Frightening Experiences

I asked some of my business students about how they would feel about living abroad. They told me that they wouldn’t feel comfortable with anything more than a 2 week trip, mainly because of the language. Today at the post office I realized that for me it’s not just a language problem, but also a “what do I do in this situation” problem. At the post office, from what I could understand from the signs, one can apply for loans or pay them off. Some of the counters required you to take a number, and when I first walked in I didn’t know where to go. After standing back and observing for a bit, I figured it out, but that initial minute or so was scary. “I have no idea what to do, so I’ll inevitable commit some horrible faux-pas” was more or less my thought. On the other hand, in many situations in the US, I don’t feel like it’s much more comfortable. On the contrary, I feel like I deserve a break if I do these things in another country, whereas in the US if I do something wrong, I should have known better.

That excuse wouldn’t suffice for a driving accident, though. In Japan, people drive on the left side of the road, as I mentioned earlier. I have two business classes outside the school which I must drive to, and it’s pretty scary. Everything is flipped. I have to turn around to the left to look backwards and back out of a parking spot. The turn signals are on the right side of the wheel. The gear shift is to the left. It’s really disorienting. Fortunately, when actually driving, I can pretty much follow the cues of the cars around me. When I turn left or right, I’ll be reminded to stay on the left by cars on one side or another.

My first day driving was quite scary though. My boss let my follow him to the orthodontist’s office where I teach, but I had to drive back. I didn’t have problems then, but that night when I had to drive somewhere else, I missed a turn without realizing it and went way out in the middle of nowhere. Google is mostly accurate, but it was still telling me to turn at tiny roads that I couldn’t imagine leading anywhere, and even if they did I would be in trouble if I met another car on them. Driving alone in the countryside of Japan at night, lost if Google proved untrustworthy—it was a harrowing experience, though I ended up arriving only five minutes late.

On Friday morning I was startled awake by alarms and announcements telling me that a missile had been launched by North Korea, and to stay under shelter. I wasn’t worried—if a missile hits here, practically the countryside, then something has gone very wrong. It was an interesting experience that I never thought I would have, something out of the cold war era or post-apocalyptic fiction.

The first weekend's successes and failures

My first real weekend turned out to be disappointing. On Saturday some of the other teachers went to Matsumoto, but I worked all day and so I was too tired to catch the train and try to find them. On Sunday I had planned to go to a church that I had found months ago. When I got to the train station, I checked google to see which train I should take. Google then told me that there wasn’t a train for another hour, which would mean that I would miss church. As I was panicking and trying to find other options, the train that I thought I would be taking arrived and, sure enough, it was going to the place I needed to go. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to buy a ticket and race through the station in time to get on the train.

Instead, I wandered around downtown Shiojiri trying to find other churches. I did find the Portuguese church, but it had already started by the time I got there, and I didn’t expect to be able to understand much anyway. After establishing that I couldn’t find a church service that hadn’t started long ago, I went home and tried cooking.p

My first attempt at cooking was an unmitigated disaster. I think the problem originates from just one ingredient though—the noodles. I was making the famous dish “yakisoba”, fried noodles (oddly, it doesn’t use soba noodles despite the name). I bought fresh chumen (Chinese noodles, similar to ramen), and added them to carrots, cabbage, and onions. Because they weren’t dried, I assumed that they were okay to add directly to the dish. Wrong! Apparently you’re supposed to briefly boil them first. The yakisoba ended up as a glutinous, sticky mess, and though I managed to eat enough to keep me full, I couldn’t bear the thought of eating the leftovers, so I poured out the remainder of the pot.

On the bright side, I was very happy with the cooking dish that I have ended up with. The burner I’m using is probably only 22 cm, approximately the length of my hand from fingertip to wrist. That doesn’t give me much room to work with. Since I tend to cook one-dish meals, I first bought one of the largest frying pans, which ended up being almost too big to even sit on the stove area! I certainly couldn’t cook anything on the back burner at the same time. After much deliberation, I decided on a pot that wasn’t to far from a wok. It has served me well by allowing me to cook large meals with many different ingredients but without taking up all my stove’s real estate.

