‘japan’ Category

  1. 待人が・・・

    January 14, 2013 by amanda

    amfas180

    I was freezing. It was in the negative Celsius in Morioka and my kerosene heater at home was broken. I had gone from wearing shorts around my house in the U.S. to a scarf and a hat to bed in Japan. I had caught a cold, and I had forgotten my favorite scarf on the train back. I was a little bit miserable. But that’s alright. It’s my fourth winter in Morioka – I know what to brace myself for.

    I had a little bit of time after work, so I decided to do my hatsumode, the first shrine visit of the new year, at Sakurayama Shrine. The tiny shrine was covered in blue and purple shadows, electric lights faintly illuminating the stone trellises. A paper snake was tied up at the entrance – the Year of the Snake. Snake – sounds kind of ominous. And it’s two thousand thirteen, so that’s, like, two bad signs right there. Well, I better pick a good fortune out for this year, I thought, so I can counteract all those superstitions that I don’t believe in (right?) in one shot.

    I tossed a stray 5-yen piece into the box and shook the rope, jangling the bell on the ceiling. My fourth hatsumode. The first year I was facing what felt like an infinite amount of time in Iwate, with hopes that I’d finally grow up a bit. The second year was in Tokyo, hoping I’d finally figure out what I was going to do with my life. And the third found me completely confused as to whether I wanted to stay in my beloved Iwate, or to move on and take a huge risk – one that would pay off in huge ways or end up sending me back to the states.

    And this year, I was stopping by right after signing the piece of paper ensuring I would be the Iwate CIR for my fifth, and final, year. And I signed that piece of paper without any doubt or hesitation. It’s kind of funny, how it worked out. 2012 really had been the Year of Amanda, but not in the way I expected.

    Throughout it all, I would always get a line on my fortunes that read: “The person you are waiting for will eventually come around.” 2012 was the year that he finally showed up.

    Last year had really been a fork in the road, and I decided to stick around in Iwate, but I really did think that the fourth year would be the last year. I really did think that I didn’t have a future here. I thought it would be my last hurrah, to get myself psyched for the next step. And maybe if I chose not to recontract, I’d be living the life in Tokyo now, and things would have worked out completely differently. I’ll never know now. But I’m so happy with how it all worked out. 2012 had some rough spots, but I’ve felt a happiness that I’ve never felt before. And a calmness.

    I’m not really sure what will happen next. I’ll have my job until 2014. Will I stick around Iwate, or will I move elsewhere? Will I be a “we”? What should my new goals be? Who will I meet? What will I be doing? How will I grow?

    What’s next for Amanda in Japan?

    I don’t know, but I feel okay letting life take me there.

    I picked out a fortune from the bottom of the wooden box, my fingers trembling from the cold. I unfolded it gingerly, and smiled.

    Daikichi. Highest possible luck for 2013.

     

    “You know,” I said, “No matter what my fortune was, it almost always said that there’d be someone who would be coming around eventually. Like, he’d be coming, but he’d be late, or something.”

    “That’s so weird!” he said. “I always got that fortune too.”

    This year, under the “Person you’re waiting for” line, it said: “There’s been correspondence between the two of you, and he’s coming soon.”

    I met him later at the coffee shop, so that we could go to the store to buy me a new heater. He was already there when I arrived.

    Category japan | Tags: | No Comments

  2. cotton flower and a bow

    December 17, 2012 by amanda

    Picture from Ginza Taiyou

    Picture from Ginza Taiyou

    (This entry is something I’ve had in mind since summer, so it may be a bit “out of season”, as it were)

    My yukata was unfortunately not going to look any better than this.

    I adjusted myself in the mirror, flattening out a fold here, tucking in a piece of fabric there. Yep. No matter what I did, I looked like a piece of wrinkled tissue paper. The lines were a little crooked, and the cheap obi was wrapped too tight around my abdomen. I couldn’t breathe because I was enveloped in layers of cotton roses and linen. I placed a silk flower hair clip in my hair, which I had wrapped up in a sock so it looked more like a thick bun of hair.

    I nodded. This, I smiled at myself in the mirror, is the way it’s done.

    (more…)

    Category boyz, feminism, japan | Tags: | No Comments

  3. SHOCK!

    November 27, 2012 by amanda

    You know how Japan has a mascot for everything? Food products, makeup, fire safety, etc. I’m pretty desensitized to it now, but I remember being really amused at how cute everything is here. Heck, even the Iwate Mountain trail had a little Mountain-kun thing. But because everything has a mascot, it’s really rare to find a mascot that stays with you. Sure, Hello Kitty is an exercise in simplicity and everyone knows who Helly Kitty is, but there’s only so much you can do to make a simple mascot memorable – which is quite unfortunate to all the weird, half-baked mascots that have been designed to represent every single city, town, and village in the whole of Japan.

