Dartboard

You have to read the whole thing to know why...

I really wanted to post yesterday because I knew I would have so much to say after my enkai last night and I wanted to get all the stuff from last week down first. So, I’ll skip it and just talk about the drunken festivities of last night. Getting drunk with your co-workers, supervisors, neighbors, friends and crushes—all at the same time—is the best therapy. You can just get everything out in the open. And we did.

I also quite like enkais because they serve so much food, but I only like about 1% of what’s available. I’m still not so hot on the sashimi and seafood although, I am proud to say, at every enkai I do try something that looks disgusting because I never know when I might be surprised. It’s also the only place I can stand to drink beer and I don’t need to drink very much to get drunk on an empty stomach. With everyone coming by to fill up my glass it happens pretty quickly.

The dinner was really nice. It was in honor of two staff members, Mori-sensei, a commercial teacher, and Miyamoto-san, a caretaker at the school. They’ve both been working there for 30 years. They were very happy to be appreciated and there were many stories about Nakagoto through the years—huge typhoons and more that I couldn’t understand.

I sat next to Yoshida-sensei who took me scuba diving last November and he asked if I wanted to get my license this spring. His wife is an English teacher at the other high school on the island, Kamiko, and he said she can translate “scuba diving theory” to me. He said I was a good diver and he wants to teach me again. Maybe he’s just complimenting me, as many Japanese people do to be polite, but I would love to get my license so I agreed enthusiastically. He is such a great man, I would love to get to know his wife too.

After Koichiro and I were both drunk enough to stop pretending we are just friends, we started talking and pouring drinks for each other. He was more drunk than I was this time (that was planned!) and so I was coherent enough to really enjoy his presence. The whole night, okay, everywhere for that matter, I catch him watching me and it always ends up in him quickly looking away or pretending he wasn’t actually looking at me. Fair enough, I do the same thing, but I don’t think I try quite so hard to appear like I’m not staring. I just give him a nice, knowing smile and usually he returns them.

Actually, last night I even confronted him about why I catch him looking at me and, of course, he just mumbled something about it being strictly coincidental. But I honestly don’t believe him. I know the difference between a guy who is interested in me and a guy who is not. It seems so obvious to me, but I guess I’ll just have to CONTINUE having patience in this area. He may be leaving the island in a month (at the end of the school year) and this could all be over with very shortly. My supervisor, Hatakeyama-sensei, was also sitting next to us, witnessing the drink pouring and chopstick feeding and the friendly touching, and he decided to teach me a few Japanese cuss words and phrases. It was an interesting choice of sexual phrases he whispered into my ear and then told me to tell Koichiro. Seriously, everyone is pushing for us to be together, and yet it does not happen.

At the end of the enkai we all put our arms around each others’ shoulders and made a giant, swaying circle, sang a drinking song and yelled bonzai unreservedly. The jimucho-sensei also did this step dance with Japanese fans that I was very impressed by. I decided to go to karaoke with Satomi, Rie, Yoshida-sensei and Takeda-sensei (the taiko drummer that doesn’t like me). I was very impressed with the mens’ singing. Takeda-sensei in particular did this old Japanese folk song which I’ve somehow heard before and it was so good!! He altered his voice to sound like a crackling old man and it was so authentic!

Takeda-sensei and I have an interesting relationship. It’s definitely love-hate and tension filled. His favorite thing to say to me is “When in Rome, do as the Romans. When in Japan, speak Japanese.” Now, I try very hard to speak as much Japanese as I can. Usually it’s repeating the same phrases like “oishii desu” and “tanoshikatta desu” (it’s delicious, it was fun) but really you have to start somewhere. I study very hard and have seen lots of improvement in the last 6 months, but I’m nowhere near fluent. Possibly could be considered conversational if the conversation is limited to where I’m from and what I did last weekend. But Takeda-sensei constantly gives me crap about how I’m not studying hard enough!

