Looking back on the things I've done...

I'm back in the U.S. for real now, and even back on East coast time in a record single day after an entirely sleepless Narita-Newark flight left my body's internal clock reeling in confusion. I'm glad to be back with my family in our annual reunion at my grandparent's house and eagerly anticipating the new school year, but also missing my host family dearly.

When I checked my e-mail for the first time after I my return I found the sweetest message from my okaasan waiting for me. As I read it, I felt overcome by a wave of natsukashiisa... I miss most the little routines like walking to the train station every morning with my okaasan. It was a good fifteen minutes away and she wasn't taking the train with me, but she'd accompany me to the station every morning, rain or shine (and there was more rain than shine). Along the way we'd chat about anything and everything or sometimes just lapse into companionable silence... All I can say is it was the best way to start a day.

I'm incredibly grateful to my host family for taking me into their house, for truly being my family for two months, and it's terrible to say goodbye not knowing if I'll ever see them again. Right now I'm struggling to write the perfect letter to them, feeling oh-so-clumsy as I fumble for the right words to express my heartfelt thanks.

While my summer experience still leaves me struggling in Japanese letter composition... I know plenty of the correct ritual expressions, but long to write something beyond the trite sounding osewaninarimasu, still, I feel that my language skills have improved a lot.

My speaking and listening comprehension are certainly far beyond what they were before, but I fear losing some of the progress now that I'm outside of the immersion environment. My reading and essay writing skills are also improved, though kanji writing still remains my weakness. I can also now competently discuss a wide variety of social problems (a big focus in our textbook), with newfound vocabulary to describe things like acid rain and the yutori kyouiku education system, though I wish the emphasis had been a little less academic.

I'm now left at a bit of a crossroads, planning to take the Japanese placement test, but unsure whether I'll be taking a Japanese class in the fall... the bitter realist in me realizes that this is perhaps slightly suicidal on top of my chemical engineering requirements and whispers reminders that I still have writing and humanities distribution requirements to fulfill. And even if I do take a class this semester, am I just postponing the inevitable backslide another few months? I intend to keep up the spoken Japanese as much as possible by speaking with my family, but without an academic class, I know I'll start losing the language surprisingly quickly. (I'm always appalled to realize how much of my high school Spanish I've forgotten.) For now all I can do is see how the fall turns out... where I can place and if I have time for another class. For now sayounara and thank you to the Light Fellowship for giving me this amazing opportunity.

where did all the time go?

First of all, apologies for not updating in forever. I will blame my blog negligence on extreme academic diligence/attention to coursework. ;-)

The second half of the program flew by, and I'm more than a little surprised to find myself writing this on the plane ride back to the states. A twelve hour plane ride is the prefect time to catch up on the blog posts I've been procrastinating on. So here goes a marathon month's worth of recap blog post covering through the end of the program:

Mid-semester break, I spent at a backpacker's hostel in Sapporo with Leah and Joseph.

our room

compare... my backpack vs. real pack

We visited the old Sapporo beer factory which has been turned into a museum with lots of vintage beer posters. It's a lovely old brick building with stain glass windows patterned after hops and the red star logo.



And of course we hit Ramen Alley to try the miso ramen Sapporo's known for...



The highlight of the trip was attending a Nippon Ham Fighters baseball game in the futuristic Sapporo stadium. The Nippon Ham Fighters are an all Hokkaido team sponsored of course by Nippon Ham... meaning that there are ham commercials during the game!




I've never actually been to a real major league game in the U.S., so I didn't really have any idea what to expect, nor did I have more than a rudimentary knowledge of the rules of baseball.

