O-san has been coming by every day to my division, with his familiar staccato “haro” and his meandering conversations. I think he hasn’t had much work to do ever since he got promoted, but it’s fine with me because I get about 10 minutes of trying to figure out what he’s trying to say before he leaves abruptly without saying goodbye. It’s interesting, at least. “O-papa” takes my mind off the stillness of my work for a little while, as he makes friends with X and glances, from time to time, at the poor oblivious boy beside me. It’s nice, but I’ve found myself missing his other half, C-san. I haven’t seen her since Golden Week, when I hung out with the two of them for the day (after meeting their son and calling him “Big Brother”) and she bought me my own cup and bowl and chopsticks for when I have dinner at their house. “I miss her,” I said to him. “I’m going to message her today and see if she wouldn’t mind me coming over for dinner tomorrow.”

Later that night she messaged me back. “I’m sorry. Tomorrow I have guests coming over and next week I’m quite busy. Just wait til everything calms down and we can spend some time together…” I was a tiny bit disappointed, but she has been really busy lately - she’s vice chairman of an art committee, they’re putting on a show in a few months, and she’s had some personal problems to deal with. I couldn’t blame her for being too busy to entertain the local foreign girl.

(well, yes, I guess I am at the point where I am getting rejected by my AARP friends too, heheh!)

…Keep Reading

One year ago, I found out I was upgraded to JET.

I had given up all hope; I was at my darkest point. Even as I was setting up an interview for another company, I figured I would fail that too, just like everything else. I was lost. Japan was so far away from me, and something that had seemed to sure and so right was now something so impossibly unattainable. The more I wanted it, the more the dream of living and working in Japan slipped out of my fingers.

Until I got my chance back, that lonely night in a hotel in Boston, like nothing had happened. My fortunes had changed so abruptly that it was almost like…like someone had planned it that way. I don’t know if I believe in God, but it sort of felt like my two months of suffering (which was really nothing in the grand scheme of things) was there to show me something. No matter how much I thought I deserved Japan, I had only just made it. I had eked through by the skin of my teeth. Only now that I realized how hard it was could I really appreciate what was being given to me.

It’s easy to forget that. It’s easy to get upset at random things here, to get moody. Heck, I got in a snit yesterday for having no plans this weekend, even though I am exhausted lately and really need a break. Well, I’ve always been moody, but sometimes, especially in the beginning, it was so hard for me to break out of it. Everyone I met was new. I was always trying to prove myself. I was on my own for the first time. A relationship I had been in for years was over. I got a crush on someone where the constant will they or won’t they drove me crazy (don’t lie, i still feel this way). For a while, I started liking someone else who treated me horribly, but in a way, I felt I deserved it. I was lonely. I felt like no one understood me, and that no one ever would.

But…after that JET passed away in January, something changed inside of me. I remembered just how lucky I have it, just to be alive. I remembered how little time we really have. And I remembered just how unbelievably lucky I was to be in Japan, because I had forgotten and taken for granted my job and my life here and the fact that it had been so hard. It’s difficult to remember that sometimes. But everytime something gets me upset, I just take a second, take a walk, take a bike ride, and pay attention to the world around me. I wouldn’t have had a chance to see this, if I hadn’t gotten so lucky. I take another breath. It’s fun here, even if I fail. Even if I am lonely. Even if things don’t go my way. Because I am here.

And that’s all it takes to get me on the right track. Maybe those couple of months last year, when I thought I had screwed everything up and would never get back here, were my reminder. They were a way of telling me that even when things get tough here, it was still so much better than last year, so quit whining and appreciate what you have. I didn’t know it at the time, but I guess I wouldn’t erase those two months for anything.

I used to be pretty desperate for dating tips when I first got to Iwate, and went around buying all the girl magazines I could to see if I could crack the code on Japanese boys. They were different! I thought. They were mysterious! They play by utterly different rules! And since I didn’t have any, you know, Japanese girl friends, I just had to rely on what the likes of Nonno, Anan, and Mina would tell me. And, well. Japanese boys are different than American boys, in many ways. But everyone is different. I’ve met far more shy boys that might not be brave enough to ask a girl out (*if she is foreign and scary) here, but I know a few shy boys at home too. And while I believed every word in those magazines for a time, now I just sort of chuckle when I read them (and I still do read them). According to Anan, my crush likes me +90%, but I just think that it would have worked out already if that was the case, wouldn’t it? So I’ve learned to take them with a grain of salt. The advice is the same as Cosmo anyway; be thinner, be prettier, be willing to do anything to please him, and don’t think about what you might want in the process. In some ways, here it’s worse.