I feel I should mention he’s the only Japanese person who does this and I feel like I’m unique in receiving this harassment as well. I’m not too bothered by it because I understand the importance of studying Japanese and I like that he has the spunk to stand up to me. Criticizing is a good quality so long as it’s not vicious and I don’t think he is. But when he started to say “When it Rome…” in the karaoke room and I had a microphone in my hand I couldn’t stop myself from saying, “Fuck the Romans!” into the microphone and letting it echo throughout the room. I got laughs from everyone, which surprised me because I wasn’t expecting them to really understand me. I hadn’t thought out the consequences of them understanding, but I’m lucky the comment was well-received. Even Takeda-sensei cracked a smile and so I know this is mostly a game between us now. He has to tell me I'm not studying hard enough and I have to tell him to fuck off. (This is the end of the vulgarity because I know I have smaller audiences occasionally.)

Actually, last Wednesday, Takeda-sensei and I had another confrontation, but this time a positive one. His desk is directly across from Satomi’s and so I’m often sitting there to lesson plan with her. Nonaka-sensei (a PE teacher) said something surprising to us in Japanese and I could understand so I acted surprised. Then they were additionally surprised because I could understand what was being said (I wish I could remember now what it was) and then Takeda-sensei said my Japanese is getting good!!!! I was shocked because earlier this week he also asked if I was okay when my car broke down—all these sincere displays of concern for me! He’s getting soft!

Okay, back to Friday night…

After karaoke we went to Miyamoto-san’s house and I unexpectedly met one of my students!! I had no idea, but one of the best sophomore English students is also the son of the school caretaker. His name is Seiya and the more time I spend with him the more I KNOW he is gay. I’m sure he’s not coming out, this is a small island in Japan, but no one could deny the truth. He is flamboyantly gay. I really like him, especially because he has the confidence to speak in class without worrying about making mistakes and he has a nice, clear voice. He’s the class leader and I just love when I come into the classroom, he rounds the students together like a mother hen and shouts out “kiritsu, kyotsuke, rie” (stand, order, bow (I may have the spelling and translations wrong on these.)). It’s so goody-two-shoes, but I feel like the most respected teacher in the world when he does it. As it turns out, much of the night Seiya translated for me; I wish I could say because it was good practice for him, but I also need it a bunch too. It was very fun to spend one-on-one time with my student. I could see Miyamoto-san was very proud of his son communicating so easily with me so I was happy to reap the benefits.

There was a ton more food at their house, mostly raw squid, but I of course tried it—because Koichiro was feeding it to me from his chopsticks and I couldn’t say no to him!! But eww! So chewy! I also ate the poisonous-if-not-prepared-properly blowfish that Japan is famous for and I LOVE it!! I was hesitant to try it, but it has so much meat and no bones! My major issues with seafood are the bones and how it’s usually so difficult to eat with so little flesh. But this blowfish, it’s almost like soft beef jerky! Lots of meat and NO bones!! Very delicious. They also prepared up some cooked squid from me and I liked it much better than raw. Just cook the suckers! Yoshida-sensei ended up falling asleep on the floor next to me so I got to rub his belly and tell him how cute it is. It was fun.

The major excitement for the evening was the conversation though. Takeda-sensei and I got into this huge, friendly argument about language, politics, America, history and the world. It was really great because he was shooting comments to me in Japanese and I was firing back in English. Satomi was really great about translating for me. I definitely could not hold my own in this situation in Japanese. I can’t even say “shut the window” nevermind, “I too dislike Bush, but he IS the president of the United States and so long as I’m voting and doing my part to internationalize, such as coming to Japan and expand my knowledge of the world, I feel like I’m doing what I can.”

We talked about the movie Pearl Harbor and how inaccurately it represented what Japan did. Japan didn’t attack civilian areas. (He is a history teacher.) I said the movie was 1.) a love story made in Hollywood, not a documentary and 2.) people don’t necessarily think that because it happened in a movie that it actually happened in history (look at the outrage over Disney's Pocahantas because it was historically inaccurate) and 3.) history is never what actually happened, it the way humans chose to write it down in the textbooks, and usually it’s the people who won that got to do the writing. And the conversation continued with Iraq and North Korea and Bush and…you get the idea.

