Beppu First Impression
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Saturday, August 5, 1989
Before leaving Tokyo, we go shopping in Shinjuku with Murakami-sensei. We have lunch at a restaurant in Isetan department store, then head over to Kinokuniya bookstore, where I buy two dictionaries and a pack of karuta cards so that JQS can practice his hiragana.
On the plane flight from Haneda to Oita, I hope that I will see Fuji-san, but it is obscured by clouds. We arrive at Oita airport I can hardly wait to see our new home, but first we stop at a restaurant for dinner. I thought we'd finally see our apartment and have a chance to get settled. I've been very anxious to see where we're to spend the next two years, what our "2 rooms, a kitchen, and a bath" is like. But Murakami-sensei hands us over to the charge of another English teacher, Tonai-sensei and we are to spend the night at his house, only a maddeningly few blocks from our school and our apartment.
We drive into Beppu at twilight. A mist hangs on the mountains. The rice fields and gardens seem like a scene from a picture book. We meet Mrs. Tonai, who speaks no English, and runs in and out of the kitchen offering us Japanese pears (which are round and not pear-shaped) and other treats. We all make a feeble attempt at polite conversation before getting ready for bed.
Before going to bed, Tonai-sensei encourages me to use his bath, which is a hot springs bath. I'm too tired for the pride in his voice to register on my consciousness. Taking a hot springs bath (I learn over the next few months) is indeed one of the wonders of living in Beppu and having a spring-fed ofuro in one's house is special indeed. Instead, to his obvious disappointment, I opt for a quick shower. We climb the steep Japanese stairs (more like a step-ladder than a staircase) to our room on the second floor. It has been laid out beautifully by Mrs. Tonai, a scroll and a vase of Chinese lanterns in the tokonoma.
Two Rooms, A Bath and A Kitchen
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Sunday, August 6, 1989
Finally, finally we get to see our apartment. When Murakami-sensei wrote last summer and said it was 'two rooms, a bath and a kitchen' my American coworkers wondered if it consisted only of two rooms, one being a bath the other the kitchen. But it is two 6-mat rooms (making a main room about 12 feet by 18 feet), a kitchen, a room with a toilet, and a room with a Japanese-style bathtub. It is much larger than I expected, about the same size as the first floor of our condo...but just as roomy because we have only what's in our two suitcases and no furniture to clutter it up. I love the tatami and the futons and the shoji. When we first opened the front door, the tatami smelled pleasantly of slightly damp straw. My only wish is that we were on the top floor instead of the second floor so that we had a view of the bay from our windows. Here we are less than a mile away from the sea and we can't see it.
I'm the first foreign teacher to live here and the school has done much to make us comfortable. They have purchased a new refrigerator (large by Japanese standards) and a new washing machine (extremely tiny, but with an automatic rinse cycle which I've heard is lacking in many older machines). They have provided a few dishes and pots and pans, a 2-burner gas stove (no oven), and a toilet converter (a plastic toilet seat that fits over the squat toilet to mimic a Western-style sitdown toilet).
Tonai-sensei and the missus walk us over to the main shopping street in Kamegawa (the neighborhood we live in, in north Beppu-shi). They take us grocery shopping at the newest supermarket, which is larger than any other store in the neighborhood, but smaller than event he health food stores in Austin. It's about a 20 minute walk back to the apartment in and out of the alleys of Kamegawa and I can see that it's going to be a struggle to carry the amount of milk and juice we normally drink.
We are finally left alone to settle in and I'm so happy. But in this first moment to ourselves, Murakami-sensei calls to say that Negoro-san is going to show us how to take a basu. Although I don't really want to learn to take a bus right now, we get ready to go out again and wait for Negoro-san. When she finally comes by, it turns out she's come to show us how to take a bath. The apartment doesn't have hot running water, so the tub has to be filled and then the water circulated through a heater (like a hot tub).
Meet the Governor
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Monday August 7, 1989
The private-school JETs and the head of the Board of Education? or the private school association? I'm in the black jacket. The blonde with a big smile is Amy of Hita. Simon, a Brit, stands behind me. I don't remember who the other two women are. If you know, would you leave me a note.
Today Murakami-sensei drives us to Oita City to a welcoming orientation with all the other JETs. We meet the governor of Oita and socialize a little with the other foreigners. The only other new JETs with children is a couple from New Zealand who have two girls a little older than JQS. Then a guy, who's been here a year (I think) and has several kids saunters in. He looks at me with JQS and says, "Oh, so you're the one with the kid. Well, you're in for lots of trouble." Wow! What encouragement! And he says this right in front of JQS! Although I really wanted to talk to someone else with kids, I swear never to have anything to do with this idiot.
Relearning Life's Little Chores
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Friday August 11, 1989
To the south of our apartment is an undeveloped hill. If I position myself just right, I can rest my eyes on the expanse of green. It would be very soothing, except that the noise of the cicadas (semi) is deafening. I feel like I've walked into the set of a Tarzan movie. I'm slowly becoming acclimated; the cicadas' whine melts into the background noise.
We have been in Beppu almost a week, but have spent only two days in our own apartment. Yesterday, we got back from the English Summer Seminar about 15:30. It felt so good to be home and alone. I tried to organize the apartment again and to establish a routine. Every little thing takes such a long time here.
For example, because the washing machine is so small, I have to do three loads of laundry for every one load I'd have done in an American washing machine. But, we have no dryer and there is only enough room on our apartment balcony to hang out one load of wash at a time. This means I must take some time every day to do laundry (rather than doing it all on the weekend). Now I understand why there is laundry hanging from every balcony every day.
Settling In
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Friday August 11, 1989
You would approve of my developing sense of closure. I wash dishes as I dirty them. Laundry cycles through in an orderly sequence from miniature clothes basket, to miniature washing machine, to miniature clothesline, to miniature closet.
