I'm not dead!: A long overdue update

I know I haven't posted in a long, long time.  Sumimasen! Moushiwake gomenasai!  But as my date of departure approached, there was just too much to get done (and by get done, I mean too many adventures left on my list).  I took full advantage of my last few months in Japan to travel, eat, and visit as much as I could.  There were many, many sayonara parties as well as all the trips down memory lane.  There was also the incredibly difficult moving process.  I thought moving to Japan was hard, but it was nothing compared to the hurdles involved with leaving!  Trying to squeeze everything in to just a few weeks left little time for writing.  But fear not, I took lots of notes (and pictures), so this is not the end of Okashi!

Now I am back in South Dakota with Anata and the fur babies after spending some time with Otosan and Okasan in Texas.  It is really great to be home.  I am missing Japan, but so happy to be back with my loved ones.  And they seem pretty pleased to have me back too.  After I get settled in, you can expect to see a lot more activity here.  There are so many things I wanted to write about, but never found the time or right frame to do so.  I also held back on many posts that involved my trips and my job for various reasons.  I hope to share a little more of what my life was like now that I have time to reflect and polish my ideas.  Stay tuned!

Thank you so much to everyone that followed and supported me during this amazing journey.  Since I have been home, I have had many people ask me how my experience was.  They don't understand what a loaded question that is.  In the end I usually go with amazing, fabulous, or wonderful, but these just don't cover the true impact this experience had on me.  I haven't quite figured out how to put it in words, it was something so special and ... I just can't do it.  But when I do figure it out, I will post it here.  Minasan, itsu made hotoni arigatou gozaimashita!

Looking toward the future

As my time in Japan speeds to a close – move out date is set for April 25^th! – I must admit how loathe I am to leave this wonderful country.  I have had so many amazing adventures, met so many wonderful people, and experienced so many spectacular things.  I am running out of adjectives for just how fantastic my time here has been.  Still, I guess I have to accept that it is time to return home from this amazing, two year vacation and start the next phase of my life.

The change from one life phase to another will be a little different this time, though.  Before I rushed from one phase to the next, too excited about what came next to really appreciate or make the most of my time where I was.  I didn’t particularly enjoy college.  I rushed through in three years in order to start my life with Anata.  High school was even worse.  I couldn’t wait to graduate and find a place where I felt like I really belonged.  Each time the next phase, the future, always promised the opportunity to learn who I really was, to grow, and to really have fun with life.  But I never quite got there.  When I was supposed to be making memories, growing, and enjoying my time on this planet, I was too busy thinking of what would come next.  That is not to say I didn’t have any fun, but looking back all I can see is a girl rushing through life without stopping to enjoy it.

Japan has taught me to approach life a bit differently.  It has taught me to take time and enjoy the moment.  To take full advantage of the opportunities around me.  To be happy where I am.  It has taught me to slow down.  I have always thought life was an amazing thing – people are fascinating and the nature is such a beautiful mystery – but in my rush to get to a place where I could really enjoy the discovery and exploration of these things I kind of missed them.  Being in Japan gave me an excuse to stop rushing.  I knew I was only here for a limited time.  I knew I needed to use that time wisely – to take in as much of the culture, geography, and humanity as I possibly could before returning home.  It allowed me to say yes to experiences I would have skipped out on in America (experiences many of my coworkers and students miss out on because they are just everyday life for them).  In those experience I was able to see myself through new eyes and better understand, and eventually accept, things about myself that I had been ignoring.  It allowed me to do the growing, thinking, and self-reflection I kept saying would come with the next phase of my life.  I learned how to like myself, flaws and all, something that I have struggled for about as long as I can remember. 

I am excited to return home and start the next phase of my life, but unlike previous transitions, I am not in a hurry for it to get here.  I am content to let it come at its own pace.  I have realized that pushing and planning just make time slip by faster.  But if I just let things take their course, take advantage of the adventures the people and places around me have to offer, and just slow down and appreciate the moment I will have a lot more fun.  The future will become the present soon enough without any help from me.  By rushing toward it, all I am doing is blurring the scenery.  And Japan has taught me that the scenery is sometimes the best part.