    “Just draw a blob with a smiley face and call it a day, boys!” Heck, even Nintendo’s done that once or twice. When it works, it really works. When it doesn’t, you left with something like these unfortunate monstrosities:

    I mean…just look at them! Do they make you want to go Tokyo Tower??

    But the good news for all the forgotten and left-behind little buggers is that there’s now a competition for Best YuruKyara - or in my loose translation, “BEST LAME MASCOT”. Yes, just like there’s a competition for “BEST B-CLASS GOURMET FOOD (as in, street stall food)” and “BEST LOOKING DARK HAIRED ASIAN GIRLS IN SIMILAR SCHOOLGIRL OUTFITS“, Japan recognizes that sometimes you’ve gotta recognize the little guy who doesn’t always stand out. (No offense AKB fans, I love ‘em too but jus’ sayin’)

    So this past weekend was the Third Annual YuruKyara Competition in Saitama, announcing the results of an online vote held over the last few months. According to Wikipedia, there are three requirements to be a YuruKyara:

    1. A character that conveys a strong message of love for its homeland (ie, it must be the mascot of a place, not  product)
    2. A character that has an unstable, strange, or unique manner of behavior
    3. A character that possesses that certain special “looseness” or half-baked quality that makes you want to love it

    Okay, so basically it’s a “so-bad-it’s-good” competition. I like the idea!

    But I swear I’ve seen something like the first-place winner before:

    Bally-san from Ehime Prefecture

    Aren’t you…aren’t you a Sanrio character??

    The runner-ups are kind of non-descript too…

    Choruru of Yamaguchi Prefecture

    Gunma-chan of…Gunma Prefecture (well he’s kinda cute)

    The Wanko Brothers (Iwate’s mascots) did pretty well for a bunch of cups:

    303rd place, wankers!!

    I remember spending an afternoon tittering away at the designs with my supervisor, so here’s MY PICKS for BEST LAME MASCOT 2012!

    Hyogo Prefecture’s “Little Ol’ Man”

    I think I recoiled in horror after seeing “Chicchai Ossan,” or “Little Ol’ Man” as I like to call him, but he’s really grown on me. I mean, I certainly remember him, which I think is better than most of these characters. I don’t know what the heck he’s supposed to represent, but by gosh – dilated pupils, flushed cheeks, a missing tooth, and a five-o-clock shadow have got to be the cutest bender I’ve ever seen!

    Tokyo’s Nishiko-kun

    WHAT

    And then, last but not least:

    YUBARI MELON BEAR OF HOKKAIDO

    “【SHOCK!】Monster will devour your children,” as the Youtube title goes. I don’t know who thought melons and wild evil bears would go together, but I’m going to dream of this guy. Incidentally, one of the presents I got for Rory once was a cell-phone charm with a potato with this bear face on it (cuz he’s Irish and all that). So either I got a misshapen Melon Bear or there’s just a lot of these evil scary bears lurking about up there.

    Uh, I’m probably not going to go to Hokkaido again any time soon.

    Category japan, random | Tags: | No Comments

  4. the birthplace of buddha and a trip to everest

    October 5, 2012 by amanda

    Here I am with Rt. Hon. Mr. Madhav Kumar Nepal, the former Prime Minister of Nepal, and my fellow CIR

    I really enjoy when foreign officials visit Iwate, even though I get crazy jitters and feel like at any moment my head will go blank and I’ll forget any and all Japanese (and English too). It’s just fascinating to hear about the situations of other countries, especially the ones I never got the opportunity to study in high school world history. It’s a great workout for my interpretation skills, and while I still tend to give too broad of a translation and things get kind of vague and I start talk all over the place and then at the end I just trail off… I’ve found ways to compensate for all that, and realize now that even professionals get things wrong, have to ask for clarification, and lose their train of thought. Each sentence is like a puzzle that I have to solve on the spot. It’s exhausting, but it’s kind of fun. It’s especially nice when you get the draft of a speech ahead of time so you can just translate it beforehand (and then have your awesome boss check it in the remaining 30 minutes). Heh. The picture above was taken at Iwate Prefectural University, where Mr. Nepal gave a speech on Nepal-Japan relations that I was in charge of interpreting. Ninety minutes! Three years ago, I probably would have hidden in the broom closet.