(coming soon!: a post on feminism, and a post on japanese fashion…ie, i’m tired of writing about amanda, amanda, amanda for the moment)

Next time I read an interesting article I might just translate it. I’ve got half a mind of putting up the “how to avoid doing intimate act X” article buried in one of my Nonnos (how appropriate is that title?!) just for giggles. And see, that’s yet another reminder of how good I have it here, as a foreign woman in Japan. I can laugh at or be annoyed with one of these articles about how a “proper woman acts” but then I can put the magazine down and forget about it. There are rules about how I’m supposed to act here, but most of the small ones don’t apply, because people chalk it up to cultural differences (which a lot of the time it is). Boys are still attracted to me in spite of, or maybe because of the fact that I am loud and tend to take the spotlight to myself. There are Japanese girls who act like me, but I think they have a far more delicate balance act than I do - I’m loud and it gets excused because I’m American. A Japanese girl who is loud is made fun of behind her back (well, it could be that I am made fun of too! Who knows?).

I am also lucky in that I can speak good Japanese, am averagely attractive, and am white/normal weight/not poor, and I can’t deny that most of these things are things that I did not work for or earn but I benefit from their privileged status (and let me just say that it’s not like I think those things make me better, but I know they sometimes make it easier for me to participate in society than a person not so lucky). I am respected more than girls my age, and its easy (yet wrong) to chalk that up simply to the fact that I was brave enough to move to another country and speak another language. I see many foreign girls falling into the trap that I used to and still do, of making fun and belittling Japanese girls who act demure and cute and defer to men in every instance, yet that’s not necessarily the Japanese girl’s fault. She was taught to be this way and you can call it “getting into men’s good graces” and get jealous if a girl is better at it than you, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s always the male gaze that we fall under and are judged under. I think it takes a long time to extract yourself from unfair thinking like this and separate what is real from society’s “rules.”

And that’s it! Again, I do want to write a “feminism” post because I have been thinking a lot about it, and studying it and reading up about it. Then again, I still don’t know very much and don’t want to open my mouth unless I have something good to say. It’s just such an interesting thing being a foreign girl in a country that isn’t always so kind to its own women. More thoughts later!

And like, the pictures in magazines are so cute too. So, there’s that.

In the midst of a party at a local izakaya for the new JETs in Iwate, I got a message from A, and I couldn’t stop smiling as soon as I saw the kanji characters representing his name on my little cell phone screen. We had already agreed to hang out during the weekend, so his message, “Are you free tomorrow? let’s go out to lunch!” left me pleasantly surprised. I’m still so unsure sometimes, that he even likes me, because he doesn’t give the cues I’m used to seeing from boys who like me (and I’m not sure I’m giving enough of the ones that say I like him, because I’m scared, and nervous, and…), but other times I realize he’s been giving the cues; they were just too subtle for me to pick up at the time.

(and he’s Japanese, so it’s not like I can, god forbid!, ask him outright!)

(or maybe that’s just an amanda problem)

“I’m free, lunch sounds fun~” I texted back, attaching stars and smiley faces to be cute. I’ve gotten to the point where a naked sentence (ie, a normal sentence with proper punctuation and everything!) feels odd to me - I’ve gotta paste a star or a doodad or some other emoticon my phone has in its memory. I’m just following what everyone else does (and some girls do it worse than me, even if they are cute in their sparkly excess), but sometimes I miss the days when it was normal to just write a simple text, you know, one that says what you mean without having to dress it up or hide it with silly cell phone hooha.

(uh then again, when what you “mean” is to meet at 7:30 for a movie, you don’t really need to stress “honesty in text messaging” now do you?? i mean, that’s what i used my phone for in 2005, i dunno know about all yall)

“Let’s meet at 12 in the lobby” I responded again, attaching a few hearts. Even if I’m not brave enough to say “I like you” out loud, maybe I can convey it through hearts. Folks, I think I’ve touched on the Japanese ideal. I think this is it. I imagine myself a bold, frank person (after all, I let you fine people know everything from my breakup stories to when I’m taking a dump), yet in real life I still manage to be the same girl from high school who couldn’t be brave enough to confess to the boy she liked. I felt like I shouldn’t have to say it. If it’s meant to be, words aren’t needed. I don’t know if that’s a good way to feel or not, but in Japan I feel like everyone is on the same page regarding (a lack of) talking about our feelings.

“Okay, great - I’m thinking of the place by Sakurayama Shrine,” he replied, with a little twister at the end of the sentence. A twister(??). Ok, guys. I can only participate in this little wordless game called Japanese society if I know the meaning behind these little symbols and cues that they use instead of words! But somehow, I thought as I sipped my drink and chatted with the new JETs, it was okay. It’s this mystery that keeps everything fun.

…Keep Reading

“Life is like riding a bicycle - in order to keep your balance, you must keep moving.”-Albert Einstein

Honestly, why can’t they sell Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups here? American Junk Food: the number one thing I miss (after people i love and my dog). You just can’t get fat here like you can in the States!

