Thursday, December 15, 2016
Friday, November 25, 2016
Getting to know Kyoto - Part 3
I met Kat actually before I even met my host parents. On the afternoon of the party where we were introduced to our families, I had gone shopping with a group of AKP (Associated Kytoto Program) girls. We split off into groups and I ended up hanging out with Kat.
Kat was this adorable, soft spoken, little punk badass. She dressed largely in black, and always wore dark eyeliner. Also... she smoked. Actually, thinking about it now, that could very well be one of the reasons we became friends so quickly. There weren't many of us who did. Another one was Bill Perrin - this extraordinarily good looking trust fund sort of guy who eventually became another one of our best friends. He was all sorts of irreverent and drank almost as much as I did. Actually... maybe more.
With regard to Kat, we hit it off right away - probably because we were both different from the larger crowd of trust fund Ivy League prep kids that made up the majority of the group. She was actually not sure she even wanted to stay in Japan - apparently it had not really been her idea to come - it was her parents, and she just sort of went along with it. (Despite her badass sort of look, way more so than me at the time, Kat was more of a "go-alonger". I was definitely the alpha dog in our relationship, looking back. The idea gal, as it were).
In any case, during that first shopping trip we hit one of the covered shopping streets - one we were to end up going to all the time ("Sanjo-Dori" - dori means street). There were a couple of punk guys selling engraved jewelry at a kiosk - I expect we looked like easy marks since we were gaizin (prounounced "GAI-JEEN") - which means "foreigner". And believe me when I say that it is impossible - completely impossible - for a foreigner to ever stop being a gaizin. It is your identity in Japan - it is printed on your soul. If you are not Japanese, you are gaizin. Period.
This kiosk was like any you'd see in an American shopping mall - cheap jewelry, custom engraved. The difference being... The engraving was in Japanese. I bought a necklace with my name in Katakana (the only real way to pronounce my name in Japanese came out sounding like "Emmie" - which is how it is spelled in Katakana). Kat bought a lighter. Then the punk guys showed us a picture of a hard core punk band they were in.
School started a couple of days after that first shopping trip. From those first couple of days, Kat and I were inseparable. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we would regularly go to out to a coffee shop called "Big Fun" after school to hang out. This was a pretty typical Japanese place name. The coffee was very strong and ridiculously expensive.
A couple of weeks into my stay, I was invited overnight to Kat's homestay family for a party. Kat's host family loved me - probably because I talked. (Which Kat generally didn't do, in Japanese, very often at all. Her Japanese was weak and... she was soft spoken and, surprisingly, given her total badass look, relatively shy). The party featured sushi and sukiyaki (one of my favorite Japanese party meals). That night was actually my first introduction to the concept of karaoke. We all went out to a karaoke club - which was not a concept that had made its way to the States yet. Of course, probably anyone reading this knows now that karaoke is where they play background music and put the words up on screen and you, the customer, get to stand up and sing in front of a crowd. Unfortunately for the gaizin, the choice of Western songs was pretty limited - we usually had our pick of some Frank Sinatra favorites, and maybe a few others thrown in. I sang "The Sound of Silence" that night. Badly. I was assured, however, by 3 Japanese hosts who were paying LOTS of attention to us, that it was, in fact, a stellar performance. These gentleman spent the evening entertaining us - one even putting his cigarette out on his tongue. Another one, through pantomime, managed to convey that he wanted me to have his baby. Truly.... a unique evening. (Or so I thought... but in fact, it was one of many such outings that in fact became relatively commonplace).
Some other early recollections: we arrived in the fall of 1988. The summer Olympics were going on. I was never (in the States) particularly patriotic. However, I strongly recall the first time I heard our national anthem played on TV when an American was being medaled in the games... and the degree to which I choked up was completely surprising to me.
Another current event that was "current" while I was there was the illness of the emperor. He was expected to die relatively soon, which would signal the end of an era. Kyoto was actually the imperial seat of Japan - the palace was not too far from my school, and was, in fact, a place where we would often go walking.
