Almost One Page on in the New Calendar

It is hard to believe that the year has turned already. As January slowly slips away, I am still coming to terms with the fact that it is the year two thousand nine. It never ceases to amaze me how time seems to both stand still and fly by at the same time. Over the past three and a half years I have enjoyed living in Japan and absorbing the language and culture. At times I can hardly believe that it has been so long, yet other times I see just how adjusted I am to life here, as things that are shocking or amazing to new foreigners have simply become part of life here for me. That is one of many reasons that I have not felt inspired to write recently. As Japan has become more and more the norm for me and my lifestyle, the quirky things I find become more and more acute, and less accessible for people on the outside of this culture. As opposed to finding a way to translate these to the page and to a Western perspective, I have simply been taking them all in and enjoying the new found level at which I can appreciate the intricacies of Japanese life.

As my window to the world of Japan has slowly been growing, I realize that the window to my world in Japan has been closing for many people back home. I am unsure if I can really offer all of my thoughts and opinions on Japan, but what I can share is a little update on my life here. This will most likely end up being very long, and I hope that there are those out there who still read this site, and also those with the patience to bear with, what I can only imagine, is going to be a lengthy look at where I am in Japan now.

Snowboarding and the weather

After a year of training my new ACL, I have finally been able to get up and go snowboarding again. This is the day that I thought so much about during my long road to recovery. As boring as tedious as the physio became, I kept to my routine with one thing in mind: snowboarding. The work definitely paid off, as last year, after having the screws removed from my leg, I was given the ok to board. Needless to say, even though it was spring I was up on the mountain the next weekend.

Fast forward to present day. This season I am once again the proud owner of a seasons pass to Nozawa Onsen Ski Area. I have been snowboarding 21 times this season, with ten of them being before the turn of the year. My knee has not given me any trouble, and it really feels like I was never off it. I have a real sense of accomplishment, and I am proud of the effort and patience I put into bringing my knee back to health.

Though my knee is in good condition, the same cannot be said for the ski hill. The weather in Nagano has been extremely strange this year. The evidence of shifting wind patterns has become very obvious this year. Starting in fall, a very low number of typhoons made their way to Japan. This winter started with a late snowfall in the city, and then a big dump. It was cold for a few weeks, and then warmed up to rain…even on the tops of the mountains. Right now it is hard to believe that it is January, and not actually some time in the spring. The last remnants of once proud snowbanks are now only mere slushy stains in my muddy backyard.

Cats

My two feline friends are doing well. Kuno has gotten a little bit bigger, but I’m sure she has reached her, albeit small, adult size. Usagi on the other hand has been his adult size for quite some time, but he keeps getting bigger. He is a bit of a pig, and if there is food in the dish, he will be there every fifteen minutes. The problem arises from the fact that Kuno’s stomach is only so big, so she nibbles then rests, and then goes back for more after. That is when Usagi swoops in and gobbles most of what is left in the bowl. I am thinking about building a special platform for Kuno’s dish, one that Tubby can’t get up on. That way Kuno can get the right amount of food, and I can monitor how much Usagi is really eating. The worst part is that if he is hungry (which is always) and there is no food in the dish, he will act up. He takes to scratching things he knows I will react to. I wish I could hold out, but there is only so much damage to the couch that I am willing to take before I feed the fatty. I throw him outside when he gets really worked up, but then after a few minutes he will be clawing at the screen door, begging to get back in. When someone comes over he turns to all purrs and cuddles. A big fat 5kg lap warmer…that leaves hair on everything dark.

Work

As many of you know, I changed my base school last spring. I have been working at Nakano Daira JHS since April, and I quite enjoy it here. The kids at my old school had started to take a big slide in behaviour, and I am very pleased to be back at a school where the teachers work very hard on fostering good community spirit and good relations between everyone in the school. The kids here are not angels by any means, but they are leaps and bounds ahead of the kids at my old school.

The teachers at Nakahei (the nickname for my new school) are all very friendly. The school is larger, so the staff is larger as well. There are some teachers whom I barely know, but many of the teachers have become very friendly with me. As I have no homeroom responsibilities, I seem to have more free time at my desk than other teachers. This combined with my desk being the closest to the coffee area and the common table area in the teachers’ room means that I often have random conversations with teachers taking a break. The chance to talk about many different topics has definitely helped my Japanese a little bit.

