Tsunami Cleanup

This past weekend I went up north to Miyagi Prefecture (宮城県) to volunteer with disaster relief efforts. I've been wanting to go ever since the earthquake and tsunami struck and definitely wanted to make it up there before leaving Japan. I'm so glad it finally worked out. I was able to go with a great group-- Sarah, Chris, and Sayoko, who are also English teachers, and my friend, Reiko, who is the dietitian at my elementary school. We went to a town called Watari-cho, which is just south of Sendai. I had heard from some other English teachers in my city who went up about a month ago that the town was about 60-70% destroyed, but since it wasn't one of the hardest hit places, there haven't been very many volunteers going there. It's only about a 5 hour drive from here, so we could go over a weekend. We had to wake up around 2:30 to be on the road by shortly after 3:00 a.m. in order to make the drive and find our way to the Watari-cho Volunteer Center in time for the 8:30 a.m. daily job auction. In a room crowded with a few hundred volunteers I struggled to hear and understand the details of each job being introduced. Reiko clarified what the speaker was saying, and when there was a job that seemed like something we could do-- shovel dirt, pull up carpet [at a location where a toilet would be available for us to use] all five of us raised our hands, stood up, and I pushed forward eagerly. Even though the group was only supposed to be 20 people, and several other groups had got up sooner...and the announcer said there were only 3 more spots, I asked him if 5 of us could join, and he agreed. Sweet! We had a job assignment...after 3 months of waiting to go north, 5 hours driving, and 45 minutes of signing up and figuring out what was going on, we were gonna get to help. When we pulled up to our job site, it seemed like we had been tricked into doing Saturday chores for people who were trying to take advantage of the volunteers trekking to their prefecture. The neighborhood didn't look like it had even been touched by the tsunami. !? But a few minutes later we found out that the tsunami HAD reached this far and had flooded the fields with salt water, including those of Mori San-- whose house we had just arrived at-- rendering them useless for years to come. He told a couple of us that he hasn't been able to earn any money since the disaster. In his farming equipment garage he showed us the line on the wall where the water had reached about a meter high. The floor was caked with a thick layer of dried mud that the tsunami washed in. A group of 22 of us-- volunteers who'd driven up from Tokyo, Nagoya, and Gunma (us), as well as Red Cross volunteers-- set to work sweeping out the garage, cleaning out another supply shed, and pulling up tatami flooring that had been flooded. [Cultural Note: We were told that the males should move equipment in the shed, and the females should sweep the garage. It's surprising how gender roles are so clearly defined and blatantly, shamelessly stated here. Good thing I've had lots of experience at school sweeping while the male teachers stand around.] In the garage there was a narrow half-boxed-in ledge that ran the length of the wall. It was also full of dirt, leaves, and debris that had been washed in. Because of the width and shape of this ledge, it was really hard to get the insides cleaned out. When our leader asked us if we needed any tools/supplies other than what we had, we told him we needed a small brush or something. Soon after, we were given a toilet brush. It was the perfect size and worked really well. A few times while working it struck Sarah and I as funny that we were cleaning out the garage with a toilet brush! I'm sure it got more use in that one afternoon than in all the years it may have been used for cleaning toilets. After several hours, once we'd gotten rid of all the dirt, we formed an assembly line to move 15 kg and 20 kg bags of seeds from the shed to the garage. I was so glad to have the chance to meet Mori San and his wife that day, and to listen to their stories. Although it made me sad. Mori San's eyes smiled brightly even as he was telling us about the difficulties he's facing. I wish I could be friends with him. Just before leaving their house, I went to tell his wife that I'm a Christian and that I went to help them because I wanted to communicate God's love for them. I told her that even though things are tough now, God doesn't forget about us or our situation. I also got to give her 1 John 4:9-10 in Japanese: "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."


The next day our group was sent to a strawberry patch to volunteer alongside Japanese Self-Defense Forces Personnel (自衛隊) picking up and bagging trash. It seemed kinda funny that we were assigned to the same job as these strong, capable, military-trained soldiers. It was kinda cool though, and we got to talk to some of the young ones during the break times. I was curious to know if they were all from that area or if they were from all over the country. So, I asked several of them. I was shocked and instantly regretted that question when one girl answered that she was from Ishinomaki. There was nothing I could say, other than a stunned, wide-eyed, solemn, "Oh!" Ishinomaki was one of the very hardest hit cities. I'm sure at least some of her family and friends must have been washed out to sea. !!! Oh, man! Another volunteer pointed across the field to the opposite block where there wasn't anything and said, 'My house used be over there.'