But none of this mattered... the chief enjoyment of going to a Japanese baseball game is watching Japanese baseball fans. They sit in regimented cheering sections with drummers and flag-wavers who lead them in chanting the individual cheers for each player as they come to bat. (The fans for the opposing team also jumped up and down for certain cheers... though the jumping became less energetic as the innings progressed.) The cheers generally involve the player's name, but in the case of a certain American Termel Sledge, chants of U.S.A.!, U.S.A.! had to suffice as the consonant combinations in his name were beyond the range of Japanese pronunciation. Unfortunately the Nippon Ham's star pitcher Darvish wasn't on the field the day I went... I'd been hoping to see him as he's hugely popular, both for his talent and extreme attractiveness. In fact, more than half the female fans in attendance seemed to be wearing replicas of his uniform shirt.

Japanese baseball fans, in addition to being highly organized, are also much more polite than U.S. sports fans; they don't boo when the opposing team does well. (Though I'm told Osaka is an exception...) In any case, the Fighters fans didn't need to worry as the home team won handily against their opponents, the Marines.

Also, apparently the Japanese do not believe in hot dog buns...



Once back in Hakodate we had the privilege of participating in the Hakodate Historical Spectacle, an evening event at Goryokaku Park which presents a condensed version of local history presented by citizens performing en masse in a vaguely organized chaos involving reenacted battles, fireworks and performances by a local ballet studio, all culminating with the entire cast singing a song titled "Oh, Hakodate" and waving glowsticks. The HIF student contingent helped provide human scenery by acting as village people in various scenes.

Us in costume... notice how Helen is wearing a man's wig complete with chonmage...

We also had the opportunity to make mochi and soba in a local restaurant. Since I've only seen mochi made by machine before, it was pretty impressive to see it made by hand. Basically you pound the hell out of sticky rice with a huge wooden mallet until it becomes mochi.

I gave it a try and nearly hit the guy who turns the rice ball between blows.... oops!

Leah cutting soba noodles with a huge knife!

(The ones we made turned out uneven and fat, but the professional's looked machine cut.)

In the final week of my stay I at last made it up to Hakodate Yama for the famed night view, ranked third in the world by whoever ranks such things. It is indeed beautiful... the city stretches glittering below and the lights from the squid boats sit like floating lanterns upon the dark ocean.... This blurry photograph certainly doesn't do it justice.



And then there was the Minato Matsuri, Hakodate's annual port festival, especially grand because this was the 150th anniversary of the opening of Hakodate harbor by Perry. The festival opened with a parade in which HIF students took part, many dressed as historical figures from the opening of the port. I was disappointed that they'd run out of historical costumes before I signed up, but this ended up being lucky since it meant being on the taiko float with Helen.

Unfortunately I don't have a picture, but here goes my attempt at explaining... basically this meant getting strapped into seats facing each other across a large drum, which we pounded as we went. The seats were themselves connected to a large red metal frame which formed a sort of cage around us and was mounted atop the float. The frame could be spun 360 in all directions using handles on the outside of the frame operated by to men who stood atop the float with us. We kept on drumming while flipping upside down and spinning in all directions for the nearly hour long parade route! It was a lot of fun, though Helen looked slightly green by the time we stepped shakily to the ground...

That evening we watched the fireworks set off from the harbor. All I can say is that the Japanese take them very seriously, even a small city like Hakodate putting on an hour-long display involving all sorts of fireworks, even ones shaped like Anpanman, Hello Kitty, and the inevitable squid.

The matsuri also includes the infamous ika odori (squid dance). Imagine group after group of people (each group having their own float with huge speakers and lights)... the local plumbers' union, hordes of intoxicated college students, airport workers, dance studio members... thousands in all, dancing through the street to the same song and doing the same traditional dance. The song itself is composed of a list of the names of local squid specialties (squid noodles and the like) followed by the refrain ika ika ika ika ika odori (squid squid squid squid squid dance) and the dance involves lots of hopping and amusing arm movements. The entire thing lasts for many hours and is held for three days in a row!

ika odori

squid float

The program finished up with exams and presentations of our independent study projects... highlights included Jamar's Hakodate Final Fantasy and Li-san's Sweets of Hokkaido projects.