Surprises
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Saturday August 12, 1989
"Has anything surprised you about Japan?"
No one mentioned the musical toilet-paper holders. In the Beppu hotel at which we stayed this week, every time you pull the toilet paper, a music box would start. It played four different tunes. The first time I tore off some toilet paper and music started, I couldn't figure out where the music was coming from.
A Foreigner in Our Midst
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Friday August 17, 1989
On the way to the store today we had a shock. We saw a foreigner! Some woman in shorts was walking up the street. I hadn't seen another gaijin in over a week. I had initially thought that there would be a lot of them, er...us, in Beppu-shi because it is a tourist town. (But it is mostly a tourist town for Japanese tourists, especially older travellers who come to take the baths.)
Changing Trains
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Saturday, August 19, 1989
Last week, Amy in Hita-machi called and we decided to go visit her this weekend. Yesterday, at school, I mentioned my weekend plans to Murakami-sensei and she got all in a fluster about our taking a trip on our own. We will have to change trains in Oita City, she warns. We will have to go to a different platform. She draws me a little map.
Reunion Bath and Dinner
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Sunday, August 27, 1989
This evening Murakami-sensei asked that I go with her to a dinner reunion of teachers in the private school association who had chaperoned the summer trip to Austin. Akamine-sensei offers to watch JQS; she has a son the same age that he can play with. She picks us up and drops me off at the hotel on Beppu Bay where the dinner is being held. Murakami-sensei is not in the lobby and after waiting awhile, I ask the receptionist what room the group is in.
Keeping Warm
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Friday December 8, 1989
Heating the apartment has been resolved as follows: we have a kotatsu. Imagine huddling under the kotatsu as analagous to pioneers huddling around the fireplace--conducive to close family feeling (except when we need something from the kitchen or someone has to dash to the toilet). The only disadvantage to the kotatsu is it only warms you from the waist down. But we are going to buy >hanten (quilted jackets) to keep our upper bodies warm.
New Year Visits
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Tuesday, January 2, 1990
Yesterday I painted the kitchen wall a bright white to lessen the gloom. Since the kitchen cabinets are not built in, I just moved them forward into the room to paint behind them. I also baked biscochitos, cutting out the cookies with tiny Japanese vegetable cutters.
Wordless
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
January 10, 1990
It's easy to feel isolated here. I live in a silent bubble where I can understand neither the spoken nor written word. I've developed a new empathy for the deaf. I live a fairly ordinary life, but one without words.
Snow
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Wednesday January 24, 1990
The temperature finally dipped below freezing and snowed and snowed and snowed. Beginning yesterday and all this morning, the snow swirled around, but the ground was too warm and it didn't stick. Now suddenly it is sticking and Kamegawa is being transformed. After 5th period, I went out with class 2-1 and we had a snowball fight.
Cold
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
January 28, 1990
Have I complained about the cold before? I didn't know what cold was. Cold is lying in bed and seeing your breath frost in the morning air. Cold is wearing your entire wardrobe of sweaters (I have one for each day of the week) every day and still feeling the chill. Cold is teaching in a classroom where you've allowed the students put on their coats, mufflers, and gloves (against school rules) and by the end of the hour you can't feel your feet or hands because they are numb.
An Ordinary Day
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
March 25, 1990
Today was like an ordinary Sunday, as ordinary as any Sunday in my life in the states. It seems lately I've been saying a lot how ordinary Japan has become:each new plateau of the ordinary is remarkable in this land of the infinitely bizarre
The house next door
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Monday May 21, 1990
My favorite house in all of Kamegawa is gone. They tore it down this week. It was the abandoned house next door. I don't have much of a view from our second-storey balcony, but in the mornings, I liked to stand there, sipping my coffee, staring at the lines of the old tile roof.
Notes from the staff room
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
July 12, 1990
A velvety, black butterfly, larger than a sparrow, flutters around the staff room.
I gulp down cup after cup of mugi-cha, an iced tea made from an infusion of roasted barley. The mugi-cha has a light, gently sweet, nutty taste that is milder than coffee or iced black tea. I can drink it all day and feel refreshed, not jittery.
The teachers fill in all their reports by hand. Even though the scores are all entered into the computer which could easily generate a wealth of reports. But the standard forms by tradition are completed by hand, bound together with shoelaces between two pieces of hard board, sealed with red ink.
The toilet paper has no perforations.
More than half the teachers recheck their calculations with an abacus, as if they distrust their work on their handheld calculators. Abacus is a Greek word; the Japanese is soroban.
The pre-schoolers, all naked, splash in a wading pool. Their teachers spray water on them with the garden hoses.
Osaka Airport
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
August 26, 1990
I knew I was back in Japan the moment I deplaned. The first words I heard, from the woman in front of me as we were walking up the ramp from the plane were, "atsuii." Then, the mugginess hit me. I'd been walking only three minutes when sweat began dripping down my back and I was thirsting for an Aquarius. Luckily, next to a bank of lime green pay phones, a vending machine was in sight. Unluckily, it served only drinks in cups. I bought a cup of Aquarius anyway. I could use some Regain or Tiovita right about now.
Glad to be back in Beppu
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Friday August 31, 1990
Would you believe me if I told you I was glad to be back in Beppu-shi? I'm surprised, too. But, after six weeks of staying with friends in Austin, I missed my own place and my own routines: waking with the 7 o'clock song and getting ready for bed after the 9 o'clock song; boiling water to make drip coffee in the little, black pot; toasting joku pan in the toaster oven and eating it with butter and honey; double-checking the train schedule and hurrying to make the next train, and then waiting for five minutes on the platform because we're always early; buying a lunch of okonomiyaki and Afternoon Tea in the basement of Tokiwa; going through every little shop in the Ginza on the way to Obi Wan's to see if he has any good junk; walking up to Daichi Soft City to get videos for the week.