Also within that first couple of weeks, I started to get the feeling that my host mother was trying to play matchmaker. There was a young guy who was a teacher at Yutaka's school - his name was "Hori-San". He didn't speak a lot of English and was a bit shy. He's the one I think they were trying to set me up with. Then, there was ANOTHER guy that... I think Yutaka wasn't all that crazy about. Who, of course, was the one I was interested in. His name was Murakami-san. He was also a young guy and his English was great. And... he thought I was just swell. I knew he was my type when we were listening to some stoner mix tape I had made and he leaned over and said "this is trip music!". He asked me out one day and he took me for a drive in a convertible driving through the twisty streets of Kyoto up to the top of a mountain where we could see the whole city. We listened to Janis Joplin and sang our heads off all the way to the top of the mountain where we sat and drank beers for hours. He took me out to dinner, and then gave me my choice of going to a bar afterwards, or going to a Shinto shrine. I chose... the shrine.
It was incredibly beautiful and unique.... thousands of orange "tori" gates. The gates covered a walkway that went up and up to the top of the mountain, and from the top, you could look down and see all of the lights of Kyoto.
Kat was this adorable, soft spoken, little punk badass. She dressed largely in black, and always wore dark eyeliner. Also... she smoked. Actually, thinking about it now, that could very well be one of the reasons we became friends so quickly. There weren't many of us who did. Another one was Bill Perrin - this extraordinarily good looking trust fund sort of guy who eventually became another one of our best friends. He was all sorts of irreverent and drank almost as much as I did. Actually... maybe more.
With regard to Kat, we hit it off right away - probably because we were both different from the larger crowd of trust fund Ivy League prep kids that made up the majority of the group. She was actually not sure she even wanted to stay in Japan - apparently it had not really been her idea to come - it was her parents, and she just sort of went along with it. (Despite her badass sort of look, way more so than me at the time, Kat was more of a "go-alonger". I was definitely the alpha dog in our relationship, looking back. The idea gal, as it were).
In any case, during that first shopping trip we hit one of the covered shopping streets - one we were to end up going to all the time ("Sanjo-Dori" - dori means street). There were a couple of punk guys selling engraved jewelry at a kiosk - I expect we looked like easy marks since we were gaizin (prounounced "GAI-JEEN") - which means "foreigner". And believe me when I say that it is impossible - completely impossible - for a foreigner to ever stop being a gaizin. It is your identity in Japan - it is printed on your soul. If you are not Japanese, you are gaizin. Period.
This kiosk was like any you'd see in an American shopping mall - cheap jewelry, custom engraved. The difference being... The engraving was in Japanese. I bought a necklace with my name in Katakana (the only real way to pronounce my name in Japanese came out sounding like "Emmie" - which is how it is spelled in Katakana). Kat bought a lighter. Then the punk guys showed us a picture of a hard core punk band they were in.
School started a couple of days after that first shopping trip. From those first couple of days, Kat and I were inseparable. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we would regularly go to out to a coffee shop called "Big Fun" after school to hang out. This was a pretty typical Japanese place name. The coffee was very strong and ridiculously expensive.
A couple of weeks into my stay, I was invited overnight to Kat's homestay family for a party. Kat's host family loved me - probably because I talked. (Which Kat generally didn't do, in Japanese, very often at all. Her Japanese was weak and... she was soft spoken and, surprisingly, given her total badass look, relatively shy). The party featured sushi and sukiyaki (one of my favorite Japanese party meals). That night was actually my first introduction to the concept of karaoke. We all went out to a karaoke club - which was not a concept that had made its way to the States yet. Of course, probably anyone reading this knows now that karaoke is where they play background music and put the words up on screen and you, the customer, get to stand up and sing in front of a crowd. Unfortunately for the gaizin, the choice of Western songs was pretty limited - we usually had our pick of some Frank Sinatra favorites, and maybe a few others thrown in. I sang "The Sound of Silence" that night. Badly. I was assured, however, by 3 Japanese hosts who were paying LOTS of attention to us, that it was, in fact, a stellar performance. These gentleman spent the evening entertaining us - one even putting his cigarette out on his tongue. Another one, through pantomime, managed to convey that he wanted me to have his baby. Truly.... a unique evening. (Or so I thought... but in fact, it was one of many such outings that in fact became relatively commonplace).