In the official closing ceremony we received our certificates and my class regaled the audience with the song Ashitagaarusa complete with dance routine and ceremonial presentation of a banana to our our teacher, Saito-sensei. (Here's the official music video from where we took the choreography: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ujmvpt6GwIA)

Yay Jyokyuu class!

Me with my okaasan and little sister Sachi after the ceremony

A comment

The Japanese are famous for their politeness and understatement, and I knew that as a culture they aren't terribly big on public displays of affection, but it's really hit home for me in the past couple days.

My host sister Reina was home from boarding school this week for only four days before heading off to New Zealand. She'll be studying abroad for six months, but when okaasan said goodbye to her, it was a simple kiotsukete (take care) and a handshake. It seemed odd to me, but glancing around the airport I realized there was no kissing, no tearful "I'll miss you", and no goodbye hugs. The arrivals gate was the same way when we picked up my other sister Sachi later that day, people greeting each other with words instead of embraces.

As an outsider looking in it seemed odd... I've grown up in a culture where I take such public displays of affection for granted. I was reminded of the culture gap again tonight when I watched a TV show where a girl wins a trip to Britain. Upon arriving in the airport and seeing a reunited couple kiss she exclaims hontouni gaikokudesunee (it's really a foreign country, isn't it!)

On a related note, I wonder how my okaasan feels about her ever-dispersed family-- with both kids in boarding school and dad away for cycling about half the time, it must get very lonely. I think this might be part of the reason she's offered to host exchange students, but it feels intrusive to ask...

Tanabata (and Midterm Exam Shippai)

Tuesday (7/7) was Tanabata matsuri here in Hakodate. Tanabata is mostly a Hakodate-only affair, though I think there are variations elsewhere in Hokkaido. The modern version involves yukata-clad kids going door-to-door singing and begging for candy... well, not just candy, also rice crackers, toys, water balloons, fish treats, and frozen snacks. The sound of childrens' voices rings through the neighborhood and crowds of hovering okaasantachi escort the kids and tote the overly large bags of collected loot.

adorable kids crowding round for candy

Another Tanabata tradition is to write your wishes on colorful scraps of paper and tie them to branches... I wished to become ぺらぺら, but that's probably a bit beyond the range of Tanabata magic.

Tanabata wishes

My okaasan and I accompanied her friend's children around the neighborhood... a welcome excuse to marvel at cuteness (Japanese school children in Pikachu yukatas) and avoid studying for my midterm exam.

I survived a nerve-wracking speech contest without forgetting my lines only for a glorious しっぱい (fail) on today's exam. Oh well... at least tomorrow I'm heading off for Sapporo!

Now for some random photos:

me and my otousan


me and my dance sensei

Spot the Engrish!

The blur that is the past week and a half...

Maybe times passes differently here, but the last few weeks have raced by, and with the midterm exam looming, I'm left wondering where they went.

Things have been rather hectic, so here's a quick recap of the past week or so:

Saturday-Sunday: We overnighted at nearby Onuma Quasi-National Park for a HIF trip. Despite lack of national legitimacy, the park is beautiful... a maze of meandering footpaths, and lakes dotted with small islands.

Onuma, as viewed from pedal boat, or "boat moved with feet,"

which is how I asked for the rental....

Wednesday: We finally made our much anticipated trip to Asahi Elementary School, where we were greeted with welcome speeches from nervous schoolchildren, competitive rock-paper-scissors, and a demonstation of the ika odori of festival fame.

flower welcome arch at Asahi Shogakkou

Thursday: Finally met my host dad (who's been away cycling competitively)! He's friendly and laid-back, except when it comes to his 4 a.m. practice sessions...

Friday: Shades of elementary school as our okaasantachi and otousantachi visit school for parent-teacher conferences and classroom observation. For their benefit, we hold a heated debate over the social acceptability of house husbands in Japanese society. (Don't ask me why... the other debate topic choice was even worse.)

