15.11.13

Settling in to Fall.

Fall is quickly becoming winter even on the balmy Kanto Plains of Japan.  We were busy adjusting to our new schools in September and October, but already, we find ourselves settled into a routine.  Though I guess routine can’t adequately describe our exiled life in Soka City, Saitama Prefecture.

Last night, our dinner setting began to tremble, kitchen utensils clanking in the background.  Ah, the sound of a swaying building.  A few months ago, during the Tohoku Quake, which also occurred during dinner time, I sprang from my chair exclaiming that somewhere, someone was dying (hoping that it wouldn’t be us in the next moment).  Last night, however, I simply paused for a moment while chewing  before reaching, with my chopstick, for another piece of tofu.  After all was settled,  I couldn’t even be bothered to turn on the TV to decipher the magnitude (which uses a J-scale instead of Richter anyway), epicentre, etc.  Nor did I care to watch the office workers trying to save the computers instead of their own asses like they showed on the footage last time.  It passed.  As did the tremor last week which occurred when I was alone teaching a class.  “Jishin?!” said one of the 15 year-olds.  “What’s jishin in English?”  My last moment, a golden teaching opportunity.  “Earthquake!!” they shouted in unison.

In between the lesson prep and additional teaching hours, we still manage to squeeze in a little creative.  Rod was chosen as a finalist for the Aoyama Design Award in Tokyo.  His banner depicting his image of Japan was hung on Aoyama Street in Omotesando.  We both ended up with a random Monday off in October so we ventured in to check out his piece.  Afterwards we enjoyed a Japanese lunch box (bento) from a vendor which we ate on a street bench as kaisha men and OLs shuffled by (business men and Office Ladies).  My last reading was at Sylvia’s Benefit for a Laotian village.  I hope to read again at What the Dickens on December 7th.

We attended our first wedding in Japan on November 8th for our friends, Gary and Saeko.  It was an elegant blend of Canadian and Japanese cultures including photographs of the two of them in the Rockies and subtle maple leaf décor.  All the best, guys, as you start your new life issho!  Not a raindrop fell, in fact it was an unseasonably warm day and we spent a good part of it outside taking photos, enjoying patios.  Tokyo was at its finest and we actually said we may be back to live here again once we finish grad school.  It certainly helped that we met some internationally-minded, politically-savvy folks at the wedding to restore our spirits.  We discussed George Bush’s destruction of world peace, Japan’s unfortunate decision to send troops to Iraq and Canada’s commendable (though we assured them it could be short-lived) stance against the US war machine.

I read in a Japan Times article today that 55,000 people have been killed so far in Iraq.  Most of them, of course, are Iraqi troops and civilians.  Bush is heading to Britain soon where the largest war protest yet is anticipated in Trafalgar Square.  I commend the protesters on their action and hope their peace message comes across strong.

Our winter holiday is fast approaching.  We plan to travel to peninsular Malaysia for a few weeks.  We sure will miss these travel opportunities next year when we settle into the artist/student routine in Montreal.  Still it will be good to be back among family and friends that we’ve missed over the past 3 years.  We attended a workshop on reintegrating to our home countries at a JET conference last week.  Some humorous points were raised:  apparently there will be a “je ne sais quoi” attitude about us that will be irresistible to strangers, but likely to put off our close acquaintances.   I would use “shell-shock” as the way to describe the distant, dazed look that will be in our eyes.  What else could it be after spending 3 years with earthquakes; perpetual shopping and kawaii goods; a work environment where the only necessary vocabulary is hai (yes), domo (thank you/sorry), gomen nasai (sorry), sumimasen (excuse me/sorry), and arigatou (thank you); vacations every three months where we go on pseudo-dangerous tours through jungles and oceans.  Our clothes, apparently, will be outdated.  “Je ne sais quel mode” ?  And we are much thinner.  A direct result of finally giving in to the ubiquitous rice, fish, tofu, natto (fermented soya beans), miso soup, sea weed, red bean diet as well as the 30km bike rides and the 395 pounds we shed climbing Mount Fuji.
 
Anyway, the official countdown until the end of our contract is 8 months and 23 days (August 5/2004).  Upon our release we plan to travel through Beijing and northern China for a month before flying out of Tokyo back to Ontario.  Then it’s off to Montreal to begin what will have to be called a career at this point but may just end up taking us further from those 2 nasty little words:  settling down.

Settling down is what you do after an earthquake.  Everything else is a party.
Love and cheers, Sue and Rod
 

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