Seito

Yesterday, I meant to leave at 4:30 for the second day in a row, but ended up staying with students until 6 afterschool. And I have no regrets about having done so.

Monday, I headed up to the san-nensei hallway to see if some of my favorite 35HR girls were up there studying. Instead, I ran into two 35 boys and two 33 boys. The two were from the "boy's class" I had while they were second years, infamous for the one student that was basically sexually harassing me during classtime. Needless to say, I didn't necessarily have a good impression of any of the boys in that class. But they totally brought me around.

I don't know how it really began, I think I might've asked how the English proficiency test that they took on Sunday went, but from there we ended up talking about music, movies, famous people, languages, university and what they were going to study, and of course, boys and girls and boyfriends and girlfriends. It was then that I realized that I haven't been taking advantage of my unique position at the school as much as I used to. For those boys, I was an 'approachable' girl, because I wasn't Japanese so I'm not afraid or shy about hanging out with them. Plus, as an ALT, I'm not quite a full-fledged teacher, and am also younger than most of the other teachers, so they can relate to me better.

The one thing was that, after I suggested to one of the boys that he text me in French after he graduates, another one asked if we could "asobimashou" i. e. play together after they graduated. I agreed, and then one says, "Tequila!" followed by chimes of "Beer!" Ah, they are adolescent boys after all. At first I tried to point out that even if they were graduates, they were still 2 years younger than the legal limit, but I realized that that would've been hypocritical, so I trailed off with a "Well, as long as you're not in uniform..." Then, when we started packing up and heading home, they thanked me "for my time." I thought that was really sweet.

Yesterday kinda went the same way: I had to wait for the teachers to return to the teacher's room from a meeting that I didn't know was happening, to stand guard against the students having full access to said room. 5 o'clock hit, and I 'osaki-ni-shitsurei shimashita'-ed myself out of there. But, I got to the hallway linking the two buildings and heard the girls playing basketball in the gym to my left.

Bouyed by the great experience of connecting with the boys the previous day, I mounted the steps and walked over. The 6 girls playing swiveled their heads as one as I got to entrance, followed by greetings of welcome. I stepped in and for a while just watched them practice their shots. After a while, their coach came and they began various drills. I stayed to the side and chatted with two of the girls: one the manager and one a player who wasn't feeling well that day, punctuated by my eardrums getting nearly blown out by the signal going off every 6 minutes per drill. When they started shooting practice again, I decided to shoot some hoops too.

It's been a while. I think the last time I did so in a real gym was in high school, over 7 years ago. I'm a horrible shot. But, I didn't care. At some point during it, I started enjoying it. Shooting, dribbling, running after the ball after it rebounded off the backboard. The whole time, I thought about Pin and his love for this game, and I understood a bit. I'm certainly not going to play in a game anytime soon, but before I left, I asked them to teach me to how to shoot a ball.

I stayed til their practice was over, and after they stood in a circle, bowed and said thank you to their coach with an "arigatou gozaimashita" (something that I'm a bit familiar with, having to do so in tea ceremony club), they came over to me, stood in a circle and thanked me with the same Japanese formality. I felt a bit over-whelmed since I thought I was just being "jama" and in the way, interrupting their practice and all. But they thanked me for my time (just like the boys) in English, and invited me to come again.

How can you not love these kids?

Life in a Fishbowl

Lately I've been spending a lot of time with the BOE crew and I'm starting to see some of the critiques of BOE ALTs for myself. Not that I don't love the friends that I've made, and being able to spend more time with a solid group of people. It's just that, because the group is so small, it is both insular and insulated from the majority of the JET community. All of the dramas and melodramas play out on a much smaller, more tense stage.

Sometimes, it's nice to get away; I take advantage of my position as a kencho JET and hang out with other ALT friends. But sometimes, even that's not enough, because I still end up with ALTs. That's when I appreciate having made Japanese friends early on and continuously while I've lived in Shizuoka.

It's nice to forget all the issues, and just have a good time with friends. You lose yourself in another language. Which is what I did last Friday: after dinner with some ALTs, I went off to karaoke with two of my Shimizu J-boy friends, up until first train.

