November 2009 Archives

So, in the grand spirit of blogging and general advice giving, this entry is especially pertinent to the men folk out there in the audience.  You see, there's a part of the body on a guy that is very sensitive and off limits to any sort of violence, no matter how warranted.  It's the heart, right?  No.  Let's call them figs, as they're low hanging fruit.  Now, say I killed your father.  You can do pretty much anything you want to get justice but leave the figs out of it, okay?  I never gave you back your Best of Celine Dion CD.  What are your options for reprisal?  Don't care, leave the figs out of it.

So, when my host mother, Suzie offered to take me to a Japanese fitness center, I thought, why not?  I will suffer international humiliation all for the chance to write to you faithful readers.  Plus, how much adventure can one experience at a gym of all places?

We arrived at the Konami Fitness Center and used a few discount coupons to enter.  Something you should know about Suzie: she invests in a lot of things all of which are completely useful in her life.  She invests in the Konami, beef bowls, the Keihan bus/train company, etc.  Meaning, she is constantly getting coupons for free food, train/bus passes, and free passes to the gym.  This also translates to her bringing me along to the gym, giving me a bus pass, or buying random food, making me feel guilty, and then explaining that none of it cost her anything.  The only caveat being that all of her stocks are going down the tubes, and yet, they continue sending her coupons.  I'm not saying this is a clear situation of cause and effect, but the sheer number of coupons these companies send out for free goods must not be helping much.

Suddenly, my parasitic instincts took hold of me once more and like a hungry tapeworm, I heartily accepted Suzie's kindness at face value and headed to the locker room.  At once, I found myself in the unfamiliar world of fig trees, stretching out as far as the eye could see.  They were of all shapes and sizes, and some bore fruit that lay closer to the ground than others.  Urban translation: dudes be all walking up in the hizzouse struttin surefire nakedness like it was going out of style.

I quickly changed and headed out to meet Suzie.  We worked out for around seventy-five minutes before Suzie told me she was hitting the showers/ofuro (bath).  This would take around an hour, she explained.  I was free to do whatever I wanted as long as I met her on time.  I worked out for another twenty minutes before I headed back to the locker rooms.

It was here that I made a crucial decision.  If I was to truly live in Japan, I should embrace their cultural practices, no?  So, tossing my clothes haphazardly into the locker, I strut awkwardly towards the showers and got my shower on.  In Japan, shampoo and body soap are provided for free and for a few minutes after, I smelled of lime and oranges, with just a hint of not belonging.

All my life, I've felt isolated from what some consider the realm of "manliness".  As a supposed, "man", I'm supposed to enjoy certain activities, drink beer, make uncouth comments about the opposite sex, wield a drum stick like a prehistoric caveman, *insert uninformed cliche here*, etc.  Unfortunately, my main interests include playing a video game called "Dance Dance Revolution" and zoning out, really eliminating me from the cultural brotherhood known as men.

So, now thrust into a situation of all out nakedness with a side of "we don't care because we're dudes and that's how we do things, am I right?" I decided to hope into the open air bath and just relax in the warm water.  That went okay.  New guys would hop in and I was allowed to give them the slight look of "hey buddy, it's okay.  You're safe here.  But don't touch me or talk to me".

By now, I only had fifteen minutes until I was to meet Suzie.  It was then that the first event that would bring me into mortal jeopardy happened.  I opened my eyes to realize that I was the only one in the bath.  The last man had just stepped out and I was greeted by the sight of two oversized, boneless--I'll just stop there--  The man walked not towards the locker room, but into a door that led into a secretive looking room.  Possessing the mentality of a twelve year old, I was compelled to solve the mystery and follow him.  So, I emerged from the water like a proud whale with my blowhole proudly--okay, I'll stop here as well.

As soon as I entered the room, my fate was truly sealed.  Four or five guys looked up at me through steam filled air.  I was in a sauna, surprise.  The guy I was tailing sat down on one of the benches and I took a spot away from the rest.  As my tuckus began to lower onto the wooden bench, reality was warped into a slow motion montage of images: the other naked men were sitting on something mysterious and white...towels.  A drop of perspiration rolls off a man and hits the wooden bench, sending wisps of steam into the air.  The crackle the drop makes is akin to bacon frying.  All of these images register, but it is too late.  Out of awkwardness and gravity, I am going to sit down, without a towel on the wooden bench.  My body is drenched from the bath and the room is silent. 