Some other early recollections: we arrived in the fall of 1988. The summer Olympics were going on. I was never (in the States) particularly patriotic. However, I strongly recall the first time I heard our national anthem played on TV when an American was being medaled in the games... and the degree to which I choked up was completely surprising to me.
Another current event that was "current" while I was there was the illness of the emperor. He was expected to die relatively soon, which would signal the end of an era. Kyoto was actually the imperial seat of Japan - the palace was not too far from my school, and was, in fact, a place where we would often go walking.
 |
| Imperial Palace Grounds |
 |
| Imperial Palace Grounds |
Also within that first couple of weeks, I started to get the feeling that my host mother was trying to play matchmaker. There was a young guy who was a teacher at Yutaka's school - his name was "Hori-San". He didn't speak a lot of English and was a bit shy. He's the one I think they were trying to set me up with. Then, there was ANOTHER guy that... I think Yutaka wasn't all that crazy about. Who, of course, was the one I was interested in. His name was Murakami-san. He was also a young guy and his English was great. And... he thought I was just swell. I knew he was my type when we were listening to some stoner mix tape I had made and he leaned over and said "this is trip music!". He asked me out one day and he took me for a drive in a convertible driving through the twisty streets of Kyoto up to the top of a mountain where we could see the whole city. We listened to Janis Joplin and sang our heads off all the way to the top of the mountain where we sat and drank beers for hours. He took me out to dinner, and then gave me my choice of going to a bar afterwards, or going to a Shinto shrine. I chose... the shrine.
It was incredibly beautiful and unique.... thousands of orange "tori" gates. The gates covered a walkway that went up and up to the top of the mountain, and from the top, you could look down and see all of the lights of Kyoto.
Also sometime during that first month or so, I had my first trip to the Japanese clinic for follow up of my cyst. The whole thing was pretty nerve-racking. I had to take an unfamiliar bus to an unfamiliar stop - and recall that unfamiliar is more of a problem in a country where you CAN'T READ the signs. I remember getting off of the bus at the stop my host mother had indicated, and looking around in bafflement, trying to figure out where I needed to go. I don't have a clear recollection of how I actually ended up finding the place - but find it I did. This place seemed like more of a public health clinic than the private doctors' offices I was used to. The waiting room was mobbed with moms and (perhaps the only time I ever saw this, because normally they were good as gold), screaming Japanese kids. After a 20-30 minute wait, I got taken in - they took my blood pressure and temperature and I had the usual pleasant female exam. The doctor then wanted to do an ultrasound - somehow we managed to communicate that I did not, in fact, have the requisite full bladder. So... they gave me tea to drink until my bladder was full enough to perform the exam, and off we went to the races. At the end of the day, they decided I needed to get on the Pill, and... to come back in a month.
Friday, November 4, 2016
Japan Part 2 - meeting the family
So I think it was probably day 2 or 3 when we were finally hooked up with our host families.
My vague recollection was that we had some sort of group dinner, and that's where we met them. I'm not quite sure just how I managed to get hooked up with Yuko and Yutaka... I believe we'd had to fill out profiles before we ever went over there, which they used to match up students and families. I think it was safe to say I had the hippest, youngest, craziest party animal host parents of any students in the group. As noted in Part 1, Yuko, my mom, was an administrator at a hospital. This was pretty unusual - not only for a woman to still be in the workforce in her mid-40's, but for her to hold a position of authority. Yutaka was a school teacher. I don't remember what subject he taught. They had no children. And... they didn't actually live in the same house. The lived in houses that were next to each other - you had to cross a little back yard to get to Yutaka's house. And... the whole time I was there, I think I was only ever at Yutaka's house maybe 2 or 3 times.