Turn, turn, turn

Sakura season has arrived in Japan.  There is still a month or so before the actual blooms arrive, but sakura inspired things are already turning store shelves into a wall of light pink.  But where America is just starting its borderline insane love affair with seasonal flavors (cough, cough, pumpkin spice kale chips anyone?), Japan has woven seasonal things into the very fabric of life.

Throughout its history, Japan has been an agricultural based society.  Therefore, like most agricultural based societies, the changing of seasons became a very important part of Japanese culture.  Traditions, religions, and life developed while keeping an eye on and also celebrating the beauty and bounty of each season.  But while industrialization distanced other traditionally agricultural societies from their close bond with nature, Japan’s self-imposed isolation kept farming, and the seasons, at the heart of Japanese life until very recently. 

Acknowledgement of the seasons is so deeply ingrained in Japanese culture that even in the neon and concrete canyons of Osaka and Tokyo one can’t help but be aware of the variations in Earth’s journey around the sun.  From plastic sakura and momiji branches hung on shopping arcades during the appropriate season, to lavish window displays at Takashimai, Daimaru, and even small mom and pop stores.  However, it is the food that most reflects the change of season.  Japanese food is always a showcase of the best of each season.  From fish to fruit and everything in between, restaurants change their menu on an almost weekly basis to take advantage of ingredients at their peak.  And with their leap into the industrial age, came a chance to create new, synthetic seasonal flavors.  Which has led to today’s revolving door of chuhi, ice cream, coffee, pastry, confection, chip, and pretty much any ingestible konbini item being offered on a short term, seasonal basis.

There is already a great deal of variety in Japanese food and drink options (have you seen my post on vending machines?), but this system leads to almost infinite possibilities.  I have greatly enjoyed my games of seasonal chuhi Russian roulette.  Some of the flavors have been amazing!  Other make me wonder what Japanese people are thinking sometimes – like umeboshi (sour plum), it was salty!  There is always a new flavor of Pocky or KitKat to try, a new pudding type sweet to enjoy with lunch.  It is impossible to have a regular order at any local restaurant since there are new things to try each visit.  Even home cooking becomes an adventure as seasonal produce and fruits offer new and exciting recipes to try at a lower cost. 

However, this embracing of seasonal flavors also has a pretty big down side.  As quickly as sakura flavor season arrived, it will be replaced with soda, melon, and other summer flavors.  Like the blooms it is meant to represent, it has a shelf life of but a moment.  The Japanese seem okay with this.  But as an American, used to getting whatever I want, in season on not, it is a little bit soul crushing when a flavor I have really come to enjoy is suddenly not available anymore.  Or when the prices of a certain fruit soar to five or ten dollars for just a few pieces.  But perhaps this is the point.  Perhaps even Japanese people mourn the loss of their favorite seasonal flavors and eagerly anticipate their return the next year.  Perhaps in this modern Japan, where people have replaced the vast green rice paddies of their ancestors with towering forests of metal and stone, seasonal flavors are the new almanac to keep Japanese people tied to nature and the help the younger generation appreciate the beauty and bounty of each brief season.

Only old men like this flavor.  Well, old men and Anata.

Some things never change

Looking through my posts here, I must admit this blogging thing didn’t go exactly the way I intended.  I had hoped to write more often for one.  To include travel articles and slice of life vignettes.  I am not displeased with what I have written.  I am actually really proud of some of my posts.  And I have written many things to give insight into this beautiful, crazy, amazing country. But looking at my running list of ideas, I just feel I haven’t done enough.  Some of my ideas go all the way back to my first months here! Adventures and thoughts that were poignant to my emerging self at the start of this journey.  Thinking about writing them now I know they will lose some of the magic and feeling.  I cannot recapture the innocence.  Not truly.

But this is nothing new.  Back home there is a file cabinet full of great ideas that I just never really got around to writing.  You see, I have always been a procrastinator.  But it took moving half way around the world to realize just how much deeper it really went.  It isn’t just procrastination, it is a disbelief in the future.  Or at least an apathy toward any solid plans for tomorrow.  For almost two years I have been living in a dream world full of adventure and inspiration.  There was always something better to do.  Something more exciting to keep me busy.  I have always had a deep fear of missing out.  I want to be at the center of things, always moving and experiencing.  This has led to many all-nighters, benders, and poor life choices.  But I never seem to learn.  Tomorrow, the future, was always something I was aware of, but not really interested in thinking about.  In all honesty, I would be content to keep living this way for years – a rootless gaijin completely at the whim of her own wanderlust, living paycheck to paycheck with no thought of what comes after.

