さらば、友よ、旅立ちの時

During my final week or so in Hakodate, the annual port festival was underway.  The most memorable night of the festival was definitely that of the parade.  In the afternoon, I visited my classmates Ngo-san and Lu-san, who lived in a small buddhist temple near the coast, in the shadow of Mt. Hakodate, with their host mother who was the temple's caretaker. I helped them walk the three family dogs before we went to the parade together with their host mother. Wesat on the side of the road watching the parade for several hours as dozens of elaborate floats and everyone from elementary schoolers to bank employees danced by, and at the very end we (and many other HIFers) joined hundreds of Hakodate residents in dancing the "イカ踊り" (ika odori) or squid dance through the streets.

On the morning of my departure, oniisan, okaasan, Sana and Kousuke all came to see me off at the train station, and in front of Hakodate eki, I somewhat tearfully stumbled through the formal phrases of my goodbye: この二ヶ月の間、色々どうもありがとうございました。本当に、大変お世話になりました。"For these two months, thank you very much for everything. I  truly came into your care (and I am very grateful.)" The translation of the second sentence is awkward, but there isn't an English equivalent to acknowledge the receiving of a favor or kindness that has the same weight to it as "osewa ni naru" does in Japanese. 

That day, Max and I stopped in Sendai and had lunch at a tiny ramen shop. The city apparently holds its Tanabata festival a month later than the rest of Japan, and it was still going on when we arrived, so the station and streets were adorned with very impressive, enormous, colorful hanging paper sculptures. After exploring for a little while, we took a local train thirty minutes out to Matsujima, a group of 260 tiny, pine-covered islands, historically ranked as one of Japan's 3 most beautiful sights and spent a few hours walking around there before hopping on a bullet train towards Tokyo.

In the final hectic weeks of independent study presentations, parades, the port festival, and studying for the final exam, time to assess my overall Japanese progress was scarce. As I spent my final few days in Japan traveling south from Hakodate to Tokyo however, I began to realize just how far I had come. The once-challenging task of navigating unfamiliar places had become as easy as if I were in America. Getting a little lost became, rather than stressful and frightening, just another opportunity for an interesting adventure.

 The Hokkaido International Foundation's program ended two weeks ago already, but I know that the process of reflecting on my time in Japan is only just beginning, and I will certainly remember the experience for the rest of my life. I would like to thank  my host family, the HIF teachers and staff, and most importantly, the Light Fellowship for making this wonderful opportunity possible for me. 

Once again: みんなさん、色々どうもありがとうございました。本当に大変お世話になりました。

HIF students after the "ika odori" or squid dance.

Squid, awaiting preparation, in cooking class.

The final product: Ika-meshi (rice-stuffed squid.)

The elaborate bentou I ate at Ngo-san and Lu-san's house. ごちそうさまでした！

 The American flag bearer next to  "Perry-sama" in the historical reenactment portion of the port festival.

Kimono wearing and etiquette class. (Sitting this way is unexpectedly painful!)

The view outside our classroom window, taken on the final day of class.

I had an interesting experience a few weeks ago. I usually accompany okaasan to her gospel singing group (once, we went straight from buddhist circle to gospel group,) and the other day the group leader invited us out to "yakiniku," which is sort of a Japanese equivalent of barbeque. At the tiny, smokey yakiniku shop, we were presented with various plates of fried or grilled pork, chicken and beef along with vegetables on little wooden skewers. My bravery was put to the test yet again with the last dish: horse sashimi. The meat was almost frozen and I found the flavor strange and difficult to describe-- a little tangy, maybe, but I managed to eat two or three small pieces.

After that, we moved next door to a tiny little izakaya, or Japanese bar, with a karaoke screen. The bartender was another woman from the gospel group, and we talked with her and okaasan and I drank tea and ate little side dishes of tofu and vegetables. Soon, two "ojiisan" or old men came in. Turns out that one of them was okaasan's middle school classmate that she hadn't seen in years. Everyone sang lots of enka ("Japanesu souru songu" as they tried to explain to me) and okaasan was really really good. We stayed there for almost 5 hours and talked about various things. I've been told that Hokkaido doesn't really have a dialect, but they all chimed in to teach me "Kamiisou ben" or the dialect from the tiny little town we live in. For instance, to say "yeah, I understand" people in Kamiisou apparently say "nda nda nda" instead of "sou sou sou." Also the mystery of the word "taigi" was finally solved! Okaasan always uses this word, and my dictionary lists it as "great cause" or "state ceremony" neither of which makes any sense. Apparently in Kamiisou-ben, it means "tiresome" or "inconvenient."