Yuko's house was modern and immaculately clean. As with all Japanese houses, it was also quite small and maximized space. Entering through the front door, you were faced first with a foyer. This was where you changed from your outdoor shoes into your indoor slippers. (They had a new pair of slippers all ready for me upon arrival). One does not wear shoes inside Japanese houses.
Proceeding through the foyer door into the house, the main "hallway" was really just a small square. If you went left, you would be in essentially the main living space of the house. Which was... a bar. Rather than a raised bar with chairs, it was a sunken bar - the bar itself was only about 6 inches above the floor, and essentially the floor ended about 1 foot away from the bar and dropped down into a little seating area. The area served as dining room, living room, den, and entertainment space. The floor was dark brown wood, highly polished. Again with the theme of space maximixation, the entire back wall of the room were closets - but it just looked like wall. Inside the bar was a sink, a refrigerator, and lots of space for (expensive) booze. There was a TV over the bar. If you walked all the way through the main room, the kitchen was on the far end, and on the right, before the kitchen, was a tiny little utility room - my only recollection of its use was to hang laundry dry. I'm thinking that the "bath" room (not the toilet) was to the right of the kitchen, but I'm not fully remembering. I do know that it was its own room. Japanese take their baths very seriously. They take them pretty much every night. The shower area was separate from the tub - and the tub was small and relatively deep. And... hot. Japanese bathed HOT. One did not take a bath in Japan to get clean - you did that outside, in the shower, before the bath. Baths were... spiritual. That was it for the downstairs left side of the house. Except... the exit to Yutaka's house, which was essentially on the far end of the bar.
On the right hand side of the main hallway was the toilet. Which (thank goodness) was a Western style toilet (with a puffy heated seat). I discovered early on during my first 2 orientation days that many Japanese toilet were "squatties" - hygienic, for sure, but something to get used to for Western folks used to sitting.
Straight in front of the entrance was a very narrow steep staircase. At the top of the stairs on the left was my bedroom. It was small, very modern, sparse, and very comfortable. The bed was a futon style bed, on top of a platform under which were a set of drawers. The furniture was all black, and the bedding was expensive and off white. Across from the bed was a black desk and chair; There was a closet next to the door. Japanese style shades covered the windows. Then, across from my room was my host mother's room. I don't recall actually EVER being in her room - or at least very often. I don't have any good memory of what it looked like.
What I do remember, strongly, is the smell of the house. Which was... an extremely strong clean scent of lemon type furniture polish, covering up the smell of cigarette smoke. Both Yuko and Yutaka were heavy smokers - which likely was one of the reasons I was placed with them. At that point in time, in the 80's, many Japanese still smoked - particularly men. Much more so than in the US, where smoking was already starting to be banned in public places. Which makes me, just now, remember that they also had an air filter system in the Bar room.
I remember my first breakfast in the house. I arrived in late August. The summer Olympics were still going one. Kyoto was hot - it was still pretty high summer there. And humid. So, the air conditioner was running pretty constantly. I came down from my new bedroom to the breakfast which Yuko had prepared for me - which ended up being breakfast daily for pretty much the rest of the "warm" season. There was super-strong dark good coffee. There were these HUGE pieces of essentially "Texas Toast" - really thick toasted white bread. There was butter and jam for the toast, and there were these enormous dark purple grapes - a bit sour, with seeds in them. I think this was probably considered a "Western" style breakfast.
