“You know, I have a girl friend
who taught English in Japan for a couple of years,” she said. We had been
chatting about my love of (read: obsession with) Japanese anime. “She did this
thing called the JET Programme. She travelled all over South East Asia while
she was there and came back and bought a house with the money she saved.”
The way I remember my reaction is
something along the lines of a scene out of one of the myriad anime I so
adored: my wide eyes turned to glossy stars, my body swayed like a snake whose
charmer was playing Flight of the Bumblebees, and I emitted a fangirlish squeal
that ruptured the eardrums of everyone within a half-mile radius.
In reality, I think I managed to
contain the explosive excitement of being able to work and live and travel in
my dream country down to something like, “Really? I would freaking love to do
that!”
My teacher smiled and wandered off
to help one of my classmates write a few lines of script to make a pixilated
robot turn left.
Not one day passed after that that
I wasn’t ravenously researching anything and everything I could about this
wondrous Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme. I
read and reread the qualifications and requirements on their home page, sketching
out a check list for myself to make sure I was working towards being the sort
of person they wanted. I enrolled in a college-level Japanese course when I was
a junior for dual credit, even though speaking Japanese wasn't necessary. I
stopped by the booth they had at the annual anime convention in Denver to chat
with the volunteers there and pick their brains. I chose my university based on
which in-state school I thought had the best Japanese program, and switched my
major from English to Asian Studies when I found out that it was an option. I
took classes on Japanese culture and history, got involved with the Japan Club,
made friends with exchange students, volunteered at cultural events, went to
free movie nights, and connected with sempai
(upperclassmen) who were in the process of applying for, currently in, or were
an alumni of the JET Programme. I took a summer and went to Japan for two
months to travel and volunteer as a teacher's assistant in Shinjo (read the start of that adventure here), and of course I told the teachers I worked with there
and all my host families that I was going to come back and work as a JET
participant. Not one person who met me, even for a minute, didn't know my
post-undergraduate plans.
Sometimes I'd get a concerned,
"What if you don't get accepted?"
"I'm gonna be accepted."
"Well, yeah, but--what if you
aren't?"
"Then I guess--uh."
It was JET or nothing. I had no
backup plan, no safety net should JET fall through. Senior year arrived and the
JET applications were released. I applied as soon as the link was live. I found
myself holding my breath where before there was no doubt--not a single spec of
it--in my mind as to my acceptance into the program. What if I didn't get in?
What if I filled out my paperwork wrong and my application was rejected? What
if they didn't like me?
Six months passed between the
initial application stage and the e-mail that said, and this is paraphrasing,
"Yes, we like you, now please come work for us."
Life turned into one gigantic fast
forward free-for-all: buying new clothes, churning out pre-departure paperwork,
meeting fellow JET participants, crying, attending socializers, saying good-bye
to my friends, crying, packing my bags, dropping off a box of winter clothes to
mail to myself, crying, getting oriented before we left, leaving for the
airport the next morning, crying, saying good-bye to my mom as we got into the
line to go through security, crying, flying to Japan, getting oriented in Tokyo,
boarding the bullet train to my new home (Shinjo—the same place I’d volunteered
the year previous), crying, reconnecting with host families from my time
volunteering, my luggage self-unpacking to fill the first apartment that was
completely my own, crying.
And breathing, somewhere in there
I'm sure.
Over a year has evaporated since I
first set foot onto Japan's shores as a working woman.
Just a few weeks ago, as I melted into my bed with my AC and oscillating fan
both on full blast, power conservation be damned, there was one thought
scrolling through my sun-boiled brain as if on a marquee:
I WANT TO GO HOME.
I missed my friends, I missed the
Rockies, I missed Mexican food, pizza, good beer (apologies to any Japanese
draft die-hards out there--for me, nothing beats Mile High microbrews). I
missed central heating and cooling, I missed not having to shower three times
daily to fight off the insane humidity. Most of all, I missed my mommy.
Despair gripped me. I was the girl
that everyone knew as the eventual "lifer"--someone who never
left--and here I was, physically ill at the thought of having to stay here for
another year. I had worked so hard to get here and now all I wanted to do was
toss my contract out the window and hop on the next flight homeward bound? That
wasn't right.