Who You Gonna Call?
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Monday January 1, 1991
Yesterday was cold and gloomy. I continued cleaning the kitchen and then caught the 14:00 to Beppu. Treat myself to the set of five plates with the hare design at Tokiwa. Rent videos at Daichi Soft City. Run into Akamine-sensei while I'm buying groceries at Uneed. Take the 16:23 home. Cook sukiyaki and watch The Right Stuff. Read The Society of Mind in bed, but the fumes from the kerosene make me feel dizzy, so I turn off the lights to go to sleep.
Video Days
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Saturday, May 11, 1991
Strange how doing the videotape for the new AET is making me depressed. I guess in trying to capture and summarize the last two years, I'm focusing intensely things I'll never see again.
All Wet
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Wednesday June 26, 1991
The sun woke me up. It's been so long since I've felt the sun, I was startled awake. Though it was very humid, I took a chance and hung out the futons. When I went home for lunch, I considered bringing them in, but didn't.
New Year's Cards
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
New Year's Day is a holiday for everyone except the postal workers. Unlike western countries, where Christmas cards should arrive before Christmas Day, New Year's cards (nengajou) should arrive on New Year's Day. As the cards trickle in, the post office sorts and stores them all by address. Then on New Year's Day, with the help of temporary workers, they deliver all your cards at once.
Although post cards (yubin hagaki) can be purchased from the stationers, most people buy them in bulk from the post office . A special stamp and greeting are printed on the back and also lottery numbers. No one explained to me that the post office cards can have lottery numbers on them. I could be holding a winning number and not know it.
On one side of a Japanese post card you write the name and address of the recipient in large letter and your own in smaller letters. On the other side, you write your message.
As the head English teacher, Murakami-sensei printed her greetings in English. She also writes in a personal message by hand. She sent this card in the year of the horse (1990 and 2002).
The back of a New Year's Card with the addresses of sender and receiver. To make it easy on the postal workers, Murakami-sensei writes my name and address in Japanese. She writes her return address in English, out of consideration for me, perhaps thinking I otherwise will not know who it is from.
Most people take their cards to a printshop to have the message printed up. More and more people are using their word processor or computers to do it. Very few people still handwrite a message, or if they do, they use a pen and not a brush.
This is one of the few hand-brushed cards I received, not surprisingly from Okamoto-sense, the calligraphy teacher. She also hand-stamped the large red character, hitsuji, meaning "the year of the sheep" (1991 and 2003).
Dances With Wolves
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
May 18, 1991
For my birthday, M2 and I went to see Dances With Wolves which opened today in Oita-shi. We were worried that the Lakota dialog would be subtitled only in Japanese, so we cheered when the first English subtitles appeared on the bottom of the screen (the Japanese subtitles were written tategaki, vertically down the right-hand side).
The movie was hilarious; we laughed and laughed and laughed. We loved it when Keven Costener tried to communicate and the Sioux looked at each other as if he were crazy ("Eh?"). We rolled on the ground when he rode into camp and old women and young boys stared at him with mouths agape (Gaijin da!) We commiserated with him when the hunter, in deference, handed him the raw heart of the buffalo to eat. ("The eyes of the fish are a delicacy we are giving to you because you are our honored guest.") We knew how he felt when, being unable to make conversation, he was reduced to smiling and nodding like an idiot. And, finally, during the big party, we remembered our first enkai where everyone else wanted to hear the story of our latest intercultural gaffe just one more time.
Accounting for Time
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Eleven years ago on this day and date, Tuesday July 2, I was indoors working on my computer while it poured outside, just as it is now, half a world away and several lives (and computers) later. Looking at these two dates, one could suppose my life hasn't progressed at all, for I have the same problem (too much time) and the same fear (that I'm frittering it away) resulting in the same compulsive behavior (writing it all down). But the truth is, though I've begun and ended at the same point, I haven't been standing here the whole time.
Eleven years ago I was intrigued by an essay about Lord Byron in William Maxwell's The Outermost Dream. In "Lord Byron's Financial Difficulties", Maxwell explains that Byron's steward, Antonio Lega Zambelli, "...kept detailed accounts of all expenditures, even the most trivial, and in general looked after his noble employer's interest with a zeal that bordered on the ridiculous." These accounts, however, became a goldmine to historians trying to ferret out the truth from the myths that surround Byron.
I spent many years involved in accounting for various reasons. I've always enjoyed balancing accounts because it provides a concrete satisfaction not found in teaching or writing. So eleven years ago, inspired by this essay, I tried an experiment to see whether I could document my life from my account books. In a time before the internet, I amused myself in strange ways with a zeal that borders on the ridiculous.
Life in the Details
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Wedneday July 3, 1991
10:00 Rachel and I escape from school, ostensibly to study Japanese. We watch Tonari no Totoro. I am happy because she likes it.
11:28 Buy groceries at Toyomi. Rachel stays at my house to eat lunch. She's watching the Lost Boys when I return. I suggest that we watch Warlock before I return it to the video store tonight, so we do. Have to leave halfway through.
15:15 Rachel and I sneak back to my house to finish watching Warlock. We have to hurry the end a bit so she can catch her bus at 16:00. We plan to go to Oita together on Saturday.
17:00 Rush home. Put video in the recorder to tape the puppet drama for MJN. Write check for MasterCard. Pack a bath bag.
17:07 Rush to the post office and mail the MasterCard bill and a letter to ERS.
17:22 Catch train to Beppu Eki.
