I am new to heart attacks,

as I am to earthquakes, as I am all over again.


Overnight, someone’s mowed the rice field that lingered outside my apartment. I should have seen it coming after, just hours earlier, I let my bicycle go tumbling into a paddy near the school where I work. Passersby laughed, and so did I, taking my sunglasses off to show it. Crouching to tug the black metal heap from the ditch, a spider must’ve gotten me, because I wheeled away with a limp. I bought a sandwich, fixed the bike, and went riding into the heat. The desk was a sad place to be, as was Japan, at times, when it felt far off by itself. But I am getting used to
things, regardless. Not heart attacks. Not earthquakes. Certainly not death. I am getting little sleep, as the sun starts up early ( and I never remember the curtains).



1 Comment for this Entry

Natalie
Oh, that's sad on both accounts. Does it look empty outside your apartment window, and did you get muddy?

Well, Chris and I are both missing you. And jet lag hates us.
Friday, September 1, 2006 - 09:37 AM

The Turtles Swarmed Beneath Me,

and Everything Was Green


for e.t. and d.c.



I saw Santa’s bones in Italy,
a miniature tornado of cold

whipping behind the wide, clamorous
sternum. I saw night like a dead

cicada, meaningless on the floor
when the hotel bed was a tire swing

and we were in Kalamazoo, wearing
our coats between rooms and other,

outdoor places. I did not see the shard
of Buddha’s collarbone in Nara,

but I remembered it was there
as I passed a second time,


^


I remembered I’d wanted to
tell you, but then forgot when the phone

rang dry. Besides, I haven’t learned
to say much (keeping my hands to myself,

my chopsticks out of the air), but you can
bet I’ve whispered plenty, a few small things

in passing. I want to settle, like the trampled
futon on the floor: in the evenings

get gnawed, but mostly wake up buoyant.
I want to hang out over the rail, and

overnight go fluttering to the street.
I want to crouch with you beside the rice,

go looking for frogs to throw at the gods,
and say, I’ve seen that mountain everywhere,

but I can never place his face. Sure,
I saw those turtles in the moat,

but I crossed, I kept walking,
I did not see you there.

Holy shit, I’m a high school student again.

Only this time in Japan. It all started when I mistakenly used the students’ bathroom instead of the teachers’ (a defining moment - now I’m one of them).

Today, the hallways of Nagahama Kita High were a gauntlet of rowdy (genki, as they say) teenagers - all dressed the same (dark hair, white shirts, dark trousers and skirts), all teeming with this weird kind of energy that’s going to take some getting used to. On the way to the wrong bathroom, I met a group of boys who all had hilarious nicknames (how should I know? I don’t speak their language), which they repeated to me over and over until I was forced into a chuckle. Then they asked all kinds of inappropriate questions, beginning with the not-so-bad, Do you have a girlfriend? to the taking-it-a-little-far, Do you have sex with her? (That was when I said, Nice to meetcha, and moved on - quick like.)

After that catastrophe, the day began to look up. While I was sitting at my desk, devising some kind of “plan” for the first two weeks of school, these three boys came in to say their Hello’s. One, Kenji, was amazingly friendly. He was wearing the largest belt buckle I’d ever seen (a Florida state license plate was strapped to his waste), and he wanted to know the names of some Japanese people whom were famous in the United States. That stumped me hard, but I was finally able to come up with a few White Sox baseball players from Japan, which seemed to satisfy him. Then he named a whole slew of American “fighters” who were supposedly huge in Japan but completely unknown in the States. (BTW: Japan is a great ego boost if you’re ever feeling down. Another student today told me I looked just like the soccer player Mike Owen - very handsome, he said.) Kenji’s comrade, Yuta, is essentially my new best friend. He’s 17 and speaks English amazingly well for only having studied abroad for two weeks in Vancouver during his first year of high school. He wants to go to university in California or New York, and I’m going to do my damnedest to help him get there (and perhaps he’ll teach me some Japanese in the process...).

Oh, I also met the president of the English Language club today - a very studious gal named Ai (I think). If I’m sitting in a chair, she and I are the same height exactly. Next week the club members (all whopping six of them) are taking me on a bike tour of Nagahama (been there, done that), which I’m looking forward to. I’ll make sure to document that event fully.

In closing:

My face hurts from smiling so much.

10 minutes till lunch.

Should I or should I not concede to playing field hockey with the rowdy boys after lunch?



