Gaijin Chronicles Issue 8: Laughter in Any Language (Part 1)

This duo of posts was one of my favorites. It meant a lot to me at the time, not just because I had found a friend… but also because it was the first major outing I had taken and proved to myself that I could do it. 

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 1^st 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!

Gaijin Chronicles Issue 7: A Frenchman in Kobe

This post is fairly complete. I don't have much to add, besides an anecdote from the future regarding the same restaurant. You can find it below the original text...

(Originally posted August 28, 2007)

I have never seen the movie An American in Paris.  It’s true.  I can hear the gasps from some of the readers, suggesting that what they really want to shout is, “Say it isn’t so!”  But it is.  I know it’s a classic and famous movie, which suggests it has a good storyline.  But in terms of sheer circumstance and coincidence, it ain’t got nothing on us! 

My birthday, by the time it arrived, did not much feel like my birthday.  My family had arranged a couple of “group birthday” shindigs, so we all had our share of birthday sugar-rushes before I left the states.   Sean was already in Japan during these celebrations, though, so this time around it was “just us.”  

Sean has a rather remarkable record (and that’s a nice case of alliteration, I must say!) for arranging truly spectacular birthdays.  It’s great at the same time that it’s annoying, because I can never really hope to match him.  Plus, now he’s set the bar for himself, too! 

He had to work during the day, so for the first time I took the train and subway into downtown by myself.  After forgetting to transfer when I should have, I ended up one stop down on the line.  Mentally, I’m running this conversation through my head:  “Should I get off?  Or should I stay on until a bigger station?  I know that a new train will come through soon, and it has to be a ‘local’, so it will stop where I need it to… but…” Meanwhile, I’m anxiously opening my fan partway and snapping it shut again in what has now developed into a nervous habit.  Anyway, I end up getting off.  The station was tiny, so there was really no English or even “romanji” (the term for writing Japanese in the western alphabet) to let me know where to go.  So, I employed a little bit of common sense, crossed to the opposite platform, and was filled with relief when approximately two minutes later a train pulled up to take me back to where I should have transferred in the first place.

Back at Tanigami station, there was a train waiting.  Tanigami receives three different train lines regularly on any given day.  What I wanted was one of the trains that would take me through the mountain to downtown.  There was one waiting, but it didn’t have any of the names on it I thought it should have, and it was green.  I thought I wanted brown.  It turns out that WAS the train that I was supposed to take, but because Sean was also traveling in the subway, he couldn’t reply to my email in time because he didn’t have cell reception.  So, I missed that train and had to wait twelve minutes for another.  To make a long story short, I eventually made it downtown intact, although still nervously snapping my fan back and forth.  Because of the detours, it wasn’t any surprise that Sean beat me, so he met me at the turnstiles on the way out of the station and led us on our way.

Although Kobe is one city, its geographical boundaries are huge.  For instance, we live in Hanayama Higashimachi, which means “Flower Mountain East”.  It’s considered sort of its own town, within its own “sub-county” or sub-district, but it’s all Kobe City—even if we literally do live on the other side of the mountain.  Thus, downtown is called Sannomiya.  Sean was taking me through Sannomiya to Kitano-cho, which is a neighborhood where many foreigners have settled, and thus it’s a mecca for western food.  There’s even a disco called “Diva Station” that says “80’s music!”, featuring Soul Train and a black couple with afros.  I think they need to check their decades.

Our trek ended at a quaint little Mediterranean style villa, complete with stonework and tile roof.  It looked like quite the atmospheric Italian Restaurant.  I was excited.  It was closed.  Permanently. 

So, with plan A down the tubes, we began to wander.  I was very thirsty, but in Japan this is never a problem, because there are vending machines every fifty feet.  They sell a variety of drinks, including hot coffee and cold beer, but hardly ever is there food on offer.  So, we got some water and continued our wanderings through the neighborhood.  Sean stopped to look at the menu display outside another charming stone building, this one fashioned after the Victorian style.  Being satisfied with the dinner menu, we went in.

Victorian indeed!  A very pleasant woman wearing a modest Victorian-esque costume led us to our table. Which was the size of a coffee table.  With two Victorian parlour chairs. The menu, elegantly bound with wood, was of dessert, tea, and coffee only.  A white waistcoated waiter who looked like he was about 16 (which probably means he was 28) served us hot towels to refresh ourselves and placed trivets and water in front of us.  Sean and I looked at each other.  This is Japan.  We couldn’t just walk out because we were wrong.  So, Sean had a $10.00 Vienna coffee (which he said was excellent.  I tasted it and he was right.) and I had a “Milk Tea Royale” for $8.00.  Also excellent.  Better be, for that price.  So, with our freshly cleaned hands, we sat in quiet Victorian elegance, complete with dark wood panels, classical music, velvet upholstery, and fine china.  And then we moved on.

Still needing something to eat (and by this time I’m getting just the teensy-tiniest bit grouchy), we went up the block, attracted like moths to the twinkling lights of a little restaurant on the corner.  It turned out to be “Bistrot Café de Paris”, and after reviewing their outdoor menu, we assured ourselves that they did indeed serve dinner and not just coffee.  We looked at each other and shrugged.  Might as well.

