live in japan

Summer festival. The last Sunday we were in Japan, the neighborhood festival was held at the park down the way. The day was full of interesting activities starting out with watermelon-smashing. Here is Will after his attempt.

When you don’t have a lot of it, you have to put things like your soccer field anywhere you can find the room. So…a roof in Shibuya!

I found it! Cool Japan!

As part of the beginning of the end in Japan, some friends and I planned a trip to Tokyo this past weekend. Katie, Nadine, Reiko and I headed into Harajuku Saturday morning to a studio where maiko or geisha makeovers are done. We pushed through the crowds of Japanese and tourists alike, all gawking at the cheap wares for sale and crowding into McDonald’s to see what it tastes like in Japan. Finally at the studio, quiet reigned. We chose kimono and poses and then were escorted to a room to get our makeup applied. What an experience. I’ve spent time being made up for theatrical performances and this certainly reminded me of those experiences but it was much more involved. First, the artists studied our faces and then applied a wax all over. Then cold, white makeup was put all over except the very backs of our necks. Red highlights were applied to eyebrows and eyelids and a pink flush accented nose and cheekbones. Fake eyelashes, some lipstick and an hour later and we were ready to be outfitted. After they bound us all up until we couldn’t breathe anymore, we maneuvered some stairs and wigs were plunked on our heads.

After the photo session, Reiko and Nadine took pictures of us in our kimono in a little garden and we went back inside to lose all that weight. I was rather used to it by then though the removal of the wig did make my head suddenly lighter! I can’t imagine wearing all that everyday…

For dinner, we met 5 other women at a Mexican restaurant. Though the drinks were expensive, we had a really good time. Afterward, we headed to a drag show at the Black Swan in Kabuki-cho. Wow. The women (men?) performers were so beautiful, I thought for a while that someone had made a mistake and we were simply at a stage show. But no…introductions and announcements were made and it was discovered that one performer had returned from Thailand only a month earlier after getting a final operation to become fully a woman. They were unbelieveably beautiful and feminine.

Though it rained yesterday, we did manage to head to Shibuya and sightsee a little, shop and eat.

The stress of planning this and working out the details drained me and today I have been a little down. The reality of our leaving is hitting me…I’m back to being a little sad and not wanting to think about all I have to do and all I will miss…

Some friends found canned water the other day but I was more excited to discover this pudding in a can. I shook it up and cracked it open and poured sweet (sweetsweetsweet) pudding down my gullet. It was the consistency of runny tapioca…and did I mention sweet? I was really glad I’d saved it for dessert instead of just some random snack because it gave me a sugar high from hell. I mean, it was really oishii but really, really…sweet.

Yesterday was Mother’s Day. And though I got breakfast in bed, I didn’t sleep in and the experience was altogether quite rushed. We all dressed in old clothes and drove about 5 miles or so out of town to a rice field to plant rice. Yes, this is how I spent my Mother’s Day and it was wonderful!

It was already pretty warm out there by 8:30 but we rolled up our jeans and listened to the announcements (I’d like to be able to tell you what they said but it was all Japanese so I only understood about half of it myself…it didn’t matter as we just followed the rest of the rice planters anyway!) First they demonstrated planting by hand and then they filled up the tractor. The flats of rice we’d all been caring for at our homes for the past few weeks were slid on to the back of the machine which carefully picked off 3-5 little sprouts and deposited the clump in the wet mud. Seriously. It was amazing. Then, we all jumped in to get to work. Some waded right into the mud and put in their own tiny clumps and some lined up to ride on or even drive the tractor. I was so happy that Todd got to drive the tractor. I know he loved it as he could compare planting rice with planting corn and wheat and beans the way he and I grew up (no, I’ve actually never driven a tractor…) Will and Adam rode on the tractor with Todd and Sophie and Colleen rode with Jeff.

After I got pictures of the tractor-driving, I jumped the fence and stepped down into the mud myself, barefoot. It was warmer than I’d anticipated and it sucked at your feet. Some wore special rubber boots that were gathered at the top to prevent this but the barefoot way is actually more traditional…and more mudlicious.