The rational part of me knew that
it was a toxic brew made from a broth of sweat lingering in the hot air,
flavored with a pinch of creeping homesickness and a dash of boredom at work
that was poisoning my mind with these thoughts of abandoning my dream. The
irrational part of me didn't care and continued to gulp it down.
It didn't help that for a good
seven years, coming to Japan was not only the dream, it was The Dream, and I
was overjoyed beyond words to realize it--though a little part of me, the part
that thrives simply on having a goal to work towards, felt let down. It pawed
at me through my subconscious. What's next? What am I planning for now? What
steps do I need to take? What can I accomplish?
So I made a list to give that part
of me something to concentrate on. I wrote down as much as I could remember of
the past year, things I'd learned, things I'd done, and tagged each one as
"awesome" or "not so awesome," though some didn't fit into
either category as they were just weird or funny or something that made me go,
"Huh."
Things
I've learned:
Not so awesome: Remarks on how well I use chopsticks or how fluently I
speak Japanese (even if all the person has heard is a simple konnichiwa) have come to be the most
insulting compliment from a Japanese person. Especially when they come from
people I have known for a while.
Awesome: Even a simple konnichiwa
will warm a stranger up to you at once, like some magic phrase that reaches
into peoples' hearts and flips their happy switch. Most people I've met have no
expectations for a foreigner being able to speak or understand Japanese, so to
prove them wrong sends them into the giddy fit that leads to unnecessary
praising of language abilities.
Not so awesome: Driving in Japan is awful. Cars are expensive to own and
to maintain, with a mandatory check-up every two years called shakken that can cost upwards of
¥100,000 (about $1200-1300). Roads are narrow. Drivers, pedestrians, and
bicyclists never seem to look both ways before speeding out onto the road.
Speed limits are excruciatingly slow, with the expressways being 80 k/h (68
m/h). Driving here is my least favorite, most hated necessary evil. Ironically
I drive more here than I ever did in America.
Awesome: Japan has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to drinking and
driving. That means that as soon as that first sip of beer passes your lips,
you are unfit to drive home. So how to people go out drinking at those parties
that are so important to a cohesive group of workers? Simple. Drive yourself to
the pub, eat and drink and laugh the night away, and when you're done, you have
the bartender call you a daiko, which
is like a taxi except that it comes with two drivers, one of whom drives you in
your own vehicle back to your home, with the other following in the taxi
behind. It costs about as much as normal cab fare too, and you can carpool to
further reduce the cost.
Not so awesome: Coming down with the common cold away from home turns me
into a sniveling two-year-old squawking for her mama.
Awesome: Hot Japanese sake is
the best cure for the common cold, or so my coworkers assure me.
Awesome; Everything here is cute. They even turn horror icons into
adorable characters. Guys use the word kawaii
(cute) with just as much frequency as the girls.
Not so awesome; Every foreigner is a celebrity. I still have kids in some
of my schools stop and stare at me as I walk past in the hallways, and once I
pass, whisper to their friends that ho-mah-gosh, that was a foreigner! That
problem lessens once you get to Tokyo and the bigger cities, but even there
I've had people stop me randomly to ask me if they can take my picture.
Ironic: The hemp leaf is a "symbol of nature," so while it is
absolutely illegal to smoke it, you can go ahead and decorate the crap out of
your room, wardrobe, and vehicle with it.
Frustrating: It's completely appropriate to yell out random English to
random foreigners on the street, but try to get your kids talking in class and
all of a sudden they don't even know what the heck English is.
Things I've done:
Not so awesome: Been propositioned by an older man whilst sitting in the
park listening to my music.
Awesome: Stayed out past midnight partying on beaches, in woods, on
mountain tops, sometimes drunk, sometimes completely sober, with some of the
most amazing, interesting, wonderful people in the world.
Awesome: Been dressed up in a kimono for a cultural exchange event.
Terrifying yet satisfying on a highly masochistic level: Hurled myself
headfirst (willingly) down a raging river.
Soul-filling: Volunteered in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture. Ishinomaki was
hit hardest in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster. Being able to go
there and help out first-hand was an experience that will stay with me for the rest
of my life. On the bus ride over, we passed a giant water tower smashed in the
middle of the lanes, crumpled like a can of soda. Someone sitting near me
pointed out the place where they had held the mass cremations for the bodies
they’d found.