There were a couple of days of settling in before school started. I realized pretty early on that my host parents were wealthy. For one, Yutaka had a car. It was VERY expensive to maintain a car in Japan. The car (like many Japanese cars) was white - it was Yutaka's pride and joy, and he kept it immaculately clean. Yutaka ALSO had... a yacht. Which he took me out on early on - like that first weekend, with some friends. After which... we had lunch in the yacht club. One of the dishes you could find in many places in Japan was spaghetti - not a good old fashioned loads of Italian sauce and meatballs sort of dish, but something a little shorter on sauce and meat. Which... was served with Tabasco sauce on the side. This was an early experience for me in that Japanese phenomenon where pretty much every Western style (food, product, concept) has its own unique Japanese twist placed on it. Nothing, NOTHING was ever exactly as it is in the West.
At all of these get togethers (this was just the first of many, many... my host family was very gregarious...), there was much eating, drinking, and being merry. As noted - the living room was essentially a bar. The Kozus drank scotch. Expensive scotch. Which they mixed with water to produce a (noxious, in my book) drink called "Mizuari"). Fortunately for me (not a scotch drinker) they kept plenty of beer around too. There was also a trap door in the floor of that room which lifted up, and where there was a whole stash of bar snacks.
One of the things that would often start to happen during these drinking parties was singing. Generally off key, loudly, using beer bottles as microphones.
A couple of days after my arrival, it was time to start school. Yuko-san had given me careful instructions on where to walk to catch the bus, which bus to catch, where to get off, and how to get to the school. I was pretty nervous about this trip (imagine being in a country where you really can't read much of anything). But... I made it to the school alright. It was the first of many days where I started to have to get used to being the only non-Japanese person in a particular environment. Feeling self conscious was pretty much a constant in Japan.
I really don't remember much about my first day at school.... except... coming home. Which is to say, I got lost. I got off at the correct bus stop... but from there, really had no idea whatsoever where to go. (It's that 2 X chromosome thing - regularly screws me up. It screws me up running in the woods too.) This, of course, was in the days before cell phones. (Japanese pay phones were also a novelty... by the way...
Alas... I don't think I even knew Yuko's telephone number at that point. Or maybe I did. I don't recall exactly how I managed to make my way home (which was only a couple of blocks). I have a vague recollection of talking to a stranger who kindly walked me most of the way. That was actually the only time I ever got lost.
My vague recollection was that we had some sort of group dinner, and that's where we met them. I'm not quite sure just how I managed to get hooked up with Yuko and Yutaka... I believe we'd had to fill out profiles before we ever went over there, which they used to match up students and families. I think it was safe to say I had the hippest, youngest, craziest party animal host parents of any students in the group. As noted in Part 1, Yuko, my mom, was an administrator at a hospital. This was pretty unusual - not only for a woman to still be in the workforce in her mid-40's, but for her to hold a position of authority. Yutaka was a school teacher. I don't remember what subject he taught. They had no children. And... they didn't actually live in the same house. The lived in houses that were next to each other - you had to cross a little back yard to get to Yutaka's house. And... the whole time I was there, I think I was only ever at Yutaka's house maybe 2 or 3 times.
Yuko's house was modern and immaculately clean. As with all Japanese houses, it was also quite small and maximized space. Entering through the front door, you were faced first with a foyer. This was where you changed from your outdoor shoes into your indoor slippers. (They had a new pair of slippers all ready for me upon arrival). One does not wear shoes inside Japanese houses.
Proceeding through the foyer door into the house, the main "hallway" was really just a small square. If you went left, you would be in essentially the main living space of the house. Which was... a bar. Rather than a raised bar with chairs, it was a sunken bar - the bar itself was only about 6 inches above the floor, and essentially the floor ended about 1 foot away from the bar and dropped down into a little seating area. The area served as dining room, living room, den, and entertainment space. The floor was dark brown wood, highly polished. Again with the theme of space maximixation, the entire back wall of the room were closets - but it just looked like wall. Inside the bar was a sink, a refrigerator, and lots of space for (expensive) booze. There was a TV over the bar. If you walked all the way through the main room, the kitchen was on the far end, and on the right, before the kitchen, was a tiny little utility room - my only recollection of its use was to hang laundry dry. I'm thinking that the "bath" room (not the toilet) was to the right of the kitchen, but I'm not fully remembering. I do know that it was its own room. Japanese take their baths very seriously. They take them pretty much every night. The shower area was separate from the tub - and the tub was small and relatively deep. And... hot. Japanese bathed HOT. One did not take a bath in Japan to get clean - you did that outside, in the shower, before the bath. Baths were... spiritual. That was it for the downstairs left side of the house. Except... the exit to Yutaka's house, which was essentially on the far end of the bar.