Which led to another fun experience when, while at the train station, two of my students saw me with them on their way to school. How they could be going to school while the moon was still up on a Saturday morning, I don't understand, but we had a good laugh about it when they asked me about it in class this week.

Robo-vision

Yuna and I met in Shizuoka for lunch yesterday. It's a bit strange to have a strong online relationship with someone despite having several mutual friends, so we both welcomed the opportunity to get to know one another better.

Yuna is an interesting individual, and unlike many of the Japanese friends I've made. Maybe it's her age and being married, though maybe it also has something to do with the situation with her mom. She gives me the impression that she's had to defend herself from other peoples' scrutiny: about her decision to take care of her and about giving up her plans to go abroad. She's like red wine: sharp, deep, mysterious. She doesn't yield things up to novices easily. You have to know how to read her to fully appreciate her.

After lunch we walked back toward Shizuoka station and she proceeded to take pictures of me. I remember vividly the look in her eyes as we walked around the station. Her focus was visible on her face. I told her I wanted to be able to go into her head and see through her eyes. As an artist, as someone accustomed to sizing up a situation, she must look at the world in a completely different way than other people. I think it looks something like how robots see, like Terminator or Robocop: all geometric shapes laid over the real world, ratios, measurements. And yet, also an appraisal of beauty.

Only in the last couple of years have I picked up a thing or two about photography and composition and design. This ability to make the world look a certain way is fascinating and empowering. It's about control. Yet I shy away a bit. I guess that's my natural inclination to be the power behind the throne, never actually sitting in it.

I think she's drawn to it.

I think I like that about her.

Natsukashii: Retroactive Post

I've forgotten what leaving school at 2:15 feels like. It's been years since I've had a dismissal at such a time: college classes and work usually begin on the hour or the half, and even when I take time off, it's usually right after lunch, not for just a couple of hours. Today, I didn't really have a choice. I had to use up my hours of daikyu from summer business trips.

Maybe some of that high school exuberance filtered through to me. Maybe it was reading Pin and Bob's blogs all day that reminded me of how much I love people who love food. Especially ones that share my Asian-American immigrant experience. I point that out because I feel like our cultural past is so much more present, so much more tangible in our food memories. Maybe I'm making that out to be more than it is. For now, I'm making the most of these extra daylight hours.

Space and Perspective: Retroactive Post

I began our break thinking: This is about giving him time to see if he can commit to me, and that maybe we need this because we need to do something different. Haven't we spent enough time thinking, talking, waiting? Maybe action is what we need. After all, it's been a year since he first got here.

Then my thoughts became: Oh god, three months is a long time. What if he finds someone new? What if he was right and this really is the end? despite my natural optimism that if we're really meant to be, if we're really as good for each other as I think we are, it will work out and we WILL be together.

Which led to: I miss him. I don't want to do this. I can't do this for three months. This sucks, and I can't think of anything else except for him and how I'm not going to have any of those moments with him for a long time.

After emails of articles that I probably shouldn't have sent, for the simple reason that I had to question my intentions for doing so (something which he later called me on), and him contacting me online after days spent hoping/dreading that I would see him, I sent out an SOS to my friend Vandy.

Talking with her finally made me realize that this break is really about him and completely changed my perspective about it. I am finally okay with giving him space because I'm seeing him like a friend for the first time. I really do care about him, maybe even love him, but because of that I can let him go, for his own good.

I've underestimated how much living in Japan has taken its toll on him. All of my efforts have served to do the opposite of what I intended. I know that he hasn't wanted to treat me like a crutch, he is really independent and for all that I offer to help, it doesn't. Because that's not what he needs.

He just needs to know that I'm here for him if he needs me, but not to press it on him. That was what he meant about wanting me to sit there, or hold him and not say anything. All of his energy has gone into dealing with Japan, and he doesn't have anything left for me, which is why he hasn't been able to give me more, why he thinks that he CAN'T give me more.

I've realized that this all has more to do with him and Japan and not me, not us. It's not US that's the problem: it's US in JAPAN. He's tried to tell me that, but I haven't been able to understand, or maybe I've just thought that he hasn't had the balls to tell me he doesn't really want to be with me, that he's just been using Japan as an excuse.