When we had driven up to the field, it didn't look like there was really that much debris. Once we got out of the car and walked out to the field, though, we could see that there were many tiny pieces of garbage. I filled my trash bags with sheets of plastic, twisted metal, broken glass, half of a broken CD case, a travel toothbrush case with the toothbrush still intact inside, flower pots, some plastic fork-like things that Chris and I couldn't identify, and grain-of-rice-sized pieces of Styrofoam. And it struck me as so discordant that this mass destruction that was caused in just a short amount of time by the forces of nature has to be cleaned up piece-by-piece-by-piece through the work of people. I mean, I don't know of any better way...but with all our modern technology, it was just surprising that our human hands are still the best means for recovery. A tsunami gets cleaned up by hand. !!

About 150 of us spent a few hours cleaning up in this field that already seemed relatively clean compared to surrounding areas. Yet we only made a small dent. When I think of how many other fields and neighborhoods like this there are AND THEN think of all the fields and neighborhoods that actually look like trash dumps, I cannot imagine how this is ever going to get cleaned up. It seems like it will take YEARS of volunteer efforts. It was a really good experience to go volunteer and to meet people who are living through what I'd seen on TV and heard in the news. But the most overwhelming sentiment I have is that I wish I could have stayed longer, done more, gone back.

Kimono in Kiryu - 桐生の着物

Here are some pictures from yesterday and also from last month when I went with my friend Reiko and a couple of her friends to try on antique kimonos and wear them out and about for the day. Until recently I never wanted to put on kimonos, and I especially didn't want to be seen in public wearing one. Whenever I've seen other foreigners wearing kimonos I've thought they looked strange...because kimonos are obviously Japanese, and they (the women) are obviously not Japanese. I don't know...they just seemed out of place and big and goofy wearing them. It came up in conversation with my friend, Shohei, and I asked him if he thinks foreigners who wear kimonos look weird. He disagreed with me and said that when he sees a foreigner wearing a kimono he thinks, "That woman really loves Japan." hmm... I finally decided to give it a try. Surprisingly I have enjoyed wearing them.

This is my friend Reiko, who is the dietitian at my elementary school.

This is the obi, which is wrapped around your waist and fastened at the back in various designs.

Finally Some Pictures

This past year has passed faster than any other I can recall. Still there are more stories to tell than any other year I can recall. I can't keep up with them all; they come like wave after wave of the tide washing up on the shore. There's no way I could ever recount all of them here, but I really wish I could! My good friend Sarah just moved to Japan (30 minutes from me!), and already she's posted more pictures and blogged more than I have!-- claims my dad. ;) With a few pictures she's already revealed much of her Japanese experience. I'm not a photographer like her, and actually I don't really like taking pictures. But these from the past year show some of my favorite moments, experiences, places, and people here (minus my students, whose pictures-- sadly-- I'm not allowed to post, and teachers who may not want me posting their pics). This is for you, Dad and Sarah!

trying out a shamisen during orientation with other JETs

views from my 3rd story apt

my school! :)

a couple of the many tambo (rice fields) surrounding my school

my landlords' relatives' pear storehouse; mmm...Japanese pears are SO delicious!

udon noodles hanging out to dry...one of the MANY steps in the process of making handmade noodles; I think this is so cool! I was simultaneously alarmed-- at the questionable sanitation-- and awed-- at experiencing this authentic Japanese tradition.

In the end my awe (and hunger!) won out, and I so enjoyed my meal here with my landlord, Mrs. Sekiguchi.

at Kiyomizudera when I went to Kyoto with several friends for a long weekend last fall

Maiko! (Geisha in training); Everyone says they're rare to see...but we saw several!

We happened to discover a monkey park in Kyoto.

The monkeys roam free...if you want to feed them, you have to go into a cage for protection.

my favorite place in Japan! Arashiyama bamboo forest

"Team Takasaki": Dave, Chris, Lesley, James, and me

Fushimi Inari

Kinkakuji

my smart, funny, kind, thoughtful, beautiful friend, Shiyo

homemade (yes! HOMEMADE! can you believe it?!) bread made by Fukuyama Sensei's wife and delivered to me one Saturday morning =) What a pleasant surprise!

Valentine's Day...Uno, the write-a-quote/draw-a-picture game, homemade chocolate in the great Japanese tradition, Lesley wishing random people 'Happy Valentine's Day' and giving them candy

Sakura!

hanami (flower viewing) with Tsukamoto Sensei and his family

This is the day Mischa and I were temporarily paralyzed; this picture was after we'd only been sitting through one tea ceremony in this style...you can see we're still smiling. If only someone would have had a camera handy an hour and a half later...!! you'd have seen us on our hands and knees, literally incapable of standing!

hiking day in Ota with Team Takasaki and Matt and Mischa

I got to go to watch and "help" (sorta) in Chieko Sensei's family's tambo (rice field). Her husband is driving this very useful tractor that has rotating claws that grab and drop the seedlings...making perfect rows across the field.