All of these thoughts evaporate as I sit down and instantly, hear the sickening sound of applause burst forth from my quickly drying body.  The other men look over at me, while I look straight ahead and act as nonchalant as possible.  This is hard to do for two reasons:  one, the room is currently filled with the noise of my own body being cooked, and two, my "figs" are currently being burned.  After a few moments, the men go about their own business, leaving me to improvise a solution to my problem: sitting on my hands.

That's right, as a man who just alerted the rest of the naked fellows to the fact he did not bring a towel and has just seared his birthright, I can't simply walk out of the room in defeat.  No, I must stay for a few minutes and then leave, seemingly of my own accord.  The next five minutes pass in agony.  I don't know if you know, dear readers, but besides the intense heat of the room and seat, I'm also not the most dainty fellow, and sitting on my hands is also crushing them, guaranteeing I won't be playing any more piano concertos for the various charity benefits I put on for orphans...and wealthy, beautiful widows.

When I'm done proving how manly I am, I quickly retreat back to the locker room and change into my street clothes again.  I meet up with Suzie and she quickly asks me if I engaged in public bathing, which I did.  "You must not have a lot of shame," she said with a smile.

She had no idea.

"It's normal in Japan but in America, you never do that, right?" she asked.
"Not so much."

As we walked to her car, Suzie looked at me and even though she was my mother in a much different capacity, her mother genes took over and she asked me a dubious question.  "You must want to go to an Onsen!"  An Onsen is a hot springs where people engage in public bathing.  The baths are separated by sexes, so no worries.
 
"Yeah, I'd like to go someday," I replied.
"We should go together."

Oh dear lord.   

Time, as observed by human beings, occurs in a sequential sequence.  We are born, grow, and die; past, present, and future.  However, time, if observed from outside our perspective, occurs simultaneously, meaning that all events are happening at once.  If this is true, then it explains why my blogs jump around in time with seemingly no rhyme or reason.

This boils down to: blame it on the 4th dimension. 

So, let's jump into another point in time, shall we?

It was my first morning in the Ishiyama household, and I blearily stumbled downstairs for my first breakfast.  My host father or as I would call him, Otoo-san, had already left for work, so it was just me, Marumi-chan (the cute, spoiled, brown poodle), and Suzie my host mother.  Suzie preferred to be called just Suzie, rather than Suzie-san or Okaa-san (mother in...spoiler alert: Japanese).

Suzie asked me what I wanted for breakfast and what I usually ate in America.  I told her toast, eggs, bacon, toast with peanut butter, cereal, etc.  She then furrowed her brow and told me that it sounded like I ate like a true Japanese person.  Within the first few seconds of opening my mouth, I had encountered my first instance of language dissonance. 

Disclosure:  I don't know what karmic lottery I had won, but Suzie was an English language teacher that taught out of a classroom in the upstairs of her home.  This meant that my two months of Japanese wouldn't leave me totally screwed in the realm of communication.

What I didn't realize was, knowing English and understanding all of its layered nuances, were completely separate things.  I could talk with Suzie, but I'd have to do so making sure I was very specific about if I was joking about things or being literal.  In this case, I stopped and told Suzie that this was just a list of examples of things I'd normally eat, not eat all at once.  We ultimately settled on a peanut butter aka peanut cream toast. 

That's right, one of the core items of delightfulness also exists in Japan.  However, peanut butter is not the magnificent product it is in America.  Oh no, in Japan, it is sweeter, less thick, and reminds one of a cross between honey and peanut butter.  The consistency is noticeably different, and it doesn't spread nearly as well.  It doesn't really stick to the roof of your mouth like in America.  So, to sum this all up, this is the Bizzaro World version of peanut butter.

As she slid the toast in front of me, Suzie asked me what I wanted to drink.  I requested milk, which leads to...

Milk tastes a whole lot more...milky here.  By that, I mean, when you open the carton, it smells like you just unleashed some kind of super, Soviet built, dairy weapon upon humanity.  At first I thought the milk had gone bad, but it was just a stage or two away from yogurt/cheese.  It still tasted good, but-perhaps it just tasted fresher than what I'm used to? 

Anyways, Suzie slid the glass over to me and watched me as I ate (not creepily, I might add, just interested in if I liked it or not).  She took a seat across from me and I asked her if she had already eaten or if she wanted to have some toast and milk with me.  She looked at me quite seriously and leaned forward, her voice lowering slightly.

"I cannot have that," she ominously said.  Instinctively, I leaned forward, peanut butter toast in one hand.
"Why can't you have it?  Is there no toast left?"
"No...I cannot drink milk."
"Oh...are you lactose--"
"--It gives me great diarrhea."
"...."
"...."

