nipponDAZE

Postmark: Beppu April 23, 1990

Just thirteen weeks left! JQS is already saying, “I can’t believe we’re going home!” Yesterday was rainy, so we stayed home and spent a lot of the day assessing our experience.

[One page omitted.]

At first I had the vague notion that I’d learn Japanese and work as a translator. I realize I can’t learn Japanese and I don’t even want to live here any more. The real reason for coming has turned into a self-test. I needed to stir up my life; I was becoming too comfortable and too complacent. Sometimes I worry that after I return that the high point of my life will be in the past. At least I can say that I did something with my life but I don’t want to stop at that. I want to keep doing something.

Living here has forced me to examine my life and to redirect my energies. It’s been difficult but necessary. I have met a lot of nice people but I have no intimate friends, no one to hang around with or just to talk to. It was so great to talk to you. I could live here quite comfortably if I were able to talk to someone every day. I wouldn’t get so morose.

I always sound down when I talk about being here but it isn’t really like that. It’s not a vacation. We do the ordinary things of working and keeping house. It’s just weird enough to make us look at the ordinary differently than before. We don’t take our way of life for granted any more. That makes it worth it.

I have made a start at learning calligraphy, flower arranging, tea ceremony, and Japanese cooking and I want to carry those things into my life in America.

Postmark: Beppu November 23, 1989

For Thanksgiving dinner, we ate chicken, dressing (sans sausage), potatoes and giblet gravy. Coincidentally [today] was Thanksgiving/Labor Day here, so we had the day off.

We will have two weeks off for winter vacation and are going to Kyoto from Dec 23-28 with Ms. Murakami. I hope that JQS is up to a lot of sightseeing.

I’m looking forward to exploring Japan anew. One does begin to live life in an ordinary way after awhile. It becomes a routine of work and housekeeping. But I’m doing several things now that make it worthwhile to be here. I’m going to tea ceremony and flower arranging clubs at school. I enjoy the ritual of tea ceremony immensely and flower arranging enables me to have a new flower arrangement every week. I also go to school on Saturday morning so that I can take a calligraphy class from one of my fellow teachers.

The problem with all three of my classes, as well as with learning Japanese, is that I never have time to study. The year is 1/3 over and I’m not sure what I’ve gotten out of it. Sometimes, I just want to be in America. But when I think of all that I still need to see and do and learn, I can’t believe I’m 1/3 through the year.

Postmark: Beppu September 23, 1989

[Today is] a national holiday for the Autumn Equinox. Being Saturday, I didn’t have to work anyway. The Japanese don’t seem to have the custom of giving you the Friday before or the Monday after off if a holiday falls on a weekend–at least no one mentioned it to me. But JQS goes to school on Saturday morning and because it was a holiday for him, we decided to take a day trip to the southern reaches of Oita prefecture to the small town of Bungo Taketa.

The local train was so crowded that we had to stand, packed in so we couldn’t move at all, for the first hour and a quarter. Characteristically un-Japanese, I hadn’t the slightest idea of what there was to see or where it was. However, after buying a picnic lunch, we found a garden park at the top of a hill. Next to it was the restored house of some artist. [Tanomura Chikuden.] We paid the ¥500 admission to go in (about $3.50) and had the place practically to ourselves. We were allowed to wander all over the house and I just sat on the tatami and rested in one room that looked out onto a small lawn bordered by a steep hillside. It was so peaceful that I resolved right there to build a house that has a room with a view. JQS kept chattering at me so that I couldn’t maintain a peaceful spirit very long.

After exploring the town a little bit, and unsuccessfully because JQS’s feet and spirits were dragging, we went back to our garden on the hill. There was no one else there. That probably sounds simply like description but it is actually a statement of wonder. There was no one else there.

We stayed there an hour because neither of us felt like facing Japan again any sooner than we had to. I hadn’t realized how unrelaxed we’ve been since we’ve been here. People are constantly watching us. Although I tune them out most of the time, I tend to keep myself and JQS under a tight rein. We can’t really explore, or shop, or go to a restaurant, or ride the train without being on our best behavior. I had heard other foreigners complain about it before but it didn’t seem like a very big problem to me. Only the contrast of being in the garden unwatched made me appreciate how rare and wonderful it was to relax and be ourselves and enjoy Japan.

Notes from 2009

Too bad we didn’t do our homework before taking this trip. I’m not sure why we chose to go to Bungo Taketa. It’s a tiny town about the size of Mobberley. The main attraction is the ruins of Oka Castle. If we had only walked a mile in the other direction we would have been able to spend the whole day gazing down at a forested panorama.

Now I can look on the internet and see all the sights of Bungo Taketa that we missed when we were actually walking around it. I recognize some of the places: the old walled houses.

Postmark: Beppu September 3, 1989

We went shopping in Oita again this weekend. The basement floors of the big department stores always are supermarkets. We discovered one [probably Tokiwa] that had a large western liquor section. And they had Johnny Walker black label, the same size I bought that last night [in Austin] for only ¥3600 ($25.00). So I’m very relieved and happy to know I have a resource for my New Year’s presents. Plus, if I get desperate and dip into the scotch I brought, I’ll be able to replace it. But I haven’t been driven to drinking alone yet, except for the occasional liter of beer from the vending machine down the street. And that’s only if I’ve bought sushi for dinner. Of course, we practically live on sushi. An old woman keeps a take-out shop down the street and I can get six pieces of nigiri-sushi and one tuna roll for ¥400 ($3.00). That’s about the same as one piece of sushi in Austin.

Postmark: Beppu Sunday September 3, 1989

I went to play tennis with about eight other teachers the day before school started. There is a recreation center in Hiji about 30 minutes drive north of here. It’s like a huge private country club but it’s open to the public. It was just completed in April and it makes me think that the Japanese have begun to equate spaciousness with luxuriousness. This facility could compare with the newest ones at UT.

I learned more about playing tennis in this one afternoon than I have in my entire life. Over the years I’ve played on and off with friends. These experiences have supplied plenty of comic relief but no one ever explained how I might play better. The Japanese are so different! I was part of their group and they felt it was their responsibility to help me learn. They showed me how to hold my racket and swing and they each took turns drilling me while the rest of the gang played a game. No one made any deprecating remarks about how bad I was or got impatient with me or acted liked they’d rather be playing for real than teaching me. In the end, I made some improvements.