Further notes can be found at the bottom!
(Originally published September 4, 2007)
Just a day after my train-station
mishaps on my way to the birthday dinner, destiny poked me in the rear and made
me try again.
“Destiny” is perhaps too heavy of a
word. “Fate” doesn’t really work,
either. “Circumstance” and “fortune”
imply that none of it was planned.
Regardless, some prompting finger of the universe prodded me forward,
and I found myself back in Tanigami Station the next morning, snapping my fan
open and shut.
Flashback:
As part of the training for the JET
Program, Sean had a small seminar in Spokane and a larger one in Seattle
preceding his departure. Being his
devoted and beloved spouse, I accompanied him to the Spokane session. Hosted in a house off of Freya, the gathering
was small and casual.
Our hostesses were two native
Japanese women who had married American men and made their lives in
Spokane. The house belonged to
Misako-san, who had kept Japan close to heart when choosing her tasteful
decorations for the home. At one point,
training broke for a little bit so that Misako could teach us what the buttons
meant on the super-duper-Japanese flushers (don’t laugh! You’ve read my bathroom entry—they are
complex technological marvels!).
Misako-san had the super-flushers put in all the bathrooms of her home,
and she spent some time with each of us discussing the different buttons and
their functions.
With Sean and me, however, she took
a little extra time and showed us many pictures of her daughter Dian, who
currently lives in Japan with her young family.
“You must get in touch with Dian!” she exclaimed. “She will help you. I used to mail her all sorts of things from
the states, like cake mixes—but I don’t need to now, because there’s a
Costco! Yes, you have to go to
Costco! Call Dian, she’ll take you! Meat, eggs, bread, whatever you need, it’s at
Costco. And Dian, she’s been to Spain
lots of times; she loves Spanish food.”
At this point, Sean mentioned that
I had lived in Spain, and perhaps we could make something for Dian. “Oh, yes! Yes!” she gushed. “You must teach her, too. Teach her how to make the Spanish food!”
Well, anxious for a friendly
contact in the country, I emailed Dian before we left the states, and she was
quite friendly. Of course, her mother
had already talked to her regarding us, so she was expecting the email. And when I mentioned a common link between
us—Spanish food—her response was something like this: “Actually, I think my mom gets Spain and
Mexico mixed up. I’ve never been to
Spain, but I love Mexico and its food.”
Turns out that it still works okay, because I make some mean Mexican
food, too.
Well, once I arrived in Kobe, I
again made contact with Dian. She
(surprisingly, to me) invited me over to her house in Nishinomiya, which is a
distance perhaps similar to that of Coeur d’Alene to downtown Spokane…or maybe
Cheney. Not really sure. I’m not a pro at translating “train-time”
into distance yet.
Nishinomiya, incidentally, is
sister-city to Spokane, and Kobe is sister-city to Seattle. That’s how Dian originally ended up in
Nishinomiya. About fifteen years ago or
so, she came to Japan on a sister-city teaching exchange. She stayed for a couple years, then got a job
with a sake company and moved to San Francisco and began marketing the rice
wine to different Japanese stores and eateries in the US. Somewhere along the line she met her husband,
moved back to Nishinomiya, and started a family.
Now, back to the train station
(feel free to imagine some rippling heat-wave/psychedelic effects here to
complete the flash-back sequence). This
time, instead of going to the nearer train station and having to transfer
almost right away—which was where I had made my first mistake just the day
before—I decided to walk the extra fifteen minutes or so to Tanigami Station
and thus eliminate one possible opportunity for error. Plus, I saved ¥170 in doing so. That’s a whole Diet Coke for Sean right
there!
The night before, Sean helpfully
dragged me to the train-fair maps in the station, and we mapped out my route
and fare for the next day. As a result,
when I arrived in Sannomiya without any mishaps from Tanigami, I bought my
fare, boarded the train, transferred at the right stop, and made it all the way
into Nishinomiya BY MYSELF. It was a
jubilant moment. I didn’t feel
comfortable doing a little boogie on the train platform though, so instead I
exited the turnstiles as gracefully as I knew how…
And then I had to navigate
Nishinomiya.
Dian sent me some detailed
directions which I had copied out and brought with me. She had also included her phone number and
told me that she didn’t mind meeting me.
But you see, this was my first test.
If I couldn’t manage THIS, how was I going to manage anything??? So I pulled out my note pad and looked at her
first set of directions. “Take the East
Exit from the station.” So far, so
good. “Take the shopping street
(shotengai).” Uh oh. Two streets met in a Y in front of the
station. Both had signs above them, but
neither had any English. I squinted at
them, wishing I remembered more of the hiragana alphabet and kicking myself for
not studying harder. On one of them I
thought I recognized the symbol for “sho”, so I gave a mental shrug and picked
the left path.
Turns out I was wrong. Halfway down, they had signs saying that I
was walking on “Suzuran” street. So, I
pulled a quick right, linked up with the other street, and prayed that it was
Shotengai. A quick note: Japanese addresses do not go by street
names. If a street has a name, it’s because
usually it is a “shopping” street, or a shopping district. The addresses go by a number code, so it’s
really hard to find anything just based on address alone. Therefore, I didn’t have the benefit of
“going south on 1st Street” or “turning left on Jefferson”.
Since that is the case, I say God
bless Dian! She gave what the delivery
drivers at work used to call “women’s directions”. Using landmarks and left-and-right directions
(and completely avoiding street names and cardinal directions), she guided me
to her house. After I turned left at the
auto shop, and right two blocks down, I was looking for the third house on the
left between an apartment building and an empty lot. Apartment building: check. Empty lot?
Um… no. So I went down two more
houses (which obviously made it the fifth
house on the right), and stopped at the gate, because there was an empty lot
next door. Not knowing what to do now, I
stared at the gate. Do I hit the little
speaker button? Or do I go through the
gate (which was unlocked), and knock on the door? I began to break out in a sweat. Actually, I’ve been sweating horribly this
whole time, but this was a nervous
sweat. Then, thank heavens, I had wits
enough to notice the plaque on the garden wall.
“Abe”, it proudly stated. Not
“Nakahara”.
Sighing to myself, I pulled out my
cell phone. “Dian?” I asked. “Do you have a silver almost-SUV in your
driveway?”
“No,” she said, “but I live right
down the street from that. I’m coming
out my front door right now.” So I turn
around, and you know where she was?
Standing on the porch of the third house on the right. “Sorry,” she said. “The empty lot is actually behind the
house. I suppose you can’t see it from
the street. I’m surprised you’re here,
though. I was expecting to have to pick
you up!”
When I explained that I felt like
it was a personal test, she seemed to know what I meant. “Well, you made it,” she said. “Why don’t you come inside where it’s cool?”
God bless Dian!
To be continued…
~~~~~
When we were at the training in Spokane, I remember Misako-san pulling us into the kitchen to show us how she made the steamed pork buns we were eating. Her secret ingredient? Pilsbury biscuit dough. Cooked in her stove-top bamboo steamer, they were surprisingly delicious and I never would have guessed it was biscuit dough from a tube.
I also remember expressing some anxiety about not knowing the language or any social norms. "Oh, don't worry!" they said, flapping their hands at me. "Just find a man and look at him with those big round eyes of yours, and they'll do anything!" I was a bit flabbergasted by that, but they cracked themselves up. Sean just looked at me and shrugged.
To the best of my knowledge, my big round eyes never got me anything special in Japan… but maybe I just wasn't trying that hard!
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