how little I know about the many places I’ve travelled to
versus how much my students know about the many places they may never go
how often I enthuse, “Please! Please come to Canada.”
the prevalent attitude of “I am Japanese, I don’t/can’t
speak English” among even my most academically excellent junior high school students
praise for my “jouzu
Nihongo” (skillful/good Japanese) when I still can’t remember my hiragana and katakana alphabets (to say nothing of kanji) or string together more than five word
sentences
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| hiragana |
 |
| katakana |
the distracted hunger before and disgusting fullness after
eating kyuushoku (a generous, generally delicious school lunch consisting of soup, salad, some sort of –
often fish – main course, cold rice or bread, and a carton of milk delivered in
classroom-sized portions and then dished up and distributed by the students)
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| monkey see, monkey do; if my students don't eat the head, neither do I |
a classroom of 9-year-olds coring pears with massive knives
and a dexterity that makes me blush
the liters of water an elementary school student uses to wash
a bowl...or cup...or spoon
the indifference towards hand soap and hot water
the practice of wearing surgical masks suddenly making perfect sense after getting coughed on wetly while riding a
crowded morning train
the size and industriousness of the spiders outside my
apartment door, and the likelihood of unintentionally walking through a web
just about anywhere in Tottori
salarymen on bikes in three-piece suits in late afternoon 30+ degree heat
my increasingly shoganai (“nothing can be done about it”) attitude towards an apartment like an oven in the summer and a freezer in the
winter and shivery/sweaty workplaces due to nation-wide power conservation
initiatives
getting goosebumps after walking into what feels like a freezer
(staffroom air con set at 26 degrees) after three back-to-back classes in the swimmingly suffocating heat
believing I will use my weekends to catch up on sleep,
then staying out late and waking up at 7 am
sweaty dance trumps sleep, rom-com movies, and chocolate combined
our adaptability as human beings -- whether it be shouting
at wait staff (“Sumimasen!”) in restaurants to order, eating onigiri (rice
balls) for breakfast, munching anko (sugar-rush
red bean paste) enveloped in mochi (gooey, gelatinous white rice), being bowed to
at the gas station, carrying one’s trash around until disposing of it at home, or
mastering the art of squatty potties in traditional restaurants, train
stations, and sea-side toilets
 |
| Mochi... |
 |
| in the making! |
 |
| boiled in a bamboo leaf (i.e. au natural) |
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| fried with butter and a sweet nut powder |
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| flavoured with green tea and sandwiched between anko and flaky pastry |
my iPhone dependence – a technology I hadn’t used prior to Japan, yet which hasn’t really caught on in my current hometown
the ease with which I justify my social media addiction as
essential to keeping in touch with the world’s happenings and humanity
the expense and enormity of an apple
the number of conversations I’ve had about ice hockey, ice
wine, and aurora (don’t get me
started on maple syrup)
the amazement of locals to learn that Canada also experiences four seasons, and that some Canadians eat rice, watermelon, and sashimi (very fresh raw fish), too
 |
| although it may not be as plentiful, accessible, or delicious as this |
the wary, piercing stares of little old Japanese obaasans (grandmothers) and ojiisans (grandfathers) that almost
always give way to wide, white grins after my aisatsu (greeting) offering
walking around with hundreds, even thousands of dollars’
worth of yen in my purse, and not feeling the least bit apprehensive
my inability to take decent photos or draw discernible
pictures (a personal and a professional problem, respectively)
how little I practice violin versus how often I perform
I haven’t been to church since I sang in the choir on Easter
Sunday, I don’t miss it, but I love listening to Downhere and Michael W.
Smith while walking in the woods
my new-found pride and protectiveness toward even the most
mainstream and mediocre of Canadian music (I blame karaoke)
certain people (whose identities will remain anonymous)
worried that I would return home glowing and with a tail when this is the worst I’ve encountered
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| Thumbs up for opposable digits! |
the growing array of dichotomies I continue to notice in
this weird and wonderful place both similar yet so different from my Canada
I wake up. It’s Monday. I sleep. It’s Friday. I blink. It’s Monday
again.
I’ve lived in Japan for almost a year and, as a result, am already
halfway through yet another chapter in my beautifully hodgepodge book of life
I’ll be home in less than a week!