We stared at each other like it was a Mexican standoff from a Western.  Finally, I used my Japanese trump card, "zanen desune" meaning, that's too bad, isn't it?  And from there, we switched to the topic of renting a bicycle to get to the train station each day.  But that's another story for another day.

There's a saying in Japan that I just made up. 

"A wise man eats his toast quietly.  A fool is one who asks his host mother the effects of dairy products on their body and then eats his toast.  But the wisest of all is the one who eats his toast and then asks a question, for their mouth will not be full, and their appetite unruined by diarrhea anecdotes."

We've covered a lot of events, in excruciating detail so far.  Over the course of transcribing these events, I've felt like they've become more like reporting details, rather than bringing them to life.  I pondered how I could re-energize my writing and after some soul searching and Toto's "Africa", I came upon a solution: to skip over a few details for now and tell you about some of the many misadventures I've had in Japan.  I think the big picture stuff is important, but what about the various idiotic things I've done here?  Aren't they deserving of some screen time? 

Without further adieu, I bring you the recipe for sneeze rice.

1. Half a cup of independence with just a dash of shame.
2. A room of ones own in which to operate/eat in.
3. One tray of sushi (various) [pork cutlet, lettuce, and mayonnaise]
4. Sneakily and stealthily take said tray up into your room with/without your host mother's approval (I had mine since I'm a semi-decent son).
5. Put on an episode of a television show or movie, like Legend of the Seeker or Glee.
6. Enjoy the fusion of entertainment and cuisine.
7. Run out of your beverage and lazily not refill it.
8. Move your box of tissues just out of arm's reach.
9. Feel a sneeze begin to build in your nose.
10. Panic.
11. Recover from the panic and try putting the plate of sushi down.
12. Realize you have nowhere to put it.
13. Now reach for the tissue box and fail to reach it.
14. Feel the sneeze erupt.
15. Turn away from your bed, as to not sneeze on it.
16. Now looking at your computer screen, you realize your mouth is full.
17. Your mouth filled with rice, pork, lettuce, and most importantly, mayonnaise, allow the 200 MPH of pressure and air to hurl said food out of your mouth and towards whatever you love most.
18-20. Begin cleaning up the sushi that now covers your desk, laptop, clothes, etc.
21. Grab the tissue box and move it closer to you.
22. Continue eating sushi.

I had just met my host family, Clan Ishiyama...okay the Ishiyama family, but clan sounds way cooler, like I'm a Highlander or something.  After being loudly proclaiming to the other families and sons/daughters that their family was the greatest, we sorted through one of the Japanese most favorite activities: government bureaucratic paperwork!  This included a homestay agreement that set up times for my curfew, meals, etc.  It supposedly insures I won't set their home ablaze and salt their fields.

We then piled into their futuristic SUV/compact car and headed for their home to unload my belongings...hey, where are we going?

In hindsight, this moment of despair of being told one thing and something completely different happening, something that might have completely derailed whatever plans I had for the day, was going to become very common, very soon.  Oh, we were also going to...a Japanese buffet to meet the extended family!  Was I hungry?  Who knows, who cares?  Japanese hospitality requires one to be fend against their will and frequently.  Not that I'm complaining.

At the buffet, I met Na-chan, Suzie's sister in law and her husband whose name I cannot recall, but I remember he wore dark glasses indoors and although he spoke no English, he kept smiling at me, even when I said things in my native tongue.  Guess the dude was happy.  Kaori and Keiji-san were also there, but said little to me out of awkwardness and the distance from my table to theirs.

As for the buffet, it was much different than an American style restaurant, with the establishment itself being more compartmentalized, a half a dozen rooms each seating around thirty or so, with the main room being so cramped that there wasn't enough room to nonawkwardly go around someone. 

There was a soup bar with various kinds of Japanese stews, chowders,and rounding them out, traditional miso soup, which has tofu, vegetable stock, and the dreams of a nation inside it.  Having sampled a plethora of delightful foods, most of which I had no idea what they were, I made my way back to the table and tried talking with everyone, however, only my host mother knew English, leaving me to rely on my secret weapon: eight weeks of intensive Japanese classes as Penn State.  Let's rock these fools with a little bit of B+ first grade level Japanese.

And rock them I did.  Not really.  But all in all, dinner went fine, everyone was extremely kind to me and we drove home with our bellies full of goat meat err...fish and what have you. 

The Ishiyama's home is a two story house with a large field in front of it.  Off in the distance lies a floating, green, mesh cage that encircles quite a large area.  By the time I saw it, it was night time and large lights illuminated it, making it look like floating, neon coral.  My host mother told me that it was a golf range, of all things.  However, in Japan, there's simply no room for these things to be built away from neighborhoods and the commercial areas so they're jammed right near everything else.  This would later become a fantastic landmark to guide me home whenever I frequently got lost.