Writing about my wonderful experiences takes time away from other adventures I could be having.  But then what is my excuse for not writing when I have time – when I am stuck at work with nothing much to do.  Well that is another personality quirk that I have struggled with.  It surprises many people to know that I have poor perseverance.  I am full of dreams, ideas, and ambitions, but lack the focus to follow through and achieve them.  This is a trait that developed later in life, after graduation, when I was finally released into the adult world.  When I am left to my own devices, I seem to choose the path of least resistance, responsibility, and actual effort.  I am sure this is tied to the instant gratification attitude I have come to realize dominates my personality, but I am sure there are other contributing factors as well.  Regardless of why I do it, being in Japan has made me realize how much I do it.  It’s a lot.

I have no grand plans for what I will do with this new understanding of myself.  Recognizing something and productively addressing it are two very different things.  There are two warring people inside me; the one who is upset at the lack of progress and commitment, this one sets goals and makes lists, she believes in the unlimited potential of my other self if other self would just get her ass in gear.  The other is content to just float, letting the river of life move her from one amazing experience to another, soaking it all in, learning, growing, and doing nothing but living.  However, I know returning home will bring about major conflict between these two.  But I guess that is something to worry about tomorrow.  For now, I will squeeze in as much adventure as possible.  And do my best to write about them in my down time.

The first frost

I really dislike winter.  Not necessarily the season itself, but all the things that come with it – the cold, the late sunrise and early sunset, dreary weather (snow or rain), the whole collection of winter that makes winter most people’s least favorite season.

However, walking to school on the first day of frost, I can’t help being a little elated.  Just a little.  The air is crisp.  Just a hint of smoke in it.  It pricks at my exposed cheeks, making the skin feel more alive than the rest of my tired body.  I inhale, the cold rushing all the way down into my core, coming back out in a cloud.

The sun is almost over the mountains.  It catches the frost covering the harvested rice fields, turning them a shimmering white/grey like some expensive fabric.  As the sun climbs higher, the frost sparkles.

Yes, the weather this morning was beautiful and invigorating.  The pink cheeks and noses of the elementary students hurrying to school were adorable.  Does it make me love winter?  No.  But it makes me pause to appreciate that every day, even a winter day, can be amazing.  But my nose is staring to run and my toes are frozen.  Time to hurry on to school.

Christmas in Japan

Celebrating the holidays away from home is always a little strange.  I remember my first holiday with Anata’s family.  I was a little overwhelmed with all the new traditions and events.  Even though we are both American, our families had very different ways of celebrating this important holiday.  But it was nothing compared to the strangeness of Christmas time in Japan. 

Japan has embraced many international holidays.  I have written already about my experiences on Halloween.  But their adaptation of Christmas is something very unique and, to be honest, quite funny from an American point of view.  Because Japanese Christmas has absolutely nothing to do with Christ.  It is purely commercial – an excuse to buy and sell.  It is the inevitable end of American Christmas, if Christmas continues on its current capitalist path.  In many ways I find this blatant consumerism refreshing, especially after all the ridiculous stories coming out of America this year about the design of some coffee shop’s cups or the “War on Christmas.”  At least Japanese Christmas is honest with itself about its purpose.

I guess I should explain what Japanese Christmas traditions are a little more.  In Japan, Christmas is a time for children and couples.  Christmas music floats through the air at department stores and malls.  Christmas trees pop up in public areas.  Lights adorn streets and shopping malls.  A few private residences will put up a tree or other decorations, but this is quite rare.  Christmas cheer is pretty much taken care of by retailers and the city.  This is a time for illuminations, like those in Kobe, where the cities dazzle visitors with nighttime light extravaganzas.  Nowhere will you see a nativity scene, or a menorah for that matter, because Christmas in Japan is a secular event.  Many of my students had never heard the word Hanukah or Yule.  But, to be fair, we never talked about Shōgatsu, Japanese New Year, in our Christmas around the world lessons in elementary school.  So even though it is called Christmas by the Japanese people, don’t expect any religious significance.  No more than you would find in any Coca-Cola commercial, anyway.