Mostly adults worked to fill in the edges of the field with sproutlings while the kids played with some baby ducks and caught frogs. I planted myself into several corners and finally gave up to rinse off and get some cold bottled green tea. Oishii. It was just what I needed, what with the slight hangover from the girls’ night out the day before. Soon, the field was finished and they made some announcements and lunch appeared before us: daikon and cabbage salads and wonderful onigiri. I tried the red beans and rice with salty sesame seeds. Perfect.

Before we knew it, there were more announcements and we found ourselves with a crate of 2 baby ducks. Several families were to take the ducks home and care for them until the next time we meet in a few weeks when we’ll release the birds into the field to be natural weed eaters and fertilizers.

As usual, the Japanese were gracious, patient and helpful. I only wish we could be here for the whole process including the harvest in the fall…

I also wish I could attach some of the pictures I took but we’re down to the one computer that has no camera software on it. :( I’ll come back and put some pictures with this when I can!

At Sophie’s school, the students serve each other lunch. The one time parents visited, we ate in a cafeteria but for every day lunchtime, a cart with the pot of curry or spaghetti and salad and milk cartons is rolled into the classroom and the students line up to receive their meal. One student is designated to be the server and she wears a little white coat and hat and dishes up the soup or katsu to her classmates on their tray and sends them back to their desks.
At the end of the week, this students stuffs her coat and hat in a white bag and brings them home…for the mom to wash! Just one more thing in the collection of bags and shoes and hats and handkerchiefs and scarves and mats the Japanese mother of school-age children has to wash every week…

This link is to the Rement website. Rement is a toymaker that produces perfect little miniatures of Japanese (and otherwise) life, specifically food and sometimes furniture. Yes, I started to collect these but it got overwhelming. I just love this one of the school lunch. What are they eating today? Donburi? katsu? ramen? doria? how perfect are they?! The balloon says, “Minna de itadakimasu!” or something like, “Everyone eat!” (Itadakimasu roughly means something akin to: I am grateful for this food.) Note the little white jackets and bags hanging on their chairs… On second thought, I might have to get this set…

Today we went fishing with teachers and families from Will’s school. This was an accomplishment for me because it was way out of our box to try to find this place let alone spend the morning attempting communication in our broken languages and then determine what we were expected to do. But I am so glad we did because what a blast we had!

For sanzen en (a little more than $30) we got 2 fishing poles and a spot at the edge of a little pond. We set up our portable picnic table (fortunately always in the back of the car), baited the hook with pieces torn from a blob of what looked like, well, poop, but was probably some sort of soy meal, and cast our lines into the line-crowded water.

And waited. I think Sophie thought she would catch a fish immediately. Eventually she and Will and I set out for the toilet leaving Todd with 2 fishing poles. Sure enough, when we returned, he’d caught a fish! and, with someone’s help, had managed to get it into the net at his feet.

We caught 4 fish in all (I caught 2!) and then the farmers netted the pond and let it spill open on the ground where everyone jumped in and grabbed at the remaining fish. Even Will, after staring at his friends grasping at the flopping trout, finally stepped in and snagged 2. Todd’s searching the Internet right now for how to clean and cook them. The teachers were grilling some on site – whole fish on the stick – and everyone else was walking around munching on them but neither Sophie nor Will wanted to try that.

I haven’t been fishing since I was little kid when all we caught were bluegill in the farm pond. Despite the cold and crowd, it was so worth the trip and the trouble today. I can’t help but think about all the experiences we’re giving Sophie and Will that they will take for granted. “I went trout fishing in Japan!”

Will’s school open house was held recently. The day had two purposes: one was to observe the class and the other was to hear a lecture. Needless to say, I managed to skip the lecture since I probably wouldn’t have gotten much out of it anyway… But I always love class observations. We entered the classroom and he put all his bags and coats and shoes where they belong and then sort of surveyed the room and his friends. “What do you want to do?” I asked him. “Do you want to play with clay?” He pulled on his smock, informing me that he had to put it on and then got his clay and plastic try out…just in time for the teacher to call the class to order. Put away the clay.

