Hello From Japan

Hello From Japan,

I am sure the frequency of these observations will decrease some as the newness of living in Japan wears off (something that's hard to imagine now).

Today I am waiting around the house for a delivery of the rest of our furniture. I have been reading, which makes me sleepy no matter the time of day. I am a little embarrassed to admit it, but I was lying flat on my back dozing under the soft, snuggly prayer shawl that my church family gave me, when I felt the couch under me lurch suddenly, as if someone had bumped into it. Simultaneously I heard the house creak- I think it was from the sliding glass door we have in our living room, anyway it was a sort of sudden pop. If I am correct- that was my first earthquake. It was brief thankfully and I didn't have time to be alarmed, just surprised.

Yesterday I ventured out on my own finally to go to Yoyogi Park, the big green space that you can easily find on google earth. (try it!) I took the subway one stop and got off and found an exit into the koen district. Koen means park. It's a lovely koen that has lots of trees- some familiar, most new to me. The trees here are familiar through the Asian art I've seen. They look lovely and exotic. There are a couple of ponds, one with fountains, one without. The paths through the park wind around through the trees, although some of the paths are as wide as streets, some are bike paths (one way, of course) and even the ones that wind away up and down a little more remotely have asphalt on them. I wandered through a flower garden that had tall sun flowers, roses, lavender, companula and some other things I didn't know. Not too surprising, since my knowledge of horticulture could completely fit into a teaspoon. There are huge glistening blue-black crows in the trees and on the ground. Their calls are lower and slower than North American crows, and they appear to be pretty tame. I saw an elderly man surrounded by them, feeding them. The park is free of litter, but not of homeless people. It was sad to see, but there were quite a few men who have taken up residence there under the trees among the crows. Some of them have tarps, others have boxes as well as tarps. At first I found this really hard to fathom, because this is a culture that avoids the loss of face, or shame at all costs. It is hard to imagine what could have driven these men to this extreme. Robin pointed out that there was a deep economic recession in the 90's that cost some people their jobs. This was something new to the Japanese business world. In Japan, once you were hired by a company, you were employed for life. Losing your job for any reason just didn't happen. Karin Muller tells of a homeless man in her book Japanland who confessed that after he lost his job, he never went home, the shame was so great. He just put on his suit every day, and sat on a bench in the park.

Children sometimes laugh when they see us coming around a corner. I would imagine that depending on their situation, some kids haven't seen many foreigners, or "gaijin." This is the most homogenous society I've ever seen. I don't think we realize, or think about the fabulous diversity that we are surrounded by every day, every moment living in the US. Don't misunderstand, there are many, many Westerners here in Tokyo, but it takes a bit of looking to spot us. It's not as hard as "Where's Waldo" by any means. There are just many, many, more people than I who have straight black hair. The rainbow is the perfect symbol for diversity. It simply reflects the spectrum of hair color found in any town or city in North America. Yep, probably even the blues and greens! Remember Nathan's blue hair a couple of years ago?

We've all enjoyed having the internet again. Matt's happily editing new film material, Nathan is hooking up with new friends, and it is my lifeline to you, as well as a tool for looking up places to go or finding out where an English Book Store might be. I found a good one, not too far from here. The directions to get anywhere however are pretty complicated. Try to imagine telling someone how to find Morris' Men's Clothings Store on the Commons, using no street names, only landmarks and walking distances... That's how it is for us gaigin. It seems complicated, but I'm sure I'll get used to it sooner or later.

The delivery is due anytime now, so I'll sign off until after the weekend, when we go out to find bulk food and some pictures to hang on these bare white walls. Hopefully we'll have time to take in a shrine, take some pictures, and bring back more stories.

Cheers,

A

Earlier Post from August 21

Here are a couple of entries from when we first arrived. I was basically waiting around for deliveries, avoiding the heat, and reading. These went out to a very few people and were written with a middle school audience in mind.

Today (Tuesday the 21st) was a quiet day of unpacking, reading, napping and waiting for the cable technician to arrive. While we were waiting, a truck drove slowly by the house with a public address system on the top speaking very loudly to all who cared to listen…well, I don’t know what he was saying, because it was obviously in Japanese. Matt helpfully pointed out that it could be some public warning of an earthquake, and we’d be blissfully ignorant when it hit.