    It’s kind of nice, to know what I can do.

    Today’s Iwate Nippo Shimbun

    Wishing for the progression of our cooperative ties with Japan

    A lecture by the former Prime Minister of Nepal

    IWATE PREFECTURAL UNIVERSITY – The former Prime Minister of Nepal, Rt. Hon. Mr. Madhav Kumar Nepal, visited Iwate Prefectural University in Takizawa Town on the 4th to give a special lecture to students entitled “Promoting Friendship Between Nepal & Japan.”

    Mr. Nepal gave his condolences to all those lost in the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, and expressed his respect for the survivors of Iwate who are working towards reconstruction. As he spoke of of the exchange between Nepal and Japan in areas such as Buddhism and mountaineering, he also stressed the need for technological and economic support of Nepal’s emerging hydro-power industry and infrastructure.

    “Investing in Nepal will lead to a bridge between neighboring countries China and India,” said Mr. Nepal, wishing for the strengthening of Nepal-Japan cooperative ties.

    Mr. Nepal was the Prime Minister of Nepal from May, 2009 to February, 2011. The special lecture was organized by the Nepal Japan Citizen Society. Around 100 students attended the lecture, and asked many questions.

    Mr. Nepal also visited the Prefectural Office where he met with Governor Takuya Tasso.

    -end-

    (we interpreted that meeting too!)

    Category japan, jet, translation/interpretation | Tags: | 1 Comment

  5. more than just a rock in the ocean

    September 19, 2012 by amanda

    Photograph: AP and guardian.co.uk

    It’s a little bit frightening what’s been happening lately in the seas surrounding Japan. The disputes between China and Japan regarding the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands has sparked violence and rioting in China that is obviously motivated by more than ownership of these tiny islands (which admittedly have  a treasure trove natural resources). Along with the Dokdo/Takeshima Islets controversy that’s happening with Korea at the same time, what seems to be a quarrel over a speck in the ocean is really a battleground for past grievances and resentment between the countries of Asia. Let’s just say it’s a reminder that Japan’s neighbors still have quite a bit of unfinished business between them.

    I work in a government office, and I’m also not very knowledgeable about this, so I really don’t feel comfortable publicly giving my opinion on the matter. As a mostly impartial observer, it’s a little fascinating, but being so close to things is a little worrisome. I’m confident that this ultra-nationalism on both sides is just by a very tiny vocal minority, but still. Just thinking that someone could get killed over these islands because of a couple people in high places are bleating for war makes me so frustrated. I’m hoping cooler heads prevail, and the Japanese government only wants to buy the islands to make sure no private interests start messing with them (ie, protecting the status quo).

    Hopefully there’s no fighting over the Kurils next. (and I didn’t even mention all the demonstrations in the Middle East against the U.S.)

    For those interested, here’s another interesting article from the Japan Times and then its rebuttal. If you’ve got any other articles you’d like to recommend, let me know in the comments. I want to be a little bit more informed about this.

    Shilling for our side over the Senkakus (Japan Times)

    Japan Times returns to forms over Senkaku (Japologism)

    Category japan | Tags: | 1 Comment

  6. …and here i am, still

    August 9, 2012 by amanda

    Sansa Odori 2009

    Sansa Odori 2012

    August marked my fourth Sansa Odori parade and three years in Iwate…and five years since I first stepped foot into Kyoto. Five years! It’s been five years since I was a foreign student at Ritsumeikan. It’s kind of unbelievable to me now. I feel a little old, to be honest, but it’s been an amazing five years. The best five years of my life – here’s hoping it gets even better. And to my readers: thanks for taking the journey with me so far.

    Category japan, jet | Tags: | No Comments

  7. an interlude, and the spirit of six

    August 4, 2012 by amanda

    I felt like my life was repeating itself over and over again.

    I had decided to stay in Iwate for another year, which had lifted a tremendous weight off of my shoulders. But the funny thing was, the stress of that decision had taken the focus off the Number One Worry in my life – whether or not I would die alone and childless. There’s a reason all my novels about my life have taken the classic form of a morning soap opera: I’m obsessed with finding someone I can love like a Disney Movie. But anyway, anyone who’s even taking a passing whiff of this saccharine blog knows all that. I had spent a few months driving myself crazy worrying about what path I should take in life, and now that it was all over, I was back to a low-grade constant annoyance that I was alone and everyone else was not.