On the right hand side of the main hallway was the toilet. Which (thank goodness) was a Western style toilet (with a puffy heated seat). I discovered early on during my first 2 orientation days that many Japanese toilet were "squatties" - hygienic, for sure, but something to get used to for Western folks used to sitting.
Straight in front of the entrance was a very narrow steep staircase. At the top of the stairs on the left was my bedroom. It was small, very modern, sparse, and very comfortable. The bed was a futon style bed, on top of a platform under which were a set of drawers. The furniture was all black, and the bedding was expensive and off white. Across from the bed was a black desk and chair; There was a closet next to the door. Japanese style shades covered the windows. Then, across from my room was my host mother's room. I don't recall actually EVER being in her room - or at least very often. I don't have any good memory of what it looked like.
What I do remember, strongly, is the smell of the house. Which was... an extremely strong clean scent of lemon type furniture polish, covering up the smell of cigarette smoke. Both Yuko and Yutaka were heavy smokers - which likely was one of the reasons I was placed with them. At that point in time, in the 80's, many Japanese still smoked - particularly men. Much more so than in the US, where smoking was already starting to be banned in public places. Which makes me, just now, remember that they also had an air filter system in the Bar room.
I remember my first breakfast in the house. I arrived in late August. The summer Olympics were still going one. Kyoto was hot - it was still pretty high summer there. And humid. So, the air conditioner was running pretty constantly. I came down from my new bedroom to the breakfast which Yuko had prepared for me - which ended up being breakfast daily for pretty much the rest of the "warm" season. There was super-strong dark good coffee. There were these HUGE pieces of essentially "Texas Toast" - really thick toasted white bread. There was butter and jam for the toast, and there were these enormous dark purple grapes - a bit sour, with seeds in them. I think this was probably considered a "Western" style breakfast.
There were a couple of days of settling in before school started. I realized pretty early on that my host parents were wealthy. For one, Yutaka had a car. It was VERY expensive to maintain a car in Japan. The car (like many Japanese cars) was white - it was Yutaka's pride and joy, and he kept it immaculately clean. Yutaka ALSO had... a yacht. Which he took me out on early on - like that first weekend, with some friends. After which... we had lunch in the yacht club. One of the dishes you could find in many places in Japan was spaghetti - not a good old fashioned loads of Italian sauce and meatballs sort of dish, but something a little shorter on sauce and meat. Which... was served with Tabasco sauce on the side. This was an early experience for me in that Japanese phenomenon where pretty much every Western style (food, product, concept) has its own unique Japanese twist placed on it. Nothing, NOTHING was ever exactly as it is in the West.
On one of those early days, too, we had Yuko's brother's family over. He was a young good looking guy with a young good looking wife and a couple of young boys. I remember one of them was "Dai-chan". (Chan is an affectionate way to address either close friends or children, and is much less formal than "San"). At all of these get togethers (this was just the first of many, many... my host family was very gregarious...), there was much eating, drinking, and being merry. As noted - the living room was essentially a bar. The Kozus drank scotch. Expensive scotch. Which they mixed with water to produce a (noxious, in my book) drink called "Mizuari"). Fortunately for me (not a scotch drinker) they kept plenty of beer around too. There was also a trap door in the floor of that room which lifted up, and where there was a whole stash of bar snacks.
One of the things that would often start to happen during these drinking parties was singing. Generally off key, loudly, using beer bottles as microphones.