The Decision

The time of year has come again; I must make a decision on what I will do from August onwards. I have the option of renewing my contract for a fifth and final year, or to not renew my contract and follow a different path. The reasons being weighed on both sides are many and heavy. I have spent many hours recently, staring off into nothingness, trying to sort out what I will do.

Previously, I had thought that I would be given a bit of a bonus for staying so long. In August, the Board of Education asked if I would stay; when I mentioned the Olympics, I was told I could have the month of February off to attend. I was under the impression that this was a bonus for my hard work, and compromise for staying one last year in spite of the Olympics. However, in a meeting with the BOE last week, they reneged on that deal, and said I could use all of my vacation days if that was what I wanted. I was a little taken aback. We talked about it more, and came to a bit of a compromise (one with which I am not too impressed.)

Next year the Foreign Language Instructor in my position will be responsible for two large demonstration classes. These will be viewed and critiqued by teachers from various places in Nagano. This is a big deal, and a brand new person fresh out of collage is not going to be able to do as good a job as I will. I tried to explain this to the BOE, but the boss just kept looking things up in the JET programme guidelines book. I wonder if they really do understand how much more valuable I am, than some goon fresh outta his bachelor degree.

What I will decide, now I cannot say. The deadline is fast approaching, and I must make a decision by next Friday. In the end, the safe decision is to say yes, and if I feel like it later, I can change my mind. If I say no, then they will start the process to find a replacement. With the decision pressing harder and harder on my mind the closer I get to that last day, I am finding it more and more difficult to push my ambivalence even one point to one side or other.

Life

At meetings or other times I am listening to people new to Japan, I am struck by just how much I have become accustomed to living life here. The problems that many people deal with, even some with which I myself dealt with, are often nonexistent in my life now. The day to day things provide very little trouble. Grocery shopping, paying bills, everyday conversations, shoeing away Jehovah’s Witnesses, have just become another aspect of my life that I do without too much contemplation and planning. The only thing that still gets me is the recycling. There is usually one day a month for each kind of recyclable (glass, cardboard, plastic bottles, etc.) Each one also has to be taken to a specific location, at a specific time, on that one day. I of course have no map to any of these places, so I get by with the ones I know, and thankfully Yukari has been taking the ones I don’t know, and dealing with them in her neighbourhood.

My car was recently in the shop to get the Shaken inspection done. What makes this more painful is that the starter motor went a month ago. So about five hundred to fix the starter motor, and then another fifteen hundred to get the inspection and other fixes done, I have definitely taken a big bite out of this months pay cheque. It’s not all bad however, as after the inspection my rear defrost and wiper work, and also the new muffler means I don’t sound like I am driving a Ferrari around town. The down side is my wallet being so much lighter in my back pocket.

Friends

As much as I love to talk about myself, I thought it may be informative to let everyone know what is going on with my friends as well. Everyone is doing well, but this year has ushered in some major changes for some of the people in my life.

First off, Brandon is back from Thailand, and is teaching English once again (to his chagrin). The main reason he is back is snowboarding, and also to put a little money in the bank before he moves to Hawaii, which happens in May. Then it is the big life of a SCUBA instructor for him. B and I have been snowboarding in Nozawa Onsen with our friend Alan who lives there. Alan is doing well other than hurting his back at the beginning of the snowboard season, catching the flu after his back got better, and then getting his ass kicked by me in dodgeball last week. But now that he is healthy and rested after the beating in dodgeball, he is doing pretty well. Alan is also a fourth year, and it looks like he’ll be here for another.

Last year I became good friends with a guy named Justin. He lives in Nakano with his wife Kumi. She teaches at a local junior high, and he teaches one town over. They are great fun. They live with in walking distance (though it is usually skateboard distance when the weather permits), and they both like to cook good food and drink good alcohol. Needless to say, many a late night has been spent getting stuffed and sauced in front of their jealousy inducing flatscreen TV.