 It was a really authentic experience that I never could have had without my host family, and the Japanese was rapid and casual. In short, nothing that a textbook example could come close to approximating. True, about one in every three rapid sentences was lost on me, but I still count it as a victory. Looking back at my electronic dictionary history from that day is interesting: festival car, cell, folk song, pale indigo, right to remain silent, hairy caterpillar and skyscraper are among the strange collection of words I had to look up to follow the conversation.

The next Saturday, we went to Kousuke's preschool matsuri (festival). The tiny, plump children decked out in summer kimonos struck a strange contrast to their petite, perfectly made-up mothers in heels and frilly skirts. As might be expected, the children alternated between screaming with delight and wailing, and the greater part of the two hours was spent trying to organize them for group photos. Nonetheless, it was fun.

The next day, Hokutoshi, (the official name of the town I live in, combining Kamiisou and a few surrounding towns) had a matsuri as well. It felt kind of like a county fair back home, but there was also a parade with lots of traditional floats and dancing. 

In terms of learning Japanese,I've heard fellow students express envy for small children more than once-  "they learn Japanese through absorption, I learn through pain," one of my friends said. Still, recently, I've realized that a few aspects of Japanese that I've always struggled with have somehow managed to untangle themselves without any effort at all. One of these is the use of the verb "shimau," which, when connected to other verbs has a range of meanings from "accidentally did (verb)" to "completely finished (verb.)" Being able to use it is essential to speaking natural Japanese, but I could never manage to work it into my speech. Recently, however, I've found myself being able to effortlessly slip it into conversation. Another thing that's mysteriously become very easy recently is the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. In Japanese, "the store is open" and "I open the door" require different verbs. Another example is "the parade started" and I started my homework." I'd never been able to consistently use them correctly, but recently I realized that without really thinking about it, I have no trouble differentiating between them anymore.

Though I was under the impression that I was living in a rural country town, the other day, those words found new meaning when I fell asleep on the train and awoke as we pulled into the station of the tiny village of Moheji. After my station, Kamiisou, the train turns away from the coast of Hokkaido and the scenery changes from rice, corn fields and fishing boats to mountains and pine forests. Moheji appeared to be in a little valley surrounded on all sides by tall pine slopes. The "station" was nothing more than one tiny wooden room with an outhouse nearby. My rail pass only goes as far Kamiisou, where I live, but I explained my mistake to the conductor, and he didn't make me pay the extra fare, so I wandered down the roads a little bit while waiting for the next train bound for Hakodate. Cars were sparse on the narrow roads and kids coming home from school stared at me (more than usual) as they approached-- a brave one even ventured a "konnichiwa." I would have liked to explore more, but I heard the train pull in, and had to sprint back to the station to get home in time for dinner. Maybe I'll go back to Moheji next weekend.

A picture of the Moheji station sign taken with my cell phone while I waited for the next train.

I had a great exchange with okaasan the other night-- we were discussing something, I was a little confused, but I think she was trying to tell me that kids with freckles can grow up to be attractive, and she started talking about "roーra" and "meーriー," at which my ears perked. The Little House on the Prairie series was a staple of my childhood, and I didn't miss the reference, despite the somewhat distorted Japanese pronunciations of "Laura" and "Mary." "That family, they traveled across America in a...." I trailed off as my Japanese vocabulary failed to provide me with the word for covered wagon. "Un, un, un!" okaasan confirmed, "Roーra wrote it." I explained to her that it had always been one of my very favorite stories. Very excited, she called Oniisan from upstairs and without hesitation he ran off into another room, rummaged through some boxes, and presented me with six or seven small blue books- the entire series in Japanese. I've been trying to make my way through the first one (大きな森の小さな家, literally, "big forest's little house") every day before bed and on the train, and despite having to look up lots of words like rifle, venison, log and hatchet, the reading level is surprisingly manageable if I go slowly.

