I think I'll wake up soon

Okay, so I know I've kind of been slacking lately with my blogging duties, sorry about that. I have just been feeling a little tired these last few days. It's not because I've been working particularly hard either, if anything it's the opposite... I think the boredom caused some slight exhaustion. On Tuesday EVERY SINGLE STUDENT canceled their lesson. That's sort of like being a normal school teacher, getting to class, and discovering every child is absent. It was crazy and it actually would have happened again the next day if I hadn't happened to have a student coming in for a private lesson. I can't help but feel a little freaked out about the fact that this happened. Even though I keep telling myself it's just a weird coincidence, in the back of my head I keep wondering if maybe it's because of me. I figure though that if my students did have a problem with my teaching they would have complained to someone by now since they're paying big bucks for me to teach them. Today was better, I taught five lessons and tomorrow is my busiest day of the week with six lessons if everyone shows up.

Really I'm really just excited to get to the weekend. This Sunday is my first play rehearsal and then I'm meeting up with Jenn in Yokohama for lunch. I'm so happy to be getting started with the play so soon. I really need to meet some new people and get involved in some activities. The other day I called up the JCC of Japan (Jewish Community Center) to see what their schedule was like. Unfortunately they are in the process of moving to a new location in Tokyo so their activity schedule is fairly light, but now I think I'll have somewhere to go for Passover, so that's good at least. I'm also considering getting in touch with someone to do a language exchange(there are lots of websites with people looking for exchange partners). My mom suggested it and I think it might be a good idea, but I'm also kind of freaked out about it since my Japanese level is so incredibly low. I just feel that before I begin exchanging language I should at least know the basics of the language that I want to learn and build up my vocabulary a bit. Maybe I can handle it though. The other day I went to a restaurant I hadn't visited before that's down the street from my school and I successfully managed to communicate with the owner when he asked me (in Japanese) where I was from and how long I'd been here for. It just takes me a while to figure out what I'm being asked and then a little more time to form an answer. He didn't seem to mind though and he gave me some free food so I was quite content. I also have a couple of boys in one of my children's lessons and despite my efforts to get them to stop, they always speak in Japanese to one another. The cool part is that I'm starting to be able to make out a few bits and pieces of what they say or ask me in Japanese. I still have an incredibly long way to go before I'm even semi-competent enough to converse normally in Japanese, but little events like those give me hope and an extra push to keep me motivated.

Some of our differences

Over the past few months I have noticed that the Japanese and Americans each have a very different approach to the concept of small talk. Because small talk is an integral part of English conversation I always start off all of my adult lessons by asking how my students are doing and if anything new or interesting happened over the past week. In American society if an acquaintance says "Hello, how are you?" the normal response is "fine, thanks" and then there is the quick swap of each person's current good news and that's about it. In Japan when you ask "how are you?" it is taken far more literally, so often times you will receive a much more honest and in depth response than what you may have expected. I have one student in particular who informs me every week of the fact that her shoulders are aching. Sometimes her neck is sore too and once she actually drew a picture of a spinal chord in order to express that her back was aching as well that day. Needless to say, I was not particularly surprised when she came into class a few weeks ago and informed us that she is going to need surgery.

Another one of my students always tells me the most delightfully random stories (those of you who know me are probably thinking right about now, hmmm... sounds familiar). One time when she was in class I asked if anything interesting had happened, so she sat and thought for a minute, because it always takes her a minute or two to organize her thoughts, and then she cheerily explained to me how her chopstick had broken in half while she was eating lunch that day. Another time she told me how she lost her "pretty bag" on the train and then miraculously had it returned to her because they actually stopped the train to look for it (at least that's what I understood based on what she told me).

Today, however, I had a different student and her interesting news was not quite so delightful. Because her English is obviously not perfect the story started off a little strangely and I thought she was just going to tell me about something she did with her friend. It turned out that she was actually telling me about how they had buried her friend's bones earlier this week. I was a little shocked because she told me about it so casually, almost as if it were an everyday thing. She explained how after the funeral the family waits 46 days for the spirits to decide where the person should go and then they bury the person's bones so that the person can be released into "the Buddha World". This was obviously a somewhat odd description of the Japanese burial process since my student didn't have all of the necessary vocabulary to explain it, but I still felt like she got the main idea across. Later on I told my co-worker about how nonchalantly my student had described the burial of her friend and he told me this was a fairly common thing. Apparently in addition to small talk, the concept of death is also viewed somewhat differently in Japan. I think that learning about these social and cultural differences and having the chance to actually experience them is one of the reasons that traveling abroad is so important. It forces you to become open minded and see from a perspective that you may have never even known existed.