One of the most authentic and memorable Japanese experiences I've had! My fascination with this process had been growing as I saw the fields surrounding my school changing day by day, so I was thrilled when Chieko Sensei invited me (well, maybe I invited myself...??) to join her and her family for this Saturday morning undertaking!

koi no bori streaming down the mountain and over the river commemorate Boys' Day, May 5th.

Gunma's beautiful mountains surround.

dinner with friends on my birthday; I'm SO thankful for these friends!
Shie, Daisuke, Yoko, Sayoko, and her daughters Yuka and Aika

The staff at my fav restaurant made my birthday SO fun! Tatsu, Shimada, Manami

We had 4th of July fun despite not being in America...watermelon, polish sausage, corn on the cob, frisbee, a flag waving, sparklers, singing America the Beautiful and God Bless the U.S.A. (well, that was only me...I couldn't convince anyone else to sing along)...SUCH a great day! We even let James, our Australian friend, come along, but he was forced to wear red, white, and blue bling, as well as a pin that said, "I heart the U.S." ;)

This park is the best! We jumped and ran around on these trampoline-like domes for hours!

back to Kyoto when my friend Sarah Lichtwardt came to visit...DOWNPOURED for more than an hour! Thankfully Sarah's smart and convinced me that we should buy 300-yen (about 3 bucks) umbrellas...just 4 minutes before the rain turned torrential! whew!

あいかわらず aikawarazu (as usual)

あいかわらず, I have about a million things to write about, but not that much time or energy. So, here are just a few memorable moments that occurred recently...

1. Today a new Social Studies teacher came to my school. He is very handsome. :) But very young.

2. Arai Sensei teared up and took off his glasses when he read the Good-Bye/This-Is-How-Much-I-Like-You/These-Are-Some-of-my-Favorite-Memories-with-You card I gave to him on Tuesday, which was his last day at our school. I was watching him from 3 desks away. Then I teared up too.

3. Suzuki Sensei, who I haven't had that many chances to talk to, surprisingly brought me omiyage (a present) back from his trip to Kyoto last weekend.

4. My supervisor at the kyoiku-inkai (Board of Education) ended the meeting of all Takasaki City jr. high and elementary ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) yesterday by saying-- in his cute past-middle-age Japanese man way-- "And never do the drugs, ne." ("ne" is like ending a sentence with "okay?" or "right?") HAHA! He laughed and so did we. It was the best punchline of any meeting I can remember.

5. On Sunday, my friend Mischa and I went to a tea ceremony exhibition that my kyoto sensei (assistant principal) had invited us to. During two back-to-back tea ceremonies and while waiting in line for one of them-- about a total of an hour-- we had to sit in seiza. Please go to Wikipedia and search for seiza. You will find that it sounds like a kind of torture. (And in fact, I have heard that it was previously used sometimes as punishment in Japanese schools). At the conclusion of the 2nd tea ceremony, 18 people stood up and bowed and thanked the hosts and merrily went on their way; 2 people, namely Mischa and Mya, were on their hands and knees in utter disbelief that it had become physically impossible for them to stand up again. With red faces, and eyes wide with panic, we looked at each other and laughed while repeating, "I can't get up....Oh my gosh, what are we gonna do?" Meanwhile the next 20 guests waited outside the door elegantly in their kimonos and chuckled at us.

What number am I on? 6. Okay, probably the last for today. Recently I have been in several situations where I've had to eat seafood...A LOT of seafood. Raw and cooked. And I have eaten it. Not all, but A LOT. And I didn't throw up, so that was nice.

7. Aaah! There's so much to say! The plum blossoms are out. The cherry blossoms are just beginning, and there is much excitement as we anticipate their full bloom...which could be any day now. The honeysuckle trees I smell here and there as I ride my bike take my breath away. Their scent thrills me! Spring in Japan!

Okay, before I think of an 8, I'm going to post this!

Dear Teachers

I wrote this letter at school one day a couple months ago.

November 26th, 2008

Dear Teachers,
Here's what I want you to know:
(and if you gave me the trademark-of-Japanese-life opportunity to give a speech, and if I was in fact able to leap the language barrier [and, OF COURSE, the cultural politeness barrier, which-- honestly-- would require me to be an Olympian pole vaulter] and say what I really mean, this is what I'd tell you...)