17:43 Buy coffee filters and dish detergent at Uneed. The arcade is crowded with housewives shopping for dinner. This would be a good time of day to shoot some video.
18:07 Rent Salt and Pepa CD at Daichi Soft City. They are busy remodeling the CD section. My pessimistic nature makes me view any big change as possibly taihen. Go to Daichi to buy some 8mm videotape. See Saeki-san. He rushes off to get me some video rental coupons "for my son." I don't have the heart to tell him that JQS is in America. He asks me if I've seen Abe-sensei lately. I say no and we both express our surprise about Abe-sensei's sudden resignation. I do get him to help me pick out the videotape. I wonder if he gets the credit for selling it to me like in the US. That was my plan anyway. I ought to get him a little going away gift.
18:15 I don't think that I have time for a bath, but then I decide I do.
18:20 Arrive at Takegawara onsen. The water is really hot, but it feels so good. As I slip into the water I think I've never felt it so hot. The blood vessels in my fingers and toes open up and I can feel the blood rushing through the capillaries. All the anxiety of this week floats away. I love the onsen.
19:06 I arrive at Beppu Eki in plenty of time to meet Maki-sensei. I feel quite smug that I accomplished everything that I wanted to do today. I wait and wait and Maki-sensei doesn't show. I'm not that surprised because I feel sure that the students have to study for exams. As it gets closer to 19:30, I find myself hoping he won't show. I hate teaching so much that even losing 5000 yen in pay is not enough to make me want to teach class.
19:31 Board the train for Kamegawa.
20:00 Broil some fish and work on the computer.
Finding Comfort in the Spoken Word
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Friday July 5, 1991
08:10 Write to Toni Adamski and send her a copy of the Newsweek article on Twin Peaks.
11:40 Mail letter. Buy lunch at Toyomi.
15:00 Tape Salt-n-Pepa CD: A Salt With a Deadly Pepa
15:30 Come home from school early. There are no classes because of final exams and the teachers start trickling away around 14:30 on the pretense (tatomae) that they have to be sure the students, who left school at noon, are behaving themselves. I say that I'm going to go to Tokiwa (department store) to make the students are behaving themselves there.
Finished packing two more boxes and taped them. During this process, I called Quigley, TM, and Mollie. M2 and Ellen called me. TM, who was out, called me back. I talked to Ray Langley. All in all, I feel very popular and in the whirl of social activity.
22:15 Fix miso soup. Clean house.
23:00 Work on computer while watching Warlock again.
Friday July 5, 2002
It is probably more accurate to say that I have Warlock playing like background music, just to hear English spoken. I've never understood why people who listen to the same song over and over refuse to watch a movie more than once. I love the cadence and rhythm of dialog and the sense of expectation and fulfillment in the pattern of words. I find comfort in the familiar, the fact that it turns out the same every time.
Pumpkin Pizza and Samurai
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Saturday July 6, 1991
10:00 Ellen arrives from Saga. As we are discussing the plans for the day Rachel arrives. She changes out of her school uniform.
10:30 As I am taking in the futons before we leave, I notice that there is another Shinto ceremony to bless the ground where the old house was. I think the ceremony was this time last year. At the time, I assumed it was a groundbreaking ceremony but as they never built a new house, I wonder if it is something else. Both Ellen and Rachel take photos.
10:52 We arrive at the Kamegawa station just as the train is pulling in. Jump chain and buy tickets on the train.
11:20 Meet M2 at Oita station. She is talking to Mary Ann. TM and Quigley are going to meet us at Hasta Manana after we run our errands.
Get M2 Tokiwa money. Ellen is fascinated by the escalator ladies at Tokiwa department store. We try to catch the escalator lady "changing of the guard". I need to videotape them.
Rachel, Ellen and I walk to the International Center to return books and pick up the new English-language versions of the Oita-ken guide and maps.
Eat lunch at Hasta Manana . MaryAnn, Quigley and I sit together on one side of the table; M2, Rachel, and TM sit opposite, and Ellen sits at the head of the table.
M2 tries to sniff out the secret of Hasta Manana's incredible pumpkin pizza.
13:30 After lunch, I agree to meet Ellen and Rachel at Tokiwa in 45 minutes., then walk to Quigley's to retrieve Mensonge and get his new address. M2 accompanies us on her way to Excel and then departs suddenly. Quigley and I talk about "Alien Eyes" and losing one's sense of wonder, taking things for granted.
13:34 I withdraw money from bank machine. On my way through Tokiwa to meet Ellen and Rachel I see a blue and white toothpick holder and buy it.
14:15 Find Rachel on the first floor of Tokiwa but she's become separated from Ellen. We shop a little and she buys a bento and a stuffed chuo-Totoro.
15:32 See Rachel off at Oita Eki.
15:33 Run into Ellen outside of the station. At the washi/shodo shop buy brushes, scroll and stationery.
16:16 Buy mushrooms for Itoh-sensei in Texas. Go to Chuo-machi; Ellen (after watching me film all day) decides to buy an 8mm camcorder.
17:07 Buy blank VHS tape at Rizumi. Walk toward Oita Eki, hoping to run into M2. I'm telling Ellen the my stories of synchronicity (running into Quigley and Tom Weber) when I see M2. Ellen goes back to the video store while M2 and I return to her apartment to drop off her packages and measure her boxes to be shipped back to Austin.
18:20 M2 and I meet Ellen on the platform at Oita station and the three of us take the train to Beppu Daigaku. Walk to the Samurai's. Eat, drink, videotape. I call Jenny. She joins us for awhile, then goes home. While we're talking at the counter, she tells me that JBH is pregnant.
Samurai and his wife chat with customers while they cook.