What's White Day???

This past Thursday, as I'm sure all of you are aware, was Valentines Day. I'm not really the type who has any strong opinions about this holiday. Some people freak out and get all love sick, some people get all depressed because they have no one to get love sick about, I just don't care... it's a day. It was a slightly more amusing day, however, in Japan. I'm continuously amazed by Japan's ability to transform something relatively plain and simple into something utterly different and complex. Valentines day of course was no exception and on this occasion the Japanese have actually managed to mangle two holidays out of one! The first day is February 14, what we Americans call Valentines Day, and on this day ONLY women give chocolate to the men. Women will give chocolate to the guys they are married to, dating, or crushing on, but there is also the "obligatory chocolate" that Japanese women must give to all their male co-workers. Since the Japanese version of Valentines Day kind of sucks for the women, a while back a couple of chocolate companies literally invented a new holiday called White Day. This holiday is celebrated some time in March, possibly March 14, and on this day all the men have to give chocolate back to the women who gave them some on Valentines Day. Yeah, I wasn't joking when I said it was complex, and the craziest part of all is that no one goes out on dates on Valentines Day OR White Day, they do that on Christmas! I did luck out a little bit because a few of my students still brought me some chocolate, my male co-worker even said to me, "Why did they bring YOU chocolate? You're a GIRL!". Never the less, I was a dutiful Japanese worker and I bought him some obligatory chocolate, so now he has to buy me some next month (and I've heard they double the chocolate prices on White Day!).

I GOT A PART!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I found out yesterday that I was cast in the play that I auditioned for! YAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!! I'm totally psyched even though rehearsals don't actually start until April. I got the part that I auditioned with, it's not a lead role, but it has a pretty good number of lines, 50 or so I think. The name of the play is Ring Round the Moon and I play a character named Capulat. From what I can tell after an extensive google search of both the play and my character's name, I play a middle aged spinster who attends to Madam Desmormotes, an old woman in a wheel chair. Based on what I've read in the reviews, Madam D and I tend to have some rather comedic dialogue, so that's sort of fun. Here are a couple of excerpts from reviews that mention my character:

"McCarthy, as the play's resident Lady Bracknell archetype, and Varma, as her foil - the simpering, starry-eyed Capulat - make a great pairing as well. McCarthy has a delivery that is spot-on in every regard and, even when confined to a wheelchair she has an imposing presence on stage that serves to eclipse the bemused Capulat (right up to the point near the end where Varma let's Capulat's sense of whimsy light up the whole stage)."
- M/C Reviews

"There are also some priceless interchanges between Madame Desmermortes and Capulat at the top of the second act (as when the romantic spinster's reminiscence of being twenty and claim to a still beating heart is greeted with a dismissive "You're a nice girl, Capulat, but -- you know-- this as well as I do -- you're plain and no one who is plain can ever have been twenty.")"
- A Curtain Up, Berkshires Review

The play is being put on by the Yokohama Theater Group. Yokohama, by the way, is not in Tokyo, it's actually a city next to Tokyo so I'll have to make a bit of a commute for rehearsals. Right now it doesn't matter though, I'm just so excited to have something interesting to get involved with, and to have the chance to meet new people while doing something I love. Teaching is okay, but I definitely don't love doing it because to be honest it's kind of monotonous. Acting I love and I haven't done it in a long time so that just adds to the excitement. Well, time for bed since I have to teach 7 lessons tomorrow (OY!) but only 2 days left after that! Yay for optimism! Oh, and one more fun fact, there's a Jew in the play! A Jewish character that is, his name is Messerschmann and he's a millionare. Yay Jews!!!!!

Beautiful onsen website

Here is the website for the onsen I wrote about in my last post http://www.sayanoyudokoro.co.jp/index.html . I was so excited about getting through the scary stuff, that I forgot to mention just how beautiful it really was. There were amazing rock gardens and stone tubs and a very traditional restaurant, so you should definitely take a look at the site. It's all in Japanese but if you click the 3rd word in on the horizontal menu then it will take you to an interactive map that shows you pictures of the different parts of the onsen. There's also a flash intro when you first enter the website and you should watch it because it shows some really nice (and big) photos of the onsen. Enjoy!

