego?”

“Yes.”

In English, she said, “San Diego! Blue sky! Freeway!”

As I reflected on this statement as one would a Zen koan, I saw peeking into the room from outside one of the girls from the classes we went to. Meeting her eyes, I smiled and waved softly to her as those around me continued to speak of their home countries. Her eyes widened, and in an instant she was gone. I focused my attention on that spot for the next few seconds, waiting. I couldn’t say why, but I really wanted her to come back.

The Great Pronoun Crisis

Japanese pronouns are an interesting bunch. In general, spoken Japanese skips over pronouns when the subject is assumed. For example, in English, if you want to say that you ate, you say: "I ate." However, in Japanese, it's usually assumed that you're talking about you, so it's perfectly natural to say "Ate." As a result, subject-less sentences such as "Saw a movie," "Slept well," and "Want to know" are considered complete, since in each it's assumed that the speaker is talking about themselves. It's an economical language in that any unneeded markers are usually dropped. Of course, if you want to talk about your friend, you'd say "[Friend] ate," and so on and so forth.

In addition to this indirect way of speaking that seems quite vague to native English speakers (including myself), it's also a complex and difficult language to learn because speech is highly specified. At a talk by Alfred Birnbaum, a former translator of the popular (and my favorite) author Haruki Murakami, he pointed out this particular difficulty when it came to translating. In Japanese, it is possible, without knowing who is speaking, to deduce gender, age, social status and origin (what part of the country, from the city or a rural area) of the speaker entirely based on the type of speech. In the case of fiction, this is difficult for the translator because a lot of explaining must be done about the characters in English that is implicit and doesn't require extra effort in the Japanese.

This, among other things, is why Japanese can at times seem impossibly entangled in many layers of speech patterns, levels of politeness and styles - why there seem to be 10 different ways to say one thing, each one based on the situation and who's saying it to who.

My reason for writing is because I am going through a grammatical identity crisis. There are about five or six common ways of saying "I," compared to one in English. There's Watashi, the standard, non-gender specific title; Boku, used mainly by males, which has a relaxed, cooly detached tone; Watakushi, used in formal settings; Ore, a gritty, more confrontational term used to assert masculinity (used mainly among teenagers); and Atashi, which is most common with the 18-25 female bracket in a similar way that Boku is popular with males.

Herein lies my identity crisis. In high school I was encouraged to use Boku; in college I was rebuked and told to use Watashi; and now I can't seem to remain either of them for any length of time. I want to be Boku: hip, loose, casual. But since I've been most recently trained to be Watashi, I usually unconsciously use Watashi, which isn't really a problem except that soon after calling myself Watashi, I remember that I actually want to be Boku, and, mid-conversation, at times mid-sentence, leave Watashi by the wayside and become Boku.

I wonder at what point Japanese decide which pronoun to use - if one day they decide "I think I'm done with Boku, let's switch back to Watashi," and never miss a beat from then on, or if it's a more prolonged process, dotted with anachronistic references to a former self. I also wonder what they think of the fact that I can't figure out what to call myself, whether they commiserate with my Multiple Pronoun Disorder, my Grammatical Schizophrenia, and whether the fact that conversations end soon after I make this mistake indicates that it's a more serious problem than I previously thought.

It's Tuesday, It Must Be Kyoto

Some much belated pictures from my family's visit:

Hakone - a popular hotsprings resort outside of Tokyo. The air was crisp, the winds lively. The closest I've been to pure paradise was sitting in a steaming hot bath outdoors - the extreme warmth underneath and extreme cold on top joined forces, melting away the tension stored in my joints and muscles. There's also a big mountain near there. Perhaps you've heard of it - Fuji.






Hiroshima - I was a bit nervous about Hiroshima. It felt wrong initially, hopping on a street car, camera in hand, going to the spot where my country cause untold amounts of human suffering, so much so that the city's name alone is a synonym for the deadliest of human ingenuities. The A-Bomb dome, a building whose frame survived despite being a few hundred meters below the site of the explosion, was, for locals, just another train stop. If my time there (just 24 hours) proved to me anything at all, I suppose it was that even the remnants of the atomic bomb can become just another tourist attraction with the passing of time.