On the train yesterday, a little boy, probably about four, got on and walked a few paces before seeing me, staring, and loudly announcing "gaijin da!" ("foreigner!") The Light Fellowship mentioned that this kind of situation might happen, so I was prepared: I responded with a prompt "nihonjin da!" ("Japanese!") and he got a confused look on his before spotting his mother and running off. It was as if he couldn't comprehend the possibility that a Japanese word was coming from my mouth-- it was pretty funny. Later, at the "kyoukai" (which Ialways thought meant church, but okaasan uses to refer to the place where she practices "立正佼成会" Rissho Kosei-kai, apparently an offshoot of Nichren-Buddhism founded in 1938,) a little girl asked, after staring at me for a long time, why my eyes were blue. That one caught me by surprise and I couldn't think of a suitable response.

 When we enter the kyoukai, we bow down in the direction of the alter and say our "greetings," before kneeling in a circle with 14 or so other women. First, we chant "namu myou hou ren ge kyou," which my dictionary translates as "Glory to the Sutra," and thank one another and the "sensei" before discussing various things. I say "various things" because usually I have a lot of trouble understanding the conversations due to a combination of slight Hokkaido dialect and the manner of speech of older individuals. The discussion leader, or sensei, starts by asking what we've realized recently and usually people relate long, complicated anecdotes before reaching their points. Last time, though the anecdote was a little confusing, I managed to catch the point: Okada-san thought that Tanaka-san would be upset at her about something (involving missed phone calls?) but she wasn't. Okada-san realized that she only thought this, because she let herself get annoyed at others in the same situation, but the "abundance of Tanaka-san's heart" had brought her attention to this. I've been to the kyoukai a couple times, but I've never quite been able to follow the discussion, so I counted this as a success.

I've also been able to understand otousan more than usual recently, though I can't say if that's more because I'm able to understand his extremely slurred pronunciation (according to okaasan, he doesn't have very many teeth) or because I'm just starting to know what kind of things he tends to say (why don't you turn the lights on? Do you want to drink coke?) and am getting better at guessing.

A few pictures:

Kaiten sushi with okaasan

A picture taken at the cemetery during Obon, a festival to honor the spirits of deceased ancestors.

A nearby shinto shrine I visited recently with my friend Wang-san from class

"Wagashi" or traditional Japanese sweets made from red bean paste last weekend

The priest who sat across from me on the train on the way home yesterday

 The past week was a tough one for everyone at HIF between a speech presentation, kanji test, and cumulative mid-term. I made some friends at my okaasan's gospel choir practice as they eagerly read over pages of my kanji study sheets looking for mistaken strokes. Last week was also Tanabata matsuri, or the Star Festival. Somewhat like Halloween in America, on 7/7, Japanese children dress up (in kimonos) and go from house to house to receive sweets and snacks. The houses which have bamboo stalks with  little slips of paper hanging from them are ones that offer snacks and candy. But first, the kids have to sing a song:

"take ni tanzaku, tanabata matsuri ooi wa iya yo, rousoku ippon, choudai naa" 

Okaasan dressed me up in a kimono and took me out with Sana and Kousuke.

Last week, we made takoyaki (doughy balls of fried octopus) when Sana and Kousuke were over.

The Light Fellowship asks how 'my formal academic learning has differed from this "real living experience" abroad' which reminds me of one obstacle  I've encountered recently outside the classroom-- the Japanese tendency to guess the ending of sentences.  A crucial word in Japanese is "aite," which my dictionary translates as opponent, partner, companion and other party. In this case I would choose  Seto-sensei's preferred translation of "interlocutor." Considering the feelings of one's aite in interactions is not merely a cultural tendency-- it's built into the structure of the language. Native speakers are  accustomed not only to inferring objects and subjects of sentences, but broader things as well. For instance, if an offer is inconvenient or undesirable, this is often expressed through the phrase "ah, that's a little..." with the expectation that the listener will understand. The ability to "read the air" (as the Japanese expression goes) is not some sort of gift limited to the particularly emotionally intuitive- it is a standard skill required to navigate the most basic social situations. This is such a fundamental characteristic of the language and culture that as exchange students in Japan, we had this reiterated so often that initially I was a little overly cautious for fear of offending someone.  Another related feature of the language the expectation that the listener provide almost constant feedback to show attention. A "good listener" in English doesn't speak much, but in Japanese, every sentence that one's "aite" says should be punctuated with an "ah, is that so?" or "oh, that's how it is," "I understand," or at least a reaffirming  "mm." Not only that, but repeating sentences back and forth is very standard conversational form (to the extent that it can be comical to an english listener,) for example, the following exchange might not be unnatural: "The teacher is strict, isn't he." "Oh, the teacher is strict?" "Yeah strict." "Oh, I see. He's strict."

