Of Rice and Men

Japanese Word of the Day:
English: *blank stare*
Japanese: I don’t know what you said

As I was looking over my notes I noticed a few things I forgot to mention from my Atlanta orientation. First off, this year there were 4,100 applicants to the JET program in America and of that number only 915 were accepted. The Atlanta consulate (which I applied through) had an acceptance rate of 19% making it a more competitive year than normal.  I feel so special   ~

The second thing was I learned that the TSA considers peanut butter to be a liquid and thus can only be in limited amounts in your carry on. Before you ask, no, this was not a discovery I personally made. Peanut butter is a beloved commodity among expats in Japan because it is often very small, expensive, and limited brands in Japan. I personally had a jar in my checked bags as omiyage* so I wasn’t surprised it had come up as an issue in the past. The more you know!

*”souvenir” is a rough translation. I’m sure I’ll talk about this tradition more in depth later

On Wednesday morning I got up bright and early with my roommates to eat and pack before we all parted to go to our respective prefectures. I was one of the fortunate groups that got to leave at 9A.M. instead of 6A.M. Since Kyoto is a short shinkansen (bullet train) ride away from Tokyo. Our group gathered and walked from the hotel to nearby Shinjuku station to hop a train to the Tokyo main station. Bear in mind that we all had at least one big bag with a few days of clothes (and in my case several electronics) with us during this entire trip. Fortunately, we were able to ship our other big suitcases the night prior and mine actually made it to my home before I did. But with all of us with our bags we were quite a group.

At the main Tokyo station we had an hour before our shinkansen to disperse and get a bento (packed lunch box) for the ride. Bento^ are awesome. I’m not going to go into their history but they’re a common part of Japanese life and there are contests to make bento art; presentation is *very* important in Japan. After being completely overwhelmed by the selections available and my inability to read their contents I settled on a safe tonkatsu bento. Best of all it didn’t have any cabbage, which is traditionally served with katsu and is completely disgusting. More on my dislike of cabbage later.

^Microsoft Word is flagging this as improper grammar which reminds me to make a point; Japanese doesn’t have plural/singular. So if you see me saying “I like my futon/Futon are awesome” I’m not being a bad English teacher, promise.

Awww yisss, tonktasu!

The shinkansen took us out of Tokyo and through the Japanese countryside – yes, Japan has a countryside. It was really fun to watch the changing scenery except that it went so fast it gave me a headache. Wikipedia tells me shinkansen run about 200mph which is kind of crazy. I did snap some pictures though!

A neighborhood outside Tokyo

Japan actually has a lot of farmland

After about 2 hours we pulled up to the Kyoto station. Shinkansen are high speed, extremely punctual trains. That means when you are nearing your station you need to get up and move to the door to get off as soon as possible. I recall reading somewhere that Shinkansen usually only deviate from their schedule 6 seconds. So we hustled, bags and all.

So a bunch of foreigners all dressed in suits in upper 90 degree weather with suitcases get off the shinkansen. I don’t think anyone even batted an eye at us, either. We exited the main station to a group of people holding signs or just checking name tags to try and locate their new lackey ALT (assistant language teacher). Near the front of the group I pretty quickly spotted my predecessor Becca and the gentlemen with her I would later know as Inaho-sensei. Their immediate greeting was “aren’t you hot?” which was wonderful because in polite-Japanese-speak that means “it’s ok to take off your jacket”. Seriously guys, it’s so hot here. I follow Becca and Inaho-sensei to a car where my supervisor waited named Namba-san. We all climbed in and began the hourish drive to Ujitawara.

I pretty quickly realized I couldn’t understand 95% of what Namba-san and Inaho-sensei said in Japanese so I mostly talked to Becca. I need to interrupt the story here to mention that Becca is possibly the nicest human alive (and I don’t expect her to read my blog so I’m not just saying that for brownie points). Becca was nice enough to translate a bit for me when Namba-san spoke to me and at this point I started realizing how badly I needed to work on my Japanese.

The trip to Ujitawara was beautiful. We took a route following a river set between mountain paths that reminded me a lot of Asheville. The area around Ujitawara was covered in fields of tea leaves because Ujitawara is the birthplace of green tea as we know it today, not kidding. It’s also a really big deal. Guess who doesn’t much care for green tea and is in serious trouble? : D

Tea plants in town, they're everywhere around here.

Sweetened Earl Grey; possibly an act of treason.

So we drive up through the town I’ve been scoping out on Google maps for the last month and head straight to the Board of Education (henceforth BoE) which is technically my employer and main office. The office is inside a large building which is sort of a town cultural center; there’s the BoE, a library, club performance and rehearsal rooms, that type of thing. I’m led through the main BoE office with everyone’s desks to a separate back office where I was introduced to… someone important. Not even gonna lie, I know like 3 people in town’s names at the time of writing this. Names are hard, especially when spoken in another language your ear isn’t used to hearing. After meeting important-san I got to partake in the first of many formal introductions to the office staff. In Japan, introductions are a big deal and there’s kind of a set formula for it. I’m going to write out my basic introduction below in both Japanese and English (I had to give it in Japanese).

はじめまして。“Nice to meet you.” 

私の名前はマデリンパリッシュです。“My name is Maderin Parisshu.” I actually said this a bit awkwardly in Japanese so if you read Japanese yes I know it sounds dorky. 

えと、、、とんかつすきです。“Umm.. I like tonktasu.” I was kind of poked to say something I liked at this point and in the car I had mentioned liking katsu so it was suggested I say that here. Afterwards someone else mentioned my dislike of cabbage and there was much laughing since tonaktsu is served with cabbage. This is going to be a recurring joke.