    Well, I chirped, this is what I’ve decided. I’d rather live independently here in Japan than with a man anywhere else, etc etc. So that was all good. And I knew the value in finding other interests than in boyz, and had done a reasonably good job in following through. I was studying Japanese again, reading voraciously, doing my best to update my blog, keeping my schedule full of interesting people and friends, running 2-3 times a week, outside again even in the cold, biting March wind. Work was going as well as ever, with more interpreting opportunities than ever before.

    I was, in a word, killing it. (well, in two words, but you get the picture)

    (more…)

    Category boyz, japan, navel-gazing | Tags: | No Comments

  8. i know nothing stays the same, but if you’re willing to play the game

    June 30, 2012 by amanda

    R and I, 2010

    R and I, 2012

     And then, another friend leaves for greener pastures (or, in this case, neon lights and a concrete jungle). My drinking buddy, my partner in crime. My shoulder to cry on. My brother.

    The thing about life is that it never stops changing, and everything good always ends. But you still have your memories, and you get an appreciation for just how fleeting the fun times are. He and X and me were a team, and even though she’s in China, and he’s in Tokyo, and I’m in Morioka, we could pick up right where we left. Those things are never going to change for us. But we all knew we had to start the next chapter eventually.

    And well, he’s just a high-speed bullet train away. In this world, goodbyes don’t have to be forever.

    Category japan | Tags: | 5 Comments

  9. a sixty ton angel falls to the earth

    June 18, 2012 by amanda

    photo by Mini – Owner

    Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy, days of summer

    Those days of soda and pretzels and beer

    – “Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer” by Nat King Cole

    In the fall, right before my grandparents moved to an apartment ten minutes away from my mother, my grandfather bought a brand new car.

    When my mother told me on Skype, I just started laughing. I could just imagine my mother and my grandmother yelling at him “Are you crazy?!”, and him being stubborn and buying it anyway. Mom just smirked and said it was easy to laugh when you didn’t have to deal with him all the time. He was a gregarious, cheerful, outgoing man, but he was also stubborn and difficult. Buying a new car when he’d only be able to drive for maybe another few years was just like him.

    That Christmas, I bought him a special “Safe Driving” charm from the local Shinto shrine. It was a light blue felted piece of cardboard, embroidered with Chinese characters that I knew he wouldn’t even understand as writing. “Here, Grandpa,” I said. “This is to protect you while you’re driving. It’s Japanese.”

    “Huh? I can’t read this!” he said.

    “It’s like a St. Christopher medal in the car, Dad,” Mom said.

    “It’s for your new car,” I smiled. He shrugged, smiled and put it in his pocket.

    I’m sure he bought the car in preparation for his first summer in a new place, so that he could go to sports games and parades. Because he had always gone to sports games and parades, and he always would. He’d sit on a worn-out lawn chair, with the plastic netting fraying at the edges, and he’d watch the parade go by with a smile on his face. And occasionally, I’d sit with him. I just wish it had more than “occasionally.”

    When I was older and in college, I’d still manage to go to a parade once or twice a year with him. The funny thing was, he would start talking about things I’d never heard him talk about before. Old friends and family members I would never meet. The war, his time in Europe. My parents’ divorce. How much he loved his daughter. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me, or her. I’d usually just sit and listen, not knowing what to say, and he’d talk until he had nothing more to say, and then he would act like he hadn’t said anything at all. Then the parade would be over, and we’d pack up the lawn chairs and put them in the trunk of his car. He always had them in there, just in case.

    I’ve only seen the new car maybe once. I don’t even remember what it looks like.

    +++

    A week after he died, one of my coworkers came up to me during lunch with a small envelope. I smiled at her, thinking it was some sort of translation work, until I got a glance at the characters.

    There’s a Japanese custom where coworkers collect some condolence money for a coworker who has lost a family member; it’s called “koden 香典”. Usually they hand over this money at the funeral, but since I wasn’t able to attend my grandfather’s, they just decided to hand it to me now. I hadn’t even thought of that. I knew about the custom, but I hadn’t even thought…

    “I gathered something from everyone in our division, plus some people who used to be here, like C-kacho,” she explained, pulling out a folded list of names. “I even got some from your friends working on the coast.” Along with my coworkers’ names were S-kun, Y-kun, Potato-san. Junya. My eyes filled with tears, but I smiled anyway.

    My coworkers and friends thought of my and my family, and my grandfather, and I hadn’t expected that. I know it’s a custom, and it’s something that’s expected here, but I didn’t even think that I would be included in something like that. It’s hard to explain. I just know that I’m honored to work with these people, and my life is so much richer for having met them. I don’t even know what else to say.