My onsen experience

Today I went to my first onsen. For those of you who missed my last post or just have really bad memories, an onsen is a Japanese hot spring. When I invisioned the onsen prior to actually visiting it, I imagined that there would not be that many people there, like maybe 8 or 9 women quietly relaxing in the water or discreetly washing themselves off in a corner somewhere.... I was mistaken. There were at least 40 or 50 other women and unless they were just arriving or about to leave, they were all naked. Jenn and I were a little freaked out at first since neither of us had ever in our lives been exposed to quite so much nudity. After nervously stripping down and wrapping towels around ourselves, we entered the bathing area and realized that holding the towels around ourselves seemed about as awkward as being naked since pretty much all the other women were completely out in the open. Most of these women did not seem to care at all about covering anything up, the majority just walked around without any towels, a few would hold little towels in front of their nether regions when walking outside of the tubs, but that was about it. We gradually let our towels fall a little lower and made our way over to some empty bathing stools. It is absolutely essential that before entering the actual springs you wash yourself off because the Japanese are kind of anal about cleanliness. They don't just sit down, quickly rinse off and then hop in, these women scrub. I swear some of them must have sat there scrubbing with soap and shampoo for a good 2o minutes. Jenn and I didn't put quite so much effort in since we had both just showered earlier in the day, but we did the required rinsing and then decided to head to the outdoor springs. Once we were in the water things felt a bit less awkward. There were still some curious stares from women and children alike, but that was to be expected, especially since Jenn and I were the only female gaijin (foreigners) at the onsen. I should probably mention that children of both genders are allowed on both the male and female sides of the onsen, so there were little boys sitting in the tubs with their mothers and, according to my friend Ivan, little girls sitting in the tubs with their fathers. All of us were particularly shocked by the latter section of the previous statement and agreed that while it might be considered acceptable in America for mothers to bring their sons into a public bath, it would never in a million years be considered okay to have little girls sitting in the water with their fathers and a bunch of other naked men. In Japan it's just not an issue and is viewed as a completely normal practice, so that was kind of interesting. After a few minutes the initial shock of our complete exposure started to wear off and Jenn and I started to feel more comfortable relaxing in the extremely warm water. I'm really glad that I did not go to the onsen with just the guys because I think I would have had a much harder time adjusting to my surroundings. Apparently going to onsen is a somewhat social activity and while some women seemed to be on their own, the majority had friends or relatives with them to keep them company. Jenn and I not only provided each other with company and conversation, but we also provided one another with words of encouragement to get through the embarrassing parts. Overall my experience at the onsen was a really good one and I'm very glad I did it. Jenn and I both agreed that if anything, visiting an onsen could actually improve a person's body image because there are literally women of all ages, shapes, and sizes who use the springs and none of them seem to take any shame in showing off their bodies. It's sort of nice to know that the majority of women don't have perfect bodies like we see in the magazines and in turn that makes me feel better about my own body because I feel more normal. I think that I'd like to go back to an onsen at somepoint and the fact that I can honestly say that makes me kind of happy.

Shopping cart catharsis

So not too much excitement this week. I'm still getting used to my bike and I'm trying really hard not to run anyone over, because I've heard that's considered a bad thing. I've decided to try and save a little money by cooking more of my own food and now with the basket on my bike, transporting groceries from the super market to my apartment has been made a helluva lot easier! I still feel a little lost when food shopping sometimes. It always reminds me of when I was little and I had this book about a man who couldn't read... I think it might have been called "The Man Who Couldn't Read". It was about an illiterate man whose wife always did the grocery shopping, but then she went on a trip (or she might have died) and left him alone to shop for himself. When he went to the store he made all these mistakes like buying soap flakes instead of oatmeal and shoe polish instead of whipped cream... okay I made the shoe polish example up, but I bet about 2 seconds ago you were all thinking 'How the hell could you possibly confuse shoe polish and whipped cream?' so haha, I fooled you all and I made myself laugh in the process, so yay. ANYWAY, what I was really getting at was that I feel like the poor little illiterate man, because I can't read the labels on about 75% of the products. Now, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out when I'm in the fish section, but it sure would be nice to know what kind of fish I'm looking at. Right now the only one I can recognize based on just physical appearance is salmon and while salmon is delightful, it might get old after a couple of weeks. There are also a number of bottled spices and other substances that I might consider purchasing if I had a clue what they were. At this point I have taught myself the katakana character set, which is one of 3 character sets that the Japanese use to read and write. Katakana consists of 46 letters, almost twice the number of letters in the English alphabet, but they are all phonetic so that's a good thing. The other reason that I decided to learn katakana as opposed to hirigana, the other character set that consists of letters, is that katakana is used mainly to spell out foreign (mostly English) words, so if I can sound it out, usually I can figure it out. When I'm not trying to figure out what stuff is I actually do enjoy grocery shopping, it's actually kind of a cathartic experience for me. I haven't really been under a lot of stress lately , but I still like just being able to relax and wander around the store at my own pace.