Kyoto - This was a bit of a homecoming for me. Kyoto is the city where I spent my first weeks in Japan in 2005, so most of the sights reminded me of the time when I became determined to spend my year abroad here. It was as pretty as I remember it to be. Temples, shrines, a quiet walk along the Philosopher's Path, pensive amid a light drizzle.








Kamakura - A former Buddhist stronghold (the atmosphere certainly reinforces it) in 10th century Japan, I decided, visiting with the family, that if I were to move to Japan permanently (very unlikely; just a hypothetical), Kamakura would be where I would like to base myself. Small yet varied; quiet but active; humble without cause.

Coming of Age (Again)

The national holidays of Japan consist of an odd mix of nationalist (the Emperor’s birthday), religious (Buddha’s birthday), pseudo-pagan (the autumn and spring equinoxes) and kind of cute (Respect for the Elderly Day, popularly known as Old Folks’ Day) observances. Save for New Year’s, I’ve yet to really feel a part in the observance of these holidays (I’m not elderly, or the Emperor, or Buddha), but last Monday’s holiday changed all of that.

The second Monday in January is Coming-of-Age day, where everyone who turned 20 during the preceding year gathers in public spaces and enjoys a ceremony marking their entrance into adulthood. This was very exciting news, because I am 20, and by all accounts there was to be a ceremony at the local city hall for all the 20-year olds in the city. I delicately asked the student affairs director at the university about it, and she managed to push a few buttons and get me an invitation.

Of course, the problem here is that I’ve already had a coming-of-age ceremony – my Bar Mitzvah. Whether or not this disqualified me from coming of age a second time (I didn’t tell anybody, just to be safe), it struck me as odd that two cultures ended up seven years apart in their estimation of when a person becomes an adult, what with a pool of only 20 years to choose from in the first place. Of course, none of this could stop me from donning a shirt and tie for the first time in months, hopping on the bike and riding to my Japanese Bar Mitzvah.

A few points really distinguished this ceremony from my Bar Mitzvah nearly eight years ago. To begin with, in lieu of the synagogue I grew up in, filled with family members and close friends, mostly Jewish, my Japanese coming-of-age took place in an enormous hall filled with about 600 Japanese twenty-year olds and one non-Japanese person (me). Instead of shirts, ties and skirts, the majority crowd was in kimonos and other traditional dress, although a fair number of the males were dressed in suits and had that pan-cultural “If it was up to me, I wouldn’t be wearing this” look on their faces.

The only similarity I could really think of was that at both ceremonies I was constantly being congratulated by old people whom I’d never met before.

As I found a seat, the lights dimmed and the curtain rose, revealing two lines of five seats filled with important people whose exact titles escape me. A few of these people went up to the podium, bowed down to their ankles, and then bowed to each row of people seated on the stage, who bowed from their seats in unison, like a crew team slowly moving forward against a current. They all praised Mitaka (the section of Tokyo I live in), wished everyone a kokoro kara omedetou gozaimasu (heartfelt congratulations) implored us (not me, I deduced) to vote, and passed the microphone to the next speaker. As is usually the case at ceremonies in Japan, the crowd was fairly talkative throughout.

Upon the conclusion of these welcome speeches, two males, probably local high school or college students (they received numerous “woo!”s from the crowd), informed us that we were about to view a performance (the program read “Performance”), so would we please all stop talking and be respectful. The white noise of scattered chatter slowly dissipated into a whisper, and once again the lights dimmed.

As soon as the silence had become whole, a thick baseline erupted from the speakers hanging on either side of the stage, and four youths dressed in matching black tracksuits galloped on stage and began a very specifically choreographed hip-hop dance routine to music containing the only English heard that day (variations on “Let’s dance,” and other passages directed at a girl with whom the singer would prefer to be physically closer). There was much gesticulation and gyration in the direction of the audience, and just to make sure nothing had been lost in translation, I double-checked with the girl sitting next to me (wearing a kimono and hairdo which had taken 3 ½ hours to put together, so she said) that there was indeed no relevant connection between this performance and the rest of the ceremony. After their performance was over, and the group stood in a line breathing heavily and bowing, their leader forwarded us a very formal congratulation from the group and exited stage right.