    I hope that he knew that.

    +++

    There was a general meeting/party for the Prefectural Office Running Club, so I went into town to sit in a warm tatami room with cold beer and good friends. As we were all introducing ourselves and talking about our goals for the year, an older gentleman stood up and starting talking about his recent experience running a 100 (!!) kilometer race.

    “It took me around 11 hours,” he said, to thunderous applause. “I gotta say, it was rough. It was really rough. I thought I was going to give up so many times. But then towards the end, I remembered that my three grandchildren were waiting for me at the finish line. So I gathered my strength, and as I approached, they ran towards me and we went across the finish line, hand in hand.”

    Everybody awwed, and I looked down at my glass. My chest felt tight and my eyes a little hot. I grabbed my beer and steadied my hand.

    This one’s for you, Grandpa.

    There were other Grandpas, and there were other Granddaughters out there. And this was my first reminder that I wasn’t part of that anymore.

    +++

    Lately, on my runs, I imagine that my grandfather is cheering me on from the sidelines whenever I start to get tired. He’s never seen me run, but I could imagine him being there at the finish line of some marathon. But I’ve done these sort of things before – imagining the Most Beautiful Man run alongside me or that my friends on the coast would be pushing me forward. Okay, so I have fever dreams because I’m a weenie who still can’t run a little bit of distance without wanting to be lazy.

    But on my last run, at about the halfway mark I looped by the industrial district and started heading home when I suddenly felt a bit strange. As I imagined my grandfather, he suddenly seemed to be right there beside me, running with me. I’ve only known my grandfather as an old man, but he seemed younger, maybe in his 30s or 40s. Of course, there was nothing actually there, but I just felt like he was running with me. On a narrow gravel road through an orchard, he was running with me.

    I don’t know if I believe in Heaven or an afterlife. I was raised Catholic, so that belief in angels and life after death is always going to be there, in some way. Even if it’s just because I’m afraid of death and dying, and I really hope that this is not all there is. I’m not really superstitious, and I don’t believe in ghosts, but I don’t know. I just felt something. Maybe it was only my own mind. Maybe the rhythm of the music and the rhythm of my feet had lulled my brain into a trance. All I knew was I wasn’t so tired anymore.

    Around the end of my run, I had snapped out of it. It felt like he had looked around, and saw my life. He saw what made me so happy here. He saw the people I love. And he saw that I was going to be okay. My grandpa, who never made it to Japan. Maybe in some way, he could do that now.

    He always used to ask me when I was coming home. I just had a feeling that he had finally seen where home was for me, as we ran through vegetable fields in Morioka.

     

    always the summers are slipping away

    find me a way for making it stay

    - Trains, by Porcupine Tree

    Category japan, navel-gazing, running | Tags: | 2 Comments

  10. the one who made you that way

    June 7, 2012 by amanda

    November 23, 1921 – June 5, 2012

    I lost my grandfather yesterday.

    He had been sick for a while, and he had a very long, full life, but my heart is still broken. I knew this would happen someday, but it’s not something I could ever really think about. I just thought he would live forever…

    Yesterday a friend came over to be with me, and as we sat there, eating delivery pizza, he noticed my old Nintendo Famicom hooked up to my tv. “Do you have any modern systems?”

    “Nah, they’re all back home. And anyway, these days I don’t have much patience for video games, so I can only play the old Nintendo for like 10 minutes.” I hugged my arms around my legs. “That was the first system I ever owned. I got it when I was like 5 years old…” …when my grandpa gave me one. 

    He gave me an old Nintendo, something a friend was no longer using. And I didn’t really know anything but how to press the buttons to make the little Mario move. You press the A button, and Mario jumps, and you press left and he moves forward. Keep going forward. Jump over that pit. It’s alright if you can’t do it yet – you’ll be able to someday. Jump, jump, jump, over that red brick and into the blue sky.

    And I, a kid with an overactive imagination, fell in love with that Nintendo, and with video games, and later with anime and with Japan. If it hadn’t been when I was five, it would have been when I was nine and in love with Nintendo 64, or when I was twelve and came across Pokemon. I probably would have found Japan eventually. But, now that I think about it, the first time I ever had any contact with Japan was that day, long ago, when my grandfather turned on an old, dusty Nintendo unit for the very first time.

    I’ll keep going forward, Grandpa.

    Category japan | Tags: | 6 Comments

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