These
people lost nearly everything, and yet they were still able to smile, to laugh,
even as we were clearing rubble or demolishing the walls and ceiling of a
seawater-soaked building. They gave us food, snacks, drinks, warm conversation.
They waved us off as we left in the early evening. I am still in awe of their
spirit.
Not so awesome: Gotten bit by some unknown creepy crawly--while I was
asleep in my bed--and had it get infected when a doctor applied cream that was
supposed to help it get better. I missed four days of work because I couldn't
walk from the pain and went to see a doctor every single day. No one could even
tell me what kind of bug it was. Japanese national health insurance is
fantastic, by the way. I spent less than $100 visiting the ER and two different
doctors several times, including the mountains of meds they threw at me trying
to fix it.
Awesome: Picked fresh cherries and blueberries from local farms in an
all-you-can-eat hour deal. When fruits like grapes, apples, cherries,
blueberries, and pears come into season, the farms open their doors to anyone
who will pay about $8 or so (some fruits are more expensive, some less) for an
hour to amble the farm and pick and eat to their content. Store-bought fruit
just doesn’t taste as good anymore (unless it’s from the store’s local produce
section).
Not so awesome: Spent half an hour shoveling my car out of four feet of
snow in the winter. Twice. Daily. Shinjo gets two to three meters of snow in
the winter. Unlike Colorado, it doesn’t snow and then melt. It snows, and then
snows, and then snows some more. Only the main roads are really cleared, and by
“cleared” I mean big tractors come in and push the snow off to the sides to
create walls six to seven feet high. The chains on their tires leave deep divots
in the two or three inch layer of ice that accumulates on the road, which means
driving suddenly becomes an experience akin to what I imagine Shake N’ Bake
chicken must feel like in the bag.
Awesome: Soaked away the soreness in the natural hot springs that are
plentiful in Yamagata. I am now officially a pro at stripping naked and getting
into a hot bath with strange women.
Absolutely epic: Fallen in love while celebrating the New Year
Japanese-style--praying at a shrine on top of a mountain. He had me at “Think
fast!” and a face-full of snow.
And that doesn't even
cover close to a tenth of it.
Thanks to the help of my List, the
unquestioning support from my friends and my family and my man, I'm slowly
reclaiming the initial passion and energy that I came here with. Now that we're
finally easing into autumn (summer clung on with the veracity of a child being
left at daycare for the first time) and I don't spend my days feeling like an
ice cream cone left out of the freezer, my head is a lot clearer.
I'm still settling into the flow of life here, still learning to relax and
enjoy the breadth of spontaneous adventure that my world allows me. For someone
who likes to organize and finagle with future possibilities, it was a little
unsettling at first to come here and have no next step, an itch in the back of
my mind like something I might have forgotten at home. I wasn't worried about
what I would "do in the future" as far as career, family, or all that
white-picket-fence jazz goes. I'd just never experienced having a completely
blank slate to work with before. There were so many options for how I could
fill that slate--how would I pick just one? Fantasies of what might be next
filled my head, making it impossible to appreciate what I already had--and I
what I already have is pretty damn swell.
As fun as daydreaming is, it
blinds me to what's going on around me now. I only need to be honest with
myself and the people I love, and the pieces of the universe will fall into
place around me, and I am intensely grateful for that on a daily basis. And,
boy, how quickly the universe throws you everything you could possibly need the
moment you stop saying "I want."
What it comes down to for me now
is this--I have one life, 80 measly years (probably--just going off the
average) to love and laugh and adventure and leave the world around me a little
bit better than how I found it, if all that means is a kind word in passing to
a stranger. I used to squander countless hours worrying about having friends,
being in love, all the places I wouldn't get to see because the universe is
just too damn big, wondering what my life would be like if only A or B would
just happen already. Who knows how much passed me by, unnoticed, while I
fretted over those mundane non-issues?
The amount of personal evolution
that took place in this past year or so astounds me. Now all I need is to keep
a promise to myself: that I will never stagnate, that I will do my best to grow
a little bit more, to learn a little bit more, and more importantly, to
understand a little bit more so long as I live. I will always have friends,
love will always be by my side, and I may not get to go everywhere but the man and I are certainly going to go to a lot of new places on our round the world trip in two years.
My daydreams are
realized every day my eyes are open, so long as I remember to see.
 |
| Photo by my man |
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