Ellen, M2, and I take a taxi to my apartment. We watch the first four hours of Twin Peaks (zapping quite a bit). Then, M2 and I can't resist watching a bit of Totoro. We stop after the scene of Mei falling asleep on Totoro and then, as it is nearly 1AM, we all fall asleep too.
Forms of Communication
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
July 7, 1991
07:00 Wake up and write a little. M2 wakes soon after and continues watching Totoro while I make coffee. Ellen wakes up and sleeps throughout the movie, but by the end she is fully awake and we drink another pot of coffee and eat toast. I make miso-shiro for Ellen. Play more Twin Peaks video clips: Albert's speech to Sheriff Truman, Cooper's speech as he lies on his hotel room floor after he's been shot.
10:30 M2 leaves to catch the 10:52 train to Oita.
11:03 Ellen and I catch bus #26 to Kannawa. Walk to Hyotan onsen (Sorry, this link doesn't specify encoding so you will have to switch to Shift-JIS manually). Pass Sakae-ya, the minshuku where Ellen stayed on her last trip to Beppu. Stop in the antique store. Bathe at Hyotan onsen. The admission has risen to 700 yen.
Walk to Amamija-ya and eat lunch. Neither of us cared much for the house speciality, dango jiru. But we both loved the agemochi-misu (grilled mochi is a umeboshi broth). And the matcha ice was the perfect ending to the meal. We write out Tanabata wishes and tie them to the Tanabata branch that decorates the entrance to the restaurant.
15:30 Say goodbye to Ellen and walk through neighborhoods I've never been in before to downtown Beppu, composing a letter in my head. Children follow me through the street yelling hello. A little later a teenage boy shouts from a second-story window "Hello. Fuck you. Hello. Fuck you."
16:50 Arrive at Beppu Eki. Buy Myoban Spa yu-no-hana. Kameishi-kun passes me on his bicycle in front of the Magic Yard and we wave at each other. At Daichi return the videos and check out the Vanilla Ice CD. Notice that I've lost MJN's umbrella (I left it either at the onsen or the restaurant). Walk to Tokiwa department store to pick up my bicycle. Buy bread.
18:10 Bicycle home. Rain threatens the whole way and I'm sure I'll get drenched. Big drops splat, but infrequently. It never really rains. My legs are so tired from walking that at first it hurts to use different muscles to bicycle. But there's a fresh breeze from the sea and I'm in shorts and a tank top for the first time this summer and it feels so good to be on the bike again after what seems like weeks of rain. At Spa Beach two former college students of mine see me and come running up to intercept me. I stop to say hello.
"What are you doing?" I ask slowly, in my perfected English lesson tone.
Blank looks.
I try again in my beginner's Japanese, "Nani o shitte imasuka?"
"Mimashita. Looking."
"Looking? At what?" I can't think of how to say it.
They consult with each other. One of them brightens. "Nani o."
"Right. Nani o? At what?"
The other replies. "Jet skis."
JET suki? They like JETs; English teachers? Puzzlement, then comprehension. "Asoka. Jet skis. Wakarimashita."
I say "Bye-bye" and pedal off.
18:35 Arrive home. Work on the computer while listening to Vanilla Ice.
19:13 Ellen calls to tell me she's arrived in Saga.
22:30 M2 calls, a bit frantic about getting her boxes. It seems that she forgot a dinner date with the Goto's on Saturday and has to make it up. She told them that the only evening that she has free before she leaves is Friday, and only afterward remembered that that is when she was suppose to bring the boxes over.
Going Away Presents
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Monday July 8, 1991
A beautiful sunny day at last!
08:20 Nagai-sensei gives me a bagful of washi, beautiful whole pieces. Ichihashi-sensei gives me a bento bag and kleenix holder she sewed for me. Videotape school shots.
10:45 Videotape kindergarten marching band and talk to Rachel.
11:48 Walk to Toyomi and buy lunch. Hang out futons and laundry. Open up closets to air them.
12:30 Grade tests. Write a letter to Quigley
17:00 Record Vanilla Ice because it reminds me of my night out dancing in Miyazaki.
17:30 Watch today's video. Bicycle downtown. At Nafco find a nice saw and sharpening stone and buy both. I'm very happy with these purchases. Return CD at Daichi Soft City and get another.
18:40 Arrive home. Work on computer while listening to CD. Feel tired and so try to fall asleep to the cassette player. But when the music stops, I wake up again.
24:00 Take bath in apartment onsen.
Going Away Presents More! More! More!
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Tuesday July 9, 1991
Another sunny day, and hot.
08:30 Watch CM in first period English.
09:20 Matsuo-sensei gives me two o-chawan.
09:20 Nagai-sensei gives me hiragana shodo paper and shodo supplies including a menso fude and a copy book. Tsutsumi-sensei discusses giving me tea ceremony supplies, maybe when we meet in Austin. He studies tea ceremony.
10:30 I don't have to team teach with Murakami-sensei so Rachel and I escape. Watch the video I took in Oita last Saturday and the kindergarten kids yesterday.
12:07 Rachel and I go to Hori Bung and each buy a washi portfolio.
12:37 Buy lunch at Toyomi. Return to my house and eat lunch and watch the Lost Boys.
14:00 Return to school. Cleaning going on. So we sit and talk about Catholism, sex and boys until she has to leave to catch the school bus.
17:15 Tutor Yoshiko and Miho for the last time. Emiko comes to say goodbye, although she talks mostly about finding a new teacher. Miho gives me a gift of washi, and Yoshiko gives me a blue furoshiki.
18:00 Tape Tonari no Totoro for Rachel and practice my writing in the kanji copy book that Nagai-sensei gave me.
21:00 Repack some boxes.
23:45 Take bath in apartment onsen.
Counting Down
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Wednesday July 10, 1991
08:10 Tsutsumi-sensei has left the tea ceremony set on my desk: a chasen, a tea scoop, and a tea caddy.