Went mountain climbing on Sunday, on the border of Iwate and Akita, and while we couldn’t make it all the way to the very top, we still got to see Tazawako Lake sparkling in the distance. It’s not the destination, it’s the journey… Plus (geek mode) this place looked kinda like the last area of Shadow of the Colossus, and I imagined I was standing on a cliff at the end of the world, with my only friend dead and a huge mammoth creature to kill before I could rest. Perhaps I’ll be able to conquer that mammoth insecurity of mine in this place, someday. It already feels like it’s getting smaller day by day.

A small flower in a place they affectionately called Moomin Valley. A couple hours later I was soaking in a hot spring the color of emerald, the rusty smell of the sulfer surrounding me. I always think before climbing a mountain, “yeah! this’ll be awesome!” but when I’m actually climbing, I always whine to myself, “why the eff did I think this would be a good idea??” By the time I get to the obligatory onsen afterwards, I always manage to think, “Well. That was awesome.” Doesn’t everyone who climbs mountains occasionally feel that way?

“It’s not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” - Edmund Hillary

(Yeah but it’s not like I climbed this thing by myself…)

That’s Lin Chi-Ling, the Chinese co-star of the newest Kimura Takuya vehicle, Tsuki no Koibito (Moon Lovers). KimuTaku, as his fans call him, is a huge star in Japan and Asia and stars in one huge drama a year, along with performing with his boy band (er, middle-aged man band by now) SMAP and appearing in, like, hair spray commercials. He’s big. He’s everywhere. He’s gorgeous still at almost 40. I love him and think he has loads of charisma. He’s just not…a very good actor. Or at least, his dramas never really keep my interest for very long. But Tsuki no Koibito is different - I’m enthralled, and it’s not because of anything KimuTaku is doing (if anything, he’s playing more of a creep than anything). Lin Chi-ling lights up the screen and I literally can’t take my eyes off her.

She plays a Chinese factory worker that gets hired by KimuTaku’s character to PR for his interior design firm (or something, I can’t really make heads or tails of it). He rescues her from a life of squalor in Shanghai, and in return she has to be a model for his company. At first she is rightfully caught up in the glamor and miracle of it all, and starts to fall a bit for him, but then she realize he hasn’t kept any of his promises to her fellow factory workers and one night she basically gets relegated to “entertaining” a fat, gross male client of the firm (and he’s an American that’s terrible at Japanese to boot). The way she stared at KimuTaku when she realized what was going on was just sort of brilliant, I think. It’s just amazing that this girl who’s not quite fluent at Japanese managed to act in circles around all the rest of the experienced Japanese actors around her. Shinohara Ryoko even ends up playing the same old tired character (big sister!), which is a shame, because I do love her.

I’m just happy that this show that’s destined to be a big hit on the basis of its stars will allow recognition of a really talented foreigner. Sure it’s a silly drama, and it’s only two episodes in, but I really think the heart of it will be Lin Chi-ling. And what’s shocking is seeing how KimuTaku, who everyone lurrrves, treats this poor woman because she is Chinese, because her lack of Japanese skill and non-Japaneseness somehow gives him a pass to think of her as an object. And because she plays such a real human being, you realize that it is definitely Not Okay for him to use her and then turn around and be bewitched by her beauty and grit out, “I want you.” Because you realize this kind of lopsided relationship, where the power is almost always with a richer, more influential man, is kind of…creepy. At least, I did. Who knows if anyone else got that impression. I just know I’ll be watching to find out (especially since the latest previews show her using his weakness to her beauty to her advantage, and not in a demure, stereotypical Japanese/Asian way either).

Hey, it could be worse, I could be watching The Hills. That is acting on a whole different scale, right there!

Outside the art museum where I saw an exhibit of Alphonse Mucha’s works. I quite love his style! It’s more illustration than fine art, which was what I wanted to major in when I embarked on my aborted journey to be an art teacher. I always appreciated a stylish line and a bold color/design choice over…I dunno, a hidden message that I could never understand, because I was not Art-Minded, I guess (this is more of a critique of my failings than it is me trying to snub anyone!). In the end, it was for the best that I did not become an artist, but I do miss drawing sometimes. But that’s right, according to that one art professor, I only have “minimal artistic ability.” I guess I just didn’t want to hear that kind of critique day-in and day-out everyday for four years. It’s nice to know that there was an artist out there who made a living painting cute posters with stars and pretty girls on them. Maybe some day I’ll get back to that whole drawing thing myself…

(and before anybody jumps on me, the reason I post so many pictures is not because I want to be a photographer or that I even really like photography. The category is called “a morioka for all seasons” because I think it’s important to show different sides of this place, and to spur me to make more content - although I should probably use a color filter or something, so that I can get called out for being an amateur already!!)