In the end we concluded by saying we both had a lot of respect for each other and what we’re doing. He’s actually interested in discussing these issues with me rather than being agreeable just because it’s more polite. He said he respects me because I’m actually leaving America and trying not to be the American who expects everyone to learn English. I know I do teach English, but I feel like that is a very small part of why I’m in Japan. For me, being in Japan is more about grass-roots internationalization than it is about English. I really like Takeda-sensei even if he can get repetitive about the “When in Rome” bit. I feel deep down it’s good natured harassing and I can dish as well as I take.

He also commented on Koichiro and I and our “relationship” and that got us on that topic for a while. All I heard was Koichiro and “boyfriend” but I took the opportunity to comment on the situation. I had Satomi translating and several witnesses to all I was saying, which was basically this: “Everyone (at school and karate) pushes for us to be in a relationship but all I have ever asked of Koichiro is a friendship and coming from a country where it’s completely reasonable to be friends with members of the opposite sex, I have a hard time seeing anything wrong with hanging out with him. My only regret is that he is too busy to actually have a life outside of work, but it’s not really within my limits of control so I’ll happily take what time I can get with him.” It’s hard to say this because it’s not exactly how I’m feeling, but I feel it’s better to keep it a secret for Koichiro’s sake at least. And I'm a chicken. But what can you expect me to say with everyone just sitting around in a circle watching our next move and I don’t even know where we stand?

Koichiro jumped in then and said he does want to hang out with me more and he doesn’t see anything wrong with it either. I was so happy. He invited me to go swimming with him again. I wanted to say we could even do something ELSE together, but really what else is there to do on the island except work out? We should be careful about spending time in each others’ apartments because what would it look like for the students?!?! I’m kidding, but they aren’t when they say it to me.

After more hours of drinking and talking and eating Satomi took Koichiro and I back home. We both sat in the back seat and I got to play with Koichiro’s hair. I know it sounds funny, but we slowly are beginning to touch each other more. As I mentioned, I was with Peter on Takashima who “tolerated” my touching for an entire weekend and what good therapy it was. I said the hardest part about being in Japan was the lack of human contact and so Koichiro indulged me for the drive home. The fact that he indulged me in public is especially shocking! This is amazing progress!

Okay, today is Saturday and all I’ve done is clean, sit on my couch, watch TV and movies, write emails and blogs and eat. That’s a lot, actually!! I left my apartment once to give my neighbors baked goods too. I was planning on going to Ojika, but it’s been a while since I’ve spent a weekend at home. When I woke up this morning I saw my apartment in a new light. Daylight. I’m never home during the day anymore because I leave before light and I always go work out after school and get home after dark. It was really dusty in here! But tomorrow I’ll get out and go to the gym.

Update on Kuro kuma-kun. He's just got some issues with warming up when it's cold and I'll be taking him to the garage on Monday. Leaving work Friday I had some trouble again and luckily Hatakeyama-sensei was just behind me so he pulled over to help. He drove the car and now understands the problem (apparently it goes whomp, whomp and I was inaccurately decribing it as a put, put, put) and now he can properly explain it to the dealership. I don't know what we'll do, but I could end up getting a new car. Sometimes I feel like this is musical cars. Both Koichiro and Tsuchiyama-sensei asked to trade or buy Kuro kuma-kun off me, Hatakeyama gave me one car and now is offering his other car to me and Yamanaka-san wants to trade with someone too. Kerry's just given her car to Peter as well. It's crazy! I'll keep you updated, of course!

Lots of love,
Sierra

P.S. Harald and I got to video chat Friday morning! Boy, you need to cut that hair! I think Harald was at his peak of attractiveness when we were together and that's no coincidence!!

My car is broken. A few cold mornings in the past few weeks Kuro kuma-kun has had trouble getting up the hill to go to school. I hoped it was just because the engine wasn’t warm and going up such a steep hill was hard on him, but this morning, even though I left him running for a minute or two before driving, he didn’t go up the hill at all. I wasn’t late for school, but I was getting late as I waited by the Eneos (gas station) for him to warm up. I decided to drive him back to the apartment and call the school to let them know I’d be late. He could get back to my apartment so long as I didn’t shift him out of first gear; second gear is where the problem lies, I believe.