The café was cute, and to all appearances authentic.  A tall gaijin gentleman met us at the door.  He started out in Japanese, we answered in Japanese, he continued in English, and I thanked him in French.  To which, of course, he replied in his native French.  He was really quite charmant.  We took a table outside, which again seems nothing short of nuts in retrospect.  We had just consumed hot drinks, walked up a hill, and chosen to sit outside in the 90+ degree heat.  Yeah.  Obviously, when faced with an air-conditioned café or sweating our buns off and being eaten alive by mosquitoes, it’s a no-brainer.  Outside it is. 

The menu was in Japanese and French.  I told Sean that if he read the Japanese I would read the French, and between the two of us, we ought to know what we’d be getting.  The proprietor was French who spoke English and Japanese, and our waitress was Japanese who was learning English.  We muddled along fine.  What we ended up getting was the best meal I have had in a very, very long time. 

Our appetizer was thin, delicate, salty “jambon” (think prosciutto ham, only better) topping juicy bits of seasonal fruit. Our entrée was Couscous Royale.  Hot, nutty couscous with a hint of butter, accompanied by the best tomato-based stew in existence.  The vegetables were fresh, the spice and flavor was delicate and perfect, and the meat was tender in a melt-in-your mouth sort of way that the French claim only they can do.  Maybe they’re right.

The only speck of imperfection in the evening came when our drinks didn’t arrive.  We told the proprietor, and he rectified the situation, and when we turned down dessert, he brought one out for free anyway, while he chatted us up. 

Originally, because of my three words of French, he thought we were Canadian.  Astonishingly, once he found out we were American, he continued to like us anyway.  He lived in London for six years (thus his English), and has lived in Japan for seventeen (thus his Japanese).  Among all his other advice for us?  “Don’t stay heere for seventeene years.  No.  One, two, maybe five, zis is good.  Seventeene? No. Not good.”  All in all, as I have already said, he was quite charming.

And the dessert.  Who would have thought that Earle Gray Mousse would sound good?  It was superb!  Hints of jasmine and lavender, nutmeg and vanilla… light and rich at the same time… it was something I never would have picked.  It was perfect. 

The whole night, amidst all of its stumbling, circumstance, misunderstandings, and coincidences, was perfect.  Again.  As usual.  As always.  Damn.  Now I have to start planning for Sean’s birthday.

We’re planning to visit our French friend again on our anniversary.  Maybe we’ll wrangle another dessert.

                                                         ~~~~~

I don't think we ever did go back for our anniversary. However, we did take Taketani-Sensei, (who you will meet later) as sort of a thank-you dinner. The charming proprietor that I remembered from our previous visit seemed much changed. Same guy, but his charm was mysteriously missing.  Sean and I ordered the same cous cous dish (why mess with a good thing?), and took pity on Taketani when he ordered a Bordeaux wine. Applying the English rules of pronunciation, he pronounced it Bore-dohx, as would anyone unfamiliar with French. He also pronounced it "bistrot," just as it was spelled, and we spent a confusing 10 minute conversation with him trying to explain that French was full of words whose last consonant was silent… unless the NEXT word started with a vowel, in which case the silent consonant suddenly sprang to life. His eyes got wider and wider until he finally ran his hands frustratedly through his hair and said, "You know what? I'm just going to stick to English." 

C'est la vie. (the "t" is silent.)

Gaijin Chronicles Issue 5/6: Japanese Godliness

When I originally posted this Chronicle, I realized that I had skipped calling the very first "installment" an issue, so I sort of skipped Issue 5 and jumped ahead to Issue 6. At the time it was important for me to try to maintain chronology, but if I were to do it now, I just would have floated it as Issue 5 and let it be. Not like it really matters, right?