Saturday: Fourth of July, Hakodate style, i.e. commemorated with a Japanese interpretation of western food in a restaurant named Brasserie Carrillon that flies an Italian flag.

Sunday: Intense kanji cramming for Monday's test and failtastic attempt at peach pie with Japanese ingredients. (せっかくクリスこを持ってきたけどやっぱり失敗だった。)

Coming up: Wednesday speech contest (I can't do public speaking in English let alone Japanese, so this should be interesting...), Thursday midterm exam (aaah!), and then a weekend in Sapporo!

On a more serious note, language learning has it's ups and downs... there are times where I feel somewhat competent, like when some Japanese (!) tourists asked me for directions and I gave them, and other times I feel decidedly less so, like when I incorrectly parse my host dad's words or someone in a shop gives me a strange look the moment I open my mouth.

I'm forever learning my limitations... a weekend in Onuma without the Nihongo Dake Rule (Japanese only) reminded me how nice it is to make casual conversation without thinking. There are so many things I can't express precisely in Japanese and I find myself drifting back and forth between direct and distal speech for no particular reason.

More humorously, I recently mispronounced the counter for a night's stay in a hotel, provoking an interesting reaction from my okaasan. My denshi jisho doesn't have the slang to tell me what I said, but based on some online searching, I think I accidentally made a reference to male masturbation... oops!

Hakodate Yama!

Gah, I've been pretty bad about blogging lately... I beg off on account of the weekend trip and piles of homework rivaling the height of Mt. Hakodate.

Speaking of which, I finally made it up to the top of aforementioned mountain last Wednesday. I'd been planning on going up earlier, but (predicted) rain/fog had kept me away. (A side note--Japanese weather forecasts, at least in Hakodate, are surprisingly terrible: raining cloud icons on the morning weather report herald gorgeous days and zero percent chance of rain = shower on the walk to school... fortunately by then I was already distrustful enough to have left my umbrella in my bag, and as a result my okaasan and I did not get soaked on our morning walk to the train station.)

Mt. Hakodate is a small mountain (300 meters) near the edge of town. It offers a nice day hike, which the local grandmas seem to take quite often, and a beautiful view of the surrounding area (when the summit is not shrouded in layers of fog which make it look vaguely mysterious). Helen, Jamar and I hiked up after class, stopping along the way to take pictures of the view and puzzle over the kanji inscriptions on the little buddha statues that dot the path on the way up.

pretty!

Jamar, windblown survivor of attack by insane raven near the top of the mountain.

(Seriously, the crows here are enormous and fearless.)

Hakodate, doesn't seem so small when stretched out below you...

At the top we took a bajillion pictures and wandered around the gift shop at the summit. There's also a restaurant with glass walls so you can enjoy the view while you eat, though it seemed lost on the only people there, two businessmen in some sort of serious discussion who were completely ignoring the fact that they were seated next to a stunning view on a perfect day.

some Engrish from the gift shop

Instead of hiking back down, we opted for the cable car... rather exhilerating to descend over the treetops. The cables look quite thin and there are no supports midway, but I'm trusting in the excellence of Japanese engineering here.

cable car

At the base of the mountain we strolled through a nearby park with a fountain commemorating Hakodate's status as the second Japanese city with public waterworks... apparently a big deal because of previous cholera epidemics in the area.

fountain with poetic inscription which Helen couldn't quite explain in English

After that we hit the local gelato shop for some hard-earned tiramisu ice cream at Saltima Bocca, where I earned an eyebrow raise from the cashier by paying for an ice cream cone with a 10,000 yen bill since I was out of change. (That's like 100 dollars, but it's the only denomination that comes out of the ATM at the local Seven-Eleven.)

I'm hoping to go up Mount Hakodate again sometime soon, hopefully after dark since the night view from the summit is supposedly amazing. In the meantime though, it's back to the homework I've been avoiding.