A couple of days after my arrival, it was time to start school. Yuko-san had given me careful instructions on where to walk to catch the bus, which bus to catch, where to get off, and how to get to the school. I was pretty nervous about this trip (imagine being in a country where you really can't read much of anything). But... I made it to the school alright. It was the first of many days where I started to have to get used to being the only non-Japanese person in a particular environment. Feeling self conscious was pretty much a constant in Japan.
I really don't remember much about my first day at school.... except... coming home. Which is to say, I got lost. I got off at the correct bus stop... but from there, really had no idea whatsoever where to go. (It's that 2 X chromosome thing - regularly screws me up. It screws me up running in the woods too.) This, of course, was in the days before cell phones. (Japanese pay phones were also a novelty... by the way...
 |
| Pink phones were for local calls |
 |
| You needed a green phone for long distance or international |
Alas... I don't think I even knew Yuko's telephone number at that point. Or maybe I did. I don't recall exactly how I managed to make my way home (which was only a couple of blocks). I have a vague recollection of talking to a stranger who kindly walked me most of the way. That was actually the only time I ever got lost.
Thursday, November 3, 2016
Japan - Part 1
I have been continuing to try to think about things to tell you about my year in Japan. I think the best I can do... is to just give you little snippets - remembered observations, feelings. Events.
The whole Japan thing started with an orientation hiking trip when I started college. Students had an option to sign up for this 2 day backpacking trip to meet other students prior to true "orientation". I signed up. Which was supremely ironic - because despite only being 17, I was NOT in particularly good shape. I was at that point already a 2 pack a day smoker, and heavy drinker. I didn't exercise AT ALL, and I was probably a good 20-30 pounds heaver than I am now. One of the leaders of our hiking group (which had, I think, probably 8-10 freshman in it), was a sophomore who was talking about his Japanese class. He told us that Williams happened to be blessed with a visiting professor, Eleanor Jordan, who was world famous in her approach to teaching Japanese. As fate would have it, I had also JUST finished reading the novel "Shogun". I really had no idea at that time what I wanted my major to be, but because of the Japanese program, I signed up for the class without ever having had any intention of taking Japanese.
"Jordan-sensee" (Professor Jordan), truly was revolutionary in her approach. Rather than focusing on teaching students to read (which I never really DID learn to do very well, and which doesn't serve a whole lot of purpose if you drop someone in the middle of a Japanese city), she focused on useable, realistic, conversational Japanese. Each lesson was built around everyday situations - learning how to ask directions, describing your school, asking for a restaurant menu.... and the accompanying vocabulary enhanced that. We had lecture 3 days a week with Professor Jordan (an American), and then 2 days a week we spend 90 minutes in intense conversational drilling - our teacher for that was a native Japanese woman who ONLY spoke Japanese to us. It wasn't until several years later that I found out she was actually fluent in English, because we NEVER heard her speak it.
I pretty much intended to go to Japan from the moment I started taking those classes. It was my junior year of college, and the program (co-sponsored by my college) was called the "Associated Kyoto Program" (AKP). Students were placed with "host families", and attended a Japanese university in Japan - but our classes were all with our American colleagues. So, we were on campus with the Japanese students, but didn't actually take classes with them.
We got pictures of our host family prior to departing the States. My family was a couple in their 40's - my "host mom" was "Yuko" and my "host dad" was "Yutaka" - (last name Kozu). Unusually for a Japanese family, they didn't have any kids - AND, she was a professional - interestingly, an administrator at a hospital. (Most Japanese women still stayed home and took care of the house and kids, at that point).