08:30 Hand back tests and show American commercials to san-nen-sei English course. Rachel sits in on the class.
11:30 Rachel and I escape from school.
11:50 Go to Toyomi's to buy lunch including some umeshu which I let Rachel try while we finish watching the Lost Boys.
15:30 ESS club watches The Yellow Submarine. I miss Nakatomi-kun. Only Sato Hiroko comes from ichi-nen-sei. Nakayama Etsuko remarks on the noise of the cicadas.
17:30 Wash dishes and do laundry while the sun shines. Work up nerve to call Maki-sensei to confirm that class is on for tonight.
19:06 Take train from Kamegawa to Beppu. Meet Maki-sensei at Beppu Station.
21:00 Watch the Wednesday night movie: Kramer vs. Kramer. It is the first time I've seen it all the way through. I saw the last ten minutes or so on TV in Austin. The subject of custody is still too painful. I cry and cry. But I will see my own little boy in two and a half weeks. Just a few days more really.
Oh, Thank Heaven!
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
(...it's 7-11). Some very interesting stories elsewhere today.
JETanuki muses on how his English language club has become a refuge for students who don't fit in other clubs. They don't like English, but they have to belong to something, because to belong to nothing in Japan is the worst fate of all--even worse than English. Scroll down to the Jul 9 And you are? entry.
Over at Pure Land Mountain, Robert Brady waxes poetic on the delights of the older generation in his July 10 column At the Clinic. If you read nothing else today, read this entry.
Last Minute Shopping
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Saturday July 20, 1991
11:49 In Oita, I buy the shodo inkwells with the money from Washizuka-sensei. They are on sale so I buy two. Later I notice a 320 yen charge on the receipt that I can't figure out. As I'm walking on the shopping street, I notice that an old restaurant is being torn down. They've thrown a lot of traditional decorations in the back of the truck, including a rain hat that I want. Desire imbues me with sudden boldness. "Sumimasen. Kore wa gomi desu ka?" And I get it. I carry it around with me all day and fall in love with it. (Later, when I get home, I discover that it won't fit into any box. So I clean it up and hang it on the wall for the the new teacher, Dianna.) Walk up to Ted Mack's apartment and leave my remaining picante sauce for him.
Go to Tokiwa to buy a small blue Totoro like Rachel's. Then I fall in love with the medium-sized one. I still have money left over from my inkwell budget and so I buy it. Buy tea ceremony sweets.
13:59 I am supposed to meet Jean-Marc Hakim at the train station at 15:00. This is my last chance to get the books I lent him back. I have no more shopping to do. I'm tired. I want to go home. I buy some pastry and eat it at Tom and Huck where it's air-conditioned and I can sit down. I wander to Rizumi Records. I wander back. I wait and wait. At 15:00, no Jean-Marc. I miss the 15:07 train and by then I am fuming and pacing. Around 15:20, I see him, get my books back, and say I must catch a train. I leave abruptly. Fortunately the 15:32 is sitting in the station. I get on, sit down, and go through my books.
17:19 Buy groceries at Toyomi including some umeshu.
Hot Spring Bath
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
My apartment in the school dorm has its own bathroom, a 9x9 foot room containing only a plastic, aqua tub, freestanding on the floor. (The first time I pulled the plug and the water ran out on the floor, I freaked out. But it's supposed to do that...it just runs down the drain in the floor in the middle of the room.)
Picking Mikan
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Sunday December 3, 1989
We went to Sato-sensei's parent's farm to help pick mikan. Besides Sato-sensei, Murakami-sensei, Akamine-sensei and her sister (and baby) joined in. The day was clear and cold, but quickly warmed up. As a thank-you present we received bags of mikan and other farm produce.
Just Take A Seat
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
日曜日1991年４月２８日
This guy, Don, I met a couple of weeks ago at Bar Brown is moving back to the States and said I could have his chairs, or whatever you call them. They're like folding lawn chairs without the legs. You sit on the tatami with them and they provide a cushion and an adjustable back rest. This will make hours spent watching videos much more comfortable. I'm used to sitting on floors. I spent my entire childhood TV-watching career on the floor, too close to the TV. (We're my parents right about it ruining my eyesight, or is that just a coincidence?) But having a backrest will be nice, especially for working at the computer.
Social Butterfly
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Friday, May 17, 1991
Manage to duck out of school early. (The other teachers always manage to find some "errand" that needs doing to get away and I follow their example.) I take the train to Beppu, return my video and CD rentals from Daichi Soft City, and wait at Beppu station hoping to run into someone else on their way to Robert's.
Pat shows up on his bicycle. Then Kristen arrives afterward by train from Nakatsu. We take the bus up to Robert's. He lives up toward the mountain in Ogiyama Machi. Pat loses his way a bit and we take a circuitous course through a very nice park. Robert's apartment has a tremendous view. We drink and watch the sunset while Pat makes chili. Robert goes out for more beer. Ted calls and I go meet him. We eat and watch two hours of Twin Peaks, though only Ted and I are really interested. The others decide to go to a party to which some Japanese acquaintance of Robert has invited us.
We go to the party and consume copious amounts of alchohol. Pat amuses us with silly magic tricks. I draw pictures of people but end badly by spilling my beer on the tatami during a laughing fit. Kristen, Pat, and I are driven to Pat's apartment near Beppu Daigaku. I manage to stagger home from there.
Birthday Girl
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Here's the perfect birthday present:an email from my Japanese language teacher.
Konnichiwa. Here are your grades. Final Exam: 101/100. Oral Exam: 95. Final Grade: 97.5. An A. Yoku dekimashita! Have a great summer. Ja!