Playboy Bunny and Shopping!

I've noticed something odd over the course of the past couple weeks: maybe it's just Hakodate, but Japanese people seem to love the playboy bunny. I've seen the stylized rabbit logo on everything from sweater vests to necklaces to the kneesocks worn by local schoolgirls. (There is even a mini-shop of playboy merchandise at the local shopping center I visited yesterday.) I mentioned the phenomenon to my host mom, and she suggested that perhaps the bunny just fit in with the general culture of cuteness and not everyone even knew its significance.

playboy sweater vest?

playboy clutch

Also, shopping in Japan reinforced to me that I'm no longer considered particularly small /vertically challenged, since I had to go up a size to wear Japanese clothes. (In fact at 5'1.5" I'm not far from average --I'd probably feel tall if it weren't for all the other gaijin HIF-ers.)

Japanese clothing seems to lean more to the extreme... the stores seem to show either loose-fitting hippy-wear, neon skater-punk, or uber-frilly bow laden confections, and then there are tons of pretty conservative blouses and skirts for the hordes of young women filling secretary type positions as ORs (office ladies). I also found a pair of shiny neon pink spandex leggings that practically screamed Safety Dance, and since they were on clearance I couldn't help but oblige their wish to make a debut at that annual 80s dance fest.

On a completely unrekated note...

Witness Jamar and Philip making the trek to HIF--the hill is so steep that there are stairs built into the sidewalk...

... eleven flights of them, to be climbed every day we have class.

First week and homestay!

I've officially made it through the first week of classes, and more importantly, I finally got to meet and move in with my host family. My host mom (okaasan) is incredibly sweet and fortunately very accostumed to deciphering ungrammatical Japanese after ten years as a host mother.

Me and my okaasan!

I had my first dance lesson today, which went pretty well considering I've never done it before and I have to dance with feet turned inward (ie work against sixteen years of ballet training).

Note how I am not correctly hiding behing my fan

The sensei is a very friendly older woman who offers classes in traditional arts like dance, ikebana (flower arranging), and tea ceremony. Speaking of which, we got to take part in a tea ceremony done by the sadou club from a nearby high school. The ceremony is a series of very ritualized movements in the making and serving of green tea.

Sadou

Beyond all the various cultural activities HIF offers, Saito-sensei keeps us pretty busy with lots of homework. This weekend I have a couple worksheets and two essays in addition to vocab and kanji. (Yikes!) Better start writing...

Asaichi and the Beginning of Classes

Yesterday I dragged myself out of bed at 5:30 (I've already gotten over jet lag, so it felt ungodly early...) and headed out to see the nearby asaichi (morning market) where you can see loads of fresh seafood and some very expensive melons (at 10,000 yen, they're about $100 each). I was able to sample a tiny slice for the bargain price of 100 yen, and though it was without a doubt the best melon I have ever tasted, it's hard to justify charging that much for fruit.

seafood everywhere

some very pricey melons

The morning market is also home to a host of tiny restaurants, all specializing in seafood. With such stiff competition it's no wonder that they turn to extreme measures to attract attention.... like serving squid ink ice cream or a special donburi with raw squid tentacles still squirming atop it!

one of the unfotunate victims outside the donburiya

squid ink ice cream

Classes began yesterday with the posting of level assignments. Apparently I didn't fail the placement test as much as I thought and ended up in the advanced level (yay!), which will mean playing catch-up on kanji and vocab (though I think I'm ok when it comes to grammar). If the first night's homework is any indication, the textbook is quite challenging with readings pulled from scholarly articles and vocab lists miles long.

HIF requires that we do some sort of independent study project in the community. I was thinking of doing mine on traditional Japanese dance after a suggestion by my teacher, so I asked the office to help me check if there was a studio nearby. It turns out there is one in Hakodate, and the program director very kindly took me there and helped me set up twice weekly lessons. By a stroke of luck, one of the fellow students lives next to my homestay house and can give me a ride to my lessons (which would be two transfers and more than an hour away by bus). After a beautiful demonstration by one of the students I can't wait for my first class on Saturday!