At about this time my neighbor became interested in my presence (she saw that I had a cell phone), and we exchanged the traditional greetings between a Japanese person and a foreigner (Your Japanese is really good! – No, it’s not – It really is! – It’s really not [when someone compliments you, its considered a little boastful to say “thank you, so you’re supposed to brush away the compliment]), and she told me that she likes Americans and Europeans because they’re tall and have blue eyes (oh, well), and did I know her friend who goes to my school (no). Her friends, sitting behind us, started making fun of her because she was talking to the foreigner. I turned around and introduced myself in Japanese, and they stopped making fun.

In the middle of our fourth or fifth exchange of “Your Japanese Is Really Good – No It’s Not,” the lights dimmed again, this time for a slideshow that went through each year of the attendees lives (1987-2007), showing a one or two pictures that detailed the big events of that particular year, set to cheery pop music. Here’s a sampling:

1995: the Kobe earthquake (6500 killed, $200 billion in damage, a major city uprooted by mother nature); Tokyo Subway Gas Attacks (an act of terror in the public transportation system of the largest city in the world)

1998: Ichiro breaks the Japanese League hits record

2001: World Trade Center attacks

2003: Hideki Matsui comes to play for the Yankees

2007: Billy Blanks*


*(Billy Blanks [of Tae-Bo fame] is HUGE in Japan. Walk into most department stores and you hear his videos being shown in the background. I really really really wish I were making this up. But I’m not.)

I haven’t the data to back this up, but I’m pretty sure that this is the first time that 9/11, Ichiro and Billy Blanks have appeared in the same presentation. Again, my neighbor was unfazed. I was too confused to request an explanation.

To conclude the ceremony, we stood sang Tabidachi no hi ni (On the Day Your Journey Begins), which is to Japanese graduation-type ceremonies what “I Believe I Can Fly” and that “Time of Your Life” song are to American graduation-type ceremonies. The lyrics were printed on the ceremony program, so I tried to sing along a little bit (You read Japanese so well! – No I don’t), and though I lost the tune a few times, I was able to follow.

There, singing together with about 600 complete strangers a song whose meaning I could only feel through the melody, I felt an unusual sense of belonging. Most of the time, I feel adrift in Tokyo – I don’t belong to the Japanese, and the foreign community is, in general, a scattered one. But standing in that hall, lending a voice – nationality indistinguishable - to the group, I felt, however fleetingly, that I was no longer just a visitor; after all the months of viewing their culture from the outside, I had found this hidden avenue to the inside, and, wrapped in the evanescence of melody, nobody seemed to mind letting me in. I wasn’t a foreigner; I felt I was a natural part of the whole.

The feeling lasted just a brief few moments, but that small glimpse of being just one of the crowd was clear enough to convince me that I had arrived at some sort of destination. By no means did I feel like had just begun or finally completed a journey, but somewhere in between confusion and understanding, singing words that I could only vaguely define with people I would never meet again, I came of age in a way that had nothing to do with getting older.

O-matase shimaimashita

(First, a note on the subject of the post. At any store in Japan, if you are kept waiting for any period of time longer than nothing, before paying for or receiving something you ordered, the clerk or applicable body will say a heartfelt [or sometimes not so heartfelt] o-mataseshimaimashita, which is an untranslatably polite phrase that means, sort of, “I have shamelessly and undeservedly made you wait.” In Japan, a country with, in general, very little sense of irony, this phrase is said at points even when it’s obvious that a) there was no choice but to make someone wait, or b) the time spent waiting was approximately 1.37 seconds. So, because I feel that it’s been far too long since I’ve written, I wanted to say to all of you o-mataseshimaimashita; it won’t happen again.