Fusai-sensei called attendance. This procedure consists of calling the names to which the attendant stands and yells in reply, seemingly screaming at the top of his voice, “Hai!!!!” to indicate that he is, of course, here. My first impulse was to laugh and I did chuckle, glancing around the room at all the other parents lining the walls, assuming they’d be just as amused and holding in giggles. Not so. Everyone took this in stride and made absolutely no reaction at all. I’m sure this is the way roll has been called in Japanese classrooms since time immemorial. All the parents probably answered, “Hai!” in this manner when they were in school too. I got used to it, I guess. Meanwhile, Fusai-sensei simply nodded in acknowledgment of each answer, always with a quiet response such as “Jozu desu,” (You’re skilled!) or “Genki!” (You’re lively!) It was great.

After roll was called, sensei passed out a sticker sheet so the students could put a sticker in their attendance books. I watched the little girl Will calls his girlfriend, holding the sticker sheet, glance across the table at first Will then at Yutsu-kun and finally, laughing, hand the stickers to Will, her “boyfriend.”
Next was the date and weather. Will got called to tell the class the date. He did falter a little but only needed a little prompting to count: Ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, shichi!

Then Fusai-sensei went to the piano and played a little tune, the students singing along and pointing to the 4 designated helpers for that day. Those children jumped up, laughing, and bounded to the front of the classroom. They were paper-passers and song and line leaders for the day.

Craft time started. Fusai-sensei, again playing the piano, called out either, “Onna no ko!” or “Otoko no ko!” and all the girls or all the boys would shuffle and jumble to their cubbies to fetch glue and scissors. Then began the teacher’s tutorial on using scissors. She held her hands up in the air, her back to the class, to better show them how to put their “oto-san” (daddy) thumb in one hole and the “oka-san” and “ani-san” fingers in the next hole and cut out the square from the paper. To my surprise, all the squares were perfect. (Will’s new hobby is cutting out superheroes from his coloring book and they are perfect.) Then Fusai-sensei even showed them how to apply the glue from the gluepot using one finger…and the fun began. We parents stepped in, crouched down and stuck our fingers in that glue, sticking on buttons and beads and feathers and fluff all around those lovely picture frames.
Finally finished, the students, including Will, called out, “Dekimashita!” (I did it!)

While cleaning up, a little one called Hime-chan came up to me and gave me a hug. I said, “Hello!” and “Tanoshi-so,” (this is fun). She smiled up at me and agreed, “Youchien tanoshi!”

Setsubun was last Tuesday, the 3rd of February. Setsubun seems to be some ancient traditional celebration of spring. Apparently, the name actually refers to the day before the first day of any season, spring being the most widely celebrated. Why the beginning of spring is celebrated in February, I don’t know but I’ll take it!

Last year, we’d only been in Japan for, what, a week? when we heard quite a ruckus outside. The next day, the neighbors made sure to tell us what they’d been up to. To ensure good luck through the season and year, roasted soybeans are thrown out the doors and windows of the home at setsubun. Preferably, these should be tossed at the oldest male of the household or at the male born in the year corresponding to the current one (for example, this is the year of the ox so if there were a male here born in the year of the ox, he’d be the target). This guy gets to wear a devil mask as the rest of the family hurls beans at him and chants, “Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi,” which means “The devil out, good luck in.” After this we should all eat the same number of beans as our age to further ensure we’ll be lucky.

Well, I’d planned to send Todd out and toss soybeans at him but lucky for us, here came Will home from school with a mask he’d made (that he called a helmet and does indeed look like a clown hat) and a little pouch to keep his beans (nuts, he called them) while he threw them. To my delight and surprise, Will seemed to have become very well-versed in setsubun tradition at school that day and told us all about it. He’d already eaten 4 beans at school (mame, he finally remembered to remind us) and loved them. So his tossing consisted of intervals of mouth-stuffing too.

The event was quite a laugh and even though Sophie was officially still sick, she was actually pretty well-recovered and ran around the house with us, jumping and laughing and throwing mame.
At dinner, we divided up the beans: 46 for Todd, 7 for Sophie and 4 for Will. I only ate 30 because Will loved them so much that he begged for more… and that’s pretty much all he ate.