2 Comments for this Entry

Ryan
awesome! you are the sexiest american teacher ever! i like the idea of wearing a license plate too, though i wonder how comfortable sitting is. keep writing, it's so much fun to follow! i can't wait to visit...
Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - 07:33 AM

mexi-nugget
I hoped you busted out the hockey stick, you snooty American!
Saturday, September 2, 2006 - 08:44 PM

Youth Hostel II, Kyoto

Since arriving in Shiga, my calendar has been cluttered with meetings, orientations, and ceremonies, which all (very inconveniently) take place in the capital city, Otsu. On the upside, though, Otsu is a somersault’s distance from Kyoto, which is a pretty rad city to hang out in. So the other night, after a--shhhh--tedious day of job orientation, some friends (Gillian, Paul, Erin) and I headed over to ye olde city of Kyoto in search of an alleged Chinese beer garden and a foreign-language bookstore.

I had reserved a room for myself at the Kyoto Tour Club Youth Hostel a few days prior so that I wouldn’t be forced to grab the (ridiculously early) last train home to Nagahama (10:30pm!). The nicer hostels fill up super fast in Central Kyoto, which Natalie, Chris, and I discovered a couple weeks ago. That night, we ended up renting a teensy tatami room in Eastern Kyoto, which the three of us shared like, I don’t know, guinea pigs in a Happy Meal box. (Luckily, Natalie and Chris let me sleep between them, so it was all-in-all a very cozy experience). The room was only 1700 yen apiece, except we had to pay 100 yen for a 10-minute shower, plus 300 yen for a towel (but we just dried ourselves with the sheets they gave us to sleep on). Anyway, this time around, I had reserved a bunk at the ‘best hostel in Kyoto’ (according to Lonely Planet). I was excited.

Earlier in the evening, the other JETs and I wandered around, ducking into the foreign-language bookstore, which ended up having an impressive selection. The American magazines, however, cost a way lot of yen - 1500 for a copy of National Geographic (that’s like 13 bucks). At the suggestion of my friend Gillian, I ended up buying a copy of the collected works of Emily Dickinson (on whom Gillian had written her college thesis). Billy Collins writes the intro, which is always bittersweet.

Eventually we found the Chinese beer garden, which was really pleasant. We ordered enormous bottles (oobin!) of Asahi and sat on the patio above the river. And afterward we bought beer and sake from the convenience store (conbini) and went all the way down to the river, where we sat until, one by one, we parted for our trains home.

Around 9:30 I left to look for my hostel, as the latest check-in time was 10.

I didn’t get there until 1am.

In my defense, navigating Kyoto (and every other Japanese city) is reaalllyyyy harrrrrd. This is a glimpse of what a typical side street looks like in Kyoto - impossibly narrow, unmarked, and poorly lighted at night. When I got off the subway at the station closest to the hostel, I attempted following the two-bit map from their web site (which I scribbled lazily into my back-pocket notebook). It wasn’t working. Soon it was after 10, completely dark, and I had no idea where I was (and I had to pee real, real bad).

Just as I was giving up to go spend the night in the train station, I was approached by two passersby. One asked (in English), Scuzeme, do you know where the Tour Club Youth Hostel is? And I almost started crying I was so happy to be accompanied in my wayfaring misery. The two travelers were from South Korea. They had actually arrived in Kyoto the night before, but were unable to find the youth hostel that night either (so they slept in a manga comics shop that stayed open all night). At that point (11pm) my hopes for finding the hostel were completely shattered, but, for the hell of it, I joined them in their search for cheap accommodation.

After inquiring into the whereabouts of the mythic youth hostel for over an hour and to more than 15 locals (one of the Koreans I was with spoke perfect Japanese in addition to his perfect English), we finally happened upon two women (Kyoto university students, I think) who had heard of the place. These women were clearly headed home (it was almost midnight and one of them was carrying a bag of groceries), but, still, they insisted on helping us. After the five of us hemmed and hawed over the vague details of my handwritten map, the kind women proceeded to walk us to the hostel. They insisted on it. At first I thought it must not be far; why would they bother otherwise? But after walking for 45 minutes I was in disbelief over their generosity. Soon after, we were at the front door to the hostel - the women had walked us the entire way! I felt horribly helpless not being able to convey how appreciative and stunned I was by them. All I could do was ask my Korean friend the word for kind in Japanese. I said it over and over, bowing. They seemed to understand.

By the time we got to the hostel, however, it was almost 1am. Latest check-in was 10pm, and the hostel implements a curfew of 11pm. Luckily, I had a reservation, and in true Japanese altruism, the hostel employees had left me a note telling me where my dorm room and bunk was. I wasn’t turned away. My new friends, on the other hand, did not have a reservation, so they couldn’t stay. I felt awful watching them sulk away, and part of me wanted to continue wandering with them until morning, when I had to be back on the train to Otsu for day 2 of job orientation.