どうぞよろしくおねがいします。“Please be kind to me.” (Said with a bow) This is a Japanese sentiment, so the translation is a bit rough. It’s basically a humble way to end an introduction and show respect.

Afterwards everyone greeted me with their own “どうぞよろしくおねがいします”. Not to dwell too much on translating culture but this greeting in particular says a lot about Japanese mentality. When first meeting someone you ask them for kindness and they in turn ask it of you. I’ve defaulted to just saying this a lot when I meet people.

…I’m just realizing how long this already is and how much more there is to say so I’m going to try to speed up a bit, gomen.

Both of my luggage pieces had been mailed to the BoE office and were there waiting for me (including the one I mailed the night prior, now that’s service!). Becca assisted me in taking the bags literally next door to my apartment with Inaho-sensei in tow. The two of them showed me around the apartment and Becca explained how various things worked and what buttons to press for what. So I bet you want to see my apartment and hear all about the quirks of a Japanese apartment compared to a Western one. Well you’re going to have to wait, I’m planning a separate entry about that because there’s a lot to say and show. In consolation, here’s some panorama from my back ‘porch’ at various times of day (all on the same day)!

Morning, around 7:30 A.M.

Lunch time, around 12:30 P.M.

Sometime in the afternoon ~5:00 P.M.

After the grand tour, I was told we were going to meet the landlord. His house is probably less than 5 minute walk away, though we drove. The landlord was very nice from what little of the conversation I could make out. Occasionally he would ask me a question and Becca would translate for me so I could answer. At one point he asked how long I planned to stay and I said I wasn’t sure and possibly something about takings things a year at a time. There was a little bit of scowling and Becca later told me in private that the BoE likes people to stay two years minimum and that that was technically the ‘correct’ answer. I later double checked my contract and it’s only for one year, in case you were wondering. It was just a bit awkward but now  I know the ‘right’ thing to say.

We went back to the apartment to meet a man getting the gas line hooked back up. After that finished, Becca’s fiancée Andrew joined us and we got a ride to the grocery store so I could pick up some basic foods. If you ever come to live or visit a foreign country you need to prepare yourself before going into a grocery store or you will become overwhelmed. Luckily, I’ve been in a Japanese grocery store before so I took the massive leeks and entire wall of various kinds of fish in stride and focused on essentials. I’ll also do a separate blog about food some time later (and share some recipes!).

I feel it would be wrong to not mention that in the maybe 10 minutes we were in the grocery store “Let it Go” from Frozen came on (in Japanese, of course). That song is obscenely popular here and I am actually studying the lyrics so I can sing it for the smaller kiddies.

This is my favorite snack in all of Japan; Cream Melon Soda and Chocolate Chip Melon Pan
(the latter is not melon flavored)

So with groceries in hand I was dropped back off at my apartment and Inaho-sensei went back to… work probably. I actually have no idea. Becca and Andrew helped me put my groceries away and showed me some of the stuff in the kitchen before suggesting we might get dinner together somewhere nearby which was a huge relief because I was way too overwhelmed to be cooking. We agreed on an hour or so later and I began trying to put away things. Spoiler, 5 days later I’m still putting things away, which is why you aren’t getting any apartment pictures.

For dinner, Becca and Andrew showed me a place I can literally see from my back porch (it’s one of the buildings below the dirt colored patch on the mountain). It is apparently owned by Taiwanese expats and served some amazing authentic Chinese food. It was also a ridiculous amount of food (and quite cheap) so I will probably be a regular patron there. During dinner I chatted with Becca and Andrew and realized they are both completely and utterly awesome and share a bunch of interests with me. They just left today (8/3) and I already miss them.

On our way back a man in a car spotted us and pulled over to speak to Becca. Said man turned out to be a professor at Kyoto University, a fluent English speaker, and very nice person. He introduced himself to me (Tom) as well as his daughter who will be one of my students at nursery school. Everyone who I’ve been able to communicate with in Japan has been super nice and Tom was no exception; he offered me his business card with contact information in English and told me to let him know if I needed help.

We said goodnight to Tom, continued home, and parted with Becca and Andrew for the night. So now I’m alone in a Japanese apartment with all my stuff in piles, surrounded by things I can’t read or understand. Panic time? Probably, except that the seriously-amazing-I-cannot-praise-this-woman-enough Becca had daisy chained her router to Allen’s so wireless could reach my apartment and I could have internet. I suppose Allen deserves some praise too for allowing me to use his connection in the first place but I haven’t met him yet so it feels weird talking about him.

So, with internet, a delicious dinner, and leftovers ended by first day in Ujitawara. What happened to our brave heroine next? What challenges did she overcome? You’ll have to wait for the next exciting entry to find out!

Seriously, I’m actually kind of disappointed with this one, sorry! It’s a lot of “And then I went here. And then I went there. And then this happened.” That’s not the style I like to write but for this it was kind of hard to avoid since all I actually did was go from point a to point b. I also wrote this over the course of various days which I usually don’t do so it’s pretty disjointed. Gomen! I’ll try to do better next time (and have more pictures)!

Bonus! The Tawara river that runs through Ujitawara (and is visible from my back porch)

Part 3 of move in soon! (Because lets face it, everything is a trilogy nowdays)

Real Japanese Word of the Day
English: Wakarimasu/Wakarimasen
Japanese: I understand/I don’t understand