It was getting late and the ofuro awaited me.  Ofuro?  What's that, you may ask?  Well, using my pretentious language skills, that translates into the fabled Japanese bath.  You see, my dear and loving readers, in Japan, the bath is king.  The usual setup is that you take a shower first and then hop into the bath and soak.  Basically, this means the bath is more like a hot tub than anything else.  I'll expand this topic further in future articles, as there are quite a few bathroom/ofuro tales to tell you all.

After I was deloused and hosed down, I retired to my room for the evening to unpack and settle in.  I found myself in yet another room which was to become my own.  After living at State College, PA for two months during the summer, and then living in the seminar house for a week, and now here, I had become quite used to the idea of not really having the concept of "my room".  Home was wherever all my "stuff" was, it seemed.

Unlike the seminar house, my new room was six tatami mat's large, and with my luggage horribly unpacked, it would be even less, but it was cozy and I didn't need that much space to procrastinate and be apathetic to the world (but secretly crave its approval).

I nestled into my pillow and prepared to sleep when I realized my pillow did not have a pillow case but had instead been wrapped in a sky blue bath towel with a koala on it.  In Japan, pillow cases are like things without fish, egg, mayonaise, or bean paste in it, meaning, rare.  Also, just a FYI to any international student or tourist wanting to come to Japan: bring plenty of deodorant since they really don't seem to sell it here.  No reason I bring that up...no reason at all.

Now settled in my bed, I wondered what the next few months would entail at my new home.  Would I be able to hold onto my Seminar House friends?  Would the commute be difficult?  How would things work out with my family?  I almost expected these questions to keep me up but since I'm awesome at becoming unconscious, I slept as if I was at my own home back in Pennsylvania. 

As the next day dawned, all of the answers to my questions would be answered.  I just hoped I was paying attention when they were offered.

Sorry for the giant delay between entries.  I had this long freakin honker pretty much finished, but since I like to open about a hundred tabs on Firefox, I forgot to click the save button and just turned off my computer.  Super sigh.  Oh, also sorry Mad Men, for borrowing the title for this entry.  Please don't sue me.  Oh, I do work for cheap though, fyi...


I had run out of time.  It was Saturday, the day I would be meeting and moving in with my new host family.  I had spent all week immersed in the orientation activities, scheduling classes, hanging out with my tentative friends, and learning the city.  It was so overwhelming that I pushed the thought of my host family into a dusty part of my mind usually reserved for my thoughts on French poetry and what constituted the difference between mixed vegetables and a vegetable medley.

The all encompassing, blazing hot, Japanese sun burned through my windows, gently alerting me to the fact that it was indeed, morning.  I woke up and looked around my trashed room.  Even in a week, without unpacking my suitcases, I had managed to turn my room into what resembled a post apocalyptic wasteland.  I sighed and went about cleaning and packing, two things I was definitely not good at.

With my bags packed and moved down into the seminar house's lobby, and my room..., okay, it wasn't going to pass any inspection by any kind, and god forbid anyone bring a black light into the room CSI Miami style and discovers a dead body wrapped in tinfoil (David Caruso takes off sunglasses and says, "domo arigatoo, mr. roboto)  And scene.

I shared a final meal with my friends and walked to school by myself.  I'd be meeting my family at around one, and had twenty or so minutes to stew in my own fear and uncertainty.  It was then that my brain finally had it out with me.  There was nothing to do until the meeting and I had time to think, two things that are never good for one who is trying to stay ignorant to his own actions and decisions. 

Again, why had I made this decision?  A fellow friend who had down a study abroad to Japan previously had recommended doing a home stay.  It was, in fact, the only way to truly experience Japan and to stay in a dorm was to lose a fundamental part of the experience.  Okay, so is that why I did it?  Well, it was cheaper, I wouldn't have to cook, do my own laundry, and could go on special trips that my other friends couldn't.  Yet, if one would look at my reasons for choosing this, none of them speak to the human aspect of the whole thing.  I didn't think about how my life would change when I lived with a Japanese family or how I met interact with them.  All I could look at were the material benefits.  It was all about me.

I had been doing it all wrong.  I came to Japan, made the decision to come here based on a dream a twelve year old version of my self made.  But I had never stopped and thought about why that little guy had wanted to come here.  He liked Anime and video games, Japanese architecture and history, but those were all just aspects of a country, not the country itself, and whats more, the current Devin's interest in all of these things had peaked years ago.  So why?