Speaking of relaxation, this weekend I'm going with some friends to an onsen, a Japanese hot spring. I'm pretty excited, because everyone seems to love onsen, but I'm also slightly freaked out because most onsen require full nudity. Now, we are separated by gender so it's not really THAT big a deal, but still, I have never been naked in public and stripping down in front of some lovely thin Japanese girls is not exactly my idea of a great time. I'm actually hoping that there will just be some gross old ladies or perhaps the one obese woman in Japan so that I can feel slightly less self conscious about my body. Either way, I am determined to try new things, even when they scare me or push me out of my comfort zone, and this is just one of those things, so I'm going to do it. I'll fill you in on how it goes after I get back on Sunday.

Food, drinks, bikes, and snow!

These last four days have been quite wonderful. Earlier this week my co-worker invited me to go out with him and one of my students to an izakaya (Japanese style bar/restaurant) on Friday night. I said I definitely wanted to go, but in order to get to the place I needed a bike because it was kind of a long walk. For the past two months I had been saying that I was going to get a bike but I just hadn't gotten around to it and since I don't really mind walking most places it just never really happened. Well, the izakaya invite gave me the incentive I needed to stop waiting around and just buy one, so on Thursday I did! I love my bike soooooo much! It's what the Japanese call a mamachari, which is basically "a mama's bike" so it's kind of dorky and traditional looking as bikes go, but still freakin' sweeeet! It's a lovely shade of orange so I can find it easily among the hundreds of other bikes, it has a built in lock on the back, a light on the front, and a bell, but really the best part is the basket! That's right, I have a black metal basket on the front of my bike, it doesn't get more Japanese than that!

In Japan just about EVERYONE has a bike, so when you buy one you have to get it registered with the police. I think the registration is a pretty good idea because that way if your bike is stolen or towed (yes they tow bikes here) then you at least have a chance of finding it again. The registration is done at the bike shop so I just had to fill out some paperwork, well actually I can't read Japanese, so I handed over my information to the guy working there and he filled out some paperwork, then he put a sticker with a unique serial number on the front of my bike, adjusted my seat, and I was good to go. I should probably mention that this is the first time I've been on a bike since I was about 13 years old, so it has taken me a little bit of time to A) Get used to riding it, B) Get used to the people who are constantly walking in front of my bike as I am moving , and C) Stop worrying that the bike is going to deteriorate under me because I'm a lot heavier than I was nine years ago. I'm still a little freaked out that I'm going to run into someone or fall off and be laughed at, but I'm starting to become a little more relaxed.

Sooo... On Friday night my co-worker, student, and I rode our bikes to the izakaya and had some food and drinks and it was a lot of fun. I was going to try whale and horse meat while I was there, but they weren't serving either at this particular spot. I did try the dorsal fin of some random fish though, so that was slightly unique. The food was good and we had fun just talking about random stuff. I'm really glad the company I work for allows us to socialize with students outside of the school because it allows us to get to know them in a much more natural setting. Some other companies strictly prohibit teachers from having any outside contact with their students which has always struck me as an utterly bizarre policy. We stayed at the izakaya for a couple of hours and then headed home since my co-worker and I had to work Saturday morning.

In addition to the izakaya, a few weeks earlier my co-worker had also invited me to come with him to his friend's birthday party. I am always happy to meet new people and so I eagerly accepted his invitation. The party was last night and I had a really good time. It wasn't really a "party" in the literal sense, but really more just a big group of people going out for the night. We met in Shibuya and spent the first couple of hours at a big izakaya down the street from that really massive crosswalk that you always see in the movies. After that we went to a karaoke bar and drank and sang and it was fun. My co-worker's friends were incredibly nice and I hope I get to see some of them again at some point (I already friended a couple of them on facebook). We stayed out all night and in the morning as we headed to McDonald's for some breakfast it started to snow! It's really quite uncommon for it to snow in Tokyo and the birthday girl was so excited because she's from New Zealand and has only seen snow about 3 times in her life. As we rode the train back home it continued snowing and it was rather picturesque with the trees and bushes on the sides of the track all white and snowy. It wasn't quite so picturesque when I reached my station and had to ride my bike home through all of it. It only takes about 4 minutes to get to my apartment from the station, but by the time I arrived my feet were completely numb. I don't care though, I am most definitely enjoying my time here in Japan, but it's still nice when things feel like home and few things could make it feel more like home than snow.