In an unrelated note, whenever I’m with a Japanese friend and I have to tie my shoe or run back inside to get something, I come back and say to them o-mataseshimaimashita. They are never terribly amused by it, but I think it’s really funny every time. Okay, onto the actual post.)


Besides the obvious, I think that a lot can be learned from a language textbook. Gauging the category of vocabulary learned early on, the examples of discussion and role-play situations, a student can learn not only some new words but, in general, what cultural attitudes and experiences go along with speaking this new language. For example, in the Hebrew textbook I used, the situations given for conversation practice usually included arguing over prices at the local market, telling someone they were crazy, or lamenting the situation of the world-at-large in a uniquely enchanting Israeli way.

The authors of that textbook were correct (in my opinion) that the situations often encountered in Israel, where one will probably end up speaking Hebrew, usually revolve around arguing and passionate displays of emotion and opinion. It makes sense – prepare the students for the real-world situations they’re most likely to experience as speakers of the language.

So I think it’s safe to conclude that the context in which a language is taught provides a lot of implicit information about the culture.

Consider, then, the Japanese language textbook. Almost invariably, the situations described in Japanese textbooks involve a confused foreigner trying to figure out Japanese culture. Almost never are a Japanese and an American talking like normal friends, and almost invisible is the foreign student with a deeper understanding of Japanese culture.

For example, two weeks of class based on an essay written by a Japanese person bemoaning the lack of proper thanks given by an American he took care of. The American thanked him once and not again; the author could not understand how someone could stop after just one thank you. Roles for discussion are often given that include an average Japanese explaining a particular custom to a baffled foreigner, and popular essay topics include how Japan is different from home, what shocked one about Japan upon first arriving, and the difficulties of learning the language.

I know that much of this is out of consideration and politeness, and they certainly don’t have to go out of their way to help foreigners out, but if we compare the Hebrew and Japanese textbook models, it would be hard not to conclude that the expected situation for a student of Japanese in Japan is utter confusion. It certainly seems, based on all of this and my own personal experience, that I’m expected to not have any idea what’s going on around me.

It often feels like this kind of attitude is designed to keep reminding me that I’m an outsider, though I simply need to walk outside for that reminder anyway. The truth is that not much shocked me when I first arrived here – I had been to Japan before, taken a class on Japanese history and read enough Japanese literature to have at least a vague grasp on its collective unconscious. Does this make me an expert? Of course not, but with the world shrinking every moment, few people come to Tokyo without some sort of knowledge of Japan, its history, and its customs.

Yet the image of the confused foreigner continues to be promulgated. This isn’t to say I understand what’s going on – what I don’t get could fill multiple encyclopedia sets – but nearly four months into my time here, I’m ready to shed the image.

In fact, I may have to. This week I’m playing host for the first time – at first to a Japanese friend from Kyoto (I will show him around Tokyo, in a strange twist of roles), and then to my parents and youngest brother. With the job as host comes a certain feeling of ownership of one’s surroundings, and I’m enjoying it even before my visitors come. In the face of the expectation of being overwhelmed, I will show people around, tell them which trains to take, walk to new places without a map, serve as translator, and try to share my love for this incredible city.

The thought has come to me more than once that perhaps it is the locals who are overwhelmed by my presence, and that the confusion they expect me to have is in part their confusion as to where I fit in their society. Many times I feel that, when I go to a place where foreigners aren’t expected to go, the locals don’t know what to do with me. They certainly seemed as baffled, if not more so, than the foreign characters in my textbook.

The other day I went to buy a pillow and sheets for my guest coming on Friday. Outside the store, an older man saw me and said, proudly flaunting his English ability, “Shopping visit?” I answered in Japanese and we had a nice little conversation about where I lived, what I was doing in Tokyo, and other things like that. As we were about to part, he said, smiling and grandfatherly, “Be careful!”*

“But Japan is really safe, isn’t it?” I answered jokingly.

Turning away from me, he mounted his bike. “Be careful,” he said quietly in English, as if to himself.




*I feel I must clarify. The phrase he used is "ki o tsukete," which is kind of a cross between "take care" and "be careful," but I think it can be translated either way. I hope, anyway.