For this post, I have chosen to place my new thoughts at the bottom, after you've read it all.

~~~~~

(Originally posted August 22, 2007)

As a general rule, Japan is a country and culture of excessive cleanliness.  Even today, it is customary to shower before you take a bath.  Neither Sean nor I know entirely for sure, but we postulate that this comes from the days when water was a pain in the you-know-what to heat up.  Therefore, everyone would clean in a basin.  First they’d scrub-a-dub-dub, then they’d jump in the tub.  But here’s the catch: they would all jump in the same tub—though presumably not at the same time.  This way, they didn’t have to heat nearly as much water.  Many families still leave water in the tub from one freshly scrubbed person to the next. 

That means, of course, that the shower is the largest room in our apartment.  Alright.  That’s not true.  Our apartment is actually very sizeable by most Japanese standards, and positively mammoth by Tokyo standards (think 100-180 square foot average for one person.  Seriously).  Our shower and bath are in a combined room.  This means that the shower in general is huge, but the tub is—ironically—small.  Whereas I might be able to sit in it and have my legs stretch to the end without bending, I would have to sit straighter than a flagpole.  Sean, on the other hand, would end up virtually kissing his knees. 

But it’s not just in bathing that the Japanese have retained their reputation for cleanliness.  There’s litter control stricter than Disney Land—and that’s with a noticeable lack of public trash receptacles.  You can always find one next to a vending machine, though, and those are everywhere (but that’s another topic).  While walking the street, you can often find people wearing surgical masks—and yes, it’s probably because they’re sick—but not with some horrible communicable disease (I hope).  No, the Japanese are so concerned about the well-being of their fellow man that they will actually risk looking like an extra in “ER” so that they won’t spread their germs.  I say that somewhat mockingly, but really… it truly is a nice gesture.  Beyond that, some ladies still wear little white gloves just to travel in.  When sitting down at nearly any restaurant, the waitress will bring you a cloth (either packaged or not) to wipe your hands.  And the toilets!!! Oh, the toilets…

For a country that for centuries used only a hole in the floor (later lavishly lined with porcelain), they have swung 180 degrees when it comes to western toilets.  The toilets here put America to shame.  Many of the public toilets here put America to shame.  While it’s true that you can find your standard rest-stop toilet (still cleaner than you’d think), many of the public toilets here are amazing. 

Ladies, come to Japan.  They have the toilets of your dreams.  It’s an all-in-one functionality.  Heated seats with temperature controls.  Bidets with two spray points—one for your bum and one for everywhere else—also with temperature controls.  A “flushing sound” with volume control to cover up any indiscreet toilet sounds (they had to add that one because so many women were flushing to avoid embarrassment.  Turns out they were wasting millions of gallons of water a year as a society).  Air freshener with potency control to cover up the results of those indiscreet toilet sounds.  And these are in public bathrooms!  And in case you’re confused by what button does what, some restrooms even have bi-lingual instructions on the wall.

Not only are the toilets fantastic by American standards, but many of the bathroom locations are, as well.  When Sean took me downtown for the first time, we walked all over the place.  Finally, as we were at City Hall on the free observation floor, I told him I couldn’t take it anymore.  I needed to find a bathroom.

“Can you wait five minutes?” he asked.  “If you can, I can take you to a spectacular bathroom.” 

Rolling my eyes and crossing my legs, I huffed and replied, “I suppose…”

s

Five minutes and about 17 stories later, I found myself in the Ladies’ Restroom at the International Center.  And you know what?  It was spectacular.  No, the faucets weren’t gold.  The counter wasn’t marble, and the toilets were just standard all-in-one super Japanese flushers.  What was spectacular was that it was floor-to-ceiling windows on the city-side wall.  Amazing views!  Unimpeded vistas.  Except… the stall doors in most restrooms are also usually floor-to-ceiling.  So it’s not exactly like I could sit there and admire the view, if you know what I mean.  But still!  That’s valuable real estate, right there.  A corner office, perhaps.  A fashionable lobby.  A boutique.  In Japan?  Nope.  Bathrooms. 

They do say that cleanliness is next to godliness.

The view from the women's restroom

~~~~~~~

When I went to Japan, I had three rules: I didn't want to use a Japanese-style toilet, I didn't want to try and get my hair cut, and I didn't want to have to go to the doctor. After a year, I only managed to adhere to one of those. I'll fill you in on the other two later, but I can safely say that I used Japanese style toilets, and once you get used to the mechanics, they're not a big deal. In fact, I walk into some restrooms here that are just HORRIBLE and find myself wishing for a porcelain-lined hole in the floor, because if you do it right, you don't have to touch ANYTHING.

I remember a conversation we had with some of the goofier teachers at one of the schools. I can't even remember which school it was or which teachers, but I think it was at Sean's school for the disabled, but not one of the teachers with which he worked regularly. We were discussing the difference in toilets, and how it's a funny thing to have culture shock over. Our apartment in Kita-Ku was built in the 60s and had a western toilet, and the toilet paper dispenser on the wall still had a faded and cracked sticker on it that demonstrated how to properly use the toilet. In one, covered by a big red X, a stick figure was standing on the toilet seat facing the tank. In the other, without a big red X, the stick figure was sitting. 

We all laughed a little bit, and then a couple of the teachers said that though they grew up with the Japanese-style toilet, they preferred the western style. Another teacher joked that he can tell when he's out of shape, because when he has to go for a while without using a western style toilet in favor of the traditional ones, his thighs start to hurt from all the squatting. And then one of the men said that even for Japanese, sometimes it's difficult to use a traditional toilet when you haven't for a very long time. His parents, he said, don't have western toilets in their house. And one time when he went to visit, he squatted down and then… he pantomimed looking over his shoulder, covered his mouth with one hand, opened his eyes wide in comedic surprise, and said, "Oop! Missed!"

We all burst out laughing while the women chided us all for discussing something so off-color, but they didn't really mean it. It's funny how vivid that anecdote is in my head, still, even though I can't remember clearly who it was. 

Also, I indicated in the original post that the stalls in the women's bathroom meant that you couldn't "sit and enjoy the view." Sean told me later, however, that the line of men's urinals was on the window wall… meaning that men had no problem at all looking out over the city as they did their business. I still think that would be a little unnerving (especially if you're afraid of heights), but I guess I'll never get a chance to know!