I think it's weird that you don't say "hi" when you see me for the first time in a day-- that you walk right past without acknowledging me. I think it's weird that you seem to enjoy talking to me and you will talk and laugh with me throughout the day one day and then not say anything to me the next. I don't understand why you don't ask me questions...like "How was your weekend?" (or "When is your birthday?") I just can't read you. What do you think of me, I wonder... Do you think I'm loud and so you don't want to talk to me because I might draw attention with my loud voice (by Japanese standards) and laugh (which, I admit, is loud by any standards)? Do I annoy you? Do you really not ask each other these questions either? Because that's how it seems, but that seems unbelievable!

Approximately a month after writing this letter (which, really, was brewing in me for soo long), I realized and found out some things that are helpful. 1. It occurred to me one day how inadequate the Japanese translation for "How are you?" is. "Genki desu ka?" literally means, "Are you well/healthy/energetic?" So it's a yes or no question. It doesn't avail anyone the opportunity to say how they really are. When I ask a Japanese person "O-genki desu ka?" I really mean, 'Are you enjoying today? Is everything okay with your family? Do you have a busy week? Is there something you're excited about? Sad about? What's new?' but I get merely a 'yes' or 'no' and sometimes not even that...about a third of the time I get only a 'thank you for asking'. 2. I told my friend, Shiyo, the same thing I said in the letter. She went to college in the States for a semester, so she knows some about American social culture. And she is an open-minded person, so I figured she could handle it and not be offended. She said, "We don't have such a culture" [to ask "How are you?"]. She continued, "We say 'good morning', but we don't ask each other how we're doing." (This confirmed what I thought to be true...because I never hear anyone asking each other...yet it just seemed unfathomable, so I thought I just must not understand those conversations...like maybe they were asking each other in a different way, using words I don't know.) I further explained to her that it's really strange to me that when I ask "How are you?" in English, people usually just say "fine" and nothing more-- which is what you'd typically say to someone you really don't want to talk to. "When you ask a Japanese person how they are, they don't know what to say", she explained. Basically she said that since they don't ask each other that question, they have no repertoire of responses-- especially in English. These 2 things helped me feel much relieved about this daily issue. Yet, though I now know I'm not being singled out to be ignored, I still feel isolated when the people by whom I'm surrounded daily don't engage me in intentional conversation. It's so different. This is culture shock.

Yesterday I went shopping in Tokyo.

Yesterday I went shopping in Tokyo.
I bought Tide and a big* box of cereal.
HA! ;D I know these are not what people typically think of when they hear the phrase "shopping in Tokyo", but I can't think of anything I could have bought that would have made me happier than these two essentials.
I was there with my friend James...in the international grocery store we laughed about how excited we were to find such basic items as laundry detergent we can identify and cleaning products whose labels we can read. Here they really are rare luxuries found only in select places. We were in the uppity Roppongi district where the grocery store was full of people (ambassadors and such) wearing diamonds like they were going to a gala, and the parking lot was full of BMWs and Audis.

*By "big" I mean a box of cereal that would be considered "normal" size at home, but here is exorbitant compared to the "normal" size Japanese cereal** boxes that last me about 4 days.

**Note of Interest: You know how the cereal boxes at home usually have serving suggestions like, "add strawberries" or "sprinkle on top of yogurt"? Well, in Japan the serving suggestions show pictures of the cereal drizzled with salad dressing and mixed with lettuce and tomatoes.

Let's catch up!

So I'm about 4 months late with sharing these writings, though there has been much to say. Some of these stories I'm sure you won't believe. I wouldn't, if they weren't my own. About a week or so ago, James, one of the other JET English teachers in my city, commented that if he had heard any of our ("our" means Dave, Lesley, Chris, Matt, Mischa, James, and me) stories before coming here, he totally wouldn't have believed them. He'd have thought, "No way! They're exaggerating!" We all agreed. Even now we are stunned at the absurdity and resulting comedy of SO many of the situations that occur in our daily lives! Others of these entries are just my observations of and reflections on life here. Though perhaps not as entertaining, I hope you will still find them interesting. 始めましょうか？ Hajimemashyoka? (Shall we begin?)

July 28, 2008
I'm in Tokyo. Apparently I live in this country all of a sudden.

No matter what happens...it will be an adventure.

This is what I said to myself in the months leading up to my move to Japan. It was mostly just a band-aid of optimism for all the fears and uncertainties that struck me. I really had no idea what "adventure" meant at that point. And I definitely had no idea how many times I'd be repeating that phrase to myself and my new friends in my first weeks here ("HA! That's what you always say!" laughed Dave, after being here about a month). When I first began throwing around this euphemistic mantra, I thought of adventure with only positive connotations...as though it was the dawn that would brighten each day in which my fears or uncertainties became reality. Then I noticed: with adventure comes risk, and with risk, the possibility of danger and disappointment. Adventure, then, is not merely a matter of circumstance, but also of attitude.