I’ve been reading a book by Bill Bryson called, A Short History of Nearly Everything. It focuses on science, the history of science and the really great discoveries in the world of science and is an entertaining and educational read. Yesterday I read the part about Tokyo and how it’s due for an earthquake one of these days. There are regular rumblings over here and they tell us that there are usually about 2 a month that most people can feel. As a matter of fact, during one of the first nights here when we were still staying in the hotel, I slept through a smallish earthquake. However, Tokyo is due for a big one and the people here are trying to be prepared. For example, on the school bus that the boys will take, they always carry emergency supplies: water, food, blankets, 2-way radios, first aid supplies and stuff like that. They have a plan in place for an earth quake emergency.

Our remote control has Japanese writing on it. When I asked the cable guy how I would possibly know which button to push, he laughed and showed me the one page in the manual that has English directions.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Today the doorbell rang four times. We’ve been getting special mail deliveries and packages. Thankfully, our new pillows arrived from the department store in Shibuya. I spent the entire morning on the computer, as it was hooked up yesterday and I wanted to read all my mail and answer some people, pay bills on line and check in with my family. While I was reading my email, the bell rang, and a man in a helmet who had been riding a scooter handed me an envelope saying, “expensive mail device.” I am guessing he meant to say, “special mail delivery.”

Earliest Notes from August 22

Hello from Japan!

From Shibuya, to be more exact. Shibuya is one of the cities of Tokyo. Tokyo is so big that it has cities within its city. I’m living here with about 12 million other people and lots of cute dogs. Yesterday as we were out walking we saw many dogs with their owners. The Japanese tend to have the little, cuter toy breeds, and the expatriates (that’s people form other countries) tend to have the labs and other larger breeds. We spotted a tiny black and white dog in a girl’s purse on the subway.

The day we moved into our home, Tokyo was enjoying record high temps. It was 40.9 degrees Celsius on Thursday. (That’s over 100 in Fahrenheit) It was just as hot on Friday, our move-in day. Walking into the outdoor temp after being in air conditioning was a bit shocking, like walking into a wall. Have you ever been in a sauna? It felt like that. Anyway, we met our neighbor/landlord when we arrived, without the benefit of a translator, and there we were, bowing and smiling, and there they were, bowing and smiling, until one of our assistants rushed over to help us out with introductions. After we met, we went into the house that felt hotter than out-doors, and continued with introductions and friendly, polite banter. It’s a little hard to keep the smiling face on when your face starts to drip. The alarm technician arrived very quickly, and was explaining in Japanese how to work the system with help from a translator. He then made the alarm sound, and I guess he hadn’t told the folks at the company that he’s be demonstrating, because a security guard showed up after about 3 minutes. He looked grumpy and our landlord looked embarrassed. Meanwhile, we were all sweating profusely, waiting for the air conditioning to begin to work. After a time, our guides, Yuki and Kayo took us on a walk to the neighborhood grocery store, a chain called Marusho. There we bought some food- but not too much, for we had to carry it all back to the house. Most Japanese who live in the urban areas shop for their food almost every day. Many people live in tiny apartments and don’t have space for a lot of storage, so shopping daily or every other day is necessary. We have a bit of storage, so I expect to shop a bit every day at first, as we build up our pantry, and then not as much later on. Food is more expensive here, and it comes in smaller packages than I’m used to. It will take some getting used to.

We won’t own a car in Tokyo. We live about a 5 minute walk from a subway station on the Chiyoda Line, and can get anywhere in the city by using public transportation. If we decide to take a trip out into the country, we can rent a car. Cars are driven on the left-hand side of the road here, the opposite way from the US. I’ll gladly leave the driving to someone else, thank you!

Currency is in Japanese Yen. The paper bills seem to have large quantities on them- 100 yen is about a dollar, 1,000 yen is about 10 dollars, and 10,000 yen is about 100 dollars. Somehow TEN THOUSAND YEN sounds like more, doesn’t it?
There are very noisy cicadas here, and they have a very different sound pattern from the ones in Trumansburg. They chirp in a pattern of 4 or 5 repeated tones, with the last one long, and falling off in pitch. The crows here are also very noisy, and have a very human- like sound. They sound like they are laughing very slowly and deeply, saying, “WA, WA, WA…” They are bigger and have larger beaks than their US cousins.

If you want to k now what time it is here in Tokyo, just add one hour to the time it is there and think ahead- If it’s 9:00 in the morning there, it’s 10:00 in the evening here. While you are going home after school at 3:00, we are sleeping in our beds.
Sayonara, for now. Sayonara means “goodbye” in Japanese.

More later,