There was one damper on the trip - which was this: about a month before I was supposed to depart, I was at the girly-doctor, and they discovered (during the fucking internal exam - god, those are really a treat!)... that I had a cyst on my right ovary. Probably 6 cm in diameter? It was pretty big. This was actually kind of terrifying for me at the time - because when the doctor talked to me, they didn't know at that point whether it was benign or cancerous. This was actually the summer my parents had moved to Cooperstown - I was pretty unhappy there, not knowing anyone, so I went back to White Plains, where my old boss gave me a job and let me stay with him and his wife, who actually lived in my old neighborhood. So - when I got this news from the doctor, I was actually alone, away from my folks. Once they found the cyst, my summer in White Plains was effectively over - my brother came down and picked me up and brought me back to Cooperstown where I had an ultrasound exam... which was not particularly worrisome, but... not overly reassuring either. They ultimately decided to send me over to Japan, but to make sure I went to the doctor to get an ultrasound once a month to see if the damn thing was growing - and if it was, I'd have to come home for Christmas.
But... they let me go. My flight actually left from JFK in New York City. Which is actually about a 5 hour drive from Cooperstown. I vaguely remember the drive, and remember arriving in the airport and meeting my fellow students for the first time. I was excited and a bit nervous. What I remember about the flight was... I was one of the only smokers in the group, so I sat in the second to last row in the smoking section while most of the rest of the group was up frong. The flight was... 20 hours long. Which is a LONG fucking time to be on an airplane.
So... what I was looking for, from this experience, was "different". I wanted exotic, new, exciting. I remember the feeling, first arriving in the airport in Tokyo. The overhead announcements were all in Japanese. Almost everyone around me had black hair. I changed some money at the airport to be able to buy something that I couldn't buy in the states. Probably something from a vending machine. I don't remember.
One of the kids in our group - a guy with long hair - was given a pretty hard "going over" by customs - they thought he was carrying drugs. Probably because of the long hair.
We took a bus from the airport to this hostel place that we were all staying at, as a group, before being placed with our families. I discovered, on the bus ride, that they drive on the right side of the street in Japan. I hadn't known that. And (I just recalled this RIGHT NOW), the bus driver wore white gloves. In fact, all the taxi drivers did too. The Japanese were pretty health conscious. You'd see some of them wearing surgical masks around.
My strongest memory of that first couple of days was my first foray, alone, around the city of Kyoto. After I finally got something sort of like a good night's sleep and woke up feeling (sort of) like something human, we had a day to ourselves. So.... I fixed the landmark of the hostel in my head, and just started out walking, by myself. I walked probably for miles - stopping occasionally at coffee shops where I absolutely delighted in being the only foreigner in the shop, looking at the complete "otherness" of the menu - things were familiar, but different. Like... coffee shops would sell sandwiches - western style sandwiches - but they were nothing you'd ever get in the states. Rather than like a big old ham and cheese, they'd serve these little 'tea" sandwiches - these dainty things with cream cheese and cucumbers, or dainty little egg salad... one might have just one piece of meat and cheese. They all had the crusts cut off, and were tiny. I encountered my first covered pedestrian street on that walk - I loved, also, the "otherness" of the types of things for sale. The fabrics were different; the architecture was different. The food was different. The signs... well, I couldn't read the signs. The food was different and wonderful. Just the act of walking around the city by myself, discovering, was an adventure. I saw my first open air market, too, where all sorts of exotic Japanese foods were on display. I think I sent you that picture, actually, on Facebook.
The vending machines - they were great. They had vending machines for EVERYTHING, and there were rows and rows of them on various corners. One of the things we all made fun of was Japanese English. They'd take these English words and throw them on things in a way that was either ludicrous, or that just made no sense. Like product names. They had this sports drink (sold in vending machines everywhere, and advertised on huge dayglow billboards). The drink was called "Pocari Sweat". Like... we really wanted to drink something called "sweat". (I just went and found a picture and attached it!). And the things they would put on adverstisements or T-shirts! Just hysterical. We couldn't even make this shit up, although we tried. Like... "Japanese boy finds great big fun in strong athletics". Stuff where the words themselves were (generally) spelled right, but they were put together in a way that no native English speaker would ever do. I actually also just went out and found you an example of THIS phenomenon too. (Link below).
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