City Center,

Nagahama



You may hopefully survive, [1] as the swift-moving
pedestrian, [2] as the Shiba-Inu standing
in that irrigation ditch, on leash, or maybe [3]
just by thinking of her now and then (the small
man on the bank, splintering rope from fist
to collar), maybe. But here, at City Center,
nothing was so much so unalive as the wooden woodpecker
nailed to a tree, as its neighbor, the limping crow’s,
lonesome affection-- We have met before, but who
are you? we all cawed in unison, though no one was
or is ever around to hear. I peeled the rough bark
from my thigh. I laid the pieces in sharp X’s
on the battered gravel (three owls landed, sleep-eyed).

You may come and stay, [1] as the buried constellation
behind the lake, [2] as a set of teeth worth keeping. And if you
come, come to stay: Wrap anything in a T-shirt
and you may use it as a pillow. We have met before. But here
at City Center there is no way of knowing
anything anymore-- at least no more than we already know
how awful things happen innocently enough,
that the dog in the ditch is no longer moving,
or that distance in nanograms equals a color I’ve never seen.

The train ride to Nara

this past Monday gave Natalie, Chris, and I some much-needed time to collect our thoughts and jot some notes down on paper. Since arriving in Japan, the long train rides to Kyoto and vicinity have been the most conducive times for my writing (writing in my new apartment still feels very awkward and, er, impossible). The photo to the left is of Kyoto station, which is about an hour ride from Nagahama. From Kyoto, we were able to catch a train to Nara, which is only about 35 minutes farther. Riding the trains in Japan is a total treat because the scenery never gets old. Every now and then the train circulates through mountain tunnels and then pops out again, without warning, displaying views of rice fields down below or Lake Biwa in the distance. (Plus, Japan’s regional trains are super comfortable: I had one of the best naps of my life riding from Osaka back to Shiga the other day.)

When we got to Nara the sun was at its worst, so this time I opted for keeping my bag in a locker at the train station (best decision ever), so, by the end of the day, I wasn’t as drenched in sweat as I had been two days earlier wandering around Kyoto with a 40-pound backpack looking like geek-o-tourist guy.

Thus far, Nara’s been the most interesting Japanese city I’ve been able to visit. As the first official capital of Japan, Nara is rife with historical landmarks, temples, shrines, massive parks and gardens (the whole city’s basically a humungo park), oh, and 1200 deer wander the city as divine messengers of the gods. (WTF, right?) Mostly, though, I think they wander the city in search of shika-sembei (i.e. deer biscuits). The deer in Nara are very different from the deer in the Midwestern states. In Nara, they’re short and stout (probably from a diet consisting mainly of biscuits, which tourists can purchase everywhere and anywhere for 150 yen), and they’re ridiculously used to human presence. In fact, they won’t leave you alone, and if you happen to be about their size, they’ll chase you down the road in order to bully some shika-sembei out of your pockets. Below is a video I took of one of the deer whining like a little brat for a cookie. I could easily write forever about the small, plump deer of Nara, but it’s definitely a site that needs to be experienced first hand. Natalie, Chris, and I spent the entire day surrounded by these fellas, and we all agreed that it was difficult to focus as much attention on the other wonders of Nara.

Other than shika, there are some temples, shrines, etc. of note in Nara. Todai-ji Temple, for instance, is pretty remarkable. It’s the largest wooden structure in the world and is home to the Great Buddha Vairocana (largest bronze image of the Buddha - seriously, it’s BIG). This picture does not do it justice (as is the case with most photographs I suppose). It was an overwhelming experience. The statue was constructed in 752 A.D. (long time ago), although its head has been dislodged many times by some of Japan’s famous recurring natural disasters. Therefore, Buddha’s current head had been constructed in 1692. Oh, and rumor has it that when spring cleaning comes round, one might find four or five monks, equipped with feather dusters, standing in the Buddha’s upturned right palm - all at once (it’s that big - or else monks are that teeny). Todai-ji Temple itself was also built in 752 for the purpose of housing Nara’s Great Buddha image (but it was also to boost Nara’s rep as THE PLACE for Buddhist activity).