Once I called Hatakeyama-sensei and told him what was going on, he told me to take the bus. I know better than that though; buses run like every two hours so I didn’t have that kind of time. Besides, it’s pissing outside today and I wasn’t going to wait around for a bus especially when I don’t know what time they come. (This sentence is the result of living on this island with Laura, our lovely Scot. I love that she says “It’s pissing it down,” when she really means it’s raining very hard. That girl’s English makes me smile.) I decided to try Kuro kuma-kun again and of course he worked because he was warm enough. I arrived at school just 5 minutes late.

Everyone was really worried about me too. Because it’s raining so hard, my jacket was soaking and everyone thought I had walked to work or something. Yeah right! It’s like 8 miles. Even Takeda-sensei was nice to me. He said “taihen desu ne?” (It’s terrible, isn’t it?) and offered me a spoon (because I was looking for one). Normally he wouldn’t care about me or my spoon, but he was being very kind. Hatakeyama has called the dealership and they will come and look at it today or tomorrow. I was hoping to go to the gym today so I hope it’s not a long or expensive problem. I need better luck with my cars!

Love, Sierra

This picture was taken by George Kocher, my mother's boyfriend. He's a great photographer.

Happy Valentine’s Day. I'm not doing anything special. Never have, actually. Usually never had a boyfriend on this day and when I did he was too lame to celebrate. Lame-o! The Japanese tradition is for girls to give chocolates to guys on Valentine’s Day and then if the guy is interested in her, he will give her something or ask her out on White Day in March. It's like the only opportunity for girls to do the "asking" in Japan because it's still pretty traditional here. And YES! White Day is in March so that means we girls sit around waiting for a month to find out if the guy is interested. Things are so slow here! But I'm not partaking in this tradition—no one gets anything from me this Valentine’s Day except a smile and homework.

I did go to a first-year music performance today during 5th period. It was awful. They obviously had not practiced much, but I couldn’t very well leave in the middle of it. Some parts were funny. Naoya, this one kid, is pretty outgoing and he was singing loudly and rattling his tambourine. He made everyone laugh. It was cute. Koichiro was the only other teacher there and we bolted as soon as we could. I haven't been spending much time with Koichiro lately. We go to karate together, but I don't invite him anywhere or ask him over for dinner anymore. Essentially he's too busy to have a life, so I'm tired of asking him to try.

It’s cleaning time right now and I just saw Naoya in the hallway. He said, “Chocolate please,” and held out his hands. I said, “Please give me,” to correct his English and he thought I said, “Please kiss me.” After clarifying what I actually said, I told him I would kiss him, but I'm his teacher. That made him and the girls laugh.

Tonight I’ll probably go running and then to tennis practice, watch some recorded TV before I cook dinner and go to bed. Kerry gave me about 20 tapes with movies and TV shows from her apartment. We figure they get passed around the JET community anyway so it doesn’t really matter which apartment they end up in at the end of the year. No one really claims them as their own. Between the DVDs Peter lent me and all the new movies from Kerry I’ll be in TV heaven for months. Not that I even have time to watch TV.

Happy Monday everyone,
Sierra

iCards from the people who love me most.

“I changed my mind. I give this weekend a five!! I am happy. So happy. So happy that I can't even express my feelings. There's nothing I would have rather done than wander through the inaka (countryside), take pictures on your camera phone, eat three meals (over the course of three days), and watch movies with you all night. It was fantastic and I needed a weekend JUST LIKE THAT—even more than I knew. Away from everyone I hang out with every weekend. Away from my island (so I could appreciate it more when I came back). And with a real friend with whom I could talk to about anything and “touch” until my heart's content.”

That was a slightly edited version of the thank you email I sent Peter when I got home from my weekend on his island, Takashima. So, needless to say, it was a great weekend.