Saturday May, 18, 1991 Beppu-shi, Oita-ken, Japan
I arrive home drunk from Pat's apartment at half-past midnight. This is, perhaps, not the most auspicious way to begin my birthday.
I feel terrible and I'm still tossing and turning at 4:30. The eastern sky is lighting up with the dawn. I think I should rise with dawn and so I go and take a bath in the apartment onsen. It's early enough that I can slip in before gramps-next-door comes to soak the rheumatism out of his bones. The bath is so relaxing that, against my better judgement, I crawl back into bed at 5:30 and go to sleep. Since it's my birthday, why not pamper myself?
When I awake at 8:00, it's a beautiful, clear day. I tape some more video for the new AET. M2 calls. I clean house and do laundry waiting for Pat or Kristen to call.
Take the 11:25 train to Oita City. M2 meets me at the station. We walk downtown and visit two pottery shops. On our way to the second shop, we meet Mike Quigley. He joins us for lunch at Hasta Manana, the pumpkin food restaurant. We have a very enjoyable lunch. I like Mike a lot. He has been reading Boswell's Life of Johnson and Don Quixote. He is interested in the Carlos Fuentes essays which I agree to lend to him. After lunch, we part company and M2 and I go to Tokiwa. I want to buy finally the kettle and the yellow tea set. But the price of the kettle has been raised again and it is now 18000 yen. I decide against it. Depressed, I don't feel like buying the teapot either.
We go to Limon in Parco. I buy chopsticks for GG. I pick out a summer design of crabs which seems appropriate since her sign is Cancer. M2 must go to teach a class. I watch the music videos in the basement awhile and then go to Mizume Records where M2 meets up with me. We each get a chocolate MacShake and walk to the theatre to see Dances With Wolves. Kristen and Mollie come in just as the movie is beginning and sit behind us. The four of us go to Mollie's apartment, which I find very strange. It's filled with Texas and UT memorabilia. Mollie is studying Spanish. I don't really understand why she came to Japan at all. I gather she's one of those people that decided being a JET was a good way to pay off college debt.
M2 walks me to the station. I take the last train home. On the train, a man recognizes me as the Mizobe Gakuen teacher. He owns the rice shop across from the station and says he was in the Air Force with Tonai-sensei and also know Negoro-san. He asks about JQS. He says that during the war, he was in junior high school and used to talk with the soldiers. Outside Kamegawa station, as we part company, he gives me a loaf of bread as a token.
I arrive home at 23:15 and am watching the video I taped today when Negora-san hears me and come over with the second package of books from Daedalus. As these are the books on writing, I am very excited to have them and stay up another hour, not reading them, but skimming through each one in anticipation of reading.
Kamegawa Station
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
The station closest to our apartment is Kamegawa eki, which is about 20 minutes walk east toward the sea. It's a small, manned station (thinking about my choice of words, I can't remember ever seeing a woman station worker) with an indoor waiting room but no shops. We only sit inside during the very coldest days. To avoid the smokers, we pace the far end of the platform, looking for the first hint of the train as it comes through the tunnel right before the station.
The photo shows the down train (away from Tokyo) which is the one we take to Beppu and Oita. It's track is on the station side. To get to the platform on the other side, you have to cross the tracks by climbing a long flight of stairs to a covered walkway. There are many very old people in Kamegawa and this is hard on them. And this is the station closest the national hospital here, so many people confined to wheelchair reside here. They can't use the station at all.
The strange thing is that about 4 years before we moved to Japan, Reagan was threatening to shut down Amtrak, and I took JQS on a train ride (from Austin to Albuquerque by way of Chicago) because I was afraid that they'd become obsolete before he got to ride on one. (I had only been on a train once before in my life, when I was 3). Now trains are our regular mode of transportation. And 11-year-old JQS takes the train alone to Beppu.
About three local trains an hour stop at our station. There's also an occassional express train, although most of these pass us by and you have to take the local to Beppu to catch one. The superimposed lettering is a the sign showing the station, and the next one up and down. When I first started taking the train, I always watched the sign carefully to make sure the train was moving in the direction I wanted to go in.
And, yes, it's true that Japanese trains are so efficient that you can set your watch by them. And I do. Japan's the only place I've ever lived where I wear a watch. Our weekends revolve around the train schedule. If we miss the 09:27, then we have to wait for the 09:52...so at 09:12 on a Sunday morning you'll find me yelling at JQS, "We have to leave now!" Then we hustle to the station. Even if we hear the train coming in as we cross the parking lot, we know we have enough time to get our tickets from the vending machine. Only once was the train already in the station, so we jumped the barrier chain, got on the train, and bought our tickets from the conductor. You have to turn your tickets in when you arrive and so I tend to ask JQS over and over, "Where's your ticket? You've got your ticket, don't you?" until he rolls his eyes and makes me aware that I'm being the over-anxious Mom.
We'd been here about 4 months when we learned from Tonai-sensei that you could buy round trip tickets to Oita City from the ticket office, and get a 20 percent discount over buying two one-way tickets from the vending machine.
The next stop down is Beppu University. When the university girls get on the train, they rush over to talk to JQS and touch his curly hair. He doesn't like all the attention, although he puts on his polite face. I try to console him with the fact that someday he'll wish he was being hounded by packs of college girls. He remains unconvinced.
New Blue Shoes
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Monday June 3, 1991
The excitement today is that John, from Australia, visits our school. Honored guests must be entertained in style and I get included in the privelege of having coffee in the Director's office. (A privelege that my fellow teachers are happy to forego.) Of course, poor Murakami-sensei must be present as my handler. But this time she's happy to take on the responsibilities she's assumed as head of the English department since it means she gets to meet a foreign man. No chance to chat with this guy, whoever he was. Not that I suppose we have anything in common except our foreign-ness. I remain a mute witness to the proceedings, whatever they were.