I’m tired of rambling on about the details of Nara (as you are of reading them, I’m sure). Here are some photos instead:





[ five-story pagoda (part of Kofuki-ji temple). Supposedly a shard of one of Buddha’s bones lies within. ]



[ Natalie: regretfully out of biscuits ]



[ extremely talented caricaturist ]



[ massive, ominous wooden statue at the gates of Todai-ji ]




[ two views from the top of Nara ]



[ incense ritual at entrance to Todai-ji Temple ]



[ me, spoiling the shika relentlessly ]

Nashi (pears) grown by my students at the farming school

Once a week I’ll be straying from my usual high school to visit English classrooms at Noukou (agricultural high school). I’ve been forewarned, repeatedly, by my co-workers at Nagahama Kita-ko (my main, way more academic high school) that agricultural students are “naughty, violent” students who tell foreign English instructors to fuck off and to go back to their home countries. Mmm. Encouraging, no?

Anyway, I visited Noukou for the first time today. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera because the school itself is pretty magical. Surrounded by mountains and forever-stretching rice fields, Noukou is strung together by a series of buildings, greenhouses, and gardens that each lend to a specific aspect of agricultural education. Most of the students at Noukou don’t give a fuck about learning English (their viewpoint is, basically, I’m going to be a farmer so why should I have to learn the English word for ‘hana’ (flower)?). And I can understand where they’re coming from. Luckily they’re incredibly friendly and laid back (probably because they’re not subjected to the heavily weighted college entrance exams that the students at my other school are all freaking out about). Actually, I’m still a little wary of the Japanese education system; I don’t quite understand what decides whether a student will go to an agricultural school over an academic school (and vice-versa). Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear as though the students have any choice - but rather it seems to be a situation of geographical determinance (a factor upon which much of Japanese society is likely based).

Today, at Noukou, I saw as many cows as I saw students (and with my lack of Japanese I was probably able to communicate with the cows on the same level as the students, who basically refuse to speak any English other than, I don’t speak English!). It was nice to be around animals again - cows in Japan are very friendly, as were the goats. As I was leaving Noukou, some of the students were selling fruits they had cultivated on school grounds (see nashi pictured above), so I bought a bag of pears for 500 yen - they didn’t even cut me a deal! (But at least they didn’t tell me to fuck off or go home.)

When I first arrived,

Nagahama was the loneliest place I’d ever experienced. The apartment building I had been set up in was a drab cement block, sitting heavily in a narrow alleyway bordered by deep irrigation ditches and other, almost identical, apartment complexes. (My residence was identifiable only by the words - written in Japanese kana - High Life Morii, plastered to the wall facing the street.) When I entered my room (#203), I was jet-lagged and coming down with a bad cold from the fourteen-hour flight. I was feeling pathetically sorry for myself, expecting to find a cramped tatami room full of slugs as my new home.

Turned out, however, that my new home was perfect: four rooms, two balconies, and it was even equipped with a Western-style toilet (none of this tiled-pit-in-the-floor nonsense I’d seen elsewhere). Still, those first few nights in my new city were difficult - no phone, no Internet, and no linguistic ability to communicate with anyone, anywhere (at that point I hadn’t yet met my English-speaking neighbors - in fact, I’ve found that almost all of my neighbors are English-language instructors).

It wasn’t until after I had finally stopped leaking snot and sleeping through the afternoons that I mounted my granny three-speed (it came with the apartment) and took to exploring Nagahama. My apartment is located off a road called Ekimae-dori, which translates as “road in front of station” (every city’s got one), so getting to the train station is easy. Ekimae-dori also leads toward Lake Biwa, Japan’s largest lake, which is just a couple miles from where I live. This area of Nagahama is beautiful and full of all kinds of cultural relics that I can’t begin to understand (any literature explaining them is in Japanese); it’s breathtaking, nonetheless. Just north of the station lays a shopping district known as Kurokabe Square, which gets swarmed by Japanese tourists every weekend. In the square you can find all kinds of antiques and artisan goodies (apparently Nagahama’s famous for their glass-blown sculptures), and there’s a bunch of junky stuff to point and laugh at as well. For instance, these Tanuki figures (pictured below) are EVERYWHERE. It’s difficult to tell by this photo, but from behind it looks as if the Tanuki are sitting on little wooden stumps. Upon closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that they’re sportin’ giant scrotums between their legs. Many Japanese families adorn the entryways of their homes with these fellas, and I’ve been told the Tanuki represent prosperity and, uh, fertility.

Straight west of Kurokabe Square is Lake Biwa, which stretches out from a massive park littered with shrines, winding gravel paths, Japanese people reading literature, and teenagers setting off fireworks. Oh, and there’s an enormous castle somewhere in there as well.

More soon!