After saying a quick goodbye to Kerry in Sasebo, I ran to the train station to catch the train to Imabuku. I had about 13 minutes until the train left and the next one didn’t come for another hour. I had also realized on the ferry that I didn’t bring Peter’s cell phone number either and so had no way of contacting him in case I didn’t make the train. As I was sprinting down the wharf (much to the amusement of the Japanese around me) I pulled the directions to Imabuku out of my backpack pocket just as a gust of wind caught it. It flew out of my hands and blew back down the wharf toward the water. Never have I moved so fast! I turned and sprinted back to retrieve it…quite nervous as without those directions I would have no way to contact Peter and no clue how to get where he was waiting for me. I realized then I hadn’t really even read the directions, I just printed them out and put them in my backpack. Not a safe thing to do because then I couldn’t even guess where to go. But I did safely retrieve the paper, caught a glimpse of some Japanese woman laughing at me, and continued on my run to the station. In the end I had plenty of time at the train stop, I even had a few minutes before it left, but better safe than sorry.

I studied Japanese for the 2 hour train ride and enjoyed the views of the countryside. It was so hot on that train, though. I brought a ton of warm clothes with me—layers and layers of sweaters, my rain jacket, my thickest scarf and a hat, and I had to de-robe everything the train. I worried that the mainland would be warmer than my island and I had brought all these clothes for nothing. Actually, it was just a really hot car and I did end up using all my layers during the weekend.

Peter met me at the train station in Imabuka and we wandered through some natural areas and tried reading the kanji on gravestones and signs. It is a very beautiful area, so unlike Kamigoto. Peter’s Japanese is amazing. (He recently passed the second qualification level and is working to pass the first which is even difficult for some Japanese to do.) So I admitted my coming was in part to exploit his knowledge of Japanese. We grabbed a hot bento and had lunch in the ferry port, waiting for the 1:30 ferry. There we saw one of Peter’s students too, and so began the “Is that your girlfriend?” questioning we endured all weekend. Well, Peter endured, no one asked me of course. He also saw one of his adorable kindergartners on the ferry, who is usually very outgoing and comfortable around him, but was very timid in my presence. She did eventually come up and give Peter a small origami crane, but wasn’t brave enough to give one to me so her older sister presented it to me.

Takashima is a small island, about 2,500 people, but it’s very close to the mainland so it has a totally different feel. In fact, they are currently building a bridge to the mainland, which will connect it to Saga-ken. The ferry is about 40 minutes and costs 380 yen. Incredibly cheap.

After getting the tour of Peter’s apartment we took a walk to one of Peter’s favorite spots. Passing a beach with several old ladies hunched over collecting mussels, he took me to a rocky area on the east coast of the island. An area where years of typhoon waves have shaped the volcanic rock and inadvertently made a private ledge hovering about 10 feet over the ocean. The rock is absolutely beautiful, swirled white, orange and brown, the vegetation an array of bright, deciduous greens. We laid on the smooth rock of that quiet ledge, bottling the soft sound of the ocean sloshing against the rocks below us, and enjoying the warm sun away from the windy shore.

Peter enjoying the view.

I found a little cave in the side of the rock.

Next we headed over to Oasis Village to see the Mongolian Monument and watch the sunset setting over the ocean. Oasis Village is this ghost town, originally built for tourism about 10 years ago. It never quite took off and is now a run down campground with fisherman’s garbage spreading all over the beach. It’s too bad because it’s a beautiful area and the money spent was just wasted. We walked out to the ocean’s edge just as the sun was setting and got some beautiful shots of the volcanic shore.

The sun setting.

Menacing Peter.

Not quite as menacing Peter.

The type of picture I am famous for… Peter and me—looking like a cancer patient.

Trying to convince Peter to toss me his camera phone. “I’ll catch it. I promise!” It didn’t happen.

Friday night we went out to dinner and ate two of my favorite foods: ramen and gyoza (pot stickers). It was really good ramen too—just like Kawayasu ramen, but in smaller bowls. I was very happy. That evening we watched some DVDs and ate ice cream bars. I went to bed happy and early because I had been awake since 5:30 a.m.

Saturday morning I woke up early too. I studied Japanese in bed while Peter slept in. He gave me his futon and electric blanket while he slept on the tatamis in a very thin sleeping bag. I felt guilty because he looked so cold. Saturday we went up to the Mongolian Village. So, I haven’t mentioned yet, but sometime ago when Mongols were invading China, they also invaded some of Japan. They used Takashima as their base and so they killed everyone on the island, but then the gods came to save Japan and a typhoon sunk all 300, or is it 3,000 (?) of their ships. Despite Peter explaining it to me several times, I never quite got the whole story straightened out, I just know they are very proud of this history. It’s called Monguru no Takashima because there is another island in Nagasaki-ken with the same name, but no Mongolian invasion happened there.