After work, bicycle downtown in the rain. Go to Nafco to look for boxes that I can use to ship everything home.
Buy some blue canvas tennis shoes in the Cosmopia. Then I go into the restroom, change into my new shoes, and throw the old, hideous Reeboks in the trash. I feel very jaunty. Continue this wave of self-indulgence by having a nice long bath at Takegawara onsen. Then up to Daichi Soft City to rent "Ferris Bueller".
Bicycle home in light fog and tape "Let's Go To School" and watch Ferris Bueller.
Cowboys and Cowgirls
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Saturday June 8, 1991
Mark and M2 ended up spending the night here since we stayed up to 3AM watching Twin Peaks. We wake up slowly. I make french toast and we drink pots of coffee before stumbling up to Shibaseki Spa for a bath.
Go to Oita. Buy a small 3-tiered bento with an autumn leaf pattern which is on sale at Tokiwa. Go to M2's
16:49 My new blue tennis shoes are pinching my feet, so I buy some black canvas slipons at the No-Brand Shop (Muji) while I'm waiting to meet M2.
17:11 M2 meets me at Parco after teaching her class. We decide to see Drugstore Cowboy and buy discount tickets at Parco. We walk back to her apartment, recuperate, and then go to the movie. We are the only two people there. Wow! A private showing!
21:21 After the movie, we go to visit Mollie. But we are hungry so we pick up a snack at McDonald's on the way. Well, it's not really on the way and we have to call Mollie to say that we are running late. We were going to watch Always at Mollie's, but it's late when we get there and we don't. We watch the last part of Desperado and the Japanese dating game. We talk to Mollie awhile and she and M2 swap "strange Mike Quigley" stories. Men harass us as we walk back to M2's. I spend the night there. Her apartment is half the size of my dorm room, but it has a shower.
Perfect Holiday
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Wednesday October 10, 1990
Yesterday was a holiday and for one glorious day, the sun shone. Jenny and I made the most of it.
Our holiday actually began the night before when Jenny received a letter from an old friend professing a secret and undying love for her. It was, however, almost illegible, having been typed with a ribbonless typewriter. Thus, the letter bore but the faint impression of love. Jenny came down to show it to me and, because it's October, I baked apple tarts. We discussed how best to answer it. Rain began and it was after midnight when it stopped and Jenny could walk home. I accompanied her, walking my bicycle. We rediscovered the pleasure of walking and talking. I stopped to see her new place (she moved into Jeanne's old apartment) and to drink a glass of water flavored with sweet vinegar, and look at photos of her friends and her sweetheart. Then I rode the bicycle home; it was 2:AM before I was in bed.
Holiday Improvisation
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Friday November 24, 1989
JQS helps chop up dried fruit for the fruitcake. Yes. I'm using the rice cooler to mix up the dry ingredients in. It's the only "bowl" I have that is large enough.
I'm writing this at the kitchen table; the kitchen is the only warm room in the house right now. That's because there is a fruitcake in the oven. It was difficult to find the ingredients (a bottle of cloves was $10 at Tokiwa and I couldn't find any maraschino cherries). I did find some Australian raisins (300 yen a bag) in the "American Store" department. I supplemented with plenty of dried and candied local fruits.
The greatest difficulty has been remembering the recipe out of my head, cutting it in half (it makes ten pounds of fruitcake and I don't have any bowls large enough to hold that much batter), and then trying to convert the proportions to grams, cubic centimeters, and centrigrade. Murakami-sensei lent me her oven (which is about the size of a small microwave and thus twice as big as my toaster oven). The major advantage is that it has a temperature control. JQS and I worked together on the cakes while we listened to our tape of traditional carols played on recorder and dulcimer. As soon as we smelled the cloves, we knew the holidays were here.
Summer Weather
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
One of the new teachers fans himself with an uchiwa, a flat fan.
Thursday July 12, 1990
It's hot here, but not as hot as in Austin. In Beppu, it's only in the nineties. But the humidity is 100% and there is no air conditioning. I sit at my desk in the staff room, my clothes soaked in sweat. All the students are too lethargic to do anything but sleep in class. Between classes, or at lunch, I disappear home, take off all my clothes, and dip cold water out of the bath, and pour it over me.
I was in the office after 6PM one evening and was shocked when someone turned on the air conditioning. I didn't even know the staff room had air-conditioning. Turns out that after koucho-sensei (the principal, who is married into the owner's family) leaves for the day, the other teachers take advantage of his absence to cool down. Apparently the whole school is on the same main, so no one is able trace the surge in energy use to the high school.
- A Foreigner in Our Midst
- Accounting for Time
- All Wet
- An Ordinary Day
- Beppu First Impression
- Birthday Girl
- Changing Trains
- Cold
- Counting Down
- Cowboys and Cowgirls
- Dances With Wolves
- Finding Comfort in the Spoken Word
- Forms of Communication
- Glad to be back in Beppu
- Going Away Presents
- Going Away Presents More! More! More!
- Holiday Improvisation
- Hot Spring Bath
- Just Take A Seat
- Kamegawa Station
- Keeping Warm
- Last Minute Shopping
- Life in the Details
- Meet the Governor
- New Blue Shoes
- New Year Visits
- New Year's Cards
- Notes from the staff room
- Oh, Thank Heaven!
- Osaka Airport
- Perfect Holiday
- Picking Mikan
- Pumpkin Pizza and Samurai
- Relearning Life's Little Chores
- Reunion Bath and Dinner
- Settling In
- Snow
- Social Butterfly
- Summer Weather
- Surprises
- The house next door
- Two Rooms, A Bath and A Kitchen
- Video Days
- Who You Gonna Call?
- Wordless