My second cooking attempt met with much more success. I made a curry (really, beef stew) except I substituted shrimp for beef and left out the mushrooms. It was a little watery in the end, so I added tonkatsu sauce (which seems to be the Japanese equivalent of ketchup), and it became more than acceptable. I probably wouldn’t use shrimp in curry again, but it was so cheap compared to beef that I couldn’t resist. I also used barley instead of rice, which came out really well. As leftovers, the meal was even better.

After my failure to go to church on Sunday, I was determined to make sure my plans were solid. I looked for free Japanese lessons and found a bunch within a half-hour train ride of my city. Monday night I attended one of these classes, and it was a lot of fun. The class had many teachers, and I was taught with just one other student from Thailand. We read essays in Japanese, answered reading comprehension questions, and then discussed the topics presented. It was probably the best Japanese class I’ve ever had, though I wouldn’t have minded a bit more discussion.

First Week in Shiojiri

On Monday morning I immediately left for Nagano city to get my residential permit. Nagano city is, of course, the capitol of Nagano prefecture (prefectures are kind of like states for the US). The 90 minute train ride there is very scenic, winding through mountains. I wanted to get back to Shiojiri as soon as possible to do more shopping for my apartment, so I didn’t explore Nagano at all. It will happen though… someday. The tickets to and from Nagano cost more than $20, so it’s not a trip I’ll make on a whim.

From the train, looking back on Nagano

Japanese customer service and respect is very famous, but maybe a bit extreme in my opinion. The bus driver who took me to the immigration office in Nagano saluted and bowed (in her seat) to every single bus that we passed. Similarly, in every store including the supermarket, if you walk near a store employee, they say, “irasshaimase” (basically “welcome”). It seems like a pain to me, but I guess they get used to it. In fact, I would imagine that it’s not uncommon for them to do it when they’re not on the job.

Back in Shiojiri, I observed some classes and familiarized myself with the teachers’ room. Tuesday I started teaching. The first week was pretty easy because lessons were mostly based on self-introduction, but I experienced a bit of a learning curve teaching the students too young for this. In fact, my first class with kindergarten-aged students was a near disaster. There were only four students, but one insisted on attacking another, who reciprocated somewhat. It was difficult to keep their attention and they were rowdy, but somehow I managed to keep them from hurting each other or leaving the classroom for 45 minutes. Phew, that’s a long time.

The rest of my week only improved from that class. Every morning I went shopping, trying to equip my apartment with food and utensils, and then I taught in the afternoon and evening. I’m really excited about trying all the food available. Also, Shiojiri is really nice. It’s famous for wine, and in fact there is a wine-tasting tour going on during the weekends. It’s grape season, so as I walk to work I smell delicious fresh grapes. They even have grapes growing at the train station. You might think that that would mean the grapes are cheap to buy, but alas they’re not. Even so, I haven’t been able to resist buying them a few times. I try to make them last, but I want so much to devour them like candy because they’re so delicious.

On my way to work, a large garden beyond the parking lot

Some of the cool yards that I see on my way to work.

A Pause in Matsumoto

Matsumoto Castle at night

The next two days I spent in Matsumoto, the second largest town in Nagano prefecture, famous for a 500 year old castle. On Saturday I was mostly hunting for food or at orientation in Shiojiri, but I did take a night stroll around the castle. On the way to church on Sunday, I had breakfast in Flower Clock Park and observed many people watering and trimming their yards. The greenery here continues to amaze me, but in the city the impressive quality is its manicured perfection rather than its abundance. Oh, and there are drink machines on every block here! They typically sell about 20 different drinks, most of which are some variety of iced coffee, with a couple of juice, soda, or tea options. They cost 100-160 yen (about $1-1.5), but the cans are small.