The main aspects of Christmas that Japan has borrowed are the songs, decorations, and presents.  Because who doesn’t want an excuse for presents!  Japan loves gift giving.  I have written many, many times about how they have turned gift giving into a delicate art form and a social minefield for gaijin.  But unlike America, where there are gifts for coworkers, friends, family, and then presents for the ones you really care about, Japan focuses on gifts between two main groups – children and the person you are dating.  Santa is very popular in Japan.  On the 24^th, he leaves presents on the pillows of all the good boys and girls.  That part is pretty similar.  However, there is not the epic family gift exchange and wrapping paper apocalypse that most Americans know and love. 

If you are over the age of ten, you shouldn’t expect much for Christmas.  Unless you are dating.  In America, Christmas is a time for family, but New Year’s is the time to be with the one you love and want to spend the next year with (or at least the night).  In Japan, Christmas is a time for couples to flaunt their happiness.  There are gifts, special events, and just a whole lot of lovey-dovey things targeted at young couples.  One of my students even asked who I was spending Christmas with, like it was a huge and embarrassing secret.  Not understanding the implication, I said my husband.  It took a little chat with the teacher after class to help me understand the eruption of giggles at my response. 

So what do Japanese people do if they don’t spend Christmas eating turkey and celebrating their chosen religion?  Honestly, nothing.  December 25^th is just a normal day.  The trains run the same as every other day.  The mail gets delivered.  Businesses are open and people go about their regular lives.  I saw a bunch of store employees in reindeer and Santa outfits, but I think any excuse to dress up is welcome in Japan.  Most schools are closed, but only just.  I had work on the 24^th!  The only real difference I have seen is that many families will have a bucket of KFC for dinner followed by a Christmas cake.  That is about it.

As an American, it was strange to watch this very different version of Christmas.  There were some parts I found really amusing, but other parts that made me miss home and my family’s traditions.  I think the biggest thing I missed was being with family.   I was lucky enough to have visitors both years, but it wasn’t the same as spending the holidays with friends and family.  Regardless of your religion, winter celebrations seem to all have this at their heart.  And Japan has its own version of this family and religious centered holiday.  It falls on the 1^st of January.  During the New Year celebration, people spend the days with their family – eating, celebrating, and counting their blessings.  Though the date and trappings may be different, the sentiment is the same.  It is a time to be thankful and surrounded by those you love. 

Spending the holiday season in this amazing country reminds me of how different yet similar we all are.  We all find it necessary to gather together with family and friends at the close of the year.  To count our blessings and express our hopes for the year to come.  It is a time of presents, commercialism, spirituality, merriment, and love.  I will miss KFC, Christmas cake, mochi, and kotatsu next year, but I am excited to celebrating with the foods, traditions, and people I grew up with.  After all, the trappings don’t matter, it is the spirit of the season that spreads through us all.

Absence does not always make the heart grow fonder

In many ways my time here has made me appreciate my loved ones more – especially Anata.  Being on my own has made me realize all the little things I took for granted – like being able to call Okasan whenever I wanted, having someone to cook with and for, sharing a bottle of wine and gossip with a best friend, or just having another presence in the house.  With time and distance I was able to see the things that really mattered, rather than all the mundane gripes and complaints that build up over the years.  So in many ways the old adage is true, I did grow fonder of Anata and all of those I love back home.  I found new value in my relationships and new layers to people.

However, this wasn’t the case every minute of our time apart.  The honest truth is I would go days and weeks without thinking of those back home.  I was busy having adventures, meeting new people, trying new food, seeing new sights.  While there was always a small part of me that wished I could share these things with friends and family back home, they were not forefront in my thoughts.  This has been a very selfish adventure.  I know I haven’t thought of them, worried about them, or missed them half as much as they have missed me.  It is something I feel guilty about, when I do think about those back home.  It is also something I will have to keep in mind when I return – especially with those closest to me who have missed me the most.  While I was off exploring a whole new world, wrapped up in myself, their thoughts were on me.  I could not have done this without their love and support, I am truly grateful, and I only hope the change they see in me from this experience is enough to make up for not always thinking about them.