nipponDAZE

Postmark: Hita

Yesterday JQS and I took the train two hours west to the town of Hita where another AET (Assistant English Teacher) lives. Amy Thomas is from Toledo; like me, she is assigned to a private school. Her school found her a house and it’s like a mansion–especially by Japanese standards–and only ¥20000 a month rent (about $150, which is cheap).

The kitchen is larger than the one in your apartment. It’s a big L-shaped house. One wing has two tatami rooms: a 6-mat room and an 8-mat room with a tokonoma [display alcove].

The other wing has the kitchen and a 6-mat room that’s surrounded by an enclosed wooden porch overlooking a Japanese garden. There are two more rooms upstairs.

This is a very poor photo because of the back-lighting but I wanted to remember the huge porch and the lovely Japanese garden, complete with stone lantern and decorative rocks.

This house is so great. I wouldn’t mind having one just like it in the states. [...] There is this incredible sense of spaciousness that is totally lacking everywhere else I’ve been in Japan. All I want to do is to look out the windows into the garden and let all my pent up feelings of claustrophobia float away.

Anyway, we came up to Hita to visit Amy and be American for a little while. We had a barbecue and rented two American movies. Amy has a TV and a VCR. Basking in the glow of the television, I realized that all sensation of living in Japan had momentarily faded. It felt just like an ordinary evening at home, drinking beer, talking about not much in particular, and watching movies on the VCR. [...]

A breeze is blowing through the house. It is sunny and warm like a May day in Austin. Amy is reading. I am writing to you. And JQS is watching another rental movie. [...]