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The Hanadokei (Flower Clock)

The mountains! East side of Matsumoto

I arrived at the church with about an hour to spare and sat at a nearby park. I wanted to make sure that I was going in the right place and doing the right thing, so ten minutes before the service I followed a few people inside. Everyone took off their shoes and put on slippers, so I did the same and then walked into the sanctuary and sat down in the back row. After a few minutes, two ladies came in and started excitedly talking to me, and pulled me out of the sanctuary. I was given a Japanese-English new testament, a Japanese hymnal, a bulletin, and was asked to sign their visitor book. While I was doing that, they panicked over not having anyone that spoke English (even though I had answered all their questions and followed their instructions). They suddenly remembered someone in the balcony who was a foreigner and asked her to come down and talk to me. I talked to her a little, but insisted that I knew enough Japanese to sit through the service without her help.

The service order was pretty traditional, though with more hymns than I’m used to. It was really cool to say the Apostles’ Creed in Japanese and think about the people throughout the world and time having confessed this faith! I could follow the sermon and understand the majority of it, but I was clueless about the songs. I was able to sing them because all the kanji (Chinese characters) had their pronunciation written in small Japanese characters above them, but I suspect that the vocabulary and style was poetic.

A random historical bit of Matsumoto--a town map

A generic street in Matsumoto

After the service I was invited to take tea and snacks (watermelon, chocolates, and pickles) in the church, and I did so. Most of the people left, but I was able to chat with the few people who stayed. The other English speaker was from Kenya, and she invited me to a barbecue after the service. She left before me to pick up her phone, telling me to meet her at the nearby Circle K convenience shop. I went to where I thought it was, and it turned out that the place I had in mind was a 7-eleven! (They are in great abundance in Japan). Panicking, I ran back to the church and made slow circles, but never could find it, so I missed out on meeting more people.

On Sunday evening I brought my luggage to Shiojiri by train. My boss picked me up and took me to various stores to buy necessities before we arrived at the apartment where I would be living. Once I’m a little more settled I’ll share pictures of the apartment. For right now I’ll just say that it’s cozy and will, I suspect, require a Japanese approach to the use of space. My bedroom is definitely big enough though.

First day in Japan

My first impression of Japan came from the tatami mats that covered the floor, and which have a scent that I suspect I will soon associate with Japan. Tatami mats are used like a rug, with rice straw as the core covered with woven rush straw. They look really nice and are soft. It’s very bad manners to step on them with shoes; I suspect it’s because they’re difficult to clean.

My next impression came in the morning as I was driven to the airport. The greenery here is beautiful—there is a mix of tropical, jungle-like plants (e.g. bamboo and something similar to a small palm tree) yet also small coniferous trees. At least in Chiba, the shrubs and trees are thick and abundant. Before I could fully take in this sight, we turned left out of a little road onto the highway. At the same time, a car was coming right at us. I almost yelled, but it wasn’t a problem because in Japan people drive on the left. It’s going to take me a while to get used to this, but I have to learn fast because I’ll be expected to drive starting from my second week of work.

From the airport I took a train to Sakura, a city with several touristy sights. My primary destination was the National Museum of Japanese History. It was a pretty interesting museum, but I wished that I could read Japanese better. I tried reading for the first few minutes and quickly gave up because it was too slow. I was given an audio tour player, so I was able to understand several things generally. One exhibit was about Japanese schooling, and there I talked to a museum attendant for probably 30 minutes. He had traveled to many different countries, and his English was quite good.

Examples of greenery found on the way to the museum:

I went back to the airport and had lunch though it was nearly 3:00 at this point, and sat down to wait for the bus that would take me from the airport to Matsumoto, near where I would live. While I was sitting down, probably looking something like a zombie (east coast time is 2-3 AM at this point), a TV crew came up and asked if they could interview me. They asked in Japanese, so I responded without really thinking, “that’s fine.” Hah. They asked a few general questions, and then they asked me what my favorite Japanese food was, where I had eaten it, and then what I liked about it. At the last question I was completely clueless (I had told them it was salmon sashimi), so I think they took pity on me and gave up. I hope they heavily edit that footage if they use it at all, because I’m sure I was a terrible interview subject.

It was somehow unsurprising to me when the bus driver didn’t show up in the appointed location at the appointed time. I waited around for 20 minutes, and then called my boss from a public pay phone. I ran out of time three times, but by the third time I had received enough information to be able to find the bus and everything went smoothly after that.