Because my ego told me so.  I had felt aimless in life, unable to commit to the idea of grad school or worse, entering into the "real world" as college students had dubbed it and getting a job.  In my mind, once one got a job, that was it.  Get a job, get married, have kids, retire, go to Bora Bora (the place so nice they named it twice), and die.  I was somewhere around the pre-job stage, you know, the fun part of life. 

I had hoped Japan would provide some kind of perspective about myself and my life, and it did.  Separated from everyone and everything that was familiar, you really get to see yourself clearly.  And the person I was, maybe still am, wasn't fantastic.  He was a very self centered kind of guy that was hoping an entire nation, a fifteen long week adventure, would do him a favor.  Nowhere in that situation was he interacting with the trip on any meaningful level.  It was all about the experience helping him.

This was something I didn't know the day I was to meet my host family.  No, I only hoped they'd be nice and take me places.  I was at the mental equivalent to a toy poodle, who just wanted its belly rubbed and some table scraps.

At one, I entered a classroom to meet my host family.  The only thing standing in my way was a door, which, If I could open successfully, would be an obstacle no more.  Well, after sliding it open, which was a mental doozy, I walked into a room with two female students sitting in desks far from each other.  They looked up at me dismissively and went back to filling out pieces of paper and watching a Miyazaki's Nausica, Valley of the Wind (a famous Anime film) that was being projected in the corner of the room. 

The podium at the front of the class had a few necessary documents for me to fill out and I slumped into a desk between the two, bored girls.  The classroom door slid open and a staff member stepped through with such speed that I nearly choked on my own saliva.  She called one of the girl's names and she got up to go into a separate room to meet her host family. Ahh, so that's how this whole process was done.

Of course, the door opened again and both me and the lady looked apprehensively to see if we were to be next.  My stomach had just sent me a memo entitled, "nervousness and you, why stress makes me pretend I'm going to vomit," and I was hoping that I could just get this whole thing over with.  Unfortunately, it was merely another student being ushered into the room to wait with us.  The poor gentleman must have been confused by the initial cautious look we gave him followed by one of pure apathy and disappointment.  Oh well, I'm sure he survived because he had no sooner sat down when the door opened again and his name was called.  The door had become less of one of the "sliding variety" and something resembling a 'revolving one" instead.

Soon, my name was called and I moved down the hallway into the appointed room.  What would my family be like, look like?  Would it be the greatest fifteen weeks of my life or a hellish adventure in awkwardness?  It was then that I remembered my friend who had convinced me to do the home stay program in the first place.  He had first told me of his trip nine months before my own, but it was only after I had already committed via paperwork to choose a homestay that he added a small addendum onto his initial story.

You see, his homestay hadn't been all sunshine, rainbows, and never ending supplies of taco flavored Slim Jims.  No, his family and him had problems together.  In fact, my friend had been called into school to talk with a glorified international guidance counselor about not being talkative enough at his home.  This had in turn made the family think he didn't really care about them, when in fact, my friend was just naturally quiet (I think...).  This led to his family not wanting to do a lot of extracurricular activities with him and just sounded to me like a lot of hurt feelings, awkwardness, and bad times.

Back in the present, the staff member looked at me and nodded as she opened the door.  Unlike the first room, this one was brightly lit, probably to highlight the shame and apprehension we all felt.  I stepped into the brightness and the door closed behind me.  The desks had been arranged into groups of four, forming small squares at which the families and students could sit together.  I was led over to a mother and father who beamed at me, their smiles warm and welcoming, their faces happy and excited.  This was my family!

"Kevin, this is your family.  Mr. and Mrs. Something or other, this is your son, Kevin."
"Devin, not Kevin," I corrected her gently.
"You're not Kevin?" the staffer asked me.
"He's not Kevin?" the family asked her and then me.
"Nope.  Is that okay?" Now I have no idea why I said that, as if the guy named Kevin could just be replaced by me.  I mean no matter how far I buried his body and assumed every facet of his life, I would still be this Devin character.  It didn't matter that my real name was T-bone and I lived with my Gamma, but...I digress.

The family's face morphed into a confused and disappointed mess and the staffer bowed and apologized and led me to my real family, who, in the first five minutes of meeting them told me this nugget of wisdom:

"You can do whatever you want when you live with us, the Ishiyama family.  We are the greatest!"  I almost wanted to start chanting "USA! USA! USA!" because they seemed so pumped up and my American tendencies to spread my homemade version of democracy started kicking in.

So here they were, the Ishiyama family.  I didn't know it then, but this was where my adventure truly began. 

Mission Accomplished.