Which is why, I've come to the point that even if he doesn't want to be with me in three months, if he really can't, I'm all right with that. I want him to be happy, I want to give him the time and the space to really develop a life here, one that he's happy with, one that doesn't frustrate him because he feels more like a child and instead of an adult.

Maybe that's the resentment that I've been sensing. It's resentment, as if my help is more like condescension. Vandy said that maybe we both need to learn from one another, to learn how to deal with solving problems in a different way, and that maybe he needs to learn a little from me about talking about them, and I need to learn a little from him about being more patient.

So on that note, I think I'm ready. Ready to wait, to REALLY wait for him, because I think he's worth it. I just hope that he realizes that he is too.

America’s Angry Inch: Retroactive Post

Prompted by my visit to Chika's home in Tsushima for the first time this weekend, I had a revelation about yet another difference between Japanese and American culture. It started like this (it started like that, it started with a wiffle ball bat, so....no, j/k).

Actually, Chika first showed me her short films from when she was in the US. It's really inspiring to see a friend sharing their talent with you. I hope to see more of her work someday, when she gets back to it. One in particular stuck with me: her final film titled 'the diary'. It was about a boy whom you're led to think is crazy since he believes in a Pink-cloud Monster and an ominous Black Cloud that takes away his love. In the end however, he takes control of his life and decides that it is what he wants it to be, that he is the person that he chooses to be and is re-united with his beloved.

After this, Chika put on Hedwig and the Angry Inch, a movie that I've seen parts of when I was younger and that I've known about since childhood, but haven't ever watched. It was surprisingly one of the most entertaining movies I've seen in a while. Basically, it's about an East German tansgender rock star and her trials in love.

Later in the evening, we got back from the Tsushima matsuri and headed to Tsutaya for a couple of movies. While trying to choose movies, we got into discussing why Japanese peoples' taste in movies differs so greatly from American tastes. Chika said that most Japanese people don't understand her movies because they're very 'American'. I tried to figure out what that meant...I knew that they were different, but in what ways exactly?

I think that it has to do with identity. American movies focus on so many different '-isms': sexism, racism, classism, etc...Why is that? Because we seek to define ourselves. Hedwig was a perfect example of this. As individuals we plumb what we are not, in order to find what we are. I think that this is inextricably connected to our identity as Americans. We don't have one. We have many. We're allowed to have many. This is one of America's greatest strengths, but this is also why we have so much uncertainty in our lives. We don't know what we're supposed to be, because society tells us we can be anything, that we are everything.

Japanese movies on the other hand, and most Asian movies, tend to be very sentimental, full of drama and emotions and love, etc...Something most Americans find a bit overdone, but which makes sense when you think about how they lack this need to define themselves. Eastern countries have such an extended history, a history that provides so many rules about what people should do and how they should behave. It's something that you have to be here to really experience how fundamental this is to its citizens. Japanese people are JAPANESE. This embodies many things, and I don't mean to say that there aren't some black sheep in the bunch, but when it comes down to it, if you're Japanese, that's what you are. It permeates your individual identity so thoroughly, it doesn't really occur to them that it could be different.

This unconscious awareness is something we sorely lack as Americans. Our nation is so young, by international standards, and we're not a mono-culture. We pride and prize our pluralism, our multi-culturalism, our salad bowl of a country. That's one thing I've learned after living abroad for so long: neither is right or wrong, better or worse, they're simply just...different.

I say Hello, You say Goodbye: Retroactive Post

Leaving right before the end of the term has thrown my schedule off completely. I'm finally getting back into the swing of things and with that has come the realization that many of my good friends are leaving.

I'm having to make plans to see people before they go, and realizing that they're going to be the last times that I will see them, maybe for years, maybe forever. It's leaving me a bit shell-shocked. Granted, the experience of last year has prepared me a bit more, and I feel genuinely happy for my friends that have decided to move on. I know that they're doing it for so many good reasons and that they feel like they've gotten what they wanted or can out of Japan.

It's interesting when I compare that to my own feelings about this country, this job, this life, and feel completely the opposite. I've decided to stay because of that reason exactly. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever get my fill. Well, I've got another year to find out.