So we saw the little Mongolia town with replicas of their tent-homes and lots of Mongolian souvenirs in the gift shop. The place is practically dead, but Peter said when he took a friend there before it was even deader so I should consider myself lucky. They have a nice playground, some goats and horses too. I chatted with the horses for a while, they looked abandoned and needed attention. They goats only spoke Japanese so all I could say was “please come here” and when I didn’t have food they weren’t impressed. Oh! And one of the horses tried to eat my coat! He was acting a bit funny, and then he took a bite out of my sleeve. It's green, so it's understandable, but it was kind of scary. Both the coat and I were unscathed.

Peter and I played like children, hoping around on the stone pathway and banging rocks together. General destructive fun. We met some more of his students on top of this flat mound and they were playing soccer with a very flat ball. I kicked it around some with them, but they were so giggly that it didn’t last long. Then Peter and I showed each other a kata from each of our karate styles. He had been practicing for about 5 years back in Utah and has been missing it here in Japan. Our styles are very different. His is much slower and looks like Tai Chi to my inexperienced eye. He explained why his style is slower and the benefits to it, but as I’ve been practicing for 5 months and he for 5 years I couldn’t really defend mine.

We drew the attention of the boys playing soccer and they sat down to watch. It was kind of embarrassing. Then one boy came over and asked to wrestle Peter (?) and they wrestled and Peter won. I was shocked how fast he put that kid on his back. It wasn’t just a weight difference, it was technique!! Peter mentioned he was a good wrestler in high school, but I had no idea!! That was fun. He asked to wrestle others, but they jyankened (paper, rock, scissored) and the littlest guy who lost didn’t really want to wrestle so it never happened.

We had a late lunch at Peter’s favorite (or maybe just closest and therefore most convenient) restaurant. I had champon for the first time. It’s Nagasaki’s special dish so it’s about time I tried it. I wasn’t that impressed. I’d have ramen over champon any day.

Slurping down champon. A noodle, vegetable and seafood soup.

Peter enjoying his karaage (fried chicken) and chizu machi (cheese wrap).

We spent the rest of the evening watching movies and short episodes of Freaks and Geeks and other shows. I was so tired, but managed to stay awake for most of Peter’s favorite childhood movie Popeye. It was so cute to listen to Peter singing along to the musical! Peter was very tolerant of me needing my fill of human touch and didn’t complain when I fell asleep with my head in his lap… on purpose. It was great.

Sunday we decided to make curry and have an early lunch because I had to start my trip home at 12:30. I wish I got pictures because that was some damn good curry too. Between the train to Sasebo, and ferry to Goto I spent about $75 and 7.5 hours traveling. It's a long way. I was so tired I slept most the way. When I arrived in Arikawa and started driving home, I realized my island has so much to offer. I stopped off and got some groceries and I couldn't stop thinking, "This is my home. And I love it."

The last picture of Peter at the train station in Imabuku. He loves wearing this coat from his dad even though it’s much too big for him.

I had the world's biggest turnip sitting on my doorstep tonight. Koichiro was coming in the same time as I was and he said it was from Kuwahara-sensei at my school. I couldn't understand him and I thought he was saying Kohara and I didn't know who he was talking about. I worried, “Do I really not know all the teachers at my school still?” I finally I figured it out and I blame him for not pronouncing it clearly.

Okay, got to end this novel put away the groceries. Thank you Peter for a wonderful weekend! I can't wait to show you Kamigoto!
Love, Sierra

P.S.
A picture of my wonderful Mama in her apartment in Detroit. She got a new desk and wanted to show me her “workspace.” What's shocking about this picture is how it's the middle of winter and she's wearing nothing. Granted, she is on her way to soccer, but in a Japanese house in the middle of winter you wouldn't be caught dead in that outfit. Ah, the joys of central heating. Enjoy it while you can!