Other than foreigners, I also have a good group of Japanese friends. My good friend Jun got married a little over a year ago. Last fall, he and his wife, Shinobu, had a beautiful little girl. Her name is Neiro. She is really sweet, and is the best baby anyone could ask for. She is awake all day, and sleeps all night, barely a cry at all when she is sleeping. Jun and Shinobu even had a New Years party (only four of us, but still…) and Neiro never even made a peep.

Jun is also working a backcountry snowboard operation with our other friends Ken and Tatsubon. They have been clearing brush to open up the old runs of a closed ski hill. They have a snowcat to take clients up the mountain, and then they can ride down a whole mountain of powder. On top of all that work, they are also volunteering to help build some ‘kamakura’ (a Japanese style igloo) for the festival that is held annually at the base of that old ski hill.

My other close Japanese friend, Hiro, is doing well. He and I met in the hospital, as we were both in for ACL operations. It was his second time in there, and his latest surgery seems to have done the trick. In the last year he has moved out from his old place, into a place with his girlfriend, and is now engaged. On top of that, he has grown his handmade leather goods business, and found the time to build a skateboard halfpipe in his house. Hiro and I get along really well for the simple reason that we are both nuts when we hang out. Everyone around us is hanging their heads in shame or embarrassment, but he and I never quit! It is truly a blast to hang out with him.

Thoughts on Japan

Japanese gets easier, but there are sometimes when being a foreigner in Japan never does. As friendly and as polite as Japanese people are, there are still stereotypes that are impossible to break. These stereotypes are deep ingrained in the psyche of most Japanese people, and I believe that most people don’t even realize that they are drawing on clichés or possibly being offensive. For the most part, people who say discriminatory things tend to be people who I know to be completely accepting of foreigners. It seems that Japan has taught many people what “foreigners” are like, and that most people have taken that thought truly to heart.

Most likely this stems from the “Us” and “Them” attitude that is commonplace in Japan. This attitude is by no means exclusive to foreigners. Japanese have levels of speech depending on status, and there is a different way of talking about yourself and others depending on who you are talking to. It is simply a matter of social courtesy to speak in these in-group or out-group terms.

This is why, I believe, that many Japanese people have such a stereotypical view of almost all foreigners (even ones they have known for years). It is not a malicious definition of strange others, rather it is just that they have associated certain behaviours that they see in some foreigners and applied this to the entire out-group of “gaijin.” It can get annoying, and even verges on offensive a lot of the time. It is just strange for English speakers to hear generalizations about all foreigners, as we often define people based on their personal ethnicity. In Japanese, it almost always goes “So foreigners, right, they ah…” or “Oh that makes sense, you’re a foreigner.” In translation this sounds really bad, but once you understand that it is simply the way the structure of the language, and the history of thinking about Japanese as one, and the outsiders as something else, you begin to understand that even while it is a little rude to our tastes, that it is not intended that way. I try to not hold these strange stereotypes against the people who say them, but that is not to say I let them go unchallenged. This is a battle that almost all foreigners in Japan will face at one time or another (or many others to be sure). We must do our best to educate Japanese people about foreign cultures on a personal level, and do our best to not confirm the beliefs that already surround us.

Even with that in mind, life in Japan is not a bad one for foreigners. Though often misunderstood, we are often treated with a lot of respect. If you can speak even a little Japanese, you will amaze many people. Many people will be interested in you, and it is not hard to meet a lot of friends. Some foreigners fall into the trap of making mostly foreign friends, and therefore lose out on a lot. I have luckily made a place for myself where I have balanced my foreign and Japanese friends. Even when I am pissed off at something (like whale meat for lunch), I find it hard not to feel blessed that I have been granted this opportunity to not just visit Japan, but to live here and experience fully what it has to offer.

To all my family and friends, thanks for putting up with my distance, both physically and socially. I would love to make this year a better one for communication, and I will try my best. I ask the same of all of you. Emails and phone calls can work both ways, so I will endeavour to do my part, if you will too. Also, I keep the invitation open; my house has a very comfortable sofa and lots room for luggage. If you can spare the time and a little bit of cash, then you are welcome to come and stay at my place for free. There is so much in my life here that I could never begin to explain in words, and I would love to share that with all of you.

On one side of the ocean, or another, I will see you soon.