A Blessing Spoken Too Early in the Morning

This is from my running blog but it's mostly about things other than running. About being foreign, and being too friendly for my own good. But mostly just about life happening, simple things.

This is the end of week four, 1/4 of the way through my 16-week training program. Wow. Time is a funny thing. Hours drag as I'm sweltering in this heat with no A/C at work and yet weeks just fly by.

I wanted to run 8 miles today.But at 92% humidity and 80 degrees out frankly I am happy with how far I made it. I walked the last two miles and completed the 5-mile outing in about an hour.

I had a really weird start to the run. I will preface it with this verse from Proverbs 27:14 "A loud and cheerful greeting early in the morning will be taken as a curse!"

At 5:15am I was later than I should have been but still thought I might be able to finish the run. I saw an old lady trying to make eye-contact with me and also checking her watch. As I got closer I realized I'd run into her before and it was unpleasant so I kept my eyes glued to the ground and barely replied as she said good morning to me. That was enough encouragement for her and 30 minutes and a bewildering conversation later I was finally starting my run.

The first time I had a run in with this woman was as I was trying to hurry along to work. She stopped at my house as I was packing up my bike and commented that my tree needed cutting. I was in no mood to be reprimanded by a stranger who apparently had nothing else better to do than make her neighbors late for work.

I do cut my tree, but I can't reach up to the power lines, obviously, and so there are some very long branches up there. I replied with the Japanese equivalent of, "Yeah, but it's not like I can do it!" I don't normally start conversations off rudely, especially in a language I have a minimal command of. But for the love! Monday mornings are not the time to be told you're not doing a good job. She, however, was undeterred and continued chatting with me as I mumbled responses and slowly peddled my bike and checked my watch. She got the hint and I made it to work just in time for the morning meeting, sweating profusely.

This time she asked me if I knew what Tanabata is. It's the Star Festival. You tie wishes to a bamboo shoot and the next day, July 8th, you burn the whole thing sending your wishes to the other world. I have been living in Japan for two years; I know the major holidays.

She then took me to her house to see her bamboo shoot. I took a photo of it on my phone after she leadingly noted that I had my phone with me. And then she said, "Tanabata isn't a holiday in other countries, is it?" Like many people throughout the world, this woman has a misunderstanding of what unique means in a global context. As Stephen has frequently remarked when we run into comments like this, "Yes, Japan is a unique country. In world of unique countries." No, we don't celebrate Tanabata, with it's bamboo wish shoot. Much like you don't celebrate Easter, with it's egg hunts and chaotic iconography, Ms. Meddler.

Was she trying to be friendly, if simultaneously patronizing? Of course, sweet thing. But even a cheerful greeting spoken too early in the morning will be taken as a curse. I just wanted to run.

Let's PURIKURA

What started as just curiosity has now become a new obsession. Almost a hobby. I've gotten purikura in almost every city I've visited. This is purikura:

Purikura is the Japanese version of photo booths. You slip coins into a slot, and several small photos are taken. Usually friends and lovers take them together. And that's where the similarities end.

In purikura you have a choice of several different booths, sometimes over twenty. They're often in multistory arcades but just as often they are attractions in and of themselves. They are most popular with young crowds but even college graduates will get some purikura with their friends to celebrate the occasion.

Once you insert the coins the madness begins, and quickly. You need to select how you want to be tinted and if you want your eyes to be colored/sparkled. Then you decide which 4-6 backgrounds you want out of about 100. Some are just plain colors or patterns but others have cute images like on my example of purikura.

Once you decide how you're gonna pose (before each shot you're shown models posing in your selected background in case you can't come up with anything on the spot) and the photos are taken it's only half over.

Then you go to a smaller, adjacent booth with two chairs and a screen with two "pens" attached. Now you go about decorating your tiny photos. There's tons of hearts and stars, cutesy sayings in Japanese and English (the one above is, "Suki, suki, daisuki: Like, like, love"), date stamps, pen color choices for writing your own message, and hoards of cute images like puppies and cakes and smileys.

It's incredibly overwhelming at first but the more you go to the purikura dens the more you're used to what they offer and pretty soon you're purikura-ing just like a giddy group of high school girls.

Purikura is probably not a legitimate hobby nor is it probably what the JET Programme has in mind when it recommends getting involved in cultural activities. But it is fun, really, really fun. And, as if it couldn't get better, you can peel off the backing and your purikura becomes a sticker!

My New Hobby: Figuring out What "Teacher" Means in Japan

Happy fall (weather)! The cool breeze and lack of humidity has been real cheery here. I am thankful for the changing of the seasons.

While preparing to leave for Japan over two months ago I remember being prepped on two things over and over again: 1). teachers are really busy in Japan, and 2). make sure you have a hobby, that you do things you enjoy regularly. It turns out these two things are very related. You see, upon being placed in my town the only people I knew were the teachers at my school. They are all very wonderful and I have enjoyed working with and among them. However they are, just I was endless told, busy. Really busy. So, if coming over here I had the idea that me and the other teachers would be hanging out all the time, well, I'd have been in for a bit of a shock. I sit at my desk, they sit at their desks and we work. They run here and there (I'm not being poetically vague here, I really have no idea where they are going most of time and I have no idea why they must run). I usually have two or three free periods a day. They usually have, well, negative free periods as there are things to be done well before the first bell rings and well after the last one.

While still in the States I became a little dismayed when I realized I didn't actually have a hobby. I don't sew or paint or exercise. I don't collect anything anymore (I was young, Tweety Bird was cool then, give me a break). I read and I write. I've always done that, my childhood is a blur of softball practices and long hours by myself reading or playing with my beloved Barbies. Is reading a hobby, though? Is writing? Probably. And since they're all I've got I'm holding onto them. And yet, upon arriving on this island, I decided I should pick up a hobby. Ya know, just in case.

Here's why I don't have a hobby: I find few things more important than getting to know people or ideas so given the option of doing something or just shootin' the breeze with someone I'll always choose the latter. And so, I sit a lot at work. I prepare worksheets, activities, or lesson plans and, yes, I do teach. But when I'm not doing those things I sit. Sometimes I study Japanese (I learned 5 kanji characters last week, only 1,995 to go until I can read a newspaper). Besides the teaching part, though, everything else I do involves sitting: studying while sitting, writing lesson plans while sitting, and so on.

It was during one of these periods of sitting that I discovered my new hobby. You see, in those first weeks that I was here I was very curious, I wanted to understand the way Japanese schools are run. My curiosity hasn't waned since then, but I longer hold any futile notion of understanding how things operate over here. Back when I was trying to figure out what kept the teachers so busy I would ask them, periodically, what they were doing. I was especially curious during summer "vacation." During that time especially I was usually the only one in the office, the other teachers busy. Running here and there.

So as I saw a teacher getting ready for, well, something I'd ask what they were off to do. Ya know, maybe I could help. In the summer I had no lessons to plan, no worksheets to make, and no stamina to study for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I thought I'd try and make myself available. So I asked one of the teachers what she off to do and she replied "I do the accounting for the first grade so I need to make some calls." And there my new hobby was born.

In a school system where the school clerks cut the hedges and school teachers do the accounting I knew I wasn't going to "get it" anytime soon. But I keep asking because I hope this answer will top the one before it. Most recently the I got this answer: "I need to go gather the aluminum cans." Teacher/accountant. Teacher/janitor. The fun never ends!

Forget reading, writing, or dusting off my Tweety Bird collection (kidding, it's back home...wait...I mean I gave it away) my new hobby is keeping a record of the answers I get to "What will you do now?"