When I try to construct a difficult sentence or use one of the longer,  more complicated verb tenses or grammatical structures, I find that often after the slightest hesitation, I'm often cut off, as my "aite" tries to guess where I'm going and supply the ending of the sentence for me. This is frustrating in a few ways. Not only is being cut off in the middle of a sentence frustrating as an English speaker,  I also need as much language practice as I can get. Furthermore, if the person guesses wrong, I'm presented with the dilemma of contradicting someone politely, which requires some finesse in Japanese.  After thinking about it thoroughly and realizing that it's counterproductive to let this get to me, my newest tactic has been practicing sentences ahead of time, sometimes even writing them down, so that I can say them quickly and smoothly enough to get an entire thought out at once, and I seem to be having some success  so far.

A few more pictures...

Our Japanese-style room at the hotel in Ohnuma.

A friend's lunch, bought for around 5 dollars at the local super market.

A local high school, where I went for a Judo class.

The "Moomin" dolls in the entrance way of my host family's house

Japanese is already becoming easier to slip into at any time, which is a great feeling, but the road to ペラペラ (pera pera, the  onomatopoeia for the sound of speaking fluently) is paved with many simple fill-in-the-blank workbook exercises, which are making me miss Yale and intellectually rigorous classes. 

The other day, we went to visit okaasan's friends, the Noudas. The Nouda's have a very old, impressive buddhist shrine in their house, which they were happy to explain and show me. The explanations of Buddhist practices were a little hard to follow sometimes, but they showed me small offerings of food and flowers that they put on the shrine everyday. We have a shrine in our house too, but it's much smaller-- I'll try to upload pictures of both ours and the Noudas'.

 Okaasan then told them (a favorite topic of hers) about all the different Japanese food I can eat, which led to a discussion of American food. Many Japanese people I've met here seem to think that we eat hamburgers daily and that bread in America is a direct equivalent to rice in Japan-- I even think I heard okaasan say we ate "panshoku," which means "bread-centered diet." Unless we're eating noodles (soba, udon or ramen) my host family eat rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner along with various tsukemono (side dishes) and often fish. They often seem to think that we do the same with "pan" or bread in America, with plain bread being the staple of every meal. This has presented a slight dilemma: Japanese bread is like highly-processed American bread, but each slice is about twice as thick, and nearly as large as my fac,e and many years of being a host mother seem to have inexorably convinced okaasan that I need this gargantuan bread every morning at breakfast.

This weekend, all the HIF students visited Ohnuma National Park and stayed in the Ohnuma Green Pia Hotel for a night. The park was very pretty, with a dramatic volcano rising above connected lakes, but we didn't stay for long, so I didn't get far beyond the touristy stalls. The hotel itself had an onsen which was a lot of fun, and we went in a couple times. At breakfast I ate an entire small packet of nattou (sticky, fermented soy beans,) the only Japanese food that I still simply cannot stomach is uni (sea urchin,) but if I somehow feel that if I can manage to conquer uni, I can't be daunted by anything in this country.

 Recently, I've managed to have slightly more complicated conversations with okaasan. She explained her favorite Korean historical drama to me yesterday, and the day before we discussed Japanese citizens with Korean or Chinese heritage. Otousan is not particularly talkative-- he likes to sit with his beer, eating nattou and watching Japanese variety shows. His sentences are very short, casual and slurred together, but I have learned that there is a good chance he is asking me if I want to eat or drink something, probably "cora" (coke, a beverage that, according to otousan, all Americans enjoy.) He is still much more difficult to understand than okaasan, but I've realized that okaasan's speech also has a difficult point: she pronounces the Japanese syllable I learned in school as "ga" as a very nasal "hnyaah" type noise. It took me forever to realize that it was a "ga" and it still throws me off occasionally, but since I talk with her the most, okaasan is still the easiest to understand. Sana, her grandaughter, is only 9 years old, but is adorable, very friendly, and excellent at describing things in a way that make sense to me. She recently lent me one of her books, about middle school friendship, and I am painstakingly making my way through it.

I'm enjoying going for a jog every day here and exploring the area around the house. Yesterday I found a route that goes into the countryside near the house through the rice paddies. I'll try to take a picture of it this weekend- it really does give the feeling of being in rural Japan.

The house

Okaasan, "beveling" the delicious daikon

Maki (roll) that okaasan packed me for lunch last weekend

A poster for the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters

 The view of HIF from the bottom of the hill, with Mt. Hakodate in the background.