The squid chronicles... a continuation

While I know I am not the only one documenting Hakodate's obsession with a certain cephalopod, here are a few choice squid pictures I couldn't help but post:

Adorable squid cellphone charms

Tiny glass squid


Cartoon squid in comment book at a local curry shop.
(Actually, I drew this one...)

Onsen!

Today I went to an onsen (public bath house) for the first time. It's actually very nice once you get over being naked in front of a bunch of equally naked strangers. The extremely hot water for the onsen is pumped in from a natural hot spring below and is filled with enough iron and magnesium to turn it a rather murky brown. The particular onsen I visited had three indoor pools of various temperatures and a lovely (though scalding) outdoor pool where you could enjoy both a hot bath and a cool breeze.

Even though the onsen was amazing, they aren't terribly popular with the youger generation, so most of the women who visited the onsen were elderly to middle-aged. (The onsen in the cities are gender segregated, though apparently very rural areas still have mixed gender ones.) The women chat with their friends while they soak, simply relaxing and enjoying a hot bath. It's an incredibly calming experience and one I definitely plan on repeating.

(No pictures with this post, for obvious reasons.)

Instead, I give you....

Engrish of the Day!

Courtesy of Hakodate Beer, home to the guriinu appuru biiru kkuteru (green apple beer cocktail), a violently green drink that tastes exactly like green apple jolly ranchers dissolved in beer.

Welcome. Our staff will soon service you shortly.

Not ungrammatical, just a hilariously unfortunate choice of words...

Goryokyaku

Yesterday I went to 五稜郭公園 (goryokyaku kouen), what was once a star shaped fort built in the middle of the 19th century. Now, however, it's a beautifully landscaped public park where locals walk their dogs and children (and frolicking college students) play on the playground and swingsets.

An aerial picture, stolen from the interwebs

Unfortunately, the part of the original fort being restored isn't slated to open until next summer, but it seems I will be in town for a summer festival celebrating the history of the area. We found all this out when we asked a park employee about the stage and stands that were already under constuction in the park. Not only did she give us flyers for the festival and a brief rundown of the local history, she also pointed us to the stand where we could rent rowboats to row around the moat.

The moat (you can't tell that it's infested with water plants)

We're on a boat!

Helen, Leah, and I quickly piled into a boat without much forethought (None of us have much upper body strength or any rowing experience, and all the boys were in the other boats.) The result was a glorious sendoff in which we crashed backwards into a bridge support near our dock while the next boat cruised past effortlessly. We eventually got the hang of rowing (one person per oar) and even matched a nearby duck for speed, getting back around the fort to the boat launch just in time to avoid paying a fine for going beyond our 45 minute rental.

Afterwards, we wandered around the nearby town, stopping at an arcade to make girly photo stickers and marvel at the amazing Engrish.

Rising is the name of the arcade...

It is the century arrival to an amusement.

RISING reverses common sense.

Please spend the pleasant time of a thrill and excitement.

After a delicious dinner at a sobaya we went out for karaoke, singing such Japanese class classics as sobaniirune and SMAP's 世界にひとつだけの花 leading to the unfortunate realization that I'd forgotten most of the songs beyond the chorus. I guess I need to practice my J-pop.

Hakodate (aka squidville)

The town of Hakodate is a small port known for its seafood and summer festival involving thousands of people performing the ika odori (squid dance). The squid seems to be the city's unofficial mascot, popping up everywhere I look. There are real ones swimming in tanks in front of seafood stores, plastic ones with googly eyes in the windows of restaurants, and adorable cartoon ones adorning street maps and signs for local businesses. Our program even offers a culture class in squid cookery, though I admit being a bit too squeamish to sign up for it.